The Patrick Bowers Files - 05 - The Queen (55 page)

Tessa reassured herself that Amber was just using the toilet or maybe cleaning up after having her tears smear her mascara so much, but beneath those thoughts was a dark inkling, a tiny, discomfiting suspicion that barely even registered to her on a conscious level.

But then it did.

The toilet had not flushed. The water in the sink had not been turned on. No sound at all was coming from the room at the end of the hall.

With a deepening sense of apprehension, Tessa picked up her flashlight and went to check on her stepaunt.

“Pat!” I heard Lien-hua whisper harshly behind me, but I'd already seen what she was warning me about—Alexei, streaking toward me through the tunnel, flipping something out of his right sleeve.

The bone gun.

How?

You had him carry Millicent. Maybe he'd hidden it under—

I almost squeezed the trigger, but he wasn't coming for me. He reached the room, and as Lien-hua and I went after him, he disappeared into the stairwell.

Two rapid shots.

The sound of a body tumbling down the stairs.

By the time Lien-hua and I got to the stairwell, Cassandra's voice was cutting through the radio we'd taken from Millicent: “Kill the hostages.”

The metal stairs twisted out of sight before us.

No one visible. Not Alexei, not the shooter.

Lien-hua and I flew down the steps, taking them two at a time.

Tessa rapped on the bathroom door. “Amber? Everything okay?”

Nothing.

She tried the doorknob.

Locked.

“Amber. Open the door.”

Only silence in reply.

“Amber,” Tessa cried louder, trying the doorknob again. “Open up the door!”

We reached the bottom of the stairs.

The shooter lay at our feet. His neck was broken, his head contorted at a hideous angle. He was breathing hoarsely, wide-eyed and afraid.

The AR-15 semiautomatic rifle he'd fired at us lay on the ground—Alexei had left it—but a large sheath on the man's belt was missing its knife. “Help me,” he managed to say.

There wasn't anything we could do for him right now. I knelt beside him and asked urgently, “Where are the hostages?”

“Room,” he muttered. He tried to say more, but his words burbled away into something indistinguishable.

I envisioned the base's schematics.
Cassandra will be in the control room. But the hostages? Where?

Lien-hua grabbed the assault rifle.

“Go right,” I directed her. “If you don't find the hostages, get to the control room and stop Cassandra!”

She darted right and I sprinted left toward the crew quarters.

8:57 p.m.

3 minutes until the transmission

“Amber!”

No answer.

The meds?

The sleeping pills?

No, no, no!

Tessa yanked out her phone, tried 911. The line was dead.

Pick the lock.

You have to get in that room!

The doorknob was like most bathroom locks—just a hole on the outside. Easy to get into if you have a barbeque skewer-thing or maybe a paperclip or bobby pin. Or a thick nail.

“I'm coming!” she yelled to Amber, though at this point she doubted her stepaunt could hear her. As fast as she could, Tessa rushed downstairs to Sean's workbench.

The interrogators unfastened Terry's wrists.

While they were lifting him toward the bed, he went for Riley's gun, but as he snagged the weapon, it discharged, sending a round through Riley's pelvis. The guy shuddered to the ground, screaming. Terry dropped back into the wheelchair, and by the time he'd landed, he'd already swung the gun toward Riley's head. “Don't move!” he shouted to the other agents.

The two of them froze, tense, hands already on their weapons.

For a moment, Terry debated with himself about trying to kill them all but decided he probably wouldn't be able to do it without getting himself shot.

“Place your guns on the bed,” Terry commanded. “If you try anything, Riley dies.”

They didn't move.

“Don't test me. Guns on the bed. Do it now.”

At last, unwillingly, they obeyed.

“Get out. If anyone comes through that door in the next twelve minutes I'll kill Riley.”

“No, we take him—”

“Go.”

The two men hesitated at first, then finally backed out the door. When they were gone and the door was closed, Terry repositioned himself to better cover it.

“Hang in there, Riley,” Terry told him, then, thinking of the militants who would be showing up any minute, he added honestly, “I'm not going to kill you.”

I flared around the corner, saw a woman in military fatigues straddling the rec room entrance, AR-15 aimed inside.

“Put down the—” I yelled, but she spun, faced me, laser sight on my chest. I fired. Three shots. Quick. Center mass.

She went down.

I rushed forward and found her alive, stunned, wearing body armor. I cuffed her, then scanned the room.

Three men in Master-at-Arms uniforms lay inside, as well as five other naval personnel all gagged and restrained with plastic handcuffs. Sometimes terrorists will tie up some of their own people along with their captives so if you free the hostages you'll inadvertently also free some of their men. There was no time to sort all this out now. I turned to leave.

No, Pat! There are ten or more Eco-Tech members. Cassandra ordered these people eliminated. Someone else will come by to kill them.

I found the ranking MA, a man whose name tag read T. Daniels, ungagged him.

Donnie loves his family. He would talk about them.

He would—

“How long have you known Commander Pickron?” I asked.

“What?”

“How long!”

“Six years.”

“When did Ardis have Lizzie?”

He looked at me oddly. “She was adopted.”

That was enough for me.

I flicked out my knife to cut him loose.

Tessa found a plastic container with an assortment of nails. Grabbed it.

Sprinted back upstairs to the bathroom.

I handed Daniels my knife. “Free everyone from your team. Secure this level.”

Then I rushed toward the stairwell that would take me down to the control room.