Not that she would mind having Peter Thorn here beside her right now, she realised. They’d known each other for only a few months, but Helen was already growing used to having him with her at night. She smiled drowsily at the thought of sneaking him into her room past her fellow agents. That would certainly shatter her Bureau reputation as an “ice maiden” once and for all!
Thoughts of Peter spun away in a dozen different directions.
She loved the way his face lit up when he smiled at her a sunburst of joy on a face normally so serious and reserved. Or the catch in his voice when he shared memories of his childhood and his father with her, revealing a vulnerability he kept hidden from others. Their time together had been a revelation for both of them as each learned to lower carefully constructed defences, discovering the intense pleasure two people could find in shared laughter and comfortable silence, and the touch of hand on hand, body on body.
But it was also confusing. She was having to face questions she’d been avoiding ever since leaving the Academy for her first assignment. What did she really want? A husband? Or something less? She had sacrificed much for her career. Could she risk all she had won for the love of a man? Even this man?
And what did Peter want from her? So far they’d both been careful to stay very much in the present moment to avoid any real discussion of a future together. That couldn’t last for much longer. She realized that, although she wasn’t sure he did. And what then? What would happen when the time came to think beyond the next evening out? He hardly ever spoke of it, but she knew that his mother’s desertion of his father had left scars that ran deep. Would he shy away from her when their affair turned serious?
The phone by her bedside rang sharply, ripping through her sleepy, wandering thoughts. Helen rolled over, suddenly wide awake, and answered it. “Grey here.”
“This is Lang. Sorry to wake you.”
She sat up in bed, still cradling the phone. Special Agent John Lang commanded the Hostage Rescue Team. She could hear the tension in his voice. Something big must be in the wind. “Go ahead.”
“We’ve got a situation developing up near D.C. I need you and your section in the briefing room in five minutes.”
“On my way.” Helen hung up, slid out of bed, and began pulling gear out of her duffel bag a whirlwind of brisk, economical movement. She was aware of the excitement suddenly coursing through her veins. A situation, Lang had said. That single, flat word meant someone was in trouble big trouble. But it also meant a chance to prove herself in action after all the years and months of training and simulations.
Still moving fast, she fastened Kevlar body armor over her black coveralls and then zipped an assault vest over the Kevlar. Sturdy rubber pads to protect her elbows and knees came next. Then she checked her service automatic and snapped it into the holster rigged low on her thigh. Done.
Helen went out the door and headed down the corridor to the briefing room at a trot. She could hear agents stirring behind her as the phone alert rippled through the building.
The briefing room contained all the tools needed to plan and prep HRT missions. Chairs faced a wall given over to a screen for an overhead projector, blackboards, and a large video monitor. A computer terminal linked them to databases at the Hoover Building and at other federal agencies. A locked armory downstairs held still more gear: submachine guns, assault rifles, sniper rifles, shotguns, climbing gear, portable electronic surveillance systems, even the demolition charges used to breach locked doors, walls, and roofs.
John Lang, tall, gray-haired, and in his late forties, was there ahead of her. He waked up from the secure phone he was on and waved her to a chair up front, all the while talking in a clipped, tense tone. “Yes, sir. I understand. We’re moving now.”
Helen waited for him to finish, working hard to control her growing impatience. One by one, the other agents in her ten-man section hurried in through the door and dropped into seats beside her. Their eager expressions mirrored her own.
Lang finished his conversation and spun around to face them all.
“Okay. I’ll make this short and sweet. We have a hostage situation just outside D.C. This is the real thing. This is not an exercise.”
Helen leaned forward, intent on his every word.
“There are terrorists holding a rabbi, some women, and some kids inside a synagogue in Arlington, Virginia. A place called Temple Emet. We don’t know who the bad guys are. We don’t know how many of them there are. But we do know they’re serious. We’ve already got one confirmed fatality a father who drove there to pick up his kid and apparently just stumbled into these bastards.”
Helen’s initial excitement faded, replaced by a growing sense of anger and outrage. Hostage-taking was vile enough. But murdering an unarmed innocent simply because he was in the wrong place at the wrong time marked the thugs inside the synagogue as either truly vicious or truly cowardly. The thought of children held captive in such cruel, capricious hands was chilling.
“The Director wants this section enroute to the scene pronto,” Lang continued. He looked straight at her. “Questions?”
“No, sir.” Helen shook her head, She had questions, but none important enough to slow them up now. She stood up and faced her team members.
“All right, people, you heard the man. You know the drill. Prep for a possible building assault. Let’s move!”
Time seemed to fly by as she and the others scrambled to gather the weapons, ammunition, and other gear they might need. Minutes were precious and she begrudged every moment it took to collect their gear, but they were outside and jogging toward the helipad next to the headquarters building in less than ten minutes.
Two FBI-owned UH-60 Blackhawks were there waiting for them, already spooling up. Her section split up, one five man team heading for each helicopter. That was a safety precaution in case one of the birds went down. Would-be terrorists had too much access to shoulder-launched SAMs these days for any mission planner’s peace of mind.
Ducking low under the spinning rotors, Helen clambered into the lead Blackhawk and took the flight helmet offered her by the crew chief. She would need the intercom system to hear and talk over the helicopter’s engine noise.
Lang pulled himself inside right behind her. Although she would plan and lead any assault on the synagogue, her chain of command ran through him. Once they were on scene he would set up an HRT command post and generally run interference with the locals and the FBI agent in charge. Ideally, that should free her to concentrate entirely on the mission at hand. The system worked well in training exercises. She only hoped it would work as well under the stresses and strains of a real operation.
The Blackhawk lifted off in a shrieking, teeth-rattling roar as its engines came up to full power. It then spun right as it climbed and then slid forward, heading northwest at nearly two hundred miles an hour. Helen glanced through the open side doors, her eyes drawn to the eerily beautiful spectacle of the moonlit, wooded countryside rippling past below them.
“ETA is ten minutes.” The pilot’s voice crackled through the headphones built into her helmet. “They’re clearing a corridor for us now through National ATC.”
“Understood.”
Lang leaned closer. “You ready for me to fill you in on the details?”
Helen pulled her gaze away from the moonlight-dappled landscape and nodded. “What have you got?”
The older man shrugged. “Not much. And none of it good.” He sat back against his thin metal and canvas seat and started ticking off what he knew. “This whole thing first blew up about three hours ago.”
She checked her watch. “Around nine?”
Lang nodded. “That’s when the local police got the initial reports of shots fired. The first squad car on the scene found a man lying in the temple courtyard. When the cops started to investigate further, they were warned off by somebody inside the synagogue claiming to hold hostages.”