Chapter 34 Kyle
KYLE
Thursday morning, I ran four miles to work, then participated in a punishing round of PT.
After that, I showered, put on dress slacks and a button-down shirt, and attended a meeting with staffers from some of the US senators who sat on the subcommittee that funds HEAT.
They had questions about our actions in the weekend debacle.
They indicated they were inclined to believe our version of events, but until they met with us, then issued a final report, nothing was a given.
And yet, through it all, I couldn’t help smiling.
Lang was annoyed by it. When we weren’t with the staffers, Wheeler cracked constant jokes at my expense, egged on by Pasco, who found the jokes hilarious.
Hayes and Kat gave me pitying looks and once or twice muttered something about me being a goner.
Jensen, Pasco’s boss and back-up IT support for us, was in town for our morning meetings.
After hearing more from my teammates about my love life than any colleagues should ever know, he clapped me on the back and told he would invent a special drink in honor of Cami’s and my happiness.
I tried not to take that as a threat. Bond, who came for the meetings and would stay on for a few days to run routine blood tests on us, looked at me like I was a specimen to be studied.
But unless my extreme happiness became an impediment to my physical health or performance, I knew I could count on her to remain professionally detached.
We all put on our most serious faces for the meeting with the staffers. It was a huge point in our favor that we’d found and destroyed the kompromat Rikder had gathered against not only the son of the Joint Chief, but also some other high-ranking officials and their family members.
As soon as Sentate contingent left, we shed our dress clothes and returned to our normal work uniforms of jeans and T-shirts.
Jensen said goodbye as he had a plane to catch, but he promised he’d return soon with that special drink recipe.
Lang went to the planning room to make a phone call.
Kat holed up in her office to confer with X and Bond.
Pasco hurried to the IT room to play with the new equipment Jensen had brought for him.
~~Hayes, Wheeler and I seemed to be the only ones who had our priorities straight. We stormed the kitchen.
Hayes and I were playing keep-away-from-Wheeler with the last cherry yogurt, a flavor I didn’t even particularly like, when Pasco yelled out, “Code red! Code red!”
“What the hell is a code red?” Hayes asked as we ran toward the IT room.
“No idea,” I said.
Lang was there next, followed by the three women in charge.
“When did we get a color-coded system?” Lang asked.
“Never,” X said. “Pasco, what’s happening?”
The IT guru hadn’t looked away from his screen or stopped typing frantically when we’d joined him. “There’s a problem at the clinic.”
My blood ran cold. “Cami’s clinic?”
“Why the code red, Pasco?” Kat asked.
“Because it’s Cami, and Bella’s there, and…” He was spiraling, not a normal reaction for a HEAT agent.
Then again, Pasco was there for his IT brilliance, not his ability to remain cool under fire. That was a required skill set for field operatives like tactical and logistics, although I was having trouble with the capability myself at the moment.
“The issue, Pasco,” I demanded.
He gulped a few breaths of air. “Okay, I got a signal that the security cameras went down. It can happen. The system’s not as elaborate as ours, a brownout could cause a blip. User error could cause a longer outage.”
“I’ll go check it out.” I turned to leave.
Lang grabbed my shoulder and held tight. “Not without more information. Pasco, sounds like it might be nothing.”
“Except I just tried to call the clinic. No answer. So, I tried Cami’s cell.”
My body tensed, wanting, needing to make sure she was safe. Yeah, she would fucking love that if this turned out to be nothing. And I probably wasn’t getting through the wall of HEAT agents prepared to stop me.
I swallowed a dry lump in my throat. “No answer?”
“Worse,” he said. “No signal. I tried all their phones. Has to be a jammer. An area as small as that building, it could be done with something off the internet.”
“It’s Riker. That’s it, I’m going.” I pulled out of Lang’s grasp.
“Stop,” X said quietly. That’s the power of being the boss of the boss, you don’t need to be loud to be listened to.
I halted, my instinct to protect Cami warring with years of intensive training and operational knowledge. The training won out, only because the quick math I did in my head pointed to the odds of protecting her increasing exponentially if I had my team and a plan behind me.
Lang sat in front of a computer monitor. “Pasco—”
“Sending you the pre-blackout footage now.”
“Got it,” Lang said.
I stood behind him and watched as he rewound the footage, going from snow, backwards to images inside and outside the building.
I caught an image of Gina in the hallway.
The exam rooms and OR suite were empty, which made sense because the clinic observed a lunch hour.
No sign of Cami, but there were no cameras in the staff offices or bathrooms.
“No clients or pets to worry about, except…” I pointed to the woman in the lobby. “She doesn’t have an animal with her.”
As Lang rewound the footage further, we saw the woman move back out the front door. When we got to the outside images of her, the sunlight flashed on something around her neck. Worry squeezed my heart and I could barely speak, but I didn’t need to.
“Zooming in on it now,” Lang said, having seen the same gleam. “Potential explosive, controlled by remote.”
“Not anymore,” Pasco said. “I’ve blocked their signal.”
That wasn’t good enough. “That footage is from minutes ago,” I said. “Riker’s probably there by now. There could be other weapons in play.”
“We’re aware, Rogers,” Lang said quietly.
“Guys, I have a signal!” Pasco yelled, although we were all standing within feet of him.
“Have you gotten through to her phone?” I asked, shifting my attention to his monitor. Then I saw what he had seen. It wasn’t a cell phone signal. “The panic button.”
“It was just activated, and now...” The signal started moving. Fast. Too fast to have a human involved.
“It’s Bella and she’s off-leash,” I said.
“Has to be,” Pasco confirmed. “She’s moving at close to thirty miles per hour.”
“Can dogs do that?” Wheeler asked.
“Staffies can.” I was already headed for the door.
This time, no one tried to stop me.
Kat barked out orders for the team. Lang called out that he would collect our gear and follow me into the woods on his chopper. Pasco ran after me, and yelled for my attention. When I turned, he tossed a comms unit from a quarter of the gym away from me. I lurched forward and caught it.
“Thanks Pasco,” I yelled as I burst through the door, out into the blazing sun, toward the thick woods. I shoved the comms unit into my ear and the sound of my team in motion came to life.
They were preparing for rollout. I had Cami’s back, and my team had both of ours. That’s what I had promised her, and I had no intention of ever going back on my word.