Summer felt sure that Joanna was up to no good. But Kepler was right; there was no way that Joanna would be able to get into Groom Lake Air Force Base. After leaving the pool deck, Summer wandered back into the lobby. Arms folded, she leaned against a wood table underneath the Fiori di Como and fumed.
She couldn’t shake the feeling that whatever Joanna’s next move would be, the kid must be important. Booker Dunn. Why else would she bring him along? Joanna didn’t have friends, and she didn’t associate with anyone unless she could use them for something. But what did the kid have to offer? There didn’t seem to be an answer.
Frustration was boiling over inside of her. If she could remove the kid from the situation, maybe that would be enough to derail whatever Joanna was planning. Kepler would have her badge if he found out she officially detained the kid. The only other option was to put Booker in a car and drive him back to San Diego. Kidnap him. But that was a really stupid idea.
As she weighed this idea, another thought occurred to her. Perhaps Joanna was using Booker as nothing more than a distraction. Could Booker be the bouncing ball Joanna tossed out for her to chase, giving Joanna free rein to carry out her plans without Summer getting in the way? She pressed her knuckles against her forehead and groaned. Joanna used to say her special talent was creating chaos. Was bringing Booker along just a way for Joanna to create chaos?
In front of her, she watched a large, mustached man pushing a wheelchair bound guest to the check-in desk. The kid in the wheelchair looked completely out of it. His head lulled straight back, and a bit of drool dribbled from the corner of his mouth.
In a sudden rush, she realized that the kid passed out in the wheelchair was Booker Dunn. Someone had hastily pressed a pair of sunglasses over his eyes, and his clothes had changed. But it was him! Who was the man pushing his wheelchair?
Her heart raced, but she fought to stay calm. She pulled off her FBI windbreaker and wrapped it up around her arms, then casually approached the check-in counter to listen in on the conversation taking place above the unconscious kid. The hotel manager with the gold tie stood on the other side of the desk, and spoke with the man pushing Booker’s wheelchair. They spoke cordially, and Summer was able to make out something about a car coming to pick them up.
No, a car was coming to pick up the kid and one other person. A friend of the large man? Then she heard him say, “Her name is Joanna. She told me I could leave him here.”
“I know her well, Mr. McCoy. And we will take good care of the young man while he waits for his car,” said the hotel manager. Then he snapped his fingers, and a front desk employee in a sport coat seemed to appear out of nowhere. The manager explained that a car would be arriving shortly to pick up Booker and one more guest, and that Booker should be taken good care of.
The mustached man, who had been checking his watch repeatedly, took his leave. Summer ducked her face away as he walked close by her on his way out.
A voice behind her said, “This town just isn’t for everyone.” She turned to see a man leaning on the check-in desk beside her and shaking his head in Booker’s direction. “Hi,” he said, looking her up and down and giving her a wink.
“Gross,” she said, turning her back on him.
Several minutes passed, and Booker and his new ward didn’t move. Eventually, the hotel manager returned to take a phone call. He nodded his head as he spoke softly into the receiver, hung up, and then beckoned to the man watching over Booker. She tried to listen, but a family of Midwesterners were shuffling forward to check-in and cutting off her view. She moved quickly around them, closer to Booker and the front desk man. She didn’t hear what had been said, but Booker was now being wheeled toward the exit. The front desk man pushed the wheelchair right past her, saying, “Pardon me, ma’am.”
Summer glanced around the lobby but didn’t see Joanna anywhere. So, she followed the wheelchair at a safe distance. As she pushed through the revolving doors and walked outside to the shaded carport, she saw a bellhop indicating that Booker should be wheeled over to a black SUV with a running engine. The carport was crowded with similar-looking black SUVs. All the others had their engines running as well.
Her focus now was trying to eavesdrop on the conversation between the front desk man pushing Booker and the driver of the black SUV who had jumped out to help load Booker into the back seat.
The pair of them lifted Booker clumsily out of the wheelchair, the driver saying, “Where’s the other passenger? I was told to pick the kid and a woman.”
Summer felt a rush once again and struggled to stay calm and collected. This might be her only chance to put a stop to Joanna's plan. If she could get to Booker now, she could prevent Joanna from taking this next step.
Clearing her throat, she stepped forward and said, “I’m Joanna. You’re here to pick us up?”
The driver looked her up and down and said, “Yes ma’am. If you want to hop in, we’ll get this guy loaded up before I get Captain Tully. I have orders to keep you here until the captain can see you.”
“Yes, the Captain,” said Summer, panicking slightly and trying to sound natural. “It’ll be good to see him again.”
The driver looked confused at her response. “You know the captain?” he said, as the bellboy clumsily lifted Booker out of his wheelchair.
Scolding herself internally, she said, “Yes. Of course I do.” Feigning a confident air, she walked over to the passenger door of the SUV and climbed in. Behind her, she listened to the driver and the bellboy huffing and puffing as they pushed Booker’s unconscious body into the back seat.
The bellboy said, breathlessly, “What in the world did this guy drink?”
The driver responded in a similar breathless voice, saying, “No idea. But whatever it is, I’d take some.”
The rear passenger door slammed shut, and Summer watched as the bellboy left with the wheelchair and the SUV’s driver said, “Stay here.”
Summer nodded and smiled, but as the driver walked away, she gritted her teeth and said, “Shit. Now what?” She watched as the driver approached a group of men standing near the gold-plated entrance doors to the Bellagio. All of them dressed in similar black uniforms, save one.
Captain Tully - that must be him, because he was the one the driver approached - wore a black tank top that was tucked into the waistband of his air force olive drab camouflage pants. The captain was tall, his skin was tan, and his arms muscled. His hair was a dirty blond color and cut tight on the sides, but long and swept straight back on top. Standing with his hands on his hips and chewing on a toothpick, he turned as the SUV driver approached him.
The captain’s eyes found hers and she swore under her breath again. “Bad idea, Summer,” she said as the captain unclipped the pistol on his hip from its holster. The captain nudged a pair of soldiers standing beside him, each carrying assault rifles, then the small party approached the car.
“Shit, shit, shit!” she said, looking at the driver's seat, her eyes resting on the keys in the ignition. The car was running. It was just her and the kid. Did she dare?
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In one fluid motion, Summer hoisted herself across the center console and into the driver’s seat. She hesitated long enough to let out one shaky breath, before she pulled the SUV into drive and slammed on the accelerator. The SUV zoomed down the winding driveway leading back to Las Vegas Boulevard, away from the Bellagio.
Her heart was racing so fast now, she was fighting hard to catch her breath. It was as if she had just run a mile. “Oh, boy,” she said. What had she done? She couldn’t even fathom what the repercussions might be, but it was too late to worry about that now.
Wiping the sweat off her forehead with the back of her arm, Joanna sped down the road, passing the Eiffel Tower on one side and frantically trying to figure out which direction to go. She needed to find a place to take the kid a lay low. Before Joanna could figure out what had happened.
Her phone buzzed in her jacket pocket, and she pulled it up to see who was calling. It was Terry. She answered and heard him say, “Carol? I’ve been trying to reach you for an hour! Where are you? What’s going on?”
“Terry! I might have just done something really stupid,” she said, slamming on the accelerator and zooming through a yellow light. “We need a place to lay low. Did you get that hotel room?”
“What did you do?” he said in a grave voice.
“I got the kid,” she said. “I saw him, and I took him. He’s in the back of my car right now, and he’s passed out.” She was weaving in and out of traffic as the road got busier ahead of her, and she was forced to slam on her breaks. In the back, the kid flopped over the edge of the seat and landed on the floor. Glancing back at him, she said, “God, he is completely out of it. He might have been drugged.”
“What car?” he said. “You don’t have a car here.”
“I stole one from the valet,” she said, looking around the interior and seeing a pair of dog tags dangling from the rearview mirror, and an air force patrol cap resting on the dashboard. In the rearview mirror, she saw flashing red and blue lights coming for her. It was all the other black SUVs from the Bellagio’s carport.
“Carol, stop the car now and turn around. Take him back to wherever you found him,” said Terry. She could tell he was starting to panic by how fast he was talking.
“I can’t,” she shouted, slamming on the horn and trying to force the cars ahead of her to move out of her way. “The kid is important! Joanna needs him, and if she needs him, I need to take him out of the equation!”
“Are you crazy?” he shouted.
“No one is listening, Terry! I know her! I know what she’s capable of!” she said, zooming through the intersection and looking around frantically for a landmark that would point her back in the direction of Lou’s Bar. If she could get back to Terry, they could hide the kid for a few days until after this whole mess was over.
“Turn the car around and take the kid back!” Terry was saying. He kept talking but Summer spoke over him and said, “Gotta go, Terry,” and hung up the phone. She veered off Las Vegas Boulevard, turning left through a red light. She heard the screeching of tires and a chorus of car horns and had the swerve to avoid smashing into a silver sedan. In her rearview, she saw the black SUVs swerving through the packed intersection engulfed with tire smoke.
More black SUVs were in front of her, heading straight toward her. She turned right, pulling the wheel as hard as she could and felt the tires skipping underneath the car, squealing as they fought for traction. The kid in the backseat slid across the flood and thumbed into one of the door panels. “Damit,” she shouted, still wrestling with the wheel.
Her turn had cost her speed. A pair of SUVs were now pulling up on either side of her. A third was coming up directly behind her. She looked at her speed and saw it climbing: sixty, sixty-five, seventy, seventy-five. To her left and right, the two SUVs were neck and neck. On her left, a man in a black military uniform was sitting in the passenger seat of another SUV and staring at her with a cold expression. Instead of telling her to pull over, she saw him lift an M-16 and aim it at her.
Instinctively, Summer slammed on the breaks. The cars on either side shot past her. However, the SUV directly behind her was closer than she thought. It slammed into them, and Summer felt the full impact of the collision lift the rear end of the vehicle. When her rear tires touched the pavement again, the car jolted sickeningly left and right, fighting to stay upright. Summer pulled at the wheel and turned down a side street, catching a glimpse of the SUV that hit them, veering off in the opposite direction, the entire front end crumpled like a tin can.
Amazingly, the airbags had not deployed, but the car was making all kinds of bings and bongs and flashing warning lights all over the dashboard. She floored it anyway. The engine roared, but the car was crippled. It sputtered forward, the whole cabin jittering. More SUVs were behind her. “Jesus, do you have a whole army out here?” she shouted, trying to see what was behind her through the side mirror. It had been jostled out of position, but she could see another soldier leaning halfway out the passenger window of his car, aiming a rifle at them.
She heard the pops of gunfire, and the side mirror exploded. “Shit!” she shouted, veering left and right as the gunshots ripped through the car. She could hear bullets blasting through the sheet metal, but nothing seemed to be coming through the cab. Then she realized that they must be aiming for the tires. As though on cue, she heard one of her tires explode, and the car dropped and veered hard right. She held fast to the wheel, trying to make the car stay straight, but it careened toward the sidewalk. She slammed on the brakes and the car nosed down, tire smoke billowing all around. But it wasn’t enough to stop them from hitting a pair of cars parked along the sidewalk.
Her SUV slammed between two parked cars, spun as it mounted the curb, and flipped onto its side. Summer felt the vehicle roll as if in slow motion. They skidded to a stop, sliding across the sidewalk on the vehicle’s passenger doors. She was dimly aware of the kid in the backseat being thrown from one side of the car to the other. She was belted in and hanging from the driver's seat as gravity tried pulling her six feet down to the passenger door that was kissing the pavement on the other side of the car.
She felt a tingling like electricity running through her veins. Blood flowed from her lip. With shaky hands, she unblocked her seatbelt and fell through the cab against the passenger door. Laying there, her body started to register a certain amount of pain in her joints. She was still shaking when the butt of a rifle smashed through the sunroof. Glass rained down on her as whoever was outside kept chipping away at the glass.
After a few moments, Summer’s body started feeling the full effects of crashing from an adrenaline high and the injuries sustained in the accident. People were climbing into the cab and helping her to her feet. She allowed herself to be pulled out of the car and onto the sidewalk outside. She was deposited on her knees, where she swayed, now feeling nauseous.
Above her, a voice in a thick Alabama accent said, “As I live and breathe. A federal agent. You most certainly are not the Joanna Jones my boys were supposed to meet at the Bellagio.”
Summer slowly looked up, first seeing a pair of combat boots, then olive drab camo pants, a black tank top, and the man’s face. It was the man she’d seen standing outside the Bellagio, Captain Tully. He was picking his teeth with a toothpick and looking down at her through a pair of black sunglasses. Taking the toothpick between his fingers, Captain Tully used it to point at the crashed SUV over her shoulder, and said, “He a friend of yours?”
Summer slowly turned to see Booker Dunn, still unconscious, being lowered headfirst out of the sunroof. The soldier holding Booker’s legs slipped, and Booker flopped onto the pavement.
“God, dammit!” shouted Tully. “Watch it, Adams!”
“Sorry, sir,” said the soldier. “Slipped on some glass in here.”
“I don’t give a shit!” Tully shouted back. “He got any ID on him?” In a calmer voice, he said to Summer, “You’ll have to excuse the boys. You gave us quite the little chase just as we were getting ready to head over to the airstrip. Good thing we gotcha’ before our flight takes off.”
The soldier, Adams, must have found Booker’s ID, because he yelled back, “His name’s Booker Dunn.”
“I’ll be damned,” said Donald in a low voice, looking over Summer’s head at the kid. “Well, isn’t that a surprise?”
A pair of men grabbed Summer from behind and hoisted her up onto her feet. She felt pain in her ribs and neck, but her head was so fuzzy, and she felt so tired that she couldn’t even try to fight them off. They dug through her pockets and took her gun.
Tully bit down on the toothpick again, taking her badge from one of the soldiers who had searched her. He grinned, baring his teeth. “Special Agent Carol Summer,” he said. He sucked his teeth and went on in the same Alabama drawl, “Now, how did you get mixed up in all this, I wonder?”
A voice beside her said, “Sir, the police are coming.”
“Put her in the car,” said Tully, dropping the toothpick between them. “We’ll take her with us. You and you; clean up duty. Tell the police this is all a training accident, or anti-terrorism or something.”
Summer was half-carried to the nearest SUV, where they shoved her into the backseat. She fell against the leather seats and slowly pushed herself up. She looked out the windshield and saw the wreckage of her SUV, flipped on its side on the sidewalk. The street was covered with glass and spilled oil. She also saw Booker Dunn, blood staining one side of his face, being put in the back of another SUV.
“God dammit,” she said, pounding her forehead with her palm. “Well, that was stupid.”