Secret Keeper

by Paula Graves

  “Any ideas where we should go next?” Evie asked.

  “I was thinking maybe the infirmary. It’s on the second floor, so we’ll still have a little warning if intruders try to enter. It also has beds, so we can rest a little while. And there are scalpels and other tools we can use as weapons if we need them.”

  Evie nodded. “Good choice.”

  “I’ll take the lead. Can you bring up the rear?” He moved forward, catching Annie’s elbow in his hand. “Just downstairs one flight and we’ll have to walk to the other end of the hallway, but that’s it. Then you can rest.”

  His hand felt warm and firm around her elbow, She took a shaky breath, both alarmed and thrilled by how powerfully his touch affected her.

  Did he feel the same thing when she touched him?

  He let her go, and she bit her lip to keep from groaning. “I’ll go ahead to the stairwell, make sure everything’s clear. Y’all stay back about twenty yards until I give you a signal to join me, okay?”

  Annie nodded, and next to her, Evie murmured, “Okay.”

  Wade moved ahead, his flashlight beam painting dancing shadows across the walls of the corridor. He cut the light when he reached the stairwell and the darkness swallowed him.

  “I can’t see anything,” Annie whispered to Evie.

  Evie didn’t respond.

  “Evie?”

  There was a soft moan somewhere behind her, but she couldn’t see anything in the dark void behind her.

  She reached out her hand, feeling for the wall. Her fingers connected with something solid.

  And alive.

  “Evie?” she whispered, even though the wall of muscle beneath her fingers couldn’t possibly belong to a woman’s body.

  Her eyes had begun adjusting to the darkness, enough that she caught the faintest glint of light on metal rising over her in the darkness.

  A needle. She knew it bone deep, at the quivering core of her hidden fear. The men who’d taken her had loved their needles, whether they delivered pain or oblivion.

  She could feel the straps on her arms, holding her in place. Smelled the fear rising off her skin like heat.

  The needle hovered over her, cool gray eyes locked with hers as the man behind the mask contemplated his task at hand.

  He enjoyed it, she realized. He liked the way it made him feel, wielding the needle and delivering pain or relief according to his own whims.

  To hell with that.

  She pushed away from him as he started to bring the needle down, almost getting away. But he caught her arm, jerking her back toward him.

  “No!” she cried, kicking blindly at his legs.

  A beam of light washed over them, illuminating the face of her captor. She gazed up, expecting to see the familiar black hood and balaclava, concealing all but those cold, gray eyes.

  But the face of her captor was uncovered. Straight, ordinary features filled an unremarkable face. Only the lethal light in his storm-cloud eyes distinguished him in any way.

  Still, she realized with surprise, she’d seen him before. Not just behind a black mask in some secret torture chamber but out in the open. He’d been smiling at her that time, his eyes kind rather than cruel.

  In the hospital, she remembered suddenly. He’d been the attending physician at Chickasaw County Hospital. He’d examined her right there in her hospital room, pretending he had her best interests at heart.

  “Dr. Ambrose,” she said aloud.

  His gray eyes crinkled at the corners, and he jerked her around until her back was pressed against his chest. She felt the prick of the needle in her skin and gasped.

  A pinpoint of light shone from the end of the hallway, forcing her to squint. She heard footsteps and the guttural growl of a man enraged.

  “Let her go, or I’ll kill you where you stand,” Wade commanded.

  Chapter Sixteen

  The tip of the needle lay next to Annie’s carotid artery, separated by only a thin layer of flesh. Already, Wade could see a droplet of dark red staining her pale skin where the tip of the needle had pricked her neck.

  The man wielding the needle squinted against the beam of Wade’s flashlight, but he didn’t let Annie go. He looked familiar, Wade thought, but he couldn’t quite place him.

  Wade leveled the Glock at the man’s head. “Put the needle down,” he growled, his pulse pounding in his ears. “Put it down and let her go.”

  “That’s not going to happen,” the man answered, and it was the sound of his voice that clicked Wade’s memory into place.

  The doctor from the hospital. Dr. Ambrose. The one who’d ordered Wade out of Annie’s room so he could check her over.

  The needle in his hand seemed suddenly more lethal than ever.

  “You won’t get out of here alive if you do anything to her,” Wade warned, keeping his fear in check and giving free rein to his rage. He couldn’t afford to let any weakness show, no matter how badly his knees were shaking at the sight of Annie in danger.

  He had to get her out of this. She’d trusted him to protect her, and that was what he was going to do, no matter what it took.

  If he had to shoot the man between the eyes to make him let go of the needle, he’d do it.

  “Where’s Evie?” Annie asked, her voice tight with fear.

  “She won’t be waking up anytime soon,” Ambrose responded, pulling Annie more firmly in front of him. She was too close now, Wade thought with frustration. He should have taken the shot a moment ago, when she was farther out of his line of fire.

  “What’s in the syringe?”

  “Enough tranquilizer to stop her heart,” Ambrose answered flatly. “So it’s very important that you don’t try to stop me. One push of this plunger and it’s over.”

  “You hurt her, I kill you.”

  “Yeah, I’m aware of the consequences. But I’m betting you’d rather let me take her out of here alive, right? You’re not going to let her die just so you can take a shot at me. You Coopers don’t roll like that.”

  “You don’t know anything about us Coopers.”

  “Let him take me,” Annie said. “I don’t think he’s bluffing about what’s in the syringe.”

  Wade was sure he wasn’t. “I can’t let him take you out of here.”

  Annie stared at him, her dark eyes glittering in the beam of the flashlight. Suddenly, her eyes rolled back in her head and she sagged against the doctor, catching him off guard.

  Wade held his breath, his eyes on the tip of the needle. It pushed a little deeper into her neck but Ambrose had to let the syringe go to keep Annie’s deadweight from dragging him down.

  Suddenly, Annie jerked away from the doctor’s grasp and rolled away, leaving Wade with an open shot at the doctor.

  Ambrose looked up at Wade, his eyes wide with fear. Wade steadied his Glock until Ambrose’s forehead was in his crosshairs. “Stand up and put your hands behind your head.”

  Ambrose stood up slowly, lifting his hands and clasping them behind his head. He shot a wry smile at Wade, his jaw muscle working furiously.

  Suddenly, his whole body went rigid, and he fell to the ground, convulsing violently.

  Keeping the gun and flashlight trained on Ambrose’s jerking body, Wade called out for Annie.

  “I’m okay.” She scrambled toward him, just outside the beam of the flashlight. “I faked a flashback.”

  “Get behind me.” He wasn’t sure what was happening to Ambrose, though he had a sinking suspicion he knew what the convulsions were about.

  Annie circled behind him, her hands pressing firm and flat against his back. “What’s happening to him?”

  “Not sure,” Wade admitted, waiting out the convulsions. If he was right, nothing he could do at this point would make a difference, and if he was wrong, he didn’t want to walk into Ambrose’s trap.

  “Do you see Evie?” Annie whispered. “I thought I heard her moan—”

  Ambrose’s body fell still and silent. Taking a chance, Wade swept his f
lashlight away from Ambrose until the beam settled on a crumpled form a few feet behind the man’s body. Evie, he realized, his heart sinking quickly until he saw she was stirring, trying to sit up.

  “Don’t try to move, Evie. Just stay where you are a second.” Wade reached behind him and caught one of Annie’s hands. “Stay right here. I’m going to check on him, but if he makes any move at all, I want you to run. Understand?”

  “I won’t leave you,” she said in a low, strangled voice.

  “You have to.”

  “Just check on him. And be careful.”

  Wade kept his Glock steady as he approached Ambrose’s still body. He ran the flashlight beam over the body, looking for any signs of movement or life, but he was utterly still. Flecks of foam coated Ambrose’s lips, Wade saw. He wasn’t surprised. He’d seen this kind of reaction before.

  He kicked away the syringe and bent carefully to check Ambrose’s pulse. He didn’t drop his guard, not even when he failed to detect a flutter of a heartbeat on either side of the man’s neck.

  He backed away slowly. “He’s dead.”

  “How?” Annie asked.

  “Cyanide pill,” he answered tightly, remembering the man’s smile and the way his jaw muscles had worked rapidly once Wade had him firmly in his gun sights. He must have had a capsule already in his mouth, in case he got caught. Wade had seen another S.S.U. operative take the same way out rather than risk being interrogated.

  Maybe it was time to rethink just what kind of mercenaries they were up against. Most of the mercenaries Wade had ever come across were all about saving their own skins. They weren’t suicide bombers.

  They didn’t take one for the team.

  He searched Ambrose’s pockets, procuring a small Smith & Wesson pistol and, more importantly, the safety cap for the syringe he’d used to threaten Annie. Wade put the cap on the syringe and shoved it into the pocket of his jacket. He’d have someone analyze the contents later.

  “Evie, how’re you doing?”

  Evie sat up slowly, holding her head. “He coldcocked me,” she muttered, sounding furious.

  “You sure he didn’t inject you with anything?”

  “No, he definitely hit me. Felt like he separated my head from my neck.” She groaned as she slowly, unsteadily made her way to a standing position. She had to put her hand on the wall to stay upright. “I didn’t even hear him coming, damn it.”

  “Don’t kick yourself about it,” Annie said. She tugged Wade’s hand. “We need to get to the infirmary for sure, now.”

  Keeping himself between Annie and Ambrose’s body, Wade hurried with her to Evie’s side, helping the young accountant hobble past the body on the way to the stairs. “Sure you can make it to the infirmary?” he asked Evie.

  “Yeah. My head’s starting to clear already.” She seemed to be steadier on her feet, Wade saw with relief. It was already going to be hard enough to explain to Jesse how he’d let Rita Marsh’s little sister get coldcocked by an intruder without having to explain a coma as well.

  They made it inside the stairwell and started downward, Wade keeping one hand on Evie’s arm to make sure she didn’t stumble and fall. They’d reached the midfloor landing when an ominous sound rose from the ground level.

  Someone had opened the first floor door. Seconds later, the clatter of footsteps echoed up the stairwell.

  Son of a bitch. He doused his flashlight immediately.

  “Wade—” Annie’s voice was barely a breath, but her grip was strong as she dug her fingers into his upper arm.

  “I hear them,” he answered just as quietly. “Up. We go up.”

  He gave Evie an upward push, half hauling her up the stairs to the second floor landing. He thought for a moment about detouring back down the second floor corridor, but they’d be easier targets out in an open hallway than moving upwards in the stairwell, where the stairs and railings would provide at least a modest amount of cover.

  “How far up?” Evie whispered.

  “To the roof,” he answered, hoping he wasn’t making an irrevocable mistake.

  * * *

  THERE WAS NO WAY TO make a silent approach, not in a Bell 407 helicopter. And there was always the risk of taking ground fire, but it was a chance Jesse thought was worth taking. The Bell was fitted with a thermal imager—something the pilot, Jesse’s cousin J.D. Cooper, had talked Jesse into adding when they first started talking about using the Bell for fugitive tracking. Thermal imaging would give them their best overall look at the number of operatives they were up against at Cooper Security.

  The first pass overhead sent heat signatures scattering for cover, but they escaped without taking any fire from the ground. “I saw ten operatives outside,” J.D. said from the cockpit seat. “Could you see anyone inside?”

  “I saw a blob of heat signatures on the eastern side of the building,” Jesse answered, trying to picture the building’s layout. On the eastern side of the building was one of the stairwells leading from the ground floor to the roof. “Maybe several people on the stairs.”

  Including Wade and the women?

  “Let’s take another pass,” J.D. suggested.

  Jesse braced himself for ground fire as the bird circled over the woods and headed back toward the Cooper Security complex. There were now six heat signatures outside the building, and the glowing blob in the eastern stairwell seemed to have grown in size. “I think they’re heading up the stairs.”

  “No sign of Wade or the others?”

  “I think they may be in the stairwell, too,” Jesse said, tamping down a gut-load of fear.

  J.D. muttered a low profanity. “When they reach the roof, they’ll have nowhere else to run.”

  “So let’s give them a way out,” Jesse said, waving toward the heliport on the western edge of the roof. “Set down, and I’ll give you cover fire.” He left the copilot’s seat and steadied himself next to the side door, bracing himself for the set down.

  The helicopter lowered carefully to the helipad, buffeted by a light crosswind that nearly threw Jesse from his feet. He gripped the door tightly to hold himself steady, keeping his balance when the helicopter set down on the hard surface of the helipad. He opened the door and used it as cover as he aimed his SIG toward the roof door to the east.

  * * *

  WADE WAS MOVING FAST, keeping Evie on her feet and pulling Annie behind to keep them all together. If he was losing steam, he didn’t show it, Annie thought with a mixture of admiration and frustration. For her part, she could use a rest, but she knew they didn’t have the luxury of taking a break.

  They had already passed the third floor landing. If her impression of the Cooper Security building layout was correct, their next stop would be the roof.

  And then they’d really be sitting ducks.

  As they neared the half landing, she heard the sound of an engine, impossibly loud and getting louder. Wade’s hand gripped hers more tightly, a soft huff of laughter escaping his throat.

  “It’s a bird,” he whispered in her ear.

  “A helicopter?”

  “Yep.” He tugged her up the stairs more quickly. “And if it’s who I think it is, the cavalry has arrived.”

  “The helipad’s on the opposite side of the roof,” Evie muttered, sounding despondent.

  “We’ll have to make a run for it.”

  Annie’s lungs were already close to bursting as it was, but she dug deep, remembering the look in her father’s eyes as he realized they were about to be taken. The memory was as clear and fully formed, frozen in her mind like a fly in amber.

  Protect the code, her father had told her, seconds before the men in black had swept them into captivity.

  She had no way of knowing whether or not her father had survived their abduction, but she had. And she knew her father’s part of the code.

  Whatever it took, she had to survive to protect the code.

  They reached the roof door and burst through in a rush, cool wind ruffling past them with
surprising strength. “There it is!” Wade growled, waving toward the red helicopter perched on the helipad at the opposite end of the roof. “Run for it?”

  He kept her hand in his grasp, his other hand hooked in the crook of Evie’s arm. Suddenly, a figure started running toward them from the helicopter, brandishing a weapon. In the few seconds it took to recognize Jesse Cooper, Annie’s heart skipped about a half dozen beats.

  She heard sound from behind them, the clatter of a door slamming open and footsteps racing behind them.

  “Go, go, go!” That was Jesse’s voice, loud and getting closer. He swung wide, around them, and started firing off shots.

  Annie scrambled to keep pace with Wade as they raced for the helicopter. Wade shoved Evie inside first and turned, lifting Annie off her feet and setting her inside, as well.

  As she crouched behind one of the seats, Wade disappeared from her sight, and she heard a fresh volley of gunfire join Jesse’s fusillade of bullets.

  “Wade!” she cried out, her heart in her throat.

  “Stay down!” called a deep voice from the cockpit of the helicopter, barely audible over the roar of the engine.

  Suddenly, two silhouettes filled the open doorway of the helicopter. They dived aboard and one of them slammed the door shut.

  “Go, go, go!” That was Wade’s voice, close enough that Annie couldn’t stop herself from reaching out to touch him.

  His fingers tangled with hers as he scrambled to her side. He wrapped his arms around her, pulling her close. “You okay?”

  The helicopter lurched upward, throwing her hard against Wade’s side. He braced his legs against the seats in front of them, keeping her steady as the bird rose into the sky.

  The sound of gunfire coincided with a couple of alarming pings of metal on metal. Wade wrapped himself more tightly around her, and she pressed her face against his neck, terror stealing her breath.

  It seemed to be forever later before she heard someone call out, “We’re clear. Buckle in!”

  Wade pushed to his feet and helped her into the seat next to him. His hands shook a little as he fastened her seat belt around her.