Protecting Cheyenne (SEAL of Protection Book 5) (3 page)

Cheyenne turned to the two women; they all just looked at each other. Predictably, the cashiers started to cry. Cheyenne wasn’t very far from crying herself, although she willed the tears away. If she was going to die, she wasn’t going to do it sniveling.

Whispering, Cheyenne turned to the two women. “It sucks, but he’s right, whoever takes this outside will be free.”

“But, it’s a bomb,” the blonde woman croaked, not able to tear her horrified eyes away from the box sitting in front of them.

“What if it’s not?” the other woman said. “I mean, what if they just want us to
think
it’s a bomb to scare us, but it’s really only a piece of paper in there?” Cheyenne thought about it. The girl was right, he could be trying to scare them and it wasn’t anything.

“Are you crazy enough to take a chance on that?” the blonde whispered.

The other cashier’s shoulders slumped. “Hell no.”

“Well, I know I don’t want to risk it. These guys are crazy. I’m not sure I’d trust them to know how to build a bomb, nonetheless build it sturdy enough to withstand being carried through the store.”

Unfortunately, Cheyenne agreed with her.

As if realizing she was there for the first time, the cashiers turned toward her. “What about you?”

“Uh…” Cheyenne couldn’t think of anything to say, but the blonde didn’t give her a chance anyway.

“I don’t see you wearing a ring, so you aren’t married. Do you have kids?”

Cheyenne shook her head honestly, knowing where this was going.

“Then you have to do it. We have families, people who depend on us.”

When Cheyenne just stared at them, the dark haired woman joined in with the pleading, but at least she was nice about it. “Please,” she begged.

Finally after another moment, knowing it was probably the best decision, Cheyenne decided to just go with it. If all it took to be free from this nightmare was a moment of danger to walk that damn box out the door, it’d be worth it. “I’ll do it,” Cheyenne croaked to the other women. “I know you both have families. Hopefully it won’t come to anything; we’ll just have to believe that.” The women nodded and didn’t say anything.

The gunman stalked back over to the frightened women and demanded, “So? Who’s taking my message outside?”

Cheyenne stuck her chin up and said simply, “Me.” She really didn’t like the wicked smirk that came over the man’s face as he turned to her.

“Then get up, bitch, I gotta prepare my gift for the cops.”

Cheyenne slowly stood up, regretting with every fiber of her being what she was about to do. She knew this wasn’t going to end up well for her. She just knew it.

* * *

Dude paced outside the grocery store. He hated waiting. So far no one knew much about what was going on inside the building. The SPs that were in the store when the robbery had started had done a great job in getting almost everyone out, but they said there were still some civilians inside. He wasn’t sure how many, and the gunmen weren’t really talking except to say if they weren’t allowed to leave, then they would set off a bomb and blow everyone up. That was where he came in. Everyone knew he was the best, all he needed was a chance to diffuse the bomb, but no one knew if they would have that chance.

Dude heard one of the police officers say, “Look!”

He turned and watched through the plate glass window as two women walked across the front of the store toward the front door. They were holding each other and walking quickly. There was no sign of any of the gunmen. Had they sneaked out? Was that even possible? He watched as the women exited the store and crept toward the line of police cars.

“Stop right there,” one of the police said through his bullhorn. “Turn around, put your hands on your head and get down on your knees.” The women did as he asked. Four police officers cautiously peeled away from the line of cars they’d been standing behind as cover, and approached the women with their guns drawn. They grasped them by their hands, which were behind their heads, had them stand, and practically dragged them back behind the police cars.

Dude listened in as the cops quickly interrogated the women on the spot, trying to get more intel as to what the hell was going on.

“How many gunmen are there?”

“Five.”

“What kind of firepower do they have?”

At the blank look from the women, Dude rolled his eyes as the officer explained that he wanted to know what kind of guns the bad guys had.

“Oh, they each had a little gun, but the leader guy had like, two of them, and a long gun too,” the blonde explained, wringing her hands dramatically.

“Did they let you go? How’d you get out of here?”

This time it was the dark haired woman that answered. “They wanted one of us to take a message out here to you guys, but then the big guy said the message was a bomb. The other lady said she’d do it and the guy took her in the back. They left us alone, and we decided to get the hell out of there, we didn’t want to get blown up. We ran toward the front of the store and by the time they noticed us, we were too close to the door, so they had let us go. But they’re pissed, that’s for sure.”

“So there’s only one other hostage inside?”

At the nods from both women, the officer asked again, “You’re sure?”

“Yeah, positive,” the blonde said frantically nodding. “Yeah, you heard her say the message they wanted us to take out here to you was a bomb? Neither of us wanted to take it, and we have family, there was no way we could’ve done it. The other lady volunteered.”

Dude clenched his teeth. Volunteered his ass. More likely the two young women flatly refused to do it and the other woman was left, literally, holding the bag.

Dude was getting itchy. He wanted nothing more than to get his hands on that bomb…if there was one. At this point he truly didn’t know if anything the gunmen, or the hysterical women, said could be believed. There were no doubts that everyone in the area was in danger, however. The gunmen were unstable, armed, and getting more and more desperate. They wanted out of the store and Dude knew they’d do anything to get what they wanted. He wondered what their next move would be.

They didn’t have long to wait.

* * *

Cheyenne swallowed hard. She was boring Cheyenne Cotton…the woman that nothing exciting ever happened to, how had she ended up with a fucking bomb duct taped to her body? She thought they were going to make her
carry
the bomb outside…to show the cops they were serious, but the gunman had different plans. He’d made her hold the bomb against her stomach then started taping it to her. Going round and round and round her with the tape, until she couldn’t move.
Then
he flicked a switch near the bottom of the device and taped her up some more. He’d activated the bomb and taped the whole thing so much Cheyenne couldn’t see any of it through it all. But she could feel it ticking against her chest. She was going to die. Damn it all to hell.

* * *

Dude watched as five men inside the store walked toward the front door. He wished like hell his team was there. He hadn’t had time to call Wolf once everything started happening, and now all the police with their guns drawn were making him really nervous. Dude had no idea where the supposed bomb was in this cluster fuck, just that his hands were itching.

All of the police had their weapons pointed at the men as they walked to the front of the store and could be seen on the other side of the big plate glass windows. There was no way they were getting out of this. The men were walking in a triangle/rectangle formation with a woman at the point, shielding them. They were pushing her ahead of them as they walked. When they got to the front door it was opened a crack.

One of the men yelled out, “You let us walk out of here and we’ll let her go, you don’t, she’ll die, along with all of you, courtesy of the bomb she’s currently fucking wearing!”

Dude turned his attention to the woman. He hadn’t really been focused on her as the men came into sight, he’d been concentrating on escape routes and trying to ascertain what type of fire power the men had. Looking now, Dude couldn’t see anything on the woman other than miles of silver tape. It looked like they had used multiple rolls to mummify her in the heavy tape. Dude honestly couldn’t tell if there was a bomb under all that tape or not, the gunmen could be bluffing. But Dude knew they couldn’t treat the situation as anything
but
a bomb threat, for their own safety and that of the woman who was as white as a ghost and being held tightly by what would have been her upper arm if it hadn’t been encased in tape. If the look on her face was anything to go by, there most likely was a bomb under all the silver tape holding her still. She looked freaked and terrified out of her mind. She obviously knew, as did the officers all around him, that the odds of her getting out of whatever fucked up situation this was without getting hurt…or killed…were extremely low.

As soon as the man who’d yelled the threat shut the front door, all hell broke loose. Apparently the snipers had gotten the approval to take the gunmen out. There were five men inside the store, but there were also more than enough snipers to go around. Not only were they near a Navy base where SEAL snipers were plentiful, the local SWAT team had their own cadre of the deadly officers as well.

The standoff had been going on for well over four hours Dude knew everyone wanted it to end. Glass went flying in all directions. He
knew
the snipers were good at their jobs, but he hoped like hell they hadn’t missed and hurt the woman. The situation was chaotic and shooting through glass always held a modicum of danger. The woman was an innocent bystander, a terrified bystander. Dude had only gotten one quick look at her, but he’d been impressed at how she’d been holding herself together.

She was scared, yes, but she hadn’t screamed, hadn’t tried to wrestle herself out of the arms of the gunmen, and amazingly hadn’t been crying. If nothing else, Dude hoped the sniper’s bullets hadn’t hit her to reward her for her stoic behavior in the face of extreme danger.

* * *

Cheyenne flinched as the glass in front of her shattered. She immediately ducked as low as she could go, which wasn’t too far since she was bundled up in the tape. As she crouched on the floor, she was more than aware of the ticking of the bomb against her stomach. More glass shattered around her and Cheyenne felt a spray of wetness against her face and back. One of the gunmen sagged against her and she lost her balance, falling toward the front door of the store. Cheyenne couldn’t throw out a hand to stop her forward momentum and ended up wedged against the glass that hadn’t been shattered by the gunfire by the weight of at least one of the men who’d been terrorizing her for the last few hours.

Cheyenne quickly glanced around, taking in the broken glass, the blood on the floor, and the bodies of the five men around her. Damn, she was amazed she was still alive. Every one of the five men who’d held her hostage was lying dead on the ground. She’d always been impressed with the skills of snipers, but she was even more so now seeing their prowess up close and personal.

She took a deep breath; and knew she was losing her mind when she was thankful she could still feel the ticking of the bomb against her body. Falling hadn’t set it off, thank God, but it was still active and ticking away. She had no idea how much time she had before it exploded, but Cheyenne figured she was going to die. She didn’t see any way to get the damn thing off of herself without it blowing up, but she didn’t want any innocent people to die with her.

Cheyenne managed to use the shaky glass in front of her to brace with her shoulder and push herself upright. She scooted away from the body of the man leaning against her back, the man she’d thought of as the leader of the gang. His eyes were open and staring sightlessly toward the ceiling. He looked almost as scary dead, as he was alive…just without the maniacal smile he’d shown her as he’d taped her up. She stepped to the left, around the bodies of the other men littering the tile at the front of the store…stepping around the broken glass and rapidly spreading blood pools, and walked backwards toward the aisles in the store. Cheyenne kept an eye on the front parking lot, willing all the cops and rescue personnel to stay away as she made her way away from all the commotion in the parking lot, away from the people so she didn’t kill them as the bomb blew up.

* * *

As soon as the dust settled, Dude was running toward the store along with about ten of the other officers who’d been waiting and watching the front of the grocery store. He didn’t have a gun, but he wasn’t concerned, he was there for the bomb, the other officers would take care of peripheral safety. Time was of the essence. It always was when bombs were involved.

Dude heard the officers shouting to someone, “Stop, don’t move,” as they moved forward. He saw the bodies of the gunmen on the ground by the door, but didn’t see the woman who’d been trussed up like a mummy. When Dude got further into the store and looked down one of the long aisles, he saw her, still bound up in all that tape, backing away from the officers as they moved toward her.

They were all yelling at her to stop, to surrender. She was shaking her head and saying “No, no, don’t come near me, you don’t understand.”