by Hinze, Vicki
Mason rubbed his neck. “Way too close,” he told Emma. “Just on the other side of the lab, about four levels up.”
“I thought you said we were three levels down.”
“I did. And where we were standing, we were. But the HC lab and beyond it are four levels below street level.”
“Okay.” Emma frowned, promising herself she’d be annoyed later that he hadn’t explained that the first time she had asked. “We need to assess the damage.”
Alarm flashed across his face. “You’re thinking the damage above might not be from the storm.”
Astute, not that she expected anything less from Mason. “I don’t know. That’s why we need to assess it.”
David rounded the corner. “Dr. M.,” he addressed Mason. “John Taylor’s just locked down the entire facility.”
Emma blurted out, “Who—?”
Mason swiveled to look at her. “John Taylor Moore is the Security Chief.”
“John Moore,” Emma said, capturing it in her memory.
“He prefers John Taylor,” Mason said. “John was his father.”
“Noted.” Emma nodded.
David went on. “Janette Wilson is fighting him on the order, causing trouble.”
“Janette is the Assistant Airport Manager,” Mason said before Emma could ask the question. “She causes everyone trouble.” Mason then spoke to David. “Where’s Graystone?” Before Emma even thought to ask about him, Mason told her, “Graystone is the Airport Manager.”
“He’s still in the hospital,” David said, then informed Emma. “Graystone had major surgery yesterday.” David stuffed a fisted hand into the pocket of his white lab- coat. “John Taylor says he needs you to pull rank on Janette—the sooner the better.”
“I’m going to assess the damage,” Emma said.
“Then come with me.” Mason stood up.
An explosion rocked the air.
“Far side of the lab,” Mason said in a rush. Eyes stretched wide, he grabbed Emma to steady her on her feet.
“Weapons?” she asked.
“It’s an airport, Emma.”
“I know that, Mason. Are you telling me this facility is so inept it has nothing with which to defend itself?”
“I didn’t say that.”
She glared at him. “Stop parsing words, like you did with the below ground levels. I need weapons.” Hers were in the ashes of her burned luggage on the airstrip in Libya.
“John Taylor is armed.” Mason shot her an apologetic look. “I’m sorry. It’s an ingrained habit.”
She nodded, accepting his apology. “Let’s go.”
Mason headed for the cart, but Emma noted something coming toward them from the opposite end of the tunnel. “There’s our problem.” She pointed ahead to where smoke and ash lifted from the ground to the ceiling of the tunnel and obscured their view. “Cover your mouth and nose.” She grabbed the edge of her scarf and wrapped it around her neck, then tucked it in at her nape. Mason did the same with his. Together, they ran toward the trouble.
Closing in on the dense cloud whipping past them, they slowed to make their way through crumbled rock and partially downed steel beams. Gritty debris filled the air and stung their skin.
“The wind down here is wicked,” Mason said. “That’s not a good sign.”
It was a terrible sign. Frigid air gushed over them. Emma raised her voice to be clearly heard. “It’s blowing hard through the tunnels, creating a Venturi effect.” Moving down the tunnel was a struggle. At a vee, they turned. The winds weren’t as strong here. For that, Emma was grateful.
Mason stumbled over something on the tunnel floor.
An unconscious man.
Emma dropped to her knees beside Mason. The prone man was covered with dust and his face was smudged with dirt, but there was no sign of blood. “Who is he?”
“John Taylor. The Security Chief.”
Chapter Eight
Tuesday, December 17th
1830 (6:30 PM)
Mason checked for a pulse. “He’s alive.”
“I don’t see any blood anywhere.” That struck Emma as strange.
“Maybe debris got him.”
Maybe it had. But he was too far from the nearest beam, and there were no large objects within the immediate area he’d fallen, and no scuff or drag marks in the dust, indicating he’d staggered and then fallen.
Mason frowned over at her. “Why are you patting him down?”
She retrieved John Taylor’s weapon. A Glock. “Looking for this.” She checked the magazine. Full and not recently fired. She tucked the weapon into her waistband and with her phone, began a video recording of the blast damage, certain it wasn’t consistent with a couple cranes crashing through a tunnel. The dust cloud was less thick, but she pulled her scarf back up over her mouth and nose. “To penetrate this far underground, the blast had to be caused by explosives.”
“What happened?” she heard Mason ask.
Glancing back at Mason, Emma breathed a sigh of relief. John Taylor had regained consciousness. She worked her way back to them in time to hear his response.
“Five men. Armed. All dressed in SWAT gear. They’re inside, Doc.”
Another explosion went off and the blast rolled down the tunnel in a dust filled cloud of smoke and rubble. Unable to do anything more than hunker down, they waited until the rumble ceased and the worst had passed.
“Everyone okay?” Emma asked.
“We’re okay,” Mason said.
“I’m fine, Doc. Just got the wind knocked out of me,” John Taylor said. “Go help her.” He half rolled and grabbed a rifle from underneath him. “Take this.”
“I don’t shoot,” Mason said, hesitating.
“Give it to her, then.”
“What makes you think she can shoot?”
“The way she handles a weapon.” John Taylor grunted, pulling himself up to a sitting position. “I just need a minute. Sorry. Someone whacked me from behind.”
“Figured,” Mason said. “You’ve got a sizable goose egg on the back of your head.”
John Taylor rubbed at his skull. “I saw stars, and my head’s still swimming a little.”
“You collect yourself,” Mason said. “Get to the Emergency Response Coordinator as quick as you can to get your head checked out.”
“Janette Wilson laid her off when Graystone got sick. Busted her on a no-notice inspection. She hasn’t hired a replacement yet.” John Taylor rubbed his head and winced.
Only that woman would pull such a stunt with a storm coming. “Go to the lab, then. David will fix you up.” Mason scoured the tunnel and saw a shadowy Emma ahead. He started after her.
A shot ricocheted off the tunnel wall near his head. A second one followed. He heard it, but it sounded further away. Instinctively, he ducked. He couldn’t see a thing. Had Emma shot at him? “Don’t shoot! It’s me, Emma!”
She appeared from the shadows. Gun aimed. “You okay, Mason?”
“Since you shot at me and missed, yeah.” He walked toward her, his hand extended. “Give me that gun.”
She stood her ground. “I didn’t shoot at you, and you are not getting this weapon.”
“Either time?” He’d definitely heard gunshots.
“No.” She rolled her gaze, spun and fired.
“What are you shooting at?” Mason held onto the rifle. “Did you hit something?”
Emma stilled, scanned the visible expanse. While she’d like for Mason to hush so she could better hear, she knew him too well to expect he would until she answered. “Yes, Mason, I did.”
He frowned deeper. “I hope it wasn’t one of the employees.”
“Is there a reason an employee would try to shoot you?”
Mason stared as if dazed. “You’ve stopped someone from shooting at me?”
“Three times, so far.” She wiggled her fingers. “Obviously, you still hate guns.”
“Um, yeah. But I’m learning a new appreciation for them being helpful
in bad situations.” He lifted the rifle. “John Taylor thinks you know how to fire this.”
“I do.” She stowed the handgun in her waistband, then took the long gun from Mason’s hands and inspected it. Remington 870. Standard law enforcement issue. “Take this.” She passed Mason the handgun. “It’s a Glock 19. Fifteen shots. I’ve used three. Point it and pull the trigger.” She shot him a hard look. “Don’t let someone shoot you dead because you don’t like guns, okay?”
“Okay.” He sounded a bit bewildered and confused, but he took the weapon.
“Good. Keep your finger off the trigger until you intend to shoot.” She spoke softly. When he nodded, she went on. “You stay here. I’m going to see where the others are.”
“There are others?” Rattled. To the core.
Shock of sorts. He hadn’t processed and internalized what he’d been told about the team earlier. Being shot at did rattle even seasoned professionals. It was an event far outside Mason’s wheelhouse. “John Taylor said five,” she reminded Mason, sticking to the bare facts.
That cured him from whatever mental hurdle had stymied him. He was all business now. “I'm coming with you.”
It was faster to agree than to fight with him. “All right. But I don’t have time to argue, Mason. If I tell you to jump, just do it. And keep up or I will leave you behind. There are a lot of potential victims in this place. I need to secure it as quickly as possible.” She took off through the tunnel. “Stay behind me,” she said without looking back.
Emma made a bend in the tunnel and fired three shots in rapid succession.
Three men hit the ground. All wearing SWAT gear.
“That’s three,” Mason said softly, his voice a blend of shock and awe. “John Taylor said there were five.”
“That’s four,” she whispered back. “The one who first shot at you is behind us.”
Another explosion rocked their feet. Mason stepped closer and wrapped around her to cover her. “They’re really close to the lab, Emma.”
Her face at his chest, she whispered. “The sound was different this time.”
“What does that mean?”
“It’s bad. Really bad.” She started moving. “Hurry, Mason.”
At the tip of the next bend, Emma stopped and clotheslined her arm to stop Mason. She placed a fingertip over her mouth, warning him not to talk. Then she pointed to a man crouched low against the tunnel floor where it met the wall.
Mason studied the dim shadow of a man. “Lab wall.”
She nodded. “We’ve got two minutes until he sets off another explosion.”
“Is that C4?”
“I hope not.” She lifted the rifle and took careful aim.
“Wait.” Mason urgently whispered. “Emma, wait.”
“What?”
Worry and fear flashed across his shadowed face. “If that’s C4 and you miss…?”
“I don’t miss, Mason.” She aimed then fired.
The man fell and Mason watched him, transfixed, his jaw hanging loose. He looked at Emma as if to ask, Who are you?
Before he could utter a word, something rustling behind them signaled movement. Emma swiveled and drew down.
“Whoa! It’s me. John Taylor.” He raised his hands.
Emma lowered the barrel of her weapon.
“I’ve seen four,” John Taylor said. “That’s the fifth.”
“You’re sure that’s all of them?” This didn’t work for her. It’d been too easy. Too straightforward, unless they thought there would be no one armed at the airport. Or that Security would be so busy with the stranded passengers above ground, it wouldn’t have time to worry about what was going on down below.
“There could be more,” he said. “I saw five before I got knocked out. But there’s no reports from anyone on my team picking up more on the monitors.”
“Stay here. Both of you,” she said. “I’ll be right back.”
Emma walked over to the downed man, verified he was dead, and disarmed him. Then she examined the explosives.
“What is she doing, John Taylor?” Mason asked.
Squinting hard, John Taylor answered, a little awestruck. “She’s disarming the charge.”
Shock pumped through Mason’s body and he started toward her. “Crazy woman is going to get herself killed.”
John Taylor pulled Mason back. “Emma said to stay put. You interrupt her at the wrong time now and you could cause her to kill herself. Or all of us. Just stay put, Doc.” John Taylor watched her work. “She knows what she’s doing.”
Also observing, Mason crossed his chest with his arms. “It appears she does.”
“What exactly is her job?” John Taylor asked, his glasses smudged with dirt.
Mason looked him right in the eye. “She says she’s a reporter.”
“No way.” Interest sparked in John Taylor’s voice.
“She knows her way around my lab, too.”
“You know that reporter bit isn’t so, right?”
“Yes, I know.”
“Okay then.” John Taylor grunted. “Who sent her?”
“I thought, my boss.” Mason rubbed at his chin. “Now, I’m not so sure he didn’t get orders from higher up.” The woman in question was now photographing the dead men. Checking their pockets and bags for anything of interest. “Why is she touching them?”
“You deal with deadly germs and you’re upset because she’s checking pockets and bags on corpses?”
“But why is she doing it?”
John Taylor shrugged. “I don’t know her, so I don’t know why, Doc. But I do know she’s following protocol. I can’t tell you exactly what she is, but I can tell you she’s a well-trained pro.”
“Finding anything?” Mason called out.
“Precious little.” She didn’t sound happy about that. “John Taylor,” Emma added, “you’d better get a team down here to protect this area and secure these bricks.”
“Did she say bricks?” Mason asked. “I don’t see any bricks.”
John Taylor nodded. “Bricks of C4 explosives. Apparently, she’s found more of them.”
Emma called out. “That last explosion opened the mountain all the way up to the surface. Better secure the opening above so no one stumbles down the hole.”
“Roger. You got that charge disarmed?” John Taylor shouted to her.
“Yeah.” She looked back to them. “But don’t get too close. You’ll taint the evidence.”
“Isn’t that your job?” Mason asked.
“She’s the boss. Isn’t that what you said?”
Mason nodded. “What was it? The explosives, I mean.”
“Classic bricks of C4 apparently.” That had a wrinkle forming between John Taylor’s eyebrows and him swiping at his glasses at the bridge of his nose. “Not the most efficient means of blasting through the mountain, but…”
Emma stood up and looked at John Taylor. “Make sure whoever you send for knows how to handle C4 and gunpowder and canon fuses. Looks like they had a backup plan in case they didn’t get the desired results. They did drill a hole in the rock. It’s about eighteen inches deep. So they weren’t blathering idiots, just not up to what they should have been, attempting something like this. That’s good news for us.” She dusted her hands and started back toward Mason and John Taylor.
“She’s definitely a pro,” he whispered to Mason, then raised his voice to Emma. “Got it. I’ve summoned a team.”
“Arm them, and get a man on that back wall,” Mason said.
John Taylor sniffed. “That’s done, too.”
“Where’s Janette?” Mason grimaced. “She was supposed to be down here.”
“No. She’s upstairs on the Main, under the tent with the press.”
Mason lifted a finger. “Not a word of this gets out. Not a word.”
“I’ll vouch for me and my team,” John Taylor said, “but not for Janette.”
Mason frowned. “Why not?”
“She’s got her eye on Grayst
one’s job, Doc.” John Taylor twisted to keep an eye on Emma. “He’s not doing well. Looks like he might not be coming back, and Janette is bent on replacing him.”
“Spare us all from that. I am sorry to hear that about Graystone,” Mason said, pausing a long moment to think. “For now, don’t tell Janette anything about this.” Her ambition could override her sense in her quest for attention. To give John cover—he did answer to Janette—Mason added, “That’s a direct order.”
John Taylor smiled. “You got it, Doc.”
Emma was on the phone. That stunned Mason. Now? Here? With a dead man near her feet? Who was she talking to now?
Chapter Nine
Tuesday, December 17th
1947 (7:47 PM)
“It wasn’t the cranes,” Emma told Liz. “It was an attack.” The rear wall behind her, Emma stepped closer to the hole in the outer wall. Cold air rushed in. She glanced back, making sure Mason and John Taylor were still out of earshot. Judging them a distant twenty feet away, she reported to Liz. “Five spotted, five down.”
“I’m assuming that was unavoidable.”
“Totally.” Emma brushed at the tip of her nose. “The Security Chief was unconscious when we found him. He’s mobile now. One invader took three shots at Mason.”
“So Mason shot that one?”
“No, he doesn’t shoot. I dropped him.” She checked over her shoulder. Nothing but the sound of the wind rippling down the hole. “I returned fire on three others. The fifth one was about to ignite enough C4 to take out the mountain and leave nothing of the lab but a crater.” In that situation, the blast could destroy the pathogens or spread the diseases all over. Probably a bit of both.
“So, you neutralized the threat?”
“I did.”
“That’s an appropriate response,” Liz said, her tone neutral when they both knew it was anything but. “There could be others, Emma.”
“I know. None spotted so far.”
“On these type missions, there is always a backup team.”
“Yes.” Emma was as aware of that as anyone else in the field. “Guards posted, and security team is on alert.” She slung the rifle’s strap onto her shoulder. “The problem is, there’s one of me and this is a big place.”
