Maggie K. Black - Protective Measures

The room was on fire.

TWO

Heat hit Leo’s body like a wave. Flames climbed the curtains of the coat-check room and spread out across the ceiling. Coats burned. Briefcases and laptop bags buckled in the heat. Dark smoke billowed toward them. His heart stopped. Every single piece of paper or electronic data that had been left in that room was being reduced to ashes. If the thief had stolen something, the fire would probably destroy any possibility of figuring out what it was. Had the thieves Zoe had been tracking either stolen or destroyed the intel he was after?

If so, the implications of what that could mean were positively terrifying. Leo had made one other phone call on his rapid descent down the stairs to the one person inside the navy he trusted, his superior, Admiral Jacobs. Jacobs hadn’t answered, and the last voice mail message he’d left for Leo hadn’t changed. The informant said they would be at the party. Their identity was still unknown, but Leo was authorized to wire them up to a quarter of a million dollars if the intel proved true. He glanced at the ceiling. “No sprinklers and no fire alarm.”

“There’s a fire extinguisher on the other side of the cloakroom.” Zoe’s voice came from behind him.

“It’s too late for that. We have to evacuate the building.” Wrapping his jacket around his hand, Leo grabbed the handle and yanked the door closed. “This fire door should help contain it long enough to evacuate. But we won’t have long. Get out of the building. Get a safe distance away, then call 9-1-1.”

Leo pressed his cell phone into her hand. She took it. Then her eyes closed for a fraction of a second and he watched as a prayer moved on her lips. Then she looked up at him. Fear was creeping in the edges of her eyes, but it did nothing to dim the determination burning within them. She gave him a push. “I’m on it. Just go. I’m right behind you!”

He ran through the hall, into a second almost identical one, and then burst through another door into the lobby. The English actor Nigel was standing by the front desk talking to an elderly security guard. They both looked up.

“The coat-check room is on fire,” Leo said. “Sprinklers aren’t working. We need to evacuate the building. I’ll get the ballroom. You clear the staff and the main floor. Now!”

He pelted up the winding staircase to the second-floor ballroom without waiting for a response. He hit the second-floor ballroom. Well-dressed people packed the room. Waitstaff weaved between them. His eyes scanned the room in an instant, trying to access the best way to evacuate without causing a panic. The last thing he wanted was to cause a stampede.

“Emergency services are on their way!” Zoe ran past him barefoot, like a tiny bolt of lightning. “Alex is trying to get the sprinklers back online. There’s a small lounge and balcony upstairs. I’ll go evacuate them while you sort out down here.”

She disappeared up a second smaller set of stairs. His head shook. That woman was unbelievable. He’d told her to escape the building and instead she was running right into danger. He strode across the floor to the stage and up to the podium, feeling the old, familiar authority with which he’d commanded battleships slipping around him like a mantle. He reached the microphone and tapped it twice. No sound. But, one glance at the man behind the sound board and it sprang to life.

“Ladies and gentlemen, your attention, please.” His voice filled the room. “Sorry to interrupt the party, but there is a small contained fire in a separate section of the building downstairs. Emergency services are on their way. What I need you to do is to just calmly walk downstairs and wait outside on the grass, so they can come in here and do their jobs.” Voices began to babble. Questions rose around him. He raised his hand. “We can all talk outside. But right now, I need you to exit the building. Quickly and quietly. Go.”

The babbling grew louder. But he also caught the eyes of a handful of men and women, who he could tell at a glance had also served their country and community in one way or another and knew how to handle a crisis. They started ushering those around them toward the staircase. Guests started filing down the stairs. People in kitchen uniforms and waitstaff poured out side doors. Still others streamed down from the floor above. The hall began to clear. He breathed a sigh of relief and a prayer of thanksgiving. The fire door wouldn’t hold forever. But he had hope the building would clear before the fire spread. He walked back to the stairs and positioned himself on the landing to direct traffic, until finally the trickle of people heading out the doors stopped.

But where was Zoe?

He started back across the now empty ballroom to the stairs he’d seen her run up. The smell of smoke grew heavier in the air. Then he saw a waiter—tall and thin with long blond hair and goatee—kneeling on something behind the stage.

“Hey!” Leo ran toward him. “You need to get out of here!”

The waiter didn’t move. Instead he grabbed a phone from his pocket and took a picture of whatever was on the floor.

“This isn’t a drill.” Leo grabbed the man’s shoulder. “The building’s on fire!”

The waiter leaped up and wrenched his shoulder away from Leo’s grasp. Then he spun toward Leo and through the smoky air Leo could barely make out the shape of something long and black in his hand. The waiter lunged toward him. A knife? A gun? A Taser? Leo had only seconds to react as he knocked it free from the man’s hand. It was a thick black marker. And for the first time Leo saw what he had been kneeling on. It was the banner of him and his girls. Ugly black marker lines crossed the canvas, slashing the picture in between Leo and his daughters, and severing the connection between his hand and Eve’s.

“What do you want?” Leo demanded. “Who started the fire? What’s the meaning of this?”

A scream split the smoke-filled air. It was Zoe. The sound of fear and pain that ripped from her lungs seemed to tear his own chest in two. The waiter slithered away and pelted for the stairs.

“Zoe! Hang on, I’m coming!” Leo ran across the ballroom and up the narrow flight of stairs that led up to the third floor. A woman was tearing down the stairs toward him. It was a waitress in black pants and a crisp black shirt. Long, unnaturally bright red hair fell over her shoulders. He barely managed to stop as she nearly collided with him. “What happened? Why is my friend screaming?”

The waitress’s violet eyes widened. But she shoved past him and ran down the stairs without answering.

“Leo! Help!” Zoe was calling his name. His heart wrenched toward the sound.

“Hold on, I’m coming!” Leo bolted up the narrow staircase to the top floor. It was small, with slanted ceilings and doors in all directions. He followed the sound of her voice, burst through another door and ended up outside on a patio. Humid air surrounded him. But it was the faint cloud of pepper still hanging in the air that made his eyes sting and his heart ache. “Zoe? Where are you?”

“I’m here!” A sob choked in her voice. He glanced around. A coffee cart had been knocked over. Broken dishes littered the ground. Then he saw her. Zoe was curled in a ball against the low wall. He dropped to his knees beside her.

“A waitress pepper-sprayed me.” Thick tears streamed down Zoe’s face. “I can’t see a thing.”

* * *

Leo’s blurred shape floated before her stinging eyes. Zoe blinked rapidly, trying to wash away the pain. “I cleared the place out, but this one waitress just wouldn’t leave.”

“Did she have red hair?” he asked. “Purple eyes?”

“Wig and colored contacts, yeah,” she said. A fit of coughing overtook her lungs. The burn of the pepper spray seared in her throat. Fresh tears blurred her vision.