Athena Force 11: Target

by Cindy Dees

  “Is everything all right?” Diana asked cautiously. Surely, Delphi had a good reason for all this sudden caution.

  “Of course,” Delphi replied quickly. “But before you proceed, I’d like to talk this over with you. Let’s get together and form a plan of action before we go any further.”

  “Uh, okay,” Diana mumbled, shocked to her core at the suggestion that she should meet Delphi in person. “When and where?”

  “At the Old Town facility. In, say, a half hour?”

  Diana answered quickly, “I’ll be there.”

  She stared at the phone as she hung it up. Son of a gun. She was finally going to meet Delphi and find out who was the mysterious mastermind behind the Oracle Agency.

  10:00 P.M.

  It was strange to pull up to the Oracle town house in Alexandria and see lights on inside. Always before when she’d come here, the place had been conspicuously empty. She went through the usual routine of opening the automatic security gate and driving around back to park. A black Cadillac was parked behind the house, the kind a dignitary might travel in when they didn’t want to be blatantly obvious in a limousine. Delphi must already be here. A tingle of anticipation raced across her skin. She was dying to finally find out who was in charge of Oracle.

  She went through the tedious security protocol at the back door and let herself into the house. As always, the homey, old-fashioned kitchen struck her as incongruous in this high-tech hideaway.

  She walked down the hallway toward the library and called out, “Hello?”

  Nobody answered her. She opened the library door and stepped inside. A desk lamp illuminated the space softly. Wow. Someone had been busy in here today. The computer on the desk was replaced, the Queen Anne chair she’d demolished replaced with a similar chair. A new door even hung in the door frame. Had she not been here herself to witness the violent break-in, she would never have guessed the incident had happened. She backed out of the library. The front door frame showed signs of its repair in the unstained wood trim nailed up around it. But otherwise, it, too, looked completely unharmed.

  She headed up the stairs and called out again, “Hello! Anyone home?”

  Still no answer. Delphi was probably up in one of those plush offices on the third floor. She walked down the second-floor hallway toward the staircase to the third floor. The large conference room that sat over the library was dark, but the door was open. For some reason, she got the feeling she was being watched. Was somebody in there? Why wouldn’t they have answered her if they were?

  Sheesh, she was really getting paranoid. But after the day she’d had, she supposed she was entitled to being a little jumpy. Sure enough, a glow came from the top of the third-floor stairs. Delphi must be up there.

  She put her foot on the first step, and all hell broke loose around her. Three masked figures burst out of the conference room behind her, while two more came barreling down the stairs. All five attackers leaped on top of her, grabbing her limbs with unbelievable strength.

  She fought for all she was worth, but it did no good. All five of these assailants were trained professionals who knew exactly what they were doing. Fingers dug into pressure points in her shoulders and groin, effectively immobilizing her. Excruciating pain shot outward from the four points as her muscles went slack. In a matter of seconds, her hands were tied behind her back, her ankles lashed together, and a dark, cloth bag pulled down over her head.

  Trussed up like a pig ready for roasting, she was hauled quickly downstairs and back along the first-floor hallway to the kitchen. A door squeaked open, and she was wrestled downward again. A basement? She’d never noticed before that this place had one. It smelled of dirt and mildew. The way the faint shuffles of movement were echoing, the place had a low ceiling, too. Must be an old root cellar or something.

  She was flopped down onto…a bed? That’s sure what it felt like. It felt like a mattress over a hard surface of some kind. A cotton sheet rubbed against the back of her hands. She registered faint surprise beneath her fury and terror. What was up with that? It was pretty darned civilized for a kidnapping or worse.

  As she got over her initial shock at the attack, her brain began to function more clearly. How did these people get into this building without leaving telltale signs of a break-in? And then a terrible thought struck her. Had Delphi been taken, too? What had these people done with her employer? Was he or she trussed up like this somewhere else in the house?

  This team had to be linked to S.A.F.E. somehow. Whether or not they were CIA operatives sent out to kidnap her or worse didn’t really matter. Her Oracle search of the shadowy bunch from S.A.F.E. had obviously triggered some sort of alarm and provoked this attack on her and Oracle.

  Self-preservation began to kick in. Were they going to kill her? Clearly they didn’t plan to do it right away or she’d already be standing at the Pearly Gates. Crud. They probably meant to pick her brains first. Not good. She knew way too much about Presidential security and Oracle for that to be anything but very bad news. Quickly, she reviewed her training on resisting interrogations. She wouldn’t be able to get away with playing dumb for these guys. Probably would have to go the “I know nothing; I’m just the hired slug following orders” route.

  The pistol was plucked out of her shoulder holster, and her pockets searched. But, tied up as she was, her captors couldn’t easily get her coat off her, and they left her duster on. Hallelujah. That meant she still had a few options. But not yet. Later. If and when they left her alone.

  Out of curiosity to see how her captors would react, and in order to get some sort of dialogue going with them, she opened her mouth and let out the loudest, most piercing shriek she could muster up. In the low, enclosed space, it echoed impressively, paining even her ears.

  Someone leaned down beside her and whispered gruffly, “This place is soundproof. Yell all you want.”

  Diana jolted. If she didn’t miss her guess, that was a female voice. So, S.A.F.E. was an equal opportunity employer. Well, ducky for it.

  The whispering voice said, “You’re going to be detained here overnight. Someone will be here in the morning to talk to you. Until then, I suggest you try to get some rest.”

  Her hands were untied and retied high over her head. Someone actually put a pillow under her head while they were repositioning her, too. Since when did kidnappers give a hoot for their victim’s comfort? Confusion swirled even more deeply around her.

  Her feet were untied and retied to opposing corners of whatever they had her lying on. All in all, she wasn’t particularly uncomfortable except for the stuffy bag over her head.

  “Any chance you could lose the bag over my face?” she asked in a normal speaking voice.

  “Sorry, no. Got to protect our identities,” the woman whispered. “Wouldn’t want to have to kill you.”

  Diana would swear that was humor infusing her captor’s voice. Okay. This was, bar none, the weirdest kidnapping she’d ever heard of. If these people were so confident that they could joke around with her, then they must have Delphi in custody, too. If that was the case, that probably meant she was just a little fish they weren’t all that interested in. No wonder they could afford to make her comfortable and joke with her. Damn. Damn, damn, damn.

  There were a few more rustles in the direction she’d come from, and then what little light seeped in around the edges of her bag disappeared. Complete darkness closed in around her. And then silence. She held her breath and strained to listen for even the faintest sound of breathing. She wouldn’t put it past her captors to park someone in the dark nearby to keep an eye on her.

  But as hard as she listened, she couldn’t hear any evidence of anyone else down here. Furthermore, she didn’t feel anyone’s presence. Did she dare make her move now, or should she wait a couple of hours until the coast was definitely clear? Were it just her in trouble, she’d wait. But there was Delphi to think about. Who knew what was happening to her boss? She had to go now.

  She
wriggled and squirmed, working the decorative belt buckle at the right wrist of her duster around to the side. It took some fancy wiggling of her elbows, but she managed to point the buckle at the cloth strip securing her wrist. How many times she stabbed the sharpened tip of the buckle through the fabric, she had no idea. But eventually, she felt frays begin to tickle her wrist, and the cloth began to weaken. She yanked on it hard a few times. Not quite there. A few more good pokes, and another mighty jerk of her arm, and her hand ripped free. Thank God.

  She tore the bag off her head and looked around. It was nearly pitch-black in the cellar, but her eyes were fully adjusted to the dark from inside the bag. The room looked empty. She was lying on an old table with a mattress laid across it. Assorted odds and ends of furniture filled the corners, and cardboard packing boxes were stacked along the far wall.

  She rolled on her side and quickly examined the bonds tying down her left wrist. By straining against the ropes around her ankles, she was able to reach the knot that held her left wrist down. It took a few minutes to pick loose the knot by feel, but eventually she got it. She sat up and had her feet free in under a minute. She eased to her feet, relieved to be off that table. Now to go rescue Delphi.

  She headed for the stairs. She’d heard one of the steps creak as her captors left earlier, so she took her time, easing her weight slowly onto each step. There. The squeaker. She backed off it fast, and waited several seconds, holding her breath for some reaction to the first, faint squeak of noise it had made.

  Nothing.

  Stepping over the squeaky step, she glided up the stairs to the basement door. Crouching on her hands and knees, she peered out from under the crack at its bottom. A single pair of black leather boots sat at the kitchen table. Facing the door, dammit. But at least they were narrow and small boots. The woman, then.

  She wasn’t going to be able to surprise this lookout. And if they got into a noisy fight, the others would come running. She could probably burst out of here and get out the back door before the other attackers got here. But then, she’d have to leave Delphi behind. And that went against every fiber of her being.

  She turned over other possible options. None of them were good.

  A chair scraped. Diana lurched back from the door and plastered herself against the wall. Heels tapped quietly on the floor as the woman walked quickly out of the kitchen.

  This was her chance! After a quick peek under the door to verify that the room was empty, Diana tested the doorknob. Unlocked. Pretty confident, her captors were. She opened the door quickly and spun out into the kitchen low and fast. She was alone. She moved to the drawer where she’d fetched a knife this morning and did the same again, arming herself with a couple butcher knives and a paring knife stuck in her boot.

  She raced down the dimly lit hallway, stopping before the library door. Closed. She eased past it, running up the stairs as lightly as she could. Her heart pounded a mile a minute, and her breath came fast and shallow. The second floor was still dark, and the third floor still glowed with light.

  She glided up the third-floor stairs, her knife held out before her.

  Murmurs of sound came out of the front office. Its door was cracked open about one quarter of the way. She glided forward along the wall. The voices were too quiet to make out the words, but it surely didn’t sound like a forced interrogation.

  The desk and its high-backed leather chair, situated facing the window, were occupied. She caught a glimpse of silver hair over the back of the chair. Delphi, maybe? A couple chairs in front of the desk, between it and the window were also occupied. Black-clothed figures lounged in the chairs. Her captors. Minus their masks.

  She gaped in disbelief. She recognized every one of the women she saw. They were all old classmates of hers from the Athena Academy. They were part of S.A.F.E.? How was that possible?

  And then the truth hit her, a sledgehammer blow right between the eyes. S.A.F.E. hadn’t kidnapped her at all. Oracle had.

  Delphi had set up the meeting with her to deliver her to this team of her fellow Oracle agents. A single question screamed across her brain. Why? What had happened? Why had Delphi turned on her? Unless…

  Of course. Her signature next to the altered Oracle programming code. Delphi thought she was part of the plot to kill Gabe. But who’d pointed it out to Delphi? Surely someone had. With everything else that had gone on today, there was no way Delphi had been randomly sitting around browsing through Oracle’s programming code. Who could turn Delphi on one of his or her own agents?

  It had to be someone Delphi trusted implicitly. Someone in a very high position of power. Someone who knew Diana very well. Well enough for Delphi to believe out of hand. Like her grandfather.

  Oh. My. God.

  One of the agents shifted in her seat inside the office, and Diana lurched back to awareness of her surroundings. She had to get out of here.

  She headed back toward the stairs, but heard footsteps below her. Headed this way. Crud. She turned and raced on silent feet toward the back of the house. She slipped into the small room there and closed the door noiselessly. She waited behind the door as the footsteps climbed the stairs and headed away from her. Toward the meeting in the front office.

  She was poised by the door, just about to sneak out of the room, when another set of footsteps froze her in place. They headed downstairs. She strained to hear them, and thought she heard them descend the first-floor stairs, as well. So much for that escape route.

  She locked the door—a pitiful defense against the highly-trained team of operatives outside, but it would slow them down a little. Buy her a few seconds, maybe. She took stock of the room she was in. A bedroom. Furnished not like a room someone lived in, but rather a resting spot for someone who’d worked too long or too late. But the bed had sheets and blankets, and that’s all she cared about.

  She tore the bedding off the bed and used a knife to saw through the bedspread as quietly as she could. It took several minutes, but eventually she had enough thick lengths of bedspread and wool blanket to reach nearly to the ground. At least she hoped it would reach. She tied the strips of cloth together and measured them one last time. Her improvised rope should get her within ten feet or so of the ground. No problem.

  She tied the end of her blanket rope to the foot of the bed nearest the window. The bed wasn’t heavy enough to hold her weight and would slide over toward the window, but the double-bed’s frame shouldn’t come out the window after her. At least that was the plan.

  She checked the window for an alarm and found the inconspicuous metal disk at the side of the frame. She didn’t have the tools to disarm it readily. No help for it. She’d just have to go fast.

  She gathered up her blanket rope in her arms and flung up the window sash. As she’d expected, a loud, high-pitched alarm whooped through the house. She tossed the blanket out the window and climbed out after it before the thing had even finished unfurling. She grabbed onto it and began to shimmy downward fast, hand over hand.

  It gave an ominous lurch as the bedframe gave way and slid over toward the window with a loud scraping noise of wood on wood. Shouts erupted from inside the house, audible through the open window.

  She slid down the blanket to the next knot, burning her hands on the scratchy wool. She shifted grips to the next strip of cloth and slid down that, as well, ignoring the raw pain in her palms.

  One more knot to go.

  She slid down the last length of cloth, checking her descent only enough to break her fall. And then she let go. She executed a parachute-landing fall as she slammed into the asphalt, carrying her momentum through the rolling impact and popping back up on her feet all in one movement. She leaped into her car and hit the gate opener clipped to her sun visor. The back door opened and the women raced outside. Time to go.

  She hit the accelerator. The gate started to open as she backed her car around in a tire-squealing J-turn and pointed it toward the driveway. She watched in horror as the gate, not quite fu
lly open, reversed direction and began to close again.

  She stood on the gas pedal of the German sports car. It shot forward as the gap in front of her narrowed. She bolted through it, wincing as metal scraped horribly against her right rear door. But thankfully, her car made it through the gate.

  She bounced out into the street and slammed the steering wheel into a hard right turn. Her back end skidded out and she bumped a car parked across the street with her left rear fender, but her tough little car righted itself and straightened out, accelerating like a bat out of hell. She tore away from the Oracle house, slowing down only when she turned corners, so as not to leave telltale tire marks.

  She watched her rearview mirror in a panic. No sign of a follower. That Caddy couldn’t begin to keep up with her coupe, assuming it had even gotten out of the driveway anytime soon after her. The way that gate had been closing, they’d have lost precious seconds waiting for it to open again.

  She made it out to a major highway and slowed down to a reasonable rate of speed. No sense getting pulled over by a policeman right now.

  And then the delayed reaction to being kidnapped and escaping hit her like a ton of bricks. Adrenaline still screamed through her body, ordering her to defend herself from the life-or-death peril she’d just experienced. Her hands started to shake, and then her large muscles. Her legs trembled until she could hardly keep her foot on the accelerator, her knees were knocking together so uncontrollably. God, she felt cold. She shivered all over. Probably another side effect of the scare she’d just had. She drove blindly for several minutes, trying to breathe normally and bring her pulse down below, oh, two hundred beats a minute or so.

  And as the adrenaline slowly drained away, making rational thought possible, the anger finally set in. How could Delphi have turned on her? Her own employer! A person who’d handpicked her to serve her country in a very special way!

  She started the stopwatch in the dashboard of the car and punched Delphi’s number into her cell phone. Furious, she slammed the instrument to her ear.