“I don’t know,” Dominic stated. He looked at Cade. She wasn’t looking back at him; she was staring at Remy with an expression of concern on her face.
Remy sobered, her face relaxing and her stance calming. She didn’t say anything further; she fell silent and waited for one of them to speak. There was another bout of uneasy silence, and then Cade spoke.
“What do you propose we do?” she asked, and it took Dominic a second to realize she was addressing him. Since when had he become the leader of this group?
“Why don’t we do what I suggested in the back of the truck?” Sadie asked, stepping up to insert herself more fully into the conversation.
“What did you suggest in the back of the truck?” Dominic asked.
“An emissary,” Sadie said. “I suggested that we send one of us into whatever facility we found, white-flagging it, and see if they would talk to us.” She looked past him at the wall that loomed in the distance. “Though I wasn’t quite expecting something like this when I suggested it.”
Dominic studied the length of wall that he could see from where he stood. If he squinted, he thought he could make out the sight of a few figures walking along the top of the wall, which, combined with the sight of the helicopters that had gone to the other side of the wall, suggested there was some sort of base of operations there. Assuming the soldiers there weren’t operating on shoot-on-sight orders, Sadie’s idea might actually have been a good one. If someone was going to do it, however, it was going to be him. There were too many variables at play, and when he didn’t know what the other side was playing with, he didn’t want to ask someone else to put themselves at risk of getting shot because he’d asked them to play emissary.
“I’ll do it,” he said, hopefully in a tone that brooked no argument from the others. “I’ll be the emissary.”
Chapter 36
Somehow, Brandt had remained calm and collected in the intervening time between when Lindsey had made her plans and when she’d carried them out. He’d spent his time sitting on the bare cot in his cell or pacing to keep his muscles warmed up, doing push-ups to limber up his shoulders and arms. He’d accepted the first meal after her visit—another sandwich and an orange—with as much calmness as he could, eating every bite on the tray until only orange peels remained.
The action didn’t happen until it was time for the second meal to be delivered. Brandt had waited patiently for the two privates to arrive with his tray of dinner, counting off the seconds. When he heard the distinct thud of two sets of boots coming down the tiled hallway beyond his door, he sat up straighter on the edge of the cot, ready to leap into action the second the door opened.
The key scraped in the lock. The lock clicked, and the door swung open. Private Bayer stepped into the room, a tray of food grasped in both hands. Beyond him, waiting impatiently in the hallway, was Private Hutcherson. Neither of them looked happy to be there, and both of them looked distracted. Bayer had his head turned to look at Hutcherson instead of at Brandt, in the middle of saying something. The setup couldn’t have been more perfect if Brandt had staged it.
He lunged from his spot on the edge of his cot and went at Bayer, his fist swinging up and slamming into the man’s chest with a blow hard enough to send Bayer staggering backwards. A swift uppercut sent the private sprawling, unconscious, onto the floor.
Brandt caught the dinner tray that had started to fall from Bayer’s hands, and when Hutcherson opened his mouth to let out a yell of alarm, he threw the tray like a Frisbee, rushing toward him. The edge of the tray caught Hutcherson in the throat, and he fell back against the wall, sputtering and gasping for air. The tray clattered to the floor as Brandt rushed out of the room and grabbed Hutcherson by the sides of his face. He thumped the man’s head back against the concrete wall hard enough to render him unconscious.
Once Hutcherson slipped to the floor, Brandt looked in either direction down the hall, ascertaining that no one was visible, then grabbed Hutcherson under his arms and started to drag him into his cell. He froze at the sound of hurried footsteps, but his tensed shoulders relaxed when he recognized the now-familiar form of Lindsey coming around the hallway corner toward him.
She rushed towards him. “Holy shit, what did you do?” she hissed. Despite her astonishment, she grabbed one of Hutcherson’s wrists and helped him drag the man’s unconscious body into the cell, out of sight of anyone that might come walking down the hallway.
“I told you I’d take care of the guards, didn’t I?” Brandt said. He hauled the man against the side of the cot and pulled Bayer in the rest of the way. A search of their belts revealed two pairs of handcuffs, so he made short work of securing them to the metal cot bolted to the wall.
“You didn’t have to kill them, did you?”
“They’re not dead,” Brandt argued. “They’re unconscious.” He ducked into the hall long enough to scoop up the tray and the fallen food—another sandwich; why was he not surprised?—and dumped it onto the floor inside the door so nothing would look out of the ordinary. “Please tell me you have a plan to get me out of here.”
“I have a plan to get you out of here,” she confirmed, and a wave of relief washed over Brandt.
“Thank God,” he said. “Let’s get moving.”
“Not so fast,” she said, snagging his arm to stop him from leaving the room. “Wait.”
“Wait?” Brandt repeated. “Wait for what?”
“For my help to arrive,” Lindsey said. The faint sound of something squeaking on the floor permeated the room. Seconds later, a man Brandt had never seen before rolled a stretcher into the room, upon which was folded the slouched, crumpled form of a body bag.
“Who is this?” Brandt demanded, looking the man over warily.
“This is Jacob Howser,” Lindsey said. “He’s my coworker in the lab. Trust me, he’s here to help.” She grabbed the body bag off the stretcher, and she and Jacob expertly lowered the stretcher to a manageable level. After spreading the body bag onto the cot’s thin, hard mattress, she unzipped it and motioned towards it. “Get in.”
“You have got to be kidding me,” Brandt said.
“No, I’m not,” Lindsey said. “If you want to get out of the facility undetected, you will get in this body bag. You can either do that or rot here.”
“You wouldn’t leave me here,” Brandt challenged.
“You’re right, I wouldn’t,” Lindsey replied. “But I don’t feel up to getting shot for treason or whatever charges they feel like throwing around today, so please get in the body bag and help us get you out of here with minimal danger.” She waggled the edge of the bag and added, “It’s a new bag. Never been used.”
Brandt sighed exasperatedly and moved to the stretcher. Lindsey unzipped the bag, and he climbed onto the stretcher, sliding into the bag simultaneously. Lindsey gave him a perky grin that reminded him of the same mischievous expressions that Cade often gave him when she was up to no good. She pushed his head down to the stretcher and zipped the body bag closed.
“Whatever you do, stay perfectly still,” she said.
“I wish you hadn’t said that,” Brandt replied. “That makes me want to squirm.”
“You better not, because the military is obligated to fill any dead bodies moving around here full of holes,” Jacob warned. “Regardless of whether or not they’re in a body bag.”
“Got it,” Brandt said. He drew in a deep breath and closed his eyes, forcing himself to relax, his muscles going limp. Dead body, dead body, he chanted mentally, breathing shallowly so the body bag would move as little as possible. The stretcher started moving, rolling out of the door and into the hallway.
“You have your keys and wallet, right?” Jacob’s voice filtered through the bag over the squeak of the stretcher’s wheels.
“Of course,” Lindsey replied. “They’re in my lab coat. Did you get your friend to disable the cameras in and around the incinerator?”
It took everything in Brandt to not say anything at
the mention of an incinerator. He refrained, and he focused on his jail breakers’ voices.
“Yeah, I got it taken care of,” Jacob said.
“You didn’t tell him why, did you?” Lindsey sounded alarmed at the idea. “The more people we bring into this, the higher the chances someone will talk!”
“I didn’t tell him why,” Jacob replied. “I implied that it involved me and you and slipped him two hundred bucks under the table. I let him assume whatever he wanted, and he promised he’d cut the cameras.”
“What if he doesn’t cut them?” Lindsey asked.
“Then I guess we’re about to get busted.”
“You’re so reassuring,” Lindsey muttered. Her words were followed by several beeps and the distinctive swish of a card sliding through a card reader. There was a clunk as a door was pushed open, and two hard thumps, then the stretcher was steered out into the great outdoors. Brandt could hear the whump of helicopter rotors in the distance, alongside the distinct sound of Humvees’ engines roaring. The stretcher bumped over rough, rocky pavement, presumably toward the incinerator, and Brandt wondered what time of day it was. He guessed that it was sometime late in the evening. Under all the noise, he could hear the faint, rhythmic undertone of crickets chirping away.
“Get the door open, would you?” Lindsey asked, followed by the distinctive sound of another door being opened. There were a couple more thumps, the stretcher was rolled into another building, and the door banged shut behind them.
The ambient temperature beyond the body bag skyrocketed, and Brandt broke out in a sweat. Even though he had agreed to lay as still as possible, he took in a sharp, deep breath of air at the suddenness of the heat. The stretcher dropped without warning, and despite his promise to the contrary, he instinctively flailed out, trying to find something to grab onto.
“Thank God there are no soldiers around,” Lindsey said. “That would have gotten us shot for sure.” The body bag’s zipper ground open, and she peeled it back to smile down at him. “We’re safe, for the moment, at least.”
Brandt sat up, shoving the bag’s flaps aside and scrambling to get off the stretcher. “Jesus, woman, it’s practically the temperature of Hell in here,” he said. Sweat was beading up on his forehead. “Where the fuck are we?”
“Incinerator building,” Lindsey replied. She stepped away from him and went to the corner of the room, where a black trash bag waited. She tore it open. “It’s where we come to destroy samples and biohazardous materials.”
“Test subjects, too,” Jacob said cheerfully. “And according to our paperwork, you’re test subject number eighty-two, recently deceased, officially incinerated as of…” He checked his watch. “Seven fifty-eight p.m.”
Lindsey emptied the trash bag onto the stretcher, revealing a bundle of clothing and a pair of boots. “I got your sizes off the clothes you came in with,” she explained. “Those were, incidentally, also incinerated in here.” She nudged the pile. “Get dressed.”
Brandt stripped off the scrubs shirt he was wearing and tossed it on the floor, then grabbed the black t-shirt she’d supplied him. “What’s the plan once we’re out of here?” he asked.
“At this point, you two are on your own,” Jacob said. “I’ve done everything I can do up to here.”
“But—” Lindsey started to protest.
“But nothing,” Jacob replied. “If we’re both gone from the lab, someone is bound to notice. One of us has to stay behind, and I vote that it be me.”
“Why you?”
“Because if they interrogate me, it’ll be easier for me to hold out on giving them any information.”
Lindsey’s eyebrow arched, and she looked like she was ready to protest again. Brandt rolled his eyes and shucked his pants off to change into the jeans that Lindsey had brought him. “Lindsey, to be honest, I’d rather go with you than him,” he told her. “By all accounts, you’re my sister in law, and I think it’d be better if family stuck together.”
“Fine,” Lindsey said. “As for the plan, as soon as you’re finished dressing, we’re torching these clothes, the body bag, and the mattress from the stretcher. Then Jacob is pushing it back to the lab while I go out to my car, ostensibly to retrieve something I’ve forgotten. You’ll follow me at a discreet distance. Once I’m at the car, I’ll pop the trunk and get into the driver’s seat. You get into the trunk and close it, and leave everything else to me.”
“So I get to hitch a ride in the trunk of a car,” Brandt said. “Please tell me you drive something fairly large and not some little Volkswagen Beetle or something.”
“It’s a Toyota sedan,” Lindsey said. “Yeesh, you think I’m going to cram you into a Beetle’s trunk? Look at you. That’d be like trying to shove ten pounds of wet cat in a five-pound sack.”
“You trying to say something about my weight?” Brandt joked as he stuffed his feet into the boots she’d brought.
“No, not at all!” Lindsey replied. “You’re just…very muscular.”
“I’m kidding.” He leaned down and laced his boots up, then straightened. “Let’s get this show on the road, yeah? I need to try to find my wife.”
Lindsey gave him a mocking salute and stepped around him to haul open a steel door set into the wall behind him. She and Jacob gathered the clothes and body bag and the thin mattress on the stretcher and shoved it all into the glowing confines of the incinerator. She pushed the door shut with a loud clang.
“We’re moving,” she said, grabbing one end of the stretcher. Jacob grabbed the other, and they started for the door. “Remember what I said to you,” she said, looking at Brandt pointedly. They opened the door and stepped outside. Brandt slid up behind Lindsey, easing through the door behind her without making it obvious there was a third person present. Lindsey and Jacob were making a show of laughing and cutting up, like they’d have been expected to do under normal circumstances. Brandt kept to the shadows as best he could, considering how relatively brightly lit the area was. Lindsey was saying something to Jacob in a voice too low for Brandt to hear, and she lightly smacked herself on the side of her head and said loudly, “Shoot! I’ve got to run to my car real quick. I left my wallet in there earlier, and I’m going to need it if I expect to eat tonight.”
“I could spot you, you know,” Jacob said, and the way he said it made Brandt think this was a conversation similar to one they’d had before.
“Come on, you know how I feel about that,” Lindsey protested. “Let me go to my car. You okay to get this back to the lab on your own?” She patted the stretcher rail casually.
“Yeah, yeah, yeah,” Jacob said. “I’ll see you inside.” He winked at her, then took a firmer grip on the stretcher and rolled it toward the doors that Brandt guessed they’d come out to begin with. Lindsey smiled and split off from Jacob and the stretcher, walking briskly and purposefully toward a parking lot near the back of the building. Brandt followed, slinking through the darkness not far from her. She led the way to a black, low-key newer model Toyota. At the vehicle, she took out a set of keys from her lab coat pocket and punched two buttons on it. The first made the trunk latch release; the second unlocked the car doors. She circled the vehicle to the driver’s door and opened it, then made a show of sliding inside and starting to dig into the console between the front seats. Brandt darted forward, grabbed the trunk lid, and slid inside, pulling the lid down over him until it thunked shut.
As the darkness closed over him, Brandt was extremely grateful that he wasn’t claustrophobic. Even so, things that he couldn’t see were crushing down on him, and the feeling of being trapped was unnerving. He spotted the glow-in-the-dark emergency trunk release handle and focused his eyes on it, keeping them locked there and his fingers only inches away from it in case he needed to make a quick escape.
The car’s engine started, and with a jolt, it backed out of its parking space and, he assumed, moved toward the exit gates. The car rolled smoothly, and he found he was holding his breath as the tires crunche
d over gravel littering the pavement. A few moments later, the car eased to a halt, and he heard voices, one Lindsey’s and the other a man’s, though he couldn’t make out what they were saying. The vehicle started moving again, and the sound of hard rock music began blasting from the vehicle’s interior. Lindsey started to sing along, off key but enthusiastically, and the vehicle picked up speed. Brandt counted as the vehicle moved, ticking off minutes on his fingers each time he reached sixty. After eight minutes, the vehicle slowed down and took a slight right, then drove for another minute before making a sudden hard right that made him bang his head against the side of the trunk.
The road they’d turned on was rough and curvy, judging by the jouncing of the car’s back wheels over ruts and the jarring turns. After a moment more, the tires crunched over gravel, and the car came to a stop. Brandt worried that Lindsey had brought him out somewhere where no one would hear him scream—not that he was the screaming type—and he fumbled around in the trunk until he found a tire iron, grasping it in his right hand. The sound of shoes on gravel met his ears, then the trunk lock popped open with a whump and the lid swung open to reveal Lindsey staring down at him.
She looked him over incredulously and asked, “What the hell are you doing with my tire iron?”
“Seemed like a good idea to have a weapon,” Brandt said. He set the tire iron down and sat up, keeping his head ducked low to avoid striking it on the inside of the trunk lid. Lindsey offered him a hand, and he accepted it, swinging both feet out of the trunk and scooting out until he found solid ground once more. “Where are we?”
“We’re still in Eden,” Lindsey answered. “At an abandoned house about three miles away from the facilities. Some people weren’t comfortable with living so close to the wall, so they abandoned their houses and moved on elsewhere. This is one of them.”
“What now?” Brandt asked, barely glancing at the overgrown house fifty yards away.
The Becoming: Redemption (The Becoming Series Book 5) Page 22