Dangerous Ground 3: Blood Heat (2 page)

Dangerous Ground 3: Blood Heat

5

Seeing movement out of the corner of his eye, he turned to spot Taylor sprinting across the flat top of the garage.

Now what the hell was that about? Taylor was supposed to be watching the back entrance, not playing one-man assault team. No way was he going inside without Will to back him up. Will took a couple of steps in brief retreat and sized up the front door. Kicking any door down was nowhere as easy as movies made it look, and this was a massive and rustic structure. But as far as Will was concerned, that door was kindling. He launched himself at it.

Light flared behind the downstairs windows. Will stumbled to a halt as the front door opened a crack and two suspicious black eyes peered out at him. One eye—a bleary, red-rimmed eye—was human. The other was canine and belonged to some breed of shepherd with a black rectangular muzzle and a lot of sharp white teeth.

“Who are you? What are you doing here?” growled the human.

The dog was less articulate but more convincing.

Will kept his voice low. The last thing he wanted to do was spook Ramirez"s houseguest. “Special Agent William Brandt. I"m with the Bureau of Diplomatic Security.” He held his badge up so there could be no mistake. “You better hear what I have to say.”

The dog made another lunge through the opening between door and frame.

Will took a hasty step back. “Hang on to that mutt if you don"t want me to shoot it.”

“He"s not a mutt. He"s a purebred Anatolian shepherd.”

It didn"t really seem like the time or place for semantics. Will opened his mouth to make himself heard over the snarling dog, but the sound of a shotgun blast from overhead ripped through the night.

A woman started screaming.

6

Josh Lanyon

The shotgun wasn"t Taylor"s. Taylor and Will were carrying their roscoes and wearing underarmor, but that was the extent of their regulation equipment. Which meant Taylor was under fire.

Will grabbed the edge of the door. Ramirez, if it was Ramirez, let go of the dog, which lunged through the doorway, nails scrabbling on brick as it tried to get to Will.

“
Shit
!” Will twisted left, then right, like a bullfighter dodging a set of razor-sharp horns. He flung himself forward, bursting through the entrance in the opposite direction of the charging dog, almost simultaneously slamming the door behind him. His heart drummed in his chest as he slumped back against the uneven wooden surface.
Shit, shit, shit
. Their plan, such as it was, was already crumbling away like sandstone.

The snarling dog threw itself against the door. It sounded like a bear clawing the timbers.

Will had other, more immediate concerns. There was another blast from overhead. The shotgun"s second barrel—definitely not Taylor"s .357 SIG. Taylor was not firing back. There were plenty of reasons for that and none of them meant Taylor was in trouble, but Will still had to fight that instinctive and all-consuming rush of fear.

Ramirez had already fled the tile entryway and was running barefoot for the wooden staircase. His feet slapped the tiles, the tiny, desperate sound carrying oddly down the hallway. Will tore after the man and managed to tackle him three stairs up. Ramirez fell back, and they tumbled down the steps to the tile floor below.

Will"s forehead grazed the edge of one step; his elbow and knee connected sharply with the floor. A goddamned
disaster
was what this was. He grunted and wrestled his way on top of Ramirez, who was short but muscular, compact and pumped up on adrenaline and possibly other things.

Ramirez flailed with arms and legs. He jabbed at Will"s throat with a move unapproved by the WWF. Will blocked and grabbed Ramirez"s hand, bending it back Dangerous Ground 3: Blood Heat

7

in a maneuver also frowned on by most wrestling associations. He followed it up with a knee in the groin that would have ended the fight then and there if it had connected as intended.

It didn"t.

Ramirez screeched and began kicking with renewed energy—if not accuracy.

Upstairs the woman was still screaming, which Will distractedly registered as a positive sign. If she was screaming, chances were Taylor was still a threat to her, and that meant he was likely unhurt. In fact, over Ramirez"s gasps and curses, Will could just make out Taylor"s muffled tones.

Will got his handcuffs out and half dragged, half wrangled Ramirez over onto his front side. Straddling his quarry awkwardly, he snapped the cuffs around thick tattooed wrists.

Ramirez yelled. “What the fuck do you want?”

“I tried to tell you. You"re harboring a fugitive, asshole.”

“You"re no cop!”

“If you don"t stop resisting arrest, you"ll find out how much of a cop I am.”

Ramirez tried to rear up and throw Will off. “I"ll fucking kill you if you hurt her.”

“Nobody"s going to get hurt if you shut up and settle down.” Will checked the cuffs and jumped up from Ramirez, avoiding one of his wilder kicks.

“You"re dead. You"re a dead man!”

Ramirez"s curses and the barking of the Anatolian shepherd outside followed Will as he took the stairs two at a time. His footsteps pounded on wood, the staircase shaking beneath him.

He reached the second story and scanned the unlit hallway. At the end of it, light pooled from an open bedroom door. The woman had stopped screaming. The sudden absence of sound was nearly as jarring as the shrieking had been.

Will heard Taylor say quite clearly, “Oh
fuck
.”

8

Josh Lanyon

Will drew his weapon, holding it at low ready. “MacAllister?” Something in the tone of Taylor"s voice had raised the hair on Will"s nape. It brought to mind too many alarming—though as yet unrealized—images: Taylor looking down to see he"d been mortally wounded, Taylor realizing he"d just pulled the pin on a grenade, Taylor—

“Brandt, you"d better get in here.” Taylor"s voice interrupted Will"s alarmed speculations.

Will was already on his way down the hall.

Taylor blocked the doorway. He was holding a shotgun in one hand and his weapon in the other, but neither was trained on the room"s occupant.

There was no noise from within the room at all. Jesus. Was it not Hedwig?

Had Hedwig been shot in the altercation? Or worse, had someone who was
not
Hedwig been injured in the altercation?

Will came up behind Taylor, trying to see past him into the room. “What is it?

What"s wrong?”

Taylor retreated another inch—actually stepping on Will"s toes. Will manfully managed not to yell. In their entire three years of partnership, he had never known Taylor to retreat so much as a centimeter. From anything.

He put a steadying hand on Taylor"s back. “What"s the matter?”

Taylor jerked his head as though it should be obvious what the matter was.

Will stared past him. There was a chunk of plaster on the floor where one of the shotgun blasts had taken out a section of the ceiling. The woman was not dead. She didn"t even appear to be injured. She was sitting on the foot of the bed. At first glimpse, Will thought it was not Hedwig. She"d dyed her long, lank hair blonde again, but that was her only effort at disguise. She looked older, her face was a little fuller, and she was not wearing her glasses, but it was unmistakably Kelila Hedwig.

Will threw Taylor a quick, questioning look. Taylor"s profile was grim.

Dangerous Ground 3: Blood Heat

9

Will turned back to their prisoner. Studied her more closely. She was wearing a big, white, voluminous nightgown, and her skinny arms were wrapped protectively around her midriff. Around her basketball-sized midriff.

“Oh shit.” Will turned back to Taylor. Taylor was shaking his head, repudiating what was only too obvious. “She"s
pregnant
?”

10

Josh Lanyon

Chapter Two

“That"s just great,” Will said. He sounded uncharacteristically put out. “How the hell did
that
happen?”

“Don"t look at me.”

Will muttered something that could have been, “Dumb question.”

Taylor acknowledged the words absently. Now what? In all his envisioning of possible scenarios, this one had not occurred. He glanced doubtfully at Will, who was looking unusually ruffled, dark brown hair standing up in tufts like someone had tried to grab fistfuls of it out by the roots. Beneath the navy bulletproof vest, the sleeve of his yellow T-shirt was torn, revealing a hard brown bicep. He had a scrape over one blue eye. Otherwise he looked unharmed. He was still breathing hard, but no wonder if the sounds from downstairs had been anything to go by.

Their prisoner seemed to pick up on Taylor"s thoughts. “What have you done to Reuben?” She had a light, girlish voice. It was more like the voice of a hair salon receptionist than a terrorist. She peered nearsightedly at them with wide, pale eyes that reminded Taylor of a frightened white rabbit.

“Nothing too serious from the sound of it.” From the way Ramirez was shouting threats and obscenities, he sounded pretty healthy to Taylor. Hedwig looked unconvinced.

She licked pale lips. “You"re really marshals?”

“DSS. Bureau of Diplomatic Security.” The law enforcement arm of the State Department, if someone wanted to get technical.

Dangerous Ground 3: Blood Heat

11

Hedwig shrugged as though it were all the same thing. Had it been all the same thing when she"d gunned down Henry Torres in that underground parking lot?

“It"s just the two of you?” She watched them warily.

“That"s right. But don"t get any ideas.” Taylor handed Hedwig"s shotgun to Will. Some girls had a thing for shoes; some girls had a thing for double gauge. His was not to reason why.

Will"s gaze held his for a moment, his eyes dark with emotion. That would be Will fretting over the idea of Taylor nearly coming down with a case of lead poisoning. Taylor sighed inwardly. Will needed to get over it. Especially if he wasn"t going to be around to watch Taylor"s back anymore. He holstered his own weapon.

“Were you followed?” Hedwig looked from Taylor to Will.

“Why would we be?” He drew his handcuffs and approached the bed. Hedwig awkwardly levered herself up, her expression defiant.

Taylor stopped. “Seriously? Didn"t we just do this?”

In answer, she tucked her hands behind her back.

“Oh for—” He looked at Will. Will, damn him, looked like he was trying not to laugh. Like this was funny? Well, maybe one day. Not at the moment. “Feel free to jump in here anytime, Brandt.”

“Why? You"re doing fine.”

Taylor looked back at Hedwig. She bared her teeth at him. No shit. Bared her tiny white teeth like Monty Python"s Rabbit of Caerbannog. Like something raised in an underground den—which was probably not far from the truth.

“Listen, little girl. We can do this the civilized way, or I can knock you on your ass and do it the other way. Why don"t you think about that kid you"re carrying?”

“I
am
thinking about him!”

The dark side of Planned Parenthood.

“We need to call for backup,” Will said.

12

Josh Lanyon

He was right, as much as Taylor hated to admit it. This was already way more complicated than he"d anticipated, and transporting a pregnant female prisoner from New Mexico to Los Angeles…

“
No
.” Astonishingly, Hedwig caught his arm. “Please no.”

Taylor took advantage of her distraction to grab her right arm, turning her to snap the cuff on her wrist. She began to struggle. “Front or back?” he asked Will.

Will looked blank. “Front or back what?”

“
Cuffing her
. Do I cuff her in front or in back?”

“How should I know? You"re the one with the nieces and nephews.”

“So far I haven"t had to arrest any of them.”

William grimaced. “There"s protocol on this, right?”

“I assume.” He"d also assumed Will would be familiar with the protocol. Will was generally better at dealing with the gentler sex. Not that their prisoner exactly qualified.

Taylor stepped forward, using a standing leg sweep to knock Hedwig"s feet out from under her. She overbalanced and dropped down on the bed again, bouncing a little, puffing angrily. She glared up at him as he snapped the second cuff on her.

It had to be the pregnancy thing, because no way should he be feeling anything but cold contempt for this murdering bitch.

“How far along are you?” Will joined them bedside.

She tossed her hair out of her face. “Eight months.”

Taylor met Will"s eyes. Will shook his head. Taylor sighed. “I"ll call for backup,” Will said again, and Taylor nodded.

“No. Please no.” Hedwig held up her cuffed hands in supplication. “I"ll make a deal with you.”

“This ought to be good.”

“Save your breath,” Will told her.

Dangerous Ground 3: Blood Heat

13

“But I didn"t kill that man. You have to believe me. I didn"t have anything to do with it. I
swear
.”

“Yeah, yeah,” Taylor said. “You weren"t even in LA at the time.”

“I
wasn’t
in LA at the time.”

Will already had his cell phone out and was dialing.

Hedwig said desperately, “If you call the police, they"ll hand me straight over to the FBI and I"ll be killed. And my baby too.”

“Someone"s been watching the
X-Files
again,” Taylor told Will.

Will snorted.

“Anyway, you won"t be handed over to the FBI. You"ll be handed over to the Marshal Service, who may or may not hand you back to us.”