Plan B came in the form of Deja Noble herself. It took some time and sounded like it came at a horrible price, but Deja and her men were slowly but surely pushing the fifth floor back up the stairs. Gibson hoped that price didn’t include Swonger. The changing tide of the battle drew the guard away from his post on the third-floor landing. The guard took two steps down from the landing to get a better view, which created a blind spot. Gibson took the opportunity to fly up the stairs, hugging the banister for cover. Deja to the rescue again. Good thing, since all of Gibson’s scenarios ended with him dying in a hail of bullets.
He expected to encounter more resistance but reached the fifth-floor landing without anyone rising up to bar his way. The long hallway looked likewise unguarded. How many men must Emerson have lost at the airfield? At the door of the presidential suite, Gibson saw fresh blood on the carpet beside a pair of high heels. Something glinted at him from behind one of the shoes. He picked up an expensive-looking gold watch; the inscription on the back read, “Merrick Capital 1996–2006.” What had happened here? He pocketed the watch and listened at the door. Not a sound. No movement. Nothing. Keenly aware of being unarmed, he slipped inside and inched through the entryway until he saw the living room. It locked his knees and took away even the idea of breath.
The presidential suite was a slaughterhouse. He counted four dead. Blood everywhere. Flecks of blood on the ceiling some twelve feet above, stretched away in a perfectly straight line. He marveled that amid the chaos something so orderly had been made. Beautiful in its way. A strange thing to think about, but it had been a long day into night since Martin Yardas had shot himself. Gibson’s exhausted mind had absorbed all the atrocity that it could and had no room for the dead woman in her wheelchair. Or the dead guard riddled with bullets. Or the pair of hooded bodies slumped against the ropes that bound them to chairs—murdered in cold blood. But the truth was, he didn’t have time for his mind to play the wandering philosopher. This was a blood game that could afford no witnesses. If anyone discovered him here, he would join the dead.
In the next room, he found another body amid an array of torture implements. He’d been shot in the back and died with his gun holstered without getting off a single shot. Other than the dead, the suite was empty—whoever had done this was long gone. An example he should consider following.
He went back to the sitting room and realized one of the seated, hooded bodies was a woman. Everyone else had been shot, but a bloody knife at her feet testified to the horror of the last moments of her life. No, no, no, Gibson whispered to himself. This was his fault. Gently, delicately, he drew back the hood. Veronica Merrick looked so much like her daughter that it took Gibson a moment to register. Her lifeless eyes stared past him at the ceiling, mouth locked in either a snarl or a prayer. Gibson dropped the hood and sank to his knees, guilty for feeling nothing for the dead woman except relief at her not being Lea.
Had Lea even been here? Had Charles Merrick? The two empty chairs suggested that they had. Had they escaped together? The body in the next chair shifted, groaned. Gibson didn’t even flinch, his central nervous system way past the point of cheap jump scares. He asked the body its name; the body answered with another groan. Not helpful, body. Gibson yanked off the hood. Someone had given this man one hell of a beating. A wide cut in his forehead accounted for all the blood that had soaked through the hood. The man’s eyes fluttered open, irises dilated and unfixed. But his first words were articulate enough.
“Where is Charles Merrick?”
“Not here.”
The man’s eyes gradually focused. “Who the hell are you?”
“I’m not tied to a chair, nice to meet you. My turn . . . where’s Chelsea Merrick?”
“She’s gone.”
“Is she alive?”
“I am tied to a chair, so I would guess I have no damn idea.”
“Then what good are you?” Gibson started to wrestle the hood back over the man’s head.
“I’m with the government, and I need you to untie me. Now.”
The man had the kind of voice that ordinarily would make people jump to it, but ordinarily he wouldn’t have been tied to a chair. Still, it made Gibson hesitate.
“What part of the government?”
“You really want to have this conversation now? You do understand what happens if Lucinda King Soto’s son comes back and finds his mother like that?” The man gestured with his chin toward the woman in the wheelchair.
So that was the woman at the center of the fifth floor. Emerson’s mother. Gibson had a pretty good idea how Emerson Soto Flores would react. He cut him loose using the same knife that had killed Veronica Merrick. The man stood gingerly and thanked Gibson. A little premature, in Gibson’s opinion, because the gunfire downstairs had stopped. Someone had won and someone had lost. They’d be coming now, and it didn’t matter who: Emerson or Deja, neither would be happy to see him. The front stairs were no longer an option. With the elevator out, the only other alternative he knew was the fire escape at the back of the building. It went only as high as the third floor, but a two-story drop beat a five-story fall any day of the week.
“Give me the gun,” the man said.
“You really want to have that conversation now?”
“I have training.”
“I was a Marine, and you look like ground round.”
The man gave him a hard look and ceded the point. “After you, then.”
Gun drawn, Gibson led him down the hallway. Midway, Deja came around the far corner with one of her men. Her eyes widened at the sight of him, and they all came to a halt. An awkward bump-into-your-ex-at-a-wedding moment passed. No one seemed to know where to start, so Gibson put his gun on her. He wasn’t much in the mood for Deja’s “give me your gun” routine.
“Gibson Vaughn. Didn’t expect to see you here.”
“Deja.”
“See you finally got yourself a gun.”
“It was good advice.”
“That’s funny. You’re funny.”
“I’ve got no issue with you yet, so gun down, Deja. Your man too.”
“My brother dead?”
“No, but if you see a drugstore on the way back to Virginia, stop for some aspirin.”
“You put him down yourself?”
“That’s right.” He saw no need to bring Margo or Old Charlie into this.
“That boy’s going soft.”
The questions were a stall. She hadn’t put her gun down and instead had taken a half step forward and to her left, blocking his view of her man. Gibson took a step to his left, matching her. Deja showed him her teeth and stepped back to her right.