Red Gambit: Book One of the Harvesters Series

by Luke R. Mitchell

  Click.

  Gun. That was a gun.

  She slowly began raising her hands in surrender.

  “Stop. Drop the stick.”

  She did, wondering if the guy could hear the sonorous pounding of her heart. He wasn’t crying for backup yet, at least. That was good.

  There was a rustling sound, then a hand grabbed her shoulder and pulled, turning her around and pressing her back into the truck’s grill. The tense but controlled-looking patrolman kept his pistol trained on her and out of her reach as he extended his other hand with a long length of zip tie.

  “Hands.” He waved the gun to urge her to get to it. “Make ’em tight.”

  He looked like he was about to say it again when she finally got over her initial shock. She slowly took the zip tie and made a show of beginning to pull it closed around her wrist.

  She paused, arriving at a plan. “You’re not gonna shoot me.”

  Before he could say anything (and before she could talk herself out of it), she sprang forward and reached for the patrolman’s face.

  He pulled the trigger. Nothing happened. She’d already locked the pistol’s hammer back in a telekinetic vise grip. The patrolman glanced in surprise at his weapon and then up at her.

  She closed the last step between them and clamped her hands to the sides of his head. He went slack as she rode their physical contact like a shortcut into his mind and subdued him. She struggled to keep his bulk from collapsing too noisily, then used a combination of telekinesis and old-fashioned dragging to get him into the shadows between two trucks.

  She poked her head back out. They were alone.

  Normally, she made a point of avoiding that kind of use of her telepathic abilities. Diving into another’s mind, manipulating them like that—it felt perverse and wrong. But she wasn’t in any position to be above that right now. She’d wanted a stray patrolman, and here he was.

  She scanned their surroundings more thoroughly with her extended senses and settled down to deliberate on what she was about to do. Once she’d convinced herself there was no other way, she turned her focus to the patrolman and slid into his quiet, vulnerable mind. Her body shuddered at the sensation, but she allowed herself to sink deeper into his head, sifting for thoughts and memories pertaining to Michael.

  It only took a few seconds to begin finding what she was looking for. Once she was this far into someone’s head, searching their memories was nearly as instinctive as recalling her own. Images flashed in her mind’s eye, accompanied by sporadic bursts of sounds and smells and other sensations. She saw Michael arriving in a large transport truck like the one she was currently hiding beside. He’d looked rough and scared, but he’d been okay.

  That was about all this guy had happened to see. But it wouldn’t be all he knew.

  He’d know where Michael was being held.

  The brig, came the dreamlike response.

  He would also know how to get there from here—discreetly. At that thought, a new series of images flashed through her mind, rapid and disjointed in places but coherent enough to paint a picture of an out-of-the-way side door and the way to the brig. From there, she’d have to figure out how to get them out, a thought that conjured a much more confused jumble of thoughts and images from the patrolman’s mind. But she’d gotten what she needed for now.

  She pushed the patrolman into deep unconsciousness and returned her senses in full to her physical body. She was getting ready to move when the patrolman’s comm crackled to life, sending a jolt through her as violently as if it’d been a gunshot.

  A tinny voice asked for a status update.

  Shit.

  She snatched up her staff with sweaty palms, options playing through her head, none of which sounded particularly good.

  Trying to feign a passable response seemed like the worst of them. Running for the hills to formulate a more organized plan with what she’d learned was probably the smartest option.

  But no … If she ran now, they’d only beef up their watch when this guy woke up and reported the breach. And that wasn’t to mention Tom’s presence. Even if he was only dropping off a prisoner, all it would take was one mention of the crazy chick who’d attacked the pub looking for Michael Carver, and they’d probably double Michael’s security or maybe even move him.

  No, she couldn’t run. It was now or never.

  Halfway to the door, it occurred to her that she could have dived back into the patrolman’s head and used him like a human puppet to respond to the call. It was too late now, and the thought made her shudder anyway.

  She could still do this. She had to do this.

  She repeated the affirmation to herself over and over as she crept through the compound to her destination. She repeated it when she saw three patrolmen jogging back in the direction she’d come from, their comms alight with chatter. She repeated it again as she drew up to the target door and placed her hand to its surface, extending her senses to probe at the lock.

  She could do this. She had to do th—

  “Hey!” a voice cried from off to her left, yanking her attention away from the delicate task of turning the door lock. “Hold it!”

  Two men jogged toward her from further down the building, one with his weapon raised, the other busy with his comm.

  She turned back to the door, planted the tip of her staff against the lock, and drew in the energy she’d need to blow it out by force.

  So much for the stealthy route.

  Five

  Despite whatever airs he’d put on for Michael, Jarek had to admit he was in a tight spot.

  When Mosen had left with Tom and his men, Jarek had thought he might have a chance at getting a drop on Baldy and the other two Reds outside the brig. It turned out Mosen had three more men waiting outside the brig, though, and he’d sent them all to stick with Baldy.

  Jarek was good—damn good, even—but a one-on-six fight against armed, lightly armored opponents? Not exactly a sure thing. Especially not with his hands still tied behind his back.

  So he waited, hoping one or two guards might split off from the group or at least post themselves outside of wherever they were headed. Who knew? If they tried to transfer him to another set of restraints (say, a nice torture rack), he might even get a freebie. When it came to worming his way out of hairy situations, Jarek fell firmly into the school of thought that revolved around flying by the seat of one’s pants, and it hadn’t failed him. Yet.

  He kept up his steady chatter as his chaperones marched him down one dull, dreary hallway after another, asking names and cracking jokes. Talking made him feel better as much as it annoyed the crap out of his guards—a win-win in his mind.

  Inside 120 seconds, Baldy called a halt, shoved a balled-up bandanna into Jarek’s mouth, and covered it with tape. But that was okay. Reactions were good. Upset people made more mistakes, and mistakes just might get Jarek somewhere.

  The next small victory came when Baldy stopped at a door that looked just like the other dozen or so they’d passed, posted two of the six men outside, and funneled Jarek inside. He couldn’t exactly say that was two down, but at least it might momentarily improve the odds.

  His spirits didn’t stay so high for long.

  The small room was as dull and lifeless as the hallways outside, but for the few toys contained within.

  His gaze went straight to the old dentist’s chair in the center of the room. It was fitted with leather wrist and ankle straps well-suited for use in any number of unpleasant activities, and the bloodstains on its tan polymer cover gave clear evidence that many such acts had occurred in its plastic embrace. The rolling surgical cart next to the chair didn’t help matters, topped with a metal tray of blades, pliers, and other cruel tools Jarek had no desire to be on the working end of.

  Baldy was watching him with a cold grin. It looked like his window for action was going to be closing sooner than later.

  Most likely, they’d undo his wrist restraints to strap him into the chair, but
if they were even half intelligent, they’d only do that after his ankles were already secured. At that point, he might be able to take down anyone within arm’s reach, but then he’d be stuck until he could undo his restraints. They’d placed the tray of tools out of easy reach of the chair, so buying time with projectiles probably wasn’t a viable option either.

  It was just as well; he’d take mobility over the use of his hands most times, anyway.

  He ran through a rough sequence in his head. Implausible, but it’d have to do.

  Any second now.

  Baldy gestured toward the chair and turned to a set of shelves in the back of the room with an almost bored expression. “You know the drill. Feet first, and—”

  Jarek jumped, planted a foot into the back of the guard in front of him, and kicked off hard enough to twist around and slam his foot into the face of the guard behind him. The first guard cleared the dentist’s chair and came down with a crash of falling tools. The second toppled to the ground beside Jarek as he narrowly avoided falling over himself.

  Cries of surprise joined grunts of pain as he recovered his balance and darted toward the next guard. The guard swept a rifle butt at his head, but he easily dropped underneath the blow and slammed the guard into the wall with a hard hip check. From there, he exploded upward to slam the top of his head into the bottom of the guard’s chin.

  He clenched his teeth against the jarring impact and the wet, gurgling noise that followed and pushed on toward Baldy, who looked a lot less bored now. Baldy backpedaled into the wall, clawing for his sidearm.

  “You son of a—”

  Baldy’s words turned to a grunting whoosh of air as Jarek planted a hard boot sole in his chest. He added a kick to the side of the bastard’s head to keep him down, then lunged for the first guard he’d kicked, who was recovering from the sea of spilled tools. He drove a knee into the side of the guard’s head, crumpling him into a slack heap.

  He panted heavily through his nose, cursing Baldy’s gag, and looked around for something, anything, to quickly sever his bonds.

  The hallway door burst open.

  He spun around, preparing to throw himself over the chair in some manner of wild aerial kick. There was a flash of red eyes, and then Seth Mosen cleared the chair and hit him in a flying tackle.

  The world became a blurred, confused series of brutally solid impacts with Mosen’s bulk, the wall behind him, and, finally, the hard concrete floor.

  Considerable pain clawed its way out from his disorientation. He rolled onto his back and gasped into his gag at the pain the movement sent lancing through his right shoulder.

  The two guards from the hall were already inside the room, poking and prodding Baldy and the others back to awareness.

  Mosen frowned down at the unconscious guard beside him and prodded him with his boot, then shot Jarek a grin that made his insides shrivel.

  “If you want a job done right …”

  “Tell me about it,” Jarek tried unsuccessfully to say past his gag.

  It wasn’t like he had anything of substance to add anyway. He was too busy working to close his fingers around one of the tools he’d landed on—the one that felt mercifully similar to the handle of a box cutter.

  Now he just had to figure out how to use the damn thing without being blatantly obvious.

  He considered trying to scoot over to prop himself against the wall, but before he could move, Mosen bent down, gathered a handful of his shirt and one pants leg, and plucked him off the ground as if he weighed no more than a sack of potatoes. Ripping sounds from his shirt confirmed that he was in fact still a nearly two-hundred-pound man, but Mosen didn’t seem to pay the fact much mind as he moved around the chair and tossed Jarek roughly down on it.

  To his surprise, Mosen tore the tape from his mouth before moving to secure his legs. He caught the awkward kick Jarek aimed at his face and forced Jarek’s leg down to the chair with the strength of a pneumatic press.

  Jarek’s tongue and throat were burning with effort by the time he managed to spit out the wadded bandanna and take a luxurious, full breath.

  “You been hittin’ the weights, Mosen?”

  He continued struggling, mostly to buy time, as he set to work extending the blade of the box cutter and trying to shift it into a workable position without stabbing himself.

  “Or has that Overlord of yours been letting you dip into his special stash?”

  Mosen ignored him and gestured for one of the Reds to come help him with the straps.

  “Look,” Jarek said as one of the guys he’d kicked came around and grabbed aggressively at his left leg. “I like you guys and all, but I’m not sure I’m ready for this kind of adventure yet.”

  His voice might have stayed level, but as Mosen secured the strap on his right ankle and impatiently reached over to secure his left leg for his struggling assistant, Jarek felt the first wave of deep, genuine terror.

  He’d been tortured once or twice before—okay, exactly twice, and despite what he might tell Pryce or anyone else, he hadn’t emerged the same person from either encounter. The look in Mosen’s cold eyes, coupled with the feeling of the second strap tightening down on his ankle, brought those memories too close to the surface.

  He clenched his jaw and got to work with the box cutter, moving the tool back and forth in maddeningly tiny sweeps until the first tie gave way.

  Baldy came around to join Mosen at Jarek’s feet.

  “What do you want with Carver?” Mosen asked.

  He took a steadying breath. “He owes me a Coke. What do you think I want with him? You can’t piece that one together for yourselves?”

  He shifted the little blade and began working on the second tie with a sinking feeling that this escape plan was going nowhere. At least not before a few hours of agonizing pain. Still, he wasn’t about to throw in the towel while he still had some angle to play.

  Mosen gave Baldy a meaningful glance. Baldy began rooting around on the floor, collecting his tools on the metal tray with the air of a chef gathering the ingredients for a cake.

  Mosen laid a hand on Jarek’s right shin. For a second, the gesture was merely creepy. Then came sharp, piercing pain as Mosen pushed his thumb against his tibia hard enough that he thought the bone might actually break.

  Strapped down like this, anticipating much worse to come, he couldn’t help but buck against his restraints and let out a pained grunt.

  “Come on,” he half-shouted. The second tie gave way to his cutter. “You know what I’m doing here!”

  Mosen squeezed harder. Jarek gnashed his teeth. His leg was going to break, and he was going to end up trapped in the Fortress like Michael. Al and Pryce had been right.

  He forced himself to begin sawing at the third tie anyway.

  Mosen opened his mouth just as an alarm buzzed through the room, echoed a second later by the same sound from the hallway. His grip on Jarek’s leg loosened as he exchanged a confused look with the others. The alarm blared again.

  The sound was like music to Jarek’s ears, and he found himself chuckling at the spark of hope in his chest and the beginnings of a plan in his head.

  Mosen stepped around the chair and brought his face close to Jarek’s. “What the hell is this?”

  Jarek beamed his best devil-may-care smile. “You don’t really think I’d come here without a backup plan, do you?”

  Of course, that was exactly what he’d done, but none of these guys knew that.

  “Bullshit,” Mosen said.

  Jarek looked up, squinting in mock concentration. If he could get this freakishly strong bastard out of the room (preferably along with a few of his cronies), maybe he could make use of his soon-to-be-free hands. “You hear that, Mosen?”

  Mosen frowned, listening. Jarek did the same in earnest and was surprised to detect the faint report of distant automatic gunfire.

  What the hell was happening out there? Could it be the Resistance coming to collect Michael? Unlikely. A rival out
fit seemed even less likely, mostly because the Red King didn’t have rivals. Except for the Overlord, who was actually his boss.

  He managed to keep his mischievous superiority act rolling as Mosen focused back on him and the alarm continued to blare.

  “Here they come!” He waggled his eyebrows as if he knew what he was talking about.

  A second later, two of the unmuted comms in the room crackled out the same message: “Intruder on base, last seen breaching the northeastern patrol outlet.”

  He couldn’t have asked for more perfect timing. But had they said “intruder”? Singular?

  Now wasn’t the time to worry about that.

  For a second, Mosen looked as if he might just tear into Jarek with his teeth. Then he turned to Baldy. “Keep him secure, and don’t fuck it up this time.” He pointed over Jarek’s head and added, “You three, with me.”

  With that, Mosen turned on his heel and strode out of the room, his chosen men hurrying after him.

  That left Jarek with Baldy and two Reds to deal with.

  The third and final tie fell to the box cutter’s blade.

  “Strap his arms down,” Baldy said. He returned to his inspection of his instruments, looking fully intent on continuing where Mosen had left off.

  Jarek wasn’t about to give him the chance.

  The temptation to strike at the first guard who stepped within reach—to draw his sidearm and turn it on the others—was incredibly strong, but it was driven by fear. Mosen and the three he’d taken would still be plenty close enough to hear the gunshots, and they’d come running if that happened. He might be able to get free and armed well enough in time to take them, but why risk it when he could do better?

  “Huh,” Baldy said. It might have been paranoia, but Jarek got the impression he was looking for the missing box cutter.

  It didn’t matter now. The Red on the left drew a hunting knife from a sheath on the front of his vest and leaned in to reach for Jarek’s bindings.

  He exploded into motion, catching the guard’s knife hand with one hand and sweeping out with the other to open the Red’s throat with the box cutter, drawing a slow river of blood and a sequence of disgusting, wet slurping sounds. He stripped the knife from the Red’s hand. No time to be appalled.