Breaking Point (45 page)

Then don’t die, McBride.

Right.

He raised his head and looked into Wulfe’s eyes, ready to answer at least one question. “Do you really think you can kill us all? SWAT knows. Denver PD knows. The newspaper knows. The Marshal Service and FBI know. All of my documents and hers have been uploaded to encrypted accounts. If you kill us, someone else will follow. It’s over, Wulfe. Turn yourself in, and I’ll argue for leniency.”

Wulfe’s nostrils flared—an adrenaline response. He stepped aside and motioned Quintana forward again.

Zach gave a weak laugh. “What did I do? I answered your question, offered to help you out, and you fry me for that? You know what, Ed? You suck.”

Just then the two men who’d run onto the patio returned. “There’s no one on the roof, but SWAT is down in the street. They’ve set up a staging area around the block and have all the entry points to the building covered.”

No one on the roof.

Thank God!

Relief washed through Zach, a balm for the lingering pain, both physical and emotional. He might not live through this day, but Natalie was safe.

Quintana moved in on him.

 

WET AND CHILLED to the bone, Natalie slipped through the bathroom window, having had more than her fill of heights. She reached for the floor with her bare feet while Gabe slowly lowered her down, then she stood there shivering. He followed her, his feet landing silently on the marble floor.

The room had been torn apart, the shower curtain slashed, the shelves emptied, skin cream, shampoo, and conditioner dumped on the floor. Beyond the door, bodies lay in the hallway, blood on the walls and floor. Was it Zach’s blood?

Her stomach churned.

From the living room, she could hear men’s voices. She strained to listen and thought she heard Zach.

Or maybe that was wishful thinking.

Was he hurt? Was he even still alive? And what about Julian?

“They’ve already searched here, so I think you’ll be safe. Get into the bathtub. The steel will halt most stray rounds.” Gabe unfastened her harness and pressed a pistol into her hands. “Use this for self-defense only. Don’t come out until I tell you it’s safe. Not a sound!”

Natalie nodded and did as he asked, her limbs stiff from the cold. She’d gained a new respect for Gabe today. Realizing that Wulfe and his men had probably heard him hit the roof, he’d quickly put her in a harness, roped her in, then fixed the rope around the base of the lighted metal pole that warned airplanes away and dangled her—yes, dangled her—off the edge, more than two hundred feet of air beneath her.

Then, while she hung there, dizzy, her heart in her throat, he’d crept along a narrow steel ledge with no protection, to keep an eye on the patio, waiting for Wulfe’s men, who had, indeed, come out to check, to go back inside. When they’d gone, he’d made his way back to her, then used the rope to rappel to the bathroom window.

A man’s agonized cry silenced her thoughts.

Zach!

She squeezed her eyes shut, a sick feeling swelling inside her at the sound of his suffering. It had been hard enough to hear when they’d been in Mexico and she’d barely known him. But she loved him now. To know they were hurting him . . .

From beside the tub, she heard Gabe speak quietly into his mouthpiece. “They’re going to kill him! Let me help him!”

Zach’s cry fell into silence.

A man’s raised voice: “For the last time, McBride—where is she?”

This was followed by a moment of silence—and then another agonized cry.

They were torturing him over her.

She opened her eyes, looked up at Gabe. “I have to do something!”

“If you care about Zach, then stay here and stay alive!”

“I can’t stand to hear him suffer! You don’t know what you’re asking of me!”

Gabe leaned in until his face was inches from hers, his gaze hard. “Yes, I do.”

And Natalie remembered that he’d been forced to listen, drugged and bounded, while a murdering sociopath had brutalized Kat. Now she understood just how terrible that had been for him. She might have said something had he not turned away from her, whispering fiercely into his microphone, his fingertips against his earpiece.

“I’m giving you two minutes, then I move whether you’re here or not. Fuck you, Hunter! You’re not my boss. He is, and they’re fucking killing him! Stand by? Christ! Hurry the fuck up!”

From downstairs came another rending cry.

 

“I’VE GOT TWO officers up there who are injured, maybe even dead, and I’ve got another officer and an innocent woman who are in danger of becoming dead, and you refuse to fly? What the hell kind of pilot did DPD stick us with?”

“One who seriously needs to grow a pair,” Joaquin muttered under his breath, unable to hide his contempt. He shot a few frames as Marc moved in on the chopper pilot, towering over him with his six-foot-plus frame, the helicopter sitting idle in the sodden park grass behind them.

“I’m just the traffic guy. I help bust speeders on the open highway. With all the skyscrapers, those buildings all so close together, the wind.” The pilot backed up, crossed his arms over his chest, and tucked his hands into his armpits. “It’s not safe to fly.”

“I’m a helicopter pilot.” A SWAT officer who’d been standing nearby held out his hand. “Clifton from Boulder County SWAT. I can get us up there.”

Marc shook the man’s hand. “What kind of experience do you have?”

“I did six years with Army Airborne flying missions in Afghan—”

“Good.” Marc slapped him on the shoulder. “I want four volunteers ready to fly in two minutes. Let’s do some combat-style snipe-and-rappel with this bird.”

“You can’t take my chopper!” The pilot stood glaring, redfaced, at Marc. “I’m responsible for this machine.”

“Not any longer.” Marc pulled out his badge case, showed the ID, then flipped to the shiny star. “Special Deputy U.S. Marshal Marc Hunter. I’m commandeering the use of your helo.”

The pilot’s face grew even redder, then he turned and stomped away.

Joaquin met Marc’s gaze. “I think you enjoyed that.”

“You’re damned right I did.” Marc grinned.

But his smile couldn’t mask the worry in his eyes.

 

COLD SWEAT SPILLING down his temples, Zach fought to catch his breath, his heart beating erratically, flailing in his chest. Another blast like that and he was a goner.

Quintana shook his head as if his heart were no longer in his work. He turned to Wulfe, speaking in a heavy Spanish accent. “He’s not going to break. I’ve been through this with him. Kill him now and go—or bring him with us and let me find his weakness.”

“
She
is his weakness, and she isn’t here. I’m betting he put her on the roof, and that chopper we heard was SWAT retrieving her.” Wulfe drew a deep breath. “You’re right. There’s no further point in this. Finish him.”

Zach let his contempt for Wulfe show. “You don’t have the courage to kill me yourself? Can’t even pull a trigger. You’re pathetic.”

Wulfe looked down at him, seemed to hesitate, then gestured to Quintana, who stepped forward, a smile on his face, wires in his hand.

Zach watched Wulfe walk toward the door. “You’re a coward, Wulfe.”

Over thunder of his own pulse, he heard the whirring of an approaching helo. Everyone, including Quintana, turned to look. One of Wulfe’s men ran out onto the patio and looked skyward, making a full circle, eyes on the sky, before turning back to Wulfe and shrugging his shoulders. “I don’t see it!”

Quintana faced Zach again.

Zach looked into the eyes of the man who was going to kill him.

I love you, Natalie. I’m sorry I didn’t tell you. Forgive me.

It all happened in slow motion.

Quintana reaching out with the wires. Sunset breaking through the clouds. The hulking form of a helo rising up from below to hover just off the rooftop patio.

And then there was only pain.

“HOLD IT RIGHT there. I’ve got Quintana in my sights.”

Joaquin didn’t dare to breathe. He’d never seen anyone be so calm with so much at stake. Hunter lay motionless on his belly on the chopper floor, sniper rifle aimed toward the wall of glass at the other end of the patio.

On either side of him, four SWAT officers knelt, ready to rappel.

The helicopter bobbed in the wind. Up a few feet. Down again. Over.

“Hold it. Hold it.”

Time itself seemed to stop, Joaquin’s heartbeat louder than the chopper’s throbbing rotors. Then . . .

BAM! BAM!

The rifle seemed to fire itself. Hunter hadn’t moved at all.

“Go!” Hunter shouted.

The chopper rose, turned slightly, and hovered over the patio.

Hunter and the four volunteers dropped like spiders down thick, nylon webs, friction making the ropes whine. They landed on their feet and dispersed along the edges of the patio, heading toward the door. Assault rifles fired.

Rat-ta-ta-ta-ta-tat! Rat-ta-ta-ta-ta-tat! Rat-ta-ta-ta-ta-tat!

It took Joaquin a moment to realize that the bullets were headed their way. His friends were going into danger, and once again he wasn’t with them.

Without thinking, he drew his camera strap over his head, grabbed on to one of the ropes, and, ignoring the pilot’s shouts, slid to the patio.

 

“STAY DOWN AND don’t make a sound!”

With those words, Gabe left her. Natalie pressed herself against the bottom of the tub, her pulse tripping, hell breaking loose around her.

The heavy drone of a helicopter. Zach’s strangled cry. Burst after burst of automatic weapons fire. Men’s shouts.

Rat-ta-ta-ta-ta-tat! Rat-ta-ta-ta-ta-tat! Rat-ta-ta-ta-ta-tat!

Unable to stop herself, she raised her head just enough so that she could see above the rim of the tub.

Gabe had just shot a man, the body lying in a heap at Gabe’s feet. He raised the rifle again, crouched against the wall, glaring back at her. “Stay down!”

From the distance there came one last burst of gunfire—a high-caliber pistol.

BAM! BAM! BAM!

And then . . .

“Face down! Hands behind your head! Do it!” That was Marc’s voice.

“Clear back here.” A voice Natalie didn’t recognize.

“Clear up here.” That was Gabe.

“Where’s Wulfe?” Marc again. “I saw him in here. Son of a bitch! He’s gone!”

She waited to hear Zach’s voice, waited for him to ask about her.

“Hey, Rossiter,” Marc called, his voice grave. “Get down here!”

Natalie leapt from the tub, stepped over the body of the man Gabe had killed, and ran down the stairs—then stopped, stunned by the carnage. Black-clad bodies lay strewn about, blood in pools on the floor. Furniture was shredded, bullet holes in the walls. Lying in the middle of the room was Quintana, shot in the head. And nearby . . .

Head bowed and shirtless, Zach sat bound to a kitchen chair by silver duct tape, which Marc and Gabe were tearing off in handfuls. Even from a distance she could see the burn marks on his skin.

“Zach?” Natalie’s stomach fell.

“Ease him down.” Gabe held Zach’s head while Hunter helped lower Zach to the floor. Then Gabe pressed two fingers to Zach’s carotid artery. “He’s got no pulse. I think he’s in V-fib. Hunter, get the AED out of my pack. And someone call LifeFlight.”

No pulse?

The breath left Natalie’s lungs, her heart seeming to stop, legs with no strength left in them somehow carrying her across the floor. And then it all became a blur.

Marc tearing through Gabe’s pack. Gabe starting chest compressions. SWAT officers cuffing and patting down survivors.

“Zach?” Tears stinging her eyes, Natalie knelt beside him, touched her hand to his cheek, to the deep bruise on his temple, to the hair that lay across his brow. “Zach? Please don’t die! Don’t go! I love you! I love you so much!”

She didn’t hear Gabe tell her to move, didn’t realize what was happening until she felt arms surround her, Marc pulling her back.

“Clear!”

Gabe pressed the AED paddles to Zach’s still chest.

Zap!

Zach’s body jerked.

Gabe felt for a pulse again, his expression grim. “One more time.”

Marc held Natalie back as the defibrillator charged.

Gabe pressed the paddles to Zach’s chest once more. “Come on, McBride. You’re young and strong. You can pull through this.”

Zap!

Once again, Zach’s body jerked.

And then . . .

Gabe pressed his fingers to Zach’s throat. “I’m getting a pulse.”

“Oh, thank God!” Natalie pressed a hand against her lips, trembling with relief.

“It’s weak, but it’s there.” Gabe ripped open a package of nitrile gloves and slipped them on. “I’m going to get a couple IVs going, get some fluids in him. We need to get him to the ER as soon as possible. He’s alive, but I can’t guarantee he’ll stay that way. There could be trauma to his heart or other internal organs.”