American Heroes Series - 01 - Resurrection (40 page)

Olivia was staring at him with more terror and hope than she could process. “Seriously?” she hissed. “We’re going to leave?”

“Yes,” Joseph went back into the bathroom, looking for and finally tracking down the clothes she had worn when they had arrived at the hospital.  He scooted out of the bathroom. “Your clothes are in there. Hurry and get dressed.”

Olivia didn’t need to be told twice.  She tossed the sheet off her and walked quickly, and a little unsteadily, across the cold floor, shutting the bathroom door as Joseph lingered nervously outside. When she finally emerged in the bright pink t shirt, white Capri pants and pink, white and green sneakers, Joseph grabbed her by the hand and pulled her towards the door. 

He paused suddenly before opening it, his edgy gaze falling on her.  He seemed to be grasping for words.

“I’m really sorry about all of this, Olivia,” he said softly. “You were never supposed to be so deeply involved. I’m sorry you got sucked into something that went so out of control.”

She gazed steadily at him. “I’m not going to tell you that it’s okay,” she said. “I’m not going to forgive you for anything if that’s what you’re looking for.”

He smiled, shaking his head. “I’m not looking for absolution, at least not from you,” he cracked the door and peered outside. “Maybe I’m just righting a wrong in my own mind.  I think this has more to do with me forgiving myself for being a part of all this.”

Olivia didn’t have an answer for that but it oddly made her feel sorry for him. Joseph held her hand tightly as he emerged into the cool, dimly lit corridor that smelled strongly of antiseptic. The floors were old green linoleum and the walls a sickly white. There was a nursing station about twenty feet away and he could see a couple of women moving about. One was on the phone and one was on the computer, neither of them paying any attention to him.  He pulled Olivia out after him and took her, very quickly and quietly, in the opposite direction.

The stairwell was out of a small set of doors and to the right.  He took Olivia through the set of doors and shoved open the stairwell panel. The steps beyond were concrete and poorly lit. 

Joseph raced down the stair with Olivia right behind him, turning the corner on the landing and taking the first two steps when he suddenly came to a halt.  Olivia plowed into the back of him and almost sent them both tumbling over.

“What the…?” she began, righting herself to see what had Joseph stopped. And what she saw turned her blood to ice.

Nat was standing on the landing below them.  At the sight of Joseph and Olivia, he suddenly smiled quite jovially. For a man that was perpetually surly, the sudden joy on his face was frightening.  Olivia knew it couldn’t be a good sign.

“I
knew
it,” he said it happily, slapping his thigh and slowly moving towards the pair. “I had this feeling… don’t ask me why, but I just did.  As we were sitting with Dr. Gioia discussing Olivia’s future and you suddenly got up and left, I just had this feeling where you were going. I see my instincts were right.”

Joseph made sure to keep Olivia behind him. “Let us go, Nat,” he said steadily. “Olivia no longer serves a purpose for us. There’s no reason to keep her any longer.”

Nat was still smiling although his brow furrowed. “Are you crazy?” he said. “She knows too much about us now.  She knows everything. We can’t let her go.”

Nat was getting closer and Joseph backed up a step. “For God’s Sake, what’s the point of hanging on to her?” he argued. “She’s just a kid. Let her go home and resume her life like a normal, everyday teenager. She doesn’t need to be a part of this madness.”

Nat pursed his lips as if the suggestion was ridiculous. “She stopped being a normal teenager the moment we took her,” he replied. “She’s part of us now.”

“No, I’m not!” Olivia said hotly from behind Joseph. “I just want to go home. You don’t need me anymore.”

Nat’s gaze moved between Joseph and Olivia. “She’d make a great empress, Joe,” he said. “Pretty and smart. Keep her for yourself; marry her.”

Joseph shook his head. “She’s a little too young for me,” he replied steadily. “Come on, Nat; just let us pass. We can find someone else to supply eggs and carry a child to term.”

“You always were an idiot, Joe.”

“Maybe so. But at least I have a conscience.”

Joseph began to descend the stairs again, yanking Olivia along, but suddenly stopped. Olivia smacked into him once more.  Irritated, frightened, she peered around him to see why he had come to a halt this time and was not surprised to see Nat with a gun pointed at them.

That was when all hell broke loose.

***

Ethan took the East entry, having to pry the door open with a small pry-bar type tool that one of the agents had brought. The door wasn’t highly secure and popped open after a couple of tries.  It opened up into a small lobby area that was both cold and deserted. 

The door directly in front of them led out into a main corridor while the door to the left opened into the stair well.  Ethan silently directed two of the officers with him to cover the door into the main corridor while he took the door to the stairs.  The second floor was their objective.

Quickly opening the fire proof panel, Ethan ran headlong into a man standing on the landing. The man’s back was to them and Ethan was only aware of an average-sized male in a white shirt but little else. It was when he heard a shriek and looked up the stairs that events suddenly seemed to roll in slow motion; it was odd and painful and drawn out, like a movie scene that seemingly had no end.

Ethan turned to see Olivia about mid-way up the steps, standing behind a man who appeared to be protecting her.  The man who stood with his back to him suddenly whirled on Ethan with a gun in his hand and Ethan felt the impact of the bullet as it plowed into his Kevlar vest.  It felt like he’d been hit by a battering ram, literally knocking him off his feet and throwing him into the wall near the door. 

Seeing Agent Serreaux hit, the Marines behind him opened up and fired several rounds into Nat before the man could get off another shot.  Nat was dead before he hit the ground. Olivia started screaming as Joseph threw her down onto the stairs to protect her, covering her with his own body as the bullets flew. But a ricochet caught him in the back, plowing through a kidney, his liver and through a major artery before exiting his belly. That same bullet ripped through Olivia’s right calf.

Dazed, Ethan began yelling for his group to cease fire. He was terrified that Olivia was going to be mowed down. A couple of men were kneeling next to him asking if he was all right.  One of them was Agent Daniels; he was mortified that Ethan had been struck. He had started screaming into his headset for a medic the moment Serreaux had gone down, but other than having the wind knocked out of him, Ethan wasn’t injured. The Kevlar vest had done its job and deflected the bullet.  With Daniel’s help, Ethan struggled to his feet.

As the dust and smoke settled, the first thing he saw was Olivia lying on the stairs with a man on top of her.  There was blood pooling beneath her and horror such as he had never known seized him.  Struggling with his diminished physical state at the moment, Ethan labored up the stairs with the Marines in tow. It was the longest run of his life.

Already, he was calling for J.D. to send a medical team to the east entrance. He could hear too much shouting and air traffic in his earpiece and he ripped it out of his ear about the time he reached Olivia. Yanking the body on top of her off and casting it aside, he knelt over the weeping young girl.

“Olivia,” he breathed, trying to see where she was wounded. There was blood everywhere. “Where are you hurt, honey?”

Olivia abruptly sat up and nearly smacked him in the head.  She grabbed at her lower right leg. “My… my leg,” she gasped.  “Something hit me.”

Ethan’s hands were shaking as he ran his fingers over her head, neck and arms, just to make sure there wasn’t something else going on.  His focus quickly moved to her leg and he could see the puckered, bleeding wound. Swiftly, he examined the leg and found the exit wound on the other side of her calf. A bullet had hit her but it had passed through.  He cupped her face with his big hands, forcing her to look at him.

“Are you hurt anywhere else?” he demanded.

Olivia was a weeping, quivering mess.  She shook her head and threw her arms around Ethan’s neck.  He picked her up and held her, cradling her like a baby. The relief he felt at that moment was indescribable.

“Are there any more people involved in this, Olivia?” he asked, trying to determine of more gunmen were going to pop from the walls. “Are there others?”

She shook her head. “I… I don’t think so,” she dared to lift her head from the crook of his neck and look around at the carnage. Her gaze fell on Joseph, lying dead a few feet away, and her tears returned with a vengeance. “He was trying to get me out of here.”

Ethan turned to see who she was looking at. “Who?”

“Joe,” she sobbed. “He… he was going to be the next Holy Roman Emperor.”

Ethan took a deep breath to steady his nerves as he gazed down at the still form on the stairs.  “That’s the d’Orleans heir?”

Olivia nodded, wiping at her eyes. “He didn’t like what they were doing and he was trying to get me out of here. But Nat stopped him.”

“Nat?”

Olivia nodded, straining to catch a glimpse of the body at the base of the stairs, riddled with bullets. The tears turned angry.

“Him,” she pointed at Nat’s bloodied corpse. “He was so mean and scary, Ethan. He’s the really bad guy, not Joe. He’s the one who kidnapped me from my house.”

Ethan gazed down at the crumpled figure. “So that’s the guy,” he muttered. “And he was trying to stop Joe from taking you out of here?”

“Yes.”

“Where was Joe taking you?”

Olivia sniffled. “Back to my mom. He said that he didn’t want anything to do with the Cardinal’s plans anymore and we were escaping.”

Ethan sighed heavily, noticing that one of the Marines had found a roll of gauze in his field pack and began wrapping Olivia’s leg with it.  He watched the man put pressure on the wound to stop the bleeding before returning his focus to Olivia; at that moment, and only at that moment, did he began to feel as if they were safe.  He began to hear from the other agents around him that they had Dr. Gioia in custody, but Ethan wasn’t particularly interested in that. He found that nothing else, at the moment, mattered to him. He had what he came for.

 With Olivia safe in his arms, he descended the stairs and exited the building into the bright Italian sunshine.  J.D. was crossing the parking lot, heading towards them with medics in tow.  Ethan and Olivia, with two Marines flanking them, met J.D. half way across the lot.  J.D.’s gaze was intense on Ethan.

“Someone said you’d been hit,” he gasped. “What idiot told me such lies?”

Ethan smiled weakly. “It wasn’t a lie,” he assured him. “Thank God for Kevlar.”

“You’re all right, then?”

“I’m fine.” Ethan looked down at Olivia, cradled in his arms with her head against his shoulder. “Olivia’s going to be fine, too.”

Olivia lifted her head at J.D. and smiled faintly. “Hi again.”

“Hi to you, too,” J.D.’s black eyes glittered at the pale young girl. “Glad to finally see you again, Miss Olivia.”

“I think she’s had enough for one day,” Ethan sounded suspiciously like her father. “I’d like to get her leg looked at and get her back to her mother.”

J.D. nodded, indicating the medics. “These people can take care of her. Let her go with them; I need to talk to you for a minute.”

Ethan went to set Olivia down but she clung to him. Gently, he whispered a few words to her and she eventually loosened her grip to the point where the Medics could take her back over to the ambulance. But she looked panicked that she was being separated from Ethan.

“I’ll be there in a minute, I promise,” he assured her.

Reluctantly, she let the man and woman take her over to the waiting rescue vehicle. Ethan watched her until they sat her down inside the vehicle before turning to J.D.

“The east stairwell has two dead bodies in it,” he said. “According to Olivia, both men are her kidnappers. I didn’t push her for the entire story but from what she said, one of them was trying to help her escape and the other one was trying to stop them. It’s only by sheer coincidence that we entered that stairwell when we did. We walked right into it.”

J.D. nodded. “Are there any more suspects we need to locate?”

“Olivia said that was it.”

J.D. digested that information. “I’ve got a crime scene unit on its way over right now. We’ll interview your team and find out how it went down,” he eyed Ethan. “I need to interview Olivia. I need to do it while it’s fresh in her mind.”

Ethan sighed heavily. “It can wait until tomorrow,” he told him. “Let her get back to her mother and get a good night’s sleep before you question her.”

J.D. didn’t look pleased but he knew it would do no good to argue. “First thing in the morning.”

“Sure.”

Ethan’s attention was again drawn over to the ambulance where Olivia was sitting on the gurney having her leg tended to.  Christophe had joined her and Ethan smiled faintly as the man climbed into the ambulance, with all four guns, and gave Olivia a gentle hug. He sat next to her with his arm around her shoulders while the medics worked on her leg, glad to see his young friend again. J.D. followed the Ethan’s gaze, quite casually, before speaking.

“There’s something else,” he muttered, rubbing his chin. “I was informed that Cardinal Bishop Wildegrav was stabbed to death in his offices about a half hour ago.”

“Really?” Ethan looked at him with mild surprise. “By whom?”

“That’s what I was going to ask you.”

Ethan cocked his head. “How in the hell would I know?”

J.D. scratched his chin and shifted on his big legs, looking as if he wanted to say much more of what he was apparently thinking.

“Because no one can seem to locate Coral Chastity Aames,” he said flatly, watching Ethan’s stone-like expression. “Ethan, earlier today you had a private conversation with that woman, the contents of which you would not disclose.  She was released when you were finished because she had supplied us with everything she knew, including Olivia’s location. Three hours later, the Cardinal is murdered, a man she insisted who was, in fact, going to kill her, and now no one can seem to find her. Does that sound strange to you?”