Radclyffe - Honor Reclaimed

"Is she alive?" Cam asked, her eyes boring into Hara's.

"As far as we know, yes."

"I want to talk to her."

"NYPD has diverted all calls to their own channels. They're jamming cell signals in this sector. We can't—"

Cam twisted her wrist in a move designed to break the strongest restraining grip, and got as far as dislodging Wozinski's arm from her chest before both agents drove their shoulders into her midsection again. Their combined weight forced the air from her lungs and her legs deserted her. Only the two bodies jammed against hers kept her upright.

Hara continued speaking in a calm, even tone as if nothing had happened. "The NYPD is not taking any chances after what happened Tuesday. Right now, their antiterrorism team is running the show, and they're jittery as hell. If we want some control back, you're going to have to get it for us. Commander? Commander, are you getting this?"

"Yes," Cam wheezed. "I'm okay. Let me go."

"Okay, Greg, ease up," Hara said after a long look at Cam's face.

Immediately, Cam felt the pressure on her chest lessen, and she was finally able to get a full breath. She coughed, and her bruised ribs protested. "Sorry." Ignoring the pain, she gulped in another breath and felt her head start to clear. "Fill me in. Fast."

"We don't have much." Hara lowered her voice. "The chief, Egret, and Tony Fazio went up to the penthouse. Greg and I were detailed to the lobby. Waters and O'Reilly are on the rear door."

Cam wanted to shout Tell me about Blair, God damn it! but her years of training kept her focused. She needed to know everything if she was going to take charge. And if Blair was in trouble, she wasn't going to let anyone else take care of her. "What happened up there?"

"We don't know. The chief radioed a code red with orders to contain the building. While we were doing that, she must've called in a red alert to the NYPD, because the next thing we knew, we were overrun with uniforms and nobody's telling us anything."

"Have you seen a command vehicle?"

Wozinski pointed toward the northeast corner of the park. "Opposite side of the street, about halfway up the block. We couldn't get close."

"I can." Cam rubbed her chest unconsciously, but the pain wouldn't abate. She welcomed it. It kept her head clear. "You two stay on the door. No one goes up to that penthouse unless I'm with them, got it?"

"The only ones who have gone up there so far are the HAZMAT team," Wozinski said.

"I don't care if the next one in is the president, I go too."

Both agents visibly relaxed. Simultaneously, they said, "Yes, ma'am."

Cam straight-armed her way down the street, waving her badge and repeating over and over, "Secret Service. I'm looking for Captain Stacy Landers." Landers was the head of the NYPD security division assigned to liaise with the Secret Service and to provide additional forces whenever the president or Blair made public appearances in the region. Landers' division was also part of the antiterrorism squad, and Cam knew she'd be heading up the operation. "Landers. Captain Landers. Where is she?"

Finally, she got close enough to pound a fist on the closed door of the black armored van that bristled with satellite antennae. A face appeared at the small rectangular- bulletproof glass window for a second and then was gone. A voice over the intercom next to the door instructed, "Hold your ID badge up to the camera, please."

Cam faced the video camera lens mounted above the door and held her ID next to her right cheek so that her face and the image on her badge were visible. Ten seconds later, the door slid open two feet revealing a giant of a man in a SWAT uniform. He wasn't smiling. "Come on in, Agent Roberts."

Three men and a woman were crowded into the narrow central aisle, clustered around a bank of video monitors that showed both limited views of both the exterior and interior of Blair's building as well as an aerial shot of the roof relayed from one of the helicopters Cam had heard circling overhead. The woman, a redhead in a tan jacket and slacks, looked over her shoulder at Cam. Her green eyes flickered for an instant with compassion, then went hard.

"Commander."

"Captain," Cam said, leaning over to peer at the monitors receiving images from the surveillance cameras placed throughout Blair's building. There was no view of the interior of the loft because she herself had ordered the video cameras removed from Blair's living space to protect her privacy. The rest of the building seemed eerily deserted. She hadn't expected to see Blair, but still the disappointment was like a knife cutting through her. She wanted to tear the van apart. Procedure. I have to follow procedure if I want to get to Blair. "Status?"

"Egret's security chief radioed a red alert fifty minutes ago," the captain of the NYPD antiterrorism squad reported. "Apparently they ran into some kind of foreign substance up there. We're assuming it's a chemical agent."

"Casualties?" Cam gripped the edge of a metal bracket securing the monitors to the side wall of the vehicle so hard that the edge cut into the skin of her palm. Her mind rebelled at the possibilities. Cyanide, ricin, sarin. Oh my God.

"None reported. We've shut down the building's exhaust units and the Public Works people are isolating the outflow from this grid into special holding tanks." She stopped abruptly and pressed two fingers to the earpiece cradled in the shell of her right ear, tilting her head as if to improve the reception. After a moment, she muttered, "Roger that, sir. Yes, sir, I have that," into her throat mike. She looked up at Cam, her expression grim. "That was the president's security adviser. I've been ordered to hold our HAZMAT unit outside the apartment until a team from Fort Derrick gets here."

"USAMRIID?"

"Yeah. They're already in the air. ETA twenty-five minutes."

It only took another second for Cam to make the connection, and then her stomach twisted. The U.S. Army Medical Research and Materiel Command located at Fort Detrick, Maryland was the only facility in the Department of Defense with a BSL-4 laboratory. What the hell do they think is up there?

"Open a line to the loft. I want to talk to Blair. Now."

*

Blair jumped when the portable phone on her breakfast bar rang, staring at it as if it were alive. The last time she'd tried it, for what must have been the fiftieth time, it had been without a signal. None of their ceil phones or radios worked either. That couldn't be a coincidence, or an accident. They hadn't heard from anyone in almost thirty minutes, and being kept in the dark as to what was happening really really pissed her off.

She snatched up the phone and snapped, "Blair Powell. Who the hell is this?"

"It's Cam, baby. You okay?" Cam tried desperately to keep the tremor from her voice.

"Hey," Blair said gently, her temper instantly soothed. "I'd be great if somebody would tell me what the hell is going on."

"You're not hurt? You're not sick in any way?"

"No. We all seem to be all right." Blair moved to the other side of the loft from where Stark and Fazio paced in tight circles, their useless cell phones clutched in their hands. "Where are you?"

"Right out front with Stacy Landers. Can you tell me what happened?"

"We were moving my canvases," Blair explained, "and there was a plastic bag stuck between two of them. We didn't see it there, and when we pulled the frames apart, whatever was in the bag spilled out."

Cam was struck by a wave of dizziness and braced a hand against the ceiling of the van to steady herself. "Spilled out or blew into the air? Do you remember?"

"Uh.. .a little of both, really. What's going on, Cam?"

"We're not sure just yet. Who actually broke open the bag?" Who had the most exposure to whatever was in it?