Countermeasures

by Janie Crouch

  Every word was a dagger to Sawyer’s heart. But he couldn’t blame her.

  “Right now,” she continued, “I just want to work. That’s what I’m best at and probably what I should stick to.” She walked into the other room, turned down the blasting heat and began working.

  There were so many things Sawyer wanted to say to Megan, but he didn’t allow himself to do so. Because ultimately she was right: their personal problems were secondary to getting the countermeasure finished. That had to take priority.

  Sawyer hoped he would have a chance to apologize—and that she would listen—once the mission was completed.

  Chapter Twenty-One

  Sawyer watched Megan work tirelessly for the next day and a half. She ate only when Sawyer reminded her to, and slept only once, at her desk. Sawyer tried to carry her to the bed when she slept, but she immediately awoke and wanted to get back to work.

  She didn’t talk to him at all, except to politely thank him for any food or assistance he brought her. She just worked. And worked and worked.

  Her ability to concentrate and figure out all the complex parts of the countermeasure would’ve been quite impressive to Sawyer if he could get over the heavy feeling in the pit of his stomach. He had screwed up so badly. The more he thought about it, the more he realized how much he had hurt Megan by his accusation. Especially the timing of it.

  If he could reach his own ass, he would kick it. Multiple times.

  There was nothing he could do now but not interrupt her and allow her to finish the countermeasure. Then he’d get it to Omega and spend however long it took to make Megan accept his apology. But until then all he could do was sit here and wish he had handled the whole situation better. Him, the person Omega sent in when they needed someone with finesse with people. Well, finesse had been nowhere to be seen this time.

  Sawyer stood up from the table where he’d sat for the past few hours. It was dinnertime and he was tired of eating microwaved junk. They needed some real, fresh food. And Sawyer needed a chance to get out of this room where he was constantly surrounded by his mistakes. Not to mention Sawyer wanted to call Juliet again—totally out of Megan’s earshot—to see if any progress had been made.

  Sawyer walked into the other room, where Megan worked. He could see exhaustion in her features and marveled at how she just pushed it aside. He walked over to stand behind her and gently began rubbing her shoulders.

  For just a moment Megan sighed and relaxed into his hands. She tilted her head so her cheek rested against one of his hands that massaged her. But then Sawyer felt awareness—and tension—creep back into her form. Soon she was totally stiff, so Sawyer stopped and removed his hands.

  “Thank you,” she said in that polite tone he was coming to detest.

  “How are things going here? Is there anything I can do to help?” Sawyer had made the offer more than once over the past few hours. He maybe didn’t have a giant brain, but he had a pretty steady pair of hands.

  “I’m close, Sawyer. Just a couple more hours, I think. But fatigue is pulling at me. Making me slower.”

  “Why don’t you lie down for a few minutes?” He saw Megan’s panicked glance at the bed and sighed. “Not with me. I’m going out to get us some fresh food. You can rest, refresh your brain, for just a few minutes while I’m gone.”

  Megan rubbed a weary hand over her face, removing her glasses. “That’s probably a good idea.”

  Sawyer walked with her over to the bed. She lay down and he pulled the covers over her. He got the second phone they had picked up at the store and placed it on the nightstand next to her.

  “If you need anything, use this phone, not the motel phone. Speed dial one is my phone, two is my sister, Juliet. But I should be back in just a few minutes. I’ll leave you the car in case you need it.”

  Megan nodded, her big brown eyes looking up at him. Sawyer couldn’t help it—he had to touch her. He brushed some of Megan’s unruly hair out of her face. She didn’t flinch away. That was at least a start.

  He reached down and kissed her, but pulled back before either of them had to choose whether to really engage in the kiss or not. But she didn’t turn away from him. Another start.

  “Sawyer...” Megan whispered hesitantly.

  Sawyer wasn’t sure if she was going to say something good or bad. Either way it didn’t need to be said now.

  “Sleep,” he told her. “We can talk later.”

  She brought her hand out from under the covers and grabbed his as he was standing. “Be careful. Hurry back.”

  Sawyer nodded and Megan let his hand go, snuggling herself back into the blankets. Sawyer wished he could be the one there keeping her warm. But at least she was talking to him. It was a start.

  * * *

  SAWYER WAS WALKING back from the deli where he’d bought sandwiches and salads thirty minutes later when he realized he was being followed. He’d almost missed it, but someone had turned a little too sharply away from Sawyer when he’d left the deli. That small movement had caught his attention.

  Sawyer kept walking, at a faster-than-casual pace. But he had circled around so he was leading them away from the motel. Sawyer glanced around as he walked. As far as he could tell, there were three people following him. Make that four.

  Sawyer didn’t know how DS-13 had found them—something he’d missed at the safe house?—but at this moment he didn’t care. The most important thing right now was to keep them away from Megan. Obviously, DS-13 didn’t know about the motel or they would’ve been there already.

  Sawyer tried cutting down a different road, speeding up as he turned a corner, attempting to lose his followers. But with four of them there wasn’t much use. Realizing Sawyer knew they were following him, and therefore wasn’t unwittingly going to lead them to Megan and the countermeasure, they had dropped all pretense of secrecy.

  Now they just wanted to capture Sawyer.

  Sawyer ducked inside a small restaurant, a mom-and-pop place busy with Asheville locals coming out for a meal. Sawyer scanned the room as he walked seemingly casually through the restaurant. An older couple, just removing their jackets and sitting down at a table, provided him with what he was looking for.

  Sawyer set the deli bags down on a recently vacated table and grabbed a glass of water. He made his way toward the older couple. As he neared them, he tripped, spilling the water on their table.

  “Oh my goodness, I’m so sorry,” Sawyer gushed to them. “I’m so clumsy.” He grabbed paper napkins from the dispenser on the table and began wiping up the mess.

  “It’s only water, young man,” the older woman told him. “Don’t you worry about it.”

  Sawyer slid closer to the man and continued to mop up the water. “It’s my first day working here. Why don’t you move to this table right over here and I’ll get this table cleaned up?”

  Sawyer removed the couple’s jackets from their chairs—slipping the man’s car keys out of the pocket while he did so—and moved them to a new table. He apologized for the spill again and then quickly made his way toward the back of the restaurant.

  Reaching the couple’s car would be his best chance to get away from the DS-13 men following him. There was no way Sawyer could escape them on foot.

  Sawyer went out the back kitchen door, ignoring startled looks from employees, and circled back to the parking lot. He pushed the lock button on the vehicle’s keyless-entry remote, knowing the sound would draw attention, but it was the only way to know which car was the couple’s.

  He heard the honk and made his way toward the area, ducking between other cars as he saw two of the DS-13 men come out the kitchen door of the restaurant. Sawyer had no idea where the other two men were, but they were around here somewhere.

  This was going to be close.

  Sawyer beeped the horn again. There. A silver Toyota just a few yards away. Perfect. Sawyer made a dash for it, looking over his shoulder. The two by the back door saw him and were running, but as long as they were
planning to take him alive, they would be too far away to catch him.

  Sawyer unlocked the car as he ran to it. He threw the driver’s side door open and dived in, glancing out the passenger side at the two men running toward him. Sawyer was starting the ignition and attempting to lock the door when the driver’s side door opened and a gun was pressed to his temple.

  “I’m going to need you to step out of your car, Agent Branson.”

  Damn it, the other two men had circled around the other way. Sawyer hadn’t seen them, but they had obviously seen him. And now they had him. Sawyer turned off the car.

  “Slowly,” the man with the gun told Sawyer. “And just in case you’re thinking of making any big scene, we will kill any bystander who comes over here to see what is going on.”

  Sawyer stepped out of the car and got a good look at the assailant. This was the same hooded guy who had broken into Megan’s apartment and put a knife to her throat and sliced Sawyer’s arm.

  “You look a little more proper without the hoodie,” Sawyer told the man as Hoodie reached over and pulled Sawyer’s sidearm out of the holster inside his jacket.

  Hoodie nodded and smirked at him. “How’s the arm?”

  Sawyer walked, flanked by the four men, farther back behind the restaurant, down an alley near a Dumpster. He didn’t make any attempt to get away. Sawyer couldn’t risk it; he had to take them at their word that they would kill bystanders.

  As soon as they were out of direct vision of other people, they stopped. Two of the men grabbed Sawyer by each arm in case he was inclined to run.

  “We’re going to need you to tell us where Dr. Fuller and the stuff she took from Cyberdyne are,” Hoodie, obviously the leader of this group by the way they kept looking to him for instruction, said.

  “She took the stuff and split, man. I haven’t seen her in days.” Sawyer gave him a friendly grin.

  Hoodie nodded to one of the other men holding Sawyer’s arm. Before Sawyer could even brace for it, he punched Sawyer in the gut.

  Sawyer doubled over, coughing, only part of it for show. But the longer he could stretch things out here, the safer Megan would be.

  “Want to try that again, Agent Branson? We know you made it out of the safe house with her, but then we lost you. Where is she?”

  “Look, take it easy. I’m not trying to piss you off, but she’s gone, man. Once we figured out the safe house was a trap, the FBI took her into protective custody.” Sawyer damn well wished that really was what had happened right now.

  “You better hope that’s not the case, Agent Branson, or you won’t be much use to my boss. That probably won’t bode well for you.”

  Sawyer would take his chances with the DS-13 boss. He shrugged. “It is what it is, man. She’s gone.”

  That got him another punch, this time in the face. Sawyer spit out blood from where his cheek had ground into his teeth.

  “Then why are you still here, smart guy? Where is Dr. Fuller?” Another punch in the face.

  Sawyer was momentarily saved when Hoodie received a phone call. He turned away—obviously to speak to someone important. Sawyer knew this would be his only chance. If he didn’t get out now, torture and death at the hands of DS-13 most certainly would be his fate.

  Not to mention leaving Megan unprotected and exposed.

  Sawyer kept his body slumped over for a moment—not difficult considering the punches he’d already taken. But then he burst forward into action, jerking the gun away from one of the men holding him. Elbowing the other man, the one who had hit him, in the jaw on the way to standing fully upright was Sawyer’s pleasure.

  Their skirmish drew the attention of the fourth man, the lookout a few feet away. He rushed over, giving Sawyer three men to deal with. Sawyer punched the first man in the jaw, then sent him flying with a kick. But the other two were already on him. One grabbed Sawyer in a bear hug, forcing Sawyer to head-butt him to get free. Sawyer heard the man howl in pain and figured he’d just broken his nose.

  Sawyer turned to face the third man. He didn’t want to waste time fighting him, just wanted to get past him so he could escape while the other two were still on the ground and the leader was occupied on the phone.

  But then everything turned gray as a blow came to the back of his head. Sawyer fought to hold on to consciousness as he fell to his knees. “My men are idiots, Agent Branson.” The leader was bouncing his pistol casually in his hand—obviously what he had just used to hit Sawyer with. “I’d like to get rid of you right now, but evidently we’re going to need your cooperation to get Dr. Fuller and the countermeasure she’s working on.”

  Then he punched Sawyer in the jaw, and holding on to consciousness wasn’t an option.

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  Sawyer woke up tied to a chair. Without giving away that he was conscious, he tried to take stock of the situation. Six men in the room, four he recognized from the alley. One behind him that he couldn’t really see. But the last one...

  Fred McNeil. The crooked FBI agent. The one who had given DS-13 Ghost Shell in the first place and had almost killed his brother a few weeks ago. And based on listening to their conversations for a few minutes, it looked as though McNeil was in charge.

  The building itself seemed to be some sort of trailer. Glancing as inconspicuously as possible out the window, it looked as if they were in a junkyard. That did not bode well. Too many places where a body could be dumped and never found.

  Sawyer had no idea how long he’d been out or how far they were from the motel.

  “Looks like Sleeping Beauty is finally waking up.” It was McNeil. “Agent Branson, we haven’t had the pleasure of meeting, although I did meet your brother.”

  “Yeah, McNeil. I know who you are.” Sawyer had to spit some blood out of his mouth so he could continue. “I can’t say it’s a pleasure, though.”

  McNeil chuckled in a way that made Sawyer’s skin crawl. “You look like your brother. Cam Cameron. God, I should’ve known something wasn’t right when they told me that was his name. No real person would have a name like Cam Cameron. It had to be someone working undercover.” McNeil shook his head. “Your brother certainly took down a large chunk of DS-13. And cost me a lot of money.”

  “Cameron’s been a problem child since birth.” Sawyer shifted in the chair, testing the bonds on his wrists tied behind him. Unfortunately, there wasn’t any give in the thin cords. “I’d be happy to deliver him to you if you want to let me go.”

  McNeil came over and stood right in front of Sawyer. “Tempting, but I think not. You all actually did me a favor when you got rid of Mr. Smith. One less person taking a chunk of the money.”

  Somehow Sawyer didn’t think the former head of DS-13 would agree, but didn’t mention it.

  “But you also took Ghost Shell. Frustrating.” McNeil sighed dramatically. “But at least I had the other Ghost Shell version, although it wasn’t quite as operational. Fortunately, we got someone to help us overcome that problem.”

  “Oh yeah, who’s that?”

  “I wanted the best to help us, and believe me, I scoped out Dr. Fuller for that role. But she wasn’t interested. Cold fish, that one.”

  Sawyer barely refrained from smirking. He thought of his night spent with Megan. To call her a cold fish was ridiculous. She just had the good sense not to get involved with the likes of Fred McNeil. Sawyer shrugged. No point antagonizing someone who already had you tied to a chair and planned to do you bodily harm. “Women. Whatcha gonna do?”

  “See, I already like you better than your brother. So much more reasonable. But I found someone better than Megan, actually months ago when I first was at Cyberdyne. Someone able to complete our version of Ghost Shell and who has excellent hacking skills—with cloned phones.” McNeil crouched down in front of Sawyer. “Very helpful for when we needed to know where you were.”

  There it was, verbal proof that Megan wasn’t the traitor.

  Sawyer thought he might feel some tiny measure of reli
ef upon hearing the news, convincing that last little part of him of her innocence. But no, in his heart he had already been 100 percent convinced. He didn’t need any jackass like McNeil announcing Megan’s innocence to know it was true.

  “So we got the next best thing. You remember Jonathan Bushman, Dr. Fuller’s assistant?”

  Bushman stepped up from behind Sawyer. “You.” Sawyer all but spat the word. “She trusted you.”

  Jonathan scoffed, “The esteemed Dr. Fuller didn’t trust me. She always thought I wasn’t smart enough to work with her on the truly important projects. She’s been that way for years. Always wanting to work alone because she thinks she’s so ridiculously brilliant.”

  How could Sawyer have missed the disdain Jonathan had for Megan? Sawyer had been too busy looking for the traitor in the faces of other Cyberdyne employees and missed what was right under his nose.

  “It was you, not Trish,” Sawyer said.

  Bushman rolled his eyes. “Trish was a pawn to divert your attention from me. She doesn’t know anything about this. Sorry you were too stupid to figure that out.”

  Sawyer wished that for just ten seconds his hands could be untied so he could punch Jonathan in his whiny face.

  “And now Megan’s going to get what’s coming to her,” Bushman continued. “Because after the stunt she pulled at Cyberdyne, nobody’s ever going to hire her in the computer R & D field again. I’ll finally get my shot at being director.”

  Sawyer shook his head. If DS-13 had their way, Megan wouldn’t work again in the R & D field because she’d be dead. They weren’t going to let her—or Sawyer—out of here alive once they had what they wanted.

  “Plus, I’ll have a little lucrative work on the side, provided by McNeil,” Jonathan continued. “Best of both worlds, and no Megan around to lord her brilliance over all of us.”

  Sawyer shook his head as Jonathan walked away. If that was what Jonathan really thought of Megan, then he was obviously delusional. Arguing with him wouldn’t help.