Code Name: Bundle!

by Christina Skye

Gina heard the sound of low laughter and glasses clinking beyond the open doorway.

  Ten feet to go.

  Suddenly she was hit by a dizzying sense of…wrongness.

  Her pulse hammered as she fought to keep walking normally. Eight more feet.

  Six.

  Sunny’s fingers trembled in hers. “I feel sick, Miss Gina.”

  “We’ll get you something for your stomach, honey.” Gina heard the sound of a chair sliding back. Her heart thudded….

  A man’s fingers gripped her shoulder, incredibly strong, covered in black leather. “You don’t want to go in there after all,” he whispered.

  Gina froze. She couldn’t fight the force of his voice as it wrapped around her.

  “You want to come with me. Both of you. Right now.”

  Somehow her feet turned without her control and she followed him, with Sunny’s hand still in hers.

  GINA LOOKED AROUND in a daze and saw metal walls covered in layers of white crystals. She was shivering with cold, and she couldn’t seem to clear her head. Something warned her that she was in danger, but the uneasiness seemed to melt before she could figure out why.

  Metal hissed and grated, and a tall man loomed out of the shadows. He crouched near a set of wires pulled from the wall. Sliding on a headset, he connected three of the wires to a small metal box.

  Gina realized they were inside a freezer in a back storage room on the opposite corner from the kitchen. Heavy equipment lined the walls next to floor-to-ceiling boxes with canned goods.

  No one would find them here until morning. Maybe not then.

  A part of Gina’s mind screamed for her to run, that this was a bad place, but she couldn’t move. She stayed frozen, just the way he had told her.

  Something wrong, her mind screamed.

  Then that thought faded, just like the others.

  Funny, at first she’d thought the man in the corridor was Trace. Now she saw that they looked nothing alike. This man was older, and his face had an unnatural pallor beneath his dark stubble. He moved quickly, crouched near the bottom of the wall as he shifted wires, then adjusted the headset. Gina guessed that he was listening to something aboard the ship via the computer network and telephone system.

  Sunny yawned sleepily, leaning against her leg while the cat wriggled in her hands.

  Go, Gina thought. Have to go while he isn’t looking.

  She touched the metal wall behind her and felt more ice. She tried to fight the mental fog that trapped her. The man looked sick, his face sweating as he pulled something from his field vest. The large bag was wrapped in the same kind of plastic that had covered Blaine’s.

  Gina felt the outline of Blaine’s smaller package in her pocket.

  Suddenly the man’s eyes cut to hers. Gina had the sense that he was looking into her mind.

  His eyes turned cold and assessing. He stood up and slowly walked toward her.

  Beside her Sunny made a low, rumbling noise and leaned over to throw up. The man jumped back. He seemed uneasy as he gathered his equipment and took off his headset.

  Weak and pale, Sunny leaned against Gina. “I don’t feel so good,” she whispered. “I want to go.”

  “I know, honey.” Gina didn’t want to draw the man’s attention. She stared desperately at the outside door, but something still held her in place.

  “He looks angry,” Sunny whispered. “I don’t like him.”

  Gina still couldn’t remember how she’d gotten down to the backup kitchen storage area. Everything was fuzzy. “Don’t worry. If we’re quiet, he’ll go away.”

  Sunny took a deep breath. “Can’t we leave now?”

  The man pulled tools and a lock out of his vest, and in that second Gina realized he meant to keep them here in the freezer. They were never going to leave.

  But there were safety overrides on the equipment. Gina knew every one. She stepped backward, pulling Sunny with her. Even one small movement left her sweating, her energy drained.

  Wrong. All wrong. It shouldn’t be so hard.

  The man zipped up his vest and turned. She felt the force of his gaze like a knife.

  “I want to go,” Sunny announced loudly, the cat clutched to her chest.

  The man folded up a sheet of paper that appeared to be a floor plan of the engineering level. Then he glanced down toward the pocket where Gina was carrying the plastic package from Blaine. Something told her the package was very important.

  “She gave you something, didn’t she?”

  Gina licked her dry lips and blocked the answer she felt compelled to give. Grimly, she forced herself to recite food nutritional charts to keep her mind occupied.

  “There should have been three bags. Where is the last one?” he said harshly.

  Fruitcake, 659 milligrams of cholesterol.

  Cheesecake, 2051.

  “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

  He backhanded her hard, and Gina tasted blood from a split lip, but she kept her face blank as she stared back at him.

  Cop’s stare. Yeah, she could do it, too.

  “Who the hell are you?” he whispered. Then his brow rose. “You’re sleeping with Trace. I’d offer my congratulations, but you aren’t going to see him again.”

  “Let the girl go and I’ll help you.”

  “All I need from you is the third bag. It’s here somewhere, Gina. I know you have it.” He jerked her leather purse off her shoulder and dumped the contents over the floor.

  Her jacket would be next.

  While he searched her purse, Gina pulled the small bag from her pocket and slid it into a corner of her mouth. She gagged a little at the heavy taste of alcohol when her mouth closed around the plastic. Liquid spilled onto her tongue and she felt her stomach churn, certain she would throw up.

  Somehow she kept her face expressionless while he stared at her intently. Something oily crossed her skin.

  Sifted through her mind.

  Sorted through her thoughts.

  She stared straight ahead. Pecan pie, 556 milligrams of cholesterol.

  Her nausea made it hard to focus. “You’d better move away. Sunny and I are going to be sick.”

  He moved back uneasily, glancing at the wan girl still holding her white cat.

  “You’re afraid of that, aren’t you? You’re afraid of what illness we might give you.”

  He backhanded her again and Gina fell toward the cat, shoving him from Sunny’s arms. “Run,” she whispered. As the white cat shot across the floor, Sunny turned to follow.

  The man in the black uniform blocked her way.

  Too late.

  “Inside.” He pushed the girl toward the refrigerator. In the dim light, Gina felt a wave of icy air.

  When the man reached for the door handle, Gina crouched and dug in her pocket. Sunny started to fight, swinging her fists wildly while Gina found her small handgun and leveled it at the center of the man’s head.

  “Back,” she ordered. “Slowly. Hands up in full view.”

  He raised his hands, his face utterly calm. “Who the hell are you?” he repeated softly. “You act like a cop to me.”

  Gina ignored him, giving the girl a shove. “Run. Go now.” Nausea roiled through her stomach as she kept the small package hidden in her cheek. Something bitter and soft slid onto her tongue and she resisted the urge to gag.

  At the door, the little girl hesitated.

  “Go, Sunny,” Gina said again, keeping her gun level, moving to the door of the unit. Sunny still wasn’t moving. Her eyes looked glazed.

  The man’s eyes were fixed on Gina’s gun. She felt the oily thing move, attacking the edge of her consciousness, and she knew it was him, searching for weakness. Fighting nausea, she kept walking.

  She was at the mouth of the refrigerator when she saw the white cat dart free into the shadows, but the man slammed her backward and sent her gun flying to the floor. He hit Gina hard and then shoved Sunny back into the unit.

  Gina couldn’t seem
to move. Not even when he drove her down onto the floor next to Sunny.

  Her vision blurred. She felt the force of the door being bolted shut. Shivering, she pulled Sunny against her chest. As icy waves of air crystallized in their breath, Gina felt the metal outline of Trace’s chain burn at her neck.

  IZZY CHECKED HIS LAPTOP. “Two floors to go,” he said.

  It wasn’t going well. The dogs kept following fake trails that led to storage rooms or offices or garbage units. Cruz had always had the ability to project false sensory images, and it was clear that his skills were as strong as ever.

  Maybe stronger.

  Suddenly Duke, his Labrador retriever, froze, sniffing the air. Trace and Wolfe waited in silence while Izzy cradled his laptop, charting their progress through the ship and relaying the encrypted information silently to all the other Foxfire team members scattered on different decks.

  The Lab moved forward slowly as a white cat shot out from behind a pillar. Trace caught the cat with one hand, frowning when he saw a bright plastic band tied around his neck. “Hell. This is Sunny McKay’s camp band. She must have found the cat and then lost him again.”

  The other dogs ignored the cat and strained forward, turning toward the aft deck.

  Trace gestured to Dakota Smith, who had joined them only moments earlier. “Backtrack and look for Sunny. Give King the cat’s collar to scent, and get yourself back here once you’ve found the girl. Ford McKay is tossing every cabin looking for her.”

  The tall SEAL from Wyoming gave a little two-finger wave and took the black Lab’s leash. The two vanished down the hall.

  Trace hesitated. Ford had told Tobias that Gina had left his cabin, but still hadn’t returned, and she should have been back by now.

  He couldn’t afford to think about how Cruz would react if he found Gina and decided she would be a useful bargaining chip. No emotions.

  The mission came first.

  He took a harsh breath. Where was an irritating ghost when you actually needed one? Why didn’t Marshall do something useful like find Gina and keep her safe?

  Are you listening to me here, Marshall?

  Immediately he cut off the thought. He wasn’t about to ask favors from a hallucination.

  He looked at his pager. Still no word from Dakota.

  No word from Tobias, either.

  He seemed to catch the faint scent of lavender in the hallway, but when he turned around, it was gone.

  CHAPTER FORTY-ONE

  “HE’S NOT HERE,” Izzy said tightly. “It’s another false trail.”

  Trace watched Duke turn in a slow circle, looking confused. Cruz had thrown up half a dozen energy nets to confuse the dogs. As trained and experienced as they were, they were still no match for Cruz.

  Trace’s Lab waited restlessly, sniffing the air.

  No sign of their target was indicated.

  Dakota Smith, the other Foxfire operative, was still backtracking in search of Sunny while Trace and Wolfe stayed with Izzy. Tobias had indicated that he was going to check the breaches in the ship’s phone system in an effort to trace Cruz’s movements.

  Izzy touched his headphones and stopped typing. He turned back to Trace and raised a warning finger. “Yeah, it’s Teague. What do you want, Cruz?”

  Izzy pointed to his computer, frowning.

  Cruz. Calling via Izzy’s laptop.

  “Hale? Yeah, he’s here. Except he’s not my father.” Izzy’s voice was icy. “You’re not getting off the ship, so what does it matter?”

  All the time he spoke, Izzy was typing quickly.

  “So you did your research. Am I supposed to be impressed? It’s all old news. Besides, you’ve got your facts wrong.” Izzy motioned to Trace and held up his laptop.

  A flashing cursor moved along one of the ship schematics.

  Trace gave a silent signal to Wolfe Houston, and the two SEALs jogged along the corridor to the left, their dogs close beside them.

  IZZY STARED at his computer screen, fighting disbelief.

  How was Cruz so damn well informed? No one should have known his connection with Tobias Hale. Izzy had worked hard to bury all those threads in the government files.

  Clever or not, this time Cruz was going down, no matter what it cost.

  “I’ve got Gina,” Cruz said quietly. “Tell Trace she won’t be alive much longer.”

  Izzy followed Trace, keeping an eye on the cursor that pinpointed the location of the call. “Why don’t you find him and tell him yourself? I gather you two have a lot to discuss,” Izzy said dryly.

  “Like what? The good old days? Not since Lloyd Ryker’s been in charge of Foxfire.” The rogue agent laughed coldly. “I understand those tissue samples your father was carrying could revolutionize our biotechnology. Superior eyesight. Enhanced cell regeneration. Is there any wonder I had to have them?”

  “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

  But Izzy did know, of course.

  And inside he was churning. The tissues represented a breakthrough in accelerated nerve growth. How had Cruz managed to learn every detail of the newest Foxfire discovery? How many traitors were there inside the program?

  “I was always the best. I deserve to have that new technology.” Cruz’s voice broke into static for a moment. When he came back on the line, he sounded out of breath.

  “Out of shape, Enrique? Or maybe that sound is your lungs filling up with fluid. You’re dying, and we both know it. It’s a side effect of your last enhancements, but if you come in now, you’ll be treated.”

  Cruz muttered a short, rough curse.

  “Too bad for you. It won’t be a pleasant way to go.”

  Izzy stared at the laptop screen and motioned Trace to halt. He pointed around the corridor to the left.

  The red arrow was fifteen feet away.

  He signaled the distance with hand gestures and watched the two SEALs move forward silently, flanking the double doors directly ahead.

  Izzy waited, computer in hand. “Cruz, are you listening?”

  “Who’s the crazy one? You whistle off your own father. You’re one sorry bastard, Teague. The old man had his reasons for leaving. Ask him what his reasons were—unless you’re afraid of the truth.”

  More manipulation, Izzy thought angrily. With Cruz nothing was what it seemed.

  He watched the SEALs hit the double doors. Their weapons faced a long wall of storage compartments. One door was open. A black radio transmitter hung from a cluster of wires that had been pulled from the wall.

  Cruz was hacking into the ship’s communications, just as Izzy had suspected. But the rogue SEAL was nowhere in sight.

  Cruz’s voice cut through the silence. “So you found one of my listening posts. Good but not good enough.” His voice broke up in harsh coughing. “By the way, Gina doesn’t have much longer to live, by my estimate. Tell Trace I said he’d better hurry.”

  The headphones went dead.

  NO ONE WOULD CHECK this back storage room, she thought. No one would find them until it was too late.

  She drove down her panic.

  She had to stay calm and search the wall until she found the safety cable to unlock the unit. All the big coolers aboard ship had alarm buttons as a safety precaution. After long minutes of blind searching, she found the button.

  Broken.

  Someone—probably her captor—had disabled it. Now the wires hung loose and useless from the wall.

  Think.

  Try something else.

  Shaking with cold, she dug in her pocket for her candy thermometer. As the frigid metal stuck to her numb fingers, she whimpered in pain. Icy metal pressed against Gina’s back. Stiff with cold, she dug a piece of molding free with her candy thermometer while blood pooled over her palm, then froze along her nails.

  Gina ignored the pain that welled through her cold fingers. As she tugged at the broken molding, the door’s safety release cable dropped into her hand, hanging from the metal wall. She gave a vicious tug an
d felt the door vibrate.

  But the metal didn’t move.

  Sunny had her arms around Gina’s waist as the insidious edges of sleep began to close in.

  Can’t fall asleep. We’ll never make it out….

  Gina pulled the cable again, tearing skin from her palm and fingertips. As she struggled, the cold weight of Trace’s chain broke free, dropping onto a small ledge in the metal wall. Shivering, Gina searched for the worn gold links, and for a second she caught the scent of lavender, probably a hallucination caused by trauma and cold.

  As her fingers closed around the necklace, she felt the outline of an old piece of burlap, shoved into the side of the ledge. Wrapping the burlap around her fingers, she attacked the cable again.

  The scent of lavender grew, spilling through the air around her.

  This time the door creaked and moved slightly.

  Dragging in an icy breath, she jerked the torn cable again, her fingers gripping hard through the burlap, her skin on fire.

  Metal ground against metal; the door began to open.

  A wave of warm air brushed Gina’s face as she held Sunny tight and together the two stumbled forward out of the darkness, the faint cloud of lavender drifting around them.

  “NOT THAT WAY. I know a shortcut.” Tobias Hale gripped Izzy’s arm, gesturing up the stairs.

  Izzy stared at the security officer, who had appeared moments earlier from one of the passenger elevators. “We don’t know where he’s headed. What’s the point?”

  “If I were him, I’d try the lifeboats. He could detach one if he knew how to access the ship’s electronics, and we know he’s capable of that.”

  Izzy rubbed his neck, thinking it through. How did you put yourself into the mind of a madman?

  “Here.” Tobias pointed to the schematics on Izzy’s laptop. “There’s a service elevator behind this set of stairs. It will take us right up.” He looked at Izzy, frowning. “This is personal for you, isn’t it? What did he do to you?”

  “Broke a few bones. Nearly killed me. Other than that, we’re good friends.”

  “Never let it get personal. That’s when you make mistakes.”

  “Tell me something I don’t know, Hale.”