“Let’s hope. Look!”
She followed his gaze over the crowd-flooded street to a hotel. She spied the maroon Sentra parked in front. A man in the cobalt-blue uniform of a ballpark staffer was getting into the passenger’s side.
She and Derek broke into a run, dodging around huddles of people, squeezing through barricades. A cop tried to stop her, but she shook him off and kept going.
Derek surged ahead, plowing through people like a running back. He neared the hotel just as the Sentra pulled into traffic.
The back window burst.
Elizabeth looked around, startled. Who was shooting?
The car lunged forward, and people scattered and yelled as it pulled into the traffic-clogged street. Derek was close behind, but his hands were empty. Who fired the shot?
The Sentra hung a left at an intersection, and another crack split the air. The car sagged with a flattened tire.
Derek turned and gestured for her to take the driver’s side as the doors were flung open.
A woman jumped out. Blue uniform, long auburn hair streaming behind her as she fled down the street.
Elizabeth broke into a run. Her pulse pounded as she dodged around people and hurdled obstacles. She sprinted down the sidewalk. She was gaining, gaining, closing the gap. Fatima glanced back over her shoulder, losing a half-second advantage.
Elizabeth tackled her, and they skidded together over the pavement.
“FBI! You’re under arrest!”
The woman kicked and flailed, and Elizabeth dug her knee into her back as she fumbled for her handcuffs. What the hell?
With a shot of panic, she remembered Derek swiping them from her back at the pawn shop. She glanced around desperately and spotted a cop on horseback clomping across the intersection.
“FBI! I need a hand here!”
He stared down at her from the saddle as Fatima struggled beneath her, squirming and yelling.
“Gimme some cuffs!”
He seemed to snap out of his stupor and produced a pair of handcuffs from his duty belt. He tossed them over, and Elizabeth snapped them onto Fatima’s wrists.
The cop slid off his horse and walked over. Another officer jogged over from across the street, weapon in hand.
“What we got here?”
“This woman is in federal custody.” Elizabeth held up her badge as the cop’s gaze darted over her shoulder. His expression changed. Elizabeth whipped around.
She saw Derek across the street, kneeling beside a park bench.
Her heart jumped into her throat. She turned back to the officers.
“Guard this suspect! Do you understand? She’s responsible for this attack.”
They nodded briskly, and Elizabeth rushed across the street, clutching her gun. Derek was on one knee in the center of a park with his pistol aimed at Ameen.
Who had a young boy clutched in front of him like a shield and a gun pressed against the boy’s head.
“Give it up, Zahid.” Derek’s voice was strained.
Ameen stepped back, dragging the terrified child with him. The boy was ten, maybe eleven. He had red hair and freckles, and Elizabeth guessed the sobbing woman behind Derek was the mother.
“Now, Zahid.”
He continued to back up. Elizabeth spotted his objective: the taxi idling beside the curb. The cabdriver seemed to realize it, too, and jumped out of the car as Ameen stepped closer.
“Don’t do it,” Derek warned.
The boy sent his mother a panicked look as the terrorist tightened his grip and pulled him toward the cab.
Crack.
Ameen dropped to the pavement. The boy fell to his knees. Derek launched himself across the sidewalk and snatched up the kid. Elizabeth sprinted over to the terrorist, who was sprawled on the sidewalk with the contents of his skull splashed across the concrete.
Cops converged on the scene, shouting and barking orders as Elizabeth stared down at the corpse, dumbstruck.
She looked up at the skyline, scanning the windows and rooftops. Several black-clad Secret Service snipers caught her eye. So did the missing window on the office building across the street.
She looked at Derek.
“Cole?”
He nodded. “From up in the office building.” He stepped over. “Fatima?”
“In custody.”
“You okay?”
She looked up into his eyes. There were so many things she wanted to say, to tell him. But her throat felt swollen, and she couldn’t get her mouth to work. She looked down at the dead terrorist, and a realization hit her. This was her case, her crime scene. She had to lock away her emotions and take charge here.
“Liz?”
She met Derek’s gaze. “I’m good. Let’s get this done.”
* * *
It was three A.M. by the time Elizabeth made it back to the office, where the bullpen was packed with what looked like every agent in the state, plus reinforcements down from Washington. She wove her way through the crowd and found Gordon in a conference room talking on the phone, surrounded by legal pads and Styrofoam coffee cups. When she stepped into the doorway, he glanced over and wrapped up his call.
“The evidence response team’s still at the ballpark,” she informed him. “Hazmat’s there, too. Decontamination is going to take a while.”
“I heard. Shut the door, would you?”
She complied. But something in his look told her not to take a seat.
Gordon leaned back in his chair and watched her. His shirt was wrinkled, and for the first time since she’d met him he wasn’t wearing a tie. “We’re making progress with Fatima,” he said.
“I thought she wasn’t talking.”
“She’s not,” he said. “She asked for an attorney almost immediately and hasn’t said a word since.”
Elizabeth could only imagine Derek’s reaction to a terrorist using the Constitution of the country she’d just attacked to protect her from its legal system.
“We found her phone,” Gordon continued. “The real one, not a burner. It was on the floor of the Sentra. Our techs are working on it now, analyzing every call she made from every location she made it, trying to get a handle on who else was involved in this.”
“That’s good news.”
“Vincent Planter’s also helping us on that front.” Gordon raked a hand through his hair and sighed. “Although the charges against him at this point are unclear.” His gaze settled on her. “Given the unconventional nature of his arrest.”
Elizabeth bit back a comment. “Where’s Lieutenant Vaughn?” she asked. “I was told he and Petty Officer McDermott were back here for a debriefing.”
“In custody.”
It took her a moment to process the words. “They’re—what?”
“They’re being held at the Travis County jail until this gets sorted out.”
“What’s to sort out? They just risked their lives defending their country against a terrorist attack!”
“They also discharged firearms in a public place. We’ve got two bodies in the morgue and a lot of questions flying around.”
She gaped at him. “That’s outrageous.”
“That’s reality,” he said. “And I’m working on it, but it might take some time.”
She edged closer to the table and glared down at him, her current boss who outranked her by about fifty levels, and she didn’t give a damn, because she was furious. “You have to fix this! You caused this. You lured Lieutenant Vaughn into this investigation using me as bait! You think I don’t know what you did?”
“I didn’t—”
“Those SEALs are involved because you involved them! They were your insurance policy in case we failed to do our jobs. Without them, we’d have mass casualties on our hands, and you let them go to jail?”
“I didn’t let them go anywhere,” he said. “Contrary to popular belief, I’m not actually in control of everything that happens in the Department of Homeland Security.” He stood up, looking immeasurably tired, but she had no sympathy. “This is a complicated situation, LeBlanc.”
“That doesn’t—”
“Sit tight.” He patted her on the shoulder and pulled open the door. “I’m working on it.”