Escape from Danger

by Linsey Lanier

  A helicopter.

  It rose, circled around the lake, then returned. Descending, it hovered about fifty feet above the ground, and as it did Janelle saw its side door open.

  A man appeared in the opening. He was dressed all in black, including goggles and a gleaming black helmet—and he was manning a huge black machine gun.

  Without warning, he fired.

  Bam bam bam bam bam.

  Tufts of grass ten feet away from her flew up from the ground like popcorn on steroids.

  Unable to breathe, Janelle stood frozen in terror as disbelief raged inside her. Her heart began to pound so hard, she felt dizzy. She had to do something.

  Jump in the water, she thought.

  No, she couldn’t stay under long enough. Instead, she went with her next instinct and ran for the cabin.

  Bam bam bam bam bam.

  Bullets sprayed the ground in front of her.

  Not that way. She pivoted, dodged the shots.

  Where, then?

  The only place left was the mountain and the jungle. She remembered Simon had told her there was a path through the trees on the far side that led up the rise. He advised her to take her gun if she went in there. If only she had it now.

  She made a break for it.

  Running as fast as she could, she headed for the nearest cluster of trees, but her shoes slowed her down.

  Why was she wearing pink satin slippers with fluffy tops? She had the urge to kick them off, but she didn’t dare go barefoot.

  Bam bam bam bam.

  The bullets shot a spray of dirt into the air just behind her, as if the man with the machine gun was purposely chasing her toward the jungle.

  Heart banging in her chest, she reached the trail and ducked under the treetops just as the last volley of bullets shot up the ground at her heels.

  The chopper rose over the forest, making the branches sway with its whirling blades, while the man inside sent down a few more rounds.

  But his aim was way off. She was hidden from sight now.

  Her mind raced.

  She had to keep going. The more cover, the better. She could still hear that thing flying around. There was a pilot. A shooter and a pilot. At least two of them, she thought as she hurried over the dirt path, the ground rising beneath her feet, the tree trunks growing dense.

  Were the eyes of a wild cat or a boar hog staring out at her? Would a python slither down from a branch and wrap itself around her neck?

  Don’t think, Janey, she told herself. Just go. And she continued up the trail.

  But soon she had to stop and catch her breath. Sucking in air, she came to a spot where the trees on one side cleared enough to give her a view of the cabin. She was high enough to see the top of it.

  And then her heart nearly stopped.

  The chopper was circling over that beautiful structure.

  No.

  Suddenly, the man with the machine gun let out another round of bullets, long and loud. She watched pieces of shingle fly into the air as the ammo pierced the cabin’s roof, tearing it to bits—right over the dining table.

  Where Simon had been sitting.

  Had he been hit?

  The chopper circled and hit the roof again. Bam bam bam bam bam.

  Her whole body froze with shock.

  No. No. No. Was Simon gone? It couldn’t be true. But there was no way he could have survived all that gunfire.

  Sudden grief overwhelmed her. She didn’t even get a chance to say goodbye. To tell him how much she loved him.

  Tears began to stream down her face. Oh, Simon.

  He’d thought they’d be safe here. They were anything but. This was what Cooley had warned him about. Whoever Simon had been running from had found him.

  And killed him.

  Chapter Three

  She kept going. She didn’t know what else to do.

  Racked with panic, gasping for breath, her pounding heart making her ribs ache, she struggled farther up the hill. She wiped her cheeks, her eyes so full of tears she could barely see.

  She stumbled over buttress roots and crawling jungle plants and sharp twigs while startled monkeys screamed and flew around in the branches overhead. They must have been screaming before because of the helicopter, but she’d been too much in shock to hear them.

  Stubbornly she brushed the tears away with the back of her hand and kept running. But when she reached the top of the crest she stopped again.

  Where was she going? She had no idea where she was. No idea where she would be safe.

  Simon. Oh, Simon. How could she have lost him so quickly? They’d barely had any time together.

  “I love you, Simon. I do.”

  Suddenly resolve filled her.

  Simon was innocent. The same people who had killed Cooley had killed him. His mission was up to her now. She had to find their killer. She had to clear Simon’s name.

  She tried to peer through the branches, but the trees were too thick now. Was the helicopter gone? Did she dare go back down to the cabin and try to find Simon’s body? The very thought made her shudder.

  She should bury him, she supposed. And then maybe she could find a map to tell her how to get out of this place. How to get back home.

  When she did, she’d go to Washington and demand to know what happened.

  While she stood there, her thoughts racing, she didn’t hear the man come up behind her.

  Suddenly there were arms around her.

  Strong muscular arms. At the same time, a hand slipped around her mouth. She screamed but the fleshy palm stifled her cry.

  Panic blinding her, she kicked out behind her with all her might. They wouldn’t take her without a fight.

  How many times had she practiced this move at the Agency? But it didn’t work. The man holding her twisted her in time to throw off her aim. She hit him, but not hard enough.

  She kicked again. This time she was more accurate, landing closer to shin bone.

  “Ouch. Stop it, Janey. it’s me.”

  What?

  He let her go and she spun around.

  A pang of sheer joy shot through her. She couldn’t believe her eyes. It was Simon. He was wearing one of those funny camouflage things people in the army use. A grassy carpet soldiers put over their heads and bodies to hide in the jungle. It worked like a charm.

  Where had he come from?

  “How did you—?”

  He put a finger to his lips and gestured for her to follow him.

  She wanted answers, but right now she had no choice but to do what he said.

  He led her under the trees and through the weeds to a small clearing hidden by the undergrowth. He moved to the middle of it, pulled up a grassy flap, and beckoned her over, with a hurry-up gesture.

  She took a deep breath and trotted to where he stood. She looked down. The flap had been hiding a hole. A deep one. She could see light down below.

  He pressed his mouth to her ear. “There’s a ladder. We have to get down there now.”

  He was right. Those men from the chopper could be closing in on them soon. Realizing this was where he’d come from, she nodded and stepped down into the hole.

  Her foot hit a rung. So he wasn’t lying.

  “Hurry,” he hissed at her again.

  “Okay,” she hissed back and scrambled down the steps, which turned out to be more iron rungs.

  They went down deep. There must have been over twenty of them.

  At last she reached the end of the ladder and she discovered she had to jump the last two feet. She did so, and landed on a flat concrete surface.

  Rising, she looked around and saw she was in a large gray compartment that looked like a big bunker. Along a nearby wall sat the three duffel bags Simon had brought with him from Washington and her suitcase.

  The corner of a nightgown was sticking out of it, and the zipper wasn’t completely closed. She moved over to it, stuck the material back in, and closed the suitcase.

  Simon locked the openi
ng over his head, climbed down the ladder, and made the jump to the floor. “I tried to grab as many of your things as I could. I did tell you not to unpack, didn’t I?”

  He had said that the first night they’d arrived here. She didn’t think it was a permanent situation. Although three days was hardly permanent.

  “How did you get here?”

  “There’s a secret hatch in the cabin under your bed.”

  A secret hatch? And he hadn’t told her about it? Then her mind went in another direction, and she sucked in a breath. “Will the people in the helicopter find it? And who are they?”

  “I have a hunch about the answer to both of those questions.” He pointed to the far wall, and Janelle noticed huge iron hinges and a security panel mounted on the wall. “It’s a barrier door, three feet thick. I changed the codes, so we should have some time.”

  “And the hatch from the cabin is behind it.”

  “Right.” He eyed her up and down. There was annoyance in his eyes, but it was tinged with a bit of admiration for how she’d handled herself with no protection. And, she hoped, as much relief she was alive as she felt for him.

  He turned to the luggage. “Change your clothes. We have a lot of walking ahead of us.”

  Chapter Four

  With cold precision he went through the wreck of the cabin room by room.

  First, the living room with its wrap-around windows overlooking the lake. Windows he had helped install long ago. He turned over the furniture piece by piece. Next, he took the dining room, where the table had been sliced in two by his rain of bullets. If the target had been sitting there at the time, he would have been in the same state.

  But there was no dead body here.

  He went through the rubble, but there was no cell or laptop or any bit of electronic equipment.

  He continued on to the open kitchen, hunting through cabinets and drawers. Nothing.

  In the bedrooms, he also found nothing but the evidence of hasty packing. Bottles of nail polish and a hair band had been left on the dresser. This was the woman’s room. No clothes in the closet. Not much in the drawers of the dresser.

  He had been surprised to see a woman outside. He’d hoped shooting at her would draw the target out. But it hadn’t.

  He stomped to the bed.

  In one clean move, he lifted it and found the hatch in the floor underneath the frame, just as he’d known he would.

  Sloan. He had always been a sneaky rascal. At one time, he had admired the man.

  How could Sloan betray his country like this? It was one of the things he would like to ask him, if he could take him alive. But he might not get that opportunity. His mission was to kill the agent who had gone rogue and murdered his own boss.

  He thought of Afghanistan and the intelligence gathering mission he had been in charge of there that had gone so wrong. It was several years in the past, but his mind couldn’t shake the memory. The sounds and images of the gunfight that had broken out. One of the insurgents running from a house and crossing the street, firing all the way. His local informant had been just ahead of the man. He’d fired at the insurgent, sure of his shot.

  But at the last second, the insurgent had grabbed the informant and slung him around his body as a shield.

  His bullet went through both bodies, killing them instantly.

  He’d known the man, helped train him. And now he was dead.

  The guilt had haunted him in his dreams ever since.

  He’d been exonerated of any charges. It was war, after all. But every day he pushed himself harder toward perfection. There could be no more mistakes. Not for him. He would accomplish this mission as ordered. He would find Simon Sloan and put a bullet in his head.

  “Is that where he escaped, sir?”

  He looked up and saw his pilot in the doorway, staring at the hatch beneath the bed he was still holding up.

  Ignoring the question, he let it drop, and the frame hit the floor with a loud thud. “Any sign of the woman?”

  His pilot shook his head. The man was young and green. He knew nothing of Sloan or the import of this mission. But that didn’t mean he wasn’t useful.

  “Did you get photos of her?”

  “Of course, sir. Did they escape together somehow?” He pointed at the bed.

  “Possibly. Probably, knowing Sloan.” What was he doing with a woman? Who was she?

  “What do we do now, sir?”

  He looked down at the bed again. He knew exactly how Sloan had escaped. But chasing them through that tunnel wasn’t the best way to get them. He knew where they were going. He had a better idea.

  He headed for the door. “I have a plan. Let’s go.”

  Chapter Five

  Simon Sloan plodded over the galvanized floor of the underground passage, his heart numb, his head reeling with all that had happened.

  Images of those he had lost during his missions rose up in his mind to torment him. Special Agent Endicott and his sister-in-law, Clarissa, in Atlanta. Toby Shaw in Framingham. And worst of all Cooley.

  “What do you think you’re doing, Sloan?” he could hear his dead boss say to him.

  Cooley was right. He never should have stopped in Atlanta. He should have driven straight to Texas. He never should have let the gorgeous redhead now trodding beside him see that letter from Cooley. He most definitely never should have kissed her.

  Those luscious lips of hers were his weakness.

  And now this.

  He had been sitting at the table in the cabin, stinging from her anger after she’d stomped out the door, and weighing the pros and cons of sending her home when the attack had come.

  He had heard the chopper zoom over the trees to the east, hover down, and start to fire.

  In sheer horror he’d watched her run from the barrage of bullets raining down on her—a scene that would give him nightmares for the rest of his life. But she’d been smart. She’d headed into the jungle, as if by instinct going to the spot he needed her to go.

  He’d grabbed his laptop, the letter, the bags, and had rushed to her room. Frilly feminine things had been scattered all over. She hadn’t listened to him. Anger and terror wrestling inside him, he’d shoved what he could into her stylish suitcase, opened the trap door under the bed, and climbed down the hole, hoping the area was in the condition he’d expected it to be.

  It was acceptable. About how he had left it all those years ago. A little damper and colder than he recalled, but that was due to the weather.

  And now?

  Now whoever was in that chopper had seen her, had nearly killed her. How could he live with himself if he had? There was no denying it. He couldn’t send her home now. He couldn’t let her out of his sight. And he’d have to tell her things he’d rather she didn’t know.

  “Simon?” Janelle followed alongside the brooding G-man, pulling her suitcase behind her, while he carried a duffel bag in each hand. The third one was strapped to his back. The only sounds were the echoes of their footsteps and the wheels on her suitcase.

  This place was creepy. Concrete and iron walls twenty feet high glistening with what looked like dark aquamarine slime under the fluorescent lights high above. It was like something out of a horror flick. A huge rectangular tube. A gigantic laundry shoot on its side that descended continually downward.

  What was it? How did it get here? And where were they going?

  A mixture of bewilderment and anger brewed in her chest.

  She was grateful Simon had brought her clothes. Once they’d climbed down that hole from the jungle, she’d changed into a sweater and jeans with a wonderfully cozy pair of Gucci socks and sneakers. A lightweight jacket gave her some extra warmth. She’d been tempted to toss her fluffy pink satin slippers into a corner, but she’d loved them once. And it wasn’t smart to leave evidence like that behind.

  They’d been walking for about a half an hour now, and with each minute that passed she was more deliriously grateful Simon was alive. But he’d sunk back dow
n into his sulking solitary self.

  She had to get his attention or she’d go crazy.

  She stopped short.

  “Simon,” she snapped, letting her anger show.

  He came to a halt and turned to her. “What is it, Janey?”

  How could he not know what she wanted? “You said you’d tell me about the men in the helicopter.”

  “I said I had a hunch.”

  “Okay. What is it? Are they coming after us?”

  He peered down the passage where they’d come. “Apparently not.”

  He put one of his duffel bags down, opened it, and took out two bottles of water. He handed one to her and opened the other one. “We have to stay hydrated.”

  She opened the bottle and took a big swallow. He had a point about hydration. She was dry. But that didn’t answer her question or the hundred other questions she had.

  “So you’re not going to tell me who they are.”

  He wiped his mouth with the back of his hand and put the bottle into a flap in his coat. “I need to collect my thoughts. Do you need a rest?”

  She shook her head.

  “Let’s keep going, then.” He started up again, and just when she thought he was going to go radio silent, he started to speak. “It was more than ten years ago that I was last here.”

  “You were here before?”

  He nodded. “After I joined the Bureau and went through training at the Academy, I was selected for a special training mission as part of a team. There were seven of us. We were sent here. Our task was to construct a safe house. A place no one else in the Bureau would know about.”

  No one? That was why Simon thought they’d be safe here.

  “You mean the seven of you built the cabin?”

  He smiled sadly. “The cabin took only a few months. The hard part was this escape route. It took the better part of a year.”

  She looked around, this time amazed at the construction. “Was Cooley one of the team?”

  “Yes. Even back then we didn’t see eye-to-eye about everything, but we formed a bond.”

  He was silent a long moment, reliving the memories, she knew.

  “O’Cleary was on the team, as well.”