Royal Lockdown

Unless it turned out there was some hidden danger right here in this room. Like a bomb.

Various scenarios flashed through his mind as he instinctively moved to protect the woman in his arms.

He inclined his head so that his mouth was against her ear. “We have to get out of the middle of the floor.”

“Yes.”

Obviously she’d had disaster training, and she made no protest as he led her toward the side of the dance floor.

She turned her head to say in a low voice, “I’ve got to get back to Manfred.”

“Not yet. It’s too dangerous to move around until we know what’s going on and how the people here react.”

She raised her head, and he saw her taking in the room and the suddenly darkened world beyond the Hancock Tower.

“What happened?” she asked.

“Last time, it was a minor problem at the power company,” he answered. He didn’t want to alarm Ariana, but he’d had a bad feeling about this reception, and he wished he’d paid attention to his instincts.

At the moment, his gut was telling him that the blackout wasn’t the result of faulty power-company equipment. The emergency was focused on this building. This event.

Nervous chatter had broken out among the guests at the party, and Shane was pretty sure that the Secret Service had already gotten the president and vice president into a secure location.

But he recognized the symptoms of panic and knew the crowd was on the verge of chaos. As if to prove the point, one of the female guests started screaming.

“Stop it!” a man shouted.

Ignoring him, she broke away from the crowd and ran toward the balcony doors.

“Dora, come back,” her companion ordered, then rushed after her.

Still too panicked, she flung the doors open and dashed outside.

“You have to get her back in,” Ariana whispered. “Before she does something…dangerous.”

Shane was torn. He wanted to stay by the princess, in case the formally dressed men and women here turned into a mob. Before he was forced to make a decision, Secret Service agents grabbed the escapee and dragged her back inside.

One of the agents raised his voice. “Everybody, stay cool. We have the situation under control.”

Let’s hope so, Shane muttered to himself.

In the flickering light from one of the candles, Shane recognized a tall man standing near him. It was another one of the agents who had earlier spread out through the crowd. “Shane Peters, from Executive Security,” he said, as though he were on assignment here and not just one of the guests. “I have Princess Ariana LeBron with me. Can you give me a status report?”

“My communications networks say that the blackout has hit the entire city,” the man said. “And many of the suburban areas.”

“I think it’s focused on this reception,” Shane answered, pitching his voice low so as not to further alarm anybody nearby.

“How could that be? The whole city’s involved,” the man snapped.

“It’s a diversionary tactic,” Shane answered. “And it keeps rescue operations from zeroing in on us.”

“Interesting scenario,” the agent said, then took several steps away, cutting off the conversation and signaling what he thought of Shane’s theory.

Shane swallowed the curse that rose to his lips. It made him furious when people who should know better had tunnel vision.

Next to him, Ariana shuddered, and he turned his attention back to her. “You think we’re under attack?” she whispered.

He stroked a hand slowly along her arm, feeling the goose bumps that peppered her skin. They hadn’t been there a few minutes ago. “I hope not. But I think we have to act that way. Stay with me.”

“All right.”

Reaching down, he linked his fingers with hers. Her hand was even colder than her arm, and he gave her a reassuring squeeze.

“We have to get out of here,” she murmured.

He signaled his regret by the tone of his voice. “I don’t think we can. The building’s no doubt on lockdown.”

She sucked in a strangled breath. “How long do we have to stay in this room?”

“Until the power comes back on. But believe me, it’s not any safer outside the building. There’ll be cars stuck, traffic jams, road rage, looters and people going berserk because they’re terrified that this is another terrorist attack.”

Her voice turned high and strained. “Do you think it is a terrorist attack?”

“I don’t know,” he answered honestly.

As if to confirm his grim assessment of the situation, the sound of several car horns drifted toward them from the street, followed by the sound of a gunshot.

Ariana shuddered. “That was a gun.”

“Yes.”

She kept her face straight ahead and spoke in a low voice. “Are you armed?”

He suppressed a frustrated sound. “I wish I were. But I couldn’t get through security with a weapon.”

“So you’re not on duty tonight.”

“No. I’m just a guest.”

Before he could make another comment, his phone vibrated again, reminding him that he’d received a text message earlier and had ignored it because he’d been too focused on Ariana.

Pulling out his phone, he flipped up the top and read the message.

Are you afraid of the dark?

“What is it?” Ariana asked. “Something to do with the blackout?”

“I think so.”

Ariana tipped the phone toward her and read the message. “What does that mean?” she asked.

“I don’t know.”

“No other messages?” she asked sharply.

He shook his head and grimaced in the darkness. “My phone vibrated while we were dancing. I ignored it.”

She could have come back with the comment that he should have been tending to business. But before she could say anything, the door to the kitchen opened with a loud thud.

Everybody in the room turned toward the sound. In the flickering glow from the candlelight, they could see that four tuxedoed men had entered the room and slammed the door behind them to draw attention to their presence.

When one of them briefly turned on a flashlight, everybody in the room saw that he and his companions were armed with assault weapons and night-vision goggles.

“All of you into the center of the room!” he shouted, his voice a grating command.

Instead of obeying, people went stock-still. Stunned silence was followed by a babble of voices.

Once again, the man’s command cut through the noise. “Into the center of the room if you don’t want to get hurt!”

Frozen in place, Ariana whispered, “Mon Dieu.”

Shane shared the sentiment, but he had no intention of letting her be herded into a central location, since he had no idea what the men with assault weapons intended.

“Come on,” he whispered.

They were in the wrong part of the room to try for the main entrance, and the gunmen were blocking the kitchen door. But he had another idea.

Taking Ariana’s hand again, he lost no time in tugging her away from the crowd and toward a space he’d found when he’d searched the room last night.

It was a slot in the wall where room dividers had once been folded when not in use. The dividers had been removed from the reception area, but the slot remained, and Shane hoped to hell it would make a good hiding place.

As he moved Ariana swiftly through the crowd, he could imagine what Ty Jones and the other Secret Service agents were doing right now. Could they get the president and vice president out of the reception area? Or were they stuck with his method of hiding and hoping for the best?

One more question about Ty circled in Shane’s mind. Had his old friend gotten the same text message? Are you afraid of the dark?

Various scenarios raged through his thoughts as the armed men ruthlessly herded the guests into the center of the room.

Shouts of “Move it!” and “Hurry up,” were accompanied by hard shoves.

When an older man stumbled, one of the assailants kicked him and ordered him onto his feet.

“My heart,” the victim shouted.

“Quiet! Move.”

The man scrambled up, and Shane wondered if the guy was going to make it out of the room alive—whether or not the bad guys shot him.

Who were these guys, anyway? And how had they gotten past the tight security and into the reception?

His mind flashed to the waitstaff that had earlier been passing champagne and canapés. Had these four men come in with the catering company? On the face of it, the plan seemed damned ballsy. But he knew that these thugs had done something few men would attempt at a reception attended by both the president and the vice president of the United States.

They must have been up here previously casing the tower. With part of his mind, Shane wondered what would have happened if he’d run into them yesterday.

That was then and this was now.

In the darkness, Shane kept moving, pulling Ariana away from the center of the action. Yet he couldn’t keep a tiny doubt from creeping into his mind. Was he going the right way or turned around in the dark?

What if he was actually putting Ariana in more danger?

He led her along the wall, praying that he knew where he was going.

His tension grew as the seconds ticked by and he didn’t come to the slot in the wall. Then finally his fingers brushed against the edge of the hiding place he’d discovered yesterday. Breathing out a small sigh, he stopped short.

“Right here,” he whispered as he moved Ariana into the narrow opening in the wall, hoping that the dark would hide them when the assailants did a thorough search of the room, which they surely would as soon as they had better control over the crowd.

He followed Ariana into the opening, then turned to face the middle of the room again. One of the armed men was shouting another order to the formally dressed herd. “Put out the candles on the table.”

Nobody moved.

In the next second, a burst of automatic-weapons fire split the air. One of the male guests went down, groaning. Shouts and screams erupted throughout the reception area.

“It’s the ambassador from Wintonia,” someone gasped out. “He needs a doctor.”

“Leave him!” The order came from the captor who was directing the action.

Behind Shane, Ariana made a gagging sound. Shane turned and cupped her head, pressing her face against his chest as he stroked her back. She was trembling, but he felt her struggling to control herself.

“We’ll be okay,” he whispered.

Although she nodded against his chest, he wondered if she really believed him. More important, did he believe it himself?

“Hang tight,” he murmured.

“I’m trying.”

He gathered her closer, cradling her delicate body in his arms. “Pretend we’re still dancing.”

“Oh sure.”

Because he knew it would distract her, he said, “I kept hoping I could get you off by yourself. I wasn’t looking for this particular excuse.”

“I knew you were thinking about it,” she answered.

He nuzzled his lips against the top of her head. “So what would you like to do with me?”

“I’m too well trained to tell you my fantasies.”

“You should learn to go with the flow.”

The banter helped temporarily, until the gunman-in-chief issued another order.

“Shut up and put out the candles before I take out someone else.”

Shane turned halfway around so that he could see the room.

This time, people scrambled frantically to obey, and the room went from candlelit to gloomy. Now the only light came from the moon.

A woman went down on her knees beside the ambassador.

“He’s dead. You killed him,” she sobbed.

“Quiet. Or you’ll be dead, too,” one of the armed men barked out.

The woman tried to muffle her sobs as a man lifted her up and pulled her away, but Shane could still hear her weeping. He wondered if she was going to survive the night. Or if he and Ariana would, for that matter.

“Hands up. Nobody move.”

Obedient in their fright, everybody in the center of the room raised their hands and stood still.

Shane could only see shadows now, but he imagined the men with the night-vision goggles looking like figures out of a horror movie.

“I’m speaking to the Secret Service now,” the chief gunman said. “Three people have already been killed. Take out your weapons and put them on the floor or more innocent people will die. If you want that on your heads, then stand there like dummies.”

Nobody spoke. The only sound in the room was the whisper of sidearms being drawn from concealed holsters.

As he strained his eyes and listened, Shane assessed his chances of acquiring one of those weapons. Not good. Not when the opposition could see the room perfectly, and he had only moonlight to guide him in a room full of frightened people who were ready to go into panic mode.

A few moments ago they had been happily celebrating an international trade agreement. Now they were living their worst nightmare.

“Okay. Now, to the Secret Service and everybody else, take out your cell phones, walkie-talkies, any other communication devices. Drop them.”

Again, the crowd obeyed. He heard cell phones hitting the floor all over the room. He still had his own phone—for all the good it did him. The authorities must know what was going on at the top of the Hancock Tower. If they could mount a rescue attempt, they would.

On the other hand, maybe he’d be able to give the police some information. He could always dial 911. Or he could contact his brother, Chase, who might be downstairs in one of the limousines parked along the curb. But he couldn’t risk making a call until he got Ariana out of the reception room.

He turned back to her, gathering her close, and he realized that she had stopped trembling.

When he shifted his stance, she raised her head. “Je suis bien.”

He knew she wasn’t really okay. But she was showing her royal training and her moral fiber. How many women would have remembered to reassure the guy in hiding with her?

“Uh-huh,” he whispered. She had to be scared out of her mind, but at least the darkness had spared her the sight of the ambassador getting killed. Or maybe the darkness had made it worse.

His mind scrambled frantically for a plan that would keep her safe.

The men out there were obviously ruthless. Obviously willing to kill to get what they wanted. And he didn’t even know what that was yet. The sounds outside their hiding place told him the captors were gathering up the discarded weapons and cell phones.

A man in the crowd voiced Shane’s thoughts. “What do you want?”

None of the captors spoke. Instead, the question was answered with a burst of gunfire. Another one of the guests screamed and fell to the ground, and Ariana cringed.

“Steady,” he whispered.

Outside their hiding place, something else was happening. Again he turned, and movement in the reception area riveted his attention. Two of the captors were silently and slowly moving around the walls, checking for anybody who hadn’t followed directions and gathered in the center of the room.

He felt his jaw muscles clench. Had he pulled Ariana into a death trap?

Praying that their hiding place would be undetectable, Shane quickly drew the princess farther back into the niche in the wall. When he came to the recess where the mechanism for the folding walls had been removed, he eased her into the tiny space, then followed her inside. It was a tight squeeze, and he had to hold her against his body so that her breasts were crushed against his chest.

Her breath was shallow, and he wanted to say something reassuring, but he’d run out of quips. Besides, talking was no longer an option with the gunman so close.

As footsteps came toward them, he felt Ariana tense.

The fight-or-flight reaction.

His own muscles were strung as tightly as coiled springs, but he knew there was little an unarmed man could do when he was standing twenty feet away from an assailant with an itchy finger on the trigger of a submachine gun. A man who had already killed much too casually.

Maybe the only advantage Shane had was surprise. From an inside pocket in his tuxedo jacket, he withdrew a small folding knife. Designed to pass through a metal detector, it was made of very thin plastic. He opened it and held it in his hand, prepared to slash at the gunman if he got the chance. It was a pitiful strategy, but his only option at the moment.

As the footsteps came toward them, he prepared to spring. The man stopped at the niche in the wall, and Shane pictured him staring inside, his night-vision goggles giving him an excellent view of the narrow space. He wondered if his tuxedo jacket was sticking out. Or maybe his shoe. He wanted to inch closer to Ariana, but he knew that any movement would be a fatal mistake. So he stood there with his breath frozen in his lungs.

The man took a step into the crevice, and Shane almost whirled and lunged with the knife.

Gritting his teeth, he held his breath and forced himself to keep cool. After seconds that felt like centuries, he heard the man take a step back, then another. But he remained in front of their hiding place for what seemed like eons. Finally, he moved on, and Shane let the breath trickle out of his lungs.

He heard Ariana doing the same.

“All secure,” one of the armed men reported to his leader.

That’s what you think, you bastard.

Ariana’s fingers dug into the arm of his tuxedo jacket. “Hang in there,” he whispered.

“What do they want?” she asked, her voice wispy.

“I’m sure we’ll find out soon,” he answered in the same barely audible voice.

“This could be like that school in Russia. Did the captives ever know why they were being held?”

“Maybe not,” he conceded.

He’d like to think this was about money. Or power. He suspected the motive was going to be a lot worse.

He felt Ariana shift her body. “Could you give me a little breathing room?” she whispered.

“Of course.”

He needed some breathing room himself. On the dance floor, he’d been all wrapped up in the intimacy of holding her so close. Now the proximity was only adding to his uneasy feeling.

He needed to clear his head and think. Reluctantly, he stepped away from her and took a breath.

“I’ll be right back,” he whispered.

“Where are you going?” she asked quickly, tension quivering in her voice.

He gave her arm a quick squeeze. “Not far. To see if I can find out what’s going on. Stay here—you’ll be okay.”

Quietly he walked to the front of the crevice, then he got down on his hands and knees.

Round tables with long white skirts were scattered around the room, and he used one of them to shield himself as he tried to get a better handle on the situation.

Out in the reception room, one of the captors spoke again. He’d put on a gas mask, which muffled his voice. But the message was all too clear.

“There is no escape from the reception area. If you try to leave, you will activate our fail safe system, releasing cyanide gas into the room. Everyone here will die, except for the four of us who are equipped with gas masks.”

Cyanide gas.

As the words assaulted Shane, he felt a shudder go through his body. And not just because he knew the effects of the deadly poison. He remembered once before when he’d been in a dangerous situation and cyanide gas had been an important part of the equation. It was on that long-ago mission to Barik when everything had suddenly gone bad.

Oh, Lord. Was that what tonight was all about?

It couldn’t be. Yet even as he tried to downplay the importance of this new element, he was thinking about the man on the team he hadn’t mentioned to Ariana.

Liam Shea had been one of the players. And he was the reason the mission had turned from a smooth-running covert operation into a horror show.

After they’d gone in, Shea was supposed to wait for a visual signal, but he’d reacted too fast. He’d cut the power to the complex before the rest of the team had been ready. His premature action had resulted in the death of the U.S. secretary of state and some innocent citizens.

He’d been court-martialed, dishonorably discharged and sent to jail for the screwup, though he’d maintained all along that someone had given him the visual signal.

Because methodical habits had saved Shane’s life more than once, he had kept tabs on Shea over the years. Not that he’d thought the man was going to come after him. Still, he knew exactly when Shea had gotten out of prison.

And he knew that the jailbird hadn’t stayed around. He’d gone underground almost as soon as the prison gates had closed behind him.

Shane had thought it was because he was no longer equipped to function in society. Now he wondered if Shea had had big plans that he hadn’t wanted to reveal.

Was he back now, out for the sickest kind of revenge his twisted mind could conceive?

Shane crawled to his right and craned his neck, trying to get a good look at the leader of the men who had set up this terrifyingly well-executed scenario.

He couldn’t tell if it was Liam Shea. In the goggles and gas mask the man was unidentifiable.

Plus, Shane hadn’t seen Shea in years. On the mission the man had been one of the older members. Then he’d been locked away, which had probably sped up his aging. Shane wondered if he’d even recognize Shea.

Shea had insisted all along that he was innocent, but the court hadn’t believed him. So was this the desperate act of an innocent man who had decided the only way he’d get justice was through revenge?

If so, who were the men with him?

He’d had three sons, Shane remembered. Could he have convinced them to go along with his revenge plot? Were they so loyal to their father that they were willing to kill for him?

Of course, that brought up a whole other issue. If Liam Shea had really been innocent, who had made him the fall guy for the failed rescue attempt?

There had been eight men on the mission, although one of them—Commander Tom Bradley—was dead now.

The four who had joined Shane in Eclipse were above suspicion. He would trust any one of them with his life.

Yet a lot of them were here tonight, he suddenly realized, as he put the evening into a different context.

Chase might be outside in one of the limousines. Ty was guarding the vice president. Only Ethan was absent. But Shane knew he was in Boston, suffering in the same blackout as the rest of them. Maybe he was frantically trying to protect his young son from dangers Shane could only imagine.

Another man who had been on the mission was Vice President Grant Davis. He was here tonight, too. The eighth member of the team, King Frederick of Beau Pays, was absent, but his daughter was standing in for him tonight.

Maybe they’d all been brought here on purpose. And maybe that would work to Shane’s advantage.

Perhaps he and Ty could do something if they could link up…

Shane balled his hands into fists. He was getting way ahead of himself. This wasn’t an Eclipse operation. There might be a room full of people at risk, but Ty had to focus on his primary duty: protecting Vice President Davis.

Hopefully, he’d already gotten Davis out of the building.

Which meant that Shane was on his own.

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