The Shaughnessey Accord Read Online Free PDF

"What, then? See it? How can they seek?"
    "It's not your security service I'm trying to reach." He glanced sharply from the static on the blacked-out feed to the door, his brows drawn down into a deep V. "Can you take over? Three short, three long—"
    "Three short. My degree might be in business, but I did learn your basic SOS."
    "Good girl," he said.
    She wanted to snap and growl at his use of "girl" but, quite frankly, she was too damned worried. Flat-out scared, if the truth be known, taking the cable from his hands.
    Scared and suddenly longing for one of the safe-and-so-what-if-he's-boring dates of her parents' choosing. She wanted to be anywhere but here with this obviously dangerous man who turned her on, burned her up, then betrayed her by breaking into her not-so-secure security system.
    She tapped the twisted fabric to the wire, felt a strange metallic tang in her teeth, wondered who the hell it was she was signaling. And, at the same time, sending out vibes to her mother's First Presbyterian prayer circle that she wasn't shorting out her only route of escape.
    Sweat ran between Tripp's shoulder blades and pooled at the base of his spine. He'd been in such a hurry to get to Glory that he'd left his cell on his desk charging. Meaning, having it with him wouldn't have done him a fat lot of good anyway seeing as how it was dead.
    He needed to reach the ops center, let Christian or Kelly John know something was going down. One of them ought to get hungry enough soon to realize he hadn't returned. Logic told him they'd check his monitor showing the Brighton feed, see the SOS static, and realize he had a situation here on his hands.
    He trusted his partners to get him and Glory out. He trusted the cops out front to bungle whatever it was they were doing. Nothing particular against New York City's finest. His beef was with authority figures in general, letting power go to their heads, twisting the law to suit their purpose, lifting themselves above.
    Sorta the way things had gone down in Colombia, leaving him facing the short stick of a court-martial for desertion—a way-the-hell-better scenario than sticking around to face certain death after blowing the whistle on the drug deals his superiors had been making in the name of the law.
    With Glory looking on, not looking happy about what he'd asked her to do but at least looking like she wouldn't give up, he twisted the lock on the door as quietly as he could. Next, he turned the handle, cracked the door open and braced the bulk of his body for an inward attack.
    Nothing.
    His knife at the ready, he moved his head far enough to peer with one eye through the sliver of an opening, seeing nothing but the brown-and-yellow textured wallpaper and the edge of one of the shop's signature black-framed prints.
    A centimeter wider, and this time the glimpse of black he caught belonged to what looked like the sleeve of a jacket. He shifted to his other eye, got nothing but the same perspective, and so cracked the door open further.
    This time it was enough. He heard snuffling and whimpering and then an indistinctive voice—no accent, no inflection— calmly say, "Our friends outside are not going to deter me, Professor. I plan to be gone before they begin their textbook driven negotiation process to secure the safe release of our hostages."
    Hostages! Shit!
    "I would be more than happy to oblige"—this from a second, distinctly cultured voice—"if I had an inkling as to what you were talking about."
    Tripp couldn't identify the players. The voices were unfamiliar. He had no clue as to what was happening. He only knew that he had to stop whatever it was.
    The black sleeve shifted enough for him to see a slice of a head in a black ski mask. Again, no way to identify who or what he was up against without getting closer. He pushed the door closed without a sound, backed his way across the room to where Glory stood.
    She stared at him, eyes wide and liquid though she hadn't shed a tear.