“I’m glad you can remember twenty-four hours. You know what they say about taking Mollies.”
“I don’t do that,” she said, her eye creaking again. And then a nervous laugh. “You mean, taking ecstasy?”
“Yeah,” Cole said. “Going to clubs, dancing till five in the morning.”
“In Hilo?”
“Wherever.”
“I like to dance,” she said. “So what?”
“So you ever wonder where those drugs came from?”
“No,” she said. “I know exactly where they came from.”
“You know what just came in today?”
She sighed. “Yeah. From what continent?”
“La La Land.”
“What the hell are you talking about?”
“Where’s Captain?” he said.
“In his office.”
“Then you better hurry off while he’s still in there.”
She drew her hands away from her keyboard, but she didn’t do her customary swivel around.
“You know what I’m talking about,” he said.
She chewed on her lip for a moment. “The mail room.”
“Yes,” Cole said, having no idea. “It’s in the mail room. Where else?”
“What do they have today?”
“Come on,” Cole said, grinning. “What do you think?” He tried his best to seduce her with the idea of a free “product” skimmed off the top. She’d used sex to get her way, and now Cole could use the promise of drugs to get his. He’d known for some time that it was a problem in the facility. They called it “grazing.” Cole was almost certain that the secretary had been grazing for some time, and now it was confirmed. Confirmed, especially, by a look of desperation masked with a little too heavily contrived boredom.
“This is a surprise, Cole.” She typed something onto her laptop and then closed the lid. “I didn’t know you were into that kind of stuff.”
“I’m not,” he said. “But you are.”
“So what is it?”
“Yeyo.”
She laughed. “Yeyo?”
“Cocaine, whatever.” The only problem was that he didn’t quite know the right parlance.
“So why do you want me leave the office? You need something here?”
“Sorta.”
“Maybe I can just help you instead. What do you need? Or are you trying to get me in shit?”
“I’m trying to get myself in shit,” Cole said.
“You already are,” she said, looking down the hall to the captain’s office. It was very quiet. “I’m surprised you’re even here.”
“Is he really in there?”
“Yeah,” she said, a strange look coming over her face. She pursed up her lips and then said, “I think I’m going to leave now.”
“Mail room,” Cole said.
She was up, walking from her desk. “Yeah, whatever.” She walked by him and out the door without a glance.
Silence rushed in her absence.
Cole had no idea what she expected to find in the mail room. Probably the last on the list was Kalani. He stood there, frozen, straining his ear in the direction of Captain’s office. He listened for his voice, swearing on the phone, that distinct metal click of his Zippo lighter. But there was nothing.
He checked his watch. He was right on time. And if Kalani was going to be on time, he’d better find cover soon. He made his way to the corner of the room, into an empty storage closet, shutting the door behind him and then hunched down in the dark, back leaned up against the wall. He could hear himself breathing. He could hear, and feel, his heart. It was starting.
The phone call came soon after, right on time, its harsh digitized ring sounding somewhere beyond the closet door, and likely beyond the door of the captain’s office. Kalani had done well. A moment later, he heard a door shutting, an electronic security beep, footsteps entering the office from the rear and then leaving the office out into the hallway. No sounds after that.
Cole waited another two minutes to be sure. He cracked open the door to peer into the empty waiting room. It was clear for him to walk into the rear hallway, down to office door. On a digital interface, he typed in the six-digit key and pressed ENTER. The door unlocked with a quiet snick and he pushed it open, stepping into the empty room. Empty of the captain, but not of his laptop.
He grabbed it and yanked it off the desk, freeing it of its cords as they slapped down to the floor.
A voice behind him yelled out. “What the fuck?”
The captain.
Cole’s first thought was to throw the laptop at him. Better, yet, throw the laptop out of the window and preserve the evidence. Better yet, jump out of the window with the laptop to preserve himself along with it. Before he made his move, the meaty rush of Captain’s body slammed into Cole and pushed him back against the filing cabinet, the brute force of it and of his response clouding his judgment. There was no time to think about anything else but wrestling with the other man, turning and holding him against the wall and grabbing his throat with his free hand. The laptop slipped out. It crashed to the floor while both men panted hard, groaning as they wrestled against each other, as they broke apart to start taking swings.
The captain’s fist cocked back and launched into Cole’s gut. A whoosh of air, the wind getting knocked out of him, and then momentarily, the fight knocked out of him, his own punch stopping midway as his body collapsed forward, curling in, struggling to regain breath. During the delay, all Cole could do was launch forward into the captain, pressing him against the wall to stop any more blows while he grunted for air.
There were no words during the exchange. Just the harsh, flexed energies of two rivals, battling not in an office setting, but the animal kingdom. For survival. Cole had barely survived being winded by the gut punch, his lungs finally opening up for enough air for him to fight back again, swinging now, raining his own blows down on the captain’s reddened, blooded face.
He tasted blood, too. He could smell it through his nose with each suck of air, one nostril completely blocked with it. His eyes, too, felt blocked, swollen already and half shut. Everything on his face had gone numb. And as he continued punching, the numbness of his fists moved quickly to pain. Perhaps a broken knuckle after the broken bridge of his adversary’s nose. Certainly a broken knuckle when missing a jawbone and slamming into the side of the filing cabinet instead.
Still no words. No questions or accusations. It had seemed as though the captain had expected this from the start. Cole had definitely expected this. He’d been craving it for some time now. A good brawl without any other goons jumping in, and without Jackson’s high-tech gadgets. Mano a mano. But something was different about this. The change happened almost imperceptibly at first, a feeling deep inside him. Growing. An unsteadiness beyond the usual dizzied effect of being punched in the face.
Their fight had shaken the office loose, the floor waving and wobbly. A sudden lurching back and forth. The lights of the office going dim. The sound of groaning metal and cracking concrete. Another earthquake.
And then the distinct sensation of a full cabinet’s hard weight crashing down on Cole and pinning him to the linoleum floor. His breath knocked out of him again, but this time it was from the weight of metal and about twenty years’ worth of business records. He was suffocating, panicking, unable to expand his lungs enough for a breath. Cole’s feet pushed against the wall and he crawled out, sprawling hard and kicking, squirming his way out so his ribcage was free of the cabinet, and free of the man who lay between him and escape. Kicking out again with his legs and sliding free, Cole swiveled back around to take a look at the scene. The captain, his entire torso and legs under the cabinet. He tried squirming like Cole, but was stuck solid. The office swayed again, a much slower shake with stacks of paper sliding around on the floor. An office chair on wheels crashed into the side of Cole’s face. The seat was face-high and slapped him back around.
The two men made eye contact, their eyes wet
with the strain of the fight, and the pain of it lingering long after. The pain of the filing cabinet still throbbing through. The pain of a lack of oxygen for the captain.
Should they say something now?
It seemed almost comical.
Should they laugh, instead?
“Can you breathe?” Cole asked him.
The captain’s mouth babbled something in response, pink bubbles of spit forming at his lips. His face was a mixture of pale white and blood red.
“Are you okay?” Cole asked him.
Why was he asking him this? They’d just been fighting.
Cole said, “I can help you.”
“Fuck you.”
Cole reached into his pocket and pulled out a zip-tie restraint. He never thought he’d have to use them. But if he had, he’d rather them be in his pocket. And then around the wrists of the man who tried to kill him. He pushed hard at the cabinet, moving it just enough for him to pull the captain free.
“Go fuck yourself,” Captain said, wheezing for air as Cole wrapped the first tie and pulled it through, zipping it hard and right. He reached for the other arm. Captain didn’t fight back this time.
27
Annica
Ethan thundered down the stairs from the top perch on the yacht. “That was definitely an earthquake.”
“Really?” Annica said. “I didn’t feel anything.”
“Me neither. You don’t feel it at sea. I was watching through the telephoto and I can see the damage.”
“Oh, no . . . How much?”
“Nothing major,” Ethan said. “But I could see it. Windows breaking. Dust rising off the ground. Birds flying everywhere.”
“I’m still listening in for reports,” she said, turning up the radio dial.
“From Jackson?”
“From anyone.”
“Turn it down,” Ethan said. “I’ll radio Jackson right now.”
“Can you try Cole?”
“Does it really matter?” He gave her a blank look, and then said, “Okay, Cole.”
But Annica had gone ahead, herself, reaching for the radio with one hand, the other hand tuning it to his channel. She spoke his code-worded call sign, “Indigo, Indigo, come in.”
But neither Cole, nor Indigo, nor anyone “came in.”
She tried again.
Radio silence.
She slumped back in her captain’s chair and listened to Ethan call in for Jackson.
Finally, a response. But not the one she was hoping for.
“We’re okay,” came Jackson’s staticky voice.
She was hoping for that, of course. She was glad he was okay. But the thought of Cole inside the facility, somewhere, perhaps buried in rubble, perhaps tied down or even crushed . . . It crushed her.
“It felt a little worse than the one last night,” came Jackson’s distant radio voice. “Moderate damage. There’s glass everywhere and definitely structural damage. But I think we’ll be able to get out of here.”
“In the tank, though?” Ethan said.
“Yes, the tank.” He was referring to the garbage truck he and Macy had “borrowed,” driving through the Khan security gate for the usual morning pickup. This morning’s pickup, however, was to be anything but usual.
“We can’t get Team A on the radio,” Ethan said.
“Don’t worry about Team A,” he said. “It’s most likely switched off. They’re in deep.”
“How does he know what to do?”
“He knows,” Jackson said. “He’s always known.”
Annica, meanwhile, had been looking straight out the window to the gray shapes of the coast and the port, the facility, and the surrounding structures. She could almost sense the frenzy of post-earthquake activity. It looked blurry, from a distance, but also perhaps from the chaos.
Cole was in there, too.
Somewhere.
She hoped, somewhere alive.
She picked up a pair of binoculars and focused on the shore and started along the beach, along the rocks to where Team A’s dinghy should have been tied up and waiting.
But there was something different about it.
Twenty minutes ago, Cole and Kalani had left it hooked up, drifting in the water.
Now it was suspended, dangling down the rocks on the rope, and nowhere near the ocean.
“Ethan,” she said, her eyes widening through the binoculars.
Ethan was still talking to Jackson.
“Ethan . . .”
She kept lowering the scope, down to the beach and further back and back, trying to find the edge of the ocean. But there was nothing but dark, wet sand. And the shine of fish, flopping about.
The ocean had pulled back again.
“Ethan!”
28
Cole
He switched on his radio, too loud and for too long, but the last thing he’d heard was Jackson’s status update: “C Team in place. Revert to Primary.”
“What the hell does that mean?” the captain said, his breath still half gasping. “Was that part of your little boy-scout meeting?”
Cole shut the door behind him and then turned back to Captain, who was standing with his hands tied behind his back, standing in the middle of the garbage room. The chute room.
The kill room.
It was where he and Annica had gotten their first proper look at each other, each of them still working for their respective employers. The Cole who stepped into this room today was a changed man, and on the different side of the coin. He also had something to live for.
“Stop pointing that at me.”
“Well, then get in,” Cole said, opening the chute door and pointing in. “Climb right up in there.”
“No.”
“I can always beat you unconscious and then just throw you down there like a bag of garbage. Or like a dead body.”
“Why don’t you throw me down there like your little friend Annica? Send me down alive and well and able to escape?”
“Is that what you think happened?”
“It’s why this is happening,” the captain said. “Isn’t it? Some bitch get in your head?”
“You got in my head,” Cole said. “For far too long.”
“What the hell are you talking about? I got in your wallet. I paid your bills, you son of a bitch.”
“You also sent my roommate to come after me.”
“I did? Who the hell’s your roommate?”
Cole pushed him toward the chute. “Get in there.”
“And why are you kidnapping me?”
“It’s a citizen’s arrest,” Cole said.
He knew that was bullshit. He also knew this was a slight deviation from the plan. Jackson had given strict instructions about a laptop. Not the man who owned it. But he also didn’t plan on hand-to-hand combat and zip ties and an earthquake. It was time to make a big move.
“Go ahead,” Cole said. “Get in.”
“All this because of some stupid bitch, huh? You really think you’re—”
Cole whipped the butt end of his revolver across the captain’s face, his already bloodied nose making an awful crunching sound in the otherwise silent room. The man stumbled backward toward the chute, groaning, his eyes blinking rapidly. His eyes were wider and watering. He turned away from Cole without a word and climbed up into the chute.
Cole leaned in and gave a hard shove. That was the last he’d see of the captain. He’d never seek him out again. He had better things waiting for him. After he completed the last step of the mission. He turned back and looked at the laptop on the floor.
29
Annica
“He just made the drop,” Jackson said over their boat radio. “The target item plus a surprise. A big surprise.”
“What is it?” Annica said, knowing he’d never answer over the radio.
“A big fucking surprise.” Jackson’s voice had a strain to it she’d never heard before. “We’re rolling out,” he said, his communication filled with a loud roar befo
re it cut out.
“Copy that,” Annica said. “Hurry before the wave.”
Jackson didn’t bother answering that one, and Annica had begun to feel foolish for how she’d talked over the radio. She wasn’t accustomed to that, radio ops and feeling foolish. Her world was one of relaxed phone interviews, not the precise language of clandestine agents or radio operators.
Ethan’s voice came from up top. He sounded equally as strained. “I’ve got visual,” he said.
“You see him?”
“I see him,” Ethan said, “in the boat, headed our way.”
“With whom?”
A moment later, Ethan said, “No one. He’s alone.”
She was happy that Cole had escaped alive. But something had obviously gone wrong. Cole should have had at least one other person in his boat. Two if everything had gone well. It obviously hadn’t, and so there must have been some problem with Kalani and her sister. Or worse . . .
She hollered to Ethan, “How does the tide look?”
“It keeps pulling back. Cole had to drag the boat across sand for almost—”
“How far out is he? Is he close?” She couldn’t see him out the side window. It knotted her stomach not being able to see him, not knowing if he’d make it before the wave. “Hold on, I’m looking,” she said, getting up and climbing to the top deck. Ethan handed her the binoculars and she could see him coming in fast, skimming over the tops of waves, the front of the boat tilted up high. Only his head peeked over. His face. “Come on,” she mumbled to herself, and to him. “Come on . . .”
Ethan, meanwhile, was mumbling into his radio about Kalani. Cole wouldn’t answer. Jackson finally did. “Main Control, I have no information on that. Keep the channel clear, please. And keep an eye on that surge.”
The surge. The tsunami. Ethan was supposed to be watching out toward the sea, looking for the first hint of a white line forming across the horizon, a line that would signify the first wave. But he’d been staring back into Hilo the whole time. Annica gave him a stony look, and Ethan hustled to the rear of the ship.
Dark Salvation (DARC Ops Book 7) Page 21
