After a few moments, the man told her to stop. Dropping to one knee, he swiped aside a layer of dirt and leaves to reveal a metal door, which he opened.
Then he stood and grabbed her arm, pulling her over to the edge. Penelope stared down into what seemed like an abyss. “What is this place?”
He gestured with his gun. “Down the steps, or I’ll throw you down them myself.”
He gave her a shove, and Penelope gasped as she tottered on the edge before she finally regained her balance. Then slowly she started down the steps. At the bottom, she glanced around, but it was too dark to see anything beyond the stairs.
A terror like nothing she’d ever experienced seized her. “You can’t leave me in here,” she cried. “Please…”
“There’s a light switch to your right,” he said. “At least you won’t have to die in the dark.”
Die? She was going to die?
Penelope rushed back up the stairs, but it was too late. He slammed the door shut, and when she threw her shoulder against it, the metal didn’t so much as budge. She kept trying until she was exhausted and out of breath, and then feeling her way back down the stairs, she groped along the wall for the light switch.
The first thing she saw in the flare of the harsh yellow light was a body lying facedown on the concrete floor. Penelope screamed, and then, when the body moved, she screamed again.
The man groaned, and summoning her courage, Penelope dropped to the floor beside him. Rolling him over, she cried out again when she saw who he was. “Simon! Oh, my God. Simon?”
She patted his cheeks until his eyes fluttered open. He was still dazed, and she let him lie quietly for a few moments until he slowly became oriented. Then he said in confusion, “Penelope. What…happened…?”
She closed her eyes briefly as she squeezed his hand. “Oh, thank God…” Then she saw the blood on his hand where he’d lifted it to the back of his head, and her stomach lurched. “You’re hurt. We have to get you out of here.”
He tried to sit up, but groaned in pain and fell back against the floor. “Where is ‘here’?”
“I don’t know.” Penelope scanned the tiny cell-like enclosure. “We’re underground, but it’s too small to be the basement.” For his sake, she tried to fight off the panic that threatened to engulf her. “Simon, we had it all wrong. Avery isn’t involved. It’s Jane. Jane Baker.”
He struggled again to sit up. Penelope put one arm around his waist to help support him.
“Did you hear what I said? Jane Baker is behind this. She pulled a gun on me, and a man she called Dirk brought me here.”
Simon was on his knees now and when he didn’t respond, Penelope knelt in front of him and put a hand to his cheek. “Simon?”
“I heard you, Penelope.”
“Then why—” She stopped short when she saw the look in his eyes. “Oh, my God, you knew about Jane all along, didn’t you?”
He put a tentative hand to the back of his head to check the bleeding. Wincing, he said, “We suspected. The first thing we did was run a background check on everyone associated with the museum. Jane Baker had some pretty serious flags on her records.”
“What kind of flags?”
“For one thing, she’s traveled extensively over the past few years. Buenos Aires, Paris, Istanbul. And she’s been known to associate with some pretty unsavory characters.”
Penelope could hardly imagine that. The Jane she knew had been almost like a mother figure to her. At the very least, she’d been a close friend and confidante. She’d offered Penelope a ready shoulder and a willing ear time and again after Simon’s accident, and now to think that she’d had an ulterior motive for her kindness…
“Back in the eighties, her husband worked for an oil company with leases all over South America,” Simon was saying. “He was taken hostage by a rebel faction in Peru in 1989. They wanted to broker a prisoner exchange, and when our government refused to negotiate, Baker was executed. Instead of blaming the men who carried out the execution, Jane lashed out at the government. Her outspoken rebukes garnered a fair amount of interest from the press and from certain factions both here and abroad. We believe that’s when one or more of those factions made contact with her, and she began to dabble in subversive activities.”
“She’s doing this for revenge?” Penelope asked incredulously. “She would willingly associate with the kind of people who killed her husband in order to avenge his death? That doesn’t make sense, Simon.”
“It makes sense to her. Grief can sometimes twist logic in a peculiar way. And don’t forget about the money. The people she works for are undoubtedly paying her a fortune, and she’s become accustomed to a pretty lavish lifestyle.”
Penelope shook her head. “I still can’t believe it. I thought she was my friend. I confided in her…” Her gaze lifted to Simon’s. “Is there anyone left I can trust?”
He cupped her face with his hands. “You can trust me,” he said fiercely. “I know it may not seem like it now, but you can. I’d lay down my life for you.”
The intensity in his voice made her shiver. Penelope wanted more than anything to believe him. But after everything that had happened, trust was something she couldn’t readily give him. “I wish I didn’t love you,” she whispered.
He winced, as if her words were like a dagger through her heart. “Let’s just concentrate on finding a way out of here right now. We’ll deal with the rest later.”
Penelope nodded and helped him to his feet. He had a quick look around, but there wasn’t much to see. The place was empty. Nothing but concrete floors and walls and a single lightbulb suspended from a concrete ceiling. “I think this must be an old bomb shelter.”
“Why would a museum have a bomb shelter?”
“A lot of public places had them built during the Second World War,” he said. “It’s hard to imagine now, I guess, but there was a very real fear back then of a German invasion. Not to mention saboteurs. Then during the Cold War, some of the shelters were refitted with lead linings, in case of a nuclear explosion.”
“A lead lining?” Penelope’s heart thudded in alarm. “Do you think this is where they plan to hide the cesium?”
“It’s possible—” Simon broke off as he spun toward the stairs. “Did you hear that?”
Penelope shook her head. She hadn’t heard anything.
He put a fingertip to his lips as he started toward the stairs. Putting a foot on the bottom step, he motioned for her to get behind him.
The door opened a crack, and a woman’s voice said softly, “Hello? Is anyone down there?”
Penelope expected Simon to rush her, but instead, he collapsed against the wall and let out a breath of relief as the woman came down the stairs toward them.
Penelope stared at her in disbelief.
“About time you got here,” Simon grumbled.
Helen shrugged. “Better late than never.”
Chapter Twenty
“What is going on here?” Penelope demanded. She felt as if she’d suddenly been transported to some strange new dimension. A dimension where she was the dumb sister and Helen was the bright one. “Helen, why do you have a gun? Why are you and Simon acting as if the two of you are best friends when you barely know each other?”
Helen glanced at Simon. “Do you want me to tell her or shall I?”
Simon couldn’t quite meet Penelope’s eyes and for good reason. Here was yet another deception.
Penelope felt like bursting into tears. “Someone had better tell me,” she warned.
“Simon and I work together,” Helen said.
“Work together?” Penelope repeated incredulously. She turned to Simon. “Is that true?”
He shrugged. “Not exactly. Your sister is my superior.”
Penelope’s mouth dropped. Helen? The perennial beauty queen was a federal agent?
“I hate to pull rank,” she said, “but we’ve got to get moving.” She turned and raced back up the steps. “Hurry up!”
<
br /> Simon all but dragged Penelope up the steps, and just as they emerged into the darkness, a bullet ricocheted off the metal door. Simon pushed Penelope to the ground and shielded her with his body. Helen had also hit the dirt. “It came from over there,” she said. “If he’s on the viewing platform with night vision, we’re sitting ducks in here.”
“We’ll split up,” Simon said. “Give him more than one target to worry about.”
Helen tossed him her gun, then pulled another from her purse. “I’ll give you cover. Just get Penelope out of here.”
This couldn’t be real, Penelope kept telling herself as she and Simon crawled beneath the hedges, keeping to the deepest part of the shadow. She had not just been shot at. Simon wasn’t out of his coma. Her sister wasn’t a federal agent who suddenly seemed every bit as capable as a female James Bond.
Penelope had been crawling behind Simon for several minutes when he suddenly stopped, turned back and put a finger to his lips for silence. She heard it then. The unmistakable sound of labored breathing. Someone was standing on the other side of the hedge, mere inches away.
Penelope got Simon’s attention and mouthed, “Helen?”
He shook his head. Motioning for her to remain where she was, he began to crawl toward an opening in the hedge. When he’d disappeared through the passage, Penelope lifted a hand to her mouth, trying to control her own ragged breathing.
She heard a soft thud and the sound of a body hitting the dirt. Then the leaves over her head exploded as a bullet plowed its way through the hedge, and she clapped both hands to her mouth to keep from screaming.
She wanted to call out Simon’s name to assure herself he hadn’t been hit, but if he was down and she gave her position away…
There was nothing she could do but wait it out. Several minutes went by. It seemed like an eternity during which time Penelope imagined all sorts of dire scenarios. Simon could be bleeding to death, just inches away from her. How would she be able to live with herself if she didn’t try to help him?
If Simon could come back, he would have, she reasoned. Something was wrong. He wouldn’t just leave her here like this…would he? Would he willingly sacrifice her for the sake of the mission?
“There’s more at stake here than just you and me.”
As the ominous warning came back to her now, Penelope began to crawl on her hands and knees toward the next opening.
As she moved into the adjoining pathway, she could see something in the shadows ahead of her. A dark form that looked like a body…
Simon! Her first instinct was to get up and run to him, but some instinct she didn’t even know she had warned her to keep low. She didn’t want to make herself a target.
When she reached the body, she rolled him over. It wasn’t Simon. Oh, dear God. She almost sobbed in relief. Penelope could barely make out his face in the darkness, but she knew he was the man Jane had called Dirk.
She had blood all over hands where she had touched him, and Penelope scrambled away from him. Still trying to keep to the shadows, she rose shakily to her feet. Which way out of the maze?
Staring up at the building, she tried to pinpoint her office window. That would at least help her get her bearings.
She started in the direction she thought would lead her out of the maze, but after only a moment or two, she became less and less certain. Maybe it would be better to go back and wait for Simon.
But retracing her steps wasn’t that easy, either. The openings in the maze all looked the same.
She headed into another passage and ran smack into a hard body.
“Simon?” she whispered.
Before she could get a look at his face, the man grabbed her and clapped a hand over her mouth. He thrust a gun barrel to her temple and said savagely in her ear, “Don’t scream, you hear me? Don’t make a sound or I’ll put a bullet in your head.”
That voice…
The blood in Penelope’s veins turned to ice.
“I’m getting out of here, understand? You’re going to help me.”
Penelope nodded.
Tentatively, he lowered his hand from her mouth and grabbed her around the neck. The gun still at her temple, Doug Fairchild said hoarsely, “Which way?”
Penelope had no idea, but she pointed in the direction she’d been headed. Back to where Simon had left her and where he would hopefully find her again.
But suddenly it was Helen who stood in front of them. Weapon raised, she called out Doug’s name. “Let her go!”
He tightened his arm around Penelope’s neck. “I’ll shoot her, Helen. I swear to God. I’ve got nothing to lose now.”
Helen remained where she was until Doug cocked the trigger. “You really want your own sister’s blood on your hands?”
“All right, you win.” Helen lowered her weapon and tossed it to the dirt. “I’ll do whatever you say. Just don’t hurt her.”
“That’s up to you,” he said desperately. “You help me get out of here, and she lives.”
“Let her go, and I’ll help you,” Helen bargained. “You smuggled Nicin into the country, Doug. You used it in your own practice. You’re looking at ten years just for that. Add espionage and terrorism to the mix, and you’ll never see the light of day.”
His grip tightened around Penelope’s neck. “I wasn’t a part of that! I didn’t know anything about it, I swear! All I wanted was the Nicin.”
“They used you, Doug. Used your contacts and your money. You’re in this thing up to your neck, but I can help you. If you cooperate, I’ll see that you get a lesser sentence. I may even be able to fix it so that you walk.”
“That’s impossible! Your family doesn’t have that kind of pull.”
Helen spread her hand in supplication. “My family doesn’t, but I do. I’m a federal agent. We’ve been after Jane and her cohorts for a long time. You tell us what you know about their operation, and I’ll make sure you get special treatment.”
“I don’t believe you. You’re the same lying bitch you’ve always been.” But he lowered the weapon from Penelope’s temple, and for a moment, she thought that Helen had gotten through to him. Then he lifted the gun again, pointed it at Helen, and this time he fired.
“Bitch,” he muttered again as she crumpled to the earth.
Penelope screamed when she saw her sister hit the ground, and she fought against Doug’s hold. She kicked his shin, elbowed him in the ribs. She was like a tiger that had suddenly become uncaged. Her ferocity caught him completely by surprise, and his grip momentarily loosened.
Penelope flung herself away from him, and as she hit the dirt, she instinctively rolled toward Helen’s gun.
Her hand closed over the weapon, but she was too late. She stared up into the barrel of Doug’s gun. She could almost see his finger squeezing the trigger….
And then he stiffened. The gun fell from his hand, and his eyes rolled back in his head as he pitched forward.
It wasn’t until he hit the ground that she saw the knife protruding from his back. And then she saw Simon slowly walking toward her.
Chapter Twenty-One
Penelope went to see Helen in the hospital the next day. “How are you feeling?” she said, placing the flowers she’d brought on the nightstand.
Helen shrugged. “Not too bad. The bullet missed the bone,” she said, glancing down at her bandaged arm. “The doctor says I’ll be out of here in a couple of days.”
“That’s a relief.” Penelope sat on the edge of the bed. “I still can’t believe you’re a federal agent. I’ve always thought of you as—”
“Empty-headed? Self-absorbed?” Helen smiled. “It’s okay. That’s what I wanted you to think. That’s what I wanted everyone to think.”
“How long have you been doing this?” Penelope finally asked.
Helen shrugged. “A long time. I was recruited right out of college.”
“That long?” Penelope shook her head. “I never suspected a thing. What about Mom and Dad?”
“They don’t know anything about this, and it has to stay that way, Penelope. You can’t tell anyone. You know that, right?”
“I won’t, but…Helen, what about Grayson?”
“What about him?”
“Does he know? Is that why the two of you have been fighting lately?”
Helen closed her eyes, as if suddenly exhausted. “Yes and yes. He knows and he wants me to quit.”
“Can you blame him?” Penelope said harshly. “You could have been killed last night.”
“But I wasn’t. And we’ve shut down at least one route that was being used to smuggle cesium into the country. That’s a pretty big deal, Penelope.”
“I know, but…”
“Besides, Grayson is in the game, too.”
“The game?” Was that what she considered this? “What do you mean?”
“Grayson is DEA. He’s been undercover for years, and that’s another reason he’s not too pleased with me right now. Our operation threatened his.”
“And just what is his operation?” Penelope asked, not certain how many more revelations she could take. How could she have been so clueless about her own family?
“Alex Salizar is the leader of a drug ring in Manzanillo that rivals the infamous Juarez cartel. It took Grayson years to infiltrate Alex’s inner circle, and now his cover is threatened.”
“Alex Salizar is a drug smuggler?” Penelope asked in shock. “Why didn’t you warn me? Why on earth did you encourage me to stay at his villa?”
“Because Grayson already had someone in place at the villa who could watch your back.”
“Elena?”
Helen nodded. “Considering what we suspected about Jane, I thought you’d be safer there than here.”
Penelope rubbed her forehead. “What about Manuel Vargas?”
“A harmless pawn in Jane’s plan.”
“And Tonio?”
“He must have stumbled across something that made him suspicious. That’s why he tried to pull the plug on the shipment. By the time we got to him, he was too spooked to listen to reason. He refused our protection and…” She shrugged. “You know the rest.”
Unauthorised Passion/Intimate Knowledge Page 35