Page 10 of Thorn

It worked like a charm. Dubois shut his mouth, lowered his eyebrows, and seemed to give himself a shake.

“I need confirmation of your identity. Your name, sir?” Honey asked.

The man nodded his head convulsively.

“You’re name?” Honey asked again.

“David. Dr. David DuBois.” His words tripped and tangled on each other as they stuttered over his lips.

“I’ll take lead, you’re right behind me, sir. My partner’s got your back.” Honey pointed toward Thorn.

Thorn pushed DuBois to get him going. They’d come to the door of the bathroom when DuBois abruptly turned around. “I haven’t washed my hands,” he said.

It was always funny, Thorn thought, the weird things a brain locked onto in times of crisis.

Honey reached in his pocket and handed DuBois a small bottle of hand sanitizer. “This’ll have to do. You’ll want to get your shirt tucked in and zip up your fly. Keep moving.”

“Nutsbe here. You’ve got Billy, Colburn, and the unsub still in place, looking unsettled. Heads on a pivot. You’ve got the gray-lady, who signaled the janitor, positioned, watching from the newsstand. Gage is at the top of the passageway. Ten meters.” Nutsbe used the term “gray” not to indicate a color, but to convey that she was operational, whoever she was.

“Copy,” Honey said.

Thorn tugged Dubois slightly to the side, so he could get a shoulder in and block the smaller man from view of the three-man team. Though, this move would make him more visible to the woman.

He saw Billy make eye contact with Honey, and the look was not friendly.

“Changing directions,” Honey said. “We’re heading straight for the cars. We’ll deal with the luggage later.”

“Copy,” Gage responded. “I’m ahead of you. I’ll bring the car to the stairwell.”

DuBois had been casting his gaze about, searching for cameras, security, or help as they moved down the causeway. Thorn wrapped his hand around DuBois’s arm. He wanted to let him know that attention-seeking was a bad idea.

The stairwell was just up ahead.

As Honey pulled the door open, DuBois put his foot up on the wall and struggled away from them. Thorn grabbed both of the man’s arms, lifted, and bodily tossed him through the door frame. Honey caught him up by the collar and lowered his head to speak into DuBois’s ear. “The US government sent us to protect you. You might want to cooperate a little.”

Thorn took the lead as Honey wrangled the guy down the stairs. From above them came the distinctive pop-pop of suppressed gun fire. The blast and ricochet were loud enough here in the echoing stairwell to get security’s attention. They’d be swarming. And Thorn didn’t trust DuBois to say the right things if the Panther Force operatives were caught in a police net.

Pop-pop-pop. The bullets made little poofs of smoke where they impacted the cement walls.

Honey had an arm wrapped around DuBois, lifted him into a football tuck, and was running, Thorn at his heels, when a different gun caught them in their sights. Thorn looked up and spotted Billy bursting through the door, weapon drawn, aimed, but not shooting. He was looking around as if trying to find the other shooters. Whose damned side was he playing on?

Honey hustled between the cars. They ran bent in two. “Keep going. Keep moving.” Honey hooked a hand into the back of Dubois’s belt and used it to maneuver him.

DuBois’s feet weren’t cooperating. He was stumbling over himself.

“Nutsbe?” Thorn called.

“I’ve got nothing. The cameras in the stairwell and part of the garage are down.”

Bullets peppered around them from a different direction as Gage’s car screamed around the corner then slammed to a stop.

Honey shoved DuBois ahead of him into the back seat.

Thorn dove into the front.

Gage took off with their doors still wide, Thorn and Honey scrambling to get them closed. The passengers flew into the air as Gage powered over the speed bumps and rammed right through the wooden arm that asked them to pay in advance from the machine to the right.

Sure, at this point, they were on everyone’s camera. But hopefully security wouldn’t give a rat’s ass that they were scurrying away when armed men were shooting in the airport. Albeit with silencers to suppress the noise.

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