Unfinished Business, page 19
part #17 of Sam Prichard Series
“Well, well, well,” Summer said. “Sam, should I take her down now? Or do you want me to get out of sight?”
“Is Hickam asleep?”
“He is not only asleep, he's dead to the world. She could bang on the door for half an hour and she would not wake him up.”
“If she comes to the door there, then take her down. Summer, remember, she's classed as a terrorist, so don’t risk trying to arrest her. Shoot to kill, can you do that?”
“Sam, don’t worry. I got this.” The line went dead.
Sam called Denny back. “I warned Summer. Denny, we're ninety-nine percent sure that Jackie is Gabby. If she shows up at Hickam’s door, Summer is going to take her. Has she gone into the hotel yet?”
“Just now,” Denny said. “I can follow, if you like, but it will blow my cover if I'm spotted.”
“I think you better go in. If she doesn’t go to Hickam’s room, try to stay out of sight, but I'll tell you the same thing I just told Summer. If you have to shoot, shoot to kill.”
“No problem, mate,” Denny said. “I'll let you know what happens.”
* * * * *
Denny cut off the call and dropped the phone into his pocket, then got out of his car and started toward the entrance of the Westchester. He could see Jackie through the glass on the doors, and she was walking directly toward the elevators. He hung back for a moment, then hurried through the door as she stepped inside the elevator car.
The elevator was an older model, and it displayed the floor the elevator went to above its door. Denny pushed the button for the next car, then watched the display until it stopped on the number 5. Hickam, he knew, was on the third floor. When the second elevator opened, Denny stepped inside and punched the button for the third floor.
The elevator opened and he looked out, scanning up and down the hallway. There was no sign of Jackie, but he wanted to stay close to Summer just in case. There was a utility closet just across from the elevator, and he tried the door. It was locked, but it used a key card just like the hotel rooms. He quickly plugged his phone into the programming slot on the bottom of the reader, and the door popped open a second later. He stepped inside and pulled it until it was almost closed.
He took out his phone and called Summer.
“Yes?”
“It’s Denny,” he said softly. “I'm in the utility closet in the hall on your floor. No sign of visitors yet?”
“No, nothing yet. Do we have any reason to believe she was coming here? This room?”
“No clue, love,” he said. “She was chatting me up in the bar at her hotel, and it hit me that she didn’t seem like the meek little thing you and Jade had described. Sam says it’s almost certain that she's the woman called Gabby who has taken over for Reynard.”
“I know,” Summer whispered. “He told me to kill her if she comes here, not even try to take her alive.”
“I'm right here, if you need me. Leave your phone on, so I can hear if somebody knocks.”
“No problem. Denny? I've never killed anybody before.”
“If she comes there,” he said, “I'll step out and take the shot. Wish I had your little pink gun, right now.”
“Yeah,” Summer said. “You and me both. All I've got with me is Maggie, but she’ll get the job done if I have to. Got her in my hand and cocked.”
“Make it a headshot. First one has to count, with that little gun.”
* * * * *
Up on the fifth floor, Gabby had gone to room 509 and tapped lightly on the door. A moment later, it was opened by a young woman.
“All right, I'm here,” she said as she stepped in and closed the door behind herself. “What’s the problem?”
“It’s the old man,” the girl said. “He’s got himself some little bimbo, but we don’t know who she is.”
“Yes, Hannah, I got your text about that,” Gabby said. “Do you have any reason to think she's a problem? According to everything we know about Mr. Hickam, he’s always been one to play with the young ladies. She's probably a local call girl.”
“Maybe,” Mark said. “I just can’t help thinking I've seen her somewhere before. I can’t put my finger on it, but she looks awfully familiar.”
Gabby’s eyes narrowed. “Do we have a photo?”
“Yeah,” Hannah said. “I got one earlier, when they were down in the restaurant.” She took out her phone, called up a photo, and held it out.
“Son of a bitch,” Gabby said. “She’s not a call girl. Her name is Summer, and she's with Windlass. One of Sam Prichard’s people.”
Mark looked up at her. “Should we kill her?”
Gabby stared at the photo for another moment. “Yes,” she said, “but not until I leave. If anything goes wrong, I'll call Bastian and make arrangements to get you out. Just be careful, these people are quite dangerous.”
“I thought you had Prichard under control,” Mark said. “Wasn’t Morton supposed to call them off?”
Gabby smiled at him, but there was no mirth in it. “Obviously, Mr. Morton doesn’t know how to follow instructions. I'll deal with him, and then we’ll deal with Prichard. I'm leaving now, and I want to hear from you that this woman is dead within an hour.”
“Consider it done,” Mark said. “I don’t think it will be any problem.”
“Really? I'm pretty sure that’s what Laura thought, just before Prichard’s wife killed her. I told you, all of his people are dangerous. You have to be like a pitbull, smiling and wagging your tail until you get close enough to go for the throat. One hour, do not forget.”
She turned and walked out the door, went straight back to the elevator and was out of the building three minutes later. She hailed a taxi and told the driver to take her straight back to the Hamilton.
Mark and Hannah were capable enough to handle the situation, so Gabby put it out of her mind. She had to focus on what was going to happen the next day, when she would enter the Javits Center in a Windlass Security uniform. Dale and Claire would also be in uniform, while William and Deanna would be in the audience, replacing another pair of invitees that they had eliminated. It would be their job, William’s and Deanna’s, to create the diversion that would allow her to put a bullet through John Morton’s heart.
She already had the special, single shot pistol that she would use. Unlike Reynard, Gabby liked to make her kills up close and personal. The pistol was just a tube of high tensile ceramic with a spring-loaded firing pin hidden inside it and with a suppressor built onto the business end. It held one forty caliber round, was invisible to metal detectors, and was completely sealed so that she was unlikely to even pick up gunshot residue. All she had to do was make sure any fans were blowing away from her, and no one would even be aware of what happened until it was too late.
Then, all she needed to do was drop it. Its surface was ridged so that it could not take a fingerprint, and it was impregnated with an oxygen-based detergent gel that would even prevent her from leaving any DNA evidence on the weapon. Regardless of who found it, it would tell the authorities absolutely nothing about who had used it.
And then she could go home. It had been more than a year since she had been back to her house in Paris, and that was more than long enough.
* * * * *
Denny and Summer had been talking quietly for more than twenty minutes, and he was just about to conclude that Gabby wasn’t coming. He would’ve expected her to move more quickly, if she had been coming to see Hickam, so it was a safe bet that some of her henchmen were probably staying in the Westchester, probably to keep an eye on the old man.
“I think maybe we can relax,” he said. “Don’t know what brought her here, but if she was coming after him or you, I think she’d have been here by now.”
“Yeah, I'm thinking the same…”
“Hush!” Denny said suddenly. “Elevator.”
Summer had told him that she was in room 314, which was about twenty feet down the hall from where he waited in the closet. Luckily, it was in the direction that he could see through the crack in the door. When the elevator chimed, Denny put his eye to the crack and waited until he heard the doors open.
A couple seconds later, a man with a shaved head walked past the closet and headed toward Hickam’s door. Denny watched until the young man stopped in front of the door, saw him look both ways up and down the hall, and then reach under his shirt to withdraw a pistol.
He knocked on the door, keeping the pistol close to his chest. Denny whispered into the phone, “It’s one of the baldies, and he's holding a gun. Don’t go near the door.”
The baldy, as Denny had named him, knocked again. Denny stepped out of the closet, causing the man to turn toward him when the door creaked a bit. Denny put on a smile and shut the door, then started walking toward the man.
“Oy, mate,” he said. “You wouldn’t happen to have a light, would you? Seem to have lost mine.”
The bald man glared at him, and Denny glanced at the pistol in his hand. “Whoa, sorry,” he said, holding out both hands. “You must be security, right? Didn’t mean to bother you, I'll just be going…”
Denny started to turn, but it was a feint. As his body turned and blocked the view, he snatched out his own pistol from its holster at his back, turned further and fired one shot with his hand behind himself. The bullet struck the other man in the throat, and his eyes went wide as he dropped his pistol and reached out to try to stem the gushing of blood. It was only a couple of seconds later that his eyes rolled up in his head and he fell onto his back.
“Dammit!” The scream came from back toward the elevator and Denny spun again. A small blonde girl was standing there, and she was raising a gun of her own to aim at Denny. She got it up and fired, but Denny fired at the same time. The girl dropped straight down, like a stone, as the bullet penetrated her left eye and blew out most of her brain.
Denny turned back toward the bald man, who was now motionless. Denny hurried over and bent down, then reached out to check for a pulse. There was none, but that was when Denny noticed the blood on his left hand. A quick examination showed him that the girl had been luckier than he thought; her bullet struck him in the upper arm, and blood was running down his arm pretty profusely.
The door to the room flew open and Summer stood there with her little gun. Other people were coming out of rooms up and down the hall, and Denny looked up at Summer and let her see that he was holding pressure on his wound. She nodded, then disappeared back into the room for a few seconds, returning with her ID held out.
“We are federal agents,” she said. “Everyone, please, go back to your rooms. The police will be here momentarily, and will get this all sorted out.” She called 911 and told the operator to send police and paramedics immediately.
Several of the people went back into their rooms, but a few stood in the hallway to watch. Hotel security guards suddenly came out of one of the elevators, and one of them began to vomit at the sight of the dead girl. The others came toward Summer and Denny, and she showed her ID once again.
“I'm Summer Raines, with the Department of Homeland Security. We’ve been working on a terrorism case, and both of these people were known terrorists. I've already dialed 911, and local authorities are on their way. If you could just keep everybody back, away from the bodies, that would be a big help.”
One of the security guards nodded. “Yes, ma’am,” he said. He barked a couple of orders, and the others worked with him to encourage all the people back into their rooms.
Summer called Sam. “I think the balloon just went up,” she said. “One of the Reynard teams, bald guy and blonde girl, just tried to take me out. Denny got them, but he was slightly wounded, and he’ll be fine. Police and paramedics are on the way here, so I think it might be time to go ahead and make our move on Hickam.”
“Yes,” Sam said. “Summer, we got new arrest warrants for Hickam, charging him with attempted murder and various conspiracies. When he wakes, I want you to inform him that he's under arrest, but do not surrender him to the local police. You keep him with you, and I'm sending you a couple of people to help. I'll be over there in a bit to question him.”
“Sam, he's not going to be awake enough to question until sometime in the morning. I won’t even be able to make him understand what’s going on before then.”
“Okay,” Sam said. “Then I just want to keep him alive, until we get Gabby.”
“You got it,” she said.
* * * * *
It was almost eleven o’clock by the time Gabby got back to her room at the Hamilton, and she hurried inside. She sat down at the table and took out her phone, turned on the voice distortion app, and dialed Morton’s number.
“Hello?” Good, the man was awake.
“You were given specific instructions,” she said. “You were not to involve police or the Windlass investigators, but you didn’t do as you were told. If you do not require them to back away now, Ms. Porter will be killed.”
“What?” Morton asked. “What are you talking about? I'ven’t told anybody anything.”
“Prichard is still working on the case. You will remove him from it immediately.”
“Now, wait a minute…”
She hung up on him. She leaned back in her chair and smiled to herself, confident that Morton would do exactly as he was told.
* * * * *
As soon as Sam had gotten off the phone with Summer, he told Jade and Stacy to get over to the Westchester and work with Summer. They had just gotten out the door when his phone rang again, and a quick glance at the display told him it was Denny calling.
“Denny?” Sam asked.
“It’s me,” Denny said.
“Good to hear your voice,” Sam said. “You doing okay? I heard what happened.”
“Don’t let anybody tell you that it doesn’t bloody hurt to get shot, because it does. I’m fine, Sam, it’s not that serious, believe me. Sam, I'm guessing that Jackie, or Gabby, or whoever the hell she is, probably left the hotel here before this began. If she thinks she's unconnected, she’ll go back to the Hamilton. Now, I would bet she was called over here because these two spotted Summer with Hickam, and if they got a picture of her, then she would have known who it was. That is the only reason I can think she would’ve sent them down ready to commit murder.”
“That makes sense,” Sam said. “I'm gonna pull the others together and go after her. I want to put a stop to her tonight, if we possibly can.”
“Yeah, mate, I thought you’d be thinking along that line. Listen, I put a bug on the bottom of her hotel room door. I'm sending you the name of the app you need to download to your phone, so you can listen and make sure she's there. It’s Bluetooth, so you’ve got to get fairly close.”
“No problem,” Sam said. “I know how it works. Send the app, and I'll get the guys ready to go.”
A moment later, Sam’s phone chimed to tell him he had received the message. Denny had sent the link to download the app, so he clicked it and let it begin to download before he called Darren and Steve to his room.
“We’ve identified Gabby,” he said. “She's the same woman we knew as Jackie Bridges, back at Web Wide Awards. Apparently, she was sent in about a year ago to establish a cover. The two who posed as her kids are actually another of the trainee teams we dealt with before, and they just made an attempt to kill Summer. She's okay, Denny actually got both of them, but he was wounded in the exchange of gunfire. I'm sending Jade and Stacy over to help Summer keep hold of Hickam, because while we want to go ahead and take him into custody, I don’t want to turn him over to the local authorities. What I'm proposing is that we go ahead and take her down, now. She's staying over in the Hamilton, just three blocks from here.”
“I agree,” Darren said. “We need to get her now, while we can. Is there any way to confirm that she's in the room right now?”
“Actually, there is,” Sam said. “Denny managed to put a bug on the bottom of her door, and I have the app to let me listen in on it. We need to move as quietly as possible, and remember that the orders are shoot to kill. From everything we’ve learned about her, Gabby is every bit as dangerous as Reynard ever dreamed of being. I do not want to risk her getting away, but unless she's naked in the shower, we're not even going to try to take her into custody alive. Understood?”
“We’ve got it,” Darren said, and Steve echoed him. The three of them checked their weapons and then went out the door. They rode down in the elevator in silence, and all three of them climbed into Sam’s rented Malibu. It took only a couple minutes to get to the Hamilton Hotel, and then they walked through the lobby as if they owned the place.
They rode the elevator up to the sixth floor, and Sam turned on the listening app. It took a moment to find the Bluetooth signal from the bug, and then they could hear the silence from inside.
“Doesn’t sound like anybody’s home,” Steve said. “She should be getting here any minute, don’t you think?”
Sam nodded. “Back to the elevator,” he said. “Let’s go down a floor and listen until she gets back. We should be able to pick it up just fine from underneath it.”
They hurried back to the elevator and found it still waiting with its doors open, so they stepped inside and went down to the fifth floor. They walked through the hall until they were just in front of room
502, and then Sam turned on the app again.
They walked through the hall for several minutes, waiting for any sound to tell them that Gabby had returned to the room. It came about 15 minutes later, when they heard the sound of the door opening and closing. They started back toward the elevator, but then they heard her speaking.
Sam listened to the short call and then grinned. “She probably thinks Morton is quaking in his boots right now,” he said. “She's probably feeling just about invincible. There’s no better time to take her than right now, let’s go.”
They piled into the elevator again and Sam pushed the button for the sixth floor. When the doors opened again, they stepped out and walked quietly up the hall. When they got to the door of her room, Sam nodded to Darren, who braced himself and kicked the door open. The three of them rushed inside, guns at the ready, and it took them only seconds to realize that nobody was there.
