The Cornwalls Are Gone (Amy Cornwall #1) - James Patterson Page 0,72
line.
They’ve been moved around, like they’re hiding something.
She lifts up her SIG Sauer. “Captain Cornwall? Are you there? Please come out, with your hands showing.”
No answer.
She hears a murmur of the librarian talking to someone way behind her.
“Captain Cornwall?”
She slowly moves forward, hugging the wall, knowing Cornwall has taken down a Tennessee state trooper and has probably killed two Mexican drug cartel members, and she’s not taking any chances by leaving herself exposed.
Then…
Rosaria grabs the end of one book cart, quickly pulls it out, steps into the alcove.
Empty.
Nothing here but books.
Damn!
She steps out of the alcove and starts back to the stacks when something heavy slams into her and drives her into the floor.
CHAPTER 73
LUCKILY THE bookcases here are securely bolted to the concrete floor, so they don’t move as I climb up on top of them, and they even stay in place with my weight when the armed woman calling out my name passes underneath me.
I roll over and hit her right on the shoulders, and she drops with a surprised “Oof!” I grab a shoulder, roll her over, and shove the muzzle end of my .357 Ruger up against her chin.
Her eyes widen and she stares up at me as I shift position and kneel on her chest, locate her pistol, and shove it into my coat. A quick frisk and I come away with her handcuffs.
I shove the muzzle in another quarter inch and whisper, “Hands above your head, right now.”
The woman does as she’s told. I’m both grateful and surprised. I was expecting some resistance, but the day still isn’t over.
I snap the handcuffs securely on her wrists, stand up, and haul her up as well. My revolver is now pressed against her sternum, and I whisper again, “We’re going to have a sixty-second talk. If you murmur, yell, struggle, I’ll kill you. All right? I will pull this trigger and the center of your chest will be turned into a bloody mess.”
I push her into the alcove, shove her to her butt, and kneel back into her, my revolver back under her chin.
“Talk,” I say. “Don’t waste my time.”
Rosaria is both shocked and stunned that this woman—a bookworm intelligence officer!—has managed to surprise, overwhelm, disarm, and secure her in just a matter of seconds. And then a cold clarity comes to her: this bookworm also successfully passed Ranger training. Her initial thought was stupid. The metal of the revolver muzzle is harsh and cold under her chin, and Captain Amy Cornwall bears little resemblance to her official photo, sitting in front of an American flag in full-dress uniform, smiling confidently into the camera’s lens.
Cornwall’s hair is disheveled, her eyes are swollen and red-rimmed, and she smells of little sleep, bad food, and long hours on the road.
“Talk,” she orders.
Rosaria keeps quiet. Maybe somebody out there heard something. Maybe a library worker or even an off-duty cop might walk by.
The muzzle is shoved harder. “Talk. You know my name, I don’t know yours. Doesn’t seem fair, does it?”
The steel barrel is twisted into her skin. “Who are you? Army? FBI?”
Rosaria doesn’t like the woman’s look or her tone of voice. “Warrant Officer Vasquez. CID special agent. Out of Quantico.”
That gets Cornwall’s attention. Her eyes sharpen and she says, “Why are you after me?”
Rosaria says, “You’re absent without leave, Captain.”
Cornwall has a sharp, bitter laugh. “AWOL? For real? I’ve been gone from base less than three days and I got a CID officer from Virginia tracking me in Texas? That’s crap. Why are you after me?”
Rosaria’s not sure what she can say, so she tries the truth. “Orders.”
“From whom?”
“My boss,” she says. “Who else?”
“And what has he told you?”
Rosaria doesn’t want to say any more, but Cornwall checks her watch. “About thirty seconds left. Make your time count.”
And then, in this small alcove in an out-of-the-way library in the middle of Texas, so far away from home and the Army, Rosaria makes a decision.
“My boss has hardly told me anything,” she says. “Besides what I’ve learned, they’ve been tracking your movements.”
“Of course they have,” she says. “Hell, I made an ATM withdrawal yesterday, stayed logged on my private email account here, practically sent up a goddamn flare.”
Rosaria thinks that through. “You…you did that, knowing you’d be tracked.”
“That’s right,” she says. “I got a crew following me already. I wanted to know who else is dogging me, and now I know. Civilians and military. I’m surprised you guys haven’t bumped into each other yet. Now, you said you’ve