by Tee O'Fallon
Thug One aimed his gun at Donald’s head and pulled the trigger. The agent’s body jerked, and Trista couldn’t stop the scream that escaped her lips.
Oh my God! They’re both dead.
She froze. The scene before her was totally surreal. Though she could see the agents’ lifeless bodies right there in front of her, the shock was so great she almost couldn’t believe it. Two people died trying to protect me, and now they’re gone.
Unable to stop herself, she began sobbing. Thug Two pointed another gun at her, and she cringed, expected to hear the shot, feel the bullet penetrate her flesh. It never came.
A gun pressed into her back. “Keep quiet.”
With one last look at the dead agents, she compliantly followed them outside, hearing the door click shut behind them.
Poofy.
Turning, she glanced up to the top window, worrying and praying that her cat would be all right.
The night was dark as ink, the autumn air cool as they shoved her into the back seat of a dark sedan and slammed the door shut. The car’s interior lights hadn’t come on, and she assumed they’d removed the bulbs.
The car started and pulled from the curb. She heard a tiny click, then threw up her hands as a bright light blinded her.
“Hello, Ms. Gold.” Instinctively, she pushed herself to the far end of the seat until her back contacted the door. The interior of the car was so dark she hadn’t realized anyone else was inside. “We’ve never met before. Not in person, anyway. Although I understand you’ve been following me for quite some time.”
A frisson of terror crept up her spine. This was the man who now held her life in his hands.
Alexy Lukashin—the rezidentura.
Chapter Twenty-Six
Matt sat in the dark living room staring at the TV, much as he’d done every night for the past two weeks since he’d watched Trista being escorted out of his life.
Yawning, he glanced at the green dial of the watch on his wrist. It was well after midnight and still, he couldn’t sleep. Unfortunately, his friends were all working the night shift that week, so he was totally alone. Except for Sheba.
He’d gone back to work, volunteering for every double shift on the roster, anything to keep his mind occupied. Trista—his little pixie—had dug deep under his skin, burrowing into his heart until she was all he could think about. But he couldn’t burden her with being around someone who was so fucked up. He’d undoubtedly make her miserable, and she’d wind up leaving him anyway. It’s better this way. Or so he kept telling himself.
Sheba lifted her head from his lap, her amber-gold eyes locking onto his, a supremely mournful expression on her face, one that mirrored the sadness deep in his soul. When he scratched her under the chin, she dipped her muzzle to lick his hand, as if telling him she knew exactly what he was going through.
“I know you miss her.” Sheba let out a little whine and laid her head back on his lap. “I miss her, too.” So much that he’d taken to letting Sheba up on the sofa during his late-night TV sessions, a mortal sin in the K-9 world and one that he’d railed at Trista for committing in the hotel. The one where he’d taken her virginity and made sweet love to her. That was a night he’d never forget.
Resting his hand on Sheba’s belly, he sifted his fingers through her short coat, remembering with vivid clarity how he’d watched Trista overcome her fear of dogs. She and Sheba had even become friends.
He wanted to give her more. Hell, I want to give her everything, but not the way I am now. “Think I can do it, girl?” In response, Sheba raised her head and rested one paw on top of his hand, as if in a high five. He doubted she knew what he’d said, but he’d asked her a question and she inherently knew his moods well enough to understand whatever was bugging him and offer her moral support.
The hardest part would be making that first call to someone in the profession cops avoided at all costs. A shrink.
Dipping her head down and up repeatedly, Sheba looked as if she were nodding in encouragement.
“I can’t promise you anything.” He scratched her ears, knowing he was saying that more to himself. “Except that I’ll give it my best sh—”
The cell phone he’d set on the coffee table rang, and he picked it up, not recognizing the number. “Connors.”
“It’s Max Fenway. Trista’s gone. We think the Russians have her.”
Matt jumped to his feet. In less time than it took for his heart to beat once, he was instantly awake, as if someone had zapped him with a Taser. “What kind of fucking morons did you have protecting her?” He began pacing the living room, Sheba keeping step with him, her body tense as she sensed something was horribly wrong. “And what do you mean, you think they have her?”
“I’ve got two dead agents, and she’s not at the safe house. The door to her bedroom was kicked clean off the hinges. There’s no sign of her.”
His heart gave a heavy sigh of relief. If there was no sign of her… If she wasn’t lying dead next to the two FBI agents, then she could still be alive.
Goddamn it. Damn it all to hell. “I never should have let you guys take her.” Fuck, I should have been the one protecting her, whether she liked it or not. “How many people do you have out there looking for her?” Whatever that number was, it wouldn’t be enough.
“Look, Connors, we’ve got it covered. I’m only notifying you because I sensed something between you two. I’ve got every FBI agent in the area out looking for her and every snitch on the agency’s payroll keeping their eyes and ears open.”
“I can find her faster.” With Fenway still on the line, he charged into his office and pulled up the GPS program linked to the tracking device he’d hooked onto Trista’s charm bracelet. “Fuck!” The system was down. He’d have to find her on the ground using a handheld device.
He bolted up the stairs. Behind him, Sheba followed closely at his heels. “What’s the location of the safe house?”
“What’s the difference?” Fenway shouted back. “She’s not there.”
Putting the call on speakerphone, he set it on his bureau, then shoved his legs into a pair of cargo pants. “The difference is that I can try to track her from her last known location.”
“How?”
“She’s wearing a locator. It’s in the charm bracelet I gave her.”
“How do you know she’s wearing it?”
“Since the day I gave it to her, she’s never taken it off.” Not even in the shower, but he kept that information to himself. He grabbed a CIA shirt from his closet and pulled it over his head. “I’m not about to rely on you and your incapable team of fuckup agents to find her. Now give me the goddamn address!”
Fenway rattled off the address, which Matt committed to memory. “Don’t show up here half-cocked, or I’ll have to call your—”
Matt hung up, not giving a shit who Fenway called. He shoved his belt through his holstered weapon and two fully loaded magazine pouches. As he punched in another call, Sheba danced at his feet, tracking his every move. It was a conditioned stimulus. When he geared up, his dog knew what was coming and was as ready for action as he was.
“Nick,” he said when his friend answered. Then he gave the code phrase they’d all agreed on when they’d been in training together, the one signifying dire, life-threatening shit was going down and their unquestioned assistance was needed ASAP. “Lock ’n’ load.”
Chapter Twenty-Seven
An hour later, they were still driving through the darkness, uphill on a turning, twisting tree-lined road. So many thoughts—regrets, mostly—ran through Trista’s head.
I’m going to die.
No one will find my body.
I wish I’d gotten married and had children. Now she’d never have the chance. At least her parents still had each other. When word got back to them that she was gone, they would carry on. The only one who truly needed her was her cat.
She bit back a cry. Who will take care of Poofy?
Matt. Even though dogs were
his first love, she didn’t doubt he’d either keep Poofy at his place or find him a good home. That was one regret she didn’t have. The other was that she’d fallen in love with Matt and told him how she felt. Given her dire circumstances, that one thought gave her some measure of comfort.
Trista choked down another sob. She loved him too much to spend one more night under the same roof with him, but right now, she was sorely regretting that decision. He’d been right. Matt might not be capable of loving her, but he’d always kept her safe. Now it was up to her to save her own ass.
She missed what the sign on the edge of the road said, but as soon as they’d passed it, the car slowed and turned onto another road. The vehicle lurched as it traversed the rutted pavement. In the glow of the headlights, she glimpsed an enormous wrought iron gate. They stopped in front, and the doors’ locks clicked open. Thug Two got out of the car.
This is it. Her only possible chance of escape. Glancing sideways at Lukashin, she saw his attention was focused forward on his man now struggling to open the gate. Her heart raced as she clasped the metal door handle, cranked it open, then jumped from the car and took off running toward the trees.
Shouts came from behind her. She’d never been much for working out, preferring to spend her time sitting in front of a computer screen, but she’d never run faster in her life.
Tree limbs smacked her in the face and arms, and she nearly stumbled over the uneven terrain. It was pitch black, with no moon to light her way. Her heart pounded, and her breath came in quick gasps.
As she ran, she held her arms in front of her face to bat away the constant assault from all the low-hanging foliage. She tripped and fell to her hands and knees. Get up! Go, go, go!
A second later, she was on her feet, pounding through the trees. She had no idea where she was going, and it didn’t matter. Behind her was death. In front of her was her only possible avenue of escape.
She slammed into something solid—something that spun her, jerking her off her feet. She screamed, twisting in his arms, clawing at his face, but it was no good. One of the thugs had her solidly in a bear hug.
He threw her over his shoulder and began walking. She pounded on his back with her fists, but he ignored her. Blood rushed to her head, and she nearly passed out. Suddenly, she was exhausted and let her arms dangle uselessly. She wanted to cry but couldn’t.
What good would it do?
A few minutes later, she was thrown onto the back seat of the car like a sack of potatoes. The door slammed shut behind her, and she cowered against the side, pulling her legs up to rest her head on her knees.
“I admire your tenacity, but it is a waste of time and energy.” The car rolled through the open gates. “There is no escaping what’s coming next.”
“And what exactly is that?” Although the interior of the car was dark, she looked in the direction of his voice, noting that his accent was still there, though not as thick as that of his thugs, and his English was impeccable, no doubt from living in the U.S. for so long.
“You and I need to have a little chat.” The sound of wrinkling plastic came to her ears. “Peppermint?”
She sensed he was holding something in front of her face, but she ignored it. The scent of mint filled the car’s interior as they continued along the darkened road.
The car’s headlights illuminated the unkempt grass and weeds. They continued on for at least another mile before the first building came into view, a large three-story stucco structure with at least thirty windows on the side facing the road.
They passed building after building, similar to the first one. After forty such structures, she lost count.
Finally, Thug One drove up to one of the buildings, continuing to the side, where he jumped the curb, then pulled around back and parked on the grass. The walls of the structure were completely covered with meandering vines. Wherever they were, she guessed the place had been abandoned for years.
This is not good. Even if I scream, no one will hear me. I am in deep shit. Funny how after a lifetime of not cursing, that word was now her go-to fave.
The engine turned off, and she was hauled outside and through a rusty door. Thug Two turned on a flashlight, illuminating a long corridor with tall, multipaned arched windows covered with dust, grime, and cobwebs. The floor was covered with dingy brown-and-black checkerboard tile and littered with debris and green paint chips from the peeling walls. A damp, musty smell permeated the building, probably from the occasional fuzzy gray patches of mold on the walls.
They passed door after door, each one dark brown and with a single square viewing window. On one of the walls, someone had hand-painted a mural of an American flag with the words One Flag, One Country.
As they propelled her farther down the hallway, she glanced up and around, searching for something—anything—that could help her out of this mess. An open door. A discarded knife. But there was nothing. Nothing but paint chips, an occasional ratty leather shoe, and a filthy stuffed animal.
“Where are we?” Not that it mattered. Wherever it was, they were in the middle of nowhere.
“This is an old psychiatric facility,” Lukashin said. “One of the largest in the country. It was built in the 1920s. There are over six hundred acres and nearly a hundred buildings with nine thousand beds. It was built during a time when mental patients were considered outcasts, separated from society. Hence the remote location. Out of sight, out of mind.”
As they walked, the glow from the flashlight partially illuminated some of the rooms they passed. In one of them, she glimpsed old mattresses piled high.
“The surrounding community experienced an exceedingly high murder rate, a statistic attributed to occasional escapees. Anyone recaptured was…rehabilitated.” He chuckled, a creepy sound that sent fear up her spine. “This facility was at the forefront of shock therapy, lobotomy, and research into many varieties of antipsychotic drugs.”
Speaking of psychotic…
At the end of the hallway, they guided her into a room and flipped on an overhead fluorescent light that flickered and buzzed. At one end of the large space were six chairs in a row that looked like they belonged in a dentist’s office…except for the leather straps attached to the arms, legs, and padded headrests. Beside one of them stood a rusty metal tray on wheels. At the sight of what was on the tray, her blood ran cold.
Syringes. Lots of them.
Her eyes went wide. “No!” She turned to run, but strong arms grabbed her and she was no match for their strength. One of the thugs shoved her into the chair, quickly strapping down her arms and legs. Fisting her hands, she strained at the straps to no avail. She tried kicking, but her legs were bound just as tightly to the legs of the chair. Again, she fought the urge to scream, knowing only these Russian bastards and the few rats she’d glimpsed scurrying away at their arrival would hear her.
Jerking her wrists from side to side, she strained at her bonds. Blood trickled down her arm onto the filthy white tile floor, and it was then that she realized the charm bracelet Matt had given her was gone. Her body began to tremble. She’d held back the tears until now, but the loss of that one little piece of jewelry undid her. A steady stream of tears trickled from both her eyes.
Now that she could see Lukashin clearly, she compared him to her memory of the photos she’d researched in the CIA data bank files, which were taken of a younger man. Lukashin was now sixty-five years old, with a thinning, receding hairline. That, and he had more lines at the corners of his mouth and eyes. But it was the black, soulless eyes that she would have recognized anywhere.
“For such a tiny woman, you have caused me a great deal of aggravation. Your technological and analytical talents are well known to us. Your skills far surpass those of our own people’s in those particular fields. What you failed to note was that while you’ve been tracking me, we’ve been keeping an eye on you.”
“Is that how you identified me?” It was a lingering question that still remained unanswered.
“Essentially, yes. You see, I’m a product of the Cold War, but I’ve made a point of keeping up with modern technology’s impact on the world.” Lukashin pursed his lips, giving her the impression he was pondering how much to tell her. “You’ve clearly invented a miraculous program enabling you to track my location on the black net. What you didn’t know is that my programmers can tag anyone found trespassing in my chat room. Still, I’d love to hear about how you found me online in the first place.”
“Is that why I’m here?” she cried in a trembling voice. “To divulge classified technological secrets to you? I assure you, that’s not going to happen.” She’d die before betraying her country. Heck, she was going to die anyway.
“What do you know about Senator Ashburn?”
“Nothing,” she lied. “Except that he’ll probably be our next president.” They couldn’t know for certain that she knew who the senator was and what he’d done. And they certainly wouldn’t know she’d stolen Thomas George’s external hard drive and cracked into his encrypted files.
“You listened in on my chat room conversation.” He pinned her with those cruel, dark eyes. “And you called the editor at the Arlington Sentinel, asking what story Thomas George was working on when he was killed. Why did you do that?”
Oh shit. She’d forgotten about that phone call. “I was curious.”
“Did you find out?”
“No,” she lied again, realizing he knew she was handing him a line of shit. She wouldn’t be in this mess if he didn’t suspect she knew Senator Ashburn’s backstory. “You murdered him, didn’t you? Over his story.”
He made a sucking sound as he shifted another peppermint from one side of his mouth to the other. “I did.”
She swallowed. Any possibility he’d consider letting her go just went out the window. The fact that he’d just confessed to murder was the final nail in her coffin.
I’ll never get out of here alive.
