The Collective (52 page)

“They’ll probably try gas next!” Lynch called from out in the suite.

“Cait,” Monteforte began, but Cait gave a shake of her head that silenced the detective.

Monteforte went to the window, glancing around warily.

“Be careful,” Cait said.

Cait hoped she would, but also figured she would be all right. Thus far they had stayed clear of the windows. There were thin curtains, but she did not bother to draw them. The buildings across the street were all a couple of stories shorter than Black Pine, so it would be difficult to get an effective sniper shot on anyone who wasn’t right up close to the glass. And even if they did, she was sure the glass was reinforced. Nothing was bulletproof if you had a big enough bullet, but they hadn’t reached that point yet. They weren’t going to be firing anti-tank weapons into the CEO’s office with Shelby still in there.

“There are tons of cars down there now,” Monteforte said. “Not just police, either.”

“That’ll be the FBI. I suspect we’ll get plenty of them.”

Shelby laughed at the tough-girl tone of her voice. “I really am curious about your next move, Sergeant. Truly. The FBI aren’t going to help you. They’re not even going to get a chance. The last minutes of your life are ticking down, and you’re going to leave your daughter an orphan. But don’t worry. We’ll take good care of her when you’re gone.”

Cait steadied her breath, forcing herself not to pull the trigger. “You’ll never find her.”

He shook his head, giving her a look of profound pity. “Of
course we will. You really don’t understand any of this, do you? Even if I let the FBI into this building, I only have to give the order and they would execute you themselves. We have Herods everywhere. Everywhere that matters.”

“One guy.” Cait scowled. “Dwight fucking Hollenbach. And the FBI aren’t going to kill babies on his say-so.”

“Hollenbach only needs his people to
find
Leyla. Black Pine will do the rest.”

“And if she’s no longer in the country, what then?” Cait asked, feigning a confidence she didn’t feel.

Shelby’s eyebrows went up. “Don’t you know who we are? Black Pine is everywhere. And the Herods … the chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee is one of us, Cait. The combatant commander of SOCOM—”

“Bullshit!” Monteforte said. “I can’t … That’s bullshit.”

Shelby stared at Cait. “I tell you this because I want you to know there is nowhere she will be able to hide. And I want you to know what is going to happen to your little girl once you’re dead.”

Monteforte pressed her gun to Shelby’s head. “Motherfucker.”

Cait watched it all, Shelby’s words filling her with icy hatred.

“I’m here now,” Voss said into her cell phone, putting the car in Park. She pulled out the keys and opened the door, standing up to look around. “Where are you?”

“In the middle of the shit,” Josh said. “Where else?”

Voss slammed the door, pocketed the keys, and transferred the phone to her right hand, maneuvering her left arm back into the sling. Her shoulder throbbed, and she could barely imagine how much worse it would have been without the painkillers, which gave her a pleasantly detached feeling.
She had called in to the office and arranged to pick some up on the road, a brief diversion to a CVS just off the highway that was more than worth the trouble of stopping. The pain hadn’t gone away, but it seemed separated from her consciousness by a layer of cotton.

She wanted more drugs, but for now she would have to turn the pain into adrenaline. No more blunting of edges; she needed to be sharp.

“I’ll meet you at the front door,” Voss said, hanging up and clipping her phone to her belt. She looked past the vehicles that were arranged in a kind of semi-circle in front of the building. There were many more farther along the street in both directions, police and FBI—not to mention ambulances waiting like vultures for the inevitable.

As Voss walked toward them, a pair of cops standing behind their cruiser turned to confront her, their gazes fixed on the gun at her hip. It took her a second to realize she didn’t have her ID out. A cute blond with a gun was a fantasy for a lot of guys, but never for cops in the middle of a standoff.

She identified herself, pulling out her ID. The officers let her pass but she kept the ID out, making her way through a maze of vehicles and personnel. She spotted Josh and Nala Chang with a cluster of cops and FBI agents, and made a beeline for them. Something about the way Chang stood so close to Josh made her take notice. The corners of her mouth tweaked upward, but even to herself the smile felt brittle and false.

Josh glanced around expectantly, saw her coming, then broke away from the others. As she walked up, he shook his head at the sight of the sling.

“I leave you alone for twelve hours, and you go and get yourself shot.”

Voss laughed, forcing herself not to reply with a quip about what happened when she left
him
alone for twelve hours. She might be jumping to conclusions anyway. And all the assholes with guns in front of the Black Pine building were slightly more of an issue at the moment.

“I’ll try to avoid it in the future,” she said, then nodded toward the uniformed operatives lining the sidewalk. “Who’s speaking for them?”

“You’ll never guess,” Josh replied, the words dripping with sarcasm.

“Don’t tell me.”

He nodded.

“Where is he?” Voss asked.

Even as she spoke, they heard the staccato chop of a helicopter and looked up to see it appear over the top of the Black Pine building, the wind and noise battering the street as it descended. Police and FBI took cover, tracking the chopper’s arrival with dozens of guns, but the Black Pine logo on its door made clear that whoever was inside the machine had not come for a fight.

Voss fought the downdraft from the helicopter as she started toward it. Josh fell into step with her and, as they passed, Chang and a heavyset police official joined them. Over the roar of the chopper, Josh introduced her to Captain Koh, but she couldn’t do more than nod. The noise of the rotors set her teeth on edge.

At last the rotors slowed, and as they stopped twenty feet from the helicopter, the door opened and Norris emerged. He dropped to the ground, bent slightly, then ran over to them.

“Agent Voss!” Norris called amiably. “Excellent to see you still among the living.”

Voss wondered if Norris had personally given the order to take her out. If not, he must know she suspected it. Either way, his amiable greeting had to be intended as mockery. Josh, Chang, and Captain Koh all looked at her, awaiting her reply. Technically the case was still Josh’s, but she was the senior partner and he would defer to her now. The pain clawed at her shoulder. She could feel the scowl on her face and did not try to hide it.

“Where’s your friend Lieutenant Arsenault?”

“He has other duties to attend to,” Norris replied.

“More likely, his puppet-masters yanked him back since they’re trying to cover their asses in any way they can.”

“I don’t know what you’re implying, Agent Voss,” Norris said, with a scowl to match her own, “but I can tell you this much, I have been authorized to speak for Black Pine’s board of directors. You and your people are impeding our ability to do business. There is no reason for you to be here—”

“Other than the goddamn gunshots, you mean?” Captain Koh said.

Norris waved this away. “We have a practice range in the building. If you’d care to check, you’ll see that all of our permits are in place.”

“That wasn’t—” Chang began.

Voss cut her off. “You actually think we’re going to leave?”

Norris lifted his chin. “One way or another, yes. For now, you’re to draw back at least one block from our property. Shortly, your people will be called away. A court order could do the job, but I’m sure it won’t come to that. Already the media are arriving. I saw news vans and cameras and reporters as I flew in. The damage you are doing to the reputation of Black Pine Worldwide—the very idea that we cannot maintain our own security—”

“So this is fucking P.R.?” Josh scoffed.

Before Norris could reply, Voss stepped in so close to him that he backed up, head whipping back, to stare at her in astonishment. Voss reached out and tapped his forehead, hard, with her index finger.

“Listen to me, asshole.”

“Who do you think you—”

“Twenty minutes from now, I’m going to have forty Homeland Security agents on the ground. New Jersey State Police are a hell of a lot closer than that—I’m told we have nearly a hundred officers responding from various locations. But looking at your fucking jarheads over there on the sidewalk, I don’t even care if we wait for that backup. There are a lot of police and FBI right here already. And no matter who you think you are, or who you think is in charge of this situation … Right now, they answer to me.

“Just before I got here, I was on a conference call with the director of the ICD and her boss, the director of Homeland Security. I received my orders directly from them. I hope you’re following this.”

Voss turned to the others. “Captain Koh. Agent Chang. Pass the word along to your people. Ten minutes and we go in. And if Black Pine operatives attempt to bar entrance to the building, to interfere in a Homeland Security action in
any way, you are authorized to treat them with extreme prejudice.”

She relished the horror on Norris’s face. “You can’t do that. You don’t understand the people you’re fucking with!”

Voss poked him in the chest, backing him up another step. “No, it’s you who doesn’t understand. Your powerful friends stay in power only as long as their secrets are safe. It’s over, Norris. The only thing you get to decide is how many people are going to die here today.”

“It’s going to be a bloodbath,” Norris said, still staring at her like she was the monster.

The standoff continued as Chang and Koh pulled out radios to pass along the orders.

“Mr. Norris,” Josh said, “there’s another option.”

“Yeah? What’s that, junior?”

“Cooperation,” Voss explained. “Stand down your men and let me send two people in to bring us up to speed on what’s really happening inside.”

Norris appeared to consider the suggestion, but she could practically read his mind. He would go along with it because he had no other viable option. What worried Voss was what would happen once Josh and Chang got inside. It could all go very badly very quickly. If Black Pine had a chance to wipe the slate, they would do it—even if that meant killing her partner.

One way or another, Black Pine needed Cait McCandless dead—but Rachael Voss needed her alive.

Cait leaned against the wall, gun still aimed at Shelby, who had wisely stopped smiling.

“Cait?” Monteforte ventured. “You said you had a plan. Please tell me there’s still a plan!”

“I’m sorry.”

“Sorry?” Monteforte asked, voice rising.

“For bringing you into this. I needed help, and when Sarah put me on the phone with you … I’m sorry.”

Monteforte swore, shaking her head in dismay.

Shelby let the whole situation ride for a few seconds and then he seemed to settle back into his chair, more than comfortable. He stared at Cait’s gun and then at her face.

“You surprise me, Sergeant McCandless. Your service record indicates a highly capable soldier. But you come into something like this without an exit strategy?”

Cait laughed. “Sweet of you to worry about me, but I’m not concerned about an exit. Neither is Lynch. We’re here to put an end to you and your whole Collective and we never expected to get out alive.”

“Jesus, Cait,” Monteforte whispered.

“His name is Lynch,” Shelby said. “Good to know. What I wonder, however, is what you intend to do now. How are you planning to, as you say,
end
the Collective? If you were going to kill me, I imagine you’d have done so already. Maybe you’ve found you’re not much of an executioner. Killing an unarmed man in cold blood isn’t your style?”

Cait stiffened, finger tightening on the trigger. “Maybe. And maybe not.” She looked at Monteforte. “How’re you doing, Detective?”

“Terrified,” Monteforte said. “There are too many ways this could all end in bullets.”