Saving Liberty (Kissing #6) (26 page)

Kian

It only took Brannon a split second to react. “This way!” he snapped, turning us around. The rest of the Secret Service agents followed his lead, taking us back towards the main exhibition hall. “Lone Star is moving,” Brannon said into his radio. “Evac, main entrance, we need the motorcade.
Does anybody copy?
”

I’d already drawn my gun. With my other hand, I squeezed Emily’s hand... but she didn’t respond. When I turned to look at her, she’d gone pale, arms and legs stiff as she walked, eyes darting around in panic. I squeezed her hand again and, this time, I got a weak squeeze back in return. God, this must be like every one of her nightmares come to life. It tore me apart to see her like this again and to know it was the same damn people doing it. That primal urge to protect her was stronger than ever.
I’m going to kill every last one of them.

We raced down the hallway, the President and Emily in the middle of the group, myself and the other Secret Service agents surrounding them. We’d just reached the door to the exhibition hall when we heard breaking glass and screams from the other side, then more gunfire. We were cut off from both the main and side entrances. “
Shit!”
said Brannon, starting to lose his cool. “Down here!”

I made sure I kept hold of Emily’s hand as we moved through the building. Whatever happened, I wasn’t going to let anyone separate us. I understood Brannon’s plan: to get us away from the two groups of gunmen and towards an emergency exit. But even if we could make it, we’d be horribly exposed once we got outside. We needed the motorcade to be right outside the door so we could run Emily and the President straight inside an armored limo... but for some reason, we couldn’t contact them. I tried my own radio: nothing.
Shit!

More gunfire behind us—closer, this time. They were gaining on us. When we came to the door at the end of the hallway, Brannon left three men behind to guard our backs and closed the door behind them.

We emerged into another exhibition hall, this one filled with a giant dinosaur skeleton. The hall was two stories high, with wide marble staircases up to the second floor. We were halfway across when we heard more gunfire coming from ahead of us. Now we really
were
surrounded. I heard one of the other agents curse. All of us were panting, adrenaline thundering through our veins. This was the worst case scenario: under siege, with the President right in the firing line.

“Oh God,” said Emily, her eyes wide with fear. Anybody would have been terrified, but she was desperately trying to hold her PTSD at bay, too. I put my hands on her upper arms and turned her to face me, then looked into her eyes. For a second, it was almost as if she didn’t see me. “Emily?” I said in a low voice.

She finally focused on me. She was still there—just.

“It’s going to be okay,” I told her. “I’m here.” I stroked her cheek with my thumb and she nodded, but her breathing was dangerously fast.

Brannon tried his radio again. “I still can’t raise anyone. We can’t call for backup.” He was close to panicking. The poor guy didn’t have the experience of Harlan or Miller—he’d probably never seen action before.

Gunfire echoed down the hallway we’d just come through. This time, there were answering shots from the three men Brannon had left behind. But they were outnumbered and outgunned: I remembered the assault rifles I’d seen at the warehouse. Almost immediately, we heard a cry and one of the three handguns stopped firing.
Shit.
Brannon looked at me in fear. I had to take charge.

“Stairs,” I said, pointing. “We go up to the second floor.”

“We’ll be trapped up there!” said Brannon uncertainly. I could see him going through his Secret Service rulebook in his head—nothing had prepared him for this.

“We’re trapped
now!”
I snarled at him.

We heard a body hit the floor in the hallway. The gunfire was getting closer. It sounded like there was only one Secret Service agent left firing, now.

“Okay,” said Brannon. “Upstairs.” He started walking the President that way. I hadn’t waited to be told: I already had Emily by the hand and was halfway to the staircase.

That was when the grenade went off.

Everything seemed to happen in slow motion. Emily and I already passed the door that led onward through the museum but the others were right in front of it. The gunmen must have rolled the grenade right up to the doors because they exploded inward in a shower of burnt wood fragments and gray smoke. Almost immediately, gunfire erupted from the smoking doorway. One Secret Service agent went down instantly while the others dived for cover. Brannon pulled the President towards a pillar. I grabbed Emily and pulled her into the shadows beneath the huge marble staircase. We were out of sight, there, relatively safe... but the others weren’t.

The Secret Service agents returned fire but there were only three of them left, now. Just as Brannon got the President behind a pillar, the other door was kicked in... and now they were taking fire from both sides. Another agent went down. Now only Brannon and one other agent protected the President.

“Oh Jesus,” whispered Emily. She tried to rise from our hiding place. I hauled her grimly back down.

There was nowhere for the others to run but they couldn’t stay where they were. They made a last ditch sprint for safety, hustling the President towards an information desk that would provide some cover, but as soon as they came out from behind the pillar, both groups of gunmen opened fire. I held my breath, willing the President forward. Back in college, he’d been a quarterback and he was still fit for his age. Twenty paces would get him to safety.
Ten. Five—

A bullet hit him in the chest and spun him around, tearing him from Brannon’s grip. He slumped to the ground as scarlet spread across his white shirt.

Kian

Next to me, Emily opened her mouth to scream. I clamped a hand hard over her mouth and used my other arm to hold her against me so she couldn’t run to him.

Brannon and the other agent dragged the President behind the information desk, sat him up against it and used the desk as cover, returning fire from behind it. The three of them were only thirty feet or so away from us, but it was thirty feet of deadly open space. We’d be dead in a heartbeat if we tried to cross it.

The President was still breathing but his cheeks were going pale and he had both hands clutched to the gunshot wound in his chest. He turned his head and looked right at me. Something passed between us. Not just President to bodyguard: father to son.

He knew about Emily and me.

The gunfire stopped for a second as the gunmen started to advance towards the desk. The President’s voice was raspy and weak, but it hadn’t lost an ounce of authority. “
Get my daughter out of here
,” he croaked.

I nodded and turned to Emily. She was staring at her dad, barely breathing—she was in shock, or something close to it.

We were still hiding under the stairs. To climb up them, we’d have to wait until the gunmen passed us on their way to the President and then crawl along the length of the room, right out in the open, to reach the bottom of the staircase. We’d have no cover. Our only protection would be that the gunmen would have their backs to us.

I waited until the gunmen passed by us, counting eight of them, all with assault rifles. I took another look at Emily and my guts twisted—she was still almost frozen with fear, just as she’d been in the park. It looked like whatever progress I’d helped her make had been destroyed. I’d just have to pray that she was lucid enough to follow my lead. I held my finger to my lips, pointed to where we needed to go, and waited until she nodded. Then I took a deep breath and started crawling, pushing Emily ahead of me.

There’s a feeling you get, when you turn your back on something dangerous. It’s your body’s alarm system, its way of telling you this is a very, very bad idea. Doesn’t matter if it’s an enemy soldier, a vicious dog or a schoolyard bully: the hairs on the back of your neck stand up and your whole body tenses, waiting for the sound of the shot or the teeth sinking into your leg or the words that are going to make you feel like shit for the rest of the day.

It was like that but a million times worse. Eight men were behind us, all with weapons that could kill us in a heartbeat. We wouldn’t even have time to react as the bullets tore into us.

If we made a sound, we were dead.

If one of them turned around, we were dead.

If Emily froze up and we got stuck out in the open, we were dead.

We started to crawl, keeping as tight to the staircase as we could, our left shoulders almost brushing it. Shell casings littered the floor and the air was thick with acrid smoke. Emily was just a few steps in front of me: she’d crawl a few steps and then hesitate and I’d have to nudge her foot before she’d continue.

The marble floor was glossy and cool under our hands but my palms were slick with sweat. I’d never been more aware of the spot between my shoulder blades: that’s where a bullet would slam into me,
any... second... now—

Behind us, I could hear the gunmen edging across the floor towards the information desk. Now and again, a shot would ring out and I’d see Emily flinch. From what I could tell, Brannon and the other agent were firing blind over the top of the desk, trying to hold the gunmen back without showing themselves. It would slow them down, but it wouldn’t work forever.

I almost ran straight into Emily. She’d stopped dead in front of me and, when I craned to look around her, I saw why.

One of the agents who’d been shot was lying on the ground right beside her. The poor bastard was still alive, just barely, and he was terrified.
Help me,
he mouthed to Emily.
Please!
She stared back at him, aghast.

I checked over my shoulder. No one was looking in our direction but, the way the gunmen were advancing, we probably had less than a minute before they reached the desk and killed the President. Then they’d turn around and see us. We had to move.

I nudged Emily’s foot. She shook her head, staring at the stricken agent, silent tears starting to fall from her eyes.

I reached forward, gripped her ankle and squeezed.
I know,
I thought, praying she understood.
But we can’t help him..

I saw her throat move as she swallowed.

She lifted one hand... and moved forward, her hand almost touching the stricken agent. She stayed there for a second, her breathing heavy, and I worried she was about to lose it. But then she lifted the other hand and took another step forward, then another and another. I followed behind her, staying as close as I could. By the time I passed the agent, he was dead.

Seconds later, we came to the bottom of the stairs. I steered Emily around the handrail and then onto the stairs. Now, finally, we were out of sight as long as we stayed low. We crawled up to the second floor.

I didn’t stop until we’d passed under an archway and into the next room. Only then did I help Emily to her feet and hug her. Then I grabbed her hand and started to pull her on through the museum. I wanted to put as much distance as I could between us and the gunmen, then try to find a fire escape—

I jerked to a stop. When I turned, I found Emily was rooted to the spot.
Shit.
She’d frozen. Between the gunfire, seeing her dad shot and then that crawl through hell, she’d finally slipped into full-on catatonia—

“No,” she said in a low voice.

I blinked and searched her face. Her gaze was focused and there was a grim fire in her eyes I’d barely seen since before the attack in the park. She
hadn’t
freaked out. She’d been damn close, downstairs, but she’d somehow pulled through it. She was fighting back against the fear, harder than I would have thought anyone could. “What?” I asked, stunned.

“No,” she repeated. “We’re not leaving him.”

She glanced over her shoulder towards the stairs. Towards her dad.

I shook my head. “We can’t. Emily, we can’t. I have to get you out of here.”

The tears were rolling down her cheeks but it wasn’t hysteria: it was anger. “That is
my father down there!”