Body of Evidence (Evidence Series) (44 page)

The front of the house was gone. The vestibule and two front rooms—the kitchen above the garage and the adjacent living room had collapsed inward. The remaining structure was shaped like the inward curve of a cresting wave, and from the looks of it, the wave was about to break.

She thought she could hear sirens in the distance, but it could just be the ringing in her ears. Regardless, Curt needed help
now
.

Headlights appeared up the road. Mara ran into the street and waved frantically for the driver to stop.

Brakes squealed, and the sedan halted inches from her.

“A man is dying in there. I need your car. Now!”

The teenage boy looked confused. “Is this a carjacking? What happened to that house?”

Flames shot out of the crumbling house behind her. There was no way Curt could escape through the front. “Get out of the fucking driver’s seat and give me your car!”

Shockingly, he did.

Mara slid behind the wheel and threw the car in gear. She hit the curb and tore up the neighbor’s lawn, racing toward the side and rear of the burning house. She aimed for the barred master bedroom window.

She didn’t feel the impact. She didn’t feel a damn thing as the sedan slammed into the wall.

C
HAPTER
F
ORTY-SIX

C
URT USED THE
lid of the toilet tank to smash the window, trying to make the opening wide enough to accommodate his shoulders. Black smoke filled the bathroom, and he gasped for air through the window. The walls around him shook ominously.

The house was going to collapse. Soon.

A crash sounded in the next room, loud enough to penetrate his muted hearing. The house rumbled as the walls quaked. Soon had become now. But while the house rocked on its foundation and bits of ceiling rained down, the roof remained above him. If that hadn’t been the sound of the bedroom collapsing, what was it?

With a sharp shove, he opened the bathroom door and got a lungful of black smoke, but two lights cut a swath through the darkness. Headlights?

He crawled through the smoke and paused beside the secretary, still lying belly down on the floor. He checked for a pulse and found none. He skirted around the man, saying a silent prayer for the FBI agent, hoping the man had fared better in the concrete basement than they had inside the house.

He followed the light beams to the wall. Sure enough, a vehicle protruded into the room. He traced the outline of the car, seeking a break in the wall he could slide through, but the opening was no wider than the vehicle that had made it.

His lungs ached for air as he searched for the door handle. At last he gripped it, and muscles burned as he wrenched the battered door open. Inside, his groping hands found warm skin and a woman he recognized by touch. “Mara!”

Nothing. “Mara! Answer me!”

Still no answer. He could see nothing and knew he had to get out of the smoke now, or suffocate. As would she.

The only way out was through the vehicle.

He slipped inside, careful as he climbed over Mara’s unconscious form, terrified she’d been badly injured by the impact. He felt cloth draped on her lap and hoped to hell that was the deployed airbag. He searched for a seat belt crossing her chest and found none. She’d driven into a wall—to save him—without thought for her own safety.

He climbed to the back of the vehicle and, bracing his shoulder against the front passenger seat, he kicked out the rear window. Debris rained into the gap, but there was an opening, with blessed fresh air.

He gripped Mara’s shoulders and tugged her over the seat, across the back, and through the broken window. He emerged into a starry, smoky night, and gathered Mara in his arms.

Following the ruts in the grass, he sucked in deep, rasping breaths of air and headed toward the street, to a group of onlookers. A man broke free from the group and tried to take Mara from him, but Curt gripped her tighter and refused.

He could barely walk, but he’d never let her go.

A safe distance from the house, he dropped to his knees and gently laid her down on the grass. Behind him, the house rumbled. Curt turned in time to see the remaining section collapse.

Sirens wailed as an ambulance and fire truck screeched to a halt in front of him. The firefighters leapt from the vehicle, and Curt called out to one of them, “There’s probably a man trapped in the basement garage. Another is in the master bedroom—but he’s dead.”

The man nodded and began shouting orders to the other firefighters.

Another man crouched in the grass in front of Curt. “You need a medic.”

“I’m fine, but she needs help.” He wiped grit from his burning eyes, and saw the man wore a medic uniform. “She drove a car through the wall to get me out and wasn’t wearing a seat belt.”

The man checked her pulse and shined a flashlight in her eyes. “She’s so small, the airbag probably knocked her out.”

“She’s inhaled a lot of smoke,” Curt added, choking out the last words.

“As did you,” said another man from behind him. He slapped a plastic cup over Curt’s mouth and nose, and cool oxygen eased the pain in his constricted chest.

“Let’s get you in the ambulance,” the second medic said.

“I won’t leave her.” He couldn’t trust anyone with her life. That lesson had been shoved down his throat often enough.

“We can transport two.”

In moments, Mara was on the gurney, and Curt followed her into the back of the ambulance. The door slammed shut, and they wound their way between fire trucks en route to the hospital.

Curt crouched beside the gurney where Mara lay, and held her hand. Glancing toward the front, he could see through the gap between the driver’s and passenger’s seats and out the windshield. Rain had begun to fall, and the lights of the city blurred under the wiper blades.

The medic perched on the opposite side of Mara called out her stats to the driver, who used the radio to relay the information to the waiting hospital.

To Curt, the man said, “Her numbers are solid. It was probably just the airbag. She’ll have a nasty headache when she wakes up, but she’ll be fine.”

His gut clenched, he wanted desperately to believe she was okay. Mara was right; hope was a four-letter word.

“Relax, dude. She’s gonna be fine.”

Curt gazed through the front window again. The city blurred as they shot through town with sirens blaring, but something wasn’t right. Weren’t the hospitals in the other direction?

Mara’s eyes fluttered open. She coughed and wiped her eyes. After a glance at the medic, she found Curt’s gaze and smiled, then did a double take and sat bolt upright. “George? What the hell are you doing here?”

“My boss wants to talk to you.”

Without hesitation, Mara backhanded the man across the jaw. To Curt, she said, “He’s a Raptor medic who works with JPAC.”

Curt launched himself at the man, but the ambulance swerved, throwing him off balance. He hit George with only a glancing blow. The man recovered quickly as the ambulance rocked sideways again, sending Curt into the opposite wall.

George plucked Mara from the gurney. His thick fingers closed around her throat. “Back off, Dominick. Whether she lives or not is up to you.”

C
URT’S GAZE MET
Mara’s and silently conveyed a thousand different promises, starting with revenge, ending with love, but most of all asking for trust.

He had a plan. Her job was to play along and not screw it up.

“Dominick, I’ll let her breathe if you put your hands in the air and sit on the gurney.”

Curt did as instructed, and the hands at her throat loosened.

They rolled through the rainy streets of DC, finally coming to a bridge, crossing the Potomac and entering Virginia. George stood with his back to the side panel, Mara stood in front of him, his hands slack on her throat.

“Where are you taking us?” she asked.

“Shut up,” George answered and tightened his grip.

“You hurt her, and you’re a dead man,” Curt’s voice was cold and his body rigid. He was a cobra looking for an excuse to strike, eyes clear with deadly intent.

George got the message, and his fingers loosened. She tried to push away from him, but he maintained a grip, even as he was careful not to hurt her.

“No talking,” George said in a feeble attempt to assert his dominance. Mara had no doubt Curt could safely extract her from George, but they still had the driver to worry about, which had to be why Curt didn’t make a move.

At this point, she was certain where they were headed: Raptor’s Northern Virginia compound, the Raptor facility where they built their fancy toys. The lab, where the smallpox bomb was probably located.

Ironic that Curt had been trying to get a warrant for the place for weeks. If only the FBI knew they were being taken there now.

Did the FBI even know they were missing yet? How long had she been unconscious?

Her head throbbed, and she was so tired she wanted to collapse, but she refused to lean against George. Her knees began to shake. “Please. I need to sit.”

George dropped into the seat beside the gurney and pulled Mara onto his lap. Revulsion swirled in her belly, and she leaned forward, attempting to sit on the very edge of his knees. His arm locked around her belly, and he pulled her firmly onto his lap, her back to his chest. The arm around her waist slid upward, and he groped her breast.

The stupid man chuckled at the rage in Curt’s gaze.

Mara knew Curt was about to strike and jabbed her elbow into George’s sternum, using the momentum to dive forward, out of Curt’s way.

She scrambled to the back of the ambulance, then turned to see Curt lift George by the shirt and slam his head into the panel. He released him and struck George in the face with several flat-handed blows.

George’s blocks were ineffective and his punches never made it past Curt’s lightning-quick reflexes. The ambulance lurched to a stop. Mara’s belly dropped when the driver slipped an arm through the wide gap between the front seats and aimed a gun at Curt’s head. “Stop!”

Maybe Curt didn’t hear him, Mara wasn’t sure, but he kept pounding on George. She threw herself forward onto the gurney, determined to prevent Curt from being shot.

The gun swung in her direction. Curt dropped George.

“Glad I finally got your attention, Mr. Dominick,” the driver said.

Mara met the driver’s gaze. The man smiled. Cold dread spread down her spine. Robert Beck stood in the pass-through to the cab, and his gun was aimed at her forehead.

C
HAPTER
F
ORTY-SEVEN

“
G
EORGE, GET IN
the fucking driver’s seat,” Robert Beck said.

Curt’s heart went into overdrive at seeing the gun on Mara. His mind raced, trying to come up with a reason for the man to keep her alive, but came up blank.

George grunted, shoved Curt back, then swung at his jaw. Curt used the momentum of the blow to pitch backward, landing him squarely between Beck’s gun and Mara.

He straightened on the gurney, tucking Mara behind him.

Beck dropped into the paramedic’s vacated chair while George settled in the driver’s seat. Through the front windshield, Curt saw a road sign and realized they were less than five miles from the compound.
Shit.
Why Beck hadn’t just killed them as soon as they were inside the ambulance, he didn’t know, but he had no doubt once they were inside the gates, they’d only have minutes left to live.