Shadow of Betrayal

CHAPTER 41

The crowd both inside and outside the school grounds started screaming. People began running in all directions. Before they could get even a few feet, a second bomb went off. Like the first, it was somewhere in the streets beyond the school grounds.

The chaos became total. Three of the agents watching Quinn took off in the direction of the explosions, leaving only the fourth to guard him.

“Over to the sidewalk,” the agent said.

He held his position, waiting for Quinn to pass by him. But when Quinn came abreast of the agent, he dropped low and rammed his head into the man’s gut. The agent expelled a loud breath, then fell to the ground.

Quinn pinned the agent’s arm down with a knee, preventing the man from using his gun. Then he punched the man twice in the face. It took a third hit, though, before the agent lost consciousness.

Quinn jumped up and sprinted toward the sidewalk near the school entrance. He all but expected another agent to come at him, but they were occupied elsewhere.

People were running everywhere. To the school, away from the school, in all directions. Some of the people who had been in the streets had moved onto the grounds, seeking shelter and adding to the frenzy.

Where the hell is Tucker? Where is the other man? Quinn thought. They were nowhere to be seen. Had they taken Iris? If so, were they inside or had they left?

Ahead at the door that led into the school, two women were trying to get the last of the children inside. The final child was a little girl who couldn’t have been any more than five. African-American. And like the boy who had reached out to Quinn in the room at Yellowhammer, she also appeared to have Down syndrome.

“Come on, Iris. Let’s go inside,” one of the women said.

“No!” Quinn yelled.

The women looked up in terror, then grabbed the girl and rushed her across the threshold.

Quinn raced down the sidewalk and threw the door open. He had to get to Iris before she triggered the explosives hidden somewhere inside.

That was if he wasn’t already too late.

Tucker ran as fast as he could. Petersen, who had been built for strength more than speed, had fallen several paces behind.

Smoke, dust, and debris from the car bombs had begun to descend over the neighborhood, creating a milky haze. Some people were still screaming as they ran. Others had faces covered with tears, while a few tried to act the hero and urged everyone to remain calm.

“Get out of my fucking way,” Tucker said as he shoved a teenage boy into a parked car.

He just needed to get a few more blocks. A blue Honda Accord was parked waiting for him on Anchor Street. With so many Hondas on the road, it would provide a certain amount of anonymity. Tucker had memorized the license plate number, and been told the keys would be under the front seat.

The crowd thinned the farther he got from the school, some choosing one street thinking it would take them to safety, while others chose another. By the time Tucker was within a block of the car, there were only a handful of people still running with him.

He glanced over his shoulder to see how far back Petersen had fallen. He could only see four people. A man and a woman on the other side of the street, gripping each other’s hands as they fled. And on his side, farther back, a teenage girl, and behind her several paces a woman.

Nowhere did he see Petersen.

Jesus Christ, he thought. Hell if he was going to wait more than a couple minutes tops. If Petersen didn’t make it by then, he’d have to find his own way out.

Tucker began scanning the street for the Honda. It was only a few moments before he spotted it near the end of the block. As he started to open the driver’s door, he heard steps running on the asphalt behind him. But before he could turn to see who it was, a voice yelled out at him.

“Don’t even think about moving.”

The chaos outside the school was intensified inside by the restricted space of the lobby Quinn found himself in. There were adults and children everywhere, screaming and crying and consoling and whispering. They were all too preoccupied to notice Quinn joining them.

My God, he thought. If the explosives are in here, we’re all already dead.

He knew he couldn’t let that stop him. He whipped his head around, searching for Iris. There were kids everywhere, some even holding juice boxes, but he couldn’t see the girl.

A set of double doors that led off the lobby flew open. From inside, several Secret Service agents rushed out.

“Get everyone into the auditorium with the others,” one of the agents yelled while his colleagues ran toward the doors to the outside.

The auditorium, the man had said. With the others. It was where the First Lady and the other spouses would have been taken. Where the best opportunity for total success would be. That’s where the explosives would have been taken, Quinn realized. He had to keep Iris from entering the room.

The crowd surged forward, everyone but the agents wanting to get as far away from the outside as possible. Quinn tried to push through them to get to the front so he could see Iris before she went through the doors.

He was only ten feet away when someone said, “Oh, my God. You’re him. The guy from outside.”

Several people cried out in fear, while others tried to move away from him as fast as possible. Quinn glanced back at the doors to the outside, and was relieved to see all the agents were gone. Civilians he could deal with, Feds with guns were slightly more problematic.

“Out of my way!” he yelled as he rushed forward through the door to the auditorium.

The room was large. The stage at the other end of the room was at least a hundred feet away. Those inside were gathered near it. Some looked at him curiously, having no idea who he was. Against the wall near the stage was a low stack of boxes. Trays, really. He’d seen them before in markets. A couple dozen juice boxes plastic-wrapped to a cardboard base. Oh, God.

He scanned the room looking for Iris, but the girl wasn’t there. He returned to the lobby.

Most of the people there had moved to one corner and were crowded together, staring at him as if they expected him to attack them all. As he started to raise his hands in front of him in an effort to make them relax, the door to the outside opened.

Quinn retrieved the gun he’d taken from the agent in the parking lot out of its temporary holding place under the waist of his pants behind his back, and pointed it at the widening gap.

“Hey. Chill out. I’m just here to see if you need any help.”

It was Nate.

Quinn allowed himself a relieved breath, then asked, “Orlando?”

“Don’t know. I’ve been alone since you left.”

Quinn nodded. With the chaos, it would have been surprising if they had found each other. He turned his attention back to the group cowering against the wall.

“Who’s in charge here?” he called out.

There were a few murmurs, then several people looked toward a woman standing near the middle of the group. She appeared to be in her fifties, and had the look of a school administrator, caring but strong.

After a second, she said, “Leave us alone. We won’t bother you.”

“So you’re in charge?” he said.

“Yes,” she said. “I’m in charge of this school.”

“What’s your name?”

She hesitated. “Ms. Stanton. Now please, leave. You’re scaring the children.”

“I’m sorry,” Quinn said. “We’re not here to hurt anyone.”

“Then what do you want?”

“I’m looking for a girl. She’s about five, and African.”

“I’m not letting you take any of the children,” Ms. Stanton said.

Quinn ignored her. “The girl’s name is Iris.”

One of the women, a teacher perhaps, moved slightly.

“You have something to tell me?” Quinn said, looking at her.

“No,” she said.

He glanced at Nate, then pointed at the woman. “Check.”

Nate walked over.

“Please step out,” he said to the woman.

The woman began to tremble, but she didn’t move.

“What are you going to do to her?” Ms. Stanton asked.

“We’re not going to do anything to her,” Quinn said.

“Please, I need you to step out,” Nate repeated.

For another couple of seconds she remained where she was, then her resolve crumbled and she moved forward.

Behind her was Iris.

Nate reached out to her. “Hey, sweetie. Come here.”

The girl didn’t move, so Nate leaned in and picked her up.

“Got her,” he said to Quinn.

“You can’t take her,” Ms. Stanton said.

“I want you to listen to what I’m going to say very carefully. The man who brought this girl to your school today also brought several others. Correct?”

Ms. Stanton nodded. “Mr. Lee came up from Ventura.”

“Mr. Lee?”

“That’s who you’re talking about, right?”

“Mr. Lee isn’t who he said he is.” Quinn paused. “He came here for one reason, to kill you and your special guests this morning.”

“What?”

“Those bombs that went off outside? There’s more, only here in the school.”

“Impossible,” she said, though she looked terrified that it might be true.

“He brought juice boxes along with the children, didn’t he?”

“Sure. Everyone did.”

“Well, there isn’t juice inside his. I’m guessing the ones he brought are in the auditorium right now, just waiting to go off. Get everyone away from them, then tell one of the agents.”

“My God,” Ms. Stanton said.

“Do you understand?” Quinn asked.

A pause, then, “Yes.”

“Good.” Quinn looked at Nate. “Let’s go.”

“You can’t… just kidnap her,” Ms. Stanton said, much of her defensive posturing gone.

“She and the others he brought were already kidnapped.” He turned and started heading for a doorway at the far end of the hallway.

“Then where are you taking her?” Ms. Stanton called out.

Quinn stopped a few feet from the exit and looked back over his shoulder. “To her mother.”

Tucker knew he had few immediate options. Because of all the Secret Service and the inevitable security check, he’d gone to the school without a gun.

He thought about the last thing he’d seen when he’d looked over his shoulder. There had been only the two on his side of the street: the teenager and the woman. He had thought they’d been nobodies, but it looked like he’d been mistaken. The woman must have been Secret Service. She’d been dressed in street clothes, working undercover in the crowd. That had to be it.

His brow furrowed. He’d been so caught up in trying to figure out how to get out of this, he hadn’t even considered why the agent had been chasing him in the first place. Tucker had been just one of hundreds running through the streets. And as far as anyone should have been able to tell, he’d done nothing wrong.

Behind him, he could hear the woman stepping closer.

“Open the back door,” she said.

“Sure,” Tucker said. “No problem.”

He took a step toward the rear of the car and opened the back passenger door.

“Now get behind the wheel,” she said. “And shut the door once you’re inside.”

Tucker hesitated. A Secret Service agent would have had him get on the ground, like they’d tried to get Quinn to do back at the school. If she wasn’t Secret Service, then who the hell—

“Do it!” she said.

He moved back to the driver’s door. As he slipped into the front seat, he could hear her get in behind him, then the thunk of her door closing just before he closed his own. He started to reach down for the seat release so he could fall back into her.

“Don’t,” she said. It wouldn’t have worked anyway. She’d already slid all the way across so that she was sitting diagonal from him.

He put both of his hands on his lap, wishing he’d requested a gun be left under his seat. But he hadn’t thought he would need one at this point, and the last thing he had wanted was for the police to find it at one of the roadblock searches that were sure to go up soon.

“So are we going anywhere, or are we just staying here?” he asked.

“No, Mr. Tucker. We’re not going anywhere.”

The back of his neck began to tingle. How did she know his name?

“Then … what are we going to do? You want some information? You need some names, is that it? We can make a deal. You promise to let me go, I’ll tell you whatever you want.”

“No,” she said. “No deal this time. This time I’m going to kill you.”

He turned so he could see who she was, unable to stop himself.

It wasn’t the woman he’d seen running behind him. It was the smaller one, the one he’d thought was a teenager. Only she wasn’t a teenager.

“Remember me?” she asked.

“You’re Quinn’s bitch.” He paused, thinking. “Orlando.”

The small Asian woman smiled. “Good. So I don’t have to explain to you why you’re never going to get out of this car.”

No, she didn’t, he thought. He would have been out for blood, too, if he had run across the person who had once kidnapped his child. That was if he’d had any. He glanced past her, through the back window, hoping to see Petersen.

“No one’s coming,” she said.

“Don’t know what you’re talking about,” he said.

“Your friend,” she told him. “The big guy? He ran into a car back there. Don’t think he’s going to be up and around for a while.”

So he was on his own. Fine, he thought. His left hand drifted toward the door handle.

“We had a deal,” he said.

“That deal was done almost two years ago. And here you are messing with children again.”

“A bunch of defects. No one will miss them. Hell, we were doing a service.”

“We know about the explosives in the juice boxes and the trigger in the girl’s leg,” she said.

His hand stopped for a moment.

“And as far as I can tell, we haven’t heard any more booms,” she went on. “Sounds to me like Quinn’s neutralized the threat, so your mission’s a bust.”

“I’ll give you names,” he said. “The people I was working for.”

“We already have the names. We don’t need anything from you.”

“Look,” he said. His fingers were only inches from the handle. “Your son’s fine. Looks like these defe …” He paused. “… these kids are fine, too. So no reason I have to die. I didn’t kill anyone.”

She smiled.

And just as the pad of his index finger touched the door release, she pulled her trigger.