If Looks Could Chill, page 34
Dieu. He really had to stop thinking of her as his woman, and start treating her like a competent member of the team. Which she was.
And she wasn’t his woman.
Not yet, anyway. But he decided that had to change. And soon. Before he went completely off the deep end.
“Is there a problem?” Rand asked.
Good fucking question.
He shook himself mentally. Back in the game, Lafayette.
Was she in danger? Probably not. They’d all decided there was a low probability the university speech was a target.
Low, but not impossible, his nagging unease insisted. The idea did have enough merit that Quinn had notified DHS, and they’d sent a man. Who hadn’t reported anything amiss.
He got her cell phone number from Rand and exited the Moby, dialing as he walked back to his room. It went straight to voice mail.
“Damn it, Tara! Where the hell are you?” he demanded after the beep. Bon. Not the best way to get her to call him back. He stomped down on his blossoming apprehension. “Cher, you can’t just disappear like this,” he said reasonably. “You need to check in and let us know where you are. We’re worried about you.” He swiped a hand over his mouth. “I’m worried about you. Call me. Please, Tara.”
When he got to his room he changed out of his wet clothes and debated whether or not to notify Quinn.
Was he being a worrywart? Was this buzz of unease humming through him just his out-of-control protectiveness for a woman he loved, born of growing up watching over his five wild-and-crazy sisters?
Probably.
And yet . . . Something flip-flopped in his stomach when he considered the possibility—the slight possibility—that Tara could be right and they should have listened to her. That Tawhid was there at the university, about to spray his virus of destruction over a crowd of helpless women. Including Tara.
Mon Dieu.
Should he go to her rescue? Sacrifice precious search time on the off chance that Tara’s feminine instincts were correct? That she needed his help?
But if she needed help, why hadn’t she called him?
Because she was fine, that’s why. He was just being paranoid.
Time to get back to the team.
He slid his headset back on and was about to tap the on switch and call Quinn when his cell phone rang. He snatched it up. “Tara?”
He could barely hear the answering whisper, “Marc, omigod, come quickly. It’s Tawhid. He’s here!”
TARA pressed her back against the solid wall behind her, swallowing several times to keep her stomach inside her abdomen where it belonged.
She’d finally found the DHS agent, in a backstage dressing room.
Dead.
In a pool of blood.
His throat had been viciously slit and gaped open like a grotesque mask that had slipped down too far, still oozing blood onto the floor. He had not been dead long.
“Tara!” Marc’s voice on the cell phone cut through her daze. “Talk to me, cher!”
How long had she been standing there after dialing on pure instinct, frozen with horror and revulsion?
“Are you hurt?” he demanded in alarm. “What’s going on? Tara, I swear if you don’t say something, I’ll—”
“I’m here. Sorry,” she croaked out. She had to pull herself together. Seriously. Tawhid was close by. This vicious attack couldn’t be the work of anyone else. “I found the DHS guy Quinn sent. He’s dead.” She shakily described the scene, gathering her wits about her as she did.
“Where exactly are you?” Marc asked. She could hear a door slam in the background.
“I’m backstage at the Maravich Center. LSU.”
“Bordel du merde,” he ground out, and she could tell he’d started running. “The Maravich Center’s a fucking sports arena! Why didn’t you tell us?”
Okay, so they had both been right. Small comfort now. “I said LSU. But I don’t follow sports. Sorry, I had no idea.”
“All right. Get the hell out of there,” he commanded. “Now. I’ll be—”
“No way,” she cut him off. She was a cop. She could handle this. “I won’t let that bastard hurt these—”
“Tara, don’t you dare approach Tango One without backup!”
“There may not be time for backup. What if he starts spraying the audience, or has already—”
“We can get them to the hospital immediately. Ski and the CDC have developed measures to fight this thing.”
“Then I’ll be fine, too. I promise I won’t get within knife range of him.”
Marc let loose with a flurry of Cajun French—she assumed more swearwords. “Cher, you have to wait for backup. Wait for me.”
“Just hurry,” she urged, making up her mind, and snapped the phone closed. For good measure, she switched it off.
Pulling out the SIG from her waistband, she clipped her LSP shield to her jacket pocket. At the last minute she swiped up the DHS agent’s baseball cap from the floor where it had fallen and tugged it onto her head. Didn’t want there to be any doubt who was the good guy here. With a final deep breath, she cautiously opened the door to the backstage corridor and slipped out into the dark, silent hall.
THIRTY-ONE
FILS du putain.
It had taken nearly six minutes to collect the team from the field, rush back to the STORM helo, and take off. ETA to the Maravich Center: two more minutes. Total: eight minutes since he’d lost contact with Tara.
A lot could happen in eight minutes.
Marc hung up after reaching Tara’s voice mail for the dozenth time and clamped his jaw tight as a vice against the urge to roar out his anger. Anger at himself. Why hadn’t he listened to her?
“Calm down, buddy,” Quinn told him, peeling off his muddy jacket. “She’ll be fine. She’s a smart and resourceful lady. She’s a good cop.”
Darcy was furiously typing on her laptop, capturing schematics and other data about the center that Rand was sending, forwarding it to their PDAs as she searched for weak spots. “The arena looks pretty standard,” she said. “Not many places he can hide out.”
“He doesn’t want to hide out,” Kick said, passing out the Kevlar. “He’s after max casualties. He’ll be spraying that virus everywhere. On people, seats, handrails, door handles, you name it.”
Darcy jetted out an agitated breath, pulling a vest over her head. “Which means when those who’ve been exposed leave the center they, in turn, will infect anyone they come in contact with.”
“Unless Gina’s self-destruct gene works,” Ski’s voice reminded them. He and Rand were hooked in and standing ready with logistics and medical help over the comm.
“Let’s pray it does,” Darcy said, retrieving her Glock from Quinn. “Otherwise, we’re all screwed.”
“The good news is, Tawhid will also be infected,” Quinn said with somber satisfaction, strapping his own weapons to his body. “Maybe we can lock him in a closet somewhere until it kills him.”
“He won’t live that long,” Marc gritted between his teeth, snapping a new clip into his Beretta and stashing three more in his vest. Orders were to bring down Tango One, dead or alive. And there was no doubt in his mind which option he was going for.
His small, tight-knit STORM family all paused in their preparations for battle and glanced at him, sympathy in their determined gazes. They knew what Tara meant to him and would do everything in their power to see she came out of this alive. He knew that.
But he also knew shit happened. Things you couldn’t control. Unless she left the premises, there were no guarantees he’d ever see her alive again. Never see her sweet face, or hear her sassy backtalk, or touch her incredible body, ever again.
And she refused to leave.
He battled back the cold, debilitating fear flooding his gut. She was too brave for her own damn good.
Kick watched his agony with understanding eyes. “You have to learn to trust her,” he said. “I’ve seen Tara in action. She knows what she’s doing, Marc. Let her do her job. Trust her instincts. It’s the only way you’ll survive working with her in this business.”
Quinn and Darcy exchanged a tender look of agreement. “Listen to the man,” Quinn told him. “He’s right.”
Easy for him to say. Darcy was born for this work. Tara was different. She was . . .
Non. Kick wasn’t right.
“Who said anything about working with her?” Marc ground out irritatedly. Why were they all ganging up on him?
“She came back to us, didn’t she?” Darcy said. “Requested to be on the team.”
“That was just to be close to me,” he responded without thinking.
Darcy rolled her eyes. “Wow.”
Quinn grinned. “Keep tellin’ yourself that, buddy.”
Marc opened his mouth but didn’t have a chance to retort because the helo finally swooped down in front of the Maravich Center’s main entrance. But it just hovered. Why weren’t they landing?
He looked down. His heart leapt to his throat. Streams of screaming women were running out of the center doors onto the sidewalk under them.
Foutre de merde!
“That’s not a good sign,” Kick said.
“No shit,” Quinn muttered.
Marc slammed open the helo’s sliding door and leaned out, gesturing wildly and shouting, “Get out of the way! Let us land!” For all the good it did. The panicked women ignored his orders. Or maybe they just couldn’t hear him over the deafening roar of the rotors.
Darcy was already on the horn to center security, asking for someone to come out and clear the area. She shook her head. “They’ve only got ten men on duty, all inside, trying to control the crowd.”
“Fuck it,” Marc said, leaned back in, and grabbed the rap pelling rope secured next to the door. “I’m outta here.”
He launched himself out of the bird and three seconds later he was on his feet, running for the building. In the distance he heard the wail of many sirens. Merci Dieu.
“Where?” he demanded of no one in particular as he sprinted through the double glass doors, weapon in hand. Several women pointed inside toward the arena. His gut clenched. That’s what he was afraid of.
He stormed through the opening and muscled his way up to the railing of a mezzanine walkway that overlooked the big coliseum. What he saw nearly made his knees give out.
Down below in the middle of the arena, Tawhid and Tara stood at center stage in front of the podium facing each other, each with arms outstretched, aiming their weapon at the other. Tara had her gun; Tawhid held his canister of death. A classic Mexican standoff.
With one exception.
Even from halfway up the stands, Marc could see the fine mist of spray that floated down over Tara’s head and body. And she was just standing there talking to the fucker.
Non!
Panic surged through Marc’s watery limbs.
Why wasn’t she shooting?
“Shoot him!” he shouted at the top of his lungs. “Shoot the bastard!” But no way could she hear him. And even if she could, she couldn’t shoot. The speaker and her entourage were behind Tawhid in her direct line of fire.
He whipped up his Beretta and took aim above the jostling crowd. But not his. Then reason and training kicked in and he lowered it again. He was well out of range and more likely to hit an innocent bystander than his target.
That’s when he realized what Tara was doing. By talking to Tawhid, attempting to negotiate, she was diverting the terrorist’s attention away from the speaker while she and the others were being slowly backed offstage. Tara was sacrificing herself for the safety of the others. Until someone else could take the shot.
Hot tears pressed the backs of Marc’s eyelids as he watched the woman he loved being infected over and over again with the deadly hybrid virus. With that kind of exposure, it would be a miracle if she lived.
Non! She couldn’t be taken from him! Not now that he’d finally seen the light. Finally realized what a fool he’d been to walk away from her.
At last he’d found the woman he’d been searching for his whole, lonely life. He wasn’t about to let her go. Not like this.
He wouldn’t let it happen. He. Would. Not.
Raising the Beretta again, he turned to charge down the stairs, determined to kill Abbas Tawhid any way he could. Regardless of the consequences.
But a strong hand gripped his shoulder and wrenched him back.
“Wait,” Kick said, taking up position next to him on the landing. He calmly spread his feet and raised the sight of his HK to his eye. “I’ll take him down.”
Marc put a restraining hand on his friend’s arm. “No. Let me.” This was his responsibility.
Their eyes met in an exchange of intense clarity. Wordlessly, Kick handed him the sniper rifle.
By now the speaker was several paces away from Tawhid. There was no chance of hitting her by accident. Or Tara.
Marc snapped his body into a solid shooter stance and lifted the rifle to his shoulder. Aiming for a spot above the enemy’s ear, he took a cool, steadying breath . . .
And pulled the trigger.
TAWHID’S head jerked violently to the side. Blood sprayed from his skull in a liquid funnel of crimson.
Tara’s heart stopped in her chest, then restarted with a lurch. Thank God. At last someone had come!
As the terrorist’s body twisted and fell to the stage, her arms and legs started to shake like a carnival ride. But for some reason she couldn’t move them. Couldn’t get her elbow unlocked to lower her weapon. Couldn’t move her feet to get out of the way of the disgusting puddle of red spreading quickly toward her shoes. She watched it as though in a trance, suddenly fighting to get her breath.
She wanted to look around, to see who had finally come to her rescue. Was it some brave security guard? Was it Marc? But it was as though her body had turned to a stone pillar in the midst of an 8.0 earthquake. A collapsing pillar.
Tawhid’s lethal spray crawled on her skin like ants. She could almost feel the horrible disease boring its way into her flesh and organs. Her whole body itched, her lungs burned. Her stomach rebelled.
God, she was dying.
An unbidden sob burst from her throat.
Around the stage, people were going crazy. Running, screaming. Shoving one another to get away. Stop panicking! she wanted to shout at them. No need! Tawhid was dead!
But, then, so was she.
A sudden vision of the dead family in the swamp swept through her mind. The virus worked quickly. She could be gone in a matter of hours. Or minutes. In horrible agony.
Before she’d had a chance to tell Marc how she really felt about him. How much she loved him. How she had died a little inside when he left her. How she’d have done anything, anything in the world, to keep him, to have him love her back.
“Tara!”
She heard the faraway call. His voice. Another bitter sob escaped. Please let me see him just one more time. If only she could stop shaking and turn her head.
Hot tears trickled down her cheeks. Maybe it was better this way. This way he’d be free, as he wished. And she’d be spared the unbearable pain of living without him.
“Tara!”
She sucked in a shuddering, half-sobbing breath. Except she didn’t want to die. Not like this. She could deal with pain. She had before, and—
A large body hurtled up onto the stage with a crash. Marc! He rolled to his feet. “Tara, look at me, cher.”
He had to stay away! Her head started to shake back and forth as her eyes sought him. He was lunging toward her. “N-no!” she gasped out, then coughed. “D-d-don’t come any closer!”
Too late!
He put himself between her and Tawhid’s lifeless body sprawled on the blood-covered floor, blocking her view. He reached out for her gun arm, grabbing her wrist with one hand and grasping the SIG in the other.
“D-don’t touch me!” she cried, coughing on the words. Trying desperately to pull away. “I’m infected!”
“Like I give a fuck about that,” he said, his voice steady, but more intense than she’d ever heard it. “Tara, give me the gun.”
She looked down at her own hand holding the SIG in a death grip, and struggled to relax her fingers. She also struggled to breathe. “Please, Marc,” she wheezed, “I don’t want you to die, too.”
He succeeded in prying the gun from her hand. “Nobody’s dying here except the bad guy. Now, look at me, cher.” He guided her trembling arm down to her side.
Black spots danced before her eyes. She swallowed thickly, feeling her body start to shut down. She looked at the man she loved with all her heart. Coughed again. She had to tell him. “Marc, I need to—”
“Save your strength, beb. I’m getting you to the hospital.” With that, he swept her off her feet and into his arms.
“Marc,” she croaked, desperate to get his attention, but it came out in a racking cough.
It was no use. He was sprinting with her at full tilt up the stairs, shouldering his way through the parting crowd. She lifted her hand to grasp his shirt and hang on and saw that her skin was already breaking out in angry blisters. Oh, God.
Unable to hold her head up any longer, she let it loll against his chest. She closed her eyes. His unique, comforting smell surrounded her, calming the terror in her heart. At least she would die in exactly the place she most wanted to be—in his arms.
“Hang on, mon amour,” he told her, his voice thick with emotion. “You’ve got to hang on. Do it for me, ma douce.”
They burst out into the chilly winter air. She was jostled and she heard Kick say from far above, “Hand her up,” and she felt Marc let her go.
“No,” she whispered in panic, trying to hang on to him.
“I’m right here.” Then once again she was in his arms.
Her body gave a shiver, and she felt her mind slipping away. With her last ounce of strength, she lifted her lips to his ear.
And just as everything faded to nothingness, she whispered, “I love you.”
