Code Name: Blondie

by Christina Skye

  Miki’s hand crept to her burn scar. Max had been keenly interested in her story about the spilled coffee, and now she realized it hadn’t been a coincidence. He must have known about the chip, but he hadn’t said a word.

  “Move it, Blondie. Open that door, walk out and tell the dog to follow you. No tricks, or he’ll take a bullet along with you.”

  Miki had no choice but to do what he said. Cold wind brushed her face as she opened the door, hit by a sheet of driving rain. Down underground she hadn’t had a real sense of how violent the weather had become. Now, looking up into dark, swirling clouds, she realized they were in the middle of a gale. “Where are we going?” The wind nearly drowned out her question.

  Truman struggled to climb the sand beside her, wheezing loudly.

  “To the nearest island. We’ll take the boat Max was hiding.”

  If Miki hadn’t known Max’s real mission, she would have been furious at this revelation, but now she accepted that Max had hidden the boat as a precaution against an attack like this. “How did you know it was there?”

  “Satellite photos. Believe me, I was well briefed.” Dutch jammed a hat over his head, squinting into the rain. “The man I’m working for doesn’t screw around, and he doesn’t like your friend Max much, either. Something about the unit they served together in.” He frowned as Miki leaned down, digging at the sand. “What the hell are you doing?”

  “Getting my shrug. It’s freezing out here, in case you didn’t notice.” She dug away the top of the shallow hole where she had buried her shrug. Funny, that seemed like weeks ago, Miki thought. How much she had changed in the space of a few hours.

  Shaking off the sand that covered her favorite sweater, she freed the damp white angora. Dirty or not, it made her feel more prepared, more capable. Miki knew that the feeling was a complete illusion, but sometimes you took what you could get. At least she understood that most of her life had been spent grasping at illusions.

  But not any longer.

  “It’s just a piece of crap yarn. Leave it and let’s go.”

  “What do you know about yarn? I’m not leaving my shrug behind.”

  Dutch jammed the barrel of the revolver into the hollow behind her ear. “Get moving. Don’t stop again.”

  “What about Truman?”

  “I knew you wouldn’t want to leave him behind. For the moment, your doggie friend has a pressing engagement down below.” Dutch swung around, shoved the wheezing dog back through the open door into the bunker and slammed the door shut. “Stay, Spot, stay,” he said, tightly. “Someone will be by to get you soon.”

  With the gun at her neck, Miki didn’t have any choice but to hunch her shoulders and walk down the beach into the driving rain.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX

  SHOWTIME.

  Max yanked off his backpack, sprinting toward the heat anomaly. Crouching in the rain, he ran his hands over the ground and seventeen seconds later he found the point with the highest density of foreign chemicals tracked in by boots or machines. Then came a slow search, inch by inch, his fingers sifting through the dirt.

  A tiny current of air brushed his fingertips, carried up from a hidden containment area beneath layers of rocky soil. Max pulled out one of Izzy Teague’s newest gadgets, a silver box that would pick up a digital security signal anywhere within twenty yards, identify the broadcast pattern and automatically scan possible codes until it came up with the proper combination.

  Max looked at his watch. It took two minutes and forty-six seconds before a yellow light began to flash, indicating code acquisition. Another LED told him the direction to the signal source. He crossed the clearing and found the signal coming from a strip of metal hidden on the fake palm tree Miki had identified. She’d been right on target, he thought grimly.

  He locked in on the security frequency, triggered his unit to output the answering code, and waited.

  Gravel skittered behind him and he heard the faint hum of a motor straining somewhere beneath the ground. Rocks groaned.

  Then he was looking up at a six-by-six-foot square opening in the granite slope. A red light flashed on a small control panel just inside the open door.

  Secondary alarm set.

  Silently Max swiped the panel with Izzy’s little box, watching numbers flicker across the LED screen. This time the search took nearly three minutes by Max’s watch, and sweat mottled his forehead when the unit finally locked on to the correct code. Max triggered the relay sequence and the red light went out.

  He traced the edge of the inside door until he felt a layer of oil and something clicked beneath his fingers. An inner door swung open. In front of him sat an eighty-pound circular piece of steel and aluminum alloy that had cost close to twenty million dollars in research and development expenses.

  Time this little baby went back home to Mommy.

  And there would be no time for subtlety. The betrayal had already begun, and he felt the seconds ticking past as he slipped the heavy guidance system into a specially insulated bag inside his backpack. When the pack was secured across his shoulders and anchored by waist straps, Max closed both compartment doors and reset the security codes.

  The theft would be discovered within hours, assuming that Cruz’s men made regular inspections of the unit. But with luck he’d have time to rappel down the cliff and be long gone before the alarm sounded.

  With his precious cargo stowed, he stood motionless in the rain, hearing no sound but the faint cry of seabirds above the howl of the wind. When he circled back up the trail, he took a different route through the rocks to avoid meeting another security detail.

  At the top of the ridge he clipped in his climbing rope, checked his carabiners and took a deep breath.

  And swung out into cold, rushing wind, the rope straining beneath the new weight in his backpack while he quickly centered his body, bracing his feet against the cliff face. His hands were sure and steady, his breathing calm as he worked his way toward the water, playing out his line inch-by-inch.

  Something whined past his ear. He squinted into the rain, expecting to see a small bird.

  But there was nothing.

  As he played out more rope, Max felt the burn of muscles at his thighs and shoulders. He was two hundred feet above the water now, his rope vibrating in the gale. Rain blurred his vision.

  The whine hissed past his ear again, and something exploded inside his head.

  Max fought grimly, trying to block the static. Only one thing could generate a beam of focused noise like that. Only one person was capable of casting an energy net that could attack with such painful accuracy.

  Cruz.

  MIKI WAS GOING TO THROW up any second.

  Gripping the wall of the boat, she grimaced into a curtain of rain and sea spray. Small but stable, the boat jumped the waves despite Dutch’s clumsy steering as they jolted across the bay toward the neighboring island.

  Miki had hoped for a chance to grab his gun, but Dutch was too wary. Now she huddled with her back against the side of the boat, hideously seasick, shuddering every time they lurched into the air and slammed down seconds later.

  With a groan, she twisted sharply, throwing up over the edge of the boat. When she finished, she saw Dutch looking back at her. He shook his head, grinning. They were about four hundred yards off shore now, with a long beach curving in front of them.

  Where was Max? How was she going to get out of this mess? She knew that she couldn’t rely on anyone but herself. If she was going to make a try for escape, it had to be now, while Dutch was watching the shoreline.

  Waves frothed. Miki shut out the sounds of the rain and the motor. When Dutch turned away to scan the beach, she shot to her feet, tumbled over the rail and hit the icy water. She heard a dim shout and then she went under, slammed head over heels by churning currents, her sense of direction lost. She tried to swim away from the boat and with every stroke vivid images burned through her mind. Dreams of what should have been.

  Her first p
hoto chosen for the cover of a national magazine. A week in her oldest friend’s mountain cabin in northern New Mexico, with no phones, no e-mails and clothes scattered over the floor. Max at her side, his naked body draped over hers, both of them too exhausted to move.

  And maybe, just maybe…a baby.

  One by one the images struck her as she fought to stay alive.

  Something had shaken loose inside her, stirring up old and half-forgotten dreams.

  She refused to die, damn it. She had survived her last crash and she was going to survive this. She had pictures to take, exotic beaches to visit and Max was going to fit into those plans somehow. At least, if she could get him to forgive her when this was all over.

  She realized that she had been flailing at the water in panic, and now she focused, drifting while she searched for the dim light of the sky. A wave slapped her down in a painful somersault and she sucked in salt water, nearly blacking out.

  No sky in sight.

  Dimly she felt something brush her leg and tighten. Terror sent her clawing toward a faint smudge of gray above her shoulder.

  She was fighting her way toward the surface when she heard the angry throb of a motor. The v-shaped wedge of a boat’s prow loomed like a black arrow directly above her head.

  She couldn’t break the surface, but her breath was gone and her lungs burned, screaming for air. Nownownow. She would die either way.

  Something coiled around her foot, cold and slimy like seaweed, and Miki screamed, but sound was muffled by gray water.

  Her terror spiked.

  Then the thing yanked her hard, pulling her down into the darkness.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN

  MAX CLOSED HIS MIND, shielding his thoughts against the energy probe that could only have come from Cruz.

  Suddenly he heard his name, an angry shout cast high over his head. Beyond the sheeting rain, he saw a dark figure standing at the top of the cliff.

  One slash with a knife, and the rope would be gone. Max would plummet two hundred feet and slam into the water, his neck crushed by the guidance system in his backpack.

  But Cruz wanted something or he wouldn’t have come to tackle this job personally. Max kept his descent smooth, braking his rope through interlocking carabiners. He wasn’t going to make things easy for Cruz.

  “Job well done, Preston.” There was no mistaking that voice, stronger than it had ever been, full of confidence. “I figured they’d send you, given your particular skill set. But that device stuffed in your backpack is just a shell. I stripped away the guts of the unit before I stowed it. Why would I take a chance of you getting past my men?”

  Max scowled into the wind. Whether he believed Cruz was irrelevant. The performance came first.

  He expertly tightened the rope around his leg to fine-tune his descent while Cruz watched from the edge of the cliff. Max cursed silently as gravel shot down, slamming into his head.

  “When are you going to wake up? Everyone in Foxfire is a guinea pig. Ryker will keep using you until there’s nothing left. Then he’ll toss you into the garbage, the same way he did me.”

  Max kept moving, closing his thoughts to the rogue Foxfire operative above him.

  “We need to talk, Preston. I’ll send a boat to get you. After that, if you’re still so sure you want to leave, I’ll let you go. No questions asked.”

  Like hell you will, Max thought grimly. He kept right on moving.

  “Not interested? In that case, I happen to hold one more playing card, and it would be a major waste for her to die.”

  Miki. How had Cruz found her so soon?

  Max thought of the set of pain pills missing from his medical kit. He’d only just begun to piece together the pilot’s betrayal. Miki wouldn’t have taken the pills, but Dutch could have. That meant he wasn’t nearly as weak or disoriented as he’d appeared. If Max hadn’t been so caught up in the grip of his lust for Miki, he might have made the connection sooner. Now she was Cruz’s hostage, and he wouldn’t let her live long.

  Max forced his mind to be cold and calculating, the way Cruz had become. The drum of a motor made him turn as a boat headed toward the beach. He could make out Dutch’s form, hunched over the wheel, but he couldn’t see Miki.

  If he’d harmed Miki, Max would rip him apart. But revenge would have to wait.

  “She’s a very resourceful woman. That’s one reason I chose her to be the recipient of one of my older chips. And her travel plans were exotic enough to pull attention away from my movements.”

  If one of Cruz’s chips was imbedded in Miki’s arm, that would explain her continuing pain and the wound that didn’t heal. It would also explain Max’s odd sensory disorientation and the nosebleeds that struck when they were close. Max knew that Cruz’s chips had been degrading during the months before his escape. The headaches and nosebleeds since coming to this island could be more signs of chip failure affecting both of them. In fact, Miki was damned lucky that she hadn’t had a more serious reaction.

  Not that Cruz would care about that. Everything was cold strategy to him. It had been his greatest skill in the Foxfire unit.

  Max’s eyes narrowed against the rain. He was fifty feet above the ocean now, his scuba gear and inflatable boat out of sight inside a small cave at the base of the cliff. He would be geared up and underwater in less than three minutes.

  At least that’s what Cruz would expect him to do, and expectation was everything.

  Max looked down at his watch, calculating possibilities. It would be one hell of a tight switch.

  He turned out of Cruz’s line of sight, opened the face of his watch and tapped a short burst of code using a button hidden beneath the LED screen.

  Showtime. Izzy would know exactly what the code word meant.

  After that he shoved a small red pill into place inside his lower gum, careful not to puncture its hard gel coating. He sure as hell hoped he wasn’t going to need it, but his orders were crystal clear. Get the weapon and get out.

  He wasn’t going anywhere with Cruz. Not alive.

  He turned back, looking up the cliff, letting his tension show. “I don’t see the woman, Enrique. Face it, your stooge Dutch was too weak to do anything after the pneumothorax from the crash. While we’re at it, I don’t buy that crap about the guidance system, either.”

  “No? Take a look over your right shoulder.”

  Max saw that the boat had stopped. Dutch was pulling someone onto the deck from the rear railing. The flash of bright red could only be Miki’s Hawaiian shirt.

  She must have tried to escape—and failed.

  Something dug into Max’s heart. He shouldn’t have let her get involved. As soon as he had confirmation that she was an innocent civilian, he should have gotten her the hell off the island, despite Ryker’s orders to ignore everything but the mission. Now it was too late.

  He took a deep breath and shuttered his mind, putting away all trace of emotion. He had no other choice. The best protection for Miki now would be a swift, deadly counterattack.

  He tightened his rope, peering through the rain. When he looked back at Cruz, he had shielded his mind completely. In the last months, Foxfire’s science team had worked night and day to come up with a way to disable the man who had once been their strongest and most deadly member. Max hoped the mental shields he had been taught would hold Cruz off temporarily.

  “Assuming I’m willing to talk, what’s in it for me, Enrique?”

  Cruz didn’t move, a black slash against the churning gray clouds. “Name your price. Power, wealth, fame—any of them can be yours. I’ll send a boat for you and we’ll discuss it.”

  Max glared up through the rain. This was the opportunity he’d been seeking. He wouldn’t get a second chance.

  Careful, he thought. Cruz was vicious, but he wasn’t stupid. “For starters, I want the woman. But after that I want a whole lot more. You’re asking me to sell out my country, remember?”

  “Your country already sold you out, Max. You
’re just another lab animal as far as Ryker is concerned. Once your chips start failing, he’ll throw you into confinement, too. He’ll test you night and day the same way he did to me.”

  Max didn’t believe a word of it. Ryker wasn’t a madman, only driven. He didn’t make decisions without scrutiny, although Max couldn’t remember the last time anyone from D.C. had come to inspect the lab—even the public parts of it.

  “I don’t care about Ryker or the suits back in D.C. If I do this, Enrique, I’m doing it for the money.”

  “And for the woman,” Cruz said coldly.

  “That, too. And if you’re lying to me, I’ll kick your ass all the way back to San Francisco.”

  Cruz didn’t move. “I’m not lying.”

  As Max dropped the final feet to the cave entrance, his old teammate sent a wave of energy after him, rippling like smoke across the face of the cliff and burning down his spine. It was a basic distortion, part of Cruz’s Foxfire training, but the effect was stronger than expected despite all of Max’s new shields.

  The cliff face seemed to catch fire and flame outward, ringing Max in heat.

  An illusion, he knew. A sign of power meant to intimidate him. But it was one more proof that Cruz was changing, taking on strengths far beyond his original enhancements.

  Max was about to walk into very deep shit.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT

  MIKI WAS CAUGHT, her lungs burning, and in seconds she would pass out. Something gripped her leg, a slimy creature from the sea bottom she had been unlucky enough to disturb. Fighting her fear, she jackknifed vainly, searching for whatever was holding her ankle.

  A black form loomed into view in front of her and she shot back in terror.

  Huge, bulging eyes. Black and webby hands. Long, black body.

  The snare left her leg, and two hands locked around her waist. As Miki sputtered and dug at the water, she realized she was looking at a man in full scuba gear. Suddenly she was surrounded by five more men. One of them pulled off his rebreather unit and slid it into her mouth, hovering nearby while she took shaky breaths.