by Dale Mayer
“We’ll take the balcony.”
“And what do you think the chances are that we’ve got the Russians here?”
“I’m not sure,” he said, “but we have to make a decision, and we’ve got to follow through.”
Up ahead they heard more gunfire. Immediately the captors cried out and clustered close. He motioned at Jerricho. “Let’s take this hallway off to the side. Sounds like the Russians are finding some targets. I don’t want our group to be next.”
“Out the back?”
“No, that’s most likely the place they’ll come looking,” he said, “but we have to stay away from the gunfire.”
“Jesus, yes,” Eva said, “please stay away from the gunfire.”
Ushering the three out, they asked them as many questions as they could about the layout. “We’ve seen it on blueprints,” Diesel said. “Do you have any thoughts that you can add as to where the men, the armed guards stay, how many there are, things like that?”
“Well, something’s definitely up,” Eva said. “The guards started acting more difficult today. And instead of us staying in the lab all day, we were moved from the lab abruptly and locked in our rooms.”
“The Russians were found. Caught going through the airport today,” Diesel said quietly.
“So then the Chinese should be expecting the attack today,” Eva said.
“Maybe. Did they double the guards?”
“They did,” she said. “We’ve had four on us all the time.”
He looked at Jerricho and nodded. “We’ve taken out four,” he said.
The scientists just looked at him mutely.
“What we don’t know is how many others could be here. We have video of a dozen Russians coming in.”
“Great,” Paul said. “So we’re still heavily outnumbered.”
“Maybe,” Diesel said. “Let’s keep moving.”
Racing as fast as they could, they headed down the hallway toward the back. At the service elevator, he stopped, pushed a button, and then stepped back out, as it went upward. He took the stairs down, motioning for them to join him.
“What was that for?” Eva asked.
“A decoy,” he muttered.
“Won’t that send them down here?” Eva asked.
“But we won’t be here,” he said.
She just shrugged and kept on going. “As long as you know what you’re doing,” she muttered.
“I don’t think you trust very easily, do you?”
“I do,” she said, “but I also like to see some proof. So, if you tell me that it’s this or that, then I want to know that this is the truth, and I have something that visually allows me to confirm it.”
“Life isn’t always so clean-cut,” he warned.
“It’s never clean-cut,” she said. “That’s why I like science. When you work with it, it’s black-and-white and easy to understand. But all this theoretical stuff drives me crazy.”
“Not everything is theoretical though,” he said.
“I know. I know that,” she said, “and sometimes I wish it was a whole lot better than what it is.”
“Got it,” he murmured. “In this case, it’s concrete enough that we will move with it,” he said. “But we can’t take any chances of getting caught, so, as soon as there’s any kind of firepower going on, you need to drop to the ground and stay down there.”
She nodded slowly. “If you have a spare gun,” she said, “I can shoot.”
He looked at her and smiled.
“Really, I can.”
“What? Are you from Texas?”
“No, Wisconsin, but I used to go hunting with my father.”
“That’s a surprise,” he murmured in a low voice.
“I hated the killing part,” she said, “but my father wanted to make sure that, when push came to shove, I could do the job.”
He nodded slowly and said, “Well, I do have a spare rifle, so I might take you up on that.”
She looked at him, looked at the weapon on his back, and said, “I’ll take it right now actually.” And she quickly disengaged it from his shoulder and put it over hers.
He shrugged and said, “If I see that you can’t handle it …”
“Got it. If I can’t handle it, you’ll take it away from me.”
“Exactly.”
She shrugged. “It is what it is. I just don’t want to feel like a victim anymore.”
“Understood. Were you taken from work?”
“At home actually.” She sighed. “Who’d have thought that we weren’t even safe in or near our own homes? Since word of my work got out, my life became even more public.”
He said, “I imagine that would have been hard.”
“Very much,” she murmured.
As they moved ahead, Marge turned to look back, saw the rifle now in Eva’s hand, and gasped. “What are you doing with that?” she asked.
“I don’t want to be taken by any of these assholes again,” Eva said in a hard tone. “This is my insurance that I won’t be.”
Chapter 3
Eva actually had another reason for wanting the gun, and that was more because of her own fears. Her mother had been shot in a break-in when Eva was just seven. She’d heard it happen, and it’s the reason why her father had made sure that she knew how to handle herself, if she were ever in a similar situation. She couldn’t help back then, as the gunman had come in, fully weaponized himself, and hadn’t given anybody any chance.
He’d been high on drugs and shot up her mother, leaving her bleeding on the kitchen floor, while he grabbed food. Eva had called 9-1-1 and stayed hidden upstairs. She watched him leave out a window, and, as soon as he had disappeared, the officers arrived. She’d raced downstairs to help her mother, but it was too late. She told the officers where the gunman had gone, and he’d been picked up not very long afterward.
But her father had come home, his grief over the loss of his wife overshadowed by his anger, realizing that his traumatized daughter had been left alone in the house during the murder and could easily have been killed herself. After that, he’d taken it upon himself to help her learn more about self-defense and to ensure that she wasn’t quite so easily taken.
Regardless, when the men kidnapped her from her home some twelve days ago, they pulled a gun on her. She knew the odds of fighting armed men. However, she certainly knew how to use the weapon with her right now, and it gave her a little bit more confidence. She understood that the professionals would say it was false confidence and that she certainly shouldn’t count on it.
Often in these home invasion scenarios, it was common for the gunman to take the weapon from the homeowner because they weren’t sure that they wanted to shoot somebody. But most of these gunmen forcefully entering a house did not care one way or the other if they did kill someone. Same as with these gunmen in the Chinese lab.
So Eva had learned a big lesson. Twice now. When you raised a firearm, you had to be sure that you were ready to pull the trigger.
Right now she was more than ready to pull the trigger. She also knew that poor Marge and Paul couldn’t handle too much more. She whispered to Diesel at her side, “Marge seems quite ill, and Paul has not been feeling well for the last few days.”
“Anything serious?”
“Despair is possibly one reason. Marge won’t talk about what may be ailing her. As scientists, we have a tendency to know a little more about our symptoms,” she said. “So I wouldn’t be at all surprised if they have a good idea but just aren’t sharing it.”
He nodded. “Any reason to think they can’t keep moving like this?”
“They definitely can’t for the long-term. Can they keep up some pace? Yes. I just don’t know how long or how fast.”
“We have to get out of the building,” he said. “After that, it’s a whole different ball game.”
She nodded.
Up ahead was more gunfire. Jerricho turned, sent a hand signal to Diesel, who then took the other two scientists an
d headed left.
Diesel took Eva right.
“No,” she said, “we don’t want to do that. We need to stay together.”
“We have to,” he said.
“Why?” she asked.
“Because we’ve got a Russian team of a dozen agents coming ahead. Too many of us to hide in one place.”
“What if we can’t take them out?” she muttered. She stared around her, struggling to see in the dark. She generally had great night vision, but this was a whole different story. It was complete blackness all around. “Don’t suppose you have more night goggles, do you?”
“No,” he said. But he wrapped something around her waist.
“What’s that?”
“It’s a rope,” he said. “When I say I want you to stay close, I mean it.”
She gasped as he tied the other end around himself. “Isn’t this actually worse?”
“It’s a weird darkness in here,” he said.
“I think they were doing experiments with lights, altering infrareds, et cetera,” she said. “I know I often thought the hallways were really weird. We’re also still low in the ground.”
“We’ve actually come up one full flight of stairs,” he said. “The lights can be very disorienting.”
As they kept moving forward, she said, “You can’t be there to help your friend, if he gets into trouble.”
“No, I’m not,” he said, “and he won’t be there to help me, if I get into trouble.”
She studied his shadowed profile, wondering at a life where he was prepared to step out into danger, without anybody to back him up. “You’re really good at this, huh?”
“We all are,” he said, “but we don’t, in any way, delude ourselves into thinking that it’s still not a fatal job.”
“I’m sorry,” she said. “I was thinking my job wasn’t all that dangerous. Now I’ve changed my mind completely.”
“The company you work for should have supplied security, once you made your breakthrough.”
“I don’t even know how anybody knew. I don’t even know how much of a breakthrough it is. I haven’t been able to do any testing,” she said, knowing the frustration in her voice was obvious.
He gave a light laugh. “And I guess that’s everything to you, isn’t it?”
“Well, that’s definitely a lot. This is my life’s work.”
“Got it,” he murmured. “And that makes a huge difference.”
“It really does. I just know that we’re starting to have excellent treatment results on some of these viruses.”
“Any in particular?”
“We’ve been working on several.” She listed them, and he shook his head.
“Those are pretty major. The plague?”
“It still exists,” she said, “unfortunately.”
“I had no idea,” he said.
“And it’s still deadly,” she said. “But because it doesn’t show its head very often, we tend to think that it’s been dealt with. But it’s still there, and it’s still in the US too.”
“That’s unbelievable,” he murmured.
“And one of the things that I’m trying to deal with is some of these latent diseases.”
“And the stem cells are doing it?”
“Yes,” she said, “similar to the way that they’re helping HIV patients. It boosts the immune system, so you can get the stem cells where you need them.”
He nodded. “And is it the delivery system that you perfected or what? Because stem cells and stem cell research has been around for a while.”
She laughed. “Yes,” she said, “exactly that. It’s a matter of taking the stem cells, making them do what we wanted them to do in the body.”
“Got it,” he said. “So you could pretty well cure anything?”
“I wouldn’t go that far. We’re really just at the beginning of that research.” She felt her lungs starting to burn as they raced forward. “How much farther?” she gasped.
He looked around and said, “We’re coming around the side to where Jerricho and the other two are, making sure that this is a clear pathway. We didn’t think that the other two would make it as far.”
“No,” she said, “definitely not.”
“Which is why you are with me,” he said cheerfully.
“Great,” she moaned. “I was afraid of that. I just realized that I should have said I was in just as bad shape as they were.”
“But, you aren’t,” he said. “You’re full of nervous energy and looking for a plan of action and frustrated because you can’t get it.”
She stared at him in surprise. “Wait. Are you a shrink?”
“No,” he said, “not at all, but it’s my job to understand the people I’m picking up because I need your cooperation to do what I need to do.”
“You have it,” she said, “just even being out of that damn room is a joy. Nothing like being locked up and knowing that nobody will give a damn about opening up your cage to let you out before you die.”
He looked at her in surprise.
“That’s one of those forever fears after being kidnapped and held captive like that,” she murmured.
“Did you ever think that there was a time when they would just lock you up, walk off, and throw away the key?”
“Every day when they locked me in,” she said flatly.
“I’m sorry,” he said. “That’s hard.”
“Very.”
“Well, the good news is, you’re out of the room, and I don’t intend on ever having you go back in again.”
“But intentions aren’t necessarily plans,” she clarified.
And he chuckled softly. Then he immediately calmed his voice. “It’s nice to see you have a sense of humor,” he said. He held up his hand and stopped, and she realized they had come somewhat around in a circle.
“Are they up ahead?”
“They are, and they’ve also been taken,” he said.
Diesel placed a finger against her lips and said, “Don’t speak again. Not until I say so.” And he quickly moved forward, giving her no choice but to follow, since they were still tied together. He heard the Chinese words firing rapidly up ahead and heard Jerricho respond.
He looked at her and whispered, “Do you understand Chinese?”
She shook her head.
So far, Jerricho was being treated with respect, so he must have said something, but Diesel didn’t have a clue what. His gear would have given him away if nothing else. But just one male was up against Jerricho and the two scientists with him.
As Diesel watched and waited, the lone man lifted his rifle and held it against Jerricho.
Diesel immediately drew his weapon, and, before the guy could fire, Diesel popped him.
Jerricho looked at him and asked, “What took you so long?”
“I was trying to figure out what was going on,” he said. “Anybody else around here?”
“No, I took two more down.”
“Good. Let’s go,” he said. He looked at the other two scientists. “Move it now.”
Paul struggled to his feet, and Diesel frowned, studying his weakened condition.
“We’ll head to the second floor, where there’s a balcony,” he said. “We’ve arranged to get out that way.”
“Good,” Paul said. “How far is it?”
“Directly above us,” Diesel said, “so not very far.” With that, he led them all back around up to the stairs. They cleared the hallway, moved across to the small sitting room, where the small balcony was, and stepped outside.
No alarms went off. No lights went on. No gunfire was heard.
He quickly dropped down the ropes, looked at Jerricho, and asked, “Do you want to go down, and we’ll take the other two between us?”
He nodded. Jerricho slipped over the balcony with Paul on one side and slowly lowered himself and Paul down.
Eva said, “I can go down on my own.”
Diesel untied the rope from her and quickly wrapped it around Marge.
Diesel nodded at Eva to go first. Eva slowly climbed down the rope, keeping it wrapped around one leg, down from knot to knot, until she reached the pavement. After that, he picked up Marge and told her, “Put your arms around my neck, and hang as tight as you can.”
She nodded and buried her face against his neck, and he slowly lowered himself down with the older woman. When they hit the ground, Jerricho came up and helped him to release the hooks up above. They didn’t want to leave anything to show their exit passage.
As soon as they were on the ground and clear, they tied up the ropes and Diesel threw them over his shoulder. Grabbing Eva’s hand, he pulled her off to the side and whispered, “Stay close.”
She nodded. “We are.”
“I know, but what about those two?” He nodded in the direction of Paul and Marge. Diesel didn’t say anything, but Paul still worried him.
As they moved forward, Paul stumbled once and then again. Jerricho bent down, helped the older man to his feet, and asked, “Are you okay?”
Paul shook his head. “I’ll make it. I’ll make it.” But a desperate note was in his voice.
“You didn’t expect to make it out of there, did you?” Diesel asked Paul.
Paul looked at him in surprise. “What do you mean?”
“Just something in your tone, something that’s not quite what I expected.”
Paul frowned at him. “How could I possibly have thought I’d be saved? I’ve been a captive for a year,” he said bitterly.
“I get it.” But Diesel kept an eye on him. He glanced at Jerricho, frowned, and shook his head.
It was enough that Jerricho knew Diesel was disturbed.
As they moved forward ever-so-quietly, Diesel stopped short of a corner. As they came around the corner, Jerricho swept low and Diesel swept high, and then Paul stepped out. Seeing a vehicle, he raced forward. Then came a single shot, as Paul’s head exploded, and he dropped to the pavement.
Jerricho immediately rolled behind another vehicle, and, all of a sudden, he stood, leaned over the trunk of the car, raised his rifle, and he fired off three shots. There was a groan and then silence, before a heavy thud was heard. Jerricho immediately raised his hand and motioned for his partner.
