Eleventh Hour (23 page)

“The murderer,” Dane said, and looked over at Nick, who hadn’t said a word. “Who else would have?”

Flynn said, “You’re right. If a reporter had found them, he would have shot some video, not just taken a photo of them, so maybe Dane’s right, it was the murderer.”

Dane said, “Actually, that’s not what’s so bad about all this.” He sat forward as Nick grabbed his arm.

“No, Dane, don’t.”

He ignored her. “Nick was in the homeless shelter in San Francisco because she’s running from something or someone she hasn’t told any of us about. So I think she’s got two people after her, both dangerous. Being on TV was the worst thing that could have happened to her.”

Sherlock said, “Okay, Nick, then it’s time for you to level with us. We’re the Feds. The perfect audience. Flynn and Delion are locals, but they aren’t bad either, what with all the sugar they eat. We will do everything we can for you, count on it. Now talk.”

Nick actually smiled. “Thank you, Sherlock, but I can’t. I just can’t.”

Savich said, “We could lock you up, you know.”

“No, you can’t,” Nick said. “I made a deal with Delion and Dane. Leave me alone. This is over.” Then she simply pushed back her chair and walked out of the room.

“Well, hell,” Dane said, and shoved back his chair to go after her.

“Not to worry,” said Gil Rainy. He spoke into his cell phone. “She won’t get out of the office.”

Flynn said, “But we can’t hold her, can we?”

“Sure,” Delion said. “She’s a material witness, in the flesh.”

They heard some orders, a yell, and furniture crashing over. They ran out of the conference room to see four male agents holding Nick’s arms and hands, trying to protect themselves. That left her the furniture to kick, which she was doing. She’d lost control. She was fighting as if her life depended on it. Dane realized he’d pushed too hard, but he hadn’t felt he’d had a choice.

Delion yelled, “Don’t hurt her, dammit!”

Three chairs lay on their sides, and a computer monitor was hanging off the edge of a desk. An agent grabbed it just in time.

“Give her to me,” Dane said, although he knew she’d try to kill him, too. The agents gladly handed her over. This time she didn’t bite him, she tried to kick him in the groin. He heard Rainy yell, “Hey, not that!

” as he quickly turned to the side, just in time, and her knee struck his thigh. He pulled her back against him and closed his arms around her body, pinning her arms to her sides, her legs against his, giving her no leverage at all. But she just wouldn’t stop. She heaved and jerked and didn’t make a sound.

“Hey,” Dane said finally, “anybody got any handcuffs?”

“Don’t you dare, you jerk,” Nick said.

He grabbed her shoulders and shook her. “Listen to me, Nick. You are not going to die, at least not in my lifetime. You really might try for a little trust here.” He shook her again. Rainy handed him a pair of cuffs. Dane jerked her arms behind her and cuffed her.

He thought she was going to explode. She kicked and bit and twisted until Sherlock walked right up to her, got in her face, and said, “Stop it, Nick, or I’m going to belt you. The men won’t because you’re a woman. You’re really pushing me here.”

Nick believed her. She got control of herself, but it took a bit of time before the hideous panic subsided.

She was white, shaking, her breath coming in gulps. “Don’t hit me, Sherlock,” she said, and just went limp. Sherlock held her up.

“Somebody give me the key to these ridiculous handcuffs.”

One of the agents tossed Sherlock the keys. She opened them up, slipped them off, and rubbed Nick’s wrists. Sherlock said, “Okay, don’t you move or I’ll coldcock you. Now, Nick—”

Dane said, “Her name’s Nicola. At least she told me that much. And she’s a Ph.D.—medieval history.”

Nick lunged for him. Sherlock grabbed her and managed to hold her, as Nick yelled, “You just had to blab it, didn’t you, Dane Carver? I’m going to bite you again really good, when you least expect it, damn your eyes, just like I did this morning when you were half-naked and I bit your shoulder!”

There was complete silence, at least twenty special agents frozen in place, all ears.

Sherlock blinked, eased her hold on Nick, who ran at Dane, her fists up, ready to kill him. He was fast, grabbed her, pulled her back up tightly against his chest, and held her arms against her sides. “This is familiar,” he said, remembering how he’d saved himself in the police station in San Francisco by holding her immobile just this way.

She was still breathing too fast, but at last her muscles were beginning to relax. “I’m not going to let you go just yet. I really would like my body parts intact.”

One of the special agents guffawed. “Hey, Agent Carver, speaking of body parts, let’s see the bite on your shoulder.”

“Ah,” said another agent, “the perils of being an FBI agent. I think Dane should get combat pay.”

Nick growled. At least her breathing was slowing down.

TWENTY-THREE

SAC Gil Rainy assigned two agents to protect Dane and Nick. Old geezers, Gil said, who needed to do something different because they’d just about burned out on bank robbers.

“Old geezers, hell,” Delion said when he met Bo and Lou, neither of them over forty-five. “I’m gonna belt Rainy in the chops.”

It was just after lunch, eaten at a KFC, Nick and Dane each eating only one piece of deep-fried chicken breast, when they headed back to Premier Studios to speak to Frank Pauley. The two special agents, Bo and Lou, were hanging a good ways back.

They were at the corner of Brainard and Loomis when out of nowhere a motorcycle came roaring up to the driver’s side of the car. The rider was dressed in black leather, a helmet covering his head and face.

He pulled a gun out of his leather jacket and began shooting. He was fast and smooth. The window exploded. Dane felt glass shower over his head and face, felt the sting of a bullet that came too close to his ear.

“Nick, get down on the floor! Now!”

She was down instantly. The bullet missed her by no more than an inch, and shattered the passenger-side window, spewing glass shards all over her.

“Jesus, keep down!”

Dane jerked the steering wheel to the left, trying to smash the Grand Am into the motorcycle. He nearly managed it, but the bike swerved hard left, then pulled back. Dane jerked out his SIG Sauer and held it in his left hand, waiting, while he tried to control the car and not kill anyone. Suddenly, the bike came back up again, the guy firing rapidly, at least six shots, emptying his clip. He stuffed it inside his black leather jacket, pulled out another, and fired again. Dane fired back, still wrestling with the car. He felt a smack of cold against his left arm, ignored it, and fired again. In the next instant, they were at a side street. Dane jerked the steering wheel sharply right. They screeched on two tires as the Grand Am barreled onto the street, barely missing three cars whose drivers were sitting on their horns and yelling curses.

Dane managed to bring the Grand Am to a stop next to a curb in front of a small 1940s bungalow. He was breathing hard, adrenaline flowing so fast his heart was nearly pumping out of his chest.

The motorcycle flew past, revving hard and loud. The guy fired two more shots, both high and wild. Then Dane just couldn’t believe it—the guy turned a bit and waved to them. In the black leather gloved hand he waved, he held a gun.

Nick was stuffed on the floor, her head covered with her hands. Blood trickled over her hands from the glass shards that had struck her. He reached out his right hand and lightly touched her head. “Nick, are you okay?”

“Yes, just some glass in my hair. Oh dear, my hands are cut a bit, but nothing bad. Are you okay?”

“Sure.”

“Where are Bo and Lou?”

“They’re coming up behind us right now.” Dane opened the door and got out. Then he looked down at his shirt. “Well, shit.”

She yelled from behind him, “You’re shot, dammit, Dane Carver. How could you?”

He heard her voice shaking, felt the shock building in it, and said calmly, “I’m all right. A through-and-through shot, a flesh wound, nothing broken, everything works. I’ve cut myself worse shaving. It’s hardly worse than what Milton’s bullet did to your head. Take it easy, Nick. We’re okay, both of us, and that’s what’s important.”

“The guy waved to us. Did you see that? He actually waved to us as he was holding the gun!”

“Yeah, I know. Some balls, huh? How did you see that? I told you to keep way down.”

“I just looked up there at the end. The bastard.” She was starting to tremble, then shudder. He took off his bloody jacket and wrapped it around her, pulled her against his side. “It’s okay. Just hang on, breathe deeply. That’s right, nice and deep. Bo and Lou will be here in a minute.”

“I thought we were going to be bored out of our gourds,” Lou said when he trotted up. “I’m sorry, guys.

We were really hanging back. We won’t do that again.” He looked at the shattered windows, closed the driver’s-side door, and waved away the six or so civilians who were closing in on them.

“Everything’s okay here, folks. Just go about your business. Hey, what’s all that blood? Jesus, Dane, you got hit.”

Bo said, breathing hard, “The guy clipped you, Agent Carver. Okay, let’s get you over to Elmwood Hospital, it’s the closest good emergency room. I took Lou there just last month.”

Dane said, “What was wrong with Lou?”

“I ate too much fat over a couple of days and got a gallbladder attack,” Lou said. He moved Dane’s hand and pressed his own palm hard over the wound. After a few minutes, he tied his handkerchief around Dane’s upper arm. Dane thought about his single piece of KFC and hoped he’d never have a gallbladder attack.

“There,” Lou said, “that should slow the bleeding down. Try to remember to give it back to me. My wife gave me that handkerchief for my birthday just three days ago. It’s real linen and she embroidered my initials on it. If I lose it, my goose is cooked.”

“It won’t be lost, Lou,” Dane said, “but it will be bloody.”

“My wife is used to blood. That’s okay.”

“I’ll keep an eye on it,” Nick said, looking up a moment from picking glass out of Dane’s hair. She said to him, “You just have a few nicks where some glass got you. Hold still. Bo, if you’ll take care of our rental car, Lou can take us to that hospital, okay?”

Bo gave Dane the once-over, nodded, then saluted. “Lou, try to get him a different doctor than the one you had.” He loosened the handkerchief a bit as he added, “The guy wanted to cut Lou up right there.”

“Didn’t happen,” Lou said. “I started feeling better and got the hell out of there. Your jacket’s ruined, Dane. Hey, Nick, you got yourself together?”

“I’m nearly together, thank you,” she said.

Lou looked at her more closely, seemed satisfied. “All right, we’re out of here. Bo has already called in.

He’ll secure the crime scene until someone gets here. Dane, I don’t suppose you saw the shooter?

Maybe a license plate?”

Dane just shook his head. “The guy wasn’t in a car, he was riding a Harley. I didn’t even get a good look at the gun. I was too busy trying not to get a bullet through my head. Nick, are your hands still bleeding?”

“No, hardly at all,” she said. “I’m just fine. Be quiet now, and let’s get you to the hospital.”

She’d regained her balance, held the shock at bay. He was proud of her.

Special Agent Lou Cutter got them to Elmwood Community Hospital in under eight minutes. He used the siren and traffic disappeared in front of them. It was an experience Nick had never had. It was, she told him, very cool.

Dane was breathing lightly through his mouth, the pain sharp and hot now, and he didn’t like it one bit. It was the first time he’d been shot. By a guy on a damned motorcycle. He said to Lou, “He was probably planning to come up along the passenger side and shoot Nick. We were lucky. He couldn’t get up on the sidewalk next to her, too many people. He still tried it from my side.”

“If he shot you,” Nick said, “you would have lost control of the car and crashed. Then he could have shot me really easily. Or maybe the car crash would have killed me.”

Lou said, “Thanks to you, Dane, you kept it together and pulled both of you through. Good job. Now, you do realize that this little show is way over the top. None of us expected anything like this. It’s completely different from what he’s done to date.”

Dane sighed. “Like you said, Lou, this performance was over the top. The guy’s desperate, he’s losing it.

Nick, I’m sorry.”

“You’re the one he shot.”

Lou took care of all the administrative hassles with the emergency room staff, which was a relief since Nick was focused entirely on Dane.

She supposed that Dr. John Martinez thought she was Dane’s wife and so didn’t kick her out of the cubicle.

“Went right through your upper arm, Mr. Carver,” he said after cleaning and examining the wound, poking around while Dane watched him, his mouth tightly closed. “You were very lucky. Not anywhere near any major vessels. It isn’t bad at all, when you think about how bad it could have been. How did it happen? Were you cleaning your gun or something? You know that I’m going to have to tell the cops about this.”

“You already have,” Dane said. He pulled his FBI shield out of his inner pocket and flipped the case open.

“FBI. I’ve never treated an FBI agent before,” Martinez said as he injected Dane’s arm. “Let’s just give that anesthetic five minutes to kick in. Then, just a few stitches and that’ll be it, apart from a tetanus shot.”

It felt to Dane like ten years passed before Dr. Martinez sank his first stitch.

Dane stared straight ahead, felt the push of the needle, the pull of the thread through his flesh. He focused on the array of bandages on the shelf in the cubicle. All sizes of gauze. In and out—it seemed like a hundred times—then, thank God, Dr. Martinez was done. Dane looked down at his arm as they bandaged it, then watched a nurse clean and bandage the backs of Nick’s hands.

“The stitches will resorb, but I want you to have them checked in a few days,” Dr. Martinez said. “We’re going to give you some antibiotics to take for a while. Any problems at all—fever, heavy pain—you get your butt either back in here or to your own doctor.” He looked over at Nick. “Hey, you a special agent, too?”