by J. M. Madden
“Are you the only guard in the med center?”
“Yes, sir. There’s a nurse on the other side monitoring the patient. He didn’t react well to whatever they gave him today.”
“Do you record everything in the camp?” Fontana asked, voice casual.
“Oh, no, we don’t have the set up for that. A couple years ago men broke out of the camp and destroyed a lot of the equipment. Now we just monitor the prisoner cells, mostly.” He waved at the wall to the left. “You can see where the old camera monitoring equipment burned.”
Yes, the wall was still singed at the top, and most of the wrecked equipment had been moved out, but it looked like they’d tried to salvage one of the old wheeled carts. Now there were just two recorders on it.
Fontana planted his feet, weapon held loosely in his arms, but Jordyn thought she could see lines of tension around his mouth. Maybe this wasn’t as easy for him as it appeared.
“Is there another camp like this?”
The man nodded, frowning. “Yes, somewhere in Guyana, but I think they’re closing it down for some reason.”
“Did this one ever get shut down?” he asked.
The man shook his head. “No. They stopped bringing new test subjects in for a while, but it never actually shut down.”
Fontana’s face looked pissed, and she realized why. Their escape hadn’t worried the company at all. Men had been here, being tested upon, the entire time.
“I thought you had more people here.”
“We did, but something happened last week and we have new orders.”
“What are those orders?”
Fontana stared at the man hard, and Jordyn wondered if she dared reach out to him. It looked like he was about to collapse.
“We’re transferring the prisoners out to Guyana, then they’re going somewhere else. I’m not sure where.”
“When did you transfer people out?” she asked.
The man blinked and looked at her, then his gaze sharpened, and she realized she’d fucked up. Shit! She should have let Fontana ask the questions.
“Hey,” the soldier said, backing up, “you’re…”
Fontana didn’t let him finish. With a rifle butt to the jaw he knocked the soldier out cold. And probably shattered his jaw.
“Sorry,” Jordyn hissed.
Fontana staggered and Jordyn reached out to prop his shoulder before he fell. “Are you okay?”
He nodded, his arm heavy around her shoulders. “Yes. Controlling people like that takes a massive amount of power.”
Jordyn maneuvered him to the office chair in front of two monitors. Most of the screens on the monitor were snowy. Those must be the cameras Fontana had knocked out. “Why don’t you deal with this? Figure out what needs destroyed. See if they recorded anything. I’ll find the prisoner.”
Fontana nodded, looking at the screens, then pointed. “There.”
The man was stretched out on a table, looking lifeless. A woman was leaning over him, doing something.
“That must be the nurse. Be careful. They were as cold as the guards when I was here.” Fontana told her.
Jordyn left him sitting in the chair looking for evidence on an old computer. Before she left she put a zip tie around the guard’s wrists. Hopefully when he roused it would take him a while to alert the others in the camp.
Lifting her weapon in her arms, she headed down the hallway, back the way they’d come. Then she went into the other hallway that branched off. She crept along, trying not to make any noise. Then she came to a room with an observation window from the hallway. Standing, she peered inside very carefully.
The light-skinned black man on the gurney was emaciated, his belly concave between his rib cage and hip bones. The nurse stood at the man’s side, and she was cupping his cheek. Jordyn blinked, wondering if she was seeing correctly. The man on the gurney was awake and looking up at the nurse, and there was a slight smile on his lips.
Jordyn rocked back to the wall, then peered through the glass again. The dark-haired nurse was stroking her thumb across the man’s cheekbone now and whispering to him. She turned away from him to reach for something on the rolling metal table beside her, and the man’s head rocked to track her.
Jordyn took the chance to get close to the open door, trying to hear what was being said.
“I’m sorry this is going to hurt.”
Jordyn stepped through the doorway, furious, weapon trained on the woman. “You’re not fucking hurting them anymore.”
The woman stilled, a syringe of clear fluid in her hand. Her blue eyes widened with fear, and her mouth fell open. “I’m not,” she started, but Jordyn cut her off.
“Are you the only one in here?”
The woman blinked. “There’s a security guard on the other side. Are you American?” she asked incredulously.
“Doesn’t matter. Unfasten him.”
The man on the gurney held a hand out to Jordyn. “Don’t hurt her, please.”
Jordyn was confused. The man wasn’t restrained in any way. What the hell was going on?
“What’s in the syringe?” she demanded.
“A vitamin shot. The food that they feed them is not enough to maintain his body. He’s losing weight faster than it can be replaced.”
Shaking her head at the craziness, Jordyn looked between the two of them, then back at the nurse. “Do you work for the Silverstone Collaborative?”
The woman’s mouth tightened. “Technically, yes. But I don’t agree with what they’re doing here.”
“She’s been helping us,” the man on the gurney said. He caught Jordyn’s eyes. “She’s not an enemy.”
Something about his earnest gaze swayed her, but she was still cautious. “You trust her to inject you with whatever is in there?”
He nodded, his eyes tired. “I do. It will help me. She’s only ever helped us.”
She looked into the man’s earnest expression and wondered if the woman was such a good liar that she’d convinced him. The woman’s hands were shaking.
Jordyn nodded to her. “Go ahead. Then put your hands above your head and back up to me.”
The woman gave the man the shot, then did exactly as Jordyn told her to do. Without any wasted motion she zip tied the woman’s hands in front of her. Jordyn pushed her to face the wall where she could watch her as she moved to the man on the gurney. “Are you Jackson?”
The man nodded and tried to sit up, but it was hard for him to do. Jordyn pushed on his back to support him. “Are you mobile?”
“Some.”
“We’re getting you out of here if you don’t mind.”
“Fuck, yes,” he breathed. “Did you get the others?”
“Yes. Do you know how many were left?”
“There were just five of us left. You got them all?”
She nodded, holding out a hand as he lowered himself from the table. He stayed vertical as his feet hit the floor, but she thought it was a near thing.
“We need to take Kelle,” the man said. “None of us would be alive if she hadn’t been here.”
Jordyn looked at the woman against the wall. She’d turned her head and there was hope in her expression. Tears filled her eyes and threatened to fall.
Fontana stepped into the doorway.
“Did you hear?” Jordyn asked him.
He nodded. “Turn around,” he told the nurse. “What’s your name and what do you do here?”
“Kelle Mattox. I’m the night nurse. If anyone has to stay in the med center I stay here with them.”
Fontana stared at her hard for several long seconds, frowned, and met Jordyn’s eyes before flashing back to the nurse. “You know what the Collaborative does.”
“Yes,” she admitted, tears filling her eyes. “But I was afraid if I tried to leave, the men would be worse off than with me here. I’m the only one that has done anything to try to save them.”
“It’s the truth,” Jackson said.
Jordyn wanted to believe the w
oman. She wanted to believe that they’d had some kind of comfort here. Apparently, Fontana did as well, because he nodded his head. “Fine. We’ll take you with us but be warned. If I have one issue with you or think you’re playing dirty, I’ll blow your head off and leave you in the jungle for the cats to eat. No hesitation. We’re leaving now.”
Kelle nodded at everything he said, looking scared. Jackson moved toward her and stumbled, and she caught him, even with her wrists bound. Jackson slung an arm around her shoulders and she braced him up.
Fontana took the lead, followed by the prisoner and nurse, then Jordyn as they headed toward the door of the med center. Fontana checked to make sure no one was outside, then led them through. Jordyn dropped her night vision goggles down over her eyes and followed them out.
They left the camp as quickly as possible, but it was hard with Jackson. He and the nurse fell twice. Fontana cut the zip tie from the woman’s wrists and they stayed vertical as Fontana led them over the downed chain-link fence and into the jungle. Within half an hour they were at the tree, and the prisoners that were conscious welcomed Kelle and Jackson openly. That made Jordyn feel better about bringing the nurse.
The woman they’d rescued from the last cage was still unconscious, so Jordyn had Kelle check on her. They turned on a flashlight to let her see.
“I was off-shift when Becca came in yesterday, so I have no idea what the experiment they conducted on her. She should have woken up by now, though.”
Jordyn caught her eye. “She was also sexually assaulted.”
Anger flashed in Kelle’s expression. “There’s one guard that…”
“…won’t be an issue anymore. Fontana killed him.”
“Good. Lousy son of a bitch.”
Kelle cleaned the woman up but admitted she didn’t know what else to do for her. She had no equipment or medicine. She made her comfortable then moved to the male prisoners. One male had a swath of exposed muscle across his stomach, where they’d removed a large chunk of skin. Kelley bandaged it but admitted that they would need to do a lot more to it later.
Jordyn thought Kelle was on the up and up, and Fontana apparently did as well because he left her unrestrained. Sitting down beside Fontana against one of the tree roots, Jordyn leaned into him just a bit.
“You doing okay?” she asked. “I thought you were going to go down trying to control that guard.”
He gave her a slight smile. “I thought I was too, honestly. I’ve never controlled someone that hard before.”
Jordyn glanced at the watch on her wrist and pressed the button to illuminate it. “Just after three-thirty. We were only in there an hour,” she breathed. “It felt like days.”
Fontana chuckled, tiredly. “Felt like years for me.”
“We need to get back to Margarita and get the fuck out of here.”
“You’ll get no argument from me.”
Jordyn climbed to her feet, then held a hand down to Fontana. She loved that he didn’t wave her off, just gripped her wrist and let her pull him up. Then he surprised her even more by dropping a kiss to the top of her head before turning away.
Chapter Seventeen
Fontana was bone-deep tired. He’d never understood why using his mental abilities sapped his strength more than anything physical he might do, but it did. And it was making him do irrational things. Like kiss Jordyn on the head.
“We need to get out of here, Team Alpha. Dawn is less than three hours away and the missing prisoners will be noticed. Two of the wounded need to be carried. We’ll take turns doing that. Right now, we need to get as far away from this place as possible. Let’s go.”
It was slower going than what he wanted, and he was partially responsible. The prisoners hadn’t been out of their cages or done any exercise in months, and he hadn’t had a chance to regenerate any power. He needed food and sleep. And the ground was treacherous. They’d cut through the brush, but it was difficult going, even when Fontana allowed them to turn on the flashlights. Zero continued to carry the unconscious woman, and Kenny carried the man. He roused at one point and struggled to be put down, but as soon as he took his own weight he passed out again. Kenny just caught him and hoisted him over the opposite shoulder.
They took a break when they got to the beach camp at the edge of the river. Shane handed out protein bars to everyone, as well as bottles of water.
“I suggest we move a little downstream before we cross,” Payne suggested. “There was a spot that’s only a few feet wide.”
They got up and followed Payne to the spot. Jordyn was beginning to get nervous because the sky was lightening, and they still had a pretty good distance to go. When they came to the crossing, Kenny and Zero made sure the prisoners got across safely, then Kenny turned to Shane and held out his arms.
“What the hell are you doing?” Shane snapped.
“I’m carrying you across, Marine. I almost broke my good leg chasing you down the river.”
Even in the dim light Jordyn could see Shane flush, but she was kind of in agreement for Kenny’s offer. “Just do it Shane and we’ll get back to Margarita.”
“Fuck that. Just let me hold onto your belt loops or something.”
“So that you can pull me in the water when you fall? No way.”
Shane looked at the flowing water and just that made him sway.
“Shane!” Jordyn snapped.
He looked at her, but even he knew he was fucked. “Fine.”
Big Kenny swung the man up into his arms, and it attested to how massive Kenny was that he didn’t even stagger. Shane was lean, but he wasn’t small.
“Look at me, Shane.” Jordyn pointed two fingers at her eyes. “Don’t look at the water.”
Shane did exactly as she told him, looking over Kenny’s shoulder and into her eyes, and they were across the water in seconds. Kenny set him down safely, then Fontana crossed with his pack and set it at his feet. Jordyn shifted her own pack off and waded into the water. It was chilly this morning but refreshing. Luckily it didn’t get any higher than her thighs. The current was strong, but she made it across okay.
Now to get back to Margarita.
“Is this active enough for you, Zero,” she called.
Her buddy chuckled and glanced at her over his shoulder. “Oh, yeah.”
It was another arduous four hours to get back to the helicopter. Surely by now the men had been discovered missing. She strained her ears, listening for any kind of pursuit. If the guards made it into the woods, they would see the path they’d taken to get out. They’d cut it into the damn jungle. Maybe they should have left some neon signs pointing the way…
Eventually they made it to the edge of the jungle. Jordyn had been checking her GPS coordinates the entire time, and the old man’s field was less than half a mile away. Fontana held up a fist, indicating he wanted them to stop, then he scouted ahead, his limp more pronounced than she’d seen it. Jordyn crept forward as well, scanning the entire area she could see.
Margarita looked fine, gleaming in the early morning light. There was a young man about a quarter mile away at the edge of the field. It was obvious this was the farmer’s son.
“It appears to be fine,” Fontana said, voice low. “Let’s pay the man and get out of here.”
They hustled the prisoners—survivors— to the helicopter and found them seats. The two who were still unconscious were laid out on the floor on blankets. The rest moved into seats. Team Alpha stowed their gear and began strapping themselves in. The farmer’s son ran to them and promised that he had been watching Margarita very carefully. Jordyn handed him a wad of money. “This is for your papa.” She handed him a second wad of cash. “And this is for you. Thank you for taking care of her.”
The young man grinned and waved as he backed away.
Jordyn did a quick inspection as the men loaded the survivors up, but the skin on her neck was prickling. They needed to get in the air and get out of here.
Margarita hummed in her hands as the r
otor built speed and lifted into the air easily, even though she was at her cargo capacity. They had planned on finding another airport if this camp had been empty, but now she needed to get back to her Uncle’s.
Fontana drew out his satellite phone and called Aiden. Even though he had to yell over the sound of the rotors, it was important enough that it needed done. He advised that if the CIA wanted several material witnesses, including a current Silverstone employee, they should have a team at Pedro’s airport by the time they got there, or soon after. Fontana also advised him that they needed a medical team because they had wounded survivors. He agreed with something Aiden said, then hung up.
Fontana gave her a thumbs up and slipped the phone away.
Jordyn flew high and fast and knew she would be close to exhausting her fuel getting back to her uncle’s airport so far away, but there was no way she was stopping. She also wanted to get Fontana back to the house. It was obvious he was staying awake for her, but she didn’t need him to.
“Take a nap,” she suggested, switching to the private channel. “There’s no way I’ll nod off right now.”
He shook his head. “If I fall asleep now my control might slip. I won’t be responsible for us crashing.”
Ah, yes, that was a very good reason to stay awake.
“Well, talk to me then. It’s just you and me right now.”
He looked at her for several long moments, then out the window. Jordyn left the channel open. When he didn’t break the silence, she did. “Do you feel like you completed the mission?”
“Partly,” he admitted. “We never expected there to be men at the same camp where we’d been. It’s ridiculously stupid, but it’s ballsy. The woman that had been in charge, Priscilla Mattingly, she was like that. It tells me that they had enough of a hold on the area that they weren’t worried about the authorities shutting them down.”
“Well, you know they had at least partial Army support.”
“Yes.”
“If the CIA is involved, are you going to have to testify?”
He sighed. “Possibly. It was kind of a matter of time before we had to bring them in. This is bigger than all of us together and we knew we would need help to take them down.”