“When we get through those doors, we’ll hit a ramp that leads into the sports arena. Cover will be minimal. Which means that for a few seconds we’re going to be completely in the open, fully exposed. There are metal bleachers around the basketball court. We’ll need to get to cover fast and get eyes on Merrick and Egan and the hostages. There’s an announcer’s booth above the court. Assuming it’s still there, that’s where I’ll be headed. I’ll have a clear view of the court. I can take them out from there. But I’m gonna need that gun.”
Jordan examined the weapon. “I assume you’ve never fired one of these before?”
“Of course, I have,” Chris replied. “Took a class at Quantico. Incendiary Weapons 101. Right after light saber training. You know for an old guy Yoda’s pretty damn fast.”
“From Star Trek to Star Wars. Funny.”
“Relax, Jordan,” Chris said, “I know the lay of the land here, remember? That gives me home court advantage. Plus, I’m a trained sniper. If there’s a decent vantage point inside, I’ll find it. When I do, I’ll launch every damn grenade in that thing until those bastards have been vaporized.”
Jordan handed him the weapon. “You sure you can do this?”
“I am.”
“Positive?”
“Positive.”
“How positive?”
“Seriously?”
“I need to know.”
“Okay. One-hundred-and-twenty-three-percent positive.”
“That’s a mathematical impossibility. You can’t be more than one-hundred-percent positive.”
“We’re quibbling over math?”
“Hey, it took me a long time to break you in,” Jordan said. “I’m not too keen on going through that again with a new partner.”
“Excuse me? Did you just say you broke me in?”
“Now who’s quibbling?”
“Pass me the damn grenade launcher.”
Jordan handed him the weapon. “You know you’re only going to get one shot at this. If Merrick or Egan see you, they’ll kill you.”
“Thanks. I already figured that out. Didn’t even have to do the math.”
“I’m serious.”
“Me too. I hate math. Avoid it as much as possible.”
Jordan shook her head. “For the record, you’re not fooling me.”
“How’s that?”
“I know you just want to fire the really cool gun.”
Chris smiled. “Busted.”
“Try not to blow yourself up.”
“I’ll do my best.”
“I’m serious, Chris.” Jordan held tight to the shoulder strap of the gun.
Hanover saw the look of concern in her eyes. His voice was calm. “I’ll be fine, J,” he said.
“You’d better be,” Jordan replied.
Chris peered through the crack in the double doors leading into the sports arena. “Looks clear,” he said. “Stay on my six. Move fast and quiet. As soon as you’re inside, tack left. The bleachers are double step in height. They should provide perfect cover. You ready?”
Jordan nodded.
The man-made earthquake suddenly knocked out the electrical system. The facility plunged into darkness. Sunlight streamed in through slits in the damaged aluminum walls. Chris and Jordan waited for their eyes to adjust to the dim light.
“All right,” Chris said. “Here we go.” He grabbed the door handle, eased it open, slipped inside, leveled the weapon straight ahead, peered down the sight, hugged the wall, reached the arena entrance, waved his partner through, then broke to the right and headed for the announcer’s booth.
Jordan took cover in the bleachers.
113
ASHLEY GRANGER WOKE up on the floor of the Pyramid with a broken jaw. She had passed out twice on her return trip to consciousness. She struggled to regain a foothold on her senses.
The building was dark. Scant ribbons of sunlight bled in through deep slashes in its wounded, triangular roof. The massive sports facility had toppled. One of the four corners of its base rested on a bed of crushed concrete and twisted metal.
Ilya! Ashley dragged herself to her knees. Blood dripped from her mouth and nose and pooled on the hardwood floor. Her eyesight was impaired, no doubt a result of the powerful blow delivered by Merrick. She turned her head, searched for Ilya, and saw his sneakers jutting out from the end of the metal bleacher. She crawled to her student. He was alive. Thank God.
Merrick walked over to her, grabbed her by the jaw, and twisted her head to get a better look at the injuries he had inflicted. “Welcome back,” he said. Ashley wanted to scream, couldn’t. A tsunami of pain rushed over her and threatened to drag her back down into the depths of unconsciousness. She resisted.
“How much did they pay you?” Merrick said.
“Wha… uuu… tockkking… abwwt?” The professor tried to push the words out through her spittle.
Merrick squeezed the woman’s crushed jaw. The riptide of pain pulled harder this time.
“Tell me everything,” Merrick demanded.
“Nuthnggg… to… tell,” Granger spat out. Even in the scarce light, Merrick could see the left side of the woman’s face had turned black, a mass of broken blood vessels.
“Can’t or won’t?”
Granger didn’t answer. Bubbles of blood formed in the corners of her mouth, on her lips.
Merrick wrapped his hand around the woman’s neck. Channeler glowed. Ashley gagged.
“Tell you what,” Merrick said. Granger felt her body begin to grow cold. She shivered. “I’ll make you a deal. Answer my questions and I won’t kill your young friend.”
Merrick placed his free hand on Ilya’s ankle. The teen moaned. His leg began to spasm.
“Dnnn’t… hrrrrt hm,” Granger pleaded.
“How much I hurt him will depend entirely on what you have to say,” Merrick replied. He squeezed Ilya’s ankle tighter. The teen groaned, tried to move. Merrick held him firmly in place.
“Paige Merrick,” Merrick said. He released his grip on her jaw. “When did you approach her?”
“Who?” Granger asked.
Merrick increased Channeler’s energy stream through their bodies. Ashley felt her body temperature plummet. She shook uncontrollably. Ilya screamed. Merrick slowly let up on the intensity level. The professor’s body temperature returned to normal. Ilya moaned.
“You heard me,” Merrick said. “When?”
Even in her physiologically depleted state, Ashley knew she needed to buy time. The assault team had tried to rescue her twice so far; first when she was being dragged out of her office in the Molecular Life Sciences building, and a few minutes ago, when they attempted to breach the Pyramid. They won’t let me die, she thought. They’ll try again soon. Tell him the truth. It won’t matter. They won’t let him walk away from this. How could they?
“I dnnnt,” Ashley said. “She apprcched me.”
“That’s a lie.”
The professor battled against the horrendous pain, formed the words, then enunciated them as slowly and clearly as she could. “You wanted to know everything,” Granger began. “My top girls did the recruiting. It was invitation only. Recruiters earned a percentage of the annual earnings of every new girl they brought in. Paige jumped at it. Said she was bored with her life, that school was too easy. She was looking for an adventure, something daring, risky. I wasn’t going to say no to her. She was perfect. From her first date she was in demand. She could have worked twenty-four hours a day if she wanted to. The Company has a bonus program. When a girl bills out her first million in revenue, they buy her a Maserati. For most it takes them a year. Paige earned hers in nine months. No one had ever done that before, not even me. But I did not kill her.” Ashley freed herself from Merrick’s grip. “I had nothing to do with Paige’s death.”
“Liar.”
“Believe what you want,” she said. “You’re going to kill me anyway.”
“Then who did?”
“I don’t know.
One day she was working, the next she wasn’t. She just disappeared. I thought one of her clients bought her from The Company. Paige’s buyout was ten million, which was nothing to the men she dated. They could drop that playing Blackjack in Monaco every night of the week if they wanted to. I found out later that a complication arose which affected her ability to earn for The Company.”
“What kind of a complication? Who told you this?”
Granger looked down. Merrick tried to grab her jaw. She pulled back. “My boss,” she said. “Marina Puzanova.”
“What did Puzanova tell you?” Merrick pressed. “What happened to Paige?”
“A bad date with some Japanese billionaire. He drugged her in his room, then cut her up. It was bad. He slashed her face so many times she was no longer marketable.”
The news stunned Merrick. He let go of them and stood.
“Marketable?”
“Marina’s words, not mine.” Granger looked down. “That’s how she put it. I’m sorry.”
Merrick stared at the woman in disbelief. “You’re sorry?”
“There was nothing anyone could do for Paige, not even Marina. It was Kastonov’s call. His word is final.”
“This man, Kastonov. Did he kill her?”
Ashley Granger shook her head. “Not personally. He arranged for her transfer to Argentina.”
“Argentina?”
“You don’t want to hear this.”
The news of the horrific assault his daughter had endured at the hands of the deranged billionaire crushed Merrick. The fight inside him was dying. His chest ached.
“All I want to hear, once and for all, is the truth.”
Granger glimpsed movement in the bleachers below the announcer’s booth. A figure crouched in the shadows.
“The Company has a contingency plan. Which they put into effect when a girl like Paige is no longer marketable.”
“What kind of plan?”
Ashley hesitated. He would kill her when she told him. “I can’t.”
Merrick threatened to grab her throat.
Granger leaned back. “They rent out their womb, then sell the baby. Two-hundred-thousand per child.”
Merrick couldn’t believe what he was hearing.
Granger continued. “Only three pregnancies are permitted, then the girl is harvested. Her viable organs are sold on the red market.”
Merrick stared at the beautiful, Ivy-league educated monster.
“All of this started with you,” Merrick said. “You fucking slut.”
Granger elbowed herself backwards along the metal seat away from Merrick. The look in his eyes confirmed their conversation had not just taken him to the brink of insanity; it had sent him toppling over its edge.
Merrick stepped forward with renewed rage. Channeler glowed. “If Paige had never heard of you, never come here to study under the great Dr. Ashley Granger, she’d still be alive today.”
“Please,” Ashley begged. “No more.”
Three thunderous detonations rocked the fallen Pyramid. Chunks of concrete and plumes of dust blew across the basketball court.
The breach had been successful.
DARPA commandos and FBI SWAT stormed inside, followed by the Hostage Rescue Team.
DARPA Team One Commander Blaine Aikens called out. “Drop your weapons! Do it now!”
114
CHRIS TOOK ADVANTAGE of the diversion offered by the massive explosion. As FBI agents and DARPA commandos breached the structure, he hurried down the steps from the top of the bleachers. Jordan lay crouched between the floorboards in the seating structure, her weapon trained on the two men standing in the center of the sports arena. Hanover provided cover as she rose to her feet. Together they advanced toward Merrick, Egan, and their hostages.
Jordan felt the remarkable intensity of Commander Egan’s cybernetically-enhanced mind as he became aware of their presence behind him.
Egan turned and walked toward her. “It’s you,” he said.
From their cover positions inside the crumbling building the operatives and agents waited for permission to engage the two men.
Chris stepped in front of Jordan. “Not one more step you son of a bitch,” he warned.
“It’s okay, Chris. I’ve got this,” Jordan said.
Hanover slowly moved aside, his weapon leveled at Egan, keeping him squarely in his sights.
“I’m glad we could meet,” Egan said. “I thought I felt someone probing around in my head earlier. To be honest, I didn’t think that was possible. It was you, wasn’t it?” He smiled and wagged his finger. “Naughty girl. Not even dinner and drinks first. Just a straight slide into home plate.”
Jordan motioned at the bloodied woman sitting beside the injured teen. “Looks like they could use a little help. What do you say we let them leave so medical can take a look at them?”
Merrick grabbed Ashley Granger by her hair, yanked her head back. The woman cried out.
“No one leaves!” Merrick screamed at Jordan. “No one!”
Egan screwed up his face. “Now you did it,” he said. “You pissed off the doc. Bad idea. You guys might want to think about ordering in, ‘cause this is gonna be a long night. I’m good with Chinese. You?”
Jordan ignored Egan’s smart remark and holstered her weapon. “Dr. Merrick, my name is Jordan Quest. I’m with the FBI. I’d like to talk with you if I may. Would that be all right?”
Chris warned. “Jordan… don’t.”
Jordan stepped forward. To her left a team of DARPA commandos began to advance. She raised her hand, then heard Hallier’s order in her ear bud communication system: “All teams hold.”
Commander Aikens raised his fist. The breach team stopped.
In the dimly lit structure, laser beams from dozens of assault rifles crisscrossed one another in the dusty air. Red dots danced on the chests of the two men, pinpointing their targets.
Jordan continued. “We know what happened at Dynamic Life Sciences, Dr Merrick.”
Merrick threw Granger aside. The woman fell to the floor and began to sob. Merrick’s voice cracked when he spoke. “They had to die,” he said. “I had no choice. I needed Channeler.”
“We also found the flash drive and the information on Dr. Rosenfeld’s computer. We know all about the accounts and the money transfers.”
“They murdered my Paige!” Merrick screamed. His wounded words echoed off the walls of the crippled Pyramid. “Do you have any idea what that did to me? To my wife? It killed us. Do you know how Paige died?” He pointed to Ashley Granger. “What this bitch admitted that the people she works for did to her? How they abused my baby girl and farmed her out, desecrated her body, then rendered her, like an animal, and sold her piece by piece? She was only twenty-four-years old. She had her whole life ahead of her. And they took it all away.”
The Rosenfeld mansion, Jordan thought. The roses on the floor. She had counted them: twenty-four. A rose for every year of his daughter’s life? The flowers were a memorial.
“I made a promise to my wife that anyone who had anything to do with Paige’s death would die,” Merrick said. “That all of them would pay. Every last one.”
Hearing the words, Hallier removed the photograph from his pocket which Merrick had left in his personal property box at Dynamic Life Sciences. The family picture, taken in Paris, at the foot of the Eiffel Tower. He read the words on the back: ALL WILL PAY.
Merrick turned away and communicated with Egan. Egan nodded, the psychic command received.
On the wrists of both men, Channeler glowed.
“Now these two will die.”
Jordan yelled. “Dr. Merrick, no!”
Hanover looked up. The metal walls of the Pyramid started to shake and split. What was left of the great building was about to come down on them all. Chris ran forward, grabbed Jordan by her tactical vest, pulled her back. “We need to get to cover, now!” he yelled.
Hallier issued the order to the DARPA commandos: “All teams engage!”
Ridgeway gave the GO order to her team.
DARPA and FBI SWAT advanced on the men and their hostages.
115
MERRICK RAISED HIS hand and leveled it at the ceiling. “Bring it down,” he said. “Every last piece of it!”
Egan opened his arms as the DARPA commandos and SWAT teams opened fire.
The slugs ricocheted harmlessly off the wall of energy produced by Channeler. The two men and their hostages remained unharmed.
With a sweep of Egan’s hand, the advance teams left the ground and flew backwards through the air, slamming into what was left of the Pyramid’s concrete foundation.
As the second wave made their move the ground beneath them started to tremble. The men fell, struggled to their feet, stumbled once more, tried to push ahead, couldn’t. Jagged metal panels from the Pyramid’s ceiling tore loose and rained down, slicing through the air like dozens of guillotine blades, burying their razor-sharp edges deep into the hardwood floor.
Ashley Granger watched as a SWAT team member was cleaved in half by the falling debris. She screamed as the upper and lower sections of the dead man’s torso separated and drifted apart on the quaking floor.
With Merrick and Egan’s attention diverted to maintaining their defense, Ashley Granger helped Ilya to his feet. “You have to get out of here,” she said, talking through the excruciating pain in her broken face. She pointed to the service entrance beyond the two agents that led out of the Pyramid; the same route Jordan and Chris had used to gain access to the building. “Run, while you can.”
Ilya shook his head. “I don’t think I can stand, much less run.”
“You have to try,” Ashley said.
Merrick drew upon Channeler’s immense power. The tubular framework of the Pyramid’s skeleton began to break apart. Sections of steel pipe rained down from the ceiling like javelins hurled by an army of invisible assailants. The metal rods pierced deep into the floor. The deadly projectiles found four members of the breach team as they moved in, impaling them, pinning their bodies to the ground.
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