"A specialist, as I told you. I believe the gentleman"-sarcastically, with a nod toward Lindauer-"had some questions for you?"

"If I talk," he said, still in a whisper, "do you go away?"

"Of course, Mr. Beach. I am merely a means to an end. Once you have satisfied my employers, you will never have to see me again."

Lindauer was openly gaping now, but Alex was worried. They had to keep moving forward, but at the same time, would anyone believe Kevin could fold so easily?

Kevin moaned and closed his eyes. "They won't believe me," he said.

She wasn't sure how, but she thought his right handcuff was no longer locked to his wrist. There was just the tiniest misalignment of the two halves of the bracelet. She didn't think anyone could see it but her.

"I'll believe you, if you tell me the truth. Just tell me what you want to say."

"I did have help... but... I can't..."

She took his hand in hers, as if she were soothing him. She felt the key drop into her palm.

"You can tell me. But please don't try to buy time. I have little patience."

She patted his hand, then walked around his head to examine the IV line.

"No," he mumbled weakly. "I won't."

"All right, then," she said, "what do you want to tell me?" She dropped her hand onto his left, inserting the key between his fingers.

"I had help... from a traitor on the inside."

"What?" Lindauer gasped out loud.

She shot him a dirty look, then turned to the mirror.

"Your man is unable to control himself. I want him removed from this room," she said severely.

An electronic crackle sounded through the room. She glanced up for the speaker but couldn't find it.

"Continue," Deavers's disembodied voice commanded. "He will be escorted out if there is any more misconduct."

She frowned at her own reflection, then turned to lean over Kevin.

"I need a name," she insisted.

"Carston," he breathed.

No!

Nerves already frayed and strained, she had to fight back the urge to slap him. But of course Kevin had no way of knowing how she'd gotten here.

She heard a commotion in the observation room and hurried on in a louder voice. "I find that very hard to believe, Mr. Beach, as Mr. Carston is the reason I am here with you. He wouldn't send me in if he wanted to avoid the truth. He knows what I'm capable of."

Kevin shot her one disgusted look under half-lowered lids, then groaned again. "That's the name my contact gave me. I can only tell you what he told me."

Nice save, she thought sarcastically.

The commotion hadn't ended with either her p.r.o.nouncement or Kevin's. She could hear raised voices and some movement. Lindauer was distracted, too, staring at the gla.s.s.

She tried again, pulling a new syringe and slipping a small device from beneath it into her pocket. "Forgive me for thinking that was all a bit too easy-"

"No, wait," Kevin huffed, pitching his voice a little louder. "Deavers sent the guy; he knows who I'm talking about."

Well, maybe that would muddy the water a bit. Get both names on the table.

It wasn't stopping whatever was happening in the observation room, though. She had to make a move. The one good thing about the unantic.i.p.ated situation on the other side of the gla.s.s was that they obviously weren't watching her very carefully. Time was up.

"Mr. Lindauer," she called sharply without looking in his direction. In the mirror, she could see that he was preoccupied with the other room as well. His head whipped around to her.

"I'm worried these ankle restraints are a little too tight. I need his circulation performing optimally. Do you have the key?"

Kevin could guess what this was about. His muscles tensed in readiness. Lindauer hurried to the foot of the table. One voice was raised above the others in the observation room, shouting.

"I don't know what you're talking about," Lindauer complained, his eyes on Kevin's ankles and mangled feet. "These aren't cutting off his circulation. It wouldn't be safe to have them any looser. You don't know what kind of man you're dealing with."

She stepped close to him, speaking softly so that he would have to lean in toward her. Inside her pocket, she pressed her thumb against the tiny flash capacitor of the electromagnetic-pulse emitter.

"I know exactly what kind of man I'm dealing with," she murmured.

She switched on the capacitor with her left hand and stabbed the syringe into Lindauer's arm with her right.

The light overhead flickered and popped; the shattered bulbs tinkled against the Plexiglas face of the fixture. Luckily the pulse didn't blow out the Plexiglas or it would have been bad for Kevin's exposed skin. The room went black.

The pulse wasn't strong enough to reach the other room. Muted light shone through the mirror, and she could see dark figures moving on the other side of the gla.s.s, but she couldn't tell who was who or what was happening.

Lindauer managed only half a scream before he was convulsing on the floor. She could hear Kevin moving, too, though those sounds were much quieter and more purposeful than Lindauer's thrashing.

She knew precisely where her toolbox was in the dark. She whirled and fell to her knees next to it, yanked the second-to-last drawer open, emptied the tray of syringes to the floor, and felt for the hidden compartment beneath.

"Ollie?" Kevin breathed. She could hear he was off the table now, near the IV pole.

She grabbed the first two guns she touched and lurched toward the sound of his voice. She collided with his chest, and his arms came up to keep her from falling backward. She shoved the guns against his stomach just as two shots rang out in the other room. There was no shatter of gla.s.s-they weren't shooting into the interrogation room. A third, and then a fourth shot.

"Danny's in there," she hissed as he yanked the guns out of her hands.

She fell back to her knees as he spun away and slid into the toolbox. She grabbed the other two guns, the familiar shape of her own PPK and another she didn't recognize by touch. She'd given Kevin her SIG Sauer by accident.

It didn't matter. She'd accomplished the main objectives of her strategy: free Kevin and get a loaded gun into his hands. Now she was primarily backup. She just had to hope that the star performer was in good enough shape to do what she needed him to do. If that s.a.d.i.s.t Lindauer had injured him too greatly... well, then they were all dead.

Lindauer had gotten his. He was probably still alive, but not for much longer. He wouldn't enjoy what was left of his life at all.

A full second hadn't pa.s.sed when another shot echoed deafeningly through the small concrete room, and this time there was the m.u.f.fled crunch of buckling safety gla.s.s.

Cracks of yellow light spider-webbed through the window as four shots responded back in quick succession. The answering shots didn't change the splintered pattern of light; again, they weren't aimed into the interrogation room. They were still shooting at each other inside the observation room.

She stayed low as she moved forward, guns pointed at the fractured square in case someone burst through it. But the movement came from her side; a dark shadow hurtled into the mosaic of gla.s.s fragments and crashed through it into the next room.

The men in the observation room were only ten feet away from her, so much closer than the hay bales she'd practiced on that it seemed too easy. She braced her hands against the steel table and fired toward the uniforms that filled the room. She didn't allow herself to react to the fact that she couldn't see Daniel or Carston. She'd told Daniel to get down when the shooting started. He was just following directions.

A storm of shots rang out now, but none of them were aimed at her. The soldiers were firing at the b.l.o.o.d.y, naked man who had exploded into their midst with a volley of bullets. There were six uniformed men still on their feet now, and she quickly dropped three before they could realize the attack was coming from two fronts. As they crumpled, they revealed the man in the suit they'd been protecting. His eyes were focusing toward her as she aimed, his body already in motion when the bullet left her gun; she wasn't sure she'd done more than just wing him as he ducked down out of her range.

She couldn't see Kevin's position, but the other three soldiers were now on the ground. She had nothing left to aim at from this vantage.

Alex darted to the edge of the open window, gla.s.s crunching beneath her shoes, and put her back against the wall beside it.

"Ollie?" Kevin called, his voice strong and controlled.

Relief flooded through her body in a hot rush at the sound of his voice. "Yes."

"We're clear. Get in here. Danny's down."

Ice washed down the same path the heat had just blazed.

She dropped the guns into her pockets, wrapped her hands in the folds of her lab coat, and boosted herself over the jagged ledge of the window. The floor was a ma.s.s of bodies in dark uniforms, with deep red splatters marking everything light enough to show it-the faces, the floor, the walls. Kevin was shaking off a body he'd evidently used as a shield. There was still movement, and more than one gasping murmur. So, not entirely clear, but he must feel it was under control, and, obviously, the need was urgent.

Daniel was in the back right corner-she could see the white-blond hair ringing his pale scalp, but most of him was obscured by two bodies in uniform that looked to have crumpled on top of him. Carston was down a few feet away, blood blossoming across his white shirt from multiple wounds. His chest was still moving.

It took less than a second for her to absorb all this, already in motion as she a.s.sessed, heading straight for Daniel.

"Deavers is alive," she muttered as she pa.s.sed Kevin, and in her peripheral vision, she saw him nod and start moving in a crouch toward the far left corner of the room.

There was very little blood on the soldier lying across Daniel's chest, but his face was an unhealthy shade of purple and there were pink bubbles on his lips. A quick glance at the man draped over Daniel's legs revealed the same manifestations. Both of these men were dying from the venom on Daniel's ring. A new froth of b.l.o.o.d.y bubbles foamed on the first man's lips as she tried to pull his paralyzed body off Daniel.

Part of her was very far away from what was happening-the part that needed to scream and panic and hyperventilate. She let the ice of her fear keep her focused and clinical. Later there would be time for hysterics. Now she had to be a doctor on the battlefield, quick and certain.

She finally rolled the man off Daniel's chest, and suddenly there was blood everywhere. She ripped Daniel's crimson-drenched shirt out of the way and found the source only too easily. All of her training, all of her time as a trauma doctor for hire, told her she was far too late.

It was a perfect kill shot, right through the upper left side of his chest. Whoever had placed that bullet knew exactly what he was doing. It was one of the few shots that would fell a person instantly, straight through the heart, dead before he hit the ground. Dead probably before he could even register the pain.

There was nothing she could have done, even if she'd never left his side. She'd let him come here to protect her, and that choice had killed him just as surely as the bullet in his heart.

CHAPTER 31.

It wasn't supposed to have happened like this. The guns should have been pointed at Alex and Kevin. In the confusion, no one had shot at her-not even once; she was totally unscathed. Daniel was supposed to be in the background, invisible. There was no reason to waste such a perfect shot on an anonymous aide. That skilled shooter was supposed to be aiming for Alex.

She'd known the plan was deeply flawed, but she had never dreamed she'd walk through the firefight untouched. Daniel was supposed to be the survivor.

A line of nameless faces-gangsters she hadn't been able to save-flashed through her mind. One had a name-Carlo. He'd died exactly the same way. She hadn't been able to do anything. What had Joey G said? You win some, you lose some. But how did she live through this loss?

The shrieking part of her was very near the surface. Only shock kept the paroxysm of grief at bay. The frozen pause was endless, crystal clear, with every detail defined. She was aware of the sound of a struggle somewhere very far away from her, and Kevin shouting in his harshest voice, "Where's your deep perimeter now, Deavers?" She could smell the fetid musk of her ring's victims and the warm, alive scent of fresh blood. She could hear labored breathing at her back where Carston lay dying.

Then, suddenly, the sound of another shallow, sucking wheeze close beside her bowed head.

Her eyes, which she hadn't even realized were closed, snapped open. She knew that sound.

Frantically, she ripped the glove from her hand and stretched it tight over the hole in Daniel's chest. She watched incredulously as the pull of his struggling lung tried to suck air through the latex. She lifted the edge of the glove for the exhale, letting the air vent, and then strained the glove against his skin again for the inhale.

He was breathing.

How? The shot must have somehow missed his heart, though it seemed perfectly placed. She took stock quickly and realized that there wasn't actually as much blood as she'd first thought. Not enough to suggest a hole in his heart. And he was breathing, which he wouldn't have been if the bullet had gone true.

She thrust her other hand under his shoulder, searching frantically for an exit wound. Her fingertips found the tear in his jacket, and she shoved them through the hole, then into the hole in his back, trying to seal the airflow. It didn't feel any bigger than the hole in his chest. The bullet had pa.s.sed straight through him.

"Kevin!" Her raw shriek held all the panic she was too numb to feel. "I need my toolbox. Now!"

Movement again, but she didn't look up to see if it was Kevin helping her or a victorious Deavers moving in for the kill. She found she didn't even care if it was Deavers; she wasn't afraid of anything he could do to her. Because if Kevin was down and unable to get her the things she needed immediately, Daniel could die in minutes.

She had more of what she needed in the car, but she had no idea how to get Daniel back to the surface.

A metallic crash sounded at her right elbow.

"Ziploc bags," she instructed frantically. "The bottom compartment, on the left, and tape-should be near the top."

Kevin laid the things she needed on Daniel's chest, next to her hand. Quickly, on the exhale, she traded her glove for the plastic bag and instructed Kevin to tape it down tightly on three sides. She didn't have anything that would work as a valve to vent the excess air, so she had to leave the fourth side open. It should suck against the hole as he inhaled, and then let the air release as he breathed out.

"Roll him toward me, I need to seal the exit wound."

Kevin carefully moved his unconscious brother onto his side. She hoped the position would take some of the pressure off Daniel's undamaged lung. She had to break contact with the wound briefly as Kevin moved him, and then another precious second as she used a scalpel to cut his shirt and jacket out of the way. She taped a second plastic bag against his skin while she a.n.a.lyzed the pool of blood beneath him. Not so much, really. The bullet had miraculously missed his heart entirely, and the major vessels as well. The exit wound looked clean and she didn't see any bone fragments. If she could just keep him breathing, she could get him through the next hour.

Kevin's voice interrupted her frantic planning. "Carston's still alive. What do you want me to do with him?"

"Can he be saved?" she asked while she checked Daniel's airway and pressure. He'd lost too much blood. He was in shock. She could still make out a pulse at his wrist, but it was weak and fading. She grabbed a syringe from the top tray and injected him with ketamine and a separate painkiller.

"Doubt it. Too much damage. He probably only has a few minutes. Oh, um, hey. Sorry, man."

His voice had changed at the end. He wasn't speaking to her anymore.

"Is he lucid?" she asked. She ran her hands down Daniel's arms and legs, searching for any other wounds.

"Jules?" Carston rasped weakly.

"Kevin, bring the operating table over here. We've got to get Daniel up to the car." She took a deep breath. "Lowell, it's okay. I never poisoned Livvy. Of course not. She's only sedated. She'll be with her mother by morning, whether I come home or not."

While she rea.s.sured Carston-her eyes never leaving Daniel-she heard Kevin leave and then return. There was a heavy metal groan as he shoved the table through the window and a moist thud when it hit the bodies on the floor. She bit her lip as she continued to work on Daniel, pulling the rubber pieces of his disguise out of his mouth so he couldn't choke on them, carefully wiping the contacts from his eyes. How long till Kevin collapsed? He still had a good fifty minutes to enjoy the drugs in his system, but that wouldn't affect how much his body could actually endure. She needed to try to remember that he wasn't the same Kevin, the one who could do anything. She had to go easier on him. But how? Daniel needed speed. If she could just get him to the car...