least she could breathe again, though not deeply enough to speak. She put her arm around the boy— Samuel Kaltoff, thirteen-year-old son of a prominent Russian politician—and tried to smile reassuringly. The kid was a mess, but then, he’d been through a hellish ordeal. Three days in the hands of captors who’d shown no signs of humanity or compassion. We could have gotten him back faster, Katie thought miserably. Samuel’s dirty-pale skin showed so much bruising it looked as if he’d been tie-dyed, and that was only a hint of what had been done to him. We should have had him yesterday. Katie knew that logically they’d pushed the investigation as fast and as far as it was possible to do, but at moments like this, looking at the human wreckage left behind when law and chaos crashed, she never felt that it was enough.
The paramedics, who’d had to wait for the all-clear signal, suddenly dashed in. One peeled off toward her, but she waved him toward Samuel. Nothing they could do for bruises, and if that hot, glassy feeling in her side was a cracked rib, well, it wasn’t going anywhere.
“Katie,” said SAC Evangelista. He holstered his weapon as he approached and wiped sweat from his forehead—it was a hot day, and the vests and FBI jackets weren’t exactly summer-weight. He crouched down beside her, examining her with clinical thoroughness. He was middle-aged, on the heavy side of fit, with a bullet-bald head and big brown eyes that could look warm and sympathetic when he chose. It wasn’t necessary with her. “You trying to give me a heart attack?”
“Sorry, sir, but I didn’t see any alternative.”
He waved that away. “Not how I would have handled it, but you got the right result. Understand, the only reason we’re having this conversation now, and I’m not going to be writing the condolence letter to your folks tonight, is that you were lucky. The government has invested a hell of a lot in your training, Agent Rush. Letting some Russian mob moron shoot you ain’t exactly the return on investment they’re looking for.”
“Live and fight another day,” she said. “I know, Craig. Thanks. Believe me, I won’t make a habit out of it.”
“Good. Now, you go to the hospital, get checked out. Once you’re green lighted, you can come back to the office and start paperwork.” He hesitated, then looked away. “You saved that kid’s life, Katie. One hell of a good day.”
From Evangelista, that was effusive praise. He put his heavy, warm hand on her shoulder for one very short second before rising and striding off to oversee the mop-up.
This time, when the paramedics moved toward her, she didn’t object. She was starting to ache now, and tremble with reaction. Being poked and prodded would give her time to get herself together again.
Katie was watching two equally heartwarming events— Samuel Kaltoff’s weeping parents embracing him, and the sole surviving kidnapper getting handcuffed to a gurney—when her cell phone rang. She grabbed it from her jacket pocket before the paramedics took it away from her. “Hey, could you wait a second while I answer this?”
The paramedic undressing her shook his head and tugged open the Velcro straps of the vest. The sudden rush of air on her sweat-soaked skin was like being doused in cool water. He pulled the heavy armor over her head and set it aside. Katie ignored him as he lifted up the damp fabric of her shirt and probed the bruising beneath.
She flipped open the cell phone. “Rush,” she said, a simple declaration of name as well as an instruction. She expected it would be a call from the field office asking for details, but instead she glanced at the number and saw that it was from out of state.
Arizona.
“Katie?” A young girl’s voice. It sounded high and uneven. “Katie, it’s Jazz. I need help. We need help!”
Jazz? Katie’s mind froze for a second, then smoothly shifted gears. Jazz was Kayla Ryan’s daughter. The voice had sounded unlike her, but now Katie recognized that it was probably due to stress. “Yes, I’m here. What’s wrong, honey?” As far as Katie knew, Jazz was at the safest place on earth—at the Athena Academy, a secluded campus just outside of Glendale, Arizona. “Jazz, is your mother all right?”
There was a brief sound of shuffling, and then Kayla’s no-nonsense voice said, “I’m right here. We’ve got a situation here, and I don’t think the local resources are enough to handle it. We need you, Katie.” Kayla was a cop, a good one, besides being a fellow Athena graduate and friend. Not a close friend, exactly—Katie didn’t seem to attract many of those—but more of a sister. Athena alumni were all sisters. It was an implicit responsibility they all took very seriously. They’d suffered losses these past few years that had hurt them all. At least Jazz was safe. That was something.
“What happened?”
“I’ll let Jazz tell you.”
Another handoff, and Jazz’s higher voice came back on the line. “It’s Teal and Lena—Teal Arnett and Lena Poole. They’re at the Academy with me. They’re my friends. They were taken.”
“Taken,” Katie repeated. Her fingers tightened on the phone, and she forced them to relax. She’d seen the tragic aftermath of too many stories that began just this way, but none of them had involved girls from the Athena Academy—her own very extended family. If all of the Athena Force women were sisters, then all the girls at the Academy were nieces. “How did it happen?”
The very slight hesitation before Jazz answered raised a red flag in Katie’s mind. Need to get her away from her mother and get the full story, she thought. Even though Kayla was a cop, and Athena Force, that didn’t mean mothers and daughters should or could share everything. Daughters had secrets, and in cases like this, secrets cost lives. “We were going to the movies,” Jazz said. “Off the school grounds, in town. But they were waiting for us, I don’t know how. It was a coordinated attack. Teal and Lena gave me time to get away, they told me to run. I didn’t want to leave them, I swear I didn’t!”
“I know you didn’t. Jazz, tell me what you saw. Exactly what you saw.”
Jazz took a deep breath. “We were walking on the sidewalk, talking, and a van pulled up to the curb ahead of us. It was a blue cargo van, and the license plates were muddy. I couldn’t see any letters or numbers. There was dark tinting on the windows. I think it was a Ford van, probably about eight years old. Oh, and there was a fresh scratch on the passenger side, like somebody had keyed it in a parking lot.”
Katie raised a commanding finger to the paramedic to back off when he tried to speak to her. He did, finally taking the look in her eyes seriously. “And?”
“The side door slid open, and two men jumped out. They were both tall, but one was bigger than the other one—I think they were about six feet and six feet four inches.”
“What did they look like?”
“I couldn’t tell,” Jazz said unhappily. “They were wearing these mesh masks and bodysuits. I guess that was to keep from leaving trace evidence. They didn’t say anything at all, and they were really fast and strong. Lena almost got away, but they caught her.”
Sometime during Jazz’s recital, Katie had closed her eyes, painting the picture in her mind. A cloudless Arizona day, clear and sunny. The van pulling to a smooth stop at the curb so as not to alarm the girls into flight. A blitz attack, scientifically calculated. Two abductors, plus a third to drive the van. They’d cut their losses once they’d realized they’d lost the initiative and Jazz was beyond their control…. More impulsive predators would have gone after her, allowed Teal and Lena space to act. Instead, these
