by Vanessa Kier
“This boy is a trespasser,” Kaufmann told her. “We found him living like an animal in the woods. Why shouldn’t we test our poisons on him? Think of all the knowledge we can gain.”
“Leave him alone and I’ll help you.” Defeat left a sour taste in her mouth. The boy’s eyes flared briefly with hope, then settled into a watchful wariness.
Kaufmann gave a tight, satisfied smile. “You agree to share your knowledge of Dr. Nevsky’s formula, and the work you did with Rafe Andros, to help me strengthen the mind control of my subjects?”
Gabby nodded. “Yes.”
“If you fail, if any changes you make do not deliver results, the boy will be given the exact same dosages of poison that you received.”
Gabby’s stomach turned over, knowing she was truly trapped. There was no way she could allow that boy to suffer. “I understand.”
“Good.” Kaufmann waved at the guard. “Take the boy away.”
“No,” Gabby protested. “I want him with me, where I can watch over him. Because if you go back on your word and hurt him, then I won’t give you what you need.”
Kaufmann’s mouth flattened into a cruel line.
Gabby notched her chin up and met his eyes with all the determination she could muster.
“Very well,” Kaufmann said with quiet menace. “Cygan, call some of your men to escort Dr. Montague to Lab 1. You will accompany them with the boy.”
Kaufmann stepped closer to Gabby. “You will begin work now,” he said. “I want results by the end of tomorrow or first the boy, then you, will suffer far beyond what you’ve already experienced.”
He turned and stalked from the cell, followed by the female scientist.
Gabby let out the breath she’d been holding, but otherwise kept her relief from showing. One day. If she could stall that long, maybe a miracle would happen and she’d find some way to escape.
The guards freed Gabby from the chains, then handcuffed her and shoved her after Kaufmann. Unable to stop herself, she peered into the other cells as she stumbled down the corridor. The weak illumination from the walkway lights allowed her to see the men chained to the rough stone walls. They were naked. Many had oozing burns and bleeding cuts crisscrossing their bodies.
Some of the men appeared to be unconscious, or asleep. Others writhed in pain. As Gabby and her guards walked past one cell, the man lunged forward against his chains. Face contorted in rage, he snarled and snapped at the passing group.
Even though there was no way he could reach her, Gabby sidestepped. The guard to her right laughed and shoved her closer to the cell. The other guard grunted something uncomplimentary, grabbed Gabby’s arm, and pulled her toward the end of the corridor.
Keeping her eyes straight ahead, Gabby didn’t take a deep breath again until the door to the cellblock closed behind her. God. Her heart ached. No wonder Rafe had been such a vicious beast when they’d brought him in.
And she understood so much better why Rafe had insisted she see him as the strong man he’d been before his captivity, not the battered, maddened prisoner.
“If you fail me,” Kaufmann said conversationally from up ahead, “after we’ve tortured the boy, we’ll bring him into our program.”
Gabby glanced over her shoulder. The boy’s terrified gaze was fixed on Kaufmann. Gabby slowed her pace until he caught up with her. “Don’t worry,” she whispered. “I won’t let him hurt you.”
The boy was so scared, she wasn’t certain he believed her. “I’m Gabby,” she offered, hoping to show him she wasn’t a threat. “What’s your name?”
“W-William,” he stammered.
“Remember, Dr. Montague,” Kaufmann called back to her. “If you fail me, I will turn you over to my subjects. Who knows what they’ll do to you before you die.”
Gabby suppressed a shudder, not wanting her terror to make William more afraid.
No matter what happened, she had to keep the boy safe. If that meant going along with Kaufmann, she’d give him what he wanted.
For now.
Chapter 26
“I don’t have a photographic memory!” Gabby snapped at Kaufmann three hours later. The stimulant from the energy drink they’d forced her to down had long since faded, leaving her dizzy with pain and fatigue.
Kaufmann only added to her anxiety by checking in with her every hour. “I’m doing the best I can. It took me weeks to figure out how to counteract what you’d done to Rafe, and that was with Nevsky’s data to work with,” she told him. “I didn’t memorize his notes, and even if I had, you’ve changed your formula since you used it on Rafe.”
Kaufmann’s eyes narrowed. Gabby knew she was pushing her luck by talking that way, but dammit, his expectations were unreasonable. Even if she’d been on board with his goal she would need more time than he’d given her and access to her research back at the SSU.
Why he thought it possible to coerce her into producing the results he needed was beyond her. She was beginning to think the man was slightly crazy. The changes she’d noticed in this version of his formula didn’t make sense. It contained fewer components that opened the mind to exterior control, yet he claimed that better mind control was his primary goal.
She glanced to the other side of the room where William was chained like a wild animal. The boy had confessed that he’d run away over a week ago during a family camping trip in the nearby state forest. He’d quickly gotten lost and had been trying to find his way home when Kaufmann’s men caught him. A little while ago the poor thing had dozed off, but he’d jerked awake when Kaufmann entered and now huddled fearfully in the corner.
“If you can’t remember the formulas you need,” Kaufmann said, “then I’ll bring in the hypno—”
An alarm blared and the two-way radio carried by the guard at the door squawked. The man engaged the speaker and listened to what was being said, his expression growing grimmer by the second. When he was done, he turned to Kaufmann. “Sir, there’s been a breach of security.”
Gabby’s heart soared. Rafe!
“Details,” Kaufmann demanded.
“One of the exterior guards was found dead, and the security system has been disabled.” The guard drew his gun and aimed it at Gabby.
Kaufmann dragged a spare lab coat off the rack by the door, laid it on the floor, then swept Gabby’s notes into the center. “Tie it up in a bundle,” he ordered.
She opened her mouth to refuse, but then Kaufmann shifted, letting her see the gun he had aimed at William. Meeting the boy’s terrified brown eyes with a nod of encouragement, Gabby slipped the capped syringe in her hand into her coat pocket, then knelt down. She took her time tying the coat into a manageable pack.
Kaufmann probably had an escape route, but if Gabby had anything to say about it, she and William would make their own escape. And she was going to take these notes with her.
“Time to go,” Kaufmann said.
“Corridor is clear,” the guard announced.
“Good.” Kaufmann motioned Gabby to her feet.
She shook her head and reached out toward William. “Unchain him.”
Kaufmann grabbed her arm and shoved her toward the door. “We don’t need him. Move.”
“No!” She wasn’t leaving this defenseless child to huddle terrified and alone until rescuers arrived. She planted her feet and Kaufmann ran into her.
“Fool,” he hissed. “Do you think I’ll delay our escape because you want the boy with us?” Kaufmann’s gun hand moved too quickly for Gabby to stop him. He fired toward the corner.
William’s body went stiff as the shot entered his chest. The guard put a second bullet in the boy’s head and William slumped forward. Gabby screamed and turned on Kaufmann, hand raised to strike.
Kaufmann shoved the hot barrel of his gun under her chin and Gabby froze. The pain of her skin burning had the odd effect of calming her down. William was dead. She couldn’t help him. Her job was to get out of here alive.
Her arm fell to her side. Kaufmann star
ed into her eyes. What she saw there terrified her. Mad resolve. Cold calculation. No remorse for having taken a child’s life.
“Cuff her,” Kaufmann ordered.
The security guard tightened a pair of flexicuffs around her wrists.
Then Kaufmann grabbed her throat and squeezed until her vision dissolved and her consciousness shattered.
Rafe stepped over another inert body, making his way farther into Kaufmann’s compound. Once they’d breached the outer security, they’d tossed canisters of fast-acting, quick-dissipating knockout gas into the building. Gas that had been specially formulated to knock out Kaufmann’s subjects.
The gas had worked like a charm. While Chin’s team secured the unconscious men and guarded against further attacks from the rear, the other teams headed deeper into the compound, searching for Gabby and Kaufmann.
For Rafe, it meant walking back into the scene of his worst nightmares. As he moved through familiar corridors, he heard echoes of the past. Exerting all his newfound self-control, he kept his face impassive while inside he trembled in fear. Just around this corner was the cell where he’d been held. His pace slowed. His breathing turned ragged and his heart tried to beat a retreat through his spine.
Fuck. He could do this. He had to do this. What if Kaufmann had Gabby down here?
“Rafe? You okay, bro?” Niko asked over the microphone. His team was on the other side of the building. Rafe didn’t know if there was another cellblock over there, but he hoped not. He didn’t want his brother seeing the conditions Rafe had endured.
“Yeah. I’m good,” Rafe said. His team didn’t need to know he was terrified of facing his old cell. He’d push through the fear. Get the job done. All that mattered was rescuing Gabby as quickly as possible.
“Let’s go,” he said. Taking a deep breath, he stepped around the corner and into hell.
Gabby came awake to the disorienting sensation of falling. Her head banged against something hard and her eyes flew open. She was upside down, arms dangling overhead as she hung over the shoulder of one of Kaufmann’s guards. The man’s powerful arm pinned her thighs to his chest and his shoulder dug painfully into her belly. With each running step he took she bounced against his back, which rattled her teeth and jostled her head. Her vision whirled and for a moment she thought she was either going to pass out or throw up.
She coughed, trying to draw air into her starved lungs, and found her throat tight and painful from where Kaufmann had squeezed. Hoping to see where they were, she lifted her head. But the corridor was dark, illuminated only by a thin strip of emergency lights at baseboard level.
Gabby caught snatches of conversation between the guard carrying her and Kaufmann. Enough to understand that Kaufmann and his key scientists were heading toward an escape tunnel where a helicopter waited to take them all to safety.
Gabby knew her chances of being rescued were next to none if she let Kaufmann take her into the tunnel. But all the wriggling in the world didn’t break the guard’s hold on her legs. She tried pinching him, then balling her bound hands into fists and punching him in the kidneys, but it was like hitting a wall. He didn’t so much as flinch and all she got were sore hands.
She tried screaming, but her damaged throat barely managed a croak.
Okay, so if she couldn’t force him into dropping her, then maybe she could grab a weapon. She raised her bound arms and skimmed her hands over his sides, not close enough to touch, but close enough to feel any weapon. She thought she remembered a holster at his belt. If she could just find it…
Well, hell. Her fingers met an empty leather holster. A quick search didn’t locate any other available weapon. She closed her eyes to think, then realized that the hard object jabbing into her stomach wasn’t part of her captor’s shoulder holster, but the syringe she’d put in her coat pocket.
Her eyes flew open. Ah-ha!
She tightened her back muscles and lifted her torso off his back mere inches, just enough to allow her to slowly work her fingers through the folds of her coat. She had to rest several times, letting her body sag against his while her aching back muscles protested the strain.
Lifting herself one more time, she inched her fingers forward until she met plastic. She slid the syringe out of the pocket and held tightly to it while she let her torso go limp and her hands dangle again. When she’d recovered some strength, she flicked the cap off.
She had no idea what effect the contents of the syringe would have on a man, since the drug was one of Kaufmann’s creations and had always been mixed with two other drugs before being administered. Since it was the only weapon she had, she had to hope it would disable the guard long enough to let her break free and run.
While she waited for the right moment for her to strike, she grabbed hold of the guard’s belt with her other hand, steadied herself so that her head and torso didn’t bounce so much, and settled in for the ride.
Fuck.
All Rafe’s resolve to stay strong crumbled when he stepped through the door into the main cellblock. The chill, the damp, the scent of desperation and fear hit him with the strength of a knockout punch, nearly sending him to his knees.
He grabbed the doorframe for balance. He…his…
He shook his head. Christ, he didn’t want to think about it. Didn’t want to walk down to the fifth cell on the right and see if his former cell now contained another prisoner.
“Sir, are you all right?” Jerome MacTavish asked quietly.
Rafe nodded and pushed away from the doorframe. “Yeah, I…uh—”
“That’s okay. I understand. You were held prisoner here, weren’t you? Got to be hard to come back.”
“Yeah,” Rafe muttered. “You’ve no idea.” He wasn’t that man any more. He’d survived. He was free. But the men inside the cells weren’t.
He forced himself to move forward. To peer into every cell, searching for Gabby. Some of the men noticed him and snarled, straining against their chains. Others hung limply with heads down. A few men stared straight ahead but without registering the presence of Rafe’s team, too locked within their own hell.
Memories swamped Rafe. The shame of being chained to the wall. The fear of knowing he was completely helpless, with no chance of rescue.
In the beginning, the cold and damp ate away at a man’s resistance. Then the drugs kicked in, numbing the system so that nothing caused discomfort and only near-crippling injuries caused even the faintest pain.
Rafe’s hands trembled. Each step felt like he was slogging through tar. But he knew that if he stopped, he’d be lost. There was only a thin barrier holding back his rage. He had to stay focused on the job or he’d end up tearing this place apart with his bare hands.
As it was, each cell he passed, each prisoner he left behind, weighed him down. But he couldn’t act. Not yet.
These men could not be released from their cells while conscious. No matter how disconnected some of the men appeared, they’d all been programmed to attack strangers. Several agonizing minutes later, Rafe’s team finished canvassing all four corridors. With a nod, Rafe sent Andersen and MacTavish back to the main entrance into the cellblock to detonate more tranquilizer canisters. That would keep the prisoners unconscious for several hours, denying their aid to Kaufmann’s team. And allowing Chin’s team to come through and secure the men for transport back to the SSU.
But there was still no sign of Gabby, and Rafe was getting worried.
“Niko, any sign of her?” Rafe asked.
“Negative. We’ve just got one more lab to clear. Ah, shit. Hold on.”
Andersen and MacTavish returned, signaling that the canisters had detonated. Rafe waved his teammates forward and followed at a slow jog.
“Rafe?” Niko’s voice came back over the comm link.
“What happened?”
“We found the body of a young boy chained in the corner of the lab. He can’t be more than ten. Looks like he’d been living in the woods or something. He’s filthy and undernouris
hed. Christ. Someone fucking shot him in the chest.” Even over the link Rafe could hear the anger in his brother’s voice.
Rafe swore in Greek.
“You got that right,” Niko said. “Listen, Kai’s team is here. I’ve got to move on to the next wing. Later.”
The comm clicked, then Rafe heard Kai’s broken curse.
“Kai. You okay?”
“Yeah.” Kai’s voice cracked. “Ah, sorry. Wasn’t expecting a child.”
“I hear you.” Rafe rubbed the back of his neck. Kai had his own disturbing memories of captivity, having spent time chained first in an Indonesian warlord’s prison, then in the dungeon of Mexican crime lord Jaime Alvarez. But like Rafe, Kai had been an adult during his imprisonment. The idea that Kaufmann would treat a child that way turned Rafe’s stomach.
“Any sign of Gabby?” Rafe asked, steering the topic back on less painful ground.
Kai cleared his throat. “The lab shows recent signs of use, although there aren’t any notes, but…hmm…”
“Kai?”
“Sorry. Had to check the microscope. Looks like Gabby was here. There’s a slide that has a piece of tape in her handwriting.”
Relief crashed through Rafe. He kicked up his pace. If Gabby had been able to write, she couldn’t have been hurt too badly. Now all he had to do was find her.
Gabby didn’t know how long the guard ran with her over his shoulder, but eventually she felt him slowing down. Good. Maybe he was tiring. She wriggled and kicked her legs, but he hadn’t weakened enough to let her slip free.
Not much later, the guard stopped.
“Do you have your pass card?” Kaufmann demanded.
“Yeah…I mean, yes, sir!” The guard shifted his hold on Gabby and started to lower her down in front of him. “Just let me put the girl…”
Gabby formed a two-handed fist around the base of the syringe, arched her back and swung her fist over her left shoulder. When she felt the needle sink into flesh she jammed her thumb on the plunger.
“Aagh!” The guard instinctively brought his hands up to yank at the syringe, letting go of Gabby. A second later, he jerked and pitched forward. Gabby twisted and pushed back against his shoulder as he fell, ending up sprawled along his back and legs. The man didn’t move, even when her knee dug into his hamstring as she scrambled away.