Licensed To Thrill

by Gemma Brocato

  Directly across from the opening, another security camera blinked. I seized my Walther, took aim, and shot the device to smithereens. Only then did I cast a glamour around Lucien and me. I felt the power loss, but since the mask was in close proximity to me, the drain was dampened. Holding the cloaking in place, I motioned Lucien to lead the way. Together, we hustled along the corridor toward Tamsyn’s hiding place.

  20

  Mission Day 16

  Rapa Nui

  “About time you showed up,” Tamsyn complained, his voice confident, not scared in the least.

  We slid into the narrow opening where he was waiting.

  “Stop whinging, Bax. We had hostiles on our tail.”

  “You wiped all their records?” Lucien asked quietly, standing guard as I helped Tamsyn queue up the program to set off the explosives.

  “No.”

  My head snapped up. “What? You had one job, guppy. One freaking job!”

  “Hear me out, Jayne.” He sat back on his haunches. “If I started a delete process, it would have been noticed. So I installed malware that will wipe everything the first time someone control-alt-deletes to lock a computer. Any computer. Which should have happened the second the alarm was raised.”

  “I’m proud of you, trainee. You disobeyed a direct order and displayed good agent decision-making,” I murmured.

  “Can’t let you be the only rogue in the room.” He dug in the pocket of his pack. He produced a silver USB stick and held it aloft. “And since I learned from the best, I did grab this.”

  “What’s that?”

  “Uh, Jayne, Tamsyn? We should focus on the task at hand, which is setting this place to blow.”

  “Patience, Lucien.” I took the stick from Bax. “What’s this?”

  “Only the entire contents of his cloud.” When he smiled wickedly, the flash of white from his teeth glowed eerily in the strobing security lights.

  “On this tiny thing? Good thinking, Baxter.”

  “Hey, I’m getting nervous here.” Lucien glanced over his shoulder. “In case you haven’t noticed, we are in a shitty defensive spot. We’ll be trapped once Viktor’s soldiers show up.”

  He had a point. I handed the stick back to Bax, who stowed it in his pack and then got back to work on the small computer to set the timers.

  I swung my rifle around my body, slid the telescoping stock into a good position, and braced it against my left arm. It abraded the sensitive, blackened scar, so I switched to my right. I eased into the opening next to Lucien and nudged his shoulder.

  “We’ve got this,” I assured him.

  “I have a bad feeling. I wish we’d brought more backup.”

  “I don’t. We work well together. The three of us are enough to complete this mission.”

  He didn’t say anything, just gave me a hard look, then refocused his attention on the corridor.

  I heard the thunder of boots running our direction, along with the unmistakable clack of men readying their weapons.

  “Will your glamour hold?”

  “It should.”

  But to be sure, I reinforced it, despite the fact the drain on my energy stores was telling. Sweat dotted my upper lip and trickled between my shoulder blades. My gut hollowed and ached with hunger. My arms actually quaked with the weight of my weapon. I redoubled my effort to hide the weakness. I couldn’t let the men see me at less than perfect.

  The troop of soldiers rounded the corner, and it was fun to watch them slink into position with bemused expressions. They knew we should be right there, but with the glamour in place, we were invisible.

  Lucien lifted the muzzle of his gun and aimed at the commander. But he held his fire. As long as they couldn’t see us, there was no need to waste bullets.

  The leader, designated by the gold braid on his shoulders, rose from his crouched position behind a bulkhead wall and stepped hesitantly into the middle of the corridor. I recognized him as Manuel, the goon who’d come out when we’d posed as scientists from UNESCO, examining the moai.

  I half expected him to scratch his head in bewilderment. I’d have laughed if doing so wouldn’t have revealed our position. The glamour wouldn’t protect us from bullets if they started firing blindly our direction.

  The commander was joined by two other officers, while the other six men remained securely behind the limited cover available.

  “Report!” Manuel barked.

  Thing 1, the fellow next to him, did in fact scratch his head. “I was sure this is where they’d be. The security footage picked up activity here, and the camera has been shot.”

  My bad. I shouldn’t have given into that urge.

  “It doesn’t appear they are here.” The captain swept his gun in an arc, aiming directly at us.

  Beside me, Lucien’s posture became as fraught with tension as mine. We both raised our weapons quietly, taking aim.

  “I don’t know what happened. We were tracking them,” Thing 2 reported and held a small device up for the commander to see. “According to this, she should be right here.”

  She? Did they mean me? Wide-eyed, I looked at Lucien. And then it dawned on me; they were using the tracker in my arm to hunt us down. I’d never felt the warmth of it activated. But how—

  “All done!” Baxter shouted behind us.

  Dammit! Glamours prevented visual discovery, but I didn’t add in auditory masking. He’d just blown our cover.

  I pitched to my right behind a steel girder and Lucien dove the other direction, slamming behind the short wall on his left. The protection wasn’t spectacular, but it was all we had to make ourselves smaller targets. The goons couldn’t see us, but that didn’t stop the rain of bullets pouring down around us.

  Brass tinged musically off the concrete as the spent bullets ejected from the enemies’ magazines, and the noise level approached deafening.

  Fortunately, they continued to fire into the center of the corridor. I popped off a quick burst, dropping Manuel and his two comrades. When I flopped back behind the protective wall, Lucien swung into the line of fire and squeezed off half his magazine, felling three more of the soldiers with relative ease. They couldn’t see us, so they had no clue which way to duck.

  Baxter spun around and lifted his weapon. Before he could fire, one lucky bullet found his side. He screamed on impact and clutched his waist. Behind him, the computer he’d been working on exploded. He collapsed to the floor, moaning and swearing.

  Time to end this. I stalked forward, heedless of the danger of taking a bullet, and strode right up to where the three remaining goons were crouched. I swept my AR-15 from right to left, riddling their bodies with bullets, screaming bloody murder the whole time.

  And then silence reigned in the corridor. Except for Baxter’s moaning.

  Blood stained the concrete beneath him. Too much blood.

  Heart in my throat, I raced to him and the shot-to-shit control device for the detonators, fuming about the turn of events, and yes, worrying about Baxter.

  Lucien was applying pressure to the wound.

  Baxter thrashed about in serious pain, face clenched in a grimace.

  With uncharacteristic panic in his voice, Lucien asked, “What do we do, Jayne?”

  I squatted next to the controller. “Keep applying pressure for now. I’ll have to seal the wound before we can get back in the water. Sharks, you know.”

  Bax moaned. “Not funny Jayne. This hurts like a bitch.”

  “Hey, now, don’t malign female dogs. Some of them are man’s best friend.” I figured it couldn’t hurt to deploy a little humor to try to defuse the tension and fright.

  I reinforced my glamour, but the effort was probably wasted. They knew we were in the general area. More troops would be headed our way soon.

  “The bleeding is slowing.” Lucien’s voice rang with relief.

  “Lucien, they knew I was here. They got their grubby little hands on the frequency of the tracker in my arm.” Something…someone was definitel
y rotten in VIS headquarters.

  “I heard them say that. Can you be sure?” Baxter asked.

  I shook my head. “The diode didn’t heat under my skin, but it makes sense.”

  “T was right. There is a mole.” The sour look on Lucien’s face would have curdled milk.

  “But who? Why?”

  “Let’s worry about that later. What about the remote detonator?” Baxter grunted.

  “Beyond fixing.” We were thoroughly screwed.

  I collapsed to my bum next to Bax and reached for the zipper on his wetsuit.

  He swatted my hands away. “What d’you think you’re doing?”

  “I need to assess the damage and make sure some internal organ or another didn’t get nicked by the bullet. Then I intend to close the wound.”

  He rolled his eyes and shook his head, making a cross with the forefingers of both hands.

  “Christ on the bleeding cross! You know how this works.” I batted his hands apart and unzipped his neoprene top. “Your mother’s a vamp. Surely, you’ve seen her heal people.”

  “My mom’s not a vamp. That was part of my cover.”

  I paused. “Is your dad in the Queen’s guard?”

  “Yes. My mother is an exec with a computer programming firm.”

  “Ah, that’s where you learned to hack.”

  He nodded and then stopped fighting me about drawing down his zip. “What do you have to do? Will you need to drink my blood?”

  “Already tried that once, Bax. Remember? Your system was tainted by Viktor’s toxin. Not going back to that trough again. Unless you want to be turned.”

  “Um…is it impolite to turn down your generous offer?”

  Lucien laughed as he helped me peel away the thick rubberized top. “Son, if you need to ask, it’s most definitely rude.”

  Bax harrumphed. “Less chatter, the pair of you. More thinking about a solution to complete our mission and get out of here with our lives.”

  I examined the bloody hole midway between his lowest rib and his hip bone. Fortunately, the bullet had hit right where it would do the least damage. I urged him to roll over and found no exit wound.

  “Bullet is still inside, but I’m going to leave it there. Trying to remove it will only weaken you, and you need to help with the escape.”

  With a groan, Bax lay down on the concrete. “So how will you seal it shut? Do you have glue or sutures on you?”

  “Got something better.”

  I spat in my palm, then bit my own wrist and opened a vein. Bitter copper invaded my mouth, the taste unusually foul. Had to be some residual of Viktor’s toxin and the serum injections I’d been getting. Crimson blood mixed with the saliva in my hand, turning the entire mess pink when I stirred it with my finger. I spat again, to be sure I had enough of the magic elixir vamps come equipped with, then spread the solution over my palm.

  I hovered my hand over Bax’s wound, pausing a second. “Listen, I’m not sure what’s going to happen since my blood is still somewhat tainted. But this should work.”

  “Just do it.” Bax gritted his teeth.

  I slapped my palm over the hole, feeling the burn along the nerves in my arm.

  Baxter yelped. “Jesus, that’s like fire.”

  “Stop whinging,” I instructed, holding my hand in place.

  Under the pressure of my hand, I felt the skin knitting back together.

  “Hey! It’s working.” By the time Bax pushed himself up on his elbows, the final tear in his flesh was sealed.

  “Of course.” I studied my handiwork, satisfied my repair would hold, and at least he wouldn’t be shark bait in the water. I sat back on my heels. “Now, if we could fix the computer the same way.”

  We all looked toward it. It lay in pieces on the concrete, and even I could tell it was beyond repair.

  Lucien asked, “Got a spare?”

  With a mournful look on his face, Bax replied, “No, and even if I did, it wouldn’t work. The detonators are coded for this device’s IP address. We’re shit outta luck.”

  “Down, but not out, guppy.” I dusted my hands together. “There’s a back-up trigger on the fuses, yeah? We only need to reprogram the one on the lab level. That explosive is sitting on the gas main. Blow it, and everything else goes boom!”

  “Still, there is the issue of the remote trigger not working,” Lucien pointed out oh-so-helpfully.

  I shrugged. “We’re going to plan B.”

  “Why have I never heard of plan B before?” Lucien rose and stood over me.

  Like that intimidated me at all.

  “Because I’m making this up on the fly. You and Bax evacuate. I’ll go back to the lab, set a timer to blow, giving me say five minutes, then swim out after you.”

  “What?” Bax’s voice cracked.

  “No way in hell.” Lucien gripped my arm, squeezing hard.

  Baxter shot to his feet. “Jayne, our only plan B is to get out of here and let the HMS Dragon bomb the island.”

  I broke free of Lucien’s grasp and held up my hand, quelling both their arguments. The population on the island centered mostly in one area, but people had homes, lives that didn’t deserve the unexpected destruction. “I’m not putting human life at risk unnecessarily with that option.” Bad enough the explosion would put a new crater on the island’s landscape and probably destroy part of a World Heritage Site. I shook my head and pegged Lucien with a stare. “It’s the only way it can work. One of us needs to get Tamsyn out of here. You’re the logical choice.”

  “Why?”

  “I’m energy challenged right now. I can cast a glamour, but it will only work while in close proximity to me. I can’t hide you while I’m running in the opposite direction.” He started to protest, but I leaped to my feet and pressed my fingers over his lips. “I’m right, and you know it. For pity’s sake. I’m already undead. And I’m destined to suffer the final death once this mission is over. I’d rather take my chances with a fast death than face the anonymous executioners at the VIS.”

  I knew he read the truth in my eyes because his expression turned sad and he glanced away. “Fine. We’ll do it your way. But Jayne, you set the device and get the hell out. We’ll be waiting offshore for you, and together, the three of us will rendezvous with the HMS Dragon.”

  “Agreed.” At least I’d do my best. If the timer didn’t work once I set it, I’d go back to trigger the bastard myself.

  Lucien and Bax didn’t need to know that, though.

  “Ready to move, Duet?” I extended my arm and helped him to his feet.

  He was moving gingerly, but he was moving.

  “Okay, back into the elevator shaft with the lot of you. You’ll go up to the escape hatch, and I’ll head down to the lab. We’ll meet at the rally point in ten minutes from the time we split up. Right?”

  Their expressions were grim, but my demon and my human both agreed with terse nods.

  “Alright then. Let’s blow some shit up.”

  21

  Mission Day 16

  Back In The Lab

  Leaving the two of them at the elevator shaft was harder than I’d thought it would be. Sadness battled pig-headed determination for dominance in my brain. Fortunately, perseverance won out. Their footsteps receded above me, as I’m sure mine did below.

  Once I navigated back down the ladder in the shaft, I tightened my glamour, rendering me invisible to the rest of the world. With a burst of supernatural speed designed to evade detection by humans and get me to my destination lickety-split, I raced toward the lab.

  The corridor was certainly more active than it had been last time I was here. Soldiers stood in groups of two and three, at the ready with weapons cocked and aimed, trained up and down the corridor, gazes swinging nervously from side to side. I squared my shoulders, lifted my chin, and moved into their midst. Careful not to jostle them, I strode easily past them.

  Alarms had been silenced, but emergency lights continued to flash. The heavy steel shutters over t
he fishbowl windows had remained in place. In front of the entry door, I paused, back pressed to the wall opposite, and waited for someone to exit so I could get a sense of how many people were inside.

  I didn’t wait long. A man in a gray uniform covered by a dingy white lab coat scurried out within a minute, clipboard in hand and speaking in rapid Spanish to the lackey following. In the ten seconds the lab interior was exposed, I counted half a dozen workers in military dress in the central area. There was a frosted glass door at the far end, hiding who knew what. Hopefully a barracks full of civilians wasn’t secluded inside. As long as my glamour held, I should be okay. I just didn’t want to have to swim upstream, so to speak, through a cadre of trigger-happy mercenaries.

  Still avoiding touching any of the armed guards, I strolled past the door and went to the spot where I’d shimmied up before to set the explosives. With this many people loitering in the corridor, the give in the pipes would be noticed when I hoisted myself up. I needed a distraction…a diversion.

  Two soldiers approached lazily on my left. With my back still pressed to the wall, I extended my right leg and tripped the one nearest me. The man did a facer on the ground in front of me, making me leap sideways. His weapon discharged, and a man twenty feet down the hall screamed and fell to the ground, clutching his calf.

  In the pandemonium, I gave in to the urge and let a laugh sneak out. Seriously, these idiots made the Three Stooges look like straight men. But I used the disturbance to my advantage and leaped upward. When I hooking my hands and legs around the pipework, the grid rattled. I held my breath, willing it to still. Luckily, my bit of noise and motion was lost in the ongoing screams of the injured man.

  Satisfied my movement hadn’t been noticed, I flipped around until I was on top of the ducting and shimmied toward the C4 charge.

  Comfortable with the volume of noise still clamoring in the area, I keyed my lip-mic. “Lucien, are you and Bax clear?”

  His reply came an instant later. “At the access tube now. Your gear is still here. How are you doing?”