Spider nodded, looking serious for once, and I wondered what they could possibly have worked out. Much as I liked Spider, I thought I’d probably fare a lot better in a fight than he would.
“Go ahead and keep working,” I told him. “I’m just going to walk around a bit and finish cooling down. Can I get some water?”
He smiled. “The kitchen’s just around the corner. Help yourself.”
I went in and ran a tall glass from the tap, then walked slowly up and down the hallway, sipping water and cooling off. I had made several laps and was halfway down the hall when the bathroom door opened and Kane came out, his head muffled in a towel while he dried his hair. Fortunately, he couldn’t see my reaction as I stopped dead in the hallway, my jaw dropping.
Oh. My. God.
He was shirtless, his jeans slung low on his hips. Men twenty years his junior would wish they had that body. The hair sprinkled over his massive chest was starting to show a little gray, but below his luscious six-pack abs, a dark, arrow-straight landing strip disappeared into his waistband, luring my eyes down to a magnificent denim-wrapped package.
With an effort, I retrieved my jaw from the floor and reinserted my eyeballs. By the time he emerged from the towel, I had what I hoped was a casual expression on my face.
“Your turn,” he said, and I nodded, not trusting my voice.
In the bathroom, I stripped rapidly and got into the shower, thanking whatever merciful gods had decreed it would have a massaging shower head. I emerged some time later from the steamy bathroom, feeling much more relaxed.
Chapter 28
The men were waiting when I came out. I hadn’t thought to ask what time Kane had planned to meet Wheeler, and we were a few minutes late when we arrived at Blue Eddy’s. Eddy waved a welcoming hand from behind the bar as we walked in.
As usual, I scanned the room, spotting Mike Connor and another man at a table in the corner. Connor glanced in our direction and offered a friendly smile, which I returned, glad to see he apparently didn’t bear me any ill-will.
Wheeler was already seated at Kane’s usual table, and Kane took the seat beside him, his back to the wall. Spider turned to watch me, his eyes dancing as I perched uneasily in the chair facing Kane. Like Hellhound, I slid the chair slightly to the diagonal in an attempt to see more of the room. It didn’t help much.
Kane leaned across the table. “I’ll watch your back,” he said quietly. I gave him a grateful smile, but remained distracted from the conversation at our table, hyperaware of the rest of the room behind my exposed back.
When the waitress arrived, I ordered my usual Corona and a glass of water. What the hell, if I was going to be chauffeured everywhere for the next few days, I might as well reap the benefits. I’d finished my first beer by the time our food arrived, and along with all the water I’d had earlier, it was time for a trip to the ladies’ room.
Mindful of Kane’s earlier warnings, I stood and said lightly, “I have to go and return some of Eddy’s rental beer. Do I need an escort?”
Kane nodded. “I’ll come with you.”
“Never mind, I’ll go,” Wheeler said. “You just got your steak, and my salad isn’t going to get any colder.”
Kane gave him a grateful nod and dug into his steak while Wheeler and I went down the hallway to the washrooms. Wheeler leaned against the wall beside the door while I went in.
I was washing my hands when two tall women came in, chattering gaily. They moved uncomfortably close to me, and as I sidestepped to get them out of my personal space, a sudden jolt galvanized my body.
My muscles convulsed with the pinned-on-an-electric-fence sensation I remembered from childhood. Every nerve sizzling, I vaguely registered that I’d hit my damn nose again when I fell, but moments later the thought exploded into chaos while my body spasmed out of control.
Unmeasurable time passed, but it was probably only a few seconds later when I distantly heard one of the women at the door, her voice urgent. “Are you with this woman? She fell, and she’s bleeding.”
Through blurred eyes, I saw Wheeler’s feet rush into the bathroom. Seconds later, his body crumpled to the floor beside me. A muzzy voice in my head sang, “Oh shit oh shit oh shit” as the two women lifted me up, one arm across each of their shoulders. My limp legs dragged while they lugged me briskly out of the ladies’ room, down the hall, and out the back door.
My heart pounded furiously, pumping adrenaline. Utterly useless. I could neither fight nor flee.
A van waited in the parking lot. Its side door slid open and the two women dragged me inside, letting me fall to the floor as the door closed. I felt the van accelerate.
It had all happened so fast. Kane wouldn’t even know I was gone yet.
My face was crushed against the floor, my nose clogged with blood, and I tried to control my frantic panting. Breathe. Slow and steady. The rough carpet scraped my cheek and the vibration of the hard floor punished my aching nose.
Just breathe. Clamping down on spiralling panic, I forced my mind to focus on my predicament. I had expected my kidnappers to drive to the highway, but the slow speed and frequent corners made me think they must be staying close to the town limits. I tried to memorize the turns, but my terrified brain refused to cooperate.
After a short drive, the van stopped. The world spun as I was slung over someone’s shoulder, and I caught a glimpse of a building that looked like a warehouse. A male voice grunted, “Christ, she’s heavy!”
A steel door clanged and my captor’s shoulder dug painfully into my stomach while my battered nose banged into his back with each stride. Blood trickled up into my eyes. I blinked furiously, trying to remember the twists and turns of the seemingly endless corridor.
At last he dropped me, my muscles finally cooperating just enough to prevent me from smashing my head. Someone yanked off my waist pouch. Rough hands dragged me into a chair and secured my arms and legs to it with nylon cable ties.
Fighting panic, I stayed limp and let my head loll forward, faking unconsciousness. I knew I wouldn’t be able to break the nylon ties. I could only stall and hope for rescue.
Surely Kane would have noticed I was missing by now. Please, God…
Time passed while I bled and drooled. Pushing down terror, I breathed slowly and evenly through my mouth. Involuntary tears streamed from my eyes, as much from the impacts on my nose as from fear. At least they cleared the blood from my eyes.
Eventually I quit drooling, and I was pretty sure the nosebleed had stopped, too. My face was itchy, my mouth full of the metallic taste of blood.
Using all my self-control I let my head hang, playing dead for as long as possible and willing my pulse to slow. I tried to think of a better expression than ‘playing dead’. I had a feeling these folks weren’t much for the ‘playing’ part.
When a rough grip on my hair yanked my head back, I got a clear view the room for the first time. The man who’d grabbed my hair was dressed in jeans, but the other two men wore women’s clothing. That explained the tall, strong women.
“I know you’re awake,” my captor growled. He aimed a savage slap at my face, and I ducked without thinking. The blow glanced off the top of my head.
Shit. So much for playing dead. I straightened to look him in the eye, holding onto composure with every ounce of my control.
“Now, Ms. Kelly,” my captor said pleasantly, “I understand you have a special talent. Let’s see it. We need you to access the network.”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” I mumbled, thinking frantically.
Network. They had a network connection! Maybe I could go in and broadcast an SOS the way Smith had broadcast his shut-down message. Surely somebody would hear me and come to my rescue.
A violent slap blasted pain through my face, rocking me back in the chair. I slumped forward, gasping around the new dribble of blood from my nose and desperately willing the network’s familiar white void.
Nothing happened. I tried again. Then again.
Un-be-fucking-lievable! It had been all I could do to stay out of the network. Now when I finally wanted, no, needed, to get in, I couldn’t do it.
He wrenched my head back by my hair again. “Let’s try this again. We know you were working with Ramos. We know you have a hacked fob. Access the network. Pretty please.”
“I’m trying! I can’t!”
I tried to roll with the blow when his palm struck my throbbing cheek again, ripping pain through my neck and filling my eyes with involuntary tears.
“You can. We know you can.”
“I can’t!”
I had only a moment to tense my abs before he punched me in the stomach. The blow slammed an involuntary cry out of me and I doubled over the monstrous pain. Approximately an eternity later, I wheezed a single agonizing breath. Then another.
My mind floated up near the ceiling. Poor Spider. I know how you felt.
Dragged upright by my hair again, I slumped in the chair, fighting for breath and blinking away the streaming tears.
“Ms. Kelly,” the man said in the same pleasant, reasonable tones.
I held myself rigidly against the shudders that rocked my throbbing body
“This is becoming tiresome,” he continued. “And frankly, beating a woman seems a little, hmmm... crude. Let’s try a different approach.” From a sheath on his belt, he pulled out a large knife.
Pushing his face close to mine, he bunched up the front of my T-shirt in his fist and ran the flat of the knife blade over my cheek, the point just below my eye. I panted shallowly, my muscles locked in fear. He laughed.
“Ms. Kelly, access the network.”
I clamped my teeth together to keep them from chattering. “I told you, I can’t,” I gritted, terror racing through me.
I flinched at his sudden move, but he didn’t cut my face. Instead, he jerked the front of my T-shirt forward and slashed through it top to bottom in a single motion of the razor-sharp knife. The two halves of my T-shirt fell away to the sides.
“Look at that white skin,” he murmured, tracing my cleavage with his fingertips. “I wonder if it’s sensitive.” He ripped clawed fingers down from my shoulder over the top of my breast, down into the V of the bra.
“I can’t access the network!” I yelled. “I can’t!”
“Isn’t that too bad,” he said sympathetically. He clawed across my chest in the opposite direction, leaving a grid of livid welts. I tried to jerk away, but the ties held me helpless in the chair. The scratches burned like fire.
My stomach squeezed into sick horror at his smile. “Look, Xs and Os,” he said. He gouged an X in the top of the grid, near my shoulder. “X.”
Moving down a square, his nails seared my skin again. “O.”
The last of my control evaporated and I yanked desperately at my bonds, clenching my teeth to hold down the whimpers that tried to escape with every breath.
I recoiled when he leaned down to offer me a feral smile from inches away. “This is fun, but I’m going to get serious very soon. When I’m finished playing Xs and Os, I’m going to find a couple of your more outstanding features.”
His fingers slipped inside my bra, pinching and fondling my nipple. I froze, my breath stopping in my throat.
His smile widened. “And I’m going to cut them off. And after that, I’m going to go looking for other tender pieces to cut off. You’ll find it most unpleasant. Unless you access the network.”
My whisper barely emerged through my trembling lips. “I told you. I c-can’t.”
My mind crawled sluggishly, numbed by dread. How long would they torture me before they finally realized I was useless? Mingled tears and blood dripped from my chin.
“X,” he said.
As he bent over me again, I caught a flash of movement from just beyond the doorway.
Kane. Oh, thank God.
A cry leaked out between my teeth when my tormentor’s nails dug into my skin again.
“O.”
Then Kane was in motion. As he hit the first man, my captor began to turn and straighten. With all my strength, I wrenched forward in the chair, my bruised abs screaming. My forehead cracked into his temple, and he staggered.
Hopelessly off-balance, the chair began to topple, and I jerked at it, trying to force it to fall toward him. I was partly successful. It caught his leg on the way down. He sprawled on the floor, kicking at me as we fell. I did my best to pull my knee out of the way, letting the chair take most of the impact.
I’d only have a minor bruise there. If I lived.
I lay helplessly on my side, watching the fight from the floor. It was short and ugly, nothing like the movies. I couldn’t tell if Kane had a weapon in his hand or not. One man already lay unmoving on the floor. The man I’d hit had lurched to his feet, staggering toward the table.
The second man fell bonelessly and Kane pivoted, his movements fast and smooth. I knew nothing about martial arts, but whatever he was using, he was good at it.
The last man wheeled around, a gun swinging toward Kane. There was a confused jumble of motion and the other man fell. His body hit the floor as if in slow motion, his head bouncing against the concrete with a sound like eggshells breaking. Dead or unconscious before he landed.
Kane knelt by my side. “Aydan,” he grated. He grabbed the knife from the floor and carefully manoeuvred it between my arm and the chair to cut the ties that held me.
I drew a shuddering breath, trying not to sob. Another. Slow and even.
“I’m okay,” I gasped.
He cut the last of my bonds and I rolled slowly onto my hands and knees.
“Can you stand?” he asked urgently.
“Yeah, give me a hand up,” I whispered, trying to hold my voice steady.
His large hand closed around mine, and I crept to my feet, hunched over my bruised stomach. I straightened slowly against the pain, wiping the last of the blood out of my eyes and smearing the trickle away from my mouth and chin. Except for my nose, nothing seemed seriously damaged.
I rolled my aching shoulders and tottered over to the table to collect my waist pouch. Leaning on the table, I took a few long, deep breaths, willing the tremors out of my arms and legs.
In. Out. Ocean waves. Stay in control.
Kane stepped over beside me, glancing at the doorway. “Can you walk yet?”
“Yeah.” I fumbled the pouch on and fastened it around my waist with a pained grunt when the twisting motion pulled my bruises. The dangling sides of my T-shirt interfered.
I reached out a blood-smeared hand. “Give me the knife.”
Kane passed it over, still watching the door, and I made a slash in each side of the T-shirt, leaving two tails of fabric free. I tied them across my boobs, securing the shirt and attempting a bit of modesty at the same time. With my scratched, blood-caked cleavage emphasized by the tied-up T-shirt, the fashion effect was questionable at best. Daisy Duke meets Texas Chainsaw Massacre.
Kane shot me a tense frown. “Leave that. Let’s go.”
I wiped my hands on what was left of my shirt, forcing my brain into action again. “Right. Okay.”
“Take this,” he said, holding out the gun that he’d retrieved from the fallen man.
I stared up at him. “And do what with it? I’m already on the hook for an espionage charge. I’m not adding weapons charges to it.”
“Aydan, we don’t have time for this,” he snapped. “The top priority is to get you out of here. There will be no espionage charge. There will be no weapons charges, even if you shoot somebody, and I expect and require you to shoot anybody who stands in our way.”
I stood open-mouthed. “I thought you were Mr. By-The-Book.”
“I am. Some days I use a different book. Take the gun, dammit, and let’s go.”
I took the heavy weapon from his hand carefully. I’d seen demonstrations, but I’d never handled a semi-auto handgun before. I ejected the full clip, quickly noting the capacity, and snapped it back into place. Kane reache
d over and worked the slide on the top, jacking a shell into the chamber. The gun had a long silencer and laser sight attached, and the balance felt off. I sighted, getting used to the feel of it. My hands shook, but I’d learned from long years of competition that I could shoot despite shaking hands.
Kane was watching me intently. “I’ll go first. You watch our six. Shoot to kill, no questions asked. If anything happens to me, leave me and get out of here by any means necessary. Do not hesitate, do not try to help me. Copy?”
“Roger that.” I attempted a smile at my feeble joke. I doubted if he could see it under the layer of blood on my face, but he gave me a wintry smile.
God, what if something happened to Kane? I’d never find my way out. I could really use a floor plan right now...
My mouth dropped open as I suddenly stood in front of a table holding a set of construction drawings.
What the hell? How was I in the network now, without even trying?
It didn’t matter. I shook off my paralysis and scanned the floor plans frantically, trying to figure out where we were. Pinpointing the most probable room, I identified a route and leaped for the portal, remembering just in time to stop and step through it slowly. This would be a very bad time to be incapacitated.
My eyes snapped open and I ground my teeth on a groan, fighting off the pain. A bobbing motion confused me for a moment until I realized Kane was carrying me.
“Put me down,” I said in alarm. “You’ll give yourself a hernia.”
He stopped and lowered my feet to the floor of the corridor, one powerful arm still tight around me. “You fainted.”
“No, I was in the network.”
His eyes bored into mine. “I heard you swear under torture you couldn’t access the network.”
I frowned. “Apparently I lied. I found floor plans, and I tried to memorize the way out. But I don’t know where we are now.”
“No time,” Kane snapped. “Follow me.” He took his arm away carefully, making sure I could stand on my own before handing me the gun again. I took it from him reluctantly.
“Aydan.” Kane gripped my shoulders and held my gaze with his. “If we don’t get you out of here, our entire country’s security could be compromised. And you will die. Slowly. These people will torture you until you give them what they want. I need you to do this.”
Never Say Spy (The Never Say Spy Series Book 1) Page 18