“If it was daylight, we could wait for a delivery truck, overpower the driver or stow away in the truck.” He glanced over at her. “But it’s three in the morning. I doubt they’re going to be receiving many deliveries at this hour.”
“Maybe we can find a place away from those lights, cut the fence and go in that way.”
He shook his head. “Too risky.” But the mention of lights sparked another idea. “We cut the power.”
“How do you propose we do that?”
He surveyed the line of telephone poles that ran the length of the paved roadway leading to the parking lot. “See those telephone poles? They support the power lines to the entire facility. If we can down one of the poles, that should take out the power.”
“Let’s do it.” Emily started to rise, but he snagged her coat and held her back.
“The bad news is they probably have a backup generator,” he said.
“Oh.”
“The good news is it will probably take a few minutes for the backup power to kick on.”
She bit her lip. “We’ll just have to move quickly.”
Frowning because he didn’t like the enthusiasm in her voice, he turned to her—and immediately wished he hadn’t. She was looking straight at him, not the facility. She looked soft and lovely and he wanted nothing more than to sink his hands into her warmth and forget all about Lockdown, Inc. and Signal Research and Development.
“You sure you’re up to this?” he asked.
“No,” she said. “But I don’t think I have a choice.”
“You could stay here and wait for me.”
“I’ve never been very good at waiting.”
Unable to stop himself, Zack reached over and touched her cheek with the back of his hand. Her skin was cool and incredibly soft beneath his knuckles. “You keep impressing me, Emily.”
“And you’re a smooth-talking con.” She swatted his hand away.
He smiled. “Don’t let the accent fool you. There’s nothing smooth about me. I’m as rough around the edges as a man can get. You’d be wise to remember that.”
Realizing he was letting himself get distracted, Zack moved away from her and turned his attention to the facility.
“How long will we have before backup lighting comes on?” she asked.
“If it’s a flywheel assembly, backup power will be instantaneous. If it’s diesel-powered, it will take a few minutes. With a campus this size, I’m betting the backup power generates light for only the areas vital to operation. Refrigeration. Computers. Emergency and security lighting. That sort of thing. This is graveyard shift. They’re probably working with a skeleton crew. That will be a plus.”
“How long will we have once we’re inside?”
He looked at her and found himself wishing he’d never involved her. A suicide mission wasn’t the sort of operation in which to involve a civilian. Particularly a woman he was attracted to….
“Fifteen minutes,” he said. “Twenty max. Whatever the case, we’ll need to act quickly.”
He only hoped it would be fast enough to get them out alive.
EMILY’S ENTIRE BODY WAS zinging with adrenaline as they sprinted across the snow-covered field toward the twelve-foot-high chain-link fence. Back when she’d been safely ensconced behind the rocks and hidden by darkness, breaking into Signal Re search and Development had seemed like a good idea. Now that she and Zack were in open view, she questioned the wisdom of her decision to accompany him.
What the hell had she been thinking? She barely knew Zack Devlin and yet here she was risking her life. Then there was the little problem of her burgeoning attraction to him. And that blasted kiss. Well, two kisses to be exact. Maybe she had finally gone around the bend.
When they reached the fence, it took all of two seconds for Emily to see that getting onto the grounds was going to be trickier than they’d expected. A few feet away Zack was already at the fence, kneeling, opening the satchel tied to his belt.
“How are we going to get over triple strands of barbed wire and not come out of this looking like raw hamburger?”
Glancing over his shoulder, Zack pulled some type of tool from the bag.
“What is that?” she asked.
“The kind of Swiss Army knife that would get a civilian thrown into jail if he brought it to show-and-tell.” He pressed a button on the handle and a nasty-looking blade swished into view.
Emily studied the small, compact blade. “You expect a knife to cut through chain fencing?”
“This titanium blade will make short work of that fence.” Putting the blade to the first link, he went to work sawing. “Observe.”
The first wire snapped almost instantly. In two minutes he’d snipped enough strands to create a big hole that the both of them could squeeze through. “Any questions?”
“You mean aside from the little voice inside my head asking me if I’m totally nuts?”
Grinning, he rose to his full height. “We’ve all got that little voice inside our heads, Emily. The key is learning when to listen and when to shut it out.”
“Even when it’s right?”