Prisoner Mine
Page 19
“I have verified proof that Grieves Stockton, the President of the United States has used US Elite forces for his own profit, to forge alliances not sanctioned by the citizens of this great country and in stark opposition to its ideals, to murder, and intimidate. The evidence and the crimes are overwhelming. Something must be done today, and we will do it.”
Hawk pointed to the hatch. “If anyone on this plane can’t move against the commander in chief…speak now and I’ll drop you on our way. I might give you a parachute. I might not.”
A smile threatened Zeke’s stony demeanor.
She gave them ten whole seconds to dive. No one moved. “Trust comes into play here, but trust me when I say this man is one of the worst terrorists our soil has ever seen. I have the backing of the heads of military, but the FBI, CIA, and the legislative bodies of this great country had been kept out of the loop for security purposes. If the mission fails we will be viewed as terrorists ourselves and be dealt with accordingly.”
Prosper eyed each of the men, let his gaze rest on Zeke for a long second, and then turned to Hawk. “Ma’am, I didn’t vote for him anyway. Let’s impeach his ass.”
23
“Hope he’s not too attached.” Greer tossed a piece of the BMW’s steering column onto the gravel next to the Philips head screwdriver—the only tool, besides a palm sized Swiss Army knockoff, she’d found after ripping the cabin apart in search of the key for the damn car. Turned out Germans used triple square fasteners.
He couldn’t be that attached. He’d left the doors unlocked. Smashing a window might have done her nerves some good. She braced one palm on the door, the other on the roof, and rammed the toe of her boot into the stubborn plastic. A crack allied her irritation…a little. Another blow rewarded her with a hint of bound wires ranging the colors of the rainbow. Hot-wiring an old Jeep in the sands of the Helmand River Valley in Afghanistan couldn’t be any harder than this sleek car on a quiet plot of home soil, could it?
One way to know.
The plastic bit into her fingertips. Her teeth gritted and muscles bunched. He’d left a brisk note in the pile of clothes.
“Stay put, someone you don’t know will eventually be by to pick you up,” she told the sporty sedan. “Like I’m a package to be delivered or a…car.” The plastic broke free under her strain and indignation. “Sorry to break it to you, pretty, but he’s not attached. Not at all.”
Hot tears slid down her face. If he was going to leave, why relent and finally screw her? Where the hell was he going anyway? And if she ever got this fancy thing with all its fail-safes started, where the hell would she go? Her dad was dead. She didn’t have an apartment. No real friends to speak of. The only family she had left were the very ones who’d taken everything from her.
An idea lit like a spark on a drought ridden savannah. Z couldn’t get close to the president. She could.
Greer kicked through the blur of emotion. She kicked with renewed purpose. The large chunk gave way, revealing fuses, bound cables, and her ticket to retribution. Small rocks and pebbled dirt dug into her knees. Damn the man, but he hadn’t left her a clean pair of pants. Only a single pair of too-short khaki shorts, a new clingy tee—into which she’d managed to sweat three dark green lines—socks, and lacy panties.
“He doesn’t need a bra. So, why leave me a clean one?”
She tugged at the stiff material around her middle with one hand and yanked out a tightly banded mass of wires. When the adjustments did little to relieve her discomfort her fingers fished inside the front pocket for the knife. The dull blade nicked the cinched zip-ties more than actually cut it.
“Only twenty more to go.”
The crunch of tires at the end of the winding drive pricked her attention on number six. They couldn’t be in the clear yet. It hadn’t been more than an hour and a half since Z left. She hadn’t wasted that long weeping in a huddled ball before ripping the cabin to shreds, finding nothing, and showering while she’d formulated her plan. Time moved faster when seduced by joy. It moved slower when hounded by sorrow. When devastated…it stopped altogether.
There wasn’t a clock in the cabin. The car’s digital readout only displayed with a freaking key. Her sun positioning method of time keeping wasn’t all that accurate. So, maybe it had been longer than she realized.
Time or not, Greer closed the knife, stuffed it into her pocket, tossed the pile she’d made onto the floorboard, and slammed the door shut. As casually as she could muster, she propped herself against the car. She gulped and prepared to do some fancy talking. No way was she going with whomever he’d sent to be shuttled to another hidden locale and wait for who knew what.
A heavily tinted town car wound its way to a stop mere feet from the car she intended to drive off this country road. The door opened and a wall of a man hoisted himself from the seat. His wavy mass of white hair nipped the set of her jaw.
“Hello, Ms. Britton.” Four meaty fingers hitched the front of his belt. He closed the door so hard the car shimmied.
The first wave of apprehension snuck up Greer’s shoulder blades.
White teeth, too white to be natural, peeked from behind a wide smile. “I hoped I’d catch you here.”
Had Z told him to hurry because she might try to leave?
He rounded the hood and ambled toward her. Despite his slow pace and the deep lines and hair color showing his age, Greer gained a sense that this man had been lethal in his day, and likely could be still.
“Who are you?”
“Forgive me for not introducing myself. I feel like I already know you.” He stopped roughly four feet away. “I’m Xavier.”
No last name. No reference tags. “Just Xavier?”
“Forgive me again.” He extended his left hand. “Xavier Grisha Filipov, senior.”
Greer’s gaze sought the man’s right hand, even as she reached for the one he offered. A gasp wedged inside her throat. Uneven, discolored tissue covered the knuckles where Xavier’s first three fingers should have been. Her gaze flew to the incomplete hand clutching hers. Something had taken his pinkie. A gnarled scar ran up the top of his hand and the bottom too. The raised line pressed against her fingers. She caught herself gawking like a fool.
“I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to stare.”
He shook her hand and released it with an easy smile. “Do not be. I am not ashamed of my appearance.”
The phrasing he used set up another red flag. She’d thought she heard a suppressed accent. His name shrieked Russian. He canted his head as though waiting for her to speak
“You shouldn’t be,” she stammered.
But no, his blue gaze roamed her legs. His smile turned crooked. “I worked with explosives for many, many years. Even the most careful man can make a mistake.” The smile dipped past sane. “I venture we all have battle scars. Some of us wear them on the outside, others only on the inside.”
24
F our heavily tinted, even more heavily armored, SUVs rolled slowly through the gates of a private airfield just outside the Clifton Park city limits. After the last car cleared the fence the lead car’s front end gripped the pavement, stopping abruptly. The two in the middle jerked to a halt, leaving several feet in between. Car four never hit its brakes. The last car’s grill crunched into the third and kept pushing. Black billowed from the screaming tires as it closed the gaps. The lead car reversed, pushing from the other end, compacting the president’s caravan.
Man, it helped to have a Base Branch Operative or two rooted in the security forces of heads of countries.
“I told you to trust me,” Hawk yelled. She gripped the black rope hooked to the ceiling of the HELO and lowered her bottom out the door, bringing her to his level.
“I can’t believe it. How long have they been there?” Zeke’s palms itched to release and repel. Not yet. They still needed the men they’d dropped at the adjacent air base to follow through before they got blown out of the sky.
“Long enough that one of t
hem signed the vehicles’ security check this morning.” Pride glinted in her dark eyes.
“Don’t make it too easy for me. You know I like a challenge.”
“The car’s communications are down. As well as the agents’ inside. Not their guns though. And that damn thing is still armor plated and independently ventilated. We have to break the seal.”
Zeke patted the hydraulic spreader attached to his belt. “I plan to.”
Four jungle-green Humvees breached the tree line on either side of the caravan and barreled toward it. Their tires spit dirt behind them. One gained air off a low hill.
“Non-lethal force unless absolutely necessary. We don’t know who’s corrupt and who’s just doing their job,” Hawk reminded through the comms.
They closed the short distance to the line of SUVs in seconds. Zeke’s fingers ached to draw a bead on the cars below with his AR, while he waited for the broad fronts of the military-grade vehicles to barricade the caravan doors. This was the sticky part. The part where people could die. If the agents inside the SUVs decided to exit with any of the high caliber rifles stowed under the seats or in the back, they’d have no choice but to strike or risk being eliminated themselves.
Instead of striking, the Secret Service followed protocol. They bastioned the president inside the vehicle. The drivers revved the engines and maneuvered their wheels in an effort to gain their freedom. Surrounded on all sides, they had nowhere to go, but they’d never give up.
“Now.” Zeke loosened his grip. He shoved off the landing bar. Gravity sucked him toward the earth.
Hawk followed. The wind whipped her dark ponytail as she fast-roped out of the HELO.
The top of the third SUV—the one that housed the president—came hard and fast. Impact jarred his hips into his spinal column. Every old battle scar smarted, forcing a groan from Zeke’s lips. Maybe he should have squeezed the rope a little. Adrenaline and rage wouldn’t let him back off. Not one bit.
He cleared the rope and dropped to his knees. The metal vibrated from the hum of the engines and all the opposing forces being inflicted upon it. Hawk whispered onto the second SUV’s roof. The tip of the spreader jammed into the tiny crack between the rear passenger door and roof. He pressed his shoulder into the machine.
“Clear,” Hawk said into the comms.
Zeke nodded and switched on the device. Metal groaned and shrieked. The outer edge of the frame slowly bloomed.
A gunshot sang above the roar of a thousand horses.
Then another.
To the left the Humvee’s windshield pocked with two circular spiderwebs. Brass slugs stuck in the layers of bullet resistant glass. The collected calm of battle settled over Zeke. He drew left-handed, ready to annihilate the pistol tip protruding from the barely opened window.
Hawk’s charging form stalled him. Her knees slid across the slick black top. Both hands simultaneously unlatched gas grenades from her vest and launched them through the crack on either side of the weapon.
The boom dully echoed.
Zeke paid it no attention. His gaze already turned back to the spreader’s end, waiting for the bullet that awaited him the moment he breached the door. He shifted the spreader, firmed his grip, and peeled again.
Why the hell couldn’t someone in the car crack a window and try to shoot him? It would make things easier…well, unless he took a bullet.
“You have a quarter-inch yet?” Hawk’s shoulder bumped his. She peered down, but stayed far enough back to keep her head out of the line of fire.
“Barely.” He gritted. “This shit is stout.”
“Great. Hold what you got.” She rummaged through a vest pocket. Her first-aid pouch smacked the roof.
“I’m not shot yet.” Zeke kept the device running to cover their conversation. Not that the chaps would hear them through the tiny hole and the roar of blood in their heads.
“Maybe this way you won’t be.”
She yanked the small medical tubing from the pack and cut off a one-foot segment. The rest of the pack went scattering. “I need this.” Hawk jerked a gas grenade from his vest, but kept the pin engaged. She unsheathed her knife and lifted it into the air.
“I like shot better than blown up.” Zeke winced.
A tiny pop and hiss followed.
Zeke exhaled long and heavily as Hawk stuffed one end of the tube into the hole she’d made in the end of the canister.
“Hold that.” She handed him the pinched end of the tubing, reached for another grenade on his vest, and then repeated the maneuver.
“And people call me crazy.” Zeke kicked toward the back of the car just to keep them guessing.
“You are. You’d rather chance the bullets.”
Hawk pinched the end of the newest tube. She guided it toward the tiny gap and motioned him to do the same. They jammed the plastic ends just inside the opening. On cue they released their hold. The stunning explosion had been the winning ticket on the second car, but this slow leak…
“You know they have rebreathers.” Zeke reminded as they siphoned the gas into the SUV.
“I’m hoping they won’t all get to them.”
Zeke waited as long as his nerves could take it. Coughs and wheezing gasps seeped out through the tiny hole in the door. He rammed the spreader into the breach and worked the metal.
It keened one long moan and gave under the stress, fanning wide. The bulletproof glass crunched and crumbled one fragment at a time.
The wavering end of a pistol extended toward him. An easy bend of the wrist and the agent relinquished his weapon. Gas poured from the rift. He unhooked the hydraulic machine. It clattered to the roof.
Zeke snaked a hand into the fumes and unlocked the door. A biting grip seized his arm. He didn’t wait for a slice of pain. His large palm snatched a handful of meaty flesh and heaved. The body thrashed about. The hold on Zeke’s arm released. He didn’t.
“What happened to ‘wait for my signal’?” Hawk asked.
“Blokes inside didn't get the memo.” Zeke hoisted the face of a secret service agent through the hole and sank his other fist into the man’s jaw.
“One down.” Hawk signaled the Humvee in front of them back. The Base Branch agents moved the truck, and then exited with their weapons drawn, tracking end to end on the SUV. Zeke released the man and bailed from the roof. He motioned the lead agent to the door.
Hawk stood over them, an avenging angel ready to strike the damned. When she gave the nod the agent muscled the door wide. The unconscious man collapsed to the ground. The second Base Branch agent pulled the body back and patted him for weapons.
Zeke reached blind, but kept his vitals covered. His fingers grazed hair. He latched tight and pulled.
The president of the United States grabbed at the rebreather in his mouth with one hand and at the top of his head with the other. Zeke released him. His chest met the earth with a solid thud. The apparatus flew from his mouth. Loud coughs wracked his torso.
Grieves Stockton—the ruler of the free world, the piece of sewer scum—scrambled onto his hands and knees.
“No getting away, Stockton.” Zeke planted a boot on his keister and helped him to the ground. “Arms wide, palms on the ground, if you want to live. Personally, I hope you’re stupid enough to run or fight back.”
The man’s arms stretched on either side of his sprawled form. His fingers stretched wide.
“A damn shame.” Zeke wrenched his arm high, slapped cuffs on him, rolled him over, and patted him down.
The cool composed face of the president boiled over with white hot rage. “My brother always was the weak link, even when we were kids.” Spittle flew from his puckered mouth.
Behind Zeke, the other agents cleared the vehicles one at a time, spreading the Secret Service agents onto the ground, cuffing them, and then loading them into the backs of the Humvees. The two still conscious found the bliss of oblivion in short order.
“I was really hoping he’d run.” Hawk sidled up to Zeke an
d tsked. “Oh well, this will be fun too. Grieves Stockton, you’re under arrest. You have the right to remain silent. Anything you say can and will be used against you in the court of law. You have the—”
Stockton’s unbalanced laugh kicked up the dirt near his face. “Alliances are a funny thing.”
“Hilarious.” She sneered.
“I scared my brother into cooperating. I wonder if I could scare you into it.” His stark blue gaze centered Zeke’s.
“He’s not a pussy.” Hawk sat on the man’s ankles and smacked cuffs around them. She looked up at Zeke. “Should I gag him too?”
“Not yet.” Stockton shook his head. “If I can’t scare you, maybe I can negotiate.”
Zeke bent at the waist, grabbed a handful of the president’s collar, and levered him close. “You can’t negotiate your way out of this. Just be glad she’s transporting you. If you were with me, they might find your body. A piece or two anyway. Your lungs maybe. Enough to declare you deceased.”
A smile quirked the man’s fat lips. “So, Lieutenant Slaughter, would you like to negotiate a truce for my niece or is she as expendable to you as she is to me?”
Before thought or consequence settled, Zeke’s fist found his Glock. He sealed the barrel against the bastard’s head.
“Where is Greer?” Hawk asked the question just over Zeke’s shoulder, but made no other move to stop him.
His finger longed to ease back the trigger, to let the arterial spray coat his face, to watch the destroyer of so many lives lose his own. Hawk’s calm question suspended him on that jagged edge.
“She’s right where you left her. The condition you find her in though…that depends on the outcome here.” Sweat dripped off Stockton’s brow. His voice wavered.
“You don’t wager with a wraith,” Hawk whispered. “If you want to live, spill it.”
Zeke’s finger slid to the base of the trigger guard.
“I wagered an alliance with an old friend of yours. His bereft father, actually. So how about that deal?”
“Filipov.” Zeke roared and emptied his clip in a halo above the man’s head.