Adrenaline Rush

by Cindy M. Hogan

  Nervousness crept in as I showered and dressed. What if something unexpected happened? What if things went wrong like they had early on in this mission? I shoved my doubts and fears away with a prayer. I fell to my knees and begged God to make the right outcome occur. That his favor would shine on me today. I felt the burning in my chest and felt peace. The right thing would happen.

  I smiled as I walked to meet up with Sterling. I sat in the seat right next to him at his oval table, and we discussed the mission as we ate bacon and eggs.

  “I can’t wait to see you in all white, pure and clean.” There was a funny tone to his comment.

  I hoped he would be having a lucid day. I couldn’t have anything go wrong. I smiled at him then continued to eat. I couldn’t say anything. My tongue seemed to be caught in my throat. The idea of coming back to this place after the assassination made me sick.

  “We’ll come back here and have a juicy steak dinner and watch your performance on my many screens. It will be so much fun.” He laughed.

  I lost my appetite, but forced myself to continue eating. Once we finished, he leaned back in his chair and wove his fingers behind his head.

  “I’m assuming you set the trap. I mean you did inform the president that you were going to release the information about the bribes and the testing facility, last week, right?”

  “Oh, yes,” he said. “Did I not tell you about it? It went exactly as we’d planned it. He acted that same day, sending workers to the testing facility to hide what was really going on there. I’m sure he’s trying to tidy up his records and make sure no mention of Harward Pharmaceuticals can be found in any of his paperwork. The thing is, I made copies of the originals. He can run, but he can’t hide.”

  “It would have been nice to have had a heads up,” I said, screwing my face up into a scowl.

  “Well, Misha, I think I forgot, because plans have changed a little, and I’ve been busy getting that all set up. Are you ready for the twist?”

  “The twist?” My gut tightened. This couldn’t be good. He was going to do something crazy.

  “Well, Misha, we’ve discovered that the vice president obtained his post through blackmail. Apparently, he’s been hiding another of the President’s follies. We can’t let someone like that take over for the president, now can we?” He spoke with a condescending tone.

  I looked at my hands to hide my mounting terror. Jeremy would most likely be in place to save the president. Who would save the VP?

  “In fact, I have you to thank for digging up that dirt on the vice president and the action I took to alleviate the problem.”

  “Really? Why?” I said, regaining my composure.

  “That first day you went to classes and I visited you, you said you wouldn’t kill me because there were others that would gladly take my place. I can tell you are just itching to find out what I’m going to do about it.”

  “Of course I am.”

  “I’m glad you feel that way. You will be heading up his execution, after all.”

  “Really?” I said, putting on an excited air while my stomach churned. “Are we making both of them sick at the same time or something?”

  “Oh, no,” he said. “If the vice president’s crime was only greed, we might give him a quick and easy death like the president’s, but he has more serious judgment to face. You see, the vice president has secrets of his own. In his public life, he is a glowing example of the noble statesmen, while behind closed doors he beats his wife and children.

  “Circumstances could not have been more perfect for orchestrating his own poetic death. He will be speaking at a women’s rights banquet in DC, and should be done twenty minutes before the president’s scheduled assassination. I took it as a sign. He speaks uplifting words to the public, but beats his own faithful wife in private. The end I have planned for him is fitting: you will catch him in a back room in the hotel and beat him as he has beaten others. Then you will quickly snap his neck.”

  A terrible, desperate thought took hold of me. I would never get out of here. Jeremy would never be able to find me. I had to focus to keep my shoulders from slumping.

  “It’s all been arranged. You don’t have anything to worry about. Be excited. You look a little glum.” He put his hand on my shoulder and squeezed. I was dying to shrug it off, but resisted.

  “I’m not glum. Maybe a bit disappointed simply because I had my heart set on being a part of killing the president. But I’ll get over it. I guess with the VP I would be the true catalyst for his death. With the president, it would be the chemical that did the killing.”

  “There you go. I knew you’d make sunshine out of rain once you’d thought it through.”

  “You’re a genius,” I said, leaning back in my chair and chuckling. I wanted to throw up.

  “He will discover how it feels to be hurt by someone simply because they’re stronger and faster.”

  I clasped my hands together and looked at my firm, strong arms. I had told myself after he whipped me that I would never be in a position to let Sterling get the best of me physically. I had forgotten that he owned me and would use my strength for his purposes, not mine. He had effectively beaten me.

  “Then he will die in his despair,” Sterling continued. “There will be plenty of witnesses planted who will tell the story to the press when they arrive directly after you leave. Everyone will know that he beat those he should have protected, his wife and children.”

  “Have you ever ridden a Harley?” he asked.

  “Yes,” I said.

  “Great,” he said. “That makes our job easier. We would have gone with plan B if you hadn’t. We wouldn’t have time today to teach you all you needed to know.”

  I smiled. “I’m a girl of many talents.”

  “Indeed you are.” A wicked smile spread across his lips.

  “You will be replacing the secret service agent who will be at the venue where the VP will be speaking. She is part of the escape plan should something happen to his guards in the southwest corridor that leads to the parking garage.

  “Something will happen in that corridor and the VP will run to his agent, you, to save him. In case of danger, the agent is supposed to disguise him as a biker in two minutes, take him down a secret elevator to the bottom level of the parking garage, and ride to safety with him.” He chuckled. “In reality, you will have exactly four minutes to beat him up and kill him.”

  He shook his head, “I know, I know. It’s not a lot of time to make this death perfectly poetic, but it will be poetic, nonetheless. At the six-minute mark, every last one of his protection detail will converge on you. That means you need to be out of your disguise as a secret service agent and into a hotel worker’s uniform and in the parking garage level one before the six-minute mark. I suggest you kill the VP in less than four minutes. We couldn’t seem to extend the time. I sure wish we could have.” He tilted his head to the side.

  I had dug my fingernails into the back of my hand and it started to sting. I tried to relax and look at the positive. The good thing about the mission was that it was in DC. It was one place I knew like the back of my hand. That was the place where it all had started. It was where I’d witnessed the murder that brought Jeremy and me together and threw me on the path to becoming a spy. The bad thing was that part of my plan involved Jeremy, and I didn’t know how far from him I would be.

  “How good is the VP at fighting?” I asked. It was the question I should be asking.

  “He’s good, but not as good as you are. You can watch some video footage of him fighting as we fly to DC. I would like you to snap his neck in the end. That’s what he threatens his family with when he hits them.”

  “How do you know?”

  “Spies, girl. Spies.”

  “Shouldn’t we give him a chance to repent?”

  “No. He has been judged and sentenced, and now you will execute that sentence, death.”

  “Alright,” I said. “I’m ready.”

  “Me
et back here in three hours. Don’t tell anyone of our plans. Not even Zoey.”

  “No problem.” I hated that he knew how close I was to Zoey.

  Walking out of the room and down the hall, my mind was whirling. How could I fake breaking someone’s neck? Sterling was sure to verify the kill. He videotaped every killing. The VP couldn’t have a pulse. That meant he couldn’t have a heartbeat. That normally equaled death. What could I do? On TV and in famous plays, the characters were given chemical or natural concoctions that stopped the heart, but didn’t kill. Was that available in real life?

  I had two choices now. I could go to Greg and have him remove my tracker, or I could get straight to work figuring out how to save the VP. Removing my tracker would certainly make an escape easier. I knew what I had to do. I had to save the VP. I went straight to the chemistry lab and sat at a desk and searched all the information in my brain. I would not be getting my tracker removed. I didn’t have time.

  My heart burned right after I made the decision, and I knew I was on the right track.

  There was nothing that could do both things I needed it to do at once. I needed a chemical or natural substance that number one, paralyzed the person ingesting it, and number two, made their heart stop without killing them. I knew one existed that paralyzed a person. Sterling had used it in the Circus of Feats during the fighting. I’d already asked my chemistry teacher about it a long time ago.

  It was number two, stopping the heart without killing, that escaped me. I went to the supply cupboard to look for inspiration.

  In my peripheral vision, I saw Mr. Kine enter the room. He walked straight for me. I had to act totally normal and natural when he reached me. I used biofeedback to settle my overactive nerves. When he touched my shoulder and peered down at me, I turned calmly and said, “Hi, Mr. Kine.”

  “I’m surprised to see you in here right now, Misha. Aren’t you supposed to be having breakfast?”

  “I ate with Sterling already this morning. I was just trying to figure out a puzzle that’s been bugging me forever.”

  “Do you care to share?”

  “Sure,” I said, acting like it was nothing. “I was thinking about some of the most famous poisons ever and was wondering if they were real. Take the fairytale, Sleeping Beauty, for example. The witch poisons the apple, and the princess sleeps until the prince kisses her awake. I figured if you used hamaliel root, you could induce the sleep and if the prince ate cortiar flower before kissing her, he could wake her.”

  “Very well done. I haven’t thought of that tale in a long time.”

  “But what about a story like Romeo and Juliette? I can put Juliette to sleep by paralyzing her, but I can’t seem to get her heart stopped and keep her alive at the same time.”

  “This is an interesting concept, isn’t it?”

  “I’m going to keep searching until I find an answer.”

  “I don’t know that there is an answer to that. I had another student work on this very dilemma last year. He got a chemical to stop the heart, but it was very short lived. The frog’s heart started to beat again after only one minute, not long enough to fool anyone.”

  “How did he make this chemical? Maybe I can improve upon it and make the effects last longer.”

  “I can’t remember. Let me go look it up. I’m sure I have it documented somewhere.”

  This could be my answer. Was one minute long enough, and did I have time to create the chemical? I only had two hours until we left. Trepidation boiled inside me.

  Mr. Kine came back over with a printout only a few minutes later, and I looked it over. It wasn’t an extremely difficult concoction, but it was still beyond me.

  “Do you feel like helping me with this before class starts?” I smiled really big at him.

  “Do you think working on this would be the best use of your time? I mean if you can’t even make the initial chemical, how do you expect to improve upon it?”

  “The scientific method. That’s how.”

  He grinned and shook his head. “Go get the ingredients from the cupboard, and we can work together until class starts, then you’re on your own.”

  “Great!” I said, standing to go get the stuff.

  “Take copious notes if you intend to succeed.”

  “I will,” I called back to him.

  We started working at a station that nobody would be using during class.

  We were able to finish putting everything together before class started. Now I just had to cook it at the right temperature for the right amount of time. I couldn’t let anything distract me. I was in a world all my own. When the bell rang to go to our next class, I had two vials of substance #4bc. I slipped one into the pocket of my jumpsuit and after cleaning everything up, took the other to Mr. Kine and asked him to keep it safe for our next class when I’d try it out on some frogs. I had to hope he didn’t know I was leaving on a mission in less than an hour.

  “I’m excited to see if you were able to duplicate his experiment,” he said. “Tomorrow will be fun.”

  I sighed loudly. “Yes, it will!” I didn’t plan on returning tomorrow, so it would definitely be fun. I just hoped this concoction along with the gh#45 I’d snagged from the cupboard would do the trick with the VP and keep him alive for another day. I wouldn’t get the chance to make sure it worked.

  As I left, class ended, and I remembered everyone was planning on executing our three-fold mission tonight. I grabbed Zoey by the arm and pulled her out into the hall and then to the girls’ bathroom.

  “You’re going to make me late, Misha. Hurry up, tell me what you need to tell me.”

  I turned all the water in the sinks on and made sure no one was in the bathroom. “My assassination is today.”

  She put her hand up to her mouth.

  “I need you to make sure all three attempts at getting information out of this place succeed.” It dawned on me that I needed to update the messages. I wouldn’t bother with the letter, it’d never arrive on time, but the radio transmission and the email could be altered. I pulled out some paper towels. “Do you have a pen?”

  “Of course.” Zoey always had a pen.

  I carefully wrote some coded information onto the paper towel and handed it to Zoey.

  “Add this one,” I pointed to the words at the top of the paper, “to the email. Then add this one,” I pointed to the words at the bottom of the paper, “to the Morse code message. Make sure they do this, or none of our efforts will have mattered.”

  “Misha, I’m afraid,” Zoey said, eyes wild. “I’m not you. I don’t know if I can do this.”

  It was normal to get scared before a mission, especially your first one. I had to reassure her. “Zoey, you are amazing. You made this all possible, not me. You. You can do this. It’s like the universe knew you were the one who needed to do it and put everything in place to make that happen. I’m so excited for you. You deserve this.”

  She nodded her head. “I can do this.”

  “Yes you can. One more thing. It needs to be done during lunch. It can’t wait for tonight.”

  She stopped nodding.

  “You can do this. You will be saving so many people. Now, you’ve got to run to class or you’ll be late. Hurry and good luck.”

  She shoved the paper down the front of her jumpsuit, hugged me hard and then ran out.

  I wanted to find Dakota to see if there was any way I could steal his phone really fast and use it just in case Zoey wasn’t able to pull through. I searched everywhere I could think of. I couldn’t find him.

  I finally found him in the east gardens behind some tall hedges. “Oh Dakota,” I said, running to him. “I’m leaving in a few minutes for my first mission. I’m so scared. I don’t want this man’s death on my conscience for the rest of my life.”

  He stroked my hair and said, “It’ll be alright. My dad wants me to go with. He doesn’t want me to miss this one. I don’t know why, but I’m so glad I’ll be there for you.”

  My he
art leapt. Maybe we could get out together.

  “You can pull on my strength. I know you can do this. You’ll be okay. Just think about me and how we’ll be together after this. I’ve worked everything out. We’ll be free in less than a week.”

  “What if he’s not guilty, and I kill him? I won’t be able to live with myself.”

  “Remember,” he said. “This will bring us one step closer to being together. You only need to be successful with this.”

  I could feel the cell phone in his pocket. How could I get my hands on it? Before I could even plan to steal it, the phone vibrated. He took it out and answered it. “Yes, sir. I’m on my way now.”

  My tablet beeped. It was time. I wouldn’t be able to get a message out to Jeremy. I said a fervent prayer that Zoey and the gang would be successful.

  In Sterling’s dining hall, I found hotel worker clothes laid out for me. I took them to the bathroom off the side of the room and changed. It felt good to be in something other than the jumpsuit. My heart was pounding so hard, I thought it might break my ribs.

  I hoped I wouldn’t be blindfolded when we left the compound, but I was. Sterling also put headphones on me that made it impossible to hear a word anyone said in the helicopter. This helicopter was different from the ones I’d been in before. The rotors were already moving when we got in, but I could barely hear them, they were so quiet. I inhaled deeply, willing my heart to slow. I would have to settle for keeping the time it took us to travel to DC as my clue to where the compound was.

  After about half an hour, Sterling took off my blindfold and gave me a tablet to watch the VP fight in various dojos. He was good, but not nearly as good as I was. He was slower than I, age and weight taking their toll, but it was easy to see he loved it. It had been a good hobby for him.

  Sterling put a dagger in a sheath and strapped it to my leg. He lifted my silencing earphones and said, “I’m sure you won’t need this, but just in case he gets the better of you, slit his throat.”

  “If you’re so sure, why give it to me?”