The Second Betrayal (29 page)

"Got the rooftop codes?" I asked the agents in the elevator.

One of the agents beside me said, "Right here,"

I handed my own sheet of paper with the codes to an agent right behind me who couldn't fit on the elevator. He and

the others in no way could cram in with the twelve of us already packed inside.

As the doors closed, I said to the agent who had it, "Give me the roof top codes."

He handed me a paper that matched the one the concierge had given me. Shaky handwriting and all. The paper

crumpled some in my fingers as I gripped it.

I thought about the blood on the wall beside the elevator. If we didn't get Hagstedt this time, we'd at least have his DNA. Maybe we'd get a hit if he had any priors.

It wasn't likely at his level, but the DNA record would go into all law enforcement data banks. If a match popped up in the future, RED would be alerted immediately.

But we're going to get him,
now.
We have to get him.

I was practically trampled by the other agents in the elevator who were all, of course, six feet or more taller than me.

"Back off," I shouted with a serious pissed-off note in my voice. "You're crowding me." The agents moved.

If I thought the last elevator had been overcharged with adrenalized agents, it was nothing compared with how we felt on a fifty-two-floor elevator ride. Personally I was ready to yank out the speakers that were playing highbrow elevator music.

"Christ." I wanted to kick one of the twin metal doors, but I also didn't want to break any of my bare toes. "Can this elevator go any slower?"

"Don't jinx us," one of the NY RED agents said.

I squeezed the grip of the Sig. Maybe I'd shoot him just to relieve some of the stress.

As soon as the elevator door opened, I bolted out into an incredibly luxurious penthouse foyer that would leave most people gaping. Whoa. I cataloged the foyer in one sweep of my gaze.

A glittering crystal chandelier hung from a twenty-foot-high ceiling, and blue light glowed upward on the walls from hidden lighting in the floor. Real trees were strategically placed in front of the blue lighting. The paintings on the wall were probably authentic and famous. A large crystal vase with an incredible floral bouquet rested on a circular table with gold-leaf designs. Even the door that would open into the penthouse was amazing.

I would have stopped to stare but I had a man to kill.

Priorities.

"Try to take him alive, Steele," Donovan said. The man was a damned mind reader.

"You're ruining all the fun," I muttered.

The emergency stairwell was next to the elevator. Thank God. Donovan was beside me and jerked the door open

before I could. The stairwell wasn't blocked going down to our left. To our right there was a door with no admittance on it, obviously the door to the rooftop and the helicopter pad. I imagined that the top-floor residents did have the code to it for emergency situations or to catch a helicopter.

The life of the wealthy.

Very fancy door and stairwell, too, including the no admittance sign. Worthy of the Tower's residents.

After glancing at the paper that had been given to me, I pressed the sequence of numbers on the keypad beside door. A red light flashed instead of green. Christ. I looked at the paper and saw I'd mistaken a one for a seven thanks to the man's shaky handwriting. The lock clicked when I reentered the code. I yanked the door open and charged up the stairs in a heartbeat.

I reached another door that had rooftop printed across it. A hollow metal fire door with a red exit sign above the door.

It didn't need a code.

At the same time, Donovan and I pushed down on the exit bar and opened the door.

Freezing wind blasted us and goose bumps immediately pebbled my skin—I didn't have my coat and felt like my skin

was coated in ice.

At that moment I didn't give a damn. Hagstedt, bloody towel still wrapped around his head, was climbing into a gold-trimmed black helicopter even before it had finished landing. I recognized the manufacturer— Eurocopter. Fast little sonsofbitches. We couldn't let it off the pad.

Ai was lying motionless near the helicopter. My rage ramped up impossibly more.

The helicopter made the air even colder and windier as the rotors turned. I rushed toward it.

The heat of my anger and adrenaline pushed me faster. When I was close enough to get off a good shot, I stopped and in a second had spread my feet shoulder width and steadied the Sig with both hands.

I aimed and pulled the trigger. Once, twice, three times.

My aim was off, because the power of the wind was making it almost impossible to keep my arms steady.

The first shot chipped the paint near the cockpit. The second hit the rudder.

The third shot nailed Hagstedt in the thigh.

If Hagstedt shouted, it vanished in the noise of the helicopter. But he slipped and lost his footing so that he was half in and half out.

He still managed to cling to a handgrip with his good hand. The bloody towel tore from his face and sailed with the power of the push of air straight toward me. I had to bat it away with one hand, which unsteadied me even more. It

caught on my arm.

I didn't realize Donovan was at my side until Hagstedt looked over his shoulder, and his eyes narrowed as he looked past me.

When I shook off the damned towel I realized it hit Donovan square in the face, blinding him before he flung it away.

In the seconds it took to me get rid of the towel, Hagstedt had made it almost all of the way into the helicopter. I ran closer, firing my weapon. Bullets pinged off the metal and shattered passenger windows.

Damn. I couldn't get off a decent shot. Something had to be off with the Sig.

I realized the agents behind us couldn't take the chance of hitting Donovan or me in these conditions before they

reached us.

Everything happened in seconds, before the agents could get to our position.

Donovan drilled a bullet into Hagstedt's foot. Blood dribbled from his shoe onto the rudder and onto the pad.

I emptied the Sig's magazine. I flung the weapon aside and my heart started to hurt my chest as hard as it was beating.

The helicopter began lifting from the rooftop.

"No!" I shouted and shoved my hand into the top of Donovan's boot where I'd seen him stuff the little Rohrbaugh.

I yanked the handgun out and ran toward the copter, shooting into the side even though I couldn't see Hagstedt

anymore. All I could do was hope that with luck one of the bullets made fatal contact.

When the helicopter was off the pad, there was no way we could safely stop it. I sank to my knees. A feeling of

hopelessness dropped away my mental shield that had kept me from thinking about the freezing air.

I felt every bit of the cold as I watched the helicopter fly away from us like a black-and-gold honeybee.

Donovan had indicated to the other agents to stand down. We couldn't take the chance of the helicopter tumbling into Manhattan and taking more lives.

Innocent lives.

Like Hagstedt was taking every single day.

CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE

Dosha

She was going to die anyway. Dasha knew it with everything she had.

Before she passed on, though, she was going to kill the man who was responsible for forcing all of these girls into prostitution and in some cases letting them die.

If the man they called Mr. G was gone, then the other men would have no one to tell them to murder her parents. At

least she would save them and maybe the girls around her.

Some kind of chaos was going on somewhere below the fifth floor. She could hear it all the way to the common room.

All but one handler, Eddie, had left. He was standing outside the door instead of inside.

It was the perfect time.

Most of the girls in the common room were talking, but in whispers, since their handlers weren't there to punish them.

Dasha ignored the other girls and walked to the big closet.

She looked for the loosest and most modest clothing she could find.
Modest
was almost impossible because they were always forced to wear something revealing.
Loose
would be easier, because she hadn't been eating. She'd lost so much weight that her ribs and hipbones now showed.

Dasha was naked in the closet where all of the scraplike clothing was kept. She found two black pantyhose legs and

tied both around her waist, making sure the makeshift belt was secure.

Then she searched and located what Jenika had called a short black babydoll top. It hung just below Dasha's waist and over the pantyhose belt, so it was good enough. The babydoll top had circles where her breasts were, but she didn't care. She just needed its length.

There wasn't much of a choice for a pair of bottoms. Thongs and G-strings were all they had. She picked up a black

thong to match the babydoll and climbed into it. She wasn't going to wear shoes.

Dasha went to a corner in the closet where she had pulled away the old carpeting and stored the gun beneath. She had piled her torn clothing on top of the bump in the corner.

She retrieved the gun and arranged it so that it fit in her pantyhose belt. Since she'd tied two of them around her waist, she was able to slip the muzzle of the weapon between the legs of the pantyhose while the grip remained up at the top.

She tested it and found it to be secure enough.

She had checked and there were six bullets in the gun, including one in the chamber.

That was all she needed.

Dasha flicked off the safety. A long time ago, when she was young, her father had taught her how to use a gun. She

hadn't had many lessons, but maybe they'd been enough.

It was odd how calm she was. She felt numb more than anything else. Smells were dull, her hearing muted.

This must be what it was like to know that soon she wouldn't be seeing, hearing, or feeling.

Dasha walked past all the girls in the common room, her legs steady. Her sight had dimmed, and she saw only through a tunnel. Just the door in front of her.

When she reached the door she raised the hem of the babydoll and drew the gun out of her pantyhouse. The weight of

it was like a feather in her nerveless hand.

She leveled the gun with one hand and opened the door with her other. She pulled the door open.

Eddie turned to face her. She saw his scowl. Then his look of surprise just before she pulled the trigger.

Vaguely she heard the sound of the gun firing and was barely aware that her arm had jerked from the recoil. He

dropped to his knees, but she felt no curiosity, no concern. She just wanted him dead.

Blood flowed, making the dirty white T-shirt turn red near Eddie's heart. Like a blossom.

He stared down at his chest. Now he had a shocked expression as he watched blood spreading and soaking the cloth so fast that it almost looked like he was wearing a red-and-white shirt. In a slow movement, he brought his hand over the wound then fixed his gaze on his blood-coated palm.

Eddie raised his head. His eyes were wide when he met Dasha's. He fell backward, his body twisted at a curious angle.

His eyes were still wide as she walked past him, but she knew he saw nothing anymore, would never hurt anyone ever

again.

Dasha felt nothing beneath her bare feet. Not the cool tile or the rough cracks.

She tucked the gun back into her pantyhose belt and left the safety off. She held on to the railing to make sure she didn't fall. Through her tunnel vision, all she could see were the stairs as she walked down.

The noise grew louder. She was aware of that even though it was muffled in her ears.

Dasha reached the second floor and unfastened the rope that blocked it off. The sign clanged to the tile as she passed.

The room where Mr. G had hurt her was not far down. It was an office he used. Somehow she knew he was there.

Dasha drew the gun out again. Her hand was steady as she reached the door and raised the weapon. The door was

slightly open and she heard his voice, that hated voice. He was yelling. Screaming at someone.

Dasha pushed open the door. It squeaked as she opened it. He was talking on his phone as he stood at his desk and

searched the drawer he had taken the gun from earlier. If she cared, she would have smiled. He'd forgotten that he'd taken the gun out to kill her.

Mr. G looked up, his face red with rage. He dropped the cell phone as his mouth widened.

"You fucking b—" he started right before Dasha shot him.

The bullet buried itself in his belly. The second shot in his arm. The third shot in his chest. The fourth shot in his chest again.

He dropped to the floor. His screams would have hurt her ears if her hearing wasn't muffled.

Now he would die. No one could save him.

She had one bullet left. She'd had plans for that last bullet from the beginning.

Dasha put the gun to the side of her head and pulled the trigger.

CHAPTER THIRTY

Bachmann/ Hagstedt

Karl screamed as he writhed on the floor of the helicopter. His wounds wouldn't kill him, but the pain was

excruciating.

The shattered bones in his hand caused it to throb as if someone was continuing to hit it with a hammer. His ruined face felt like it was on fire. The bullet that had passed through his thigh had gone through muscle and exited the back of his leg. The shot hadn't come close to bone or arteries.

But his foot—the bullet that pierced his shoe had lodged in bone, and he almost felt like he would die from the pain of it combined with everything else.

When Karl had glanced over his shoulder, he'd had a good look at the man next to the bitch. He was the same man

from the auction surveillance tapes.

As the helicopter headed to a prearranged hidden location, Karl imagined putting a bullet between the man's and the woman's eyes.

NSA? CIA? FBI? No. The agents were of some unknown clandestine organization.