Athena Force 9: Payback

by Harper Allen

  But Asher hadn’t counted on a woman with super hearing listening for the Rose-Jackman’s normally inaudible clicks as she spun the safe’s dial, just as he hadn’t counted on her bringing down his whole security system so that the keypad and scan features of the entrance into his uncle’s study were useless. He hadn’t been the challenging opponent she’d anticipated he’d be, Dawn thought with passing regret as she set aside the photo of a young Ash on his pony. And she’d never had the opportunity to go one-on-one with him as she’d hoped.

  “Not that I’ve got any doubts as to what the outcome of that little tussle would be,” she said out loud, leafing quickly through documents, newspaper clippings about Sir William’s investiture, older clippings about his Nobel Prize win. “But it would have been interesting to see how the SAS trains its men to fight. Being English, it wouldn’t surprise me if they stick to no hitting below the belt, no kicking, no—”

  Experimental Results and Conclusions on Tissue and Life-Support Systems Regeneration in Humans. The title of the thick sheaf of bound and typewritten notes she was holding said it all. Dawn felt a curious tightness in her chest, and for one stricken moment she wondered if it signaled the onset of her symptoms. Then she gave a shaky laugh.

  “You’re just excited, O’Shaughnessy, and for good reason. What you’ve got here is a revocation of three death sentences—yours, Faith’s and Lynn’s. No wonder your heart’s going pitty-pat.”

  She glanced at her watch. Eleven minutes remaining. It was ample time to make her escape from the building, avoid the extra guards that would be posted around the temporarily out-of-order electrified perimeter fence, and be well on her way before the power came back on. She began to close the box preparatory to returning it to the wall safe, and then froze.

  “…questioned him like you said, but the kid swears he doesn’t know anything more than he’s already told us. He’d been working in the electrical room yesterday, he found he’d lost the St. Jude medal he wears, and he went in there to see if it had fallen onto the floor by his workstation. When everything suddenly went dark he slipped and hit his head.”

  The low voice was Keifer’s and it was coming from halfway down the hall. Impatiently Dawn removed the plastic communications device from her ear. Without the tiny blockage her enhanced senses could now pick up the sound of three pairs of booted feet heading her way.

  “Oh, crap, what do I do now?” she muttered, echoing her earlier comment to Hendrix. The pace of the approaching boots was too sure and swift to be the sound of men picking their way through the dark, so Keifer and those with him obviously had a flashlight. They would see her as soon as she exited this room.

  “Uh, Lieutenant?” If she didn’t get her butt in gear, there was a possibility she might get one final meeting with Lover Boy after all, Dawn thought as she recognized Reese’s voice. She pulled up her sweater, jammed Sir William’s notes into the waistband of her pants and hastily began shoving the rest of his papers into the box she’d taken them from as Reese went on. “Private Jones had a cell phone on him. I checked the last number dialed to see if he’d used it to call the guard shack when the power went out. Uh, it looks like he was on one of those phone-sex lines at the time whatever happened to him occurred, sir.”

  “Bloody hell.”

  Dawn’s heart sunk. The third man would have to be Mr. SAS, she thought, closing the box and hastening to the open safe at the back of the bookcase. That eliminated any hope that Keifer, Reese and Asher were only passing by Sir William’s study on their way to another part of the building. If Asher was heading this way, it wasn’t coincidence, it was because of his single-minded determination to carry out his mission of keeping William London’s work under his eagle eye. Any minute now he would come through the door and she would be caught like a rat in a trap.

  Only if this rat tried to get out of the trap the same way she came in, she thought as she quietly closed the safe and gave the dial a random spin. Luckily, I don’t have to.

  “He tells you he went into the electrical room to look for a religious medal when the truth is he went in there to get his rocks off. Lying about one thing means he’s probably lying about everything, Keifer.” Asher’s growl was disgusted. “Since Jones swore up and down he fell and knocked himself out after the lights went off, we’ve been assuming this power outage was a systems failure, but now we’d better proceed on the possibility he was coldcocked before the grid went down.”

  “Sabotage?” Keifer sounded alarmed.

  “That’s what I want you and Reese to look for evidence of,” Asher confirmed grimly. “How much longer till the outside failsafe kicks in, ten minutes?”

  “Eight, sir.” The reply came from Reese.

  “That’s too long.” Asher’s footsteps paused. Dawn crossed the study to the heavy velvet draperies and pulled them apart. A large, fairly narrow picture window stretched nearly from floor to ceiling. She grasped the window’s lever-style iron latch. “Keifer, take Reese and head on back to the electrical room right away. Here, you’ll need my flashlight. I’ll join you as soon as I tell Sir William what’s happening.”

  Dawn paused in the act of easing up the latch. Her supposition had been wrong. Asher wasn’t coming in to check that the safe was secure, he was just here to let his uncle know what was going on, unaware of the fact that London wasn’t in his rooms. After a perfunctory check he would guess that the old man was in the lab, and leave.

  Still, to be on the safe side I’d better follow through with my plan of leaving by the window, she told herself with a shrug. It’s only a two-story drop, and it’ll cut my escape time in half. She put slightly more pressure on the latch, not wanting to force it in case it gave way with a crash.

  “Don’t worry, I’ve got a penlight.” There was faint impatience now in Asher’s tone. “If it was sabotage, I want to know as soon as possible, Keifer.”

  Dawn didn’t listen to the Ranger lieutenant’s response. The damned latch was painted shut, she realized in exasperation. One quick jerk would release it, but the sound of screeching metal would be a pretty good tip-off to Asher that someone was in London’s study. She adjusted her grip and began to try again as Keifer’s and Reese’s footsteps receded down the hall and the jingle of keys came from outside the door.

  The latch remained stubbornly in place. She heard the sound of a key turning in the door. The tiny beam of a penlight suddenly appeared at the threshold of Sir William’s study and SAS Captain Des Asher stepped into the room.

  Immediately he headed for the adjoining bedroom, but as he drew level with the oak table he came to an abrupt halt, swinging the penlight’s beam across the carpet, up to the table, over to the bookcases. The bright pinpoint jumped suddenly to the velvet drapes at the window…but Dawn was no longer there.

  Your freakin’ light’s nearly blinding me, buddy, Dawn thought testily from her vantage point near the ceiling. For your information, I’m wearing night-vision lenses and they’re magnifying that penlight until it’s like staring straight at an eclipse. How long do you intend to keep flashing it around, dammit?

  As if he’d heard her complaint, Asher turned on his heel and continued on his way to the bedroom. She took the opportunity to quickly strengthen her foothold on the slim molding that ran along the top of the wall and brace her arms more rigidly on the smooth surface of the ceiling, but her adjustments didn’t make the position any more comfortable. It was with a feeling of relief that she saw the bobbing beam of the penlight precede Asher out of the bedroom.

  This time she was ready for it, squinting through her lashes to cut the dazzle. Her half-closed gaze caught the expression of annoyance on his face as he passed diagonally below her, but it took a second for her to realize what had caused his frown.

  Then she understood. The penlight’s beam faded from white to yellow to a dim amber, and died completely.

  “Crap, what now?” Asher muttered in the dark.

  He was a man after her own heart, Dawn thought with a r
ueful smile. He even reacted the same way she did. It was a damn shame she was going to have to take him down, but she’d run out of options. Her window of opportunity was dwindling to a handful of minutes, and she couldn’t afford to use them up waiting for him to find his way out of this room.

  As she’d noted the first time she’d seen him, he had the longer reach and superior height. She had the advantage of surprise, and the best way to utilize that advantage would be to eliminate his edge over her from the start. Dropping down onto the desk takes care of the height thing and also puts me up close and personal with him right away, so his reach actually works against him, Dawn calculated. The last thing he’ll feel before he wakes up a couple of hours from now is the edge of my hand instantly numbing the main pressure point at the back of his neck. It’ll be quick and easy, O’Shaughnessy, so let’s rock and roll.

  He was fumbling in one of the pockets of his fatigues, but his slightly bent position didn’t affect her game plan. She felt the familiar pump of adrenaline surge through her the way it always did before a burst of action, and then she was launching herself downward like a tensely coiled spring that had suddenly been released.

  The thin rubber soles of her shoes made contact with the desktop. Asher’s head jerked up and for a fragment of a second she saw his eyes widen as he saw the goggles-wearing apparition that had materialized in front of him. Her hand started to slice through the air to make contact with the exact spot near the base of his skull that would instantaneously fell him like a tree crashing to the ground, and then all at once everything went terribly wrong.

  “Arghh!” As the scream tore from her throat Dawn’s palms flew involuntarily to her face to shield her eyes from the supernova that had just burst into existence in front of them.

  “What the—” Asher’s hoarse shout was almost as explosive as the searing greenish white light that streamed from his hand.

  She couldn’t see! Acting on desperate instinct, she twisted her body into a semi-pivot, jackknifing her right leg close to her torso as she turned. As her spin reached its apex, her leg shot out heel first, aiming for the core of the agonizing light. She felt her foot connect like a sledgehammer with Asher’s clenched hand, and a burning image sketched its way in an arc across her tightly closed eyelids.

  “—hell?” Asher finished in shock as he fought to keep his balance.

  He’d broken open a phosphorescent light-stick, Dawn told herself. It hadn’t been a supernova, but dammit, it had appeared like one through the ultrasensitive lenses of the goggles she was wearing. Her kick had sent it flying from his grip halfway across the room where seemingly it had rolled to rest under a piece of furniture, because her closed eyelids were no longer seared with the image of a blazing core. But with the afterimage branded onto her retinas, it was still impossible for her to do more than lift her lashes just enough to see what Asher was doing.

  Although the stick itself was somewhere out of sight, the room was filled with a sickly white light that hit her eyes like acid. Without thinking, she reached for the goggles to wrench them from her face.

  “Right, then, you bastard.” Asher’s tone was savage. “Let’s get that bloody contraption off you and see just who the hell you are…and then we’ll proceed to the part about what you’re doing here, shall we?”

  He hadn’t guessed her identity. The realization came to her with his words, forcing a lightning-swift decision upon her: to rid herself of the now-hampering goggles so her sight could return to normal at the cost of revealing her eyes to Asher; or keep them on and fight him without the benefit of total vision. He was going to know who’d stolen Sir William’s notes as soon as her absence from the facility was discovered anyway, she told herself, again reaching for the strap around the back of her head.

  This business we’re in isn’t like a rigged horse race, Dawnie. Lee Craig’s voice flashed through her mind before she could push it away. There aren’t any sure bets. So the only way to even the odds in your favor is to have a contingency plan, because you never know when it might save your butt.

  She was going to get out of here, no problem…but what if she didn’t? She needed to keep the Dawn Swanson persona intact, she thought in resignation. Which meant she was going to have to keep the freakin’ goggles—

  “Kwa-sah!” The phrase exploded from her in a hissed whisper as Asher’s hand clamped around her left leg to pull her off the desk. Dawn’s mind instantly emptied to allow pure instinct to take over…instinct honed from childhood onward by years of dedicated training received from some of the most exacting masters of the art of battle. “Hai!” She grunted out the exclamation as she allowed her trapped leg to be jerked forward, at the same time using the SAS man’s grip as a platform from which to propel herself into the air. “Che-sah!”

  As the last whispered syllables left her lips, the rubber sole of her right shoe smashed brutally into Asher’s chin, snapping his head back and breaking his hold on her. She didn’t wait for his reaction. Letting the upward momentum of her kick continue, she arched her body into a midair flip that took her backward past the desk. She landed lightly on the floor behind it and went unhesitatingly into a crouch, her outstretched fingers closing around the thick oak edge of the desktop. She rose again, this time using her momentum to tip the heavy piece of furniture forward and hurl it at an advancing Asher.

  It should have crashed into him. Oh, you’re good, sweetie, she thought in reluctant admiration as she saw the big man throw himself sideways, the desk merely grazing his thigh as he hit the floor in a paratrooper-style roll. But right now you’re down. Sorry, but I’m going to take advantage of that.

  She needed to get past him to the door. She knew it and he knew it, and as soon as she tried to rush him he would be ready for her, so she did the exact opposite of what she assumed he was expecting.

  “Consider yourself under military arrest, mister,” Asher growled as she took a step back. “If you resist any further, I’ll be forced—”

  She hit the wall beside him running, and kept running up it. Just as gravity started to claim her and she felt her rubber soles begin sliding down the wall again, she twisted her body so that she was no longer facing the ceiling, but for a second seemed to be defying all laws of physics and standing straight out from the wall.

  But only for a second. Thrusting herself from the wall, she brought both feet up as her leap projected her within reach of him, intending to knock him back down as he struggled to his knees with a variation of her earlier kick.

  “Hell, do you think I’m so bloody stupid that you get to use the same trick twice?”

  Instead of trying to stand, he’d unexpectedly dropped to the floor like a man doing push-ups. Dawn heard his mutter but she was too busy attempting to correct her trajectory to take it in, now that the solid wall of Des Asher that she’d counted on to halt her wasn’t there. She failed. Her balance compromised, she landed awkwardly on the floor, tumbled once, and slid to a jolting stop against the leg of the round oak table just in time to see him spring to his feet and face her.

  He’d outmaneuvered her. The realization disconcerted her for a moment, but disconcertion was a luxury she didn’t have time to indulge in, she saw immediately. Asher’s booted foot was already swinging in a brutal chopping arc toward her, with enough power behind it that if she allowed it to connect, it would send her halfway across the floor.

  No hitting below the belt? No kicking? Boy, was I wrong about the training these SAS bastards get, she thought, illogically aggrieved. He fights like me, dammit!

  She spun out of the way of his boot, feeling a rush of air as it passed over her. Now he was the one temporarily off balance, and she wasted no time in using his momentary vulnerability against him. Lightly jumping up, she again instantaneously assessed all the possible moves he might expect from her and chose the one he would consider least likely.

  Her rush forward took her to within inches of him—which was a whole lot like running straight into the path of a Mack tr
uck, Dawn thought as she experienced the fleeting impression of his muscular bulk looming over her before she back-slammed a braced elbow up and under his rib cage. She heard the harsh exhalation of his breath somewhere above her, but already she had grabbed the gleaming leather of his military-issue belt and was jerking him closer. Even as his hand began to clamp around her wrist she was twisting free and moving slightly to one side of him, using her grip on his belt to wrench him more off balance as she brought her knee crashing into the base of his spine.

  No shame in crying uncle now, buddy, she told him silently as she heard the whistle of pain that escaped his tight lips. I know what you’re going through, believe me, because it’s happened to me once or twice in a fight. There’s a whole bunch of nerve endings right there, and every single one of those little suckers feels like it’s on fire, doesn’t it? So if you want to call it a day, I’ll understand. If you don’t, all your stubbornness is going to buy you is a couple seconds’ more punishment.

  “Bloody hell, that does it!” Pain thickened his voice, and even with her inadequate vision Dawn could see the same pain carved deep into his features. His gaze blazed with fury, and like a bear tormented beyond endurance, he swung one big hand toward her, his knuckles bunched into a fist.

  She had plenty of time to dodge back out of reach. She began to do so, felt something solid impede her and realized that with the goggles hampering her depth of field she’d miscalculated her location in relation to the oak table. Quickly she tried to change her step back into a slip sideways. It all took just a fraction of a second too long.

  Asher’s uppercut hit her like a battering ram, catching her under the point of her chin. Her head snapped back on her neck with the force of his blow, and the sharp, coppery taste of blood immediately filled her mouth. She felt her feet leave the floor, felt herself start to fall backward, began windmilling her arms desperately to regain her balance.