Ten minutes. Did she have a choice?
She slid inside, into a darkened doorway. She heard muffled noises from across the warehouse. In her vicinity, nothing stirred. Deliberately, she brought Ben’s voice to mind, focused on his soothing tranquility, his gentleness, his tenderness.
With a shake and a giant shudder, she regained some of her control. Swiping her slacks at her thighs, she dried her soaked palms, gripped her gun tightly and then stalked the warehouse, looking for Ben.
Darcy moved with stealth through the dark warehouse toward the bald yellow light shining in its center. Wooden crates stacked ten or more feet high formed barricades. They were marked as canned goods, but her heightened senses disagreed. Darcy sniffed a crate and smelled a trace of gunpowder.
The bombs? Probably, but they should smell stronger. Maybe her senses weren’t as attuned as usual because her focus was slivered. Something was off.
She scraped her back against the rough wood, checked for signals that she’d been spotted, but she perceived none. Silently, she peeked around the corner of the crates—and saw Ben in the center of a circle of wooden boxes stacked far above his head so that no one outside could see what was going on inside the building.
He hung suspended from metal rods, tied a foot off the floor with heavy ropes, his arms stretched wide, his legs pulled apart. Sweat-soaked, pain had his face haggard, and his head lolled forward, chin to his chest.
Her heart nearly ruptured. Don’t do it, Darcy. Not now. You can handle this.
“Why were you following us, Ben? Who told you to follow us?”
Needle. Darcy recognized his voice before he turned and she saw his face. He picked up a syringe. He’d drugged Amanda. She’d lost three months of her life! Darcy’s stomach twisted and churned.
No answer. Ben didn’t so much as grunt.
“We have the means to make you tell us everything,” Needle warned him.
They did. Oh, God, but they did.
“Spare yourself the pain and just tell us, Ben.”
Darcy swallowed hard, looked around. Needle couldn’t be here alone, yet she saw—
Thomas Kunz walked into the light, paced a short path before Ben, looking up at him. But when he spoke, it was to Needle. “Anything?”
“Not yet.”
Kunz turned his attention to Ben. “Agent Kelly, I admire your loyalty, but it’s severely misplaced. You will tell me what I want to know. The only question is how much pain you’ll endure between now and then, and that is totally up to you.”
“Go to hell, you sadistic son of a bitch.” Ben spit at Kunz. The strain on the ropes had his wrists bleeding.
“Soon enough.” Kunz stepped back. “You’ll of course join me there.” He turned back to Needle. “The authorities are too late to affect the mission. The S.A.S.S. blew this one. Unfortunately, pressing matters call and I don’t have time to play with our friend, Agent Kelly,” Kunz said. “Kill him.”
Shaking, her muscles spastic, Darcy gritted her teeth. She couldn’t follow orders and watch Ben suffer. She wouldn’t watch him die. Not him, too! She lifted the gun, struggled to hold it up and aim at Thomas Kunz’s broad back. He was the most valuable target in GRID. Without him, the terrorist network wouldn’t collapse, but it would be disorganized and give the S.A.S.S. time to run down its components. Her grip slipped.
She caught the gun in midair, now shaking like a leaf.
You can do this, Darcy. Damn it, you will do it—now!
The barrel of the gun lifted. She took aim and fired, dropped and rolled to the next line of crates.
Grabbing his shoulder, Kunz dove into the darkness. Santana, whom she’d not seen, stepped out and aimed at the crates where she’d been standing. “Come out. We’ve got you.”
The hell they did. He wasn’t shooting. He knew what was in this warehouse and he wasn’t going to blow himself up. But she couldn’t get a clean shot at him.
Needle cut Ben down.
Santana snatched Ben from Needle and disappeared into a hallway near two rows of low-ceilinged offices. She had a clear shot at Needle and took it.
He dropped to the floor.
Certain Kunz had departed—he never hung around for the fight—she started toward the offices, to where Santana had disappeared with Ben. Her legs didn’t want to work. Her mind was already there. Damn it! Can’t I get just one break here? Just one?
Her left arm went numb.
She couldn’t move it.
Acknowledge and accept the pain, Darcy. Dr. Vargus’s voice. I promise you, if you acknowledge the pain, you can overcome it.
You’d damn well better be right, Doc. She gripped the gun in her right hand tighter, entered the narrow hallway, knowing she’d be wiser to avoid it. Odds were high Santana would ambush her here, and she had no cover. But blood smeared on the wall insisted she go on. Ben’s blood.
He was brushing the walls deliberately, leaving her a trail.
Behind her, something crackled. Seconds later, she smelled sulfur then heard the hiss of fire.
Fire.
She turned and saw the flames sweeping across the warehouse. Kunz, the bastard, had set a charge to burn it before running out—and Needle no longer lay on the floor. He’d been winged, not mortally wounded.
It’s just like Merry. It’s your fault Ben’s here. Your fault he’s going to die. Darcy, it’s all your fault.
Her entire body in full revolt, Darcy fought hard. Fought the guilt, the fury, the fire she most feared. None of Dr. Vargus’s techniques worked. None of her own techniques worked. Her damn feet wouldn’t move.
Ben. I’m sorry. Tears stung her eyes, fell down her face. I’m sorry…
“Darcy!” Ben’s shout. “Darcy!”
Too late. He’s going to die, just like Merry. You failed, Darcy.
Rage swelled in her and erupted into the thick smoke. “Shut up!” She screamed at the voices in her head, lifted her left leg and then the right one. “You will work. You will move!” She lifted them, alternating left to right again and again, and then her right leg lifted on its own. She moved. She moved!
The building burned in earnest. The smell of charring wood, the hiss and crackle all proved it. And Darcy knew one thing as fact—there were no fireworks in those crates or by now they would have exploded. She wound through the hall, through the maze of stacked crates on the other side, looking for spots where fiery debris wasn’t crashing to the concrete floor and flames weren’t flaring floor to ceiling. “Ben! Ben!” she called out, blindly seeking him in the thick smoke.
“Darcy!”
His voice rang out above the roar of the blistering fire. Dropping to a crouch, she yelled back. “Keep talking, Ben. I can’t see.”
He heard her, and responded, calling her name over and again. Eyes and lungs burning, tears streaming, knees cracking, fire and flames and intense heat encompassing her, she moved methodically, fearful he’d be a mere foot away and she’d never know if she just missed him.
Something snagged her ankle. She turned. “Ben!”
“I’m cuffed.” He lifted his arm and the chain clinked against the metal beam. “My leg’s messed up, too.”
“Broken?”
“I don’t think so. But it’s pretty useless.”
Darcy looked up. A huge beam above Ben was about to fall. Nightmares, flashes of the fire danced before her eyes, threatened to again paralyze her. Not this time. Not again.
She forced herself to look away. Spotting a fire axe on the wall, she grabbed it, swung and chopped the chain binding Ben to the metal beam. He pulled himself upright. “Let’s go, let’s go!”
Her arm around his waist, she helped him hobble out of immediate danger.
Behind them, the beam crashed to the floor, spewing sparks and fiery embers that now fell harmless. “Where’s the door?” She couldn’t see six inches beyond her nose and was totally disoriented.
“I don’t know.” Ben grimaced and shifted his weight, leaning heavily on her. “Santana w
ent this way.”
They moved straight ahead and Darcy brushed against a burning crate. Her slacks caught fire. She let go of Ben, stopped, dropped and rolled, jerking out of her slacks—and the crushing memories of the first fire, the one that stole Merry’s life and Darcy’s, bore down on her with brutal force. A full-blown attack seized her. She couldn’t move. Helpless and hopeless, Darcy screamed.
Ben clasped her face in his hands, stared into her eyes. “Darcy. Darcy look at me.”
Gasping, her chest heaving, her eyes watering from the smoke and heat from the fire singeing her skin, she fought for control to focus.
“Darcy, look at me. Only me,” Ben insisted, calm amid the turmoil, gentle in the chaos.
She caught the thought, held it, breathed deeply and finally met his gaze.
“You can do this, Darcy. Get me out of here.”
She wanted to—oh, how she wanted to, but she couldn’t do it. “Ben, I can’t—”
“You can.” He shook her. “You can, Darcy. I’m crazy about you. I don’t want to die in this inferno. I want to live and even try again to love. I want to be with you and see what happens for us, Darcy. You can do this. You can give us that chance.”
In his eyes, she saw certainty and faith. He believed it—every word he was saying. He believed in her.
The fire crackled and hissed, rebelling against her growing strength, asserting its power over her. It was stronger, meaner; she couldn’t win against it.
All Ben had said to her—she wanted those things, too. And she wanted them more than she feared the fire. She wanted to put the devastation of the past—her fears and regrets and guilt—to rest. She wanted a life, with all the good and bad and ups and downs and love. Oh, how she wanted love. She wanted Ben.
Her lungs felt scorched; her throat, raw. She darted her gaze left and then panned right. A window! Blackened with soot and hard to see through the billowing smoke, but it was there. She scanned the area between them and it. No flames. Smoldering embers, but no flames. She grabbed the axe and held on to Ben. “This way.”
She led him to the window, then let go of him. “Stand back.” She lifted the axe and swung hard.
The glass shattered.
Darcy stepped forward, felt the blast of fresh air and used the blade to knock out the sharp shards of glass. “Come on, Ben.” She looked behind him, saw the creeping flames, the fury of the fire eating through a major support beam overhead. “Hurry.”
He hobbled over, and she made a lift with her hands, then shoved him through the window. She couldn’t make it without a boost—she spied a small crate against a wall not yet in flames. She shoved it over but the chains keeping it on its wooden pallet were too short. The crate wouldn’t reach the window. “Damn it.”
“Darcy?” Ben shouted from outside, his voice a shade shy of panic. “Darcy?”
She judged the distance between the crate and window. She could make it. “Move away, Ben,” she shouted, backing up as far as she dared. She heard a loud pop—a sizzle—and knew the beam was going to come down. She ran full out, vaulted over the crate and dove through the window.
Her shoulder hit the ground first, stinging, and she tucked and rolled on the grass, then up onto her feet, winded and feeling the jolt of the landing, but no worse for the wear. “Ben?”
He limped toward her, opened his arms.
She walked into them, felt him close around her, and buried her face at his neck. “I did it, Ben.” Her voice cracked and five years of tears and guilt and regret found vent. “I faced the fire.”
He pressed his lips to her temple. “Yeah, baby, you did.” Ben splayed his broad hands across her back and squeezed her to him. “Damn right, you did.”
Chapter 10
Darcy and Ben kissed, and kissed again.
“Darcy?” The lone FBI agent walked up to them, pushing frameless glasses up on his nose.
She pulled back, saw he was wearing a suit, and hardly recognized him. The skateboard and ball cap was a better fit. “Baxter, right?”
“Yes, ma’am.” He frowned. “We picked up two men coming out of the warehouse.” He slanted a nod to the curb where two female agents cuffed the men.
“Santana’s buddies,” Ben said.
She nodded. “Where’s Kunz? Santana?”
“No sightings on Kunz or Santana,” Baxter said. “I take it the shipment was brought here.”
“Yes,” Ben said. “But it wasn’t fireworks.”
“Figured. No explosion.” Baxter shifted his weight on his feet. “We’ve checked and we’re not picking up radioactivity, but we’re clearing the area, just in case.”
Darcy hadn’t even thought of radioactivity. She’d been so busy trying to keep a lid on the attacks and so focused on the fire that it hadn’t dawned on her.
That was it. Until she got these attacks totally under control, she was done with field work and this was her last active mission as an operative. Colonel Drake would just have to accept it and leave her in her hub at Regret.
“Put an APB out on Thomas Kunz and Paco Santana. They were both in the building,” she told the agent. “They can’t have gotten far.”
“If they’ve got any sense, they’re heading to the border,” Ben said, keeping an arm around her shoulder for support.
“You need a doctor?” Baxter asked.
“No. It’s not broken.” Ben glanced down at his leg.
“I’ll brief the locals,” Baxter said, then walked away.
Darcy scanned the crowd for Kunz. It’d be just like him to mingle and watch. With his sunny good looks, no one would give him a second thought. But she saw no sign of him.
Disappointed, she turned to look at Ben—and glimpsed Paco Santana walking away, watching her over his shoulder.
Darcy pulled her gun and ran.
Santana took flight, shoving his way through the retreating crowd. He rounded a corner, knocked down an old man pushing a shopping cart, cut through an alley and disappeared in a cemetery.
Darcy stayed with the chase, weaving and ducking between the tombs. She stopped, her back against a rough cement wall, her chest heaving, trying to pull oxygen from the windless air. He was close. She felt it in her bones. Stilling, she opened her senses, blocked out the hustle and noise of the people on the street. She waited, listened, willing herself to stay calm, to control her fear, to home in on just him.
The past threatened, and she squelched it. She’d faced it fully. It was time to put it to bed. That was then, and this was now. Now, she had suffered and endured and survived.
The fire had changed her life.
But no longer would she permit it to claim her life.
Her fear dissipated to a healthy level and her reclamation took hold. The spasms in her neck and back ceased, and she no longer fought spots, her vision was clear. She ran a quick mental test and passed. Her mind and senses were attuned, working perfectly.
For the first time since the fire, she was in crisis and in full control.
Something crackled—a snapping twig.
Santana.
The urge to move assaulted her, but she rebuffed it, stayed hidden in the shadows between the tombs, gripping her gun, checking her earpiece and sliding her lip mike into place, preparing to aim and fire.
Gravel crunched.
He’d moved again. Quickly, she spun out.
Caught in the moonlight, he dove behind a tomb. But he was too slow. She fired.
He fell, dead before he hit the ground.
“Baxter?” Darcy summoned him via her lip mike.
“Yeah?”
“I’ve just killed Paco Santana. I need a retrieval,” she said, then added directions on her location.
“Darcy?”
Hearing Ben, she turned and saw him coming toward her, putting some weight on his injured leg. It definitely wasn’t broken. Winded, he looked at Santana, lifeless against someone else’s grave. “Are you okay?” he asked.
“I’m fine.”
“Th
ank God.” He hugged her to him. “I couldn’t get here. I tried, Darcy.”
Just as she’d tried with Merry. “Shh, I know, Ben. It’s okay. Everything is fine.”
Baxter came up on them. Darcy had him in her sights, and when he realized it, he shouted, “Whoa, Clark. It’s Baxter.”
She let out a sigh of relief. “Santana’s over there.”
“Any sign of Kunz?” he asked.
“Check the tapes at Los Casas,” Ben said. “I’m sure he’s hotfooted it to Mexico.”
“No doubt.” Darcy frowned. “He’s very good at leaving others behind to take responsibility for his dirty work.”
“Don’t worry,” Ben told her. “We’ll take one battle at a time until we catch him.”
“That could take a while,” she said. “I’m sure Kunz has at least a dozen body doubles. The S.A.S.S. has already gone up against four.”
“Okay, so it’ll take a long while,” Ben said. “Wars are won one battle at a time, Darcy.”
She left Ben with Baxter and Santana, got her Jeep and then retrieved Ben. When he slid onto his seat, she said, “I thought about what you said—about the battles.”
“We did win this one, Darcy,” Ben insisted, clicking his safety belt into place.
Leaving Baxter with Santana to mop up, Darcy drove away.
“Kunz and Santana won’t launch that July 4th attack. The White House will have its fireworks—and they won’t be radioactive.”
“It can’t be this easy, Ben. With Kunz and GRID, it’s never this easy. We’re missing something. Trust me on this. I’ve studied this man intensely. It just can’t be this easy.”
“Okay. So what do we do now?”
“First, we think and get your leg checked out.”
“It’s not broken.”
“Great. Indulge me, then and let the doc take a look.” She drove on toward the hospital, wondering why things weren’t clicking into place. “Where’s Wexler?”
“I phoned Bobby Meyers a while ago. He says Wexler’s home in bed with the flu. Apparently, he left a few minutes after I did. Bobby says it hit him hard.”
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