Chapter 6
AS SHE LEFT to take her call, Matt caught her pleated brow and tight shoulders.
He could come up with several possibilities — funding problems, her injured friends, the network. Definitely not the rebels. If they tried to recruit her, she might not tell him, but she’d tell Sarika. She wouldn’t cooperate with them, but he had to prove it to DARK, dammit.
He kept an eye on her through the doorway as he moved the princess’s chair and helped Kelmen adjust the lighting to accommodate the daylight streaming from the balcony. Her expression became more agitated as she listened to the caller.
If he was alone, he could listen via his cell, using the app he’d placed in hers. So far all he’d heard was Thai take-out orders and girl chats with Sari. Today’s call was something else, something serious. Too many people around for him to tune in.
Sarika took her seat in front of the bay window. She sent Matt a questioning look. He shook his head.
“Hey, dude.” Kelmen mopped his brow with a lens paper. “Time is money. Where is she?”
“I’ll get her.” Matt wove through the maze of cables, cases and tripods. He left the office, now a makeshift sound stage, followed by Traynor, Ingel and his admin on their way out. He closed the office door behind him.
In the anteroom, he found Nadia seated on one of the chairs. Bent over in distress, she blew her nose into a tissue.
“Everyone’s ready for the interview. What’s wrong?”
She dabbed at teary eyes. “That was one of the wardens at Allenwood. My dad’s been hurt. He’s in the hospital.” A sob shook her and she drew a deep breath.
Film shoot be damned. Matt knelt before her and placed his hands on her knees. “What happened?”
“Three inmates surrounded him in the dining hall this morning. There was a fight, and one of them stabbed him before guards intervened. ‘Shanked’ him, the warden said.” Her voice caught.
“Will he be all right?”
“He lost a lot of blood, in critical condition but improving. The warden wouldn’t say he was out of danger.” The anguish in her eyes faded as hot anger licked in. Pushing him aside, she surged to her feet. “As if you really cared.”
Her pain sliced into him. He stood, but didn’t reach for her. Helpless to comfort her, he fisted his hands at his sides. “I do care. I’m sorry he was hurt.”
A deafening boom blew the office door off its hinges.
The blast threw Matt forward. He fell to the carpet, taking a wild-eyed Nadia with him.
Pulse racing and blood rushing in his ears, he covered her with his body as heat and debris roared over them. Something popped and hissed. Black smoke streamed from the princess’s office.
Matt pushed up onto his elbows. He brushed splintered wood and scraps of blood-covered paper from his shoulders. Around them lay results of the explosion — shards of wood and metal, a bloody embassy ID tag and other, more grisly evidence of violent death.
Bile rose in his throat and he willed it down. His heart hammered against his rib cage. Places on his back stung like the devil. He shook off the pain. “Are you hurt?”
Nadia shook her head, but a cut marred her right cheek. Blood dripped onto her jacket, which had a torn sleeve. She looked dazed, her eyes dark with distress. “What happened?”
“Bomb.” The crackling sound from the other room meant fire. Fear propelled him upward. He grabbed her hands and helped her up. “You have to get out of here. To safety.”
Lurching to her feet, she seemed to shake away her fog. Tears pooled in her eyes and she coughed from the smoke. “But Sari’s in there. I have to go to her.”
“No. Get help. I’ll see about the princess.”
Alarms shrieked. Footfalls pounded down the corridor. Over the noise and pandemonium sirens wailed.
Nadia took a stumbling step toward the burning office. He wrapped an arm around her shoulders to stop her.
“No, it’s too dangerous,” he rasped out, the smoke choking him. Maybe Sarika was alive. God, he hoped so.
He picked his way through the smoke and debris. Sunlight rendered garish camera parts and shredded upholstery strewn with body parts. Where the bay window had been, only a jagged gap and Sarika’s overturned chair remained.
How could there be any survivors?
A sharp-clawed beast ripped through him, prodding him to howl and rage. He’d failed to find the traitor, failed to keep the princess safe, failed…again. He forced a deep breath. Clamped down on himself. This wasn’t the fuck about him. He had to get Nadia out of here.
When he emerged from the horror, she rushed to him. “Sari?”
“The fire department and Security are coming. We need to get out of their way.”
Fumes and heat billowed around them as the fire gathered force. His uncovered eye stung from the acrid stench. He didn’t want to contemplate what might be burning. Nadia kept looking back but allowed him to drag her into the corridor.
Chaos reigned as clerical workers and dignitaries swarmed from their offices toward the front stairs and safety on Massachusetts Avenue.
“Stop, Matt, please,” Nadia pleaded, pulling him aside into an alcove. “Tell me. Sari, the others?”
What could he say to her? He couldn’t utter the words to tell her their friend was dead, her body shattered with the others, or blown out the window, to—
Tears stung his throat. He shook his head.
Modena Security raced toward the office with fire extinguishers. Three others followed, the Security chief among them — pistols drawn.
“There they are!” one shouted. He aimed his Ruger at Matt and Nadia.
“Halt!” yelled another. Without waiting for compliance, the man raised his pistol. Fired a shot high, a warning. The bullet cracked into the plaster molding above Matt’s head.
He was about to step out, hands raised, but Renzo’s barked command froze him.
“Shoot them!”
Matt’s pulse stuttered. What the hell! He pressed Nadia behind him with one arm. Somehow they were suspected of being the bombers.
The fire extinguishers accomplished little. Black clouds of smoke filled the corridor. Probably blinded the guards temporarily. Certainly slowed them. Ruined their aim.
He had to get Nadia out of there. Fast. Take advantage of the smoke screen. “When I give the signal, run like hell toward the service stairs in the rear.”
“Why are they—”
“No time for questions. I know you don’t trust me for much but trust me on this.”
He hoped her lack of response meant agreement.
A group of five or six weeping women, more office staff, ran past them down the hall. They clustered around the guards, wailing and clutching at them.
Now that their pursuers were temporarily blocked, he and Nadia had to move. “Now!” Adrenaline spiking, he pulled her with him to race away through the noise and confusion.
Behind him, a gravelly voice yelled. “There they go!”
Crack.
The shot slammed into the wall inches from Nadia’s head. She let out a small scream and sprinted ahead.
He swung around, searching for an alternate escape route. He pushed open the door to the stairwell. The pneumatic hinge would close the door slowly. He tugged Nadia along the hall and into the ladies’ room.
He tucked her behind him against the wall while they waited. He felt her fear and shock like palpable vibrations in the air. He shoved down the same emotions. Put himself in the zone so he could function.
“Stay quiet and pray they think we took the stairs.”
She gripped his shoulder with tense fingers, as if clawing her way out of a pit. She whispered, “Why are they shooting at us?”
It was a wide-open tiled room with sinks on one side and stalls on the other. Nowhere to hide. Then he spotted the mop bucket outside a closet.
“They’ll look in the johns but not in here if I can work it right.” He opened the closet door. Rolls of toilet paper and paper towels filled shelving on one side, but they could squeeze into the other and straddle the jugs of cleaning solution.
Nadia entered the small, dark space meekly enough. Her cheek continued to seep blood. Soot smeared her skin, ashen from the horrific shock.
He pulled the wheeled bucket toward the door as he closed it. The bucket clanked into the wooden door and stopped. His lungs pumped like bellows, and against his back, Nadia panted. “We have to calm our breathing,” he whispered, “so they don’t hear us.”