The Rescue(10)

“I’m heading out,” said Harlow.

She reached for the door handle, pausing for a second.

“Decker. It’s time. Head for the door. Once you get outside, take a right. Your sole mission is to get to the parking garage door two stores down.”

“Harlow?”

“Yeah?”

“If things go sideways, I want you to walk away,” said Decker. “This isn’t your fight.”

He had no idea how personal this fight was to her, or how closely he was connected to it. Ten years earlier, she’d been a mere day or two, possibly just hours, away from being “offered a chance” to repay the “enormous debt” she had incurred over the past two months. The cost of a drug-fueled, luxury apartment life—specifically designed to entice and ensnare young women who had flocked to Los Angeles to make it big in Hollywood. Decker had unknowingly snatched her from the jaws of a machine that devoured thousands of young lives every year.

“That’s not exactly true,” she said, pushing the door open.





CHAPTER SEVEN

Decker scanned the mall’s concrete courtyard through the café’s windows, quickly identifying three of the neatly dressed men sent to kill him. The man seated across from the café slowly stood, pretending not to focus on him. The other two flanked the coffee shop at cautious distances—one on each side. Their stationary presence amid the constant ebb and flow of tourists and lunchtime locals made them easy to spot. Almost too easy. He had no doubt that more of them were on the move, timing their approach. They’d be the real threat.

“I have three of them,” he said, his hand feeling the invisible tug of the suppressed pistol. “Forming a triangle around my exit.”

“They’ve left you enough room to move,” said Harlow.

“More like enough rope to hang myself.”

“Hold on. I have a fourth coming from the north. Passing me now,” she said. “I’m following him in. Time to move.”

“Stepping outside,” said Decker, opening the door.

“I’m wearing a pink Dodgers cap,” she said. “I see you coming out.”

He glanced to the right, immediately spotting her—and the linebacker headed directly for him. The guy’s untucked, light-blue oxford shirt bulged at the seams, no doubt concealing a weapon along his muscular frame. The other three men remained in place, waiting for Decker to make a move.

“Don’t worry about the guy in front of me,” said Harlow. “Turn in my direction and start walking.”

“Harlow. I have two moving in from the south. That’s six,” said Katie.

“Decker. Start moving,” said Harlow.

Decker walked toward Harlow, now completely convinced she had misread the situation. She had him walking directly into a brick wall of a man, who was undoubtedly armed and well trained, while five more men converged on him across a 180-degree arc. This would be over in less than ten seconds, and he couldn’t envision a scenario that didn’t involve the gun tucked into his waistband. A sudden flurry of movement in his peripheral vision suggested a far more compacted timeline. This was it. His right hand started to drift along his side, headed for the pistol.

“I’m going active,” said Katie, momentarily keeping him from drawing the weapon.

“Do it,” said Harlow. “Decker. You keep walking.”

“I don’t think that’s a good—”

A police siren pierced the air, startling Decker and stopping the oncoming man in his tracks. A quick glance over his left shoulder showed that the entire crowd had stopped, everyone searching for the source of the shrill sound. A crackling noise drew his attention back to the linebacker less than twenty feet away—just in time to see him drop to the concrete like a sack of stones. Harlow stood over him, a Taser in her hand—the coiled wires from the device bridging the gap between them.

Two low-pitched thumps echoed through the courtyard, immediately followed by a loud hissing sound. He didn’t have to look behind him to figure out what was happening. Harlow threw the Taser onto the ground next to the twitching man and pulled a black hood out of her backpack, wrestling it over his head. Before Decker could nod his approval, she produced a cylindrical gray canister from the pack and pulled the pin. She was out of her mind—and he kind of liked it.

“Get to the parking garage and stay out of sight,” she barked before underhanding the smoke grenade into the crowd to his left.

Decker took off at a dead sprint, pandemonium erupting behind him as screaming shoppers and panicky tourists scrambled to get away from the canister. Almost simultaneously, a string of firecrackers erupted on the other side of the courtyard, pushing the already frightened crowd into a frenzy. He ignored the stampede, plunging into a short, dimly lit hallway marked by a PARKING GARAGE sign. A green metal door with a thin vertical window greeted him. He stopped for a moment and looked over his shoulder, expecting to see Harlow following him.

“Where are you?” said Decker.

“Don’t stop. I’ll be up shortly. I need to make sure nobody followed.”

“I can’t imagine any of them sticking around for the inevitable police response,” said Decker, opening the door and stepping into the stairwell. “Well done.”

“It’s not over yet,” said Harlow, the sound of terrified screams nearly rendering her radio feed incoherent. “Katie. Get out of here.”