Elgin whispering into her ear, the eyes cold and empty.
Naomi, the Glock loose by her side, her eyes wide and locked onto Ryan’s.
No time to decide as the bartender brought the 12 gauge up and Ryan dropped to the ground, the Beretta swinging left across his body as he fired. The bullet plowed a shallow furrow across Naomi’s thigh before it ripped into Elgin’s left kneecap. Over his head, the shotguns booming in unison, glass shattering into thousands of pieces behind the bar. Elgin screamed in agony as the knife moved away from Naomi’s throat and she turned, dragging him down by the hair, the muzzle of the Glock pressed against his head.
Then they were both on the ground, Naomi turning him so he lay facedown as she straddled him from behind and kept the pistol jammed into the base of his neck. The bar erupted as the small group of people rushed for the front door. Ryan stood up to look over the counter and could see the bartender on the ground, a half-inch hole in his chest, the body surrounded by thousands of shards of bloody glass. Turning, he was relieved to see that North wasn’t hit, the shotgun dangling in his right hand as he walked up.
“He got a round off?”
“Into the counter, I think. He didn’t get it up all the way,” North replied. Ryan turned his attention to Naomi. The pistol hadn’t moved from Elgin’s head. Her eyes were glazed over, her face pale.
“Naomi, it’s over,” he said in a soft voice as he gently pulled the pistol from her outstretched hand. Her leg was bleeding badly, but she didn’t seem to notice the pain.
“Get some pressure on that, North. I think she’s in shock. I need to talk to this bastard.” Ryan grabbed Elgin’s shirt collar and dragged the injured man toward the stockroom, ignoring the screams of pain as he pulled him over the floor littered with broken glass.
The rear of the building was a large, dark room stacked floor to ceiling with crates. Ryan propped Elgin up against the cool stone wall next to the door and searched him quickly but thoroughly. Satisfied that he had no other weapons, Ryan moved back into the bar and picked up the man’s knife.
“What the hell are you doing?” North demanded. He had located a first aid kit and was working on Naomi’s leg.
North’s eyes moved up from the weapon in the other man’s hand to Ryan’s face. The young DEA agent, several inches taller and 90
pounds heavier, abruptly shut his mouth and looked away. Ryan walked back toward the stockroom, his knuckles white around the rubber grip of the knife.
Thomas Elgin was leaning against the wall just as Ryan had left him, his breath coming in short, fast spurts. He looked up as Kealey entered the room, eyes defiant as he clutched his ruined leg.
“Fuck you want, asshole?” he snarled.
Without saying a word, Ryan crouched and pushed the first inch-and-a-half of the knife into Elgin’s chest. He was rewarded by a shriek of agony as he twisted the handle to make the wound more difficult to close and to encourage blood flow. Ryan was well aware that he didn’t have a lot of time, and guessed that Elgin would be more motivated to talk if the hole in his chest was leaking at a steady rate.
In a low, menacing voice, he said, “I need some fast answers from you.”
“What do you want, you sick fuck! ” Elgin screamed, twisting his body, desperately trying to get away from the knife. Kealey obliged and pulled it out of his chest. The injured man’s words didn’t seem to have any effect on him, though. This time, the serrated edge scraped across the protruding bone of Elgin’s mangled kneecap.
In the other room, Special Agent Adam North of the DEA shuddered as another unearthly scream echoed throughout the building.
The howl of pain almost managed to drown out the sound of the approaching sirens as North finished applying the improvised pressure bandage to Kharmai’s thigh. She was starting to come around now, a spark visible in her large green eyes as her mouth moved in an attempt to speak.
“Take it easy,” he said. “You’re okay now. You did a great job.” It was a sincere compliment. For an intelligence analyst to be thrown into this kind of situation and react the way she did was an amazing thing. The sirens grew louder and the door burst open, paramedics swarming into the building. They were followed closely by officers from the Norfolk and Portsmouth police departments and a number of Virginia state troopers. As soon as they came through the front door, Ryan emerged from the stockroom, his face an impassive mask.
As the police officers secured the building, several returned from the back room with pale faces and immediately looked in Kealey’s direction. Confusion seemed to rule the day, but it wasn’t long before a consensus was reached, and a nervous officer put handcuffs on Ryan Kealey at the behest of the person now in charge, Captain Gina Nolan of the Norfolk Police Department.
Chapter 13
NORFOLK
“What the hell were you thinking, Ryan?”
Kealey and Harper were seated in the sterile interrogation room at Norfolk Police Headquarters. The irony was not lost on Ryan as the DDO questioned him from across the cold metal table. “I had to pull a lot of strings to get you out of this. I thought I told you to use kid gloves. Does that phrase mean anything to you?”
Kealey’s gaze drifted across the bare walls as the other man glared in his direction. “I realize it didn’t turn out the way we—”
“Ryan,” Harper’s voice lowered, even though the door was closed and there was no one else in the room. “Elgin had a lot to say about you. If he starts talking to the press, even the director won’t be able to contain the shit storm. Rightfully, this operation should have landed on the DEA’s doorstep. You went too far with him.”
Kealey looked to the upper corner of the room and saw that the camera used to monitor interrogations was disconnected, the wires hanging loose against the wall. He wondered why he had checked.
“You said that the president cleared this, John. I did what was necessary.”
“Bullshit!” Harper tossed several photographs onto the table.
“Pictures don’t lie. The Bureau can’t pressure Elgin because we have this hanging over our heads. In other words, we can’t force his hand because you took away our only leverage.”
“John—”
Harper held up his hand to silence the younger man. He stared at Ryan intently for a moment before quickly looking away. “Ryan, you went too far,” he repeated. The anger was gone from his voice, replaced by a weary resignation. “The director wants you out, and he’s going to get his wish if Elgin doesn’t open up. The State Department sent some people over to talk to the little bastard, but so far they’re coming up empty. I need you to give me some good news, because I’ve called in all my debts.”
“The boat that the explosives came in on is called Natalia; it’s a 25,000-ton container ship registered in South Africa. It has a regular route, making stops in Marseille and Rosslare in the south of Ireland before heading over to our East Coast.” Ryan looked up to catch Harper’s incredulous expression. “Jesus Christ, John, I didn’t go in there to make idle threats. This is what we needed, and now we have it. We don’t have time to waste with gentle persuasion, you said so yourself.”
“Well, why the hell did you keep me hanging on? This might be enough to save you—did he identify March?”
Kealey sighed and shook his head wearily. “I knew he wasn’t going to be able to. If Shakib had told March about the situation, then Elgin would be in a dirt-covered hole somewhere and we wouldn’t have gotten this far. I told you before, March is not given to making mistakes. He doesn’t believe in loose ends.”