Thanking Underwood for his help, Cyrus disconnected. He slid the phone back into his pocket and pulled into traffic. He had his work cut out for him.
Chapter 25
Bakersfield, California
Thursday, 1:22 pm (2:22 pm Colorado Time)
Cyrus used the Colorado platform to teleport to a self-storage unit near the western side of Santa Barbara. It was one of those lockers the size of a garage stall, with an overhead retractable door. Only the day before, he and Reese had relocated a transport platform from the office, setting it up in the storage unit prior to declaring the office off limits for the time being. The storage space provided them anonymity and the ability to come and go unnoticed day or night. The locker also made it easy to hide the ten-year-old Jeep Cherokee Cyrus had bought just for the move.
Driving the Jeep to the nearby airstrip, Cyrus rented a helicopter with seating for six and made the short flight to Bakersfield. The trip took less than twenty minutes, where the journey by car would’ve taken closer to three hours. Landing in Bakersfield, Cyrus rented a Chevy Suburban, using a credit card under a false identity. He drove to the motel on the outskirts of the city limits.
The No Tell Motel was every bit the classless dive the name suggested. The sign along the street was ancient plastic, cracked and broken by a rock or gunshot. Maybe both. The motel looked ten years overdue for being condemned. As Cyrus pulled into the parking lot, he was struck by the same sense of despair he’d felt when depositing the team the prior afternoon. Heartache and dread permeated the place.
The motel was a single story, a long plaza, rooms one next to the other, stretching maybe three hundred feet from end to end. A dilapidated manager’s office was located at the left end with a large plate glass window overlooking the parking lot. That window looked like it hadn’t been cleaned in two presidencies. The front door was propped open with a crumbling cinderblock.
There were perhaps a dozen doors spanning the front face of the structure. Each was covered in cracked, peeling paint and was labeled with a brass room number that had oxidized with decades of neglect.
Cyrus had phoned upon landing in Bakersfield. He wanted the team packed and ready to roll when he arrived. After he parked the large SUV in the middle of the parking lot, he climbed out and took in the area. There wasn’t a car to be seen. His was the only vehicle in the entire lot, just as it had been the day before. When he spoke with the clerk the previous day, he learned that his people were the only customers registered. Evidently nothing had changed.
He had taken the rooms furthest from the office, located on the far right of the building. He’d parked the SUV at the center of the lot as a precaution. Parking directly in front of the unit you were using was considered bad tradecraft. It was like a virtual arrow pointing to your exact location and was the next closest thing to wearing a t-shirt with a target stenciled across it. These basic precautions were still second nature and too deeply ingrained in his personality to be forgotten. His head swiveled as he crossed the parking lot and approached room twelve. He was on alert for something out of the ordinary, signs of observation, or anything out of place. Old habits died hard.
When he reached the door of room twelve, nothing had raised his suspicion. As soon as he knocked, the curtain of the window beside the door pulled back slightly. He heard the click of the deadbolt and the slide of the door’s security chain. Dennis Driscoll opened the door. Unfortunately, the man’s normally pudgy neck-bearded face and ruffled appearance hadn’t improved after a night in the dingiest of cheap motels.
At least his smile was sincere. “Mister Cooper! Come to rescue us from this squalor, I hope?” Driscoll said with a chuckle.
“Call me Cyrus. And yes. Not a moment too soon, I take it?”
Cyrus was glad it was Driscoll who answered the door. Sanjay had taken his call from the airport, and as usual, the man was insufferable. Before Cyrus could deliver his brief message asking the team to gather their things, he was made to sit through Sanjay’s long-winded bemoaning of the accommodations. For the second time in two days! It wouldn’t happen again.
A change of the expression in Driscoll’s eyes caught Cyrus’s attention and instantly brought him to alert. Cyrus saw Driscoll’s eyes shift to a position over his shoulder and flash with concern. Cyrus reacted by spinning around while raising a bent elbow to eye level. As he did, he heard the crackle of electricity and felt his elbow impact with the side of a man’s head.
As his eyes caught up to the sudden burst of motion, Cyrus saw a large Hispanic man drop a Taser and collapse to the sidewalk. The fallen man was instantly replaced by a second, this one more stout. He looked as a fireplug would if someone disguised it in a sweat-stained wife-beater and gold chains. The man instantly swung a fist, catching Cyrus in the solar plexus. With the wind driven from his lungs, he struggled to stay on his feet. Cyrus saw the shorter man draw back his fist in preparation for another swing. The man’s fist was wrapped in a set of brass knuckles.
No wonder a single gut-shot had nearly leveled him!
As the shorter man threw what Cyrus knew would be a knockout-reinforced fist to the head, he reacted on pure instinct. With no oxygen in his lungs and his vision darkening, he parried the street brawler’s devastating swing. The fireplug put so much power into the right hook that he was thrown off balance when it failed to connect. Cyrus took advantage and gave the man a shove with his left hand while drawing his gun with the right. Without a moment’s hesitation, he fired a single shot into the shorter man’s upper leg. It took him right out of the fight. The bastard would live, but only because Cyrus was careful to avoid his femoral artery.
As Cyrus turned to ensure the first attacker was still down, he felt cold metal pressed against the base of his skull. Then everything went black.
—————
Cyrus collapsed to the concrete, just beyond the open door to room twelve. A third Hispanic man had made a sprint across the parking lot in the time it took him to drop the other two. The third man was also armed with a Taser baton. He placed it against the base of Cyrus’s skull and sent 50,000 volts into his body before Cyrus could react.
“Back inside. Now!” the man yelled, as he shoved his chrome 9mm in Driscoll’s face and shouldered him through the door.
Olivas quickly surveyed the gathered group of scientists. After spending the last ten hours watching the hotel from the bushes across the street, he was ready for some action. Twenty minutes ago, the two neighboring rooms were vacated. All of the occupants had congregated in room twelve. That event prompted a phone call to the boss who had agreed with his assessment of the situation. The geek squad was preparing to move out. When the black Suburban pulled into the lot and the lone man approached the room, the Hispanic thought they had lucked out. He figured they would make short work of the newcomer, grab the hostages, and be on their way. But looking at his friends still lying on the concrete, he decided they’d been overconfident.
He herded the five hostages to the back of the motel room before returning to the door. Pulling his two friends inside, he needed to get them out of sight before they attracted attention. Ancho Menza, the larger of his two friends, was just starting to show signs of life after taking that elbow to the head. But Poco had taken a bullet to the leg, and he was bleeding all over the place.
Olivas, the only one left standing, held his gun high for everyone to see. “Everyone stays quiet, and nobody gets dead! Stay in the back and don’t move, less I tell you different. Come near me and I’ll shoot you dead!”
They seemed to get the point. He knelt beside Menza. The big guy was still dazed. Olivas slapped the side of his pudgy face, trying to draw his attention. When he saw Menza’s eyes focus again, he knew the big man was back with him. “Go get some towels. Poco’s shot. You gotta stop the bleeding.” He pointed to the bathroom in the back corner of the room.
Poco was holding his leg, trying to stem the flow of blood. It did little to reduce the flow of thick plasma that contin
ued seeping between his fingers. If they could stop the blood loss the man would live, but there was no question the wound hurt like hell. Olivas wished he could just shoot the white guy and leave with the hostages. But the boss wanted them all brought back alive, especially the guy who had just arrived.
Olivas rolled Cyrus face down on the concrete, still just beyond the threshold of the door. He bound his hands behind his back using a large plastic zip-tie. “You and you!” He pointed to Dennis and Chad. “Put him in the back!”
Finally having the front of the motel clear, Olivas closed the door, blocking out the only natural light. Two small lamps on either side of the bed lit the room’s dreary interior. Menza tied off Poco’s wound using a belt as a tourniquet.
Pulling a cell phone from his pocket, Olivas glared at the hostages. It was a silent dare to any of them to make a noise. Satisfied his malicious sneer was sufficient, he turned his attention to the phone. He tapped a series of buttons on the screen and raised the phone to his ear. “Si. We have them… No. We’re missing the girl. The gringo turned out to be a handful. Two of my boys are down… Si, that’s the man… Si.” He taped a button on the phone, ending the call.
—————
Cyrus listened to the one-sided conversation from his position on the floor. His eyes were closed. Judging by the sounds of the room, he was along the back wall. The team was standing between him and the bastard who tased him, and from the sound of it, two of the attackers were in bad shape following their scuffle. Bolts of pain continued to surge through his head. He could still see strange shifts of light on the inside of his eyelids. A Taser. He’d been hit before, but this time was more intense. The burning feeling on the back of his neck confirmed a suspicion that the device had been applied to the base of his skull. No wonder it felt like his brain was being poked with flaming needles.
Cracking his eyes open, he found his situational assessment to be correct. He was face down on the stained carpet near the sink outside the bathroom. He took it as a good sign; it didn’t appear he had been unconscious for long. Not long enough for his attackers to stick them all in a van and cart them off—or kill them. He still didn’t know what they wanted, though the one-sided phone conversation he’d just overheard suggested they’d be taken into custody. Preventing that would be the first order of business.
Glancing over his head, Cyrus saw the legs of the research team. Everyone was standing with their backs to him. They were focused on what was happening at the front of the room. Tipping his head further brought a staggering rush of pain. Once his vision cleared, he saw one of the thugs tending to the wounded leg of the other.
The man in charge put his phone away. He looked over the group and waved his gun threateningly in their direction. It caused the group to take a collective step backward. Satisfied with the group’s submissive behavior, the man grinned. He turned his attention to his two friends working on the gunshot wound at the front of the room.
When the group took a collective step back, someone’s foot hit Cyrus’s shoulder. He looked up in time to see Tracy Clark glance down at him. She’d almost stepped on him. She nearly said something aloud, but he quickly shook his head and squinted his eyes—a silent shush before she made a sound.
She looked around quickly before squatting down beside Cyrus. “Are you alright?” she whispered.
“Do me a favor?” he nodded his head upward at her. “Slip one of those hair pins into the back of my cuffs.”
She looked confused. “I don’t understand.” Her voice was so quiet he could barely hear her.
“Pull one of your hair pins. When I roll over you’ll see what they used to bind my hands. Just stick the pin up along the strap and into the binding block. Trust me.” He gave her a wink and a grin to buoy her confidence. Slowly, he rolled onto his side so she could see his hands.
A moment later he felt her hand brush against his. The tension on one of the restraints instantly sagged. He pulled his hand free and rolled onto his back. To Tracy’s credit, she had instantly resumed a standing position and returned her attention to the front of the room as if nothing had happened.
Two seconds later and Cyrus had freed his remaining hand. He knew he was out numbered, out gunned, and thanks to the stabbing pain behind his eyes, he would likely have trouble getting to his feet quickly. But if he acted fast, he would have the element of surprise, and he could capitalize on the fact that two of the three thugs were focused entirely on the wounded man’s leg. Glancing slowly around the room, he looked for anything he could use as a weapon. The nearest he could find was the clothes iron sitting on the edge of the bathroom counter, only feet from where he lay.
Close enough.
Quietly, and making slow movements, he pulled himself to his feet. It was critical not to draw the attention of anyone in the room. Certainly not their attackers, but he didn’t want his fellow hostages seeing him either. Their shift in attention would draw the scrutiny of the thugs, and the odds would shift against him.
His vision swam for a few moments after he reached his feet. But there was no time to waste. Even through the stabbing pain and vertigo, he reached out for the iron. He took it in his right hand and picked up the slack of the hanging power cord in his left. The moment his vision cleared, he was in motion. It was nothing complicated or dramatic. He simply shouldered through the group of hostages as they watched the drama at the front of the room. Two steps later he was within reach of the man in charge—the man with the gun. Cyrus had already wound up for the swing so he let a powerful right cross fly. The swing, reinforced with the mass of the fifteen-year-old iron clenched in his fist, connected with the man just as his head turned. The force of the blow lifted him off his feet and sent him flying. He hit the curtains drawn against the windows behind him. The hundred and eighty pound Hispanic man smashed through the glass and went crashing to the concrete sidewalk outside.
The entire assault took place in less than two seconds and left the two men on the floor no time to react. By the time either man looked up to see what had caused the crashing sound, they were both looking down the barrel of a chrome finished Colt .45 that Cyrus had retrieved from the floor.
“Holy shit!” It was Chad. Evidently, he was the first to break free from his shock. “Way to go!”
Better than brass knuckles, Cyrus thought as he looked back at Chad. While the rest of the group either looked like they were going to be sick or might be in shock, Chad seemed to be dealing with the events better than the rest.
“Here, take this,” Cyrus said, as he passed the Colt to Chad. “Keep it pointed at them. Never get closer than two arms lengths. And if either of them so much as moves, just pull the trigger.”
“Right on!” Chad accepted the gun. His eyes were bright and filled with adrenaline. He looked like a kid on Christmas morning.
Right on? It was true that different people dealt with extreme circumstances in different ways. But Chad was an odd one. Still, Cyrus took a look at the guy and he seemed solid and relatively unfazed by all that just happened.
Good enough.
Passing by the two men still sitting on the floor, Cyrus exited the room and knelt over the unconscious body of the first man who know lay on the sidewalk fronting the motel. A quick search of his pockets revealed everything Cyrus needed. He found the man’s wallet, several sets of industrial zip-ties, and the cell phone that the man had used to call his boss.
—————
Twenty minutes later Cyrus was ready to vacate the No Tell Motel. As he suspected, the motel clerk was found stabbed to death behind the counter of the front office. The thugs eliminated the man preemptively, leaving no one to call for help when they moved in on their quarry.
Cyrus kept the death of the clerk to himself. The team was holding up well given the circumstances. That dose of reality might put some of them over the edge. Other than some mental trauma, most were in surprisingly good spirits. They were just happy to be alive and glad to be leaving the fleabag accomm
odations. One positive thing had come from the drama. No one was questioning the necessity of going into hiding anymore.
Cyrus loaded the team into the Suburban and headed out. A few blocks down the road, he stopped at a pay phone and called 911. He reported hearing gunshots near the motel. The police would arrive soon and find the three would-be kidnappers trussed up in the office of the hotel, along with the knife used to kill the clerk. He knew that wouldn’t be the end of the police investigation. The damage to room twelve would leave many unanswered questions. The rooms were registered under a false name, though, and everything had been thoroughly wiped down before they had left. The authorities would be hard pressed to make any connection to him or his people. It was the best he could do given the circumstances.
Once back at the Bakersfield airport, Cyrus loaded everyone onto the helicopter and made the quick flight back to Santa Barbara. From there, they piled into the over-crowded Cherokee. Ten minutes after leaving the airfield, they arrived at the storage unit where the teleportation platform was hidden.
Cyrus pulled the overhead garage door down, sealing them all inside the storage stall. He locked the garage door from the inside using a simple sliding bolt that went from the back of the door and slipped into a hole cut into the door’s track. Not even someone with a key could open the door from the outside after that.
He slid along the side of the SUV to where the group was waiting for him at the back of the narrow garage. The only light came from two bare overhead bulbs.
Everyone was looking at him expectantly. The group was quiet after the events of the day. The bitching and whining, once a constant from certain members, had dried up as the reality of the situation had set in.
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