by Dale Mayer
Are you in?
He tapped the phone twice for a yes.
Backup is on its way.
He smiled at that. Who?
Friend.
He stared at that word, but no further messages came. He pocketed his phone and went up one level to get a bird’s-eye view. He located a newly installed elevator at one corner and three sets of stairs at the remaining three corners. He was still in the basement area of the building. After taking one more set of stairs, he could look out the nearby window and see the ground below.
Just as he went to the front of the building, passing more windows, he caught sight of somebody dressed in black, skirting around to the far side. He immediately tracked the newcomer to the back wall and then waited for the door to open. Just as it did, it seemed somebody instinctively knew Kerrick waited here. So, he tapped out his name in Morse code. He froze, and then, on the other side of the door, someone tapped out an affirmative Yes.
And then he asked, Who the hell are you?
Griffin.
Kerrick opened the door and flashed his light in the man’s face. Eyes bright and deep emerald green stared back at him. They were twinkling. Kerrick reached out a hand, and Griffin caught it and squeezed hard. Kerrick didn’t have time for explanations or questions, but he pulled his buddy in and shut the door tight. In a low whisper, Kerrick asked, “Are you up to speed?”
Griffin nodded. “Have checked out the grounds. All clear. But doubt it will stay that way.”
Kerrick nodded and stepped through to the stairwell and said, “Down here first.”
But Griffin pulled him back and pointed down.
Kerrick couldn’t see anything.
By his ear, Griffin whispered, “Somebody’s on the landing below us.”
“Got it.”
He stepped off to the side to peer down the stairwell, seeing two bodies pressed tight against the stairwell below. So, they heard him coming? That was just too damn bad. If they got in his way, he would take them out. But … one was small, in baggy coveralls. The other smaller. He held up a warning hand to Griffin, who joined him at his side, and they studied the two in shock. They looked at each other, and then, in a sudden move, Kerrick, using the railings, jumped up to the landing below in two moves, his weapon up tight against the taller of the two people frozen in front of him. And damn if that same clear and directed gaze from one of his photos didn’t shine back at him.
“Who are you?” she snarled. Even with his gun poking her in the ribs, she raised her fists as if to clock him.
He quickly grabbed her hand, twisted it around her back, and pulled her tight against him, so she couldn’t hit him. The child beside her immediately punched and kicked at Kerrick, but Griffin grabbed him and wrapped him up tight.
Kerrick whispered in the woman’s ear, “Amanda?”
She froze, then slowly nodded.
“Good,” he said. “You’re the one we came for.”
“But Brandon comes too,” she was quick to demand.
With her in his arms, Kerrick raced back to the door where Griffin had entered. With both captives safely in their custody, they stepped outside into the cool night air. Kerrick whispered, “Don’t make a sound. Don’t make a move. Not until we tell you.”
“How do I know whose side you’re on?” she asked in an angry whisper.
He could see the fear in her gaze and also her determination to not let that stop her. But, as she stared into his eyes, she seemed to relax a bit. He smiled and said, “Well, I have a code word for you. Would that make you feel better?”
She frowned and said, “I don’t know any code word.”
“And why is it that you do cancer research?”
She stared at him, shook her head, and he whispered, “Because of your friend Alice.”
She sagged against him, and he picked her up and carried her off into the night.
Chapter 7
Amanda didn’t know if she should trust this stranger or not, but the fact was, she was outside her prison and breathing fresh air again. That was the best feeling ever. She held Brandon close in her arms. The poor kid was terrified. He had his arms wrapped tight around her waist, as they both stared up at the men with darkened faces. The men motioned them to move with them quietly.
Just as they headed down the path toward the front of the building, several vehicles pulled in, lights blazing. The two men grabbed her and Brandon and pulled them back behind the building.
She could hear one man swear under his breath. She looked around the property, but the fences were high and would be hard to cross. “Maybe we should go back inside,” she whispered.
“Or maybe not,” the other man said, his voice low. “If they’re coming inside, we want to make sure that we’re not caught in there. As soon as they go in the building, we need to get away from here.”
“I don’t know if there’s any way out the back,” Amanda stated. “Do you guys know?”
The second man looked over at the first and said, “Kerrick?
So that was his name. It’s not like they had had time for introductions.
Kerrick shook his head. “I didn’t see anything. It’s this fence all the way around.”
The first man nodded. “Makes perfect sense. They shepherd people in, so they only have one direction to go.”
“Like cattle,” she supplied calmly. She waited to see if the footsteps sounded closer to them. But—other than being flat and tight against the building with the two men both ready and armed—there was just complete silence. Then shortly thereafter she heard car doors closing and lots of laughter from the people walking into the building that angered her more than anything.
They thought this was funny? They thought this was a good thing that she and this poor child and how many others had been imprisoned, freezing, day in and day out, surviving on moldy food and using piss pots instead of toilets? Just the audacity of these people made her so angry. She could feel the tremors running up and down her thin frame. And maybe Kerrick noticed too because he gripped her shoulder firmly and whispered, “Stand steady.”
She just glared at him. He flashed a smile in her direction, but she didn’t move. The second man leaned forward, ever-so-slightly, and held out three fingers and then dropped one. She waited, wondering what would happen when he dropped the other one. He dropped the second one, and Kerrick whispered, “As soon as he signals it, we’ll run. Be ready.”
“Great,” she muttered, “but where?”
“We’ll stay to the right and go through that open gate.”
“A getaway vehicle would be better,” Brandon muttered against her waist.
She felt more than saw a chuckle come from Kerrick. He patted Brandon on the shoulder and then reached out a hand, grabbing both of theirs when the second man dropped his final finger. They bolted as fast and as silently as they could, racing along the fence on the right-hand side to the double gates that stood open. Then they were through. She wanted to scream in victory when she hit the other side, but the men weren’t giving her a chance to catch her breath, and she knew that they were a hell of a long way from being out of danger.
Just when she thought that maybe they’d cleared the danger zone, they heard voices shouting behind them. With her breath coming in gasps and her chest burning, they raced faster. She thought they were heading for a road, but instead they pulled them into another building, and then they stopped, pressing up tight against another wall. She closed her eyes and tried to calm down her breathing. But each breath rasped out, sounding like a huge cacophony of noise that people miles away would hear.
Brandon looked over at Kerrick and said, “Please tell me that you have a car or a truck to take us away.”
Kerrick smiled at him and said, “Yes, but we don’t want to be seen getting into it because then they’ll follow us too easily.”
Brandon smiled for the first time. “Good. If they try to take me a second time, I’ll make them pay.”
Amanda gave him a quick
hug, then said, “The bad guys aren’t taking us anywhere again. You and I have both had enough of that crowd.”
She could feel the shiver of fear run over him, and she realized just how terrifying an event this must have been for the young boy. It had been bad enough for her. She couldn’t imagine how he felt. He was only ten. The machinations of these evil and greedy people were not something any child should be exposed to. Not like this.
They waited again in complete silence. The trouble was her heart just kept pounding against her rib cage. The adrenaline still coursing through her bloodstream kept her revved up, unable to calm down. She could feel her blood pounding at her temples. Her breathing rasped hard in her dry throat from the mad dash. It was all she could do to get her breath under control, just in case she had to run again. It wasn’t something she wanted to think about, but she would run until she dropped if it meant avoiding that nightmare.
Just then the second man stepped forward and farther away from them.
Kerrick called out in a low, urgent voice, “Careful, Griffin.”
Griffin? Neither were names that she recognized, yet both were strong, warrior-type names. She appreciated that they were here with her and Brandon. She couldn’t imagine escaping on her own, although she’d done well enough before these men had found her and Brandon. She’d gotten them out of their locked cells. These men had helped get them out of the building, but she couldn’t put her trust in them too far. For all she knew, they wanted something else from them. How devastating would that be? She studied Kerrick’s face, looking for any signs of deceit or betrayal, but it wasn’t that easy. It was dark outside, and, short of staring into his eyes again, there was no way to know.
Griffin made a hand motion, and they crept forward. She heard people running, probably searching the grounds all around them for their escapees. So far, nobody had come onto this property.
“How did you know this building was empty?” she asked.
“I scoped it out earlier on a satellite feed,” Kerrick said. “Griffin came out earlier this evening too. I knew we could get in this door because I’m the one who unlocked it.”
She smiled. “Glad to hear that. It would help if you locked it now though, and then they couldn’t get back in again.”
“It’s already done,” he said.
And, realizing that the men seemed to have this well in hand, Amanda sagged against the wall and groaned lightly.
Immediately Brandon turned to look up at her. “Are you okay?” he asked anxiously. Then he spun to look at the other man. “She hasn’t had much food or water for the last couple days, by my count of her captivity. She can’t do much more of this.”
She had some questions for this special little boy, but they would have to wait. Meanwhile she reached out a gentle hand and patted his shoulder. “I’ll be fine. Remember how you haven’t had any food or water either. Which may have been the better option, as mine were drugged.”
“Just stay close,” Kerrick said. “And stay silent. We’ll get you where you need to go.”
“That better be to a shower, a buffet table, and a hot bed,” she said and then added, “And communication with the outside world.”
“We’ll be your outside communication for a while,” Kerrick said.
“Are you turning us over to the police?”
He shook his head. “We’re not sure the police even know you’re missing.”
She stared at him in shock. “What?”
He nodded.
“But surely my father would have contacted them.”
“He contacted our group instead,” Kerrick said quietly. “And thank God that he did.”
“He would do that,” she murmured. “He’s got connections I can’t even begin to guess at.”
Just then Griffin made a sound. Immediately Kerrick placed a finger on her lips. She stared at him wordlessly. Her mind was still trying to comprehend the situation. So, no law enforcement, which meant her father didn’t trust the police. So, those connections he had, who she didn’t know about, he had thought that this was the time to call on them? She shook her head.
All she wanted to do with her life was to cure cancer and to help save women like her best friend. And yet, men like these were out there who did this with their lives instead. It was almost too much to imagine what a life of darkness they led. A life of danger. A life of walking and living in the shadows. Did they ever come out for light? Did they have a normal life? Did they have wives and kids? Did they mow the lawn on Sunday and sit in the backyard and have a beer with a barbecue?
They didn’t seem the type, but then what did she know? This was their work persona. It’s what they did on their off time that had her curious. Just then they were moved gently to another location within the same building. And that didn’t seem like a good idea to her.
She looked over and opened her mouth, but Kerrick gave a sharp shake of his head. Immediately she shut up again. At the back of the building, they stepped outside and moved across the property and around another building. She didn’t know what was going on, and she had lost track of where they were as they wove between buildings, back and forth and around. And then, all of a sudden, Griffin was gone. She gripped Kerrick’s hand and whispered in a low but urgent voice, “We have to wait for him.”
Kerrick looked at her, squeezed her fingers, and said gently, “He’s gone to get the car.”
She stared up at him blankly, then looked around. “Oh.”
“It’ll be fine. Just give us a minute to get you into the wheels, and we can get away from here.”
She looked over at Brandon to see his huge eyes shining in the darkness. He was tired and exhausted and famished, but also an element of excitement was evident in his expression. This was a story to tell whatever friends he had back home. These superheroes had dashed in the middle of the night to save them. She knew her own role in Brandon’s tale was probably as the lost dumb blonde. That filled her with amusement rather than disappointment.
She was okay with whatever version he had to tell to get himself to move forward on this one. She didn’t even know what she would say herself except she wanted to block it all out. But how was she supposed to do that when Hinkleman was her boss? Who was she supposed to tell this tale to?
Hinkleman was one of the shareholders who were part of the board of directors for her employer, Scion Labs. Hinkleman was highly regarded in his field. Or had been decades ago. And only by people who didn’t deal with him day to day. Among those at Scion, Hinkleman was more feared than revered. She had seen him totally lose it, and it wasn’t fun to watch. He was more of a bully and a blowhard in her opinion—probably who he truly was. He had been even more volatile lately. But he was unpredictable at best. She had just kept her head down at work, happy to have this huge lab facility at her disposal, to be paid to do what she loved and would have pursued regardless, what she felt was her purpose.
But Hinkleman had been here at this facility, knowing she was locked up like a prisoner. And he had hit her because her data was corrupt, when in reality he just couldn’t read it. She shook her head at that. Frowning, she wondered how deep or how high this corruption went within the ranks of Scion. She, as a part owner too, as a major shareholder, felt partly responsible for cleaning up this mess. Why wasn’t there any internal oversight as to Hinkleman within Scion? Surely there had been signs … and not just as to the verbal abuse of his researchers.
She desperately wanted to get back to her office and to see what had happened to her research, but she was a long way from doing that. Not to mention the fact that, if the company hadn’t called about her absence from work, maybe they were in on this whole scheme too. Maybe it wasn’t as great a company to work for as she had always thought. Maybe Hinkleman was just one of many on the board who was involved. Those were more thoughts to send shivers down her body. With her whole world collapsing around her, she could hear sounds of a vehicle coming closer. She stiffened and stared up in a panic at Kerrick.
He smiled and said, “It’s Griffin.”
She took a deep breath and let it out very slowly, then nodded.
Kerrick waited as the vehicle pulled up within ten feet of them. It didn’t have its headlights on, but the back door opened, and he quickly ushered them toward the car. They were placed in the back seat, and Kerrick took the front passenger seat, and, just as silently, the vehicle pulled forward and headed away from where she and Brandon had been prisoners.
“Not exactly a textbook escape,” Kerrick said to Griffin as he sent a message to have the rental picked up. He might need more of the goodies that were still there too.
“Wasn’t far off though,” he said with a big smile. “Now to make sure we get a couple hundred miles away from these guys.”
“We have to go back though,” Brandon said.
Kerrick turned to look at him in surprise.
“It wasn’t just us there,” Brandon explained. “There are other prisoners.”
“Did you see other people?”
He nodded. “When I first came in, I saw two others, a man and an older woman, but they were sleeping.”
At the sleeping comment, Kerrick and Griffin exchanged hard glances.
“Were they on beds?” Griffin asked.
Brandon nodded. “Yes, like those hospital and ambulance gurneys. They were bringing them into the center.”
“Did you recognize who they were?”
He shook his head. “No. The guards said something about Cynthia and Peter.”
“And you think they were from the same family maybe?” Kerrick asked.
“The guards didn’t mention that,” Brandon said. “Adults always talk around kids. They think we don’t hear anything.”
Kerrick chuckled. “Well, they were wrong in your case. Anything else you can tell me?”
“The ambulance number was 41058,” he said immediately.
Griffin stared at him in surprise. “Did you recognize the drivers or the men who were pushing the gurneys or anybody who was involved in kidnapping you?”