Chapter 28
Thursday, Afternoon
Dr. Ivanov’s Compound, Russia
What the hell had happened? Several minutes ago Susana had heard alarmed shouts and pounding footsteps in the corridor. She’d braced herself for visitors, but the people in the corridor passed her by.
She gave another yank against the leather restraints fastened to her wrists and ankles. Was it her imagination, or were they slightly looser than the last time? She relaxed her muscles, then tightened against the restraints and pulled so hard her arm muscles burned.
There! She definitely felt more room around her right wrist. She wriggled and twisted and scraped the skin raw, but her hand slipped free.
Yes! Tears filled her eyes. She blinked them quickly away. She didn’t have time to waste with crying. Her fingers moved to the left restraint and found the buckle. A moment later, it fell open.
She sat up so quickly, the room wavered in front of her. Squeezing her eyes shut, she allowed herself two long, deep breaths to regain her equilibrium before she went to work on her ankle restraints.
Once the leather straps hung loosely down the legs of the exam table, Susana put her feet on the floor. She lowered her weight carefully. Certain her legs weren’t going to turn rubbery and give out on her, she made a beeline for the door.
Of course, it was locked. She slapped her hand against the wood, then narrowed her eyes and studied the door plate. Hmmm.
She returned to the table. The leather restraints passed through metal loops, but weren’t themselves attached to the table. She slid one of the straps out of its loop, then brought it over to the door and used the flat edge of the tongue as a makeshift screwdriver to remove the door plate. Once she’d exposed the interior of the lock, it was easy to disengage it.
The door popped open. Susana bit back a whoop of triumph. She peeked outside. The short corridor was empty.
She looked left, then right, but neither direction sparked a sense of familiarity. So she closed the door behind her and ran left.
She’d almost reached the end when she heard voices rapidly approaching from around the corner. Despite her leaden legs, she put on a burst of speed and ducked into a supply closet seconds before a man and a woman wearing white lab coats rushed by.
A tiny, rational part of Susana’s brain pointed out the low probability that she’d be allowed to leave the facility. Besides, wasn’t she supposed to get the chip removed before it self-destructed? And, you know, killed her?
The rest of her wasn’t listening. Instinct told her to run.
So she cracked open the door and peeked back into the corridor. The scientists had nearly reached the door to her room. She held her breath, crossed her fingers and hoped they wouldn’t check on her.
They didn’t even glance at her door. The man tugged on the woman’s arm, and they broke into a jog. Moments later, they vanished down a side corridor.
Susana let out a gusty sigh and stepped into the hallway. She still had no idea where the exit was, but since left had worked for her so far, she cautiously made her way to the end of the corridor and turned left.
Damn, Susana thought several eternal minutes later. I’m lost.
No matter which way she looked, she saw the same white corridor walls stretching into the distance. No windows to show her which direction she needed to move. No identifying artwork or scuff marks on the walls, and the few signs she’d seen were in Russian. One of the few languages she couldn’t read.
And while it was lucky for her that the corridors were mainly deserted, it was creepy, too. She’d only had to hide twice more. Both times, the people passing by had seemed frantic.
Something was wrong. This was a huge compound. There should be people moving about. These rooms should be occupied.
Yet each time she’d ducked into a room to avoid being noticed, the rooms she’d chosen had been both unlocked and empty.
Maybe she was in a new wing of the compound. One not used much.
She bit the inside of her cheek. What if she was heading deeper into the compound? Toward the place where all the people had been running? Any moment she could walk around a corner and run into the entire staff.
Don’t think like that. Just keep moving.
She shivered. At the next intersection, she turned left again. When she’d made it a third of the way down the corridor a small group of people appeared at the opposite end.
Someone cried out. She didn’t have to understand Russian to know she’d been spotted.
Susana ran back the way she’d come. She’d nearly reached the corner when something sharp pricked between her shoulder blades.
Two more steps and she stumbled into unconsciousness.
Kai watched Ivanov’s compound from a small ridge. Through the borrowed binoculars, Kai saw Tonelli’s assault team skirmishing with Ivanov’s security force along the front wall and in the gap formed by the destroyed front gate. Tonelli, the coward, stood behind a tree, waiting for his team to overpower the security men.
Kai swept his glasses toward the training ground at the rear of the compound. Camouflage netting strung overhead guarded against aerial spies, but not from someone in Kai’s location.
A large exercise area sat behind walls with maximum security level fortifications. In the center, six men ran through an obstacle course.
Kai frowned. No, they weren’t running. They were lumbering through it with a distinct lack of coordination. One soldier ran into the large wooden A-frame instead of climbing it. He shook his head, backed up, then ran into it again.
Three men with bullhorns dashed out from the shadow of the main building, shouting and waving their arms. Within moments, the soldiers had abandoned the obstacle course and had lined up, although their crooked attempt at formation more closely resembled the effort of a ragged group of second-graders than an elite military team.
One of the men with the bullhorns pointed toward the front of the building. The men broke ranks and dashed to join the fight against Tonelli’s men. The man who’d run into the A-frame stopped, looked around in confusion, then moved slowly back toward the obstacle course.
A man with a clipboard stepped in front of the wayward soldier. He pointed in the direction the other men had gone. The lost soldier shoved clipboard man hard enough that he fell.
The other two men with bullhorns jumped on the soldier. Clipboard man scrambled to his feet and joined them. The soldier fought like an angry bear and Kai thought for sure he’d break free.
Then a man wearing a lab coat approached. The disobedient soldier immediately tried to run, but was blocked by two of his opponents.
Lab coat jabbed a syringe into the man and he collapsed as if someone had cut the nerves controlling his limbs. The men fastened an odd restraint system on him, then carried him inside.
Kai lowered the binoculars. Rubbed his eyes and tried to pretend that he wasn’t freaked out. God, the man’s fighting behavior reminded him of Rafe.
Dammit, they had to get the chip back. It was the only way to reverse what had been done to his friend.
But even as Kai worried about Rafe, he nodded in the direction of the empty training ground, indicating to his FSB companions that the back was their entry point. Let Tonelli’s team battle it out with Ivanov’s men.
Kai was going after Susana.
Kai accompanied his FSB team through the halls of Ivanov’s compound. As they moved deeper into the building, the white, sterile walls started to close in on Kai, as oppressive as jungle heat. And each room they cleared without finding Susana caused his fear to rise.
His companions flung open another door. Three men and a woman jumped to their feet and spun around in alarm to face the intruders. Notebooks and voice recorders dropped unheeded to the floor. White lab coats indicated these were staff members.
On the other side of an observation window a naked man in chains strained to reach a single banana placed millimeters too far away. His body was covered with electrodes. Kai turned hi
s head, fighting back pity, revulsion, and fury. His hands clenched into fists. He knew the frustration and desperation of being chained and tortured. But having your pain recorded as part of some sick experiment?
That was enough to break a man. No wonder Rafe was so wild, if he’d been treated like this.
One group of soldiers took control of the scientists while their teammates opened the door to the other room, but Kai didn’t stick around to watch them free the chained man. With every room they exposed, his need to find Susana grew more urgent.
The next two rooms were empty. Kai called Tonelli and learned that the battle at the front still raged, so the other man wasn’t even inside the facility yet.
Kai smiled. Tonelli had gone silent when Kai explained his location. No doubt the man would soon figure out how to join them.
This corridor ended at a hub of five intersecting hallways with an abandoned nurse’s station in the center. Several monitors showed different views of the surrounding hallways.
Kai threw a brief glance at the monitors as he passed, then did a double take. He stopped so suddenly, the agent behind him trod on his heels. Kai motioned for the man to go around him, then leaned forward to get a better view.
One of the monitors showed three lab-coated people pushing a gurney. He caught a glimpse of a woman’s long, dark hair, and a bare arm dangling toward the floor.
Susana!
Was she alive? Was he too late and the chip had already been removed? His chest spasmed and he struggled to breathe around the chunk of his heart that lodged in his throat.
He grabbed the sleeve of the closest FSB agent and pointed urgently to the picture on the monitor. “That’s the woman I’m looking for,” he said in Russian.
The man studied the screen, which showed two intersecting corridors, then looked at an evacuation map stuck to a faded cork board. With the tip of his finger, he traced a route from their location. “The woman is roughly there.”
He moved his finger along a different route. “This is our target. The main offices.” From down the hall, one of his comrades called for him to hurry up.
The man glanced at Kai. “You’re on your own. Good luck.” Then he took off at a run.
Kai ripped the map off the cork board and headed toward Susana.
Mark drew back behind the safety of a tree as some of Ivanov’s men fired toward his location. The nearest soldiers returned fire and advanced, but not quickly enough for Mark.
That bastard Paterson was already inside. Given the size of the building, Paterson’s odds of finding Susana without help were slim. However, it did mean Mark needed to get inside and find one of Ivanov’s staff to lead him to Susana. He had to reach her before Paterson.
Finally, the leader of the assault team gave the all-clear. Mark wasted no time hurrying up to the front door and past the soldiers methodically clearing the building room by room. He beat the team through the door into the lab section, startling the wide-eyed guard on the other side. Mark shot him.
Moving deeper into the building along the corridors he’d taken with Ivanov, Mark soon came across a conference room where a group of scientists and administrative staff huddled, whispering fearfully and shooting nervous glances at the door to the hallway.
He spun them a story about Susana being his wife and how, since he’d been alone in the waiting room for so long, he was worried. Could someone please tell him where to find his wife? A young female lab assistant with sable hair contained in a tight bun shyly raised her hand and said she could take him to the most likely location Ivanov would use for the surgery.
Mark eagerly followed the woman farther into the building through eerily silent halls. None of the noises from the assault team’s movements carried this far, a testament to excellent soundproofing.
The woman’s heels clicked rapidly on the tile as she scurried along. Tonelli lengthened his stride to keep up with her, but stopped himself from breaking into a run. He didn’t want to make the woman suspicious.
“There,” the woman said, pointing toward a half-open door at the end of the corridor. “That’s the preparation room. You don’t need anything else?”
Tonelli shook his head, all his attention on the door.
“Then…I will return to my friends, yes?”
“Yes, thank you,” he murmured.
He reached the door and stepped inside.
Empty.
Before disappointment had a chance to settle in, he heard voices on the other side of the door leading into the next room.
He put his hand on the door and cautiously opened it.
Kai sprinted down the hall, driven by the urgent sense that time had run out. His fear and anger fed on each other, increasing his need to hurry. If Susana was dead, he didn’t know how he’d…how he’d…
Hell. He loved her so much he couldn’t even think straight.
Push the fear aside. Focus.
After a quick glance at the map, he turned right at the next corner. Yes. This was the corridor where he’d seen the gurney via the monitor.
Kai forced himself into a walk. He gently opened each door he encountered. If he burst into a room and Ivanov was in the middle of surgery, he might scare the man into making an accidental cut on Susana. And her skin was so smooth, so fragile. It would tear quickly under a finely-honed scalpel.
Just as it had yielded easily under his own knife when he’d removed the tracking device.
Kai closed his eyes and willed away the image of her blood on his hands before it triggered darker memories. Tried to convince himself that when he found Susana, she would be alive.
The next door opened onto the anteroom of an operating room. On the other side of the observation window, a man in hospital scrubs lifted a scalpel from a shiny array on a portable tray.
Ivanov.
Susana lay on the table. All Kai could see was her face and her bare legs, but it was enough to weaken his knees with relief.
Kai hurried forward. The doctor appeared to be alone. No nurses. No anesthesiologist. God, was the man about to operate while Susana was awake?
As he pushed open the door to the operating room, a man stepped out from the shadowy corner.
Mark Tonelli had beat him to the scene.
Chapter 29
Kai wanted to rip Dr. Ivanov away from Susana. But fear bound him in iron shackles, keeping him immobile two feet away from the operating table, barely daring to breathe.
Dr. Ivanov shot Kai an annoyed, dismissive glance. “Do not come any closer or the woman dies,” he warned, before lowering a scalpel to Susana’s skin. At the moment of incision, Kai sank his teeth into his tongue, stifling a bellow of protest.
As blood flowed out of the cut, Kai took one lurching step forward. A growl rolled out of his mouth as he waited for Ivanov to finish. The second the chip left Susana’s body, Kai would snatch her away from the scientist.
“Don’t move.”
At Tonelli’s command, Kai looked up. The man’s gun was pointed at Kai’s chest, but Tonelli’s eyes kept straying to Susana.
Kai dismissed him with a glance, and returned his attention to what was important. Watching Ivanov. Protecting Susana. If anything went wrong with the procedure, Dr. Ivanov wouldn’t make it out of the room alive.
Kai would see to it.
Ivanov’s tweezers began to rise out of the cut in Susana. Kai stepped closer.
Ivanov’s hand stilled. He picked up another set of tweezers with his other hand and carefully probed the incision. Searching for the booby-trap.
Kai waited for Ivanov to disarm the trap, breath suspended. Memories of his time with Susana flashing before his eyes.
Her laugh. Her curses. The way she smelled.
Her taste.
The look on her face as he’d walked away, leaving her with Niko.
Ivanov’s hand twisted sharply. He yanked and the tweezers pulled out a thin wire attached to a pea-sized box.
He tossed them onto the floor. The box exploded with the
force of a miniature firecracker.
Next Ivanov removed a blood-smeared glass vial about the size of Kai’s thumb from his knuckle to nail. Ivanov dropped the vial onto the surgical tray.
Finally, after two years, the chip was within reach.
Kai didn’t give a damn. Fresh bruises in the shape of fingers purpled Susana’s arms and calves. Blood seeped out from under the straps restraining her, indicating she’d struggled. Been afraid.
Kai couldn’t control the surge of fury that tore through him. Demanding he act. Ivanov had hurt Susana. So he needed to be hurt.
Every muscle straining, Kai forced himself to wait while Ivanov sewed closed Susana’s incision and swabbed away the blood from the short line of sutures across her belly. When Ivanov pulled down her gown and stepped away from the operating table, Kai struck.
“You don’t know what you’re doing,” Dr. Ivanov gasped.
“Yes, I do.” Kai had the scientist pinned against the wall. His hand pressed a scalpel to the scientist’s throat. Although he didn’t remember grabbing the scalpel, he was itching to use it.
The scientist reached up and tried to pry Kai’s fingers away. Kai pressed harder with the scalpel blade and was rewarded by a few drops of blood.
“Only I can decode the data on the microchip,” Ivanov gasped. “It was meant for me. Nevsky always said his successes were mine to share.”
Keeping the scalpel at Ivanov’s neck, Kai shuffled close to the tray where the chip sat. With his free hand, he grabbed the vial and stuck it in his pants pocket.
“If you must take the data,” Ivanov continued, his words coming fast with desperation, “at least leave the woman. She is unique. Her genetic code was altered by her father. Studying her DNA will make up for losing the rest of the data.”
Kai’s whole body stilled. “Explain.”
“Ah…”
Kai lightened up slightly on the pressure. “Talk.”
“Dr. Nevsky injected her mother several times with substances meant to enhance the fetus’s genetic code. Strength. Intelligence. Endurance. Extraordinary immune system.”
Christ.
Betrayal (SSU Trilogy Book 2) (The Surgical Strike Unit) Page 28