by LENA DIAZ,
He grinned. “There’s my girl.”
“You wish.”
He laughed and stopped at the glass front doors, which had a thick chain across them and a heavy padlock. Plywood protected the glass, as it did all of the windows on the first floor. The upper-floor windows were left uncovered. Bailey didn’t know why anyone had bothered to board the place up, unless there really was something inside to still protect. Maybe it wasn’t as abandoned as it seemed. She couldn’t help a quick look over her shoulder. But the parking lot was just as forlorn and empty as it had been when they’d arrived.
“I guess we should get the crowbar out of the trunk to break the—” She stopped when Kade slid a key out of the lining of his wallet and fit it into the padlock.
The lock clicked open and a feeling of unease snaked up her spine. “Why do you have a key?”
He pulled the door open and stepped back for her to enter. “Because I’m the one who had the place emptied and locked up in the first place. This is where I worked when I first took on this mission.”
When she didn’t move, he said, “Having second thoughts about me now?”
“I’m having second thoughts about coming here, period. The place reminds me of the prison in The Walking Dead.”
He chuckled and waved for her to precede him into the immense, two-story lobby. “After you.”
Lights came on as soon as they stepped inside. She whipped her gun out and whirled around, sweeping it in a circle.
“Relax. It’s just the motion sensors.” Kade moved past her toward a door on the far wall.
Feeling silly for being so skittish, she holstered her gun and followed him—which, because of his limp, wasn’t very difficult even though his legs were so much longer than hers. Even with some over-the-counter pain meds in his system, both his leg and the fresh injury in his side had to be bothering him far more than he showed. But her offer of some prescription painkillers left over from one of her old injuries was emphatically turned down, without explanation.
His magical key unlocked yet another door, and he led them down a long hallway, past a door labeled Cafeteria. At the end of the long hall, they stopped in front of a set of elevators and he pushed the Up button. She kept her hand close to her holster, in spite of his reassurances that the place was empty. Maybe there were zombies hiding in some of the abandoned offices.
“If no one comes here anymore, why are the utilities still on?” The steel doors slid open and a bell dinged. “And why is the elevator still operating?”
“Emptying the place out and preparing it for destruction takes time. I’ve been more focused on capturing Enforcers than finishing up here, which is a good thing for us.” They stepped inside and he pressed the button for the third floor. “The executive offices are still furnished and Cyprian has a couple of cushy couches we can crash on tonight. In the meantime, even though most of the computer muscle is gone, there are still a few desktops we can use. And a satellite dish on the roof. We should have Internet access. Maybe we can log into Netflix and catch up on some Walking Dead episodes.”
She grinned. “Now you’re speaking my language.”
Halfway down the long plushly carpeted hallway, he entered the administrative assistant’s office, which was basically the reception area for Cardenas. What had been the older lady’s name who’d once worked here? Jolene? Yes, that was it. Bailey wondered what had happened to the woman. Hopefully she’d been given a generous retirement package. Hopefully all of the people who’d worked for EXIT—the ones who’d worked for the legitimate tour part of the company—had been generously taken care of. It wasn’t fair that Jolene and so many others lost their livelihoods when the clandestine side of EXIT went belly-up.
“Bailey?”
He was waiting for her inside the next office, the one marked Cyprian Cardenas, CEO EXIT Incorporated. She stepped into the room and her mouth fell open in awe.
“Son of a . . . wow, just . . . wow.” She turned in a full circle, trying to take everything in. It was the fanciest office she’d ever seen, with expensive cherry and mahogany wood furniture, a full bar, and what appeared to be a private bathroom. Even the ceiling was coffered, much like an old English library might be.
Kade had moved to the massive desk and plopped their go bags on top. He looked up from his examination of the old-fashioned desk phone, which was the only thing on the desk when they’d arrived. “You’ve never been here before?”
“I’ve been in the building. Cyprian’s admin, Jolene, met me in Human Resources on the first floor so I could fill out paperwork and get a badge. I’ve been to the cafeteria, too, when meeting other Enforcers. But I’ve never been up here. This place is like the Taj Mahal.”
“EXIT was a lucrative business, both the legitimate side and the clandestine side. Cardenas could afford the best.”
“I’m surprised that his daughter, Melissa, agreed to close the tour side down. She could have kept it going even after the government shut down the Enforcer program.” Although she was pretty sure the Equalizers would argue that they’d shut the program down, by shutting down Cyprian.
“From what I hear, she wanted nothing to do with the company after she learned the full extent of what her father had done.”
Bailey’s gaze shot to his. “She didn’t know about the true EXIT until her father’s death?”
“Not from what I was told.”
“Then how is she even alive? I’d have thought the government wouldn’t trust her to keep their precious secrets once she found out what was going on. They’re certainly eliminating everyone else who knows anything.”
Kade stiffened.
She stepped toward him. “I didn’t mean that you would hurt her, or have her hurt. I realize you weren’t aware of the government’s plans to eliminate everyone associated with the program.”
“We still haven’t established that my boss, or anyone above him, is trying to kill everyone who used to be part of the Enforcer program.”
She frowned. “Hawke’s death, the bullet hole in your side, aren’t proof enough?”
“Your friend’s death was tragic, but could very well have been an accident. Simmons and his team could have made a mistake, then realized what they’d done and didn’t want to own up to it. As for my injury, yes, Porter is a bad apple. But that doesn’t mean everyone on this mission is corrupt.”
“The agents helping Porter try to kill us, what, helped on accident?”
“Of course not. But you have to understand how the bureau works. We follow orders, often without knowing all the reasons behind them. If Porter gave those agents reason to believe that you and I were a danger to others, they would have helped him—as fellow agents helping another in need—without question.”
She shook her head and put her hands on her hips. “And my other friends? Did you forget about Sebastian and Amber? Let me guess. Those were unfortunate mistakes as well?”
“I don’t know yet,” he said, his voice clipped and short. “But I would have hoped by now that you’d realized I’m not turning a blind eye to anything. But neither am I prepared to condemn everyone I work with without proof.”
She shoved her hair back from her face, not sure whether to rail at him or to apologize. How could he need more proof after what they’d been through? And yet, how could she be upset at him for wanting to treat people fairly and not turn his back on them without proof of their guilt? He was noble, with his own code of honor. And she couldn’t help admiring him for it, even though it drove her crazy.
She’d decided on an apology when he suddenly pressed a series of buttons on the desk phone. Movement to her right had her whipping her gun out of the holster and whirling around. But the only “threat” was a cherrywood door sliding back into the wall and lights switching on, revealing a previously hidden office.
“Sorry,” he said. “Should have warned you first.”
She holstered her gun and joined him at the opening. “What is this?”
“The hea
rt of Cyprian’s operation, where he conducted the clandestine side of the business. There’s a desktop computer in there. It’s as good a place as any to start ferreting out whether my boss and others know what Porter is up to. Come on.” He headed into the other room.
She let out a deep breath and stepped inside, jumping when the panel slid closed behind her.
“Open that back up,” she said. “I don’t like feeling trapped.”
He moved to the desk that was a twin of the one in the outer office, and pressed a sequence of buttons on the matching phone. The panel immediately slid open.
“Better?” he asked.
She nodded. “Thanks.”
“Claustrophobia or something else?”
“Something else.” At his questioning look, she conceded, “I don’t like having my exits blocked off. Especially at EXIT headquarters.” She waved toward the computer monitor. “You really think we can get any useful information out of that?”
“We may not have the resources of the FBI behind us at the moment. But I’m pretty good at old-fashioned Internet searches. Let’s see what we can find on Porter and Simmons. And I should check my email to see if Gannon came through with the background report I requested on two of my agents. If they’re not really agents, which is what I suspect, knowing more information on them might give us some leads to follow, too.”
“Gannon? I thought you two weren’t talking these days?”
“I called him from the house in Boulder and appealed to his sense of honor. Basically, the idea of mercenaries potentially impersonating federal officers was more abhorrent than speaking to me.”
“I really don’t like this former friend of yours.”
He smiled.
“I’m thinking we should search for info on your boss, too,” she said. “What did you say his name was?”
“Faegan.” He powered up the computer. “The mainframe is still here, on the first floor. But it’s been wiped clean aside from the operating system and the programs that control things like the lights and air-conditioning. It will be destroyed along with the building.”
“Destroyed? Mainframes are crazy expensive. Why not sell it?”
“Because even though some of the top geeks in the industry were paid a hell of a lot of money to ensure that none of the data that was ever stored on the hard drives is capable of being recovered, we can’t take that chance. While there’s no way to guarantee that someone won’t try to start up something similar to EXIT again sometime in the future, we can at least do everything in our power to ensure they don’t have a head start. Cyprian’s massive databases are gone. Destroyed. The backups included. See for yourself.”
He motioned her to take a seat behind the desk and she did. The familiar logon screen she’d been using her entire career as an Enforcer was displayed. The same screen she and others still used to communicate through an encrypted network. It was the same network where they’d been given their mission plans, and sometimes, EXIT orders—which contained the details about some criminal or terrorist they were supposed to target.
She keyed her login and password and pressed Enter.
An error message popped up on the screen saying that the login was invalid.
“Only administrator IDs work from this system.” He leaned over her shoulder and entered an ID and password.
The screen popped up a menu unlike anything she’d ever seen. None of the options looked familiar. At the top, it read, ISPF Primary Option Menu. Tabs under that had labels like Utilities and Compilers. And down the left side of the screen were even more choices, starting at 0 for Settings, then 1 for View, 3 was another Utilities option, and there were many more.
“I don’t understand,” she said. “What is this?”
“Essentially, it’s a user interface to the operating system. Choose option three dot four.”
“Three dot four?”
He leaned over her and keyed 3.4 and pressed Enter. “There, it gives you a place to look at all of the files on the system. Press Enter again, without filling out anything else on the screen.”
She did, and it came up with a message saying no files were found. “Does that mean the computer is empty? The mainframe doesn’t have anything on it?”
“Pretty much. Technically it means nothing exists on the system that starts with my ID as the prefix, since we’re logged onto my account. But if you type a tick mark, then A, followed by a wildcard it will show you all of the files starting with the letter A. You can do that for any letter and—”
She held her hands up in surrender. “Okay, okay. So I’m not as good with computers as I thought I was ’cause you’re speaking a language I don’t understand. But I was on the old Enforcer network just last week. Are you saying that’s been disabled since then?”
“Not exactly. I can access that system from here, but the data that drives most of it is static. And if you were to try to maneuver around the whole system the way you used to, you’d find a lot of the links no longer work. That’s because we only kept a shell running, just enough to allow communications, really. There isn’t anything you or the others can access now about old missions or any sensitive data. All of that was destroyed. Basically, the front end remains to fool the Enforcers who still haven’t been caught.”
“And that front end is run from this building?”
He shook his head. “It’s run from an FBI lab outside the city. I can log onto it from here, but most of the remaining administrative functions have to be accessed from a terminal hardwired in the lab, not remotely. If you were hoping to find all of the FBI’s secrets and an org chart showing who’s calling the shots on the Enforcer retraining mission, then I have to disappoint you. That kind of information just isn’t here.”
She sat back. “Earlier you mentioned your research on the Enforcers. Like finding all of my properties.”
“Except the one in Canada?” he teased.
“Right. Except that one. Where is all that research?”
He straightened and stepped back from the desk. “You’re a task driver and a half.”
“Sorry, can’t help it. I’m curious.”
He smiled. “I don’t mind. But I can’t show you any of that research. Everything I worked on for this mission is maintained on the bureau’s mainframes now, not EXIT’s mainframe. I had access to a limited part of the files through my PC back at the house where I was staying, the one you found. And I had some stacks of property reports on the bookshelf to work through. But anything really incriminating that could be tied back to EXIT, what little of that type of data remains, has to be pulled up onsite.”
“In that lab you mentioned.”
“Yep. I go there once or twice a week. It’s more like a warehouse than a lab, although it used to be a bustling technology center. These days a few lonely souls like myself wander in and out a few times a week to run reports.”
“Where is it?” she asked again.
He frowned. “Why are you asking so many questions about the lab? I’m not going to take you there. Data on other missions that have nothing to do with EXIT are stored in that facility. And I’m not turning traitor on the FBI and revealing the lab’s location.”
“Then maybe you’ll tell us instead,” a voice said from the doorway.
Kade grabbed his pistol and whirled around, then froze. The other man was already pointing his pistol at him.
“Drop it.”
Kade hesitated.
Two other men stepped from the shadows to flank the first. They were both holding guns, too.
Kade swore and tossed his gun to the floor.
Bailey sat frozen, her right hand on the butt of her gun. But she didn’t pull it out of the holster. For the first time since becoming an Enforcer, she wasn’t sure what she should do, what she wanted to do.
“Who are you?” Kade demanded. “What do you want?”
“Our official ‘team’ name is the Equalizers,” the first man said. “But you can call me Jace.”
Ba
iley slowly rose from her seat as Jace Atwell and the two other men entered the office. One of them appeared to be about six foot four and towered over everyone else. She didn’t need an introduction to know who he was. His reputation preceded him in the world of EXIT. He was The Enforcer, Devlin Buchanan. And he was even more intimidating in person than on paper.
She shot a worried glance at Kade, before looking back at Jace, who appeared to be the leader of this little welcoming party.
“What are you doing here, Jace? And don’t tell me it’s a coincidence that you just happened to come here when we were here.”
Kade’s eyes widened and he stared at her. “Friends of yours?”
“I’m, ah, not sure yet. Jace is the one who helped me escape your house that first night. And that man—” she pointed “—is Devlin Buchanan. A former Enforcer. I don’t know the other guy.”
“That’s Mason,” a fourth man said as he rolled into the office in a wheelchair. “He’s a serious son of a bitch and has absolutely no sense of humor. I don’t know why we keep him.”
Mason ignored him, keeping his gaze locked on Kade, his gun trained on his chest.
“Back up,” Buchanan ordered, motioning for Kade to move into the middle of the room. Mason immediately followed, like a bloodhound following a scent trail. Or maybe a Rottweiler. He was laser-focused, ignoring the others. He only had eyes for Kade.
Kade did as ordered, but his body was tense, his hands fisted at his sides. His gaze was constantly moving, scanning the room and everyone in it. Until he looked at Bailey. His jaw tightened, and he looked away.
Her shoulders sagged. He obviously thought she’d planned this, that somehow she’d colluded with these . . . Equalizers . . . to capture him. And she couldn’t even be angry at him for making that assumption. She hadn’t done a single thing to stop them. As soon as she’d seen Jace standing there, her loyalties had ripped clean in two. Both men had saved her life. How was she supposed to choose sides?
She pushed out of the chair just as the young man in the wheelchair zipped over beside her.
“Out of my way, lady.” He made a shooing motion with his hand.