by Rebecca York
“Who were they?”
A voice chimed in from the doorway. “Yeah, maybe you’d better give us some details.”
Jenny and Lily both looked up to see Grant standing in the doorway, a hard expression on his face.
Jenny gave Lily a panicked look.
“Let’s not press her now,” she said to Grant. “She’s been through an ordeal. She needs to sleep.”
Jenny opened her mouth and closed it again, looking relieved.
Grant withdrew, and Lily listened to Jenny’s heart and lungs, checked her reflexes, palpated her stomach and went through all the other simple tests of the girl’s physical state.
“How am I?” Jenny asked.
“In remarkably good shape. It looks like all the physical training you were doing in there carried over into the real world.”
“I was hoping it would.”
“How did you feel when you got up?”
“Shaky,” Jenny admitted.
“Not dizzy?”
“No.” She cleared her throat. “But I decided I couldn’t drive very far. That’s how Grant found me.”
“He was really worried,” Lily said sternly.
“I know.” She raised her head to Lily. “So do I have to go back into the VR?”
“At this point, I’m not sure what good it would do. But you do need to rest. “I’m going to give you a sedative,” Lily said. “If you’re not going back to the Mirador, at least you need to sleep.”
“Okay.”
Jenny sat on one of the beds, and Lily gave her a couple of strong sedative pills. After swallowing them, she slipped under the covers and lay down.
Lily stayed until the girl was sleeping. Then she turned off the light and closed the door. She had a lot of questions for Jenny, but probably not as many as Grant.
Chapter Twelve
Carlos Mardano was ten miles away before he turned off the highway and into a development of low-end houses. He found a dead-end street and pulled to a stop in front of a rancher where all the lights were off. Of course in this kind of neighborhood, someone could come out with a shotgun and ask what he was doing there, but in that case, he’d give them a big surprise.
He breathed out a sigh and wiped the sweat from his forehead, then threw back his head, thinking about what had just happened. Danny and Lee were both dead, but he’d been able to get away—partly through their stupidity. They’d made themselves targets while he had hung back, then taken the opportunity to dash through the door.
The question was—would he have been better off joining them? Because they were already dead, they didn’t have to face Rambo’s wrath.
What were his options?
He could keep driving, head for some big city and look for work among the gangs and mob organizations. But there was no guarantee that someone greedy for money wouldn’t turn him in to Rambo. And then he’d wish he’d been shot in the firefight and gotten it over quickly.
He could try to pass for a civilian and disappear into some small town in the Midwest where he could get a legit job. His dad had been a plumber. He’d helped out on some jobs. Maybe he could work his way into that trade. Or maybe he could be a farmer. He snorted. Both of those professions meant wading through shit—not his kind of scene.
Which left him with the alternative—go back to Rambo and say that he’d failed. Or—not failed.
How could he spin this disaster to his advantage? And how could he turn the tables on the bitch who’d been leading him on by starting to undress when she knew her friends were coming to the rescue.
All along, he’d thought she was giving him a song and dance. At least he’d seen from the expression on her face that she was lying about something. And what good would it do her to lie about anything besides Jenny Seaver? Probably she knew where the little idiot was. Which meant he could find her. All he had to do was tell Rambo they’d hidden Jenny; and if they kept watch on the facility, they’d find her. Of course, he couldn’t do that by himself. He’d need more guys—to make sure he had the place covered twenty-four seven.
Yeah, that was the best way to go.
It sounded like a reasonable plan. The sticking point was going back to Rambo and twisting defeat into anticipated victory.
Yet even as he bolstered his case, he couldn’t dismiss a nagging worry. You could do the perfectly logical thing with Rambo, and the guy would react in some out-of-kilter way.
Again Carlos thought about taking off. Christ, he wasn’t really sure which way to jump. Closing his eyes, he cursed the day he’d gone to work for the guy. He’d been tempted by the pay, but he hadn’t realized the working conditions would be almost intolerable.
oOo
Grant came back to the patient area and saw the other Decorah men putting the bad guys into body bags. He’d been in firefights before, but never inside a building where he worked.
“Are we going to call the cops?” he asked.
“I think not.” The answer came from Frank Decorah who strode into the main room and looked around at the mess.
“You figure nobody noticed the gun battle?” Grant asked. “Or they thought we were filming a made-for-TV movie?”
Frank shook his head. “I think we’re lucky as hell that we’re the only tenant in this industrial park that operates on a twenty-four hour basis.”
“I suppose you picked the location for that reason,” Mack said.
“Yeah. I wanted as much privacy as possible, given that we’d already battled a gang of thugs and the FBI at Hamilton’s old lab.”
Grant kept his gaze on the boss. “When I knew the place was under attack, I tried to call the main Decorah number. Did the bad guys take it out—or what?”
“No. It was a phone company problem.”
Grant kept his gaze on his boss. “Which could have gotten Lily, Mack and Terry killed. Is there some way we can have a direct line to you—if we need it?”
Frank looked torn. “I’ve never operated that way. But under the circumstances, I think it’s necessary. I’ll get a dedicated cell phone and make sure everybody has the number.”
There were murmurs of agreement and thanks around the room.
Frank glanced toward the hallway “I want some answers from Jenny Seville.”
“Her real name is Jenny Seaver,” Terry said. “We found that out from the men who came looking for her.”
Frank nodded, “That’s a start. Maybe it will lead to a lot more information.”
He turned to Lily. “How long before she wakes up?”
“At least six hours.”
“Okay. We can use the time to do some planning and get this place back into shape.”
“Including patching up the bullet holes?” Mark asked.
“Yeah. Otherwise we’re going to have to explain how they got there.”
“And explain how one of the patients got killed?” Lily asked.
His gaze jerked to her. “We lost a patient?”
“Yes, the man we tried to introduce to the VR. His bed was closest to the gun battle.”
“He’s the man who went nuts?” Frank clarified.
“Yes.”
“I hate to be pragmatic, but he might be better off now.”
Lily winced, but she silently acknowledged that Frank was probably right.
But he must have read her expression. “We’ll find another suitable candidate, and you can try again. And next time, he won’t be caught in the middle of a gun battle.”
“Yes.”
Frank kept his gaze on Lily. “We’ve got to have a death certificate.”
She nodded.
“I know you hated finding out that Dr. Hamilton was running an illegal operation. But in this case, it’s probably better to say he died of heart failure.”
She thought about it for a few moments. Frank was right. She didn’t like doing something illegal. But she knew it was better to leave gun violence out of the equation.
“Okay,” she answered in a low voice.
Grant shifted his weight from one foot to the other, and the rest if the group turned toward him. “I think we’d better clear out of here,” he said. “I mean, one of the guys escaped. He could come back with reinforcements.”
Alarm flashed in Lily’s eyes. “You don’t mean tonight?”
“Probably not. It depends on where he’s from. And what kind of instructions he gets from his boss.”
“We need to find out who that is,” Mack muttered.
“I’ll put Teddy on it while we deal with the current situation,” Frank answered, referring to one of the Decorah IT men.
“And where do you suggest we move the patients?” Lily asked.
“There’s room in the main Decorah facility,” Frank answered. “It will be crowded, but it’s only temporary. And just to be on the safe side, we’ll have at least five Decorah agents in the building at all times.”
There was agreement around the room.
“Meanwhile, we’ll get this place back in shape.” Frank looked at the bullet-riddled security desk. “We might as well throw that thing out.”
“My cousin Ross has some experience in the construction trade,” Brand said.
“Okay, call him.” Frank looked at Mack, “And call a private ambulance service to transport the patients.”
“We have to set up the beds first,” Lily said. “And do it in shifts.”
“How many extra do you have?”
“Four.”
So far, they had been making plans for the patient facility. Now Grant looked at the two dead men. “What about the bodies?”
Frank followed his gaze. “We’ve left bodies scattered around before.”
“Yeah, like in upstate New York,” Brand agreed.
“But never in our own front yard.”
“Somebody’s gonna miss them,” Grant said.
“Nobody who wants to get the authorities involved.”
Grant grimaced. “But we can’t just leave them here.”
“I brought a van,” Frank said. He turned to Lily. “We need DNA samples so we can try to identify them.”
She went to a supply cabinet, got out the equipment she needed, and turned to one of the body bags.
Mack and Grant exchanged glances as she got to work.
She’s come a long way since she first worked for Hamilton, Grant observed.
Yeah, his brother allowed.
Grant nodded, then closed off his mind from his brother. But he knew Mack had caught his fleeting thought that he wished Jenny were as straightforward as his brother’s wife. Of course, Lily had been following Hamilton’s directions when she’d first met Mack—before she’d started working with Mack.
When Lily had finished getting the samples, the agents loaded the thugs in the van.
“And now what?” Mack asked when they’d closed the doors of the vehicle.
“Then you let me worry about it,” his boss answered.
Grant looked toward the comatose patients “You can’t just put dead guys into a virtual reality and make them disappear,” he said.
A strange expression crossed Frank Decorah’s face, but all he said was, “I’ll be back as soon as I can. While I’m gone, move the spare beds to the Decorah headquarters and put Teddy on the Jenny Seaver problem.”
Grant nodded. He was having his own thoughts about what to do next, but he wasn’t going to start working on anything until Frank returned.
Chapter Thirteen
Grant had been up for more than twenty-four hours and finally conked out in a leather recliner in the staff lounge at the main Decorah office.
He’d tried to stay awake, reviewing the plans the team had made, but when he’d closed his eyes for a moment, he was gone.
Mack gave his brother a long look, then went off to scroll through commercial news feeds on one of the office desktop computers. As far as anyone could see, there was no mention on the local or national news of the shoot-out—or of any men missing.
Grant woke up when Frank came back from his private mission after about three hours. None of the Decorah staff asked him what he’d done with the bodies. But Grant assumed they were somewhere nobody was going to stumble over them. His home was next to the Beltsville Agricultural acreage. Grant pictured the Decorah head taking the limp forms to an unused part of the compound and burying them under some long-forgotten hybrid azalea experiment. Only that was just a fantasy. He was sure Frank was too smart to dispose of anybody on federal land, where discovery could lead back to him and Decorah Security.
Grant breathed out a small sigh. A visit from the police was probably off the table, but there were plenty more things to worry about.
Since the attack on the patient facility, Grant had done a lot of things he wasn’t proud of. But he’d told himself they were necessary to save Jenny—maybe save her from herself. When Lily had given her a sedative, she’d said that she was only going to sleep for six hours. But after Frank returned, Grant put his case to the group, and they basically agreed with his analysis of the situation.
The first order of business had been to inject Jenny with a sedative that would keep her sleeping for an additional six hours, to give them time to get ready to interrogate her. Then they moved her from the scene of the shoot-out to the main Decorah building where they could keep her under guard along with the patients who had also been moved.
As the time drew near to wake her, Grant used the washroom, then splashed cold water on his face, thinking he still looked pretty rough. Stepping into the hall, he was mentally preparing for the hours to come when a scream from the room where Jenny was sleeping had everybody snap to alert status.
“Christ.” Grant grabbed the Sig in his shoulder holster.
With the others trailing behind, he went running down the hall to the room where they’d stashed her. Gun in hand, he plowed through the door. The room was in semidarkness. But to his relief, he saw at once that Jenny was alone. He could see she was thrashing her head back and forth on the pillow, obviously caught in the clutches of a bad dream.
He turned to Mack, who was right behind him.
“Nightmare.”
“Yeah.”
His twin went back to the conference room. Putting the gun on the floor outside the room, Grant stepped inside and closed the door behind himself.
In her sleep, Jenny had kicked her covers off, her head was moving restlessly, and her face was contorted into a mask of fear.
Crossing the room, he sat down on the side of the bed.
“Jenny,” he called out softly as he reached to clasp his hand around her shoulder.
She didn’t seem to hear him, and he tightened his grip.
The pressure must have gotten her attention. Her eyes snapped open, but she didn’t focus on him. Instead, she seemed to be looking at some mental scene that he couldn’t see.
“Jenny,” he tried again,
She shook off his hand and lunged toward him, her hands going for his neck. It was a quick, deadly attack, and his only choice was to grab her arms as he pushed her back onto the bed. But she’d been learning defensive techniques from him, and she bucked him away, springing up and coming after him again.
“Jenny, it’s Grant,” he called. But she didn’t seem to hear him as she kicked out, knocking his legs out from under him.
He went down on the floor. As he came back up, he was scrambling to keep her from reaching for his neck again. But she changed tactics, and he could see she was rearing back for a head butt.
When he danced back out of range, she struggled to keep her balance.
Once again, he tried her name.
“Jenny, don’t. It’s Grant.”
She’d been fighting with a desperate determination. Now she seemed to hear him. For the first time, her gaze focused on his face. He could tell the moment she recognized who he was. Her eyes went wide, and her mouth opened in a startled gasp.
Pushing herself away, she ended up tumbling onto the bed where she scrambled up and pressed her back to the wa
ll.
“Oh my God, Grant, I hurt you.”
“I’m all right.”
He moved cautiously to her side. When she didn’t flinch, he gathered her to him, rocking her in his arms as his hands soothed over her back and shoulders.
“You were having a nightmare,” he murmured.
“Yes.”
“What was it about?”
“He had sent his men after me. I was trying to get away, but there was nowhere to hide. I’d go into a room, and it would have no windows.”
“Who?” he asked. “Who sent men after you?”
She hesitated for a moment. “Rambo.”
“The guy in the movie?”
“No. That’s what they call him.”
“Okay.”
She tipped her face downward, and he was sure she thought she had given away some secret that should stay hidden.
“It’s fine,” he said.
She shook her head, looking miserable—and so vulnerable that he wanted to lift her chin up so that he could kiss her. But he wasn’t going to do it. When he had made love with her in the VR, he’d convinced himself that she felt the same way about him as he did about her. Too bad their last few encounters had left him feeling like he hardly knew her.
He held her for a few more moments, then eased away. “Everybody is waiting to talk to you.”
“I’m going to be the center of attention?”
“We need your input.”
She looked even more miserable, and he wished he could have just told her the staff was having a meal in the lounge. But that would have been a lie. They were waiting to find out what she knew about the attack.
He stood up. “Why don’t you get dressed and come out. We’ll talk.”
“Okay,” she answered in a small voice, and it was hard to believe she was the same woman as the fierce warrior who had attacked him when he’d woken her from the dream.
“I got you some clothes,” he said.
“You did?”
“Yeah. It was fun picking some stuff I thought you’d like. I’ll let you get dressed. If you want to take a shower, you can do that first. We’ll be in the lounge.” He cleared his throat. “I mean the lounge at the main Decorah building. The other place was too messed up to use. We moved everyone over here while we get the patient facility in shape again.”