The Thriller Collection

by S W Vaughn

  “Teacher?” Stone went stiff. “”Are you sure that’s what he said?”

  “I am, and no mistake.”

  The look on Stone’s face worried Roman more than the idea that Teryn had gone with those assholes on purpose. “What is it?” he said. “If something makes sense to you—”

  Before he could finish the sentence, his pocket vibrated and chirped. He jumped and slapped at his leg, thinking some big bug had dropped in there—and then he remembered the phone Kat gave him. “Uh. Just a second,” he said, turning away to fish the thing out. “That you, Kat?”

  “I’m on my way down.” Kat sounded breathless with worry. “She was here, but she left. You find anything?”

  “Maybe.” Roman glanced back at Stone and the old man, who were discussing the finer design points of the flask and the merits of Old Crow. “I need to get a look at the hospital’s security footage,” he said. “We might have caught a break, and the tapes can tell us more. Any suggestions?”

  After a beat, Kat said, “Looks like it’s time to cash in one of my insurance policies.”

  “Which one?”

  “Dr. Percy Sullivan,” she said. “The administrator of this fine hospital.”

  Chapter 31

  Ozzy let the old man keep the flask. He decided he didn’t need it—at least, not tonight.

  Blade had asked if something made sense to him. He wasn’t sure it did, but he was starting to notice a few similarities between this situation and the one that landed him behind bars. And he did not like where this idea was taking him.

  He stood in the nearly empty waiting room, next to the row of cushioned chairs where Kat and Blade had taken seats. Kat had already called the hospital administrator, and probably woken him. But she said Dr. Sullivan would be there in a few minutes to personally ensure they got access to the security footage.

  Ozzy wasn’t surprised. Any man with a pulse would jump when Kat said frog, and probably some women too. Not because they felt they had to—but she was just so damned sweet, you couldn’t help wanting to do what she said.

  The fact that she was breathtakingly beautiful had something to do with it, too.

  Blade had filled Kat in with the scant information they had, and she looked more tense than ever. Ozzy wouldn’t share his own suspicions just yet. He wanted to see what the hospital tapes showed them, because they might lean him one way or the other.

  He was hoping for a violent shove away from what he was thinking. If he was even close to the right track, all of this went a hell of a lot further than here.

  “Why don’t you take a load off, hon?”

  Ozzy blinked and looked down to see Kat patting the empty seat to her right. “I’m fine here, ma’am,” he said. “Thank you.”

  “Call me Kat, will you? We’re not at work.”

  “No, ma’am. But I’m still on duty.”

  God, he loved to hear her laugh. “All right. I’ll accept that,” she said. “Tell me, though. What’s a girl gotta do to get you to relax when you’re not working?”

  He smirked. “Play ‘Taps’ and call for lights-out.”

  “Oh, my,” she said. “That sounds downright sexy, if you ask me.”

  The throaty catch in her voice almost undid him. He was saved when the doors to the waiting room slid open, and Kat jumped up to meet a well toned, silver-haired man in upper-class casual khakis and a polo, who walked in looking exactly like he hadn’t just rolled out of bed.

  “Percy, darlin’.” She threw an arm around him and kissed his cheek. “Thank you so much. You’re a dear for coming down here yourself.”

  “For you, Miss Solange…” He smiled deeply into her eyes, and then looked up with a friendly expression. “These are your associates?”

  “They are indeed,” she said. “Dr. Percy Sullivan, this is Ozzy Stone. I believe you’ve met Roman Blade before.”

  “Briefly, yes.” The doctor came around and shook Ozzy’s hand. He demonstrated he was familiar with Blade by not offering to shake. Instead he said, “You look like you could use our services here at the hospital, friend. Should I get a nurse down here?”

  “I’m fine, Doc.” Blade managed to stand with only a slight wince. “Just point me to your security system, and I’ll be even finer.”

  “Well, all right. Let’s get to it.” The doctor offered an arm to Kat, and she took it with a smile. “This way, dearest,” he said.

  Ozzy pushed back a mild swell of jealousy.

  They took an elevator down to a subfloor marked BB. The doors opened onto a dimly lit corridor, done in gray cement block, that felt a lot like prison. He actually had to remind himself this was a hospital, and not the path to solitary.

  “Can I ask what you’re looking for?” Dr. Sullivan said as he led the way out and to the left. “Maybe I can help.”

  “Well, it’s one of my girls,” Kat said. “We think she met someone here, someone who might not want to behave the way we do at my place. If she did, we need to go get her.”

  “Not one of my staff, I hope?”

  “Of course not, Percy darlin’. Your people are beyond aspersion.”

  “That’s good to know.” The doctor patted her arm and came to a slow stop in front of a steel door. “Here we are,” he said. “I hope you can find your way around the system.”

  “Don’t you have anyone working down here?” Blade said.

  “Oh, no. We’ve got security guards on the premises around the clock. This is just for compliance.” The doctor produced a ring of keys and unlocked the door. “Someone comes down here every twelve hours to change the tapes,” he said. “That’s about it.”

  “Tapes?” Blade echoed. “You’re still on tapes?”

  “Well, yes.” Dr. Sullivan smiled and pushed the door open, revealing a large, cool room with massive stacks of equipment. “Magnetic tapes, of course. Did you think we had a VCR hooked up to the cameras?”

  “Er. The thought might’ve crossed my mind. Thanks, Doc.” Blade headed inside, obviously eager to get started.

  The doctor watched him go, then turned to Kat. “Which of your girls did you say this was, again?”

  “I didn’t say.” Something in Kat’s smile hardened. “Roman can take this from here,” she said. “Thanks again, Percy. We really appreciate this.”

  “My pleasure, Miss Solange.” He took her hand and kissed it gently. “This door locks automatically when it closes,” he said. “I can’t leave the key with you, but there’s an intercom just inside the door, there. When you’re through, the front desk will send a guard down to let you out.”

  “Sure thing. Goodnight now, Percy darlin’.”

  “Good luck, dearest.” The doctor glanced at Ozzy. “Pleased to meet you, Mr. Stone. Keep an eye on her for me.”

  Ozzy nodded, wondering what made Kat change her tone so abruptly—and whether the doctor noticed.

  Once Dr. Sullivan had disappeared around the far corner of the hall, Kat stepped partway into the room and half-whispered, “Don’t let this door close, Ozzy.”

  He gave her a questioning look.

  “I know when somebody’s fishing for information,” she said. “Percy isn’t very good at it. At least he’s not real persistent either, bless his heart.” She glanced down the empty corridor. “Anyway, I’ve got a feeling if we close this door, nobody’s going to come open it for a while.” She half-turned toward Blade, who was running a finger down the labels on a long column of drives. “Roman…better make it fast.”

  He glanced at her. “So I’m not the only one who feels like someone just started a countdown, and we’re the part that goes boom at the end?”

  “No. You’re not.”

  With a grim nod, he went back to his search.

  Ozzy had to agree with the sentiment. His nerves had ramped up tighter by the minute, ever since Blade played the recording from his house. I cleared it with Top. That and the kid’s bearing, especially the way he’d stayed cool when confronted at the club, pointed to military. />
  And there was the fire. No ordinary explosive burned that hot—but thermite did. The stuff was virtually impossible to get…unless you happened to have access to military-grade equipment. Then it was relatively easy.

  But what the old man said was the real spark that set off a chain of chilling possibility: Teacher. A word so out of place in this context, it was impossible to ignore.

  Just like it had been four years ago.

  He stood guard in the doorway while Blade raced an unseen clock toward an unknown goal. Not five minutes later, Kat and Blade came over with matching tense expressions.

  “I’m taking the tape,” Blade said. “I put a blank one in, so hopefully they won’t notice for a while. But we need to get out of here.”

  Ozzy nodded. “Where to?”

  “My place,” Kat said.

  “All right. Let’s go.”

  Chapter 32

  “I just got a call from the hospital.”

  Tom managed not to roll his eyes at the man who thought he was in charge. They’d just unloaded the girl, and Mr. Bigshot here had made him and Jerry wait in the ambulance for a good ten minutes, saying he had to “debrief” them. Assholes who tried to act like his father annoyed him. “And?” he said.

  “Roman Blade is not in custody.”

  “Bullshit he isn’t,” Tom said. “On the extreme off chance he was going to make bail, there’s no way it would’ve happened this fast.”

  “Get out here. Both of you.” The man stepped back from the driver’s side door.

  Tom glanced at Jerry. His partner did not look well. “What are you worried about?” he said. “Even if he did get away, it’s done. The package is delivered, and his gear is a lot of expensive sludge. There’s nothing he can do.”

  Without making eye contact, Jerry opened the door and slid out.

  Tom’s jaw clenched. He was a little worried about Jerry—he seemed to be losing his nerve. That could make him a liability.

  He climbed out and shut the door harder than necessary, just to let the man know he was irritated. And by irritated, he meant actively refraining from breaking a few of those expensively capped teeth. “All right. Who says he’s out?”

  “My contact at the hospital.” The man looked downright furious. “That woman who owns the club sweet-talked him into giving her access to the security tapes, and she brought Blade with her. And Ozzy Stone.”

  “The meathead bouncer?”

  “He’s a bit more than a meathead.”

  Tom sneered. “What do you know about some two-bit bouncer in a sleaze club?”

  “Quite a lot, actually. He—”

  Before he could elaborate, his pocket chimed. He pulled a phone out and tapped the screen, and his expression darkened. “They’re gone,” he said. “My contact was supposed to hold them there, but something must’ve spooked them.” He lifted cold blue eyes and glared at Tom. “Maybe it was you two, and your clumsy attempt at removing Blade.”

  “He’s out of commission,” Tom said. “We melted his base into slag.”

  “He is not out of commission!” The man identified as Top brandished his phone like he could make it fire bullets instead of texts. “I had it covered,” he said. “I sent that idiot Shep after both of them. Told him they were double-crossing him. He would’ve taken them down, one way or another, and we would’ve stayed clean. But you had to indulge your little torture fetish—and now Blade’s working with Stone.”

  “Maybe next time you’ll tell me when you’re enlisting the local morons,” Tom snapped. “How the fuck was I supposed to know that?”

  “You didn’t need to know.”

  “Obviously, I did. And why the hell are you so worried about this Stone guy?”

  “Because he spent ten years in the Army elite, and ran assassination missions for most of them. Team and solo. He’s killed more people than you’ll ever meet. Then he spent four years in prison, learning new and interesting ways to kill people. And he’s been exposed to our operations before.”

  “Jesus Christ,” Tom said. “Why didn’t we take him out in prison?”

  “Someone thought he had potential.” The man’s eyes flashed, and Tom suspected that someone was going to get an earful, whoever it was. “But we’re not taking any more chances.”

  Jerry, who’d been slumped against the ambulance van like a zombie, straightened and cleared his throat. “I’ll bet they went back to the club,” he said. “I can tap into their security feeds again. We should be able to neutralize—”

  “It’s too late for that. I want them both eliminated.”

  Tom grinned. “Now we’re talking.”

  “None of your games,” the man said. “Stone is too dangerous to play with. You take them out fast and clean.”

  “Fine.” He’d do what he wanted anyway, but Mr. Bigshot didn’t have to know that. “What about the woman?”

  “Leave her. She’s still useful to me.”

  Something in that drawling, hungry tone made Tom feel sorry for the girl they were leaving here—but only for a minute. “All right. We’ll take care of it.”

  “You’d better.”

  Tom watched the man walk away, and then clapped Jerry’s shoulder. “So, Caesar and Brutus are working together,” he said. “This is going to be fun. Like bringing down the Roman empire, right?”

  “No.” Jerry sighed. “It’s more like assassinating Einstein, or Galileo.”

  “You really respect this freak, don’t you?” Tom shook his head. “Jerry, my man. He’s a deviant. If he was female, he’d be prime package material.”

  “Yeah.” For a second Jerry looked like he’d say something more. But then he turned and started around the van to the passenger side.

  Tom closed his eyes briefly. He really didn’t want to eliminate Jerry. The guy annoyed him sometimes, but he was mostly all right—and damned good at what he did. Plus, he never objected to Tom’s extracurricular activities. It wouldn’t be easy to break in a new partner the way he wanted.

  But protocol was protocol. And if Jerry endangered the mission with his weird little geek code sympathies, Tom wouldn’t hesitate to retire him.

  Chapter 33

  Roman turned the lights on in the club’s control room and headed straight for the supply closet, hoping he wasn’t wrong about the magnetic tape drive being there. They’d been using it here when he started working for Kat, and he’d unhooked it and reconfigured the system for remote access.

  If it wasn’t in there, they were screwed. No way could he get his hands on a drive this time of night—hell, any time, at least in Tomasburg. This town didn’t believe in electronics stores.

  He found it tucked back on a shelf, a little dusty but apparently intact. Stone and Kat had come into the room while he was searching. He headed for the smaller workstation with the drive, and said, “This might take a while. I can’t use shortcuts on magnetic tape—all I can do is wind it and hope I get lucky.”

  “About how long is a while?” Kat said.

  Roman shrugged. “Between thirty minutes and twelve hours.”

  “Well, that’d be a while.” She crossed her arms like she was cold and stared off into the distance. “Why do you suppose my good friend Percy was so keen on finding out what we were up to?” she said faintly.

  He stopped in the middle of straightening cords and moved toward her. Kat sounding just a little worried meant she was scared to death. “I don’t know,” he said. “But we’re going to find out, and we will find Teryn.”

  She nodded slowly. “All right. I think I’ll make some coffee. With bourbon in it,” she added under her breath. “Care for a cup?”

  “Sounds good.”

  “Ozzy?”

  Stone, who’d been standing motionless by the wall, shook himself a little. “Coffee would be great,” he said. “But I’ll pass on the bourbon.”

  Kat’s brow went up. “Sure thing,” she said. “I’ll be back soon. But if you find anything, you tell me right away.”

>   “I will,” Roman said.

  When she left the room, he went back to hooking the drive up. It only took a minute or so. He popped the tape in and wound the reel back for a few seconds, then hit play just to make sure it would work. The monitor showed an off-center shot of the circle drive at the back of the hospital, viewed from above the doors. The only thing moving was a pigeon—probably the same one Stone had been “talking” to before.

  But there was no audio. Even when he jacked the volume all the way up, there was nothing but smooth silence. They wouldn’t get much from this—but he had to see what he could. Anything might help.

  He stopped the playback and hit rewind. Then he turned to Stone and said, “Okay, she’s gone—and you’re onto something you don’t want her to hear. What is it?”

  Stone gave a careful shrug. “Maybe nothing.”

  “Maybe’s better than what we’ve got right now. Which is jack shit.”

  “I wouldn’t say better.” Stone moved slowly to the chair by the main station and sat down. “They’re soldiers,” he said. “I’m almost sure of it. What they used on your house, that was military grade thermite. Nothing else burns that hot.” He scrubbed a hand down his face. “Problem is, if they’re soldiers, they’re under orders from someone.”

  “Top,” Roman said. “And not the BDSM kind.”

  Stone nodded. “So we need to figure out who Top is. And…there’s more.”

  “Can’t wait to hear it.”

  “I have no proof of this,” Stone said haltingly. “Just a feeling. But it’s a strong one.” He stared at the floor, and said, “That girl Colonel Fischer was torturing. The one I went to prison over. When I found her…the first thing she said was, ‘Are you my next teacher?’”

  “Jesus. And the old man heard one of them say he was Teryn’s teacher.”

  “She went with them willingly,” Stone said. “And the girl before, she wanted to be there too. She wouldn’t let me save her.”