Fort Lupton (40 page)

He swung the gun up, and she grabbed his
wrists. The handgun went off again, into the ceiling. She kneed him
in the crotch.

And then, the young man disappeared from in
front of her. Ivan had the young man by the shoulders. He lifted
the young man off the ground and threw him across the room. The gun
skittered across the floor. Dazed, the young man lay on the
floor.

“
Get the gun!” Ivan yelled
to her.

Before she could respond, her friend Ramona
picked it up. At that moment, Sissy realized the other ballet
students had come into the room. Ivan picked up the young man again
and threw him into another wall.

“
You never touch a
ballerina!,” Ivan yelled.

He picked up the young man again and threw
him against another wall.

“
Ballerinas are sacred and
special, you little piece of shit!” Ivan yelled.

Before Ivan could get to the young man
again, the security guards rushed into the room. In one wave, they
picked the young man off the floor, got the handgun from Ramona,
and left the room. Ivan stood near the back wall, breathing
hard.

“
Ivan!” Sissy
yelled.

Sissy ran to him to hug him, but he gave her
a slight shake of his head. She stopped midway and nodded that she
understood. She hugged herself instead. He turned to the stunned
young ballet students.

“
You listen to me,” Ivan
said. His accent seemed thicker and more pronounced. “If you stay
in ballet, you will meet your share of these thugs. You must learn
to fight, because someday, no one will be there to protect you. Our
friend Sissy knows to fight, but she did one thing wrong. Anyone
know what that was?”

The young ballet students were too
intimidated to respond.

“
I didn’t ask for help,”
Sissy said. “Scream, yell, or call out.”

“
Your best protection is
your voice,” Ivan said. “Voice first, attack second.”

The ballet administrator came into the
room.

“
Excuse me,” Ivan
said.

Sissy picked up her towel and started out of
the room.

“
Do you know that guy?”
Ramona asked.

“
Our teacher?” asked the
girl standing next to her.

The other students gaped at her. Mortified
by their attention, Sissy looked down at the ground.

“
He was my tutor, my
mentor,” Sissy said. She swallowed hard.

“
He’s not very nice to
you,” an older boy said.

“
He expects a lot from
me,” Sissy said with a nod.

“
I think he’s incredible,”
a young woman said.

The other young ballet students nodded.

“
I have to
. . .” Sissy pointed out the door.

“
I’ll go with you,” Ramona
said. “Safety in numbers.”

Sissy nodded, and Ramona followed her out of
the room.

“
Are you okay?” Ramona
whispered.

Sissy nodded. They walked past the
administrator and Ivan on their way to the restroom. Sissy felt
Ivan’s eyes on her when she went into the restroom. She knew he
would wait to talk to her until the ride back to Bestat’s
apartment. In the bathroom, Sissy cut into a stall.

Sitting down on the toilet, she began to
shake.

That man had come to kill her.

She was so terrified and upset that she just
wanted to go home. She wanted Sandy. She wanted the ugly dog
Buster. She wanted Charlie and Nash and Teddy and Noelle, and even
Aden. She started quietly sobbing into her hands.

The lights flashed indicating that it was
time for class.

“
Time for class,” Ramona
yelled. “Can you make it?”

Sissy wiped her eyes. She
was a ballerina — a
professional
ballerina. She needed to put this away and get to
work. Nodding to herself, she flushed the toilet and went to
class.

~~~~~~~~

Tuesday afternoon — 5:25 p.m.

Phoenix, Arizona

“
You going with us?” Agent
Angie asked.

“
I can if you need me,”
Max Hargreaves said. “But it seems like you’ve got this
covered.”

He nodded to where Yvonne and Dionne were
putting on blue bulletproof vests marked with white-block letter
“FBI.”

“
They’re just coming along
to . . .” Agent Angie said.

Max grinned, and she smiled.

“
It was nice working with
you, Mr. Hargreaves,” Agent Angie said.

Max gave her a nod. A group of men in FBI
tactical gear appeared at the entrance of Agent Angie’s office.

“
Ready, ladies?” Agent
Angie took out her handgun and checked that it was
loaded.

Yvonne and Dionne nodded.

“
Let’s go catch us a
couple of perverts,” Agent Angie said.

Agent Angie got to the door of her office
and turned to look at them.

“
Stay close to me,” Agent
Angie said. “This should be easy — grab them and book them. But you
never know.”

“
Yes, ma’am,” Dionne
said.

“
Good,” Agent Angie said.
She took a deep breath and let it out. “Let’s go.”

They followed Agent Angie out of her office
and into the mix of the FBI agents.

~~~~~~~~

Tuesday evening — 7:25 p.m.

New York City, New York

Sissy was sitting next to Noelle in the
backseat of a big black SUV. MJ was driving, and Ivan was sitting
in the passenger seat. MJ and Ivan were discussing what happened at
the school. Sissy was so exhausted she was dozing against the
backseat.

“
MJ killed some guy
today,” Noelle whispered.

“
What?” Sissy asked in a
whisper.

“
Yeah,” Noelle said. “At
least I think he’s dead.”

“
What happened?” Sissy
asked.

“
He came to hurt me,”
Noelle said. “MJ spotted him right away. He got to him long before
anything happened. Not like you.”

Sissy nodded.

“
You heard about Wanda?”
Noelle said.

Sissy nodded.

“
She’s pretty shook up,”
Noelle said.

“
I bet,” Sissy
said.

“
Are you sure you’re
okay?” Noelle asked.

“
I guess so.” Sissy
nodded.

“
What’s that?” MJ said
into a radio attached to his dashboard. “Can you
repeat?”

A voice said something
undistinguishable.

“
They’re closing in on
those disgusting perverts.” Ivan turned around to talk to
them.

“
They are going to
remember today as a very bad day.” MJ looked in the rearview mirror
at Sissy and Noelle.

“
You mean it’s over?”
Sissy asked.

“
It won’t be over until
you testify,” Ivan said. “You know that.”

“
But this stuff?” Noelle
asked.

“
They’ve caught the men
who are behind everything,” Ivan said. “At least for tonight, they
are in prison.”

“
You don’t think it’ll
stick?” MJ asked.

“
Who knows?” Ivan
shrugged. “Let’s just celebrate a night of peace.”

“
Sissy, did you hear?”
Noelle asked.

Sissy was sound asleep. Noelle nodded. No
matter what happened, she was going to remember this day
forever.

Protected

Tuesday evening — 6:25 p.m.

Denver, Colorado

“
Next stop?” the
red-haired man asked the dark-haired man sitting next to
him.

The dark-haired man gave a slight nod. They
were sitting on the crowded 15 bus. The bus ran on Colfax
Boulevard, a major artery in Denver, every fifteen minutes, day or
night. At this time of night, the bus was full of office personnel
commuting from their jobs downtown. The men sat in the middle of
the bus. They weren’t dressed for office work. If anything, they
looked like worn-out construction workers. They had the nondescript
look of men in the middle of their lives. Their hair and beards
rough. They kept their heads down and avoided make eye contact.

The red-haired man reached up to pull the
cord, but the bell rang before he could. Someone in the back wanted
off at the same street. The bus stopped at Dexter Street. Five or
six people stood up to get off the bus. The men mixed in with the
crowd and slipped out the back door of the bus. They waited with
the office workers to cross Colfax and headed into the Park Hill
neighborhood.

Once across the street, the men held back
from the press of people. These office workers were familiar with
each other from the bus. The men couldn’t afford to be noticed.
They shuffled along until they walked alone across the wide
sidewalks of Park Hill. They moved at a steady pace. In no time,
they were turning right onto Montview. They crossed the street and
made it to the patch of holly in front of the Park Hill branch of
the Denver Public Library.

While the younger man watched, the
dark-haired man bent down to retrieve a cloth-wrapped package. They
scooted into the alley. The older man unrolled the package to
reveal two Cobra automatic handguns, a stiletto knife, and two
combat knives.

“
This should do the job,”
the red-haired man said.

The dark-haired man nodded.

“
We’d better check ’em,”
the dark-haired man said.

They checked the handguns with quick,
efficient moves. The handguns were loaded and the serial numbers on
the outside and inside of the weapon had been burned off.

“
Hollow point,” the
red-haired man said under his breath as he slid the clip back into
the handgun.

The dark-haired man grunted.

“
They really want this kid
dead,” the red-haired man said.

“
That’s why we’re here,”
the dark-haired man said. “Where to?”

The red-haired man pointed down Montview.
The man squinted as if to see clearly. He gave a slight shake of
his head before following the red-haired man to the other side of
the street. They had just reached the corner when a middle-aged
woman came out the front door of the house to get the mail.

“
Contracts for everyone?”
the red-haired man asked.

The dark-haired man didn’t respond. As if he
were trying to remember something, he looked down at the ground. A
voice came from inside the house. The woman said something in
Spanish and laughed. She got the mail and went inside.

A tiny gasp came from the dark-haired man.
He grabbed the red-haired man’s sleeve and pulled him back across
the street. Shaking his head the whole way, he dragged the
red-haired man into the alley.

“
What?” the red-haired man
asked.

“
You know whose house that
is?” the dark-haired man asked.

“
No,” the red-haired man
said. “Job is to kill that boy Charlie and anyone else that’s
there.”

“
That’s O’Malley’s house,”
the dark-haired man said. “Magic O’Malley.”

“
So?”

“
You know how many people
have tried to kill Magic O’Malley?” the dark-haired man
asked.

The red-haired man raised a shoulder in an
irritated shrug.

“
Five, I know of,” the
dark-haired man said. “Know how many lived to tell the
tale?”

“
What are we talking
about?” the red-haired man asked.

The dark-haired man held up his hand with
his fingers curled into a zero.

“
If you’re scared, you can
always . . .” the red-haired man started.

“
No one survives
threatening Magic O’Malley,” the dark-haired man said. “Not one. I
heard there’s been at least a hundred tries. Bullets bounce off
him. He can’t be killed.”

“
Everyone can be killed.”
The red-haired man stood a little taller. “I’ve killed plenty
myself.”

The dark-haired man shook his head.

“
O’Malley’s supposed to be
protected by the ghost of his brother,” the dark-haired man
said.

“
Ghost?” The red-haired
man snorted a laugh. “Come on.”

“
This brother, he went
through Hanoi Hilton and then spent time in a camp in Laos,” the
dark-haired man said. “O’Malley found him three days after he died.
That’s who protects him.”

“
Who?”

“
His badass brother,” the
dark-haired man said. “Special Forces hard case survived a rain of
hell only to die at the last minute.”

“
If you’re scared, man,
I’ll do it myself,” the red-haired man said. The red-haired man
walked backward away from the dark-haired man. “Just stay here.
I’ll show you how it’s done.”

The red-haired man snorted a cruel laugh. He
raised his hands in an “It’s easy gesture” and took another step
backward. An old Dodge truck smashed into the red-haired man on his
right side. His body bent and his head hit the windscreen. The
driver slammed on the brakes. His feet took flight and he flew over
the hood of the truck only to land in the path of the rear wheels.
With the red-haired man under its rear wheels, the truck slid for a
few feet until it came to rest on the sidewalk and curb in front of
the library. A young girl hopped out of the truck.

“
Did you see that?” the
young girl asked the dark-haired man. “I swear to God, he just
jumped out in front of me. I mean, I was texting, and my mom always
says not to text and drive, but really, it’s just
Montview.”