by Robin Perini
“All they have to do is claim it was a training accident. They’ll pay someone off and it’ll go away.”
“Man, this is way bigger than even Floyd and Ashley thought.” Justin thrust his hand through his hair.
Dave sucked in another shuddering breath and bent over.
Justin propped him up. “You don’t sound good,” Justin said, fear of his friend dying from this attack finally hitting home.
“Don’t . . .” Dave stopped and gasped a few more times. “Don’t worry about me. If I slow you down, go on without me. You’re the only hope everyone has to get out of there alive. Whatever happens to me doesn’t matter.”
“Not an option, buddy. We go together and become heroes together. Another mile or two and we can call Ashley’s sister. She’ll know who to trust.”
Ashley coughed and hacked and dragged in a gasping breath. Heaven wasn’t supposed to hurt so much, so she mustn’t be dead. Close, though. Her throat ached and her eyes felt like they’d been pumped up with oxygen. Her lungs hurt, too.
She lay on the metal table, panting, not wanting to open her eyes.
“She’s breathing again, sir, but it was close. Are you certain you want to kill her?”
“She cost me two assets. That Justin kid was almost as good as she is. Now all I have is Floyd and I know I can’t trust him.”
Ashley’s heart pounded wildly against her ribs. The anger in the Warden’s voice roiled her stomach.
“Still,” Niko said, “you may need her, or as bait. She’s the best we’ve ever had here.”
Ashley didn’t move; she tried not to even breathe.
The Warden swore, stormed to the door, and yanked it open. “Make sure her chip works, then slap a cuff on her. Get her in front of a damn computer.” He glared into the room. “Watch her this time, Niko. Every stroke. The moneymen have scheduled an unexpected demonstration for tomorrow. I’m not happy about it. At all. God, I can’t wait to shut down this damned camp, raze it, and move on.”
Gabe tensed as Whitney pulled up in a gray, nondescript rental vehicle. He still hadn’t said anything to his brother, but Deb kept giving him sidelong looks as if waiting. Maybe Zach wouldn’t recognize the family resemblance, even though her beautiful features matched Zach the most.
She walked up, carrying a duffel and a briefcase, her face wary but determined. Gabe had to respect her for that. This couldn’t be easy to face yet another Montgomery brother on such short notice.
Which, he realized, meant Zach was going to kill him for not forewarning him at all.
“There were no witnesses,” Zach said, filling them in. “We don’t know who was in the plane. The NTSB will look it over, but they probably won’t find anything. Not if they run true to bad guy form.”
“Is that technical talk?” Deb teased.
“You bet. I can throw in the word minions, too, if you want.” Zach grinned.
Gabe growled. There was that damned smile again. “So what did the guy at the airport say?”
“The Angel Fire airstrip owner said he had no record of the call sign on the plane. He also said that I owe him a car to replace the one I borrowed. His insurance doesn’t cover aerial assault. Fortunately, my insurance company does, but they aren’t going to like me anymore. Two cars, one helicopter, and a cabin in the woods all decimated within the last year. I’m not their favorite customer at the moment.”
Whitney walked up to them.
Zach turned to greet her, then did a slight double take. “Have we met?”
“Whitney Blackstone, Federal Bureau of Investigation.” She flashed her credentials, then held out her hand and he shook it, but he kept staring into her eyes.
“You look very familiar. Are you sure we haven’t met?” Zach asked slowly.
“No, I think I’d remember meeting the Dark Avenger.”
“Well, hell,” he said, rubbing his well-past-five-o’clock shadow. “I was hoping my scruffy whisker disguise would work better than that.”
“Don’t worry. One of my specialties is face recognition and recall. Yours is rather memorable from your stints on the tabloid covers.”
“Ouch. Haven’t you heard I’ve reformed?”
“Congratulations.” Whitney turned to Gabe. “Now could we get on with this? The police are waiting to take your statements.”
Gabe couldn’t believe this exchange. They were bickering like siblings. Holy crap. The fact that they were both Montgomerys was frickin’ obvious. Zach had to know. Based on the speculation in his eyes, it was only a matter of time before he put Whitney’s appearance together with her identity.
A long while, and many repetitive interviews later, they were released.
Whitney had one last conference with the cops before she walked back to the group, standing next to Deb. “We can go now.” She tilted her head toward Zach. “Have you filed the flight plan to Winslow yet?”
“All taken care of, though I’d like to know why we’re going there,” he said, still studying her. “We were just waiting on you.”
“Then let’s go.”
They climbed into the Learjet and buckled in. Gabe asked Deb to sit in the copilot’s seat beside Zach. The gesture was probably futile, but he figured the less interaction Zach had with Whitney, the better.
After Zach finished his checklist, he slid in the pilot’s seat and turned around to face his half sister. “So, are we distant cousins or something? My dad was an only child, but you have to be somewhere on his side of the family.”
“You’ve figured it out already, haven’t you, Zach?”
The excrement-flinging fan was winding up now.
“Spell it out for me. I’m feeling a little slow.”
Whitney paled, then raised her chin. “Somehow I doubt that.”
She clicked her seat belt into place.
“I’m your half sister,” she said, her tone professional. “And before you ask, I’ll tell you everything I know. Your parents separated for a short while. Your father got drunk, took my mother to bed one time, and I’m the result. Now that that little turd has been dropped into the punch bowl, we have more important things to worry about. Can we talk about Winslow?”
The Warden gave Ashley a look of such utter hatred that she shivered. The red-haired man followed out the door and slammed it behind them. Ashley bent over and gripped her knees to steady them. Thank God they were gone.
She glanced up at Niko. She didn’t know what to make of him, but he’d saved her butt twice now.
“You have a death wish, Lansing?”
“You and I both know that my having a death wish is not going to matter within a few days. Tell me I’m wrong.”
Please, tell me I’m wrong.
He met her gaze. “You’re not wrong. And it probably ends tomorrow.”
Hearing her suspicions confirmed made everything more real. That they were happening so soon made her blanch.
“Will anyone survive?” she rasped.
He was silent for a long time, then, without answering, he slapped a bracelet cuff around her ankle. “No use trying to take it off,” he said. “Every few feet there’s a detector. We’ll know where you are. It takes a special screwdriver to remove it without triggering an alarm.”
Niko moved aside. “Let’s go. You’re almost out of time. Go to your computer desk and finish your assignment.”
Ashley rose and stared at him, but didn’t press further. She passed the tray of instruments on her way out.
“Don’t make me regret helping you,” Niko said softly, then opened the door. “He would have used them.”
Several armed guards marched down the hall, on alert, their weapons at the ready.
Niko shoved her into the corridor, then glared down at her. “Don’t try to remove that bracelet, Lansing. We’ve had enough of your tricks. It’s an automatic death penalty
if you’re caught.”
One guard snickered and Niko gave her yet another hard shove in the direction of the computer rooms. “Walk faster. You have a lot of work to do.”
Ashley strode through the corridor beside Niko. Every third step, the bracelet around her ankle vibrated. Weird. It both tickled and hurt a little.
They finally reached the computer room and went inside.
No one spoke to her. In fact, a few even glared. She sat down at yet another new terminal. The monitor flickered on. She had to believe Justin and Dave would get to Deb. But could they do it soon enough? She had to have a backup plan. With a sigh, she straightened her crooked keyboard. An odd scraping sound followed the movement. One end of the unit tilted upward. A small piece of metal stuck out below the left edge.
Careful not to draw attention to herself, she placed her hand over the metal and grabbed it.
She fired up her computer and while it booted, she slid her hand to her lap and opened her fist. In her palm lay a tiny screwdriver with a very odd-shaped end. She didn’t recognize the metal it was made from, but she guessed what it was. Had Niko done this? When?
Even more important . . . why?
She pretended to cough and while bringing her hand back down from her mouth, slid the small screwdriver into the top of her bra. Her heart beat wildly. She swallowed hard to calm herself, even though that hurt like hell. If this meant that there was a chance she could escape, then she knew what she had to do.
She clicked various keys and entered the appropriate program. The subroutine she’d been working on in the background flooded the screen. It had taken forever to complete it. With the Warden and guards reviewing keystrokes, she’d had to go back and forth between commands so no one could infer her intent.
If she simply added this code, the program would leave a trail for the cybersecurity experts to follow.
She typed in a few keystrokes.
Immediately a red box flashed on her screen. “Don’t do it. They’ll know.”
She paled. Oh God. Someone knew. She closed her eyes. This was it. She deleted the keys and waited.
One minute. Two minutes. Five minutes passed.
Very carefully, she started back in. She had to be smarter. Yes. The administrative system. Just like before. Eat away at the program from the least likely point of failure. She burrowed in, keeping her regular program running on the surface. There had to be a way.
She half expected to be torn away from her terminal any second and dragged to the killing corner like Fletcher, but it didn’t happen. Terrified, but resolute, she planted the virus. The problem was, she had to trigger it live.
She’d just have to pray she could time it correctly.
If the virus remained dormant, nothing could be done to stop the Warden’s plans. Not unless Deb got here.
Eventually, they’d catch Ashley and she’d pay the price, but she no longer cared.
She was a Lansing, and maybe she couldn’t fight physically, like the rest of her family, but she certainly wasn’t defenseless. She had a brain that worked differently than most people’s. She’d always resented being so different. Right now, she was glad.
She, Ashley Lansing, sixteen-year-old brainiac geek, was going to take these suckers down or die trying. She would never regret being smart again.
She went back to her NSA program, knowing she’d have to give up the module tomorrow. Could she get word to Floyd about the virus in case they chose him instead?
The Warden had been keeping them far apart.
She’d have to play along until curfew. Then, maybe, Niko would tell her what the plan was and when she should take the ankle bracelet off. Two more kids had finished today . . . then disappeared. She didn’t know where they’d gone, but she didn’t think she’d see them again.
On a last-ditch prayer, she reset the security grids. The defenses they’d added to keep her out were laughable. But if she didn’t trip the sensors, then no one would know that the barriers would come down again tomorrow.
She only prayed she could find a way out and take some people with her, because as much as she loved her sister, she didn’t know if Deb could make it in time. Justin and Dave didn’t know they were set to be eliminated tomorrow.
Of course, if her sister had taught her one thing it was to never give up, never surrender. Okay, maybe that was the mantra from Galaxy Quest, but same difference. She’d fight to the end.
Ashley had one person to count on to get out of this place. And that was herself.
* * *
CHAPTER TWENTY
* * *
THE LEARJET’S PASSENGERS had been deathly quiet during takeoff.
Deb watched the others warily. Tension was so thick it was suffocating. The look Zach gave Gabe promised eventual retribution for keeping the existence of a half sister from him.
It wasn’t until Zach leveled off the plane for the short flight to the Winslow-Lindbergh Regional Airport, that the spell seemed to break.
Whitney pulled out a thick bunch of folders from her briefcase. “Gabe, I made you copies of some files on my Gasmerati investigation. I shouldn’t have.” She looked him in the eye. “I really shouldn’t have. Do you understand?”
Gabe nodded. “Then why are you doing this?”
“Because I want who killed Shannon to pay, and I think whoever did has killed a lot more. I thought there were a lot of victims, but I wasn’t making the connection directly to the game company until I spoke with you at my parents’ house today. I hypothesized that there was some serial killer who had met them online or something.”
Deb turned white. “Serial killer? Is that what you believe is going on?”
Whitney’s expression was sympathetic and Deb winced inside. Gabe’s sister told the truth as she saw it. She wasn’t about to pull punches.
Deb respected and feared that personality trait at the same time. With all her strength, Deb braced herself for Whitney’s judgment.
“I didn’t have any other explanation,” Whitney said, her voice cautious. “When I entered the Bureau two years ago, I started a little side project. I wanted to understand why Shannon died. Why our friends had vanished and were never found. I was in shock when the news hit that the car was finally discovered and they were obviously murdered. Until now everyone had simply vanished. Except Shannon. I thought someone must have become obsessed with good players and taken them.”
“Did you work with Dad?” Gabe asked. “From what we’ve learned he believed that the missing teens possessed unusually high IQs who were gifted in math and science.”
Whitney shook her head. “I never saw your father again after the night Shannon was murdered.”
“Hold on for one damn minute.” Zach’s voice boomed from the cockpit. “You were in Denver when Shannon Devlin got killed? That means you must have seen Gabe that night. What the hell, bro? How long have you known about her?”
“Leave him alone,” Whitney snapped.
Deb had to admire Whitney. She refused to be intimated by anyone.
“We were teenagers,” she said. “I was desperate so I contacted your father to help Shannon. When she was murdered, I was devastated. Gabe was, too, but not for the same reason. He stood up against your father. For your mother and your family.”
Gabe looked at her, really looked at her, and realized that his brothers’ lives had remained intact because of her keeping quiet all these years. Not just him.
“Why didn’t you ever contact us?” Gabe asked. “You could have showed up, or called, or put in an appearance at his funeral, which I’m sure you knew about. You seem to know a lot about us.”
“I couldn’t.” Her quiet voice filled the cabin. “You have to understand, Shannon’s mother isn’t my real mother.” A bittersweet smile tugged Whitney’s lips. “My mother’s name was Mariah Blackstone. She was a great mom, but she never want
ed me to intrude on your life. When I was old enough she told me everything. It’s not like she and your father had a great romantic history together. A one-night stand that he regretted almost immediately does not a father make.”
Gabe coughed to cover his surprise.
“To put it bluntly, my mother thought of him more as a sperm donor than a love interest. I tried to do the same. After my mother passed, the Devlins asked me to live with them. Shannon had been my best friend since kindergarten. I was wanted there. It was for the best.”
Whitney turned to Gabe. “When I met you the night Shannon died, I knew you were shocked and angry about my existence. I understood. Your father never knew about me, but I had to try to save Shannon’s life, so I contacted him. I knew he was in law enforcement. It didn’t matter, though. She died anyway.”
“So my father just walked away from you?” Zach threw in. “Like you didn’t exist? Was he that big a bastard to ignore the only daughter he had?”
Whitney sighed. “Look, I don’t know the details. It wasn’t a frequent topic around the dinner table. I just know my mother never wanted me to be part of your lives.”
“But you were alone after your mother died. Dad would have taken you in,” Zach said.
“And he would have torn apart your family.” Whitney sighed. “But more importantly, it would have killed the Devlins. They’d just lost one daughter to a killer. I couldn’t tell the woman who’d become a mother to me that she might lose me, too, because I’d found my birth father. It would have devastated her. It just seemed better if Patrick never contacted me after that night, so I made him promise. I didn’t want to ruin her life, your life, or anyone else’s.”
“He just walked away,” Gabe said, barely able to take in the swarm of information. He didn’t know what he thought anymore. He looked over at Deb, and she gave his a small smile of support.
“You don’t know your father very well, do you?” Whitney said. “He kept his word about not being a part of my life, but he set up a small trust to help me get through school. I didn’t need your family to survive, no offense. I have the Devlins, and they love me like a daughter. I’m Whitney Blackstone, FBI agent, and I’m fine on my own.”
