Staying Alive (11 page)

“We need a moment,” he said to his people.

The other agents backed off, leaving him shielding her in the V-shaped space made by the open vehicle door.

He looked pretty much anywhere but at her. “If I let you do this—”

“Wait.” She held up a hand to stop him right here. “We don’t have a choice. You know that.”

His eyes locked with hers then. “He’s going to kill you, Claire. You know that.”

And then she knew just how much his stoic determination had cost him. He wanted Nusair; that was absolutely true. But he didn’t want Claire to pay the price. His need to protect her went deeper than the professional…she could see that…could feel it radiating from him.

“We’re wasting time,” she reminded him, some part of her deeply grateful that he’d showed her just how much he cared. She’d known his compas
sion equaled his passion, but this confirmed his feelings about the job and about
her
.

“Sir?” Talkington stepped toward them. “We’re ready.”

Krueger held her gaze a moment longer before he moved aside and let her go.

Claire moved forward, again surrounded by a protective shield of agents, until she reached the point where the sniper fire prevented anyone else from going forward with her. She cleared her mind of all other thoughts. Nothing else could get in the way right now.

The first step onto the boardwalk had fear clamping down around her chest, making a deep breath impossible.

When a bullet didn’t tear through her, she moved forward a few more feet toward the ferry, then waited as Nusair had ordered.

She didn’t make any unexpected moves. Didn’t do anything that might even remotely be construed as aggressive.

The sound of seagulls drew her attention to the sky where they seemed to float in midair, drifting high above the water.

The sky was amazingly blue…perfect.

A nice day for staying alive.

She’d made it to the gangplank to the ferry when Krueger’s voice murmured in her ear.

“Five years ago he killed one of my agents.” The anguish in his voice squeezed at her heart.

Claire moistened her lips and managed to haul in a decent breath. “I’m sorry.”

“I had to make a choice,” Krueger said. “Let my agent die or let Nusair walk.”

The realization of what he’d done stole the breath Claire had managed to draw in.

“The standoff lasted several minutes. Nusair was convinced he’d won, that I wouldn’t risk a fellow agent’s life. He laughed. Asked me if I would really let him shoot her. When I hesitated about lowering my bead on him, he shot her. My agent died and he escaped anyway. It was my fault. The decision was mine.”

Claire wasn’t sure what to say to that.
Sorry
wasn’t nearly enough. She was sure Krueger never closed his eyes without reliving that moment. She thought of her own situation six years ago. Maybe they had something far more than physical attraction in common after all. Too bad it had to be the kind of damaging event one didn’t want to talk about, much less share.

“I won’t make the wrong choice this time, Claire.”

She told herself not to read too much into the words. Too late. He’d already had an effect on her. She doubted that the feeling would fade so easily, assuming she was still breathing when this was over.

Her cell phone rang.

“Hello.”

“You have less than ten minutes, Claire Grant. If you hurry, perhaps you’ll save the day yet again.”

Nusair ended the connection.

Claire shoved the phone into her jeans pocket and rushed toward the ferry.

She looked around the boat as she boarded. Then she saw him. The boy was bound to a support beam in the main seating area where the tourists lounged for their trips around Puget Sound.

Immediately she could sense that this time was totally different.

“Tell us what you see, Claire.”

She produced a shaky smile for the boy as she approached him. “You remember me, Chad? Miss Grant from school?”

He managed a jerky nod.

“You don’t need to be afraid now. Everything’s going to be okay.”

But it wasn’t.

Worry gnawed at her as she surveyed the situation.

It was no homemade explosive rig this time.

She crouched down in front of the boy and looked over and around the sophisticated device. “It’s a sleek black box. About four by nine
inches. Maybe two inches thick. The timer is built into the box. There’s just over seven minutes remaining.”

Lots more time than at the mall, but she had a bad feeling that it wouldn’t be nearly enough.

“Help me,” Chad whimpered. “I want my mom and dad.”

Claire squeezed his arm reassuringly. “We’ll get them on the way over here. Don’t you worry now. I’m going to fix this.”

Please, God, get me through this one more time.

Whatever it took, she would convince Nusair to take her and leave the children out of this.

She couldn’t bear to see another child go through this horror.

Then again, if she didn’t stop this timer, she wouldn’t be in a position to negotiate.

“Can you open the box?”

It was Bob Jackson. The explosives technician.

Claire placed her hands on the cool surface of the box, slid her fingers all the way around the edge. She attempted to pry it open at what looked like a seam where two pieces were sandwiched together.

It wouldn’t budge.

“I don’t think so.”

She tried to look behind it, but it was strapped around the boy’s torso with a wide strap that ap
parently latched inside the box itself. Whoever had made this, designed it for the purpose of ensuring it couldn’t be removed from its wearer.

But the box had to open. Somehow.

“Chad.”

His swollen, tear-filled eyes met hers.

“Did you watch them put this thing on you?”

He shook his head. “There was a bag over my head.”

She managed another, somewhat shakier smile. “Don’t worry, Chad. We’ll figure this out.”

Four minutes, fifty seconds.

“I don’t think I can get this off,” she admitted, hoping the boy wouldn’t pick up on the panic edging into her voice. “Even if I had scissors, I don’t think they’d cut through this strap.”

“Look around the ferry, Claire.”

Krueger’s voice.

“There should be something you could use as a makeshift lever to pry the box open. Nusair said you couldn’t bring anything with you. He didn’t say you couldn’t use what was already there.”

He was right. She moved around the large open area. Checked each table and behind the counter. Opening the drawers there, she found a flashlight and a screwdriver.

“I have a screwdriver,” she said for Krueger’s and Bob’s benefit. With her find in hand, she hur
ried back to Chad and knelt down in front of him. “It won’t matter how I pry on this thing, right?” It wasn’t like there were that many places to try. Just that one continuous seam all the way around the edge of the box.

“You don’t have a choice, Miss Grant,” Bob said, his voice grave.

That wasn’t a yes, but he was right. She set the tip of the screwdriver at the seam and met Chad’s gaze. “Just hang on.”

He nodded, his eyes round with fear.

Claire pried as hard as she could. The screwdriver slipped twice, poking Chad. He cried. She cried. But she didn’t give up.

Again and again, she struggled with the damned box.

It wouldn’t budge.

Frustrated, she shook her head, dropped her hands to her knees. “I can’t get it open.”

One minute twenty seconds.

They were going to die.

Somehow this time her heart rate remained steady; her pulse didn’t run away. Surrender. Nusair had defeated her. She and this poor little boy were going to die.

“Try to get it off him, Claire,” Kruger urged. “Strip his clothes off. Slide the whole thing, strap and all, down his body.”

Hope bloomed. That could work.

“I’m going to try to get this thing off, Chad. So don’t get worried when I take your shoes and pants off, okay?”

He nodded.

She tugged off his shoes, then unzipped his jeans and shoved them down.

The device was strapped around him and the support beam. She tugged at the strap, tried to slide it down his torso.

The box moved.

Thank God.

Chad started to help her then.

She tugged, he pushed.

They had to hurry.

Forty-one seconds.

Chad shuddered and cried out in pain.

“What’s wrong?” She kept tugging. Had to get this damned box off him.

“It hurts!” he wailed.

Then she saw the blood.

Running down his bare sides.

She scrambled from one side to the other to see where the blood was coming from.

The inside of the strap had ripped through his skin…. Tiny razor-sharp spikes protruded from the underside of the damned thing.

Those bastards!

The cuts in his skin weren’t deep, just enough to be painful and bring the blood.

But getting the strap down the rest of the way was going to be a problem.

She moved back in front of him. “Chad, I know it hurts. But we have to get this off.”

Twenty-three seconds.

He nodded his head that he understood. Her fingers shook as she took hold of the strap again. She pulled. Chad wailed.

Her breath came in ragged spurts. She couldn’t stop or they would run out of time. She tried to put her fingers between the strap and his skin but there wasn’t enough room. She couldn’t get her fingers in there. There was no other choice.

Her heart pounded.

He screamed out in pain as she shoved the strap down his hips.

The timer kept ticking down.

Chad hit at her.

She fell back on her butt.

“It’s okay,” she assured him.

He swung at her again. He’d held out as long as he could. Now he was completely hysterical.

“Wait, Chad! Let me help you.”

“Claire, what’s happening? How much time do you have left?”

Nine seconds.

They weren’t going to make it.

She gripped the strap, pulled harder. Chad pounded at her. His fist connected with her temple, but she didn’t stop.

The box fell to the floor.

She grabbed the boy in her arms.

He kicked his feet free of the contraption.

Two seconds.

She lunged upward, the boy clinging to her.

Zeroes blazed across the timer.

Too late.

C
laire’s heart stopped in her chest.

Time seemed to stand still.

Nothing happened.

No explosion.

Chad sobbed against her shoulder.

The warm feel of blood was plastered between her arms and his slim torso.

“Claire! Talk to me! What’s going on in there?”

Krueger.

“I’m coming in!”

She pivoted, held the boy firmly and ran.

The idea that the sniper was likely still on
location didn’t stop her from running as fast as she could. Then her gaze locked on Krueger barreling up the boardwalk.

“Go back!” she screamed.

A bullet pinged on the wooden walkway near Krueger. He dodged but didn’t slow.

God, he was going to get himself killed. But the gunfire had suddenly stopped.

He ran straight to her, drew her into the shelter of his big body and ran like hell.

Someone took the child from her.

Agents were all around her before she could blink.

Sirens wailed in the background.

“We got the sniper,” Talkington said. “That last blast of gunfire gave away his location.”

“Is he alive?” Krueger demanded, his arm still keeping Claire close.

Talkington shook his head.

The sniper was dead.

But Chad was alive.
She
was alive.

Claire stared back at the ferry.

It was still there. Didn’t blow up like her house had.

Two agents decked out in full SWAT gear and members of the bomb squad rushed onto the ferry.

Why was she still alive?

Why did Nusair keep playing this insane game?

She heard someone say, “The boy’s mother is en route to the scene.”

Thank God the child was safe.

“You okay?”

She faced Krueger. The worry in his expression should have calmed the rage she felt rising, but it didn’t. Nor did the idea that he’d risked his life to come to her aid. There was only one way to stop this.

“No. I’m not okay. I want this over. Today. I don’t want any more children to go through what this boy just suffered.”

She didn’t wait for his answer. Waving aside the paramedic who attempted to approach her, she strode over to the SUV she’d arrived in. There was no need for her to hang around here. Nusair wouldn’t be here. He would be far away watching the fun from some place safe.

To hell with that.

She didn’t even wince at the curse word. She was sick of his games.

No more being the victim.

She glared at Krueger as he approached. No matter what he thought, no matter how badly he wanted to nail Nusair, he would do this her way.

“No more safe houses. I want to go back to the hotel where all those files are and I want to formulate a strategy for getting this bastard.”

Krueger looked surprised at her choice of words. She didn’t care.

He sighed, then motioned for Talkington and Holman. “Let’s go.”

They loaded into the SUV and drove away from Port Townsend and Puget Sound.

Claire didn’t look back.

Nusair wasn’t coming out of hiding for these little petty games orchestrated to scare a mere schoolteacher.

No way.

He was too smart.

Their only chance of nailing him was if she refused to play anymore and forced Nusair to take her on personally. A suicide mission. It was the only way.

She knew it and Krueger knew it.

All she had to do at this point was make him admit that she had the only feasible solution to this nightmare.

Then they could mastermind their own plan.

On the fourteenth floor of the plaza, Claire took a few minutes to clean up. She couldn’t bear the blood any longer.

Chad Wade was fine. As far as they could tell he, like Joey Denton, had not sustained any serious
abuse beyond the surface wounds from the bomb rigging.

She had just learned that the sleek black box strapped to Chad’s chest hadn’t even contained an explosive. The whole set-up had been designed to torture her…to scare her half to death.

Well, it had worked.

Darlene had called. Everyone at school, including the students, were praying for her. The boys who were the only male children in a family had all been pinpointed and were now in protective custody. Claire felt confident that the boys were thrilled to have days off from school. Their families were likely far less thrilled and way more terrified.

But they needn’t worry. This was going to end today.

One way or another.

Claire exited the luxurious bathroom and moved through the conference room where she’d first been briefed by Krueger. What had once been the second bedroom of the suite, on the other side of the parlor, had been transformed into a sort of situation room.

Everyone waited for her there.

“I have questions.”

The team seated around the table shifted their attention to her as she entered the room and took a seat at the end of the table opposite Krueger.

His gaze remained fixed on her as she settled
in. She was glad she’d chosen the navy sweater with a conservative neckline and the comfortable jeans. She needed all the comfort she could manage on her side. Judging from Krueger’s eyes, this was going to be an uphill battle all the way.

He had no intention of yielding control.

He said nothing, waited for her to begin.

“I understand that Nusair wants vengeance for his son’s murder. And I’m the one who killed him. So I’m clear on why this is happening. My first question is why would Nusair devote so much of his attention to someone as irrelevant in the overall scheme of things as me? Doesn’t he have real terrorist work to do? What about all those cells you told me about?” This final question she addressed directly to Krueger.

Fixing her with his green eyes, Krueger answered her. “Allowing Kaibar to blow his cover and be captured was Habib’s fault. Remember, that’s what set this chain of events in motion. Habib was in charge of the cell here so any misstep would have been a reflection on his leadership ability. That kind of mistake would be a major humiliation, especially considering he was Nusair’s son. His youth and ambition only made things worse when he decided to attempt to right the situation by negotiating for Kaibar’s freedom.”

Getting himself killed, Claire finished for him. That was what had started this whole thing.

“We’ve gathered intelligence in the past twenty-four hours,” Krueger went on, “that indicates there is some unrest among Nusair’s followers. Apparently some of his top people are worried and impatient for the same reason you just stated. As you suggested, they’re concerned about how much time Nusair is focusing on you and the loss of his son.”

That was good in her opinion. The problem was, Krueger didn’t appear happy about it. His ability to keep her from reading him was apparently malfunctioning. Either that or she had simply learned to see past the front he kept in place.

“Considering that,” she offered, “I would think that Nusair would want to wrap this up pretty quickly now.”

Claire looked from Krueger to the others, one agent at a time, to gauge their reaction to her theory. The folks around the table were far too good at maintaining poker faces for her to hope for some inkling of their thoughts on the matter.

“That’s my thinking,” Krueger confessed, startling her with his agreeable tone. But the glimmer of worry in his eyes belied his words. “We’re already building reaction scenarios for what may come next.”

This was the part that annoyed her. “I don’t want to react. I want to
act
. Chad Wade was tak
en from his own home just a few hours ago. If I don’t do something now, Nusair will have another child to use as bait before dark. I can’t let that happen.”

Krueger leaned forward, braced his arms on the table and settled that intense, troubled gaze on hers. “We don’t want that to happen either, Claire. But this is Nusair’s playbook we’re dealing with. He makes the rules. If we don’t follow those rules he might very well blow up a whole school.”

She hadn’t thought of that. But then she wasn’t trained for this kind of thing. Krueger knew what he was doing; she didn’t have a clue.

She surveyed the somber faces around the table. These people fought the bad guys for a living. She was just a schoolteacher. What did she know about stopping a terrorist? How had she hoped to make this happen? Who was she kidding?

“There has to be something we can do,” she urged. “Waiting for him to make a move can’t be the best thing.”

Defeat started to drag down the determination she’d worked up after this morning’s horror. She couldn’t just sit here like this and let another child be thrust into the worst kind of danger by this madman.

“There is one possibility that might work,” Krueger offered.

Anticipation shored her crumbling resolve even if he didn’t look overly thrilled. “So you do have a plan?” Why hadn’t he told her this already? Maybe because she hadn’t given him a chance to talk.

“We had hoped that Nusair would be so beside himself with grief that he would screw up and get too close in an effort to have his revenge, but that hasn’t happened.”

“But now you have a plan,” she prompted, hoping he’d get to the point soon. The suspense was killing her.

“Yes. We need a couple of more hours to work out the details, but we have a plan.”

The sense of relief she felt was very nearly overwhelming. But did they have a couple of more hours? It was anybody’s guess.

“Can you tell me about this plan?” If it involved her, she wanted to hear the details.

“Let’s wait until we have the profile worked up, then we’ll initiate the operation phase, including full strategy briefings.”

“When do you expect to have everything worked out?” She didn’t like being left in the dark. Time was wasting. Why couldn’t they move forward right away? That he avoided looking directly at her now as he spoke had her uneasy.

“Within the next two hours.”

Krueger stood; his team did the same. He thanked those assembled and walked out.

Confusion won out over the worry and anticipation. What had that been about?

Claire pushed back her chair and got up. Somehow he’d managed to agree with her completely and, yet, to tell her nothing at all. She was still just as in the dark as she had been before. Why was he suddenly backing off? She went to find Krueger.

He was standing in the parlor, staring out the massive window overlooking Seattle. The drapes had been left open today. He didn’t bother turning around when she came into the room.

“Why are you working from here instead of the local Bureau office?” She knew they had one in Seattle. She’d meant to ask the question before, but other things, like staying alive, kept getting in the way. This whole setup seemed a little odd compared to what she’d seen in the movies and on television crime dramas. He’d mentioned something about security but she had a feeling there was more to it than that.

He took his time turning around. Those green eyes that had stolen far too much of her attention the first time she’d looked into them rested heavily on hers now. “We maintain close contact with the local office. Our experience, however, has been that working from a separate location gives us a
certain level of focus and operational security we can’t get any other way. We talked about that.”

Krueger didn’t trust anyone and certainly didn’t want anyone getting in his way. He could say what he liked, but she understood that about him if she understood nothing else. But underneath all that hard professional veneer, he was worried. Worried about not getting Nusair this time. Worried about her.

“No leaks this way,” she proposed. “You have your own hand-selected, personal team. Everything is under your control, no variances, no deviations. When did you stop trusting the rest of the world?” It was funny how she’d recognized this to some degree about him all along, but it only now connected for her on a conscious level. Something else they had in common.

“Five years ago.”

When Nusair killed his agent.

“Mistakes were made. Information leaked. We were blindsided and someone died because of it.”

She moved a few steps closer to him. “This someone, was she important to you?”

“All my agents are important to me.” Krueger’s guard went up. He was on the highest level of alert.

“But she was special to you when the workday ended.” This must be part of the reason he wanted to nail Nusair so very badly.

He searched Claire’s eyes as she drew closer and then he surprised her by telling her the truth. “There was a time when she was more, but we had ended that relationship. She had plans of moving into a senior position and our relationship stood in the way.”

“But you still worked together.” That seemed strange. Why not move on completely? Claire had never been in that position but she felt sure it would make life a lot easier to make a clean break.

“She had been in on the hunt for Nusair from the beginning. We all have, and we want to see it through.”

Claire could understand that. “What was her name?”

“Deidre Howard.” Grave lines marred his handsome face as he said the name, allowing Claire to see just a little of what his decision to keep Deidre on his team had cost him.

As frustrated as Claire was just now with the whole Nusair situation, part of her wanted to reach out to Krueger. To comfort him for a loss for which he clearly still felt responsible.

Oh, yes, they were very, very much alike.

“So getting Nusair is personal for you.” Claire wasn’t sure that was a good thing.

He pushed back the sides of his jacket and slid his hands into his pockets. “Do you doubt my ob
jectivity where Nusair is concerned?” His guard had slipped a little now, giving her another glimpse of how badly he wanted her to believe in him. Maybe almost as badly as she needed to.

“Yes.” She didn’t see any point in lying to him. “But I’ve also seen you in action. I don’t think you’ll let it get in your way. Unfortunately I can’t say the same thing for myself. I want to watch him die.”

It sounded strange to her to be making such a heartless statement. But it was the way she felt. Nusair didn’t deserve to live. He had killed countless people for no good reason. There were many things he could have done in support of his cause, none of which involved murder.