John Gilstrap - Damage Control

Gail stayed in character. “This would be the perfect time to tell me everything you know, Harriett. If anything happens to those children, your window for negotiation will slam shut with startling speed.”

Harriett’s look of shock morphed into a look of horror. “You think I had something to do with that?”

“If you didn’t, I think you know who did. You at least know who would know. Under the law, that’s called being an accessory. You go to jail for that. This is your one and only chance to set it right.”

“Those children were taken by drug lords,” Harriett said. “How can you think even for a minute that-”

“The timing, Harriett,” Gail interrupted. “Think. When did the phone calls start?” This was pure bluff. “And when did Dr. Mitchell’s mood start turning dark?”

Harriett closed the loop quickly. She covered her mouth with her hand as the truth dawned on her. “Oh, my God. How can that be?”

“That’s what I’m here to find out.”

“I don’t know anything, Sheriff. You have to believe that.”

Gail offered a soothing smile. “I believe that you don’t think you know anything. I also believe that you’ve heard significant and important information. You just don’t realize it.”

“I really haven’t.” Panic was beginning to set in.

“You really have. You just haven’t thought it all the way through. For example, when Mr. Abrams called and asked to speak with Reverend Mitchell, what did he tell you?”

Harriett shrugged. “Nothing, really.”

Gail scowled. “He just said, ‘Hi, I want to speak to Jackie Mitchell’ and you said okay?”

Harriett made a face. “Of course not. He said he was calling on behalf of Mr. Hainsley.”

Gail sighed heavily. “Work with me here. You’re the assistant to a very powerful woman. No one gets past you without a compelling reason. What was Abrams’s compelling reason?”

“He said it was personal,” Harriett said. “When I pressed him for more, he wouldn’t give it. He said, ‘When you tell her it’s Mr. Abrams calling, I guarantee that she’ll take the call.’ Turns out he was right. I told Dr. Mitchell what he said, and she took the call.”

Gail’s bullshit alarm started to buzz in her head. “You’re telling me that you didn’t do any research on Mr. Abrams, even though these meetings had such a negative impact on your boss?”

Harriett blushed. “I checked a little.”

“And what did you find?”

“Nothing, actually.”

Gail waited for more.

“Okay, I heard him mention All American Industries as a company name. They’re very big donors to the cathedral. When I searched our database, though, I didn’t find his name.”

Gail recognized the company from Venice’s list. “They’re new donors, aren’t they?” she asked.

There was that shocked look again. “How do you know this?”

“Knowing things is how I make my living,” Gail said.

The elevator dinged, drawing Gail’s attention, and halting their conversation. It always happened this way. Just when you think you have control of a conversation somebody interrupts and It all registered in the space of a heartbeat.

She saw a shotgun. A man in a suit held it at port arms, poised across his chest to make room for it among all the other men and firearms in the elevator car.

The man with the shotgun made eye contact with Gail when the doors were still only six inches apart, and he brought the weapon to bear, aiming through the expanding opening.

She moved without thinking, grabbing a fistful of Harriett’s blouse and diving sideways onto the floor, pulling Harriett down with her. They were still in the air when the shotgun fired. Above and behind, Gail more sensed than saw the cushions of the sofa erupt in a cloud of fabric and foam rubber.

Harriett screamed, but Gail had no idea if she’d been hit, or was only frightened. She didn’t care. She didn’t have time to care.

By the time Gail rolled to her stomach, her Glock was already drawn and ready. That first shot had established the rules of engagement. The guys in the elevator were here to murder her, and that gave her license to shoot to kill anyone who showed his face.

They seemed to realize it, too, because no one stepped out. There was a lot of shouting, a lot of commotion, but no one showed himself. When the doors cycled closed, someone stuck the barrel of a weapon out just far enough to cycle it again.

Their diddling gave Gail the opportunity to move, and she decided to capitalize on it. “Are you hurt?” she asked Harriett.

“What’s happening?”

“Are you hurt?”

“I–I don’t think so.”

Rising to a knee, Gail one-handed her Glock, aiming it at the cycling doors, and with the other, she smacked Harriett on the shoulder and pointed to the exit door to her right. “Go to the stairs,” she ordered. Access to the emergency exit wouldn’t require them to pass in front of the elevator.

“But what-”

The guy with the shotgun-Gail saw now that it was a Winchester pump-pivoted out of the elevator car with the weapon to his shoulder, ready to shoot.

Gail nailed him high in the forehead. He fell dead in a spray of bone and brain matter without touching his trigger.

Harriett screamed again. “Oh, God-”

“The stairs!” Gail shouted it this time, vaguely worried that she’d given too much information to the bad guys. Then again, given the options from the fourteenth floor, the emergency exit wasn’t all that hard to anticipate. It sounded as if the guys inside the elevator were beginning to panic. It didn’t help that the dead guy’s foot was keeping the door from closing.

Harriett scrambled along the floor, her face and belly barely above the carpet, and her extremities moving as if she were trying to gain footing on ice.

As always happened to Gail in high-stress encounters, time seemed to slow and she became aware of every detail of her surroundings. She held her aim at the elevator, covering Harriett’s escape. These guys had been caught off guard by the fact that Gail was right there when they opened the door, and that had thrown them off their plan. But ten seconds had passed since then, and one of their own had been killed. They weren’t going to stay under cover for long. And when they showed themselves, they were going to be pissed.

When Harriett finally found her feet, she bolted out the emergency exit, slamming the door open hard enough for it to rebound off the concrete block wall of the stairwell.

As Gail had expected, the attackers interpreted the noise as their cue that it was safe to move.

One took a half step out the door, but the muzzle of his pistol wasn’t pointed at Gail, so she fired two quick rounds into the stainless-steel frame, just to drive him back inside, and then it was time for her to go, too.

Never breaking her aim, she backed quickly toward the door, found the latch with her left hand, and slipped through, into the escape well. Harriett’s footsteps three floors below made a strange flap-clack sound as she tried to run in her girlie sandals.

Gail searched for something with which to block the door shut, but a glance told her that it was fruitless. She started down the stairs quickly but carefully, never turning her back on the door from the fourteenth floor. This was when she would be most vulnerable, and she wasn’t about to give them a fleeing target to shoot.

Why weren’t they following? She was a nearly stationary target. If these attackers had a mind in their head, they would Then she got it.

“Harriett!” she yelled. “Stop!”

“ What the hell was that?” Tristan shouted. Fresh blood spatter dotted his face. He stepped over the headless body and stormed toward Jonathan. “You’re supposed to protect me! He was going to kill me! You used me as bait!”