Three figures in black, each wearing a stocking-cap mask, piled out of the vehicle, coming toward her.
She reacted, kicking one in the chest, but the effort wobbled her farther, and the other two got to her, one on either side.
The first blow, a fist, caught her hard but missed her kidney.
She felt the air rush out as she dropped, and tried to roll, hoping to get some space so she could fight back; but the second guy kicked her in the side of her head, sending bells, sirens, and whistles blaring in her brain.
Her vision blurred as she felt another fist dig into her stomach. The first guy was up now and they had her triangulated. The kicking started again and Brennan made herself as small a target as possible, the blows coming one after the other.
Consciousness fluttered like a dying bird, and Brennan knew she either had to act…
…or die.
She lashed out with her foot, and swept one attacker off his feet.
As he crashed to the concrete, the others hesitated.
That was the moment she needed.
She drove her fist into the nearest crotch. As the assailant screamed, another one grabbed her head. He was about to drive it into the cement, when she brought her hand up and smashed it into his nose.
The guy released her as he gurgled in pain and stumbled backward.
Every bone in her body hurt, but she struggled to her feet.
But the others were up too.
One pulled an automatic, and as the other two jumped into the SUV, he leveled the pistol at Brennan.
She dove behind a car as he emptied the clip, windows spiderwebbing, metal doors and fenders puckering, one shot ricocheting off the cement, a piece of concrete or bullet nicking her leg.
She looked under the car, trying to see if her attacker was coming at her; but what she saw was her purse.
Grabbing it and dragging it to her, she tore through the contents.
All she came up with was a small, voice-activated mini-cassette player.
Hearing the SUV start, she rose. The vehicle backed out of the parking place, the third guy barely getting in as the driver stomped on the gas and the truck hurtled out of the ramp.
She fired the mini-cassette player at the retreating vehicle, heard the thing thwack into the back window of the SUV.
Then the vehicle was gone, and her attackers with it. Unsteady on her feet, struggling to hold on to that fine Italian meal, Brennan fished out her phone and speed-dialed Booth’s number, then slumped to the concrete.
In the distance, sirens spoke, and she figured the gunshots had spurred someone to call 911.
“Booth,” he said, after the second ring.
“Jumped me,” she managed.
“What? Who? Temperance?… Are you all right?”
She didn’t have the strength to answer.
“Where are you? Temperance!”
“Hotel,” she managed. “Ramp…”
Then everything went black.
Brennan was loath to open her eyes.
If her head hurt this much with her eyes closed, what the hell would open feel like?
She didn’t care to find out.
She lay there, doing an inventory of what hurt and what did not.
The “did not” list took considerably less time, involving as it did her toenails, one earlobe, and about one square inch of the area between.
What had happened in the hotel parking garage played through her memory like a sped-up movie; and she knew then that she would have to open her eyes to discover who had found her — the good guys, or the returning bad guys in the SUV….
Opening them a fraction at a time, Brennan finally got her lids parted enough to allow vision; and, much to her surprise, the pain in her head dissipated.
Slightly.
Brennan eased her head to the right and saw a hospital monitor. The numbers showed her blood pressure, normal, and her heart rate, also normal.
Well, at least something in her life was normal.
The pain in her head erupted again, and she had to close her eyes for several long moments before it subsided.
When she opened them again, the pain was not as severe. She continued her visual survey, content that she was in a hospital, which meant the authorities had been the ones to locate her.
The next thing she saw was a big window with the blinds drawn.
Adjusting her near vision, she took stock of a needle in her right arm and followed the line to a pair of clear plastic bags hanging from a stainless-steel pole. One was saline, the doctors keeping her fluids up, the other a painkiller.
Great.
If it hurt this much while she was on an IV painkiller, what was cold turkey going to feel like?
With considerable effort, Brennan swung her head to the left, seeing a TV mounted on the wall at the foot of the bed. She panned to a dresser on the wall to her left; and beyond that, curled up in an uncomfortable-looking chair, snoring quietly, sprawled Seeley Booth.
Covered with a white hospital blanket thinner than Bill Jorgensen’s alibi.
And for a moment or two, she didn’t hurt at all.
A voice from the doorway said, “Look who’s back among the living.”
Brennan turned to see a slender woman in white slacks and a flowered smock.
“I’m Nurse Oakley,” the woman said, striding in. “But you can call me Betty.”
Looking back to the chair, Brennan saw Booth stirring as the nurse came in and took her pulse.
“How are we feeling?” the nurse asked.
“We are feeling like three guys kicked the hell out of us,” Brennan said.
The nurse nodded. “That sounds about right. Pulse is fine — sense of humor, too…. I’ll tell Dr. Keller you’re awake. He’ll be in shortly.”
The nurse flicked a smile and was gone.
Rubbing the sleep from his eyes, Booth sat up.
“How long have I been out?” Brennan asked.
Booth checked his watch. “Just about twenty-four hours.”
Her tongue felt thick. “I’m thirsty.”
Booth went to a small bedside table and picked up a plastic cup with a lid and a straw. He held it as she gulped, the icy water tasting wonderful.
“Care to share what happened?” Booth asked.
She told him about her reception in the garage.
“Three bastards?” he asked.
She nodded. “Is that an official FBI designation for assailants, Booth? ‘Bastards’?”
“Why, how would an anthropologist put it?”
She thought. “Bastards will do.”
“Any sort of description?”
Shaking her head, and wishing she hadn’t, Brennan said, “Three men wearing stocking-cap masks — all dressed in black. About average height, one a little heavier than the other two, but… that’s about it.”
She was irked that someone whose expertise was bones — who understood posture, stature, kinesiology — could not provide a more detailed description of her attackers.
The bastards, yes bastards, had gotten on her so damn fast that her only thought had been survival.
Booth was asking, “The SUV?”
She searched her memory, fuzzy with drugs. “White.”
“Did you get the make, model?”
More searching. “No. Sorry. General Motors, maybe?”
“Plate number?”
“Nope.”
“Bumper stickers?”
“No, but I did hit the back window with my mini-cassette player.”
Booth frowned. “Cassette player?”
“I threw it at them — you know, that little mini thing I use to record interviews and so on.” She shrugged and it hurt. “That was all I had.”
He was still frowning. “Wasn’t a cassette player at the scene.”
“Somebody probably picked it up,” Brennan said. “Some bystander, ’cause the bad guys were gone…. Spoils of war.” She had a sudden thought. “What about my purse?”