Jack didn’t like the sound of that, although Boardman’s tone and body language didn’t come across to Jack as being accusatory.
“We’re particularly interested,” Sansone said, leaning forward toward Jack, “in anything odd or unusual that might have been found in the evidence that was sent back from Crane’s murder scene in Nebraska. Our working hypothesis right now is that he discovered something that the EDS didn’t want us to find, and they were desperate enough to try and destroy the lab to keep us from learning what it was.”
“We also suspect that Crane may have had a secret cache of computer data somewhere,” Boardman said. “We’re sure he didn’t...wouldn’t have kept it at his home.” Jack caught Sansone glancing at the big agent, making an almost imperceptible shake of her head.
I’d bet the last bottle of beer in the world that these fuckers are the ones who trashed his place, he thought with a sudden chill. Jesus.
Boardman either didn’t see her or ignored her warning, as he demanded, “Did he have any special place he might have stored something unusual? Even something he might have given to you for safekeeping?”
The hair on the back of Jack’s neck sprang to attention as internal alarm bells started going off, and he fought for control of his expression as a mental image of the photo frame Sheldon had given him suddenly popped into his mind. “It’s got a smart card that can store thousands of pics, bro,” Sheldon had told him while demonstrating it. “And I’ve even got it connected to your home network so I can send you updates on my latest adventures remotely...”
That’s where Sheldon hid whatever data he was trying to protect, Jack realized. Suddenly, he wasn’t so sure it would be a good idea to tell Sansone and the others everything he had seen and done that night. Thinking about the photo frame and the mysterious corn, still wrapped in the latex glove in his jacket pocket, he forced himself to look down at his hands, rather than glance back toward the kitchen.
“Look, guys,” he said, stifling a faked yawn. “Let me just start at the beginning, from when I arrived at the lab until I got back home a while ago. I’m beat, and I don’t want to miss any details that might be useful to you.”
“I think that’s an excellent idea, Jack,” Sansone, suddenly all warmth and smiles, said. She was giving him the creeps, but he forced a tired smile.
“First,” he said, “do you mind if I get some coffee? I’ve been running on adrenaline for hours, and I need a serious caffeine injection.” He glanced around at the others. “Would any of you like some?”
“No thank you,” Sansone answered for all of them. “But please feel free.”
As Jack stood up, Castro, who was sitting closest to him, quickly got to his feet and said, “Dawson, would you mind handing over your weapons first? You can keep your badge, but we were told to collect the guns until the investigation is over.” He shrugged apologetically. “No offense, but that’s what we were told to do.”
Yeah, right, Jack thought, hesitating as he looked from Castro to Sansone, then to Boardman. He could tell that all three were suddenly extremely tense.
Knowing that his shotgun was just around the corner in the kitchen, Jack decided to play it cool for now. “Sure,” he told Castro, “no problem.” Moving slowly, he unholstered his Glock 22 and held it by the barrel toward Castro, who took it. Then Jack leaned down and unstrapped his backup weapon, a compact Glock 27, from his leg and handed that over. “That’s it,” he told them, pulling up his other pant leg so they could see there weren’t any other weapons. He had already taken off his jacket, and his shirt and pants wouldn’t hide anything other than a small knife.
“Thank you, Jack,” Sansone said, nodding as Castro pocketed the weapons and all three agents visibly relaxed. “Now, why don’t you get your coffee, then we can get to work.”
“Sure thing,” Jack said casually as he turned and walked into the kitchen. Fortunately, he was blocked from their view by the short wall on the side of the breakfast bar as he entered the kitchen and spotted Alexander.
Jack came to an abrupt halt, his spine tingling as Naomi Perrault’s words echoed in his brain: They hate cats. Watch Alexander. Trust his instincts. Jack hadn’t thought about it earlier, but the big cat always mingled with guests, begging for attention and a good scratch behind the ears or under the chin. But he had disappeared after Jack had shooed him away from the door before opening it to let in Sansone and the others, and he hadn’t returned.
Now, Alexander was standing under the kitchen table, his back arched and the hair of his long black coat sticking out, making him look twice his already impressive size. Jack could see the gleam of his extended claws, and Alexander was quivering with what Jack assumed to be fear. The cat’s eyes darted once to meet Jack’s shocked gaze before again fixing on the entrance to the kitchen and the suspicious guests in the living room beyond. His ears were laid back, and Jack could hear a low growl that he had never heard Alexander make before. It was a sound that Jack would have expected from a vicious dog, and a big one at that. He was surprised that he hadn’t heard the cat all the way out in the living room.
“Is there a problem?” Sansone’s smooth voice called from behind him, and Jack snapped his head around to see her leaning over the counter, peering in at him through the opening from the living room. Boardman and Castro were behind her, and had their hands poised to draw their weapons.
“No,” Jack said calmly as he moved toward the far end of the counter where the shotgun was propped against the bottom cabinets. “No problem.” He decided to see if Perrault’s information was legit. “I was just wondering about my cat,” he told her, glancing away from the table and toward the pantry, trying to lead her with his gaze, but away from where Alexander really was.
Sansone’s eyes opened wide as she fell for it, looking at the pantry on the far side of the kitchen. “What cat?” she hissed, missing the dark feline form in the shadows under the kitchen table. Out of the corner of his eye, Jack saw Boardman and Castro reach under their jackets for their weapons, compact 9-millimeter Uzi submachine guns.
Shit, was all he had time to think before everything went to hell.
With a feral snarl of rage and fear, Alexander bolted from under the table and leaped straight at Sansone’s face, his claws spread wide and his mouth opened to expose his canines. Caught completely by surprise, she tumbled backward into the living room, making an inhuman screech that turned Jack’s blood to ice as she went down under Alexander’s slashing claws and snapping teeth.
Taking advantage of the distraction, Jack dove the last few feet to where his shotgun was hidden just as Boardman and Castro opened fire, peppering the kitchen with bullets from their Uzis.
“Jesus!” Jack cried as he caught several wood splinters in his shoulder from a near miss before he grabbed the Saiga-12 and rolled to his knees, using the refrigerator for cover. Even partially deafened by the chatter of the Uzis, he could hear Alexander’s ferocious snarls and Sansone’s screeching out in the living room. Fucking cat, he almost sobbed. Don’t get your hairy ass killed!
Castro suddenly poked his head around the corner from the living room, and the house was filled with the booming roar of the 12-gauge shotgun as Jack pulled the trigger. His first shot missed, the nineteen flechettes in the shotgun round tearing a fist-sized hole in the far wall. Castro, cringing, pulled back out of sight.
Hiding behind drywall’s not going to save you, fucker, Jack thought viciously as he fired again, right through the wall where he knew Castro was standing. The agent’s body was sent flying, half a dozen flechettes having penetrated his right shoulder, neck, and head. Having learned the painful lesson in Afghanistan that you kept shooting until you were absolutely sure your target was dead, Jack fired again, the shotgun’s flechettes tearing Castro’s head apart.
One down, he thought grimly. Two to go.
Jack brought the Saiga to his shoulder before quickly peering over the counter and catching sight of Boardman. The big man was pointing his we
apon down at the floor, trying to take aim at the writhing mass of fur, claws, and teeth that was Alexander, still latched onto Sansone’s face. A detached part of Jack’s mind was surprised: there should have been blood everywhere from the mauling the cat must have been giving the woman, but there was none. None at all.
Boardman saw Jack and brought up his Uzi, pulling the trigger before he was on-target and sending a stream of bullets plowing into the wall on the living room side of the counter. Jack pulled the Saiga’s trigger, and Boardman was flung backward, the Uzi spinning out of his grip as he somersaulted over the couch.
So, they are wearing body armor, Jack thought absently as Boardman struggled to his knees, gasping, before Jack finished him off with a second round, the flechettes penetrating the weakened chest armor. Boardman slammed against the front wall of the living room before falling over on his side, dead.
Jack ran quickly into the living room, swapping the half-empty magazine for the fresh one as he went. Alexander fled past him, back into the kitchen, finally having had enough of Sansone. He was limping badly, but otherwise seemed unharmed. Jack brought up the shotgun as he turned the corner into the living room, and was stunned to see Sansone standing right in front of him, her blue eyes blazing with unbridled rage. He was shocked to see that there wasn’t a scratch on her, which was simply impossible. He knew from painful experience – mostly accidental on Alexander’s part – that the cat’s claws, not to mention his teeth, were long and incredibly sharp. Sansone’s face should have been little more than a bloody, lacerated rag.
With her standing less than three feet away, his shotgun leveled at her abdomen, Jack fired. Sansone bent double, as if a massive hammer had hit her in the stomach and sent her flying. She tumbled over one of the armchairs and rolled to a stop against the hearth of the fireplace.
Keeping the gun trained on her, Jack was moving in closer when she began to slowly sit up.
No goddamn way, he thought. He could tell from the patch of skin under her blouse, visible now beneath the shredded FBI jacket, that she wasn’t wearing body armor. And there was still no blood, no sign of injury.
With the weapon’s muzzle aimed dead center between her breasts, he fired again. The impact slammed her body back against the stone hearth.
She slumped forward and lay still.
Jack stood there, shaking from the adrenaline rush, feeling like he was going to vomit. You’ll have time for that later, he told himself. Keeping the Saiga pointed at Sansone’s body, he slowly moved forward, then reached out with a foot to kick her over and get a better look.
He yelped in surprise as she grabbed his ankle with both hands and levered him backward. Firing by reflex, nearly blowing his own foot off, he missed hitting her in the face by inches and instead blasted a chunk of stone out of the fireplace.
Jack screamed as her grip on his ankle tightened so much that he was afraid the bones would snap. Then he found himself flying across the living room. He landed hard on the coffee table, losing the shotgun as his gun hand slammed into the table’s edge. He slid to the floor in a cascade of magazines and photo books as Sansone stood up.
This is impossible, his mind gibbered at him as she moved toward him, the skin of her breasts clearly visible through her tattered FBI jacket and blouse. He looked desperately for the shotgun, but it was on the far side of the coffee table, out of reach. Run, you moron!
Jack scrabbled backward, then turned and ran for the front door just as the living room picture window imploded, sending shards of glass flying through the room. Jack tripped and went down, banging his head against the wall near the door. Stunned, he rolled over in time to see two dark human shapes somersault through the window and roll to their feet, facing Sansone.
One fired a shotgun, blasting her back against the counter, before the other newcomer leaped on top of her and jabbed a stun baton, the tip flickering like lightning, into her gut.
Even as deaf as he was from the gun battle, Jack could hear Sansone’s unearthly screech again, far louder than it had been when Alexander had attacked her. He saw her body go rigid, and the man with the shotgun quickly set it down. Extracting a huge syringe from a plastic box strapped to his leg, he held it over Sansone’s chest while the one with the shock baton continued holding it against her skin, the flickering blue light filling the room with its glow. Then, as if on a cue that Jack couldn’t see, the man holding the syringe suddenly plunged the three inch long hypodermic needle into her chest and pressed down on the syringe’s plunger.
Sansone’s screeching abruptly ceased, and her body lay still.
Jack, shaking like a leaf, slid himself back against the wall into a sitting position. The floor around him was slick with blood. His own, from the splinters in his shoulder and glass cuts in his hands. Jesus, he thought. What the hell?
The front door beside him suddenly opened, and a third intruder entered his home. The black-clad figure, this one clearly a woman from the shape of her body under the tactical combat gear, knelt next to him. Looking at her eyes through the black mask she wore, he saw that one was brown and the other blue.
Naomi Perrault.
He didn’t know what to think. Had she been involved in Sheldon’s and Jerri’s murders, or was she one of the good guys? Or were there any good guys in this mad affair?
“Perrault,” he said, “what the hell is–”
In a smooth motion, she brought up a stun baton, the same type as her compatriot had used on Sansone, and jabbed Jack almost gently in the ribs before he could finish. He cried out involuntarily as every muscle in his body went rigid, completely paralyzing him.
“I’m sorry, Jack,” he heard her say through the ringing in his ears from the gunfire. She took a syringe from a small pouch attached to her combat webbing, then jabbed it into his arm. He barely felt the sting. “This will put you to sleep for a while. We’ve got to get you out of here quickly.” She gave his shoulder a reassuring squeeze. “We’ll talk soon. I promise.”
“Wait!” Jack gasped as his vision began to turn gray. “In the kitchen...my jacket...photo...” Jack struggled to make himself understood, and Perrault leaned closer. “Photo...frame. Important...”
She nodded in understanding before shouting something at one of the others. When she turned back to him, he thought about how exotically beautiful her eyes were as he floated away into darkness.
CHAPTER SEVEN
“Jack, can you hear me?”
Before Jack’s eyes fluttered open, the memories of the fight with Sansone and the other two agents came flooding back to him. A surge of adrenaline shot through his veins, sending his heart into overdrive, his lungs gasping for air as he began to panic.
“You’re okay,” a woman’s soft voice, a voice he vaguely remembered hearing before, reassured him, and he felt a warm hand gently squeeze his arm. “You’re safe. There’s nothing to be afraid of.”
Turning his head – that’s all he could move – Jack saw Naomi Perrault, looking almost exactly as she had in the photograph Richards had sent him, sitting in a chair beside him. Despite what he knew about her, and her likely involvement in Sheldon’s death, the sight of her helped to calm him. He took a deep breath and forced himself to relax.
Behind her were two men. One was a tough-looking Korean who stood in a deceptively relaxed posture, his powerful arms crossed and his dark eyes riveted on Jack. The other was a tall, thin black man with a neatly cropped gray beard that offset the baldness of his head. He looked extremely intelligent and equally displeased as he looked at their captive.
Flexing his hands and feet, Jack found that he was bound to a double-size bed by thick leather straps on his wrists, ankles, and chest. The room was small, maybe ten feet on a side, with the walls painted light beige and the ceiling in a slightly lighter tone. The floor was covered in blue patterned vinyl tile, and a dresser and standalone wardrobe covered in a light wood veneer stood along the wall next to the bed. For a moment, Jack wondered if he was in a hospital, except tha
t there wasn’t any medical equipment in the room, and the bed, other than the straps binding him, appeared to be quite ordinary.
There were some oddities about the room, however. The first was the light hanging overhead: it was an incandescent fixture that was unremarkable, except that it was suspended from the ceiling by a sturdy-looking spring mechanism. The second thing took him a moment to figure out, but he finally realized that the rear wall of the room was curving inward, as if he were inside a huge dome. The final thing that leaped out at him was that the floor and walls of the room were edged with what looked like some sort of rubber, at least six inches thick. They looked like gigantic gaskets, separating the individual elements of the structure. He’d never seen anything like it.
“Where am I?” he rasped, noticing for the first time that his throat was painfully dry. “What the hell’s going on?”
Before Naomi could say anything, something big, black, and furry leaped up onto the bed, right onto Jack’s stomach: Alexander, with his right rear leg wrapped in a bright pink bandage.
“Oof!” Jack exclaimed, the big cat nearly knocking the wind out of him. Despite his predicament, he couldn’t help but be relieved: anyone who would have gone to the trouble of saving Alexander, whom he was sure would have been ready to claw the eyes out of anyone who came near after his fight with Sansone, couldn’t be all bad. “You stupid cat,” Jack said, smiling in spite of everything as Alexander curled up on his chest, already purring. Jack looked up to see Naomi smiling, and he quickly looked away as he felt a surge of warm butterflies in his stomach. Get a grip, you idiot, he chastised himself. Now’s not the time for a bout of infatuation. “Thank you for bringing him,” he mumbled. “He saved my life.” Looking back at Perrault, he added, “Thanks for your warning. I got my shotgun ready like you said, but I was expecting to use it on you.”
“Jack, if you give me your word of honor that you won’t cause any trouble, I’ll have Tan,” she nodded to the bodyguard type behind her, “let you up.”
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