While Justice Sleeps(117)

Rita and her kidnapper were inside, a gun at the ready. Jared felt the surge of adrenaline, but the weapon in his hand felt cool and steady. His job was to save Avery’s mom, while she did her best to save his father. He wouldn’t let her down.

“On my mark,” Lee instructed in a harsh whisper. “Go!”

The battering ram broke through the door, and FBI agents swarmed inside the shadowed cavern of space. Footsteps pounded concrete, and Phillips spun around, his hand already drawing his weapon. Agent Lee came in low, Jared on his left flank. Orders snapped out like bullets, bouncing off the walls.

“On the ground! On the ground! Now! Now!”

Blue jackets emblazoned with yellow filled the warehouse. Surrounded, Phillips still refused to comply. Vance had anticipated almost every result, including discovery, and Phillips had his orders. Moving quickly, he leaped and slid over the console table, landing near Rita’s position. His arm vised around her neck and clamped against her airway. “Come any closer and I’ll kill her!”

    Rita’s blind cry filled the warehouse, and the cavern amplified the sound into a piercing wail. “Shut up,” he demanded as he shoved the barrel to her temple. Death was imminent, he realized, but he had one last task to accomplish. Focusing on the lead agent, he instructed tersely, “Fall back. All of you. Far corner.”

Agent Lee gave the signal and began to shuffle against the concrete, and his agents followed suit, weapons trained on Phillips’s position. He recognized the firm, wide stance, the grip of the Walther. This man had seen combat in the field. Leveling his tone, he asked, “What’s your name, soldier?”

“Phillips.”

“What branch?”

“Marine Corps.” The information was easily found, Phillips decided. No reason to lie. “Chief warrant officer.”

“Well, Chief, I’m going to be honest with you. You’ve got no way out of here,” he told him bluntly. “Give us Mrs. Keene and tell us who hired you. Then I’ll talk to the U.S. attorney about leniency.”

Adrenaline burst like bubbles in Phillips’s veins, but he’d been taught how to channel the rush. How to hold the mission in his sight lines, regardless of distractions. But he also knew how to feint. He barked across the room, “How tight is your perimeter?”

“What do you mean?”

The shriek of pain from Rita came as answer, as the gun dug into bruised flesh. “Your perimeter?”

“Six blocks. We’ve surrounded the waterfront. Unless you plan to swim out to the Potomac and drift down to Virginia, there’s no way you escape. Cooperate, and we’ll work out a deal.”

Phillips calmed his breathing and hunted his memory for any escape hatch, but there were none. He’d been sent in to guard, and to die if necessary. The finality of his situation barely disturbed him. He’d made it up to chief in the Corps, but his bent had never been toward leadership. He was a soldier, and Vance’s instructions had not included the possibility of capture.

    But the mission was clear. Protect the commander in chief.

The Walther in his hand shifted for a split second, but Agent Lee read the signs. In a single whip of motion, Phillips twisted toward the computer setup and pumped ammunition into the casing. Smoke billowed as he swung the weapon in a tight, deadly arc.

In the time it took for Phillips’s arm to complete its motion, the report from his gun ripped through the building as Lee’s shot buried itself in Phillips’s chest, and a second round collapsed his lung.

“Hold your fire!” Agent Lee bellowed to the rest of the team.

Rita felt the grip on her arm loosen and dropped to the concrete like a stone.

“He’s down! He’s down!” Agent Lee and his team surged forward to secure Phillips and Rita.

Jared reached her first. Rheumy green eyes lifted to meet his. The resemblance, though pallid and haggard, was still visible. He knelt on the ground and extended his hand. “My name is Jared Wynn. Your daughter, Avery, sent us.”

Rita squeezed the hands in a grip palsied with aftershocks and withdrawal. “She’s okay? Avery?”

“Yes, ma’am. She’s fine.” Jared thought of his father, the machines pushing air into lungs that had forgotten how to breathe. “She sent me to look out for you. But I’m just returning a favor.”





FORTY-EIGHT


“I could bring all of you up on charges.”

Avery nodded, her arms wrapped around the wiry, vibrating form of her mother. Rita cowered against the lumpy green couch that stretched along Agent Lee’s office wall. She’d refused a trip to the hospital, clinging first to Jared and then to Avery.

The thin blanket unearthed from an emergency kit carried a musty odor, but Avery was oblivious. Her mother was safe and unharmed, her bloodshot eyes the result of terror and detox rather than an overnight stupor.

“This was my idea,” Avery told the livid agent, who hadn’t stopped ranting since they’d reached his office. “Jared and the others were only trying to help.”

“Obstruction of justice. Conspiracy. Evidence tampering.” The list was punctuated by smacks against Agent Lee’s palm. “Not to mention perjury.”

“Actually, we never lied under oath,” Noah interjected, only to receive a swift kick to his shins from Ling.