It was insane—the whole episode was insane. It was almost more than Anderson could process. Seconds counted.
“Get the fuck out!” Aimee Sullivan demanded.
The two women’s eyes met. Instantly Anderson realized that Sullivan was less angry at the interruption than mortified by her vulnerable position, naked save for a tight leather corset.
The shame of it was beginning to register when the first round from Anderson’s 9mm hit Aimee Sullivan in the left shoulder and spun her counterclockwise. As she fell off the senator, the second round hit Sullivan just above her exposed right breast. Anderson never took her eyes off the target as she walked carefully toward the body crumpled on the floor.
Harrison started to hyperventilate with shock at the act he had just witnessed.
Anderson shushed him, putting her non-firing finger to her lips. Aimee Sullivan’s mangled left arm was hanging by only her bloody bicep. She was trying to breathe, but so much fluid had filled her lungs that she was drowning in her own blood.
“Is … she … dead?” the senator stammered.
The sound of the bullet discharging at such close range inside the bedroom was deafening.
“Now she is.”
Anderson looked sympathetically at the senator, whose eyesshowed fear beyond belief. He had never heard or seen anything like this—including the indeterminate noises from downstairs.
Movement at the bedroom door caused both Anderson and the senator to turn. Silhouetted in the doorway stood a person in green overalls and a black ski mask, holding a strange black gun with a long pipe on the barrel.
Anderson holstered her weapon and stepped away from the bed. “He’s all yours.”
The masked figure nodded. Without a word, he pulled another pistol from his hip and pointed it at Coleman Harrison, sending a thin dart into the senator’s pectoral muscle.
Harrison started to wheeze as the powerful tranquilizer coursed through his bloodstream, causing him to lose control of his muscles and his consciousness, even as his hand remained cuffed to the bed.
The masked man pulled a large hunting knife from his belt.
“What the fuck are you doing? You can’t just cut off his hand!”
The man paused and glared at Anderson. “Quit fucking around—we’re short on time!”
A second masked man appeared in the doorway, his gun raised toward Anderson. The dart hit her in the meaty part of her thigh. She tried to lunge at the former ally, but she was overcome by nausea and felt the muscles in her body spasm.
Anderson’s mind raced.This wasn’t the way they’d planned the job.The man in Paris … or was it China, she couldn’t remember … wherever he was, she needed to talk to him …
The second man grabbed Anderson’s arm as she collapsed. She tried to punch and claw him, but her arms would not move.Her body went limp, and he swept her onto his shoulders in a fireman’s carry.
The last sound Rowan Anderson heard was Coleman Harrison’s delirious cry as the first intruder began the gruesome task of freeing the senator’s hand from the cuff.
CHAPTER 43
With practiced motions, the attackers unfolded two collapsible stretchers. In less than thirty seconds, the senator was strapped onto one and moved down the stairs. Rowan Anderson was placed in the other.
Her stretcher was loaded into the back of an oversize Ford pickup and neatly covered with bags of grass and lawn trimmings. If they were stopped—and they wouldn’t be—no one would see the body that was bound and gagged in the back of the lawn-service truck. They had specific orders for this cargo. The man in Paris had given them very detailed instructions.
They knew that the Coast Guard ship positioned off the senator’s backyard had been diverted to assist with the sinking ferry. They also knew a boat was idling just beyond the international water line. But that was all they knew.
The truck had driven exactly one mile when the driver stopped. The two men jumped out, holding a large spool of wire between them. In fifteen seconds they unrolled the wire acrossthe road, then attached an explosive charge to one end and a battery to the other.The man in Paris would be happy.
Inside the black ski mask, it felt stifling hot.What would it hurt to remove it for a few minutes?The effort of pulling at the tight Nomex hood with one hand distracted his driving. The big truck drifted across the road into the oncoming lane.
“Watch out!” yelled the passenger in the front seat. The driver panicked when he saw headlights in front of him and turned hard to the right, tromping on the gas. As they sped past, the driver noticed that the headlights belonged to an SUV packed with five or six people.
Too bad for them,he thought.They’ll be dead in a few seconds anyway.He maintained speed without waiting to witness the IED’s work.
The remaining team moved toward the ocean. When they reached the edge of the bluff, the team leader looked for the worn path that led to the dark Atlantic. The men stealthily made their way down the same path that wealthy tourists took to the beach.
