by Alexa Davis
"Keys," she whispered as the elevator doors whooshed open and we stepped in. Cece hit the button for the sixteenth floor and quickly headed for my father's office once we reached it. She picked the lock on the door and we made a beeline for the door to my father's office.
"Where sentient beings display emotion," she whispered. "Where the hell is that? I've already torn most of this office apart."
"Shhh, let me think a minute," I said holding up a hand. Cece went silent as I thought about what that line meant. Where did sentient beings display emotion? Feelings? When it came to me, I let out a laugh before covering my mouth and heading out to the closet in the outer office. I thought of my mother and smiled as I remembered her trying to give me insight into my father on her deathbed. I yanked open the door and started rummaging through the clothing hanging in the closet running my hands over every inch of every coat and jacket. I finally found what I was looking for in an old windbreaker that had been shoved to one side of the closet. I pulled it out and unzipped the pocket on the sleeve. Inside were two keys on a small heart shaped key ring.
"What the hell?" Cece said.
"Wearing your heart on your sleeve," I whispered. "It was one of those things my mom told me about my dad. She said he might not wear his heart on his sleeve, but he cared just the same."
"Um, okay," Cece shook her head. "If we're done playing emotional family trivia, can we please find Echo?"
"You're such a hard ass," I said as I shoved the keys in my pocket and pulled out Echo's laptop. I opened the cloud program on her desktop, typed in her password and hit enter.
"Seal, I don't have the luxury of being anything but a hard ass," she said as we held our breath and waited for the program to tell us where Echo was. The compass swung wildly on the screen as it waited for a signal. When it finally pinpointed her location on the map, Cece and I both gasped.
"She's here," Cece said gripping my arm. "She's in this building."
"Hold on. Are we sure it's her?" I asked as my heart pounded wildly in my chest. "What if they stole her phone and are holding her somewhere else?"
"That's a really good mystery twist, Seal," Cece said. "But we don't have the luxury of spending a lot of time trying to calculate the odds. We need to go big or go home."
"That's good," I said with a wry grin. "What movie did that come from?
"I cobbled it together from a variety of sources," she grinned as she tapped a few keys on the laptop and got the map to magnify the location of Echo's phone. Cece turned and looked at me, "It's on the upper floors of this building. What do you want to bet that it's on the seventeenth floor?"
"That would be way too easy," I said shaking my head. "It's a trap."
"What if it's not?" she asked. "What if the kidnappers didn't know we were planning to break in and get the hard drive? What if they thought that Echo already had the drive and now they're trying to recover it?"
"It sounds like a whole lot of what ifs," I replied as I started at the computer screen.
"When have you SEALs ever been about playing it safe?" Cece asked.
"Lady, we're all about safe," I said. "We never go in unless we know we've done everything we could to ensure the safety of our team members and the people we're rescuing."
"Uh huh," she nodded telling me that she was completely unconvinced. "Well, I'm not a SEAL, so I vote for taking a risk and going in."
"Cece, this is not a fucking movie!" I exploded. "We're talking about someone's life! You can't play fast and loose like you're in some gangster video! What if the kidnappers are holding her somewhere else and we go bursting into whatever it is they're doing and they decide to kill her? Have you thought about that? Or what if they decide to kill us? Did you think about that?"
"I did not," she admitted. "Then what do we do?"
"We plan out our attack," I said as I visually measured the distance between the stairway and the door to the office where the signal appeared to be coming from.
"And then what?"
"And then we slip in and take them by surprise," I said looking up at her grinning, "And if things don't go our way, then we go out guns blazing."
"You're crazy, Seal," she laughed.
"No, just determined," I said as I clenched my jaw and explained the plan to her.
Chapter Thirty
Echo
"You guys are going to have to untie my hands and let me sit up, if you want me to find the drive for you," I said in as calm a voice as I could muster. I could feel my phone buzzing in my back pocket ever few minutes, and I knew that Ryan and Cece knew that I was missing. I just hoped that they were smart enough to figure out that I had set my phone up so that they could track it on my computer.
"Nice try," said the sinister voice. "But you're not getting loose."
"Then you're going to have to take a crash course in computer programming," I said. "Because one of us has to type in the program codes."
I listened as the two kidnappers whispered quietly for a few minutes, and then the goon said, "Okay, I'll type. Tell me what you want me to do."
I quickly began reeling off the most complicated programming language I could remember from my senior thesis seminar just to test their level of computer knowledge. Thirty-seconds into my instructions, the goon yelled, "What the hell are you even talking about?"
"You guys do understand that programming if far more complicated than doing a simple Google search, don't you?" I replied in as condescending a manner as I could muster.
"Yeah, but I don't even understand what language your speaking," the goon said. "Is that English?"
"No, it's coding language," I sighed. "It's akin to being fluent in a foreign language."
"Well, I'm definitely not fluent," the goon said.
"Then we're going to have to figure out another way to do this," I replied. "Either you're going to have to learn the language quickly or you're going to have to let me get up and program the computer to access the files. Your call, gentlemen."
Again, they whispered, and as their voices rose and fell, I knew I'd hit a nerve. They were going to be forced to let me up if they wanted to locate the drive. If they didn't let me up, they were going to be hampered by the fact that neither one of them were coders. I threw up a little prayer that they would not call in someone who did know how to code because then I'd be screwed.
"Fine," the sinister voice said in a clipped tone. "We'll let you up, but you're going to be tied to this chair while you do your job."
"Fine," I said as waited for them to loosen the straps that were holding me down. I was expecting the sinister one to undo me, but it was the goon who did it.
"Don't try and be sneaky," he warned as he loosened the ties around my shoulders. "I'm going to have my gun on you the whole time, so one wrong move and you're toast."
"Gee, thanks," I said as he undid the strap around my waist and I sat up. "It's so reassuring to know that one wrong move and I'll be shot."
"You know what I'm saying," he said as he pulled off the strap that held my legs firmly to the table. "Don't pull anything."
"I wouldn't dream of it," I replied in a saccharine tone. "Where's the computer?"
"Over here," he said lifting me off of the table. My legs were a bit weak and I felt light headed as the blood in my body flowed back where it belonged. I stumbled as I walked toward the desk and the goon caught me tightly by the arm and yanked me back to a standing position. "Ouch!"
"Walk straight," he ordered.
"I'm a little dizzy from being tied to that table for four days," I said overdramatizing the time.
"Four days? Hardly. More like twelve hours," he laughed. I nodded as I rubbed my arms and did a few knee bends. Now I knew how long I'd been missing. Surely, Ryan and Cece were looking for me. "Sit here."
I sat down in the chair and surveyed the computer. It was older than my laptop, but I was familiar with the make and model, so I quickly went to work pulling up screens and starting to code a program that would make it look like I had a lock on th
e hard drive.
"Can I have some paper and a pen?" I asked.
"What the hell do you need that for?" the good said.
"I need to sketch out a few formulas before I input them," I said. The truth was that I needed to sketch the room so that I didn't forget what it looked like or where things were. My phone began vibrating in my pocket as I did, but I didn't dare answer it. If the kidnappers hadn't taken it from me, that meant they didn't know I had it and I wasn't about to give up my lifeline now.
"Here," the goon said as he pushed a stack of paper he pulled out of the printer tray and a pen at me. I immediately recognized it as TriCorp stationary because of its unique watermark, and suddenly I felt very hopeful. I had an idea of where I was even if I wasn't certain. "Do whatever it is you do."
"Thank you," I said as I began writing random formulas on the top sheet of the pad.
"How the hell do you remember all those numbers?" he asked as he watched me write.
"They're codes, so they all fit together," I replied. "It's kind of like asking how you know how to form a sentence."
"Huh, that's interesting," he said sounding completely uninterested. I shrugged and returned to writing formulas occasionally looking around the room as if searching for the next equation. On the second sheet of paper, I wrote the formulas in a rectangle the size of the room and put various formulas in places where doors and windows were. My goal was to snap a picture of the drawing with my phone's camera and send it to Cece and hope that she'd be able to interpret it. I still had no idea where I was, but at the very least I could provide her and whoever was going to rescue me with a blue print of the room.
"Are you okay?" I asked the goon. He was slightly bent over in his chair with his arms wrapped around his waist.
"Yeah, fine. Why?" he said as he tried to sit up.
"You don't look so hot," I shrugged. "Just being nice."
"My gut is killing me," he confessed. "I need a bathroom, but I can't leave you here."
"Why not just anchor me to the desk?" I suggested. I knew there was no way I would be able to escape, but at least I could get him to leave me alone with my phone.
"Good idea," the goon said as he nodded and slipped a cable around my leg, then around the leg of the desk and back around the base of the chair before locking one end into the other.
"Did you just use a bike lock on me?" I asked incredulously.
"Yep, good catch," he grinned as he twirled the keys around his forefinger. I watched him as he walked to the back of the room and into what looked like a supply closet. "Don't go anywhere!"
"Wouldn't dream of it," I said in a flat voice as I heard the door slam. I wasn't sure if there was a bathroom back there or if he'd exited out a back door. I quickly added the door to my formula drawing as well as a small verification that only Cece would recognize before I reached into my back pocket for my phone. I pulled it out and saw that there were fourteen missed calls from Cece. She was probably frantic with worry and pissed that I'd gone missing.
I snapped a quick shot of my drawing, then quickly texted the photos to Cece before deleting the message, turning off the phone and shoving it back in my pocket. Behind me, I heard the click of a safety being turned off.
"Nice try, missy," the goon said as he crossed the short distance between us and grabbed my phone out of my pocket. "What did you send?"
"Nothing!" I protested weakly. "I just wanted to keep a picture of the formulas I've written. It's like art, you know?"
"Don't bullshit a bullshitter, babe," he said shaking his head as he turned on my phone and held it out to me. "Unlock it."
I knew better than to resist, so I unlocked it and handed it back to him. He began opening the programs looking for messages I'd sent, but when he didn't find any, he eyed me suspiciously before stuffing my phone in the pocket of his track jacket.
"We'll just wait for the boss to come back and see what he has to say about this," he said. "Get back to work."
"Yes, sir," I said as I saluted and turned back to the computer hoping that Cece had gotten my message and that she could decipher it before the boss returned.
Chapter Thirty-One
Ryan
"Oh shit, Seal, look at this!" Cece said urgently tugging my sleeve as she handed me her phone. On the screen was a text message from Echo with a picture of a whole bunch of formulas laid out on a sheet of paper in a rectangle.
"Is this all she sent?" I asked as I stared at the photo.
"Yeah, that's it," she nodded. "What the hell is that?"
"She's sending us a message," I said. "But hell if I know what it is. Forward the photo to me."
Cece quickly took her phone back and forwarded me the picture, and the two of us sat in the closet in my father's office staring at our screens.
"It's a rectangle," I said. "What's rectangular?"
Cece shrugged and turned her phone around looking at the photo from all angles. Suddenly, I had an idea. I grabbed the laptop and typed in Echo's number again. The map still showed her location as in the building.
"She's here," I said looking up at Cece. "You were right, she's here. If she sent the message..."
"She did," Cece nodded. "I know it's her. Look down here in the bottom corner under the short formula, she wrote the word chica. The kidnappers wouldn't know that's my nickname for her. She's here."
"I'll bet she's up on the seventeenth floor," I said staring at my phone.
"Why do you say that?" she asked.
"Look at all of her equations," I said pointing toward the far wall and then quickly doing a few calculations on my phone's calculator. "The outer sides all have seventeen as their root. Can you see that?"
"Um, okay?" Cece said.
"I think she's trying to tell us she's on the seventeenth floor," I said. "Either that, or I failed basic algebra and my calculations are off."
"You're a piece of work, Seal," Cece said shaking her head. "Fine, what's the plan then?"
"We get upstairs and find Echo," I said. "Then I create a diversion with the C-4, and you hustle her out of there into the lab. Got the keys?"
"No, you have them," she sighed. I reached into my pocket and pulled out the keys to my father's lab and handed them to her as she smiled and said, "Okay, now the plan has a slightly larger chance of succeeding."
"Check your gun," I said. "Make sure the safety is off and that you're ready for whatever happens. We have no idea how many of them there are or what kind of weapons they have."
"Great," she said rolling her eyes dramatically. "Now the chance of success just dipped again."
"Don't be a pessimist, lady," I grinned as I checked my gun and tucked it into the pocket of my hoodie. "Let's roll."
We exited the office and quickly made our way to the stairs.
We climbed one flight to the seventeenth floor as Cece hit the cameras with the paint. We made our way to the hallway next to my father's lab.
I followed the map I'd committed to memory and led the way down a long corridor then carefully checked the hallway signaling to Cece to come up underneath and hit the camera that was aimed down the hallway where the lab was located. Once she'd covered the lens, we dropped to our knees and scooted down the hallway toward what looked like the first of four offices. The glass panels sat on top of beech wood partitions that gave us a place to hide as we made our way down the hallway, but the full-length glass doors we'd have to cross in front of to get to the next office gave us nowhere to hide.
"We're going to have to move fast, okay?" I said as I motioned for Cece to follow me. I could feel her right behind me as I slid over to the first office and slowly raised my eyes just over the edge of the glass. Nothing.
Cece and I carefully made our way down the hall looking in the offices and finding nothing. It was possible that they had Echo locked in a lab, but my instincts told me that they didn't have access to the labs, otherwise they wouldn't have needed to kidnap Echo in the first place. I lifted my head just above the glass, and inhaled
sharply as I ducked down.
"She's in there," I whispered.
"In that office?" Cece asked. "You sure?"
"Positive," I said. Cece motioned to me to get going as I slid on my belly across the front of the door and moved toward the far side of the hallway. There was no way we could go in guns blazing and not wind up with someone getting seriously wounded —or worse. I was going to set up an explosion in the area behind the office. What we hoped would happen would be that the kidnappers would come check it out and then we'd stand a better chance of rescuing Echo. It wasn't the best plan, but it was the only one we could think of under pressure.
Cece watched as I set up the explosives and then motioned me when it was safe to slide back to where she sat waiting. I had only used 50 grams of the C-4 knowing that any more than that would likely cause more damage than we wanted. I looked at Cece and motioned for her to get as far away as she could, then I counted down on my fingers before lighting the fuse. Once the fuse was lit, I ran down the hall to join Cece around the corner. It took fifteen-seconds for the fuse to burn down to the blasting caps and when it hit, the explosion shook our hiding spot.
"What the fuck?" came the shout from the other end of the hallway as a guy in a dark colored tracksuit exited the office and walked down to check out the explosion site. Cece and I silently moved down the hallway, and in a matter of seconds I had my arm wrapped around the guy's neck with my pistol pointed at his temple.
"Where is she?" I growled.
"What the fuck?" the startled man yelled.
"Where the fuck is she?" I repeated as I pressed the metal into his head.
"Who?"
"The girl?" I growled. "Where is she?"
"In the office!" he shouted as I heard Echo yell, "Don't hurt him! He's just the muscle!"
"You're one luck son of a bitch," I said before I smashed him in the back of the head with my pistol knocking him out cold.
"Ryan!" Echo cried as I ran into the room and found Cece kneeling at her feet frantically trying to cut the cable wound around her legs. "He's got the keys in his pocket, and my phone!"
