by Alison Kent
And so he shut the door.
"Thank you, Woodrow. I realize that was an unpleasant task, but it was quite necessary. Now." Bow wheeled back around at the sound of the approaching elevator. He lifted the gun.
Behind him, Woody jumped up and down, waving his arms to signal Mr. Deacon as he stepped out onto the platform. But it was too late, and he was too far away to do more than think about a flying wheelchair tackle.
"Good morning, Mr. Deacon," Dr. Bow said.
And then he fired the gun for the third time.
Twenty-five
"What the hell did you do?" Christian yelled, the door slamming shut behind him, the whites of his eyes showing as he advanced.
"Get the hell away from me. I didn't do anything!" She pressed as far into the corner as she could, her bound hands grappling behind her for something to use as a weapon.
She ran instead, into the empty back wall, cast a quick glance at the industrial shelving six feet to her left, wondered how fast she could get to one of the tools stacked in bins.
Not fast enough.
Christian slammed a fist into the wall beside her. He was in her face now, his wide eyes furious, his nostrils flared. "Goddammit, Natasha. What did you say to Bow?"
"I didn't say a thing." God, what was his freaking problem? Why was he blaming her? "He didn't even show up until I'd been talking to Woody for awhile."
He backed away, his hand still fisted, and turned, pacing the six-foot width of the room. "Fuck, fuck, fuck. If not to Bow, then . . . okay, what did you say to Jinks?"
"Nothing, dammit. Nothing." Her arm was on fire, burning, throbbing. She wasn't sure she'd be able to move it even if cut free from the tape. "He was doing most of the talking. I was just listening."
"And obviously Bow was listening, too," he said with a snort. One, two, three steps, turn. One, two, three steps, turn.
"I didn't see him until it was too late, so I'm sorry but I really don't know." All she knew was that she was in a world of hurt, and time wasn't making it any better. "Do you think you could stop with the ranting and the accusations long enough to get this tape off my wrists?"
It took a second for her request to sink in, but then he came back, shaking his head as he approached as if dislodging an errant thought. She turned; he cut through the tape, wrenching her shoulder in the process.
"Ow, shit." She grit her teeth, faced him again. "And where's your gun anyway? How'd you end up in here?"
"He shot first. Had Jinks disarm me." He jerked open his jacket where his empty holster hugged his side. "I wasn't about to trust that he wouldn't accidentally shoot, the way his hand was shaking. Now, tell me what Jinks was talking to you about. What might've caught Bow's attention?"
She brought her injured arm down to her side, cradled her elbow close to her body. "Shit. Uh, shit." She grimaced. "He said something about the agency and intelligence, and I'm guessing he meant the CIA."
She was working to find the least painful position, not paying any attention to Christian, so she jumped when, standing over her, he said flatly, "You're bleeding."
"Yeah. I know." Actually, the bleeding had stopped. It was like Wick had said. A nuisance of a flesh wound that bit deep and stung like a sonofabitch. "I'll live."
"He shot you. Christ." That was the tamest of the oaths that followed. "Jesus Christ, Natasha. Why didn't you say something?"
"Uh, because you wouldn't shut the hell up long enough for me to talk?"
Christian growled. "We need to make you a sling. At least bind it so you don't damage the muscle moving it around."
She lifted a brow. "Dr. Bane, I presume?"
"Funny." His gaze canvassed the high-ceilinged box of a room. "Duct tape."
"Oh, if you insist." It was a two-year-old sweater after all, and glue couldn't do much more damage than the bullet had done.
Or than her godfather had done, she thought, her eyes watering anew, her chest aching with a burn that had nothing to do with the bullet he'd put in her arm—though it really had everything to do with it.
She wondered . . . glanced from shelf to shelf. Yes, there. "Hey, doc. Next to the CDs? The rewritables? You want to pass me a couple of those Advil packets?"
Christian found the pain reliever, tore open the packets, and poured the four pills into her palm. She managed to swallow them one at a time, smiling up at him once she had. "Give me a leather belt to bite on, and I'm set."
"Natasha?"
"Yes, Christian?"
"Just checking to see if you're all there."
"Yep. All here." She raised her good arm overhead when he gestured, then held her wince while he bound her bad arm to her body.
She knew she was being goofy. She couldn't help it. Or maybe she didn't care. It was just so much easier to laugh than to cry. If she let one tear fall, another would follow, then another until no dam would hold back the deluge.
And she needed to hold it back. She needed to keep the mood upbeat and positive—no matter her pain—so that Christian didn't snap to the fact that he was imprisoned again in a six-by-six cage.
"Okay." He tore the strap of tape from the roll. "That should keep you until we can get you to the hospital."
"Hospital. Right. I'll call a cab."
He rolled his eyes, tossed the tape back onto the industrial shelving, shoved his hands to his hips, and glanced around the storeroom. None of what Wick and Dr. Jinks might be doing in the lab was audible; the storage closet, like all of the basement, was sound-proofed.
"What did you find out from your phone call?" she asked, grinding her jaw as she shifted position and the throbbing radiated like a starburst.
"Jinks and your godfather have somehow cracked the encryption securing the transmissions the CIA's data analysts send to their agents in the field. You know. The information those same agents use to keep our country secure from outside threats. Stuff like that." He said it while still looking around the room, just rattled it off like he would directions to Yankee Stadium.
"Christian, wait." She pushed away from the wall on which she'd been leaning. "It's true, then? The real CIA?"
"No. The one I made up." He dropped to a crouch, peered behind stacked boxes of printer paper after pushing them away from the wall, ran his hand along the seam where the floor met the wall. "Yes. The real CIA."
"Wait just a minute. You're saying my godfather is selling this technology to an international crime syndicate? That's he's a traitor?" The pain she was feeling now almost dulled that from the gunshot wound.
"That's pretty much the way of it. Spectra will now know what the CIA knows and probably before. They'll be able to warn their operatives when the Agency is closing in."
"I don't understand. Why would Wick do this?"
"The money."
"But that makes no sense." She remembered telling Christian the first night they met that he didn't know her godfather at all if he thought money factored into Wick's research.
Obviously it was a little late in the game to realize she was the one who needed to make the acquaintance of the real Wickham Bow. God, but her stomach hurt.
She felt so useless, watching as Christian continued to push aside shelving and storage crates when she had but one working arm and moving it sent sympathy pains shooting through the other. "Wick has always been more about theories and hypotheses than anything. Especially the last few years. This just seems. . . I want to say out of his league. Technically, I know it's not. But morally?"
"It's actually Jinks's doing." Christian grabbed a claw hammer from the shelved tool bin, bent down and ripped off the baseboard next to the heavy metal door. "Shit. Who the hell builds a storage closet out of concrete board instead of dry-wall?"
"They built it when they remodeled the basement walls to house the lab. What do you mean it's Jinks's doing?" she asked, trying to keep her mind off the fact that the six-by-six cage they were trapped in was made of concrete.
Bamboo would've been so much nic
er.
"Jinks worked on an encryption program when enrolled at Polytechnic. You might've noticed that he pretty much lives and breathes gaming." When she nodded, Christian went on. "Seems he always has. He left strategic back doors into every program he ever designed."
That control freak thing Woody had mentioned. "He designed for the CIA?"
"Not exactly. He designed part of the program they're using to encrypt their analysts' transmissions. K.J. is pretty sure it's an amalgamation of more than a few programs. And Bow knew that."
"So he brought Jinks here to crack the encryption. And then sold the technology to Spectra."
Nodding, he shoved spindles of CDs to one side, a bin of external drives to the other, studying the wall behind. "Pm guessing that's what blew Bow's fuse. He heard Jinks telling you what they'd done."
She thought for a minute, frowned. "How did Hank find out what Wick was doing?"
"It didn't work like that." He was pacing again. Back and forth. Back and forth. "I came here to get Jinks out. Word was he was here against his will."
She gasped. "He was not! He was here as Wick's guest."
"Pretty much why I freaked that first night when you told me he was coming to dinner." And then he stopped and rubbed a hand over his forehead. "Listen, Natasha. We've got to get out of here, and I'm all out of ideas."
"I know. I don't know . . ." She was absolutely no help.
"I can't stay in here. I mean, I can stay. If I'm busy. If you can think of something for me to do or some way for us to get the fuck out of here." He barreled into the edge of the shelving, nearly bringing it down on his head but bracing it just in time.
She watched his struggle for control, the color rise in his face, the way he breathed in through his nose, out through his mouth. All while his pulse beat like a drum at the base of his throat. She shook her head, buried her face in her hand. "I'm sorry, Christian. I didn't mean to screw things up."
"You didn't. It's just. . ."
"Just what?" she asked when he cut himself off and moved to the front of the room.
"Nothing." He slammed his fist into the center of the metal door. "Why the hell isn't this sonofabitch hinged on the inside?"
"Christian? Tell me." Her nerves were as shot as her shoulder. Her stomach was waiting for the word to heave. Now he was falling apart and she could tell just by looking that he didn't want words of comfort from her.
He hung his head, faced away. "I shouldn't have involved you, that's all."
Somehow she knew that wasn't all. "You're not exactly the one who got me involved."
"Yeah, but I took you to Hank's. Then brought you back here."
"What were you going to do with me?" she asked with a cackle of a laugh.
He shrugged, kicked at a box of copy paper, pierced the cardboard and several reams with the toe of his boot. "We could've figured out a cover to keep you out of the way until I wrapped up things here."
She exhaled, deflating like a big red rubber ball. "So I've been in the way."
"That's not what I meant."
"It's what you said."
"I don't want to get into this now."
"Well, I do," she demanded just sharply enough that he spun on her.
His chest rose and fell so rapidly she feared he would hyperventilate. That he wouldn't be able to speak. And then when he did, she wished he hadn't.
"The time I spent in that Thai prison? A woman put me there. I'd told her the details of the op. She worked for Spectra."
Oh God. Oh God.
"Why would you tell her the details?" she whispered. When Christian said nothing but started to pace, she knew. She knew. "You loved her, didn't you?"
But he didn't answer. He whirled back around and bit off a harsh, "Fuck me. There's smoke coming in beneath the door."
Having pulled off the road at Overlook Point, Wickham Bow sat behind the wheel of his van and watched his own personal Tara burn.
He wanted to say he had no regrets but that wouldn't quite be true. He'd built his reputation on a lifetime of amazing work, yet no one would know what he'd accomplished here today. When he left the clinic a year from now healed and whole, he would not be able to return to the States.
He would be able to say nothing to anyone about his incredible feat.
Nothing about the intelligence of Woodrow Jinks and how he, Dr. Wickham Bow, had seen the potential and nurtured it, honed it, shaped it, and molded it to produce a brilliant mind capable of a feat rogue governments would kill for. He could, in fact, have had anyone killed had he so wished in return for the gift of the technology.
He preferred the money he would be receiving from Spectra hours from now.
The attaché in the seat at his side contained the hard drive backups for Dr. Jinks's computer. Examples of the captured data and the software program used to accomplish the task would be handed over in exchange for a mirror attaché filled with cash.
This morning he had uploaded the fruit of his recent labors to Natasha's university computer. Her hard drive now contained enough evidence plotting the details of his assassination—manufactured evidence, true—to put her and her lover away as the murderous traitors he'd set them up to be. Because whoever he was, the man she was sleeping with was not Peter Deacon.
Dealing these last months with Spectra IT, Wickham's first experience with the criminal element that operated beneath the world's stage, was indeed a new venture. But he was not a stupid man.
Though his body was failing, his mind functioned fully, as did his powers of reason and logic. And it was more than obvious, especially since Natasha's return from her weekend in the city, that her companion was more interested in what he'd found between her legs than in Dr. Jinks's work.
Yes, Wickham had been made aware of Peter Deacon's playboy reputation; learning of such had cemented the plan to set up the couple to take this fall. But Deacon was first and foremost a businessman here to conduct business, very little of which had gone on at all.
Wickham's recent contact with Spectra and their subsequent sending of Mr. Rivers to verify Wickham's suspicions of things gone awry had been the nail in the imposter's coffin. The supposed Mr. Rivers had given Wickham none of the prearranged signals establishing the truth of his identity.
Another imposter. One in cahoots with the first. He couldn't help but wonder who these men were and what they'd done with Mr. Deacon. But the wondering was idle because he couldn't say he really cared.
The deceptions made the deaths justifiable—not that anyone would ever know anything but that an accident had happened. That the two lovers had fought, one binding the other, the second caught unawares, disarmed and locked away by the man they had kidnapped and forced to facilitate their heinous, traitorous crime.
Wickham frowned as he considered the Courtneys and watched the flames lick the treetops above the house's gables. He had sent the couple into the city this morning and was working on the assumption that they were long on their way. If not, so be it. They would simply be another sacrifice he had been forced to make.
The loss of Woodrow Jinks was regrettable but indisputably preordained. Once his body was identified, authorities could link his kidnapping to Natasha and the man with whom she'd conspired to sell Dr. Jinks's brilliant and criminal coup.
Ah, yes. Natasha. His goddaughter. The fruit of the loins of his dearest friend. A complete termagant with her constant nagging over his work habits and seeming need to run his life her way.
He shook his head when he thought of the efforts she'd made to ease his suffering, to battle his depression, to seek out treatment—experimental, holistic, cutting edge—yet he had been the one to make the discovery that would now save his life.
Save his life while costing him more money than he'd see should he live another forty years.
He glanced in his sideview mirror as another van pulled up behind his. He would leave his wallet on the floorboard, his wheelchair tucked but not secured behind his seat.
All he needed was the attaché.
Twenty-six
Christian ran another strip of tape along the floor to seal off the cracks left between the rolls of paper towels he'd wedged at the bottom of the door. Goddamn door opened outward. Not even a freakin' inside lock to pick.
He tore the tape from the roll, knowing if they couldn't get out through the ceiling, he'd just put the lid on their coffin— unless someone in the house was alive to call in the fire. He wasn't holding his breath on that one. Not with the way Dr. Bow had gone off the deep end.
And that was the other thing. When he and Natasha got out of here, nothing in the world above would be the same. Christian had only lived here a couple of weeks. Natasha was looking at an entire life turned upside down. If her godfather wasn't already dead, he was looking to be that way soon.
"You have a clue what's above the ceiling?" Ventilation ducts were out. The fire rising from the basement would cook them inside the ducts like turkeys in tinfoil.
She shook her head, her eyes wide, tears brimming at the corners. Spots of bright color high along her cheeks stood out on her deathly white face. She'd been trying to help him by talking to Jinks.
And now here he was, showing her how he excelled at failing those who did help. The irony was hardly lost.
"C'mere." He gestured her over and tucked her behind him next to the metal door that was rapidly heating.
He was running out of time, and fast. He had to get up to the ceiling, see if there was any sort of crawl space, if the air was breathable, if there was a chance in hell they could find a way out.
He grabbed hold of the shelving, rocked it forward, back, forward, back, and forward again with one more sharp jerk. Supplies crashed every which way with a deafening clatter as it toppled against the far wall.
Christian wedged himself into the triangle of space between the near wall and his makeshift ladder. Behind him, Natasha coughed. He bit off a curse. Telling her to hang in, that everything would be all right. . . shit. Just. . . shit.