This wasn’t going to work. They would find her.
Angel. Shit. His heart was trying to punch its way out of his chest. He only had one card left to play.
“The virus is safe. Far from here.” He stepped out from under the overhang, hands in the air. “You get the coordinates when Angel goes free.”
* * *
“Yeah right.” The sound of Sampson’s laugh was worse than nails on a chalkboard. It pricked up every one of Angel’s hairs, made her want to burrow into the ground and hide.
But then she looked at Ford—fearless warrior, protector, moving out in the open—and hiding was the last thing she wanted to do. No, she’d remain beside him until her last breath. Whatever happened.
“Got you surrounded, you and the girl.” Girl? Who’s he calling a girl? “Ain’t got much of a leg to stand on do you, Cooper?”
Actually, that would be me, she thought hysterically, dangerously close to breaking out into laughter. Or doing something stupid, like calling attention to herself to give Ford a chance to attack.
And that would be pointless against four armed men.
“Maybe not.” Ford was cool as a cucumber. Unbreakable. “But I’ve got five metal tubes hidden. And I’m not giving you the GPS coordinates until she’s safe.”
“Where you reckon safe is right now, huh?” Sampson sounded off in a way she couldn’t quite place. Rough. Desperate. With a forced nonchalance that she’d never heard from him before. “You figure she’d be safer with the mad professor and his test subjects?”
Test subjects? Something queasy turned over in her belly.
“On one of your rides, headed away from here. Alone.”
Silence for a few long seconds raised Angel’s hackles higher, although she wasn’t sure how that was even possible.
“Or we could just shoot—”
“Hurt a hair on her body and you’ll get noth—”
The next few seconds contained a flurry of sounds. Footsteps from more than one direction. Something thudded down on their level. A groan, then another. That was Ford.
She was sure of it.
Without waiting to find out, she left her secure cubby—the one that was way too reminiscent of that other icy hiding place she’d rather never think of again—and took off the way Ford had gone.
“I’ve got him!” someone yelled.
Limping as fast as she could, weight on her ski pole, she hopped ahead. There was Ford, standing maybe four feet from a man with a gun aimed at his head.
“Hey!” she yelled, watching in absolute shock as the man turned and Ford exploded into action. He lowered his body, slid to the side, and somehow, while a shot cracked open the sky, kicked the man’s feet out from under him. He went down hard and Ford pounced, graceful and brutal as a northern wolf.
The beautiful warm body she’d spent the last two days wrapped around was more weapon than human now, and the bit of his face she could see was so furious she stumbled back a step.
Quickly, efficiently, and more violently than anything she’d ever witnessed, Ford parried one blow after another, his movements both sharp and fluid, before ending the man with a businesslike snap of the neck. She gasped. Holy shit.
Two down.
A white-clad figure landed behind Ford, arm raised, tensing as if to deliver a shot.
“Behind you!” she screamed.
He snatched the downed man’s gun, turned, and fired—Angel’s hand flew to her mouth to keep a scream in. Ford’s shot split the man’s goggles down the middle, and painted the ice crimson before he crumpled to the ground.
Three.
Above them was the sound of someone running, and then, getting closer before they leapt down, somewhere to her left.
She went right, toward where Ford waited on his own little battlefield, surrounded by carnage.
She’d just taken a step out from under the overhang when a loud noise made her jerk back, just in time to get showered in glittering confetti. Shit! She’d been shot at.
Instinct made her press into the ice wall, but if the man arrived from the left and this one guarded her right, she’d be trapped here.
She turned to follow Ford, screaming when an arm slid around her neck from behind.
“Got her!” The man—it sounded like Ben Wong—yanked her out from under the ice roof, into the open. “Drop it, Cooper.”
Ford hesitated just a second, but it was long enough for Ben to press his weapon to her temple, the metal cold through the layers.
“Don’t do it, Ford, it’s not—!”
Ben shook her so hard her teeth clattered.
Ignoring her, Ford dropped the gun and took a few steps closer before Ben jostled her again and yelled for him to stop right there.
“Got ’em, Sampson!” he yelled.
“On my way.” Just his voice made her insides feel like jelly.
At the crunch of approaching footsteps, Angel lost it. She would not let them end her the way they’d ended her friends in the arch. She tightened her fingers around the ski pole, ready to thrust it back the second she dropped. One…two…
She let go, making her body a dead weight, which shocked Ben into releasing her, and in the seconds before he gathered himself again, she listed to the side and thrust her pole up and toward his crotch, using every bit of anger and fear and protectiveness she could muster.
She didn’t wait to see how effective she’d been before taking off, slipping and stumbling. A hand to the ice wall broke her fall, but the knee wouldn’t hold up.
There! A side alley. She ducked in just as a shot was fired, spewing ice shards in all directions. Another turn, left this time, through a tiny crevasse. No choice. She had to move. Was it leading higher? Was she getting closer to the surface?
Somewhere, not too far, another shot. Another and another. A volley of them, from two different directions. Someone groaned—Ford?
As she rounded the next corner, she saw him, tight against the ice. Thank God. Relief washed over her like a warm sunrise. She smiled, moved toward him. He looked her way. Above, someone appeared on the ledge, throwing a long, cool shadow into the maze.
How many left now? Two? Just Ben and Sampson?
She pictured more, pouring in like the bad guys in a martial arts movie. One after another, a never-ending stream of professional killers.
Her eyes flicked up. No way could she identify whoever it was from here, but the shadow moved, raised an arm.
Memories slammed her in an endless loop—Sampson pointing the gun at Alex’s head. Alex falling. Dead. Dead. Dead.
Time stalled, went syrupy slow.
Ford put a finger to his lips, meant for her, but she had to tell him about the man behind him. Ben, limping from where she’d hurt him. In sickening slow-motion, he lifted his handgun.
“Behind you, Ford!”
Ford reached for something at his waist and in a flash, spun away from her, the ice axe appearing in his hands, small but deadly. Before she could blink, he’d sent it flying through the air to catch Ben in the head. Ben fell faster than the bright crimson mist of his own blood. It tinkled onto the ice a millisecond after the thump of his body.
Four down.
More death. She should feel bad. She should feel…something?
Someone coughed—the sound strangely vulnerable amidst all this violence. Slow as an oil slick, the shadow spread beside her. The closer it got, the more certain she was that it was him. Sampson.
“Go!” Ford yelled, just as a shot thundered from overhead and Ford spun back, hit the wall, and slid slowly down, leaving a Technicolor streak behind him.
“Nooooo!” The scream tore from her insides.
Like an angel from hell, the dark-clad figure leapt to the ice beside Ford, and before he could react, delivered a hard kick to his stomach. Another. Another. Ford curled
in on himself, but Sampson didn’t stop.
Angel’s vision narrowed, muscles tensed. She’d kill him.
“Ang—Angel! Get…out…” Sampson grabbed Ford by the coat, hauled him up, and hit him in the face. Over and over again.
She had to stop him. She had to—
“I’ve got the virus!” the words were out.
Sampson lifted his head and went very, very still, watching her with predatory interest.
The only movement was the slow rise and fall of Ford’s chest. He was limp.
“Come and get it, you prick.” She took off.
A look over her shoulder showed him dropping Ford to the ground like a sack of potatoes. With Terminator-like inexorability, Sampson came after her, steps starting slow and measured before picking up speed, until she had no choice but to run like hell.
Or stumble, limp, hop, lean, and slide. It wasn’t fast enough. She put her foot down, screamed at the explosion of pain, and pushed through, all so he would follow her, so he’d leave Ford alone.
Into the cave.
“Hear that, Coop—or is it Ford now? Your girl’s giving me the virus. Ain’t that sweet?” Sampson was so close she could almost taste his sad parody of a sigh. “You’re walking funny. You in pain, Angel?” Sampson chuckled low, his slow pace insulting when she was working so hard to move.
He wouldn’t win. She wouldn’t let him, dammit.
Just before turning into the long, low cave, she eyed the thinnest of the ice columns.
Don’t lean on them, Ford had told her. With a rage-fueled burst of strength, she shoved at it. Nothing. But a second push made the thing teeter. She tripped back as it collapsed, like a tree going down.
“I can help with—Bitch!”
She didn’t wait to hear more before forging into the tunnel, where Ford had jammed the yellow sled in vertically.
Her hand slid over the gleaming silver cores and encountered the shovel. She yanked it out and shoved it through the narrow opening between sled and floor, toward the other end of the ice tunnel.
Panting, she dropped to her butt, avoiding her knee so she wouldn’t pass out, crawled on her side, worked her way farther into the narrow space, under the sled, beyond it. She crouched to rummage through the last of their belongings—the food they’d been so happy to have, the tent that felt so much like home. Hurriedly, she threw them down. None of it mattered anymore. Nothing mattered but life and death.
A footstep crunched on the ice. She went still.
“Think that was enough to get me?” Sampson growled out a sound possibly meant to be a laugh. “That’s okay. I’m fine.” Crunch. Crunch. Was he limping? Had she hurt him, at least?
Frantically, her hand sought one last thing from the sled.
“Where you at, darlin’? You in here?” Sampson asked, entirely too nonchalant for a man who was about to meet his maker. “Really need to stop meeting like this, don’t we?”
He coughed, the sound rough and phlegmy. “Sure am glad you decided to bring me in here. Reminds me of last time. Man, that was…” He stopped to cough again, then snorted and spat a wad of something no doubt repulsive. “Fuck!”
A deep, loud inhale. He crunched forward and then stopped.
“Holy shit.” His whisper reached her where she still searched frantically from the other side of the sled. “Are they right here?” He cleared his throat. “Son of a bitch. They are, aren’t they?”
Deep inside the tunnel, with nothing but the sled between her and pure evil, Angel’s hand finally closed around a flat cloth packet, as familiar as anything she’d ever owned. She pulled it out, unzipped her coat, and shoved it inside, close to her body.
Now she was ready.
Come here. Come here and get me, you piece of shit.
With one elbow jammed into the wall, she pushed herself until she was up, supported by the shovel, shaking—a wreck—but also weirdly solid inside.
He was close, breathing hard, like maybe his lungs hurt. Good, she hoped he hurt, wanted to hurt him worse. Over and over and over again.
She hesitated for one second and then moved away, into the darkest part of the tunnel, turned the corner, and rather than run toward the light as he’d probably expect her to do, stopped, waiting against the ice, just out of sight.
Come on.
Slow footsteps, the scrape of the sled being yanked out of his way.
“Been looking all over for you little bastards.” It took her a second to realize he was talking to the ice cores and not to her. “Angel. So sweet of you to bring them here.” A painful clearing of his throat and then more footsteps as he closed in with nightmarish speed.
She lifted her arms up and over her head, gripping the shovel like she was batting in a softball game, only with much, much more adrenaline. She counted out two more of his steps, pushed herself off the wall into his path, and took a swing at Sampson’s head.
Up, up, keeping it close in the confined tunnel, shifting her weight to her bad knee, which sent a shockwave of pain through her, so hard she had to fight back the darkness…then thwack!
Connection, painful, solid, and satisfying.
He staggered back into the wall opposite, shook his head, and let out a low animal moan as she moved back into position again, ready to swing.
He whipped off his goggles and ski mask to swipe his arm over his bloody face, and she stuttered to a surprised stop.
Wait, that’s not Sampson, her brain supplied, dumbfounded, followed by the quick realization that it was. This wasn’t the smooth, smiling man she’d met at Burke-Ruhe. In the last couple of weeks, he’d become almost unrecognizable, his face swollen, oozing sores scattered over it, red and rough.
She tightened her hands, recovering from the shock just in time to swing again. But he came at her low and astonishingly quick, shoved her back, so she fell to the ice with a brain-shattering thump.
At least now, she thought a split-second later, as Sampson tried to suffocate her to death, his outside matched his evil innards.
His hand was tight around her neck, squeezing every drop of life from her.
Starved of air, her vision blocked by a constellation of shooting stars, the weirdest feeling came over Angel. An out-of-body dreaminess she’d never experienced before. One at a time, the actions to take lit up before her like a neon-yellow brick road.
One: unzip coat. The thought came as she struggled hard against the monster’s hold, dragging the zipper down maybe an inch or two, but it was all she needed to reach inside. She pulled at the cloth roll, reached in, slid her hand around the biggest handle—too bulky—before moving to the next one. Boning knife. She pictured herself quickly and efficiently cutting and pulling the membrane from a rack of pork ribs. Slicing sure and straight between flesh and bone.
Perfect.
Strong arms squeezed her and something popped in her back. She tried ignoring the pain, but that just made her vision swim harder, the shooting stars becoming a river of gold. Blinking, she focused on it, used it, let it drive her, along with the litany pouring from Sampson’s lips.
“You just had to make this tough, didn’t you?” Gasping with effort, he pushed his body into hers, making it impossible to pull her weapon from its sheath. “Angel, huh? You’re no goddamn angel. Fuck. I wanna…hurt you so bad. Wanna hear you scream for leading us around like this. You…useless little bitch.”
Not just sounds, not just threats, the words were fuel to her fire, much-needed oxygen, lighting up muscles that couldn’t function without the extra push.
We’ll see, she thought, suddenly as sure of her own wind-honed edges as she was of the knife’s. She wasn’t the wounded woman who’d come to this place all those months ago. No, this experience—surviving—had turned her into a blade, hard and sleek and cutting.
Grasp, pull, lift, then, with every ounce of strength she cou
ld muster, down. The blade slid home, into his back, through fabric and skin, between ribs, right to where his heart should be. If the bastard had one.
“Fuuuuccccc—” The word ended on a wet gurgle.
Realization hit his face in microsecond bursts: surprise, anger, the decision to retaliate…the effort…impossible…
He couldn’t do it.
With his goggles out of the way, his eyes were unavoidable and Angel watched as understanding dawned. He was finished. Ended.
It was justice. For everything he’d done.
But she couldn’t feel pride or relief. She felt nothing but the urgent need to get out from under his weight.
Digging deep for the strength, she shoved him off and lay there, gasping for air. It scraped over her throat, rough as a cheese grater. At least she was breathing.
Was Ford?
Swallowing back a rush of bile when her eyes landed on Sampson’s grotesque shape, she took off, hoping to God and the ice and every higher power she could think of that she wasn’t too late.
Chapter 43
Day 15—Chronos Corporation Headquarters, Stromville, West Virginia
“What do you mean he has disappeared?” Katherine Harper stood stiffly, one hand pressed to the Victorian mahogany pedestal desk in her office. “I pay him a hefty monthly retainer. He cannot simply stop working for me.”
“None of us have heard from him in at least a week.” The young woman on the other end of the phone line was barely competent. When she closed her eyes, Katherine could picture the private investigator’s secretary in some hovel of an office. Chewing gum. Likely playing one of those time-waster games on her mobile phone. Popping bubbles in some game, or building virtual farms. Shooting school children. “He was following a lead for one of your cases, ma’am. Campbell Turner?”
Campbell Turner. The director felt that name in every nerve of her body, even some that she knew without a doubt were long dead. Followed a lead… Hasn’t come back.
She inhaled long and slow. Best not to get worked up over nothing. The girl’s boss could just be a drunken PI on a bender after all. “What, precisely, was the lead?”
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