Kill Zone: A Lucy Guardino FBI Thriller (13 page)

It was all up to Jenna. Which could be the riskiest part of Lucy’s plan.

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Adrenalin spiked through Morgan’s veins. This was the moment she lived for, stepping into the dark unknown. Exhilarating. Intoxicating. Liberating.

Everything could go right—in which case, she’d end the night with blood on her hands—or everything could go wrong and she’d end up worse than dead: boxed up in a steel cage. Like her father.

Finally Nick’s Ford Explorer pulled out of the VA parking lot and turned her way. She tore a few strands of blonde hair loose from the wig’s braid, glanced down at her torn jeans, rubbed the scrape on her knee until fresh blood seeped from it, pulled her fleece jacket so it hung crooked. Perfect damsel in distress. No way he’d be able to resist.

His headlights came closer. She squinted, trying to preserve as much of her night vision as possible. Just as he began to accelerate, she stepped out from the guardrail and into the path of his oncoming car.

Chapter 14

Jenna jogged up the concrete steps to the roof as quietly as possible. Not that she could hear her own footsteps over the alarms echoing through the concrete structure, the ringing in her ears, and the roar of her pulse.
 

Typical Saint Lucy. Planning a suicide mission, not worrying if the rest of the team was ready to get themselves killed. Duty, honor… all those fancy words Lucy loved to wave around meant nothing when it was your ass on the line.
 

She paused to change hands holding her rifle. Shook feeling back into the hand that had been gripping it so hard it’d gone numb. It wasn’t exactly standard issue for a Postal Inspector, but what her bosses didn’t know… Besides, after what happened last month when Morgan almost killed her, she wasn’t worrying about rules, not when it came to survival.
 

She had to live. Otherwise Morgan won.
 

And she had to save Lucy.
 

Not out of any sense of duty or heroics. Lucy was her one shot at getting Morgan. Lose Lucy and Morgan would cut and run and Jenna would never have another chance at catching the psychopathic bitch.

Sick, sick, sick, she knew. But it was all she could think about. Painful and addictive like worrying a loose tooth or picking at a scab.

She forced her thoughts in another direction: Raziq’s surrender.

Idiot. “Let my wife and son go free,” Raziq had shouted, calm as if he was in charge. Like he’d been during every conversation with Jenna. Smug, superior, condescending with that slightly British accent that she just knew had to be faked. She didn’t understand why David liked the guy so much, was willing to go the extra mile and put his career on the line for Raziq.

Was Raziq so confident he really thought the cartel would let his family go, much less let him live?
 

What would they do to him?
 

What would they do to
her?

She arrived at the roof. Paused and listened. Pushed the steel door open a crack. The top of the elevator housing was beside the door, giving her some cover. She sidled out, peered around the corner. One man at the far corner, manning a rifle aimed at Lexington Avenue toward the entrance to the communications center beside the garage. He’d left his back totally exposed.

Jenna sighted her rifle. She could take him right now. Everything over before Saint Lucy arrived.

She could hear the Tahoe racing up through the garage. The man didn’t turn around. No way he couldn’t hear that unless he was deaf.

She hugged the wall and carefully stepped around the corner so she could see the rest of the roof. Her target wasn't deaf. He was protected by a second man standing in the shadows, ready to ambush the Tahoe as soon as it reached the roof.

Jenna shifted her aim, using her ACOG 6x sight. The man wore body armor but his head was unprotected. She exhaled, pulled the trigger, and he was down.

The sniper spun around. She shifted to aim at him. The Tahoe roared into sight.  Jenna’s shot took him in the neck, above his body armor. He crumpled to the ground as Lucy and David jumped out of the Tahoe, Lucy pausing to pick up the AK-47 and ammo from the first shooter.
 

“Nice work,” David told her.
 

His words made her flush with pride, remembering when her grandfather had taught her to shoot clay pigeons. She’d practiced hard, wanting to earn his praise—he was the only adult who’d ever given a damn about her and she’d do anything for the man. Including growing up to take a job she was totally unsuited for. Funny thing, what love made you do.

She shook free of the memory and bent to examine the cartel sniper’s rifle. Two guns and ammo for both, that should hold off the bad guys for a while, buy her some time. Plus she had her service weapon, a SIG Sauer forty caliber.

“I still don’t understand how you guys are getting into the 911 Center,” she said, looking dubiously at the gap between the roof of the garage and the roof of the Comm Center. “You’re not thinking of jumping that in the Tahoe?” If so, Lucy had watched way too many James Bond films.

“No. Not the Tahoe. Just us.” Lucy joined them, the first shooter’s radio held to her ear as she listened to the chatter from Zapata’s men. “I don’t speak Spanish. Do you?”

“No,” David answered. “Urdu, Farsi, Arabic.”

“Give it to me.” Growing up in LA, Jenna was fluent in Spanish. She took the radio and listened. “They’re getting ready to storm the garage. You guys better get going while I get into position.” She placed her AR-15 on the ledge and sighted through it. She had a good angle on the garage exit where Zapata’s men were assembled behind the cover of an SUV. Couldn’t see past the smoke and flames of the tanker fire to the south. She’d have to set up the second rifle a little farther down the wall, facing the other direction, to aim at anyone coming through the garage entrance.

David carried the cartel sniper’s rifle across the roof and helped her set up her second position. “Do you have your service weapon?”

She pulled back her jacket to show him the SIG Sauer holstered at her hip. “Why?”

“Save a bullet for the end. Don’t let them take you alive.” He squeezed her shoulder and left to join Lucy.
 

Jenna’s sight blurred, her gut heaving, her mind filled with images of what the cartel would do to a female federal agent. She’d read about DEA agents caught south of the border, the way they were tortured. The cartel delighted in sending their families videos and body parts.

The sound of gunfire coming from below shook her back into the here and now. She sighted her rifle on her first target and pulled the trigger. For some reason the memory of the first man she’d killed filled her vision for a brief moment. That first kill. Last month. Never would have happened except for Saint Lucy.

She blew her breath out and focused on her next target.

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Pittsburgh Radio Patrol Car Unit 3435: Dispatch, dispatch do you copy? I repeat we have an active shooter at the Schenley Academy ice rink. Civilians fleeing a fire inside the rink, coming under gunfire from an unknown sniper at the east entrance. I need back up. Dispatch are you there? Where are you, you sonofabitch? I see him, he’s on the hill, east side. Oh shit, oh shit, I’ve been hit. Code 3, Code 3. Officer down, officer down. Dispatch, where are you, dispatch?

Chapter 15

Mad Dog led Andre to the detached garage behind Kujo's. Once Andre was beyond the claustrophobic echoes inside the house, he realized that not all the gunfire he’d heard came from video games. He stopped on the flagstone path beside a pile of trash and abandoned lumber scraps leaning against the back porch and listened hard. Automatic gunfire coming from several directions.   

He turned and looked down the alley that separated Kujo’s from its closest neighbor. A faint orange glow smudged the sky to the southeast. Another one to the west. Fires. Big fires.

“What the hell is going on?” he demanded.

“Get inside,” MD ordered, opening the door and holding it for Andre with a mocking half bow.

The garage had originally been a carriage house. It was brick with a high, slanted roof. Maybe a hayloft? Leaded windows filled the space on either side of the door. The wide sliding door for cars or horses was on the opposite side of the building, facing the rear alley.

Andre took all this in, not appreciating the sturdy craftsmanship that had gone into constructing the carriage house as much as he was noting escape routes and sight lines. 
 

Several overhead lights lit the open space. There were no cars or horses or carriages here now. Just a kerosene heater, a cot, some shelves with jars and cans and rags, and a workbench littered with tools, poorly kept, some coated with rust.
 

Darius and Giselle waited inside. Giselle now wore an overcoat belted tight around her waist. Nothing else except her heels, from what Andre could see, but at least Darius hadn’t dragged her naked into the cold. Class act, that Darius.

Huddled on the cot shoved against one of the brick walls was a Middle Eastern woman dressed in a long black skirt and jacket, a headscarf wrapped to cover most of her face. She clutched a baby against her chest and kept her eyes averted. The baby was a few months old, big enough to resent being swaddled; he struggled with his blanket, but other than making a few whimpers of frustration, he was silent.

“What’s going on here?” Andre asked. “Who are these people?”

Darius leaned one elbow against the workbench and reached for Giselle with his other hand. The girl immediately joined him, fitting her body against his as he wrapped his arm around her waist. “A welcome back present.”

Mad Dog snickered at that, obviously in on the joke.
 

“Andre, meet Fatima Raziq and her son, Ali. You already know his father.”

The sounds of the house, the bass line from the music seeping through its windows, the laughter and shouts of men enjoying themselves, the shrill shrieks of women faking pleasure, even the gunfire from outside, they all faded from Andre’s awareness. Leaving him to focus on this, the real battle.

The woman didn’t move her head but raised her gaze to meet Andre’s. Pain and fear collided as she saw his face. Normal reaction, didn’t mean he was used to it. Wasn’t sure he’d ever get used to being a monster.

“Please,” she said, her voice trembling. “You know my husband? Please tell me. Is he safe?”

Darius made a mock face of sympathy and clucked his tongue. “Oh, look at that. Poor thing is worried about hubby. Tell her you’re going to take care of him, Andre. Tell her you’re gonna take care of
everything.
”

Andre glared at Darius. His instinct was to go for his weapon, but the woman and child were between him and Darius. Plus Mad Dog stood behind Andre guarding the door. “What do you want?”

“Not what I want.” Darius smiled. “What you want. You want to kill them. Just like Raziq killed your men, massacred those schoolgirls, burned you alive.” He paused as if short on breath. “Now’s your chance.”

Crazy. The man had gone completely off his rocker. Andre tried to buy some time to sort all this out. “I can’t kill them. Not now. Too many witnesses saw me come here.”

“Sure you can. We’re all friends here, aren’t we?” He glanced at Giselle and Mad Dog who both nodded earnestly, MD barely containing his laughter.

Some friends. Andre was so glad he could provide them with endless entertainment at his expense. “My fight is with Raziq. Not them.”

Darius drew his gun, aimed it at Andre. “Sure about that? Last chance.”

Andre could kill him. No sweat. But no way he could get both Darius and Mad Dog before one of them shot the woman and baby. He had no idea why Raziq’s family was here, but he couldn’t take a chance.

Instead, he took two steps to reach Darius. Giselle gave a gasp and tried to squirm away. Darius held her tight. He and Andre engaged in a staring match. Andre pressed Darius’s weapon, a Smith and Wesson .357 Magnum straight from the movies, against his own heart.

“I’m not interested in your last chances. I’ve had plenty of those.” Andre’s mouth was dry, turning his voice into a low rumble. Darius was unstable at the best of times. He could do it. He could end Andre here and now. And who was to say that would be a bad thing? Not Andre. Not his men. Not the schoolgirls filling his head with their screams day and night. “Go ahead, pull the trigger. You’re the one said you needed me. I still don’t know what for.”

Giselle laid a hand on Darius' arm. "No. Darius, don't."

Darius jerked his arm, sending Giselle sprawling across the room towards the door. "Shut your mouth."

Andre didn't move. Neither did Darius' gun.
 

Darius’ eyes narrowed as if he’d stared at the sun too long. “Maybe I was wrong about you. Maybe you lost more than your looks over there in that desert.” He reached into Andre’s pocket, taking the Beretta then lowered his own weapon. “How about I let you all get acquainted? We got a little time before the fun starts.”