Not Her Hero, page 11
Whitney said she saw the bad guys out in the parking lot, but if they were smart—which he had to assume they were—they were probably watching all the exits.
“There,” Whitney called out. He stepped out of the kitchen to check out what she was referring to. His gaze followed her finger: he saw big trucks with flashing red and blue lights zoom past the windows.
“Where’d you pull the alarm?” he demanded. “They’re going to go to the entrance closest to that location.”
“Right outside this room,” she replied.
Thank Christ.
He debated whether to pull the broom away from the door handles, then decided it would be smarter to let the authorities find them as fast as possible. The minute they saw Whitney, they’d be on the horn, making dispatch aware that the governor was here. And dispatch would automatically try to contact her security team, who were obviously out of pocket at the moment. Once the operator realized that, they’d hopefully get the FBI on the line or, at the very least, a different division of the Michigan State Police.
Marc hoped like hell that Brent hadn’t managed to take over the entire capitol security section.
“Who else is on the inside?” he demanded of his brother, just to be sure. “On the governor’s security detail. Who’s working with Brent?”
Ray shook his head. “He’s the only inside guy. He-he…”
Ray swallowed thickly.
“He’s the leader of the Anarchy Boys.”
13
Whitney flung around to face Ray. “He’s the what?”
Ray nodded. “You heard me right. Ma’am. Er, Governor.”
Whitney waved away his attempt at formality. “Brent is the leader of the militia faction that wants to destroy the government?”
Ray gulped again. “Yes, ma’am. Governor. Sorry.”
The head of her security.
Was also the head of the group that wanted to kill her because she represented something they hated.
It didn’t make sense.
Then again, nothing about those groups made sense to her. Especially that someone like Brent—or really, anyone—could think it was a good idea to join them. Believe in them. Support them.
Lead them.
“You mean he’s the leader of the militia faction that wants to kill you,” Marc practically snarled, stalking toward his brother while stabbing his finger in Whitney’s direction, his eyes narrowed, his body practically vibrating. “Why the fuck didn’t you tell us this sooner?”
Whitney snagged his arm as he passed, pulling him to a stop before he could actually reach Ray and do something he might regret. “Marc, your brother isn’t the bad guy here.”
“He—”
“In fact, he probably has a whole lot of useful information that can aid in bringing down that organization.”
Ray nodded eagerly. “I do. I’ll tell you everything. Whatever you want. I don’t even care if I go to prison. I just … I just don’t want anyone to get hurt.”
“Fine time to have that revelation,” Marc snapped.
“Marc, stop. Let’s focus on what’s more important at the moment. Are you certain Brent is the only one on the inside?”
“Yes,” Ray said immediately.
She’d take the time to appreciate that bit of information later. When she had to hand over the responsibility for her safety to someone other than Marc.
Arching her brows at Marc, she asked, “Why did you need to know that information?”
He raked a hand through his unruly hair. “I wanted to make sure we weren’t inviting the enemy in when we’re trying to rescue ourselves. I assume dispatch will contact the Michigan State Police when they realize you’re here.”
“He never talked about anyone else on the inside,” Ray said, sounding eager to share. “In fact, I think he was proud of the fact that he was the only one. It made him feel, I don’t know. Superior.”
“Of course it did,” Marc said.
Hopefully, Brent’s narcissistic behavior increased their odds of being rescued instead of captured.
The double doors leading to the lobby rattled. Someone was trying to get in. And since no one shouted, “Fire department, is anyone in there?” she had to assume it wasn’t the good guys.
“Kitchen,” Marc ordered, pushing her that way before grabbing Ray by his collar and giving him a shove in the same direction.
The door rattled again and then shuddered, like something slammed against it.
“He knows we’re in here,” Marc said. “Get in the goddamn kitchen and duck behind the counter.”
“What are you going to do?” Whitney asked, more than half afraid of the answer.
“Try to hold him off until the fire department gets here.”
That was the answer she was afraid of.
“Marc, just come in here with—”
“Governor.” His tone changed. Sharpened. Became devoid of the heightened emotions that had made him upset with his brother.
“Your life is far more important than mine.”
“I can’t believe you just said that,” she argued, but it was futile, and she damn well knew it. He was Army Special Forces. They were trained to protect their country—and those who ran it.
She wouldn’t win whatever argument she thought she might make.
So she switched gears. “Your life is important too. So don’t waste it.”
The doors shuddered again, and the mop handle splintered. Marc hurried across the short distance and flattened himself against the wall, to the left of the double doors.
Ray nudged her, muttering apologies mixed with suggestions that they get down, over there, behind the island. Whitney glanced over her shoulder.
Another slam against the doors, and the mop handle finally cracked into two pieces, slipping from the handles and falling to the floor with a clattering noise that surprisingly could be heard over the beeping of the fire alarm.
The doors flew open, and Brent stood there, holding a gun with both hands, his gaze sweeping the room. Whitney ducked, but she knew he saw her.
The bullet flew through the intake window where they probably passed through platters meant to refresh the buffet out in the dining room during special events. The small but potentially deadly bullet embedded in the refrigerator door.
“Shit,” Ray yelled, and a moment later, he tackled her and they both fell to the floor, her already sore shoulder taking the brunt as he landed on top of her.
At this angle, lying on the floor, facing the kitchen door, she could clearly see what was transpiring out in the banquet room.
Marc gave one of the doors a shove, probably trying to hit Brent, but Brent jumped out of the way and flung around, gun pointed, clearly searching for his next target.
“No,” Ray screamed, scrambling up, off her, and running out of the kitchen.
“No,” Whitney echoed, reaching for him.
For a split second, she felt the starched material of his pant leg brush against her fingers. She squeezed her hand into a fist.
His pants slithered out of her grip.
Brent turned, gun in hand. Marc lunged, catching Brent around the waist.
The gun went off.
Whitney instinctively covered her head with her arms.
A crashing sound and a bunch of voices, all calling out for anyone who might be inside, almost drowned out the incessant beeping.
Whitney peeked out from under her arm.
Ray lay on the floor, not ten feet away, blinking slowly.
Blood trickled from the side of his mouth.
“Ray,” she whispered.
He blinked again.
Suddenly, there were boots next to his head, then someone was crouched next to him. A woman in a firefighter’s uniform.
“Paramedics,” she shouted over her shoulder.
Slowly, Whitney pushed up to her knees. The room was filling with firefighters.
She didn’t see Brent or Marc. Where were they?
“I need a medic over here,” the firefighter shouted, louder and more urgently this time.
Whitney crawled over to Ray’s side. The firefighter’s eyes widened. “Governor. What are you doing here?”
“Long story,” Whitney said. “Is he going to be okay?”
Ray coughed, blood sputtering from his mouth. Whitney finally noticed the giant, dark stain eating across the front of his shirt. The firefighter had both hands pressed to the wound, and yet Whitney could still see blood seeping between her fingers.
Whitney stroked his hair. “I’m sorry, Ray.”
He coughed again. “Me too,” he croaked.
Somebody dropped to their knees next to her. “Ray!”
Marc cupped Ray’s face, held his gaze. “The paramedics are coming, right now.”
Ray closed his eyes. “I’m sorry, Marc. For everything. I—” He hacked, blood bursting from his mouth. “I should have listened to you. You…”
“You can tell me everything when you’re better,” Marc said. “Just conserve your strength, okay? You’re going to be fine.”
Ray shook his head and didn’t open his eyes.
“Ray, listen to me. Ray—”
Two more people dropped to their knees next to Ray. “We’re losing him,” the firefighter cried out.
“Back up,” one of the paramedics said. “Give us space—” His eyes widened, just like the firefighter’s had, when his gaze landed on Whitney. “Governor. Sorry. I didn’t realize—”
“We’re moving,” she said, pulling Marc away so they could work on his brother.
But she knew it was already too late.
She and Marc sat with their backs against the wall, underneath the call window, staring at the scene, until a paramedic called it.
Marc’s head fell against the wall as he closed his eyes.
“I’m sorry,” Whitney whispered, finding his hand and twining their fingers.
“Me too,” he replied.
“Governor,” someone called, urgency in their voice. “Governor!”
She glanced up at a uniformed man, but not a firefighter. A police officer. Local police.
“There’s a man with a gun in the vicinity. We need to get you to safety.”
She nodded, allowing the officer to help her to her feet. “Yes, he’s trying to kill me.”
The officer’s eyes widened. She was already tired of that reaction.
“I’m not going anywhere without him.” She pointed at Marc.
“Who is he, ma’am?” the officer asked, while Marc slowly worked his way into a standing position.
“Army Special Forces,” she said brusquely, pulling her mask into place. She was the governor, after all. She had to act the part.
“He’s the one who has been protecting me from the gunman. He’s a hero.”
14
Unsurprisingly, Marc was detained.
He got to spend long periods of time at the nearest police station, alone in a windowless room, which gave him far too much time to think.
About Ray. About his death. About the hundreds of different ways this could have played out.
None of it was satisfactory, because in the end, Ray was dead. It would take Marc a long, long time to come to terms with that fact.
The feds were working a confession out of Brent.
He’d been captured; one agent had commented that it hadn’t taken long. He hadn’t even made it ten feet down the hall from that banquet room where he’d tried to kill Whitney and had killed Ray instead.
Marc would never stop believing the guy had planned to kill his brother all along.
Turned out, the feds weren’t particularly forgiving of a guy who intended to kill a government official. Especially someone who was attempting to do it from inside the system.
Brent was being charged with all sorts of federal-level crimes. He was secured in a tiny bit of real estate with bars for a door and a totally exposed toilet without a seat, while Marc was in a boring beige room and was periodically offered water and less than mediocre coffee.
A SWAT team had already been assembled, was on their way up north to infiltrate the Anarchy Boys headquarters and round up Brent’s followers. That group would no longer prey on messed up kids like Ray.
The FBI also interrogated Marc. He told them everything.
Ray showing up at his house, followed by the Anarchy Boys, and the governor’s narrow escape. He told them about the guy he’d knocked unconscious in the woods, and he learned that the man was in a hospital with amnesia. One of the agents who were questioning him whispered to the other one, and she stepped out of the room, already lifting her phone to her ear.
Marc suspected she was contacting the hospital, possibly sending officers to check on the guy, see how real his amnesia was.
Marc also told them about stealing the Range Rover—which they didn’t know, because apparently Brent had his people take it to a chop shop. The current theory was that Brent believed he was covering his own tracks by not letting it be known that Marc was trying to protect the kidnapped governor.
Luckily, the FBI agents who questioned Marc decided to believe he had acted in the governor’s best interest when he’d stolen that car, and they didn’t expect Marc to be charged.
A small silver lining, he supposed.
They also offered him up chunks of Brent’s confession.
He was one of the founding members of the Anarchy Boys. He was seventeen when he and a couple of buddies decided to start gathering on the regular, in secret, to bitch about how the government was being run.
That’s all it had been, for a while. Sitting around a bonfire in a field, drinking cheap beer, and complaining. During one such gathering, somebody joked that they needed someone on the inside if they were ever really going to do something about all those things they hated.
So Brent joined the Michigan State Police Academy. They didn’t see anything funny in his background check, because at that point, thirty years ago, there hadn’t been an organization to notice. He and his friends hadn’t even named their group yet.
Fast-forward ten years, when the group started harassing Marc to join their ranks, they still weren’t the well-oiled machine they were today, but at that point, they would have been on the government’s radar. Except Brent was already on the inside, keeping his nose clean, his contact with his buddies kept to a minimum.
One of the other founding members was running things at their base up north, near where Marc and Ray lived, while Brent fed them intel from his cush job in Lansing.
Whitney was the fifth governor he’d helped protect, and his opinion of how each one ran the state had steadily deteriorated, until he couldn’t take it anymore. Something needed to be done.
When the leader of the Anarchy Boys refused to go along with his plan, Brent ousted him. The agents who filled Marc in on this bit of information didn’t clarify how the guy was ousted, but they’d also let it slip that the SWAT team sent up north was supposed to search for a shallow grave, so Marc drew his own conclusion.
The rest, they didn’t need to tell him. Brent had taken over as leader. He’d formulated the plan to kidnap the governor. Chose Ray as the patsy.
Ultimately, and luckily, he was now behind bars, and if the justice system worked properly, he’d stay there for a good long time. Likely for the rest of his life.
Whitney could breathe easily now.
Finally, early on Sunday morning, Marc was proclaimed free to go. He walked out of the police station in the clothes he’d been wearing for two days, no wallet, no ID, no phone, not even his backpack.
He had no fucking clue how he was supposed to get home. He had no one to call for a ride or even to borrow money so he could catch a bus.
It was better than being in Brent’s position.
As he hit the sidewalk, he noted the big black SUV parked at the curb, the burly guy in the dark suit standing at parade rest next to it.
The back window rolled down, and Whitney’s face came into view. She offered up a tentative smile. “Hey there.”
He paused and rubbed the side of his nose. “Hey.” Cleared his throat. “Governor.”
The security guy gave a small nod.
“I figured you’d need a ride,” Whitney said. No, he needed to think of her as the governor now. They weren’t friends anymore. They weren’t in a life-and-death situation. She was safe, and he was going home.
Without his brother.
Well, he supposed he could reenlist now. No charges were going to be brought against him. The army would undoubtedly welcome him back with open arms.
He had zero reasons not to do it.
He sniffed at his armpit. “I kind of stink. It’s been a minute since I showered.”
“It’s okay.”
The security guy opened the door. Whitney inched over, giving him room.
The guy holding the door wore mirrored aviators and a neutral expression. “Sir,” he said with another nod as Marc slid onto the leather seat.
Once the door was closed, Marc said, “Can he take me to the nearest army recruiter’s office?”
Whitney’s eyes went wide. “Why?”
He shrugged. “Figured I’d reenlist. Better than the alternative.”
“Which is what?”
“Absolutely nothing.” He spread his arms wide.
She cupped one of his hands with both of hers, pulling it into her lap. The driver’s side door opened and the security detail climbed into the seat.
“Take us to my home, Noah,” she instructed.
“Yes, Governor.”
The vehicle lurched into motion, and Marc said, “You don’t have to do this.”
“I know. But I have a big house. Lots of bathrooms. And bedrooms. You can shower, sleep for however long you want. Then we’ll talk.”
“You aren’t going to try to change my mind, are you?”
She smiled serenely. “We’ll see.”
A short time later, the SUV pulled into a driveway blocked by two other black vehicles and a wrought iron gate. A woman with dark hair pulled into a severe bun, an even more severe scowl on her face, approached as Noah pushed a button that caused the window to recede into the door.
They spoke briefly in low tones. The woman glanced into the back seat, her gaze snagging on Marc for a handful of heartbeats before she nodded at the governor and then straightened and waved at the two vehicles blocking their way.
