Striking Distance (16 page)

Janet didn’t finish the sentence, so Laura finished it for her. “He is strong, thoughtful—and incredibly hot.”

Janet smiled. “Yes. That’s the word I was looking for. Hot.”

Didn’t Laura know it?

Sleeping beside Javier again had left her painfully aware of her own sexual attraction to him, filling her head with fantasies that were going to make it very hard to get any work done today.

“Where did you two meet?” Janet asked.

“In a restaurant in Dubai. He saw a couple of Russian guys bothering me and—”

A key slipped into the lock and Javier entered.

His face was wet with sweat, his expression guarded. He gave them both a nod, his gaze lingering for a moment on Laura before he disappeared down the hallway, probably to take a shower.

Janet stood, her gaze following him. “We’ve got a security briefing in about an hour to prepare for your trip to the news studio tonight. I’ll see you then.”

* * *

JAVIER SAT IN
the backseat of a bulletproof Chevy Tahoe beside Laura, who pored over her notes in preparation for her interview, pencil and highlighter in hand. She wore a sweater and jeans, Kevlar beneath her coat. Her face was still free of makeup, a makeup bag the size of a tool chest and a sleek little blue dress in the cargo space behind them. She’d styled her hair the way she’d always done before her abduction—loose and long with lush waves that were drawn away from her face and pinned back with a barrette. One way or another, he was going to find a way to get his fingers into that hair when they got home from this little adventure.

He leaned closer to her and spoke quietly, catching the soft, sweet scent of her skin. “After this is over, you’re going to spend tomorrow and the weekend resting. That’s what you’re supposed to be doing, remember?”

“You can’t give me orders. I may look like one of your men with this on,” she said, glancing up at him and tapping the Kevlar with her knuckles, a slight smile playing on her lips, “but I’m not.”

He leaned closer still and nuzzled her hair, lowering his voice to a near whisper. “Oh, believe me,
bella
, there’s no way I could mistake you for one of my men, not even in pitch dark.”

She canted her head, looking up at him from beneath her lashes. “Don’t distract me. I’m going on live TV for the first time since . . . I need to be prepared.”

He could tell she was genuinely nervous about this interview—and he knew why. Still, he was doing his best to keep the mood light, hoping to take the edge off her stress. “Were you this grumpy when you reported from Baghdad?”

“Oh, much worse.”

Javier chuckled, turning his gaze back to the street. Ahead of them, an unmarked vehicle carrying two DUSMs turned the corner, another vehicle following behind them, its headlights illuminating the backseat. The Marshal Service had jocked up for a fight. It was the first time since the car bombing that the killer stood a chance of knowing
exactly
where Laura was going. The idiots at Channel 12 had been plugging the interview all day, clearly trying to drive up ratings, but also giving the killer exactly what he needed—an opportunity to strike and time to plan.

Tonight, Laura Nilsson joins Gary Chapin for an exclusive interview about her new life and the recent car bombing that could have killed her.

There was a chance that someone stupid enough to fuck up would be stupid enough to think that Laura had flown to D.C. to do the interview in person, but there was also a chance the bastard had been watching the Channel 12 studio all day, waiting.

Javier wasn’t officially part of Laura’s security detail. He didn’t get to wear a lip mic and earpiece to keep up with the action, and they hadn’t armed him. But he’d come ready to play rough. He wore his SIG in a shoulder harness beneath his jacket, five spare fifteen-round magazines loaded and ready, the Walther in an ankle holster.

He rubbed his thigh, the muscle still aching from his run. He must have gone six miles before he’d found himself kneeling on the riverbank, breathing hard, his mind filled with images he couldn’t escape, echoes he couldn’t silence—the rattle of AK fire, the cries of wounded men, the blazing orange of the exploding helo.

They had died—Krasinski, Johnson, Grimshaw, the men in the helo—because of a decision he’d made.

He hadn’t been able to outrun his memories, but kneeling there on the riverbank, he’d locked them down once more, shutting them in a part of himself he vowed not to open. He couldn’t change the past, and Laura needed him in the present.

“We’re almost there.” Agent Killeen looked back at Laura, who slipped her notes, pen, and highlighter inside her handbag. “You head straight inside as we discussed. Don’t stop to talk in the doorway. One of us will bring your belongings shortly. There’s already a team at the studio. They’ve been checking IDs, making sure the parking lot is secured. They’ll man the doors while you’re there. We’ll have a team out here watching the vehicles and the building perimeter. I’ll accompany you inside the building and onto the news set. Corbray, I understand you plan to remain close to Ms. Nilsson, also.”

“Yes, ma’am.”

He sure as hell did.

* * *

DEREK TURNED INTO
the parking garage north of the Channel 12 studio, pushed a button for his ticket, then drove slowly up to the top level.

Tipped off by the station’s constant ads about the interview, he’d spent yesterday doing recon around the building and knew that the uppermost level offered an unobstructed view of the station’s rear entrance—perfect for getting within striking distance and squeezing off a couple of fatal shots from a high-powered rifle.

He pulled into a parking space, angling his rearview mirror to give himself a view of the entry ramp, his loaded AR-15 beneath his parka on the passenger seat beside him, an HK Mark 23 in his hip holster.

Now there was nothing to do but wait.

CHAPTER

14

BELLY FULL OF
butterflies, Laura hurried from the vehicle through the station’s rear entrance, Javier on her right, Agent Killeen on her left, and found herself in a long, brightly lit and crowded hallway, where two deputy marshals motioned her forward, their gazes focused on the entryway behind her.

A man with thick brown hair, a boyish face, and wire-rimmed glasses stepped into her path and shook her hand. “Welcome to Channel Twelve, Ms. Nilsson. I’m Jim Temple, the station manager. We’re so happy to have you here with us. This is John Martin, our news director.”

John Martin looked like every news director Laura had ever met—thin, lines on his face from stress, graying hair. But whereas most news directors were perpetually irritable, he seemed almost giddy. “It’s great to meet you. Having you here on the last day of February sweeps—it means so much to us. I think it’s going to do great things for our ratings. Viewers can’t get enough of you or your amazing story.”

“Thanks for having me.” Laura wasn’t shocked to hear him talk about her appearance in terms of blatant self-interest.

That was TV news. Ratings were everything. If the station performed well in the sweeps, they’d be able to demand more money from their advertisers. A good February meant a great start to the year and job security for everyone.

But apparently Javier
was
shocked. He muttered something in angry Spanish, one of his hands coming to rest protectively against her lower back.

“I’m Special Agent Janet Killeen.” Janet, apparently having forgotten she was temporarily a deputy U.S. Marshal, shook hands with Temple and Martin. “I’ll be accompanying Ms. Nilsson throughout the building to ensure her safety while she’s here at the station. This is Javier Corbray. He’s—”

“I’m Ms. Nilsson’s bodyguard.” Javier held out his hand.

Laura had to fight back a laugh. She could tell from the expressions on Temple’s and Martin’s faces that Javier was all but crushing their fingers as they shook his hand.

Sometimes men could be so predictable.

A young woman with dark curly hair stepped up to them, clipboard in hand. “It’s an honor to meet you, Ms. Nilsson, Agent Killeen, Mr. Corbray. I’m Tania Clarke, the senior producer. I’ll show you to your dressing room, Ms. Nilsson.”

Laura quickly found herself alone staring at her reflection in the lighted mirror. The last time she’d sat in a makeup chair, she’d been about to tape her interview with Diane Sawyer. She’d been nervous then, too, knowing what Diane was going to ask her, well aware that she’d be sharing deeply personal pain with the entire world. But somehow this felt worse, her pulse rapid, her palms damp, her mouth dry.

She hadn’t done
live
TV since the day she was abducted.

She met her own gaze. “You can do this.”

She was
not
going to let fear get the better of her. Derek Tower had repeatedly assaulted her reputation in public. It was her turn to speak out—and to show him exactly what she could do given a camera and a microphone.

She reached for her makeup kit, which Janet had brought in for her, and began what had once been her daily routine, taking care to cover the healing nicks on her cheek. She’d always done her own face and hair, in part because she’d spent so much time reporting from abroad where no makeup artists were available, and in part because she preferred a more natural look. As she worked, she went through the interview in her mind again, the act of concentrating on her answers helping her to control her fears.

Gary had e-mailed her a list of questions earlier in the day. It wasn’t something a journalist would normally do. Telling the subject of an interview ahead of time what you planned to ask gave him or her time to prepare, to create canned answers, eliminating the element of surprise and all possibility of controversy, which was so vital to live television news. But this wasn’t an ordinary interview.

This was one friend doing a favor for another.

Not that Gary’s agreeing to give her an interview was a selfless act. His career, like that of any other news anchor, depended on ratings. He wouldn’t have agreed to have her on the program if he hadn’t believed it would give him a boost.

Chaos reigned in the hallway beyond the dressing room as Laura finished putting on her makeup. How familiar the environment felt—and how foreign.

The door opened and Tania appeared. “There’s the water you asked for. We go live in ten minutes.”

“Thank you.”

Laura took a deep drink, then finished her makeup. She studied the results in the mirror, a familiar face from long ago staring back at her, the pearls on her earlobes understated, her blue dress with its princess neckline sexy, but not too revealing. She wanted viewers’ attention on what she was saying, after all, not on her boobs.

The butterfly sensation in her belly grew more intense. She drew ten deep, calming breaths, then stood.

She was ready.

She found Tania waiting for her out in the hallway, Javier and Janet standing beside the door.

“This way.” Tania led her toward the news set. “You’ll be on for ten minutes with one commercial break. Gary will introduce you, bring our viewers up to date, and then head into the questions. Will you need help with your earpiece or mic?”

“No.” Laura hadn’t been out of the game for that long. “I can handle it.”

They entered the studio, which was dark apart from one set—the main news set. It featured a desk with the newspaper’s logo and a backdrop of Denver’s nighttime skyline. A dark-haired woman named Diane introduced herself as the floor director and then left Laura to get settled, while Tania disappeared into the booth.

Laura quickly clipped the mic to her dress and put in her earpiece, hiding the wire beneath her hair and letting it trail down her back. She nodded in the direction of the booth—bright lights made it impossible to see far beyond the edge of the set—then spoke, enunciating clearly so they could set sound levels. “This is Laura Nilsson. I’m here for my interview with Gary Chapin.”

“That’s great,” a man’s voice said in her ear.

Laura glanced over at Javier one last time and saw encouragement in his eyes. He and Janet stood just out of range of the cameras. Beyond them, off the edge of the set, she could just make out the station’s management—Temple, Martin, and others in suits watching her as if she were a celebrity interview. Maybe she was.

She willed herself to smile, her heartbeat racing as she faced the camera. It stared at her, lens dark, the teleprompter screen blank, the tally light off.

Gary’s voice came on in her ear as he closed one segment and the station cut to a commercial break.

“Two minutes,” Diane said.

Laura’s heart was beating so hard now that she could hear it over the chatter in her earpiece, a rapid thrum.

Slow breaths. Slow breaths.

She would
not
panic on live television. She would hold herself together and show Derek Tower and that son of a bitch Al-Nassar that they could not control her, could not frighten her.

The director’s voice sounded in Laura’s earpiece, counting down the last few seconds. The tally light blinked red. Diane’s hand dropped beneath the camera.

And they were live.

* * *

JAVIER FELT HIS
chest constrict as Laura spoke easily with her former anchor, who introduced her and welcomed her back to the news program. He knew she’d been nervous about this, but she was handling it like a pro, her smile warm, her eyes bright, her voice clear and strong.

From the moment she’d stepped out of the dressing room, Javier hadn’t been able to take his gaze off her. Her blue dress hugged her sweet curves, its color bringing out her eyes, its neckline giving him a hint of what was hidden beneath. Her long, slender legs were sheathed in sheer panty hose, her feet in dressy heels. She looked sophisticated, polished, good enough to eat.

It was interesting to see how it was all done. Laura sat alone, looking at the camera, but what viewers saw on the television screens at home was a split-screen image with Gary Chapin, who was in Washington, D.C., on the left and Laura on the right, the two seeming to make eye contact when they weren’t even in the same state.

“Laura, your abduction happened in the middle of a live broadcast, terrifying the millions of viewers who witnessed it. Let’s go back to that moment. What we are about to see is quite disturbing, so viewer discretion is advised.”

What the hell?

The side-by-side image of Laura and Chapin was replaced by footage Javier remembered only too well, Laura’s face in a small frame at the top right of the screen where viewers could see her reaction.

“In the past five years,” said the Laura from the video footage, “Sabira Mukhari’s organization had documented more than seventy-five hundred cases of women being burned in ‘stove accidents’ within a two-hundred-mile radius around Islamabad and—”

A nearby door burst open, the room exploding with AK fire.

Rat-at-at-at-at-at!

Laura screamed, dropped to the floor.

Men’s shouts in English and Arabic.

“Cover her! Cover her!”

A man in a black T-shirt threw himself over Laura, M16 rifle fire answering the AKs—only to stop short as her security detail was slaughtered.

Rat-at-at-at-at-at!

A man cried out, groaned, blood spraying across the camera lens.

Women’s screams came from the background, gunshots drowning out Laura’s shouts for the women to flee.

Two men in olive-green jackets with scarves around their heads blocked the camera’s view. They lifted Laura off the floor, dragged her toward the door.

She kicked, fought, screamed, her desperate cries sending chills down Javier’s spine. “No! No!”

¡Puñeta!
Son of a bitch!

This wasn’t supposed to be part of the broadcast. Javier had seen the questions, had heard Laura talk through them with Chapin on the phone. He had agreed that he wouldn’t ask her about her abduction or the shit she’d survived in Afghanistan.

Chapin had ambushed her.

The heartless son of a whore.

Javier’s gaze shifted to the real, live Laura. She was pale, her pupils dilated, her face frozen into an expressionless mask. One of her hands rested lightly on the desk, but from where he was standing, he could see that the other was clenched tight in her lap.

Chapin’s image returned to the screen. “This is the first time you’ve seen that footage, isn’t it?”

Somehow she managed to answer. “Yes.”

“Can you tell us what was running through your mind three and a half years ago when that door burst open and your attackers opened fire?”

“I was just trying to comprehend what was happening. It was over so quickly.”

Beside Javier, Martin whispered. “Oh, this is great stuff. Great stuff.”

It took every bit of willpower Javier possessed not to turn and slam his fist into Martin’s face. He didn’t give a damn about Chapin’s ratings, the station’s ratings, or the sweeps. If Laura gave him any sign she wanted to leave, he would take her by the hand, and they would go, live broadcast be damned.

“When they dragged you from the room, you must have been terrified.” The false sympathy in Chapin’s voice sickened Javier.

If the bastard truly cared about her, he wouldn’t be putting her through this.

“Of course.”

“What did you think they would do to you?”

Laura’s voice held no emotion when she answered. “I assumed I would be killed or held hostage for ransom, as other journalists had been.”

“But that’s not what happened, is it?”

“No.”

No way
was he going to make Laura repeat details of her ordeal on live TV.

“Can you tell our viewers what
did
happen?”

¡Hijo e la gran puta!

Laura’s voice was calm, steady. “As your viewers already know, I was held captive for eighteen months, beaten, sexually assaulted, and threatened almost daily with beheading. I was eventually rescued by a team of Navy SEALs.”

Chapin seemed to wait, hoping she’d say more. When she didn’t, he looked gravely at the camera. “Beaten. Raped daily. Threatened with beheading. It’s been a long, hard healing process for you, I’m sure.”

The man warped Laura’s words. She’d said she was threatened with beheading daily, but he’d said she was raped daily. Obviously, he was trying to titillate his viewers.

¡Que clase e cabrón!
What a bastard!

Laura’s chin went up, a glint of anger in her eyes. “I put that behind me when I testified at Al-Nassar’s trial. I have a wonderful life now.”

When she said nothing more, Chapin went on. “We’ve all just seen that horrifying footage of your abduction. As incredible as it may seem, Derek Tower, CEO of Tower Global Security, says he believes
you
may be to blame for what we just witnessed. More on this when we return.”

The moment the broadcast cut away to a commercial, Javier headed straight for Laura, ignoring Martin’s attempts to block him.

“You can’t go on set!”

“Try to stop me.” Javier strode over to Laura, who was staring down at the desk, her hand still clenched in a fist. He took it, held it, found it cold. “You okay,
bella
?”

She looked up at him, anguish and fury in her eyes. “He promised he wouldn’t do this. He promised. He didn’t even mention the car bomb. This first part was supposed to be about Al-Nassar’s trial and the car bomb.”

“You don’t have to put up with this. Just say the word, and we’re out of here.”

She shook her head. “If I leave now, I’ll burn a bridge with the network, and I’ll lose credibility with—”

“Twenty seconds!” a dark-haired woman called to them.

Javier squeezed Laura’s hand. “All right. You’re doing great. Just finish it.”

He stepped off set again as the camera once again went live.

* * *

IT WAS ALMOST
over.

“One last question before we go: Is it possible that one of Tower’s men made a fatal mistake that day?”

Laura heard the one-minute warning in her earpiece.