Page 3 of Handling Haven
Haven sashayed toward the open double doors leading into a foyer that was larger than most high-end hotel suites she’d been in. The long skirt of the shiny, gold Badgley Mischka dress she wore swished from side to side as she moved. An above-the-knee slit exposed her left leg with each step, without showing the small handgun strapped to her right thigh just below her crotch. Tucked below the deep V of the dress’s neckline was a garrote, which she could easily access in the event she needed to silently dispatch someone by strangulation. It wasn’t a method she liked to use since it meant getting up close and personal with her enemy, but it was there in case she needed it. The matching shoes also had some modifications the designer had never intended. A three-inch stiletto knife slid through a small slit just below the seat of the four-inch heels and rested along the shank under the sole. All she had to do was bend one knee, reach down, and slide the knife out from under the shoe, and she’d have instant weapon in hand. If James Bond were a woman, she’d have loved the shoes as much as Haven did.
As they strolled throughoutparts of the 50,000 square feet of the ridiculously opulent venue, Haven steered Reardon into areas with less people in them, giving Mr. Smith a better opportunity to approach them. The wedding festivities were expected to continue well into the night, and she hoped it wouldn’t take that long for him to contact the “code seller.” Mixed in with all the wedding guests were bodyguards, the catering staff, and the event coordinator’s people, but even though most of the hired help were in tuxedos, it was easy for Haven’s keen eye to distinguish them—it was all in the harried or precise way they moved, depending on their job.
Passing through a room that housed a small bar and several intimate sitting areas for guests to enjoy, Haven smiled and nodded hello to several people who knew her as Hazel McPherson, “owner” of Simply Splendid, Inc., a moderate-sized, international cosmetics and skin care company that was another business Deimos used for its operatives’ covers. Exiting into the hallway, she glanced to the right and then left, getting her bearings before deciding which way to go. She’d studied the floor plans of the mansion for days, making sure she knew how to get out of there if the mission went south. Other Deimos agents were among the guests and staff milling about as her backup, but Reardonwas her main responsibility, and there was no way she’d let him get hurt or killed.
As she turned left down the long hall, she headed for the two-story library. This far away from the main ballroom the lively music being played there had faded away and was replaced with the soft chamber music coming from their new destination. More guests were entering another room further down on the opposite side of the hall that was designated as a cigar bar. Having thought of everything, the venue had a special ventilation system in that closed-door room for the smoke to be removed and released up through the roof, three stories above it, without exposing the rest of the rooms.
A few steps before they reached the open door of the library, Haven felt the hairs on the back of her neck stand on end, sending a tingling warning throughout her body. She surveyed her surroundings carefully. At the far end of the hallway, past the cigar bar, a tuxedoed man stood sentry, appearing as one of the guards stationed throughout the building. Glancing behind her, Haven noticed two other men in formal wear approaching, but neither gave her the impression they were part of the staff. No, they were guests—or were they? She hadn’t been able to stare without drawingattention to herself, but one of the men looked familiar, and, as she guided Reardon into the library, she wracked her brain to figure out where she knew the man from. He had dark hair and a trimmed beard, which barely covered a scar on his left cheek. Slender, he stood a little over six feet tall. That’s all she’d been able to catalog in her mind without a second look.
“What’s wrong?” Kenny whispered. “You’re frowning.”
Haven was surprised he’d picked up on that considering she almost always had her game face on while undercover. But something niggled her brain about that one man. Keeping her eyes on the doorway, she leaned forward and gave Kenny a kiss near his ear. “I think I recognized someone, but I don’t know where I know him from. I need a better look.”
“Vixen, repeat. Didn’t get that last transmission,” Sawyer said in a low voice through her earpiece.
Positioning herself and her date so she could observe the unknown man if he came into or passed by the room, Haven waited. In the meantime, since two older couples were now nearby, she couldn’t respond to Sawyer directly, so she let him know she was stalling while it appeared she was answering a question Kenny had asked moments earlier. “I’m notsure, honey. I’ll have to check my calendar when I get a chance.”
Seconds ticked by. Just when she thought he must have turned around and gone back in the other direction, an ultra-bright light flashed a split second before a deafening roar filled the air. The floor shook as books came flying off the shelves and the floor-to-ceiling windows blew out. Haven, Reardon, and other people in the room were thrown off their feet by the compression blast, along with anything that wasn’t nailed down.
Oh, God! Not again!
Total chaos ensued. People were screaming or moaning, but Haven’s ears were ringing so loudly she couldn’t hear anything other than the blaring fire alarm. Searing smoke permeated the room, setting off the sprinkler system, which seemed woefully inadequate for the circumstances while still soaking those standing underneath the spray heads. The explosion hadn’t occurred in the library, but somewhere close by—a room or two further down the hall toward the cigar bar.
Pain shot through her left arm where there was a gash from something that had hit her. She ignored it as she reached out—almost blindly as thousands of black, white, and gray dots dancedbefore her eyes—trying to find Reardon among the debris. Grabbing a leg, she was relieved when her blurry vision cleared enough to see it was the Deimos geek, and he was alive, although stunned. Kicking off her shoes—they’d be difficult to run in—Haven rolled to her feet, and pulled her gun from its holster, not worried her thong-covered crotch was briefly exposed. Her head was spinning as she scanned the room for any other threats.
“Get up!” she shouted to Reardon, unsure if he’d heard her since she could barely hear her own voice. She brought her hand to her ear and found the listening device, that’d been hidden by her hair, had been knocked out. Bending down, she yanked on Reardon’s arm, trying to get him to understand her and get moving. He shook his head, as if trying to clear it, as he slowly got to his knees.
Glancing toward the door, Haven was horrified to see two men in respirator masks enter the room with guns in their hands. Instinctively knowing things had just turned into a kill or be killed situation—there was no way they could have outfitted themselves so quickly against the smoke unless they’d known it was coming—she raised the weapon in her right hand and fired, striking the closest man in the chest. He fell to the floor, the bullet to hisheart stopping it cold. The second man reacted quickly by diving to his left when Haven shifted her aim. Her shot hit the back of the sofa he’d disappeared behind. With limited ammo, she couldn’t afford to waste any, she’d have to wait for him to pop up to fire another shot. That didn’t mean she was just going to stand there as an open target, though.
Not knowing if they could get out through the hallway, Haven propelled Reardon toward one of the blown-out windows as soon as he got his feet under him. It would be about an eight-foot drop. Ignoring the other injured people in the room, Haven kept her weapon aimed at the sofa as she pointed to the window. “Jump!” she ordered her charge, grateful she’d been able to hear herself through all the other noise that time. Obeying her was one thing she’d drilled into Reardon during the weeks leading up to the mission. If she gave him a command, he was to follow it without hesitation; both their lives might depend on it.
Blood was flowing from a laceration to his head, but Reardon, thankfully, didn’t waste any time grabbing hold of the window frame, checking how far he had to fall, then leaping out. Firing one more shot at the sofa, Haven grabbed the skirt of her dress, then stepped through the glasslessframe and jumped. Landing, she rolled as she hit the stone patio, letting her momentum absorb most of the impact. Bits of broken glass ripped the soles of her feet and her bare arms. Paying no attention to them, she was moving forward before she was completely standing again, pushing Reardon in front of her to where the Trident boys would be waiting to cover and extract them. “Run to the trees!”
Each step was painful, but she shoved it from her mind—there’d be time to tend to her injuries later. Zigzagging through all the guests, who’d already escaped from other rooms in a panic, Reardon and Haven hit the lawn running. The crowd thinned out about halfway to the jungle. Just when she thought they were going to make it, something slammed into her back, knocking the breath from her lungs. Her feet flew out from under her as she fell forward, an involuntary scream caught in her throat. Her back was on fire, agony ripping through every nerve. Reflexively, her hands shot out to protect her from the fall, but she still landed hard. Glancing over his shoulder, Reardon saw her go down, and he slid to a stop so fast he ended up on his ass.
Pushing against her hands, Haven struggle to get back up—there was only about fifty yards to go to the safety the jungle and armed operatives wouldprovide—but she couldn’t make her feet and legs obey her brain’s commands.What the fuck?It took a moment for it to register that she couldn’t move them. Terror coursed through her as she tried to deny what she was quickly realizing—it’d been a bullet that had struck her, and her legs were now paralyzed.Oh, God, no!
CHAPTER 3
The wedding had gonefrom a celebration of life, and the union of a publicly-adored couple, to complete and utter chaos. The explosion had occurred somewhere inside the building, sending hundreds of people running for the closest exits. They were pouring out of every door and even some windows. Frisco hadn’t seen anyone come out injured, yet, but several people had fallen under the crush of the crowd. Women were crying and screaming; men were yelling and frantically trying to figure out what the hell was going on. Smoke began to filter out from the center of the roof as flames shot skyward.
Frisco and the others hiding in the jungle ran through the list of those inside. One by one, thevoices of Ghost, Fletch, Carter, Jordyn, and several other operatives inside the mansion came over the comms. They hadn’t been close enough to the blast zone to be seriously wounded, although there were some minor injuries. But others were still unaccounted for. The backup teams had yet to hear the Deimos geek and his female bodyguard report in, but with the earsplitting pandemonium going on around them, there could be any number of reasons why. There was no way of knowing if the explosion was related to the pending sale of the codes or something else altogether. Either way, it’d been totally unexpected. Unless the two main targets checked in soon, Sawyer said he was going to order his team to move in to recover them. They couldn’t allow anything to happen to either of them—if they were still alive.
“Does anyone have eyes on Vixen and her boy?” the Trident team leader barked into his microphone for the third time in less than a minute, as he, Hollywood, and Frisco scanned the panicked crowd still emerging from the building. People dressed in gowns and tuxedos were pushing others out of the way, ignoring those who fell. Victims were being trampled which could be just as deadly as anotherbomb going off.
Sawyer received a round of “negatives” from several operatives before someone Frisco didn’t know responded, “Boss-man, we’ve got to get those people out of there. The fire’s spreading fast.”
There had to be victims still inside, injured or stunned from the initial explosion, who couldn’t escape on their own, and from the look of things, everyone else was trying to save their own hides. Since Trident Security was in the private sector, and the US government could deny knowing why they were there, them exposing themselves was the better option. The Delta Team, however, was comprised of active-duty Army personnel, and it would be a lot harder to explain why they were on foreign soil, covertly surrounding the compound with heavy-duty firearms. Those inside, though, could still maintain their covers and help the injured. It only took a split second for Sawyer to answer his teammate. “Agreed, Boomer. Ghost, can your team cover our sixes and watch for the principals? We’ll try to get as many of them out, but this is probably a diversion. I don’t want my team caught with their pants down.”
“Affirmative,” Delta’s team leader responded, his raspy voice a result of the smoke. “Jungle Cats, maintain ...cough... positions and make sure the frogsare ...cough... covered. Monkey Suits, if you can hear me, help evacuate the injured. Everyone keep your eyes open for the missing principals. Snow White and Prince Charming are on their way out with Sleepy. Grumpy, they’re all yours.” The senator and his wife had been briefed that if there was an emergency they were to go straight to their limousine with the closest Delta operative, where another one would be waiting to drive them to safety.
“Alpha & Omega, move in. Keep your faces covered. Jackass and Sweetheart, find the damn principals and get them out of there.” Sawyer pulled on the balaclava he’d yanked out of one of the many pockets in his camo pants. While his teams had applied face paint, just as Frisco, Hollywood, and the other Deltas in the jungle had, they didn’t want to be caught on camera where facial recognition software could possibly help identify them. Many of the uninjured, but stunned, wedding guests milling about the large lawn were already recording the turmoil on their cell phones. It was a fair bet the videos would be onYouTubewithin minutes.
As Sawyer stood and tucked his weapon in its holster on his right hip, a flash of gold caught Frisco’s attention. There she was, the woman from the picture, materializing from thecrowd with her “date,” urging him to run straight toward where Frisco and the others were still hidden amidst the foliage. They were both covered in dirt, soot, and blood, and the brunette was barefoot and limping, although it didn’t look like it was slowing her down much. Frisco was about to announce he had eyes on the principals, when a loud crack rang out above all the other noise—to the trained ear it was the unmistakable sound of a gun being fired. He watched in horror as the woman’s back bowed from the impact, and she fell forward, her face contorting in pain.
“Shit!” Frisco was on his feet and running before she’d completely fallen onto the grass beneath her, with Hollywood and Sawyer on his heels, the latter shouting out orders to the combined team members. The redheaded kid realized the woman protecting him was down, and he skidded to a halt, his feet coming out from under him. Landing on his ass, he twisted around and began to crawl back to her. Another gun report, this one distinctly from a long-range rifle, echoed from somewhere behind and to the right of Frisco, followed by a voice coming over the comms. “Alpha Four, threat from library window eliminated.” Whatever his name was, he had to be a sniper on one of Sawyer’s teams.
Some of the guests realized shots were beingfired and that started everyone freaking out and ducking or diving to the ground to make themselves less of a target. Crying and sobs became screams of alarm again. No one knew where to run, so they were slamming into and tripping over each other in their fright.
