Freefall (11 page)

“At least send us some pizza!” Quinn called after him as laughter echoed out into the hallway.

“Can you please take this needle out of my arm?” Amy asked for the third time in less than an hour.

“I'll have to ask the doctor, miss,” the nurse said as she breezed out of the room.

Amy sighed, frustrated that she had been confined to this hospital bed for the past eight hours. Within an hour of getting into dry clothes, her shivering had finally ceased, but the doctor had insisted on hooking her up to an IV as a precaution. She had refused the flimsy hospital gown the nurse offered her and was now dressed in a pair of army fatigues that someone had managed to scrounge up.

After she had finally warmed up, exhaustion had overtaken her and she had spent her first several hours in blissful slumber. She had then realized that someone needed to let her family know she was okay, which thankfully had already been taken care of. Now it seemed that every time she started to doze off, a nurse would come in and start poking and prodding again. Then she would remember the needle in her arm, something she could hardly stand to look at, and her mind would start racing.

Memories of her struggles escaping Abolstan just served to remind her that she already missed Brent's company even though they had only been apart for eight hours. She supposed that was normal after spending so much time together, but it depressed her to think that she might not see him again. Repeatedly she told herself that the connection she felt to him was probably intensified because of their circumstances, but that didn't stop her from thinking about him.

She had not seen or heard from Brent since they had landed and she had been loaded into an ambulance. Though she knew it had only been the night before, she felt like she had been in the hospital for days rather than hours. The possibility that Brent had already rejoined his team and was headed for the threat in Cairo was too real to dismiss, but she preferred that to the thought of him flying to Washington, where he might be dealing with something even more deadly and elusive than an assassin.

Imagining the chaos that would occur if these terrorists were successful brought tears to her eyes. Her friends used that subway system all the time regardless of what the threat level was on a given day. After going through so much during their teenage years, most of her friends had come to accept that certain things were simply out of their control so it was best not to worry about them.

She had been in high school on 9/11 when the plane had crashed into the Pentagon, and her school had automatically gone into lockdown mode. Barely a year had passed before the area had been terrorized by a sniper who randomly killed people while they gassed up their cars or walked through parking lots. Even a boy walking into a nearby school had been shot. While the search had continued for the sniper, all of the outdoor activities had been cancelled. Again her high school had been locked down each day until she and the other students could barely remember what it was like to eat their lunch outside or walk down the street without fear.

Football games had been held on secure military facilities, often without anyone in the stands. Her soccer league had simply cancelled the rest of the season. Her mind turned to Brent as she realized that he, too, would have gone through some of those experiences. Since he was a couple of years older than she was, she guessed that he would have been in college during the sniper attacks.

When Brent himself suddenly appeared in her doorway, she just stared for a moment, surprised to see him when he had been so heavily on her mind.

“How are you doing?” Brent asked, crossing to the chair next to her bed.

“I'd be better if they would let me out of here,” Amy admitted. “What about you?”

“The doctor took one look at your stitches and decided you did such a good job he left them in.”

“Yeah, right.” Amy laughed. It felt good to laugh again, and she could admit at least to herself that she was relieved to see that Brent was still here and out of harm's way.

“I'm serious.” Brent sat down next to her and stretched his long legs out in front of him.

“Just tell me why you're the one who got shot and I'm the one stuck in a hospital bed,” Amy said.

“You're prettier than I am,” Brent suggested. “I guess they wanted to keep you around.”

She glanced toward the door and lowered her voice. “Do you have any experience with taking out IVs?”

“Some,” Brent admitted with a grin, but then the smile faded. “Actually, I need to talk to you. We need to know anything you can remember about what the ambassador was working on, what you saw on his desk, anything that might help us with this subway problem.”

Before she could answer him, the nurse came back in. “I'm sorry sir, but Miss Whitmore is not supposed to have any visitors.”

“That's okay, she isn't staying anyway.” Brent stood up and grabbed Amy's chart. He scrawled a name and phone number across the bottom and then signed his name. “Would you please tell the doctor that Miss Whitmore has decided to check herself out? The number of my CO is right here if he has any questions.”

“Sir, she can't just leave,” the nurse protested as Brent turned to take the surgical tape off of Amy's arm and then removed the IV.

“Just watch me,” Amy muttered under her breath, leaning down to slip her shoes on.

Brent bit back a smile, managing a serious face when he turned back to the nurse. He stood and took Amy's hand to help her up. With an air of authority, he said simply, “I'm sorry, but this is a matter of national security.”

With that, Brent led Amy past the gaping nurse and out the door.

“Where are we going?”

“We've set up a command center down the road.” Brent glanced down at the fatigues she was wearing and shook his head. “It looks like you enlisted without knowing it.”

“Yeah, but I think I did basic training the hard way.” Amy followed him out into the daylight. Her steps slowed as she looked up into the sky.

Brent glanced over at her. “Are you okay?”

“Yeah,” Amy nodded. “It's just that this is the first time in a week that we've been able to walk outside and not worry about someone shooting at us.”

“Give it some time. You'll get used to it again.” They drove down the street and then he led her inside the building where the squad's temporary command center was located. His voice took on a serious tone when he spoke again. “You know, you probably should go through some counseling after what you've been through.”

“The doctor mentioned that too,” Amy replied with a shrug. “I'll look into it once I figure out where I'm going to be living.”

“I thought you would spend some time at home, at least for a while.”

“There are some complications at home I've been trying to avoid.”

He caught it then, that sense of someone else. He didn't even try to fight the wave of jealousy that surged through him. Rather than respond, he just continued through the hall and then pushed open the door to the briefing room.

During the twenty minutes he had been gone, six new computers had been set up on two long tables stretching across one wall. Each of the screens had four images on it, apparently feeding from the security cameras at the various metro stations in Washington DC.

Immediately, Amy zeroed in on the video images. “That looks like the metro station at Dupont Circle.”

Kel nodded, then shifted uncomfortably. “You probably shouldn't be in here. Why don't we go down the hall and you can tell us what you remember.”

Amy let out a little sigh. “If I'm going to be able to help you, I need to see what you already have.”

“I'm sorry, but you don't have the proper security clearances,” Kel responded.

“We all know that there isn't time for that.” Amy folded her arms across her chest and looked Kel in the eye. She sighed and pulled the strings she hated to use. “Look, my father is a senator, and my sister-in-law was in the Witness Protection Program for three years. If there was anything questionable in my past, the government would know about it. I won't know what you're looking for unless I know what you've already got.”

Brent stepped to her side. “She's right. We can debrief her later, but we can't afford to hold anything back now.”

“I am going to get so busted for this,” Kel muttered as he turned to Brent. “Show her whatever you need to.”

Five minutes later, Amy was sitting at a desk that has been pushed into the corner nearest the door. In the middle of the desk were all of the operation plans and debriefing notes from the hostage rescue, the background on the terrorists who had been involved, and several analyses of key figures in Abolstan.

Daunted by the task at hand, Amy decided to start at the beginning, scanning through the team's report of the rescue operation. She tried to look at it objectively, but even scanning through the report brought back images of the shot ringing out that she had thought was meant for her. Taking a deep breath, she scanned through each team member's individual report, trying to visualize their side of things.

She didn't notice anything unusual, so she moved on to the reports on the continued violence in the capital city the night that she and Brent had escaped. Halfway through reading them, her mind caught up with what she had read in the first report. She picked it up again and looked at the team members' reports again, this time with a purpose in mind. The two men guarding the hostages had been killed along with two more who had been out in the hall. Another nine had been killed when the SEALs secured the building.

Amy looked around and reached for the closest paper available, which happened to be from the printer hooked up to the computer Quinn was using.

“Can I borrow a pen?”

Quinn grabbed one off of his makeshift desk and held it out to her without even looking up.

“Thanks.” Amy sat back down and sketched out the hotel when they had been taken hostage. Two men had come into her room, and one had been outside in the hall. She forced herself to recall what she had seen during those terrifying moments when they were dragged from their rooms, their freedom violated.

Detailing the floor on which all of the hostages had been staying on that fateful day, she drew in little stick figures to represent each of their captors. Two had gone into each of the rooms, she was sure of it, and she distinctly remembered three armed men in the hallway. She looked through the reports one more time to make sure she had done the math correctly. Thirteen had been shot, but she had seen seventeen.

With her sketch in hand, she pushed out of her chair and crossed to where Brent was staring at the security feed from the various subway stations. “When you came in to rescue us, what happened to the other terrorists?”

Brent shifted his focus to her. “What other terrorists?”

“The reports indicate thirteen terrorists were killed. I remember at least seventeen.” She put her sketch down on the table and pointed
at her little stick figures. “Two came into each room, all at the same time. I remember at least three more were standing guard in the hall. In fact, one of them went to help when they pulled Frank out of his room because the first two couldn't handle him alone.”

“That leaves four unaccounted for.” Brent stood and motioned to Kel. “During the hostage rescue, were there any terrorists still in the building when we left?”

“No, we cleared the building before the helicopter took off. We didn't want to take a chance of someone being left to shoot us down.” Kel gave a careless shrug, ignoring the fact that in essence it had happened anyway. “Why?”

“Because we've got four terrorists unaccounted for,” Brent replied, showing him Amy's sketch and explaining her analysis.

“Did all of them take shifts guarding you?”

Amy shook her head. “I don't think so. They changed shifts a lot, but I don't remember the ones in the hall ever guarding us, at least not inside the penthouse.”

“Can you remember what they looked like?”

“Sort of.” Amy flipped the paper over and did a quick sketch of the one who had been right outside of her room. His face had been emblazoned on her mind, along with the way he had looked at her as though her life was of no importance to him. She held out the drawing to Kel. “If you can get me a pencil, I can probably do a better one, but this should give you a general idea of what he looks like.”

Kel's eyebrows rose as he looked at the paper in his hand. A composite artist couldn't have done any better. “Can you do this for the other two who were in the hallway?”

“I can try.” Amy fiddled with the pen in her hand. “I didn't see one of them very well, and I'm sure you can imagine that I was a little distracted at the time.”

“Tristan! Get me some pencils and paper,” Kel shouted across the room. He then turned back to Amy. “Do the best you can.”

Amy just nodded as Tristan handed her a dozen pencils and a ream of paper. As she sat down at her desk, Kel called out to her. “Hey Whitmore, welcome to the team.”

“Thanks.” Amy smiled with a new sense of belonging. She shifted the paper on her desk, picked up a pencil, and got to work.

“Amy, you need to go get some sleep.” Brent laid a hand on her shoulder, concerned because she had spent the past four hours sketching the men who had taken her hostage and then devouring as much information as she could from the project files.

“It's going to happen tomorrow, isn't it?” Amy asked wearily.

“We think so.”

“Then I want to stay here,” Amy said. “Maybe I'll be able to remember something that will help.”

“You aren't going to do anyone any good if you don't take care of yourself,” Brent insisted. Realizing that he was about to face her stubborn streak, he crossed the room to where Kel was looking over the latest intelligence report. Brent lowered his voice to make sure Amy didn't hear him and said, “I think you may have to order her to take a break.”