Just another victim knocking on heaven’s door thanks to the senseless gun violence plaguing America.
“You got something, Jay?”
He looked up from his screen and met Adam Grayson’s sharp gray eyes. “Yeah, hacked into the hospital’s CCTV and isolated the feed from the exterior cameras.”
“Was it him?” he asked, referring to the man news crews were hailing as the hospital’s hero.
Jay acknowledged with a nod. “Jamie took two bullets before putting three rounds into the gunman’s chest.”
Eve Langley let out a strangled gasp from behind her trembling hand while the others reacted to the news with varying degrees of profanity, restless twitching, and mounting anger.
“Is he alive?” Gray Mackenzie demanded. Her expression fierce, Adam’s sister looked ready to get on a plane headed for Boston to kill the already dead gunman—with her bare hands.
She wasn’t the only one.
“I don’t know,” he replied, hoping to God Jamie had somehow survived.
“Put it up on the big screen,” Adam ordered.
“Uh…” Jay looked from Adam to his fiancée. The video was graphic and disturbing to watch, and even though Eve had proven herself to be as mentally tough as Gray, she was a physical therapist, not a battle-hardened freelance photographer used to seeing the worst of humanity.
“I’m fine,” Eve said, taking Adam’s hand and answering the non-verbal question in his look by entwining her fingers with his. “Please, Jay. Play it now.”
With a click of his mouse, he backed up the recording to the point where Jamie drew his weapon. Another couple of clicks, and he projected the video onto the SmartBoard side-by-side with the now muted CNN broadcast.
Seven seconds later, the team held their collective breaths as they watched Jamie go down. All eyes transfixed on the screen, no one spoke. No one moved. The helpless rage filling the boardroom was a palpable thing as their friend—their brother—lay dying in the street twenty-five hundred miles away.
The initial flakes of snow were few and far between as a small number of people started to stir amidst the motionless bodies. In the absence of gunfire, a head poked up for a cautious peek, and the first person to rise from the dead, a female paramedic got to her feet in the center of the bay.
Shock, horror, and grief kept her immobile as she swept her stricken gaze over the scene.
Then from one heartbeat to the next, she flew into motion.
Grabbing an abandoned medical kit from nearby, she ran straight for Jamie and dropped to her knees beside him. The snow started to fall in earnest as she worked to save his life. Behind her, the hospital doors opened, and a swarm of medical personnel rushed into the street to provide aid to those still living.
She started giving orders immediately. Several people responded. A body was removed from a stretcher, the lifeless woman gently lowered to the ground as Jamie took her place. Then the paramedic, and two men in scrubs, wheeled the gurney around victims and across the bay.
The automatic doors slid open as they approached, and the group disappeared inside.
“Motherfucker,” Zander Cavanaugh mumbled, brushing a broad hand down his face.
“He’s not dead!” Gray cried, springing from her chair, and swinging her lethal gaze around the room. “You saw it.” She stabbed a finger at the screen. “He’s not dead.”
“Jay?” Adam didn’t need to elaborate as he pushed out of his seat. Already searching the hospital servers for information, it took him mere seconds to find what they’d hoped for in a newly created patient file under the name of Jamie Snow.
“He’s still in the OR,” he said, relief filling him as fast as a new sense of dread. “But his alias is blown. We need to get to him before Johnson does.”
With a second threat now bearing down on Jamie’s life, Adam went into full-on go mode. “Grant, get a hold of Lou from Petrova Personal Protection, find out who he’s got nearby, and get some bodies to the hospital for protection ASAP. Zander, start making calls. We need air transport to Boston and vehicles on the ground when we get there. Chase, get an extrication plan together with Jay. Cody weapons and gear. Let’s move. I want to be on the road in an hour and in the air in two.”
“I’ll get the truck and bring it around,” Davis Nader said, jumping to his feet and running out of the boardroom. Jeff, the big brown lab, scrabbled to get his paws under him and followed two tail lengths behind.
“I’ll put a pot of coffee on and get a quick snack together.” Eve kissed Adam hard and fast on her way by.
“What can I do?” Gray asked.
Adam gestured for her to join them. “Can you watch the hospital feeds and let us know if Jamie’s status changes.”
She nodded and pulled up a chair to sit beside Jay. “Show me what to do.”
