Midnight Caller

by Rebecca York

  She put down the keys. “No! I saw his face. I heard him. He wants a clear escape route. And if he doesn’t get it, he’ll kill Glenn and Dorsey. So if you’re planning anything that’s going to upset him, I’m not letting you out.”

  He glared at her for long seconds, then replied, “All right.”

  “I have your word on that?”

  “Yes.”

  Picking up the keys, she tried another. It was the right one, and the lock clicked open.

  “Thank you,” he said gruffly when she entered the cell.

  She gave him a direct look. “I’m doing it for Glenn.”

  “I know.” Pushing himself up, he grimaced with pain.

  “You should get medical attention,” she informed him.

  He gave the answer she’d expected. “Not now.” His eyes burned into hers. “I won’t try anything that endangers Hal or Glenn. But I’ve got to find out what’s happening. Okay?”

  “Okay.”

  “First, I need a sling for this damn arm. There are sheets in one of the cabinets near the door and a knife in the guard desk. Cut a strip off a sheet and bring it here.”

  Meg found the sheets and the knife. Ripping off a strip of fabric, she brought it back to the security chief. When he started giving her directions, she shook her head. “I know emergency medicine.”

  “And what else?”

  “Unfortunately, it seems I don’t find out until I need the information.”

  Claymore gritted his teeth as she bound the arm to his chest, trying not to cause any additional damage.

  “If there’s a bullet still lodged in there, you need to get it out.”

  “Later.”

  He stood, swayed, and caught himself against the bars. After several seconds, he pushed away and strode down the hall. Meg followed, watching him stop and stare at the man with the missing sidearm.

  “Sparks got his weapon?” she asked.

  “I assume so,” Claymore answered. “I was on the phone or I’d probably be dead, too.”

  Sitting down at the desk, he got a service handgun from a locked drawer, checked the magazine, and shoved it into his empty holster. Then he pushed a button on a control panel. Part of the opposite wall slid aside, revealing a bank of TV screens.

  One by one, Claymore switched on the monitors, which provided a view of various parts of the estate, indoors and out.

  Meg got a look at the cafeteria where men were sitting tense and silent, the main gate where the guard stood rigidly at his post, and several other locations. The airfield, which looked as if it had been carved out of a mountainside, appeared deserted at first Then a plane taxied out of a hangar and stood ready for takeoff on the tarmac.

  As she watched, a jeep pulled into view. Glenn was driving. The other men were in the back. The vehicle stopped on the runway.

  Sparks got out, holding tight to the general, who was struggling on his feet.

  “I can give the order to bring him down once he takes off,” Claymore muttered.

  “Won’t you kill the pilot?” she gasped.

  “The pilot will have a chute,” he snapped. “So will Sparks, if he’s smart. But we’ll pick him up in the woods.”

  Meg lacked his sense of confidence. Praying it would all be over soon, she watched the fugitive drag Dorsey toward the plane. Before he reached it, the general stumbled and went down. Sparks sprinted away, and gunfire erupted from inside the hangar.

  “Glenn! Get down, Glenn!” Meg screamed as the TV screen went blank.

  Claymore cursed, then reached for the phone, barking orders for a vehicle.

  Meg’s terse, “I’m coming,” was answered with a nod.

  Claymore continued to speak into his portable phone, issuing more orders. By the time they reached the entrance, a jeep was waiting. As they sped toward the top of a hill, Meg saw a column of black smoke rising in the air and gasped.

  “Pick it up,” Claymore growled to the driver.

  Her fingers digging into the edge of the seat, Meg strained forward. But they were too far away to see anything besides the smoke. In the front seat. Claymore was punching the buttons on the phone and cursing, so she knew he wasn’t getting any information.

  Meg didn’t know if she was a religious person. She didn’t know if she prayed to God on a regular basis or if she turned to Him in a crisis. But there was nothing else she could do, so she began to pray now, gripping the seat and bracing against the swaying of the speeding jeep.

  Please let Glenn be okay, she silently begged over and over as the jeep careened toward the scene of the unknown disaster.

  Chapter Thirteen

  The sirens of emergency vehicles sounded behind them on the road, and Claymore’s driver whipped onto the gravel shoulder as two fire trucks sped past.

  The moment the pavement was clear, the jeeps followed in the wake of the vehicles, arriving at the airstrip minutes later.

  As they screeched to a halt on the tarmac, Meg saw a small plane about fifty yards away—engulfed in flames and smoke.

  A cry welled in her throat. “Glenn!”

  Only the roar of the fire answered.

  She was out of the jeep and rushing toward the conflagration when a large hand clamped her shoulder. “Stay here!” Claymore hissed.

  “I have to find Glenn.”

  “If he’s in there, you can’t do a damn thing about it. But I’ll bet he’s not!” the security chief retorted.

  “Then where is he?”

  “I don’t know.”

  She let him guide her back to the side of the vehicle, let him press her against the cold metal, the heat from the fire searing her face, even at this distance.

  Smoke burned her eyes and choked her lungs as she watched in a kind of wide-eyed shock as firemen pulled their hoses toward the ruined aircraft and began spraying it with streams of water.

  Oh, God, where was Glenn? He couldn’t be in there. He couldn’t! She wasn’t sure how long she stood there. All she knew was that the ringing of Claymore’s phone snapped her out of the trance.

  Hunching his shoulders, he turned away from her as he listened, made another call, and received a third. He straightened as two ambulances sped past and screeched to a halt on the tarmac.

  The other doctor, Dylan Ryder, jumped out of the lead vehicle, followed by two men with a stretcher.

  “Who—who are they here for?”

  “The general.”

  “How do you know?” she demanded. “Why are there two ambulances?”

  “I was just talking to Dylan. There are two ambulances in case we encounter other casualties.”

  “Has anyone seen Glenn?” she demanded.

  “Not to my knowledge. At least, there hasn’t been a phone report to that effect,” he answered stiffly.

  “You’ve got to tell me something! Was he close to the plane when it exploded?”

  Claymore gave a tight nod and she felt as if she’d been hit with a fist in the stomach. It was all she could do to keep from doubling over.

  “Maybe Dorsey knows something,” the security chief muttered.

  “Let me go with you.”

  He considered the request. “Okay.”

  She followed as he moved closer to the fire, asking questions of his men and receiving clipped answers.

  By the time they reached the stretcher, she knew part of what had happened when the TV monitors went black. Sparks had returned the gunfire from the hangar, and the fuel tank had taken a hit. So had one of the TV cables. Sparks had been blown up with the plane.

  The last anyone had seen of Glenn, he’d been rushing toward the Cessna.

  “Then what?” Meg asked the guard who was briefing Claymore.

  The guard turned toward her, his expression apologetic. “There was too much confusion. We don’t know.”

  She looked down at Dorsey, who was gazing up at her with a twisted expression on his face.

  “I suppose you think this is my fault,” she said.

  “No. Mine,�
� he replied, his voice thin and gritty. Exhausted from the effort of speaking, he closed his eyes.

  She was about to ask him what he meant, when a flash of movement caught the corner of her eye. Looking up, she zeroed in on a tall figure coming through the smoke. His shoulders were slumped, and his head was bent so that she couldn’t see his face. Yet her heart turned over in her chest as she recognized him.

  “Glenn!” she shouted, pushing her way past several startled guards. Hands grabbed at her.

  “Please. Let me go,” she begged. “Don’t you see? It’s him. It’s Glenn.”

  The hold loosened and she sped across the blacktop.

  “Glenn!” she called again, her joy surging. Blind to everything but her own relief, she launched herself toward him.

  “Meg.” His face contorted as his arms came up to catch her, then banded her so tightly that she could scarcely draw a full breath. She cleaved to him, moving her hands over his back and shoulders, and raised her face to his. With a deep groan, he lowered his mouth to hers, kissing her as if she were the only thing in the universe that could save his life—his sanity.

  When he lifted his head and gazed down at her, she gasped in air and tried to take stock of him.

  “Are you all right?”

  “Yeah.”

  She prayed it was true. His face was covered with soot, his clothing was bloodstained and his eyes were redrimmed. Worse, she could hear the air rasping in and out of his lungs.

  “What happened?” she asked urgently. “Were you shot?”

  “No.”

  The denial eased her a little. “Where were you? Nobody could find you.”

  “I was getting the pilot out of the plane. I made it to him before the engine went up. But—” He swallowed hard. “He’s dead. He’d been hit in the neck, and I couldn’t save him.”

  “I’m so sorry,” she answered, her words sounding terribly inadequate.

  Before he could say anything else. Claymore strode toward them. “Thank God. I thought…you hadn’t made it.”

  “I lead a charmed life.” Glenn’s mouth curved ironically. Then he sobered, his gaze sweeping over the security chief. “What happened to your arm?”

  The reply was lost to Meg as she looked over the chief’s shoulder and realized with a start that the whole scene between her and Glenn had been playing to an avid audience.

  Her gaze shot to him, and as if he read her thoughts, he said, “Don’t worry about it.” His eyes turned from her to the onlookers. She followed his gaze and saw a mixture of reactions—relief, bemusement and tinges of the hostility that had dogged her since her arrival. Some of the men looked as if they were willing to give her the benefit of the doubt. Others probably would never see her as anything but a threat.

  With elaborate casualness, Glenn slipped an arm around her shoulder and pulled her against his side.

  After a moment, he cleared his throat and addressed the crowd. “Ms. Wexler—” he began.

  Before he could get any further, Claymore cut him off. “Ms. Wexler freed me from a cell in the security center where I’d been locked up by Sparks,” he said, his voice ringing out in the sudden silence. “She acted with no thought to her own safety, and I’m grateful for her assistance.”

  “Thank you,” Meg said.

  “I owe you one.”

  Most of the men relaxed. A few looked as if they still weren’t completely convinced that she hadn’t put the two commanding officers under a witch’s spell.

  The drama was interrupted by the arrival of Dylan Ryder.

  “Is Hal all right?” Glenn asked quickly.

  “He’s in pretty good shape, under the circumstances. But he’s on his way to the medical center—where the two of you are headed—now.”

  When Glenn opened his mouth to object, Ryder waved him to silence. “That’s an order, sir.”

  Both men nodded wearily, and Meg suspected that Claymore, at least, was probably secretly thankful that he could finally get his arm treated.

  Glenn still hesitated.

  “Do you want me to come with you?” Meg asked softly.

  “Yeah.”

  Ryder hurried to open the door of the second ambulance. Glenn and Claymore climbed in and sank to the benches. Meg dropped down beside Glenn and wove her fingers with his, gripping his hand tightly. She wanted to be alone with him—for a long, long time. Instead, she settled for a whispered exchange as they rode toward the castle.

  “I was worried,” she murmured.

  “I’m sorry.”

  “It’s not your fault.” Her fingers clamped harder to his. “You take too many chances.”

  “I do what’s necessary.”

  She nodded, then raised her head to find Claymore looking at them intently. Shutting her eyes, she turned her face toward Glenn, trying to burrow into his warmth. For a long moment, he let her cling to him, his hand stroking across her shoulders. Then she felt his posture straighten. When she raised her head, she found that he and Claymore were staring at each other across the aisle.

  “Am I keeping the two of you from talking?” she asked.

  “No,” Glenn answered. “Anything we have to say, we can say in front of you.”

  Before she could respond, a shrill ringing sounded.

  Glenn reached for phone on the wall. The message from the other end of the line had him leaping to his feet, moving toward the front of the vehicle and banging on the window that separated them from the driver.

  “Let me off at the lab area,” he said.

  “You should get checked out,” Ryder objected. “I want to listen to your lungs.”

  “There’s been a security breach in level four.”

  The two other men were instantly on the alert.

  “When?” Claymore demanded.

  “Probably about the time the plane went up.”

  “Somebody took advantage of the emergency,” the chief growled. “I’ll—”

  Glenn shook his head. “I’ll take some men down there,” he said, the tone of his voice cutting off further argument. He turned to Meg. “I want you back in my quarters—with the same guard arrangement that we had before.”

  “But—”

  He squeezed her fingers in a crushing grip. “I want to know you’re safe. I want at least one thing I don’t have to worry about.”

  “Okay,” she agreed, feeling as if she’d been maneuvered into a corner. But she knew that following orders now was the best way to help him.

  Vowing not to get in the way, she listened as he made more phone calls—ordering two guards to meet her as soon as they reached the castle, calling for special reinforcements at the lab, arranging to have a weapon brought to him, and issuing a terse bulletin to his unit commanders. Finally, he ordered five portable lightweight biohazard suits to be delivered to the lab entrance, along with guns designed to be used with gloved hands. He was all business—the way he’d been before when he snapped into combat mode. Yet this time was different. He kept his free hand tightly linked with hers until the ambulance pulled to a halt at the nearest castle entrance.

  Meg forced herself to walk inside, then turned and looked over her shoulder as the ambulance lurched away. When she couldn’t make out Glenn through the narrow windows in the door, an awful feeling of dread grabbed her by the throat.

  I’m never going to see him again.

  No, that was ridiculous. Insane.

  Yet she couldn’t shake the sense of impending doom hanging over her as she allowed the guards to escort her to Glenn’s quarters. When they’d left her alone, she stood with her knees locked and her back braced against the door, waiting until she could stand on her own. Then she pushed away from the door and tottered to the bedroom—where they’d made love the night before. Climbing under the covers, she burrowed between the sheets, trying to will away the feeling of cold dread that had sunk into her bones. Even though she and Glenn had changed the sheets, his familiar scent clung to the pillows, and she clutched at the fantasy that he was the
re with her. Closing her eyes, she tried to calm her pounding heart. But there was no way to shake the premonition of disaster.

  “YOU WANT ME TO GO IN there with you?” Blake asked as the ambulance sped toward the lab wing.

  “I want you to get your arm fixed up,” Glenn replied over his shoulder as he exited the vehicle and joined the contingent of six men waiting for him.

  The door leading to the level-four biohazards lab was unlocked. A guard had found it that way twenty minutes earlier and immediately called security. Glenn posted two men at the door, then gathered the rest around him.

  “There was an intruder alert at this location,” he began. “So I don’t know if the integrity of the lab has been compromised. Anyone who goes with me will be wearing a full contamination kit.” He gestured toward the suits that the team had brought. “Under ordinary circumstances, these would provide adequate protection from the virus I’ve been working with. But not if someone’s down there—and he’s stupid enough to start shooting. If your suit takes a hit, the seal is broken and you’ll be exposed to the virus. Do you understand?”

  All of the men nodded, but he still wasn’t satisfied. “This has to be a volunteer mission. I’m not ordering anyone to go with me.”

  After a moment of silence, Lewis, the senior man, stepped forward. “I’m volunteering,” he said.

  The others signaled their agreement, and Glenn felt his vision film over. God, would they follow him to hell if he asked? He hoped he never had to put it to the test.

  “Okay,” he said, hearing the husky quality of his voice. Quickly he turned and began suiting up.

  When they were all encased in the protective clothing, they double-checked their oxygen supply and communications equipment before opening the door.

  After the whole team had entered, he locked the exit behind them and started down the stairs, his gun drawn and his attention focused on his surroundings as he descended to the restricted area. Listening to the sound of boots hitting the concrete treads—and the hissing of his own breath inside the suit—he imagined an intruder leaping out from around the next bend. But there was no one inside the stairwell.

  Two flights below ground level, he and the men stood in front of the familiar massive door with Warning: Biological Hazards. Authorized Personnel Only emblazoned on it.