by Adams,Claire
I sat down in the chair and surveyed the computer. It was older than my laptop, but I was familiar with the make and model, so I quickly went to work pulling up screens and starting to code a program that would make it look like I had a lock on the hard drive.
"Can I have some paper and a pen?" I asked.
"What the hell do you need that for?" the good said.
"I need to sketch out a few formulas before I input them," I said. The truth was that I needed to sketch the room so that I didn't forget what it looked like or where things were. My phone began vibrating in my pocket as I did, but I didn't dare answer it. If the kidnappers hadn't taken it from me, that meant they didn't know I had it and I wasn't about to give up my lifeline now.
"Here," the goon said as he pushed a stack of paper he pulled out of the printer tray and a pen at me. I immediately recognized it as TriCorp stationary because of its unique watermark, and suddenly I felt very hopeful. I had an idea of where I was even if I wasn't certain. "Do whatever it is you do."
"Thank you," I said as I began writing random formulas on the top sheet of the pad.
"How the hell do you remember all those numbers?" he asked as he watched me write.
"They're codes, so they all fit together," I replied. "It's kind of like asking how you know how to form a sentence."
"Huh, that's interesting," he said sounding completely uninterested. I shrugged and returned to writing formulas occasionally looking around the room as if searching for the next equation. On the second sheet of paper, I wrote the formulas in a rectangle the size of the room and put various formulas in places where doors and windows were. My goal was to snap a picture of the drawing with my phone's camera and send it to Cece and hope that she'd be able to interpret it. I still had no idea where I was, but at the very least I could provide her and whoever was going to rescue me with a blue print of the room.
"Are you okay?" I asked the goon. He was slightly bent over in his chair with his arms wrapped around his waist.
"Yeah, fine. Why?" he said as he tried to sit up.
"You don't look so hot," I shrugged. "Just being nice."
"My gut is killing me," he confessed. "I need a bathroom, but I can't leave you here."
"Why not just anchor me to the desk?" I suggested. I knew there was no way I would be able to escape, but at least I could get him to leave me alone with my phone.
"Good idea," the goon said as he nodded and slipped a cable around my leg, then around the leg of the desk and back around the base of the chair before locking one end into the other.
"Did you just use a bike lock on me?" I asked incredulously.
"Yep, good catch," he grinned as he twirled the keys around his forefinger. I watched him as he walked to the back of the room and into what looked like a supply closet. "Don't go anywhere!"
"Wouldn't dream of it," I said in a flat voice as I heard the door slam. I wasn't sure if there was a bathroom back there or if he'd exited out a back door. I quickly added the door to my formula drawing as well as a small verification that only Cece would recognize before I reached into my back pocket for my phone. I pulled it out and saw that there were fourteen missed calls from Cece. She was probably frantic with worry and pissed that I'd gone missing.
I snapped a quick shot of my drawing, then quickly texted the photos to Cece before deleting the message, turning off the phone and shoving it back in my pocket. Behind me, I heard the click of a safety being turned off.
"Nice try, missy," the goon said as he crossed the short distance between us and grabbed my phone out of my pocket. "What did you send?"
"Nothing!" I protested weakly. "I just wanted to keep a picture of the formulas I've written. It's like art, you know?"
"Don't bullshit a bullshitter, babe," he said shaking his head as he turned on my phone and held it out to me. "Unlock it."
I knew better than to resist, so I unlocked it and handed it back to him. He began opening the programs looking for messages I'd sent, but when he didn't find any, he eyed me suspiciously before stuffing my phone in the pocket of his track jacket.
"We'll just wait for the boss to come back and see what he has to say about this," he said. "Get back to work."
"Yes, sir," I said as I saluted and turned back to the computer hoping that Cece had gotten my message and that she could decipher it before the boss returned.
CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE
Ryan
"Oh shit, Seal, look at this!" Cece said urgently tugging my sleeve as she handed me her phone. On the screen was a text message from Echo with a picture of a whole bunch of formulas laid out on a sheet of paper in a rectangle.
"Is this all she sent?" I asked as I stared at the photo.
"Yeah, that's it," she nodded. "What the hell is that?"
"She's sending us a message," I said. "But hell if I know what it is. Forward the photo to me."
Cece quickly took her phone back and forwarded me the picture, and the two of us sat in the closet in my father's office staring at our screens.
"It's a rectangle," I said. "What's rectangular?"
Cece shrugged and turned her phone around looking at the photo from all angles. Suddenly, I had an idea. I grabbed the laptop and typed in Echo's number again. The map still showed her location as in the building.
"She's here," I said looking up at Cece. "You were right, she's here. If she sent the message..."
"She did," Cece nodded. "I know it's her. Look down here in the bottom corner under the short formula, she wrote the word chica. The kidnappers wouldn't know that's my nickname for her. She's here."
"I'll bet she's up on the seventeenth floor," I said staring at my phone.
"Why do you say that?" she asked.
"Look at all of her equations," I said pointing toward the far wall and then quickly doing a few calculations on my phone's calculator. "The outer sides all have seventeen as their root. Can you see that?"
"Um, okay?" Cece said.
"I think she's trying to tell us she's on the seventeenth floor," I said. "Either that, or I failed basic algebra and my calculations are off."
"You're a piece of work, Seal," Cece said shaking her head. "Fine, what's the plan then?"
"We get upstairs and find Echo," I said. "Then I create a diversion with the C-4, and you hustle her out of there into the lab. Got the keys?"
"No, you have them," she sighed. I reached into my pocket and pulled out the keys to my father's lab and handed them to her as she smiled and said, "Okay, now the plan has a slightly larger chance of succeeding."
"Check your gun," I said. "Make sure the safety is off and that you're ready for whatever happens. We have no idea how many of them there are or what kind of weapons they have."
"Great," she said rolling her eyes dramatically. "Now the chance of success just dipped again."
"Don't be a pessimist, lady," I grinned as I checked my gun and tucked it into the pocket of my hoodie. "Let's roll."
We exited the office and quickly made our way to the stairs.
We climbed one flight to the seventeenth floor as Cece hit the cameras with the paint. We made our way to the hallway next to my father's lab.
I followed the map I'd committed to memory and led the way down a long corridor then carefully checked the hallway signaling to Cece to come up underneath and hit the camera that was aimed down the hallway where the lab was located. Once she'd covered the lens, we dropped to our knees and scooted down the hallway toward what looked like the first of four offices. The glass panels sat on top of beech wood partitions that gave us a place to hide as we made our way down the hallway, but the full-length glass doors we'd have to cross in front of to get to the next office gave us nowhere to hide.
"We're going to have to move fast, okay?" I said as I motioned for Cece to follow me. I could feel her right behind me as I slid over to the first office and slowly raised my eyes just over the edge of the glass. Nothing.
Cece and I carefully made our way down the hall looking in the offices and finding no
thing. It was possible that they had Echo locked in a lab, but my instincts told me that they didn't have access to the labs, otherwise they wouldn't have needed to kidnap Echo in the first place. I lifted my head just above the glass, and inhaled sharply as I ducked down.
"She's in there," I whispered.
"In that office?" Cece asked. "You sure?"
"Positive," I said. Cece motioned to me to get going as I slid on my belly across the front of the door and moved toward the far side of the hallway. There was no way we could go in guns blazing and not wind up with someone getting seriously wounded —or worse. I was going to set up an explosion in the area behind the office. What we hoped would happen would be that the kidnappers would come check it out and then we'd stand a better chance of rescuing Echo. It wasn't the best plan, but it was the only one we could think of under pressure.
Cece watched as I set up the explosives and then motioned me when it was safe to slide back to where she sat waiting. I had only used 50 grams of the C-4 knowing that any more than that would likely cause more damage than we wanted. I looked at Cece and motioned for her to get as far away as she could, then I counted down on my fingers before lighting the fuse. Once the fuse was lit, I ran down the hall to join Cece around the corner. It took fifteen-seconds for the fuse to burn down to the blasting caps and when it hit, the explosion shook our hiding spot.
"What the fuck?" came the shout from the other end of the hallway as a guy in a dark colored tracksuit exited the office and walked down to check out the explosion site. Cece and I silently moved down the hallway, and in a matter of seconds I had my arm wrapped around the guy's neck with my pistol pointed at his temple.
"Where is she?" I growled.
"What the fuck?" the startled man yelled.
"Where the fuck is she?" I repeated as I pressed the metal into his head.
"Who?"
"The girl?" I growled. "Where is she?"
"In the office!" he shouted as I heard Echo yell, "Don't hurt him! He's just the muscle!"
"You're one luck son of a bitch," I said before I smashed him in the back of the head with my pistol knocking him out cold.
"Ryan!" Echo cried as I ran into the room and found Cece kneeling at her feet frantically trying to cut the cable wound around her legs. "He's got the keys in his pocket, and my phone!"
"Got it," I said as I went back out and rifled through the guy's pockets finding the lock keys and Echo's phone. I went back into the office gave the keys to Cece and the phone to Echo before I turned and headed for the door again. "I'm going to the lab. Hurry up and join me!"
It took me three tries to locate the door to my father's lab, but when I tried the first of the two keys it didn't work. I was sweating by the time I slipped the second key in and heard the lock click. We were in — or so I thought.
The inner room was pitch black and by now Cece and Echo had joined me, but us could find a light switch on the wall, so Cece flipped on her cell phone and used the glow of the screen to scan the small space. The door leading into the lab resembled that of a large industrial refrigerator with a seal running around the outside edges. It was silver and had a lever with a lock in the middle; I slipped the first key into it and turned it hoping that it would be a simple solution. The lock easily opened and I carefully pushed down on the lever, unsure of what would happen once we broke the seal. I heard the whooshing of air and as I pulled the door open I saw a blue light shining from somewhere toward the back of the room.
I signaled to Cece and Echo to follow me as I moved slowly between two lab tables that sat parallel to one another stretching eight feet into the center of the lab. Both were covered by glass cases and had fume hoods hanging from the ceiling. To the left of the tables were four large boxes with blinking lights flickering on and off in what appeared to be random patterns as they processed information and stored it deep in the inner recesses of some technological brain.
"Servers," Echo whispered. "All of his research data is on them, but the most important data is on the hard drive. We need to find it."
As we cleared the lab tables I stopped abruptly whispering, "Get down!"
We all dropped to the floor and crawled toward the two giant circular glass cases that rose up out of the floor just as a voice filled the space.
"You are not getting out of here alive, missy!" the goon shouted.
"Give yourself up, Echo Frost," a second voice hissed. "You cannot beat us."
"The hell I can't!" Echo shouted before I could slap a hand over her mouth.
"Shut the hell up!" I whispered. "They don't know who's in here with you or that we're armed."
I looked at Cece and nodded as I pulled my pistol out of my pocket. She was already holding hers.
"You stupid, stupid girl," the voice growled. "You have no idea what you've done or how we're going to make you pay for it."
"On three, we're going to rise up and fire at them," I said. "This is for real, so don't hold back, okay?"
"You sure we shouldn’t wait for the police?" Echo whispered.
"Chica, no police are coming," Cece said patting her arm. "Me and Seal rolled solo on this rescue mission."
"Hey, what are you people doing in this lab?" came a voice from the hallway. "You're not supposed to be in here."
"Butch! GET DOWN!" Echo screamed as Cece and I rose up from behind the lab tables and started firing. The goon and his boss returned fire and soon the room was full of the deafening sound of guns firing and the smell of black powder. I ducked down to eject the spent magazine from my gun and slam in a new one before emerging from between the tables and firing at the man moving towards us. I fired and he dropped to the floor with a thud seconds before I felt the searing pain rip through my midsection.
"Ryan!" I heard Echo scream as I fell backwards and everything went black.
CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO
Echo
I heard myself scream Ryan's name as I watched him fall to the floor. Cece grabbed me and yanked me around the backside of the lab table, motioning to me to be quiet as she held her gun in her shaking hands. We waited a few moments, and then hearing nothing, she stuck her head up over the edge of the table and saw the goon on the ground as the second captor raced toward the door. Without hesitating, Cece raised her gun and shot the fleeing captor in the shoulder.
"You fucking bitch!" the captor's words were garbled through the voice modulator before dropping the gun. Cece fired again and brought him down to the ground. He writhed on the floor as Cece stood over him and kicked his gun out of his reach.
"Do not fuck with me, Mister," she said as she pointed her gun at his head.
"You shot me, you stupid bitch!" the voice screamed.
"Yeah, because you were trying to kill my friend, you idiot," she said as she nudged the wounded arm with her foot and listened to the painful scream that followed. Cece looked at me as she pulled out her phone and said, "911, dial it and tell them we have two wounded and two questionable."
"You bitch! You can't kill me and get away with it!" came the high-pitched reply as she nudged the arm with her foot again.
"Wouldn't want to deny you your day in court, asshole," she said. "Don't get your panties in a wad, I'm not going to kill you — unless you don't shut the hell up."
As the second captor went silent, I quickly moved toward Ryan and unzipped his hoodie. His side was covered in blood, but I couldn't tell how bad it was. He groaned a little when I tried to lift his shirt.
"Don't touch it," he croaked. "Medic...need a medic."
"Help is on it's way, don't give up," I said as I gripped his hand and touched his face. My fingers were covered in his blood and left prints on his cheek.
"Hard drive," he mumbled. "Get drive, Echo"
"Shit the hard drive!" I yelled at Cece. "I need to find it! Where the hell is it?"
"Calm down and think, chica," Cece said as she aimed her gun at the man at her feet. "Where would Dr. Powell have put it?"
"My. Office," came a groan from
the front of the room.
"Who said that?" Cece called.
"My. Office," came the voice again. Cece motioned for me to check it out as she covered me with her gun.
"Butch, is that you?" I said when I saw the security guard laying on the ground near the front of the lab.
"Mmm hmm," he nodded slightly as he struggled to breathe. "Drive. My office."
"You've got Dr. Powell's hard drive in your office?" I asked as I frantically tried to staunch the flow of blood coming from his neck. Cece tossed me her hoodie and I used it as a pressure dressing as I wondered what was taking the medics so long. I shouted, "Cece! Check Ryan! Make sure he's still conscious!"
"Mmm hmm," he said as he gasped for air.
"Hang on, Butch," I whispered as I gripped his hand. "Help's coming."
"Drive under desk," he grunted as his eyes fluttered closed. "Don't miss it. Hiding."
"Butch, stay with me," I called as I squeezed his hand. "Butch! Butch! Don't let go!"
The next thing I knew the paramedics were pushing me out of the way as they scooped up Butch and Ryan. I looked around for the whining captor and realized that he'd disappeared while Cece and I had been focused on keeping Ryan and Butch alive. The goon had bled out making the lab floor slick and slippery.
"Where are you taking them?" Cece asked several times. "Hey, where are you taking these guys?"
"Probably Bellevue, it's the closest!" one of the paramedics shouted as they pushed the stretcher out the door and ran for the elevator.
I moved out of the way and stood near Cece off to one side of the room and surveyed the lab. Directly across from where we were standing were two huge glass tubes. They were filled with some kind of smoke like gas that moved up and around as if it were actually breathing. I thought it kind of a miracle that they hadn't been shattered in the crossfire.
"What the hell is that?" Cece whispered.
"Not a clue," I replied as I stared at the tubes. They were roughly six feet around and rose up to connect the floor to the ceiling. I couldn't see anything but smoke inside both of them, but there was something about the smoke that seemed alive. I grabbed Cece's arm and whispered, "We need to find the hard drive. It's down in Butch's office under the desk."