Deadly Paths

by Jack Parker

  Victoria glanced at Claire and was unable to hide her worry. The younger woman turned pale, her lower lip starting to tremble. Mako kept talking.

  "On the back of each of your necks you should feel a welt. The injection I gave you will have numbed the area, so you may or may not have noticed. But, the injection also included a small charge that went directly up into the vertebral artery at the base of the skull. From there, it will have traveled up into the Basilar artery where it is designed to become lodged."

  "Oh God," Victoria breathed, now indeed feeling a lump at the back of her neck.

  Claire whimpered. "What? What is that, Victoria? What does he mean?"

  "If you are as educated as I would hope on anatomy, Agent Kingsly, I don't have to tell you what that means. But for my poor Devotchka, there is an area of the brain called the Circle of Willis. It controls the passage of all bloodflow into the brain. In exactly sixty seconds, one of you will die almost instantly from a catastrophic series of aneurisms to that area. The other will live to continue the game."

  A door swung downward just under the monitor of the console like a glove compartment from a car. A blue cylinder with a plastic egg shaped cap rolled forward into a scooped recess. Victoria reached down and retrieved the cylinder. Removing the cap revealed a long thin needle covered in light blue goo.

  "What is that?" Claire asked, on the verge of panic. "Victoria is what he says true? My head hurts."

  Victoria was starting to get a headache too. She knew it would only increase rapidly, until she hurt no more, ever. Mako explained the needle.

  "The cylinder that just rolled forward is an electrostatic syringe. It carries just enough charge to disarm the aneurism bomb in one of you. Jam the needle into the back of your neck just above where you feel your bump, press the button on the back, and you'll get quite a shock but you will live. Decide quickly though. You have about fifty seconds. If for some reason you two ladies argue and nobody lives to place the cylinder back and close the door, the whole set is rigged to explode in ninety seconds. You should have fifty seconds left now. Goodbye ladies."

  "I'm going to kill that son of a bitch," Victoria swore as she considered the needle. The screen went dark and the lasers turned off. At least he was sporting enough to not make her cross that minefield again. She sprinted over to Claire, who was trying to stand but in tears.

  "I don't want to die," she sobbed. "But you need to live, Victoria. You need to catch that guy. He'll hurt more people won't he?"

  Victoria nodded somberly. "Most likely."

  Claire was more right than she knew. It wasn't just Mako that needed to be stopped, but Carlo and an organization very powerful. It was organization with lethal assassins in its employ, and Mako knew more about it. If Victoria died here the CIA would be none the wiser. No replacement they sent would ever catch on in time now. She had her mission, and yet . . .

  "Then, I need you to tell my parents. Tell them I, ah!—"

  Victoria didn't have time for the argument she knew would come if she tried to convince Claire that she should be the one to live. In one motion she surged forward, forcing Claire's head down under the weight of one arm, while she jammed the needle into the back of the unsuspecting girl's neck with the other and pressed the activation button. The shock numbed Victoria's hand and she nearly lost hold of the electrostatic injector as Claire screamed and struggled. There was a sizzle and pop of ozone, and when she released Claire her blond hair stood on end. Claire stared at Victoria, stunned.

  "Wh-Why? No! No! Mako, or whoever he is needs to be stopped! You're the only one who can!" Claire released fresh tears down her cheeks and put her face into her hands. Her voice fell to a whisper. "Why is this happening?"

  Victoria stood again, intending to deliver the cylinder back to its recess herself before she died. Already her head was pounding with an intense headache, her vision blurred as it rapidly became a migraine. There wasn't much time left. She started toward the console.

  "I can't let anyone die because of me, Claire. It will be all right. It will—"

  Victoria staggered against the wall and vomited, nearly falling.

  "Victoria!" Clair was at her side, trying to support her.

  This is it, Victoria thought. Dead because I messed up. Dead by noble sacrifice that nobody can ever know about. Her eyes hurt. Her ears buzzed as every sound magnified themselves. Had the aneurism already started?

  She staggered toward the far wall, leaning against the computer mainframes for support. Claire was holding her hand. Her pleading words for Victoria to sit down made her wince. And still there was that humming . . . that awful electric sound coming from the console where Mako had taunted her. That awful, beautiful, sound—her only hope.

  Victoria drew her knife and lunged for the console. She wretched as Claire screeched in surprise. Victoria drove her blade in, quickly freeing one side of panel casing. She felt jagged metal cut into the flesh of her hand as she tore the panel free. Inside, wires of different sizes sparked and sizzled with an overload of electric energy. No doubt, this mess was the result of Mako's tampering. Victoria grabbed one of the thickest wires and cut it free at the base. She could feel it surge with energy in her hand.

  "Not much time," Victoria panted. Her head was swimming in pain. She was on the verge of passing out. If that happened . . .

  "I hope this works," Victoria declared weakly as she broke the button end of the cylinder open by hitting it against the console three times with all her remaining strength. She jammed the needle into her neck, then touched the cable to the back of the electrostatic syringe. There was a loud pop like a cannon going off. All the lights in the room dimmed. Victoria had no air in her lungs with which to scream. Her body lurched and twitched as if struck by lightning, the result of an unknown amount of energy coursing through her body. It occurred to Victoria she very well might die of electrocution before aneurism. The world went dark.

  Someone was calling to her through that dark world patting her face, pleading with her to wake. Victoria inhaled savagely and coughed. Her body felt as starved for oxygen as if she had been underwater holding her breath for several minutes. She opened her eyes and found Claire staring at her with a mixture of hope and fear. I'm alive.

  The console beeped. Victoria sat up. Her head was still swimming. Another beep. She glanced over at the electric guts hanging free and sparking below the console. Another beep, and another. The beeps were getting more frequent, closer together, as if a metal detector was homing in on finding something and . . .

  "Oh shit!" Victoria barked. "Claire, run!"

  Claire, who had been happy to see Victoria was all right, had leaned back against the opposite row of mainframes to relax in her relief. She looked up now in confusion and horror.

  "For the elevator! Now! Run!"

  Victoria was on her feet, dragging a confused Claire by the hand.

  "I destroyed the console," Victoria explained as she ran with a pain in her side, Claire barely keeping up. They were ten feet away. The bomb is going to—"

  Heat and noise. Preliminary explosions turned computer mainframes into shrapnel and created a shockwave strong enough to knock them both forward onto their faces. Victoria didn't bother with buttons, but scrambled forward and forced the doors open on her own. Grunting, she waved Claire through.

  "Go!"

  "But . . ."

  "Jump and grab the cables. Slide down. It's our only chance! Hurry!"

  Claire scrambled forward, and hesitated at the open doors. Victoria's muscles strained, already drained of energy from the jolt of electricity that had coursed through her body. It was a miracle she was alive at all. Another loud noise—the ceiling started to collapse in a hail of hot red flame. Victoria grabbed hold of Claire and tackled her through the doors. Claire instinctively latched on as Victoria managed to grab hold of the cables.

  Fire erupted between the doors behind them as Victoria began to allow them to slide down. The doors blew out slamming into the far
wall and careening into the shaft below. Victoria barely managed to twist herself and Claire out of their path as she continued to slide. He arms ached, her ankles and hands burned with the friction of hot metal, the whole building drummed and vibrated around them. Heat and fire chased them the whole way down, until at last Victoria let go and allowed them to fall the last several feet. Landing in a crouch, she hauled Clair to her feet with one hand and opened the right side door with the other. She shoved Claire through, and followed behind the younger woman just as several tons of metal and cable crashed down through the shaft above shrouded in fire.

  They had barely made it. Claire rolled onto her back and sat up, panting.

  "I don't want to play anymore," Claire said after a moment. "This game is getting a little too hot for me."

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  Warehouses were much easier to get lost in, than they were to sneak around in. The good news was that if he was discovered wandering as he was now, his excuse for separating from the main group of hired thugs for so long might seem legit. The bad news was his investigation into what good were being loaded up that he was supposed to be protecting was getting nowhere.

  Upon arriving at the location, Jake was met outside by one of Juan's men and escorted inside, where he was promptly patted down.

  "You're checking me for weapons?" Jake asked the lean bald man who gave him the pat down. His escort had made no effort to conceal the sidearm on his hip.

  "Or wires. C'mon new guy you ought to know how this works. Consider it a training day. You do good and maybe you get a piece like me."

  The warehouse was simply labeled, 23 but Jake soon realized he was at a studio warehouse full of back up props and equipment for various Vegas shows. He found himself inside a building with crates full of everything from magic show props to gallon drums of body paint for a group of performing men who were most easily recognized when painted a deep royal blue.

  His team of six "security" members were just supposed to guard the three different entrances to the warehouse and conduct limited patrols if they thought they had to. Jake was told to skirt the perimeter of the warehouse to the rear exit where he was partnered up with a short, scrappy man from Nigeria with a hair tattoo. After fifteen minutes or so Jake pretended to get anxious—for the bathroom.

  Jake could hear the Nigerian calling out in his accent now, alerting others that his partner had not come back. He had planned on taking a look around and making it back, not getting lost. In hindsight, maybe he should have tried to knock is new buddy out.

  "Jacob!" The Nigerian called again. "Jacob where are you man? You get lost? They gonna be mad if they come and its only me over here."

  "Ah, yeah I got no clue where I am!" Jake called back as he crawled through a space between two heavy crates and emerged in another long aisle way lined by crates of all sizes. "Keep talking I'll try to head toward you!"

  So much for sneaking around. Thought Jake. He was sure to be out of time soon if he was going to find anything, and if there was anyone or anything to find at all, they had to be aware of all the noise.

  "No, stay where you are I'll come find you!" called the Nigerian.

  Just then a new noise gave Jake a new sense of direction as to where he was supposed to be going. The large cargo doors at the rear of the warehouse slid open, and the sound of two diesel engines revved up and rolled into the warehouse, causing an eerie echo and glow as powerful headlights sent ghostly beams of light through the spaces between crates.

  Jake tried to make his way toward the noise, even crawling over a row of crates until the noise and the lights grew brighter. He heard shouting voices telling men to hurry as he got closer, and there was lots of grunting and commotion. Jake rounded a corner and found a view of two large black canvas covered army trucks with orange "Spy Games" logos on the side being loaded with several small rectangular crates that looked like they might house anything from long swords to stinger missiles. He counted five men in street clothes. Another man with his back toward Jake wore white slacks, white polo shirt, and an off-white Bradbury cap. It took two men at a time to move the crates, and they were struggling up the ramps into the back ends of the moving vehicles as quickly as they could. He quickly ducked back out of sight.

  He pressed his body against a large crate and tried to listen to what the men were saying.

  "Hurry it up, lets move," the voice nearest to Jake said. "We are already an hour behind from when Carlo wanted these babies moving towards his plane and the clock is ticking."

  "What's in these damn things anyway, Julio?" another man grunted. "Lead? I've never felt a weapon this size be that heavy, not even Singers, or . . ."

  "Nobody said nothing 'bout weapons, cabrone," the close voice cut in.

  He man in white must be Julio, Jake realized. He was in the right place at last.

  "These are props."

  "Right . . . uuuunnnf. Well they are fucking heavy props."

  A loud thud as a crate was shoved into place on a truck. Followed by another.

  "How many of these things we got to get, boss?" a new voice said, breathing heavily.

  "Just six, so quit talking already and get it done?"

  "Six? Then why—"

  "So we can take them to the base, pinche idiot. These trucks have a pass for the show. Now good is that the last one? Come on, Carlo wants to be out of Nellis with the hour. If he's not, you guys don't get paid."

  Carlo is on the move, thought Jake. Something wasn't adding up. Why would he be moving props to Nellis to be flown out before the weddings were supposed to be over? Obviously, at least one man running his mouth assumed the crates carried weapons. Victoria was after weapons. Steve said he was supposed to be watching Victoria, and that Victoria was not supposed to know he was still in town. Well, Jake thought. Steve can't have everything. But I know how to keep an eye on the woman. Just bring her in on the action.

  Carefully creeping back down the row of warehouse crates to give himself some distance between himself and the loading party, Jake took out his cell phone and dialed Victoria.

  * * *

  Grace should have been horrified, but compared to the gun battle she had just survived, the scene before her was a bit benign. She was in hotel ballroom covered with ash, broken furniture, wrecked chandeliers and crawling with paramedics and firefighters tending to the injured. So far there the casualty numbers stood at twenty three injuries and zero deaths in what was being called a terrorist attack.

  Firefighters were trying to work their way up to the blast zone on the third floor of the Grand Chapel hotel and casino. Fortunately, since the hotel was just opening for business that night, and since it was being used as a set area for Spy Games, it was believed no guests had yet been placed into rooms on that floor. Rescue workers were proceeding carefully to clear a staircase of debris while bomb squad experts were moving in from the upper floors.

  The hotel had been completely evacuated by the time Steve and she arrived on the scene. Steve wanted to find his agent Victoria and discover what had become of her. Grace just wanted to make sure none of her people were injured. They weren't. However, one of the contestants was missing, Claire Bishop, and another lay before her on a stretcher in a body bag bound for the morgue. She confirmed the identity.

  David Todd, aka Robin, was pronounced dead at the ballroom shortly after the explosion having succumbed to a sudden aneurism. Grace swallowed, fighting back bile as she stared at the pale lifeless face. She balled her fists, fighting back rage. She had already slapped Steve once for involving her show in all of this. She held back from doing so again. It would not bring David back, or any of those that had died in the attack on the control room. He tried to rest her hand on her shoulder, but she shrugged it off. She turned and glared into his eyes. They looked wide and full of sorrow.

  "This was no aneurism was it?" she asked. "This is part of this whole crazy fucked up plot that you people brought onto this show! Isn't it?"

  Steven lowered his
head. "I can't be sure, Grace. Not without an autopsy by one of our specialists who knows what to look for. We—Victoria!"

  "Victoria?" Grace followed Steve's eyes.

  Victoria was making their way toward them, a stunned looking young blond woman supported with an arm draped over her shoulders. Victoria wore a black body suit that Grace had knew was not in the inventory of the show. The remnants of a tattered one piece dress, singed and burnt clung to the bond's petite frame. Her practical biker shorts and sports top kept her modest, but both women looked worse for wear.

  "No!" Victoria croaked, leaving Charlie with a paramedic who approached them and helped her onto a rolling gurney. The woman Grace now knew to be an agent of the CIA rushed over to ascertain the identity of the man in the body bag. She looked up at Grace with eyes that showed their true horror for only an instant, before a wall of distant pity veiled her true emotions.

  "This is Robin!" Victoria began. "What happened to him?"

  "You tell me," Grace spat coldly. "Or don't you already know?"

  Victoria shook her head in confusion. "What are you talking about, we were upstairs in the mission area, and were just on our way down when the elevator shut off and—"

  "It's all right agent Kingsly," Steve said, holding up some kind of official identification for Victoria to see. "Go ahead and authenticate me."

  Victoria frowned and snatched the ID from Steve, taking it out of its case and flipping it over, she unzipped a pocket from her suit and produced a small flashlight that emitted a hazy purple beam over the card. Kingsly's shoulders relaxed and she crumpled forward in a heap as she handed the ID back to Steve.

  "I accept your authentication," Victoria said in a voice that sounded tired and was very audible. "No need for verbal. Of course there would be someone watching over this op. I just can't believe we infiltrated the show administration so soon.