Smokescreen (34 page)

Too late. He’s going to die, just like Merry. You failed, Darcy.

Rage swelled in her and erupted into the thick smoke. “Shut up!” She screamed at the voices in her head, lifted her left leg and then the right one. “You
will
work. You
will move
!” She lifted them, alternating left to right again and again, and then her right leg lifted on its own. She moved.
She moved!

The building burned in earnest. The smell of charring wood, the hiss and crackle all proved it. And Darcy knew one thing as fact—there were no fireworks in those crates or by now they would have exploded. She wound through the hall, through the maze of stacked crates on the other side, looking for spots where fiery debris wasn’t crashing to the concrete floor and flames weren’t flaring floor to ceiling. “Ben! Ben!” she called out, blindly seeking him in the thick smoke.

“Darcy!”

His voice rang out above the roar of the blistering fire. Dropping to a crouch, she yelled back. “Keep talking, Ben. I can’t see.”

He heard her, and responded, calling her name over and again. Eyes and lungs burning, tears streaming, knees cracking, fire and flames and intense heat encompassing her, she moved methodically, fearful he’d be a mere foot away and she’d never know if she just missed him.

Something snagged her ankle. She turned. “Ben!”

“I’m cuffed.” He lifted his arm and the chain clinked against the metal beam. “My leg’s messed up, too.”

“Broken?”

“I don’t think so. But it’s pretty useless.”

Darcy looked up. A huge beam above Ben was about to fall. Nightmares, flashes of the fire danced before her eyes, threatened to again paralyze her.
Not this time. Not again.

She forced herself to look away. Spotting a fire axe on the wall, she grabbed it, swung and chopped the chain binding Ben to the metal beam. He pulled himself upright. “Let’s go, let’s go!”

Her arm around his waist, she helped him hobble out of immediate danger.

Behind them, the beam crashed to the floor, spewing sparks and fiery embers that now fell harmless. “Where’s the door?” She couldn’t see six inches beyond her nose and was totally disoriented.

“I don’t know.” Ben grimaced and shifted his weight, leaning heavily on her. “Santana went this way.”

They moved straight ahead and Darcy brushed against a burning crate. Her slacks caught fire. She let go of Ben, stopped, dropped and rolled, jerking out of her slacks—and the crushing memories of the first fire, the one that stole Merry’s life
and
Darcy’s, bore down on her with brutal force. A full-blown attack seized her. She couldn’t move. Helpless and hopeless, Darcy screamed.

Ben clasped her face in his hands, stared into her eyes. “Darcy. Darcy look at me.”

Gasping, her chest heaving, her eyes watering from the smoke and heat from the fire singeing her skin, she fought for control to focus.

“Darcy, look at me. Only me,” Ben insisted, calm amid the turmoil, gentle in the chaos.

She caught the thought, held it, breathed deeply and finally met his gaze.

“You can do this, Darcy. Get me out of here.”

She wanted to—oh, how she wanted to, but she couldn’t do it. “Ben, I can’t—”

“You can.” He shook her. “You can, Darcy. I’m crazy about you. I don’t want to die in this inferno. I want to live and even try again to love. I want to be with you and see what happens for us, Darcy. You can do this. You can give us that chance.”

In his eyes, she saw certainty and faith. He believed it—every word he was saying. He believed in her.

The fire crackled and hissed, rebelling against her growing strength, asserting its power over her. It was stronger, meaner; she couldn’t win against it.

All Ben had said to her—she wanted those things, too. And she wanted them more than she feared the fire. She wanted to put the devastation of the past—her fears and regrets and guilt—to rest. She wanted a life, with all the good and bad and ups and downs and love. Oh, how she wanted love. She wanted Ben.

Her lungs felt scorched; her throat, raw. She darted her gaze left and then panned right.
A window!
Blackened with soot and hard to see through the billowing smoke, but it was there. She scanned the area between them and it. No flames. Smoldering embers, but no flames. She grabbed the axe and held on to Ben. “This way.”

She led him to the window, then let go of him. “Stand back.” She lifted the axe and swung hard.

The glass shattered.

Darcy stepped forward, felt the blast of fresh air and used the blade to knock out the sharp shards of glass. “Come on, Ben.” She looked behind him, saw the creeping flames, the fury of the fire eating through a major support beam overhead. “Hurry.”

He hobbled over, and she made a lift with her hands, then shoved him through the window. She couldn’t make it without a boost—she spied a small crate against a wall not yet in flames. She shoved it over but the chains keeping it on its wooden pallet were too short. The crate wouldn’t reach the window. “Damn it.”

“Darcy?” Ben shouted from outside, his voice a shade shy of panic. “Darcy?”

She judged the distance between the crate and window. She could make it. “Move away, Ben,” she shouted, backing up as far as she dared. She heard a loud pop—a sizzle—and knew the beam was going to come down. She ran full out, vaulted over the crate and dove through the window.

Her shoulder hit the ground first, stinging, and she tucked and rolled on the grass, then up onto her feet, winded and feeling the jolt of the landing, but no worse for the wear. “Ben?”

He limped toward her, opened his arms.

She walked into them, felt him close around her, and buried her face at his neck. “I did it, Ben.” Her voice cracked and five years of tears and guilt and regret found vent. “I faced the fire.”

He pressed his lips to her temple. “Yeah, baby, you did.” Ben splayed his broad hands across her back and squeezed her to him. “Damn right, you did.”

D
arcy and Ben kissed, and kissed again.

“Darcy?” The lone FBI agent walked up to them, pushing frameless glasses up on his nose.

She pulled back, saw he was wearing a suit, and hardly recognized him. The skateboard and ball cap was a better fit. “Baxter, right?”

“Yes, ma’am.” He frowned. “We picked up two men coming out of the warehouse.” He slanted a nod to the curb where two female agents cuffed the men.

“Santana’s buddies,” Ben said.

She nodded. “Where’s Kunz? Santana?”

“No sightings on Kunz or Santana,” Baxter said. “I take it the shipment was brought here.”

“Yes,” Ben said. “But it wasn’t fireworks.”

“Figured. No explosion.” Baxter shifted his weight on his feet. “We’ve checked and we’re not picking up radioactivity, but we’re clearing the area, just in case.”

Darcy hadn’t even thought of radioactivity. She’d been so busy trying to keep a lid on the attacks and so focused on the fire that it hadn’t dawned on her.

That was it. Until she got these attacks totally under control, she was done with field work and this was her last active mission as an operative. Colonel Drake
would just have to accept it and leave her in her hub at Regret.

“Put an APB out on Thomas Kunz and Paco Santana. They were both in the building,” she told the agent. “They can’t have gotten far.”

“If they’ve got any sense, they’re heading to the border,” Ben said, keeping an arm around her shoulder for support.

“You need a doctor?” Baxter asked.

“No. It’s not broken.” Ben glanced down at his leg.

“I’ll brief the locals,” Baxter said, then walked away.

Darcy scanned the crowd for Kunz. It’d be just like him to mingle and watch. With his sunny good looks, no one would give him a second thought. But she saw no sign of him.

Disappointed, she turned to look at Ben—and glimpsed Paco Santana walking away, watching her over his shoulder.

Darcy pulled her gun and ran.

Santana took flight, shoving his way through the retreating crowd. He rounded a corner, knocked down an old man pushing a shopping cart, cut through an alley and disappeared in a cemetery.

Darcy stayed with the chase, weaving and ducking between the tombs. She stopped, her back against a rough cement wall, her chest heaving, trying to pull oxygen from the windless air. He was close. She felt it in her bones. Stilling, she opened her senses, blocked out the hustle and noise of the people on the street. She waited, listened, willing herself to stay calm, to control her fear, to home in on just him.

The past threatened, and she squelched it. She’d faced it fully. It was time to put it to bed. That was then,
and this was now. Now, she had suffered and endured and survived.

The fire had changed her life.

But no longer would she permit it to claim her life.

Her fear dissipated to a healthy level and her reclamation took hold. The spasms in her neck and back ceased, and she no longer fought spots, her vision was clear. She ran a quick mental test and passed. Her mind and senses were attuned, working perfectly.

For the first time since the fire, she was in crisis and in full control.

Something crackled—a snapping twig.

Santana.

The urge to move assaulted her, but she rebuffed it, stayed hidden in the shadows between the tombs, gripping her gun, checking her earpiece and sliding her lip mike into place, preparing to aim and fire.

Gravel crunched.

He’d moved again. Quickly, she spun out.

Caught in the moonlight, he dove behind a tomb. But he was too slow. She fired.

He fell, dead before he hit the ground.

“Baxter?” Darcy summoned him via her lip mike.

“Yeah?”

“I’ve just killed Paco Santana. I need a retrieval,” she said, then added directions on her location.

“Darcy?”

Hearing Ben, she turned and saw him coming toward her, putting some weight on his injured leg. It definitely wasn’t broken. Winded, he looked at Santana, lifeless against someone else’s grave. “Are you okay?” he asked.

“I’m fine.”

“Thank God.” He hugged her to him. “I couldn’t get here. I tried, Darcy.”

Just as she’d tried with Merry. “Shh, I know, Ben. It’s okay. Everything is fine.”

Baxter came up on them. Darcy had him in her sights, and when he realized it, he shouted, “Whoa, Clark. It’s Baxter.”

She let out a sigh of relief. “Santana’s over there.”

“Any sign of Kunz?” he asked.

“Check the tapes at Los Casas,” Ben said. “I’m sure he’s hotfooted it to Mexico.”

“No doubt.” Darcy frowned. “He’s very good at leaving others behind to take responsibility for his dirty work.”

“Don’t worry,” Ben told her. “We’ll take one battle at a time until we catch him.”

“That could take a while,” she said. “I’m sure Kunz has at least a dozen body doubles. The S.A.S.S. has already gone up against four.”

“Okay, so it’ll take a long while,” Ben said. “Wars are won one battle at a time, Darcy.”

She left Ben with Baxter and Santana, got her Jeep and then retrieved Ben. When he slid onto his seat, she said, “I thought about what you said—about the battles.”

“We did win this one, Darcy,” Ben insisted, clicking his safety belt into place.

Leaving Baxter with Santana to mop up, Darcy drove away.

“Kunz and Santana won’t launch that July 4th attack. The White House will have its fireworks—and they won’t be radioactive.”

“It can’t be this easy, Ben. With Kunz and GRID, it’s never this easy. We’re missing something. Trust me on this. I’ve studied this man intensely. It just can’t be this easy.”

“Okay. So what do we do now?”

“First, we think and get your leg checked out.”

“It’s not broken.”

“Great. Indulge me, then and let the doc take a look.” She drove on toward the hospital, wondering why things weren’t clicking into place. “Where’s Wexler?”

“I phoned Bobby Meyers a while ago. He says Wexler’s home in bed with the flu. Apparently, he left a few minutes after I did. Bobby says it hit him hard.”

“Bull.” She looked over at Ben. “Wexler lied to Bobby. He took in the shipment.”

“I don’t think so, Darcy. Bobby says he got sick as hell all over the pavement. He has to be really sick. Mick swears the water’s contaminated in the cooler. He’s putting in a fresh bottle.”

Interesting.
She filed that tidbit of information. If Wexler was really sick, then maybe he was being gotten out of the way, too. Maybe he wasn’t the one accepting the shipment. He couldn’t have been—unless GRID was done with him and wanted to wipe out the connection between them by taking Wexler out. Still there had to be someone else involved. But who else—

Mick.

His name came to mind and wouldn’t let go. He’d been at the bar when Needle and Santana’s cohorts were there. He’d been at Los Casas when the truck had come in. He’d been at Traveler’s Inn when she’d spotted Kunz there. And he’d been outside the warehouse with Elizabeth.

He’d been in all the right places to be doing all the wrong things. Question was, had he actually done the wrong things. All the evidence pointed to Wexler.

And what if that was by design?

She asked Ben, “Did you see Mick tonight?”

“Yeah.”

“What color was his shirt?”

“Damn, Darcy.” Ben grabbed hold of the dash. “Slow down. You’re going to kill somebody. My leg won’t be any more broken in five minutes.”

Darcy ignored the turn for the hospital, took the one for Los Casas and slammed her foot down on the gas. “It might be if you don’t answer my question. What color was Mick’s shirt?”

In the bar, it had been red. Outside the hotel, red. Tonight, red. “Damn it, Ben. It’s not just Wexler. It’s Mick, too!”

“No, Darcy. Not Mick.” Ben shot her a look that she was way off base. “Wexler’s taking the numbers and passing them on. We heard and saw it firsthand.”

“Why would he do that?” She asked herself more so than Ben, yet he answered.

“Mick’s having an affair with Elizabeth. Lucas meets his women at Mick’s. It’s a neat little arrangement.”

“And Lucas Wexler doesn’t want that screwed up. So he takes the numbers for Mick and shoots a little pool. Kunz and Santana think they’re dealing with Wexler, only they’re not. They’re dealing with Mick. It’s protection. Mick knows anonymity is all that will keep him alive when GRID is done with him. Wexler hasn’t got a clue what he’s doing.”

Darcy saw more clearly. “Mick gave them something to make them sick—Grady and Wexler,” Darcy said. “He wanted them out—away from Los Casas.”

“Oh, hell. The first truck was a decoy. He’s not yet put through the real shipment.” Ben motioned. “Faster, faster.”

“Get me the phone. I need to call this in.”

Ben scrounged through her purse, pulled it out and passed it to her. Moments later, Maggie was on the line. “Code One, Maggie. Get forces to the border. Mick is working with GRID and Santana and blackmailing Wexler, who probably figures Mick’s running numbers or some other type of gambling stint. Santana’s dead.”

“Are you sure? With GRID, we have a lot of corpses turning up to fight another day.”

“I shot and killed him,” Darcy said. “He’s dead.”

“Verified. Hold on.” She was gone a second, and then returned. “Colonel Drake and General Shaw are on the line with me, Darcy.”

“Darcy?” It was Colonel Drake’s voice, and she was severely worried. “Rank it.”

The colonel ranked everything on a scale of one to ten. “Ten, ma’am. Quick upshot. The shipment we followed was a decoy. It burned at the warehouse. Not radioactive, not filled with bombs, not even with fireworks. Grain would be my guess. I smelled it when I first entered the warehouse. I got one whiff of gunpowder. I figure it was the charge Kunz later set to facilitate his escape.”

“Where’s the real shipment?”

Good question. “One moment, ma’am.” She told Ben, “Call Los Casas. If Mick is back out there, then the shipment isn’t in yet. Who’s working graveyard?”

“Bobby Meyers.”

Darcy grunted. “I’ve got ten that says he’s gotten the flu and Mick’s been called back in to cover for him.”

“I won’t be taking that bet.” Ben dialed the phone.

“Los Casas.”

“Mick?” Ben grimaced. “Is that you?”

“Yeah, Ben. What’s up, buddy?”

“Nothing. Just checking to see if Bobby needed any help tonight. I’m feeling a little better.”

“He’s sick with the crud, like the rest of them. Called me while I was downtown. Hey, did you hear the warehouse on Main caught fire?”

“No, I didn’t know that,” Ben lied. “You need help out there?”

“Naw. It’s deader than dirt tonight. Ain’t a soul crossed in the last hour. Just marking time.”

“Okay, then. I’ll see you in the morning.”

“’Night.” Ben disconnected, then looked at Darcy. “You win.”

Darcy relayed to Colonel Drake.

“Why is the border open this late?” Colonel Drake asked.

“Commercial interests only. It’s so hot here that the loaded trucks overheat during the day. They travel at night for safety reasons—it’s strongly recommended for flammables.”

“Fireworks are that,” the colonel said. “So what’s your ETA?”

Darcy checked her watch. One-twenty in the morning. “I estimate a 1:35 a.m. arrival at Los Casas, ma’am.”

“The shipment has to be coming across the border at any time,” Ben said. “Remember, we’re closed from two to three.”

Darcy couldn’t risk it. “Ma’am, they’ve got a fifteen-minute window before we arrive. And they’ve got a twenty-five-minute window after we arrive. Then the station closes for an hour to do a daily security sweep. You’d better get overt forces down there now.”

“They’re already in position, Darcy.” Colonel Drake let out a sigh fraught with relief. “When you called for backup, we included Los Casas in the equation.”

“Did Kunz get to Mexico?”

“We’re told no.”

Darcy didn’t believe it. Not for a second. “Is he at Broken Branch Redemption?”

“Definitely not. We’ve had them under surveillance since you left here.”

Where the hell had Kunz gone, then? “Anything else, Colonel?”

She hesitated.

Darcy waited, and then realized what Colonel Drake wanted to know but didn’t want to offend Darcy by asking. “I’m fine, ma’am.”

“Oh, good.” She cleared her throat, but her relief stuck in her voice. “Of course you are, Darcy. Of course.”

When they arrived at Los Casas, the FBI had seized control of the border crossing. Mick stood against the cinder block wall, his hands behind him in cuffs. An unmarked eighteen-wheeler pulling two trailers was pulled past the stalls and onto the open dirt road. The two men who had been in it were being loaded into the backseat of an unmarked sedan. Darcy recognized one of the female FBI agents she’d seen at Traveler’s Inn.

“Stay in the Jeep, Ben.”

“Why?”

“No sense in testing your leg. It’s done.”

He looked through the window at Mick and sadness filled his eyes. “Mick set it up to look like Wexler had done it all. He wanted to get rid of him to clear the way for Mick and Elizabeth.”

“I guess so.” Disgusted, Darcy walked over to the agent, identified herself, then went to Mick.

“How did you know?” He didn’t bother denying his part in the attack.

“Your red shirt,” she answered honestly, though the reasons had been far more in number than she’d disclosed.

The whole truth was that something had warned her. Something so nebulous she couldn’t begin to describe or explain it, though she knew exactly when she’d first felt it. It had come to her with the first fire, along with her total recall.

And tonight it had worked to save thousands of lives.

For someone who had so often in the past five years felt cursed, at the moment, she felt decidedly blessed. She glanced over at Ben; saw him watching her through the Jeep’s passenger window. Decidedly blessed.

Winning on all fronts would have been fabulous. But in this war on terror, it was unrealistic. Like Amanda, Kate, Maggie and the rest of the S.A.S.S., she’d have to be content to take her successes where she found them—one battle at a time—and to pray for many more victories.