by Sam Cheever
Clovis didn't look convinced. “I'd still like to go ba..."
"I need your help rounding up Percy."
Clovis narrowed his eyes at his younger brother. “You know where he is?"
Alfric grinned, “Of course. You don't think I'd just let him walk around unprotected do you? I fitted him with a mic and a tracking device. The kidnappers have him."
"And you know where they're holding them?"
"I do."
"Then why haven't you gotten him out?"
"I was kind of hoping Percy would be able to get some information about who we're dealing with before I pulled him out."
Clovis nodded. “So did you get that information?"
Alfric grimaced, “Unfortunately no. But I need to get him out of there."
"Why now?” Clovis grabbed Alfric's arm and pulled him toward the jeep.
Alfric jerked his arm away and nodded toward the H2. “Let's take this, it's faster and it's bullet proof."
Clovis swung toward the Hummer. Alfric didn't answer his question until they were seated in the Hummer and roaring away from the murder scene.
"Alf?"
He turned to his older brother and grimaced. “They beat him up pretty good last night, bro. I feel the need to kick me some greasy haired thug ass."
Clovis cracked his knuckles in response. “As long as you leave some of that fairy ass for me."
* * * *
* * * *
By the time Brita got her phone plugged in to her car charger she had ten missed messages. She called her partner first, since he'd logged at least six of those. “Hey, it's me, what's up?"
Brita listened and her face grew progressively paler. “Where are you now? Okay, I'll be there in ten minutes.” She was hurrying toward the murder site when her phone rang again. “This is Muldane."
"Where the hell have you been? I've been calling you for two hours."
"Alfric? Sorry, my battery died. What's up?"
"We've found Percy and we need your help to grab him."
Brita's mouth opened and closed. She almost ran a red light and had to screech to a stop that ended her up nearly in the middle of the intersection. She waved at a driver who flipped her the bird and backed out of the intersection before responding. “What do you mean you found Percy? Was he lost?"
"Your partner didn't tell you?"
"Like I said, my phone's been dead. What happened to Percy. Is he okay?"
"He was kidnapped by the thugs who've been trying to kill Stair. He's still alive but we need to get him out of there. I'll fill you in as soon as you get here."
Brita cursed and started forward as soon as the light turned green. “Where?"
Alfric gave her directions and she hung up. Her phone rang again as soon as she disconnected. It was Bud. “Hey, I forgot to tell you..."
"That Percy's been kidnapped?” Anger colored her voice.
"Uh ... yeah, sorry. There's a lot going on here. I tried to call you but your phone was off."
"Yeah, well, we're going to get him now so I won't be coming to the site. You'll need to wrap it up yourself."
"We?"
"His brothers and I."
"Shouldn't the police be the ones to release him?"
Brita scowled. “And what am I?"
Bud stuttered. “You know what I mean, Brit. The Honeybun brothers shouldn't be involved in this mess. They could get hurt."
Brita laughed. “Have you met them? I'd put my money on that family in a fight anytime. No matter how ugly it got. Look, I'll compromise with you. Write this down...” She gave him the address Alfric had just given her. “Come on over when you're done at the murder site."
Brita disconnected without waiting for his response. She didn't have time to screw around with egos and grandstanding. She had to go save the man she loved. Even if he was an ass.
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Chapter Fourteen
Angie lay in her bunk staring up at the ceiling, listening to the low rumble of voices outside the cave. Jeeves seemed to have a lot to say to Alfric's man. They'd kept up a pretty continuous stream of conversation since the jeep arrived with the two men a few hours earlier. Mostly they talked about Iraq. It seemed Alfric's man had served a couple of tours there before joining Alfric's team. She knew the second man was off somewhere, scouting the perimeter. She'd heard them talking about it when he left.
She wondered where Percy was, now that they knew he wasn't dead. She'd been trying for hours but was unable to sleep. Beneath her, Alastair snored softly. Nothing seemed to keep him from sleeping. She smiled.
She must have a guilty conscience.
She could hear the two men moving around outside. Jeeves had taken Clovis’ orders to guard them very seriously apparently. She was pretty sure he hadn't slept at all. The men's presence both comforted Angie and worried her. She was glad the men and their guns were there, but the reason they were there was a bit concerning. Apparently this “situation” she and Alastair found themselves in wasn't calming down with time as they had hoped.
Instead it seemed to be escalating.
With a resigned sigh, Angie pulled back the covers and dropped to the floor as quietly as she could so she didn't wake Alastair up. She would go outside for some fresh air and chat with her bodyguards for a while. Maybe she'd have some luck talking Jeeves into catching some sleep.
She was perfectly capable of standing watch for a while. With that thought in mind she switched direction and headed into the galley kitchen. She grabbed the large knife she'd used before when she thought she was going to have to save Alastair from the scorpion and took that with her toward the stairs. She smiled at the memory and her eyes slid to the big, glass jar with its unhappy inhabitant.
Jeeves had poked holes in the lid and thrown some hapless insects in there to keep the scorpion alive. Why she didn't know. If it were up to her he'd suffer an early and permanent retirement from life.
She shuddered and started up the stairs.
As she reached the top step she heard two sharp cracks and a muffled, “oomph!” and the sound of somebody hitting the outside of the bunker door and sliding down. Her instincts kicked into high gear and she had no doubt she'd heard Jeeves and Alfric's man getting shot. She bit her tongue against the urge to call out to them. The best she could hope for at that moment was that they hadn't been killed.
Hopefully the third guard was nearby.
Thinking fast, Angie reached for the door and turned the bolt, temporarily locking them out of the cave. As she ran back down the stairs, holding the huge knife out so she wouldn't land on it if she fell, all she could think about was dying in that underground cave.
As every minute passed the place was looking more and more like a tomb.
* * * *
* * * *
Percy's eyes would barely open. The thug named Julio had rammed his face several times with a ham sized fist just for the fun of it. Then they'd gone after his ribs. Percy forced one eye open to see if he was alone in the room and, when he saw that he was, he tried to roll over and sit up. Pain shot through his ribs and rushed to his head, where it throbbed so hard he thought he would either puke or pass out.
Concussion.
"Awesome,” he murmured. “Where the hell are you guys?"
He knew his brothers had to be on their way. Unless the little tracking microphone they'd inserted in his left ear had been dislodged in the beating and been sucked down his ear canal. Percy felt a new wave of nausea on that thought and almost had to lay back down. But he forced himself to sit up and take stock of the room where he was being kept.
It looked like some kind of storage area that had been stripped of anything useful. There was a coffee can in the corner with a roll of TP beside it. He didn't need any imagination to figure out what that was for. There wasn't much else in the room.
He leaned back against the wall and wrapped an arm around his ribs, praying that Alfric was on his way to bust him out. He wasn't sure he could take a
nother beating like the last one and survive.
* * * *
* * * *
It was all they could do to keep Brita from just storming the place. She'd forced Alfric to describe the beating they'd heard and then to admit they hadn't heard him speak since the beating. She had gone completely colorless at the news and then they'd watched anger suffuse her pretty face in the form of a bright red color that didn't bode well for the kidnappers when she managed to get into the empty office building.
"The building belongs to the Black Knight agency,” Bud was telling her over the phone, “They tried to hide ownership under several layers of red tape but we managed to finally dig it out."
Brita nodded and her golden brown gaze swung to the Honeybun brothers standing beside her. “Good work, Bud. Are you on your way?"
"Be there in about ten minutes."
She grimaced, “Take your time, partner. I have some stuff I need to do before you get here."
"Brita, don't even think about...” She flipped her cell phone shut and turned to Clovis and Alfric. She smiled at them in a way that turned their bowels to water. “I'm going in now, boys. You can either join me or wait here for Bud and the posse. It doesn't much matter to me."
She turned and strode away from them, toward the building. When she hit open space she crouched down, keeping a low profile and leading with her gun.
Alfric sighed. He'd been hoping to get a positive location on the two thugs that had been left in charge of watching Percy before they went into the building. They'd lost them off of the thermal scan about an hour earlier and weren't sure where they'd gone. He had men at every exit and no one had come out of the building over the last hour and a half that they'd been waiting there. Alfric hated going into any situation blind.
On the flip side, they'd been happy to see the still warm lump on the third floor that they'd identified as Percy sit up and begin moving around a bit just moments earlier when they'd done another scan. At least his brother was still alive and reasonably mobile.
Alfric turned and waved an arm and his men scurried silently toward the building in a wide arc. Then he glanced at Clovis and his brother nodded, “Let's go."
* * * *
* * * *
Alastair came awake with a jerk. Angie placed her hand over his mouth and whispered urgently, “They're at the door, I think they killed Jeeves and Alfric's guy. We need to do something."
He threw back the rough wool blanket and swung his feet over the side of the bunk, sweeping the cave with a ruthless blue gaze. He grabbed her hand and started pulling her toward the back passageway.
Angie knew what he was thinking instantly. She yanked her hand away. “No!” Panic surged into her, coalescing in her eyes.
Alastair blew a frustrated breath out but visibly fought for calm. Above them the door creaked as something heavy leaned against it. “We have to do it, Angie, it's the only way out."
She shook her head, her eyes wide and terrified in her pale face. “I can't. I just can't, Alastair."
He pulled her into a hug, resting his chin on the top of her sweet smelling head and watching the door with anxious eyes. The knob was turning as the thugs outside tested the lock. He glanced nervously toward the small passageway at the back of the cave. He knew they would have to go through it. The passageway led to the back side of the hill, and was the only way out other than the front door. But it would entail several minutes of running through dark, fairly constrictive tunnels and he wasn't sure how he was going to talk Angie into it.
Across the bunker shots rang out and the door flew inward. Two burly figures were silhouetted in the doorway.
Angie gave a little scream and instinctively raised the knife she still clutched in her hand. Alastair yanked her toward the back of the bunker. A pinging sound preceded the splintering of a thick wood beam not too far from Angie's head and she gave a little squeak and flung the knife in the direction of the two men, who were now on the stairs and quickly descending toward them.
One of the men went down with a cry as the knife, miraculously, embedded itself into his thigh. Angie looked at Alistair and he grinned, “Hello Bond ... Jane Bond."
She smiled and shrugged. “You can call me double oh not if you want."
The thug who was still standing raised his gun toward them and Alastair threw Angie behind the nearest bunk and grabbed the closest thing at hand. It was the jar with the scorpion in it. He threw the jar at the thug just as the man got off the shot. The bullet shattered the jar in midair and the scorpion fell out of it, landing on the man's face.
Alastair grabbed Angie's arm and pushed her toward the low archway of the passage, shoving her into the tunnel in front of him. “Don't look, don't think, just run!” He screamed at her.
Angie took a deep breath and forced her legs into action. Behind her she could hear somebody screaming, probably the guy with the scorpion on his face, but the sounds were quickly muted as they entered the first curve in the horrifying passageway, heading inexorably into the cold, black heart of the small mountain.
They ran for several minutes, until Angie thought her lungs would burst, both from the unaccustomed exercise and the adrenaline fueled panic of being in the dark, constraining space. Finally, they found the door that led outside and emerged into a comparatively bright, cloudless night.
They looked around, panting,
"What now?” Angie gasped, bending at the waist in an attempt to keep from passing out.
Alastair nodded toward the distant line of trees. “Let's head for the woods, we can hide out there until daylight and then make our way back to the front of the base."
Angie, still gasping for air, gave him a little nod and forced herself into a jog. The deep sand pulled at their feet and caused their muscles to cramp with fatigue after only a couple of minutes. Every step became a living nightmare.
Fueled by their fear they kept moving, glancing over their shoulders every few minutes to make sure they weren't being followed. After a few minutes they spotted a man-shaped silhouette loping toward them at a fairly impressive rate of speed. The second man limped behind him, struggling to keep up.
Alastair grabbed her arm and they ducked down.
"Do you think they saw us?"
He shook his head, gasping. “I don't think so."
"Then I suggest we start running again or we'll lose our advantage."
Alastair nodded and took off.
They ran for another ten minutes before something low-slung and angular appeared in the distance. As they approached they realized it was an ATV.
"They must have left it here and approached the bunker on foot so we wouldn't hear them.” Angie said.
Alastair reached over and pulled out a key. Angie could see his smile through the low light. “Lucky for us they didn't expect anyone to find it before they got back."
He climbed on and reinserted the key. “Hop on."
Angie just stood there, looking at Alastair with a worried frown.
"What's wrong?"
"I'm remembering that motorcycle ride and wondering if I want to take my chances with you or those thugs back there."
He shook his head. “You're coming with me if I have to knock you over the head and throw you over my shoulder caveman style."
Angie smiled, “Oooh, kinky."
He laughed, “Get on. Those guys will be hobbling up any minute now."
Sighing, she climbed on behind him and wrapped her arms tightly around his waist.
Alastair grunted from the pressure she was exerting on his stomach and turned the key. The ATV roared to life.
Angie opened her mouth, “Now promise me you'll take it ea ... ea ... eeeeeek!"
The ATV jerked into motion and they tore off in the direction of the main camp, spewing enough sand in their wake to create beachfront at a Sandals resort.
* * * *
* * * *
Brita stood to the side of the building's wide, glass door and reached for the handle. Predictably it w
as locked. Alfric appeared beside her like smoke and she sucked breath in surprise.
"Jesus, Mary, and Joseph, Honeybun, you got clouds over your shoes?"
Alfric smiled, “What shoes?"
Brita looked down. He was wearing only socks. “Are you kidding me?"
He shrugged, “I learned a long time ago that I couldn't achieve optimum silence with shoes on, so I made adjustments."
Brita shook her head, “Hopefully the bad guys won't throw tacks on the floor."
He laughed, shaking his head, “I doubt these guys watched Road Runner cartoons as children, they were too busy torturing cats."
"Ain't that the truth.” She responded with a grin.
Clovis joined them as Alfric attached a small object to the glass of the door and pushed some buttons. The lock on the door clicked and Alfric removed the object from the glass. He opened the door and looked at her, “You wanna go first?"
Brita's face folded into a frown, “How'd you do that?"
He held up the small, digital device. “Government secret, if I told you I'd have to kill Clovis."
Brita smiled and Clovis snorted. She entered the building, gun first. The Honeybun brothers followed close on her heels. Once inside the dusty, obviously disused lobby they glanced at the elevators and then headed for the stairs.
As she started up the darkened stairwell Brita was aware of several shadow-like figures falling in behind them. She glanced at Alfric, “Keep your men back. I don't want any witnesses."
Without comment, Alfric raised a hand and his agents fell back several feet. When Brita, Alfric, and Clovis emerged from the stairwell Alfric's men didn't follow. They waited behind the door, which was cracked so they would hear if they were needed.
Brita moved quietly toward the room they'd identified on the third floor as being the one where Percy was being held and, when she reached the windowless door of the room she stood to the side and whispered to Alfric, “High or low?"
"I'm surprised you need to ask, Muldane, I'm always low."
"That's for damn sure,” Clovis murmured.
Brita shook her head and tested the handle. “On one, two, three...” And then shot the lock out and threw herself through the door. Alfric rolled through and came up holding his .45 out in front of him in both hands. Clovis dropped to his knees in the doorway, a Colt 1911 pistol pointed into the room.