Edge (47 page)

“Shut the radio off,” Loving commanded.

And stepped into view.

We now had all four targets in front of us, bracketing Amanda. Loving and the man with the radio were to the right of her and the two armed captors on the left.

Pogue pointed to the two with the weapons and drew his finger over his throat, then to himself.

He was, after all, a professional killer and I was, in effect, the opposite. I prepared to shoot into the shoulder of the man on the right and Henry Loving.

I aimed. Pogue held up three fingers of his left hand and began counting down.

I trained my sights on Loving. The image in my mind was Abe Fallow.

Two . . .

It was then that Amanda gave a gasp and jerked back. “Oh, shit.” She screamed, “No!” She was staring down. The men crouched and separated and we momentarily lost our targets. One stepped back, just out of view.

Pogue and I froze.

The girl said, “A rat. There's a rat under the chair! Get it away!”

“A—”

The captor nearest her muttered, “Fuck, scared
the shit out of me.” He stood and stepped forward, close to Amanda, looking under the chair.

Pogue and I started to aim once more.

Which was when the girl's bound hands lifted the bear purse to her mouth. She unzipped it with her teeth and managed to pull out a small black canister. She aimed awkwardly but fired a stream of orange pepper spray directly into the startled face of her captor. From two feet away it shot straight into his eyes. He screamed and dropped his gun, which Amanda dove for. The man beside him swung his gun toward her.

Loving shouted, “No!”

Pogue and I simultaneously shot the man who was about to fire at Amanda.

Henry Loving knew instantly what had happened and, as we turned our guns toward him and the others, he swept his arm into the lamps, which shattered on the floor, plunging the room into darkness. The only illumination now was the ruddy glow from the three exit signs.

Pogue and I stared down into the murky scene, where I had a vague image of Amanda scrabbling away from the men into the obstacle course of the room.

Then, beneath me, I heard the whispers of the three remaining captors as they planned their strategy.

NOW IT DIDN'T
matter if there was a mole in Freddy's office or not, since Loving knew about our presence. So I hit
SEND
, transmitting the text I'd prepared earlier. It gave Freddy a brief explanation and an urgent request for backup. I told him too that the primary was en route, so to set up roadblocks around the facility.

Amanda's heroics had guaranteed that we now needed all the help we could get.

Eyes growing accustomed to the darkness, we made our way down the stairway to the floor of the control room. I saw a dim form but whether it was a shadow or a silhouette, I didn't know. I aimed but was well aware it might be Amanda and waited for a clear image.

I never got one. He, or she, disappeared.

I heard hard breathing and faint groans from the man Amanda had sprayed. “Fuck, that hurts. . . . Okay, okay. I can see. I've got my weapon. Who the fuck's here?”

From somewhere, not that far away, Loving hissed for their silence.

Where was Amanda?

A moment later I heard more whispering.

Loving was playing a Bayesian game now, one modeled on imperfect information. He wouldn't know whom he was up against. How many we were, who we were, what our agenda was. But he'd be making instantaneous adjustments in assessing the probability of what his enemy would do.

He'd think there might be just one adversary here—he wouldn't have heard the second shot, from Pogue's silenced weapon. He knew that the attacker had eliminated the guard out front. He knew that the opponent was willing to fire without surrender demands. Another bit of information was that to distract them we'd flung glass into the corner of the control room, meaning this was a very limited operation, with no SWAT backup. Had the Bureau's hostage rescue team been on hand, this place would have been lit up like Times Square.

Loving would be thinking he and his men outnumbered the opponents and that they still had some time. Enough to find the girl and escape.

A piercing scream filled the black space. Amanda. She was near me. I could hear the sounds of a struggle. Then a loud clank and a man shouted in pain, “Need some help. She got me with that fucking spray shit. I'm in the northwest corner—”

“Quiet,” Loving shouted, as Pogue and I separated instinctively and moved fast in that direction. I fired covering shots high.

The shadowy figure by the door lifted his gun and fired a round in my general direction. Pogue returned fire, a burst of three, and sent the man to
the floor, though he wasn't hit—not badly at least—since he continued to fire.

I tallied one dead, one or two hit by pepper spray.

“Fuck, she got away,” another voice called.

“We're federal agents,” I called, “we've got teams outside too.”

Pogue shouted, “We know there are three of you. I want all three with hands up standing in the light of the exit door. Do it now. Or we will engage you.”

Then Henry Loving spoke again: “Corte, you're running a rogue operation. We won't kill the girl. We just need some information. Back out.”

“Fuck you,” Amanda cried.

“Amanda!” I called. “Get on the floor. Lie down, wherever you are. Stay down, be quiet.”

This was greeted with several more shots in my direction.

“Stop the firing,” Loving said adamantly.

“Where are you?” Amanda cried.

“Just get on the floor. There are—”

A huge crack of explosion and I was rolling backward, blinded.

A flash-bang grenade.

Underestimated them, I thought. Even the earplugs didn't save my hearing this time. Pogue too hadn't expected the grenade and had been slammed into the desk hard. Still, he struggled to his knees again and looked for a target, though the flash had been so bright our vision was fuzzy.

We both scrabbled away from the place where one of the kidnappers had lobbed the nonlethal stun grenade. I was desperate to find Amanda but
didn't dare call again for fear of giving away my position; I could tell from their shadows they were moving in, flanking us.

It was then that I heard a noise behind me and spun around, as the attacker, only a few feet away, lunged forward, slamming me to the floor.

THE ATTACKER WAS
kicking and trying desperately to get to my weapon.

At the same time as my vision began to return I caught a whiff of sweat and perfume.

“Amanda!” I whispered. “It's me, Corte.” I pushed her off me.

The girl backed up, squinting and aiming the pepper spray into my face. In the red light from the exit sign I could see her grim eyes.

She's got some grit, your daughter. It'd take a lot to get her rattled. . . .

The panic bled from her expression. “Oh . . . Mr. Corte.” Her cheeks were damp but not from crying; the residual gas from the spray was irritating her, like everybody else here. I pulled the duct tape off her wrists.

Pogue looked our way and gestured us down, then scanned the nearby portions of the office.

The girl collapsed against me, not in panic, though. She was exhausted.

Nearby: the sound of metal hitting the concrete floor.

“Eyes and ears,” Pogue snapped.

I closed my eyes and pulled Amanda close, her
face in my chest, covering her ears. When the grenade went off, this time we were prepared.

Except that this grenade was different.

There was a hiss and pop, rather than an explosion. I looked up to see a brilliant white light fill the entire room, shooting stark shadows onto the walls. At the same time the phosphorus burst out in a small dome and ignited the nearby portion of floor, the partitions and the upholstery of the office chairs. The brilliant white light died but the fire continued—and it grew—and we could just make out shadowy forms moving briefly on the far side of the room, then vanishing.

A moment later another grenade landed, closer to us. We scrabbled away before it detonated and another sphere of the sticky incendiary rose. Phosphorus is like napalm. It sticks like glue and will burn through clothing and skin.

“We can't stay here,” Pogue whispered, looking right and left. Eyes scanning constantly. “Okay, here's what we do. We can't all run a defense going back out the main corridor, so I'm going to keep them pinned. You and the girl go out the front. When help comes tell 'em where I am.”

Pogue's approach was the only logical one. I said, “Freddy's on his way. Shouldn't be long.”

Another grenade flew toward us and we were just able to get out of the way in time. It detonated, starting a third fire.

I considered a possible strategy. I whispered, “One minute.”

I eased Amanda down under a desk and gestured for Pogue to cover her. He acknowledged this. I made my way a little closer to where I believed
the latest grenade had come from. I knew the flash-bang grenades would have stunned the others' hearing too and I was betting that Loving might not recognize my voice.

I took a deep breath and shouted, “Henry, he's behind you! Ten feet.”

Loving didn't fall for it, in fact he instantly anticipated the strategy and called, “No! Everybody down.” But one of his colleagues had risen from cover and spun around, lifting his gun.

A perfect target. I fired a group of three. Two in the chest, one in the head. He dropped hard.

Pogue acknowledged this with a nod. Two down.

I ducked to cover, as the other associate of Loving's fired blindly in my direction. I bent down. “You ready, Amanda?”

“I'm totally ready.”

Pogue moved twenty feet away from us, to a spot where he'd draw their fire. He unscrewed the silencer and let go with five or six rounds throughout the room. The Beretta roared.

Crouching, Amanda and I dodged sputtering, white-hot fires and pushed through the exit door on the second-floor hallway. I was afraid that the door was locked from this side too but it wasn't and I kicked it open.

A machine pistol started firing, along with another flash-bang, then another. Loving understood that Amanda and I had escaped and the two remaining hostiles were doing all they could to take Pogue out and get past him.

Then the girl and I were in the stairwell and speeding down the steps. We made it to the corridor on the main floor and started down the endless
hallway toward the exit ahead of us. I was dizzy from scanning the doorways, scanning the corridor behind, scanning the corridor ahead. Mostly looking behind, though, which was the direction Loving or his surviving partner would come from.

More explosions and automatic weapon fire but growing more muted as we hurried for the exit.

Then I heard a hollow cry of pain.

It was Pogue's voice. There was no doubt. It continued for a moment or two as, I supposed, the phosphorus burned through his jacket and slacks to the skin. Finally there was a single shot and the screams and gunfire stopped.

I wondered if he'd ended his own life.

A horrific thought but I couldn't dwell on it. This meant Loving and the other man would be after us at any moment. We pressed forward. The doorways were bothering me. They were recessed slightly and as we came to each one, I had no way of knowing if a door was ajar. I believed the guard outside that there were four people with the girl but it would have been possible that the primary along with other minders had arrived and, hearing the shots, were hiding here, behind one of the doors.

I decided, though, that it really didn't matter. We had to move forward fast.

But now Amanda was starting to lose it. With her adrenaline fading, hysteria was flowing in like a riptide. She was crying, breathing hard and stumbling.

“Come on, Amanda. Are you with me?” I gripped her arm.

She took a deep breath. The tears ceased. “Yeah. I'm with you.”

Looking behind . . .

Nothing.

I could detect the horrific smell of burning flesh and I tried not to think about Pogue.

Ten feet from the front door. Five feet.

A glance behind. The corridor was still empty. Maybe Pogue had taken out Loving and the remaining hostile.

I pushed through the door fast, inhaling the sweet damp air. My strategy was to shoot the tires out of the other cars and SUVs here, then get to mine. And drive fast. I'd call Freddy from the road. Coordinate the assault here. Amanda clung to my arm with one hand and clutched her pepper spray in the other. I saw a Metropolitan Police Department label on the side.

My phone buzzed with a text. It was Freddy, reporting that the troops would be here in twenty minutes or so.

I paused in front of the building and glanced back down the corridor again. It was still empty. Then I turned toward the vehicles. I lifted my Glock toward the tires, whispering, “Cover your ears.”

Before I could shoot, though, I heard a noise behind me. I turned fast but saw nothing. The corridor was still empty.

I realized then that the noise was coming from
above
us.

I looked up to see Henry Loving launch himself from the roof. He crashed down onto Amanda and me, sending us sprawling on the concrete apron. I landed hard with a stunning, painful jolt in my spine. Air spurted from my lungs, and the Glock tumbled out of reach through the dirt and weeds.

HIS CLOTHING SCORCHED
—
some skin too—Loving rolled off me onto the sidewalk that led to the facility's parking lot. He'd lost his weapon inside and his face was bleeding, though the wound didn't seem bad. He winced as he gripped his side, where his cousin had stitched him up from my gunshot at Carter's lake house.