“How much farther do you think we have to go?” she asked.
He fed her another bite. “Hard to say. Not far. I can’t imagine he’d have patrols out beyond a reasonable distance.”
“Are you sure they’re patrols?”
“I caught a bit of conversation. My Spanish isn’t great, but I think I heard Soma’s name a couple of times.”
“Anything about Gina?”
Lucas shook his head as he fed her more. “No, but they were talking about women.”
“Imagine that. Men talking about women.”
He grinned. “Yeah. Not exactly conclusive evidence, but they also mentioned a flight coming in.”
“Did they say when?”
“No.”
“We need to find that airstrip fast, then.” Sloane slugged back some more water, then stood up, feeling the rain soaking through her clothes again. The tactical vest went back on, pressing her clammy clothes against her skin. She hated the wet chafe of fabric, but the sooner she found Gina, the sooner she could be back in nice, dry clothes.
Lucas slid his own vest back on, shoved the remains of his meal back into a pack, and hefted it onto his wide shoulders. “We should go east of here. That’s the way the patrol went, and where I found something else.”
“What?”
“That building the woman in the village was talking about. You up for a little hike? It’s not far.”
“On the map, the building was only a little north of Soma’s airstrip. We’ve got to be close.”
“I agree. Once we get our bearings, we’ll find the airstrip and wait for that flight the men were talking about. Maybe Gina will be on it.”
That sounded good. Anything that got Gina back and out of this country worked for Sloane.
They made quick work of packing the gear; then Lucas led them about half a mile to where a run-down building stood. They stayed hidden in the foliage, watching for signs of activity. There was none, and judging by the cobwebs across the single visible doorway, the place hadn’t been used in a long time.
The building wasn’t huge, but it was much larger than anything out here in the middle of nowhere had a right to be. It was a single story, and maybe ten thousand square feet. Made of concrete, the paint that had once camouflaged the building was peeling away. At least an acre of jungle had been cleared at one time, but after years of neglect was encroaching on the structure. Small, young trees had sprouted up, flourishing without the larger trees shading them from the sun. Even the area that had been paved with bricks near the entrance had begun to give way to the new growth of plants springing up.
“Weird, huh?” said Lucas. “No roads leading here—no way to bring in people or supplies.”
“How did they even build it?”
“They had to have brought in construction materials via helicopter or hauled things through the jungle.”
“For what purpose?” asked Sloane. “Even a drug lab would need a way to move product in and out easily.”
“Only one way to find out. Interested?” he asked, lifting his eyebrows in challenge.
Why not? If the locals were as spooked by this place as they were led to believe, it would be a great place to hide. It was obvious the building had been abandoned. For years. “Sure. Let’s go check it out.”
Sloane approached the door with caution. From the thickness of the vegetation, no one had been this close in years, but she didn’t want to cross any nasty trip wires or other traps meant to keep people away.
Now that she was closer, she could see that the knob was bent and rusted as if someone had bashed it with a heavy object. The door no longer latched closed, leaving a small gap between it and the frame.
She cleared away the cobwebs so they wouldn’t hit her in the face, and pressed the door open with her boot. The only thing she could see inside was darkness.
Lucas shone a flashlight over her shoulder. “Let me go in first, just in case.”
In case of what, she wasn’t sure, but she stepped back and let him proceed with the light.
Weapon in hand, Sloane followed a few paces behind him, letting her eyes adjust to the dark confines of the building.
Water dripped from her clothes onto the concrete floor. How in the world they managed to pour this much concrete here boggled her mind, giving her something to distract herself from the creepy vibes she was trying to fight.
There was something sinister about this place—something not quite right.
Yellowed, moldy papers clumped together in the corners of the large open room. Three metal desks lined one wall, and on the opposite wall were several file cabinets. Two small rooms were partitioned off at one end. Through the dirty glass windows, she could see a gurney and IV stand in each room, along with remainders of other medical equipment.
Out of nowhere, a surge of fear slammed into Sloane. She saw a brief memory flash in her mind, its fragmented bits distorted and brilliant. She was young, small. She was screaming for her mother, fighting against the straps holding her down. People watched her through the windows, terrifying her with their cold stares. The room was too bright and there was a dark-haired woman standing over her with a needle in her hand and a fake smile on her bright red lips. Then the woman was flung aside and her father was there, taking her in his strong arms. She could smell sweat and fear clinging to his skin and hear his low, fervent words of comfort.
The memory faded as fast as it came, leaving Sloane reeling. She had no idea what that was. She’d never been in a hospital as a child. She couldn’t remember a single time in her life when something like that had happened or why a dingy place like this would have caused the memory to come back to her.
It couldn’t have been real. She would have remembered her father saving her like that.
“It looks like a clinic,” said Lucas, “but what the hell is it doing out here in the middle of nowhere?”
Sloane didn’t answer him. She couldn’t. Her throat clamped down, cutting off words.
Lucas turned to her, and the wash of the flashlight over his familiar, angular features comforted her, easing the pressure in her chest.
“What is it?” he asked. He stood right in front of her, ducking his head so he could look into her eyes.
“I’m not sure, but I think I might have been here before. When I was a kid.”
“Here? In this building?”
Sloane shook her head, unsure. “Or someplace like it.” As soon as she said the words, the memory seemed to evaporate. As vivid as it had been for that one brief moment, she couldn’t recall any of the details now as they faded like the remnants of a bad dream. “At least I think so.”
“You look like you’ve seen a ghost.”
“I can’t have been here before. I’m sure I would have remembered a trip to another country. We never went anywhere when I was a kid. I went to boarding school when I was five.” But she’d been younger than that in the memory, or whatever it was.
Lucas rolled a chair over and brushed the dust from it. “Sit down for a minute. You’re so pale you’re scaring me.”
Sloane sat, thankful for the support. Her legs had gone weak, though she wasn’t sure if it was from the fever or that odd flash.
He crouched in front of her. “What made you think you’ve been here before?”
She tried to grasp onto a fragment of that flash of memory or dream or whatever it had been, but it was gone. “I don’t know. I thought I remembered something, but I guess I was wrong.”
He eyed her nervously and covered her forehead with his wide hand. “Are you sure you’re feeling okay?”
“Yeah. I’m fine. Just spooked, I guess.”
He didn’t look convinced. “Sit tight. I’m going to check the place out, then grab the rest of our gear outside, okay?”
She nodded, her mouth dry. Even though she couldn’t really remember any details of what she’d seen, she could still feel the fear that had overcome her. She tried to tell herself it was irrational, but that didn’t see
m to make her hands stop shaking.
By the time Lucas was back inside and had secured the door with one of the metal desks, all she wanted to do was be near him and have him wrap his arms around her as he had earlier.
Her fear and weakness pissed her off, but she was too tired to fight both them and herself, so she tried to ignore it all and focused on stripping out of her gear. Her wet clothes dragged against her skin, chafing. She was sick of being wet and miserable—hot one minute and freezing the next. She couldn’t wait to get back to civilization where she could wear dry clothes and sleep on a real bed.
“What do you suppose they used this place for?” asked Sloane.
“You heard the woman from the tavern. Their friend came here and never went back. Maybe it has something to do with black-market organs.”
“If that was the case, then why would they put it all the way out here?” she asked. “A human organ is viable for only a few hours after it’s harvested, right?”
Lucas dug in one of the packs. “But there’s that airstrip nearby, and it sure is a lot easier to hide a facility out here than it would be in a city. Plus, if they’re preying on the locals, I think it would be easier to get away with killing people here. Who are they going to report the crime to? And if they do, who’s going to come out here and stop it? If men like Soma are involved, chances are they have paid off the local authorities to look the other way.”
The idea that someone could have done something so horrible to defenseless people made Sloane want to find that someone and beat the hell out of him. She had seen a lot of bad things, but surely she and Lucas had to be wrong. There had to be some reasonable explanation for a facility like this. “Maybe it isn’t so sinister. It could be some group of doctors coming here to vaccinate the local kids or something. There may be a lot more people around here than we know about. It could be they used to come in on foot, which would explain why there was no road.”
Lucas gave her a disbelieving shrug. “You could be right. I hope so.”
He opened one of the doors at the end of the room. Sloane stood glued to the floor, fighting off the odd sense of panic clawing at her insides.
That whole memory thing had to be some kind of hallucination brought about by the meds. She couldn’t think of any other reasonable explanation why this place would set her off, or why she’d be sweating and shaking now, just trying not to think about it.
“Hey,” said Lucas from inside the small room. “There’s a map on the wall in here. It’s faded, but it shows the airstrip.”
Sloane forced her feet to move and walk toward him. She peered into the room, bracing herself for some other odd hallucination, but none came. It was just an office with a desk and an ancient, clunky computer monitor.
Lucas pointed at the map. It was a line drawing—like a blueprint. As faded as it was, it was hard to make out, but she agreed that the area he pointed to looked like the plans for an airstrip.
“How far is it?”
“Half a mile.”
Even with the rain, she was anxious to be out of this place. “Let’s go, then.”
Lucas took the pins out of the map, folded it up, and tucked it in his pack. “Just in case we need it.”
“We won’t,” said Sloane, more to give herself a boost of confidence than anything. “We’ll have Gina back and be on our way out of this country tonight.”
He must have seen some insecurity or fear lurking inside her, because he turned to her with a look so warm with compassion she could almost feel it on her skin. He reached out and touched her face, stroking his thumb across her bottom lip. “Don’t worry, Sloane. Things will all work out. Gina will be just fine.”
She wasn’t used to anyone showing her that kind of compassion, and it caught her off guard.
“You never asked me about her—why I’d risk my life for her. Why not?”
Lucas gave a casual shrug. “It doesn’t matter who she is. She needs help, so we help her. It’s pretty simple.”
“Not to most people, it wouldn’t be.”
He winked and grinned, melting Sloane’s insides. “Guess I’m not most people.”
Chapter 10
Adam Brink stepped out of his private jet onto the tarmac, squinting against the evening sun. Heat from the pavement wafted over him, making his skin prickle with sweat. As he’d ordered, a helicopter was fueled up and waiting for him. He’d fly to Soma’s airstrip, verify the woman’s identity, and if she was a match, he’d have her in Dr. Stynger’s hands by this time tomorrow.
After he’d taken what he needed from her.
The small electronic device in his attaché case had been designed by one of the eggheads at the labs. The scientist had been so excited by the challenge of creating the device, he hadn’t bothered to ask Adam why he needed it.
It was just as well. Adam had no desire to kill the man who’d helped him.
His phone vibrated at his belt. He retrieved it and read the text message. “Possible subject located. Male. WV.”
Adam stopped dead in his tracks, fighting the urge to turn around and hunt down this new subject.
It might be Eli.
But what if it wasn’t? What if this man wasn’t even on the List? He’d be wasting his time in the air, when he was only hours away from a target that was right here, waiting for him.
She sure as hell wasn’t Eli, but she might be a solid lead. A bird in the hand . . .
Adam texted back a confirmation code, telling his contact he’d received the message and would proceed to Wyoming once his work here was done. By that time, he’d have an encrypted message giving him as much information about the new target as Dr. Stynger’s men had.
In the meantime, he’d go meet Gina Delany and see if she was going to be of any use. If not, he could let Soma do with her as he pleased.
Riley Conlan hated asking for favors, but in this case, he’d make an exception.
He knocked on Bella’s open door. A normal business owner would have had papers strewn across her modern glass-topped desk, but not Bella. The pieces of her favorite .45 were laid out in a neat array, as she lovingly cleaned them.
The smell of gun oil overpowered the faint, sweet smell of Bella’s favorite perfume. She’d been wearing it since they were kids, giving him at least one thing he could get her for her birthday he knew she’d love. Besides another weapon.
She looked up at him, her stormy gray eyes crinkled with a smile of greeting. Her black hair was tucked into a sloppy ponytail that stuck out the back of her baseball cap. Her face was freshly scrubbed, devoid of makeup, and with one long leg tucked under her, she reminded him of the scrawny ten-year-old who’d snuck into his house the first night they’d met. At twelve, he’d been old enough to see the bruise on her face and her split lip and know what it meant. He’d hid her from her stepfather for the first time that night, but not the last.
“What’s up?” she asked as she slid a cotton pad through the gun’s barrel.
Riley forced himself to say the words. “I think I need a raise.”
Bella lifted a dark brow. “You think?”
He rubbed his hand over his head, feeling the brush of his buzz cut tickle his hand. “Yeah.”
“Care to elaborate on that?”
He wasn’t sure how much he wanted his coworkers to know, but this was Bella. She was like a sister to him, and he had to tell someone.
He shut the door to her office and sat in one of the chairs across from her. “I might be having a baby.”
Metal clunked against glass as the weapon slid from her fingers and hit the desk. “You’re serious?”
She laughed as if he’d just told a great joke. Riley sat in still silence, waiting for her to realize this was no punch line.
He nodded, not sure if he wanted to laugh or cry. This was all so much so fast. He wasn’t even sure what to think about it. “There’s this woman, Lucille Rosemond.”
“Since when? You never date. You’re too damn busy working. Or back at the
farm, fixing stuff for your mom.”
“It was a lark. I was a little . . . antsy.”
“You mean horny.”
He shrugged, refusing to be embarrassed. “That, too.”
“So who is she?”
He stalled for a moment, realizing how little he knew about Lucille. “She’s a model. Tall, leggy, make-a-deal-with-the-devil gorgeous.”
“How long have you been seeing her?”
Riley felt his face heat. “Twice. Once for coffee. Once for . . . you know.”
“Sex. I only wish I knew right now,” she said with a wistful sigh. “It’s been way too long since I had non-battery-operated company.”
He cringed, holding up his hands to ward off any more. “I do not want to hear even one more word about your company—batteries included or not.”
She grinned and shook her head. “So you forgot the condoms and now I have a niece or nephew on the way?”
“Actually it broke. The condom. We both got tested right away to make sure we were safe, and that all came back fine. That was six weeks ago. I thought it was over, but then I got this call.”
“What call?”
“She left a message for me while I was in Israel last week. She was crying. Hysterical. I understood only part of it, but I definitely heard the word pregnant.” That, and how her career was over and how angry she was at him. Not that he could blame her. Neither one of them had planned this.
“And you haven’t taken the time to pick up a phone and ask? You’ve been back two days.”
“I’ve called. Repeatedly. She hasn’t returned my calls yet.”
“So go to her house. What the hell is wrong with you?”
Riley looked at the wall behind her, unable to meet her gaze. “I don’t know where she lives.”
“But you’re having a baby with her?”
“I know. It’s crazy. It’s not like I planned this. I just went out to have a little fun. Hell, all the rest of the guys hook up with women they don’t know all the time.”
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