Page 31 of Shane
“Yup, got it.” Shane took firm hold of her bag, lifted it into the front, and set it on her lap, then waited while she armed herself. He was impressed. The woman carried a damned nice Sig Sauer, P365 Nitron Micro-Compact pistol, and judging by how adeptly she checked the chamber and chambered a round, she knew how to use it. A weapon that small would never fit his hand. Maybe two fingers, but it fit Everlee’s palm like it’d been made for her. Pushing back into her seat, she tucked it into an inner pants holster just left of her centerline, which made it easy for her to reach with her right hand when needed, then bloused her polo over the barely noticeable bulge. No one would guess she was carrying unless they knew where to look.
“How’s the ankle?”
“Fine,” she snapped, her door opened and one boot already on the street. “You ready, Hayes?”
Shane took that for the shut-up-and-mind-your-business it was. “You bet. Let’s go meet our suspect.”
“Soft entry or hard?” Soft meant knock, approach politely with care. Hard meant break and enter with surprise, speed, and force.
“Soft,” he replied. “No sense starting a war. I’ll just tell her my car stalled and ask if I can use her phone to call roadside service. Only I’ll call you. Sound good?”
“Yeah, let’s get this done. I’d like to be on our way home by morning.”
That word, home, caught in Shane’s throat. He ducked his head in response but wondered if that was what Virginia truly was. It had been home once. Could it be again?
Chapter Eleven
Something wasn’t right. Everlee could feel it. While Shane approached the front door, she’d walked up Bremmer’s nicely edged concrete driveway and into her open backyard. No gate, no fence at all. With every step into what appeared to be a commonplace, all-American backyard, complete with three apple trees in blossom lining the back border between her property and the neighbor’s, Everlee’s spidey senses tingled. This wasn’t the disorganized home of a psychotic murderer, not at all. Not unless Bremmer paid a gardener. Or she was just that intelligent and evil...
Which she might be. Everlee hated that nothing about this assignment was lining up like it should. Ms. Bremmer had honestly thought she could just move to another state, buy a family home outright, and never have to worry about the long arm of the law knocking on her door? And another thing, if Everlee and Shane had found her this easily, why hadn’t the FBI arrested her by now?Jiminy Christmas, there were several FBI field offices in Texas, one a few miles away in Dallas. If the Bureau could pass Bremmer’s whereabouts along to Alex, surely they could’ve parked on this street and apprehended the woman themselves.
So, yeah, there was something fishy about this particular contract. Office gossip was that Alex and the FBI hadn’t always gotten along, that he’d pulled their bacon out of the fire more than once before. Most notably was the mission in Wisconsin, the time they’d gotten Libby Houston’s sister killed during an all-out war between the Bureau and some Russian gangsters. Alex had made the Bureau look pretty bad when he’d taken over their operation and saved Libby’s parents’ lives. Was this just another screwed-up FBI contract that would force his hand? If so, how? And why? What did the Bureau have to gain by offloading their federally assigned responsibility to a private contractor?
The Bureau’s mission was to protect Americans and uphold the Constitution. But when they failed, like they had against David Koresh and his followers, a bizarre religious sect known as the Branch Davidians, in Waco, Texas, back in 1993, they failed spectacularly. That time, the federal government had thrown the full force of the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives, aka the ATF, as well as the FBI, a division of Texas Rangers,andthe National Guard, against Koresh and his followers, which amounted to just ninety-one people. Ninety-one! And yes, the sect had had run-ins with civil authorities before. Lots of them. But against all that federal manpower?
During the initial ATF attempt to serve a search and arrest warrant on Koresh, a gunfight ensued, and four ATF agents had been killed. In the end, after a fifty-one-day siege against the sect by the full weight of the United States law, seventy-six members of the Branch Davidians were dead, including twenty-five children and the cult’s leader, David Koresh. Public sentiment ran strongly against the government’s heavy-handed treatment of so few civilians and the unconscionable loss of so many children. To this day, people called the disaster theWaco Massacre, not the politically correctWaco Siege.
That the FBI and ATF had previously bungled a similar eleven-day siege in Ruby Ridge, Idaho, in 1992, wherein the son and wife of suspect Randy Weaver, were killed, cast the Bureau in particularly inept lighting. The killing of civilians, especially Randy Weaver’s wife by a long-range FBI sniper, horrified Americans. But in the end, the damage was done. Randy Weaver’s wife and only son were dead and civil lawsuits ensued. The government ended up paying millions to Randy Weaver and his three surviving daughters. But not one cent of those dollars brought his family back.
More recent ill-fated FBI shortcomings were just as telling. Which were all on Everlee’s mind as she stepped onto Bremmer’s backdoor step and alongside the wrought iron railing beside the rear exit. The sun had set and the house inside was dark. The back door was solid wood, painted white with a window inset in the upper panel. A single motion detection light flickered on over the door at her approach, which made Everlee a well-lit target, damn it. Her heart skipped a beat and her throat went dry. She would’ve felt better if Alex had sent four agents, not just two. But two was better than one and there she was.
With her pistol in her right hand and pointed up, she lifted her chin and peered cautiously through the backdoor window. Another light had just flashed on somewhere inside. Or that golden glow could simply be from a motion detector light at the front door. It was hard to be sure, since the glow was coming from, or at least through, the front room. Everlee had no way to know if Bremmer had answered Shane’s knock or not. The narrow band of light lit the dark hallway that stretched beyond the kitchen. There wasn’t any movement inside, not even a shadow most likely cast by that motion-activated front light.
She stepped to the side of the rear door, breathing hard but keeping an eye out for activity, in and outside the home. So far this day had been a bust. There was nothing suspicious about Bremmer’s place. Even the backyard was pleasant and inviting. Taking one last glance over her shoulder, she stifled a yawn, bored with a mission that seemed to be a waste of time. Until—
KABOOM!The house shuddered. The sky overhead filled with fire and brimstone. Debris exploded out the backdoor’s single window in one long, fiery belch that damned near scorched Everlee’s hip when it passed. The ensuing backdraft sucked the air out of her lungs, like a dragon taking another breath before—
Jiminy Christmas!The dragon blew the door off its hinges. Even the concrete steps bucked, rolling her forward and backward as if she were on a ship at sea. She grabbed hold of the railing. There was no way to return fire, no one to fire at.
“Shane!” she yelled as she caught her balance when the ground stopped shuddering. She’d been lucky. If she’d stood directly outside the rear exit, she would’ve been skewered by the broken window. Tightening her shoulders, she tucked her head into the arms she’d raised to shield her face and eyes from the heat emanating from the burning house and from the shrapnel ricocheting into the backyard like a fireworks display gone crazy. The hellish dragon inside Bremmer’s home still spewed plenty of red-hot spears across the neighboring yards. Booms, growls, and groans sounded deep inside what was left of the damaged structure.
But all Everlee could think of was Shane in front of that all-glass entry door and the two giant plate-glass picture windows beside it. He had to be dead or severely injured. She bellowed again, needing him to answer her, damn it. “Shane!”
She didn’t dare move, not with hellfire raining down on the entire neighborhood. Poisonous vapors swelled around her. So many items that homeowners decorated with were flammable and downright toxic. Couch cushions. Carpeting. If she stepped out of this narrow safety zone, she’d risk death and pain and—
Forget that.Everlee was Air Force, not Chair Force. Not a damned scaredy-cat woman waiting for a big, brave man to come save her, either. Decision made. She jumped away from the blown-to-Hell rear egress, sure some exploding piece of glass or metal could still nail her in the back. Who cared? She chose to fight to her last breath, not to die quivering in fear like a civilian. Dodging fire and streaming debris, she hustled her ass around the house to—
God, no.Shane was on his back in the street. The soles of his boots were smoking. So were his jeans. Most of the front of his shirt was gone. His double holster was still intact, and he was lying there, pointing a pistol skyward. Everlee glanced upward as she ran to him, in case he knew something she didn’t. Like maybe a house was falling?
Big mistake. In her haste to reach her partner—and because she was watching the sky instead of where she was going—Everlee stumbled, not sure on what. Probably on her big feet. Might’ve been debris. Whatever! She lost her balance and ended up skidding sideways on her thigh and butt over the last stretch of dew-laden, smoking grass. Nothing hurt, not even her previously sprained ankle, when, at last, her slide dropped her on the street. She scrambled to Shane’s side.
He wasn’t on fire, and up close, he didn’t look burned, at least his face wasn’t. But the front of his shirt was scorched into pieces. Black sooty smudges covered his face, and every inch of him was steaming. His blue eyes were watering plenty. That fine head of dark hair was now feathered and singed. His eyebrows were, too.
“Jiminy Christmas,” Everlee breathed when she finally had her hands on him. “Are you okay?” she asked as she lowered his stiff arm and peeled his rigid fingers from the pistol’s grip. He was alive but in shock. Damn Bremmer! She’d planned for this! “Look at me. Tell me what hurts, big guy. Did you hit your head again?”
He laid there blinking up at her, and she was remembering how he’d unraveled so quickly at the office yesterday. This wasn’t a good time or place for him to have another panic attack, but she wouldn’t blame him if he did. She was near to panicking herself, but only because she’d been worried about him. Yeah, right. They both could be dead right now. Hell, she might just join him in one, great big panic attack. They could cry on each other’s shoulders.
Instead, Shane curled his torso forward, the muscles of his bare abdomen taut but wrinkling as he forced his body into an impressive sit-up. Turning his head, he looked straight at her, but his eyes were spacey. He wasn’t dead, but he was hurt and—