When a Man Loves a Weapon (33 page)

Bobbie Faye stood at the makeshift command center, just inside the café, gazing out through the now-lowered blinds; she peered over to her right and saw the Old State Capitol and flinched. This had been the scene of the showdown with Sean, and she realized he’d picked this place on purpose. There were too many bad memories here.

Blood. And death. And bullets chewing into her.

Trevor’s expression. That horrible moment when he thought she’d been killed.

She glanced down at the chicken foot—which was pulsing black and red stripes and still freaked her out—and then her gaze went to the gun Trevor had armed her with—she wasn’t sure where he’d gotten it, but it was a Glock. He knew she was used to the weight. He’d made her practice with her own Glock every single day, and he knew she’d feel more comfortable with it over the Ruger Cam had handed her, though she kept that small pistol in the back of her jeans. Just in case. There were miles and miles of things Trevor seemed to understand about her. She’d gotten used to that. Used to his intuition not failing him.

She wondered if that was fair.

She glanced back out the coffee shop window, wishing she wasn’t so tense that the smell of strong dark roast churned her stomach. Streetlights were starting to pop on outside—old-fashioned black iron bases, picturesque against the nightmare that was four blocks away. Trevor, going in, facing down Sean.

The earpiece Trevor had given her had little traffic, the police radio behind her was silent, and the men near her
were quiet, too: the hush of hope, as if the world held its breath with her.

Something blond caught her eye. White blond, or else she didn’t think her eye would have tracked it, and she leaned a little closer to the window to try to see what it was, as one of the cops said, “Get away from the window, ma’am.”

But she knew that hair color. Reflected in the window, moving away from their position: L’Oréal Superior Preference 10WB.

Trevor moved quietly behind the SWAT leader, impressed with the competent, sharp team. The building was a classic turn-of-the-century brownstone, one of the few left in the downtown area. A metal awning had been constructed over the sidewalk and a Dumpster blocked most of the parking in front of the building—the entire structure was in the process of being renovated. SWAT had gotten the layout of the building. This whole city block was being rehabbed, so no wonder no one noticed a bunch of men going in and out of Sean’s building across the street. If anyone had paid the slightest attention, they’d have assumed it was just another construction crew. There was only one finished apartment—only one place for MacGreggor’s men to barricade themselves. As night fell—early—the glow from behind the blinds of the apartment windows on the top floor burned gold against the dark brown brick exterior and to Trevor, the lights were a dumb mistake.

MacGreggor didn’t make dumb mistakes.

They’d thermaled the place: six men, one possible woman (in a chair)—classic hostage situation. The men moved between the rooms fairly frequently, and appeared to be armed. With the knowledge of the bomb threat, it was mandatory that SWAT keep the hostage-takers alive. At the same time, there was no time for negotiations. They couldn’t risk a prolonged, protracted discussion with lame requests from MacGreggor, which would be nothing more than a delaying tactic, while he taunted them with the unexploded bombs.

The dumb mistakes kept adding up: holing up in a building
with only a front and back exit, a roof that was too far below the two rooflines adjacent to it to allow for an easy escape from above, no obvious transportation within easy grasp. SWAT had already breached the building, checking for booby traps and trip wires, using dogs to check for explosives, particularly in the apartments directly below where the perps were holed up. Everything was clear.

“I don’t like it,” he said to Moreau, who was right behind him.

“No shooters,” Moreau agreed, nodding toward the empty rooflines on the streets surrounding them—empty except for the SWAT now positioned there. “We know Sean had at least three shooters at the racetrack.”

“One dead,” Trevor agreed.

“We’re a go,” the SWAT leader told them.

As much as they suspected this was a setup, they had to treat it like the classic takedown it appeared to be: criminals, a hostage, a breachable apartment. Trevor and Moreau would take up the rear of the breach team, not interfering with the well-oiled, well-practiced maneuvers of the men who had worked together many times before. Then suddenly the SWAT leader motioned everyone to hold: a message coming in to their radio frequency: “Confirm, another explosion. Harahan. Casualties. Call from a MacGreggor to 911 three minutes prior, warning of four more bombs, all in Baton Rouge.”

Everyone went dead still. MacGreggor’s information was not a threat—it was a promise, and Trevor knew it.

Trevor knew that there were agents—FBI, ATF, Homeland Security, and half the government alphabet—already crunching data, trying to figure out if there was a commonality between the bomb locations. MacGreggor was not a random kind of guy; there had to be a logic to his choice in victims, not to mention a reason he would deign to call them with a warning. MacGreggor always had a plan.

SWAT motioned go, and everything moved fast: breaching the building, the forward men continuously checking for nasty surprises as they all ran the stairs, keeping as quiet as
humanly possible, taking the hallway, wiring and then blowing the door, fast fast fast, flash bangs exploding in the room, loud, bright, and he bit away flashbacks to Bagram as the noise and brief flash-blindness disoriented the hostage-takers. SWAT moving in, barely a heartbeat later, move move move, right, left, men sweeping the room, shooting, hostage-takers falling, not dead, wounded, shouting, screaming, the woman screaming, shrieking . . .

Shrieking
.

Trevor knew without looking that it wasn’t Nina. Nina would never have shrieked. She wouldn’t have uttered a word.

She’d have known to expect breach protocol—she’d have expected the flash bangs and she sure as hell wouldn’t have shrieked over dead bad guys. And just as he rounded into the bedroom where the woman sat tied, he saw what Sean had done: decoys. All of them. Holding guns, lying on the floor, shot by SWAT, and the woman, young, blond, not Nina. The belt with the GPS in it lying on the floor in front of her.

Four more bombs, in Baton Rouge
.

And that’s when he saw it: the drawing on the bedroom wall. Labeled
INSTRUCTIONS
.

“Trevor!” Bobbie Faye’s voice piped into his earpiece. “I see Nina.”

“Stay put,” he ordered, already turning, already running through the doorway.

“Can’t,” she said, and then the radio went silent.

“We have been notified that Bobbie Faye is in the area. We are at HIGH ALERT. Do NOT flood my office with requests to resign.”

—Lynda Lorow, Director, Nuclear Power Plant

“Bobbie Faye, location.
Now
.”

“Sir,” an unknown cop voice answered in Trevor’s earpiece, “we’re following her—north of the coffee shop. Third Street. She’s fucking
fast
, sir.” Then, “Sorry, language.”

“Bobbie Faye,” Trevor repeated, “talk to me
now
.”

“I can see them,” she said, “but they’re two blocks ahead of me.” He could hear her breathing hard. “I’ve gone . . . I dunno, eight, ten blocks. I can see the capitol.”

Moreau, running two paces behind Trevor, snarled into his mic. “You’d better fucking stop, or I swear to God, I’ll arrest your ass.”

“For running?” she asked. “Shut up, Cam. Trevor, Nina’s hands are tied, but they were running before they got into a car, so she’s up and at least capable.”

“I’ve got sight of your WMD,” Riles chimed in and about damned time. Trevor had put Riles on the rooftop opposite the coffee shop as a lookout for Trouble, and she
still
got away from him. “They’re in a car a block ahead of her—they’re going slow, probably to not draw attention from local cops, low speed limit here—I don’t think they see her yet.”

“I’ve got a shot at the tires,” she said, out of breath.

“Fuck,” Moreau swore.

“Shit,” Riles said, “she’s taking the shot.”

Trevor heard the pop echoing against the buildings.

“Damn,” the unknown cop said, “she nailed a tire!”

Tires screeched a couple of blocks over, men yelled, and Trevor dug in, dug harder, grabbing for every single ounce of adrenaline and power because he was not leaving her alone for this. No fucking way, he’d go through hell first, and he and Moreau both angled toward the shot, running faster than he’d ever run in his life, buildings blurring in the dark. More pops, and he recognized the difference in sound. Someone else besides Bobbie Faye was shooting. Not far,
not far
.

“Shots fired, officer down!” Riles shouted. “One of the cops following her. Shit, she’s still going after the car!”

“Sundance, stop. You can’t take them all on your own. They’ll grab you.”

Bam
. A gunshot echoed.

Bam
. Another answered.

“Bobbie Faye?” Trevor shouted. “Answer me.”
Nothing
. Dear God. “Riles! Goddammit,
update
!”

“Busy.”

Three agonizing seconds later, he and Moreau caught up, bursting from Third Street onto a boulevard, and there in front of him, his nightmare: Bobbie Faye, down. Riles was dragging her in a dead man’s pull to get behind one of the mammoth oaks growing in the median. Trevor’s vision tunneled to Bobbie Faye, everything around her limp form going dark and leached of all color, fear punching holes where crisp hues ought to be: an officer down, another man down not far away, two officers running after MacGreggor’s men, who’d stopped a pickup truck and yanked the people out at gunpoint, using the civilians to shield them from the officers as they slammed into the cab and stomped on the gas, damned near running over the old ladies they’d been manhandling. All he really saw, though, all he really cared about, was the way she’d crumpled where Riles had stopped with her; no resistance, no fight.

“Suspects fleeing scene,” one of the cops radioed, “license Bravo eight-niner-eight-one-two-two-three, red Ford stepside, and a blue Town Car, partial plate Alpha-Bravoniner. Headed east to the interstate from North Boulevard.”

SWAT and officers flooded onto the scene, but Trevor saw nothing of the details except for her pale face as he reached her and Riles. Her eyes were closed; she looked unconscious.

“She’s alive,” Riles said as Trevor knelt, his heart so ripped to shreds, he couldn’t have spoken if his life depended on it; he searched for blood. “Center mass, vest caught it,” Riles continued. “That one”—he nodded toward the man lying in the street, blood pouring from a head wound—“came after her. One of MacGreggor’s crew. She popped the tire on their car”—he nodded toward a sedan idling in the street with a flat—“and they piled out. That one recognized her.”

Moreau leaned over them both, checking her pulse at her wrist as Trevor undid the vest. She was breathing. Shallow, but breathing.

“He saw the vest,” Riles continued, “shot right at it. My guess is to knock her down, keep her from shooting him so he could grab her. I wanted to keep him alive, but I took the shot I had.”

Trevor moved his hands to check beneath her shirt, but there were definitely no entry wounds. He glanced over to the downed officer, who was sitting up now with his shoulder bleeding.

Her eyes fluttered open and she moaned. Then her hand went to her chest. “Owie.”

“What the
fuck
were you thinking?” Moreau demanded.

“Oh, I don’t know, Cam,” she said as Trevor helped her sit up. “I guess I was thinking, gee, I’d like to have a
fais do-do
on the boulevard, let me wander around with a gun and see who shows up.”

Her hand clasped tightly onto Trevor’s shirt sleeve, needing an anchor, twisting her knuckles into the sleeve, his own vest blocking her from getting closer. Trevor met her gaze and felt her starting to shake, aftershock from the adrenaline. She was clinging, hard, her eyes not leaving his as Moreau continued to rant.

“Moreau, shut the fuck up.”

The harshness around her eyes softened, relieved.

“
You
let this happen,” Moreau hissed. “You’re going to let her get herself
killed
.”

“Cam,” she snapped before Trevor could answer, turning a blistering glare on her ex, “if you talk about me one more time like I’m not smart enough to make decisions for myself, I am going to fucking drop-kick your ass into next week, and then shoot you.” She turned back to Trevor. “It’s going to get worse, isn’t it?”

He remembered MacGreggor’s instructions drawn on that apartment wall.

“Yes.”

The drum cadence of the LSU Fighting Tiger Marching Band ramped her heart into overdrive, and Lori Ann knew this was going to be a night to remember. The band stood in formation outside of the stadium, purple and gold uniforms in military perfection, a band that took her breath away, and Stacey jumped on every other beat, jackhammering her little body to the intoxicating rhythm. The cadence echoed and reverberated off the concrete walls of the stadium and between that and the chanting, cheering, screaming crowds—she and Stacey stood in a bowl of sound so complete, it annihilated the ability to hear anything else. The gasp of awe on Stacey’s face made Lori Ann grin so hard, it hurt.

Marcel paused from buffing the truck one last time and came and draped an arm over Lori Ann, his other hand ruffling Stacey’s blond (very dusty) hair, which had long ago fallen out of its pigtails. Together, her family, Lori Ann thought.

She thought to check her phone then—she’d forgotten to call Bobbie Faye back—and when she realized Marcel was chuckling, she had to laugh, too. No way she’d be able to hear a thing ’til after the game. She’d call Bobbie Faye then. Tell her about getting married, ask her maybe to be her maid of honor. Provided Bobbie Faye wouldn’t kill the groom. Not killing the groom would be an important duty for a maid of honor.

Lori Ann eyed Marcel, wondering how a tux would look over a Kevlar vest.