Lethal Affairs (22 page)

She didn’t expect the EOO to make a move on her at her home or at the marina, and certainly not in broad daylight, because it would raise too many questions, bring attention and heat down on them, which was exactly what they were trying to avoid. Then again, she’d never been on the wrong side of the Organization, and she knew Pierce considered a rogue operative the most dangerous threat of all. He might go to any lengths.

As the lift slowed to stop, Domino pulled her gun from beneath her jacket. “Stay back,” she whispered right before the doors opened. She exited first, glancing about for trouble and keeping Hayley behind her. Her senses were finely tuned for the slightest hint things weren’t what they should be, but all seemed quiet.

The van wasn’t safe—it was an EOO vehicle—so she led Hayley to her own car and seated her, then slipped around to the driver’s seat and started the engine. They pulled out of the garage, with Domino glancing constantly from street to mirror to passersby, analyzing everything.

Hayley could see their danger in Luka’s hyperalertness and rigid body language, and she started looking around as well, not knowing what exactly she should be watching for. If this woman—who always seemed to have everything under control—was worried, then she must have good reason. She wanted to ask what the threat was, but knew instinctively that now wasn’t the time to distract Luka with questions.

The closer they got to the Potomac River marina where
The Seawolf
was moored, the more congested traffic became. The waterfront had a good view of the massive fireworks display on the National Mall, and the holiday crowds were staking out their spots early. Families and couples in red, white, and blue, carrying picnic baskets and lawn chairs, overflowed the sidewalks on either side of them. Domino should have anticipated this situation; the holiday events in DC on the Fourth of July were legendary, but since she’d always spent the occasion alone, or working, they surprised her.

“So many people,” Hayley remarked warily as they crept along, still a half mile or so from the boat.
In an effort to cheer her, she replied, “There can be safety in numbers,” which was generally true. But the rules often got bent when the threat was large enough, and whoever else was after Hayley had, earlier that same day, demonstrated their willingness to take unusual risks if the opportunity arose.
When traffic stopped, she decided it was smarter to walk the rest of the way. Staying in a vehicle that couldn’t move made them too vulnerable. She parked at her first opportunity, at a bank closed for the holiday, and they got out.
Smiling, jovial faces surrounded them, but she was in anything but a celebratory mood. She led the way, threading through the crowd, keeping Hayley behind her. Scanning faces as she went, she tried to anticipate any hint of danger or someone who didn’t belong.
They made it about halfway and were in a small park packed nearly shoulder to shoulder, when she spotted him through the crowd, about fifteen feet away. A man, about thirty, was pushing his way in their direction, studying the people around him in much the same way she was. At first, she could see only his face and part of his upper torso, but something about him said he wasn’t just a reveler who had temporarily lost his wife or girlfriend among the masses.
He cupped his hand near his ear briefly and said a few words, then turned his head in her direction. Their eyes met, and he gazed past her to Hayley. She could see recognition on his face as he came straight for them.
Several things registered as he closed the distance. He wasn’t alone, and he wasn’t holding a gun, which meant his unseen accomplice
was
, and he was coming toward them so purposefully he clearly thought by the time he reached them, she would be no threat.
She reacted before he’d traveled two steps, shoving Hayley hard, away to her left, as she ducked right, and the bullet passed between them, grazing a middle-aged mother of three.
The woman screamed as red blossomed above her temple; she clutched at it as the toddler in her arms started to cry.
“She’s been shot,” someone yelled. People scattered in a panic, shoving and pushing.
The chaos of the crowd slowed the man momentarily as he pushed toward Hayley, but only a few feet separated them now.
“Hayley! Run,” she shouted as she drew her gun. Someone slammed into her from behind, trying to flee, and she was thrown off balance. When she recovered, she saw the man grab a redheaded woman, and she thought for an instant he’d gotten Hayley. It was an easy mistake in the bedlam—the two women were roughly the same height, and both were dressed in red. But it wasn’t Hayley—she’d gotten away, enveloped by the crowd.
When the man realized his error, he looked around for the real Hayley, then reached into the pocket of his windbreaker as he turned back to Domino. She took off, back toward the parking lot to divert him from Hayley’s direction, roughly shoving through the panicked crowd as she tucked her gun back into her pants, out of sight.
She heard screams behind her as he pursued, and a man shouted, “Gun! He’s got a gun.”
Domino accelerated, trying to keep low, but she didn’t return to her car. If she’d been followed here, they might have messed with it, so she stayed in the crowd, moving toward the busy main street. When she glanced back, she didn’t see him, and the crowd was thinning now, calmer, so she slowed her steps to be just another holiday reveler wondering what the hell all the shouting was about. Two cops ran by her, toward the bedlam she’d left, and she heard the first sounds of sirens in the distance.
When she reached the main intersection, she paused at the curb deciding where to start looking for Hayley.
The roar of an engine and shouts to her right made her turn in that direction. Several cars away, a black Mazda Miata had jumped the curb, pulling out of the bumper-to-bumper traffic and half onto the sidewalk, and was headed right at her.
She didn’t recognize the driver, but he had one hand on the wheel and a gun aimed straight at her in the other. She pivoted, intending to retreat to the safety of the crowd, but spotted the other man—the one she thought she’d lost—not twenty feet away and closing fast.
As the light changed to red, stopping traffic, she turned back to the street and saw her opportunity. A guy sat on a motorcycle in the far lane at the front. She ran to him. Though she hated to do it, she pulled her gun with one hand and put it to the man’s neck, while she yanked the key from the ignition with the other. “I need the bike.”
He looked at her like he was about to tell her to go to hell, so she pressed the gun harder against his throat and saw the flash of recognition cross his face as he realized what it was. He opened his mouth to speak, but she cocked the gun near his ear. “Now,” she barked.
He hustled off the seat, and even before he had both feet on the ground, she was astride the bike and firing it back to life. She shot through the red light and heard a squeal of tires from her left as the Miata came off the pavement after her.

Hayley had been so on edge and ready to bolt throughout their trek to the boat that when all hell broke loose and Luka told her to run, she reacted instantly, taking off in the opposite direction as fast as she could shove through the crowd.

She’d gone a hundred feet and had begun to believe she’d gotten away, when someone abruptly bear-hugged her. Before she could react, she felt a sting in her shoulder and the man who’d grabbed her said loudly, “Honey, I think you’ve had too much to drink.”

Hayley blinked fuzzily, disoriented, trying to shake off the effects of whatever they’d injected her with. The quiet voice came from behind her.

“No, there was a problem at the motel. Someone interceded and got her out of there—taking two of our guys out in the process. But the third—the driver—followed them to DC, and we got her about an hour ago. She’s in a secure location.”

Cool air was blowing on her from somewhere above. And she was lying on something hard.
“It was a woman. And from the description, it sounds like the art restorer who strong-armed the private detective we had following them.” A pause. “Okay. She should come to any time. I’ll let you know.”
Hayley tried to lift her hands and discovered they were bound together. Then she realized her legs were, too. She craned her head, trying to scan the room, but the place was dimly lit, with no visible windows.
A dark silhouette walked past her field of vision. Then the lights came on, bright and blinding, and she shut her eyes against the sudden glare. When she opened them again, a woman was looking down at her. Tall, five-eight or better, and trim, with green eyes, and straight, dark brown hair that fell nearly to her waist. She’d pulled her hair back, which accentuated the one feature that kept her from being modelattractive—a scar, about an inch and a half long, from just beneath her left cheekbone to the corner of her mouth. She wore black jeans, a longsleeved black T-shirt, and a blank expression.
“Where am I?” Hayley asked.
The woman stood at her feet. “You’re not here to ask me questions, Ms. Ward. You’re here to answer mine.”
She looked around again at the small room with bare white walls and ceiling, the table she lay on, and four chairs. No windows, just the vent right above her. It reminded her of an interrogation room in a cop shop—she’d been in a few while covering stories.
The woman was blocking the only door. A device next to it didn’t look like anything she’d ever seen, just a metal rectangular box with a protruding platform at the bottom.
“I want to know what led you to David Rabinowitz,” the woman said.
Rabinowitz. The political advisor on Manny’s list of names. Is that who had sent her the tape? “Who are you?” she asked.
“Someone not known for their patience. So don’t make me repeat myself.”
“I don’t know any David Rabinowitz, okay? His was only a random number I dialed—one of many—off a list I found.”
The woman stared at her, unblinking, waiting for her to continue.
“I left my number with him.” Was that only this morning?
How long have I been unconscious?
So much had happened it seemed like days. “That’s all I know.”
Still the woman merely stared at her, unmoving.
Bile burned in her throat, and she tried to will her hammering heartbeat to slow.
What the fuck does she want?
“Listen, I’ll answer your questions, but get me off this, will you? It’s killing my back and I think I’m going to be sick.”
“No.”
“Jesus Christ, look at me.” She was almost shouting now. “It’s not like I can go anywhere. You’ve got me trapped like some kind of lab rat.”
The woman seemed to consider her words. Then she helped Hayley up and off the table and into a chair. “Go on.”
So much adrenaline was pouring through her, she was almost dizzy. “I called Rabinowitz and a bunch of other numbers. Someone called me back later and said they could protect me from the EO… from a certain organization. I trusted this man to help me and told him where I was. The next thing I know two guys show up, and I’m being drugged and out cold. Look, I don’t know what’s going on, what all this means or why I’m here, and I don’t care to know. This is scaring the shit out of me, so if you just let me go, I won’t say anything to anybody.” It was hard to catch her breath, as if there weren’t enough oxygen in the room.
“And?”
“And what? That’s all I remember.” Her lungs ached. She was panting now, close to hyperventilating. “I’m not feeling well.”
“Where were these guys when you woke up?” the woman asked.
“I don’t
know
.” She struggled against the tape on her wrists, panic squeezing her from all sides.
“So they drugged you and walked away?”
“I don’t remember. Listen, my hands are really starting to hurt. Please. Can you get this tape off me?”
“Who was the woman who knocked out those men and got you out of the motel?”
Jesus, they know about that. They saw Luka.
Her chest seemed to constrict even more. “I was out cold, how should I know? You seem to know more about it than I do. Look, I can’t feel my hands any more, and I—”A coughing spasm seized her. “God, I feel sick. I can’t breathe, and I feel like I’m gonna throw up. What the hell did you inject me with?” Bile rose again, and she choked it back, gagging.
“Damn it.” The woman knelt beside her and removed the tape from her hands.
“Please,” she said, rubbing her wrists. She was wheezing. “I need water.”
“You’ll be fine.”
She leaned forward awkwardly, trying to put her head between her legs, and started to gag again. Coughing back the acrid taste in her mouth, she looked up at the woman. “I need water, damn it!”
The woman stood and went to the door. Hayley noticed a gun tucked into the back of the woman’s pants and watched as she put her palm on the small platform that protruded from the device next to the door. The door unlocked with an audible click, and the woman pushed it open.
“Dennis, get in here,” she called loudly, and almost immediately a man appeared in the doorway. Thirty or so, slender, about the same height as the woman. “Bring me a glass of water.”
When he returned in a couple of minutes, he addressed the woman just loud enough for Hayley to hear. “You got a call, Jack. Your friend wants an update ASAP. And he wants to pick her up tonight.”
“All right.” Jack handed her the glass. “You have your water. No more stalling. I’ll be back, and when I am, you’re going to be a lot more forthcoming, Ms. Ward. You’re going to tell me all about your friend, all about this list with David Rabinowitz’s name on it. And you’re going to give me the names of everyone you’ve talked to about the tape that was sent to you.”

Senator Terrence Burrows felt smug as he stood at the window of his den, smoking a cigar and watching the festivities in his backyard. Red, white, and blue bunting and flags festooned the privacy wall enclosing the estate, the pool was full of splashing children, and one of his aides was manning the barbecue, grilling steaks, ribs, and chicken for his well-heeled guests.

It was indeed a day to celebrate. He had contained the threat and would soon eliminate both Hayley Ward and the EOO leadership so he could finally accomplish his quest for the Oval Office in peace.