“There was something Marcus said.” Lonnie picked up her purse and rummaged inside it. “Let me give him a call and have him tell you exactly.” She slumped in exasperation. “I left my phone in the hotel room. I’m going to run up to get it. You guys keep talking — I’ll be back in a couple of minutes.”
“I’ll pay for your lunch, Lonnie, and we’ll meet at the lobby of the hotel,” Hilde said. “About fifteen minutes.”
“Okay, thanks” Lonnie said. “See you there in fifteen minutes.” She rushed out the door as fast as her pregnant form could move.
Warner leaned in to the table. “We inspected a pretty long segment of the underground tunnels around the park strip and downtown. I didn’t see any overt signs of tampering — just normal maintenance.”
“Of course,” Tomer said, “if this guy is a petroleum engineer, he would know how to hide his work.”
“Let’s get some bomb dogs down in those tunnels,” Tonia said. “That seems to be the most likely place to try something.”
Tomer nodded. “It’d have to be a pretty big bomb to blow through the ground and still have enough power to kill the president.”
“But it’s possible. It’s always the unknown stuff that gets you,” Warner said. “We’ll have snipers on the roofs all around, plainclothes agents mixed into the crowd, and dogs all over the place. It would not be easy to get any kind of attack by on the surface, unless they plan a battalion-strength assault.”
“Other scenarios here, folks,” Tonia said. “We need to think of other scenarios.”
“Here is not the place to get into details,” Tomer said. “Let’s head back to the office.”
“Okay,” Hilde said. “I’ll go get Lonnie and meet you guys at the FBI building.”
Hilde paid hers and Lonnie’s bills. Tonia paid for hers and Tomer’s.
“Hey, I’ve got per diem,” she said with a wink. “I’ll cover you, Tony.”
Warner was last to pay. When Myriam handed back his receipt, Warner felt something extra in his hand. He looked at it before pocketing the register receipt. Myriam had included a slip of paper with her phone number on it. He looked up in surprise.
She smiled, and as the others turned away, she mouthed the words “call me.” The late-afternoon sunlight glinted off her gold nose stud and her eyes sparkled. A weak grin twitched at the corners of Warner’s mouth, the blush returning to his cheeks. He turned and followed the others out the door.
Chapter 17
Lonnie entered her hotel room and made another bathroom stop to relieve the constant pressure the baby placed on her bladder. She came out, picked up her phone, and put it in her purse, then glanced quickly around the room to make sure she wasn’t forgetting something before stepping back out the door. It shut with a solid click and she tried the handle, verifying it was locked before she moved toward the elevators.
Two maintenance men in brown coveralls were putting tools in a canvas bag as she passed them. She heard the zipper shut on the bag, then the sound of their heavy footsteps behind her as she drew near the elevator. As she came to a stop in front of the elevator door, she glanced at a polished brass plaque on the wall in front of her. In the reflection, she saw the two men moving close behind. She reached out and pressed the down button.
The two men stopped beside her, and she gave a sideways glance up at them. One was tall, the other short, both were thickly muscled. The tall one turned his face fully toward her, looking directly into her eyes. Lonnie’s heart thumped a painful beat and her eyes widened with surprise.
“Hey, Trooper Wyatt,” said the hard-looking man who stared down at her. A tattoo of a skull peeked malevolently above the collar of his coveralls on the right side of his neck. The Nazi SS double lightning bolt symbol balanced the look on the left side.
“Leonard Brassert, what are you doing here?” she asked, regaining her composure and giving him the coldest look she could muster. “They let you out for good behavior?”
“That doesn’t matter much to you. It’s payback time, bitch.”
“Are you stupid, Leonard? You going to shoot me right here in front of security?” She pointed to a black globe that hung from the ceiling in front of the elevators.
“I couldn’t give a shit,” said the man as the door slid open. “Get in.”
“No.”
“Then I will cut out your nigger-gook baby right here in the hallway and leave you to wallow in your own blood.”
He flicked a long, wicked-looking knife into view. The other man stepped into the elevator and leaned against the back wall. Lonnie considered her options. It was unlikely she could win a fight against these two killers even if she wasn’t pregnant. She was a third-degree black belt in both Tae Kwon Do and Hap Ki Do. That fact had given her the upper hand in many a fight, against both male and female opponents, but most people in fights are not in it for life or death. They give up when the pain hits a certain level.
Leonard Brassert, on the other hand, was not here to play a game. Any fight with him would certainly end in death for at least one of them. A life of violence in the world of organized crime and biker gangs had turned him into an animal. Five years earlier, she’d arrested him on multiple murder, rape, and drug charges. He had been accused of the torture and execution of a drug dealer and his family, but the prosecution could not gather enough evidence to prove it and he ended up with only a drug and robbery conviction and what should’ve been a ten year sentence. The look in his eyes left no doubt that if she didn’t think of something she and her baby were going to die. She didn’t know the other man, but his face showed no trace of humanity whatsoever. He looked like a shorter incarnation of Arnold Schwarzenegger's Terminator character.
It was midday and the hotel was mostly empty. The occupants of the rooms would be busily touring the city. Those still there were likely asleep in preparation for the nightlife. She doubted there would be anyone to hear her scream.
Brassert had done a good job of keeping his back to the cameras, obscuring his actions. His broad shoulders also blocked off the view of Lonnie’s face. Security would have nothing to act on. She’d be dead before anyone was even aware there was a situation. Lonnie stepped into the elevator. Brassert followed her, the knife pricking her back as he drew close.
“If you let out a sound, I will slice you so fast, you won’t even feel it until you’re holding your bastard in your arms. And I will gut the little shit in front of your face. Now stand by my friend, with your back to the wall.”
She complied, mind racing. Her phone and her Glock were both in her purse. She felt the weight of her backup pistol, a blued-steel Walther PPK .380 that was seldom even noticed after years being of worn on her ankle every day. Both guns were loaded with specially designed, and very expensive, MagSafe ammunition. The bullets, a mixture of epoxy and steel birdshot encased in a brass shell, transformed the power of a standard .380 into something comparable to a .45, and that of a .45 caliber pistol to the power of a .50 caliber. They were among the most lethal ammunition available in the world. But both weapons were worth very little at the moment because neither could be reached faster than Leonard could slash with the knife.
Her only hope would be to make a loud, attention-grabbing scene as they stepped into the lobby. That hope evaporated a moment later when Leonard slid a key into the maintenance switch and turned it to override. He pushed the button marked “B,” and the elevator started its non-stop descent to the basement. The likelihood of survival plummeted with every floor they passed.
“What are you going to do?” she asked, defiantly refusing to sound afraid. “Take me for ransom?”
She fed the idea to him, hoping to change his intentions from what she assumed were torture, rape, and murder.