CHAPTER 47
Landon Lane
I SNAGGED LOGAN FROM JOE and he grabbed hold of Janet. I hollered at Cora, “Go!” She took off behind Joe and Janet with her arm bouncing in her sling. It had to hurt like hell, but she did it without even thinking.
The press went crazy in the confusion and the crowd all stared with wide eyes.
I followed through the gate with Logan on my hip. Joe led the way and blasted reporters and anyone else out of the way. Edmon screamed behind us.
“Get behind me! Stay low!” Joe hollered. His voice had morphed into full-blown soldier mode.
We went in a straight line.
Joe glanced back. “They won’t shoot into a crowd. No way. Too many cameras.”
I looked up. The two men in suits up the ramp held their guns at their side, but they both glanced around like they weren’t sure what to do.
One of them spoke into his collar. Presumably a microphone. They looked like Secret Service agents, but we both knew they didn’t work for the U.S.
When we neared, they holstered their guns, but stepped in the way.
Joe had my equipment bag in one hand. He shoved it at me. I took it.
One of the agents stepped up to block us and Joe hammered him with a vicious elbow. He crashed into a barrier and contorted on the ground. The other guy tried to run but Joe snagged him by the collar of his jacket.
It happened so quickly I barely saw it, but he ripped the guy’s jacket off and the ear piece out of his ear. All in one smooth motion.
He crushed the guy’s throat with a vicious chop and knocked him out with a left hook.
Joe grabbed the bag from me, and we eased through the curtain. He took the lead again.
He held a hand up to us. Looked inside and peeked around.
“Clear!”
I gripped Logan tight to me. My ribs were on fire, but I wouldn’t have let him go in a million years. He squeezed my neck and buried his face in my shoulder.
Cora was next to me and I had my eyes fixed on her. We stepped over the last guard.
Joe already had the guy’s ear piece wrapped around his ear and the unit clipped to his pants. He held a finger up to us and listened in to see if there was any information dispersed over the airwaves.
Joe moved like he knew where he was going. I trusted him completely to make the right call for us. My head was still in a haze from the fight, and my main focus was keeping Logan and Cora safe and sheltered from danger.
He went right, and I heard footsteps pounding behind us from the other end of the hallway.
Joe must’ve heard them too. “Let’s go!” He took off and we ran after him. “They won’t be afraid to shoot in a hallway.”
He was right. We rounded a tight corner just as bullets pounded into the wall where we’d just been. Hadn’t even heard them fire. “Subsonic rounds with silencers.”
Joe nodded ahead of me. I pushed Cora and Janet ahead and wrapped Logan around the front of me and shoved his head down into my chest. Their bullets moved slower than the speed of sound and lost even more velocity with their suppressors. It was the cost of firing a semi-silent weapon. No muzzle blast, but slow-moving rounds.
Chances were they wouldn’t go all the way through me if they hit. I wanted everyone in front of me so that I’d take one in the back if anyone was shot. The rounds would lodge inside of me but not go through and through and risk hitting one of them.
We weaved through a few more hallways and into a room.
“Come on! Come on!” A familiar voice.
“Baby!” Janet wrapped the man in a huge hug.
The man squeezed her and then shoved her along. “No time!”
I knew the voice.
Gus.
“About time you showed up,” I said.
“Sorry, had to alter plans.”
We all took off. Gus led the way.
We came out of a door into the middle of the casino. The stench of stale cigarette smoke and day-old alcohol assaulted my nostrils. Bells and all kinds of ringing echoed off the walls. Noises from all the slot machines.
I glanced around. “We need off the floor.” A casino was the worst place we could possibly be. Casinos had more surveillance than any other kind of building in the country. Probably more than the White House.
The eye in the sky saw everything. I’d have bet good money that Edmon had people watching.
Gus led us along between machines. Joe cleared a path like an F5 tornado. Anyone that was in the way wasn’t after he passed through.
We cut across to another set of doors and down a long corridor.
“Landon, give us eyes in the back.”
“I don’t hear anything, but they’re probably on us. I’m sure they’re watching the cameras.”
I squeezed Logan tighter to let him know I had him. “You’re doing great, Cora. We’re almost out of here. Hear that, big man? We’ll be out in a minute, okay?”
Logan trembled against me, but nodded against my chest.
Thank God I conserved my legs during the bout. A fifteen-minute fight with a machine took it out of you worse than sprinting a marathon.
“Just up here,” said Gus.
We ran up within twenty feet of some metal bars on a gate that ran floor to ceiling. Guards in casino uniforms stalked back and forth on the other side of them. The vault?
Right before we got to the gate, Gus veered us into a closet. It was a large maintenance room. There was no way out of it. What the hell?
I sat Logan down and pushed him in ahead of me. About that time, I looked up and saw four men rounding the corner, guns drawn and aimed right at me.