by Adams,Claire
"I have to go back and grab my bag," I said as I handed her the laptop and ran back down the stairs. I was ten steps from the entrance to Nemo's when two huge men grabbed my arms and hauled me toward a van at the curb.
"HEL—!" I started to scream as I began kicking and trying to pull my arms out of their vice like grips. One of the men wrapped a hand around my neck and shut off my air supply as the other one wrapped an arm around my waist and hustled me toward the waiting van.
There weren't many people on the street, and the few who were walking by took one look and then looked away. I silently cursed the number of times I'd done the same thing knowing that it was a New Yorker thing; an inability to believe that something terrible was happening as you were watching it happen.
Everything happened so rapidly, that I barely had time to get my wits together, but once I did, I knew I had to do something.
I turned my head to try and get a look at them as I opened my mouth to scream again. One of the men backhanded me across the face while the other grabbed a fist full of my hair and yanked my head backwards as the other one hissed in my ear.
"Shut the fuck up, you stupid bitch," one of the men said as he pushed something hard and metal against my ribs. "I've been ordered to bring you back alive, but I'm not opposed to shooting you in the kneecap if it shuts you up."
"You don't have to do this," I said trying to think about how I could signal to Ryan and Cece. "You don't have to kidnap me. I'll get my friends to give you the money you want."
"You think we want money?" one of the men laughed. "Honey, we've got money. We want favors, and bringing you in will get us some major favors."
I knew that if they got me into the van, I was a goner. So, I decided to take my chances, but as I opened my mouth to scream one more blood-curdling scream everything went black.
CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE
Ryan
Cece came bounding into the apartment carrying a backpack and Echo's laptop.
"Where's Echo?" I asked as she set the laptop down.
"She had to go back into Nemo's to get her bag," she explained as she brought the backpack over to me on the couch and carefully set it down next to me. "My guy got everything you wanted."
I unzipped the bag and looked inside, then looked back up at Cece and smiled before I began unpacking it. There were two pistols with two extra magazines and underneath them were two blocks of military grade c-4 wrapped in the familiar green packaging, fuse and blast caps.
"Great job, Cece," I said as I examined the pistols and checked to make sure they were unloaded. "Have you ever fired a pistol?"
"Are you kidding me?" she said as she propped one hand on her hip and frowned.
"No, I'm serious," I said as I laid the first pistol down on the coffee table and picked up the second.
"Dude, I grew up in a family of men who love their guns," she said impatiently. "Yes, I have fired a pistol. And a rifle. And some other things that I'd rather not talk about."
"Why not?" I asked as I set the second pistol down and pulled out the explosives.
"Because it's none of your damn business," she shot back as she looked at the door and asked, "Shouldn't she be here by now?"
"Maybe she's catching up with Mando," I said dryly. "He's probably worried about his girls going out on a midnight mission."
"Yeah, he probably is," Cece said rolling her eyes. "He has a tendency to be over protective."
"Well, men get that way sometimes," I muttered as I set the bricks down and examined the blast caps.
"Yeah, and it's suffocating for us," she said sounding irritated. "You know, sometimes I wish he'd just let go and stop worrying. I can take care of myself and so can Echo."
"A little defensive?" I asked as I avoided looking at her. "So, we're not allowed to feel protective or be concerned anymore? Sheesh."
"Oh, don't get your alpha male hackles up," Cece said as she shot me a supremely irritated look. "It's just that we're not helpless little flowers, and when guys like you and Mando treat us like we are, it's unbelievably irritating. It's like we have to fight you, too."
"So what are we supposed to do?" I shot back equally irritated. "Just sit back and wait for you to call for help?"
"Yes," she said quietly. "Sometimes that's the best solution because often times we'll surprise you with how well we can do on our own. That's what you're afraid of, isn't it?"
"I'm not afraid of shit," I said as I wound up the fuse line and secured it with a rubber band I'd found in Echo's kitchen.
"No, of course you're not," she said crossing her arms over her chest. "I'll make sure to pass that message on to Echo when she gets here."
"Don't tell her anything," I growled before I looked up and asked, "Where is she?"
"No idea," she shrugged. "She should be up here by now."
"Then run down and see what's keeping her," I said. "You probably need to extract her from some good deed."
"Smart ass," she laughed as she headed out the door.
Two minutes later I heard her shouting from the street, "RYAN! GET DOWN HERE!"
I flew off the couch and down the stairs to the street where I found Cece gathering items that had spilled across the sidewalk when Echo had dropped her bag.
"What the hell happened?" I shouted as I turned and looked up and down the street.
"I don't know, but this is wrong," Cece said as she yelled for Mando who came rushing out seconds later.
"What the hell is going on out here?" he demanded.
"Echo's gone," Cece said as she looked at him accusingly. "Did you see what happened?"
"No, if I'd seen what had happened, I would have stopped it, Cee," he said in a brittle voice. "You think I'd have let something happen to Echo?"
"Well, you didn't see what happened, did you?" she yelled.
"Hey, hey guys, knock it off," I said stepping between them. "This isn't going to help. We don't know what happened, yet. Mando, go inside and see if anyone saw anything. Cece, come with me."
I turned and headed back up to the apartment where I flipped open the laptop and clicked on Echo's email account. There was one new message in the Inbox, so I opened it and found a message from an unknown sender that contained the message: We have her. Instructions to follow. Do not fuck this up, SEAL.
"Fuck!" I shouted as I slammed my fist on the counter.
"What's going on?" Cece asked.
"They have her," I said running a hand through my hair.
"Who has her?"
"That son of a bitch," I said as I rubbed my eyes and tried to decide whether it really was Julian who'd taken Echo and if so, how he'd linked me to her. I spilled Echo's theory and then quickly told Cece about my meeting with Baines at the club. "Why did he take her? Why not me?"
"Because she's more valuable," Cece said slowly, and then muttered, "Shit."
"What?"
"I bet they caught us on camera," she said as she paced the apartment thinking out loud. "I didn't think about it when we went in because I was focused on how to get us out of there after I'd pulled the alarm and the fire department had cleared out."
"How could you two have missed that?" I shouted. "She knew there were security cameras all over the place!"
"Yeah, yeah, yeah," Cece waved me off as she continued speaking. "We were so hell bent on how to get in and get that new program installed, we just forgot about the cameras."
"That was a half-assed way of planning!" I shouted angrily.
"Look, SEAL, step down," she said as she stopped and stared at me. "We made a mistake, and I'm worried, too, but you yelling at me is not going to fix this or help us find Echo."
I sunk down on the couch and bent forward to take my head in my hands as I tried to calm myself. I was pissed as hell at Cece for not thinking about the cameras, and I would have been equally pissed at Echo had I not been so worried about what was happening to her.
"Ryan, she's going to be okay," Cece said quietly after a few minutes had passed. "She's smart
and strong, and if we can't get to her, she'll figure out a way to free herself. I have no doubt about that, okay?"
I nodded even though I didn't believe a word of what she said. Echo was not fine. She had no idea who she was dealing with, and as I thought about it, neither did I. I was certain that Julian was behind this, though. He wanted something Echo had—or could get—and now it was clear that he would get it by any means necessary.
"We have to get into that lab before he does," I said as I sat up and looked at Cece. "Whatever it is that they want from Echo is in that lab."
"All right, then let's get to work, SEAL," Cece said with a determined look. "We've a job to do."
CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX
Echo
I didn't know how long I'd been out or where I was when I started to come around. I felt a dull aching sensation in the back of my head. As I raised my arm to assess the damage caused by the blow I'd received, I found that I was strapped to the surface I was laying on.
As I slowly opened my eyes, I began trying to assess my surroundings. The room was dark, but not pitch black. It was more like a movie theater with the lights dimmed during the previews. There was the glow of something green, or was it blue, coming from the corner behind me. I tried to sit up and turn around to get my bearings, but quickly realized that in addition to the one that ran around my mid section and held my arms down, there were straps around my shoulders, chest and legs securing me to the surface.
"Oh crap," I muttered as I turned my head to try and get a sense of where I was. I winced as the spot that had been hit rolled across the hard surface of what I realized was some sort of stainless steel as I caught a glimpse of the shiny metal in my peripheral vision.
I lay back on the table and looked up at the ceiling wondering who had abducted me and cursing myself for not staying with Cece, then cursing myself for not having any idea that someone would want to kidnap me.
"What the hell is going on?" I said out loud to test my voice.
"Shut the hell up," came the gruff reply. "If I want to hear from you, I'll ask a question. Otherwise, keep your lips zipped, got it?"
"Huh?" I said startled by the response. I looked around trying to figure out where the voice was coming from as I asked, "Who are you? Where am I? Why are you holding me?"
"Like I said, sweetheart," the voice warned. "Shut the hell up or I'll put you out again. I'm here to keep an eye on you, but I don't want to have to listen to you yammer."
I carefully weighed my options and decided that another blow to my head probably wasn't a good idea, so I went silent as I began to take in the details and commit them to memory. If he wasn't going to let me up, then at some point either someone was going to find me or I was going to figure out how to escape. I wasn't counting on the former, so I began plotting a way to create an opportunity for the latter.
I turned my head to the left and noticed that the far wall was lined with cabinets that were covered with glass. It looked like some kind of medical set up. The shelves were filled with some type of supplies, but I couldn't tell what they were from this angle in the low light. However, as I stared at the cabinet directly to my left, I realized that if I tilted my head a little, I could see the entire room reflected in the glass. It wasn't easy, but I slowly scanned the length of the cabinet trying to get a sense of where I was being held.
The room was long. How long, I couldn't tell because I couldn't lift my head to see how far the cabinets stretched down the wall. I tried to count the ceiling tiles, but couldn't lift my head high enough off the counter to follow them past my feet. I tilted my head up and realized that the glow that was coming from behind me was most likely a computer screen. I saw a shadowy figure sitting in front of it, but the light obscured the man's face and body making it impossible to identify him.
I felt my cell phone vibrating in the front pocket of my shorts, and sent up a quick prayer of thanks to whoever might be listening that I'd forgotten to take it out of silent mode and one of hope that the vibration wouldn't be noticed. After a few seconds, it stopped and I was simultaneously happy and dismayed. I hoped that whoever had called me would be concerned enough to start looking for me soon, and that when they did, they'd figure out how to find me.
CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN
Ryan
"Mando said a couple of customers saw two goons hauling Echo into a dark colored van!" Cece shouted as she burst through the door. "They said there was some twisty white design on the side, but they didn't recognize it."
"Why the hell didn't they say anything?" I shouted.
"Believe me, I wanted to know the same damn thing," Cece said. "They said they though it was a movie scene because the guys looked so stereotypically Jersey. They didn't believe that guys like that exist anywhere other than the movies. Can you believe that?"
"That's bullshit!" I fumed. "They could have stopped the whole thing! Now we have no way of finding her!"
"Whoa, easy does it, Seal," Cece said as she grabbed my arm and shoved her phone in front of my face. "One of the guys snapped a photo and I had him forward it to me."
I grabbed her phone and stared at the picture of two huge guys wearing dark colored tracksuits. From the back all I could see was that they were holding on to Echo as they dragged her limp form toward a van at the curb. The logo and the company name on the side was obscured by one of the goons, but the front of side passenger door had a picture of twisted strands of what looked like DNA.
"We need to figure out who owns that van," I said as I enlarged the picture trying to get a clearer view of the door.
"Already on it, Seal," Cece said as she took the phone back and began rapidly tapping on the screen. "I've got my guys on the lookout for vans in the area with those markings."
"And how in the world are your vast array of boyfriends going to find a single van in the middle of Manhattan," I asked as I picked up my phone and wondered if I should call Commander Donnelly. It wasn't that I thought the Navy would come to Echo's rescue, but I did think that having the input of a man used to calling the shots in intense situations might help me focus on what I needed to do to get Echo back safely.
"I'll have you know I am an equal opportunity dater," Cece shot back as she continued tapping. "I'm putting out the 911 to everyone I know and some of those guys are in law enforcement."
"No! Don't get the police involved!" I said. "If you do, then we're going to have to explain the situation with my father's lab and Julian will know that there's information he's not supposed to have."
"I'm concerned, but not stupid, Seal," Cece said shooting me a look that told me not to question her again.
"I didn't say you were stupid," I replied. "I just said..."
"You told me not to do something I already knew not to do, Captain Obvious," she huffed. "Just let me do what I do best and call in some favors. You figure out how we're going to get into your dad's office and find those keys and then figure out how we're going to get into that lab if we can't find the keys."
"Fine," I said grudgingly as I pulled up the map of the TriCorp building and started plotting out our moves. It wasn't going to be easy, but the more I learned about Cece, the more I felt like she was someone I could trust to have my back. "Hey Cece, what's the deal with the lab?"
"When Echo and I were in the office, she had me looking for keys that your dad said he left," she said as she finished tapping out yet another message and then put the phone down. "She said he'd left a clue telling her where the lab keys were and that if she didn't find the keys she'd have to code her way in because trying to blow it up would seal the door permanently."
"Great, so the c-4 was a waste of time," I said with a weak laugh.
"Oh, I think we might have other uses for that, my friend," Cece said as her phone began frantically buzzing. She picked it up and her eyes widened as she read the screen.
"What?" I asked.
"Someone has a lead on the van, I think," she said as her eyes flicked back and forth. "They said they saw a
dark van with the twisty white design on the door headed into a parking garage on 19th Street. That's where TriCorp is!"
"They took her to the building?" I said. "Nah, they aren't that stupid, are they?"
"Apparently they are," Cece said as she read the text. "Saw the van pulling into the garage under big green glass building on 19th. Looked like a cleaning crew to me. IDK."
"We need to get into that building," I said as I picked up the pistols and handed one to Cece. "You okay with this?"
"Yeah, I'm good, Seal," she smiled as she took a magazine from me and slammed it in place. "I got this one."
"All right, let's go over the plan one more time," I said looking at my watch. It hadn't felt like it, but hours had passed and it was almost time for Cece's guys to drop off the van. We discussed how we were going to get inside and what we'd do if we got caught. It was a risky plan, but it seemed like the only way we were going to be able to get what we needed to negotiate Echo's release.
"Inside, get the keys, up to the seventeenth floor and open the lab, find the cypher and then get the hell out," she repeated as her phone buzzed again. "Hey, the guys are downstairs, let's go."
I pulled on a dark hoodie over my t-shirt before grabbing the bag and heading out the door. As we ran down the stairs, I said a little prayer to the spirit of Opie Morgan and asked him to watch over us on this mission.
"C'mon, Seal!" Cece hollered as she hit the front door and turned to look at me with a grin. "What do I have to do to motivate your ass to get moving?"
"Hooyah, I'm moving!" I bellowed as I grinned back.
"Hooyah? That's what we have to yell?" she said. "Huh, interesting. Okay, Hooyah!"
"I hate to break it to you, cupcake, but you haven't earned the right to holler hooyah," I said.
"Right, gotcha," Cece said as she shot me a fiercely disapproving look. We walked quickly through Nemo's toward the back alley slowing only when Mando demanded to know where we were headed. Cece shot him a second look that rendered him silent until the three of us were out in the alley.