Bounty Hunter Honor

by Kara Lennox

  As she expected, Rex and Candless were waiting for her, but they said nothing. Instead, Rex handed her an open notebook. On the first page he’d scribbled, “You can’t go back out. It’s too dangerous.”

  “I’m on my way out,” she said aloud, for Peter’s benefit as well as the two men now flanking her as she made her way down the hall. “I know I’m close to the deadline, but please be patient. I’ve been gone for three days and people want to talk to me. I will try to extricate myself as quickly as possible.” She reasoned that if Peter thought she was making a good-faith effort to follow his instructions, he wouldn’t order Denise to begin the finger-lopping.

  As she walked, she scribbled her own note to Rex: “I am not giving him anything dangerous. It’s a fake.”

  She felt, rather than saw, Candless tense beside her. He grabbed the notebook and wrote, “I can’t take that chance.”

  She stopped in front of the elevator this time, rather than the stairs, to buy her just a few more seconds. She took the notebook and scribbled back, “You don’t trust me?”

  The elevator arrived, the doors opened. She stepped inside with the two men. Rex grabbed the notebook. “Yes, we trust you. Can’t risk your safety.”

  She grabbed the notebook and pen, quietly turned to a fresh page. “You stop me, you kill my daughter.” She let both men read it. Then she observed their faces. She saw regret in Rex’s eyes—regret that he was going to have to let Lily die? And in Robert Candless’s coarse, blunt features, she saw distrust. He still did not believe her.

  He was not going to let her leave.

  She wondered if she could get his gun away. Oh, Lord, what was she thinking? Candless was ex-CIA. Her skills with a gun extended only to target practice. She had no practical experience, only a head full of stories and advice from her KGB grandma.

  As they exited the elevator, Nadia noted that the corridor was completely empty. The lab had a safe room, on the basement level, in case of an environmental disaster or a terrorist attack. It was large enough to house every employee in the building. Concrete walls surrounded by limestone, an air filtration system, food and water—like an old-fashioned bomb shelter from the 1950s. Nadia wondered if everyone had been shepherded there as a safety precaution.

  As they neared the front entrance, all of them in a tense truce, Candless made his move. He took her arm, almost gently. “I’m sorry, Dr. Penn. Nadia. I know you love your daughter, and I’m sorry she’s been put at risk. But I can’t let you leave—”

  Nadia shoved an elbow into his soft midsection and wiggled out of his grasp, then ran for the exit. Had it been locked down? Could it be locked down? She thought the security precautions at JanCo were mostly designed to keep people out, not in.

  “Stop or I’ll shoot!” Candless’s voice was sharp, deadly.

  She stopped. She didn’t doubt for a minute that he would kill her. She turned and saw that he had his 9 mm pointed at her head. Rex stood next to him, a look of disbelief, then anguish on his face.

  “On the floor,” Candless ordered.

  She should run for it. She was going to die anyway. If Peter saw her die in a fiery spray of bullets as she was attempting to run out the door, wouldn’t it serve the same purpose as her planned method of suicide?

  Then something amazing happened. In a movement so quick it was a blur, Rex took Robert Candless’s gun away. One minute, the security director was pointing his weapon at Nadia; the next, he was on his knees with one arm twisted behind him, completely under Rex’s control.

  Now Rex had his gun pointed at Nadia.

  “You can’t shoot me,” she said. “You can’t shoot a woman.” It was unspeakably cruel for her to allude to his painful past. But she had to get out that door. Just a few more feet.

  “I will shoot you, Nadia,” he said, his voice full of regret.

  “Then why did you take Candless’s gun away?”

  “Because I was afraid he would go for your head. I’ll incapacitate you, but I won’t kill you.”

  She pulled the small beaker out of her lab coat. Candless knew of the Petro-Nano’s potential, but he wasn’t a scientist. He had no way of recognizing the fact that what she held wasn’t the real thing. He wouldn’t know a Petro-Nano from peanut butter. “You know what I have here, right?” she said to Rex. He wouldn’t be able to recognize the Petro-Nano, either. But she hoped that he knew her well enough to know she was playacting for Peter’s benefit. “You put the gun down right now, or I will open this beaker—”

  “Shoot her,” Candless said. “For God’s sake, Bet tencourt, you have no idea what you’re dealing with. That substance could kill billions of people!”

  “If you shoot me,” she said, “I’ll drop the beaker and it will break. Bad news for everyone.”

  “HOW ABOUT WE LET THE AIR out of his tires?” Craig suggested. He and Lori were hiding behind a huge Suburban, watching Peter’s car through two layers of tinted auto glass.

  “He’ll hear it,” she said. “We’d do better to cut the gas line. It would serve our purposes to have him drive at least a little way, maybe lead us closer to Nadia’s baby.”

  “Do you know how to cut a gas line?”

  Lori gave him a sideways look. “Don’t you?”

  She scared him, sometimes. “So how do we approach his car without being seen?”

  “I have an idea.” Lori had brought a small duffel bag with her, and from it she produced a slim-jim, a thin strip of metal used to unlock car doors from the outside.

  “You know it’s illegal to own those, don’t you?”

  “What? It’s a piece of an old metal ruler. Nothing illegal about that.” She slid the device against the window of the Suburban and in moments had popped the lock. Craig steeled himself for an alarm to go off, but it didn’t.

  “I never saw this. I’m looking up at the clouds.” At least the weather had cleared. It was cold, but no longer raining. “How did you know the car didn’t have an alarm?”

  “One of the rear windows is cracked open. No one sets a car alarm, then leaves a window open.” She yanked the Suburban’s door open, then briefly rum maged around in the back until she produced a skate-board. “I saw this through the window. I’m going to use it like a mechanic’s creeper. I’ll slide under cars until I reach Peter’s. There’s no chance he’ll see me.”

  “You’re not going,” Craig corrected her. “Rex will kill me. I’m supposed to be keeping you safe and out of trouble.”

  It was the wrong thing to say to Lori, and he knew it the moment the words were out of his mouth. She hated it when her brother tried to protect her.

  “I’m smaller than you,” she said as she put the skate-board down, then lay on top of it, chest down. She could slide under the Suburban, though she would never make it under cars with a lower ground clearance.

  Fortunately, this was Texas, where most people drove SUVs or pickup trucks, whether they needed the hauling capacity or not.

  Craig knew he wouldn’t be able to stop her short of bodily throwing himself on top of her. Then their assignment wouldn’t get done.

  “I’ll cover you,” he said, intending to follow by crouching down and darting from car to car.

  “It’s a race,” she said with a grin, then started off.

  He soon found that she’d been right—her method was highly preferable to his. He had to duckwalk or crawl from behind one car to the next, leaving himself vulnerable. When he was about halfway there, he stopped. There was too great a chance that Peter could spot him, which would put their entire operation in danger. Much as he hated it, he had to let Lori go it alone. He was close enough to provide cover if Peter did spot her.

  PETER DIDN’T LIKE his chances. As he listened through his earphone to the drama unfolding just past the lobby of JanCo labs, he felt sick to his stomach. Nadia had done everything he asked of her, but it hadn’t been enough. Someone else in the lab must have seen her stealing the Petro-Nano and reported her to security. She’d warned him that somet
hing like that could happen, and she’d been right.

  Though Peter had spent most of the past few months despising Nadia for being the obstinate barrier to his ultimate goal, right now he was in awe of her bravery. A lesser woman would have crumbled, given up and tossed Peter to the wolves. But she was so determined to save her baby’s life, she was going to the wall.

  He wished he hadn’t had to pressure her into this. He wished she truly understood what he was trying to do. He had no desire to destroy the world. He wanted to save the world from total United States domination. A world dictator, that was what the future held, unless someone did something.

  He was that someone.

  He would not have killed her baby. But he’d led her to believe he was a monster. It was the only way he’d been able to convince her he meant business.

  He felt uncomfortable sitting in the car. Earlier, it had seemed safe enough. He’d been that sure of Nadia’s cooperation. Now, though, the situation was volatile. If Nadia succeeded in getting out the door, she would run straight for his car, and he would be a sitting duck. Candless had undoubtedly notified security of the risk, and sharpshooters might even now be searching the parking lot for Peter.

  Trying to look casual, he got out of the car, as if he was just heading into work after an early dinner break. He wore his old JanCo badge around his neck. As he walked between two vans, he ducked down. From here, he had a perfect view of the front entrance, and he could also keep an eye on his car in case it had been identified through the video surveillance at the front gate.

  What he needed now was another car. Too bad he did not know how to steal one. That had been one of Denise’s specialties.

  He was currently out of contact with Denise. Despite what he’d told Nadia, she was not observing from a vantage point. It would have been too easy for her to be spotted and apprehended. And Lily was his one ace-in-the-hole. Denise and the baby were two miles away at a fast-food restaurant with their getaway vehicle. But if he did not show up within the hour, she would flee the country without him.

  She might not kill Lily—he wasn’t really sure how cruel Denise was. At the very least, though, Denise would take Lily to Russia. So even though Nadia was doing her best to give Peter what he’d asked her for, she would never see her daughter again. It was a shame, really. But sometimes, sacrifice was necessary for the greater good.

  AS HE HELD THE GUN pointed at Nadia, Rex weighed his options. He could shoot Nadia. Chances were good the beaker wouldn’t break. The glass they used for scientific purposes was strong stuff.

  He could continue to try to talk her into surrendering. But he recognized that belligerent look in her eye. She was not a woman on the verge of compromise. This was all or nothing.

  “You can’t shoot me,” she repeated. “You love me.”

  He did. He did love her. His finger tightened against the trigger, but he could not make himself squeeze hard enough to send a bullet ripping into Nadia’s body. He’d been right all along; he was ruined. He could no longer kill, not even when the fate of the world was at stake.

  She must have seen the indecision there, because she turned and ran out the door.

  “You idiot!” Candless screamed. “Do you have any idea what you’ve just done?”

  Rex took a deep breath, and suddenly he saw things clearly. And yes, he did realize what he’d done. He’d put his trust in Nadia, a trust that never should have wavered in the first place. He’d surrendered control to her. Because he loved her, and he knew her, and she wasn’t a selfish fool. He hadn’t hesitated because he lacked the cojones to kill.

  “She doesn’t have the Petro-Nano,” Rex said as he used a phone cord to tie Candless’s hands and feet, knowing now he was right. He hadn’t killed her because on some level he knew she wouldn’t cut off her nose to spite her face. She wouldn’t risk wiping out the planet to save her daughter’s life. She was stronger than that.

  Yes, twice before she’d behaved irrationally where Lily was concerned. But not this time.

  NADIA EXITED JanCo Labs and walked purposefully across the parking lot toward Peter’s car. She expected to hear the crack of rifle fire, feel the bullet gouging her flesh or exploding her skull. It wouldn’t matter, so long as Peter witnessed it. But it didn’t happen. She was being allowed to continue.

  No telling what Peter thought of the dialogue he’d just overheard. Did he still think he could get away with the Petro-Nano? If everyone truly believed Nadia had the means for world destruction in the pocket of her lab coat, perhaps they were so paralyzed with fright that they would make no move to stop either one of them.

  It was possible that was what Peter believed.

  As she approached Peter’s car, she realized something was wrong. The car was empty. She drew closer still, but he was nowhere in sight.

  Had he been quietly taken into custody? Was he, even now, spilling his guts, telling them where to find Lily?

  “Peter?” she called out. “I’m here, at the car. I have what you want. You can get away. They’re so scared, they won’t stop you.”

  Nothing.

  “Peter, please, where are you?” How could she carry out her plan if he wasn’t there to witness it?

  Someone grabbed her from behind. One arm went around her neck in a headlock; the other grabbed her arm and bent it behind her. She was wrestled to the pavement, shielded from view by several large vehicles.

  Peter. Though he hadn’t made a sound, she knew the feel of him, the smell of him.

  “This isn’t necessary,” she said, trying to sound calm while in reality panic engulfed her. He pinned her on her back with a knee to her already bruised ribs. “For God’s sake, you must be insane! You could have broken the beaker.”

  “Where is it?”

  “In my lab coat. Let me—”

  “Don’t move!” He reached inside her lab coat and pulled out the beaker containing her suicide cocktail. His grin was maniacal as he gazed on what he thought was his prize, his long-sought treasure.

  “I have to show you how to handle the sample,” Nadia said desperately, still trying to salvage her plan. “The beaker has to be opened in a special way or the whole thing could be ruined.”

  “Our scientists are not stupid,” Peter said.

  Abruptly he removed his knee from her solar plexus and stood. She tried to follow suit, but the large handgun he pointed at her heart halted her. The gun had a silencer, too.

  “Peter, I’ve done everything you asked. I don’t know how Robert Candless found out. Someone must have seen me acting suspiciously. I was so nervous! But I won’t turn you in. You can get away if you leave now. Just tell me where Lily is.”

  “I’ll take you to her. You’re coming with me. Now get up.”

  The last time Peter had promised to take Nadia to her child, he’d been lying. She had no reason to believe him now. “You want me to be your hostage, your shield so you can get out of here. You’ll kill me as soon as you’re clear.”

  “I won’t kill you,” he said, but she saw how he averted his eyes and realized he was lying.

  “You have no choice but to kill me,” Nadia countered. “I won’t go with you. You’ll have to kill me now. Then you’ll have to run for your life. Because, Peter? That beaker you’re holding doesn’t contain the Petro-Nano. It’s harmless water and baking powder.”

  “I don’t believe you. They wouldn’t have tried to stop you if you didn’t have the real thing. They would have shot me by now if this wasn’t the real thing. Now they’re too afraid.”

  “I won’t come with you. Without me to worry about, Rex will shoot you in the head before you can clear the parking lot.”

  “Then why hasn’t he done it already?” Peter asked smugly.

  “Because you have a gun pointed at me. He doesn’t want to get me killed.”

  “Get up! Or I’ll shoot you in the knee! I will torture your child!”

  He was desperate now, and Nadia knew she’d finally outmaneuvered him. Resigned to h
er fate, she merely stared up at him from the ground. She could not save Lily now—and maybe there’d never been that chance.

  “Why, Peter?” This would probably be her last chance. Not the final confrontation she’d had in mind, but she had to play with the hand she’d been dealt. “I thought you were smarter than this. You’re just going to get yourself killed.”

  “I would gladly die to destroy America. If it comes to that, they’ll write about me in the history books.”

  She had her answer, then. He wanted to matter, to be important.

  Peter straightened his arm and took aim. “I should shoot you in the head. You’d die faster. But I can’t bring myself to ruin your pretty face. See, I’m not really a heartless monster.”

  Where was Rex? Nadia wondered wildly. Did he actually believe she’d delivered the Petro-Nano? Was that why Rex hadn’t taken Peter down, because he was afraid Peter would drop the beaker and annihilate the earth? Or was he really concerned about her welfare?

  In an instinctual effort to save herself, Nadia tried to roll under the nearest car. But she wasn’t fast enough. Peter pulled the trigger.

  Searing pain sliced through Nadia’s chest. She could not move or think or do anything except acknowledge the terrible pain. The bullet’s impact knocked the breath out of her, and she struggled desperately to get some oxygen into her lungs.

  Peter cursed. She was vaguely aware of the sound of a car’s motor starting, tires screeching. She looked up at the clear blue winter sky and silently said goodbye to Lily and her mother…and Rex. Everyone she loved.

  Chapter Fourteen

  Before that first shot, Rex had exited JanCo labs and sprinted across the open part of the parking lot. He saw Peter grab Nadia, but by the time he’d maneuvered into a position where he had a clear shot, he couldn’t take it—Peter had a gun pointed at Nadia. He couldn’t see Nadia, but he knew she was on the ground. If he killed Peter now, there was a good chance the Russian would tense as the bullet found its mark, causing the trigger to release. And Nadia would be dead.