Her Hero After Dark

by Cindy Dees

  They jogged on, stopped again, verified their position again, and laid another set of charges. It took them most of the remainder of the night to lay nearly two dozen sets of charges, all on timers to go off at various intervals over the next two days. The first timed charges were already detonating before they finished.

  To the later charges they added extra C-4 to really shake things up inside H.O.T. Watch. Finally, they used up the last of their explosions. Now it was time to wait. Once the facility was evacuated, they’d go topside and take a hard look at the satellite surveillance system and its wiring.

  They settled down on a smooth patch of sand and Jeff drew Jennifer into his arms.

  “Mmm. You make a pretty good mattress, Mr. Winston.”

  “You make a pretty good blanket, Ms. Blackfoot.”

  “Get some rest. I imagine it’ll take a while for folks to clear out of here.”

  He felt her lips moving across his chest through the material of his shirt. “Don’t tempt me,” he muttered.

  She laughed softly in the darkness. “You’re always tempted.”

  “With you around, you’re damned right I am.”

  * * *

  Jennifer closed her eyes. It was easy to sleep after the night’s heavy exertion and with the total blackness of underground to lull them into believing it was still night, even though her watch said the sun had risen outside. And it didn’t hurt, of course, that Jeff’s arms were warm and secure around her.

  How much later she jolted awake with the beam of a blindingly bright flashlight in her eyes, she didn’t know. “Jeff, get that thing out of my eyes,” she complained.

  “That’s not me, darling,” he murmured from right beside her.

  Crap.

  “Hi, Jennifer. You’re looking…comfortable.”

  She lurched into a sitting position. “Brady. What on earth are you doing here?”

  “Funny. I was about to ask you the same thing.”

  “Need me to take him?” Jeff breathed.

  “No.” She sighed. “Brady, this is Jeff Winston when he’s not screaming in pain. Jeff, meet my military counterpart, Commander Brady Hathaway.”

  The two men nodded cautiously at one another.

  Then Brady burst out, “Would you care to tell me what in the hell is going on, Jennifer? Are you actually trying to blow the place up? Please tell me this guy brainwashed you or something.”

  “He hasn’t brainwashed me. We’re trying to convince everyone the volcano’s going active again so they’ll evacuate the facility.”

  “Why?”

  She winced at the contained fury in that single syllable.

  Jeff piped up evenly, but with a definite threat underlying his tone. “Give her a minute to explain before you jump to the wrong conclusions.”

  “You stay out of this,” Brady snapped.

  “That’s enough, Brady,” she snapped back. “Jeff’s in the thick of this whether you like it or not. If it weren’t for him, I’d never have learned that H.O.T. Watch is compromised. And when I say compromised, I mean totally. The place has to be shut down.”

  Brady opened his mouth to protest, but shut it again at a warning look from Jeff.

  “Tell him what you discovered, Jeff,” she pleaded.

  Jeff described the loss of his team in Africa, his people’s suspicions and the search for answers that led to purchasing satellite feeds from H.O.T. Watch.

  “And before you tell him he’s lying,” Jennifer interjected, “I’ve seen the feeds with my own eyes. And I wasn’t here. I was in Colorado. They were all for sale, Brady. Everything.”

  He stared at the two of them in stunned silence. “You swear you’re telling the truth?” he rasped.

  “The God’s honest truth, Brady. I swear on my honor, on everything you and I have worked to accomplish in this place.”

  He staggered slightly before righting himself. “What’s the plan?”

  “Don’t answer that, Jenn,” Jeff bit out.

  “We can trust him,” she retorted. “I’ve worked with Brady for seven years. He’s as honorable as they come.”

  “He also has a job to do. He thinks he needs to protect this place. We can’t trust him.”

  She stared back and forth between the two men. She’d known Brady a lot longer, but she’d also known Jeff a heck of a lot more intimately. Who to trust? How was she supposed to choose? Her head said to trust Brady. But her heart told her to trust Jeff.

  “Don’t make me choose,” she finally ground out. “Brady, will you withhold judgment until we get a look at the wiring of this place?”

  “The wiring?” he exclaimed.

  “Jeff thinks duplicate wiring was built into the facility at the time of its construction, and that’s how whoever’s stealing the video feeds is bleeding them off the system without being detected.”

  Brady swore in disbelief. “You mean…” He trailed off as the implications of the place having been spied on for years sank in.

  “Explains a few things, doesn’t it,” she replied bitterly. The missions gone wrong for no good reason. Enemy responses that were too fast and too accurate to have been random luck.

  Brady stared at her. “They’ll blame you and me.”

  She nodded. “We make a great pair of sacrificial lambs, don’t we?”

  He sank down to his haunches in the tunnel and simply shook his head. She knew the feeling.

  “Stay with us,” she urged. “Help us check the facility out from top to bottom.”

  “I’ll do you one better than that,” he announced. He reached into his back pocket and pulled out a cell phone.

  Jeff lunged forward and tackled the navy man. Brady fought, but he never stood a chance. Jeff got his arms around him and held him in a grip of steel until Hathaway gave up.

  “Jeez, you’re strong. Do you take steroids or something?” Brady grumbled.

  “Or something,” Jeff ground out.

  “I was just going to call upstairs and order the evacuation now,” Brady explained as Jeff cautiously turned him loose.

  “Promise?” she demanded.

  “Jenn. How long have we worked together? I didn’t revoke any of your security clearances to this place, did I? I took you at your word and protected my teams without any explanations from you that I should. And I’m the one who came looking for you—alone—after your access codes were used to enter the steam plant.”

  She sighed and nodded. “Make the call.”

  It took about four hours to clear out the place. Most of that time was spent shutting down the nuclear generator and packing up the armory and critical computer components. Big Bertha would be moved in her entirety along with a portable generator to keep her internal cooling systems running during the transition.

  But eventually, Brady’s phone beeped with an incoming text. He glanced at the message. “That’s it. The place is cleared. Let’s go see what the hell’s going on with your wiring.”

  This was it. Her entire future rode on the next few hours. If she was right, she’d go down as a hero. If she was wrong, she was about to go to jail for a very long time…if she was lucky.

  Chapter 17

  Jeff made a point of walking behind Brady Hathaway as they made their way back toward H.O.T. Watch. Were it not for the shiny new wedding band on the guy’s left hand, he’d be more than just leery of the navy man. The guy obviously had a great working relationship with Jennifer. But, he reminded himself, when she glanced over her shoulder, it was to smile reassuringly at him, not Hathaway.

  They’d passed through the smuggler’s cave, taken another tunnel and stopped at a steel access door when an itching between his shoulder blades reminded Jeff. “By the way, did your guys catch that Chinese hit squad on the surface?”

  “Chinese…what?” Brady squawked.

  “The infiltration team I called you about,” Jennifer clarified in alarm. “The four men toting AK-47s and skulking around in the woods.”

  Brady’s jaw rippled. “I ran
that down and the duty controller said it was an exercise. No live men were on the surface.”

  “He lied,” Jeff bit out.

  “Who was the duty controller?” Jennifer asked ominously.

  “Sergeant Ordonez,” Brady answered grimly. “One of my guys.”

  Jeff commented, “Sounds like you may have found your mole.” He memorized the name carefully. Ordonez was a dead man. And meanwhile, a bunch of Chinese irregulars were still running around.

  “Isn’t Ordonez Venezuelan?” Jennifer asked.

  Hathaway nodded grimly. “I’d bet my next paycheck he was clean when he came to H.O.T. Watch.” But then he added, “He’s been here since the beginning, though. I wonder if someone got to his family.”

  Jennifer replied gently, “It doesn’t matter how they got their hooks into him at this point. Now it’s all about damage control.”

  Huh. And revenge. Blood for blood.

  With the complex emptied out, it was an easy matter for the three of them to head for the electrical wiring room that handled most of the facility’s satellite feeds. They dropped the metal panels and stared at the jumble of colored wires.

  Jeff suggested, “If you have access to this place’s wiring diagrams, I’m an electrical engineer. I might make sense of this faster than the two of you.”

  Jennifer asked, “Big Bertha’s down, right?”

  Brady nodded. “We’ll have to get the paper plans out of the safe in my office.”

  The three of them headed back out into the white, unmarked hallways. Jeff asked, “How do you guys find anything down here? Everything looks the same and nothing’s labeled.”

  Jennifer laughed. “That’s the point. When you live and work here you learn your way around. But outsiders are lost in a heartbeat.”

  “Count me lost.”

  “Stick with me, big guy,” she retorted.

  He did, however, carefully memorize the turns, and was fairly sure he could find his way to the massive control room they emerged into a few moments later. The place looked like a storm had blown through recently. Computer cables all over the place announced where laptops and monitors and satellite feeds had been hastily unplugged and carried out.

  The three jumbo screens high on the wall were black now and the long rows of desks where analysts would sit were deserted. This place was as impressive as hell and it wasn’t even up and running.

  He waited on the main floor while Hathaway ran up a flight of metal stairs to an office overlooking the ops center. The floor rattled beneath Jeff’s feet just then. Their explosive charges were doing a great job of simulating small earthquakes. Hathaway emerged in a few moments with a thick roll of blueprints under his arm, and they retraced their steps back toward the electrical room.

  Jeff judged they were about halfway back to their destination when, without warning, a gunshot exploded behind them. Hathaway grunted like he’d been hit as the three of them took off running and dodged into the next hallway.

  “Who the hell was that?” Jeff demanded.

  Jennifer and Hathaway traded grim looks. She answered, “I’d guess it’s Ordonez, or the Chinese, or both. Let me see your arm.”

  “The bullet just winged me. I’m fine,” Hathaway ground out.

  Jeff rolled his eyes. The guy didn’t have to be a hero to impress his girl, thank you very much. “Just show her your arm. You know she won’t let up until you do.”

  Hathaway grinned. “Getting to know her pretty well, aren’t you?”

  Jeff’s comment was cut off by the hiss of pain Hathaway sucked in as Jenn poked at his arm.

  “The bullet’s lodged in there, you idiot,” she announced.

  “Yeah, I know. But we can’t stop now to deal with it,” Hathaway retorted.

  She rolled her eyes and opened her mouth to lecture him, but Jeff cut her off gently. He knew that look in Hathaway’s eyes. “Give it a rest, Jenn. The sooner we get out of here, the sooner he’ll let you take care of his arm.”

  “God, I hate dealing with macho men,” she groused.

  “Say that to me the next time we’re alone in the Grays’ mansion,” he retorted under his breath.

  She blushed scarlet and turned to head for the electrical room without comment. Hathaway’s eyebrows shot up, but the guy had the good sense to make no snide comments. Which was good. Jeff would hate to add a broken nose to the guy’s injuries.

  They barricaded themselves in the utility room, bandaged Hathaway’s arm and let the navy man guard the door, holding a pistol in his off hand.

  With the schematics, it was an easy matter to see that, indeed, H.O.T. Watch had been double-wired. Where the schematics showed a single connection, the box on the wall had two. Over and over, Jeff found instances of duplicate wiring.

  While he took over guard duty, Jennifer and Hathaway commenced taking pictures with their phones of both the blueprints and the actual wiring. It was just the opportunity he’d been waiting for. His companions were engrossed in gathering evidence to prove that H.O.T. Watch was completely compromised.

  With a last check to verify they weren’t looking, he slipped out quietly into the hall. Somewhere out here was the guy who’d killed his men. If not directly, this Ordonez guy had certainly set up his team for the slaughter.

  * * *

  Jennifer felt sick. It was as if a doctor had told her that her beloved child was dying and there wasn’t a thing she could do about it. No matter how long she stared at the electrical wiring system, no matter how desperately she might wish for it, she couldn’t find any other diagnosis. H.O.T. Watch was finished.

  Nearly a quarter of her life she’d poured into this place. She and Brady had turned it into one of the premier intelligence gathering and analysis facilities in the world. And it had all been stolen from them. She felt violated. Betrayed.

  God, she needed a hug. She turned to Jeff to get one—

  Where was he?

  Frowning, she looked in every corner of the utility room. No sign of him. “Brady, did you see Jeff leave?”

  Her colleague glanced up in surprise. “No.”

  Crap. Crap, crap, crap. Surely he didn’t slip out and go after Ordonez. But her gut told her otherwise. Had he totally used her, after all? Had this all been a gigantic setup to get him close to the guy who’d killed his men? Had all of it been a lie? Had they been a lie?

  “I can’t run, Jenn. Sorry.”

  “That’s okay. I’ve got this one. Stay here. Keep documenting the evidence.” She jammed her camera in her pocket and raced out into the hall. Empty. She took off running, but she didn’t have any idea to where. For the first time in her life, she was lost inside her own home.

  * * *

  Jeff had spent a ton of time studying the maps of H.O.T. Watch yesterday, and he’d paid close attention when they’d been walking around the facility. He was confident he could navigate the unmarked hallways. He moved fast down the main hall in search of the shooter from before.

  Where would he go if he were a saboteur trying to cover his tracks? Jennifer had mentioned that the armory would be emptied as part of the evacuation. That left the obvious target, then. The nuclear generator. Jeff headed toward it.

  He swore when he saw the shattered remains of the number pad hanging beside the door to the outer control room. The reinforced steel door hung half off its hinges, its surface singed black. Somebody else must have done a little extracurricular C-4 shopping in the armory recently.

  Please, God, let the nuclear facility be shut down in its entirety. Surely, the staff wouldn’t have left the island with any portion of the reactor running.

  Of course, nuclear reactors stayed hot for years after they ceased operating. And by hot, he meant the rods stayed at thousands of degrees centigrade. He thought back to his lone nuclear engineering class in college. The saboteur probably wouldn’t be able to breach the actual reactor. But the guy might be able to vent radioactive steam into the H.O.T. Watch facility and render it uninhabitable for a very long time
to come.

  Jeff lifted the door aside far enough to slip inside. He’d barely cleared the door when a terrific blow landed on the back of his head. It would have shattered a lesser man’s skull. But as it was, it only knocked Jeff flat on his face and made stars dance in front of his eyes. Disoriented, he rolled to his back and was in time to catch the two-by-four as it arced down to finish him off.

  He grabbed the board and yanked it with all his strength, sending the man wielding it flying over him and across the room. Jeff rolled and pushed to his hands and knees. Nausea overcame him and he retched, unable to stand.

  He had to move. The guy would no doubt pull out a gun as soon as he realized a more quiet approach to killing Jeff wouldn’t work. He forced his limbs to move. The fuzzy shape in the corner moved, as well. Groaned. Jeff crawled faster. The guy pushed up onto an elbow. It was now or never. Jeff shoved to his feet and staggered across the room toward the saboteur. The guy looked Latin, not Chinese.

  Savage satisfaction coursed through him. The mole. But satisfaction turned to dismay as Ordonez lifted a pistol and took aim at him. At this range, the guy wasn’t going to miss.

  * * *

  Jennifer swore as two gunshots rang out somewhere nearby. They sounded close, but it was hard to tell with the stone tunnels distorting the sound. She looked around for a moment to locate herself and swore again. The nuclear reactor control room was just ahead.

  Of course. Any saboteur would head there, and Jeff had figured that out. Small problem: Jeff didn’t have a gun. Which meant those bullets had been fired at him.

  She put on a burst of speed as panic rolled through her. She was going to kill him for using her and lying to her, but no one else had better beat her to it!

  The burned and broken door came into sight and her heart skipped a beat. Pulling her pistol from its holster, she eased forward. Another shot rang out and she bolted through the doorway. She recognized both men immediately. Jeff was wrestling with Sergeant Ordonez, the two men grappling over a pistol between them.

  She knew better than to shout out Jeff’s name and distract him, so instead, she raised her weapon and yelled, “Freeze!”