There was a lot of noise in the room—the hostages were all talking, either giving information or trying to distract Dier, so it was hard to make out anything too clearly now. White joined me at my monitor.
Dier put the knife up against Brian’s throat. “Shut up or I do this the fast way. Less fun for me. He’ll be dead a lot quicker, though.” Her voice was icy, and it was pretty clear she meant it.
The room quieted. “That’s better,” the Swarthy Slapper said. Well, assumed it was him. No one had acted like a new person had entered the room.
“Shut up,” Dier said tiredly. “As if they’re actually afraid of you?”
“You treat me with respect,” he snarled. “My brother—”
“Your brother has you signed on as camera crew. If he felt you were capable, he’d have given you an actual assignment.”
“I have an assignment,” he muttered.
Dier ignored him. “Pay attention. This is going to be what happens to all of you.” She put the knife’s tip against Brian’s inner arm and cut him. Not too much, not too deeply, but that didn’t mean it didn’t hurt. Or that he didn’t bleed. Brian hissed in pain.
“Get away from him!” Michael shouted. “Leave him alone!”
Dier laughed. “Hardly. And what are you going to do about it anyway?”
Serene was hysterical. It was only a matter of time before we found out if Patrick and Jamie could indeed time warp, only a matter of time before people we loved were maimed or murdered. We had to do something, anything. “William, is Bruno still there?”
“Yes, Ambassador.”
“Bruno, I need the Poofs assembled. Maybe they can find and rescue everyone. Fuzzball should be able to find Michael. They need to hurry.”
Bruno squawked. “He’s disappeared, Ambassador,” William confirmed.
“Good.” The Poofs normally came through, and they’d been able to access the tunnels when no one else had been. Didn’t understand why they’d waited for me to give the order, but the Poofs had their own weird hierarchy and I was just glad they normally did as requested.
There was an odd, muffled, snapping noise. Couldn’t be sure, but it sounded like it was coming from outside of the room the hostages were in.
As if she was reading my mind, Dier stepped away from Brian and went out of camera range. Heard a door open, then shut. She was back in range, with something in her hand. What looked like a round ball made of mesh, but it gleamed in an odd way.
The ball wasn’t empty. There was a Poof inside it, trembling. I recognized it as Michael’s Poof, Fuzzball. “I hope you don’t think this is going to save the day in some way,” Dier said. “We have friends from far away who understand how to capture dangerous animals.”
She tossed the ball into the air, pulled a gun from somewhere, and fired. The Poof gave a short, tiny scream. The metal cage landed on the floor. Blood seeped out and Fuzzball didn’t move. I felt sick—I’d sent Fuzzball into a trap.
“You murderous bitch!” Michael roared. “You killed my Poof! What did Fuzzball ever do to you? Get away from my friend and my family!” With that, Michael broke free.
He was an A-C and he had hyperspeed. Dier was a trained assassin. It didn’t seem like a fair fight.
It wasn’t.
Three shots rang out, close together. Rapid-fire technique.
And then the camera pointed at the floor. Michael was lying there, next to Fuzzball, eyes wide and unblinking, blood spreading across his chest from three different entry wounds.
CHAPTER 44
THE HORRIFIED SILENCE was filled with a scream, from Naomi. I assumed many people were screaming, but we could hear Naomi. She was screaming her brother’s name.
Dier slapped her. “Shut up. Your brother was an idiot. Brave, but an idiot. As if I haven’t been training in how to deal with you people?” She shook her head. “Heroics. That’s what you’ll all get if you try anything else. You’ll get dead.”
“I don’t care what it’ll take,” Brian said evenly, though he was pale and shaking. “But there are a lot more of us than there are of you. We’ll hunt you down and kill you for this. I’ll hunt you with my last breath for murdering my best friend.”
Forced myself to look away from the screen. Jeff was holding Paul, who was sobbing silently. Chuckie was clutching Serene and vice versa, White was holding Reader who, like Gower, was crying. Everyone else in the room had looks of shocked, stricken horror on their faces, even Rahmi and Rhee.
Other than Adriana. Her eyes were narrowed, and she came up to me. “What now?” she asked quietly.
“Now? Just what Brian said—that bitch must pay. And the son of a bitch who hired and trained her is going to pay, too. They’re all going to pay, because I’m going to kill them all or die trying.”
She nodded. “Grandmother would agree. And I agree as well. Count me in.”
A crashing sound made everyone look back at the screens, and the cameraman turned toward the door. So we got a jumbled but fairly clear look at Walter, Jennifer, and Jeremy busting in.
The camera dropped to the ground on its side. Apparently that was a requirement of the cosmos.
More shots were fired, but Walter was trained Security, and the Barones were a trained Field team. The fight was over fast. Only this time, the people on the ground were Dier and the cameraman. The Barones tied them up, with a great deal of unnecessary extra violence I wholeheartedly approved of.
Walter got Melanie and Emily untied first and they both started doing CPR on Michael. Because of the way the camera had fallen we could see this, albeit everyone who was watching had to tilt their heads to the left.
“We need to get medical to them,” Tito said. “If we can—”
He was interrupted by Emily taking her hands away from Michael’s body as she started crying. Melanie joined her in that as Naomi and Abigail threw themselves onto Michael’s body, sobbing.
“We’re going to stop filming,” Gladys said, voice shaking with grief and anger, as she picked the camera up off the ground. “Because I don’t want our people witnessing what we’re going to do next.”
But before the camera could be turned off, more people came into the room. These people were Marines.
An older man I knew very well entered the room. “We’ll take it from here,” he said gently.
“No,” Gladys snapped. “This is our business.”
“No, ma’am, it’s not. I’m Major General Mortimer Katt of the United States Marines and we now have jurisdiction. Per Angela Katt of the Presidential Terrorism Control Unit.”
My phone rang. I answered it. “Missus Chief,” Buchanan said, very gently, “Mahin gave us the location. I’m sorry the Marines arrived a . . . little late.”
“Yeah. So, is she on our side or just didn’t want anyone tortured or killed while she was watching?”
“Your father and I aren’t sure yet. Do you want us to keep working her or do you want us to come back to be with you at the Embassy?”
“I don’t know, Malcolm. I—you decide, okay? Whatever you think will get us to the brains of the operation the fastest. So I can kill him.”
Buchanan cleared his throat. “Ah, can I speak to your husband?”
“No. He’s trying to console his cousin over an inconsolable loss. I’m fine, Malcolm.”
“No,” he said gently. “You’re not. Just promise me that you’ll call me before you roll any plan, okay? Call me and run it by me first.”