Staying Alive (13 page)

Claire squeezed her hands. “There’s something I have to do. Don’t worry about me.”

“We’ll talk again later?”

The hope in her sister’s eyes was almost Claire’s undoing. She hugged Whitney again. “I have lots to tell you.” She drew back and looked in her eyes. “I love you. Please know that I have never
not
loved you, even for a second.”

“Ms. Stewart, Agent Nance will escort you to another suite. You’ll be provided with full-time security while you’re in Seattle.”

Claire let her sister go. “Don’t worry,” she assured her when Whitney still looked hesitant.

Agent Nance escorted Whitney from the suite and closed the door.

“Give me a second.” Claire grabbed some tissues from the desk and took care of her damp cheeks and runny nose. When she’d composed herself as best she could she turned back to Krueger. “What’s going on?”

“I have a plan.”

The anticipation in his eyes was contagious.

“I hope this is good.”

He threaded his fingers into her hair and pulled her close but he didn’t kiss her as she would have liked him to. “It’s good.”

But would it be good enough to fool a terrorist like Nusair?

Claire took a deep breath. “So let’s do it.”

A big, shiny black commercial-sized van waited in the parking lot outside the Plaza.

“All you have to do,” Krueger reminded, “is get in the van and we’ll get you to safety.”

She nodded. “You’ll make sure my sister is protected?”

“I’ll be with your sister.”

She drew in a shaky breath. “You’re sure this is the best way to do this? Nothing can go wrong?”

“This is the best way. Nothing will go wrong. Your location was leaked to the press and we’ve got to get you moved before Nusair can get someone in here to attempt a hit.”

It seemed impossible that the reunion with her sister had taken place barely a half hour ago and now she had to go. It just wasn’t fair.

“Okay.”

“Wait.”

Confused, she looked up at him. He’d been rushing her to get a move on and now he told her to wait?

He grabbed her by the shoulders and kissed her hard on the lips with God and all of his agents watching. He kissed her thoroughly. Kissed her the
way a man should kiss a woman. In her entire thirty years she had never been kissed like this. She could kiss him like this forever.

“Go,” he murmured against her lips before pulling completely away, “Talkington and Holman will be right there with you.”

Why couldn’t she have met him any other time? Any other place? Under different circumstances?

Still a little dazed, Claire left the hotel lobby, an agent on either side of her. Outside there were another dozen or so agents forming a long line between the entrance and the area of the parking lot where the van waited. Off to the right, being held behind barricades by the Seattle Police, were dozens of television reporters, cameras rolling. Claire had the spotlight. The whole country would be watching. And all she wanted was her life back. But that wasn’t going to happen. The next few moments would ensure that fate.

When they reached the van, Agent Holman skirted the hood and climbed into the driver’s seat. The windows were tinted so dark she could scarcely make out his image. Agent Talkington opened the rear passenger’s door and Claire climbed in. Talkington climbed in next to her.

Ten seconds later the engine cranked and the van exploded.

Debris flew for hundreds of yards. People
around the hotel screamed and ran for cover. The agents who had been lined up outside the hotel rushed around and attempted to control the panic. Two of them converged on the flaming vehicle and tried to look inside but there would be no way to attempt a rescue.

Heat from the flames made Claire dizzy, but she was unhurt. She only wished she’d opted not to wear this sweater.

Having scrambled out of the van and retreated behind the blast shield according to plan, she and Agents Talkington and Holman hovered, trying to make themselves as small as possible. The small blast shield, much smaller than the one used at the mall, had been set up only about three yards from the van’s driver’s side. A grouping of trees and shrubs provided cover behind the shield. The reporters and television cameras were on the other side of the van some two hundred feet away. The agents on the ground would keep anyone from coming near the location of the blast.

Thank God the whole thing, so far, had worked as planned. The idea of climbing into a vehicle destined for an explosion was definitely not something she wanted to do again anytime soon.

Talkington was saying something but Claire couldn’t hear him. Then she remembered the
earplugs. She pulled them out and dropped them into her pocket.

“What?”

“Get ready.”

Claire heard the squeal of tires before the vehicles came into view. SWAT. A large black panel truck and two black vans similar to the one that had exploded barreled into the parking lot. A fire truck arrived right behind them. Once the flames were doused, the SWAT vehicles moved in closer.

Local channel news helicopters were already coming. She could hear the whop-whop of their propellers.

“Move!” Talkington urged. “We have to move before the copters are overhead!”

The blast shield was military green to blend in with the landscape behind them. Their location in the parking lot had been carefully selected down to the last blade of grass for this staged performance.

Claire and the two agents slipped into the side doors of another waiting van that had been parked so near the shrubs and trees that branches literally poked into the vehicle’s interior.

Once they were settled in the rear cargo area, Claire took her first deep breath.

“You’re sure,” she asked as an afterthought, “that it won’t blow up again like in the movies?”

Holman shook his head. “We drained the fuel
tank. There was barely enough gas to start the engine.”

That sounded reasonable.

“Now we wait,” Talkington reminded. “The driver of this vehicle is one of our agents. He’ll take us to the location of the next phase of the operation as soon as things are under control here. If he tries to leave any sooner it would look suspicious.”

The next phase of the operation.

That was where things got tricky.

Claire’s entire future depended upon how Nusair responded to this setup. The press would be leaked information indicating that Abdul Nusair had made good on his threats to avenge his son’s death.

The world would believe that Claire was dead.

Including her sister and her friends.

That was the only part she felt bad about in all this. The people who cared about her would grieve her death. She hated to trick them this way, but it was her only option. If she didn’t go this route she was dead anyway.

Nusair would not stop until he knew for an absolute certainty that she was dead.

In fact, she and Krueger were counting on exactly that.

T
he county morgue.

That was the location of the next phase of the operation.

The FBI had taken control of all but a small section of the facility’s ongoing operations. One of the refrigerated storage rooms, a cadaver room, was the primary part of the strategy.

Three bodies, all disfigured to some degree and with features like hair color, height and weight that resembled Claire and the two agents who’d supposedly died in the blast with her, had been borrowed and tagged for the show to come. More
than a dozen FBI agents were posing as morgue personnel for the next few hours.

The plan was to lure Nusair here and then take him down. Seemed simple enough, but it was an unprecented operation, according to Krueger.

At first the idea that Nusair would attempt to view her body firsthand, to ensure she was indeed dead, had made her skeptical, but the more she thought about it the more she decided Krueger might have a point. Nusair would want proof that she was really dead. He would want to see with his own eyes.

The news reports would not be enough. He was not a man who left loose ends or anything to chance.

Krueger had taken over one of the medical examiner’s offices across the hall from the refrigerated storeroom. Surveillance had been put in place that allowed him to watch the corridor outside and the storage room from a monitor installed in the borrowed office. In addition, agents were posted in the parking lot and around the building to watch for Nusair’s arrival. Agents Talkington and Holman monitored the main corridor leading to this wing of the facility from yet another office farther down the hall. If anyone came near the storage room where the bodies were kept, they would know about it in real time.

The agents, some wearing white lab coats, were
heavily armed. Watching the preparations, one would have thought the men and women were preparing to go to war, not just stop one demented man and his small band of followers.

But this was, in fact, a war. And Nusair was slick. Far too slippery to take any chances.

Claire looked around the office. Medical journals lined the bookshelves on one wall. Next to the locked door was a credenza-style cabinet that now held the monitor allowing Krueger to observe the video feed from the corridor as well as the storage room. Additional stacks of medical journals had been moved to the floor in the corner temporarily.

A large wooden desk claimed a significant portion of the available floor space. Another credenza stood against the wall behind the desk. This credenza served as a holding place for what looked like hundreds of loose files. It looked as if the medical examiner was seriously behind in his paperwork.

In contrast, the desk was neat and clear with nothing more than a lamp and a name plate on its polished surface. Claire had claimed the generously sized leather executive chair behind the desk in hopes of staying out of Krueger’s way. He hadn’t been happy about her insistence on staying involved, but she wasn’t about to be hidden away while this thing went down.

She wanted to be here. She wanted to know for sure that Nusair would come. Maybe she had no control over the situation but some part of her stuck by the idea that her presence would draw him. He wanted the woman who had killed his son. She needed to be here if for no other reason than for stacking the odds. It was a matter of simple physics, as long as she was here she couldn’t be anywhere else. On some level she believed he had already sensed her determination to be involved as completely as possible.

She’d been here less than an hour and already she could tell this was going to be a long evening, maybe an even longer night. Who knew if Nusair would even show. If he didn’t, her life as she knew it would be on permanent sabbatical. That was the part she didn’t want to see happen. Unfortunately that component was also well out of her sphere of control.

Everything from this point forward depended upon Nusair’s reaction to today’s staged production in the hotel parking lot. He would, of course, know
he
hadn’t blown up the van, but he couldn’t discount the possibility that some of his followers might have. There was no way to prove the explosion was rigged without verifying her death.

At least she hoped it worked so logically.

Krueger settled on the edge of the neat desk,
drawing her attention to him. Not necessarily a good thing considering she’d been closed up
alone
in this room with him for almost an hour. Dwelling on this little attraction brewing between them was such a lost cause. Her life was either over or it wasn’t. Whatever the case, Krueger would move on with his.

But he had promised not to walk away. As much as she feared she shouldn’t, she hung on to that hope.

“Tell me what happened between you and your sister.”

The sound of his deep voice made her edgier than she already was. Her emotions were already raw. Delving into that subject matter wouldn’t help.

“You know what happened. You have a file on me, remember?” He’d recited lines and lines from the reports within that file.

He stood, took off his jacket and placed it on the chair in front of the desk. Claire watched every little move with far too much interest.

“I know the facts, nothing more.”

She didn’t really want to talk about her sister right now. The reunion still felt surreal…the idea that Whitney had wanted to make things right a long time ago had thrown Claire into a whole other turmoil. She hadn’t processed what it all meant yet.

However, Krueger wasn’t the kind of man to al
low his questions to be played off without a battle. And, truthfully, any kind of distraction might be a good idea right now.

“Our mother died when I was eighteen, Whitney was twelve. Our father worked long hours at the manufacturing plant to support us. I had no choice but to step up to the plate and be the mother. We tried to get through the grief, but my sister didn’t handle the loss well.”

For a few seconds Claire got lost in the painful memories. Krueger didn’t push.

“She did all the typical rebellious teenage stuff and more,” Claire went on eventually. “After I left for college things got worse. She dropped out of high school, ran off and married a local jerk.”

Krueger’s gaze was sympathetic. “I’m sure that was tough on your father.”

Claire nodded, her own guilt still as heavy as ever. It never went away. “I should have been there, but my father insisted that I go on to college.”

“You did the right thing. If you’d stayed it might not have made any difference.”

“But it might have,” she countered. “We’ll never know.” That was the hardest part.

When he didn’t say more she figured he’d heard all he needed to. Most of the rest of the story was probably in the file.

“You were there when she needed you most,”
he said softly. That he cared enough to say so meant more than it should have to her.

“I did what I had to do.” She had. The doubt was gone. And that made all the difference.

“Seeing your sister today was important,” Krueger acknowledged. “I’m glad she came.”

For a woman who was dead, Claire suddenly felt as if she had plenty to live for. Definitely something to smile about. “Me, too.”

The possibility that it might be the last time she saw her sister diminished the moment considerably. “If he doesn’t show, what next?” She had a vague idea, but Krueger hadn’t gone into detail and she hadn’t asked. Maybe she should now. Then again, knowing might jinx her.

She didn’t care. She needed to know.

He loosened his ever-present tie, making her wish those hands were touching her the way they had that first time he kissed her. Stop it, she ordered.

“If Nusair doesn’t show then Claire Grant has no choice but to stay dead. The only way to ensure he doesn’t come after you or the people you care about again is for him to believe that you’re dead.”

“So I’ll go into witness protection.” It wasn’t a question. She understood that her options were limited, nonexistent actually, beyond the idea of catching Nusair. As long as he was free, she would be a prisoner in many respects.

“It’s not such a bad thing considering,” he offered.

“I guess not.” In a way, he was right. She was lucky to be alive. As unfair as this whole thing was, bad things happened to good people every day. She needed to keep that in mind and remember to count her blessings.

Krueger hadn’t allowed her to watch the news. He knew it would be too painful. She could just imagine what Whitney and Darlene were going through.

And her students.

“Don’t go there, Claire.”

She looked up. Krueger was assessing her emotional state all too well without her having to say a word.

“I regret the fallout for the kids.”

Krueger leaned forward, covered her hand with his. “If all teachers were like you the world would be a far better place.”

“It’s a question of basic human compassion, Krueger. I’m no saint looking for martyrdom.” Any teacher would have felt the same way. She wasn’t a hero. She was just a woman who’d done what she had to do.

If she were so special she wouldn’t be sitting here feeling sorry for herself because she couldn’t have her life back. Unfortunately she was far too human.

“You see,” he tossed right back at her, “I rest my case. I’ve worked with my share of those headed
for witness protection, trust me, you rise well above the usual suspect.”

Amused and undeniably flattered, she adopted a skeptical expression. “I’m not so sure that was a compliment. Aren’t a lot of the folks in the program former criminals?”

He tugged at her hand until she scooted up on the desk next to him. He turned his head so that he was looking at her with only a few inches between them. “We’re not going to assume the worst. This isn’t over, Claire.”

“So what do we do now?”

He leaned closer, brushed his lips against hers. “This isn’t standard procedure,” he murmured, the feel of his lips vibrating against hers making her shiver. “I don’t usually break the rules.”

That she could believe.

He kissed her slowly, tenderly and she wanted it to be more. She moved her hands to his chest and relished all that he could offer her even if it was only a kiss.

He drew away, his breath ragged, his eyes full of the same yearning she felt. When he reached into the pocket of his trousers and removed his ringing cell phone, she knew the moment was over.

“Krueger.”

A wave of anticipation washed over her. She tried not to fear the worst as he’d said, but it was difficult not to. She wanted this over, no more casualties, no matter the price to her.

Maybe that was the mark of a martyr, but she didn’t see it that way. No more children were going to be risked to satisfy a raging lunatic on account of her. She was willing to die to stop Nusair. That wasn’t being a hero, that was simply being a decent human being.

The sudden shift in the tone of Krueger’s voice hauled her attention to his end of the evidently tense conversation. He stood, his back to her, his free hand rubbing the back of his neck.

“Continue the evacuation, but nobody makes a move until I’m on site, understand? Not a single move.” Pause. “I’m on my way.”

He snapped the phone closed, grabbed his jacket and pulled it on before stuffing the phone into his pocket. “We have to relocate.”

Something was wrong.

Claire was on her feet before her brain had even issued the order. “What’s going on? Why’re we moving?”

His face was grim.

“Apparently Nusair suspected we’d set him up. His people zeroed in on the hotel rather than the trap we’d laid.”

“The hotel?” At first the significance didn’t register. Then it did. “He has my sister?”

“I’m afraid so. If you aren’t there in forty-five minutes, he’s going to kill her.”

The twenty-five minutes it took to reach the hotel were the most tension-filled of Claire’s life. She had thought nothing could ever top what she’d gone through getting to those children, but this did. She wanted to crawl into a hole and die.

This was way past enough.

The area of the parking lot where the explosion had occurred was still cordoned off. Hundreds of guests had been ushered to the far side of the undamaged parking area to the west of the main entrance. The Seattle police were in place overseeing crowd control.

Several men she recognized as FBI agents were working outside a van parked beneath the dropoff and pick-up portico at the hotel’s main entrance. As her SUV neared the group, she recognized the setup. This was the base of operations.

Her heart rate accelerated, sending adrenaline through her veins, along with no small amount of panic.

“Bring me up to speed,” Krueger ordered as they reached Agent Carver.

Claire remembered him from the first day she’d been brought in by the FBI.

“He’s on the fourteenth floor. The four agents we had guarding Mrs. Stewart are down.”

“Damn.” Krueger slammed his fist against the side of the van. “All dead?”

“Only one dead, the rest are still alive but we can’t get to them to assess their condition.”

Not only did her sister’s life depend upon her, Claire realized, the lives of those agents did as well.

“Where do I need to go?” Claire stepped into the fray. “He’s waiting for me, right? Where?”

Carver and Krueger exchanged a look.

“Don’t start with that,” she warned. “We all know what I have to do, now give me the location.”

“Nusair and approximately six of his men are up there, Claire,” Krueger explained, his expression graver now than before. “If we send you in, we can’t protect you. My men are down.”

“I don’t care.” This was it. She had known this moment might come. Before Krueger had come up with this latest plan she had been fully prepared to surrender to Nusair. She was prepared now. “I’m going in.”

“Wait.” Krueger took her arm when she headed for the entrance. “We need to rig you with communications first. At least that way we can monitor what’s going on.”

What she saw in his eyes wasn’t at all professional. The desperation was as painful to look at as her own was to endure. She relented. At least one of them was thinking rationally. “Okay.”