by Jade Powers
Drake spent so much time hob-knobbing in New York and Miami, collecting checks, and running the company that he never really bothered to look too closely at what he was researching or how that would affect people. No, that wasn’t true. He was afraid to dig too deeply. He spent his life pretending that any research he turned over would be used in support of the United States, and a republic would never use such research to the detriment of a population. Drake thought the words with sarcasm as he stepped into the cell.
Holding a kid.
That was a new low. One he had not expected.
“Name’s Drake. How long have you been here?” Drake knew he wasn’t hip or cool or whatever it was that drew teenagers to people. He understood power plays and old men, not teenaged angst.
Still, the kid responded favorably, “Todd. I came a few months ago.”
“To be honest, I wasn’t expecting to share a cell with anyone as young as you are. What do they have you do here?”
“Video games. I’d like it if they didn’t stick me in here when I’m not playing,” Todd said. His hair was buzz cut in army style, but he slouched in a way that defied military bearing.
“So you’re a runaway? They picked you up off the street?” Drake expected his team to attack the base within the hour. He hadn’t planned on children standing in the cross fire.
“Sort of. I pushed one of my little sisters down the stairs. I didn’t mean it, but my foster mom said she couldn’t take care of the little ones and me, so I got sent back.” Todd shrugged with a hardened resolve, like the episode was a minor event in his life, but Drake saw the flicker of hurt that Todd was quick to hide.
“I discovered in business that a single mistake can be costly. You probably could have skipped school a dozen times, cheated, stole, or mouthed off to your teachers and stayed. It wasn’t that your foster mom didn’t care. She just couldn’t afford the chance that you might seriously injure one of the smaller kids,” Drake said, dissecting the situation with the same cold precision that he used in business with his men.
“I was only with her for a month. She could have given me a chance.”
“That was the one thing she couldn’t do. Had you been with her a year, maybe she would have let you stay. If you’re willing to use physical violence to that extreme after a month, what might you do when you’re really angry? It’s hard to remove ourselves from the problem. We only see our own drama and not what we did that caused it. Maybe you’ll get a second chance,” Drake said. He couldn’t help but think of his own drama with Hannah. When they were together, they fit like two puzzle pieces meant to be together, but so often they were apart, and Drake was too used to being alone.
Once again he had left Hannah to go haring off on a mission, and once again he found himself where he didn’t want to be doing things he didn’t want to do. My mission is for Hannah, Drake reminded himself.
Todd said, “I can’t seem to help myself.”
Drake replied, “Neither can I.”
Todd leaned back against the wall with little expression. Drake recognized the attempt at emotional reserve. Todd said, “So, how did they catch you? I thought an old guy would be better at resisting.”
Drake wasn’t exactly old. He didn’t know whether to be insulted or bemused. It was the silver in his hair. He had all of his hair, and most of it was silver-gold. He chuckled and said, “I’m not that old.”
Alarms blasted the hallways. The high-pitched wail hurt Drake’s ears, but it was exactly what he was waiting for. He heard the sound of running feet, but didn’t see anyone pass. The window to the outside world was too small to give much vision.
Todd scrambled off the bed, standing on tip-toe to look out the tiny window to the hall and blocking Drake’s view. Had Drake been armed, he would have yelled to Todd to stand back. As it was, Drake counted guards in his memory and considered exit routes.
“How many prisoners are they holding?” Drake yelled above the din.
“At least twelve,” Todd shouted back.
Drake stalked back and forth along the side wall. The tiny space gave little room for movement.
When they heard gunshots, Todd dove away from the door, crawling under the bed. At least the kid had good survival instincts. Drake forced himself to relax. The alarms stopped as suddenly as they had started. He took a position in the corner. He wouldn’t be able to see anyone coming, but then, they wouldn’t see him either.
Drake was relieved when the commander of the Redrock extraction team swept through the halls. Once the fighting was over, one of the soldiers unlocked Drake’s door. “Sir, the base is ours. They weren’t expecting our fire power.”
Drake walked through empty halls, the compound was a husk of the lively research facility it had been just weeks before. “They already cleared it out. There’s nothing here. We took it easily because there is nothing here.”
Under any other circumstance, the lack of research data would have been a minor setback, but he needed Hannah’s cancer research...somehow.
If Drake felt a sense of utter futility and bleak despair at the empty halls, he felt doubly more so walking through labs cleaned of anything useful. A few monitors sat lonely on workstations, the towers removed from under the tables or desks. It was Todd who didn’t buy this version of reality. He said, “They just ran tests on me yesterday and this lab was full of stuff. There’s no way they got it out of here that fast. Do you think they have a vault or something nearby?”
“There is a bunker below the base, in case of nuclear holocaust. There is a records vault there.” One of the Redrock mercenaries said.
“Can you show us?” Drake asked.
It was a long shot. The soldier led Drake and Todd out of the lab. They passed two other soldiers with Colonel Evans between them.
He clenched his teeth and looked like he would spit on Drake. Evans said, “You made a mistake here, Drake, the kind you don’t walk away from.”
Probably true on both counts. Drake had made a huge mistake in attacking the base if speaking purely in business and political terms. He also knew that violence breeds violence, but as in the playground...they started it. Whatever happened here would change his life completely. He could only hope it would be for the better.
“I have my orders. You have yours,” Drake strode by the colonel without giving him more than a passing glance. He didn’t want the Redrock soldiers to think too much about what might be coming at them. It was one thing to draw personal attacks and quite another to have friends and family threatened. What more could they threaten Drake with? They’d already menaced a large group of his employees, forced a man he respected and admired to steal from him in order to save the son they kidnapped.
Drake had to admit that he was doing business with men who had no limits, who chose money over compassion on a whim. Following the Redrock soldier into the bunker, Drake realized that he no longer questioned his choice to sell the company. He no longer believed in what he did. Now, he felt like he was working for the bad guy as often as the good, and the technology they were making was too powerful, much too powerful to be trusted to anyone.
As they rounded the corner into the door to end all doors, Drake came to a drastic conclusion. He was going to destroy every bit of mind control technology and research he found. He wouldn’t have his little girl grow up in this crazy world where a small group of people could turn everyone else into mindless servants.
The door to the vault was protected by three types of security. There was no way in. Drake said, “Can you ask if we’re holding any of the doctors from the lab? We need one with total access.”
The Redrock soldier gave a brief nod and got on the radio. It took a while. He finally came back with news, “They’ve got someone. They’ll bring him down. He says he can get us in.”
Todd was still trailing behind. Drake was definitely not ready to adopt a teenager. He had to figure out a place for the kid. The kid poked at the door, tapping the security screens and playing with the
handles. When nothing happened, he said, “At least there aren’t any poison darts or anything.”
“Because you would already be dead if there were,” Drake replied dryly.
The pair of guards chuckled because Todd was like a puppy let off the leash for the first time in snow. He poked his nose into everything, asked questions, and made a general nuisance of himself. As far as Drake was concerned, that was better than the sullen silence some teenagers used as weapons against authority figures.
“Nah, I’m careful. Do you think they have nukes in here?” Todd poked the security pad again.
“We’ll find out soon enough.” Drake left Todd and the guards at the door, walking back down the hall to the T-section. He hated the feeling of waiting in enemy territory. Were it not for Hannah, he’d have burned the building to the ground and left it to rot.
Another guard accompanied a man in suit and tie to Drake. He was a small man with a bald head and glasses, but his eyes watched with canny understanding. He stopped in front of Drake and said, “So you’re in charge of this operation?”
“Your point?” Drake was a great judge of character, and he instantly disliked this man.
“I’ll open the door for you, but I want something.”
“What’s that?”
“The prototype we have inside and a ride out when you go.”
“No.” Even as he said it, Drake thought that he should have lied, should have just agreed to anything the man wanted to get a treatment for Hannah.
“There are three. You don’t need all of them. You can even have the best. But you won’t get any of them if you don’t let me have at least one.” The guy was slick. Drake would give him that. But he didn’t know what Drake wanted, and that was his flaw in bargaining.
“I’ll give you a ticket out and twenty thousand dollars, but not the prototypes. That’s already spoken for. Eventually someone else will come along who can open the door.” Drake relaxed against the wall, feigning disinterest. He played a wicked hand of poker. Part of Drake’s method to games of both life and chance was to tell the brutal honest truth as much as possible and to keep a straight face when lying.
“Then we’ll wait.” The other guy was also a poker player.
“Not if you’re not helping. Take him back to his cell. Put him in with Colonel Evans. We’ll start fires in the cell block. The bunker is fireproof,” Drake turned away from the group. The secret to a good lie was knowing when to stop talking.
“I’m a civilian. You can’t kill me.”
“Yeah, and you can’t experiment on people without their permission,” Todd said, with just enough irony to make Drake want to smile. Drake had a feeling Todd was going to be the one to break this guy.
Drake walked away. His military training gave him patience and a strong step. He had been planning to burn down the buildings, not with anyone inside, but what they had done to Hannah scared him deeply. People could be cold. He’d always known that, but here in civilized society, he hadn’t expected to see so many animals, so much darkness.
“Wait! Wait!”
Now they were talking. Drake stopped. He turned slowly with a single eyebrow raised. He said, “You’d better not waste my time. Open the door.”
“You won’t kill me and you’ll give me 20 G’s if I open the door? Just promise me that.”
“I won’t kill you, nor will anyone under my orders kill you if you open the door. This agreement is of course nullified if you pull a weapon on any of my men or try to steal anything from the vault,” Drake said.
“Agreed.”
The entry into the vault, while complex, was not actually as secure as some of Drake’s secret safes. It only took one person, the doctor, to open the door. He typed in the code and put his hand on a hand scanner to read his fingerprints and then the door opened.
The door hid a small room, maybe ten feet by ten feet. The floor was concrete and the walls were steel. The place was a mess. It looked like the base alarms went off and everyone hurried their stuff into the vault without planning or organization. From what Drake could see, each group kept their computers and files in specific areas.
There were file boxes and manila folders with loose papers next to computer towers which were next to technological advances, some of which Drake recognized from his own company’s research. This company focused more on the technology to be implanted into the person being controlled while Drake’s company made the main circuit controlling everything.
They wouldn’t have time to sort everything. They were on the clock. He wasn’t the only corporate boss with a dozen mercenaries on the payroll. As much as he appreciated the Redrock team, Drake wanted his own people to transport this treasure. He called on Adam, one of Sven’s recommendations, and a great employee. With Sven ready to jump ship, Drake would rely more heavily on Adam. Now was a good time to start.
“Can you bring your team to the following coordinates?” Drake said, giving Adam directions to the vault. He said, “Have them bring the two vans inside to the lower level parking garage.
“On my way, Sir.” Adam said.
They cleaned out half the vault in thirty minutes, starting with the tech and computer equipment. One of the men found a handcart and started moving file boxes. About that time, one of the Redrock guards in charge of securing the perimeter called in. “Surveillance helicopter just flew over the base. Copy?”
“If all personnel have been evacuated, fire up the administration and research labs. I want everyone in their vehicles in ten.” Drake ordered. He waved at the doctor, “We’re taking you with us. The least you can do is help carry.”
Loading the man up with two file boxes, he told the guard, “See that he doesn’t lose his way.”
Drake surveyed the room. They couldn’t leave anything behind. The guard with the handcart ran back zigzagging as hand carts are not the straightest method of transport. While Drake stacked a few boxes of his own, he said, “Let’s load it up. Twelve more boxes. I want this place empty.”
He ran his boxes to the second van. The cardboard cut into his arms, as heavy as they were. One of the guards took boxes from the others and packed them in the van. As soon as they were free, they ran back for more.
They barely made the ten minute mark. Drake slid the side door closed and took the passenger seat. He said, “I hope we got what we came for. Let’s go.”
Chapter 14
SMOKE POURED FROM THE buildings in a roar. The fires would force the point. Whoever controlled these buildings would have to call for help or let them burn. Either way, Drake’s team was out of there.
The convoy split into sections on their way out. The surveillance helicopter followed the private transports and the SUV’s with two of the Redrock teams. Drake took the vans in the opposite direction. They would split again as they approached Denver. Drake, Adam, one of the Redrock guards and two other members of his team dropped off their vans to pick up their cars. The doctor was handcuffed and blindfolded in the van.
Once they were driving along the small airstrip where they would load the plane, Drake leaned over and pulled off the doctor’s blindfold. “You can see where we’re at now. Here, let me unlock those.”
Drake fished out the handcuff key.
“Are you going to kill me?”
Unlocking the cuffs, Drake said, “I’m going to pay you what we agreed. Help us load up the boxes. You can fly out with me if you want.”
“Where are you going?”
“Chicago.”
The doctor said, “I guess I’d better. I live on base. There’s nothing for me in Denver. I’ll be dead the minute they find I helped you.”
They loaded the tech and file boxes into the passenger part of the jet. Drake wanted to spend the flight time looking through what they had. He regretted not being able to fly straight to Sun Valley. Chicago was his best choice since the doc who’d unlocked the vault was on the airplane with him. They could refuel and send the man on his way.
Once they wer
e in the air, Drake pulled one of the file boxes out of the storage area. His crew insisted the storage boxes be stowed away during take-off. He pulled files, skimming the contents. The first file box was a mesh of files with designs for tech prototypes, invoices, and bills of ladings. He found a few formal letters, but nothing of note, although the company he stole these from would be angling to get them back.
When he was on his third box, the doc asked, “Are you looking for anything specific?”
“Cancer treatment of your subjects,” Drake said. It wasn’t in his nature to share, but the guy knew the code to the vault. He probably had access to patient files.
“You’ll want T.J. North’s files. Typed labels and manila folders. He used code names for the patients. He’s paranoid, though. He may not have thrown his stuff in the vault, even under direct order.”
“In that case we burned it up.” Drake continued sorting the box he was in. He pulled a single file out and then marked the box.
“We would meet in the bar on Fridays after work. I have his number, but it will cost you.”
Drake didn’t react, didn’t even look up from the file he was reading. He said, “Or I could look him up in the phone book.”
The doc laughed, “Yeah.”
Letting the discussion fade, Drake scribbled the name in his planner. It would have been easy enough to let the doc call and set something up, but Drake’s instincts were screaming that he needed to get rid of this guy as soon as possible without letting him into future operations.
When they landed in Chicago, Drake made good on his promise of payment. It was a relief when the guy was paid and on his way to a new life in Canada. At least that was what he told Drake.
Drake spent the day sorting boxes while they flew on. They flew to Spokane. Drake stayed on the plane, waiting for a phone call from General McFarland, a call that never came. He hadn’t expected the general to feign ignorance, but it suited him just fine.
