It was a great plan, Ashley realized. But there was no way for Hondo to communicate the idea to Cyrus with everyone watching. While she searched for a way to assist, Ashley felt a sudden surge of relief from Hondo and realized he had somehow secured Cyrus’s participation in the plan. She had no idea how he had done it. Though she had been watching the entire time, she hadn’t witnessed the communication. Thankfully, neither had anyone else.
Gertrude gave Hondo permission to sedate Cyrus, and Ashley watched as the man retrieved a small wheeled cart from a few feet away. He pushed it up beside Cyrus’s inclined table and placed his medical bag on top. But she felt her stomach drop when she realized what Hondo had in mind. There was no way the he could pull it off at the moment. Certainly not while everyone’s attention was focused on the two of them.
Ashley felt rage at the trouble her grandmother…the old witch, had caused. A burning hatred was consuming her, and even though her own desire to kill the woman sickened her, she refused to fight back the urge. At that moment she realized that her pain and anger held the key to Hondo’s plan being successful.
Throwing all of her hatred and rage into an attack on her own bindings, Ashley kicked and tore at the duct tape that held her to the office chair. The tape held, but the wheels began to clatter against the floor as she rocked back and forth in her fight against the tape. All of the effort created a tremendous amount of noise and pulled attention from Hondo and Cyrus.
Unwilling to ease her efforts for even a moment, Ashley put every ounce of her energy into the fight. The tape continued to hold but the chair was quickly upended and she went crashing to the floor. The impact knocked the air from her lungs, but even with her mind deprived of oxygen, she managed to continue the violent effort. She fought and rolled in the chair, smashing its arms against the floor as two of the guards descended on her, fighting to find a grip and restrain her.
But the girl was not about to give up.
Chapter 32
Mayflower Lab Facility
Hennings, South Carolina
4:44 p.m.
It took only a moment for Hondo to load a syringe with the proper dose of the sedative. Although everything taking place was improvised, Cyrus still felt confident that he knew the plan Hondo was preparing to set in motion. If Hondo was going to do what Cyrus suspected, everything would take place in full view of Gertrude Waterford and four highly trained men who were loyal to her pocketbook. Simply put, there were too many eyes on them for Hondo to make his move. The risk of being caught was too great.
But when Ashley shrieked in a fit of rage and then followed it up by sending herself smashing to the floor, she managed to divert all but Gertrude’s eyes at a critical time. At first Cyrus wrote the coincidence off as an act of fortuitous timing, but he immediately realized his mistake; it wasn’t luck at all. Ashley had been fully aware of Hondo’s plan, even if Hondo didn’t realize that she was on board. She’d pulled the thoughts from his mind as quickly as they had formed, and even more impressively, she had improvised the necessary distraction all on her own.
Still raging against his restraints, Cyrus saw that Gertrude had managed to keep a suspicious eye on him despite Ashley’s efforts. Hondo didn’t look back at her before he plunged the needle into Cyrus’s flesh and emptied its contents with a single powerful stoke of his thumb across the device’s release. Maintaining the act, Cyrus made a few more powerful pulls against his wrist restraints and offered just one more kick of his right leg before sagging against the raised backboard with a drunken roll of his eyes. Though his head was lowered, further acting out the effects of the nonexistent sedative, Cyrus saw Gertrude turn her attention in Ashley’s direction.
“Now,” Cyrus whispered to Hondo.
With a single stroke of the razor sharp scalpel from his medical kit, Hondo severed the leather restraint binding Cyrus’s left hand. On his upswing, he slipped the handle of the scalpel into his friend’s grip before stepping around the gurney and drawing his firearm. Four shots—a pair of lethal torso strikes to each of the men stationed near the closed hallway door.
Not having time to cut himself free, Cyrus discarded the scalpel and settled for snatching a 9mm H&K from an open flap inside Hondo’s medical pack. Hondo had made a point of making the weapon’s grip visible while he worked to ready the sedative injection. Still bound by both feet and his right hand, Cyrus fired a pair of shots into the chest and abdomen of one of the guards standing over Ashley. The man was just starting to draw his weapon. The force of the impacts sent the man toppling off to the side and, unfortunately, provided a moment of additional cover to the last remaining guard who’d been in the process of raising Ashley’s struggling form from the ground. The guard ducked behind her, using her as a human shield.
A second later, Hondo turned a hundred and eighty degrees and brought his weapon to bear on the last guard, but he had no better line of sight than Cyrus. The guard cowered behind Ashley who was still taped to the chair. He adjusted her with ease, thanks to the chair’s caster wheels, making sure to keep himself out of the line of fire.
The entire attack had taken all of four seconds. Gertrude had stumbled back and fallen in the commotion and lost her cane in the process. It lay three feet in front of her, askew on the tile floor and out of reach. Her hands were shaking so bad, it was no wonder she couldn’t stay on her feet. That was fine as far as Cyrus was concerned. A fall on her ass was only the start of what she deserved.
“Nobody moves!” the guard bellowed. His voice had squeaked in a fairly undignified way that conveyed his full understanding of the situation. He had reached around the back of Ashley’s chair and lodged the muzzle of his gun in the flesh between her neck and collarbone. A bullet discharged at that angle was certain to tear through half of her major organs.
The guard continued to adjust the angle of the chair by fractions as he scooted backwards across the floor on one knee, pulling the chair and Ashley with him. He didn’t make any further demands because he didn’t need to. It was a standoff. At least for the time being.
Hondo kept his weapon trained on Ashley and, by extension, the man hiding behind her. Cyrus knew he wouldn’t fire. Even for an expert marksman the shot was too risky. Gertrude sat motionless on the floor, now in the room’s middle ground and about forty degrees out of the line of fire. She seemed to sense the precarious nature of the standoff and was unwilling to move for fear of setting catastrophe into motion. It wasn’t likely in fear for her granddaughter, Cyrus understood. Those misconceptions had come and gone. At that point, Gertrude was simply worried that one of the bullets had her name on it.
The only one willing to move was Cyrus. He set the 9mm aside on the wheeled cart and retrieved the discarded scalpel. It took a single slice to free his right hand and two more before he had regained the use of his legs. He picked up the gun with his free hand and stepped off the small ledge that supplied his footing on the inclined table—his eyes remained locked on the guard crouched behind Ashley. When the man’s eyes met his, Cyrus held the scalpel out to his side and opened his hand. The razor sharp surgical instrument struck the hollow floor with a clatter.
“It’s over,” Cyrus said to the guard. “Is this contract worth your life?”
The man didn’t answer. His back was to the large imaging device at the other end of the room. He had no means of further retreat.
“Let her go and you can walk out of here, free and clear,” Cyrus persisted. He made a point of phrasing the suggestion as a command rather than a question. The point was to show the man that there were no options here. It was a basic hostage negotiation tactic but, at this point, Cyrus lacked the primary tool critical to all successful negotiations.
Patience.
He wasn’t feeling particularly indulgent at the moment and realized that making that clear to the man with the gun might be advantageous.
“I’m making you an expiring offer,” Cyrus continued. “Lay down the gun, get up, and walk away. It’s that easy. I won�
�t shoot you, and I won’t follow.”
“You’re not in any position to make demands,” the guard said at last. “I’m the one with the gun.”
“You’re the one with the gun until I walk over there and take it from you.” There was a cold edge to his own voice that surprised even Cyrus. He needed to scare his opponent into submission, and he had only a bluff to work with.
“You try it, and I’ll pull the trigger,” the man stammered.
Cyrus heard the uncertainty in the man’s voice and knew he was making headway. He needed to press the issue before the man could rationalize his situation.
“If you pull that trigger, you’re dead for sure. I’ll drop you where you stand.” Cyrus added harsh inflection to his voice to drive the words home. “The only way you walk away from this is if you lay down arms, and you do it now!”
When a response wasn’t immediate, Cyrus knew he needed to act decisively or risk the situation spiraling further out of control. Though his breath was locked in his throat, he steeled himself and refused to let even a fraction of his indecision or fear show. His eyes still locked on the man who was peeking around the terrified form of Ashley, Cyrus gnashed his teeth and took a brisk step forward.
His leg extending forward in the initial step, Cyrus was shockingly aware of every ripple and whirl in the grip of the weapon in his right hand. He didn’t even have the weapon cradled or sighted as he would have if he were ready to take a shot. It was at hip level, nowhere close to firing position, and that was the point. He was betting everything on intimidation more than the immediate threat of violence.
Besides, if a shot needed to be fired Hondo had that covered. He stood ready to fire the moment the man broke cover in the slightest. This was all about getting the gun off Ashley.
Before his single stride was complete, Cyrus saw the guard pull the gun from Ashley’s neck and point the muzzle harmlessly off to the side. Two fingers instantly went up on Cyrus’s left hand, a signal to Hondo not to take the kill shot.
“Toss it away,” Cyrus said calmly. He continued to close the distance on Ashley and his opponent at a steady, unhurried pace.
The guard’s weapon clattered across the tile by the time Cyrus was within ten feet of Ashley’s trembling form. Cyrus kept his weapon at his side, signaling the guard to his feet with a simple wave of his hand. The guard, now fully compliant, did as instructed.
After retrieving the guard’s weapon, Hondo pulled the man aside and went about restraining him. Cyrus knelt before Ashley and smiled. “He was willing to pull the trigger,” she said in a quiet, horrified tone. “I heard him thinking it, clear as day. I thought that was it—I was sure of it!”
Sliding a very small scalpel along the arm of the chair, Cyrus cut Ashley free. She looked down at the blade in his hand, confused. Following her gaze to the larger scalpel he’d dropped dramatically to the floor before advancing on the gunman, Cyrus grinned.
“How?” was all she managed to say.
He shrugged. “I’ve had this little blade for a while,” he admitted. “But they had the restraints cuffed so close to my hands that I couldn’t do anything with it. I was going to use it to make my move until he showed up.” Cyrus tipped his head in the direction of Hondo who was still dealing with the sole surviving guard.
Though he didn’t think it was possible, Ashley’s eyes grew wider. “Wait—you didn’t know your friend was here?”
Cyrus laughed. “Things have been happening kind of fast. Cut me some slack, would you?”
At first he didn’t know if she was going to laugh or cry. The tears that had welled up at the corners of her eyes finally washed down her cheeks, and she broke out in a sputtering, exasperated laugh.
Cutting the last of the bindings away from her feet, Cyrus helped Ashley up. He followed her eye line to where Gertrude still sat on the floor. For his part, Cyrus had been keeping the woman under constant observation in his peripheral vision. He knew that Hondo was doing the same. But since the moment she’d stuck the floor following the outbreak of gunfire, Gertrude hadn’t moved an inch. In fact, she was only now pulling herself to her feet.
As soon as Ashley’s attention fell on Gertrude, Cyrus could tell that the woman had already decided how she would try to spin the situation in her favor. He couldn’t imagine what angle Gertrude could possibly use to justify the atrocities she’d committed, but he knew that he was about to find out.
Gertrude met Ashley’s eye with a defiant stare and an upturned jaw. “I suppose you expect me to—,” she began.
Ashley closed the gap between them in five quick steps and delivered a right cross to Gertrude’s proud jaw, sending her crashing to the floor once more. The woman hadn’t yet realized what hit her, before Ashley was standing over her fallen form, seething with rage. Ashley looked like she was sifting through hundreds of things she wanted to scream at the hideous woman, but in the end, she said nothing. Rocking back on her heels, Ashley took another look at the old lady lying in a crumpled heap before turning silently, and walking away.
A wide satisfied smile spread across Cyrus’s face, as he took a long look at Gertrude. Deciding that she wouldn’t be going anywhere for some time, he turned and walked away as well.
“What do we do with this guy?” Hondo asked when Cyrus walked over. He had his gun in one hand and the restraints that bound the wrists of their prisoner in the other.
“Cut him loose,” Cyrus said without hesitation.
Hondo looked at him as if he’d lost his mind.
Cyrus shrugged. “It’s not his fault. He just took the wrong job. When push came to shove he did the right thing and stood down. We’ll honor our end of the bargain and let him walk. I think it’s the right thing to do.”
Cyrus realized the guard was looking at him over his shoulder. The man seemed as surprised as Hondo with the decision, but Cyrus met his eye. “Call it professional courtesy,” he explained. “Sometimes it’s how we deal with a bad situation that proves who we are in the end. You did the right thing. Now we will too.”
Epilogue
Hennings, South Carolina
9:05 a.m.
Reluctant to ask questions, Ashley had tried to satisfy herself with listening to the terse conversation between Cyrus and Greg Boone on their drive to the Rockefeller Federal Building. The truth was that most of what she learned hadn’t come from the abbreviated discussion between the two men, but from the thoughts of Greg Boone in the long silences that had filled the car over the course of the fifteen minute drive.
From what she’d pieced together, Boone and Cyrus worked for some sort of low profile law enforcement agency. No one had actually mentioned the name of the organization, but the word ‘coalition’ had crossed Boone’s mind on several occasions. Beyond that, she didn’t know much about the group, its goals, or its jurisdiction. Only that Boone wasn’t happy to learn that Cyrus had involved her, a civilian, or that he had insisted she accompany them to visit Gertrude first thing this morning.
“Did the guards say anything about last night?” Cyrus asked Boone. He sat in the passenger seat of the rented Jeep Cherokee while Boone drove, allowing Ashley to listen in from her spot in the backseat.
Boone shook his head. “Waterford was in the infirmary until just before midnight,” he explained as he drove. “Their attending physician wanted to keep her in medical for observation all night, but I pushed the matter on your suggestion. Why were you so keen to get her back in her cell, by the way?”
There was no humor in Cyrus’s voice when he replied, “That woman is a piece of work. You know the type, always looking down her nose at everyone? I didn’t want there to be any confusion about her situation by the time we saw her today. Believe me, a long night on a shitty jail cot will do her good.”
Even from the backseat Ashley could see the smile appear on Boone’s face. He nodded. “Then this should do the trick. I talked with her doctor last night. It seems Ashley packs a hell of a punch.”
Boone’s eyes wen
t to the rearview mirror and met hers. “You destroyed the dental implants on the left side of her jaw and knocked out four of her teeth. For a while they thought they might need to wire her jaw shut.”
Cyrus turned in his seat and was relieved to see that she wasn’t upset at the news. He didn’t say anything but he did offer a prideful smile that made her heart race. She’d been feeling uneasy with the situation since Boone’s arrival. Cyrus had referred to the man as his ‘training officer’, but hadn’t explained exactly what that meant. All she knew was that Boone had arrived in town late the previous night. If Cyrus were some kind of trainee, she couldn’t understand why he would have been sent undercover with no support. She didn’t know much about law enforcement procedures, but it seemed incredibly unorthodox.
Where Cyrus had offered very little by way of explanation when it came to Greg Boone, he had been happy to introduce her to a man he referred to simply as Hondo. That was it. She didn’t know if that was the man’s first name, last name, or just a nickname, and neither had been inclined to explain. As Cyrus put it, Hondo was a friend from “a ways back.” Cryptic at best, and again, neither man offered greater detail. But once Cyrus and Hondo had secured the situation at Gertrude’s lab, things had settled down significantly.
Cyrus had contacted the local FBI field office. The FBI had the facilities needed to take Gertrude into custody; likewise, the staff responsible for the lab’s security were also taken into custody. As Cyrus had explained, he would be surprised if any of the hired help knew the true nature of Gertrude’s work, but he needed to cover all possible bases. For that, he utilized local FBI resources. It was a decision Boone was quick to criticize as soon as he’d picked them up at Ashley’s apartment.
Dangerous Minds: A Cyrus Cooper Thriller: Book One Page 22