It wasn’t the time, Macey told herself. It wasn’t the place. She’d have her chance later, but right then all Macey wanted to do was run into her father’s arms. She tried to push past Bush, clawed against his arms and his sides, but he held her in place, not moving.
“Please,” she said. “Please. I won’t try to sneak out again. I promise.”
“No,” Clinton snapped, and pulled Macey away. “You think we’re gonna trust you?” His drawl was obviously fake and sickly sweet. He didn’t sound like a former president. He sounded like a psychopath.
“You think we’re gonna let you go back to your daddy after what you did?” The man fingered the side of his neck—a place that was still bleeding from an earlier blow.
“Please,” Macey said, but Clinton just grabbed her arm.
“Come here.”
“No!” the senator shouted.
“Bill,” Bush said, “Reagan needs you in the other room.”
“She’s coming with me,” Clinton yelled over his shoulder.
He marched Macey to the farthest, darkest corner of the room, where he made a great show of tying her to a chair, and the man in the Bush mask went back to walking slowly among the hostages and holding his weapon.
If he had felt the hand that reached into the messenger bag he kept strapped across his chest, he didn’t show it.
If he thought it strange that Clinton had made such a scene of securing his hostage himself, he didn’t question it.
And when Macey whispered, “Okay, Kat. You’re on,” the fake President Bush didn’t appear to hear a thing.
In fact, in the darkness, none of the hostages seemed to notice when the air vent at the back of the ballroom slid slowly up. In fact, not a soul appeared to see the small girl who dangled out of the opening, her black hair and clothes disappearing in the shadows of the room.
“We missed our flight for Rome,” the upside-down girl said.
The Clinton mask eased up and the boy behind it gave her a smile. “I own the jet, remember? It’ll wait.”
“Hi,” Kat said, shifting just a little to the girl at her boyfriend’s side.
“Macey”—Hale gave a very Hale-ish grin—“may I introduce Kat Bishop?”
“It’s nice to meet you,” Macey said.
The upside-down girl grinned and took a small package from Macey’s hand. A moment later she was gone, into the air vent and scurrying away, perfectly at home in the black.
Macey shook her head. “Someday I’ve got to introduce her to Cammie.”
NO ONE EVER KNEW WHO PULLED THE FIRE ALARM. No one ever really knew why. The men in the masks assumed it was either a glitch in the Athenia’s system or the authorities trying to distract them, gain the upper hand. The authorities assumed the gunmen had tripped some kind of alarm, made a little mistake. But no matter who had caused it, the effects were still the same.
In the ballroom, the hostages huddled together a little tighter, grew a little more anxious. In the Calloway apartment, the men dropped the Jaws of Life and ran back to the ballroom to check with their superiors.
“Shut that off!” Reagan yelled to the others. But the men looked at each other, dumbfounded, until, just like magic, the piercing sirens stopped, leaving the hotel in a silence that was now entirely too loud.
“What did you do?” Reagan asked.
“Nothing,” Bush said.
Reagan looked around the dimly lit ballroom. The hostages sat huddled on the floor, tuxedo jackets resting around the shoulders of a few of the women. The professional bodyguards were zip-tied to pillars, and everyone was away from the windows.
It looked like everything and everyone were exactly where they were supposed to be. But something in Reagan’s posture was too rigid, like a man for whom time—or maybe just patience—was running out.
He shifted, scanning the ballroom until he was looking directly at the old woman with the white hair. To her credit, Mrs. Calloway didn’t even blink when the man pointed a finger in her direction and said, “Get her.”
“Let me try the drill again,” Obama said.
“We don’t have time. Now get her!” Reagan shouted loud enough for all the room to hear. And then Bush walked across the ballroom floor and pointed to the little old lady who owned the big yellow diamond.
“Mrs. Calloway,” Bush said. “Come with me.”
“No!” Mrs. Calloway’s son shouted. He jumped to his feet and stood between the white-haired woman and the men. “Where are you taking my mother? You can’t—”
But before he could finish, Reagan struck him across the face with the butt of his weapon. “We’re not taking orders from you,” Reagan snapped, and the son fell silent. No one said a word as the old woman was pulled from the ballroom.