Chapter Thirty-Two
Clark paced the room, his footsteps echoing loudly in the pervasive stillness of the abandoned factory’s one-time office. “Look Casey, why don’t you just give me what I want and we can make this a lot easier on all of us.”
He fell into another dilapidated chair next to the door, his pistol unconsciously sweeping back and forth across the cold room.
Jenny spoke before Aaron had a chance to answer. “What makes you think he can help you? He doesn’t know anything about my project.”
Aaron turned, holding up his hand to silence her. “Jenny, just let me handle this. I promise, it’ll be all right.”
His eyes sought hers, forcefully conveying the message of danger intentionally missing from his voice. He turned back to Clark. “First thing, we get out of this freezing dump,” he pointed toward Jenny. “And she goes to a hospital.”
Clark’s laughter split the air. “Ha! Nice try.”
He pointed the revolver at Jenny, pulling back the hammer. “She’s not going anywhere until I get what I came for.”
Aaron stepped between the gun’s polished barrel and the helpless woman sitting in the chair. “Look, we both know she can’t tell you anything she hasn’t already. Just let her go and I’ll give you what you want.”
Jenny’s eyes widened in surprise and her face paled to a dull ash gray. “Aaron, don’t do it! You can’t help them!”
He never took his eyes off the man in front of him as he answered. “Jenny, whatever this project is, no matter how important you think it is, it’s not worth your life.”
She glared at him. “How can you do this?” The rage bubbled in her strained voice. “I trusted you!”
Finally turning to face her, he pointed back at the other man. “This man will kill you and then take what he wants. I’m just trying to get you out of this alive.”
She lifted her chin in defiance, still holding his gaze. “I’d rather die than give my work to someone like him!”
“That can be arranged.” Clark’s icy voice echoed off the dirty plaster walls. “Actually, I’d prefer it that way.”
Clark walked over to the sitting woman and turned her upraised chin with the gun barrel, forcing her to look him in the face. “He’s right Dr. Ryan. I will do whatever is necessary to get what I came for. Your life is…immaterial.”
Quiet until now, Trish stepped into the middle of the room. “All right, enough! Casey, where are the plans? Give them to us and you walk.”
Eyes boring into his partner, Clark’s face suddenly became a rigid mask of steel. “Trish, I won’t tell you again, I’m in charge here and I make the decisions, not you.”
She ignored the threat and her partner’s menacing stare.
Aaron rubbed his hands together to warm them, the room suddenly much colder. “I’ll tell you when you release us.”
Trish pointed a long slender finger at him for emphasis, her cold stare belying a calm demeanor. “I’m not screwing around. If you want to live, you better give us what we want.”
He folded his arms over his chest. “I’m not screwing around either lady. I know dammed well the minute you get your hands on those plans, we become expendable.”
Clark butted in, dropping the hammer back down and waving the gun at Aaron. “You’re expendable now.”
Aaron sat on the corner of a small desk, looking back at Trish. “I have a counter-proposal. I arrange to have the plans delivered to you, and you let us go.”
“Aaron, don’t do this!” Jenny screamed in frustration, struggling at her bonds. “You don’t know what it would mean!”
He turned on her, raising his voice for the first time. “I know exactly what it would mean! It means you get to live!”
Jenny shouted again “AARON!...”
She never finished the sentence. Aaron watched as Clark pushed the heavy pistol against her temple, her eyes turning to saucers at the feel of cold steel.
Trish studied Aaron’s face for a long moment. “Okay.”
Aaron again met Trish’s eyes. “How do I know you’ll keep your end of the deal?”
Clark answered for his partner, his smile a wicked Jack-O-Lantern grin, “You don’t. You just have to trust us.”
The irony was not lost on Aaron. “That doesn’t instill me with a lot of confidence.”
“But, it’s really your only choice,” Trish said. “I think you know that.”
Clark turned the gun away from his captive’s head and joined the other two standing next to the heater. Eyes burning with inner rage, he backhanded Trish with a sharp slap across the face. “I said I wasn’t going to warn you again. For the last time, I make the decisions here.”
Trish gingerly rubbed her burning cheek as her eyes flickered in shock and hatred. She dabbed at her lip, tasting the blood. “You son of a bitch! Where do you get off hitting me!”
Clark ignored her scathing censure, turning to Aaron instead. “So tell me, if I agree, how’s this ‘exchange’ going to work?”
He dared to breathe again and thought for a few tense seconds before answering. “I call my secretary and tell her I need some disks from my safe. She messengers them, thinking they’re routine stuff. That way you leave her out of it, right?”
Clark shrugged his shoulders, “As long as she follows your orders. Go on.”
He paused for a few brief seconds, formulating the plan as he went. “She sends them to a hotel, with a note for you to pick them up at the front desk. I’ve sent things to business associates this way dozens of times.”
Clark laughed again. “And I’m supposed to believe they’ll be there?”
He nodded in reassurance. “They’ll be there. We’ll both have a little insurance to guarantee it.”
Still glaring daggers at Clark, Trish shot Aaron a puzzled look. “Insurance? What kind of insurance?”
“When you let Dr. Ryan go, I tell you which hotel they’ll be at, and in whose name,” he paused again, seeing the pair contemplating his plan. “And when you have them, you let me go.”
Clark scratched his unshaven chin in thought. “And what if we decide not to let you go after we get the disks?”
Aaron stood up and gave a non-committal shrug of his shoulders. “Well, it’s a risk I’ll have to take. I still think you’re more interested in money than murder.”
Clark took several seconds to consider Casey’s plan and his options. “How do I confirm authenticity? Dr. Ryan would have to stay with us until we did.”
Jenny interrupted the conversation, giving Trish an imploring look. “The plans are encrypted. You’ll never get them open. They won’t be any good to you.”
Aaron had correctly assumed any data that important would be encrypted, and the last piece of his plan to save their lives fell into place. “She could give you the decryption code from the hospital, by phone.” he said, looking toward Jenny and receiving the death-stare in response. “Right?”
Jenny turned her attention back to Clark. “I won’t do it. You can kill me if you must.”
Clark raised the pistol, aiming it at Jenny’s chest. “I won’t kill you if you don’t give me the code,” he said, swinging the barrel toward Aaron. “I’ll kill him.”
Color draining from her face, the tears again fell from her cheeks. “What choice do I have?” she groaned while she shook her head in despair and resignation. “My God, You’re a monster!”
Reaching into her pocket, Trish pulled out a disposable cell phone and handed it to Aaron. “Make the call… and I assume you are smart enough not to try anything that will get you and the doctor killed, like dialing 9-1-1.”
He punched the numbers as he watched the tears run down Jenny’s cheeks. She silently glared at him, her pale face a combination of shock, fear and loathing.
With Clark listening over his shoulder, Aaron spoke quietly into the phone for just a few seconds before he snapped it shut.
“It’s all set. Now, we wait.”
"Chain Reaction" Power Failure Book I Page 43
