“Wilson here. Go ahead.”
“It’s her. Goddammit! The bitch maced me!”
“What! You idiot! I told you not to contact her without me.”
“She made me when she came out of the library,” Franco had lied. “She started to run. I had to go after her.”
“Did she get away?”
“No, I’m in the physics building. I’ve got her trapped in one of the rooms on the second floor, but it’s going to be tougher getting her to the car now. Get over here and help me out.”
“On my way.”
Franco had run down to the room, pulling out his Glock 19. With the automatic raised, he gently pushed down on the lever. He heard the click of the latch disengaging and pushed the door slightly. No deadbolt.
He threw the full weight of his body against it, ready to crouch and duck another mace attack. He’d shoot her, but not to kill, much as he’d like to. Expecting to hit a yielding door, he wasn’t ready for the sudden stop almost immediately after the door had begun to open. His head smacked against the steel with a resounding thud, and he almost fell to his knees again.
Holding his head, he shook out the stars. Maybe his aim would be off just this once, and there would be a fatal accident. Lobec wouldn’t like it, but tough shit. Franco had had just about enough of Erica Jensen.
He threw his shoulder against the door, this time anticipating the shock. On the third try, the door gave slightly. Three more times and it flew open.
He crouched as he’d originally intended, but no mace came. A quick look around the room. She wasn’t in sight.
Then he heard it. A faint, almost nonexistent, beeping. It was coming from the direction of the open door of a large metal chamber in the opposite corner of the room. The sound of a doctor’s pager. It abruptly stopped, and he realized the hospital must have paged the med student. Tough luck for her. It didn’t matter, though. He would have found her anyway.
He eased over to the door and opened it wider. He peeked around the corner. The chamber was faintly lit, but he could tell that the Jensen woman was not in view. He crept up the stairs, his back to the door, the Glock held at arm’s length.
As he stepped onto the wire mesh, he still couldn’t see her. But he knew where she was. A 4 by 8 sheet of plywood leaned against the far corner, plenty of room for someone to hide behind.
“Miss Jensen, why don’t you come out? I don’t want to hurt you, but I will if I have to. And if you spray me again, I will hurt you.”
No response. This bitch was tougher than he thought. He slowly walked over to the plywood, then hooked his foot under it and kicked it aside.
The woman wasn’t there. Only two things sat on the wire mesh: a pager and a key.
Shit!
He whipped around to see the door swinging shut.
Erica pulled on the chamber’s outer door as hard as she could, but the enormous metal frame was as heavy as it looked and only with effort started to shut. She didn’t dare look into the chamber, but she heard the police impersonator curse as he realized what happened. The lock in her hand poked her skin, but she pulled harder.
The door was almost closed, traveling at a tremendous rate, when a hand shot through the opening. The man’s weight fell against the other side of the door, but it wasn’t enough to halt the inertia of the door’s massive bulk. His hand was crushed as the door slammed it against the jamb. He let out a scream, and the weight momentarily lifted. The hand disappeared into the chamber.
Erica used the opportunity to latch the door. As she tried to thread the lock through the handle mechanism, gunshots rang out, and she almost fell from the stairs in surprise. She looked down and saw with relief that the bullets, unable to penetrate the thick door, only made small protrusions on her side. Her fumbling hands finally got the lock in place just as the man began pounding on the other side, and she closed it with a satisfying click.
Suspecting that she didn’t have much time before his friends arrived, she collected her purse and headed for the exit. The impersonator’s muted curses faded quickly as she ran down the hall.
CHAPTER 12
Clay Tarnwell leaned into the drive, never taking his eyes off the ball, following through with the form he’d learned at Pinehurst. As soon as the ball left the tee, he knew he’d sliced it. The ball curved gracefully away from the center of the fairway and toward the stand of ashes lining the right side of the rough. It bounced once and then came to rest a good 200 yards from the green. He’d be lucky to make a bogey on this hole, let alone par. It was a perfect shot, exactly where he’d wanted it.
A white-haired gentleman sporting a straw hat, lime green pants, and a well-rounded paunch started laughing as soon as the ball hit the ground.
“If I didn’t know you any better, Clay,” said the sweating man as he took his driver from the bag in the back of the golf cart, “I’d say you shanked that one on purpose.”
“You’re right, Rex,” said Tarnwell, trying to sound disgusted. “And the next one is going in the left sand trap if I can make it. What do think? Would a 3 iron do it?”
Rex Hanson laughed again, and then lined up at the tee. After taking sufficient time to level his swing, he drove a beautiful shot at least fifty yards past Tarnwell’s directly down the fairway.
Tarnwell shook his head as if to curse his luck, but he could have easily beaten his companion, probably by at least eight strokes. He played a four handicap but he had intentionally been missing the harder shots on the previous 12 holes. Now he was coming even with Hanson again and saw a good chance to stay behind for a while, so he took it.
Not that Tarnwell wasn’t competitive. He was. Very. But only at one thing. Making money. All this he-man stuff was bullshit. Sure, he was good at it. A natural athlete all his life, Tarnwell had been gifted enough to play linebacker at the University of Michigan until a knee injury ended his career. He’d gotten a lot of sympathy at the time, but one thing nobody seemed to realize was that he didn’t really care.
Football was a means to an end, the method of putting himself through school, his major in both business and chemistry. That was the ticket out of his father’s shadow, the way to make even more than the vaunted Bernard Tarnwell ever dreamed of having. All his life, Clayton Tarnwell saw the pot of gold at the end of the rainbow, and he couldn’t care less how beautiful that rainbow was. If it could lead him to the pot, fine. Otherwise, it was just in the way.
And losing to this shithead was just another means to that end. If he had to lose a few rounds of golf, so be it. As long as it made Rex Hanson happy and ready to close a deal, he’d piss into the wind for all he cared.
They climbed into the cart with Tarnwell driving. Another of Hanson’s little ways of attempting to show who was in control. He never drove his own cars, preferring to leave that menial chore to his underlings.
Tarnwell was glad to drive, owning six vintage Ferraris himself, often driving one of them to work. Besides, he knew it would make Hanson happy.
“So, Clay,” said Hanson as they drove, “you really think you can pull this merger off? If you don’t, there’s no way I could help save you or your company. Your credit would be ruined. You wouldn’t be able to get a five dollar loan with ten dollars collateral.”
Tarnwell thought he would get this response, which is exactly why he was trying to butter the old man up by losing.
“Rex, I know what I’m doing. I’ve given this a lot of thought, and there’s just no way I can lose. Not with my ace. When the banks realize what this new invention means, they’ll be throwing money at me.”