She heard a creak; her heart jumped into her throat before she realized it was just the damn unbalanced chair she was sitting in. Her ears were straining for information from outside, from where all the action was going to go down, but every little whisper set her nerves on edge. She kept telling herself this would be over soon, that she would be safe and warm very soon. But it was hard to believe that with all those what-ifs still circling the drain of her fear.
She leaned forward, the pain in her hip, her upper thigh, growing more and more intense with every second she sat there like a rock. The tension in her muscles was probably more to blame than the bullet, but she was hyperaware of that as well. What if she got some sort of lead poisoning from the bullet? What if the killer had put something on it that would make it impossible for her to recover? What if she got an infection and lost her leg? How would she continue to work the farm?
God, she wished she could shut her damn head off!
And then what little glass was left in the front windows, the windows she was sitting less than five feet away from, shattered, the mantel of the fireplace releasing a smoky puff of dust. Abigail pressed her face to her knees and cried out, trying to make herself as small of a target as she could, just like Axel had told her.
Seconds later, there was another hiss, the sound of a bullet slamming into the wooden frame of the house. She had to look up, had to know what was going on or else her imagination would take her places she didn’t want to go. That’s when she saw Axel, his dark clothing stark against the white landscape. She didn’t understand what he was doing at first, didn’t understand his low crouch, until her eyes finally picked out the figure in white. He was lying in the snow, aiming through the scope of a rifle he had propped up on an ice-covered mound of snow. Although the rifle was dark, it was low enough to the ground that she could almost mistake it for a twig.
She froze, aware the killer was watching her through the scope, afraid any reaction on her part would give Axel away. But she was praying furiously in her head, begging God or whoever was listening to help Axel get this man before he could turn his rifle on him. Her imagination kept showing her Axel’s head exploding, a bullet ripping him into something unrecognizable. She was so convinced that it would happen exactly that way that she couldn’t register what her eyes were seeing.
Axel rushed at a low crouch up behind the killer, the butt of the pistol he’d taken from Dan Tuxli’s house raised over his head. It came down hard on the back of the man’s head, causing him to slump forward like a sack of potatoes thrown on the floor. Axel grabbed his rifle, jerking it out from under the killer’s body and immediately removing the bullets that had been meant to take Abigail’s life. Then he leaned down and checked the man’s pulse, making sure he was still breathing.
At that moment, Abigail didn’t care if the killer was still breathing. It was just beginning to register that Axel had done what he said he would do. He’d stopped him.
With that realization, she sprang out of her chair and rushed across the rotted floor, nearly falling into a hole she saw at the last second. Could have broken her ankle in that one! She ran out the door despite the horrifying pain in her upper thigh and the ache from her head. The light was too bright, the movement beyond pain, but she had to touch Axel, had to make sure he was really alive and unhurt.
He saw her coming and stood, holding out his arms as she launched herself at him. He wrapped himself around her, his arms, his chest, his body so comforting she couldn’t even begin to describe how it felt. They kissed roughly, his mouth frozen from the cold air but quickly warming under her touch.
“We have to get him inside before he comes to,” Axel said when he finally set her back on her feet. “Can you help?”
She nodded even though the idea of touching this killer who’d tortured her over the last twenty-four hours was repulsive. But she wanted him tied up and unable to hurt her as quickly as possible.
Axel grabbed him under the arms and gestured for her to take his ankles. She could feel that Axel was taking most of the weight, but he didn’t seem to feel the strain quite the way she did. By the time they got into the house, her thigh ached so much that walking was an impossible task. She leaned against the counter, putting as much weight on her good leg as she could, her hand pressed to the place where she could feel the temporary bandage Axel had put on her wound.
This house contained nothing but debris from years of neglect. But Axel found some electrical wire inside one of the many walls that was crumbling, revealing the outer frame. He used that to tie the killer to the chair, but not until he’d searched his body. He pulled out a few electronic gadgets that Abigail didn’t understand, things that didn’t look like the sort of thing someone could pick up at the neighborhood Apple Store.
“What is this?” she asked, picking up what looked like the kind of CB radio her father had used back in the day when he wanted to communicate with the farmhands.
“It’s a satellite phone.”
Axel came up beside her, the man safely tied to the three-legged chair she’d recently vacated, picking up the various devices. Besides the phone, there was something that looked like a tablet in an unbreakable case and another, smaller device that looked like a smartphone.
“This is how he’s been tracking us,” Axel said, picking up the smartphone like thing. He switched it on, and a red dot suddenly filled the screen. “It’s military grade. And this . . .” The tablet thing came on with a simple touch, but it wanted a fingerprint to open access to all its apps. “This is probably what he had the cameras in the barn hooked up to. It’s how he was watching us.”
The idea creeped Abigail out. She shuddered hard enough that it drew his attention to her. He brushed his fingers over her cheek, a simple touch that held more comfort than he could ever imagine.
“I don’t understand where he got all of this. I mean, this is military grade, the sort of stuff that civilians never see, let alone allowed to buy. He had to have gotten it from someone with connections.”
“You don’t think he works for the government, do you?”
Axel shook his head. He turned to regard the man, his eyes moving slowly over the length of him. Axel had taken off the jacket to the man’s snowsuit, revealing a slight man with narrow shoulders. Abigail recognized him as the lost man walking the back acres of her farm what seemed like a lifetime ago. But even she hadn’t realized what a small man he was until now. Tall, yes. But slim to the point of being unhealthy.
“He’s not military trained.”
“How do you know?”
“He’s a really bad shot. I thought at first that he missed us because he was playing games with us. Now . . . I was watching him take those shots at the house. It was careless. The military teaches you to be thoughtful. Precise. You don’t take a shot without knowing which way the wind is blowing, how the material you’re shooting through will affect the path of the bullet. It’s a complicated thing, being a sniper. And that guy was clearly not trained by anyone who knew what the hell they were doing.”
“But he’s a hitman!”
“Do we know that?” Axel tilted his head a moment. “The man who hired Mastiff to protect you called him a hitman. But that doesn’t mean he is.”
Abigail pushed away from the counter and limped over to the man, stopping directly in front of him. She remembered how she’d found his heavily fringed eyes attractive, how she’d been hopeful that he was the vagrant hiding out in her barn that night—was it really just last night? But there was nothing attractive about him now.
A shiver ran up and down her spine as she stared at him, remembering the sound of his voice on that 911 call. That sound would haunt her for the rest of her life.
“Asshole!” she hissed.
She was turning to go back to Axel, but something caught her eye. There was a mark just barely visible on the side of the man’s head. She frowned, telling herself it couldn’t be what her mind was telling her it was. But she’d seen that kind of mark b
efore.
She stepped forward, hesitating, afraid if she touched him he’d suddenly wake and speak to her in that awful voice she didn’t want to hear. But when her fingers brushed the hair back from the side of his face, her outrage and shock overpowered her fear.
“Abigail,” Axel said, a warning in her tone. “He’s going to wake soon.”
She acted as though she didn’t hear him, her need for answers too strong. She pushed the killers head back with the heel of her palm against his forehead and brushed his hair away from the other side of his temple. Another mark revealed itself there, a deep, dark burn that was much more intense than it should have been.
“Abigail!”
Axel moved up behind her and snatched her hands away from the killer. They stumbled back, pain once again bursting through her thigh. She grunted, grinding her teeth to keep from crying out beyond that. Axel must have understood because he swung her up into his arms and carried her back to the kitchen counter where he’d laid her when they first arrived, sitting her on her bottom this time. He stood close, his fingers tugging at the hole in her jeans to check the seepage from her wound. Pain again flared when his fingers touched too firmly, making her arch her back as she again bit back a little scream.
“I’m sorry,” he mumbled.
When he looked up at her, there was a deep concern in his eyes. And his fingertips were drenched in blood.
“We need to get you out of here,” he said, reaching for the satellite phone. “I can call for backup from this.”
“They won’t track it?”
“Who?”
“Whoever he’s been communicating with over that thing.”
Axel didn’t hesitate. “If he’s working with someone, and they’re close, they already know where we are, babe. The quicker we get out of here, the better.”
“There’s something you should know first,” she said, placing a hand over his as he fumbled with the phone. “He has burns on his temples.”
“So?”
“So, I recognize those burns. Someone used my device on him.”
Axel looked sharply at her, fully engaged in what she was saying now. “What do you mean, someone used your device on him?”
“Those burns are caused by the tiny electrodes we used to connect the device to the patient’s head. They overheated, causing the burns. It was something I was working on before I left Harvard, trying to find a way to keep them from getting so hot. But the device, the way it worked, we were going to have to invent whole new electrodes that had some sort of cooling system built in to make them work without burning the patient.” She lifted her hair off her neck, nervously twisting it around her hand. “Morty must not have bothered with that part of the project after I was gone.”
“Why would they use the device on him? Do you think he’s schizophrenic?”
Abigail looked over at the killer. His hands were behind his back, but she remembered how smooth and soft the one he used to pet Romance had been. In her experience, most schizophrenics couldn’t hold down a conventional office job, so their hands—especially in the men—were rough, callused. His hair was cut in an attractive style, his face had been clean shaven. He spoke in clear sentences, and he didn’t have that sort of slur that came with antipsychotic medications.
If someone had asked her immediately after meeting him in the back fields, she would have insisted he was a well-adjusted, mentally healthy individual. But after the last twenty-four hours?
“His actions have been methodical,” she said slowly. “Insane, but organized. Schizophrenics are not normally forward thinkers, not the kind who can think in the fashion required to make a plan and put it into action. But . . .” She sighed. “I can’t say he isn’t, but I would vote against it.”
“Then why would someone use that device on him?”
“To prove the device can alter someone’s thoughts. To show how training brain cells can turn a person into something they aren’t.” Abigail bit her bottom lip, trying to bite back anger and frustration. “To do exactly what the buyers Morty was talking to had wanted to do.”
“You think this is a sales pitch.”
“I think it’s possible. I just . . . I can’t believe Morty would do such a thing.”
“But someone also hired Mastiff to protect you. Maybe he intended for you to survive.”
Abigail was suddenly overwhelmed with exhaustion. She sank back into her hips, pain again flaring in her thigh. This time she didn’t have the energy to stop the little scream that escaped her lips.
“I’m getting you out of here,” Axel announced. He played with the phone for a moment, grunting when it didn’t immediately do what he wanted. But then he smiled almost grudgingly before pressing the phone to the side of his head. “Operative one eighty-six requesting extraction,” he said. She watched as he listened for a moment, then he spoke again, giving their location in a quick, crisp tone. Then he set the phone down on the counter.
“They’ll be here in ten minutes or so.”
She barely had the energy to nod. She leaned back on her hands, but her elbows buckled and she sort of collapsed onto the counter. She heard him say her name, felt him pick her up. The pain in her thigh flared enough to pull her back into awareness. He was whispering to her, his voice warm and safe.
“We’re going to get you out of here. You’re going to be okay.”
She touched the side of his face and smiled what she felt was a bright smile, but exhaustion might have tempered into a little grin.
“I know. I trust you.”
Something flared in his eyes when she said that.
That was the last thing she saw.
Chapter 26
Springfield, Illinois
Durango had nothing left in his stomach to vacate, but the dry heaves hit him as he stood in the doorway to Kyle’s office at Mastiff. The idea that he’d never see her sitting behind that desk again, never hear her voice yelling at him for something he should have done but hadn’t, burned a hole inside of him like an ulcer that could never be healed. Sarah’s death had broken him. Kyle’s was burying him.
He slammed the door and locked it with a key he’d taken from the custodian’s office downstairs. It was Sunday, so only support staff was around. That was almost a relief. He wasn’t sure he could handle talking to anyone just now.
Famous last words.
He turned to find Meredith, the supervisor from the phone operator’s office watching him.
“I heard you were in the building and thought you’d want to know that Axel Kinkaid called for extraction. I normally call Ms. Peters for the go ahead—”
“Give him whatever support he needs.”
Durango tried to walk away, but Meredith called out to him again. “We’ve sent a helicopter. They’re reporting a medical emergency.”
He sighed and turned to face her again. “They’re already on sight?”
“Yes, sir. Kinkaid took the hitman hostage, and he’s inside the building where they were holed up. But the target has been shot in the leg and is in of need medical attention. Kinkaid, too, has several injuries sustained in a car accident. The crew leader on the helicopter does not feel he should be left behind as he has requested to watch over the hostage. Kinkaid believes there might be someone working with the hostage and might arrive to free him if they leave him unobserved.”
“Have a member of the crew stay behind.”
She nodded. “Yes, sir.”
“What hospital?”
“Lincoln Medical Center.”
“I’ll head over and speak to Kinkaid. Keep me informed on the situation on the ground.”
“Yes, sir.”
“And send a team to secure the target. We need to make sure she’s under lock and key until this hitman is in custody.”
“Of course.”
Durango returned to his office, dropped the keys to Kyle’s office in a locked desk drawer, making sure to secure it when it was done. Then he grabbed his own keys. It was almost a r
elief to have something else to think about. He needed to get his head straight, needed to figure out what his next move should be. Maybe this would help.
Logic. He needed to think logically. He needed to look at all of this through the eyes of a cop, not through the eyes of an emotional man who’d just lost a dear friend. He needed not to fall into the same dark abyss that ate six months of his life after Sarah’s death.
The drive to the hospital was painful. He imagined the hearse that had brought Kyle there early that morning. LMC held the county coroner’s office. All murder victims were brought there. Durango drove passed the sign pointing to that part of the hospital, and it took everything he had to go passed, to remember what his real purpose was.
After some flirting with the nurse on duty, Durango was allowed into the bowels of the emergency room where Axel Kinkaid was being treated in a trauma bay. As he walked up, Durango could see his operative naked from the waist up, a nurse standing close as she cleaned a wound above his ear. Axel’s head was turned away from the open curtain where Durango stood, one hand gripping the side of the gurney like the nurse’s touch was excruciating.
“How is he?” Durango asked another nurse who attempted to move passed him.
“Are you family?”
“I’m a friend.”
The nurse hesitated, but Axel had heard his voice and answered himself. “Two broken ribs, a laceration above the ear from a blow to the head. No skull fractures. Various cuts and bruises. Nothing terribly serious.”
The nurse cleaning out his head laceration, however, clearly disagreed.
“This gash is more than twenty-four hours old and was sutured with thread.”
“It was all we had at the time. We were stuck in a snowstorm!”
“I understand. But you need IV antibiotics.”
“I don’t have time to sit around a hospital room, waiting for you people to give me whatever you think I need. I took three penicillin pills when I sutured it. And I’ll take whatever prescription you want to offer me now.”
Mastiff Security: The Complete 5 Books Series Page 14