A yellow emergency light illuminated the wide area inside the loading dock. Crates and boxes occupied the area to the left in no apparent order. To the right, several plastic kiddie pools were stacked on their sides next to three kid-sized picnic tables.
They walked through the loading area and into some sort of storage room. Charlotte recognized the equipment set up on a long table on the far side of the room immediately. It was the same equipment she and her dad had used at home.
She choked back the memories and the emotions they invoked. Her vision widened to take in the rest of the room. Shelves lined one wall, boxes of Lego sets neatly stacked there. Several oversized stuffed animals sat near the door, many of them as large as she was.
“Time to get to work,” Owen said, nudging her farther into the room. He motioned to the rolling office chair beside her father’s computer.
Charlotte drew a deep breath and crossed to the chair. She tilted her head to the right in an attempt to look behind her. “I’m not much use without my hands.”
“You can tell us the password.”
“It doesn’t work that way. The keyboard has a built-in fingerprint scanner. If someone else enters the password, it will engage another set of locks.”
She was bluffing, but she let herself believe her own words as she stared at Owen.
After several seconds, he spoke to Cheng. “Untie her.”
“What about me?” Jake asked.
“What about you?”
“My shoulders are killing me. You guys have the guns. Can’t you untie me too?”
“Not until we get what we need,” Owen said.
Charlotte looked over at Jake, letting her eyes meet his for the first time since they had been shoved into the car. She saw the knowledge written on his face, his understanding that these men had no intention of letting them go. She also saw a measure of trust she didn’t feel she deserved.
Cheng cut the bands on her wrists, her arms falling forward, her shoulders throbbing with pain. “At least tie his hands in front of him to make him more comfortable,” Charlotte said.
Owen studied her for a moment and gave a nod of assent. “Do it.”
He put a hand on Charlotte’s shoulders and pushed her into the chair. With another deep breath, Charlotte retrieved the flash drive from her pocket that held the fake database.
For hours she had thought her way through the login procedures to determine how best to insert the new data without making it obvious what she was doing.
Now faced with the product of her father’s work, she found her hands shaking. She leaned down and disconnected the main computer from the master hard drive.
“What are you doing?”
“Getting ready to reinitiate the system. It’s the only way it will work.” Charlotte didn’t give him time to argue, finishing the task and plugging the flash drive into the computer.
She prayed the device would override the computer’s main system the way it was designed to, but she had never tried such a feat on such advanced equipment. Afraid to delay any longer, she pushed the power button and lifted her eyes to the computer screen in front of her.
The screen flashed blue for an instant. Then it went dark for several seconds before a startup menu appeared. Charlotte put her fingers on the keyboard, still uncertain if the login screen was the real one for the guardian program or the one she had cloned.
Praying it was the latter, she typed the first few characters of the newly created password. She paused, looking over her shoulder at Owen. “As soon as I put this in, what happens? Will you let us go?”
“As soon as we have access, we’ll pack all of this equipment up, lock you in a storage closet, and head off to a new location. The two of you will wait here until the store employees show up tomorrow morning to let you go.”
Charlotte studied his face, noting that his eyes were direct as he spoke the words. If he was lying to her, he was doing a great job of it.
Hoping she could believe him, hoping he believed her own deception, she turned back to the keyboard and entered the rest of the password.
Chapter 46
Jake watched the computer screen in front of Hannah come to life. He saw the names scrolling in front of him and the pleasure on the other men’s faces.
“We’re in.” Owen pushed Hannah, chair and all, to the side so he could read the screen better. He used the mouse to scroll down, reading through the information illuminated there.
His hand froze. An instant later, his other hand shot out and gripped Hannah by the throat. “This isn’t the database!”
Jake stepped forward only to have Cheng’s gun shoved into his ribs, Cheng’s free hand gripping his shoulder.
He watched helplessly as Hannah’s eyes watered, her body straining away from Owen as she fought for breath. “Let her go!” Jake pleaded.
“Are you going to cooperate?” Owen asked, not loosening his grip in the least.
Weakly, Hannah nodded.
Owen released her, and Hannah gasped for breath. Owen pushed her farther from the computer. “Watch her.”
Cheng shifted his position slightly to comply while Owen reassembled the equipment she had previously unplugged. He then powered it off, took out the flash drive, and restarted the computer.
This time when the screen lit up, the login screen flashed “Failsafe Procedures Initiated.”
He clicked on the login button himself, but instead of receiving a box to input a password, a message box opened that read, “Place right hand on scanner.”
Owen grabbed her hand, pressing it to a portable scanner and holding it in place until the next screen appeared.
Jake had never seen a retinal scanner before in real life, but the ones he had seen on television were pretty accurate. Owen held Hannah’s head in place as he held the device and a little light shone into her right eye.
A third login screen appeared, this one looking very much like the one Hannah had started with the first time.
“Put in the password,” Owen demanded, pressing his gun to the side of her head.
Hannah froze, bracing as though expecting him to pull the trigger at any moment. Jake stepped forward instinctively, driven to protect her even though he knew he could do nothing to help anyone, not even himself. The whole scene was completely surreal, a tragedy in the making, with no escape possible and no hero in sight.
“Now!” Owen demanded.
Hannah didn’t move, a tear trickling down her cheek. “I can’t.”
He pressed the gun more firmly to her temple, Jake straining forward once more, this time managing to pull a few steps away from Cheng before he was once more held fast.
A tremor shuddered through Hannah, but she still didn’t move. Jake’s attempt to reach her must have distracted Owen from her because he turned now, shifting his aim from Hannah to Jake.
“You have a choice: give me the password, and he lives. Otherwise, he dies.”
She turned her head, a look of fury and hatred in her eyes. “If he dies, you might as well kill me too because there’s no way I’ll help you as long as he’s in danger.”
Jake felt his own body tense. The look on Hannah’s face told him she expected these men were going to kill them the minute they got what they wanted anyway. He was still processing that thought when an unfamiliar voice sounded behind him. “Drop the gun!”
* * *
Charlotte couldn’t believe it. The man she had ditched at the train station was standing in the open doorway, the gun in his hand aimed at Owen.
Charlotte expected some kind of resistance from the men who had brought her and Jake here, but caught off guard, both men lowered their weapons.
The man took Cheng’s weapon from him and spoke to Charlotte. “Take his gun.”
Charlotte stood and did as he said, relieving Owen of his gun before putting several feet between them.
She took a moment to remember their hero’s name, recalling it from when he had introduced himself to her in Baltimore
. “Phil, what are you doing here?”
“You know this guy?” Jake asked before Phil could respond.
“Kind of.” Charlotte looked at Phil sheepishly. “He found me in a train station right after my dad was killed. I thought he was working with them.”
“Yeah, sorry about that. I guess I should have checked with Ace before making contact.”
The mention of Ace’s name gave Charlotte some measure of comfort.
“If you’re one of the good guys, could you please untie me?” Jake asked, holding out his hands.
“I’ll do it,” Charlotte said. She crossed to Jake, and he held out his hands to her.
“My car keys are in my right pocket. There’s a pocket knife on my key ring.”
Charlotte fought back the awkwardness of putting her hand in his pocket and grabbed his keys.
She quickly sliced through the cord binding Jake’s hands, her stomach clenching when she noticed the redness of the skin where the rope had chaffed against it.
“Thanks,” Jake said, rubbing his wrists.
The words “You’re welcome” didn’t seem quite appropriate since her presence in his life had gotten Jake into this bind in the first place. Instead, she said nothing and turned her attention back to Phil.
He stood with his gun pointed at Cheng and Owen. The two men were now standing along the far wall, their hands pulled back behind them.
“Did you call for backup?” Charlotte asked.
“Ace should be on his way, but knowing him, he’ll stop and get sandwiches first.”
Charlotte let out a breath she hadn’t realized she was holding. Often when guardians helped people, they provided sandwiches or some other takeout food to give a reason for someone to be gone from their home or work while they were really meeting with the guardian. Ace had done just that only a week ago when she had met with him.
“Sandwiches?” Jake asked.
“It’s a long story,” Charlotte said before speaking to Phil once more. “We’ll need to disassemble this equipment so we can secure it before turning these guys over to the authorities.”
“Actually, Ace said to leave it up.”
“Why?”
“We have a situation brewing.”
“I know we have a funding issue, but at this time of day, our support personnel won’t be in place anyway. We’ll have to wait until tomorrow for that.”
“It’s more than funding. We have operatives from two agencies on a possible collision course in Afghanistan.”
Charlotte’s face paled. “What?”
“Without the database active, no one has been able to monitor all of our different intelligence sources. A squad of Navy SEALs is en route right now to intercept a suspected al-Qaeda cell. They don’t know a CIA operative is inside the compound right now trying to infiltrate the same cell. We’ll get more information through the CIA’s sources, but we have no way to convince the navy to break radio silence and call off the strike.”
“Oh no.” Charlotte breathed the words out in a whisper.
“I don’t understand,” Jake said, taking a step toward the computer. “How can a bunch of linked computers stop a problem like that?”
“These computers link the databases that include every intelligence operative in the country and their current assignments,” Charlotte admitted. “All of the intelligence agencies also allow the guardians to access operational data to help coordinate the use of our resources.”
“I thought all of that secret spy stuff was kept need-to-know,” Jake said.
“It usually is.” She wavered on how much to tell him and realized that he already knew too much to hold back now. As she had told Ace, she trusted Jake. She took that final step to prove those words true by deciding to confide in him completely.
“After a friendly-fire incident twenty years ago, the guardian program was created. A U.S. senator and a project manager at the NSA came up with the idea of a central database for all intelligence sources and operations.”
“I wouldn’t think anyone would ever want all of that information in the same place,” Jake said astutely.
“It was risky, but they’d already seen what not having the information accessible had done,” Charlotte said. “Because of the potential danger to the operatives, only a small handful of people knew about its existence. Most people involved don’t even realize where their information is going. They think it’s either being provided to superiors within their own agency or to a senator on the intelligence oversight committee, who is really our source of funding.”
Phil’s phone chimed. He pulled it out with his free hand and looked down at the screen. “It’s happening.”
“What?”
“The SEALs will reach their insertion point in less than five minutes,” he said urgently. “Can you open the database long enough to send the abort code to the navy? You can shut it down right after you do.”
“Let me see,” Charlotte said, edging closer so she could see the screen of Phil’s phone. Sure enough, a countdown had been activated in the message he’d received from the navy. Charlotte looked at the coding string included in the message, verifying that it had come from the military. “Move those two to the far side of the room. I don’t want them anywhere near me when I access the database.”
“You heard her.” Phil waved his gun at them, and Cheng and Owen obediently backed away from her until they were leaning against the wall opposite the door.
She sat down at the keyboard again, struck by how surreal this moment had become. The two men who had killed her father, who had threatened her life as well as Jake’s, now stood silently across the room. The very situation the guardians had fought to prevent was unfurling, and she alone was in a position to ensure the safety of those in harm’s way.
She pulled the keyboard closer and typed in the first several characters of the complex password. A niggling doubt stopped her, the same doubt she had experienced the first time she’d met Phil.
How was it that Owen and Cheng weren’t fighting back? Phil’s presence seemed to have extinguished their ambition and their absolute conviction to see their goals through.
Charlotte glanced over at Phil and caught a brief glimpse of an expression she hadn’t seen previously: greed.
Chapter 47
Jake couldn’t have written this scene better himself. The unexpected hero showing up at the last minute, a looming threat that would put their resources to the test, the heroine able to stave off disaster with only minutes to spare. Personally, he would have punched up the climax and given the reader the chance to see a satisfying fight with the bad guys, but living in the moment, he was relieved those bad guys were no longer a threat.
“How much time do we have left?” Hannah asked.
“Three minutes and counting.”
“I hope Ace shows up soon. Maybe he really will bring us sandwiches. Jake loved the tuna salad one he sent with me when I met him last week.”
“After we get through this, I think he’ll give you whatever you want,” Phil responded.
Jake started to open his mouth to dispute Hannah’s claim. She knew he hated tuna salad. She had made a point of bringing him a roast beef sandwich when they’d been in North Carolina.
Even as he drew a breath to counter her comment, a burst of clarity shot through him. She knew exactly what she was saying.
He took in the scene with a new perspective, as though trying to find a mistake in the plot line of one of his books. Phil’s timing had been perfect . . . a little too perfect, perhaps?
Owen and Cheng stood silently across the room, their hands behind their backs. Somehow they didn’t look nearly as uncomfortable as he had been a short time ago. Come to think of it, how was it that Phil had tied both of them up in the same amount of time it had taken Hannah to free him?
He shifted his gaze to Hannah, noticing how her fingers had slowed on the keyboard, her body angling slightly away from Phil and toward the door.
Something fuzzy brush
ed his ear when he took a step back, and he looked back to see it was the leg of ridiculously large stuffed tarantula.
Who would buy their child such a thing? As a toy, it was hideous, but as a distraction . . .
“You know how much I love my tuna fish,” Jake said. The moment the words were out of his mouth, Hannah’s hands left the keyboard and grasped the arm rests of her chair. In an instant, she bolted out of the chair, sending it rolling violently at Phil.
“Run!” Hannah shouted.
Phil doubled over when the chair struck him. Jake grabbed the leg of the stuffed spider and hurled it toward Owen and Cheng just as both of them abandoned the premise of being tied up.
Jake shoved the door open, glancing back just long enough to see fuzzy legs tangling with the two men.
Hannah sprinted for the door. “Go!” she urged, motioning for him to go first.
Jake darted through the doorway, Hannah right behind him. A gunshot sounded just as he slammed the door closed.
“This way.” Hannah ran toward the heart of the store. She looked back to see that he was following her, but she needn’t have bothered. Within three steps, Jake reached her side, grabbed her hand, and matched her stride for stride.
* * *
Charlotte raced into the main part of the store and darted into the nearest aisle. She could hear the storage room door opening and footsteps heading toward them.
“They’re coming,” Jake whispered urgently as they both continued running through the aisle of baby toys, past a huge Lego creation that looked like an enormous spaceship, and into the aisle lined with superheroes and transformers.
“I don’t see them.” Owen’s voice carried to them.
“Spread out,” Phil said. “Cheng, cover the door, and make sure they don’t get past you.”
Charlotte ducked down in the aisle and pulled the gun she’d taken from Owen out of the back of her waistband. She opened up the clip, confirming what she’d suspected: it was empty. The gun had been a prop to make her think she was in control when Phil arrived, without giving her any real ability to defend herself.
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