Kill Zone: A Lucy Guardino FBI Thriller (12 page)

Lucy studied the layout. Entrance at their six o’clock, exit leading out onto Lexington Avenue at three o’clock. It would be covered by Zapata’s men and the Rippers, of course, and physically blocked by a gate. If they drove around the garage’s outside lane, built momentum, and came through it fast enough, they’d break through the gate, scatter the cartel shooters, and hopefully lead Zapata’s men on a chase that would divert attention from the others. “We’re going to take the Tahoe for a little spin.”

“It’s suicide,” Walden protested.

“It’s our only chance of saving Rashid,” Haddad argued.

“Then I’ll go—”

Lucy shook her head. She wasn’t about to send someone else in her place. That was the price she paid for being the boss. “You have your orders. Get any gear you’ll need from the Tahoe and start moving.”

Jenna and Walden duck-walked back to the Tahoe while Lucy and Haddad covered them.
 

“Send the Arab out, now!” The voice on the bullhorn sounded impatient.

“He’s not an Arab, you ignorant bastard. He’s Pashtun. And he’s not going anywhere with you,” Haddad muttered, his voice barely audible over the din of car alarms.

Before Lucy and Haddad could make their own move to the Tahoe, Jenna popped up in the aisle, her red hair gleaming in the fluorescent overhead lights. Shots rang out. Jenna dove to the floor as a barrage of bullets pinged against the cars and impacted the concrete beams.

“Rashid’s gone!” she shouted.

<><><> 

The champagne burned, the final drops sliding down the wrong way. Andre choked and coughed, turning away from Darius, covering his mouth before he could bring it all back up again.
 

As he bent over coughing, he fumbled for his waist pack and grabbed his inhaler. Mad Dog stepped forward, as if worried Andre was reaching for the M9, then laughed as Andre straightened and puffed on the albuterol. Andre caught Darius’s expression in the mirror: smug. Satisfied. Like Andre was a puppy who’d finally learned to heel.

“Need to get home,” Andre choked the words out as he fought for air.

“You’re not going anywhere. Not until you do the job.” Darius’ tone was final.

Eyes tearing as the coughing spasm continued, Andre gasped, “Bathroom?”

Darius waved his hand at Mad Dog who took Andre’s arm, then flinched as if Andre was contagious. “This way.”

Andre got his breathing under control once the albuterol hit his system, but he continued to make fake wheezy gasps as MD led him up the stairs to a bathroom off the landing. Best if they didn’t know he was okay.

At least the bathroom had a door. He rushed inside, retching, leaning over the sink like he was going to be sick and MD shut the door with a bang. Andre started the water running to drown out any sounds, and calmed his breathing. The champagne really had irritated his lungs. He still felt its burn, so he took another hit from the inhaler.

The room was all black and white tile, tiny little octagonal ones that fit together like a puzzle. One of those old-fashioned claw tubs, no shower, tiny window above the tub too small for him to even dream of fitting through.

He grabbed his phone. “You hear all that, Doc?” he whispered.

“I did. Who was that man? Andre—”

“I know, I know. It was the only way I could get away without someone getting hurt.” Liar. Part of him wanted to do what Darius asked. Nothing would give him more pleasure on this earth than to see Raziq suffer the way Andre’s men had.
 

“Where are you now?”

“In the bathroom. They won’t let me leave. Something’s going down, something big. And it’s happening tonight.”

“I’m trying to call the police, but I’m having a hard time getting through,” Callahan said.
 

“I’m all right for now. Just have to figure a way out of this so the Rippers don’t come after my grams.”

“Or you.”

Andre made a grunting noise. “Let them try.”

“You need to get out of there, Andre.”

“Not sure that’s an option. Not without a firefight. Doc, if you’re serious about helping, I need you to get Grams.” The first thing Darius would do if he thought Andre was double-crossing him would be to grab her. “She knows you, she’ll listen to you. Take her someplace safe. Can you do that for me?”

“Yes, but—”

Silence filled the line. “Doc, you still there?”

Nothing. The call was dropped, the Doc gone. Probably for the best.
 

“Andre, you fall in or what?” Mad Dog shouted, pounding the door.

Andre took his time, flushed the toilet, washed his hands, then opened the door and glowered. Mad Dog backed up. Fast.
 

Still got it, Sarge
. Just had to play along long enough to see what their plan was, try to stop it if he could. Now that he knew the Doc would get Grams to safety, he had nothing to worry about.
 

Except getting out of here alive.
 

At least that’s what the Doc would want him to focus on. But Andre couldn’t stop thinking about Raziq. About wrapping his hands around the man’s neck, tightening slowly, watching his eyes bulge as Raziq realized he was dying… If Darius gave him the chance to do that, Andre wasn’t sure he’d be able to refuse.

Ooh-rah
, the voices of his dead squad cheered.

<><><> 

Operator 17: 911, what’s your emergency?

Caller 234518: There’s a fire at the hockey rink. Smoke everywhere. Oh my god, Jason, hold my hand.

Operator 17: Ma’am, which hockey rink?

Caller 234518: Schenley Academy. The holiday tournament.

Operator 17: Stay calm, help is on the way. Please evacuate the building as calmly and quickly as possible.

Caller 234518: Which way? I can’t see. What if we’re running into the fire?
 

Operator 17: Do you see flames?

Caller 234518: No, no, just a lot of smoke. Hey, don’t shove. Jason, stay close. Which way should we go? Hello? Are you still there? Hello? That’s funny. The line went dead.

Chapter 13

“Where is he?” Haddad shouted at Jenna, ignoring the bullets flying above them. He craned his neck, trying to spot Raziq.

“I don’t know,” Jenna yelled back.
 

The gunfire stopped, but echoes kept drumming through Lucy’s head in time with the blasted car alarms. Thankfully a breeze had started to clear some of the smoke so she could at least breathe. She crawled between the cars, meeting Walden on the near side of the Tahoe. He'd grabbed one of the tactical medic kits and was bandaging his calf. Blood spattered the floor around the Tahoe.

“I spotted Raziq over there, third row from the entrance,” he pointed a bloody finger towards where the Escalade and Zapata were. Lucy looked but couldn’t spot Raziq.

“How bad is it?” Lucy took over bandaging his wound.

He grunted as she tightened the pressure dressing. “Not bad. Ricochet off the floor. I told Jenna to keep her head down.”

A high-pitched whine of feedback from Zapata’s bullhorn shrieked through the air. Jenna and Haddad joined them at the Tahoe.
 

“Give me the Arab or everyone in the 911 Center dies,” Zapata announced. “Listen to your colleagues.”

He held a radio to the bullhorn. Gunfire, sounding tinny and faraway as it echoed through the bullhorn, followed by a man shouting: “Down, down, everyone down!”

There were screams, a few more shots then a woman’s voice. “Active shooter, repeat, we have an active shooter in the Lexington Avenue 911 Center. Two—no, three gunmen, carrying machine guns, wearing body armor.” Her voice was calm although hushed. Dispatchers were trained to deal with chaos. There was the sound of a scuffle and then the smack of a fist striking flesh.
 

“Tell them we have bombs,” a man demanded. “Tell them if they come near, you all die.”

“They-they say they have bombs,” she repeated. The sound of a muffled blow was followed by a scream choked short. Lucy flinched as if she’d been the one struck instead of the anonymous 911 operator.
 

“No one is to approach,” the operator said with a gasp.

A single gun shot. Then silence.

Lucy exchanged glances with Walden. She swallowed hard, her mouth dry. “Think that was for real?”

He nodded grimly, his grip tightening on his M4. Now they had more than just one civilian to protect—they were the 911 operators’ only hope. No other responders could get close, not with the streets blocked by Zapata’s men and the Rippers. She marveled again at the degree of planning and coordination that had gone into the blitz attacks.

But no matter what, there was no way in hell she’d give them Raziq. She waved Jenna and Haddad over to the Tahoe then craned her neck trying to see if there was a place where they could use Jenna’s AR-15 to get a clear shot at Zapata. Two rows over, if she could climb up onto the exit ramp, might work. But she’d be exposed—

Over near the entrance to the garage, Raziq rolled out from between two cars and stood, hands in the air. His expression was grim, but determined.

“Don’t shoot. I surrender,” he called out as he walked toward where Victor Zapata waited. “Just let my wife and son go free.”

Haddad moved as if to rush after Raziq, but Walden grabbed his arm. Lucy craned her head around the Tahoe’s bumper in time to see Zapata’s men shove Raziq into the back of the Escalade. Zapata climbed down from the running board and into the passenger seat.
 

Haddad shook Walden free and stood to fire at the Escalade as it sped away. Return gunfire shook the air around them. Lucy yanked him down so hard his helmet flew into the aisle where it was hit by a bullet, skittering beneath a car.

“We have to go after Rashid. We’ll go out on foot, find a car. They don’t have that much of a lead on us,” Haddad told Lucy, his voice hoarse from shouting above the car alarms and gunfire.

The gunfire stopped. Bad news. It meant the bad guys would be closing in. Now that Lucy's team had lost their only bargaining chip, there was nothing to slow Zapata's men.

“One man or a building filled with civilians?” Lucy shook her head. “Sorry, your man has to wait.”

“Don’t forget his wife and son.” Haddad sounded as frustrated as she felt.

“Believe me, I’m not.” How could she? Her team would be the only ones even thinking about Fatima and the baby. But they had to wait as well. She couldn’t abandon the 911 operators.

“They got Raziq,” Jenna protested. “Why aren’t they just leaving?”

No one wasted time explaining the obvious to her.
 

“Change of plans,” Lucy said. She knelt at the Tahoe’s rear hatch and collected the rest of the gear. She distributed spare ammo for the two M4’s to Haddad and Walden, stuffed the pockets on her vest and parka with shotgun shells, found two flash bangs and a night vision monocular that she kept.

“You any good with that?” Lucy asked Jenna, nodding to the AR-15 rifle Jenna clutched.
 

Jenna opened her mouth, ready to ask another question, but instead closed it, and nodded. “Yes.”

Lucy debated. Decided to take Jenna at her word. “Head up to the roof, we’ll need sniper cover.”

“Zapata will have a man up there already,” Haddad said. “To cover the 911 Center entrance on Lexington. Maybe another to cover Thomas Street.”

“Right. Jenna, wait by the door until you hear us. We’ll distract them and you can take them down.” She turned to Walden who was monitoring the radio frequencies. “Anything?”

“Nothing out of the 911 Center. The locals are on their tac channel, trying to get their SWAT teams across the city, but they’re tied up at the Fort Pitt Tunnel and dealing with an active shooter over at the Cathedral of Learning.”

Christ, what a mess. Okay. No reason to wait for back up that wasn’t coming anytime soon. “Think you can find some cover up high, hold them off down here?”

Walden pushed himself upright and nodded toward an old van parked nose out two rows in. He and Haddad made their way over to it, then Haddad helped him climb to the van’s roof via a rusty metal ladder on the rear door. A polycarbonate luggage case was strapped to the top, giving him a bit of concealment, although it wouldn’t give him much protection.
 

Lucy cursed Raziq for taking their last ballistic vest with him. Walden’s blood smeared against the van’s white paint, almost making her think twice. They could just cut and run, abandon the 911 operators. She shook her head. Of course they couldn’t. By the time Haddad returned, she had the Tahoe’s engine running.
 

“Where to?” he asked.

“The roof. It’s the only exit they won’t have covered.”
 

The Tahoe’s tires screamed as she gunned it past Walden’s perch and up the ramp, spinning the wheel hard, barely keeping the tires on the ground as she circled the parking levels. She wasn’t worried about the noise—she wanted the men on the roof to know they were coming. That would give Jenna a chance to move into position.