Killer Countdown. Amelia Autin
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to vote, so my lips are sealed.” That had Shane laughing silently. Dee-Dee’s lips were always sealed...when it came to guarding him and maintaining the integrity of his office. Another reason he couldn’t possibly do without her. He was just preparing to disconnect when Dee-Dee said out of the blue, “You do know her nickname, don’t you?”
Shane was familiar with the way Dee-Dee’s mind jumped back and forth between topics, so he knew she was referring to Carly Edwards. He cast around in his mind but came up blank. “No, can’t say I do.”
“Tiger Shark.” Heavy silence. “Keep that in mind.”
* * *
Marsh Anderson walked outside the Mayo Clinic lobby and a little distance away before pulling out his disposable cell phone—one he’d bought specifically for this job—and punching in a number he already knew by heart. “Just checking in,” he said when the phone was answered. He listened, nodding his head in agreement even though he knew the person on the other end couldn’t see him. “Not a problem,” he said finally. “When will he be discharged?”
“He has plane reservations for tomorrow,” came the clipped response. “Whether the clinic is ready to discharge him or not, he’s flying out Saturday evening. The Senate will be back at work come Monday, and he has never missed a debate or a vote. He’s not about to let that happen now—especially not with what’s at stake this time around.”
Marsh grunted. He knew what was at stake, even though his contact thought him nothing more than a hired gun. He was a hired gun...as far as that went. But he was a very smart one, and he’d figured out a hell of a lot more than the men who’d hired him realized. He called them the Agenda Men, because they had a concrete agenda and would stop at nothing to achieve their goal.
He knew just how much money was behind the effort to push one piece of legislation through. Not bribes. You couldn’t call them bribes. Campaign contributions was the polite euphemism, and the Agenda Men were very good at it. But their money had availed them nothing where Senator Jones was concerned. He could not be swayed as other politicians were. So they had no choice but to contract Marsh’s services.
Marsh admired Senator Jones for his integrity. But that didn’t impact his willingness to carry out his job. One was personal. The other was business. And Marsh never put anything above business.
“So he’s leaving tomorrow, but you don’t know exactly what time he’s leaving,” Marsh said now. It wasn’t a question, but the voice on the other end of the phone answered anyway.
“No. You’ll just have to play it by ear.”
“Okay,” Marsh said. “I know what I have to do. Just make sure you do your part.” Then he hung up. My money, he thought to himself. You just have my money ready.
* * *
Shane was the happiest man in the world when the clinic finally got around to discharging him Saturday, right after lunch. So happy he didn’t even cavil at another hospital policy—wheeling him out to the waiting limousine in a wheelchair. God forbid I trip over my own feet walking out and hurt myself on hospital property, he thought with a touch of mordant humor.
The limo wasn’t his first choice for transportation because he hadn’t wanted to draw that kind of attention. But it made sense since it had to transport not only him to the airport but the four staff members accompanying him, as well—his deputy chief of staff, senior legislative assistant, legislative correspondent, and press secretary. So when Bobby Vernon, his deputy chief of staff, told him they’d arranged for a limo, he’d merely accepted it.
As his staff crowded into the elevator after him, Shane joked with Laney, the nursing assistant wheeling him out. He’d come to know Laney casually during his nearly week-long stay at the clinic—she’d even shown him pictures of her grandchildren. All his staff were dressed as casually as he was, in jeans and a Henley, because he’d been adamant he didn’t want to draw too much attention by making them look like Secret Service agents guarding a public figure. But his little group did draw eyes as they made their way across the multistoried lobby to the front door, and Shane mentally winced, hoping no one would recognize him. Not that he was ashamed—well, maybe just a little—but because he’d already dodged one bullet where Carly Edwards was concerned, and didn’t feel up to answering questions from the idly curious or from another reporter.
He’d just been rolled out the front door, where the limo was drawn up to the curb, when Carly appeared out of nowhere, across the curving drive to the right. “Senator Jones,” she called out, lengthening her stride to catch him before he entered the limo. “If I could just talk to you for a minute,” she began.
Shane’s eyes were drawn to her, but out of the corner of his left eye he saw something glint in the early afternoon sun from the brushy knoll in the center of the horseshoe-shaped circular driveway.
“Get down,” he yelled to his entourage as he leaped from the wheelchair, grabbed Laney and flattened her on the sidewalk just as rifle shots rang out, shattering the sliding glass doors behind them. Shane rolled Laney and himself toward the limo, using that as a shield against a further barrage of bullets.
Screams were coming from everywhere—from the people inside the clinic’s lobby and those who had been eating lunch on the cafeteria’s outside patio. Shane couldn’t see a damned thing from his position on the ground, but he was praying no one had been hit. Laney was whispering something in a breathy little voice, but it took him a minute to focus on what she was saying.
“Mary, mother of God,” she repeated over and over, and Shane knew it was a prayer.
Sirens could be heard in the distance now. Shane levered himself into a crouch behind the limo after making sure Laney was unharmed, except for the bad scrape on her elbow where it had made contact with the unforgiving sidewalk.
He peered over the limo’s hood. A stocky figure was running in the opposite direction, through the center island’s walkway, heading toward the far parking lot. Shane wanted to give chase, but knew that would be stupid. An unarmed man going up against someone with a high-powered rifle?
His staff members, who’d hit the ground when he had, stood and swarmed around him suddenly, as if they feared he would do just that. Then more people rushed outside from the clinic’s lobby—security guards and the morbidly curious. Shane quickly bent down and helped Laney to her feet, then brushed her off. He pulled a clean hanky from his jeans pocket and held it against her elbow, which was oozing blood.
“You okay?”
She nodded. “Thanks to you, Senator.”
A medical emergency team rushed onto the scene, and suddenly police cars were everywhere, although—thankfully—no TV news crews were on site yet. Then Shane remembered Carly, and he shot a quick glance over to where he’d last seen her...only to realize she wasn’t there. He scoured the parking lot for a sign of her. On the right he saw the back of a woman cutting across the drive, darting from one sheltered area to another. Moving in the same direction the gunman had been heading when he’d made his escape, but trying to stay under cover.
Shane cursed and took off running before the policemen could even exit their vehicles. He ignored the urgent cries of the people behind him in his goal to cut Carly off before it was too late. He sped through the circuitous sidewalk leading through the driveway’s center island, grateful the cactus and bushes shielded him from the gunman’s sight. He passed the statue of an American Indian woman, then a small waterfall, but he had eyes for neither. He took the stairs in three steps and was just about to exit the north side when he saw Carly. She was crouching behind a giant saguaro and a large agave plant, but peering around the one and over the other. She had something in her hand aimed at the running gunman...and she was right in his line of sight when he suddenly turned.
Shane made a flying leap and tackled Carly. The iPhone she’d been trying to use to film the sniper’s escape flew across the gravel and skittered into the roadway. He rolled her beneath him as the unmistakable crack of a rifle shot broke the silence. Then a door slammed. Tires squealed. And a white pickup