BOOM!
Following that deafening blast of sound, several things happen at once.
The door flies open with a scream of rendered metal. A concussion of air, hot and gassy, blasts through the room with such force, it blows the table back, taking me with it. I hit the far wall. The breath leaves my lungs in a sharp gust. There’s a crunching sensation in my right shoulder, followed by searing pain. A flash of light, brief but intense, illuminates the room just long enough for me to see Shaggy blown clear off his feet, flung backward until he collides brutally with the wall. His head hits it with a sickening crack.
He slides limply to the floor, where he lies unmoving.
Everything takes on the surreal quality of a dream.
Sound is muffled as if I’m underwater. A murky red light permeates the smoky air. The light moves in odd, zigzag lines, cutting this way and that. I roll to my side, cradling my arm, which hangs at an unnatural angle, and try to regain my balance. I get my legs beneath me and shakily rise.
Crowded in the doorway are imposing figures dressed all in black combat gear. Boots, pants, jackets, gloves. Black helmets cover their faces, reflecting a faint green light from within.
Night vision, I think, at the same time I realize what the strange red light is.
The figures in black each carry a rifle with a tactical infrared light mounted on the bore. Five little red dots land in the center of my chest and wriggle there angrily like a nest of wasps.
Sounding very far away, an emotionless masculine voice says, “Target acquired.”
The men in black swarm into the room to take me.
Thirty-One
Connor
I’m pacing. Back and forth across the entryway of Miranda’s office, my boots wearing a track in her expensive Turkish rug.
Across the large room in front of a wall of glistening windows, Miranda sits behind her imposing oak desk. Regal. Silent. Watchful. Hands pressed flat against the polished wood.
Her hands are still. Her body is still. She gives no indication of stress.
That’s how I know she’s guilty. No normal person faced with a roomful of armed men—and one with the attitude of a bear woken early from his winter hibernation—should be that calm.
The quadruplets are behind me, flanking the door as they did in the room where I woke up, standing in the same tense, gun-gripping readiness that seems to be their default.
Downs stands to one side of Miranda’s desk, hands in his overcoat pockets, staring out the windows. In contrast to her watchful silence, he’s whistling a jaunty tune, rocking back on his heels, enjoying the view.
“My favorite time of day,” he muses, looking into the sky, a pale, glittering blue dome beyond the windows. “You can get so much done in the morning, I find. Don’t you?”
Miranda says flatly, “I’m a night owl.”
Downs glances at her, momentarily disturbed. “Like my ex-wife. Huh.”
Then, with a shrug, he returns to his window gazing and whistling.
After a long, uncomfortable silence during which the only sounds are my footsteps thudding against the floor and Downs’s merry whistling, Miranda says with a touch of irritation, “I’ve already spoken with your associates, Agent Downs. I’ve told them everything I know.”
The whistling stops. “Deputy Director Downs,” he says, looking down his narrow nose at her.
Miranda wears the disgusted expression of someone who’s just eaten a bad piece of shellfish at dinner but is too polite to spit it back onto the plate. “My apologies. I’ve never been a stickler for titles.”
More silence, except for my footsteps. Another moment passes before Miranda, exasperated, pleads, “Connor, will you please sit down?”
Downs smiles, his pleasant demeanor back in place. “Oh, he’s just working off a little steam. On account of his lady friend being taken into custody. I’m sure you understand.”
Miranda shifts her weight in her seat and gazes at some fixed point above my left shoulder. “Yes. Well. I’m sure it’s very difficult. No one enjoys being taken by surprise like that by someone they think is a friend.”
Downs and I share a look. I’ve told him my theory already, and he allowed me to be in the room while he questioned her on the condition that I not interfere.
He didn’t say anything about pacing, however. So back and forth I go.
Honestly, it’s the only thing keeping me from tearing this room apart with my bare hands.
“Indulge me if you would, Ms. Lawson. I know you’ve already been through this, but please tell me what you can about S?ren Killgaard.”