by KJ Kalis
Piper didn’t try to fight. From somewhere deep inside of her, Landon heard her groan, as though she was going to faint. But before she did, Reinhardt had already taken the picture. “Got it,” he said.
Landon pulled the blade away from Piper’s throat, noticing a slight red tinge as he shoved Piper with his other hand towards Reinhardt. Reinhardt could take her back to the cage and get her settled. Landon didn’t need to. He wiped the blade on the leg of his pants and stuck it back in the sheath, pulling off the gloves and the knit hat and putting them back on the table. He followed behind Reinhardt as he guided Piper back toward the cage, keeping one hand on her elbow. She stumbled a couple times as if she was in shock. As Reinhardt opened the cage door and pushed Piper in, Landon stopped to watch. Piper turned around, a few wisps from the braid she wore down her back having come free, just grazing the skin of her face. Her skin was pale and drained of color, with a grayish tinge. It was common for people who were in shock. She looked at him with a blank stare on her face, her arms hanging limply at her sides. A second later, she lifted her fingers to her neck and touched the area where the blade had been. She looked down at her fingers as if surprised to see they were tinged with blood. Without saying anything, she went and slumped back down on the bench next to Abby.
Landon took in the whole scene. They had Piper exactly where they wanted her. He didn’t think she’d fight them, but who knew? He’d had other targets he thought would cooperate the whole time but didn’t. No matter the situation, they had to keep her locked up until everything was resolved, and then they’d see if there was any chance for Abby and Piper to go back to their life. Or not. It didn’t matter to him which way it went. Violence had never kept him up at night. It wouldn’t now either.
Landon glanced down at Reinhardt again, who had resumed his spot sitting on the chair in front of the cage. Landon glanced over his shoulder, looking at the images that Reinhardt had just taken of Piper. “Use that one,” he pointed, choosing the second picture out of five. The look on Piper’s face was blank, which was good. There was a small trickle of blood coming out from underneath the knife blade, which was even better. If that didn’t get Chase moving, he wasn’t sure what would. “Keep them quiet, okay? It’s probably time to give them some water and a sandwich, too.”
As Landon walked back towards the command center where Baker was seated, Landon wondered if he should have said something to Piper, if he should have responded to her to keep her under his control. But his training told him not to. More importantly, Foster had told him not to. “Once you get her to the warehouse, she’s a hostage. That’s it,” he’d said, matter of factly. Hostage takers didn’t talk to hostages. The minute you started a conversation, you lost the upper hand. Not talking to them taught them very quickly that they were not much more than a piece of meat. If Piper had thought the relationship was something more than that, she was dead wrong.
15
Jess drummed her fingers on the conference room table. In some respects, she was upset that Charlie found out what was going on, but part of her was glad. He was one of the few people that understood what her daily life was like, who understood the amount of research and data she did and how she thought.
She was alone. Chase was back to the lab, mumbling something about formula degradation under his breath. Charlie’s conversation with them had been just enough in order to get him to focus. That was good.
A second later, there was a knock on the door. It was Sully, the security guard from downstairs. “Listen, I have three SUVs filled with FBI agents downstairs.”
Jess’s heart stopped for a second, the breath catching in her throat. “The FBI?”
“That’s right. Said they want to see Chase. Is he in the lab?”
Jess nodded, a thought passing through her mind, “Sully, do they have to come up?”
“No ma’am. This is a secure facility for only people who have a classified clearance. Technically, you shouldn’t even be here either. I only get to be here because I work security.”
“Actually, I do have a classified clearance.”
“Well, if that’s the case, then you’re welcome. But those FBI agents, they don’t have classified clearance as far as I’ve been told. They need permission. With it being the weekend, getting that permission could be problematic, if you know what I mean.”
Jess didn’t say anything for a minute. The last thing they needed was a whole team of FBI agents descending on Trident Labs or Chase’s house, stalling out the progress they were trying to make. They just didn’t have enough time to answer their questions and fill out papers. Jess thought back to the threats from the kidnappers that they would kill Abby at six that night if they didn’t have the ABG. Based on how she’d seen them behave and the background Charlie had given them, Jess had no doubt they would be good for their word. Not to mention the FBI definitely fell under the category of police. Jess imagined what it looked like at the front door of Trident Labs, the three shiny black SUVs sitting parked, nose to tail. It would be a dead giveaway to anyone watching them that the FBI was involved. Jess frowned and then grabbed her phone, glancing at Sully, “Tell them you have to get clearance for them to come up to talk to us, okay? Can you buy us some time?”
Sully shook his head slowly, his eyebrows raised, “Listen, I don’t know what you guys have going on up here, but I can do that. Chase has been good to me over the years.” As Sully started to walk out of the conference room, he leaned his head back in, just inside the doorway, “If you need anything, you call downstairs. I’ll come running.”
Jess smiled, “Thanks.”
As Sully left the room, Jess stared back down at her phone. She opened an encrypted text chain with Charlie, using an app that deleted the messages as soon as they were read. “FBI at Trident,” was all she wrote.
“Are they in the lab?”
“No. Still downstairs. We are stalling them.”
“I’ll take care of it.”
Jess stuffed her phone back in her pocket and ran across the hall, shoving the door open. Chase was still hunched over his computer. “Does one of these windows face the front entrance?” she asked.
Chase didn’t say anything. He just pointed, as though speaking would interrupt his train of thought. Jess ran to the corner of the lab and peered down. She didn’t think the FBI would know enough about the building to be able to identify which window belonged to Chase’s lab, so she wasn’t too worried about being spotted. After all, they were far away enough that someone on the ground would probably have to be looking for her in order to see her.
Sully had been right. From where she was standing, she could look down and see the roofs and hoods of three black SUVs. Agents had spilled out of the cars. There were at least six of them milling around that she could see. Where the other ones were, she wasn’t sure. She trembled. If the FBI managed to get up in the lab, there was no way they’d be able to figure out how to doctor up the ABG in time to rescue Abby. The agents might be trying to help, but Jess knew better. Having them interrupt the process might be just enough to kill her.
Jess didn’t take her eyes off the FBI agents that were standing around in the parking lot. One of them, a man with sunglasses on, glanced up in her direction. Jess jerked back from the window, not wanting to be spotted. She stayed at the edge for another second and then looked down again. The man who’d been looking her direction was now looking towards the front entrance. Jess’s phone vibrated. Charlie. “All set.”
Jess waited for us another second and then leaned forward. The agents were all doing the same thing, staring at the front door. From around the corner, she could see two more agents walking towards them, one of them raising his hands in the air as if to say, “What was that?” with another one, trailing right behind.
Charlie. Jess breathed a sigh of relief, whispering a silent thank you that she had the relationship with him she did. If they were able to get through this day and get Abby back alive, that would be a miracle. Jess would de
finitely owe Charlie, that was for sure. A lump formed in her stomach. But nothing was for sure yet. They didn’t have a solution for the problem with the ABG. At least, not yet.
By the time Jess turned away from the window, Sully had made his way back up to the lab. Jess met him at the doorway, and pulled him out into the hallway, not wanting to disturb Chase. “What happened?” she whispered.
“I don’t know,” Sully shrugged. “It was the strangest thing. The agents were giving me a really hard time. I was just about to call our Executive Director to try to get them clearance to come up, or actually to not get them clearance to come up, if you know what I mean, but then one of the agents got a phone call. He walked away, leaving me with another agent who just stood there glaring at me. I heard them talking but couldn’t make out what they said. A minute later, the lead agent came back and told the other agent they needed to go. Apparently, their supervisor had called them off, for some reason. I don’t know why.”
“That’s good,” Jess sighed. “Sully, you’ve been a gem. Keep doing what you’re doing. By the end of the day, if things go all right, you will have helped us more than you could ever know.”
Sully looked confused for a minute and then walked away as if he was afraid to ask any more questions, not that Jess would answer them. As Jess saw him disappear into the elevator, she wondered for a second how many secret and classified things Sully had witnessed over the years, maybe without even realizing it. His job was difficult and easy at the same time — make sure only the right people got into the building, but he had to keep his mouth shut about what he saw and what was going on. That was a fact. Hopefully, Sully would keep doing what he was doing until at least the end of the day, or at least until they could get Abby back.
Jess pulled her phone out of her pocket again and sent a quick text to Charlie, “Thank you.” She glanced toward the conference room, but decided it was time to go check on Chase.
Chase was up from his position at his laptop when she walked back in, a scowl on his face. He was kneeling in front of the refrigerator that had a clear glass door, racks of vials inside of it.
“What are you looking for?” Jess said.
“My samples of the ABG. They aren’t here.” He stood up, a panicked look on his face. “I don’t understand it. I sent them out for a test yesterday in Building B, but they should have been back by now.” Chase shut the door of the refrigerator and then walked back to his laptop, leaning over it. He sighed, and then groaned, “This isn’t good.”
“What is it?” Jess had a sinking feeling in her chest. The last thing they needed was something else to go wrong.
“The equipment that they use for the test, it wasn’t working yesterday. They had a tech in, but apparently they didn’t get it fixed until the end of the workday.” Chase pointed at his laptop. “There was an email in here, but I didn’t think to look at it.”
“Well, can’t we just go and get the samples?”
“No. Building B has a different security clearance than we have here. The security is much tighter. They have some other research they’re running over there. Armed guards, that kind of stuff. Sully doesn’t work over there, so that won’t help us.”
“And you don’t have any of the samples here at all?”
Chase shook his head, “No, I’ve been making it in really small batches, but we don’t have the time to make more. It takes twenty-four hours from start to finish. Abby doesn’t have that kind of time!”
Jess could tell by the tone of Chase’s voice that he was getting flustered. Her brother wasn’t used to working under this kind of pressure, with this high of stakes. Chase had always been that way, even as a little kid. He’d get things done, but it was on his own timeline as if he lived in something of an alternate reality. As Jess slumped down onto Chase’s stool, her shoulders felt heavy, the reality of the situation dragging her down. Maybe Charlie could help? She sent him a quick text, asking him if there was any way they could get access to Building B with his contacts. He wrote back a second later telling her to give him a minute. She looked up at Chase, who was pacing back and forth, his hand on top of his head, his fingers entwined with his hair. “Chase, if we can get the samples, then what? Do you have a next step after that?”
“I think so,” he said, biting his lip. He stopped moving. “I actually think Charlie had the best idea. I can coat the inside of the vials with a chemical that will render the ABG useless and then put another coating on the inside of the vial on top of the first layer that will seal the chemical in for long enough for them to test it.”
“Two layers?”
“Yes. If I don’t do the two layers, as soon as I put the ABG in, it will be inert. Useless. If they test it, they will know for sure. But if I seal it, it will buy us maybe a couple hours to get Abby back.” The idea they would only have a couple hours once the ABG was loaded in the vials sent a shiver through Jess’s body. She stood up and walked towards a single small window in Chase’s lab, crossing her arms across her chest wondering if it would be enough...
“Will a couple hours be long enough?” Chase didn’t answer. Jess’s heart tightened in her chest. If Chase didn’t keep the ABG in play long enough, Landon Walker and his cronies would definitely kill Abby. There was no doubt in her mind about it. They needed enough time to give the kidnappers the ABG, let them test it and get Abby back. If, for any reason the ABG was useless when they got it, Abby might not be the only one who ended up dead by the end of the day.
Jess swallowed. A flicker in her mind made her wonder how she got caught up in the middle of all of this — the kidnapping, the bank robbery, trying to help Chase. Until that moment, she hadn’t realized that her life was likely on the line too. She’d been so focused on getting Abby back that nothing seemed more important. Images of her house and her desk ran through her mind. Not that they were important in and of themselves, but they were just familiar. Would she ever be able to go back to them? Would she be able to go back to working for Charlie by the time the day was over? Jess shook her head, staring out the window, sighing. Suddenly, she felt lightheaded. She made her way back to Chase’s stool and sat down.
He still hadn’t answered her question. “Chase, how much time can you give us? We need to be able to travel to where they ask us to go, make the trade for Abby, wait for them to test it and then get out of there before they figure out you doctored it.”
Chase was flipping through a notebook on the edge of the lab table. He had a frown on his face, vertical lines crunched together between his eyebrows, “I don’t know, Jess,” he said with an edge to his voice, “How much time do you need? Two, three days? How much time is enough?”
“Don’t get sarcastic with me. Remember, I’m here to help. I want to get Abby back as much as you do.”
“I highly doubt that,” Chase said, shooting her a look.
The words stung. It wasn’t the first time that day that Chase had accused her of not caring about Abby as much as he did. Jess knew he was right, of course. It was his daughter, his flesh and blood. Abby was someone Chase could look at and see himself in, the shape of her eyes, the color of her hair, even a few of her mannerisms looked similar to Chase’s. Jess didn’t say anything. There was nothing to say. They both wanted Abby back. That was what was important.
Jess stared at the floor for a second and then back at Chase. “Listen, the way I look at it, we’re gonna need at least three or four hours for the ABG to stay active before it becomes inert. Is that even possible?” She felt funny for asking him exactly the same question three times, but the reality was he hadn’t answered it. There was a part of her that needed to know. With all of their lives hanging in the balance and no experience dealing with kidnappers, they had to do the best they could to think of contingencies. This was one of them.
Chase stood up and stared at the ceiling for a second and looked at Jess, “I’m sorry. I understand what you’re saying. We do need to factor in travel time, the exchange and the testing, and our escape
before the ABG degrades.” Chase bent over, scrawling something in his notebook she couldn’t see. “I think if I coat the inside of the vial with the dampening agent and then use two coats of the sealer, that should protect the ABG for long enough.” He frowned and then scrawled a few more notes on the paper. When he stood up, the frown was still spread across his face, “The thing is, I need the ABG samples. All of this is a moot point without them. Did you hear back from Charlie?”
In the frustration of the last few minutes, Jess hadn’t checked her phone. She walked back to the edge of the stainless-steel lab table where she’d left it and looked at it. There was only a single text. It was from Charlie. “I’m sorry, Jess. I can’t get you into Building B. I reached out to my contacts, but the DOJ has taken over the building for the next six months. They are doing some sort of top-secret research there, stuff that’s well beyond my pay grade. You are on your own.”
The words landed on Jess like she’d been punched in the stomach. She blinked and looked at Chase, “Charlie can’t get us into Building B. Said it’s locked down for some sort of classified experiments by the DOJ.”
Chase slammed his hands on the stainless-steel lab table, the vials and sensitive machinery rattling with the concussion, “Then what are we supposed to do?” he shouted. “It’s not like I can pull this stuff out of thin air! The samples I need are in that building. That’s the only way!”
Jess blinked and then stared down. Glancing back up, she said, “Are you sure the only way you can get the ABG to the kidnappers is by using those samples? There’s no other way for you to fabricate it in time?”
“No. I’m telling you Jess, this stuff has taken me years to develop. The chemistry is really sophisticated. It’s not like baking a batch of blueberry muffins.”
“Can’t we just go over there and show them your ID and tell them we need to get something?”
