by Michael Todd
Finally, she stepped aside and released the magazine from the gun. With slow, deliberate competence, she drew the slider back to eject the single round in the chamber.
She dropped it in a gesture of utter disdain and moved out of the conference room toward the elevator, where Greg stepped forward to intercept her.
“Dr. Monroe, I’m so sorry to see you leave so quickly,” he said and almost stumbled over himself to find the right words to say. “I trust you enjoyed your visit?”
“I had the time of my life, Greg,” Courtney said with the first genuine smile that had touched her lips all morning. “Although you might want to let the maintenance department know that there’s been a small spill in the conference room and they might want to get right on it and clean it up. No hurry or anything, and if there’s a bill, please don’t hesitate to send it to me.”
“Of course,” he stuttered, not sure why there was such a change in her demeanor. The elevator doors opened, and she stepped inside. She continued to smile as the doors dinged shut again.
“Oh, you poor, innocent summer child,” Courtney said. If punching a man and breaking his fingers wasn’t enough to get your blood pumping, nothing else would.
Chapter Twenty-Two
Igor looked around the base. A host of people moved around despite the late—or maybe in this case, early—hour. The man who provided escort didn’t seem concerned by the number. Igor assumed that this was regular action around there. It was a military installation, after all, and they adhered to all kinds of silly protocols like getting up early.
The escort hadn’t made an ass of himself. He wasn’t especially friendly either, but then they weren’t really expected to be. There had to be some kind of overlap into asshole, it could be assumed, but he showed no signs of it. He remained the ultimate professional, even though he effectively led a man to his death.
The guard pushed Igor into one of the six-wheeled all-terrain vehicles and made sure to lock her in the back seat before he moved to the front. The vehicle rumbled to life and they pulled away from the base. The small round windows gave her a limited view as it slipped slowly into the distance to be replaced by the massive and apparently still growing expanse of the Zoo that moved steadily closer.
She gulped. The ZooTube videos had to be fakes, but there was a small chance that the reason there was this much armor between her and it was because there was actually something out there that wanted her for a snack. As much as she slipped into the mantra that it couldn’t be as bad as it seemed, the nagging feeling remained as the ATV slipped in under the heavy tree cover. Maybe, just maybe, this one time it was so much worse.
She felt a buzz inside her sealed suit and pulled out a comm device with trembling fingers. She glanced at her captor before she attached it to her ear.
“We’re in deep enough that we don’t have to continue the charade,” her guard stated through the comm link. “You can come up to the front if you’d like.”
“Thanks,” she replied and looked quickly away from the Zoo that was barely one pane of twenty-centimeter bullet-proof glass away. “But I think I’ll stay back here.”
“Understood,” he replied. “You can take the chains off, though, Anja.”
That was something she was willing to do, and she tugged at the manacles around her wrists and ankles until they came free. They had to stand up under quick inspection, even if they’d not encountered any difficulties, so they couldn’t simply be left unlocked.
Anja took a deep breath and scowled at the smells that seemed like they had been trapped in this confined vehicle forever. Like it had rolled out of the factory in Vladivostok already smelling like sweat and engine grease.
She gripped her seatbelt tightly and realized that the only lights illuminating the cabin were those from the dashboard and the HUD on the vehicle’s windshield, which she assumed was also thick and bulletproof. The ride was rather bumpy but not as bad she imagined it might be, all things considered, and she was only slightly sore and aching by the time they came to a halt.
The driver put the vehicle in park. He unbuckled himself and climbed through the porthole that connected the driver’s section and the passenger section. It was meant to be sealed off, she realized, and would have been if she were an actual prisoner.
“You shouldn’t have to wait too long,” he explained as he dragged a pack from under the seats. “But in case the people who are supposed to pick you up are delayed for some reason, this holds food and other necessities. They should last you for a couple of days—longer if you pace yourself. I’ll seal the place off, and this part of the vehicle is built to withstand an RPG hit, so you should be safe. That said…” He retrieved a heavy pistol from the pack and put it in her hands. “Here’s the safety. You need to click it off and pull this back to chamber a round. It has eight rounds, and if things get bad… I hate to say it, but you might want to save the last round for yourself. It’s up to you.”
Anja nodded and her eyes widened as she stared at the pistol like it would bite her. She’d never held a weapon before, and if all had gone well, she would have preferred to keep that record intact. Even so, she was willing to part with morals if it meant she could get out of this situation alive. It was hypocritical, she knew that, but at least she would be alive to feel guilty about it later.
“Thank you, Andrej,” she said softly, wound her arms around his neck, and hugged him close. “For all of this.”
“We’re family,” he said with a smile. “It was the least I could do.”
“Could you tell Grandmother that I’m alive and all right?” she asked and struggled to hold back the tears.
“I will,” he replied and his voice was oddly raspy with suppressed emotion. “It’s up to you to not make a liar of me, hmm?”
“I’ll do my best.” He nodded, not in the mood to talk anymore.
With a final wave, he pushed through the porthole and sealed it off. A heavy clunk sounded as the front disengaged from the back and an iron rod dropped to keep the remaining section of the ATV propped up. The part with the engine roared off into the darkness. She thought for a moment that it was night, but it really was daytime. The darkness of the jungle was what made it seem like night.
That same darkness soaked into her very soul, with only a flashlight for company. She wasn’t even sure that it was safe to use out there.
“Cyka blyat,” Anja muttered softly and leaned back in her seat. She never thought that she’d miss the dull growl of a diesel engine, but right now, it beat the hell out of the deafening silence that slowly surrounded her.
Courtney raised her head from the papers she’d been studying. She wasn’t even sure what time it was. What day it was. It was hard to tell down there in the basement.
This wasn’t really out of character for her. She tended to get intensely involved when she studied something that she was interested in, to the point where sleep and food became a secondary consideration. It was what had gotten her top grades in all her schools, but there were also problems that came with it.
Problems that had mostly dissipated during her time with Heavy Metal. It was good to know that she was in a regression stage of her life.
She still wasn’t sure why she had decided to look over all her dad’s notes. She’d almost finished the book that she’d written for him and would now maybe publish it with a little blurb dedicating it to him. There hadn’t been enough pills in the world to deal with the guilt that she felt, although Dr. Pierce, the psychiatrist her parents had sent her to when they were considering a divorce, would have told her that what she was doing was classic survivor’s guilt. Outliving your parents was something that kids would have to face eventually, but finding out that a man she’d initially had been terrified of and spent most of her life trying to impress actually felt outshined by her? It was a lot to take in.
So what was she doing down there? She’d rationalized it as the need to compare notes and make sure that nothing she’d written conflicted with anyt
hing that he’d published. She’d found a couple of discrepancies, but that could be easily explained by how quickly the Zoo evolved past the knowledge of the people who didn’t engage with it on a daily basis. What he had noted was a couple of months out of date, but that was to be expected these days.
Her head whipped around when she heard the doorbell ring. Not for the first time either, she realized. She’d had a power nap over the papers and wondered if there was any coffee left in the house when the doorbell rang the first time. A little bemused, she looked around and tried to think of who might be calling at…well, eight at night. She hadn’t exactly isolated herself from everyone, but at the same time, what friends that she’d once had were currently busy elsewhere in the world. That meant that there shouldn’t be anyone trying to get her out of the den after business hours.
She moved to the kitchen, where there was a screen connected to a camera on the front door. A car with a pizza restaurant’s logo on the side idled out front and a young-ish kid stood on the porch, grumbling something that the microphone didn’t pick up.
He looked around and gripped the thermal bag more firmly as the camera above the door finally swiveled to focus on him.
“Sorry, I didn’t order a pizza,” a woman’s voice said over the speaker.
“Hey, I have a large, extra pepperoni with cheese crust,” he said and checked his phone. “And this is the address. Are you seriously going to leave me hanging here?”
“Look, maybe it’s for the people across the street,” said the voice. “They said they were having a party there.”
“On a Monday night?” He sounded incredulous.
“It’s Monday?” the voice asked and sounded both shocked and disappointed. “Anyway, it doesn’t matter. I didn’t order anything. There must be some error with your online ordering service or something. Sorry.”
“What? Are you kidding me?” he asked, but there was no response. He shook his head. Normally, he would have put something into her food as payback like he often did for bitch customers. But considering that she obviously wouldn’t eat anything, that wouldn’t work and he would simply have to eat it himself instead.
Well, at least this trip wasn’t a total loss, he thought as he trudged back to the annoying little electric car that the pizza place insisted he drive. With the extra money he made on this trip, he could afford to have the pizza for himself. He pulled out onto the road and made his way slowly about a block down to a black van with the logo of an exterminator company on it.
As he pulled in close, the window of the driver’s side rolled down to reveal a man with a beard and bright green coveralls.
“So?” he asked. He could see another man in identical coveralls in the driver’s seat. They both looked incredibly uncomfortable in the attire which did little to hide the kind of bulk that meant that they probably weren’t exterminators. He didn’t really care though. There wasn’t much that he wasn’t willing to do for the amount of money that they paid him.
“Yeah, she’s home,” the delivery boy told them. “Not in the best of moods, but she’s there.”
The man didn’t say anything but instead, handed the kid a roll of bills, which he took quickly and eagerly. He didn’t even bother to count it.
“Hey, do you guys want this pizza?” he asked, feeling a little guilty that he would have it all to himself.
The two men glared at him and seemed annoyed by the question.
“Got it!” he called, rolled his own window up, and pulled away. Who would have thought it? The two creepy stalker guys weren’t in the best mood either.
Courtney hung the speaker up as the pizza boy left. He’d clearly been very unhappy that he hadn’t been paid either for the pizza or what he’d probably hoped would be a very hefty tip. She felt a little bad for him, but the mild regret was rapidly overtaken by a very real sense of dread as she moved away from the screen and headed back to her father’s study. News had recently come to her that other parties were very interested in what she would do with her father’s estate, and a slight sense of paranoia had crept in with it. While she assumed that it would entail innumerable discussions with lawyers to get it all out there, a part of her suspected that there would be some attempts at foul play.
She was sure that someone would tell her that she was paranoid and to knock it off. Maybe they’d be right, too. But if her time in the Zoo had taught her anything, it was that if things seemed to go a little too well, it was time to check the branches. There wasn’t always something lurking there, but the number of times there had been made her always trust this feeling in her gut.
The same feeling that now demanded her full concentration.
Her heart thudded a little faster she moved into the study and examined the various shelves and pieces of furniture. She knew that her dad had installed various panic rooms and the paperwork had indicated that one had been in his study. Now was as good a time as any to check it out and make sure that it was all up to code, or whatever.
She finally found a loose lamp hanging from the wall and twisted it gently to the side. A click sounded from the other side of the room behind her dad’s desk where she’d worked for most of the…well, weekend, she supposed.
Her instinct spurred her toward the hidden door that had revealed itself but she stopped short when she saw a keypad and a hand scanner. She didn’t know the password and her dad probably wouldn’t have been able to get her biometrical handprint anyway. It didn’t really matter, though, since the heavy safe door was already open. It had probably been left that way in case he wanted to get in when time was of the essence.
She stepped inside and looked around. The space had been equipped with the necessities. Apparently, her father had expected to spend a lot of time in there since all kinds of dried and canned goods were stacked on the shelves. A small bed was built into the back of the room and a fully stocked wet bar in the corner near a bathroom. Courtney remembered reading that it had been installed with its own independent water and power supply.
All thoughts that her father was a prepper quickly disappeared when she reached a desk with three screens, all awash with live feeds to various cameras around the house.
Huh. It looks like ol’ Pops was more than a little paranoid too. Well, were you actually paranoid when there really was someone out to get you?
Which, as it turned out, there was. The cameras that overlooked the back door revealed a couple of men in full tactical gear. One tried to unlock it and one worked on the alarm system, while another pair snuck in through the flower beds and attempted to jimmy one of the windows open on the side of the house.
She would be cleaning the mud from their tracks out of the carpet for days, she realized. The sprinklers had only now switched off.
Courtney wasn’t sure what she was supposed to look for if she wanted to spot a professional, but they were certainly equipped like she imagined they would be. Sub machine-guns hung from their shoulders, and sidearms and Kevlar vests told her that whoever had sent them was exceptionally well equipped for this kind of situation.
Panic was an immediate response, but she pushed it aside, shook her head, and snatched up the landline phone beside the screens. She knew for a fact that the place was a signal dead zone intentionally created by the lining of the walls around her. Her cellphone would be useless down there.
This was probably the simplest call she would ever have to make. She punched the three digits in quickly and waited for it to ring through.
“Nine-one-one, what’s your emergency?” A soft woman’s voice answered.
“Hi,” Courtney replied and tried to keep her tone calm and civil. “My house has been invaded by four men. All heavily armed, all dressed in black. I can see them from my panic room. I think you can tell my address from my call, so if you could send some police my way, I’d really appreciate it.”
There was a pause on the line, which Courtney hoped was because the woman checked for her address on her side.
“You said that
you’re in a panic room, is that correct, ma’am?” the woman said after a few seconds’ pause.
“That’s right,” she replied.
“Please lock yourself in there, and if you can, stay on the line for as long as possible,” the controller instructed. “We have a couple of vehicles in the area, and they should get there in a few minutes.”
Courtney nodded, placed the handset on the desk, and moved to the door of the panic room. She pulled it shut and locked it down, then moved around the room and looked into one of the cabinets on the right. The contents brought a grin to her face. A couple of suits of light armor lay inside, as well as some of the usual self-defense apparatus that could be found in a place with strict gun laws like California—pepper spray, a baton, and even a baseball bat.
It didn’t look like the armor would fit her, though. It had been made for her father, and while they were similar in almost every respect, he had lacked what she had in her bust area.
“That’s some sexual discrimination right there,” she growled.
“Ma’am, are you still there?” she heard the operator ask from her phone. She moved to the still open line and picked it up.
“I’m here, but I’ll hang up now,” Courtney said, not sure where the eerie calm that entered her voice had come from. “Please let the officers know that they can come directly into the house when they get here.”
She hung up before she received a response and hurried to the cabinet. What the hell had her father been preparing for with this? It went beyond your common garden variety paranoia. Were these the same people he had prepared for, and if so, did that mean that there was the possibility that his death hadn’t been from natural causes?
Not now, Courtney. She drew in a ragged breath and rolled her neck to ease the tension before she readied herself. There was no way she would stay in there and wait for either the police or the gunmen to find her. She was better than that now.