Hate (23 page)

“Thanks, Blane,” I said softly, my surprise evident in the tone of my voice.

He moved his face back to look at me, and then, taking me completely off guard, he gently touched his lips just once to mine. My eyes nearly bugged all the way out of my head, but he ignored them.

Rather, he ordered, “Stay here.” And it was obvious he meant it.

I hadn’t fully decided whether or not to listen yet, when he picked himself up off of me and moved slow and low back towards the front of the plane.

I glanced down at the dried blood on my chest and the rest of it soaked into my shirt and decided staying put was at least worth a shot.

But at the very least, I wanted a view. Sitting up to move to the aisle seat and lean out where I could see, the blood rushed to my still sore head, and I fell back against the back of the seat in a daze.

Not to self: Don’t move so fucking fast.

As I watched Blane move stealthily, like he was so obviously trained to do, I had the most ridiculous thought for someone in the midst of a terrorist attack.

I really loved to watch him work.

“YOU’RE STILL WHERE I TOLD you to stay,” Blane said sounding pleased.

I’d watched him watch Tommy for the last thirty minutes without making any moves, and as my nerves ramped up, my patience took a nosedive.

“Yeah, timer’s about to ring on that one, buddy. What the hell is taking you so long? Did I or did I not explain the whole we’re on a fucking timeline thing?” I huffed and spoke without giving him time answer. “I’m pretty sure I did.”

“Do you want to actually hear what I’ve figured out or do you wanna just keep on spouting nonsensical bullshit until the end of time?” he asked, his words only half-teasing.

“I guess I’ll save the bullshit for afterward.”

“Good plan.”

“I thought so.”

“Jesus. No wonder he knocked you out.”

It was childish, but I shot him two big, fat birds in response.

He chuckled.

He slid into the row with me, picking me up and lifting me into the seat beside it.

“You up for being a little bit of a distraction?”

“Not really,” I answered honestly. “But I’m even less up for dying today, so let’s do it.”

“You’re not going to die today,” he whispered fiercely, stopping me from making a move to climb over him and grabbing my chin with his thumb and forefinger to get my attention.

I spoke, the words slightly muffled by the grip he had on my chin. “Your confidence is touching, really. But let’s actually do something to prevent it.”

“Always such a smart ass.”

I almost told him the truth, admitting that I’m only really a smart ass when I’m scared of being something else.

He seemed to see it, or at the very least something else that made his features soften and his eyes light with understanding and compassion. His thumb moved from its tight hold to a gentle stroke, and for a couple of seconds, I actually forgot where I was.

Breaking the magic of his spell, I went to move again. Pushing me back into my seat, his voice warred with his dwindling patience. “Do you actually want to know the plan before you just waltz up there?”

Once again, I answered him honestly. “Not really. If you have something specific you want me to do, tell me now.” Otherwise, I just wanted it to be over. I’m sure most people would be eager for the details, but I wasn’t that good of a poker player. If I had an inkling about what was coming, I feared I’d somehow give it away before it happened.

And the last thing I wanted to do was put Blane, or myself, really, in any extra danger.

His chin jerked in surprise, but he didn’t let it control him for long.

“Just do whatever I say. If I tell you to move, you move. Run, you run. Duck, you duck. Get down, you get down.”

“I think I get it.”

“Most people don’t actually do what their told, Whit. Actually following my command, and ducking instead of running, could be the difference between something happening to you that I won’t accept and it not.”

He was serious, so I took it the same way. I had an obvious habit of using humor as an escape. Just call me Chandler Bing. But I knew this was important to him, and quiet frankly, me too. So I learned to take orders, and I learned to do it in a hurry.

With a nod I moved out of the row, careful to keep the attention off of myself until the time was right, but he called me back with just my name. “Whitney.”

My name had never sounded more like the words ‘Be careful’.

“You be even more careful,” I said in response, taking a gamble on his meaning, but at the same time not taking one at all. Hoping Blane would protect himself would never be out of place.

AT THE SIGHT OF ME coming quickly up the aisle, Tommy Terrorist became agitated, pacing and looking downright twitchy with his anger.

Whatever Blane was planning, I hoped to Jesus it was well thought out and quick acting. I feared it wouldn’t be long before Tommy became fed up and decided to cut his losses. And ours.

The hair stood up on the back of my neck, and an overbearing sense of dread settled into the furthest pit of my stomach.

I felt like the end was near, and desperation made me willing to be stupid. Taking my eyes off of Tommy, I turned back to see Blane one last time, to let my soul find comfort in his.

My eyes bounced, with no tall hunk in sight to settle on, and the world exploded. At least, the pounding of my heart and head made it feel that way.

“Get down!” Blane commanded from somewhere, and my body, thank Jesus, was more attuned to the moment than I was, immediately obeying and pancaking to the carpet aisle runner of our plane.

The instinct to cover my head was strong, but the one to watch Blane was stronger.

He seemed to pop up from nowhere, his gun in his hand already pointed at Tommy with his finger already skillfully squeezing the trigger.

The sound made my ears ring, the pressure almost unbearable in the confined space. Tommy’s cry of pain wasn’t far behind, the damage to his left arm a bloody, obvious mess.

Exploiting his obvious pain and shock, Blane’s anonymous partner launched himself at Tommy, pulling the manual switch to the bomb from his mangled arm and twisting the other behind his back with a knee to his spine to subdue him.

Blane leapt over me, pulling a set of cuffs from God knows where and bringing his injured arm around to meet the other one.

Tommy let out a howl of agony, but from what I could tell Blane moved almost gently. If it had been me, I probably would have dug my knee into his wound out of spite.

I guess that’s why nobody gave me the power or authority to carry a gun or official government position.

Once Tommy was secure and I’d crawled my way off the floor, almost more disgusted by what I’d surely been laying in than the blood coating my tank top, Blane’s attention came back to me.

“That’s two times you actually did what I told you,” he joked with a relieved smirk.

“I hope the memories will carry you through because it probably won’t ever happen again.”

Tommy, despite his captivity, humphed in agreement.

Terrorist asshole.

“That’s okay,” Blane allowed. “This was the time that counted.”

Me forgotten, Blane got back to his job, rolling Tommy over with little to no regard for his cuffed arms and ripping open the front of his shirt.

Meanwhile his still nameless (to me) colleague, ran down his read on the situation. “Manual switch that I’ve recovered, none other on the rest of his extremities.”

Blane joined in, giving a sit rep of his own and confirming our earlier suspicions. “Electrodes on his chest, suggests the dead man switch. Probably got it through security passed off as a heart monitor.”

I watched as he worked diligently, his voice calm and controlled as the rest of the passengers looked on from the back of the plane. Apparently, before he’d left, Blane had given them specific instructions to stay put in the back of the plane until they were told otherwise. And they were all better listeners than I was.

“Components appear to be compact, maybe a lipstick or package of gum to carry it in.”

I guess it really was just my dirty imagination since the bomb was out and visible. He must have passed it through as components and assembled it post-security checkpoint. And based off of Blane’s comments, I was guessing Tommy had either been convincing as a cross dresser or he’d managed to get some unsuspecting female to do his dirty work.

The new era. Not only do you have to suspect ulterior motives of the normal variety when a guy chats you up or asks you on a date, now you have to check and make sure he isn’t a terrorist too.

I hated being single and thirty.

And I hated that sexuality could so easily be used as a weakness for a woman.

But most of all, I hated, hated,
hated
fucking terrorists.

APPARENTLY, UNCLE SAM’S VERSION OF a debriefing takes about five and half hours of isolated time in a back room in the airport of your making. In this case, Dulles International Airport was the closest one where they could divert our landing. The agent talking to me was nice, friendly even, seemingly well aware that’d I’d been through something that was not only terrifying, but completely
not
of my making.

He seemed to realize that I wasn’t some secondary terrorist, who only took down the primary terrorist as a ploy to confuse and distract, while I carried out the real plot to spend five plus hours of my life in a little room answering every question possibly composed by combining several words of the English language.

Though, considering the fact that I had been right, and the asshole had used some poor woman to get through security, dropping what looked like a cosmetics case in her bag filled with all the things he needed for a handy dandy explosive, I couldn’t blame them for questioning me extensively.

Had I seen Tommy prior to our flight?

Did I see him with another woman?

Was I really in love with the Air Marshall on our flight?

Okay, so I made up the last one, but I’d sure as hell been
asking myself
that very question.

I hadn’t seen Blane. Truthfully, I hadn’t seen anyone other than Agent Jimbo and his sidekick Bob (not their real names, they were far more complicated and too hard to remember for my trauma addled brain).

I assumed he was somewhere similar, perhaps a few doors down. But I didn’t really know. It was completely possible he’d been given a warm meal, a bed to sleep on, and perhaps, a medal of some sort. After all, he was the hero. At least the one on the employee roster.

I was just the crazy woman who’d forced myself into involvement in something that normal people would avoid.

Agent Jimbo had left me alone in the room for probably the fifth time about fifteen minutes ago, and I was about to lose my shit.

I needed some caffeine. I needed some sugar. And what I really needed was a combination of the two in the form of Coke.

The creak of the door opening pulled my head up, and thankfully, I was met with the straight-toothed smile of one Agent Bob.

“Sorry that this took so long,” he apologized, placing a document in front of me and sliding a pen across the table. “I know this isn’t exactly the warm welcome you would have liked after what you went through, but we’ve been implementing some new policies, and they’re pretty strict about protocol after an attack of this magnitude. Our first priority is to make sure the threat is completely contained, no matter how unpleasant that may be.”