“Which one are they in?” he rasped.
Ogilvy’s head was lolling left and right, like a boxer with cut eyes, teetering on his last legs.
“Which one?” Matt asked again, still rushing ahead. He knew the suite he wanted was one of the last ones in the row and didn’t really need Ogilvy to answer. He figured the target suite wouldn’t be like all the others. They all had their doors wide open, the clusters of people inside them all crowding the front barlike counter. Maddox’s boys wouldn’t be as welcoming, and their suite would have its door shut. Maybe even someone outside, on guard. Within seconds, they’d rounded the concourse. Sure enough, the last suite had its door closed. Matt pushed Ogilvy up against the door and rapped on it firmly while twisting Ogilvy’s arm right up so his shoulder blade was about to pop out.
“Get them to open up, nice and friendly,” Matt hissed into his ear.
“Yeah?” came a low grunt from inside.
Ogilvy swallowed hard, then blurted, “It’s me, Ogilvy,” trying to sound unruffled but not quite pulling it off.
The guy behind the door must have hesitated, as he didn’t open immediately, then the door cracked open. Matt lifted Ogilvy off his feet the second he heard the lock jangle, ripping his shoulder tendons in the process, and shoved him against the door like a vertical battering ram. The door slammed backward, hitting the guy standing behind it in the face. The doors to the suites were rock-solid and soundproof. The impact sounded like the guy had been pounded with a baseball bat. It knocked him off his feet and sent his gun flying out of his hand and tumbling heavily to the ground. Matt stormed in, keeping Ogilvy in front of him like a shield. His eyes registered two other guys in there, in addition to the guy on the ground. They were waiting for him and had silenced handguns trained on the door. Matt didn’t slow down. He kept charging forward, holding Ogilvy in front of him, flying across the room in five long strides. Ogilvy jerked and flailed as several rounds cut into him, but the shooters didn’t have that much time to fire before Matt was right on top of them. He launched Ogilvy at the one dead ahead of him and leapt across at the other shooter, catching his firing arm with his hands and pushing his gun away while landing a heavy elbow across his jaw. He heard it snap as he spun around, still gripping the guy’s gun wrist with both hands and tracking it around through ninety degrees until it was facing the other shooter, who was busy pushing Ogilvy’s bloodied body off of him. The two silenced handguns pirouetted around in unison to face each other, only the one under Matt’s control got there a split second earlier and he squeezed hard against the guy’s trigger finger. The handgun belched a round that caught the opposing shooter squarely in the neck. The guy recoiled as a burst of blood geysered between his shoulder blades, just as he let off a round of his own that whizzed by Matt and buried itself somewhere in the wall behind him.
Matt felt the shooter behind him squirm. He slammed his elbow back into him, mashing his throat. He felt the shooter’s body go rigid as the man convulsed in a pained gurgle—then Gracie yelled, “Matt,” again. He spun his gaze back toward the entrance to the suite and to the guy who’d taken the door in the face. Half his face was glowing an angry purply-red. It had to hurt. He was on his knees, straightening up, looking across at Matt. He’d just recovered his gun when Gracie screamed and just hurled herself at him, tackling him from the side. The shooter reacted fast—he just whipped up his arm and deflected her, sending her crashing against the wall behind him, but it bought Matt the precious seconds he needed to play puppet master again and raise the arm of the shooter behind him and fire off a couple of rounds into purple-face.
He took a second to catch his breath and let his heartbeat go back to something that vaguely resembled normal, then wrenched the handgun out of the shooter’s hand, kicked him aside, and pushed himself to his feet. Gracie stood up, her face locked in shock, and stepped over to join him.
He cast his eyes around the suite, and a grim realization hit him. There was no transmitter in the room. No control master board. And no Danny either. He thought back to Ogilvy wandering around the stadium, to the shooters’ position when he’d come through the door. It had been a trap. They were waiting for him, using Ogilvy to draw him in. The transmitter had to be nearby—the signal had come from that general area—but it didn’t matter anymore. He was sure they wouldn’t have risked having Danny inside the stadium. He had to be outside somewhere. That is, if he wasn’t controlling the transmitter from across the state, or the whole country, for that matter.
Matt’s heart sank. He frowned as Gracie took a couple of steps and looked out through the suite’s floor-to-ceiling glass pane, into the heart of the arena. He edged over and joined her. The sign had risen through the open roof. Its bottom edge was just beyond the tangent to the roofline, dipping into the cube of empty air over the stadium floor. Father Jerome was still on the stage, his arms outstretched, mumbling a prayer. And every single person in the stadium was still standing.
A warble snapped his attention. It was Dalton’s cell phone. Rydell was calling.
He picked it up.
“We think we’ve got them,” Rydell blurted out breathlessly. “Get your ass out here. They’re here.”
Chapter 77
“Where? What’s going on?” Matt asked, his voice racing. “There’s a tall building that backs up against the entrance of the red lot on the north side,” Rydell said. “Might be a hotel, I’m not sure. It’s got a pool on one side and a parking lot all around it. There are four guys on the roof. They’ve got the launchers.”
The words were like an afterburner to his senses. He glanced out the glass wall. The sign was hovering over the stadium now. His mind rocketed back to Rydell telling him it could stay up around fifteen minutes before it burned out. He knew it wasn’t long before it would vanish, and once that happened, the crew with the launchers would also be gone. Taking Danny—if he was there—with them.
“Where are you?” Matt asked.
“At the east end of the lot, by the Center.”
Matt was recalling the park’s layout from the website they’d studied the night before. “So if I come out the north gate—”
Rydell jumped in. “Just head straight up across the lot and you’ll hit it, it’s about five hundred yards away.”
“I’m on my way. Keep this line open and keep me posted.” He turned to Gracie, his face alight with hope. “They’ve got a fix on the launchers. I’m going after them.” He stepped over to the downed shooters, retrieved two of their handguns, and stuffed them under his belt. He pulled his shirt out and let it hang down to cover them. “Come on. You get back to the car and wait with the guys.”
“You can’t go after them alone,” she protested.
“Don’t really have a choice,” he told her. “We’ve got to go.”
OUT IN THE RED LOT, Rydell and Dalton stood transfixed before the laptop’s screen. The Draganflyer was in a holding pattern about two hundred and fifty feet over the target, its night-vision lens on full zoom. They were probably the only people for miles not to be staring at the blazing sign that had now cleared the stadium’s roof and was hovering in the night sky above it. It was a mesmerizing, awesome sight, visible for miles around. The thousands of onlookers in the parking lots and on the jammed freeways were just rooted in place, utterly enthralled by the otherworldly apparition.
Rydell checked his watch. He knew what was coming, and sure enough, it happened almost on cue. The sign pulsed slightly, like a beating heart, then just faded out like a snuffed-out candle. The crowd reacted with an audible collective intake of breath and scattered cries of “Praise the Lord” and “Amen.”
He glanced at the screen. The guys on the roof were moving fast now, packing their gear. He knew how efficient they’d be. They didn’t surprise him. Within a minute, they’d stowed the launch tubes and the rest of their gear and disappeared into the building.
“Come on,” he mumbled, almost to himself, and craned his neck, angling to get a better view o
f the stadium’s north entrance, as if he could spot Matt, but the entrance was too far and his sight line was blocked by all kinds of tall vehicles. He glanced across at the north end of the lot and the big building that loomed over it, behind a row of trees. He shook his head ruefully, and made a quick decision.
“The guns are in the glove box, right?” he asked Dalton.
Before Dalton could answer, he’d already scurried over and pulled out the Para-Ordnance.
“What are you doing?” Dalton felt a stab of fear at the sight of Rydell holding the silver handgun.
Rydell flicked his eyes across at the stadium, then up at the building, then back at Dalton. He handed him his phone. “I’ve got to help Matt. Stay with the car.” And before he could object, Rydell was gone.
MATT EXPLODED out of the stadium’s north entrance and just plowed on, with Gracie close behind. He reached the lot and stopped, shot a quick glance across the cars to get his bearings, and pointed Gracie in the direction Rydell had said the big SUV was parked.
“They should be around there somewhere, at the back.”
She nodded, and he was gone.
He sprinted through the rows of cars, SUVs, and pickup trucks, cutting around the clusters of revellers, twisting and ducking and weaving like a wide receiver charging the end zone and looking for his own Hail Mary pass. One and a half minutes later, he saw the last row of cars and the low perimeter fence of the lot. He threaded his way through a couple of camper vans and reached the fence, then stopped in his tracks at the sight of Rydell, waiting for him, breathing heavily. He joined him, catching his breath, nodding a question.
“Figured you could use some help,” Rydell said, lifting his jacket to expose the handgun he had tucked under his belt.
Matt tugged his shirttail up to give Rydell a glance of his own arsenal and gave him a slight grin. He held the phone up to his ear.
“Anything?” he asked.
Dalton’s voice came back. “No movement, but the lot on the south side of the building is crawling with people. They’ve got to have their car on the other—hang on.” He stumbled. “Okay, we’ve got one, two, three—four guys, coming out of the east face of the building and heading for what looks like—it’s a van, by the trees in the northeast corner of the lot.”
Matt snapped the phone shut and stuffed it in his back pocket. “You know how to use it?” he asked, pointing at Rydell’s silver handgun.
Rydell nodded easily. “I’ll manage.”
Matt flicked him an okay nod and took off for the trees.
They hurdled the low fence bordering the parking lot and cut across the scrub and the thicket of trees that led to the building. A neon sign informed Matt that it was a Holiday Inn. He led Rydell to the right, past the pool area and its terrace café. It was teeming with people, hotel guests who were now discussing the sign’s appearance animatedly. They kept going, rounding the hotel and reaching its front parking lot.
Matt hugged the side of the building and looked out. The lot was wide and had poor lighting, and its far reaches were bathed in near-darkness. There was a row of cars, then a lane, then two rows of cars, another lane, and one last row of cars. He could make out the roof of the van all the way down, on the far right. It was parked facing the hotel, with its loading bay backing up against another thicket of trees that separated the hotel from the next property. He looked a question at Rydell. Rydell nodded his confirmation that it was the right van. Matt saw movement around it, figures silhouetted in the night. Saw one of them lifting a big tube and handing it to someone out of sight. He looked to Rydell again for confirmation. Rydell nodded. They were Maddox’s men. Loading up.
Matt felt a tightening in his gut. Danny could be right there. Less than fifty yards away.
He pulled out his guns and handed one to Rydell.
“This one will be quieter than that cannon you’ve got there. Go wide that way,” he whispered, gesturing for Rydell to move in from the left. “I’ll cut across from the right. And stay low.”
Rydell confirmed with a slight nod and slipped away in a low crouch.
Matt crept closer to the van. He hugged the cars, slithering through the narrow gaps between them, his eyes locked on the target. It was a Chevy work van. The big, long-wheelbase model. White and anonymous. He heard one of its doors clang shut and saw one of the men stepping toward the back of the van. The others were out of sight behind it. Matt moved in closer, sucked in a deep breath, and rose just enough to clear the roof of the car in front of him, gripping his handgun in a two-handed stance, ready to pump a couple of silenced bullets into Maddox’s men—but there was no one there. They were gone. His nerves bristled as he swept his gun left and right, his eyes and ears at Defcon five—then he heard a rustle off to the right, in the trees beyond the van, and saw a shooter emerge, pulling Rydell along with him, a silenced handgun pressed against the billionnaire’s temple.
Matt flinched, unsure about what to do—just as something hard nudged him in the back.
“Drop it,” the voice said. “Nice and slow.”
Matt’s heart cratered. They’d been expected. For a split second, the notion of making a move sparked in his mind, but the guy behind him cut it short with a sudden, hard punch to Matt’s ear that sent him down to his knees. He dropped his gun, and his vision went blurry. He stayed down for a moment, waiting for it to settle, and through his bleary veil, he glimpsed the vague outline of someone climbing out of the back of the van. It was Maddox, and—he wasn’t alone. He was dragging someone out of the van with him, yanking him by the neck, a handgun pressed against it.
Matt squinted, straining to cut through the fog in his head, but even before it lifted, the recognition was instant.
It was Danny.
He was there. He was actually there.
And very much alive.
Matt’s insides cartwheeled. He pushed himself to his feet, and the adrenaline boost coursing through him brought Danny’s face racing into focus. He gave Matt a pained smile. Matt nodded back and couldn’t suppress a broad smile, even though things weren’t looking too promising for them.
Maddox acknowledged Matt’s presence with a shrug, but his eyes registered genuine surprise when he saw Rydell.
“Well, what do you know,” he quipped, clearly pleased with the unexpected presence of the tycoon. “And people say there is no Santa.”
GRACIE FLARED. “What are they doing?”
The image on the laptop’s screen showed the two figures they knew to be Rydell and Matt putting their guns down and stepping back from the van in defeat. Seconds later, two other figures appeared from the van, tightly bunched, one behind the other.
“Is that a gun?” she asked, fear catching in her throat.
“Hang on,” Dalton said. He fingered the joysticks expertly and brought the Draganflyer down slightly closer for a better look.
The top view of Maddox’s extended arm grew bigger on the screen. And there was no mistaking the gun that was staring Matt and Rydell in the face.
DANNY GRUNTED against Maddox’s tight hold. “I’m sorry, bro,” he told Matt. “I couldn’t warn you.”
“Don’t worry about it.” He saw that Danny’s hands were tied together with plastic flex cuffs.
Danny glared at Rydell. “What’s he doing here?” he asked Matt.
“His penance,” Matt replied flatly.
Danny shook his head sardonically. His stare burned into Rydell. “Too little, too late, don’t you think? Or do you also have the power to raise the dead?”
Rydell kept quiet.
Maddox swung his right arm straight out, flicking his handgun in a horizontal arc from Matt to Rydell and back.
“Sorry to have to cut this happy reunion short, boys,” he said tersely, “but we’ve got to get going. So how about you say good-bye to your pain-in-the-ass brother one last time, Danny-boy.” He settled his gun sight on Matt and gave him a curious, almost respectful nod. “It’s been good knowing you, kid. You did really well.?
??
“Not well enough,” Matt retorted gruffly.
“No, believe me, you did real well,” he insisted.
Maddox raised the gun a couple of inches for a head shot, no emotion whatsoever registering on his face. Matt’s heart stopped at the thought of a bullet shredding into him—then Maddox whipped back as something slammed into him from out of nowhere, something big and black that rocketed out of the night sky with a stealthy whoosh and batted his arm off savagely to one side. His gun went flying off as Maddox howled, the chopper’s carbon fiber blades slicing through skin and muscle, and he fell to the ground in a burst of dark blood.
Matt was already moving as the Draganflyer crashed heavily into the van’s open door—he rammed his elbow back into the shooter behind him, yelling, “Go,” to Rydell as he spun around and pushed the man’s gun hand away while battering him with a cross that ripped his jaw out of its sockets and sent him tumbling to the ground. Matt went down with him, fighting for the gun, but the man’s hand was like a vise around his automatic and he wouldn’t let go—they wrestled for it like starved, rabid dogs fighting over a bone, until the gun spat out a shot that caught the shooter in the gut and he flinched back in agony.
Rydell wasn’t as quick or as effective—he was grappling with his shooter, his hands clasped around the man’s wrist, struggling for the gun. The shooter pulled him in and suckered him into a head butt that caught Rydell flat across the bridge of his nose. Rydell’s legs caved in and he ragdolled. Matt rose in time to see the shooter spin around, his gun rising to align itself on Matt—