Defense Breach

by Lisa Phillips

  “This way.” He led her to a door at the other end of the room, but it didn’t lead back out to the hallway.

  “Um…”

  “There’s something I need to show you, Ms. Austin. It won’t take long, and I think you’ll be very interested to see what it is.”

  Skylar glanced back at the door. Daniel tugged on her arm with more strength than she’d thought he would have, and moved into the hallway. It was darker than the hall they’d walked down to get to Daniel’s office. Deserted.

  Something clattered to the floor. She looked at him and found he’d discarded his cane. In his hand he held a palm-sized derringer, pointed at her.

  “I’ve been waiting years for someone to come asking about a fake artifact.” His voice was soft. Not angry, more resigned.

  “I’m not here to expose you.” She swallowed. “You can put the gun down, because I have no interest in telling anyone what you may or may not have done.” She was only asking about one clock, not whatever had spooked him.

  She took a step back, instinct screaming at her to run.

  “Not one step.”

  “Please, don’t kill me. You’ll only make things worse for yourself.” He couldn’t think murdering her would be a good idea. If he let her go, he might actually get away with this. He could run.

  She lifted both hands and tried to look helpless. She wasn’t close enough to grab the weapon. Not to mention, the thing was old. Who knew what damage it would do? It could backfire, or Daniel might have kept it maintained all these years. Skylar was more scared of a historical, relic weapon she knew nothing about than a weapon she’d handled—or knew how to fight against.

  Where was Grady? Surely he was done with his call by now. She didn’t need a knight in shining armor, but his entrance might be distraction enough for her to get the derringer from Daniel.

  Grady. She wanted to yell his name, but that meant he’d get shot as well when he showed up.

  Daniel said, “What do you know about the clock?”

  “Only that the one in the White House was a fake. Nothing else.” She used the distraction of her pleading to get an inch closer to him. She had to close the gap without him noticing, if she was going to have a hope of stealing that gun. “We don’t know anything about you.”

  “It figures you’d stumble across it and not even know what the business was. I hid it so well no one ever found out. And if you hadn’t come here, asking about that stupid clock, no one ever would have.”

  “What are you going to do now?” He couldn’t shoot her. It’d make him the target of a police investigation that would have them examining every part of his life. Was he going to kidnap her? Grady would come looking. He wasn’t going to just accept her sudden disappearance.

  Daniel grasped her elbow and hauled her down the hallway. Their footsteps echoed against the bare walls. Whatever limp he’d had before was gone now. Was this man’s entire life a lie?

  “Let me go,” she pleaded. “Please. You don’t have to do this. I won’t tell anyone.” Even though the minute she got back to the Secret Service she would tell them everything he’d said. “I promise. I’m not here to get you in trouble. You’ve obviously kept the secret this long. We can go our separate ways, and you can live your life.”

  Until the feds caught up with him, that was. Her whole argument was flimsy, but what else did she have that might get her out of the line of fire?

  “I will live my life,” he said. “Don’t worry about that, Ms. Austin.” He hauled her around another corner. Were they going down?

  She glanced back. The floor was declining slightly. What was at the bottom of this hall?

  He continued, “I’m going to get out of this place.” He stopped at a door with a number pad on it. “And you’re my insurance. Now enter these numbers.”

  Daniel took half a step back and held the weapon aimed at her as he relayed sixteen digits. When the door clicked, he said, “Open it.”

  Skylar pulled on the handle. It was heavy, like a fire door. As she opened it, a rush of distinctly cooler air blew into the hall from what looked like a cave. A tunnel stretched before them, lined with wires and halogen lights along the walls. A railing. The tunnel descended down even farther.

  “I’m not going in there.” She’d never been spelunking, but this likely wouldn’t be fun the way that could be. Something about this tunnel made her not want to go down there. God, help me.

  Daniel shoved her forward, the gun pressed against her side. Her feet landed on slick steps, on worn stone. The tunnel looked like it was used frequently, or had simply been used regularly for years. Maybe even hundreds of years. By who? Why did the Smithsonian need to go underground?

  At the last second before the door shut, Skylar glanced back over her shoulder. The breath of a prayer crossed her lips.

  Grady.

  He rounded the corner and their eyes locked. Too far away for her to convey a message. If he came down here, Daniel would shoot him. Or her. Or both. She couldn’t let Daniel do that to either of them.

  Please don’t let Grady get the combination. Daniel will shoot him. She had to get out of this without getting hurt. She wasn’t a Secret Service agent yet. What did her career matter? She wasn’t one of them. Yet. Sure, the potential was there, but right now—in the balance—it was Grady who came out on top. Not because he was worth more than her. She knew her value. The problem was that she understood how much the world would lose if the worst happened to Grady.

  And there was no way Skylar was going to let that happen.

  *

  Grady saw the determination in her eyes right before the door shut. He knew that look—Skylar was determined to protect him. Too bad for her there was no way he would let her die just so he could live. What was Daniel thinking? He’d left them having a nice conversation, where Daniel had been shocked to hear about the fake. Something had changed.

  Grady pulled his phone back out and tapped Stringer’s number on Favorites. He explained the situation in as few words as possible, then said, “Get me the code for this door.”

  Something must have happened because it seemed Daniel was intent on escaping into a tunnel system under the facility. Holding Skylar at gunpoint. He’d only stepped out into the hallway for a few seconds.

  His head was still reeling at the news Barnes had escaped.

  Had the man been working with Daniel Painter?

  He was supposed to be protecting Skylar…and he was doing an awful job at it. Now her life was in danger—again. She was determined to save him—again. He’d think it was endearing if he wasn’t scared to the marrow of his bones that she could get hurt. Again.

  Grady blew out a breath and leaned his forehead on the door. It was cold enough that the sensation shocked his skin. Metal overlaid with paint. He couldn’t just kick the door in. He had to wait.

  Daniel was long gone with Skylar. He kicked the door, purely out of frustration.

  Grady ground his teeth. He shifted his feet. Was Skylar okay? Was Daniel hurting her? She needed not to fight back, or he would pull the trigger. Did she know to just play along?

  He squeezed his eyes shut. Not being able to help her left a sour taste in his mouth. God, don’t let her get hurt. No, that wasn’t fair for him to pray. It wasn’t asking too much of God, but it was setting Grady up for bitterness if God had a different way of aiding her out of this situation. If Skylar was alive, but she got nicked by something sharp, then Grady could claim God hadn’t answered his prayer. All because he hadn’t prayed for God’s will to be done.

  That was setting himself up for failure.

  Help me. Use me. I need to save her—You know that. Help me to do my job here.

  Faith was a whole lot more complicated than he’d ever thought as a child, but that was okay. He held tight to a simple trust in God, but God Himself was not simple. His ways didn’t always make sense—and that was okay as well. God was God, and Grady didn’t need to understand everything He did.

  Grady
’s phone rang. He swiped to answer and before he even said anything, Stringer said, “Six, seven, four, three…” The numbers continued. Sixteen digits Grady entered, hammering each number on the panel with every ounce of frustration he felt.

  The door clicked. “Got it. Thanks.”

  “Don’t thank me. Some agent named Ramirez already had it.”

  Grady hung up, yanked the door handle and darted through, weapon first. Thank You, Lord. They might have saved Skylar’s life.

  He trailed down a hallway lined by cave walls. The air pricked at his skin, making him shiver. The tunnel leveled off at the bottom. He stopped before the end and leaned his shoulder against the wall.

  Checked his phone.

  No signal. He was on his own down here.

  Grady stowed the phone and pressed on into an open area, the ceiling a little higher than the one in his kitchen. Eleven feet, maybe. What was this place? It was freezing down here.

  Several dark openings encircled the space. Grady stopped in front of each of the five tunnels and listened. He caught some slight sound at the third. A whisper. The shuffle of a shoe on stone. A yelp in a higher tone. Skylar. He prayed it was her—that God had given him these sensory cues for a reason—and pressed on down the tunnel.

  It ended sooner than the first had, and he emerged into a wider tunnel, like a tributary draining to a rushing river. A golf cart was parked in this tunnel, which wider than two lanes of highway. Lined along its walls were more halogen lights, again strung together with wires, lighting the whole place with a bright white glow.

  How long did these tunnels go for? Would they emerge from their ends in different states? Grady didn’t particularly want to find out. There were so many tunnels under the ground in this part of the country—and he wasn’t just talking about the metro system.

  “Get on.” Daniel’s voice was hard, his tone inviting no argument. “Now.”

  Skylar stood straight. “Tell me where the real clock is.”

  “You think I remember?” Daniel scowled, quite a change from the congenial man who’d walked them into his office. “I did so many forgeries back then I lost count, started recording them in a logbook.”

  “Where is the book?”

  He laughed. “Turning into a real investigator, aren’t you?”

  “Tell me where it is and you can go wherever you want,” Skylar said, hoping he’d at least consider it. “You don’t need me.”

  “You think they’ll just let me out of here?” He grabbed her arm and pressed the barrel of the gun to her chin. “It’s hard enough to get in a government building these days, but what do you think they do to us to make sure no historical items walk their way out of here?”

  Skylar didn’t say anything.

  Grady didn’t know the answer to that either. He could guess more scanners and a security checkpoint, but it wasn’t like they actually worked there like Daniel did. Were they supposed to know?

  “I told you I’ll need insurance, and you’re it.”

  Grady stepped out into the tunnel. “Not so fast.”

  Daniel, the gun still pointed at Skylar’s chin, whirled around. She yelped as he dragged her in front of him. Grady had no better shot than he’d had from the smaller tunnel. Daniel was determined to use Skylar for cover.

  Grady took a couple of steps closer. “I agree with Skylar. You leave, we stay.” They were a team, and Daniel needed to know. “So let her go, and go.”

  Daniel lifted his chin. “One more step toward me, and I’ll kill her.”

  Grady stopped.

  “Lay your weapon down.”

  “No.”

  “I’ll shoot her.”

  “I’ll shoot you,” Grady said. “Which means you shooting her would be pointless, since you’d both be dead.” There was no way he would lay his gun down. That was not part of his training, and Skylar knew it.

  His gaze snagged on hers. Wide eyes, full of fear—and a whole heap of anger. Good. Mad was good. It meant she wasn’t going to cower or back down.

  He was proud to see the backbone he knew she had now.

  Her eyes darted around. Not erratic. He realized she was motioning high and to the right—at the light on the wall of the tunnel. The light? He glanced back at her and saw her nod.

  Grady took aim and shot the light out, praying she had a solid plan. One that didn’t end in her diving in front of a bullet.

  The whole tunnel went dark. He heard a thump.

  And a gunshot.

  SIXTEEN

  The second the tunnel went dark, Skylar moved. Launched herself at Daniel and slammed into him, full force. The older man yelped and started to fall back. They landed on the ground, her on top of him, and the gun went off. Skylar grabbed for his wrist, missed a couple of times, and finally found his arm in the dark.

  After a second, there was a hum. The lights turned on, green now like the neon glow of night-vision goggles. A backup system. Presumably the interruption in the lights would have alerted security, and they were on their way now. At least, she hoped that was the case.

  Skylar grasped his hands in a grip he wasn’t going to get out of. “Get his gun!”

  Hopefully Grady would do it, not argue with the fact that she’d just given him an order. They were partners in this, even though he had seniority.

  Daniel moved so fast she didn’t have time to react. His head slammed into hers and the momentum shoved her to her back.

  She lost her grip on the gun as stars flashed across her vision.

  “Drop it!” Grady’s voice brooked no argument. She heard him move over to them, then he said, “Keep your hands where I can see them.”

  Skylar felt across her forehead and found the spot where Daniel had slammed his forehead into hers. She winced. “Ouch.”

  “You okay, Austin?”

  Why was he using her last name? Skylar lowered her hand and looked over. Grady’s face was all business. She wasn’t sure she could speak a whole sentence. All her brain wanted to do was think about Grady for days. Like a song stuck on repeat.

  She shook her head, then had to swallow the bile that jumped up from her stomach. Skylar groaned.

  “Austin.”

  “I…” She sucked in a breath of cool tunnel air. “Okay.” If she said more, she was liable to lose the last thing she’d eaten. She’d be put off Grady’s cooking for life.

  “Can you get up?”

  Skylar rolled onto her hands and knees and then stood. A dull ache rolled through her head.

  “Think you can secure our friend here?” Grady pulled a zip tie from the back of his belt. She secured Daniel and then tugged on his elbow until he got the message and stood. She was going to breathe through her nose until the nausea passed. They’d just have to figure out what she was saying without her actually speaking.

  “Walk.” Grady held his aim on the man and she followed the two of them up the tunnel, back toward the ground floor of the facility. Without turning back to her, Grady said, “You still okay, Skylar?”

  She swallowed, then said, “Yep.” The word was short, but she figured he got the message, considering he wasn’t about to take his attention from Daniel, even if the man was secured.

  This should have been a simple conversation. Trying to discover if there had been some significance in stealing that particular clock. Instead, they’d uncovered yet another mystery, this one involving an employee of the Smithsonian. Daniel making fake artifacts for years. Selling the real ones on the black market.

  And he’d likely done that with the clock Wilson had been looking for.

  Skylar didn’t think Wilson and Daniel were connected, though she could hardly think straight. They’d stumbled on Daniel’s illegal activity, nonetheless. Hopefully the man would cooperate with them. They needed access to that logbook he’d mentioned if they really wanted to find out if it was all connected. Was Barnes part of this?

  Skylar stumbled. Her face smashed into the back of Grady’s vest, and she realized he’d stop
ped. “Sorry.”

  He didn’t turn, but she could feel the stiffness coming off him in waves.

  “Accident.” Skylar closed her mouth before she said anything else embarrassing.

  There was a click from the hall and the door opened. Grady motioned Daniel through first. Into the middle of a waiting crowd of Secret Service agents. Or just four. Maybe she was seeing double.

  “Got here as quick as we could,” Stringer said.

  Grady nodded, still mad at her apparently. “Skylar needs medical attention.”

  Stringer frowned, glancing from Grady to her. She said, “I’m okay. Daniel head-butted me, is all.”

  Stringer winced. “I see that. Let’s get you an ice pack.” He waved her over. She glanced back at Grady while he escorted Daniel down the hall. Away from her. Skylar sighed.

  “Come on,” Stringer said. “You can tell me what happened.”

  Like she was just another witness. Just another trainee agent, not someone Grady had said he was friends with. She’d thought they were a team, but maybe she was wrong. Maybe he didn’t like when she tried to fix things, considering her nothing more than a wannabe. A liability.

  “I’m not even going to ask.” Stringer chuckled. “None of that looks good.”

  She glanced up at him. “What?”

  “All the emotion on your face. You’re gonna want to work on not giving away everything you’re feeling.” He grinned, his teeth bright against his dark skin. “It’s a little overwhelming, to be honest.”

  “Apparently getting hit in the head means I have no filter.” She paused. “On my face.” How on earth could that make sense to anyone?

  “I get it.” He patted her shoulder, then yelled, “Where’s my ice?”

  An agent hurried over, a bundle of ice wrapped in a damp dishcloth. “This was all they had in the break room.”

  Skylar resisted the urge to wrinkle her nose and balled it up, then pressed it against her forehead. “Ah. Better.”