AMIRA by Matthew Betley (feel good books to read .TXT) 📕

Amira nodded.  “Who’s that?”

“That?” John said, smiling, “that’s Chris Hauty, and he’s the head of security for the Gaylord.  You owe him dinner, babe, as he’s the one who helped us locate you.”

“In that case,” Amira said, smiling, her pale blue eyes flashing, “it’s nice to meet you.  Now, can someone please get me a gun?  We’ve got work to do.”

Chapter 19

As the glass elevator descended, Amira studied the lower atrium and fountain nineteen stories below.  The impressive cavernous space left most first-time visitors awestruck at the scale of the hotel and the atrium.  The elevator in which they rode was on the south wing of the hotel, which was a typical u-shaped building with two tiers on each wing.  The first part that extended out from each side of the main building had nineteen-floors, but then two lower additions – like arms reaching out towards the Potomac River – had seven floors each.  With two thousand guest rooms, the architects had applied their creative genius and enclosed the first nineteen-floor space with a glass wall that rose up from the roof of the lower sections at the end of each wing and connected to a curved glass roof.  Similarly, at the end of the lower sections, another glass wall covered by a second curved glass roof stood as the final barrier to the outside.  The construction created an enormous glass and girder bubble, and it drew visitors who ate, shopped, and gawked at the architectural feat.

Hundreds of people moved over the walkways, in between shops, under the indoor trees, and around the fountain, soaking in the atmosphere and the holiday decorations the Gaylord had already put up.  So many people.  What a nightmare.  There’s no way to spot anyone in this crowd.

“You reach Tooney?” Amira asked Logan.  Logan, John, and Amira held their suppressed pistols beneath open jackets.

“Negative, but I reached Jake, and he’s reaching out to Langley to see if they can contact the director’s personal security detail.  And Chris here has already radioed the hotel security manning the entrance to the Riverview Ballroom, which is where the summit is.  Tooney should be in there somewhere, getting ready to talk.  His detail should be able to handle any threat.”

“You don’t get it – there’s someone in there who looks like me who’s going to use my identity to get close to him, and no matter how good they are, they won’t stop her.  We all know that.  Also, Emerson said that his contacts were in the hotel’s security.  You may have just let the bad guys know we’re on the way.  Let’s just pray we get there in time.”  Amira had reclaimed her iPhone from the hotel room – where her abductors had removed her SIM card and turned off her phone – and she checked the time.  “We have four minutes.”  She placed it back in the black Oakley daypack they’d taken, as well.  Some women liked Michael Kors chic; Amira preferred Oakley tactical.

The glass elevator continued to descend, steel girders passing by with each floor.

“How did you find me?  And make it quick.”

“Yes, ma’am,” John said.  “When you didn’t respond to my texts after lunch, I checked your last location on the Find My app.  It showed the garage, and then it disappeared.  Considering our line of work, I knew something was wrong.  I called Logan, and since Cole is on leave visiting his parents in North Carolina,” he said, referring to the former chief of the CIA’s Special Activities Division, one-time Delta operator, and fellow core member of Task Force Ares, “the two of us showed up at the National Harbor’s private security company’s command center.  Turns out having FBI badges helps.  Security camera footage showed you enter the garage, walk, and disappear into a blind spot. Fifteen seconds later, two men did the same thing.  It was the last time you were seen on camera, and they have most of the place covered.  The only thing that left within minutes was a white panel van, which cameras tracked to the service entrance to the hotel.  We hustled over here, linked up with Chris, and used the hotel’s cameras to identify the van in the back.  Two men rolled out a laundry cart – with unfolded laundry in it; not what you’d be taking into a hotel – and passed it off to a member of the housekeeping staff.  We looked at footage of every floor from the service elevators and finally spotted her moving the cart on the nineteenth.  When she got to that suite, she entered and left within a minute, and the cart was noticeable lighter.  Once we identified the room – which took serious time, looking at all of that footage – we started watching the live stream of that hallway’s camera to see who went in and out.  We still weren’t sure, until we saw a white male with a gun in a concealed holster as he adjusted his jacket.  At that point, Logan climbed up from the room below – which I’m sure was a sight, if anyone was paying attention – and I kicked the door in.  Honestly, we weren’t sure you were here, but Chris gave me a key card and the green light.  Sorry if we cut it close, hon.”

“But how did you know there was only one person in there?”

“With this,” John said, and pulled out a device from his own backpack.  It looked like a dark-green oversized satellite phone, but it had a handle sticking out at an angle from the back and a digital display above the handle.  “Borrowed this awhile back from our HRT friends.  While it doesn’t show pictures of what’s inside a room through walls – that non-sense is for Hollywood – it does detect the number of people and approximately how far from the wall