by Jordan Dane
“An alarm,” Joe said. “Sounds like it’s belowground.”
“If we had any doubts about someone being inside, those are all shot to hell. We gotta get in there—now.” Payton reached for the door, thinking only of Nikki, but Joe grabbed his arm and stopped him.
“Sam and I will take point. Follow our lead, no question, remember?” Tanu’s voice was stern, tempered with the concern of a friend. “If Nikki is here, we’ll find her—bring her home.”
Home. Payton liked the sound of that word. And the faces of Nikki and Susannah filled his mind, giving him a strange comfort when he needed it. This time when the detective tried the knob, it turned and the door opened. Finding an easy way in had been a stroke of good luck. He followed Joe and the detective into the building, hoping Nikki’s ordeal would soon be over.
And as he crossed the threshold with gun in hand, Payton found himself praying, something he hadn’t done in a very long time.
CHAPTER 18
“What’s that siren?” Jess reached for Nikki and pulled her close. “What’s happening?”
“I don’t know.” The girl gripped her hand. “Jessie, I’m scared.”
Beyond the door, an alarm blared through the corridor and a flash of red beat like a pulse under the door, eclipsing the light. Voices were garbled by the sound, and boots scuffed along the cement floor outside their door. Jess didn’t mistake it for a good sign. Even if Harper had come through, it didn’t leave them in the clear.
“No matter what happens, you stick with me. You understand?” She squeezed the girl’s hand. “You and me. We’re gonna get through this. I’m getting you out of here, I promise.”
The girl burrowed her head into Jess’s shoulder and put her arms around her waist.
“I’ve been so stupid. I can’t believe—”
Jess stopped her. “This isn’t your fault. These people know how to manipulate and lie. And they prey on kids like you. You did nothing wrong.”
Before she had a chance to comfort the girl, a key slid into the lock and the door swung open. Noise and bright lights flooded the darkness, blinding them. Jess held onto Nikki and cowered in the shadows, but two men carrying weapons swept into the room, yanking the other girls off the floor.
“Get up. Move. Now!” they shouted.
When they came for her and Nikki, she asked the men, “Where are you taking us?”
“Shut up and get moving.” One of the cowards grabbed a handful of her hair and pulled, forcing her to stand. Nikki had gotten in line behind the others, but kept turning back, making sure Jess wasn’t far behind.
Out the door, they headed right single file. Nikki walked ahead of her, leaving one man on the tail end. Jess had no idea of the layout but caught a glimpse of darker tunnels ahead. All the activity and alarms were behind them. They were heading deeper into a maze, and the air smelled toxic, like gas fumes.
Instinct told her to run. She forced herself to breathe shallow, waiting for her moment. In the confusion and the noise, she and Nikki might break free without being noticed.
When the lead man turned a corner, Jess lost sight of him and the first two girls. Something inside her clicked and she reacted. Biting back pain, she spun and punched the man behind her, catching him off guard. Knocked off balance, he fell against the wall, leaving her to grapple for his gun, but the man held firm.
“You bitch,” he grunted.
“Nikki, run! Back the way we came,” she panted, struggling for leverage.
The girl moved but didn’t take off.
Jess pinned the man’s arm against the wall and slugged him in the gut, rapid blows that staggered him. When he bent over, she rammed a knee to his face. In a stupor, the bastard let go of the gun and fell back, his head whacking the cement floor. Even with all the noise, Jess heard the ugly thud. He stayed down for the count. She picked up the gun and caught up with Nikki.
“Come on.” She ran back the way they’d come. “How do we get out of here?”
Tears welled in Nikki’s eyes. Jess could see that she was losing it, but Nikki pointed straight ahead. “Turn left here…I think.”
The blaring alarm grated on Jess’s frayed nerves, exacerbated by the flashing lights that washed bloodred on the walls. And the gas fumes had become more noticeable, making her nauseous. By the smell, the whole place would soon be a ticking time bomb. Anything could set it off. With a tight grip on the weapon, Jess raced down the passageway as if she knew where to go, clutching the girl’s hand. They couldn’t afford any mistakes.
And for Nikki’s sake, she hoped her luck had changed.
Once inside the loading bay door, Payton followed Joe and the detective into what looked like a small underground parking structure with another secured door to the left. A handful of cars were parked inside. Sam confirmed that the one with the busted-out windows was Jessie’s. It proved that something was terribly wrong and her friend was in danger.
They quickly swept the outer chamber and the car interiors, making sure no one waited in the dark to ambush them. Assured that everything was clear, they focused on the only entry left.
Payton took his position on the hinged side of the door. Standing with his back to the wall, he reached over and turned the knob before opening it. It wasn’t locked. He shot a concerned look at Joe, who seemed to read his mind. So did Sam. An alarm had blared before they’d opened the outside door. Now a second door was unlocked. Something didn’t feel right.
It was too easy.
Joe used the detective’s flashlight to check the door for booby traps, then repeated the process with the door ajar. After he gave the all clear sign and Sam had given her thumbs-up Payton swung the door open. Joe and the detective swiftly moved into the room, an efficient team. In a practiced maneuver, they crept through in a bent-legged shuffle, shifting their weapons from corner to corner. Payton followed close behind, taking their lead. But once they got inside, the interior fanned into a maze filled with spiraling red lights, a much bigger underground vault than he had expected.
Before Joe or the detective said it, Payton shook his head in frustration.
“Damn it! Which way do we go?”
Up ahead a door stood wide open. Jessie stopped dead still and pulled Nikki to one side, positioning the girl against the wall behind her. She didn’t want any surprises. The men might have evacuated the area, but she couldn’t risk getting them caught so close to finding a way out. After sending a silent signal for Nikki to stay put, Jess crept toward the door, gun in hand.
With the alarm sounding, she couldn’t hear anything coming from the room. Inching closer, she edged a look across the door frame, peering inside. A sudden motion caused her to flinch. She ducked and pressed her back against the wall. Nikki cowered behind her, wide-eyed and close to panic. After replaying what she’d seen, Jess got the courage to try again. She rushed the doorway with her weapon leveled in a two-fisted grip, shifting the gun hard left, then right. After a better look, she relaxed and stepped farther into the chamber.
It looked like a main control room, the one where she’d seen the Russian and the other man in heated debate, with a bank of computers and monitors along the far wall. She would have kept moving down the corridor, but caught action on the monitors that forced her to stop.
“On my God,” she whispered.
Sam had two men with her and all of them were armed. She recognized her friend easily, but the men’s faces were not clear. Surveillance cameras had locked onto their movement. And wherever they were, they moved cautiously, expecting trouble.
“Where the hell are you, Sam?”
Nikki came into the room and stood by her side.
“I remember that place,” she said. “It’s by the loading docks. They brought me through that security door…my first day.” The girl pointed to the monitor, but her mouth dropped when she recognized a familiar face. Fresh tears slid down her cheeks and her lower lip trembled. “Uncle Payton…look, he’s here. Oh my God, he’s really here.”
“Do you think you know where they are?” Jess asked.
“Yeah, turn left out the door. Follow the corridor straight, I think.”
Not wanting to squelch Nikki’s moment of relief, Jess left her in front of the security monitor, watching her uncle. Then she noticed something of interest across the room, tucked near one of the hard drives—a trash can filled with discarded paper. She reached in and pulled out what looked important and official.
“What do we have here?” she whispered. She stuffed what she could into the waistband of her pants under her shirt, and when she looked up, her heart nearly stopped.
Positioned above each computer hard drive was some type of incendiary device, wired to explode. She didn’t know much about explosives, except that deactivating one by snipping a wire often set the bomb off. That popped into her mind a moment before she noticed the smell from the rear passageway. Gas fumes. If they were building, a detonation in the control room could trigger a massive blast throughout the whole facility. And where there was one bomb, there might be others.
“Damn it,” she muttered under her breath.
They had to get out now! And Sam, Archer, and the other man were in danger too. They didn’t have a clue they were walking into a powder keg.
“We gotta find them, Nikki,” she said, keeping her voice calm and steady as she stared at the bombs. When the girl didn’t respond, she raised her voice to be heard over the blaring alarm, “What do you say, Nikki? Let’s go find your—”
Jess stopped dead still. She raised her weapon and swallowed, trying to still her heart. The Russian held Nikki clutched to his chest, a gun to her head. In the murky light, it took her a moment to realize the girl wasn’t dead. She was breathing, but unconscious.
Jess clutched her gun tighter, hoping her shakes didn’t show. No way she could attempt a head shot, not under these conditions. And the Russian blocked the way out, threatening to kill Nikki. A hellish nightmare, the man wielded his sinister glare like a weapon.
“You leave without saying good-bye, bounty hunter?” He slowly shook his head. “Not on my watch.” His voice made her skin crawl.
“You rigged this room to blow,” she reasoned. “You really think you have time to mess with me? If this place goes up, you’re going with it.”
The man had the nerve to laugh. The sound of it echoed in the chamber, making her almost nauseous.
“You’re talking to a man with a death wish. Considering how much you are shaking, I would say life means a great deal more to you, especially the pathetic life of this girl.” He sneered. “Put down the gun and kick it over to me.”
Sweat trailed down Jess’s temple, and the air felt thick and stagnant, making it hard to breathe. She knew she had no choice. She wouldn’t force the man’s hand with Nikki’s life in the balance. Slowly, she lowered her weapon and laid it at her feet, then kicked it to him. The gun skittered across the floor, obliterating any odds in her favor. Her luck had run out, but she hoped Nikki would still have a chance. If the bastard had intended to kill the girl, he wouldn’t have knocked her out. He would have taken too much pleasure in slitting her throat and watching her bleed, drowning in her own blood.
The Russian let Nikki slide and drop to the floor before he retrieved Jess’s weapon and slipped it into the waistband of his pants. He pointed his gun at her again, a smug expression on his face. Jess took a deep breath and clenched her jaw, waiting for whatever the scumbag would do next.
“You’re coming with me.”
Wide-eyed, she let her panic show. “What about Nikki? You can’t just leave her.”
The bastard smiled. “She is expendable. Easy to replace. But you? I have plans.”
He’d taken her by surprise. She hadn’t expected his reaction. She couldn’t leave Nikki behind without a fight. Jess headed for the door, her mind racing with ways to take him out. But he came up behind her and turned the tables again.
A blow to the back of the head staggered her. She dropped to her knees and was shoved to the floor. A warm rush of blood drained down her neck, and the room swirled in a dark haze. She couldn’t shake her stupor and lost track of time, her awareness drifting in and out between shades of black. Behind her a shadow moved in the distance, but she couldn’t make her body move to see what was going on.
Time stalled and repeated like a skip on a CD, until a bright heat washed over her face and forced her to open an eye to see what was happening.
On the far wall, the grenades burst and catapulted white-hot sparks high into the air, a blast of hot debris. The computers liquefied under the intense heat, molten metal spewing across the room and setting off a string of smaller fires. She felt the heat around her. And the stench of sulfur hit the air under a cloud of billowing dark smoke. A devastating fireball raged in a chain reaction across the control room, and with it came a blinding fierce heat.
Gotta move. Now!
Pain spiked through her head like a taser bolt, making it hard to see. She tried to crawl, but her body anchored her to the spot she’d fallen. Breathing in smoke and the chemical fumes of the explosion seared heat into her lungs, making her gag.
Without help, she wasn’t going to make it. And it was only a matter of time before the rest of the tunnels would explode.
Mercifully, blackness came. For her, the nightmare was over.
CHAPTER 19
Her body moved, a series of sharp tugs. And her head lolled from side to side. Jess sensed the motion and caught only glimpses she couldn’t explain. Her legs felt useless, heavy as lead. A relentless blaring sound persisted, surging over and over. She couldn’t shut it out. And with the noise came a blinding flash of light. She tried covering her eyes, but her arms wouldn’t move.
She strained to see through a dense fog, nothing more than blurred images. But finally her eyes spiraled to a stop and focused, centering on a face. A woman with blond hair. The stranger’s lips moved, but the words were garbled and out of sync. She wanted to respond, but couldn’t force herself to speak.
Inside, an inexplicable urgency gripped her heart, but her body wouldn’t cooperate. She drifted in and out—fighting to stay awake—but had no idea if she was more dead than alive.
Alexa Marlowe had hoped to find the bounty hunter in better shape. When the men attacked Jessica Beckett at the gas station, she only saw the end of the assault. And the woman’s associate, Seth Harper, had been hot on her trail and called in the cavalry. She’d seen his distinctive blue van. Planting the GPS tracking device on the bounty hunter’s car outside The Cutthroat pool hall had paid off in spades, but her sense of accomplishment quickly faded after seeing Beckett so messed up.
The relentless woman had been a regular pit bull when it came to Lucas Baker. And now she had gotten herself in the middle of Globe Harvest’s U.S. domestic operation. She had to give Beckett props for getting the job done. In another life, she would have liked to call the woman a friend, but in her line of work friends were a crutch she couldn’t afford.
Having admiration for the woman’s guts was one thing, but pulling her to safety had cost her time. Time she didn’t have. She’d found an alternative way into the lower levels of the old textile factory but was too late. The evacuation of the abducted kids, the physical abuse of the bounty hunter, and a thermite explosion—it all went down without her weighing in.
But she wasn’t one to give up easily. She had that in common with Beckett.
After pulling the bounty hunter into the corridor, Alexa peered back inside what looked like a major control room of the operation. The place was an inferno, belching smoke. White residue covered the walls and desks, and the computers were a total meltdown. Fires with a strange green tinge had sprung up all over. The chemical barium caused the peculiar color, a known component to enhance the effect of thermite. She held
her breath and raced through the room looking for anything of value—another lead to follow.
Damn it! Nothing much remained.
In the back of the chamber she found a large fire erupting from trash bins. Covering her face with a hand, she ventured closer, close enough to see that what fueled the fire might be of interest. All around her heat flared. She felt it on her exposed skin. Even her clothes absorbed it and radiated through her body. She gagged from the heavy chemical smell and the smoke, but she had to try.
After several attempts Alexa eventually plucked a stack of badly singed paper from the fire. Blackened scraps with sections of readable print.
“Shit!” She burned her hands and dropped the pages to the floor, stomping out the fire. Afterward, the skin of her fingers throbbed with pain, and goose bumps sent shock waves over her body, but at least she’d retrieved something the bastards working for Globe Harvest had wanted to destroy.
She rolled up the pages and headed for the door, dodging burning rubble and holding her breath against the smoke. Back in the corridor, she debated her next move. The unconscious bounty hunter needed help. She wouldn’t survive alone. The bastards who’d beaten her had seen to that. And carrying dead weight would slow her down, maybe get them both killed.
Moving quickly, she stuffed the Globe Harvest papers into the waistband of her pants, then knelt to grab Beckett’s arm and raise her off the floor. But before she hoisted the woman over her shoulder, she heard muffled voices in the distance. The cop had brought company.
“Nice,” Alexa whispered, lowering the bounty hunter back down. Kneeling by her side, she stroked Beckett’s hair. “You’ve got friends, Jessica. Count your blessings.”
With fingers to her lips, Alexa stood and let out a loud shrill whistle that echoed down the corridor. Then she yelled, “Over here. I need help. This place is gonna blow.”
She waited to make sure the bounty hunter would get help, then disappeared down the corridor in search of a back way out before anyone saw her. She didn’t need the distraction. This was the closest she’d been to finding a division of Globe Harvest.