chapter 28
Summer kicked her legs, feverishly shoving against the roof, but each time something held her back. She heard the click of metal against tile and looked down. Her belt buckle was stuck.
Somewhere a bird cried in the night, and flashlights moved over the lawn. Any moment she would be caught in their beams. Sweat dripped down her face as she unhooked the belt and yanked the leather free. With one kick she was down, plunging through the ventilation hole.
She couldn’t let go, not with the guards close enough to hear her fall. Ignoring the burn in her fingers, she clung to the ventilation frame, suspended in the hot darkness while a steady stream of Spanish continued a few feet away, and sweat dripped in her eyes.
Keep on walking, she prayed.
When she heard the sound of a bullet being chambered, her heart thrashed up into her throat. Somewhere the bird cried again—then its cry was swallowed by the harsh report of gunfire.
The guards laughed as the bird fell to the ground in front of them, and then their footsteps passed.
Summer held out as long as she could, then fell, landing on the shed’s bare concrete floor. Biting back an oath, she flipped on her penlight with a red beam.
The walls around her were covered with torn Baywatch posters and a Gilligan’s Island poster. On the other wall of the shed the key was hanging exactly where Gabe had said it would be, behind a small wooden picture of the president of Mexico. She hit the transmit button once, signaling all clear to Gabe, then grabbed the key, flipped off her light, and opened the door.
Gabe shouldered inside a moment later. “Got it?”
Summer pressed the key into his hand.
“Izzy, what’s the status outside?”
“Two guards at the main entrance. One more near the lab entrance. Except for that, it’s quiet as a convent at midnight.”
“Moving.” Gabe tapped Summer’s shoulder and pointed to the roof. They made their way outside, around to the back of the shed. Gabe turned his back to the exterior wall, ready to help Summer up when a burst of Spanish stopped them cold.
Gabe pushed Summer down behind an oleander shrub seconds before a uniformed guard appeared. As the man’s voice grew angry, his rifle climbing to level position, Gabe continued to speak calmly.
Summer inched away in the shadows and crawled around to the far side of the shed, then circled back through the darkness.
She needed a distraction to get in closer, so she tossed her penlight through the darkness. As it bounced off the far wall, the guard spun, and when he did, she circled in from behind and toppled him with 600,000 volts from her stun gun before he could make another sound.
Gabe confiscated the guard’s gun and wrapped his arms and mouth with duct tape. “Thanks,” he muttered.
“No problem.”
Gabe dragged the guard into the shed and finished securing his legs. Summer was right behind him. “Let’s get you back,” he whispered.
“No way. I’m going with you.”
“She’s right, Gabe.” Over the headset, Izzy’s voice sounded tense. “You need backup, and I have got to stay here for the electric interrupts.”
Gabe didn’t argue further, though his eyes were hard with anger as he tapped his transmit button once for affirmative. The night was suddenly very quiet, disturbed only by the restless hiss of running water. There was no going back, Summer thought.
“They’re bound to notice a guard missing,” Izzy said quietly.
“Who cares, just as long as we’re way the hell gone by then.” Crouching near the wall with a penlight between his teeth, Gabe explored the unpainted floorboards and picked out a thick set of electric wires with his light, following them until they vanished behind a piece of plaster. “Here’s our lab access.” He nodded at Summer. “Noise discipline from here on. According to Underhill, it’s about six feet down to the air vents for the lab. How long until the next guard rotation?”
Silence.
“Izzy?”
“Sorry.” Izzy sounded breathless. “Had to duck some police. Our pals in the van are monitoring the area.”
No one said the obvious. A police presence was one more strike against the success of the mission. “You’ve got less than eight minutes.”
“Copy.” Gabe worked several planks free, revealing a dark hole beneath the shed’s floor.
He tapped Summer’s arm and then started down. He appeared to be in a power and ventilation conduit, the flat metal walls dense with wires.
At Gabe’s signal, Summer swung down after him. The conduit appeared to stretch twenty yards in both directions, which matched the information in the blueprints Gabe had been studying at the hotel. When he pointed forward, Summer nodded, following him on all fours along the heavy frame at the inside edge of the conduit.
Sweat dripped down her face, and her knees ached. She was starting to slip into the jittery place where you made mistakes that could blow an assignment and get you killed.
Silence spread out around them. Summer forced her muscles to loosen and her breathing to slow. Staying relaxed was crucial, in order to prepare for any kind of response.
Gabe pointed down, then tapped his watch and held up two fingers.
Summer knew the drill. He had two minutes to get into the lab and open Underhill’s safe, which was hidden behind a row of glass beakers near his mainframe computer.
If they were being set up, now was when they’d find out.
Summer nodded at Gabe, who smiled faintly, blowing her a kiss. She had to admit, the man had guts and attitude to burn. In any other time and place, she might have developed a serious case of lust for both his body and his bravado.
But not when they could get shot or arrested at any moment.
“Izzy?” Gabe waited tensely.
“Our distraction’s almost in place. Give it a few more seconds.”
Summer didn’t know how Izzy had planned to pull the guards away from their security cameras, but she was sure it was ironclad.
“Okay, you’re ready to rock. Go, go, go.”
Gabe slid away a square of wire mesh and vanished into the lab while Summer clocked his time. First he had to unlock the door to the inner room, she knew. Then would come the safe itself.
Glass struck glass, then more silence. Had Underhill lied? Was the code correct?
Sweat trickled into her eyes, but she didn’t move to blink it away.
Noise discipline was a bitch, she thought grimly. At least she wasn’t hunkered down in a wall of bushes near the Schuylkill River, surrounded by hungry mosquitoes, like her last assignment. She still had marks from the mosquito bites, along with a nasty knife scar at her ankle as a memento.
She tried to relax. Gabe was damned good, judging by what she’d seen so far.
Air hissed across her face as the air-conditioning kicked in.
One minute left.
Peering down through the open grate she saw Gabe shove something inside his nylon vest. When he looked up, she gestured sharply.
Get up here. Now.
He nodded, checking the flap pocket on his tactical vest. He was below the ventilation grid when booted feet approached, echoing loudly in the night. Something moved at the edge of Summer’s vision—not a uniformed security guard, but a pair of dusty feet.
A boy with crooked teeth and a torn Arizona Diamondbacks shirt slipped out from behind a lab table, staring warily at Gabe. The boy’s eyes widened when he looked up, seeing Summer and the open grate at the ceiling.
The thought of knocking out a kid was repugnant, but Gabe wouldn’t have much choice with a guard coming.
She looked down at the boy and managed a smile, then held a finger over her lips. His dark eyes grew even wider as he stared first at Gabe, then up at her. Summer realized her jacket had shifted, revealing a line of jagged scar tissue above her wrist. The boy looked at the skin gravely.
A dog barked somewhere nearby, the sound low and angry, rumbling through the lab, and Gabe took a step back, blocking the boy and motioning for him to run.
Protecting him from the dog, Summer realized, even if it cost Gabe precious seconds. But the boy’s crooked teeth flashed in a sudden, wide grin, and he shook his head, pointing to Gabe, then up at the ceiling.
He was telling Gabe to go, Summer realized.
The barking grew louder. But the boy shook his head hard, pointing up, never saying a word.
Gabe did a smooth pull up off the table, swinging into the open hole while the unseen boots hammered closer. Quickly he leaned down and slid the mesh back into place while the boy stood below them, his face grave.
A guard’s shoulders appeared. A big Doberman hurtled into view, its paws planted firmly on the boy’s shoulders. The guard laughed and nudged the boy with the butt of his gun, showing no surprise at seeing him in the lab.
Suddenly the dog’s tail began to wag, and the walkie-talkie screeched again. Impatient, the guard fiddled with the unit, barking a question at the boy, who shook his head gravely.
Gabe and Summer waited tensely. If the boy talked . . .
The guard asked more questions, and the boy shrugged, snuggling up to the dog, who lapped his face with barely contained joy. Finally the guard shoved the dog with one foot, then moved out of sight, speaking impatiently into his handset.
As Summer watched, the boy looked up once, smiled, and vanished in the other direction, the dog at his side.
The silence seemed to clutch at them as Summer and Gabe crawled back toward their access point. Gabe scrambled up, then reached down for Summer, his penlight gripped between his teeth as he pulled her up after him. Inside the shed, the bound and gagged guard was writhing vainly against the wall, but he froze at Gabe’s muttered command.
Low voices drifted toward them in the night. A truck engine growled.
“Izzy, sit-rep.”
“Path is clear. Go.”
Gabe tapped Summer’s shoulder and opened the door. Immediately humid air washed over her, and Summer realized she was soaked in sweat. She followed Gabe outside, staying close to the building and then cutting across the lawn, retracing their steps toward the back wall.
Gabe tapped his mike button twice, signaling Izzy.
“Glad you made it. Okay, you’ve got guards near the patient quarters.” Suddenly Izzy’s voice tightened. “Holy shit.”
Summer looked right and left, but saw nothing. “Guards?”
“Worse.”
Summer’s foot slipped in the grass, and she caught an unpleasant canine odor. She tapped Gabe’s shoulder, trying to warn him as a growl came out of the darkness. A moment later it was echoed by a deeper growl.
Too late for warnings.
Directly in front of them two snarling Dobermans stood blocking their exit route.