slammed both feet into his buttocks. Bent over as he was, Albert crashed headfirst into the wall opposite. The top of his skull hit first, driving his neck upward to an impossible degree and his head back so far that his neck broke.
Dead Albert dropped to his knees. Reel was already racing onward and never saw him slump to the concrete floor.
She heard a scream to her left and raced down that hall.
One man stumbled out of a doorway, a knife sticking out of his chest. He slumped to the floor, dead, his cap falling off his head on the way down.
Laura appeared in the doorway, saw Reel, and said, “They separated me from Julie. I think she’s down this way. Hurry.”
The two women raced down the hall and toward the room at the end. There was a crashing of glass, screams, and then gunshots.
Reel shouted, “That’s Julie!”
She and Laura sprinted forward.
“Julie!” screamed Reel.
The door was bolted, but she shot the lock off and burst into the room.
And stopped.
Two men lay on the floor, their bodies covered by shattered glass. Julie was flattened against one wall.
There was movement at the window.
Reel pointed her gun that way and then caught a breath.
Robie clambered through the empty window and dropped to the floor. He put his pistol back into his holster and looked at Julie.
“Are you hurt?”
She shook her head and stepped toward Robie, her feet crunching over the glass that littered the floor. Robie put his arm around her and then looked down at the men.
“I think they had orders to kill Julie in the event of an attack.”
“So you shot them through the window,” deduced Reel.
“So I shot them through the window,” confirmed Robie.
His walkie-talkie squawked and he spoke into it and then listened.
“We’re secure. No casualties on our side. Most of the assholes just gave up.”
“Well, not the one who really counted,” said Reel.
“No prison for Mr. Dikes?” said Robie.
“Not in this life,” replied Reel. “Let’s hope in his next one. For all eternity.”
Robie pulled his knife and severed the bindings on Reel’s hands. He took off his jacket and draped it around her.
Julie looked from Reel to Laura. “Is she your daughter?”
Reel rubbed her wrists and shook her head slowly. “I’d like you to meet FBI Special Agent Lesley Shepherd, Julie.”
Shepherd nodded at Julie and gave her a shy smile. “I just look really young for my age.”
Robie said, “The FBI doesn’t like people being kidnapped. They provided all the ground assets we needed.”
Julie said, “FBI? So, super agent Vance?”
“She cares about you a great deal, Julie. She’s the reason we were able to put this all-out effort together.”
Reel looked at Robie. “Any problems finding us?”
He shook his head.
“How did you track them?” asked Julie. “I heard Dikes and his men talking about the steps they’d taken to make sure you couldn’t do that.”
“Our friends at National Geospatial,” answered Robie. “They sort of run the spy satellite network.”
“The DD of the CIA spoke with her counterpart at Geospatial,” added Reel. “And they dialed up several satellites. They tracked us all the way to our rendezvous with Dikes’s men. They placed an electronic marker on us at that point. There was no way to lose us. They simply followed using multiple eyes up in the sky. The actual technology has a specific name, but it’s classified. I’m just glad it worked.”
“Very hard to lose a bunch of satellites,” said Robie. “They fed us the location on the ground. We passed by the van carrying Reel and Shepherd. We were on motorcycles and in a semi. We surrounded the place and waited for the signal.”
“Signal?” asked Julie.
“Gun fired three times in a row by Jessica,” said Robie.
“But how did you know she’d be able to get to a gun?”
Robie smiled. “That’s where the element of trust comes in.”
“I did what I needed to do,” said Reel. “And then fired the gun.”
“And that’s when we came charging in,” said Robie.
“And saved me again,” finished Julie.
Reel went over to her and knelt down. “You wouldn’t have needed saving but for me. I was the reason you were taken.”
“I told them a false story about you. That you were still in WITSEC. I wanted him to be surprised when he found out what you really could do.”
“He was surprised.”
“And I was never really afraid.”
“Why not?” asked Reel.
“I knew you’d come and save me.”
“How could you be so sure?”
Now Julie smiled. “That’s where the element of trust comes in.”