The men laughed.


"Well," Doyle remarked in disgust. "I guess we're going to have to sweeten the pot if this boy is going to stick his head out of whatever hole he's hiding in."


He checked his watch and then keyed his transmitter to Grant's frequency. "Five minutes, Grant. If he's still a no show by then I want you to find a way into that building. If he's around, he might be waiting for you to commit yourself."


*****


Cam heard Doyle's order and the hair on the back of her neck stood up. Something wasn't right. Lindsey Ryan had been certain that Loverboy would be here, because otherwise there was no point to any of this. If he didn't want to establish physical contact with Blair, then this was all a ploy to get her out into the open where he could make an attempt on her life. The refreshment stand was the obvious place for him to have set a trap. If he wanted to kill her, that would be where he would do it. Either way, he would want to be able to watch. He was here and they were missing him. And Ellen Grant was already too exposed.


"Doyle," Cam said, transmitting on his private frequency. "If we don't have a position on him, you can't send Grant inside alone. We can't cover her from here, and the place could be rigged."


"He didn't bring her all the way out here just to kill her," Doyle said, making no attempt to hide his scorn. "He'll show once he's certain that she's really going to go through with it. I'm not debating this, Roberts. She goes in."


She heard the click in her ear and knew that he had switched off. He was doing what he had wanted to do since the beginning. He was baiting the trap, and he was using her people to do it.


"Grant," Cam ordered sharply, "proceed on my signal only. Do you copy? Grant? Grant!"




Chapter Thirty-Eight

Blair stared at the blank computer screen, her mind miles away. She tried to imagine what it was like for Ellen Grant, walking alone into the darkness to face someone she knew had already killed with impunity. Despite her concern for Grant, in her heart, Blair hoped that Loverboy was waiting. She hoped that tonight would be the end of this nightmare.


She thought about Cam, watching Grant and trying to protect her. If anything happened to someone else Cam was responsible for, Cam would never forgive herself. It would tear another hole in the fabric of her being and kill another piece of her heart. Blair did not want that to happen, and most of her reasons were selfish. She was afraid that eventually, Cam would close off those parts of herself that bled for the wounds of others. And if that happened, Blair would lose the part of Cam that she needed the most. No one had ever been able to reach through the bars of her invisible prison to touch her the way that Cameron Roberts had. No one else had ever really seen her, not the way Cam did. She needed that, because without it, she was so hopelessly alone.


She did not know how long the words had been there before she noticed them. She gasped and pushed her chair back as if to escape from the reality of what she was seeing. "Oh my god."


Instantly, Mac, Felicia Davis, and Lindsey Ryan turned toward her in concern.


"What is it?" Mac asked urgently.


Blair's voice shook as she responded, "I'm not sure. Look at what just came up on the screen."


The other three crowded behind her, peering over her shoulder to see the message.

Egret. Are you there?


"Is it him?" Blair asked breathlessly. "Could it be a timed message he sent earlier?"


Mac looked at Lindsey Ryan, whose face was a study in concentration. She was furiously assessing everything she knew about him, mentally forming and discarding theories, trying to read his distorted mind.


"Maybe a stand-in?" Mac asked. "Someone helping him?"


"No, it's him," Ryan said softly. "He'd never let anyone share in this."


"What should I do?" Blair questioned.


"If she answers, he'll know she isn't in the amusement park," Mac warned.


Lindsey stared at the question on the monitor, considering their options and trying to predict the consequences. It was almost impossible for a rational mind to predict the irrational mind of someone like Loverboy. On the other hand, she, more than anyone else, had been trained to do just that, and her opinion was the best information they had to rely on.


"Lindsey?" Mac asked quietly. "I've got to advise the Commander. It's your call."


She looked calmly at Blair. "Answer it."


Hands trembling, Blair typed,Yes

I always knew you wouldn't come


"Ask him where he is," Lindsey instructed, her eyes riveted to the screen.


Blair complied.

I'm watching them look for me


"Jesus Christ," Mac cursed. Immediately, he switched to Cam's frequency. "We have communication from the subject," he said sharply. "You are compromised. I repeat - you are compromised."


Cam didn't hesitate. "Grant, evacuate now. Repeat, evacuate now."


On Stark's frequency, she ordered, "Institute retrieval. Retrieve your package now."


Switching yet again, she said, "Doyle. We've been made. He has visual. We are evacuating."


No one answered. She frantically opened all frequencies. Nothing.


She stepped to the edge of the platform and dropped to the ground. She landed a few feet from Savard. "Anything?"


Savard shook her head, her expression grim. "Commander, I don't see her. I'm getting no response on any channel. Com links are all down."


"God damn it - he's jamming us," Cam snapped angrily. "Let's go get her."


For an instant their eyes met and then they turned, shoulder to shoulder, and raced through the gates of the decaying amusement park into the darkness beyond. As they passed under the archway, Cam tried once more to reach Grant or Doyle. Her transmissions were met with silence. She looked ahead but all she could see was the blue black of the night sky broken by the silhouettes of the detritus of the abandoned park.


"Savard," Cam whispered as they rushed forward. "Swing right and cover our flank. If he's here, he's going to go after one of us. Let's not give him too many targets in one place."


Immediately, Savard melted away into the darkness.


The refreshment stand was fifty yards in front of her. She would be there in less than 60 seconds. 60 seconds.


Jesus, where is Grant?


Cam looked to the high ground, which is where she would have positioned herself if she had wanted to command the battle. In this situation the best vantage point was on top of a building, but the ones still standing in the arcade were in clear view of Doyle's men on the warehouse and they hadn't seen him. Still, out of habit, she scanned the structures with a sightline to the refreshment stand. Nothing.


Where the fuck is he?


She was almost there. The night had grown eerily still, yet she couldn't hear anything except her own heart pounding in her throat. She ran, her skin prickling with apprehension. She thought she saw a figure moving in the shadows by the side of the building. She raised her gun, slowing minutely, struggling to see through the shifting shadows.


There! Coming closer.


She sighted, her finger depressing the trigger just short of the firing pressure, when another movement far off to her right caught her eye. She jerked her head around in time to see the top car on the Ferris wheel swinging lazily, seemingly suspended in mid-air with only shafts of moonlight to hold it aloft.


"Savard," she called into the dark, not bothering to lower her voice. She was fully exposed and, at this range, defenseless. If he was going to fire at her there was nothing she could do. At least she could make sure he didn't get away. "He's on the Ferris wheel. Go!"


Just then, Grant appeared out of the shadows in front of the refreshment stand, calling, "All clear here, Commander."


Cam's shout to take cover was lost to the night as the building disintegrated in a flash of orange heat and flying debris.


*****


Savard was hit from behind by a rushing tornado of hot air that momentarily lifted her off the ground. She tucked her head and dove into a forward shoulder roll, letting the momentum of the blast carry her back onto her feet. Her gun was out and in her hand and, miraculously, she had managed to hold on to it. She refused to think about what had just happened. She couldn't think about Grant and Roberts now. She had only one thought.


Get him.


As she approached the Ferris wheel, she saw a thin shadow nimbly descending the exterior frame. She was a hundred yards away, and at that range - in the dark - she wasn't certain she would be able to hit him. If he made it to the ground, he would quickly disappear amidst the jungle of twisted metal and tumbled-down structures. She tried again to notify Doyle and the SWAT team of her location, but there was no response. Communications were still blacked out.


As she closed the distance, she got a clearer view of the figure that had just reached the ground, and for a split second, she hesitated. He was wearing a uniform. Could he be an advance lookout Doyle hadn't briefed them about? Or one of their own people who had just wandered too far into the perimeter?


She realized her mistake when he turned and fired, and that second of uncertainty cost her. By the time she registered the muzzle flash, she'd been hit and was already falling, a hot flash of pain spearing her left shoulder.


God it was much worse than she ever imagined.


The force spun her around and knocked her flat on her back. For a second she couldn't breathe at all. When she got her air back, she had to swallow a scream. Then she blanked her mind of everything except the image of him turning and firing. At her.


The pain receded behind her next reaction - anger. She was furious at him for shooting her, and even more furious at herself for letting him take her by surprise. She rolled to her side and got her feet under her. In the next second she was moving again. Her left arm hung uselessly, but her gun hand still worked. She could see his back as he agilely vaulted a turnstile that had once been part of an admission booth. In another instant, he'd be gone. Her vision was starting to blur and she was running out of time. Her arm was soaked with blood; she could feel it streaming off her fingers onto the ground. She drew down and fired.


The second blast was even larger than the first. And this time, the shockwave catapulted her into oblivion.




Chapter Thirty-Nine

Mac tried furiously to re-establish contact, but no one was answering him. "Commander? Stark?"


Blair continued to type queries to Loverboy, but there were no further responses.


"What's happening?" she asked urgently. The three agents looked grim, and the eerie quiet that hung in the air made Blair's blood run cold. She struggled for composure and lost. "What the hell is going on?"


"All our communication lines are down," Mac said grimly. "Loverboy was probably transmitting from a wireless connection at the rendezvous site. He's there, and he knows that you're not."


Blair got to her feet, her entire body trembling. "Someone better find outright now what's happening out there, or I'm going myself."


"Ms. Powell," Lindsey Ryan said quietly, putting her hand on Blair's arm very gently, almost as if she were afraid of startling her, "we'll get word here faster than anywhere else. Give Mac a minute."


Mac switched to the speakers and attempted to boost the signals. "Stark, come in please. Do you copy? Stark, goddamn it! Do you hear me?"


A garbled, fitful transmission crackled through. At first, all Blair could make out were fragments of words but what she could hear was enough to take her legs out from under her. She reached blindly for a chair and sat heavily.