“Not going to happen,” the gunman threatened in a cold tone. “My team’s collecting them as we speak. You just finish up quick. While you’re at it, best give some thought to which one you like best. I have a feeling you’ll have to make that choice real soon.”
The tired gasp that escaped Voss told Cyrus just how terrified he was. “Why are you doing this?” Voss asked.
“It’s just a job,” the man answered flatly.
“Killing my security team and threatening my family is just a job? What have I ever done to you?”
“Nothing,” the man grumbled. “Not a damn thing. This is just business—nothing more. I deliver you and your daughters, I get paid. Simple as that.”
Cyrus had the man solidly in his sights when he cleared his throat, making himself known for the first time. The gunman shot an urgent glance over his shoulder but never moved the gun away from Voss’s head. “Just a job?” Cyrus asked. “Who hired you?”
“Whoa!” the gunman roared. “Back off or I’ll kill him!”
“Go ahead,” Cyrus said with a carefree shrug. “I’m here on a job, same as you. But I don’t need Voss in order to complete my mission.”
The man’s eyes narrowed as he took Cyrus in once again with new eyes. There was an odd look in his gaze and Cyrus wasn’t sure how to read it. He knew the gunman was trying to read his intentions, as well. Being one of Dargo’s security guards, of course he knew who Cyrus was. Still, Cyrus saw indecision in the man’s eyes. It was as if he were trying to size Cyrus up but was entirely uncertain of what he was now seeing.
“Stand down,” the gunman demanded. “I’ll kill him!”
“Like I said,” Cyrus reiterated. “That’s not my concern. His daughters are safe. You can’t touch them.”
“Bullshit!”
“Do I look like I’m bluffing? Do what you want with Voss. Just keep in mind that when you’re done, you still have to deal with me.”
Voss spoke; hope appeared in his voice for the first time. “Is it true? They really are safe?”
“I give you my word,” Cyrus said with gentle reassurance. He knew what would come next.
Even though Voss had his back to him, Cyrus could see a sense of ease overtake the man. His rigid, pained stature relaxed in a very visible way. A moment later, the clatter of keystrokes resumed at the computer terminal.
“Hey! What the bloody hell are you doing?” the gunman bellowed.
Undeterred, Voss’s rapid assault on the keyboard continued. With a final, solid strike of the ‘Enter’ key, he finally lowered his hands to his lap. “You said you could tell what I was doing,” Voss explained. “If that’s true, you should know that I just wiped all of the data from your flash drive and executed a command to encrypt the entire database.”
Voss turned his head and looked the gunman in the eye. “My girls are safe. You’ll get nothing from me.”
Everything had played out exactly as Cyrus anticipated. When Voss turned to face the gunman, it was proof that the guard was so stymied that he’d let the pressure of the gun sag from the side of Voss’s head. So, too, had gone the man’s concentration, and that was Cyrus’s ultimate objective.
Cyrus squeezed the trigger, scoring a perfect headshot. The rogue guard’s hands dropped, his gun clattering harmlessly to the floor. It was followed a full second later by his corpse after it bounced off the end of the counter and landed with a bloody thud.
————
Turning on wobbly legs, Voss looked at the gruesome mess that was his attacker, and then at Cyrus. With a dry swallow he stepped away from the corpse.
“Are you alright?” Cyrus asked. He tried to draw the older man’s gaze away from the blood.
Voss felt his hands trembling; they mirrored the sensation threatening to buckle his knees. “Yes. Fine,” he responded in a gravelly voice. “Thanks to you.”
Meeting Cyrus’s eyes, Voss drew a measure of strength from his steady demeanor. Cyrus took Voss’s arm and led him several paces away from the aftermath.
“You really secured the files?” Cyrus asked.
Voss offered a crisp nod. “As soon as you said the girls were safe, I encrypted everything with a 2048 bit triple AES cypher. It won’t matter if they take the data now. It would be useless to them.”
Cyrus grinned. “Well done.”
Walking to the nearby table, Voss leaned against it to steady himself. He took several slow breaths and struggled to control his racing heart.
“Are you alright?” Cyrus asked once more. He circled Voss, examining him with clinical eyes.
When Voss didn’t answer, Cyrus leaned across the table and looked at him more closely. “I didn’t mean what I said,” he explained. “I had no intention of letting him take you.”
Voss grinned. He nodded, the amusing thought lifting his spirits. “Never a doubt,” he chuckled from beneath arched eyebrows. Then he offered a glance at the corpse on the other side of the room. “Lucky for me, he fell for it.”
The questioning expression from Cyrus told Voss that he needed to elaborate. “I suppose I’ve gained some insight into your mindset over the past twelve hours,” Voss explained. “I knew your game even as you were maneuvering the bastard. You were afraid to pull the trigger while he had the gun to my head. You needed to distract him before you could risk making a move.” He tapped his own temple. “I’ve learned a great deal about the way you think, Cyrus.”
Gnashing his teeth, Cyrus looked away. “Then you know that I really needed to take him alive. He was my best chance at understanding what’s going on here.”
Voss started for the door leading to his office. Cyrus quickly moved to follow.
“I understand,” Voss said over his shoulder as he walked. “For what it’s worth, I’m glad you made the choice you did.” He stopped suddenly and looked Cyrus square in the eyes, a flare of urgency sparking in his gaze. “Tell me—what you said about my girls—they truly are safe?”
Cyrus slapped the older man on the shoulder and offered a solemn nod. “Safe and sound. That part was true.”
“Good.” Voss stepped through the door and into his office. After making it less than two paces, he stopped suddenly upon seeing two more dead security guards. “My word!”
Cyrus tapped the release on the side of his gun and let the magazine drop to the floor. Pulling a spare from his back pocket, he slapped it into the grip and charged the action. “We need to be careful,” he warned. “I don’t know how many of the guards are against us.”
Walking slowly through the room, Voss found himself at a loss for words. His workplace—his home, had become a killing field. All of this, after everything he’d done to protect his family.
He stepped around the congealing puddle of thick arterial blood that had spread across the floor, only to have his eyes fall squarely upon the next body. Squinting, Voss leaned over the dead man for a closer look. The soft bristles of an artist’s paintbrush protruded from the corner of his collar at an oblique angle.
Voss’s jaw waggled as he worked mechanically to find the words to match what he was thinking.
Cyrus saw this and shrugged. “I improvised.”
Turning to Cyrus, Voss’s jaw fell slack. He looked from Cyrus to the corpse with unblinking eyes and tried to fathom what kind of person saw an artistic tool as a weapon. Still, in spite of his shock, Voss couldn’t argue with the end result. It dawned on him for the first time that, in order to save his life, Cyrus had to make it past multiple armed and well-trained aggressors.
In a flash, perhaps just in time, Voss’s mind returned fully to the present. He was in very real danger of slipping into traumatic shock. “Dargo!” Voss declared, the sound of his own shout startling even himself.
Cyrus stepped toward Voss at the sound of the outburst. “Quiet,” he shushed. “We don’t know how many more of them are out there.”
Pulling his hand away from his own mouth, Voss shook his head and quieted his voice. “Sorry. But right before these three
came into my office I received a call from security. Dargo called in. His plane was going down. He was crashing.”
“Crashing?” Cyrus asked with a degree of skepticism. “Are you sure it wasn’t part of a ploy?” He glanced at one of the fallen security guards.
“No,” Voss said with confidence. “Dargo didn’t want to declare an emergency over open radio frequencies. He was afraid it was part of a larger operation here. It seems he was correct.”
Falling silent, Cyrus slowly paced the room. Voss watched, unsure what to say or do. He only knew that it was best not to interrupt. The young man’s instincts had gotten them this far. He had confidence that the boy could see them through.
“I have to get to the communications room,” Cyrus said at last. “Where is it?”
“Fifth floor,” Voss said quietly. “One floor up. But do we stand a chance if Dargo’s men are working against us?”
“It’s not all of Dargo’s men,” Cyrus explained. “There must be some sort of rogue faction inside your security force. There’s been gunfire. It means, whoever’s behind this, they don’t control the entire security team. Some of them are still on our side—if anyone’s been left alive, that is.”
Moving to Voss’s desk, Cyrus rifled through its surface contents until he found a pen and a pad of paper. “Sketch me the layout of the fifth floor. I need to know what I’m walking into.”
“It’s ok,” Voss said. “I can show you.”
Cyrus shook his head and handed him the paper. “No way. If there’s more of them, it’ll be like walking into a buzz saw. You’re staying here where it’s safe.”
Voss didn’t understand, and Cyrus must’ve noticed as much.
“You and the girls were their mission objective,” Cyrus explained. “While I don’t know what they’re up to, I know that keeping you safe is the key to stopping their plan. So you stay here. I’ll hit the security office and see what I can learn.”
Reluctantly, Voss accepted the orders and began sketching a simple drawing of the fifth floor’s layout.
“Dargo left the building with a sizable portion of the security team,” Cyrus thought aloud. “That reduced the number of guards on site to protect you and your family. The gunfire confirms that they weren’t all compromised,” he reasoned. “Do you know how many guards remained after Dargo and his team left?”
Voss stopped drawing and considered the question. It was frustrating because Dargo had explained these details specifically—Voss just hadn’t been concerned enough to pay close attention. At the time he’d been more worried about getting Gretchen back and out of harm’s way.
“I’m sorry,” Voss said sadly. “I truly wish I had your memory.”
He struggled to recall the brief conversation he’d had with Dargo only minutes before he left for the Royal Airfield. “Ten,” Voss said finally, with confidence. “He left ten men on site.”
“Ten?” Cyrus asked. “Jesus, doc. How many people do you employ?”
Voss offered a sad smile. “Apparently, not nearly enough.”
————
His time with Voss had brought Cyrus multiple advantages. He was now armed for the first time, he’d gained insight into the potential numbers he was facing, and just before leaving, Voss had provided an emergency override code that would override the lock on any door or elevator in the building.
Using the master code, Cyrus entered the stairwell and headed for the fifth floor. He’d left Voss behind, hidden in an out-of-the-way cubby that held the compressor and motors for his lab’s walk-in freezer. Cyrus was pretty sure that the corrupt guards were as hampered by the lockdown as he’d been without the override code. They didn’t seem to have the ability to move from one floor to the next. That was a distinct advantage because it meant Voss should be safe since all threats on the fourth floor had already been eliminated. Still, with all that was happening, Cyrus couldn’t be sure of anything. He’d stashed Voss in an attempt to play it safe.
The stairwell was deathly quiet as Cyrus moved slowly upward. The steps and the walls around him were made of poured concrete, so even the slightest sound was amplified and threatened to echo in the confines of the vertical space. Only the hum of the wall-mounted fluorescent lights offered a break in the silence.
Rounding the switchback halfway up the flight of stairs, Cyrus gained view of the fifth floor landing. He reached the platform with his finger on the trigger of his gun, only a hair away from releasing a round, but was relieved to find no one lying in wait. It made sense. With the lockdown in effect, no one should’ve had access to the stairway. Voss’s overwhelming sense of paranoia had led him to install a personal override code. It was something the building’s attackers wouldn’t have anticipated. Cyrus’s odds of catching the last of the opposing force were improving.
Reaching the door at the top of the stairs, Cyrus tapped Voss’s override code into the security pad. But before he pressed the button to open the door, he noticed an option in the corner of the screen that he’d missed earlier. It was labeled simply, ‘Camera’.
He tapped the button on the touch screen, changing the display. A live video feed of the fifth floor balcony filled three-quarters of the screen. It was the high-tech equivalent of a door’s peephole, only the display offered greater detail, higher definition, and a wider field of view. It was interesting since the doors to the stairwell and those to the medical area were the only conventional swinging doors in the entire building so far. They seemed decidedly low-tech when compared to the rest of the well-fortified compound.
After studying the view outside the door for nearly thirty seconds, Cyrus decided his chances were as good as they were ever going to get. He tapped the lock release icon, pulled the door open on silent hinges, and stepped across the threshold with his gun ready.
He was standing alone on the platform. He backed against the wall and inched near the corner leading to a short hallway, listening. According to Voss’s sketch, the corridor led from the elevators to the rest of the floor.
In the distance, Cyrus could hear a voice but he couldn’t make out the words being stated. Hazarding a glance around the corner, he witnessed two supine forms. Each was a man lying awkwardly in a sizable pool of blood. This was the fate of the guards loyal to Voss. They didn’t have a chance when members of their own team turned on them. Deep gouges in the walls and floor told of a firefight, and explained the sporadic gunshots he’d heard at the onset of all this. Though caught off guard, apparently the loyal among Dargo’s men had managed to put up some sort of resistance, however futile.
Moving silently down the hall, Cyrus stopped at the body of the first guard. He laid two fingers against the man’s jugular and uselessly hoped for a pulse. Without delay, he stepped to the next man. There, he found the same disappointing truth. Both men were dead and already cold. Cyrus was about to move on when something made him stop and reevaluate the body of the second fallen guard.
It took a moment to realize what his subconscious was suggesting. At first, all he saw was the suited body of a man lying awkwardly on the tile floor. He lay mostly on his back, with blood pooled around his left shoulder.
When he pushed the man fully onto his back, Cyrus knew what was out of place. The guard had taken three rounds, just left of center torso. Aside from that, there were no obvious signs of injury. Pressing his thumb against the right side of the chest, Cyrus confirmed what he’d already assumed. The guard was wearing body armor.
Ripping open the dead man’s white, button-down shirt, Cyrus further confirmed the confusing fact. The shots to the chest had, in fact, penetrated his armor.
Rising to his feet, Cyrus strained to hear the voice speaking in the distance. It was still too far off to discern the words, but he was pretty sure the man spoke with a French accent.
Hitting the release on the side of his gun, Cyrus dropped the weapon’s fully loaded magazine into his left hand. Examining the top round, he found the cause of the useless body armor. The slugs were coated in
solid jackets of Teflon.
Armor piercing ammunition.
Suspicious, he searched the dead man. Retrieving an unused magazine from the guard’s belt, he slid his thumb across the top of the magazine and dropped the first round into his hand. He held the bullet up to the light. The slug on this round was a hollow point and jacketed in copper. It was an off-the-shelf round that could be purchased at any sporting goods store.
Laying the loose round and the magazine on the dead man’s chest, Cyrus regarded the body once more. He didn’t need the ammo—he was already well armed with what he’d taken from the men in Voss’s office.
Reaching the ‘T’ intersection at the end of the hall, Cyrus could go left or right. The security office was to the left but the voice he’d heard was coming from the right. More than that, a new, more prominent voice could also be heard speaking with a mild French accent, Cyrus could now make out the faint words of another man. Whoever he was, he hadn’t offered much in response to the first Frenchman’s babble; this second voice was strained and quieter.
Cyrus recognized the second voice.
Turning right, he headed for the voices. He passed several open doors along the way. One led to a kitchen, another to a small rec room. But as he drew near a wide opening in the wall on his right, Cyrus knew he’d found the voices. Glancing around the corner, he saw one of the guards seated on the floor with his back trussed up against a rack of free weights. Another of Dargo’s men stood over him, thumping the end of a lightweight graphite baton against the palm of his hand.
The man on the floor was slumped forward, sagging against his bindings. It was obvious he no longer had the strength to sit upright. His chin drooped to his chest as blood and bile dripped from his mouth and down the saturated front of his filthy, white shirt.
The man with the baton still wore an immaculately pressed black suit—another of Dargo’s men. This was clearly an interrogation, and the man with the baton was obviously enjoying his work far too much. He paced slowly back and forth before the bound and defeated man while swinging the baton through the air with dexterity and skill. “It is within your power to make all of this stop,” the man commented as he paced slowly.
Rogue Faction Part 2: A Cyrus Cooper Thriller: Book Three Page 10