Close Call (15 page)

“That's beside the ammo storage,” Mo said, releasing Sydney's shoulders. “If it spreads—”

Fisher nodded, seemingly unperturbed. “Take care of it. And find out how it started.”

As Mo and the other man trotted from the room, Fisher looking after them with his brows drawn into a line, Sydney seized her chance. She grabbed the edge of the table and exploded up with all the power in her thighs, driving it into Fisher's midsection.

“Oof!” He doubled over, the branding iron flying out of his hand and rolling to within three feet of her.

With a lunge, she grabbed it, then dropped it as the heated iron seared her palm. She kicked it away from Fisher and sped toward the door as he struggled to his feet. Yanking the door open, she paused. All the action was to her left, where billows of acrid smoke drifted skyward. She didn't see any flames, but shouts for buckets and hoses drifted toward her. She clattered down the stairs and veered right, desperate to disappear before Fisher emerged. She ducked behind the nearest building, a shed with sliding metal doors secured by a combination lock.

“Daniel!”

Fisher's voice made her hold her breath. Risking a peep around the side of the shed, she saw him standing at the foot of the stairs, talking to a man she hadn't seen before. The way he pointed made it clear he was ordering the man to search for her. She scanned the compound, tempted by a gate in the fence just twenty-five yards away. As she was contemplating making a run for it, a uniformed man with a rifle slung over his shoulder exited a gatehouse no bigger than a port-a-potty and gazed toward the fire. Clearly he had no intention of deserting his post, not even to help fight the fire. Damn. In a half crouch, Sydney darted from behind the shed toward a line of trees. With any luck … Yes! A chain-link fence topped with three strands of barbed wire lay just beyond the trees.

She wasted precious moments running alongside the fence, hoping for another gate, any kind of hole. Nothing. She stopped at an area hidden by trees and fastened her fingers into the chain link. Damage from barbed wire would be easier to bear than the pain Fisher and his cohorts would inflict if they caught her. She started to climb, then stopped, dropping to the ground. Her fingers fumbled with her blouse buttons and she ripped it off, wrapping it around her right hand. Sticking the toe of one shoe into a link, she pushed herself up with the other foot, quickly scaling the eight foot fence. Luckily the barbed wire canted outwards, intended to keep people from getting in, not to stop them escaping. Using her blouse-wrapped hand, she held onto a strand while balancing on the thick metal pipe that topped the fence. It looked like a long way down. She swayed. Pulling the topmost strand down as far as she could, she closed her eyes and jumped, swinging her legs up and over the wire. A barb clutched at her jeans, ripping them and the flesh beneath.

She landed hard, winded, one arm trapped beneath her. Her leg burned and it hurt to breathe. Maybe she'd broken a rib. The musty scent of rotting leaves and moldy earth made her sneeze. Voices coming closer goosed her to her feet.

“This way,” a man shouted.

Wincing as pain jolted up her leg, Sydney hobbled toward the trees and undergrowth twenty yards away. The Imminent Revelation took their security seriously; they'd burned and cleared the brush around the compound. Shades of the Berlin Wall.

Reaching the shelter of the woods, she stopped to gulp air. She wasn't safe yet. She had to put distance between herself and the compound, had to find her car. Which way was it? She turned in a full circle, but had no feel for the direction she needed to travel. Away. Just get away. She took off at a trot. Even if she didn't find her car, with any luck she'd come across a road, be able to flag someone down.

The forest grew denser. Trees pushed in on all sides and brambles scratched her exposed skin. She'd been jogging for ten minutes when it occurred to her to put on her shirt. She was too scared to laugh at the picture she must present, hair straggling down her back, topless except for a flesh-colored bra, ripped jeans. Thrusting one arm into her sleeve, she was struggling with the other one when an arm snaked around her waist and a hand clamped over her mouth. Sydney instinctively wriggled and stamped, trying to kick back at whoever held her.

“Ssh!” a voice hissed in her ear.

She recognized her sister's scent. If she'd been asked what Reese smelled like, she couldn't have answered, but her unconscious brain identified her.

“Okay?” Reese asked.

Sydney nodded, and the hand dropped from her mouth. Reese was stronger than she would have expected, even knowing she was a workout fiend. She leaned toward Reese and sniffed, picking up hints of gasoline and smoke. Her eyes widened.

“You started that fire!”

Even though she'd whispered, Reese held a finger to her lips. “Molotov cocktail. Gas, a bottle, some rags … break out the marshmallows. Let's go.”

Reese took off through the woods and Sydney followed, saplings slapping at her face and thorny weeds dragging at her hems. After another ten minutes, Reese ran as easily as before, and Sydney's breath came in painful gulps but she couldn't hear sounds of pursuit.

“We're clear, I think,” Reese said, pausing beside a gnarled oak. She raked her short bangs back. A leaf fluttered to the ground.

“Where's my car?”

Reese pointed back the way they'd come. “We're leaving it.”

“What?”

“We can't risk walking into an ambush. My Highlander's five minutes this way.”

“But my car—” Sydney cut herself off. If the Imminent Revelation had been planning to brand her for sleeping with a Jew, what would they do to a woman who'd burned down part of their complex? “Lead on.”

Not more than three minutes later they burst out of the woods fifty yards south of Reese's SUV. Parked on a grassy verge, it looked untouched. Reese motioned for Sydney to stay back as she approached it. After a brief inspection, she beckoned. Was she looking for bombs? Another habit she'd picked up in Kabul or Darfur, Sydney guessed, scrambling into the front passenger seat. Reese
thunk
ed the locks closed.

“Let's get out of here,” Sydney said, looking anxiously over her shoulder. No sign of Fisher's gang.

“I'm way ahead of you.” Reese threw the car in gear, wrenched it onto the road, and floored the accelerator.

Fidel

Fidel Montoya exited the
limo at the high school in Fredrick, Maryland, smiling and waving, his narrowed eyes scanning the crowd assembled for the state-wide track meet. Jimmy emerged from the car after him, straightening a tie that was too damn loud. It looked like a box of Crayolas had vomited on it. Montoya averted his gaze. Teachers and students, some with signs reading
Vote for Montoya
or
A Vote for Montoya is a Vote for America
crowded to the edges of the sidewalk at Lee High School, hemming him in. Ragged cheers flared up as his supporters caught sight of him. He ran a finger around his collar. Damn it. He wasn't going to be scared away from campaigning by his close encounter with an assassin's bullet. The vote was just days away and polls showed him neck-and-neck with his opponent. And this was a high school, for God's sake, not a meeting of the John Birch Society. Sure, high schoolers went postal now and then and shot each other or their teachers, but he'd never heard of one assassinating a political figure. The tension in his shoulders eased and he waved again, striding confidently forward to shake hands with the principal. Not a bad-looking woman, for someone his own age. Playmate-of-the-Month tits under a straw-colored suit jacket and a full lower lip he could suck on for days. And she found him attractive. Montoya held her hand a moment longer than necessary, looking deep into her eyes. Jimmy coughed behind him.

In his peripheral vision, Montoya glimpsed a student approaching on his left. At least he looked like a student, with lank hair brushing his shoulders and a pimply face. He wore a black T-shirt and cargo pants with a heavy chain threaded through the belt loops. Two silver hoops pierced his eyebrow, and an earring with a grinning skull dangled almost to his shoulder. A backpack hung from one hand. A tattoo of a black widow in a web crawled up his right forearm and disappeared under his sleeve.
Loser
, Montoya thought, then made himself think of the kid as a voter. He might be eighteen. He released Principal McDermott's hand to follow her into the auditorium, thanking God that Jimmy had never gone in for that Goth look. He'd dyed his hair green once, and he wore butt-ugly ties, but—

“Congress-dick Montoya!”

He turned involuntarily at the sound of his name. The loser was within feet of him, digging a hand into his backpack. Montoya froze. Jimmy, several steps in front, turned to cut off the teen, but it was too late. Even as Montoya broke free of his trance and moved toward the building, which was only steps away, the kid hurled something.

God, not a grenade!
Montoya grabbed the principal's arm—was he going to use her as a shield or thrust her behind him?—and ducked.

Splat.

“Gross, dude” and “totally putrid” drifted from the assembled students and teachers as the rotten egg smacked into Montoya's back. A hideous stink fouled the air. The assailant was hightailing it off school grounds, backpack thumping against his leg as he ran. He bumped into a nondescript man watching from the sidewalk and then disappeared between two houses.

“Randall Eubanks, one of my problem children,” Principal McDermott said into Montoya's ear. “Are you okay?”

“Sure,” Montoya said, forcing himself to smile although a murderous rage was hammering in his skull. The kid had made him look like a coward, a clown. He took a deep breath and shrugged out of his Hugo Boss jacket, holding it at arm's length. Jimmy took it without being asked, his face paler than usual. “But I think I'll need a new jacket. Maybe you have an LHS letter jacket I could borrow? I lettered in basketball, back in the day.”

Laughs and cheers greeted his attempt at humor and Montoya smiled through his anger. He didn't know who made him madder, the real assassin or the punk kid who'd made him look like a fool. He tried to figure out when he might have a five-minute hole in his schedule to call Sydney Ellison and find out what she'd learned.

Sydney

“It's not the Imminent
Revelation,” Sydney told Fidel Montoya when he got hold of her ten minutes after she and Reese arrived home from the compound. She hadn't yet had time to change or think about her next move.

“How can you be sure?” Montoya asked in a whisper, and Sydney imagined he'd ducked into a hallway or restroom to make a quick call between campaign stops. “Those letters —”

“Take my word for it, Fidel. If these guys wanted to kill you, they'd do it themselves.” She gave him a quick rundown of her encounter with Fisher.

“Jesus!” Montoya was silent for a moment. “What are you thinking, then? Who will you talk to next?”

“I'll be fine. Thanks for asking,” she said drily. “And my car was two years old, after all. I might as well get a new one.”

“Hey, get off my ass, Syd,” Montoya snapped. “I'm sorry they roughed you up, but it's my life we're talking about here.” His voice softened. “Look, fax the map to my aide and I'll have one of my guys pick up your car. Okay?”

“Thanks.”

“So, what's your plan? Make it snappy … I've only got thirty seconds before my interview.”

Maybe she'd tune in to the five o'clock news and see what he had to say, Sydney thought. She'd bet he wasn't this peremptory with the reporter. “Has anyone close to you died this year, in mysterious or unexplained circumstances?” She explained the logic behind the question.

“You think someone's got it in for the Montoya clan, that someone's killing us off one by one?” The congressman snorted with disbelief. When she didn't rise to the bait, he was silent a moment and then said, “My mother died in March, but since she was ninety-four and had been in a nursing home for a decade, I don't think we can call that a suspicious death.”

“Anyone else?”

“No. My brother's got colon cancer, but he's not dead yet. No relative that I know of has tumbled off a convenient cliff, dropped dead of some unidentified poison, or drowned in the bathtub. You're thinking this is personal?”

Was that skepticism or worry in his voice? “It's certainly possible. I'd been thinking the hit must be a political thing, but now I'm wondering. I'm going to talk to Jimmy.”

“Jimmy? My son?”

“Yeah. I understand he owes some people who might like to see him come into his inheritance sooner rather than later.”

A ten-second pause followed her comment, and Sydney wondered if Montoya was trying to assimilate a new and unpalatable idea or if he was thinking of a way to head her off. “He'll be at the stables tomorrow morning early if you want to catch up with him,” he surprised her by saying. “Sambrano's. Off 97.”

“Thanks. Did you know Senator Fewell?”

She sensed his confusion. “Armand? Of course. Tragic, what happened, a great loss for Amer—wait. You think his death is connected to this?”

She gave him points for catching on quickly. “Maybe. Were you close?”

“Not really. He batted for the other team, you know. Republicans. He was a leader in the Black Caucus, more honest than most, I hear. He died in a hunting accident. How could that be connected to someone trying to shoot me?”

It really was all about him. Jason didn't count. “I don't know that it is, but I'm checking all the angles I can think of,” she replied. “I want to talk to Fewell's wife and his hunting buddy.”

“I can call Emma for you, pave the way. I'll try to set it up for tomorrow—the Fewells aren't far from the stable.”

“Did you sleep with her?”

Sydney's suspicion seemed to amuse or flatter Montoya, although he expostulated, “For God's sake, Syd. I don't sleep with every attractive woman who crosses my path. Besides, Emma Fewell's not my type.”

“Too smart?” Sydney couldn't resist the barb.

“Too old. Too religious.” A murmur of voices suggested someone had claimed his attention, and his tone was more curt when he spoke again. “Who else are you going to harass?”

“Your wife. Your uncle-in-law.”

If she'd hoped to push him off-balance, she failed. “Matvei Utkin? Why? I hardly know the—ah, you're thinking he has a crew of contract killers. He might, at that.” Montoya's tone was thoughtful. “Be careful with Utkin. He's the real deal. Katya sees him on occasion, but the guy makes me want to sit with my back to the wall. Don't go alone, and let someone know where you're going to be.”

“This sudden concern for my welfare is touching,” Sydney said acidly.

He laughed. “I like you, Syd, I do. I don't want to hear they've fished you out of the Anacostia with a bullet hole between your beautiful eyes. Besides, you're my best hope of finding out who's behind this. Don't get yourself killed.” A ghost of a laugh echoed as he hung up.

Sydney lowered her cell phone, frowning. Fidel Montoya was something of an enigma. She couldn't afford to forget that he was, at heart, a politician, experienced at spinning six or seven different versions of a story depending on what he wanted from his audience. It looked like he wanted her to find the person or organization that had hired a hit man to kill him. But was that all he was after?