Games of State - Tom Clancy [23]
Then she heard the gunfire. She knew it wasn't a scene from the movie. She had all the guns in here, and Mr. Buba was the only one with a key. And then she heard the cries of pain and fear, and knew that something terrible was going on. She stopped checking the garment bags and leaned an ear close to the door.
When the trailer engine first roared, Jody thought that someone was trying to get it away from whatever was happening on the set. Then the door slammed and she heard someone moving around inside. The person didn't speak, which she knew was a bad sign. If it were a guard, he'd be on his walkie-talkie.
Suddenly, the bathroom seemed very warm and close. Noticing that the door wasn't locked, she gingerly lifted the bolt and threw it. Then she squatted between the garment bags, holding on to them so she didn't fall over. She was going to stay put until someone came to get her.
She listened intently. Jody hadn't worn her watch, and her only sense of time passing was through sound. The intruder looking through the daggers on the far left table. Footsteps moving around the table filled with medals. Chests opening and closing.
Then, over the drone of the ceiling fan, Jody heard the intruder rattle the closet door, on the other side of the trailer. A moment later there were four loud pops.
Jody squeezed the garment bags so tightly that her nails went through one of them. What the hell was going on out there? She backed against the wall, away from the door. Her heart was punching up against her jaw.
She heard the closet door bang open as the trailer turned a corner. A table leg scraped the floor as the person moved around it-- not gingerly, as Jody had before, but roughly, impatiently.
The intruder was coming toward the bathroom door. Suddenly, it didn't seem like such a good idea to be in here.
Jody looked up, around, behind her. She saw the frosted glass of the window. But because of the metal bars, no one could get in. Or now, out.
Jody ducked down as the bathroom door handle jiggled. She hunkered down low behind the gently swaying clothes, then crept back beside the toilet. The tiny shower stall was to her rear and she leaned against the glass door. Her heart beat a heavy crunch, crunch, crunch in her ears. She started to whimper and bit the side of her thumb to keep from being heard.
A burst of gunfire drowned out the sound of her heart, of her whimpering. She screamed into her thumb as wood and plastic chips flew from the door, pelting the floor and garment bags. Then the door squeaked outward and a gun barrel pushed through the neat row of German uniforms. It pushed them to the side and a face peered down at her. A woman's face.
Jody looked from the compact machine-gun-like weapon to the coldness in the woman's liquid gold eyes. The girl was still biting on her thumb.
The woman motioned up with the gun and Jody stood. Her hands dropped to her sides and perspiration poured down her thighs.
The woman said something in German.
"I-- don't understand," Jody said.
"I said pick up your hands and turn around," the woman barked in thickly accented English.
Jody raised her hands face-high, then hesitated. She had read, in one of her classes, about how hostages were often shot in the back of the head.
"Please," she said, "I'm an intern. I was assigned to this movie a few--"
"Turn!" the woman snapped.
"Please don't!" Jody said, even as she did what she was told.
When she was facing the window, Jody heard the uniforms being moved aside and felt the warm metal of the gun against the top of her neck.
"Please " she sobbed.
Jody started as the woman patted her left side from breast to thigh, and then her right. The woman reached in front and felt along her waistband. Then she turned Jody around. The gun was pointing toward her mouth.
"I don't know what this is about," Jody said. She was crying now. "And I wouldn't tell anyone anything--"
"Quiet," the woman said.
Jody obeyed. She knew that she would do anything this woman told her. It was frightening to discover how completely her will could be suppressed by a gun