Securing avery, p.26
Securing Avery, page 26
“What is it?” the commander barked, obviously pissed someone dared interrupt his meeting.
“There’s been an incident at the hospital.”
Rex stiffened in his chair.
“What kind of incident?” the commander asked.
“A fire. Broke out moments ago. The hospital’s being evacuated as we speak.”
“Fuck,” Rex said. “Avery.”
“Don’t jump to conclusions,” the commander said as they all quickly stood. But Rex could see the worry in his eyes. “Go,” Commander North ordered. “Make sure the lieutenant is safe. Then help with the evacuation.”
But the team was already on the move before he’d finished his last sentence. Helping with the evacuation was a given. There was no way they could sit around when their fellow injured sailors and family members were in danger. But more than that, Rex couldn’t stop the dread he felt.
This was related to Avery and the traitor. He knew it.
They’d found out the information about the pictures a few hours too late. The traitor had made his move, and now Avery’s life was in danger.
Rex knew the traitor was desperate. He couldn’t allow Avery to identify him. He was out for blood. Avery’s blood.
Hang on, baby. Help’s on the way.
Chapter Twenty
Avery ran as fast as she could up the stairs toward the fourth floor. One moment she’d been standing around, laughing with her fellow nurses, and the next, the hallway was filling with smoke.
The fire alarm was blaring, hurting her ears, but she did her best to tune it out because there was work to be done.
The worst thing at the moment was the way the hallways were darkening. The lights had gone out, and being in the dark in the stairwell and the hallways was disorientating…and threatening to bring back all the demons Avery had been working so hard to banish from her mind.
She and the other nurses had sprung into action, clearing the emergency room then working their way from floor to floor. As far as anyone could tell, the fire had started on the second floor. The patients who were able to walk had been led to the stairs and had evacuated on their own. But it was more difficult to deal with the bedridden patients. The ones who were hooked up to IVs, oxygen, and other life-saving machines. Avery had managed to get into the elevators with a few of them before the smoke got too bad, but now the elevators were inoperable and people were being evacuated on stretchers down the stairs.
She was dripping with sweat and exhausted, but she needed to make one last search of the fourth floor before declaring it completely evacuated. She’d volunteered to run up there, check, then meet the other nurses back on the ground floor. There were firefighters around, but they were all busy, and the last thing Avery wanted was for someone to be forgotten on the fourth floor.
Ignoring how creepy the stairwell felt with the strobe light from the fire alarms flashing through the smoke and the loud clanging of the alarm, she moved as quickly as she could. Panting from exertion, Avery used her hand against the wall to guide herself. She went from room to room, using a flashlight to check under beds and in bathrooms.
She’d just searched a room and closed the door behind her, turning to continue to the next, when something made her turn and look down the long deserted hallway.
A man was walking toward her.
The second her eyes landed on him, she knew it was him. The traitor.
She was convinced she’d recognize him when she saw him again, and one part of her was ridiculously relieved she hadn’t misplaced her own confidence.
But another part of her knew she was fucked.
“We meet again!” the man shouted out with a crooked grin.
She barely heard him above the ringing of the fire alarm, but the gun in his hand made his intentions unmistakable.
The next few seconds seemed to happen in slow motion.
She’d obviously been reading too many novels and watching too many dramas on television, because when she’d pictured this moment, coming face-to-face with the man who’d had her kidnapped, who’d been responsible for the deaths of the two army privates, and who had allowed hundreds of weapons to fall into the clutches of terrorists, she’d expected a dramatic discussion. He’d tell her she was doomed, Avery would beg for her life, then he’d set about torturing her with a long soliloquy about why he’d done what he’d done.
But the reality was nothing like that.
The man stopped in the middle of the hallway and raised his arm.
Avery reacted without thinking, diving into the room she’d just vacated.
The gunshot echoed in the hallway, sounding loud even over the pealing of the fire alarm.
Thankful for the smoke for the first time, Avery frantically rushed into the bathroom. Luckily it was a shared commode with the room next door. She could not be trapped. That would mean certain death. The traitor was trying to kill her, he wasn’t going to give her time to come up with a plan to trick him.
Thankful she didn’t have to try to be quiet, the alarm masking any sounds she made, Avery slipped into the room next to the one she’d thrown herself into. She could hopefully slip out when the traitor went into the other room to look for her.
Straining to hear where her would-be killer was, Avery tried to think about where she could hide. She knew without a doubt this man would do whatever it took to kill her. He’d most likely set the fire as a distraction.
In a flash, the perfect hiding place came to her.
A year and a half ago, the hospital had an active-shooter training session. Every doctor and nurse had participated, and they’d walked every floor in the hospital brainstorming ways to lock someone out of a room and finding inventive places to hide.
The only problem was, her hiding place was on the other side of the nurses’ station, in the break room. At the time of the drill, they’d all agreed the hiding place was ideal, but given recent events…now Avery wasn’t so sure.
But she had few choices. And to get to the hiding spot, she’d have to get past the man who was hell-bent on shooting her dead and slip into the break room without him seeing her.
She would’ve preferred to be able to get to one of the stairwells at either end of the hall, but Avery didn’t think she’d be able to make it that far without being seen.
Avery hid behind the door that led into the hallway and held her breath. The smoke was thick, but not thick enough to hide her if she sprinted pell-mell down the hall. She’d be shot in the back for sure if she did that.
She had to be patient and sneaky as she played the ultimate game of hide-and-seek with a madman.
She wanted to ask him why. Why he’d done it. Why he’d told the insurgents about the weapons convoy. Why he’d committed treason against his country.
She wondered if he was married, if he had kids.
But the bottom line was that none of that mattered. Her world had shrunk to nothing except this moment. What had happened to her or the traitor in the past was unimportant.
For a moment, she let thoughts of Cole slip into her consciousness, but she quickly shut them down. She had to concentrate on the here and now. Though…she wished Cole and his SEAL team were here. They’d take this asshole out.
But they weren’t. She’d have to save herself.
Her adrenaline spiked when she saw the man walk by the door she was hiding behind, heading toward the room she’d just vacated. He hadn’t yet discovered some of the rooms were connected on this floor, which would be her saving grace. It was obvious by the way he walked, as if he didn’t have a care in the world, that he thought he’d cornered her.
Surprise, asshole, she thought as she ran as fast as she could out of the room and toward the nurse’s station.
This was the most dangerous part of her plan. She had to pass the open door the traitor had just entered. If he turned and saw her, she was dead.
Luck was with her.
Avery had half expected to feel a bullet in her back as she silently ran the thirty feet toward the desk at the nurses’ station, but she made it without a shot being fired. Doing her best to control her breathing, she crouched at the end of the desk and peered down the hallway, back the way she’d came.
Within seconds, she saw the traitor emerge through the door she’d exited seconds before. Not so nonchalant now, he roared out in anger, and goose bumps rose on Avery’s arms.
“You can’t hide from me, lieutenant!” he yelled out, his words hard to hear over the alarm, but still distinguishable. “Make it easier on yourself and come out now. If you do, I’ll kill you quickly. If you make me find you, I’ll make sure you die slowly and painfully.”
Avery didn’t move an inch. She didn’t want to die at all. And the more she stalled, the more likely it was someone would come looking for her. She didn’t want anyone to get hurt, but if she didn’t show back up on the ground floor, Beverly or Rita would hopefully tell one of the firefighters and they’d do a search. And if this asshole was dumb enough to ambush them, everyone would know he was there, and that would send in the cavalry.
Hopefully Cole and his SEAL team.
All she had to do was stay alive until that happened.
She watched the traitor reach up and grip his hair in frustration as rage swept over his face. He was pissed all right…but then again, so was she.
Holding his pistol out in front of him, the traitor took a few steps across the hall and entered the room directly across from the one she’d escaped.
Avery was moving before she’d consciously told her legs to run. She ran across the hall, more thankful than she could say for the smoke and alarm, and hid in one of the rooms next to the nurse’s station. She was moving east; if her luck continued, the traitor would go west, along her original path, as he continued searching the rooms Avery had been checking.
The traitor had obviously set the fire as a means of distraction, but it had also allowed her a way to move undetected. She wasn’t sure what the man had been thinking. How had he known where she’d be in the hospital, or what she’d do in the fire? She supposed it was a given that the nurses would do their best to help clear the building, but he had to have followed her. That thought made Avery shudder. She’d been so close to death already and hadn’t even realized it.
The cat and mouse game continued. As the traitor entered a room to search it, Avery would dash to another farther down the hall, getting closer and closer to the break room where her hiding spot was. Avery regrettably thought about her cell phone that she’d left on a counter downstairs. When the fire had broken out, she’d been holding her phone, and without thinking about it, she’d dropped it onto the counter and rushed up the stairs. She kicked herself now. She wouldn’t have been able to risk talking loud enough for the emergency operator to hear her, or Cole, but at least they’d be able to hear the traitor if he shouted again, and know she was trapped inside the hospital.
As she neared the break room, Avery knew this was it. The door had a “no slam” device on it, so it closed very slowly. If he turned at exactly the right moment, he’d see it closing, and he’d know where she was.
Going through the plan in her mind, Avery refused to think about what she was about to do. It wasn’t going to be easy, and she knew her hiding place would be as dark as the cave she’d been buried in back in Afghanistan. But it was either climb in there or die.
It was an easy choice.
Taking a deep breath, Avery ran as fast as she could when the traitor entered another room. She hit the door hard, which would’ve broadcast her location easily if the alarm hadn’t still been ringing. She slipped into the room, opening the door as slightly as possible. She didn’t hang around watching to see if the man had spotted her. She ran to the wall on her left and took a deep breath.
She reached for the latch to the trapdoor on the wall and opened it, looking down. Way down. The chute had been used years ago for dirty scrubs. The nurses and doctors would throw soiled clothes and towels down the laundry chute, which led to the basement far below. The practice had been discontinued as it was deemed unsanitary and dangerous. No one wanted the pathogen- and sometimes blood-soaked clothes sitting in a heap in the basement, and contaminating the metal of the chute itself.
When they had their active-shooter training, someone had joked that it would be a great egress point for the floor. Of course, that had led to a discussion of how dangerous it would be, as the chute was a five-story drop from the fourth floor, and it would be certain suicide. But the nurses, including Avery, had argued that someone could brace themselves inside the chute and not fall, or they could slowly inch themselves down to another floor and climb out that way.
Avery didn’t really want to climb inside the chute, after taking another look at it. But she had little choice now. She could’ve run for the stairs, but she truly didn’t think she’d make it without being seen, and leading the traitor down the stairs to a floor with other people could put them at risk. She was his target, and she’d be damned if she put an entire hospital in further jeopardy.
Thanking God that she was tall, Avery was able to get one foot up into the chute, then use her core muscles to pull herself up so she could enter feet first. The last thing she wanted was to be in there upside down. The metal clanged as she eased herself into the small tube, and Avery winced, praying the sound didn’t travel.
The chute was just wide enough for her to wedge herself in there with her hands and feet so she didn’t immediately slide all the way to the bottom. She closed the door, shrouding herself in deep shadow, and then slowly began inching her way downward.
She needed to be far enough down the chute so if the traitor happened to find it and look inside, he’d see nothing but darkness. The same darkness that was currently suffocating her. Somewhere in her mad dash through the rooms, she’d lost her flashlight, but it didn’t really matter. She wouldn’t risk being seen by turning it on.
Feeling more alone and terrified than she had since being buried alive a few weeks ago, Avery slowly but surely, inch by inch, continued to make her way farther down the old laundry chute.
She stopped in her tracks when she heard something odd.
Silence.
Someone had gotten the fire alarm turned off. Her breaths sounded way too loud as they echoed around her in the small, cramped space.
“I’m coming for you, Lieutenant,” the traitor’s voice rang out from what seemed like only feet away.
He was in the break room. Right above her. In seconds, he’d find her, and all her evasive tactics would have been for nothing. She’d trapped herself after all.
Closing her eyes, Avery dared not move another inch. She’d surely make too much noise, and killing her would be as easy as shooting fish in a barrel. She had no idea if she was far enough down the chute to be encased in darkness or not. All she could do was sit tight and hope and pray the traitor overlooked her hiding spot.
But her hopes were for naught when the hinges of the old chute squealed in protest as the door to her hiding space opened far above her head.
“Got you now, fucking bitch.”
When Rex and the rest of the SEAL team arrived at the hospital, it was complete chaos. At least it looked that way to them. There were people lying on stretchers everywhere in the parking lots. The firetrucks had just arrived and emergency personnel were running everywhere, setting up command posts and trying to herd people away from the smoking building.
Not even thinking about it, Rex led the way into the emergency room. He recognized one of the nurses Avery worked with. He grabbed her arm and yelled over the sound of the fire alarm, “Have you seen Lieutenant Nelson?”
The woman shook her head, and Rex let her go. The team split up and began to search the chaotic first floor. Within minutes, they met back in the main reception area.
“She’s not here!” Ace shouted.
“She has to be somewhere,” Rex said. “We’ll split up. She’s probably helping evacuate the people on the other floors.”
“Excuse me,” a woman said from next to where the SEALs were huddled.
Rex turned and realized he recognized this woman too.
“Are you looking for Avery?” she asked.
“Yes!” Rex said somewhat harshly. “Have you seen her?”
“Last I knew she was going up to the fourth floor to check and make sure no one else was up there. But I haven’t seen her since.”
“Thank you,” Rex told the young woman. He and the rest of the team ran to the stairs, only to be met by a firefighter in turnout gear.
“You can’t go this way, please exit the building back that way!” the man yelled, pointing the way the SEALs had just come.
Rex opened his mouth to tell the man to fuck off, but Rocco beat him to it.
“Move,” he ordered. “This is a matter of national security.”
“Sorry,” the fireman said, shaking his head. “I can’t let you by. This building is on fire, in case you haven’t noticed. No one is allowed on the upper floors except for fire personnel.”
“Wrong,” Phantom said. “We’re going up, and there’s nothing you can do about it. There’s a traitor to our country upstairs who not only started this fire, but is dead set on killing people.”
The naval firefighter looked at the six pissed-off men in front of him and stepped to the side without another word.
The SEAL team ran up the stairs as easily as if they were walking down the street. They burst onto the fourth floor.
The smoke was thick—but not so thick that Rex couldn’t catch a glimpse of a man entering a room at the other end of the hallway.
Without consulting his teammates, he took off running as fast as he could. He didn’t dare yell out for Avery, wanting to keep the upper hand and surprise the man.
It was possible the man wasn’t the traitor. That he was a doctor or nurse who was simply checking to make sure the area was clear.
But Rex didn’t believe that. In his gut, he knew it was the man Avery had been looking for. The man who’d so callously told the insurgent to take her out.
