Simon Sees (An Art Jefferson Thriller Book 5)

by Ryne Douglas Pearson

  The image buzzed with occasional static, the signal from deep within the structure compromised. But the encrypted broadcast never cut fully out. Enough had been invested in the operation, including the ability to monitor it from afar through a series of repeaters on the helicopters and satellites high above, that anything less would be unacceptable. The bottom line was, Wyland had to know, had to see, when their prize was out of the facility which held him and aboard the extraction helicopter. Only then could he breathe, knowing that he could inform his employer that he’d done what was expected of him, saving his own skin.

  And others even more precious to him.

  “Ready to breach,” the Blue Team Leader reported.

  One of his operators stepped forward and placed a small charge near the electronic lockset. Despite the technology, there was still a mechanical operation beneath, and as the detonation occurred the bolt was severed and the door swung forward.

  “Get him,” Wyland quietly urged, his thumb off the transmit button.

  The team moved forward in the near darkness, just the glow from several computer monitors in a space off the hallway breaking the artificial night. The critical systems must have been on a separate power backup, Wyland thought, running on battery supplies. Across from those still humming systems would be the door, and on the other side of it the man they’d come for would be waiting.

  Except…

  “Door is open,” the Blue Team Leader reported as they approached the opening.

  Wyland’s heart raced suddenly. In all the run throughs, in every detailed practice session, the door was closed. There was every reason to expect it to be. You wouldn’t just leave the way open to your most valuable asset.

  Unless…

  “No,” Wyland said to himself.

  At the same instant he spoke his dread, the men he’d sent to bring him Simon Lynch rounded the edge of the doorway and entered the room beyond the open door.

  “One guard down,” the Blue Team Leader said. His scan of the room was transmitted the thousands of miles to London where his employer could plainly see what he was. “He’s not here.”

  * * *

  Audra stopped cold in the hallway at the sight of two dead bodies lit by the bluish hue of a computer monitor.

  “Carlton,” she said, her voice barely a whisper. “Gary.”

  Her two colleagues lay dead, piled atop one another, blood pooling beneath them.

  “No…”

  Emily stepped forward, pulling Simon with her. They’d been led to the corridor by the technician. It was a roundabout path to the building’s only exit. A way that the woman leading them knew intimately.

  “Audra, move,” Emily said quietly, nudging the woman past the gruesome scene. They’d past others since fleeing the residential wing, but none of those who’d fallen had been recognizable. Until now. “Get us out of here.”

  Audra shivered and nodded, moving again along the dim corridor toward a T intersection. Just short of that connection, Emily stopped her and leaned close, whispering a question.

  “Which way?”

  “Right.”

  Emily let go of Simon and stepped past Audra, peering cautiously around the corner, the HK assault rifle she’d acquired low and ready.

  Why is she doing this?

  That question kept repeating in Simon’s mind. As they rounded the corner and ducked into a room and passed through a door which took them to another room, he wondered over and over and over the same thing. Questioning the motive, or motives, driving Special Agent Emily LaGrange to do what she was doing. Who was he to her? They’d met once. He knew, though recollections of that brief exchange were foggy. He’d told her about Leah Poole, the person who’d been there when the person he now was emerged from the prison of his old self. She’d been part of his life, along with Dr. Michaels, for years. But in those overwhelming minutes when this new chapter of his life began, she was there. She held him. Comforted him. He’d thought that, maybe, she would be his protector.

  Now, though, it seemed that another had taken on that role.

  “The exit is—”

  Emily reached fast to Audra’s mouth and clamped a hand over it as footsteps sounded past the open door of the office they’d reached. One set, she thought. Interior security for the assault team. They’d cleared this section of the building and had put out their blocking elements to prevent any escape. Which is exactly what was happening.

  You’ve gotta move, Em…

  The footsteps did not approach the door, coming close before receding, someone pacing up and down the hall near the office. No more shooting sounded from anywhere in the facility. The attackers tasked with getting to Simon would have reached his room by now, and they would be pulling back and spreading out, broadening their search. It was possible they didn’t know where he’d been in the building, just as she hadn’t. She’d reached Simon through subterfuge and threats. They’d been more direct. And it was certain they were still coming.

  A laptop computer glowed on a desk just behind, chair toppled next to the workspace as someone obviously fled. It was enough light that Audra could see Emily mouth a question.

  Is there any other way? Through another office?

  Audra didn’t have to consider the question at all. She shook her head. The maze she’d led them through, passing from office to office through doors connecting the workspaces, ended here.

  They couldn’t backtrack, Emily knew. There wasn’t time. She had no idea the condition of the helicopter that had brought her to The Ranch, but the same helicopter had been her planned method of escape with Simon. As Art Jefferson had foreseen for himself, she might have to put a gun to Simon’s head to force the pilots to fly them out, and she was willing to do that. It might be a moot point, though. The Blackhawk might be a smoldering pile of steel after the arrival of the attackers, but where they stood there was zero chance of survival. Outside, there might be some.

  Stay behind me, Emily mouthed to both Audra and Simon. Audra nodded. Simon didn’t.

  This wasn’t going to work, he knew. The only option the FBI agent saw was a running battle to the exit. But there was another way.

  They came for me…

  Simon knew that. So he would give them what they wanted. In part.

  “I’m in here,” Simon said in a strong voice.

  Emily and Audra looked to him, horrified at what he’d just done.

  “I’m Simon Lynch,” he added loudly.

  Emily thought fast. She stepped back against the wall next to the door and waved Audra behind her. The woman complied, and as soon as she was clear Emily brought the HK up and leveled its barrel at the doorway.

  “Blue Six, I have him.”

  The report from just beyond the doorway preceded by just a few seconds the appearance of an attacker, the barrel of his rifle visible first, its aim low, off of Simon. Next the man himself appeared, clad in black, stepping smoothly into the room, night vision optics extending from his tactical helmet like a pair of stubby binoculars suspended before his eyes.

  Emily let a breath out and squeezed the trigger, shooting the man in the side of the head.

  ‘Pull the trigger!’

  There was no time to deal with the traumatic flashback. Simon’s unsolicited offer of himself as bait had worked, and they now might have their only chance to reach the exit before every attacker in the building converged on them after the man’s last words over his radio.

  “Go!”

  Audra did exactly as Emily ordered, pushing through her fear as she nearly leapt over the attacker’s body and ran into the hallway.

  “Simon, come on,” Emily said, grabbing him again by the shirt. He moved without any resistance now. No hesitation slowed their progress. Her hold on him was for guidance only, now. It was as if he’d now become invested in what she’d come to do, his actions just seconds before seeming to add credence to that suggestion. “Stay right behind me.”

  “All right,” Simon said.

 
; Emily moved into the hallway, a few steps behind Audra. She slipped alongside the woman and passed her, taking the lead. In every direction there were sounds now. Hurried movement. Hushed radio transmissions.

  “Where’s the exit?” Emily asked quietly.

  Audra pointed ahead, toward a spot where ashen moonlight filtered in from the left, the mangled remnants of a thick steel door laying just inside. It was maybe twenty-five feet away, but almost as soon as Emily made that estimation, two figures cut shadows in the dim glow spilling through the opening to the world outside.

  “Move!”

  Simon grabbed Audra and pulled her into a room as Emily squeezed off a series of bursts, one figure dropping and another returning fire, the rounds stitching the wall just to the left of her. She fired again, the unsuppressed crack of her weapon deafening in the confined space, and the other figure dropped. But there would be more to block their way. In seconds.

  “Go!” Emily shouted, unconcerned about announcing their presence or intentions. Both were clearly known by this point. “NOW!”

  Simon moved. Audra didn’t. He looked to her and saw her face cast downward, eyes fixed on something, his gaze tracking to see what she had in the weak light.

  On the floor of the office where they’d taken quick refuge, Karen Vance and Warren Michaels lay amongst a trio of other bodies, the space around them pockmarked with bullet holes. They’d retreated there, Simon decided. Cornered. And were slaughtered.

  It was just an instant that he laid eyes on the body of the man he’d grown to hate. That emotion, which he’d never understood until Dr. Michaels began giving him the injections, was singularly directed toward him. Now, though, there was no one left to despise. No need for that feeling to live on.

  But it did.

  “Audra,” Simon said, seizing her by the arm and forcing her away from the sight.

  “Go!” Emily ordered them when they were in the hallway. “Run!”

  They did, all three together, sprinting past the fallen attackers and the shattered front main door to the world outside.

  Twenty Six

  It was still there. The helicopter. But so was another.

  Positioned due south of the building, maybe forty yards away, was a different aircraft. Not a Blackhawk like the one just ahead to the west, but a different type that Emily could not identify, rotors spinning slowly above the black fuselage.

  “Straight ahead!” Emily said, bringing the HK up and squeezing off rounds at the other chopper. There would be crew aboard, and those people were among those here to take Simon and lay waste to every other living being. “Go! Go!”

  She glanced toward the Blackhawk, glimpsing what she thought was damage to its windshield. Then she saw the body, motionless on the ground just outside the open cabin door, both evidence of the first shots they’d heard from within the facility. Unsuppressed rifle shots.

  Snipers…

  * * *

  “What’s happening?” Wyland asked over the communications network, his eyes darting from window to window on his monitor, the feeds a mix of quickened movement within the building and…

  “Red One, they’re outside.”

  Wyland saw it before the spotter reported it. Three people running toward the disabled Blackhawk.

  “Watch any shots!” the Blue Team Leader ordered. “Do not jeopardize the target!”

  Simon Lynch was just that—a target none of them could chance hurting. Or worse.

  “They’re too close together,” Wyland said to himself, bringing the view from Red One up to fill his screen now. Watching as the FBI agent ran with Simon and another woman toward what had been their only hope of escape.

  But it wasn’t that anymore. The crew had been neutralized with expertly placed rifle shots. Once they reached the grounded transport, they would be trapped. She’d have no choice but to surrender.

  It’s going to be just fine…

  Wyland told himself that. He even believed it. Until doing so became impossible just a minute later.

  * * *

  They reached the Blackhawk, instinctively ducking as Emily led them beneath the spinning rotors.

  “Inside!” she told them. “Don’t look!”

  They’d passed dead bodies inside the building, and they were now stepping over another to climb into the Blackhawk’s cabin. Emily went first, rifle pointed toward the opening to the cockpit as Audra and Simon followed. The bullet holes in the windshield hinted that she was not going to find what she needed to be there, and she was right.

  The pilot in the right seat lay slumped to his left, blood dripping from a gaping hole in his helmet. The co-pilot, too, leaned severely toward the center of the helicopter, over a control console that separated his seat from that of the pilot.

  No…

  They were dead. The way out had been taken away.

  Then, just as that realization was taking hold, she saw it. Movement. From the co-pilot.

  “Show me your hands! Now!”

  The co-pilot shifted his head to look to her. Even in the Blackhawk’s dim interior, Emily could see the terror in his eyes.

  “If I move they’ll shoot me,” the man said.

  “If you don’t show me your hands I’ll shoot you!”

  He wriggled his arms, keeping his body low, until both his hands were visible.

  “I’m not armed,” he told Emily.

  She wasn’t going to believe that but had no time to verify his statement. “Get us out of here.”

  “My pilot’s dead,” the man said.

  “You’re in the seat next to him for a reason, now get us out of here before—”

  The tangible reason for her warning manifested itself beyond the windshield, several figures emerging from the building’s entrance, moving as a group, rifles pointed directly at the Blackhawk. Emily glanced behind and saw Audra and Simon pressed against the closed left side door of the cabin.

  “Stay down,” she told them as she moved to the open door opposite them, drawing a breath before leaning quickly out and taking aim at the advancing attackers. She fired two bursts before pulling herself back inside, thinking that her shots might have found at least one target. A quick glance past the dead pilot confirmed this as she now saw three of the attackers dragging the fourth of their group back into the building, weapons still up to cover their retreat.

  The immediate threat stopped for the moment, she turned her attention again to the cowering co-pilot.

  “Get us in the air, NOW!”

  To emphasize her point, she pressed the barrel of her rifle to his forehead just below the rim of his helmet. In an instant he weighed the threats to his continued existence, both near and more distant, and made his choice based on those realities.

  “All right,” he said. “All right. But you’ve gotta keep the sniper off me.”

  Emily eyed the position of the bullet holes in the windshield and made a guess at the trajectory. “Okay. Two seconds.”

  She switched her rifle from burst to single shot and backed away, positioning herself next to the open cabin door again, then leaned out once more and brought her rifle up, taking fast aim at an imaginary point above and beyond the other helicopter.

  * * *

  “Red One, I have a target.”

  The spotter’s report reached Wyland as he watched the figure partially appear in the opening on the right side of the Blackhawk. It was the woman. The FBI agent. Even in the greyish thermal image he could tell that. Almost immediately flashes erupted, one at a time, from the weapon she wielded, the view he had jittering and going askew.

  “Under fire here,” the Red One spotter reported.

  “Get back on her!”

  Wyland shouted into the microphone, inserting himself into the control structure of the operation.

  The view jumped around a bit again, but before it stabilized another report came over the com system.

  “Red Three, the bird is spinning up.”

  Wyland searched among his windows
for a clear view of what was happening, but found none until the Red One spotter and rifleman reset their position. As they did, he could make out clearly that the Blackhawk’s rotors were turning faster, someone aboard in control and preparing for takeoff.

  “Take out whoever’s piloting the bloody thing!” Wyland ordered.

  “Red One, no shot.”

  It was obvious to Wyland why the spotter and rifleman were reporting that, a swirl of dust billowing, blocking any clear view of the scene.

  Dammit…

  “Red One, it’s clearing. On target!”

  Wyland glued his attention to the view from the sniper team and saw a hole open wide in the wall of dust.

  * * *

  The Blackhawk rose into the air, rotating left, exposing the cabin to the sniper’s nest south of The Ranch.

  “Close the door!” Emily ordered the co-pilot.

  But he was not the only one to hear her shout above the terrible whine of the helicopter’s turbines. Audra Lamb looked to the opening across the cabin and left Simon’s side, gripping a seat support with one hand as she took hold of a handle on the open door’s interior to pull it shut.

  * * *

  “Red One, on target, female.”

  “Send it,” the approval came from the Blue Team Leader.

  * * *

  From the corner of her eye, as Emily watched the slouching co-pilot get them airborne, she saw Audra Lamb where she should not be. She turned to warn the woman, but never got a word out.

  A sickening wet thud, almost lost amongst the engine noise, announced the impact of a single bullet, striking Audra Lamb dead center in the chest and exiting out her back, severing her spinal cord at the T3 level. She dropped to the floor and rolled forward, falling through the opening to the ground now fifty feet below.

  “No!” Simon cried out as he scrambled across the cabin toward where she’d been. If it was any of the others falling to their death, Carlton or Gary or Dr. Michaels, he simply would have turned his head so as not to be witness to such a horror. But it was not any of them. It was Audra Lamb, who, until just a short time ago, he’d lumped into their number. But she’d come back. Because of him. And she’d helped guide them out of that terrible place.