couple days; he was still angry at himself for believing that Shannon had been brainwashed and for setting Kage up to stop her.
“He had planned ahead for this,” Shannon explained with a pained look on her face. “Just like he seems to plan ahead for everything. He even had an all-terrain groundcar waiting to take him to the Vegas Transportation Hub. Hell, Ari… you were just there, you saw the same security video I did.”
“Saw the same blue screen, you mean,” Ari grumbled. “That fucking bastard has better jammers than we do.” Ari turned away as a call came in over his ‘link and he spoke softly into the mic.
“So,” Roza said to Shannon, “you think this Helenne D’Annique woman will know where he is going?”
Shannon shrugged, then rubbed at her eyes: they wouldn’t stop burning with fatigue, despite the stimulants that were keeping her alert. “I think she’s the only fucking link we have left to this whole thing. And I sure as hell don’t trust the Houston cops to bring her in, not with everything that’s riding on this.”
“We’re five minutes out,” Ari said as he turned back to Shannon and the others. “That was Sergeant Manning… she and Griffin have had eyes on the target for the last twelve hours. She says that D’Annique is in her apartment and should be there until she leaves for work.”
“Do we take her in her apartment or when she leaves, Colonel?” Roza wondered.
“Inside,” Shannon decided after a moment. “It’s a risk-she may have alarms and monitors; but on the street there are too many variables, and we don’t have enough people or vehicles to ensure a safe capture. Ari,” she said to the pilot, “tell Manning to break into the local security systems and run a complete isolation program on her apartment. No signals get out to the police or emergency services, all communications get jammed, starting the minute our feet hit the ground.”
“Got it, ma’am,” Ari acknowledged, then called Sgt. Manning to deliver the instructions.
“Stunners or other nonlethal weapons only,” Shannon reminded the others. “For one thing, she may have been innocent brainwashed into doing this. And for another, without her, we have jack until Antonov decides to make his next move.”
“We’re sure there’s no other way out?” Shannon murmured quietly to Sgt. Manning as they stood at the opposite end of the hall from Hellene D’Annique’s apartment door. The building was upscale, as befitted someone with the former First Officer’s current salary, with plush carpeting in the hallways, tasteful art pieces on the walls and an impressive security system that had taken them nearly a half hour to shut down remotely.
“Ma’am,” Manning replied with a newbie’s deference in her voice, “I’ve checked the plans for the building, ran exterior scans on thermal and sonic, and did a quick visual scan using the building security cams. There’s only one door visible, no exterior windows and no roof access, but I haven’t done a physical inspection so I can’t be sure there isn’t any other entrance.”
“That’ll have to be good enough,” Shannon declared. “We don’t have time to wait.” There was no one else in the hallway at the moment, thankfully, but that wouldn’t last.
“She’s still in the bedroom, ma’am,” Manning told her, angling the tablet so that Shannon could see the security feed. D’Annique was just out of the shower and in the midst of pulling a grey business suit over her solid, muscular frame.
She nodded to Ari, Roza and Tom, who waited on either side of the apartment door. They were all dressed in civilian clothes, but wore body armor under their jackets and had stunners in hand. Shannon took the tablet from Sgt. Manning, found the control for the security override and ordered the system to unlock D’Annique’s front door.
The minute the door slid open, Ari was through it, stunner at the ready, and Roza went in directly behind him. Shannon moved up and entered right behind Tom, pulling a pistol from the shoulder holster under her light jacket. She needed D’Annique alive, but one of them needed the ability to use deadly force if the situation called for it.
D’Annique’s apartment was uncluttered and impeccably kept, as neat as one might expect from a former first officer on a cruiser but strangely impersonal. As she followed the others through the entrance hall and into the living room, she didn’t see a single photo or video display-not one family photo, not one shot of D’Annique herself, not even a video of an old pet. There was a generic art holo inlaid in the living room wall, but it looked as if it had come with the apartment. Even the furniture had a generic look to it, as if there were no trace of D’Annique’s personality at all, no stamp of her on anything in the apartment.
Shannon and Tom took up an overwatch position by the edge of the entrance hall and the living room while Ari and Roza silently swept the kitchen and dining room, signaling the area clear. Their collective attention turned to the short hallway to the bedroom and Shannon risked a glance at the tablet once more: D’Annique was pulling on her jacket, her square, homely face calm and unconcerned as she moved to the door, pausing to pick up a small briefcase from next to her bed.
Shannon got Ari’s attention and signed that their target was coming out. Ari and Roza edged along the same side of the hall, Ari high and Roza crouched low, while Tom and Shannon moved to cover them from the edge of the living room. Shannon could hear the soft footsteps of D’Annique’s pumps on the carpet of the hallway and she brought up her pistol, ready to support Ari and Roza…
…when the small briefcase sailed lazily around the corner, landing with a gentle thump in front of the sofa.
“Down!” Shannon yelled, instinctively grabbing Tom by the arm and dragging them both behind the wall to the entrance hall.
Years of training kicked in and she opened her mouth and closed her eyes, feeling the concussion deep in her chest and seeing the sun-bright light through eyelids squeezed shut.
Shannon had dropped the tablet when she grabbed Tom, but she had held onto her weapon: she twisted around to bring it up but D’Annique was already firing, the compact, small-caliber machine pistol spraying a hail of tantalum slugs across the room as she rushed for the entrance hall. Shannon ducked back, hugging the floor as the high-speed bullets tore through the wall above her, bracing herself to brave the metal storm to try to stop D’Annique before she could escape…
…and then the high-pitched chatter of the machine pistol was abruptly interrupted by the full-throated boom of a 10mm service pistol and Hellene D’Annique pitched forward, her weapon clattering to the floor as she fell heavily, clutching at her right arm. Shannon’s head whipped around and she saw Sgt. Manning standing behind her in the entrance hall, eyes narrowed and face intense, her sidearm still extended as she watched the downed woman intently.
“Tom,” she said to Crossman as they both clambered up from the floor, “get D’Annique secured.”
While Tom went to the wounded woman, Shannon stepped over to check on Ari and Roza, who’d taken the full brunt of the concussion grenade concealed in the briefcase. They were both still prone on the tile floor; Roza with her eyes squeezed shut, a trickle of blood running from her nose, while Ari was opening his eyes wide and rubbing them, mouth gaping as he tried to clear his ears.
“It’s okay!” Shannon yelled to them, trying to get through the hollow ringing in their ears-she’d experienced a concussion grenade before, in training, and knew what they were going through. “We have her; it’s okay!” She didn’t want either of them opening up blindly with their stunners while they were in a daze.
Slowly, their eyes began to focus on her and Roza nodded silently.
“We’re okay, ma’am,” Ari said as Shannon helped them to their feet, his voice loud and unmodulated because he couldn’t hear himself talking.
“Get them out to the flyer,” Shannon instructed Manning. The NCO nodded, holstering her sidearm and guiding Ari and Roza out into the hallway.
Tom, she saw, had D’Annique up, her hands flex-cuffed behind her back, a smart bandage covering the wound in her upper arm and her eyes glazed over from the sedative he’d given her.
“Get her out of here,” Shannon told him. “We have to clear the area before local law enforcement arrives.” The security hack would slow them down, but sooner or later someone would call and report the gunshots.
Shannon brought up the rear as Tom hustled the insensate D’Annique through the hallway and into the apartment building’s lobby, tastefully and expensively decorated as was fitting for a high-end complex in the upper- class end of Houston… and occupied by two visibly horrified young middle management types in fashionable
