“Luke, you make the call. Weston. Now.”
“Weston, you have a breach, do you copy?”
We all pause, straining to hear any return voice in his ear, as unlikely as it may be.
“Nothing, boss,” Luke says with a shake of his head.
On the screen, the woman has pulled off her white tennis shoe. She points the camera at her face, showing a happy, if not slightly drunk, smile, before pulling a small saw out of a hole cut into the sole of her shoe.
“Cell phones,” I say, standing quickly. “Call your team on their cell phones.”
I take in Carter’s white shirt and six-foot frame, realizing he can’t be the one to make a mad dash across the stadium.
“I’ll go,” I say, grabbing my phone. “Luke, do not let them take Jaxon back until you get the all clear from Carter, understood? Head to door 102 where Jaxon will enter the walkways from the field. Get him inside but go no farther,” I command.
I barely hear his “Roger” as I take off, sprinting down the hallways until I reach the public concourse that I have to traverse to get to Jaxon’s dressing room. Luckily, almost no one is leaving this show early, so I have few people to navigate around as I run past the food and drink stands that have already closed for the night. It takes me lessthan three minutes to get where I need to be. A hundred yards to go. Then fifty. Ten.
I find one of the venue’s security guards standing at the door to the back hallway. I flash my badge to him, confused about how the woman made it past him. “We’ve got a breach,” I say to the security officer. “I need in now.”
He opens the door, barely glancing at the badge I offer.
My phone vibrates in my hand, and I huff out a hello.
“We think she’s still sawing,” Carter says from my phone.
“Stay at the door!” I yell behind me when I hear his footsteps start to follow. The last thing we need is more unauthorized people getting back here because we left the fricken front door unguarded. “And don’t let anyone out unless they show a badge!” I yell as an afterthought.
Carter starts again, giving me a progress report as I run, my lungs burning from the full-out sprint. “I’d say you have thirty seconds until she breaks through. Weston and his team are already waiting for Jaxon. They’ll move him to location two. Luke is there now confirming that location is clear.”
“’Kay,” I get out between pants.
“There is no security camera in there, and she cut her feed. Your team has eyes on you in the hallway. Backup is on its way. Do not, I repeat,do notengage. Do not put yourself in danger.”
“Need my hands,” I say as I end the call, wishing I had brought my earbuds with me. Though they’re usually worthless when you’re using in-ear comms, it would be nice to be able to communicate hands-free with someone right about now.
I turn the next corner, spotting the guard stationed outside of Jaxon’s dressing room. He’s staring straight at me, hands by his taser holster as he monitors my loud approach. I halt, realizing I passed a door right before I turned—the door that must lead to the storage room.
“Comms are down,” I say loudly to the security guard, the roar of the crowd drowning out most sound.
Recognition crosses his face as I approach, and he drops his arms behind his back into an at-ease stance.
“There is a breach. A woman, likely midtwenties, roughly my size, is currently sawing her way into the dressing room.”
The flare of his eyes is the only outward sign of his shock.
“She’s just about through, if not fully. I’ll go in through the storage room to make sure she doesn’t get out that way. You wait here for backup and confirm she doesn’t get out this way.”
He looks like he wants to argue but decides against it, giving me a slight nod to confirm my orders.
I run back around the corner, not wanting to put the agent at the door in harm’s way if she decides to leave rather than wait in the dressing room.
Scanning the hall, I find it as empty as before. The crowd’s roar has changed from the bellow of cheering to the noise of hundreds of thousands of feet walking—the concert is over. I grab the handle to the storage room with my left hand, my right shoulder pushing the door open. My right hand feels strangely empty, even though it has been almost ten years since I last practiced this maneuver with a weapon in my hand. Maybe I should start carrying a taser at these things too. Itseemed unnecessary when I was just going to be coordinating things from the security room, but now I feel a bit naked without something to protect myself.
I slip into the room and silently shut the door. My biggest concern is that I can’t remember if this room has another entrance or not. We have another concert here tomorrow, and if she gets away, who is to say she won’t be back with a bigger saw next time? Or tell her friends how she got past our security, and we’ll have a full mob of unstable fans in here sawing through walls.
Forgoing silence for speed, I hurry down the aisles of paint, wood, and other backup set pieces from various concerts. I catch a slight movement to my right and whirl just in time to see a shelf of paint cans crashing toward me.
Chapter eleven
