Eden could see how Levine might’ve manipulated her into fleeing to Hawaii, then Alaska. She was scared and trusty of her FBI brethren then, but Levine couldn’t be in two places at once. No. Someone else was behind Charlie Sweets’ death and the crash. If her instincts were right, Zaroyin had been forced to follow where she ran. That was why he’d shown up in San Francisco, Hawaii, then Alaska so quickly. They’d both been manipulated, she to save her life, him to capture her to save his son. She still could not explain why Levine had Zaroyin chasing after her, though. Why didn’t Levine, if he truly was the nut-job behind this nightmare, have let Zaroyin catch her before she’d ever fled for her life across the Pacific? Why engage not only Charlie Sweets, but all those poor FBI agents he’d turned into drones?
The anxious need to be far, far away from this twisted scheme and Bick’s insidious torture chamber skittered up her spine. Something still didn’t add up. She needed time to think, darn it.
Eden cracked the door just enough to peer into the outside hall, but the doctor’s cell phone buzzed, startling her. She turned to watch him read the screen with relief. “He’s waiting at the rear exit with a van. Is anyone in the hall?”
Claustrophobia clutched her larynx, stopping her breath. Who was out there? “No, I don’t like this. but something doesn’t feel right.”
Abraham’s eyes flashed sheer panic. “What do you mean?”
“I mean I’m a level-ten psychic, and I’ve got a bad feeling. Are you sure you can trust this friend of yours?”
His head bobbed adamantly. “Oh, yes. He’s been with me every step of the way.”
“Give me a name, Doctor. Who is he?” Eden stared the older man down. Every ectoplasmic speck of her second sight had finally sprung back to life, but it was on fire. Bright red danger lights flashed in her mind, cautioning her not to take one more step. But adrenaline thundered through every vein, clamping down her lungs, demanding fight or flight. She needed a name, darn it. “Tell me who your friend is, doctor.”
“Come on,” he urged. “If we stay here, we’re all dead.”
If you leave, you will die.
Whoa. That voice came out of the blue. She froze in her tracks. Isaiah. Was that you?
His lips hadn’t moved, and he looked closer to death, but he had definitely spoken, his mental voice less than a whisper. Don’t go. I feel the danger, too. Stay here. Please.
A noise banged from the hallway.
“Oh, my God,” the elder Zaroyin cried. “It’s too late. We’re caught. They’re coming! We have to go. Now!”
Panic jolted Eden into action. If she believed Abraham, to stay meant certain death. To go meant risk laced with the possibility of life. There was no choice. “Let’s do this.”
At her words, he threw his weight behind the gurney while Eden opened the door and peered both ways down the hall. “Hurry,” he hissed.
“Clear,” she reported, not sure where that last noise had come from, darn it. Where were those people who supposedly checked hourly on Isaiah? Suspicion poked at her.
Angling the gurney into the hall, Zaroyin turned left. “The rear exit’s this way. Whatever happens, keep moving until we clear the building.”
That sounded ominous. Eden didn’t like this one bit. She shrugged yet one more stab of adrenaline off her tense shoulders, guarded their rear, her weapon ready to take command at the slightest hint of either Bick’s presence. Zaroyin’s cell phone buzzed an incoming text. He fumbled it out of his pocket and laid it on his son’s feet while he read the message. “He’s right outside. Hurry. God, please hurry. He says the Bicks are on their way.”
“Who is he?” Eden hurried already! She passed the flustered man and flung open the rear exit. Tucker’s words sprang to her lips with a hearty, “Son-of-a-bitch!”
There stood the last person she expected to see.
Matt Hartigen.
Shots fired?!
Ky could’ve crawled out of his skin at that report from Mother. He gunned the gas pedal of the SUV Alex had waiting when he, Rory, and Taylor landed. Mother advised that most available TEAM agents were already on-site at Senator Bick’s warehouse. Mark Houston was acting agent in charge, but on hold along with FBI SWAT and local law enforcement.
Ky jerked the SUV around a family van and broke the speed limit two times over, needing to fly. Five long miles stretched between him and the warehouse. Rory and Taylor didn’t say a word.
Hang tight, he mentally commanded Eden over the distance. Goddamnit, wait for me!
Eden slammed the heavy door before Matt and his buddy Bick could step inside. Without asking, she relieved Zaroyin of McCluskey’s piece.
“But he said—”
“He’s a friggin’ liar. We need a defendable position. Where else can we go in this place?”
“Nowhere, Agent Stark,” Matt’s voice boomed over the loudspeaker system. “Let’s make this easy. Come out so I don’t have to kill you when I come in.”
The bastard could hear her? Could he see her, too? She peppered the rear exit with a hearty ‘Hell, no!’ from the very vocal Smith and Wesson in her sweating palm. Rolling the tension out of her stiff neck, she faced a father who, until that moment, she’d fully believed just wanted to rescue his child.
“What the heck is going on? Hartigen died in front of my eyes,” she spat, “as least, he pretended to. He fell over dead, and I watched them bury him. You want to explain why he’s on his feet and still thinks he’s god?”
Someone had the balls to jiggle the rear doorknob, so Eden fired another round of ‘Mind your damned business before I blow your head off!’ She meant to kill the next guy who crossed her or lied to her. Enough!
“Answer me, Doctor,” she hissed. “Are you in bed with Hartigen, too?”
“No, he was my friend. I thought—”
“He put that implant in my fucking skull! They wired me like a goddamned Christmas tree and screwed with my hormones. They’ve been working with Bick, and you want me to believe you didn’t know?” Even she heard Tucker’s vitriol screaming out of her mouth, drowning out Ky’s calmer influence.
“I didn’t know,” Abraham replied quickly, his palms splayed, no doubt attempting to placate her. “Agent Stark, as God is my witness, I—”
“Do not pull the God card on me. Not now.”
He looked down at his unconscious son, blinking. Drawing in a deep breath, he rested his hands on Isaiah’s forearm. “You’re right to suspect me. This is all my fault. Everything. I made the mistake of trusting Matt and Doug. It’s up to me to fix it. What would you have me do?” Lifting his face, he returned her gaze. “I’ll talk to them if—”
“No!” snapped out of her. They were long past talking.
There seemed no way out of the warehouse or this God-awful dilemma. Breathing hard, Eden shot one quick look at the bullet-riddled exit door. Hartigen and Bick hadn’t said much in the last few minutes. Either they were dead, wounded, or already inside the warehouse and sneaking up on her.
When no clear way forward presented itself, Eden opted for the least of the worst, like Ky had in Canada. She needed a defendable position, a place of ensured safety, someplace with enough explosives at her back to scare Hartigen and Bick and maybe keep them from firing at her. Plain and simple, she needed to buy time until Ky got there, because he was coming. She couldn’t sense him at that moment, but she knew it in her heart.
“Where’s the cryo-lab?”
“Back one corridor. I’ll take you there.”
She motioned for him to move it. Of all the bad luck, Eden had a distraught father on one side, and an unconscious torture victim and her worst nightmare on the other. Could things get any worse?
Chapter Twenty-Nine
Ky peeled out of his TEAMwear before he hit the ground running. His SUV hadn’t rolled to a complete stop. Police cars, FBI vans, and officers surrounded the warehouse, as well as two TEAM vehicles. “Where is she?” he called out to Mark Houston, Alex’s senior agent on-site.
“Not sure,” came the answer. “SWAT won’t let us pass. Rory and Taylor, gear up and take position. Ky, come with me.”
Ky stifled the need to run into battle without accurate intel. “Whatcha got?” And make it quick.
Mark Houston. Big bruiser and a farmer’s son from Ohio. Dark-haired. Usually, the easiest man to get along with on The TEAM. Not today. Not dressed in tactical gear like he was and bristling with armament. He waved Ky to the open tailgate on his SUV where an arsenal waited on the local authorities for the green light to engage. Resting his butt to the rear bumper, he crossed his arms over his broad chest and lowered his black-as-sin sunglasses, another TEAM specialty. Piercing dark brown eyes skewered Ky. “Tell me what you know and do it fast.”
Ky obliged. “FBI Agent Tucker Chase and Eden escaped camp before it was overrun. Somehow, Zaroyin wrested Eden Stark away from FBI custody. He or his men shot Chase in the head and left him for dead. Stark is valuable, Mark. She’s what they call a level-ten psychic, able to reach anywhere on the planet to influence people or events with her mind. She suspects Zaroyin wants her to control his drone army.”
“And you know this how?”
“Because she was with me when Lee Hart pulled me out of Hasim Nizari’s cell outside Kabul. I saw her as clear as day. She stood by me until the end, until Lee found me. I know it was her.”
Mark tugged at his left earlobe. “But you didn’t really see her, did you? If I recall your after-action report, you were in damned rough shape by the time you were airlifted out of there. You were talking out of your head, and you fought everyone who laid a hand on you.”
Ky cast a sideways glance at the warehouse, every muscle in his body tuned toward that desperate woman inside before he faced Mark again. Deep dark brown eyes locked onto Ky’s, boring through the bluff. “I don’t have time for this, Mark. Yeah, I fought everyone, and you know why. I couldn’t bear to be touched after what I went through, but it’s different with Eden. Her touch is different. It—heals. Facts don’t quantify what she can do. There’s no way I can prove it. Either you believe me or—”
“Hold on, Junior Agent.” Mark’s tone mellowed. “I’m not denying you and Agent Stark have a link. What I want to know is if you can use it to our advantage? Can you communicate with her? Is it possible you’re psychic, too?”
Ky grunted at the sincerity behind that ludicrous question. “Me? I’m no psychic.”
“Then how do you explain her ability to reach out and touch you in that hellhole all the way from the East Coast?”
Ky shifted his stance. Truth was, he couldn’t. Her finding him out of millions, suffering across the globe, had always baffled him. It still did. He hadn’t had time to think about it, but it was obvious Mark had. “So what do you want me to do? Meditate or something?”
Just the thought of calming himself enough to meditate spiked more adrenaline in him. God, this was not the time or place for this conversation.
Mark shrugged. “You tell me. How’d you reach out to her before?”
Ky ran a hand through his short-cropped hair, exasperated he wasn’t at that moment storming the warehouse. That was what real men did. They charged into hell, and they made a difference, damn it. “I was dying, Mark,” he snapped. “I was hanging like a side of beef off a hook in Nizari’s ceiling, and one of his asshole soldiers was fixing to barbeque me for the fun of it. That’s what I was doing. I was hanging on a chain by my goddamned wrists, and—”
“Junior Agent,” Mark murmured, a thread of gentleness in his tone, “I know exactly what you went through. There’s no need to preach to the choir. Sit your ass down and focus on that woman in there, the one you love enough to die for. See if you can reach her. Find out exactly where she is and who’s in there with her. Get us some intel.”
Ky gulped. How did Mark know he loved Eden? Was he friggin’ psychic too? Was he that good at reading his men? “What if I can’t communicate with her? Can we still get inside without SWAT knowing? Is there any way to get past them?”
Mark’s eyes dropped to the tailgate, his order standing, and damn it. Ky sat, his arms across his chest, wishing he held Eden safe and sound instead.
Several more gunshots rang out from within the brick building, and it was all Ky could do not to run to her. He raked a hand through his hair again, his frustration at the breaking point and his senior agent out of his friggin’ mind. I’m no psychic. Let me do my job, damn it!
Slapping one hand to his thigh, he opted to give Mark’s insane idea a try, but one try only. Then he was going in.
Eden stood between Zaroyin’s cryogenics laboratory door and the man himself. His poor son still lay unconscious on the gurney, fighting for his life. Behind them against the far wall stood a row of stainless-steel, ceiling-high, barrel-wide cylinders, clearly marked: Nitrogen, refrigerated liquid. To the side of the tanks, an oblong metallic pod-type contraption rested on a table.
“Why so much element N?” Eden expected a tank or two, but five? “What’d you need it for?”
Zaroyin cocked his head as if he didn’t understand.
“Don’t play dumb. You heard me. Why this much liquid nitrogen, Doctor?” Other lab equipment lined the room, but Eden’s gaze closed in on the pharmacy-style refrigerator alongside the wall to her right, the one with rows and rows of test tubes and bottles behind double glass doors. “What’s this for? Lunch?”
“N-n-no, umm, that’s where the, umm, harvested eggs will go after—”
“You bastard. You planned to build a psychic army with Bick, didn’t you? You planned—”
“Yes. I already told you. I made mistakes and—”
“Oh, puh-leeze! You put too much faith in the good doctor, Agent Stark.” Cassandra Bick herself stepped out from behind the farthest nitrogen cylinder, her nose crinkled as if she found the situation funny. “I’m afraid he doesn’t have what it takes to be a truly great man, do you, Abraham?”
Zaroyin shifted between Cassandra and the gurney. “Stay away from my son. You can’t have him. None of him.”
“Oh, but that’s where you’re wrong. I’m going to have the very best of him.” She lifted her palms to the ceiling, gesturing like some diva from a talk show and looking silly in a really sinister way in that pure white lab coat and six-inch heels. “Look around, Agent Stark. You’ve come to the perfect place for my little experiment. Why, it’s almost as if you wanted this to happen all along, isn’t it?”
“You look around. The only reason we’re here is to make sure you and your jerk husband don’t take a shot at us. If we go, you go, got it?” Eden shot back at the haughty woman. God, who’d painted those eyebrows on her? Pointed. Black. She looked like Cruella de Vil on steroids. Or crack.
Bick’s despicable other half stalked toward Eden. “Isn’t it about time we had a little girl-talk about the birds and the bees? Aren’t you sick of being a nun?”
Eden lifted her lips into a snarl, her weapon now pointed directly at Mrs. Bick’s long nose. “Isn’t it about time you back your shit up and run for your fucking life?” She nearly choked on the words out of her mouth. Shit! Why can’t I stop channeling Tucker?
Cassandra narrowed those stark brows, squinting as she came to a complete standstill. Her lips pinched into an absurd, little girl pout. “Why, Agent Stark. You’re not the prude I was told you were. What happened? Finally got your perfect ass screwed?”
Eden aimed, the reticle of that BFG positioned precisely between Cassandra’s eyes.
“Oh, come on,” Cassandra huffed. “I’ll be extra careful when I harvest the eggs from your cold, dead body. Honest I will. I’m trained. I promise, you won’t feel a thing, and trust me. You will be cold. I know all about vitrification and how to prepare those delicate little eggs of yours for the cryo-vials, but would you care to hear the best part?” She lifted both of those gaudy brows, not waiting for an answer. “Why, that’s when I get to plunge those unborn children of yours into liquid nitrogen. I get to flash-freeze your
precious tiny babies into the outer darkness of one-hundred-seventy-five degrees below zero. Ah-h-h! You wouldn’t believe the thrill of wasting your one and only opponent’s genetic line. Nothing can surpass that.”
Cassandra winked—the bitch actually winked! This woman was seriously out of her ever friggin’ mind, especially with that one and only opponent dig. How could she, Eden Stark, a nobody from Idaho, ever have threatened a woman with the worldwide fame and notoriety of this demented movie harlot?
Extending a long pointed fingernail, Cassandra beckoned Eden to come closer. As if. “There’s a good friend I want you to see before I end you. Oh, Mathew,” she called over her shoulder without taking her eyes off Eden. “Be a good boy and join us girls, wouldn’t you?”
“He’s no friend of mine,” Eden growled when Hartigen stepped into view. Still dressed professionally, he loosened the tie Eden wanted to strangle him with.
He cocked his head at the corner behind him. “Utility entrance, Stark. You didn’t think we dropped these tanks through the ceiling, did you? Use that empty head of yours for a change.”
“Traitor,” she hissed, the BFG now trained on his smirky face instead of Cassandra’s. “I thought you were my friend.”
“Yeah, well, you thought a lot of stupid things, didn’t you?”
Cassandra chuckled low and deep in her throat. “Only what you wanted her to think, Matt. Look at her. Dressed to kill. Ready to die for her friends. All noble and shit like that.”
“She looks like a whore,” Matt purred. “My kind of woman.”
Douglas Bick peered around the corner. God, the man was the picture of gluttony incarnate, right down to his extra-large pleated trousers and broken-down penny loafers. His plump cheeks spread downward over his chin and jaws. He had no neck, just one puffy pillow of fleshy wrinkles. “Mind if I join the party? I mean, I’m paying for it, aren’t I?”
Ky (In the Company of Snipers Book 13) Page 28
