“I am relieved to see you.” Zoric came up alongside of Tessa and nearly reached out to touch her, then seemed to think better of it as his eyes mockingly went to the captain. “I see Chase took good care of you.”
“He nearly drowned me.”
“Ah.” Zoric displayed a yellow grin. “But you are alive.”
Tessa took a step closer to him and whispered. “Mr. Crawley?”
He shook his head. “Not good. He needs a hospital. They separated us. He is a brave man.”
Dread gripped her heart, knowing her old neighbor might not fare as well as she had in the end. All the complaining and moaning about covenants of the gated community, the gruff hellos, the constant questions, all sounded endearing to her now. Remembering how he’d collected newspaper articles and pictures of the children playing sports made her long to pat his arm and promise to bake him a batch of her chocolate chip cookies.
Vernon didn’t wait to be introduced but disappeared into an office to check the status of his Global Warming virus on one of the computers. He returned within minutes. “I’ve opened a heat sensor scan of the fifth floor to be sure where everyone is located. It’ll boot in two minutes. Had to make sure the other systems remained asleep until we get up there. Secured fifth level door, boss so…” Vernon’s eyes shifted from Tessa to Chase.
The look passing between the two men was not lost.
Captain Hunter nodded an acceptance and reached for Tessa, pulling her aside. “This is where we part ways for a bit, Tessa.”
“Why? I need to go with you, to help Mr. Crawley.”
Sam came up next to Chase, shifting her weapon to the other shoulder as she looked down at the blond housewife who’d been the beginning of this mission. “There’s nothing you can do. You’ll get us killed,” she snapped. Sam sniffed as she jerked her head up in contempt and eyed Tessa harshly. “The captain can’t be worried about you when he goes in for those hostages. None of us can.”
She shifted her eyes to Chase, feeling dizzy with graditude even though he glared sternly at her. “Do I stay here?” The tide of resistance ebbed from her voice as she meekly clasped her hands over her elbows. Her arms folded across her midriff.
“No. Vernon sealed the fifth-floor door so even if they see you, and I can’t imagine they can since they are spread pretty thin now, they won’t be able to reach you. Go all the way to the sixth floor. Once there enter the corridor. You’ll see another exit at the end on your left that indicates another staircase to the roof. Get up there as fast as you can. The director will be waiting with some of my men.”
Again, she nodded like a bobble-head doll that sent the message I’m terrified, but I’ll do it for you. Chase reached out and put his hand on her shoulder. “It’s just about over.”
A smile played at the corners of her mouth as she placed a hand on the door knob and turned. “Good luck.”
The door slowly closed against Chase’s hip as he stood and watched her quietly steal up the concrete stairs toward safety. When she reached the sixth floor she leaned over far enough where he could see her. A short wave of victory with one hand signaled she’d arrived.
~ ~ ~
Chase backed into the room as Vernon returned to the computer terminal. He sighed looking up at the ceiling and counting how many seconds it would take for her to enter the sixth floor and make her way up to the roof. Glancing down at his watch he felt Sam’s disapproving eyes on him.
“I know. This is why having civilians around isn’t a good idea.” He looked over at the trucker who’d managed to find a candy bar and was making quick haste of it. A tiny bit of chocolate clung to his bottom lip, making Chase remember the Baby Hughie cartoon character he’d watched as a kid when stuck in some embassy with his grandfather’s secretary or assistant. They had always seemed to locate a VHS of cartoons to keep him from exploring.
Vernon jerked the door open and skidded into the room with alarm. “Boss!”
The captain frowned, expecting bad news as he stepped toward the computer whiz. “What is it, Vern?”
All eyes turned on him. He could tell Vernon’s breath came quickly and his face had flushed.
“The fifth floor has twenty hostages like Jamaal said. Two other heat sources are outside one of the doors.”
“Okay,” Chase said slowly not liking the ‘but’ which was about to come.
“There are five more heat sources that are walking around on the sixth floor, all of them carrying weapons. The director and your men are still on the roof.”
“Tessa!” Chase said opening the door to the stairwell.
Chapter 30
S tepping through the door on mouse feet, Tessa put her hand back to make sure the door closed softly. She’d turned her head as it touched her fingers and was startled to feel a hand grip the top of her shirt, jerking her around to face the piercing eyes of Honey Lynch.
The strength in such dainty arms surprised Tessa. The pale, smooth skin was damp with perspiration but clear and lovely like pictures of Irish girls featured in travel brochures. Her hair, a light brownish-red had been pushed behind small ears. It was the rage in her eyes, the flaring nostrils and the clenched teeth that told Tessa the Honey Lynch she’d spoken to on the phone the night before was more dangerous than the captain had led her to believe.
Helpless to resist, Tessa felt her body jerk up against Honey’s breasts with a force she thought possible only in a man. Honey weighed probably twenty-five, thirty pounds less than her, but the grip holding her felt like something the captain might be capable of. Tessa tried to say something, but Honey shook her before a word could come out. In an instant she found her body slammed up against the cool granite tiled wall, her head making immediate contact. The pain ripped through the back of her head so sharply she thought her consciousness would fade, only to find Honey in her face, breathing like a devil.
“What the hell are you doing here?” Honey growled angrily. “Where is Hunter?”
When Tessa didn’t answer with trembling lips, Honey grabbed her again by the middle of her shirt and slung her across the hall. She slid to a stop after crashing into a door with a painful yelp. Awkwardly, Tessa tried to stand as she faced Honey. Her hand went to her bruised shoulder as if touching it would ease the pain. It didn’t.
Tessa began to cower as Honey stormed toward her. Realizing too late that the Irish chameleon meant her harm, Tessa tried to avoid the butt of the rifle swinging at her temple, only to feel its blunt force make contact. Just before darkness swam up to overtake her, another pair of legs appeared.
The last thing she heard was a voice with a strange, foreign accent she recognized from an Auburn parking lot where he’d left her to die. “I see Captain Hunter’s housewife has come to complicate my life once again.”
~ ~ ~
The air stale and stagnate in the stairwell hit Chase as he pressed himself up against the concrete wall. Every muscle in his body hurt as he stole a glance through the window of the steel door on the sixth floor.
Adrenaline surged through his body, numbing the pain to a bearable level. He’d watched as a Libyan lifted Tessa up to sling her over his shoulder like a sack of flour. Essid motioned for him to take her down the hall as he turned and said something to Honey, who didn’t look happy. Chase knew that look. He’d suffered her tantrums when things weren’t going as planned.
Several times, when they’d worked together with Delta Force, he’d had to physically restrain her to keep her from killing someone and blowing the mission. That look collapsed her usual pretty face into a contorted mask of murderous rage. She walked behind Essid, looking back over her shoulder in paranoia. Chase counted to sixty, knowing wherever they had taken Tessa; she’d be there by now.
He carefully turned the metal handle on the door, wondering momentarily how the stairwell could be so hot and the metal still cool. A quick glance in, then back out, then back in revealed an empty corridor. He heard voices two doors down on the opposite side. They would be alert, know
ing he would not have let Tessa go too far without him. Speed was of the essence if he was going to save her. This had not been part of his plan.
Making his way through the door and down the hall came in quick order as he pressed himself up against the wall next to the door. Something caught in his peripheral vision as he jerked his head around only to see Honey Lynch step out of an alcove with her rifle leveled at his gut.
The door opened and Essid stepped out nonchalantly. “I’ll take that,” he said removing Chase’s rifle he’d taken off one of the men on the loading dock. In his haste to reach Tessa, he’d complicated the situation by underestimating Essid.
He straightened to his full height as Honey approached him like a tiger ready to devour her next meal. “You’re a fool, Captain Hunter.” She eyed him from head to toe, then back up to his face.
“Experience proved that to me years ago where you’re concerned,” he said with a nod and a smirk. “I’d forgotten, though, how you like to slither around like the poisonous snake you’ve become.” He then turned his eyes on Essid who glared with nervousness. “This isn’t going exactly how you planned is it, Essid? Once again you and your fanatical jihadist misfits have failed to take into consideration the American spirit.”
Essid shrugged. “Perhaps. It will be hard for you and whoever you’re working for now to underestimate the power of the C4 wired to go off with just one call,” he smiled, holding up a phone.
“This place is bomb proof, you idiot.” It wasn’t, but Chase figured it would put a doubt to fester in Essid’s disturbed pattern of thinking.
“Hmm.” He smiled without a hint of believing Chase. Essid’s goons came out and forced the Enigma agent into the room before someone landed a blow to the back over his kidney.
With a howl of pain, Chase went down on his knees to face Tessa, crumbled on the floor with a gash over her right eyebrow opened and bleeding. Noting the rise and fall of her chest, he realized she was alive. Before he could move toward her he felt a kick to his shoulder, sprawling him onto his face.
He was ready when goon number one came at him again, grabbing his foot, twisting it until it snapped. A scream of pain filled the room as he let loose a stream of curses in his language. He pulled himself away, and then used a metal chair to pull himself up. Although broken, the wounded man was able to hobble to where he’d leaned his rifle. He picked it up and started toward Chase.
Honey easily knocked it out of his hand. “Sit down before he breaks your idiot neck,” she ordered. “You’re no match for him. He’s wasted dozens of men better than you.”
Her eyes turned to Mansur who kneeled down and poured water over Tessa’s face. She began to moan as she pushed herself up into a sitting position. When her eyes focused on him, kneeling before her, Tessa reached out as if a life line had been thrown to her then realized he had been injured. Sweat poured from his brow mixed with blood.
“Chase?” she whispered in desperation, aware of his concern. His look of encouragement through a deep fog of pain drew a sympathetic touch of her hand.
Another goon jerked Chase up forcing a painful groan from his lips. He was slammed into the edge of the table. His weight flipped it onto its side.
“You better kill me now, you worthless Libyan dog, ‘cause when I get done here, I’m going to throw your body into a pig pen and watch them send you straight to hell. No paradise for you,” he promised menacingly. “Those virgins will have nothing to do with a man whose laid with the pigs,” he grinned revealing clenched teeth.
~ ~ ~
Essid stepped forward and watched Tessa Scott stand awkwardly with help from his brother. His eyes went from her to Chase as he rubbed his chin with his index finger.
“So, this is the woman who pretended to steal my first bomb,” he said approaching her slowly as he watched Chase try to straighten.
Even now, beaten and exhausted, the infamous Captain Chase Hunter was trying to be the hero.
“Please,” Tessa said, seeing that Chase might try and help her again. She watched Essid give goon number two a nod who rushed Chase and slammed his fist into his gut. Saliva poured from Chase’s mouth just as the goon landed a punch on his lip, cracking it open. Blood gushed out suddenly. Tessa cried out as she tried to lunge for him only to be pulled back by Mansur.
“Stop. What do you want? Please stop hitting him!” she begged.
“Where are the others?”
“No.” Chase muttered dropping his head forward, but still possessed the strength to lift his eyes, demanding her obedience.
Essid nodded at goon number two again who landed another gut punch.
Tessa screamed. “Stop! They’re on the third floor! They’re coming for the hostages.”
Essid smiled. “Who are they?”
Tessa knew Essid believed Sam and Zoric to be indisposed with his men on the loading dock. “Carter, the computer man and some trucker.”
Essid pointed a nine-millimeter at Chase. “What else, Mrs. Scott? Captain Hunter’s life depends on it.”
Tessa gasped and spoke hurriedly. “There’s a helicopter and the captain’s men on the roof. I was on my way there.”
Essid lowered the gun and winked knowingly.
“That’s much better. Thank you. I guess my plans have changed yet again thanks to you. We had planned to leave that way and cross to the other building before making my call for the final explosion.” He sighed dramatically as he waved his weapon in the air. “These people are not your friends, you know, Mrs. Scott.” He tilted his head to admire her frightened face, then looked to Chase. “The man you’re trying to save did nothing to save your family when he could have.”
Tessa choked. “What about my family?” Her gaze darted from Chase to Honey. “Where are they?”
Essid looked over his shoulder at Honey standing awkwardly as if someone had just jammed spikes into her feet. “Do you want to tell her or should I?”
“Tell me what?” Tessa’s eyes locked dangerously on Honey. “You told me you’d keep them safe.”
Essid looked around at Honey incredulously. “You talked to her?” he asked bewildered. “Have you been talking to this infidel while sleeping with me?” he roared.
Honey did not bat an eye when she narrowed her gaze at Tessa. “I killed your precious little family last night while they were sleeping.”
Tessa felt as if the air had been sucked from her body, like the video she’d once seen of a nuclear blast. All the wind forces the trees to bend to the ground, the buildings explode and a fiery glow devastates the world. Tessa’s scratched hand went to her throat silencing a scream.
“To think they trusted me. One more day and I would’ve had your handsome husband in my pants.”
~ ~ ~
With empowered rage, Tessa charged her, only to be yanked back into Mansur’s burley arms. A damn of uncontrollable tears gushed from her eyes as sobs racked her body. Screams of torment bounced around the room as Mansur struggled to keep her confined.
Chase cocked his head at Tessa, struggling to be able to see her with his good eye, not yet swollen with violence. He knew what was coming. Confession. Betrayal.
With one step toward Honey, Essid slapped her so hard she stumbled back in surprise. “You filthy whore. Are you sleeping with him too?” he roared, pointing to the captain.
Chase spit blood on the floor trying to draw attention back to him. “Do you think I’d lay with someone who took to the likes of you? From what I hear,” he smirked, although his mouth looked crooked, “you’re pretty short on satisfaction,” again the smirk, “and I do mean short.”
Before Honey could dodge, another blow struck her upside the head, knocking her to a sprawled position. Her weapon clattered noisily to the floor as she hurriedly tried to scramble to her feet only to be kicked down again by Essid.
“Tie her up!” he said to the Libyan who could still walk. Drag her over there.” He pointed to a spot on the floor. Goon number one awkwardly tied a dirty handkerchief tightly a
round Honey’s mouth. Jerking it tighter, Honey struggled only to be kicked in the buttocks.
“Although I would love to see how this plays out,” Essid motioned for Chase’s hands to be tied behind his back before being shoved into a chair with wheels that nearly toppled with the sudden slamming of his weight. A gag immediately was shoved into his mouth. “I think Mansur and I need to make our way out of here before I incinerate this place.”
He stepped toward Tessa and yanked her from Mansur, shoving her back so she stood in front of Honey. The sobs had been replaced with sniffs as she looked with pure hatred down at Honey Lynch.
Honey struggled against her bonds as she looked up at Tessa with wide eyes. Stealing a look at Chase she tried to say something only to see that he too was trying to communicate with Tessa, not her.
Essid stood over her and frowned. “I had hopes for you, Irish trash. Isn’t that what the beautiful Sam called you?” He turned to the two Libyan goons as he walked toward the door. He handed them a small pistol he took from inside his vest pocket.
“Mrs. Scott?” Tessa turned like a robot to glare at her tormenter. “When I leave, this man will give you a gun. It has one shot. Use it however you choose,” he smiled. “Decisions. Decisions. Will it be Honey who actually killed your family or,” he looked at Chase who desperately tried to get Tessa’s attention as he shook his head ‘no’. “Or will it be Captain Hunter who had it in his power to alert authorities and stop her?” Essid watched as Tessa shifted her eyes back and forth between his two captives. She wiped snot, tears and blood from her grief contorted face. “It can only be one.” He motioned for Mansur to leave ahead of him before looking back at his men and whispering. “When she is done kill the other one.”
The Enigma Series Boxed Set Page 34