“Papers can be forged.” He gripped her arm and began hauling her out of her chair. “This ceremony is officially over—”
A gunshot ricocheted off the stone alter, just missing the crèche.
“Run!” Hank shouted.
As he ran with Ginger, he searched the crowd to check on their children. Alicia and her husband scrambled to safety with the baby, while Darcy’s husband covered his pregnant wife.
Ginger’s boys and Hank Junior were all currently being restrained—looking none too happy about it as they struggled to get to Ginger, but Hank couldn’t think of that now.
His earpiece blared with a multitude of voices blasting conflicting instructions and reports. Ginger sprinted along with him to the side as people scattered. The crowd shrieked and dashed in mayhem, clearing the chairs and stage. Damn it. He could only guess where to turn for safety.
The stone altar. He could tuck her into the nook in the back and they would be protected on at least three sides.
Four more pops of gunshots launched another round of shouts. Followed by a bullhorn—and a loudspeaker. “Everyone halt. We have the gunman.”
The words repeated in German, again in French and in Russian, until slowly the frantic mass of humanity calmed. A secret service agent inched toward Hank and Ginger. People rose from their crouched positions by chairs and columns. The echo of a mishandled instrument—some kind of string instrument—twanged. A baby whimpered.
Still, Hank kept Ginger tucked behind the stone altar as one of the Christmas trees crashed to the ground. He wasn’t risking anything until his gut said to.
The voices in his earpiece slowly quieted to only two or three speaking at once. In the mishmash he did hear the distressing news of a sniper down.
His body curved around Ginger’s. Their breaths mingled in the small enclosure. He could feel her heart pounding against his chest, until slowly, his synched-up with hers and he had this sappy romantic image of the two becoming one right here at the altar.
What was the deal with that? An old salty warrior like him thinking something so sentimental? But he couldn’t deny what he felt in his gut as much as his heart.
He loved this woman. It didn’t take anything away from Jessica, or anything away from Ginger. He was just a freaking lucky man to have such an incredible love twice in a lifetime.
No way did he intend to let her go.
From his hidden position, he forced himself to listen to the settling situation outside. Yes, there was a sniper down. From what he could tell, the other didn’t have a clear shot behind the altar if things went bad again, if there was more than one gunman.
Hank used his peripheral vision and found a secret service agent tackling a man with a weapon. Shouts sounded from the pile. Slowly the words became intelligible.
“I’m not taking the fall for this. It’s him. It’s all his doing.” The gunman pointed at Igor Mashchenko, the vice-chancellor of Kasov who’d been hitting on Ginger earlier. “He hired me to shoot the crèche and destroy it,” he continued to babble, thrashing away. “My people have been trying to take it since she landed on European soil, damn it.”
Mashchenko stood between the gunman and Hank, the vice-chancellor only ten feet away. “He is talking crazy nonsense.”
“I am not an idiot,” the young gunman said, his racing voice beginning to slow, a cunning edge cutting the night air. “I videotaped all of our communications—and our monetary transactions.”
Hank didn’t like how close Mashchenko stood to Ginger and began scouting for an alternative place to take cover just as—
An ominous click, click sounded.
Mashchenko had trained his weapon on them. “Maybe one of your security men can shoot me, if they are good enough, but I will pop a shot off first.” He lifted his head to shout, “Does everyone hear that? I have a weapon strong enough to pierce through the General and kill the lovely senator—that is, if I don’t hit her anyway.”
Hank held tight, but it didn’t matter, damn it, because the bastard already had a gun pointed toward Ginger’s head and the sharpshooters weren’t an option any longer.
“Why, Mashchenko?” Ginger’s voice didn’t even shake as she tried to shrug her way free of Hank, but he wasn’t budging. “Why are you doing this?”
“You have brought that nativity back out in the open.” The older man moved closer, the lethal weapon all the closer. “The crèche would be back where it originally belonged. I tried to simply steal the crèche back, but Senator Landis never let it out of her sight. As time drew near, I’ve had to resort to desperate measures. Now that it is out there, where people in this part of the world can examine it, I will be ruined.”
Back where it belonged. But the precious art collection in the chapel had been destroyed by a fluke fire.
Or not.
Ginger gasped. “You burned down this chapel during a storm—after looting the place to sell the invaluable treasures on the black market.”
“You’re a smart woman,” Mashchenko replied. “I was only sixteen but I had dreams and a plan.”