Chapter 21
She felt the pressure on her arm just as the first blaring alarm caught her attention.
She looked at the gripping hand and her gaze trailed up to the face it belonged to.
She saw his eyes and knew immediately.
Behind the strange goatee and the severe hairstyle, she knew.
It was her love.
She was breathless. She couldn't hear the alarms or see the people milling around them nervously, like sheep waiting to be herded to safety. All she saw was him.
He touched her face. His touch was warm and soft… and real, finally real after all these years of dreaming, longing. He was with her once more.
He slipped his hand down her arm and grasped her hand firmly. He led her quickly into the crowd, pushing into the middle so that there were many bodies around them.
No words left either of their lips but they moved together, understanding each other perfectly.
Her eyes filled with hot, shocked tears but they didn't break their ranks. The feel of his hand on hers was reassuring and she would follow him anywhere.
They shuffled with the crowd as they filed out of the reception hall. She turned for just a moment and saw as three guards off to the sides searched the exiting faces futilely. There were just too many people leaving to register.
But for good measure she pinched the chiffon scarf off a nearby woman's shoulder and threw it around her neck before she lifted it onto her head and she and Nate rode the wave of evacuating patrons out of the ballroom, the hotel lobby, and ithen nto the cool London air.
And finally she was free.
The alarms jarred them both awake just as he'd gotten Joshua to sleep for the third time. The boy kept waking up, asking for water to soothe his ailing tummy.
The man opened his eyes with a cuss and rushed to the window to see the hordes of people filing out of the front of the building.
His jaw clenched.
It didn't look good.
He picked up the phone to call to the lobby hoping to get some information but an emergency recording came on that urged the hotel's patrons to evacuate immediately.
Something didn't feel right. And he wasn't going to sit there defenseless.
He ran over to the sleeping boy and gathered him into his arms.
"Hey Skip, we're going to go for a little ride okay?" He coaxed as gently as his gruff urgency allowed.
"To The Eye, Capin," Joshua asked groggily. Even in sleep he was excited to visit the rotating spectacle.
As he threw the boy's jacket over his tiny head, Joshua snuggled closer, easing his face into the space between the man's rock hard shoulder and stubbled cheek.
He paused for a moment adjusting the boy's weight as he prepared to leave the room and although he was in a hurry, the significance of the moment wasn't lost on him.
He would give his life to protect the little boy.
He remembered the promise he made to himself a few years ago, that he would never again do more than he had to to subdue an assailant but he knew he'd kill anyone who tried to hurt the child in his arms.
"Alright Skip. Here we go," he said softly as he opened the door and peered to the left and right. There was no one there but he could hear the noisy march of people making their way down the stair cases on either end of the hallway.
He ran to the right side exit, having remembered that the exit to the back alley was to the right side of the building. He would not go through the front of the building. He knew it would be a mob scene and he could too easily be overwhelmed. He liked the odds of the unexpected.
He eased into the stairwell and joined the crowd, grateful that he only had three flights to descend. Although the people were courteous because he was carrying a small child, the tight space and vulnerability made him even jumpier.
Getting out into the fresh air of the back alley couldn't have come soon enough but he didn't rush out of the back door. He cautiously scanned the darkened passageway and noted a seemingly abandoned dark colored van parked at the far end.
He tensed for a moment and unconsciously waited for an attack but when a few seconds passed and no one emerged, he thought around his paranoia and walked quickly in the opposite direction. He exhaled a quick breath when he reached the bright lights of the heavily populated street.
A taxi was passing just as he exited the alley and he nearly ran into the street in his attempt to secure it. The drive stopped and helpfully flung open the door.
"Barton Street," he said as he settled himself and the boy into the back seat, "I'll give you a hundred pounds if you take off the meter and take only back streets."
The driver eyed him skeptically through the rear view mirror but drove off and turned down a residential street.
The man looked down at the sleeping face of his young charge and took a deep breath. He wondered if anyone was even concerned that they'd made it out safely. He swore, sometimes the boy's father treated the child like disposable property.
"Parker," Alec called, "Where are you? I've lost your signal."
He hated not knowing where she was.
It was his idea that they never separate. He stressed it, he planned around it, yet here they were with him on the outside of the building and her on the inside and out of contact.
"Dammit," he bit out as he watched the growing crowd at the front of the hotel through the security cameras.
He lost Nate's feed as he and Sophie exited the hotel and Alec suspected there was a signal blocker at work.
It was messing with his comms and the transmitter that Parker planted and Alec didn't know if to stay put and wait for them to return to the van or go in after them in case they were in trouble.
As the seconds ticked on he grew more and more agitated, positive that someone should have made it back by then.
"That's it…," he finally ground out and climbed over the front seat of the van and jumped into the back to grab his rucksack. He was going in.
As he inserted and adjusted his comm, something out the van's back window caught his attention.
The back door to the hotel had opened. He stopped to see if either Parker or Nate and Sophie had finally found their way to the alley.
He froze and watched out the tinted window as a man holding what looked to be a small child, stared up and down the alleyway. He couldn't see the man's face clearly but he realized it wasn't anyone from his group. He turned away to see to the fastening of his bag's straps.
It wasn't until he looked up again and caught the turn of the man's head as he stared at the van that he realized who it was.
"Eliot..." he grasped for the handle of the van's back door. "Eliot," he called again and looked down when several of his attempts to open the door proved futile. There were no handles on the inside of the rear doors. The doors were controlled by a button on the dashboard.
"DAMMIT… ELIOT," Alec shouted as he dove to the front of the van and attempted to get out.
He knocked over his computer, got held back by the rucksack as it snagged on the arm rest and nearly dislocated his shoulder trying to get out of the van but as he burst out of the door breathless and frustrated, he looked up to see the alley clear and Eliot, gone.
He raced toward the other end of the passage into the bright and busy street. He looked both ways for any sign of his friend but realized dejectedly that in the throng that strolled there, finding Eliot would be close to impossible, especially if the hitter didn't want to be found.
"Dammit," he cursed as he turned back into the alley and walked back to the van. He comforted himself with the fact that he at least knew that his friend was alive. It was as good a place to start as any.
"There you are Mr. Hardison," the coolly satisfied voice cooed quietly at the monitor that provided a video feed from the alley's cameras. "I was beginning to think that I'd lost you."
"This was a spectacularly awful night," Nicaro Caesar broadcasted as he sat himself down heavily in the plush recliner behind Demara de Castro.
"I disagree , Nicaro," she responded evenly, as she reached into the draw beneath her desk and retrieved a pair of soft leather gloves, "I think tonight was the first night that went as planned in a very long time."
"She's gone, Sonia," he emphasized the words by sitting at the edge of his seat and leaning toward the older woman, "Your little grifter has disappeared, with all of the knowledge of everything we have planned."
"No," Demara countered softly and with icy indifference. "Sophie Deveraux was just a part of the plan, as were Nathan Ford, Alec Hardison, Eliot Spencer, and our friend Parker."
Nicaro Caesar watched her expectantly waiting for her to clarify her point.
"You see, Nicaro," she turned away from him and back to the monitor that recorded the alleyway, "everything that has happened here has been prompted and guided to happen. We've accounted for every contingency to ensure that we have the outcome that best suits our needs."
She slipped her hands into the butter-smooth leather gloves and then pressed one key of her computer's keypad to open a file. She typed in the twelve digit access code and looked on as a program opened.
Then she turned back to Nicaro.
"Do you know what this is?" she asked, not expecting him to answer.
He stared at the file over her shoulder and through all of the technical jargon he made out three words close to the top of the document: Divide And Conquer.
"You see, I've found their vulnerabilities and I exploited them," she admitted unabashedly.
"How long have you been planning this?" Nicaro asked noting silently how the air suddenly felt colder in the room.
She sighed and leaned back into her chair.
"I became aware of Nathan Ford and his merry men when they orchestrated the downfall of…an acquaintance of mine. I followed their exploits and studied them. I realized that they played by their own rules and abided by their own code. Then the need arose for their individual skills and so I created this contingency matrix which began the night of the Hasting's break-in."
"You couldn't have possibly accounted for everything that happened that night," he bowed his head to her knowingly.
She smiled, a cold, menacing leer, "You underestimate me, Nicaro…"
"Alec Hardison died that night," he bit back sarcastically and she stared at him with a look that would have made smarter men shake.
She turned away from him and back to the monitor watching as Alec reentered the van, "Yes Alec Hardison died that night," she confirmed. "but computers are incredible aren't they? It's amazing that with one tiny chip I could give a man life…and with one press of a button, I could take it away."
"Sonia, this has gotten far too involved for me," Nicaro announced and sat back in his chair.
He didn't see when she reached for the small metal object and closed her leather clad fingertips over its base. He didn't hear as the safety clicked softly into place.
But he felt it- even if just for a brief moment, when the bullet pierced his heart. It burned and then it ached. And then he felt nothing.
"Yes Nicaro, this has gotten far too involved for you….but I've only just begun."