Nickel City Storm Warning (Gideon Rimes Book 3) by Gary Ross (i can read books TXT) 📕

when we can, and try to make it from day to day without inflicting our worst upon the world.”

The younger woman returned from the restroom, opening the door wide enough for me to glimpse the DPS blazers at the metal detectors out in the corridor. As the door closed, I thought of the loose end that had bothered me.

“Raf, did the DPS guy ever get back with the AED unit?”

“What?”

“The defib—”

“I know what it is, G. I needed a second to think. I didn’t see anybody with an AED. That ambulance was pretty quick.” There was a lot of static as Rafael turned to his handy-talkie and said something. Then the static stopped. “No, the guy never got back.”

“Heads up, everybody,” I said. “Our target may be in a DPS blazer.”

“We do thorough background checks on our people,” Matt said, his irritation plain.

“I checked everybody with DPS,” Cissy added. “They’re clean.”

“I didn’t say he was your guy, Matt. I said he might be in one of your blazers.”

“In short, as Americans we are flawed but always seeking our better selves. All in all we are pretty good, better than the worst of the rotten apples among us. Let this conference be the starting point for a restoration of the true American Way. Let the discussions we’ve had the past few days lead to a blending of ideas, to compromises that give everyone a place at the table and everyone a stake in personal responsibility. That’s where evolution is taking us, if we let it. Toward the hopeful, peaceful democracy we all deserve. Yes, America was born in blood, but it’s our responsibility to make sure it doesn’t die that way. Thank you.”

The standing ovation was thunderous as Drea stepped back and James hopped up on the stage. He embraced Drea with his free arm and kissed her cheek. Releasing her, he put the package in his left hand atop her papers on the lectern. Then he adjusted the microphone for his height and tried to say something. His words were lost amid the applause, so he waited and pulled Drea to his side.

That’s when I saw the drone descending from above.

36

“Max!” The applause drowned out my shout as I pushed through the crowd toward the stage.

“I see it, G! I see it!”

The UAV was small but I was still too far away to guess its size or determine whether it was black or dark blue. A few fingers shot up and pointed to it as Pete threw Drea to the stage and covered her body with his own. The drone dropped in front of James’s face and hovered there for a second before it wobbled and then rose straight up.

“Got it.” There was no excitement in Travis’s voice, only uncertainty.

Twenty feet above the stage the drone stopped, zipped sideways toward a wall, and dropped out of sight behind the tables along that wall. Before I could determine where it had touched down, there was an explosion from the floor that blew over tables and turned applause into screams. Caught in the sudden stampede toward the doors, I grabbed the back of a chair to keep from being knocked over. My earbud throbbed with unintelligible voices.

“Quiet!” I screamed as people pushed past me. “Pete! Ramos! Safe room, now!”

“Copy that!” Pete replied as Ramos, on his knees, looked toward me from the stage. I saw James Torrance sitting beside the overturned lectern as if he had stumbled into it and gone down with it.

Ramos helped Pete to his feet and they both got Drea up. As people bottlenecked at the doors across the hall from the stage, Pete led Drea and Ramos to the curtains at the back of the stage and slipped behind them. Meanwhile, voices flooded back into my ears: “What the fuck!” “Was that a bomb?” “Anybody hurt?” Yvonne. Cissy. Matt or Mark, I couldn’t tell. “People are hurt down there,” Travis said. “They need medical now, Raf.” A moment later Pete crackled through. “Room enough in here for two. I’m locking Ramos and Drea inside. Manuel, don’t open this door for anybody but me or Gideon.”

“Yes, sir.”

“Heading your way, G,” Pete said.

Against the wall perpendicular to the stage, several tables and chairs were on their sides. I saw bodies on the floor, some not moving, others writhing in pain, and a few trying to crawl away through broken china and spatters of uneaten food. I shouldered my way toward them.

“Raf, can you hear me!”

“EMTs on the way,” he said.

“Lock down the hotel! The guy who did this has gotta be inside!”

The drone had come down behind a cluster of tables and left a blast radius of about fifteen feet. Several tables were on their sides, whether from the blast or from the scramble of diners I could not tell. I heard crying and whimpering. More than a dozen people were on the floor, covered with food and bleeding. Among them were Bobby, Kayla, and Sam, whom I went to first. All were stunned and blinking and had small lacerations on their hands and arms. Bobby was on his back, a small cut on his cheek and his glasses nowhere to be seen. Kayla was on her side, blood trickling from one nostril, her glasses askew, and her blouse stained with the strawberry jam she always put on her toast. Glasses gone, left eye and cheek covered with blood, Sam was on his back, staring at the ceiling with the other eye. They had been close enough to the explosion that I imagined their ears must still be ringing.

I knelt beside my godfather and squeezed his hand, relieved he squeezed back. “Help’s on the way,” I said. “Can you hear me?”

Bobby squeezed my hand again. Kayla nodded. Sam turned his eye to me. “Drea?”

“Safe,” I said. “Stay put while I check on other people.”

“And miss the shuttle to the casino?” Bobby said weakly.

I smiled and said, “I love you, Bobby,” before moving to the next table.

Pete joined me