Page 4 of Every Last One
Pamela nods.
“Take me to her.” I don’t need to make a display of the gun again. Pamela’s gaze is fixed on the pocket where I had lifted it from a moment ago. “Come on, no need for you to get hurt.”
Pamela stumbles to her feet, her long legs unsteady like a newborn foal.
“Just act normal. We’ll walk side by side.” I force a smile again. My heart is beating so fast, I hear it behind my ears.
She walks to my right where I have the gun in my pocket. We pass some doctors and medical technicians, all in their distinguishable uniforms. One woman smiles brightly at Pamela and glances at me, cocking her eyebrow. I turn to Pamela, hoping my movement is discreet enough, but I need to censor her response. I don’t like what I see. It’s a flicker, a transference between the two. I tighten my grip on the gun, about to pull it out, but the other woman keeps walking. I don’t dare to look back to see if she’s been alerted. If she has, all of this could fall apart before it begins.
Pamela continues to take me down the hallway, leading me to the large boardroom. She puts her face in the door’s window, and CEO Megan Beal dismisses her with a wave.
“Open the door,” I seethe while I nudge the gun into Pamela’s side. “Get us inside, or they’ll be mopping you off the floor.”
Pamela is trembling as she reaches for the handle and cracks the door.
Beal shoots her a glare and tosses a hand of surrender in the air, motioning for a board member to keep us out. But I push Pamela into the room and roll in quickly behind her, leaving my back to the door and blocking the exit.
“What is the meaning of—” Beal’s mouth snaps shut as her gaze goes to the gun in my hand.
Same too for the rest of the eyes in the room.
Twelve faces, mostly strangers, though I wager every one of them is powerful and corrupt. Except one. A red-cheeked twentysomething seated next to Beal at the head of the table. Her fingers are suspended over the keyboard of a laptop. No doubt the minute-taker for this meeting, a boring and thankless job I’ve done before.
Beal goes for the phone on the table in front of her.
“Go ahead. It won’t do you any good, because in five minutes or less, this entire hospital will be locked down. And soon thephones won’t work either. Same for your cell phones. Put them on the table.Now.”
The suits scramble to pull them from their pockets and concede to my direction. It makes me feel powerful, but I let that emotion roll over me. I don’t want to lose focus.
I take slow, cautious yet confident strides toward Beal, but talk to the room. “If one person goes for the door or leaves, I will shoot everyone who is left. Got it?”
Mumbles of acknowledgment echo around the room. All but one person is ready to do as I say. Beal is looking at me like she pities me, and anger heats my chest. I shake her. “You understand?”
Her pretty face contorts into an ugly mask. “What do you want?” Asked with an impatient tone, like I’m a bug she can easily swat away. It’s like the gun in her face doesn’t even exist.
I press the muzzle against her forehead. Yet, still, her expression barely falters. An arrogant show of strength, no doubt. “It’s up to you. You have the power to decide how this is going to go, but I will be heard.”
My voice is overridden by one coming over the speakers, and suddenly the lights shut off and emergency lights rise in their place. The sunlight coming through the window takes on more power, but I need to close the blinds.
I head over to the window and slide them shut and turn around to face everyone. A smile touches my lips when I go to speak. “You all might as well get comfortable. You’re going to listen to me and listen good, or people will die.” I take out my walkie-talkie to update the rest of my team.
FOUR
10:20 AM
FBI Washington Field Office
That morning’s run along the Potomac River through Georgetown Waterfront Park felt like it belonged to yesterday at the pace time was going. It was a quiet Monday, but Sandra was under no illusion that set the tone for the rest of the week. With her job, things could go from a crawl to lightspeed in the blink of an eye. There still wasn’t anything else she’d have chosen for a career. Working at the FBI’s Washington Field Office was where she’d been for the last fifteen years, and fourteen of those as part of the Crisis Negotiation Unit. When her skills as a negotiator weren’t called upon, she played a role in taking violent criminals off the world stage.
A major drug kingpin was taking up her time these days. He was in the wind and had left hundreds of bodies in his wake, not just from his product but a shootout between his gang and a rival one. The guy was good at being invisible, she could give him that, but eventually he’d resurface, and she’d be there ready to draw a target on his head. But until that happened, she was at her desk proactively trying to narrow down where he might be hiding out.
The office space comprised of several desks, with no partition in sight. Some days she would kill for a cubicle, but privacy wasn’t a thing in a business where everyone had information at their fingertips. Her fellow agents near her were on their phones or tapping on their keyboards, including the colleague she was closest to, Brice Sutton. He was one of the latter, fingers flying, though she could swear he backspaced more than he made forward progress. Only a few here were also part of the CNU, and Brice was one of them like her.
“You’ve got to move. Right now. Both of you.” Elwood Rowe, the assistant director of the FBI’s Critical Incident Response Group, also their boss, came storming up between her and Brice. As ifboth of youwasn’t specific enough, he was pointing at them as he’d said it.
She straightened, and so did Brice. “What is it?” she asked.
“Founders Hospital is on lockdown. At least one gunman on scene. The Metropolitan Police Department has responded, but we’ve been called in to assist with the negotiations.”
