Devil's Due (Red Letter Days #2)

Devil's Due (Red Letter Days #2) Page 14

There were, in fact, seventeen other people in the building. She didn't have to shoot any of the others; intimidation worked well enough. She herded them into an unused freezer room and locked them up tight.

She was sitting against the door, listening to them batter at it, when Cole came to find her. He'd wiped some of the blood off his face, but that was a broken nose, no question, and it was beginning to swell. He'd have black eyes, too. That had been a hell of a first punch.

"What are you going to say when they get here?" she asked, when he was seated on the concrete with her, back against the door.

"Planning on throwing myself on the mercy of my superiors," he said. "Fuck, Lucia. I ought to know by now that if you're involved, it ain't exactly a fact-finding mission. I mean, I've heard enough stories."

"Stories," she repeated. She felt tired, liquid, as if her body might just drip away.

"You know."

"I don't."

"Is it true what they say about what happened in Prague?

"What do they say happened?" The door behind them rattled with a particularly violent kick. It felt good, rather like a massage.

"Two dozen terrorists, a cache of nerve gas, and you were the only survivor."

"It's not true." It wasn't. There was Gregory Ivanovich, after all. Turncoat and torturer and savior and traitor. God alone knew what he was now, but she had no doubt he knew where she'd gone during the past week, and what had happened to her.

Cole made a doubtful sound. "You should have declared first, by the way."

"Declared what? I'm not FBI. The government doesn't pay me. And in the kind of work I used to do, declaring yourself was stupid." Which was as close as she intended to get to reliving the past, even with Cole. "If I'd taken the time to chat, they'd have killed me. You also."

He sighed and dabbed at his bleeding nose. "Man. I'll be lucky if I get a posting in Antarctica after this."

"Cheer up," she said. "I think you just averted a major terrorist act. Also, there seems to be a clean room behind that door. Biohazard suits hanging from hooks in the airlock. You might have even found the source of the anthrax."

As the sirens came closer, they sat in silence, surveying the big white room with its drums of chemicals and - most ominously - pressurized tanks marked with Poison labels.

"So," Cole said. "If I get my ass fired over this - "

"Always a place for you at Callender & Garza, my friend. Provided we're still open, since we've shot more people in the past couple of days than the KCPD has shot in a couple of years. It might pose a problem."

He shook his head. "You'll be okay. You're a survivor."

They both froze at a sound outside, from the direction of the door, and without any discussion got to their feet and moved to stand on either side of the single doorway to the room.

A hand holding a gun crossed the threshold.

"Freeze!" Lucia yelled, and spun away from the wall. Cole did the same, bracketing the newcomer from an obtuse angle, taking a low line.

"Police!" the other man screamed at the same instant, and Lucia held off on the trigger just by a split second as she recognized the ragged, unshaved, red-eyed face of... Detective Ken Stewart. "Drop the guns, dammit. Drop them!" he ordered.

"FBI," Cole said calmly, and showed his badge and credentials without wavering his aim. "Detective Stewart, right? KCPD?"

"Yes." Stewart stopped trying to cover both of them, and focused solely on Lucia. "Drop it!"

"Jesus! Drop yours!" she retorted hotly. "You know who I am!"

He cocked the hammer on his gun, an unnecessary and theatrical gesture. "First shot cripples you for life. Drop it now!"

"That isn't necessary," Cole said.

"If she's not FBI, she drops the goddamn gun!"

There wasn't much choice. Getting into a pissing contest with Stewart wouldn't do her any good, even if she won. Lucia made the gun safe and put it down on the ground. She took a step back from it, hands still raised, as Stewart gestured.

"You got here fast," Cole said. "Ambulance on the way?"

"I had a tip. Yeah, paramedics and squad cars should be a couple of minutes." Stewart looked around the place, and focused on the banging of the steel door. "Suspects in custody?"

"Custody would be a stretch, but they're contained," Cole said. "One wounded in the back room, one not wounded and hog-tied like a son of a bitch because I don't like him very much. Other than that, we've swept the place and the rest are in there."

"Okay, good." Stewart, after a long moment, holstered his gun.

"Can I pick up my weapon now?" Lucia asked.

"No," Stewart said. "Over there. Sit down and wait." He picked up her gun and shoved it in his coat pocket. "Move it, Garza." Behind him, Cole made an apologetic shrug.

She kept her hands up, walked to the corner and slid down to a sitting position, resting her hands in her lap. Stewart stared at her for a second or two, as if considering handcuffs. She could hear the eerie wail of sirens outside, and wondered wearily how long it would take to untangle this particular mess.

If she looked tired, Stewart looked...sick. Pale, red-eyed, twitching like an addict. Was that possible? Was he, in fact, an addict? No, surely drug tests would show it. She was being uncharitable, purely because of his prejudices against Jazz. He was probably just sick.

Should have shot him, she thought. It came from a part of her that she often denied existed - cold, calculating, the voice of a survivor.

"You received a tip?" she asked Stewart neutrally. "You've never been here before?"

He gave her a glare. "No. Why?"

Anthrax sent to her office.

Ken Stewart, following her from McCarthy's hearing.

"No reason," she said, still neutral, and watched him sweat.

There were, by the last count she heard, enough chemicals in the warehouse to kill tens of thousands, and maybe more if delivered accurately. And she'd been right about the clean room. There was a neat little bottle of white powder. Anthrax. Enough for a dozen lethal mailings, at least. From the envelopes they'd found in the process of being addressed, they'd been intended for the local FBI offices, as well as other government buildings.

If Ken Stewart had contemplated killing her and Cole -  and she had no doubt that he had - he lost his chance as the worker bees from KCPD took over. She and Cole were quickly whisked off to a local FBI establishment. It was an improvement over the police headquarters isolation room. The FBI facility came with fresh coffee and more comfortable chairs. She caught a glimpse of Susannah Davis being brought in, at one point, escorted by Ben McCarthy.

Lucia heard Jazz's voice even through the soundproofing.

" -  son of a bitch!" Jazz finished bellowing, just as the door opened again, and Agent Rawlins came in. His ears had turned red, though he was keeping a carefully blank expression. Jazz was right on his heels, as dynamic as he was controlled. She'd been messing with her hair, and it stuck out in unruly spikes. Her face was flushed and vividly animated. When she saw Lucia, she charged forward and dropped into the empty chair next to her.

"Hey," she said, without looking.

"Hey," Lucia replied. She felt a smile tugging at her lips and sternly exiled it back to its waiting room. "So. How's it going?"

"So-so. You were supposed to take it easy, as I recall. Have a talk with Susannah. Lay low."

"Change of plans."

Jazz sat back and folded her arms. "You put another guy in the hospital, and that's the best you can come up with? Change of plans?"

Lucia shrugged. "I shot in defense of the life of an agent of the FBI. Which I'm pretty certain is covered under self-defense. Isn't it, Agent Rawlins?"

He pulled up a chair, too, on the opposite side of the table. "Do you want legal counsel, Ms. Garza?"

"You're kidding."

"I don't kid about things like that."

"Am I being charged with something? Bringing a clue to the attention of the FBI, perhaps? Is that criminal these days?"

Rawlins was furious. "From anybody else, I could accept ignorance as an excuse, but you know better. You know better than to come to some agent off the books and put him in a dangerous situation."

"Agent Cole was only trying to establish - "

"He was grandstanding, and you were helping him, and you both nearly got yourselves killed. Which in itself doesn't distress me, but now I've got about twenty people to investigate, the clock's running, and for all I know the major players have hopped a plane to Brazil. So you'll forgive me if I'm not pleased with the outcome of this little fishing expedition."

"Agent Cole," Lucia repeated, "was only trying to independently establish the truth of what our witness was saying about the chemicals. And if you've got twenty people to check out, then why are you wasting time with me?"

Jazz didn't bother to suppress a snort. "Wow. Gotcha, Agent Redhead."

He glared at her.

"Rawlins," she amended blandly. "Sorry. Pet name. I find red hair very sexy. It's distracting."

With a mighty effort, he ignored her. "So your information came solely from this witness, Susannah Davis. Is that right?"

"Yes," Lucia said. "Cole verified that there had been shipments of chemicals to the SubTropolis address. He was just confirming that the operations weren't really doing electroplating before bringing in a full team on the operation."

"Cole can answer for himself. You shot a man."

Lucia raised her eyebrows. "Agent Rawlins, I shot someone who was about to put your agent's ribs through his lungs!"

The door opened again. Agent Rawlins frowned in irritation as a woman - FBI, by the well-scrubbed look of her - stuck her head cautiously inside.

"Attorney's here," she said. "He's demanding to see her."

Rawlins swiveled his eyes back toward Lucia. "I thought you didn't want a lawyer."

"I don't think I ever actually said that."

She expected Borden, but when the female agent disappeared, the door opened wider, and a silver-haired man in an expensive suit walked in. His briefcase cost more than an FBI agent's monthly salary, Lucia felt sure. The suit was European, hand-tailored and impeccably elegant.

Milo Laskins, senior partner at Gabriel, Pike & Laskins, nodded briskly to Agent Rawlins, set his briefcase down on the table and handed over a card. "I represent Ms. Garza and Ms. Callender," he said. "Please explain to me why they're being detained."

"They're not being detained. They're - "

" - assisting you in your inquiries, to coin a British phrase?" Laskins didn't bother to sit. He gave the impression he wouldn't be staying long. His silver hair gleamed in the dim lighting, and so did his diamond stickpin. "Please, sir, I didn't graduate from Harvard yesterday. You're on a fishing expedition, trying to find something to level a charge against my client, who was, by the way, attempting to save the life of one of your own."

"She put him there in the first place. I don't like private investigators using my people to do their dirty work."

Laskins's white eyebrows rose, giving his electric-blue stare even more impact. "And if she hadn't called you in on a potential terrorist threat, I can only imagine how much difficulty she'd be in right now. She received suspicious information, and turned it over to the FBI. She offered to assist the authorities in their investigation. In the course of the investigation, she came to the aid of a federal officer in the performance of his duties and was unfortunately forced to wound one man participating in a suspected terrorist conspiracy. Do I have the facts straight, Agent Rawlins?" Rawlins's ears were red again, his face masklike. "More or less."

"You have all the information my clients possess in this matter. You have Ms. Davis, who was the source of the information in the first place. You have the location, and you have the players involved. Am I to assume that you have everything you need to conclude your investigation for the moment?"

"For the moment."

"Then I believe I'll escort my clients home at this time. As you know, Ms. Garza has recently been ill. Ladies...?" Laskins hadn't even opened his briefcase. Lucia had seen dazzling lawyering before, but this had set a land speed record. She stood up, Jazz close behind her, and followed Laskins out of the interrogation room.

Rawlins didn't say a thing. He said it very loudly.

Outside, the other FBI agents stared, but didn't stop them. McCarthy was waiting nearby, arms folded, leaning against the wall. When he saw Lucia he slowly straightened, hands falling to his sides. There was something in his eyes she couldn't read, except that it was strong, and it was all he could do to look casual under the pressure of it.

"All in one piece?" he asked.

"Still," she confirmed.

Laskins's hand closed on her upper arm in a viselike grip. "Downstairs," he said, and all of the smooth civility had disappeared from his voice. "Move it."

"Hey!"

He'd grabbed hold of Jazz, too. Lucia could have told him that wouldn't go over well, but not even Jazz was willing to start a physical confrontation in front of several rapt FBI witnesses. Laskins herded them to the door, tossed his visitor's badge on the receptionist's desk, and then steered them out into the elevator lobby. McCarthy followed.

Jazz yanked free as soon as the office doors closed. "Boy, you'd better not put your hands on me again, or - "

"Or what?" Laskins snarled. He was scary, for an old man. "Shut up, the lot of you. You're coming with me."

Lucia felt a weary flare of anger. "Or?" she asked. "Because I'd very much like to go home now. Can't your obligatory lecture on responsibility wait until tomorrow?"

"No," he said, and stabbed the elevator button with a forefinger. His jaw muscles were so tense she was surprised he could force words out. "Tomorrow is too late, Ms. Garza. Today may very well be too late. As I said, you're coming with me, and if you resist the order, then I have people who will enforce it."

"People?" Jazz laughed out loud. "Damn, this I gotta see."

The elevator doors opened, and Gregory Ivanovich gave them all a wide, lovely smile. The wolf was back in his eyes. "Do you?" he asked Jazz, and gestured politely for them all to get in the elevator. "Perhaps better if you don't see."

He was holding a gun. Gutsy, Lucia thought, considering that just feet away were six armed FBI agents.

He had the gun focused unwaveringly on Jazz's head. "In the elevator, my dear," he said - not to Jazz, to Lucia. "I would hate to have to create a mess all over the federal agents' lobby to make my point. No!" he said sharply, without shifting his gaze, as McCarthy moved forward. Ben instantly stopped. "You know I mean it. One at a time, into the elevator. My lovely Lucia first."

She moved in and took the opposite corner. She knew of no one with more iron concentration than Gregory; she'd seen him hold a target in the middle of a firefight, waiting for just the right second to pull the trigger. McCarthy seemed to have realized it as well; he came next, hands well away from his body. Laskins followed, standing behind Gregory.

Gregory smiled very slowly at Jazz, and made a tiny little gesture with his empty left hand.

She walked in, eyes still locked on his, full of fury and challenge. He held the stare as he released the Hold button and the doors rumbled shut.

It was a long ride down. Nobody spoke. Jazz never blinked. Neither did Gregory.

"Your name is Jazz, yes? Like the music?"

She kept on staring. He returned the gun to his shoulder holster with the fast, elegant gesture of a stage magician, about one second before the doors opened.

"You're crazy, dorogaya. I like that in a woman."

"You and me," Jazz said grimly, "are going to go a few rounds. You know that, right?"

"I look forward to the opportunity."

Laskins pushed forward, leading the way. McCarthy grabbed Lucia's arm. "Stay here," he whispered. "Go back up, get Rawlins - "

McCarthy was wrong. There was no chance - not even a small one - that if she went back upstairs the FBI could protect her. But that wasn't what made her step out to follow Laskins. It was Gregory Ivanovich, who knew her as well as anyone alive, putting two fingers to the back of Jazz's head and miming pulling a trigger.

She didn't know what Laskins would do, but she knew Gregory. All too well.