by Terry Mixon
The scientist nodded. “Mister Rogers said that he has a lab building that will be ready for us tomorrow morning. It will be more isolated and not disrupt the hotel.”
A flash of light outside caught Jess’ attention. It was getting dark, so the flare was quite visible. Was a cargo shuttle launching off schedule?
She’d taken one step toward the window when Sandra tackled her like a linebacker and covered her with her body. The larger Allen was right behind the sniper and planted himself between the two scientists with his back to the flash.
The large windows blew out in a maelstrom of broken glass. A massive explosion roared in the distance. A few shards nicked Jess’ exposed arm and the sting of pain was surreal.
Her head rang with the aftereffects of the explosion. It was worse than when she’d fired the gun in the jungle.
Dazed, she almost fell over when Sandra yanked her to her feet. “Time to go,” the mercenary said. “Allen, clear the hall. We’re going back to the suite.” She keyed her radio. “Liberty Base, Long Gun. Condition Gamma. We’re returning via the stairs on the south side of the building.”
Jess didn’t have much of a choice. The woman almost dragged her back to the hall. Allen had his weapon up and covered the Rainforest guards as the three of them withdrew.
She didn’t think they were much of a threat. They’d been looking right at the windows when they exploded. The two interior guards were down, clutching their bloody faces. The guards from outside were staring at the destruction in shock.
The Rainforest guard assigned to them must’ve ducked. He had a long gash on the back of his hand, but was otherwise okay.
“Wait,” Jess said. “This had to have been an accident. Something exploded at one of the launch pads.”
Sandra didn’t seem to care. “That’s someone else’s problem. I’m getting you back where I can protect you.”
“What about the scientists and the priceless artifacts? We need to keep them safe.”
“They aren’t my responsibility.”
“Bring them with us. At least grab the book.”
“The other guards can see them to safety. Let’s go.” She dragged Jess down the hall. Allen sprinted ahead to clear the stairs.
The big mercenary had just disappeared when Sandra jerked to a halt and collapsed. Jess had just enough time to turn and see the grinning Rainforest security man pull his stun gun back from Sandra’s neck.
“Don’t make me hurt you,” he said as an automatic weapon started firing in the stairwell. “Mister Bennett wants you in one piece.”
Chapter Sixteen
Harry sprinted out of the Rainforest security center and appropriated one of their vehicles. He cut off a car full of tourists and floored the gas. He figured he’d be back at the hotel in less than three minutes.
“Liberty Base, Liberty Six. Client status?” He had a lot of experience multitasking in combat, but swerving to miss idiots in traffic was new.
“Shots fired upstairs. The protective detail is not responding.”
“Retrieve the client.”
“Copy.”
He cut across a field and made directly for the hotel. Jess didn’t have seconds to spare.
* * * * *
Nathan stepped over the body in the stairwell. Another mercenary, a woman, lay sprawled on the hall carpet. The Rainforest guard on his mother’s payroll stood behind the woman who’d shot him in the jungle. He held a stun gun held to her neck.
“Well, well. What an unexpected surprise!” Nathan said with a chuckle. He gestured for his team to continue past him. “Hit the lab. Take anything of use and kill everyone. Leave my father’s gift on the table.”
The woman trembled, deliciously terrified. It warmed his heart.
“Have you searched her for weapons?” he asked. “She has hidden depths.”
The man pinned the woman face first into the wall and started patting her down. His reach was limited with the stun gun planted on her neck.
“Idiot,” Nathan said. “Keep her still while I check her.”
He started at her ankles and felt his way up. She squirmed when he roughly checked her privates. “Get used to that. I’ll be examining you much more closely.”
“Bastard. I’m going to kill you.”
Nathan laughed. “If only you knew how many women have said that to me over the years. It’s almost an endearment at this point.”
He made a point of fondling her breasts as he finished patting her down. They were his favorite part of a woman and hers were magnificent. Gunfire erupted down the hall. It ended quickly and his team called back in that the room was secure.
“She mentioned a book,” the guard said. “She made it sound like that was the most important thing in the room.”
“Why didn’t you say that earlier, moron?” Nathan updated his team. They quickly reported that they had it.
The woman glared at him. “Harry won’t let you get out of this building alive.”
Nathan grinned nastily. “My brother will be very late to the party. And if you think his people will rescue you, well, you’re in for a very disappointing day.”
The floor jumped and the stairwell door swung open a little. The booby trap he’d left below had found some customers.
He glanced at his watch. “Time to make our way to the roof. Move it along, people.”
* * * * *
Jess knew that time was running out. If the bastard got her out of the building, she’d never escape. Right now, she only had him and the turncoat guard to deal with. She needed to do something while she could.
The guard had relaxed a little now that the heavily armed team had arrived. The damned stun gun wasn’t on her neck anymore. That gave her a small window of opportunity.
Nathan had his attention focused down the hall waiting for his people to leave the preservation room. Jess had to make her move now.
She jammed her hand under her blouse and pulled the pistol free. The guard gaped, probably having no idea what she was doing.
He recognized the pistol, though. She stepped away from him even further, wanting to keep him from grabbing her gun. He was still drawing his weapon when she had hers lined up on his head and pulled the trigger.
The results of that shot would feature prominently in her nightmares for years to come, if she survived.
She turned her attention to Harry’s brother. He had body armor and an automatic weapon. One that was swiveling in her direction.
Jess threw herself into the stairwell just as he opened fire. The doorframe disintegrated, spraying her with splinters of wood.
Allen Ellison lay sprawled on his back in a pool of blood. He didn’t look like he was breathing and his eyes stared sightlessly at the ceiling. His weapon still hung around his neck.
She set her pistol on the floor, grabbed the rifle, and waited. If Nathan just came around the corner…
At the first sign of movement, Jess yanked the trigger. She quickly lost control of the automatic weapon. The barrel rose unexpectedly, but she forced it back down on target. The man’s burst went harmlessly to the side as he slid down the wall, leaving a trail of blood. Her gun locked open surprisingly quickly.
It wasn’t Nathan. Dammit.
Jess listened to the shouts down the hall as she grabbed her pistol and retreated up the stairs to the next landing. If they came this way, she’d give them something to regret.
* * * * *
Harry was almost to the hotel when his windshield shattered. He’d just hit a big bump in the ground, so the bullet aimed at him blew out the dashboard instead.
He couldn’t stay in the sniper’s kill zone, so he floored the SUV and started swerving. The main entrance to the hotel was right there.
More bullets hit his vehicle, but missed him. He entered the area where passengers unloaded at what some might kindly call an unsafe speed and went right through the big glass doors.
He stood on the brakes and stopped just short of the front desk. He jumped out
and ran past the shell-shocked staff to the stairs. Automatic weapons fire came from above.
He passed what looked like an exploded booby trap on the third floor landing. The lifeless bodies of a number of Rainforest security guards lay around it. He reached the hotspot and found his team already in place. Two of them were working on Allen, but it looked bad. Two more had just dragged Sandra in. A dead hostile lay sprawled just inside the hallway.
Jess stood on the stairs above them, a pistol in her hand, looking as though she were going into shock. “They went after the preservation room,” she said. “They used a stun gun on Sandra.”
The man working on Allen shook his head. Dammit.
“Rex, grab Sandra and get Jess clear. Everyone else is with me.”
“Your brother said he was leaving a gift in the room,” Jess said over her shoulder as Rex hustled her down the stairs. “Be careful!”
A Rainforest security man lay dead a few feet down the hall, his head shattered. The team moved as a unit past him to the open door. Three—no four—dead men lay scatted around the room. There was no sign of the two scientists.
There was also no sign of the alien gear recovered from the tomb, at least not in plain sight. And he didn’t have time to go looking for it.
A small stack of plastic explosives sat in the middle of the central table. A helpful timer indicated there was less than two minutes remaining before the device exploded. Not enough time to exit the building.
That was enough explosives to bring the hotel down. The device almost certainly had some kind of anti-tamper protection, too.
Harry pondered his range of options. The bomb’s sensors would know if he moved it, but there was some play. Otherwise, even minor shaking would set the thing off.
“Hold it steady. Lift it just a little.”
Two of his people held the bomb while he cut the straps securing the explosives. He held his breath and slid the lower packages to the side. The ones on the edges of the top layer also fell away. Leann tossed them out the broken window.
That reduced the scope of the explosion enough to spare the building. Maybe. At his gesture, they set the bomb down carefully and ran like hell.
* * * * *
Rex hustled Jess out the side door of the hotel just as a helicopter took off from the roof. It had medical markings. She saw Nathan through the open door. He waved at her.
She was tempted to take a shot at him, but she knew she wouldn’t hit anything.
Dammit.
Less than a minute later, the side of the hotel blew out. Debris showered around them even as Rex dragged her behind a parked minivan. Something heavy landed on the vehicle, crushing the roof.
She screamed. Who wouldn’t?
When the rain of debris finally stopped, she stared at the devastation. The hotel was mostly intact. It had a huge divot in the side and it was on fire, though. Steel and concrete littered the parking area. Every car alarm within a mile seemed to be going off. The stench of the explosives made her nose itch. And her ears were ringing even louder.
She turned to Rex. “Is Harry okay? Did he get out?”
The big man nodded grimly. “He made it down a few floors. It sounds like they’re okay.”
“I saw the mercenaries. They flew off the roof in a medical helicopter.”
“They won’t get far, but it’ll probably be enough to slip away. Dammit. That’s twice that assclown tried to kill some of us, and this time he did it.”
His eyes shifted toward the hotel. “At least we took one of them out.”
“Two,” she said as she watched fire engines pull up to the hotel. “One of the Rainforest people was a traitor. He zapped Sandra. I shot him. Then I used Allen’s weapon to kill the mercenary in the hall.”
He blinked in surprise, but said nothing.
She knelt beside the sniper and was happy to see signs that Sandra was waking up. Since slapping her cheek seemed like a very bad idea, Jess just waited.
The other woman sat up abruptly, reaching for her weapons. Jess held the rifle down. “Whoa! The fight is over.”
Sandra blinked and felt the back of her neck. “What happened?”
“You know where you warned me that trouble could sneak up when I least expected it? It did. Allen didn’t make it. I’m sorry.”
The sniper said something particularly foul. “Help me up. Rex, what’s the situation?”
He filled her in while they watched the building. Jess was happy to see other people streaming out of the damaged structure, including the two scientists from the preservation lab. They must’ve gotten the hell out of there right after the explosion at the launch pad.
Jess didn’t relax until she saw Harry and his remaining teammates come out. Then she allowed herself to cry in a mixture of relief, terror, and horror.
* * * * *
Harry held Jess when the reaction set in. He wanted to ask her exactly what had happened, but this wasn’t the time. He stayed with her until he saw his father climb out of an SUV. Harry passed the wrung out engineer to Sandra and headed over.
His father looked at the building. “This was Nathan, wasn’t it?”
“Yes. He made off with some of the artifacts, but not the scientists. Or Jess. He killed a bunch of your guards, too. One of my people died in the stairwell, but it looks like he dropped one of the enemy and allowed Jess to escape. Rex said he flew off the roof in a medivac helicopter. What did he blow up?”
“The fueling station for pad 3. He killed some of the staff. Security said the helicopter landed outside the fence and they climbed into some vans. They’re gone. The police are scouring the city, but it wouldn’t surprise me if Nathan had some cops in his pocket. I’ll put out a massive reward for their arrest, but don’t hold your breath.”
Harry considered the hotel while he thought. The fire was spreading quickly. It might be a loss.
“Nathan knew,” he said after a moment. “He must’ve gotten a look inside that second chamber and saw the ship. The race is on now. What next?”
His father turned toward him, his expression as cold and hostile as Harry had ever seen. “We make them pay. If we want to stop Kathleen from derailing our plans completely, we need to act quickly.
“I know corporate contracts are supposed to be almost incomprehensible with legalese, but we don’t have time for that luxury. If I write out a short deal swapping an ownership stake for access to the items already provided and anything recovered in the future, will you accept my word that it will be good? You can send it to your attorney for confirmation.”
“On one condition. Mother has obviously compromised your organization. I want to be in charge of all security operations for Project Liberty. That includes the upcoming missions because your guy is fighting me on it.”
“Done,” his father said immediately. “Once your mother gets a chance to think this through, she’ll realize what we’re doing. You need to move the Paris timetable up.”
Harry shook his head. “Your guy’s plan feels like a trap. There’s something going on there. We need more information about the facility and what they really have planned.”
His father considered that. “I have a man in your mother’s IT department. He was supposed to get me the final plans on this and a number of other secret projects, but he’s gone quiet. She must’ve picked him up. If he got the data, it would be very helpful to retrieve it. And it would hurt her badly.”
Harry smiled coldly. “Get me what you have and I’ll see about returning Nathan’s visit.”
Chapter Seventeen
Jess turned down the doctor’s offer of something to calm her nerves. She needed her wits about her. Mister Rogers had presented her with a ridiculously short contract that matched what they’d discussed in astonishingly plain language.
Harry had already run it past his lawyer and she’d found no issues. The company would own the finds—past, present, and future—and profit from them. The ownership was unambiguous and Jess would have her say in the ne
w company, Humanity Unlimited.
Clayton was the chief executive officer, she would be the chief operating officer, and Harry would be the chief of security for the organization. Each would share the profits according to their stake.
Harry had said he’d sign it if she did. Time to do her own check. She looked up the number for her college friend and dialed.
“Dawson and Treadwell, Aaron speaking. How can I help you today?”
“Aaron, this is Jess Cook. How’s it going?”
“Jess! I was just thinking about you the other day! Things are great. I made partner last year. Are you still building bridges while dreaming of space stations?”
She smiled at the joy in his voice. Aaron had always been a happy one.
“Actually, I’m working in space. In fact, I wanted to see if I could beg a favor about that.”
“You need me to come up and turn a wrench? Bad call. My wife won’t let me do home repairs due to liability concerns.”
Jess queued up the contract on her tablet. “I made a find that the owner thinks is worth a lot of money. He made me an offer and I need someone I can trust to look it over.”
“Sure. Do you have my email address? Send it and I’ll take a look. I can probably have an answer for you in a couple of days.”
Jess sent the contract. “Things are moving pretty quickly on this end. If you could just take a peek, I’d appreciate it.”
“Contracts are nothing to skim,” he said seriously. “The devil is in the details. One little word in the boilerplate can change the whole…Wait a second. This isn’t complete. It’s only one page.”
“That’s it.”
The silence on the other end of the line dragged on as her friend read. “This is pretty plainly stated. You cede control of the listed artifacts to the company, as well as those discovered in the future, and you get an ownership stake in the sole entity that will profit from them: Humanity Unlimited. This list of items you found seems pretty pedestrian. Wrenches, a book, and…wait. A crashed spaceship? Is this a joke?”
