The Genesis Group

by Mike Dagons

  “Only Odell, and don’t worry, he’s not going to steal a peek at you,” she joked.

  The stupid girl actually believed the bullshit about her being afraid to use the toilet. “You want me to call Doc for you?” he called out with a chuckle.

  Ryan must really be hard-up for bodies if he’s using these two on security detail, she thought. It hadn’t occurred to either of them that she may not really be in distress, and they were too busy teasing her to pay attention to security protocol. “No, I think I’ll be alright. Oh, God, Ivy, look at this!” she cried.

  Ivy rushed around the privacy partition with no regard for her safety. Janie punched her in the stomach, snaked an arm around her neck, and then pressed the nail to the side of her neck, and held it there.

  She’d moved so quickly, Odell was standing there with his gun pointed at the floor, and his mouth agape when she walked Ivy into view.

  “Don’t touch that transmitter, Odell,” she warned, when his hand started to move to it.

  It was supposed to be on when they entered her cell, but the fool was more concerned about being overheard flirting with Ivy to adhere to safety regulations.

  “Let her go, Janie, or I’ll shoot,” he pointed his gun at them.

  If he was going to shoot, he would have done it already, so she wasn’t worried about his threat. She pushed the nail into the side of Ivy’s neck harder, drawing a bead of blood. “Lower your weapon, or she dies, and Ryan will have your head for getting his young trainee killed,” she warned him.

  “Please,” Ivy whimpered.

  “What are you doing? You don’t have a chance of getting out of here alive.”

  “Then why make me kill her? Lower your weapon and let me go. As you pointed out, I can’t get away.” She was careful to keep her head behind Ivy’s just in case he decided to grow a pair and take a shot.

  “C’mon, Janie, don’t make me shoot you.”

  He wasn’t a real threat, but he was making her waste time. She only had a few minutes to get out of the building before someone noticed something was wrong. She was sure they’d been instructed to check in after leaving the cellblock, so there was no time for negotiating with him. She plunged the nail into Ivy’s neck, purposely missing her carotid, and then shoved her into Odell. The move was totally unexpected and caught him off guard. While Ivy was tangled in his arms, Janie relieved him of his Glock using a two-handed twist of the barrel, and then in the same flow of movement, she used it like a club and clocked him. He went down hard, and she turned the weapon on Ivy who was standing there terrified with her hand clamped on her neck trying to staunch the flow of blood seeping through her fingers.

  “Don’t try to remove the nail or you’ll bleed out,” Janie warned when she started to pick at it. “You need to get down on the floor and lay still, so your blood will stop pumping so fast. Trust me, Ivy. If I wanted you dead, I would have punctured your carotid. Now, get down on the floor, please.”

  Ivy got down on the floor like she was told, and then Janie got down on one knee beside her, and removed her security pass.

  Ivy had been there less than a week, and all new hires used a pass until their identifiers could be coded into the system. She noticed that Odell had a pass too, and thought it must be because the operation was being given priority over everything, including reprogramming security identifiers.

  Janie peeled Ivy’s hand away from her throat, and looked at her wound. There was some blood, but she had pushed the nail in at the right angle to plug the hole. “You’ll be fine,” she placed Ivy’s hand back on the side of her neck, covering the nail. “Just stay still, someone will be in to help you in a minute, okay?”

  Ivy closed her eyes, and tears flowed from under her lids. Janie glanced back at Odell’s motionless body as she used Ivy’s pass to open the cell door. He’d been out less than a minute, and she estimated he’d be coming around soon because she had been careful not to hit him hard enough to do permanent damage. He’d have a nice size knot and a bruised ego, but that’s all.

  The reasons she had been able to get the ups on him, other than the fact that he was stupid, of course, was he had underestimated her. Good operatives keep their heads in the game, and never underestimate a person’s potential to do harm.

  Her everyday job in the computer lab made people see her as one of the mild mannered geeks. It was her persona by design, and it made it easy for people to forget that she was actually an ex-marine and a weapons expert, before she trained as a field agent for the Bureau.

  Outside the cell block, Janie hurried down the hall towards the fire exit. She knew that it had an alarm on it, but it was her only option. Going out through the docking area would box her in, and there was no way she could risk getting to the front door in a building with glass walls.

  She made her way down the hall leading to the fire exit. On any other day, the halls would have been full of people, but the Kentucky job undoubtedly had everyone tied to their desk. She hadn’t run into a single person.

  Janie could see the short flight of stairs up ahead that led to the door to freedom. She was less than twenty feet away, and she ignored the now throbbing pain in her leg and ran.

  The fire exit doors didn’t require a code to open from the inside. Bender had them linked to the smoke detectors, and they opened automatically when any smoke alarm was activated. They could also be opened manually, because fires often knocked out electrical systems.

  Janie pushed the door open, and was surprised when the alarm didn’t shrill and alert everyone in the building. She didn’t hesitate. She leaped over the railing to the ground six feet below, landing in a crouch, and putting as little weight as possible on her injured leg. Ignoring the burning pain in her thigh, she hit the ground running.

  She had made it out of the building in less than ten minutes, but she was losing the race against time. Bender would have every camera within a hundred yard radius looking for her soon, and she had to be off the street by then.

  She turned the corner at the end of the block, not slowing to see if anyone was in pursuit, because if they were, Bender was already watching, and she might as well stop and give up.

  The farther she got away from the building, the better she felt. She had made it out without killing anybody, so it was unlikely that Ryan would pull people off the auction to devote manpower to hunting her. He’d wait and come looking for her later, or at least she hoped that was what he would do.

  She ran until she saw the red minivan parked in the middle of the block. It was an unassuming vehicle with a residential parking permit displayed.

  Janie squat down behind the back bumper, and got the magnetic key box from under the fender. She opened the side door, crawled in and lay on the floor in the back.

  It was uncomfortably warm inside, but the side windows had been left partially open for ventilation, so she wouldn’t die from heat stroke.

  Bender was going to be monitoring street traffic cameras looking for her. So the plan was to hold up in the van her partner had left there for her until it was dark.

  The back windows were tinted, and as long as she stayed on the floor between the seats, she could not be seen. She reached under the seat and pulled out the survival gear bag that was stored there. She opened the knapsack, got a bottle of water and a pain pill, and gulped it down. The water was warm, but it was refreshing.

  She wiggled out of the hospital smock and pants, and then got as comfortable as she could under the rear seat. Sleep when you can, her training was in full survival mode. She had about two hours to wait until dark. The pain pill eased the ache in her leg to a dull throb, and she closed her eyes and allowed herself to drift off to sleep.

  When Janie opened her eyes, it was dark, and the clock on the dash said it was after ten o’clock. She had been asleep for a little over three hours, and she was grateful the temperature outside had dropped, and a nice breeze was blowing through the cracked windows, chilling the perspiration on her body.

  Jani
e stayed on the floor and drank another bottle of water to hydrate. She pulled on the jeans that were packed in her survival bag. There was also a clean shirt, gym shoes, a baseball cap, and money. She put the clothes on, taking care to pull the baseball cap down low on her head to hide her face from traffic cameras, and then she crawled up to the front and got behind the wheel.

  Her plan was to drive to her partner’s cottage in Wisconsin and hold up until she was ready to travel. Janie smiled when she turned the key in the ignition, and the motor came to life, and then purred quietly. She turned on the air conditioner and adjusted the vents so the air blew directly in her face. She pulled out the parking space and drove away in the opposition direction from headquarters.

  She didn’t run any red lights, and she kept well within the speed limit. In twenty minutes, she was on I94 North heading to Wisconsin. She needed to make contact with her partner, but she was going to wait until she got to Kenosha before she made any phone calls. “I did it,” she laughed.

  She took her cap off her head, lowered her windows, and let the wind whip through her hair.

  Chapter 20

  Twenty miles north of Big Foot, Kentucky, Tyler Basin’s Plantation, sat majestically on twenty five acres of land in the middle of a forest of dense vegetation and towering trees.

  There was a helipad located on the property’s south lawn, but for security reasons, no one was being allowed to fly in for the auction. Everyone attending had to travel the private road to get to the property.

  At precisely one o’clock in the afternoon, luxury cars heading for the palatial mansion started converging on the small town from all directions. Because each car had to stop at the military styled security check points to be inspected, the traffic on the five mile stretch of lonely highway had slowed to a crawl.

  Melvin, Bender, and Chavez had been following Choc’s Mulsanne in the spectacular procession of sinfully expensive vehicles on the road to the estate via satellite for over an hour.

  “That bumper to bumper jam-up looks like the Dan Ryan expressway during rush hour,” Chavez commented.

  Melvin was so focused on what was happening on the giant screen that he barely heard him. So far, everything was going according to plan, but he was all nerves, wound tight, and in no mood for small talk.

  It had been a week since Choc got his invitation to the auction, and Janie’s coincidental escape from lockup had him worried. It was hard for him to believe that her breakout just happened to coincide perfectly with the delivery of the auction invitations.

  Under normal circumstance, he would have devoted half of his work force to tracking her, but Janie hadn’t killed anybody during her escape, and this job was too important to allow anything to distract him.

  The upside was Severe had done an excellent job of endearing herself to Shirley Basin, and had earned an invitation to stay with them as long as she needed help dealing with her grief. As a trusted houseguest, she had been able to work covertly from inside, siphoning information, and relaying it to them quickly. Proving he had been wrong to be reluctant about sending her in alone.

  She had been instrumental in their preparation, and because of her, Bender had detail information about the household staff, the security team, and the mansion’s surveillance system. That knowledge enabled him to fine tune their plan and construct an audio blocker for external communications.

  Severe had also learned that there would be a small number of civilian guests attending the dinner party who did not know Basin would be conducting an auction. It was also pertinent information that they didn’t have before.

  “Well, it’s about time,” Chavez said when at last D’Agon, who was chauffeuring, pulled the Bentley up to the guardhouse at the first check point and stopped at the gate barrier. There were enough heavily armed guards posted to make the place look like it was under siege.

  “That’s some pretty impressive vehicle searching going on. It looks like they’re running vehicle plates,” Melvin observed.

  They watched D’Agon roll down his window, and hand the guard William Segal’s invitation. He pushed the 5x7 inch card into what looked like a hand held data reader, and then he handed the device to Choc for his signature. While this was going on, another guard was busy checking the trunk, and undercarriage with a detection dog.

  “Damn, they’re checking frequency signals, too,” Bender exclaimed. “That’s some real advanced equipment.”

  “They don’t want anybody to show up for the party with a trunk load of C4,” Chavez remarked. “I’m surprised they’re not patting them down.”

  “You see that archway they had to drive under to get to the gatehouse?” Bender said.

  “Yeah, looks like I-PASS scanners.”

  “Well, it’s a vehicle x-ray. The car ahead of them must be lead lined. It’s probably why the driver was asked to pull over, so they could do a more thorough manual search.”

  “Damn, that is impressive!” Chavez chuckled.

  After Choc’s invitation had been authenticated, a guard retracted the spike strips, and lifted the barrier arm. He waved them through, and D’Agon cruised on down the road.

  “Basin is not penny pinching on the security,” Melvin remarked. “And I’m sure he’s tied up any loose ends.”

  “You still think he killed the inventor?” Chavez asked.

  “Hell yes! It’s why nobody can find him,” Bender replied. “The man was a loose end, so I’ll bet he is dead and buried somewhere in Tibet,” he said and got a laugh from the other two men.

  “You wrapped too tight, chief. You need to relax, and trust your people to handle the business,” Chavez leaned back in his chair.

  “I do trust them,” Melvin protested. “But I can’t shake the feeling that Janie wanted to be caught in the first place. Her escape was too perfect to have been improvised.”

  “I don’t see how she could have predicted it. You could have killed her just as easily as you put her in lockup,” Bender argued.

  “She knew I wouldn’t do that without questioning her first. And why pick now to tell me about the kid?”

  “She got caught, so she had to let you know the kid existed, so she could use her to buy some leverage,” Chavez responded.

  “I think she picked now to tell me about her to distract me. I don’t think it was about punishing me for marrying Sam, or the money she got from Yeltsin. Not knowing her real motive is gnawing at my gut.”

  “You want me to start looking for her?” Bender asked.

  “No, and that’s another thing. She knew that we’d be too busy monitoring the plantation to waste resources looking for her. Just like she knew I’d have second thoughts about killing her if a kid was involved.”

  “Listen, your daughter is five. I know her mama is witchy, but you can’t possibly believe she waited until now to tell you about the kid because she predicted any of this shit was going to happen,” Bender snorted.

  “I’ll admit that it’s far fetched, but I know she’s not this stupid. She’s up to something.”

  “Look, Yeltsin is pulling up now,” Bender pointed out the dark colored Rolls-Royce Phantom coasting up to the first check point.

  The top was down so they could see he had two people with him. A man driving and a woman in dark shades with a scarf wrapped around her head in the backseat next to him.

  “I can’t see his face. How you know it’s him?” Melvin asked.

  “I attached a Trojan to Choc’s invitation. When it was inserted in the reader to authenticate his signature, it opened a backdoor into their system for me. I can read the guests signatures, and Yeltsin just signed. They’re not asking for his entourage signatures, so I don’t know who they are, yet.”

  “Man, you are remarkable,” Chavez grinned.

  “You have no idea how truly remarkable I am,” he joked with a wink which is what he always did when people called him remarkable.

  “Son-of-a-bitch,” Chavez laughed.

  They watched Yeltsin go through t
he same routine as Choc, and when his inspection was finished; he was waved through. “The second check point is only a mile away from the house, but at the speed they’re traveling, it’ll be another hour before they reach it. We may as well relax,” Bender kicked back and put his feet up on the table, and then he opened the com-link with their men in Kentucky.

  “Are they in?” Blue asked, his voice sounding crystal clear over the war room speakers.

  “They passed the first check point, so the second should be a breeze,” Bender replied. “Valow, you copy?”

  “We’re here, and in place,” he responded.

  “Did y’all acquire a secure place to dock the Sikorsky, Blue?” Chavez asked, knowing the town officials were under Basin’s control.

  Blue’s voice came back. “Yeah, we’re camped out at an inn near the heliport. It’s only a few miles from the fishing cabin Roc and Valow rented to support their cover. The fucking joint we held up in looks like the Bates motel, but I think it’s safe.”

  Since Basin’s land was surrounded by acres of forest, it wasn’t uncommon for campers to set up in the area. So, the backstory was Valow and Roc were rich fishing buddies who were there camping for the week. Blue and John owned the transport company that had been hired to pilot them.

  “The bi-level cabin we rented from a resident is located on the River. The rental came with the use of his motorboat, and we’re actually on the lake fishing less than a half mile away from the heavily guarded and very private road to the house,” Valow reported. “It’s a good fishing spot. We’ve caught some nice size catfish. I’m going to fry them for dinner tonight.”

  “How close are they to the mansion?” Melvin asked Bender off link.

  “They’re actually right in his backyard if they’re less than a mile away from the private road. I’d say it’s about a five to ten minute walk to Basin’s backdoor.”

  “Don’t y’all get too close to the fire,” Melvin warned.

  “Copy that…we’ve been changing locations every other day, and gradually working our way around to this location. I believe anybody watching will think our decision to camp here is random,” Valow answered. “We found a back path in the woods that leads directly to the house. We’ll be camping near there tonight, just in case Severe’s suspicion about the auction being scheduled to take place tonight instead of tomorrow is right.”