by Amity Cross
“Because I saw him,” she said absently.
“When?” X asked, looking worried.
“Last night. Right before I came to see you.”
Jackson stuck up his hand like a kid in a classroom, and we all turned to stare at him. Lowering his hand awkwardly, he said, “The facility can’t be taken by one person. We need two teams. One to secure the Veltium-34 and one to secure Moltke and his team. We have to do both at the same time or risk the mission failing again.”
Banshee laughed. “See? He is a nerd.”
Jackson shrugged. “It’s logical.”
I rolled my eyes at Banshee. “So that’s why you came to us.”
“A swift end to an ongoing problem,” she shot back.
“If we have a two team approach…” X began, pulling the conversation back to the task at hand before it turned into a slanging match.
“You and you,” Banshee said, pointing at me and Jackson. “You secure the Veltium-34 and remove it from the warehouse. Me and him,” she jabbed a finger at X, “will go after Moltke and finish him once and for all.”
I didn’t like her tone. She thought she could come in here, an unknown entity, bark her commands at us, and expect us to follow blindly? We’d been played like fools this entire mission, so who knew if she was doing the same? I sure as hell didn’t, and I sure as fuck didn’t like her attitude. Arrogance oozed off her like Grubby Gruber’s flesh when the Veltium-34 melted him into a bloody puddle.
“So it’s just going to be like that, huh?” I asked, my lip curling. “You come in here telling us wild stories about being the real Vesper Cunningham, gaining some sympathy about your lost love and ordering us around like we don’t have a say in this?”
X’s hand came to rest on my thigh. “We’re all using one another, Mercy,” he said. “That much is resoundingly clear.”
“We wouldn’t be able to lead the life we do without manipulating events to our liking,” Banshee said with a sneer. “This is the most direct way to end this mess without prolonging the experience. The sooner I get out of here, the sooner things go back to the way I like them.”
“Let’s just play this by ear,” X said to me. “It’s not about trust or who is better or in charge. It’s about getting the job done.”
“Hitman one-oh-one,” I drawled, narrowing my eyes at Banshee.
“I see you’re the protective kind,” she said, watching my expression change. “You have nothing to worry about. We all want the same thing.”
“I’ll still be watching you,” I said thinly.
“No doubt.”
“She’s right, Mercy,” Jackson said, glancing up from the building plans. “If Moltke gets away, we’ll still get the Veltium-34. That’s a significant victory considering the damage it could do.”
“We would’ve bought some time,” I said, stating the obvious.
I knew Banshee was right, but I hated that she was. I wasn’t entirely sure what had rubbed me the wrong way, but I gathered it had a lot to do with her and Moltke’s story. I saw a lot of X and me in it, and in the wake of our fight… I didn’t like the idea of the same thing happening to us. Banshee being here, rubbing it in our faces like a badge of honor, had wound me up close to boiling point. If she crossed us, I’d wring her filthy neck myself.
Or it could just be because she chose arrogance over all else. Nobody liked a know-it-all.
Glancing at the plans, I began to memorize the location of the containment areas, laboratory, and storage sectors. If I was going in with Jackson, I’d need to know the safest way in and out. Nodding at him, I traced the route with my finger, and he nodded.
“Easy enough,” he said. “I’ll need to get a few things ready if I’m going in with you…” He hesitated.
“I’ll have your back,” I said to him. “Like you had mine.”
At the reminder of the assassin he’d shot in the back a mere day or so ago, he nodded. “I know you will.”
“We need a rendezvous point,” I said to the group. “And a contingency in case things go tits up.” I glanced at Banshee, who was smirking. “I suggest here.” I slid the blueprints aside and thumped my finger on the map.
Banshee shrugged. “It’s as good as any.”
“Then let’s get ready,” X said, shifting next to me. “We do this tonight.”
“A swift end to an ongoing problem,” I said, narrowing my eyes.
Banshee rose to her feet. “Keep those.”
I stood, matching her stance. “Where do you think you’re going?”
“I’ve got some things to collect,” she said absently. “Once this job is complete, I will need to remove myself quickly. You understand, yes?”
I sighed and gestured to the door. “As long as you’re back before nightfall.”
She backed toward the door and blew me a kiss. “See you later, love.” Then she was gone.
“She’s colorful,” Jackson said, picking up the blueprints and opening his computer.
“I’ll say,” I drawled, sitting back down next to X.
Without another word, Jackson put on his headphones. I’d fast realized that when that happened, there was no way to divert his focus short of slapping him back to reality.
Taking out my gun, I disengaged the clip, intending to check every inch of the 10mm Glock I favored.
“Are you sure you can do this?” X asked as I dismantled the rest of it.
“Positive,” I replied, beginning to clean each part. I wanted a weapon that was in top working condition if I was going into that place with Jackson. He had a family to get back to. A family that were stuck in protective custody until we resolved this bullshit.
“You were buried alive and almost suffocated to death less than seven hours ago.”
I glanced up at him and snorted at the irony. “You were shot and almost drowned…what was it? Two days ago?”
X narrowed his eyes. “I can see your point.”
“You have a gunshot wound in your shoulder. I can take a deep breath and a couple of ibuprofen and be fine. I should be the one asking you if you can do this.”
He sat next to me and pulled out his own gun, disengaging the clip.
“No more doubting,” I said. “We’re both trained for this kind of thing. I may still be green, but I learned from the best…apparently.”
X laughed softly. “If you say so.”
“Stop patronizing me.”
He shook his head, his tone turning serious. “I have no doubt you will be the one who will outlive us all, Mercy Reid. No doubt whatsoever.”
I didn’t know what he meant by that considering I felt babied at every corner. I chose not to say anything. I just turned back to the task at hand and blocked him out.
“Yeah,” X mused from someplace far away. “You don’t need anyone to hold your hand.”
He was right, but I still needed him to love.
Chapter 27
Mercy
The unmarked van was tiny with all four of us crammed inside.
Banshee sat in one corner, flanked by X and me, and Jackson was furiously tapping away on the computer equipment that was built into the rear. When the Russian mercenary said she’d needed to go get a few things, I’d been expecting a bag full of guns and ninja equipment, not a van decked out with fancy electronics that made Jackson jazz in his pants.
Turning, I watched the building we were about to enter. The facility was lit up, the roller door on the loading bay open. A small lorry was parked in front of it, which only minutes before had been unloaded by a couple of burly men. They hadn’t been wearing any kind of high visibility garb but had known how to wield a pallet jack with great accuracy as they wheeled off plastic shrink-wrapped boxes of whatever it was that was being delivered after hours.
Definitely shady operations going on here.
We all wore an assortment of black clothing and boots and were armed to the teeth. Jackson had decided he needed a black beanie like they wore in the movies when they went on stealt
h missions and was currently typing furiously on his laptop, which had cords running from it into a remote server.
Banshee had rolled her eyes at his predilection of stereotypes, but that was the tech whizz in a nutshell. His outlook on life was much different to hers…but I supposed she was worlds apart from anyone I’d ever meet on this earth again. That was, anyone else apart from X.
Images flashed across the laptop screen as Jackson hacked into the security feed in an attempt to loop the footage.
“We take Moltke dead or alive,” Banshee was saying. “I’d prefer more dead than alive, but at this point, I’ll take anything.”
“I’d like to see him suffer,” I said, watching the world outside the darkened van. The street was still devoid of life apart from the odd flash of headlights from the main thoroughfare a few hundred meters away.
“The longer you make them suffer, the more chances you give them to escape,” Banshee said, then glanced at Jackson. “Don’t you watch any movies?”
Jackson snorted, and I rolled my eyes. The thought of her sitting in a movie theater with a bucket of popcorn watching the latest Marvel superhero blockbuster was the funniest notion that had ever crossed my mind.
“The security feed has been looped,” Jackson declared. “Seamless, I might add. No one will know that we’re in there. Unless someone actually sees us, like in the flesh sees us, then we’re busted. So we have to be—”
“Jackson,” I interrupted. “It’s cool.”
“Then we should get moving,” Banshee said, her Russian accent seeming to thicken. “Thirty minutes is ideal but one hour maximum, or we will assume the other is compromised. We will rendezvous here and confirm the mission has been completed. You’ll get your bomb, and I’ll get Moltke’s head.”
“One hour maximum,” X echoed, threading his fingers through mine. Leaning close, he caught my mouth with his, treating me to a short but passionate kiss.
Breaking away, my gaze crossed with Banshee’s, and she scowled at us. I bet she was butt sore she was about to come face-to-face with her ex while we were all loved up. Too bad, so sad. That was the way the cookie crumbled and all.
Turning to Jackson, I said, “Ready?”
“As I’ll ever be.” He snapped his laptop closed and picked up a black backpack that was packed with all the tools he might need to secure the Veltium-34.
Jumping out of the van, we assembled on the side of the road before moving off across the vacant lot beside the facility. The grass came up to my waist as we waded through it, swishing lightly as we passed.
When we reached the perimeter of the facility, we ducked low in the grass as X knelt in front of us, cutting the chain link fence with a large pair of clippers. When he was done, he cast them aside and rolled back the wire as we filed through into the asphalted yard at the side of the lit facility.
Before the two teams could part, X grabbed my hand and squeezed. I nodded, telling him with my gaze what I couldn’t put into words. See you soon. Then he and Banshee were moving away from Jackson and me.
I watched them melt into the darkness, two ghosts side by side, and felt a yearning in my stomach. I wanted to be with him, but Jackson needed me more.
Turning, I signaled for him to follow me around to the other side of the building. Following the path we’d chosen from the blueprints, we entered the facility pretty much through the front doors. The door was locked, but I slid in a pick and tinkered with the mechanism until I felt the gears turn. Testing the resistance, I gestured for Jackson to follow as the glass swept inward.
Inside, the reception area was empty, save for some fancy couches and a low-lying desk area. A phone with an attached headset and a computer were the only things visible on its surface. Nothing moved but us. It was a good start.
The doors behind the desk that led into the main building and laboratories beyond were locked with a standard key card access system, so I stood by, holding my gun up covering our rear as Jackson fiddled with the little blinking red light until it turned green.
He pushed the door open slightly, allowing me to scan the hallway. Nodding, I stepped through into the empty space, my gun tracking before us. So far so good, but now we were walking on dangerous ground. From here on in, we could stumble over staff or ugly fuckers with guns.
We paused at the end of the hall where it split off both left and right. On the wall, a sign directed us to the left for Laboratories A-C and to the right for Containment and Storage.
“The Veltium-34 has to be in one of the containment areas,” Jackson whispered.
“So we check them all until we get the right one,” I replied, leaning my back against the wall.
Checking my gun, I glanced at Jackson, who was looking a little hot under the collar. He just had to deal with it. If he stuck with me like I told him to, then he’d get through this just fine.
Signaling to him, he nodded, and I leaned around the corner, doing a quick sweep of both directions. All clear. I moved forward, taking a right turn, my boots silent on the polished concrete floors.
We moved quickly, checking the first containment room we came across, but it was dark and empty. Nothing had been stored here for some time. Moving down the darkened hall, we had more luck with the next one.
The room looked exactly like the first except for the lit chamber with a football sized bomb sitting on a pedestal inside.
“That’s it,” I hissed at Jackson. “It looks almost exactly like the bomb Gruber built.”
“C’mon,” he said, rushing over to the door that separated us from the Veltium-34. “I need your help.”
“You want to go in there?” I asked. “Both of us?”
“It’s safe, Mercy,” he said, ushering me forward. “It’s not like before.”
“Are you sure?”
“I need another pair of hands to stabilize the device,” he explained. “Now that I see it, I understand why Gruber messed himself up.”
He disengaged the lock, and the door slid open, granting us access. Putting my trust in Jackson, I followed him inside. There was a hiss behind us, and I turned to see the door closing.
“Are we…” I began, my heart hammering in my chest.
“We’re not stuck,” Jackson explained as he looked over the bomb. “It’s standard protocol for a containment chamber like this. The door needs to be engaged in case of a breach.”
“I still feel sick,” I drawled, standing on the other side of the pedestal.
“I’ve got you, Mercy,” Jackson said, sounding all-important like. Looked like the ball of anxiety had finally found his chops. “Place your hands here and here, and hold it steady while I dismantle the firing mechanism.”
“This better not go south, Marcus Jackson,” I scolded.
“I’ve got you,” he declared, and I snorted.
As soon as I placed my hands on the bomb, a whoosh and boom tore my focus. I stepped back just as the door to the containment chamber slammed shut, the hydraulic locks hissing as they slammed into place.
“Jacks—” I was about to chew him out for tripping some unknown fail-safe when I saw the culprit standing right outside. My gaze collided with Bateman’s, and I smashed my fist against the glass right in front of his stupid fucking face. So that’s where the fucker went.
“Fancy seeing you here,” he drawled, tapping his gun against the glass. “Your funeral was a touching affair. A little hasty and low budget, but very efficient if you ask me.”
“How’s the arm, fuck stain?” I asked, digging in the verbal boot. Last time I’d seen his ugly mug was at the wharf when Moltke had put a bullet in his arm.
“Just perfect, thanks for asking.” Pacing up and down the length of the glass, he began to toy with us like a pair of caged monkeys. “So you’re Mercy Reid,” he said, looking me up and down. “Pretty but it’s a shame about this.” He touched his face, mirroring the place where my burn scar ran down my cheek. “And I was almost certain that you’d been buried.”
“Sorry t
o disappoint you,” I snarled. “It was a little premature for my liking.”
Bateman didn’t reply. He just tapped the barrel of his gun against his chin like he was deep in thought.
“Get it over with, Bateman,” I snapped. “Everyone knows you’re just a pathetic yes-man. What does Moltke’s boot polish taste like? Does it get you high?”
“I’m just thinking about what we can do to you in there,” he said, ignoring my insults. He probably only took them if he was paid to take them. That’s how assholes like him operated. “I know Moltke would be delighted to play with you.”
“Don’t listen to him, Mercy,” Jackson said. “He can’t do anything to us in here.”
Bateman laughed and shook his head. “Don’t be so quick to assume.”
I snarled at him, slamming my fist against the glass, but he’d turned and was talking on his phone. Reporting to his mass murdering boss, probably. A moment later, two beefy dudes with guns came in, and Bateman began barking orders at them.
“I can get us out,” Jackson hissed at me, staring at the locking mechanism that sat on the inside with us.
“But these things are designed to keep nasty shit in,” I said. “You couldn’t get Gruber out. There’s no way…”
“I couldn’t get Gruber out because he’d already tripped the biohazard protocol,” he said. “I can do it.”
“You might be able to get us out, but they’re still out there with guns, and we’re in here with a bomb that could melt us into puddles of blood and gore,” I said. “We’re done, Jackson.”
“Shit.” He frowned and stepped away from the panel. “Fuckers.”
Glancing at Bateman through the glass, I watched as he directed his cronies to guard the door. “It’s not over yet,” I went on. “While we’re in here and the Veltium-34 is still in play, there’s still hope.”
“How do you figure we’ll get out of here?”
I shrugged. “I don’t know yet. Sometimes, solutions present themselves in the moment.”
“So I should steel myself?” he asked.
“Exactly.”
Besides, Banshee and X were still out there. If we could keep Bateman and his cronies busy, it might buy them more time to take out Moltke.
