Eden took a step back, her butt now against Isaiah’s gurney and no further retreat left. The room had gotten crowded in a hurry. She needed more space between her and this bastardly threesome. Too bad there was none. “Stay back,” she ordered, her tone edgy and hard. They needed to be scared of something, darn it. The gun in her hand didn’t seem to worry them enough.
“Don’t do this,” Zaroyin said firmly. “Doug. Matt. The chip doesn’t work. You both know that. I’ve showed you all my research. Your drone army won’t survive.”
Doug shook his head slowly, the cellulite in his jowls jiggling under his blotchy skin. “It’s not about the chip anymore, Abe, and you know it. Yeah, those armies you were so proud of didn’t pan out like we thought they would, but who needs them? Think about it.” He nodded at Eden. “That little gal only came into this world with a finite number of eggs in her tubes, but with your boy’s sperm, and what we now know about cryogenics, we can still get that army we wanted. Only we’ll get a better one. One we can add to anytime we want. One that doesn’t depend on anyone but me.”
“And me,” Cassandra interjected. She stepped over to her husband to run a long fingernail over the shoulder seam on his white dress shirt. “Don’t forget me, big guy.”
Eww, sickening. A svelte half-attractive younger woman preening to jolly old saint Bick’s ego. Just plain revolting.
Bick patted his wife’s butt through her lab coat and snickered. “Well of course, pumpkin pie. I get it. This way, you’ll finally be able to have that little girl you always wanted.” He shrugged, his eyes diverted to Isaiah then back to Eden. “Or a boy, if that’s the flavor of the month. ‘S all the same to me as long as you keep your brats out of my way while I’m working.”
“Who do you think she’ll look like?” Cassandra planted her lips on her husband’s flaccid cheek. “Blonde like Agent Stark, or dark-haired like my pretty boy, Isaiah?”
“I’m sure either way she’ll look just like you, Cassie.” Bick stroked his wife’s ego right back at her. “After all, it’s about the nurture, not the nature.”
Cassandra giggled like a demented sixteen-year old at that less than scientific comment. Nature had nothing to do with these freaks.
“No,” Eden bellowed, her raging motherly instincts on overload. They’re my daughters. My sons. My babies! The muzzle of her pistol aimed over Bick’s head to the stainless steel tank behind him. “One more step, and so help me, I’ll—”
Cassandra took a deliberate step toward her. “You’ll what? Shoot the nitrogen tanks and blow this place sky-high? You’ll kill Isaiah? Innocent women and children in the surrounding neighborhood?” She took another step. “I don’t think so. You’re too good to do something so heinous, Agent Stark. You don’t kill people, do you? Well, you ought to try it. For once in your pitiful, fatherless life, you really should do something, even if it’s wrong.”
My fatherless life? “Really?” Eden taunted right back. “What’d you do, read up on me? Was that your plan—needle me until I break?” She grunted deep and low, and Tate would’ve been proud. “Newsflash. My mama was my hero. Do you want to know what she taught me?”
Eden racked the slide, something she should’ve thought of a heckuva lot earlier, but hey. It surprised Cassandra Bick, enough that she took a step back for a change.
Eden sucked in a deep breath of now or never. Could she do it? Dare she? You bet. The end of the barrel trembled as if she was a novice at killing, mostly because she was. The Bicks didn’t need to know that. She huffed a hard breath through flared nostrils, finally faced with the moment that came to all who chose to stand for something they believed in.
“My single mother taught me to believe in myself,” she declared proudly, her chin tilted and her gaze fierce. “And she taught me how to take care of a bully. Who’s first?”
“Come on, Doug,” Zaroyin coaxed at her side. “You don’t have to do this. Let these kids go. They haven’t done anything to you. This is my fault. Kill me, not—” He lunged at Matt before Matt could draw his handgun, and down both men went to the floor.
Cassandra took the opportunity and rushed Eden, forcing the BFG upward. She didn’t waste time digging her long fingernails into Eden’s cheek, edging toward her left eyeball. So that was the way it was going to be. Catfight!
Eden grabbed a hank of Cassandra’s fine black hair and jerked her face down to her knee in one smooth ‘Take that, bitch!’
Snap. Crackle. Cassandra jerked backward, fire in her surprised eyes and blood streaming out of her broken nose. She muttered something unintelligible, probably, “Ouch, you’re hurting me.”
Eden caught the odd coincidence in the millisecond she had to avoid another slap. Oh heck, Cassandra has green eyes like mine. Only mine are prettier. She promptly forgot them. They’d soon be black and blue.
Growling and wearing a nice shade of bright red splashed all over that pristine lab coat and her ugly face, Cassandra seemed up for more calisthenics. She charged and threw her shoulder into Eden’s chest, spinning her around and stealing her breath, but not her fight.
With her back to the missus, Eden stomped down hard with one stiletto-heeled boot on the tip of Cassandra’s foot. Mrs. Bick squealed like an over-compensated cheerleader. Eden swung her around. It didn’t take much to tip Cassandra’s arrogant ass backward enough that she fell over Isaiah’s gurney.
Eden snaked easily out of Cassandra’s stupid attempt at a wrist hold, too. Plain and simple, the woman might think she was tough, but she had no self-defense tools in her bag-o-bitch.
But Eden did. She might not know how to kill people for a living, but she meant to beat this Bick there and then. With all her might, she cocked one arm back and planted a curled fist into Cassandra’s throat when she pushed off Isaiah. Dimly aware of the ongoing struggle between Hartigen and Dr. Zaroyin, Eden paused for one fleeting moment to consider the overall problem. Abraham had better know how to fight, or kicking Cassandra’s uppity ass might not be enough to win this war.
Chapter Thirty
Ky stilled, his butt on the back bumper of Mark’s SUV, the rest of his entire being focused on the memory and the color of Eden’s sexy eyes. The tilt of her nose. The soft-as-honey fullness to her lips. The taste of her mouth. Her breath. The tender murmurs deep in her throat when he’d first kissed her. When he’d swallowed that first spark of passion and found her not only tempting, but deliciously willing.
He smoothed both palms over his thighs, attempting to block the rampant activity swirling around him, but controlled chaos was everywhere. FBI. SWAT. An army of locals. The fire department. There was simply too much noise to sit still long enough to focus. He stuck one hand deep into his pocket, frustrated with this cockamamie notion of Mark’s. It wasn’t in the cards, damn it. Me, a psychic? That’ll be the day.
His fingers curled around that jar of Eden’s he’d come across when he’d found Tucker’s half-dead body. Dredging it up from his pocket, he twisted the lid off and pinched a dab of the translucent ointment between his index finger and thumb.
Ky lifted it to his nose and took a deep sniff. The strong vapor of camphor and eucalyptus watered his eyes, but suddenly, Eden was there. He breathed in the unlikely signature scent of the heroine of his soul. This peculiar fragrance offered the same hope and comfort as it had two and a half years earlier. Oddly refreshing. Different than any other. Totally. Uniquely. Eden.
Ky settled his back against the side of the SUV’s rear gate and studied the brick structure opposite Mark’s SUV. At that moment, SWAT had everyone else pushed back beyond their bright yellow FBI—DO NOT CROSS tape. No one was allowed inside. Not local authorities. Not the EMTs standing by. Especially not private contractors.
The red-brick building itself looked to be three stories at the rear, with the north side possibly one large area at the front, judging by the solid walls of windows at the east and west. Typical for a large equipment bay that led to administrative offices or smaller work areas. In other wor
ds, the place looked like any other old warehouse.
Then why hadn’t the FBI stormed it yet? What were they waiting for? Better question, what were they afraid of? Ky channeled a question to Eden, just in case there was any truth to this psychic theory of Mark’s. Where are you, baby?
Instead of a mental reply from a soft-spoken woman, some loud-mouthed SWAT officer rounded the rear corner of the building, his hand cupped to his mouth. “Pull back! Shooter! We’ve got liquid nitrogen inside and a shooter! This place is gonna blow!”
Shit! Adrenaline spiked up Ky’s ass, screaming at him to do something besides sit on it. Done deal. He grabbed the first AR within reach, slammed a full magazine home, and stuffed another in his belt. He jumped to his feet to do what he should’ve done to begin with. His friggin’ job. His real job. Save Eden, damn it!
Dodging lawmen and their silly yellow tape, he headed around back of the warehouse as several heavy fire engines and a ladder truck pulled up front. This ought to be good. Now he had more authorities to contend with, not to mention Mark, who was all at once hard on his ass. He’d expected more lawmen, but none followed. Must have been scared of the nitrogen blowing. That worked.
“Where do you think you’re going, Winchester?” As big as Mark was, he had no trouble sticking close to Ky’s six like white on rice.
“In.” Ky sprinted across the open lot to the rear loading dock. Isn’t that what we do? Run in when others run out? Aren’t we dumb like that? He slowed alongside a diesel tractor-trailer backed up to the rear loading dock.
Mark matched his position, his own weapon locked and loaded. “You sure about this? I can call the others to join us.”
“No,” Ky admitted, “but I’m not backing down either. Let’s hold off on dragging Rory, Taylor and the guys into this.”
The dock itself stood in their way, a five-foot high stumbling block that would expose Ky and Mark to FBI SWAT fire, and maybe end this daring plan before it got started.
The only way in was to climb it and hope like hell no one shot them. It wasn’t likely. Not with the number of federal agents on the other side of this diesel rig. The last thing Ky wanted was Mark dead by friendly fire. How would he explain that to his rabid boss? Or to Mark’s wife and family? Yeah, not good. Not good at all.
Shit. He wiped the sweat out of his eyes, his heart on fire to reach Eden.
“I haven’t made contact with Agent Stark,” Ky murmured out of the side of his mouth, because I’m not friggin’ psychic. Yet his mind and heart screamed, Damn it, Eden, talk to me. “You wouldn’t happen to have the schematics for this warehouse on you?”
“In fact, I do.” Mark whipped out his cell phone, swiped his thumb over a few screens and handed it over. His palm cupped Ky’s shoulder, a silent signal that he was in this all the way. “Getting past SWAT will be tough, though. What’s your plan? Have you tried to reach out to her yet?”
Ky looked down at Mark’s hand on his shoulder. There was a day he would’ve come up fighting at some guy bracing his weight on him like Mark was doing, but Eden’s touch had changed everything. “I tried to get through to her mentally, if that’s what you’re asking, but I’m no psychic, and we don’t have time to play around.”
“Sometimes we can’t see the forest through the trees. We try too hard. Never mind. She’s too busy to pick up your signal anyway.” Mark just wouldn’t give it up.
Ky focused on the real-world shit he was dealing with and expanded the view of the building plan in the palm of his hand. “Where are the nitro tanks?”
“There.” Mark stabbed a finger at the rear wall. “See the heavy-duty power lines?”
Ky and Mark looked up at the same time from their hiding place at said power lines. If Eden was that shooter and if she’d taken refuge there, she was close to the rear dock. Two things stood in their way. Getting shot by the FBI or the building exploding.
“She’s in there,” Ky murmured. “She’s close. I can feel her.” She has to be.
“I knew you could do it. Say when,” Mark urged. “We’re here. We might as well try.”
Ky borrowed a line from another warrior in a galaxy far, far away. “There is no try. Only do.” With that, he hoisted one knee onto the concrete lip of the dock and scrambled aboard. Mark never missed a beat. He charged alongside Ky. Funny thing about Mark. He’d positioned himself between Ky and SWAT like a dammed linebacker running interference in an ungodly football game.
A roar of righteous FBI anger and authority went up behind Ky and Mark, but rules and Feds be damned. This was not one of those times when a man asked, ‘Mother, may I?’ and Ky didn’t intend to apologize for anything. This was go-time. Apologies, if there need be any, would fall to Alex.
Together, Ky and Mark breached the rear door. Ky rolled to both knees, sweeping the inside of the loading bay with his scope. No tangos presented themselves. Mark had dropped to one knee, the fingertips of his left hand splayed to the concrete floor. “Listen,” he hissed.
Ky heard them, too. Voices. One in particular. Eden. Screaming, “Let me go!”
Not the best thing for a man already ramped high on adrenaline to hear. He reacted. Ky punched into high gear, jumped off the floor, and bellowed, “I’m coming!”
Mrs. Bick fought dirty. The beast had concealed a pocketknife in her lab coat and adeptly used it to slash the back of Eden’s shooting hand. Eden didn’t release her BFG, but the blood pumping out of her arteries made the pistol grip slippery. The trigger, too.
She heard Zaroyin fighting the good fight somewhere behind her, but Bick? Where the heck had the senator slithered off to? Poor Isaiah hadn’t spoken a word, and Eden was scared. The longer this stupid fight continued, the worse his chance for survival. This confrontation had to end.
Dodging the knife blade, she captured Cassandra’s wrist with one hand, and finally managed to get the barrel of her pistol where it mattered—straight up against Cassandra’s skinny neck and pointed into that soft spot under her chin.
“Don’t shoot. Don’t shoot,” Cassandra whimpered on contact.
“Call your boy off,” Eden commanded.
“I think it’s the other way around,” Douglas Bick ordered, huffing like he’d actually exercised. He certainly hadn’t hung around to fight. “Drop your weapon, Agent Stark. Now.”
Eden glanced at Abraham while Hartigen climbed off the floor. He looked a little worse for wear, but the doctor had been through the war. He stayed on his knees, his nose and lips bloodied. His hair stuck up off his head. His eyeglasses were gone. Worse, Bick held a pistol to his head.
Eden shoved her pistol harder into Cassandra’s throat. “Stand back, Mr. Bick, or I will end your wife right here. Right now.”
Hartigen shook his head as he swept his pistol off the floor. “Eden, Eden, Eden,” he mocked as he stepped into her space and leveled his weapon at Isaiah. “Stop playing FBI and step back. You never were very good at it. We’ve got you solid. Two to one is not a standoff. It’s a massacre.”
“Try assassination,” she hissed as she faced facts. The war was lost. Shoving Cassandra away, she lowered her pistol. She had nothing, her other weapons still in that stupid fur coat. “What now?”
Matt lifted the BFG out of her grip and tucked it in his pants. “Now we do what we intended to do all along. Cassandra. Do your thing.”
The woman righted herself. Standing near the gurney, she took the time to smooth her over-sprayed hair back into place before she wiped the blood over her mouth, a dangerous glitter in her eyes. “The color of blood suits you, Agent Stark. It’s a good thing we don’t need you alive.”
“We’ll still do the procedure correctly,” her husband soothed. “We’ll be humane. Get her ready to move. We still need a sterile area. Abraham? May I assume you will not be offering your surgical skills for the record?”
Abraham bowed his head. “My son. My precious son.”
Eden stood her ground, stalling for time. “Whose idea was it to stick those locators inside
me?” she asked as Cassandra wasted more time putting herself back together, smoothing her hands over her rumpled lab jacket and skirt, tucking her blouse in, and tending to her broken nose.
Hartigen lifted a hand. “That was me. Needed you available twenty-four-seven, Stark. Fresh meat on the hoof, so to speak.”
“You had your friend, Cameron Levine, do your dirty work,” she hissed.
Hartigen shrugged one shoulder. “Yeah. So? You always thought you were untouchable, you prissy little bitch. Guess we showed you.”
“But what about your wife? What about Melody and your kids? They think you’re dead. Don’t you feel anything for them?”
His eyes narrowed. “Cost of war. It all comes down to what matters most, and I promise you, in the long run, it ain’t family.”
“And the wife you vowed to love, honor, and obey? What is she? Collateral damage?”
“Shut it,” Hartigen ground out. “That bitch is my problem, not yours. All you need to worry about is how to count backward from a hundred. You ready to go yet, Cassie?”
Oh, now it’s Cassie. No wonder Matt had cast Melody aside. He had Cassie.
Bick shoved Zaroyin to stand near a nitro tank. “If you two are done with your lover’s spat...”
Hartigen took the hint and jerked several zip-ties from his pocket. “Yeah. Let’s get this thing done. Stark, hands behind your back.”
“What are you going to do? Kill me? Here? With SWAT outside?”
“You just don’t get it, do you?” Matt grabbed her wrists and secured the ties. “Not everything is as it seems.”
She didn’t understand until Cassandra strutted over to one of the nitro tanks and thumped it with the side of her fist. Darned if it didn’t slide open to reveal an empty tank—and steps. Down. That was what Bick meant about getting ready to move.
Cassandra’s crooked, bloody smile turned into pure evil. “You see? We planned for everything. This leads to a secure vault. Once we blow the tanks, no one will ever be the wiser. We’ll leave through our escape tunnel. You’ll never be seen again.”
Ky (In the Company of Snipers Book 13) Page 29
