Finlay Donovan Jumps the Gun (Finlay Donovan, #3)(95)
“What happened to you?” I asked her.
She glanced down at herself, surprised by the cuts. “The control room was locked. Didn’t have a key. I had to shoot out the window and bust in. Must have cut myself,” she said, wiping it on her flannel pajamas.
A fire truck rounded the corner and two ambulances screamed through the gate. More footsteps pounded up the steps. Roddy, Ty, and Samara rushed onto the deck, carrying first aid kits, blankets, and extinguishers. A winded Charlie dragged himself up the last few steps behind them.
“We thought you all were cooked!” Sam said, kneeling beside Wade. He batted her hand away as she yanked the cigarette from his mouth and snuffed it out. He dropped his head back onto the deck, muttering to himself as she flipped open her first aid kit.
Ty wrapped a blanket around Vero and helped her to her feet.
“I’m sorry, Ty,” she said, her face a mask of smoke-smudged sincerity. “It’s been fun, but I’m afraid you and I have no future together. I’m pretty sure Detective Anthony and I just made a baby.” She patted him on the shoulder. “If it makes you feel better, you can keep my underwear as a token of our fleeting relationship.”
Ty backed away from her, darting odd glances between her and Nick as he handed Nick a blanket. “I’d better go see if anyone else needs any assistance,” he muttered.
Nick shook his head as he wiped a smear of sweat from his brow. He draped the blanket over my shoulders and leaned back against the ledge, opening an arm to me. My blanket pooled around my ankles as I waddled to his side with a shiver. He pulled me in close.
“Where’s Stu?” he asked Roddy.
“Cuffed in one of the classrooms,” Roddy said. “I saw the flames through the window and we came back as soon as we could. What the heck happened up here?”
“No idea,” Nick said. “The power came back on and the simulators started a second later.”
“The control room was locked.” Georgia winced as Sam plucked a piece of glass from her arm. “No one was inside it and I didn’t see anyone on the ground when I got here. It’s a mystery.”
“About as mysterious as that power outage,” Sam said as she reached for some gauze.
“What do you mean?” Nick asked.
“I called the power company a few hours ago for an update. When I asked them how much longer they thought it would be out, they had no idea. They said this entire section of the grid was down and it wasn’t from the weather. They said it was a network problem.”
“Like a computer network?” I asked. Sam nodded.
Vero locked eyes with me. “Can the simulator be controlled remotely, from a computer somewhere else?” she asked Sam.
“Sure, if it’s accessible through a network and runs on a program.”
“Then it can be hacked.” I stepped out from Nick’s arm. This entire night had been planned. The power outage, the fire … there was no way this had all been a coincidence. These events must have been coordinated by someone who knew what was happening on this tower tonight. Cam had alerted Joey that EasyClean would be here, but I was certain Feliks was pulling the strings.
“You think Feliks was behind this?” Sam asked them.
“Not unless he hacked us from the air,” Nick said. “That phone call I got earlier tonight … the one I didn’t answer,” he said, casting me a brief but meaningful look, “it was our task force contact at the FBI. She says Zhirov boarded a private jet just before midnight. The feds think he’s headed to Brazil.”
“Doesn’t matter,” Sam said. “If he has the capability to access those networks remotely, he could have done it from anywhere.”
“Or someone could have done it for him,” Joey said. Nick and Joey exchanged a long look, probably coming to the same conclusion Vero and I had. With the right resources, Cameron could have shut down the power and started the fire himself.
“But who was the target?” Wade asked. “Joey? Or Stu?”
Every eye on the roof turned to Joey. Feliks had broken out of jail for one reason only—to eliminate EasyClean. Once Feliks learned EasyClean was alive and would be here tonight, he must have realized his mistake and come up with a plan to handle the problem once and for all.
But had the fire been the weapon, or had it been the perfect distraction?
If all the police were at the tower trying to put out the fire, and if the security barriers were cleared for emergency vehicles to enter and leave, it would have been easy for Feliks’s men to slip in and out unnoticed.
Roddy frowned. “I should go check on Stu,” he said, turning for the stairs.
“Don’t bother,” Joey said, crushing out his cigarette. “If Feliks had anything to do with that fire, Stuart Kirby is already dead.”
CHAPTER 37
Three hours later, after the EMTs had checked us over and Vero and I had given our statements, we stood at the edge of the parking lot in our blankets, our clothes still damp with sweat and soot as we watched the rest of the academy students load their luggage into two waiting charter buses. After the fire, Commander Ortega had ended the lockdown and ordered that everyone be sent home. Feliks had been sighted that morning at an airstrip near S?o Paulo, Brazil, and when Roddy had returned to the classroom where he had left Stu, all he’d found was an empty pair of handcuffs. Nick and his commander had agreed it would be best to shut the academy down early to let the staff debrief and clean up after the long night.