Audra eased her hand back from the handset. “Dr. Michaels prefers to be present when—”
“We’ll let him sleep,” Vance reiterated.
“All right,” Audra said. She moved past the unexpected visitors, glancing at Emily as she made her way to Simon’s door across the hall, peering through the glass inset. “Give me a second.”
As she typed a command into a control pad next to the door, Emily took in the sight, a wave of revulsion rising. They had him caged and under observation. Put away like some circus animal after every performance.
“Simon,” Audra said into the intercom box as lights beyond the glass slowly came up.
Emily didn’t approach the door. Even as she saw Simon begin to stir on the bed, rolling toward the sound, pushing his blankets down. He sat up and looked through the glass, fixing on only one of the three faces looking at him—Emily’s.
Things were going to happen quickly now, she knew. It was Jefferson’s plan, but she was going to follow it. The door would open and she would enter Simon’s room. After a period of time, she would press Simon on things she knew Vance would not let him answer. She’d refuse to stop and the general would summon the guard.
That was when she would make her move, disarming the man as he came into the room and putting the gun to Simon’s head, threatening to shoot him if they did not allow her to leave the building. Jefferson had apparently told Gant he would lay the crazy on thick, making those at The Ranch believe he’d rather see Simon dead than where he was being kept. The dangerous flip side of that bit of play acting, though, was Sanders’ assertion that they would end Simon’s life before letting him out of their hands. Emily wondered if her predecessor had feared the same thing, but had come to the conclusion that such a drastic reaction might only apply if some enemy was the one doing the taking, not a disturbed FBI agent on some clearly quixotic quest.
Except it wasn’t that at all, Emily knew. Jefferson and Gant had planned everything down to the last detail. The snatch, the extraction, the flight to freedom. When Kirby had explained it to her, she’d been slightly stunned by the thought and preparation which had gone into the operation they’d conceived. An operation which would result in a national security asset named Simon Lynch being snatched from a fortress by an old man and a slightly less old man. Now the same was to be carried out with her replacing the former, with alterations made by Gant once she’d entered the picture.
“Simon, someone needs to speak with you,” Audra said.
Simon stood, standing as if for inspection wearing just sweats and a tee shirt. General Vance stepped forward and took control of the intercom from the technician.
“Simon, do you remember Special Agent LaGrange?”
He glanced briefly toward the general, then looked back to Emily and nodded.
“We’re going to come in and just chat for a while,” Vance said.
That was all she needed, Emily knew. To be in the same room with Simon. From that point she could orchestrate the remainder of the surprisingly simple operation. Not that it was without risk, but with the fewest of moving parts—namely, her—there was a lesser chance that things could go wrong. If she followed the carefully laid out plan, in less than an hour she would be far from this place, with Simon Lynch at her side.
Vance looked to Audra and nodded toward the door. The technician reached to the control pad and entered a code. The door lock clicked and the barrier swung slightly in on its own.
“After you, Agent LaGrange,” Vance said.
Emily reached for the door, her hand just touching its cool metal knob when the first volley of muffled shots from outside sounded.
* * *
The snipers fired nearly simultaneously, dropping the exterior security for the facility with expertly placed shots requiring only two follow-up rounds to dispatch a pair of already downed guards.
“Red One, on the chopper,” the spotter reported as his rifleman shifted attention to the Blackhawk waiting a half a football field’s distance from the building.
* * *
So far, so good…
That was Wyland’s reaction as the first seconds of the operation passed. But it was only beginning. A handful of dead bodies scattered about did not equate to success. Not yet.
He stayed focused on the view from the sniper team zeroing in on the helicopter. A crewman leaned out the side door beneath the slowly turning blades and was felled by a clear shot to the face, an eruption of greyish mist in the thermal image signaling his death. His body tumbled to the concrete landing pad outside as the sniper’s aim shifted to the pilots. Some commotion seemed apparent beyond the Blackhawk’s windshield as that thick glass was penetrated by a shot that left the right seater slumped forward in his seat. Another two shots tore through the glass and the left seater disappeared from view.
“Chopper crew down,” Red One’s spotter reported.
Good, good…
It was textbook, so far. Just as they’d rehearsed, even with the unplanned arrival of the helicopter. He’d done well contracting this group, Wyland thought. He’d done well, indeed.
Now everything just had to continue as it had.
“Blue Team, twenty seconds.”
The report in Wyland’s ear signaled the imminent arrival of the assault team. The final phase of the operation was about to begin.
* * *
For a few seconds General Karen Vance listened to the shots, her head swiveling as the muted reports came from positions seeming to surround The Ranch.
“What’s happening?” Audra Lamb asked, frightened as much by the reaction of her superior as by the sounds which couldn’t be what they were. “What is that?”
The door they’d passed through to reach the residential wing of the facility opened fast and the guard came through. He looked to Vance, radio mic in his hand.
“Perimeter security isn’t responding,” the guard said.
Vance thought for just a second. “Stay with Simon.”
The guard nodded and moved toward the door they’d just unlocked. Vance turned her attention to Emily, fixing a hard, worried look on the FBI agent.
“You stay with him, too,” Vance said.
Emily nodded and watched Vance retrace the path they’d taken, disappearing through the now unguarded door.
“What’s happening?” Audra repeated. “Will someone please tell me?”
Emily LaGrange looked to the frightened young scientist. From the sound of the first shot she knew what was happening. Knew that she was too late. The advanced preparation by an outside force to get to Simon Lynch, which Gant had spotted in satellite imagery, had been further along than they’d known.
“We’re under attack,” Emily said.
She looked away as Audra’s hands came up to her mouth, terrified. Behind her, through the open door, she saw Simon Lynch, standing alone, staring at her as the roar of a helicopter built overhead.
* * *
At any one time, a staff of twenty people were on station at The Ranch, not including the twenty-four security guards rotated in every four days. As Dr. Warren Michaels emerged from his small suite, it seemed that every single one of them was racing through the corridors. He’d hastily dressed, awakened from a deep sleep by the sudden roar of an aircraft low overhead, and now pushed his way through the panicked staff as he made his way to the one place where he would find answers to just what the hell was going on.
“General, what is…”
Michaels stopped just inside the door to the facility’s command center, a place he routinely avoided like the plague. It was located in Vance’s domain, the section of the building where all things unrelated to Simon’s treatment and use were managed. What he saw just inside the space cut off the remainder of the question he’d come to ask. It also chilled him.
General Karen Vance held a shotgun taken from a rack of weapons affixed to one wall. She chambered a round just as the scientific leader at The Ranch rushed in.
“Someone’s c
oming for him,” Vance said.
Michaels puzzled at what she was saying. And what she was doing. He’d never seen her armed in all her time at The Ranch. Had never seen her display any of that overt military nature beyond her simply commanding presence. But here she was, pump action shotgun in hand, telling him that someone was coming for him. For Simon.
“Who?” Michaels demanded.
Vance shook her head at the man’s almost vapid question. She reached to a shelf below the rack of long guns and retrieved a revolver, holding it out to the doctor.
“Do you know how to use one of these?” Vance asked. “It’s already loaded.”
Michaels eyed her, then the weapon, then her again, not comprehending the totality of what she was not quite saying. Until she said it.
“We’re under attack, Warren.”
It sank in now. Fast. That always slim possibility that someone might come for their prize, for what he’d nurtured and developed. But all precautions to safeguard Simon Lynch had been taken. All precautions.
“But how…”
Vance pointed to the empty chair at the desk behind her, and array of communications equipment there that connected The Ranch with the outside world.
“That’s our com, Warren,” Vance told him. “It’s down. It’s all down. Radio. Satellite. Hard line. The people coming for him know what they’re doing. They’ve isolated us so they can kill us and take him.”
Michaels looked to the gun the general was offering him, but still didn’t take it. She tossed it onto the desk and moved past him.
“Good luck, Warren. Not that that’s going to do any of us any good.”
Dr. Warren Michaels stood there, in the command center, processing all that she’d told him. He wasn’t scared—he was confused.
“How is it possible?” he asked himself aloud.
The next sound he heard, though, was not his voice. It was an explosion.
* * *
Andrew Wyland leaned instinctively back from the monitor as the breaching charge was detonated. A cloud of dust rolled over the camera sending him the images of the assault team, their point man moving just an instant after the blast. There were screams, but not from his team. No commands were to be given. No one would be told to get down. This was not an operation where prisoners would be taken.
The first bursts of gunfire to reach him five thousand miles from where they were fired confirmed that facet of the operation. No one at the facility, other than Simon Lynch, was to be left alive.
Wyland saw flashes of more gunfire, both from his people and from those guarding the facility. Nothing slowed his team’s progress, though. The bodies they stepped over demonstrated that. His men, professionals of the highest degree, were killers, laying waste to all who stood in their way as they moved deeper into the facility. Closer to the man they’d come for.
* * *
The gunfire was within the building now, Emily knew. She could even differentiate it. Carefully aimed, suppressed bursts from the attackers, and almost wild return fire from the guards. Men like the one standing just feet from her.
She could easily take his weapon now, she thought. Barely suppressing panic, he stood with it aimed at the door he’d been guarding. A solid blow to the side of his neck would stun him enough that she could wrench the rifle from his control. But what good would that do now?
He’s on your side now, Em…
For the moment, that was true.
“What do we do?” Audra asked, her panic not nearly as hidden as their armed companion.
“Just…hang tight,” the guard said with not a hint of surety.
“Audra…”
She looked. It was Gary. He and Carlton had emerged from their sleeping quarters, startled awake by the building firefight.
“She says we’re under attack,” Audra told them, gesturing to Emily where she stood in the doorway to Simon’s room.
A loud, sustained burst of fully automatic fire sounded, followed by screams as the unseen person at the trigger was taken out by quieter, more precise shots.
“It’s getting closer,” the guard said, his weapon still aimed at the door as he glanced to Emily.
He was right. She tried to estimate just how far into the building the attackers were. By the amount the sound of the gunshots was muffled, they had maybe three doors to get through before reaching the last barrier just ahead.
“Is there any other way out besides that door?” Emily asked.
“No,” the guard answered.
“Nothing?” Emily pressed. “No emergency door? Nothing?”
“There aren’t supposed to be emergencies,” Carlton told her.
Emily looked to Simon. He stood almost perfectly still, next to his bed, his gaze fixed with hers.
He’s different…
Emily could not only see that—she could sense it. What Leah Poole had told her wasn’t exaggerated. The NB protocol had achieved some breakthrough, the results of it looking her in the eye right then.
“Simon, it will be all right,” Emily told him.
But he could hear what was happening. And he’d transitioned to a place where he could understand threats as tangible forces, not merely theoretical, enough to know that what he was being told was meant only to comfort him. That did not change the fact that it was a lie.
“No,” Simon said. “It won’t.”
The three technicians who’d tended to his needs in recent years looked to Simon, his words so clear, so normal, that they were jarring. His response also spoke to the very reason for the situation now descending upon them.
“He’s right,” Gary said. “We have to get out of here. We have to get away from him.”
Emily shifted her angry gaze to the man who was a stranger to her.
“They’re coming for him,” Gary continued. “If we’re here when they come, we’re dead.”
It seemed that his words worked fully on Carlton, who grabbed Audra’s arm and began pulling her toward the door.
“No one’s leaving,” the guard said.
But Gary joined Carlton in hauling their colleague toward the only way out, even if it would take them toward the assault underway.
“And how are you going to stop us?” Gary challenged the man.
The guard couldn’t, short of shooting them. And he wasn’t going to do that. That wasn’t in any of the orders he’d been given when assigned to The Ranch. He simply watched them open the door and leave, the sounds of gunfire growing briefly louder until the door closed behind them.
“He’s not entirely wrong,” Emily told the guard. “If we stay here, we are going to die.”
“I know,” the guard agreed. That possibility had been part of his training, as were his orders to carry out in that eventuality. He turned toward Emily and Simon, bringing his aim to bear on the man he’d spent years guarding.
They’ll kill him…
Sanders was right, Emily knew now. Those orders had been given. Simon Lynch could not, under any circumstances, be allowed off The Ranch alive.
“Don’t do this,” Emily said, stepping in front of Simon as she backed into his room.
“I don’t have a choice,” the guard told her.
“We can get him out of here,” Emily said.
The man shook his head, some true regret in his eyes. This was not an act he would relish, but it was one he would carry out.
“I came here to take him,” Emily said.
Behind her, Simon’s gaze shifted from the man charged with killing him to the back of Emily’s head. Had she said what he thought she had? She’d come to take him? Away from this place?
“I have a way out,” Emily said, trying anything to move the guard from the decision he’d made. “I’m an FBI agent, all right? I have a plan.”
“No one’s leaving here ali—”
The solid thunk of metal smashing flesh and bone sounded before the guard could complete his refusal, his body folding forward and tumbling to the floor, revealing Audra Lamb sta
nding behind, fire extinguisher in hand. She looked to Emily, trembling.
“Gary and Carlton are gone,” she said. “I couldn’t just leave Simon here.”
Emily had no time to process what had happened. It was past the time to act. The woman’s expression of humanity was beyond admirable in this situation, but also momentarily irrelevant.
“You’re Audra, right?” Emily asked as she took the downed guard’s rifle, removing the pistol from its holster as well.
“Yes.”
Emily tucked the pistol in her waistband at the small of her back and brought the rifle up. “Audra, you’ve got to get us to the exit.”
More gunfire sounded, startling the young technician. It was much closer now.
“They’re coming straight up the middle, Audra,” Emily said. “We need a way around them.”
Audra Lamb thought for a second, then covered her face with her hands, trying not to break down. Had she really come back only to die near Simon?
“Audra…”
Two bursts of rapid fire cracked sharp nearby, one the telltale clickity report of a suppressed weapon.
Two doors…
That’s how far away they were now, Emily thought. In just seconds they’d be on the other side of the door just twenty feet away, blocking any chance of an escape.
“Audra, you’ve gotta do this,” Emily said. She grabbed Simon by the shoulder of his tee shirt and pulled him past the unconscious guard. “We’re out of time. We need to move. Now!”
Audra let her hands slip from where they’d covered her face. She looked to Emily, then to Simon as gunfire raged ever closer.
“Audra!”
As Emily’s shout echoed in Simon’s room, the lights went out.
Twenty Five
They were at the last door.
Andrew Wyland knew this from the previous run-throughs he’d watched. So far, the Blue Team Leader’s estimation of the facility’s interior layout had been nearly perfect, just an odd door here or unexpected corner there to throw things momentarily off. But they hadn’t been stopped, and now the Blue Team Leader and the two operators with him had come to what should be the last barrier before reaching Simon Lynch.
Simon Sees (An Art Jefferson Thriller Book 5) Page 23
