Moving Target (10 page)

She screamed.

Someone was shaking her. God, the pain in her chest. Was she bleeding to death? Her head jerked back and forth.

"Come back," came a voice. "Ani, what day is it?"

"Mother!" Ani shouted. "Get up!"

The grip on her shoulders tightened and the pain in her bullet wound was almost unbearable. "Ani, come back. You're okay. Tell me today's date."

Tears poured down her cheeks. "August nineteenth." She took a pained breath and gave the year next.

"It's October fifth." Someone shook her by the shoulders again. "Two years later. Tell me the date again."

Her sight shifted. Airplanes. Metal building. Fire. Father with bullet hole in his head. Airplanes. Daniel.

Daniel
.

"What day is it?" Daniel asked again as he came into focus and everything else began to fade away. "Ani, come back to me. Tell me what day it is."

Her whole body shook and she could barely speak. Daniel stroked her hair. "Come on, honey," he said softly. "Tell me."

"October fifth." She took a deep breath as reality came into focus. This time she gave the correct year.

"That's right." He began to smooth his hands down her shoulders. "What's my name?"

She swallowed. "Daniel Parker."

"Good job." He gestured to the people behind him. "Who are they?"

She looked at the concerned faces behind Daniel. "Decoys. They're Deputy Marshals, too."

When Ani looked back to him, he gave her a gentle smile.

"Post-traumatic stress disorder. PTSD." He looked over his shoulder at the other Deputies. "She'll be all right." His gaze turned back to her.

"I'm okay." Her breathing was harsh and she realized she was holding her palm to her old wound. It throbbed and hurt as bad as it did the day she was shot. The burn scars on her back felt like they were on fire. "Sorry."

He gave her another gentle smile. "Nothing to be sorry about. Are you ready to leave? Or do you need to rest?"

"Just give me a minute." Her heart still thundered. "Can I sit?"

"Sure." Daniel took her by the arm and led her through a doorway inside the hangar to a tiled hallway that led past several offices to a large sitting area. It was different than any hangar she'd seen on TV. This one was a business. The waiting room was huge, with planters, a butter-soft black leather couch, and a couple of matching overstuffed chairs. The floor was tiled in a checkerboard pattern with black-and-white marble tiles.

Ani sat heavily on the couch, still holding her palm to her shoulder. She stared straight ahead at a pair of metal doors with windows too high for her to see out of from where she was seated.

She leaned her head back and tried to relax against the leather and concentrate on the present. They were going to go to the hotel. She wasn't going to get shot. None of them were going to die today.

A man came out of a hallway and shook hands with Daniel.

"I'm Richardson, the general manager," the man said.

Daniel nodded with an impatient look on his face. He didn't give her name to the GM, she noticed.

Ani offered the GM a weak smile. It was time she got up anyway. She pushed herself from the couch to her feet. She noticed Daniel taking a protective stance as she shook Richardson's hand. "A pleasure to meet you," she said, feeling trite but not up to anything more original than, "Nice place."

"Yes, it is." His hand was limp as he shook hers. You could always tell the caliber of a man by his handshake. Firm and strong, or weak like a wet fish.

A man dressed in a chauffeur's outfit pushed the doors open and from her side view she saw Daniel had immediately moved his hand near his gun. He visibly relaxed when the man came through the doors.

"All cars have been checked for explosives, Inspector," the man said. "They're clean."

Daniel nodded and put his hand on Ani's elbow. "We're set."

The GM walked out the doors as Ani, Daniel, and the two pairs of decoys went out. The pilot and the other two Deputies who had been onboard the jet had stayed behind in the hangar, apparently planning on leaving with the jet.

The seven of them approached three identical black cars with dark tinted windows. It was an Indian summer, as Daniel had called it, and early October sunshine warmed her face. It was bright enough to cause her to squint until her eyes adjusted to the light.

A chain-link fence surrounded the parking lot and in the distance she could see two hotels in what seemed like the middle of nowhere.

Ani and Daniel climbed into the back seat of the rear car while the decoy couples slipped into the other vehicles. He let her in first, then scooted in after her mimicking exactly what the couples in front of them did.

"Let's take a tour of the city," Daniel told the man in the front seat who was also dressed like a chauffeur but had the same cautious gaze as Daniel.

"You got it," the man said.

The man reached forward, grabbed the keys, started to crank the engine—

Ani heard a strange whistling sound.

Something exploded.

She cried out as the force rocked their car.

A fireball roiled up to lick the clouds.

Shrapnel hit the front window of their car, cracking it.

"Out!" Daniel shouted as he opened the car door and grabbed her hand.

Another whizzing sound. Another explosion rocked the world.

A car. One of the cars in front of them!

Ani froze, realizing people had just died to protect her. That she was about to die.

Daniel dragged her out of their car. She landed hard on the pavement, scraping her hands and her knees through her jeans.

They're dead. I'm dead
.

The memory of her mother's body, her father with the bullet hole in the center of his head, her burned and bleeding sister flashed through her mind.

Daniel jerked her to her feet, shielding her from the car with his body. They bolted for the doors.

Their car exploded before they made it to cover.

The force of the explosion flung Ani, twisting her in the air so that she slammed side first against the doors, her cheek and head hitting the metal along with her shoulder, hip, and thigh. Pieces of glass and metal from the cars buried themselves in the flesh of her legs.

Pain racked her body and her mind spun as she fell and landed on her ass on the concrete.

She held her hand to her head as she willed the spinning and ringing in her ears to stop.

The sound of popping and hissing, the crackle of flames echoed in her ears and the smell of smoke and burning metal filled her nostrils.

Frantically, she looked around for Daniel.

The body of the general manager was the first person she saw. He was sprawled out on the sidewalk. A piece of metal stuck up from between his brows and his eyes were wide and sightless.

Ani's head swam and her heart felt like it was going to explode like the cars had.

She squinted. Tried to focus. She didn't see any other bodies.

No one else had made it out of those cars.

Daniel? "Oh, God, Daniel." She scrambled to her feet and almost fell.

And then she saw him.

He was lying facedown on the concrete sidewalk.

And he wasn't moving.

"Daniel!" she screamed and bolted to his side. "Get up, get up, get up!" Tears poured down her face as she dropped to her knees and touched him. Still warm. He was still warm. He had to be alive. "You're okay. You've got to be okay."

Ani touched her fingers to his neck and felt his strong pulse. Both relief and terror balled up inside her.

Smoke and flames shrouded the air and the heat burned her face. She glanced around for help but saw no one. She'd been right. None of the other Deputy Marshals or drivers had made it.

Billows of smoke from the three burning cars likely hid the entrance, along with her and Daniel, from the sight of anyone who might be watching. But she had to get him inside the building in case they were seen and shot at.

Terror screaming through her mind and body, she grabbed one of Daniel's hands and tugged, trying to pull him toward the doors. He was so big and heavy that at first she couldn't move his body. A surge of adrenaline rushed through her and gave her the strength to haul him to the doors. She put her back to the swinging doors, pushing them open. With another burst of strength that surprised even herself, she hauled him inside the waiting room of the hangar. The doors swung shut behind them. He was still facedown.

The roar of fire thrummed, the sound loud even through the closed doors. Another explosion almost made her fall and her heart rate notched up.

Probably a gas tank. Not another bomb. Not a bomb. Please, no more bombs
.

Sirens blared from everywhere at once. Near. Far. Inside. Outside.

Her ears rang from the explosions and sounds seemed muffled as she had a chance to look Daniel over.

A large piece of shrapnel stuck out of his back and Ani almost screamed.

His body armor. Please let his armor have protected him
.

Heart pounding like it was going to burst from her chest, she felt around the place where the metal was sticking out. No blood that she could feel in that area. As she pressed, the piece of metal fell to the side and tumbled onto the floor of the waiting room. Through the tear in his T-shirt she saw that the shrapnel hadn't punctured his armor.

She brushed off the other small fragments on his back then looked at his legs. His jeans were bloody and torn in a couple of places, but she didn't see any big pieces of metal or glass. Wait, there was a good-sized one in one of his ass cheeks.

Should she turn him onto his side so she could see if he was injured anywhere else? Hadn't she heard that you're not supposed to move a wounded victim? But she had already dragged him into the building. She'd just push him up a little so that she could see how bad his injuries were.

Outside, emergency vehicles pulled up to the hangar, lights flashing through the small waiting room windows and illuminating the walls.

Ani pushed Daniel onto his side and her gaze raked over him from head to toe. It looked like the back of his body had taken the brunt of it. Except his temple. A bump was beginning to form. He must have struck his head on the concrete when they were propelled in the air by the force of the explosion.

Two police officers shoved open the doors and entered the waiting room. Through the open doors she heard shouts and glanced up to see water shooting from hoses as firemen started putting out the flames. Emergency vehicles with red and blue flashing lights were everywhere.

Immediately one of the cops who came through the door knelt beside Daniel and checked his pulse. The other cop shouted for paramedics.

"He's a federal agent." Ani tried to breathe as she spoke to the cop checking Daniel's pulse. "We've got to get him to a hospital."

The cop looked at her. "Fed?"

"U.S. Marshal."

A pair of paramedics rushed in with a gurney that rattled as it came across the threshold. The man and woman immediately came to them. One started checking Ani out and another looked over Daniel.

The paramedic put an oxygen mask over Daniel's face. "Lacerations on the back of his legs," she said as she examined Daniel. She pushed open his eyelids and flashed light in his eyes with a small flashlight. "Pulse steady, respiration normal, pupils equal and responsive."

"Body armor?" the other paramedic said, sounding surprised as he began examining Ani's back.

She jerked in surprise. She hadn't been paying attention to him. When she looked over her shoulder, she saw a large piece of metal sticking out of her own armor.

"It saved his life, too," Ani said when her gaze darted from the cop to the medics. She was vaguely aware of the pain on her face, her shoulder, and hip from slamming into the metal door.

The paramedics continued to examine both her and Daniel. They tried to put an oxygen mask on her, but she pushed it away. "I don't need it."

The police officer spoke to two cops at the doors as she gestured to Daniel and Ani. "Get them out of here."

After lowering the gurney, the paramedics and cop heaved Daniel onto the stretcher on his side because of the shrapnel sticking out of his backside.

Before they could strap him down, Daniel gave a low groan behind the air mask and Ani pulled away from the paramedic who'd been examining her and was at Daniel's side in a second.

"You're going to be okay," she said as she swiped hair from his brow. Somewhere along the way he'd lost his ball cap, and they'd both lost their aviator glasses.

His eyes opened and he narrowed his brows as if trying to remember something. His gaze met hers and immediately he yanked the mask off, pushed himself to a sitting position and shouted, "Fuck!" just before he reached behind him and jerked out the piece of shrapnel that had been buried in his ass. He got to his feet and wobbled.

Blood started to soak his jeans. "That wasn't a good idea," one of the paramedics said with a scowl.

Daniel's mind and vision swam, and his ass hurt like a motherfucker. "Goddamnit," he said as he reached behind him and pressed his palm to his ass cheek. His hand came away covered in blood.

"Turn around," the paramedic in front of him said.

After Daniel wiped the blood from his palm onto his jeans, he glanced to his side so that he could still see Ani. He wasn't about to let her out of his sight. The paramedic crouched beside him and sliced a hole in his jeans where the shrapnel had been. She poured antiseptic on a thick piece of gauze, then applied the bandage to the wound. It stung like hell when she taped it in place. He looked over his shoulder. Blood spotted the center of the thick bandage, but not much.

"Get back on the stretcher," came Ani's voice and he focused on her face.

He held his hand to his temple and touched the huge egg growing there. The pain felt like it was splitting his head in two and the shrieking of sirens and flashing red and blue lights made it worse. "We've got to get her out of here," he managed to say through gritted teeth. He jerked his credentials from his pocket and flashed them to the cop. "Her life depends on it," he said.