Lynne Heitman - The Pandora Key aka The Hostage Room

She tried to act blasé, but her fluttering eyelids betrayed her. Her expression then proceeded to anger as she must have figured out who had told me. “I don’t know what you’re talking about. As far as I know, Roger Fratello killed Vladi.”

“Lucky for you, Drazen still thinks so. Now get your stuff together. We’re going.”

“I’m not going anywhere with you.”

“Would you rather talk with the FBI, because that’s an option, too?”

She hooted. “Do you think the FBI scares me? The F-B-eyyyye can’t even protect themselves from Drazen. I’m going to trust them to protect me? No, thank you. I grew up near Red Hook. I know what they can do, these people. They’re animals.” She shook her head, and the laughter stopped. “They’re animals.”

“So I’ve heard.”

She blinked a few times as if an eyelash might have drifted across her cornea. She found a spot over my head to stare at. “Did they hurt Harvey?”

“Not physically. Emotionally, he’s pretty beat up.”

Without ever breaking her gaze, she used her pinkie to flick something from the corner of her eye, pulling her hand from under her knee to do it. I let it go. There was a shred of compassionate concern down deep somewhere. It made her almost human.

I stood up and pushed the chair back in place. “Get your stuff together. We’re leaving.”

“Where are we going?”

“Back to Harvey’s. I can keep you safe there while the three of us figure this out.”

“Figure what out?”

“The first thing we need to do is find Roger Fratello. Then we’ll figure out how to keep everyone alive, starting with Harvey and me.”

“Why would we look for Roger?”

“Because if I don’t find him, Drazen will kill Harvey.”

“But if you do-”

“I know. He’ll spill the beans on you. I’ve got all that.” I started to tell her that Harvey was willing to take her place with Drazen but figured that was information she might be tempted to act on. Better to remove all temptation.

When I looked at her again, I could tell she was running through her options and handicapping each one. She raised a thumbnail to her lips and started plucking at a front tooth. It made a hollow, snapping sound. “I need some guarantees before I help you.”

More conditions. Everyone had conditions. “What guarantees?”

“What do you think? I need you to guarantee that Drazen won’t kill me. Otherwise, think about it. What would be the point of helping you?”

More thumbnail plucking. She seemed truly frightened, so I walked to the bed and sat beside her.

“Rachel, we all have secrets. I think it’s fair to say the one you and Harvey have been sitting on is bigger than most. Now that I know the truth, there is one guarantee I can make you.”

She tilted her head back and looked at me through half-closed eyes. “I’m listening.”

“If it comes down to turning Harvey over to Drazen or turning you over, it will be you. I guarantee it. Now, let’s go.”

Rachel could really move when she wanted to. We were out of there in two minutes. I had to help her get her bag down the stairs, which made me wonder how she’d gotten it up. Then she had to go into the office to get her cell phone, which she had left charging next to the computer.

“Would you quit turning all the lights on?” I followed along behind her, turning them off. We were almost out the door when she remembered she’d left her Thyroxine up in the medicine cabinet. As she was coming down the stairs, the lights went out.

“Hey,” she said, cranking up the decibels along with the belligerence level. “At least let me get down the damn stairs, wouldya?”

“Be quiet.”

“Excuse me?”

Something was different. It was the silence, the kind you hear when every major appliance or system in the house shuts down at once. “The power’s off.”

“What?” I heard her racing down the stairs, and then she was right next to me. “What’s going on?”

I saw what I thought was a shadow moving outside one of the low windows in the dining room. I went to the wall next to it and mashed my face so I could see around the blinds without moving them.

“What is it? What is going on? What are you looking at?”

Someone in a low crouch, moving along the side of the house, toward the back. Moving fast. I moved pretty fast myself back across the room toward Rachel. I could see her silhouette. When I got closer, I could see how wide her eyes were open. She was staring at my Glock, which was up and cocked and ready to go. When had I even pulled it out? I tried to keep my voice steady.

“Go upstairs. Get that.45 out of the sink, and bring it down here.”

“It doesn’t have any bullets,” she hissed. “You have them.”

I thought about it. If something happened to me, it wouldn’t be fair to leave her with an empty revolver. I dug the cartridges out of my pocket and put them into her hand. “Load it upstairs, and bring it down. Go toward the front. I’ll go to the back. Shoot anyone you see. If you get in trouble, go to…”

“The office,” she said. “It has a door that locks and windows.” She was scared but still thinking. That was good. “Who are they?” she asked.

“I don’t know. Go now, Rachel.”

Good question. Who were these people? They had to be Russians. What had Bo said about Drazen? He had former KGB…Soviet Army…Russian police. Had Drazen lost patience this quickly? Maybe he had found out about Rachel. Maybe he had found out she killed Vladi. Maybe he had just decided to wipe us all out, and maybe I should stop thinking so much, because I was getting shaky.

I had to talk myself through it, to slow everything down. I had a flashlight. This was why I carried it. I held it to the side, away from my body, but didn’t turn it on. With my shoulder to the wall, I felt my way toward the kitchen. I didn’t know the layout of the house, but I knew the back better than the front. I moved the way I had been trained-both arms up, one shoulder back, my gun hand resting in the other, both thumbs pointed down the barrel. Like holding a golf club with a trigger, one of my instructors had said. What my instructor could not have explained, and what I could never have experienced in a thousand simulations, was the roar of adrenaline that practically had me levitating.

My whole body was like one big sensory receptor. I felt the darkness against my skin. When the latch on the back door began to rattle, the sound came into my body through every pore. I started to back up, but it was too late. The door opened, someone stepped through it, and my entire world telescoped down to the assault rifle in his hands. He saw me and raised the rifle to shoot. I held the light out, pointed it at the intruder, and flashed it on. The high-intensity beam hit his face. He flinched but still fired…and missed. I didn’t. I put two rounds into his chest. He yelled and fell back. The second man came in firing right behind him. I ducked, killed the flashlight, and hauled ass the other way. Red beams from their weapons wheeled around the dark hallway, and I knew I was in someone’s line of fire, and I knew I had to get out, so I fell through the next doorway I found. I landed on the floor inside. The door slammed shut right behind me. I used my flashlight and found Rachel, which meant I had found my way to the office. She threw her arm over her eyes. “Get that out of my face.” The.45 was in her other hand.

“How many did you see?” I asked her.

“I just heard shooting and came in here.”

There were boots on the floor outside the door, more than one pair. If the first guy hadn’t gone down, it was because they had on body armor. I had definitely hit him twice in the chest. A scarier possibility was that there were more than the two I’d seen.