Critical Space ak-5 Read online

  I didn't take the hint, tried to keep going up, to find someone to attack, eyes to claw or flesh to bite, and then the club struck me again, and I was on the ground again, blood filling my mouth.

  Natalie's Sure-Lite had rolled into the corner, and I saw the smoke and gas floating in the car, and then there was another pain as my hair was pulled, forcing my head around to look at the nightmare of bug eyes and deformed and shining black insect features. From beneath the Nightvision goggles and gas mask, I heard Drama say my name.

  "Any alarm and she dies, Atticus," she said, her voice breathy and almost too soft to hear. "If you're not at home in thirty minutes, she dies."

  I croaked at her.

  "I've missed you, too," Drama said, letting go of my hair.

  Then she kicked me in the face.

  Chapter 11

  My watch said I was a minute late as I came up through the apartment door, just in time to hear the phone's last ring echoing in the kitchen. I went for it anyway, diving across the table, but there was only the dial tone when I got the receiver to my ear. I hung up, trying to convince myself that I hadn't just killed Antonia Ainsley-Hunter, then broke into a fit of coughs that led to dry heaves and ended with me at the sink, running cold water over my head. I shut off the tap and straightened, felt the drops running down the back of my neck, beneath my collar, mixing with my sweat. Everything hurt, but the only thing I really felt was the drops falling from me to the counter and the floor.

  I've killed her, I thought. I was as fast as I could be and I wasn't fast enough and I've killed her and…

  The phone was ringing, and this time I answered it before it stopped.

  "I told you thirty minutes," Drama said. "You're lucky I believe in redemption."

  "I want to talk to her," I said.

  "She's fine."

  "Fuck you," I said. "Let me talk to her."

  "Atticus," Drama said. "I could have killed you. I could have killed Natalie. That should tell you something."

  "Put her on the line."

  "Oh, all right," Drama said. "I'll have to go get her."

  There was a thud as the phone was set down, then a silence. I heard the front door of the apartment open, and I pulled my gun and sighted at the corner, and Dale came into view and immediately threw up both hands. I lowered my gun, and each of us caught our breath. Over the phone I heard Drama telling someone to say hello.

  Antonia's voice was thin, like a sheet that had been bleached one too many times. "Atticus?"

  "Do what she says," I told her. "We'll get you back, just do what she says."

  "I wi…"

  Then she screamed, and the phone made another thud as it was dropped, and I started shouting for Drama to come back, to leave her alone. There was no answer, and I stopped shouting and started listening again, but there was nothing to hear. Dale was still standing at the edge of the kitchen, both fists balled.

  The phone was picked up again. Drama said, "She screams like a girl."

  "You hurt her…"

  "Think it through, Atticus. Do you really want to be threatening me?"

  I didn't say anything.

  "Stay by the phone. I'll call when I'm ready. And I reiterate: Any word of her abduction, she dies. And I will know if you raise the alarm, Atticus."

  Then I was listening to the dial tone, looking at Dale as he waited to hear the news.

  ***

  The haze had started to lift by the time the elevator doors opened, and through the tears and the dissipating smoke and gas, I'd seen Corry running down the hall toward us, his gun out. All he needed was a glimpse, Natalie on her side and unmoving, me trying to find my feet, and it didn't matter that I was shaking my head, trying to tell him no, don't, he was on the radio immediately.

  "Alarm alarm alarm," Corry said. "Repeat, alarm, Wendy is…"

  "Dammit, shut up!" I shouted, and it felt like crushed glass was running in two directions inside my chest.

  Corry gaped at me, but came offhis transmitter. Over my earpiece, I could hear Dale and Moore each calling in for status.

  "Help Nat," I wheezed. "See if she's okay."

  Without another word, Corry holstered his pistol, took a deep breath, then stepped into the elevator.

  The voices on my radio were getting frantic. I clamped down on my transmitter, said, "All units – this is Tink, stand by."

  There was a pause, during which the elevator doors tried to close. Corry used his leg to block them, then slapped the emergency stop. Natalie was making a wet noise from the back of her throat, and as he took her by the armpits to drag her out of the car, she started coughing.

  "Timmy standing by, " Dale said.

  "Hook standing by, " Moore said. "Request status. "

  I pulled myself upright using the wall, fighting for breath. The only part of me that wasn't screaming from the pepper gas was my jaw, and that was because it had gone numb from the kick Drama had given it. My watch read eleven thirty-eight, and my best guess said I had to be at home, by the phone, by five past twelve. I tried to fill my lungs with good air, tried to sound as calm as I could before I transmitted again.

  "All units, false alarm. Request Timmy to free house at convenience, Hook landline in ten minutes. Confirm."

  "Timmy confirms, en route. "

  "Hook?" I asked.

  "Hook confirms."

  "Tink out," I said, and came off the transmitter and the coughs I'd been fighting off struck back then, doubling me over. By the time the attack ended Corry had Natalie out of the hall and into the suite. I released the emergency stop on the elevator, started to follow, then realized my weapon was still in the car and managed to halt the doors just in time. I got my gun, then made my way after Corry.

  They were in Lady Ainsley-Hunter's bathroom, Natalie already in the shower, Corry trying to sort her gear. He helped me get my radio off, taking the rest of my equipment as I stripped, then holding my glasses as I joined Natalie under the spray. He didn't ask any questions.

  She was slumped against the tiled wall, her head down, diluted blood swirling at her feet. When she looked up at me I could see the source. Drama had broken her nose.

  After taking a face full of icy water for thirty seconds, Natalie and I swapped places again. My watch was an Oris, water-resistant to one hundred meters, and I checked it again, saw that I had twenty-two minutes. The burning had stopped where the water was still hitting me, but everywhere else it still persisted, not as ferocious, but constant. There was nothing more I could do about it; pepper only relents in the face of three things – fresh air, cold water, and time – and time was the only sure cure.

  Corry handed me a towel as I got out. Dale was now standing in the doorway.

  The phlegm still bubbling in my throat made my voice thick. "Drama's got her," I told them.

  It was on their faces that I was only confirming what they already knew.

  "No word to the law, no alarms, nothing. The balloon goes up, she'll kill her." I dropped the towel, reached for my clothes. "I'm supposed to be at my place in twenty minutes for further instructions."

  "I'll bring the car around," Dale said, and went.

  "What do I tell Moore?" Corry asked.

  "Have him and Chester come to my place as soon as they can, but tell them not to rush it. If the police catch a whiff, we're fucked."

  "You think Drama's serious?"

  From the shower, Natalie said, softly, "Absolutely."

  I finished tying my shoes, grabbed my gun and radio. "There's another problem."

  "Fowler's with Bridgett, and both were with Moore when the radios started," Corry said. "We're not going to be able to keep Fowler from coming here, or to your place, if that's where Bridgett is headed."

  "Then don't try. Just make sure he doesn't find out why we've moved." I checked my watch, saw that I had just twenty minutes. "I'm gone. You and Nat follow as soon as you're able."

  ***

  "What'd she say?" Dale asked.

  "She wants me
to stay by the phone. She says she'll call. She says again if we raise an alarm, Antonia's dead." I carefully replaced the receiver.

  "What do we tell Scott?"

  "Nothing."

  Dale moved closer. "He'll know something's up, Atticus. He'll have to report this. He's legally and ethically obligated to report this."

  "Then we'll lie."

  "Atticus…"

  "Dammit, Dale, Drama has her and the only reason Antonia's not dead is because she wants something else!"

  He let go of my shoulder, scowling. "Don't shout at me."

  I matched his expression with a scowl of my own, and then stepped past him. From the gun locker in my closet I took my Smith Wesson, my extra clips for the HK, the ammunition I needed for both guns. Dale was where I'd left him, staring out the window. He turned his head enough to watch me dump everything on the kitchen table.

  "We're going to need maps," I said.

  "I have the Hagstrom in the car."

  "Get it."

  He went and as soon as I heard the door close I reached for the phone. Bridgett's cell phone rang twice before she answered, and before she could speak I started talking.

  "Don't say my name. We've got a situation and it's bad and Fowler cannot be a part of it. Understand?"

  "Uh-huh."

  "Where are you?"

  "Leaving Midtown North."

  "Is he with you?"

  "Uh-huh."

  "I need you to come up with an excuse to separate from him."

  "I can do that, but it might be a couple minutes. I'll have to go to the office first."

  I was so worked up I didn't even appreciate the embellishment. "Moore told you where he was going?"

  "Uh-huh."

  "Dammit." That meant Scott already knew we'd moved from the Edmonton to the apartment, and that meant he'd be coming here anyway. "All right, don't worry about it. I'll call you back when it's safe."

  "Well, safety is my middle name."

  "Your middle name is Eileen."

  She hung up, and so did I, and I stared at my spare gun and then set about loading the extra clips. I didn't have any immediate plan to use it; I didn't even have any immediate plan to wear it. But it kept my hands busy, it was something to do until the others arrived, until the phone rang again. Drama had as much as said we were now playing the waiting game, and I expected that she would make us wait long, to try and wear us down before she made further contact. The best thing to do would be to use the time well, and that meant getting ready for whatever might happen next. When the others arrived, we would discuss it, try to work out a strategy, a plan.

  But just thinking that, I knew that there really wasn't anything we could do at all.

  The pepper burn had finally relented, and now my insides felt raw. The illness I'd felt earlier seemed to have gone too, though if that was a result of the unending supply of adrenaline I seemed to have tapped or because I was actually healthier, I didn't know. I didn't much care. My face throbbed from where Drama kicked me, and when I touched my cheek, I could feel the swelling beneath the skin.

  Dale came back with the maps, and a couple minutes later the intercom buzzed, and Natalie told me that she was downstairs with Corry, Moore, and Chester. I let them into the building, told Dale to cover the hall, then went out my apartment door to the top of the stairs. After a minute I heard them coming up, and when I saw Natalie leading the way, I waved Dale off. Wet hair clung limp around her head like sodden newspaper, and the swelling across the bridge of her nose had already begun turning purple and red. She swiped at a weak trickle of blood from her left nostril as she crossed the threshold.

  Once everyone was inside, Dale shut and locked the door. Corry put Chester on the couch, sitting down beside her, and Natalie took the chair in the corner by the stereo. Moore remained standing. He waited until Dale joined us before asking if we'd received the call.

  "She called," I said. "Her Ladyship's still alive, I heard her voice, not a recording."

  "How'd she sound?" Chester was moving a glare over each of us, while the fingers of her right hand pulled at the upholstery on my couch, making a small hole larger.

  "Scared." I looked at Moore. "They explained it to you?"

  He nodded.

  "We did everything we could."

  He nodded again, and I knew he accepted what I'd said, but I also knew knowing it gave him about as much comfort as saying it was giving me. "Has she made demands?"

  "She's primed the waiting game," I said. "Orders are to stay by the phone, wait for her call. If word gets out…"

  "I heard," Moore said. "She hasn't said what she wants?"

  "No."

  "Doesn't make much nicking sense, then, does it?"

  "Not so far."

  Moore scratched at his eyebrow with his thumb, squinting as if trying to read small print. I waited for him to chase the thought, to see if he ended up at the same destination I had.

  "How much time you figure?"

  "It won't be until midnight at the earliest," I answered. "This is psych one-oh-one stuff; she's going to try to unbalance us. She can afford to make us wait, she knows that'll only make her position stronger, but she can only play that for so long – otherwise she risks the balloon going up whether any of us want it to or not. My feeling is we won't hear from her again until the long hours tonight. But we should start prep now."

  "I agree. Natalie?"

  She was already pushing out of the chair. "Dale and I'll go clean out the office. Anything in particular we should grab?"

  "We don't know what we'll need," I said.

  "So all of it?"

  "Pretty much, yeah."

  "We'll be back in an hour."

  After they left, Chester asked, "Now what?"

  "Now we wait," I told her. "We can't do anything until we hear from Drama."

  "At which point what?" She was pulling pieces of stuffing from the hole in the sofa, apparently unaware she was doing it.

  "She either tells us what she wants for Lady Antonia, or she'll tell us to keep waiting."

  Her fingers stopped moving and she got shrill again. "We can't keep waiting, someone is bound to notice she's gone missing! I should be making calls as it is, I should be making excuses for her absence…"

  "Soon as we get this sorted you'll be on the phone, lying through your teeth," Moore interrupted. "We have to wait until after the Fed is dispensed with."

  She straightened, indignant. "I wasn't planning on saying that Her Ladyship had been kidnapped, Mr. Moore."

  "She's got a point," Corry said.

  "Of course not." Moore sounded annoyed. "The story should be that Her Ladyship has fallen ill, food poisoning will do fine. I'm not asking for any grand fabrication."

  "That's not what I mean," Corry explained. "Drama's window is as limited as ours. She can't tease this out for too long, because as much as we try to keep the lid on, something's going to leak out. With all the media attention Her Ladyship gets, we can't have much more than twenty-four hours."

  "Maybe a little longer," Chester said. "I can be very convincing."

  "Good," I said. "Her life will depend on that."

  Chester smiled ice at me. "At least she can rely on me."

  The intercom went off again just before two, Scott Fowler asking me to please let him inside, and I responded by telling him instead that I'd be right down. I came off the button before he could ask why, told Moore I was going to be gone for a few minutes, and that if Drama called, to tell her I'd call her back.

  Chester, still slowly destroying my couch, didn't think that was very funny at all.

  Fowler was leaning against the side of the building as I stepped out, and the first thing he said was, "What the hell happened to your face?"

  "Keith caught me with a wild arm," I said.

  "Thought Moore bagged him."

  "Hey, I helped."

  One of his eyebrows rose slightly as he took another look at my jaw. "Why don't you want me coming upstairs?"
<
br />   "I can't tell you."

  "Why isn't Lady Ainsley-Hunter at the Edmonton?"

  "I can't tell you."

  "Why did you call Bridgett and try to pretend you were someone else?"

  That threw me for a moment.

  "Her cell phone identifies the incoming number." Scott tapped his forehead with an index finger. "Nothing escapes the ever-vigilant eye of the FBI."

  "You're thinking of the Pinkertons."

  "I'm thinking there's something going on and you're freezing me out. And I'm thinking there are a couple of reasons you might do that, none of them good, and one of them might have to do with the Backroom Boys." He shoved his hands into his pants pockets, frowning at me. "I'll ask again, and you can give me an answer."

  "No, I'll give you a response, and it'll be the same one you just heard."

  "What's going on, Atticus?"

  I looked him in the eye and said, "I'm in a bad position, Scott. I know you're on the job, but so am I, and right now I've got a situation with my principal that requires my discretion."

  "I'm listening."

  "She's upstairs right now. She's well protected. She's also got company."

  "Company how?"

  I didn't say anything, hoping he'd do the math for me. He did.

  "Male or female?"

  "I can't say."

  "You can tell me."

  I shook my head. "I can't, Scott. I've already said too much. She's afraid you'll report something back and that it'll leak out of the Bureau office and to the media…"

  "We don't do that kind of shit, Atticus, you know that."

  "I know you, Scott," I said. "She doesn't. She's used to dealing with the British tabloids, you understand? She's gun-shy, she's scared of being discovered, and my job is to protect not only her person, but her reputation. The thing with Keith this morning really rattled her, we got her back to the hotel, she told me that she wanted this arranged. She's young and in love, what can I say?"

  He searched my face a second longer, then looked up the side of the building, as if he might be able to see into my apartment windows. "And you're using your place instead of the Edmonton because it's easier to slip in and out unnoticed?"