Bad Nights (23 page)

“Only we'd kill Morgan too.”

“What about that stuff they used in Russia to rescue the people being held hostage in that school?”

“Risky. A lot of the hostages died,” Shane said. “We can't take a chance on that.”

“Might work on a limited basis. We're going to have to kill or disable as many of them as possible without making any noise.”

“Maybe we should stop making plans until Jack comes back.”

Max looked toward the monitor. “Okay, show me the picture of Cunningham capturing Morgan. Let's see it in slow motion.”

Shane scrolled back through the tape to the point where the car arrived in the doorway and slowed the speed.

“Not yet. When he goes after Morgan.”

Shane speeded up to the part where Cunningham was leaping inside and heading for Morgan, bringing her down.

As they rolled together on the floor, Max shouted, “Stop the tape.”

Shane paused the video. “What?”

“See that?” Max asked, pointing toward the picture.

“Jesus,” Shane said as he examined the frame. “I missed that. His hand is pressed against the floor.”

“Which means we've got his prints,” Max said.

“Didn't Jack say he thought that was the way Trainer discovered his identity?”

“Yeah. Poetic justice, as I said when we set that fire in the cave.” Shane went to the supply cabinet. “We're going to use old-fashioned fingerprint powder.”

They were down on their knees in the hall, dusting for fingerprints, when Jack came back.

“What the hell are you doing? We're supposed to be getting ready to raid Trainer's camp.”

“Giving you a nice surprise before it got wiped away by the cleaning lady,” Shane answered. He held up the sheet of contact paper. “Max had me go back over the tape of Cunningham capturing Morgan. He pressed his hand to the floor, and we have his prints.”

“Good news,” Jack said. “But we'll have to deal with him later.”

“Agreed.”

“I've arranged for our transportation.” He gave each of his partners a long look. “There's no armor on the gliders. If they see us and shoot, we're dead.”

When Max and Shane both said, “Understood,” Jack breathed out a small sigh. It was one thing for him to risk his life to save Morgan; it was quite another to ask his friends. But from the moment he'd met these men, he'd known he could rely on them.

“I've got to take care of something,” Shane said, and headed for the door. Before he left, he looked at Max. “Fill him in on what we've been talking about.”

“Sure,” Max said as though they were about to discuss strategy for a football game. “We've got to kill or disable as many of them as possible without making any noise.”

“Maybe with guns that fire tranc darts,” Jack said. “And knives.”

They made their preparations quickly, because their window of opportunity was growing short. After dressing in black stealth outfits, they went out to the firm's helo hangar and started loading equipment in the helicopter. All of them were certified to pilot the craft, but Jack took the controls because he'd had the most flight time. Less than two hours after they'd gotten the phone call from Trainer, they were in the air.

***

A knock at the door of her cell startled Morgan.

“Come,” Trainer called out.

One of his militiamen, decked out in full combat gear, including a wicked-looking assault rifle, stepped smartly into the room.

“You asked for a face-to-face report, sir.”

Trainer nodded.

“All troops are in position. There has been no sighting of the Rockfort men.”

“Probably because they haven't had time to get here,” the militia leader said. He climbed to his feet. “I'm going to inspect the positions.”

He looked at Morgan and grinned. “Wait here for me.”

She wanted to say something sarcastic, but she knew it was better to act like she was completely pacified.

Without giving her another look, he marched out of the torture chamber.

***

Outside, Wade took a deep breath, relieved to be out of that small room. This wasn't going exactly the way he'd anticipated. He liked having Morgan Rains in his power, but for now she was a means to an end. He couldn't focus on her the way he'd like to. He'd gotten excited when he'd thought about raping her. The same was true when he'd thought about what he could do to her with his implements. But to be brutally honest, he knew he couldn't enjoy any of those activities right now. He had to stay focused on the Rockfort men. A major distraction would be a serious mistake.

The security agents were coming to rescue the woman, and he had to be ready for them.

When they were all dead, he'd give himself some quality time to make Morgan Rains scream for mercy. And he'd finally give it to her with a bullet in the brain.

Of course, he wasn't going to let her know his state of mind. Right now, he had her where he wanted her, and if need be, he could go ahead and kill her. Then he wouldn't have to worry about the bitch at all.

Putting her out of his mind for the moment, he followed Salter around the camp, inspecting the preparations for the invasion.

***

The moment Trainer was gone, Morgan dragged in a breath and let it out. Now that she was alone, it was almost impossible to keep from weeping. Or cursing. But neither of those would do her any good. She had to keep her head and figure out how she could help herself. She started by giving the room a closer inspection. It was about thirteen feet square, she judged, with gray walls that looked like they were made of cinder block and a cement floor with a drain in the middle.

Nice! Was that to get rid of the blood?

And was this where Trainer had tortured Jack? She shuddered.

“Jack. Oh, Jack,” she whispered. They hadn't had much time together, but that time had completely changed her life. She'd been going through the motions of existence before he'd stumbled into the woods near her mountain retreat.

Every moment with him had made her feel more alive than she ever had. It was like that Hemingway short story she'd read in a lit course in college. “The Short Happy Life of Francis Macomber,” about a miserable little man who comes alive on a big-game hunting expedition in Africa, and then his wife shoots him.

She shuddered. No, this was nothing like that story. It was only the title that was gnawing at her. She was going to survive. And so was Jack. She didn't know how it was going to happen, but she wouldn't let everything end now—not when she was so close to happiness.

After taking a couple of deep, cleansing breaths, she began testing her bonds. Her wrists were circled with leather cuffs, but they were held to the bed with ropes. She pulled on them and found very little give. Moving as much as she could, she felt along the edge of the metal bed and found a place where the rough, flat end of a screw stuck out from the frame. Could she use it to saw through the rope? It seemed unlikely—and impossible when Trainer was in the room. But he was somewhere else now, and she wasn't going to simply lie here and wait for him to kill her. Or do anything else he wanted.

Grimly she began moving her hand, dragging the rope back and forth across the screw head. Every time she moved, the manacle chafed against her wrist, but she kept working on the rope anyway.

There was no way to judge time in this little room. She worked for what she thought might be twenty minutes, then turned her head and inspected her efforts. It looked like she was making some progress. Some of the strands of the rope had now parted, but she'd barely scratched the surface. It was going to take a lot more sawing to get through the rope. The question was, did she have the time?

The door opened abruptly, and she went instantly still.

Trainer was back. “Everything's ready for your new best friends,” he said in a cheerful voice. “I don't think they're getting onto the militia compound, but if they do, my fierce troops will cut them down. And even if they get to this room, if they open the door, they'll get blown to smithereens.”

When Morgan couldn't hold back a gasp, Trainer grinned at her.

***

Above the noise of the rotors, Jack, Shane, and Max used the comms units on the helicopter to discuss their plans as they flew toward the airport outside Skyline, Virginia. They'd all studied aerial maps of the compound before Jack had approached Trainer, but now he reminded the other two men of the layout.

“The living quarters, infirmary, mess hall, and Trainer's office are all grouped together. Behind them are the storage buildings. And behind them are the firing ranges, obstacle course, and other training grounds. Look for the lights, and you'll see a big open area.”

“Where do you think he'll be holding Morgan?”

“Maybe the place where he tortured me,” Jack answered, keeping his voice even.

“Which is where?”

“An annex to the infirmary. With no windows,” Jack answered. “We'll rendezvous at the edge of the firing range closest to the building complex.”

After the others had asked some questions, Jack continued, “Trainer will have his main force at the front gate.”

“No other way in?” Shane asked.

“There's a high-voltage electric fence. And there's no back exit.”

“Some men will be patrolling the grounds.”

“They'll probably be our main problem. The guys at the gates will be behind barricades, but facing the wrong way.”

It helped Jack to discuss the plans, but he knew there was no way they could come up with firm tactics until they were inside the compound.

His heart was pounding as they approached the airport and scanned the tarmac. He'd said he could guarantee the transportation, but it was a relief to see the gliders waiting in the shadows on the ground.

They were shaped like small planes, with a transparent canopy that resembled the top of a fighter plane, only this was made of a much lighter material. Everything about the gliders was light because they had no engines to keep them aloft.

Aside from that, they had many of the same components as ordinary aircraft, but on a much smaller scale and in somewhat different proportions. The wings were longer and narrower. The fuselage was also narrow because there was no engine. And the landing gear consisted of a single wheel.

Jack set the chopper down near one of the hangars and cut the engine, then hurried over to the pilots of the small planes, both single-engine Cessnas.

“I appreciate your coming on such short notice,” he said to the pilots.

One was a short, middle-aged man dressed in jeans and a plaid shirt. The other was a taller, younger guy wearing a running suit. “I wasn't going to turn down the kind of money you're paying.” The man inclined his head toward the gliders. “You sure you want to leave before dawn? Riding those things in the dark is dangerous.”

Max had joined them. “We're thrill seekers,” he said with an easy confidence.

The guy looked them up and down. “Your funeral,” he answered.

“We'd better get going,” Jack said as he gave the pilots the coordinates of where he wanted the gliders to be released.

They divided up the gear, with Max taking more of it to compensate for the weight of the two men in the other glider.

All of the Rockfort agents were experienced pilots, which made it easy for Jack to give Max a quick lesson on steering and landing the craft.

“You good to go?” Jack asked.

Max stroked the smooth fiberglass skin of the little craft. “As ready as you are.”

The pilots of the Cessnas hooked towropes to the gliders.

Jack and Shane slipped into the first one, with Shane in front and Jack in back with the steering mechanism. Both stretched out their legs on the deck in front of them and leaned against the backrests before pulling the canopy into place.

The small plane towing Shane and Jack's glider took off, and he felt a surge of elation as they went airborne. Finally they were doing something!

As they lifted into the air, he spoke to Morgan in a barely audible whisper, making promises he hoped he could keep. “Hang on until we get there. Just hang on. Just stay alive until I can get you out of there.”

When they reached the agreed-upon coordinates, Shane released the towrope, and the glider went free. Jack worked the foot pedals to control the rudder, circling above the second plane, watching in the gray light that comes before dawn as the other glider also detached. When he was sure Max was with him, he pointed the nose toward the militia compound.

They were maintaining radio silence in case Trainer was listening to find out when they were coming in for a rescue attempt, so Jack couldn't communicate with Max. But he could see the silvery shadow of the other glider plane behind him.

Jack checked the altimeter and the airspeed indicator, then worked the rudder to point the nose toward the right. Below him he could see trees and mountains and occasional lights from widely scattered homes.

The gray light before sunrise helped him see where he was headed. At the same time, the approaching dawn increased the risk of being discovered by the militiamen on the ground.

But they wouldn't be expecting a silent attack from the sky, and they wouldn't be looking up, Jack told himself, hoping that was true.

***

Morgan breathed out a sigh. Trainer was gone again, obviously nervous about his defenses and anxious to check them again. She went back to frantically working on the rope that tied her right wrist to the iron bed. She'd sawed partway through the rope, and maybe she could free herself. But then what?

When she'd first awakened, she'd been frightened and at the same time full of hope—knowing that Jack would be coming to rescue her. Now she didn't know what to pray for. The idea of his getting killed trying to get to her made her chest tighten so painfully that she could barely breathe.

Could she free herself and somehow disable Trainer? Maybe that was her only option. And she knew her chances were slim. But she had to try because she wasn't simply going to lie here and let him kill her—and Jack, too.

Clenching her teeth against the pain in her wrists, she redoubled her efforts, sawing at the rope on her right arm with all the energy she had, telling herself she was making progress.

Stopping, she pulled at the rope, but not enough fibers had been cut for her to sever the rest of the cord.

She bit back a sob of frustration. This was going to take forever. But what else did she have to do?

Doggedly she went back to work, until she heard the doorknob turn again.

Her heart leaped into her throat. She could feel sweat beading her brow. Did she look like she'd been working hard at something?

She turned her face away when he came in, hoping she was looking fearful instead of flushed from sawing at the bonds. Still, she could see him from the corner of her eye standing over her.

She lay perfectly still on the uncomfortable bed, praying that he wasn't going to bend down and examine the ropes.

When he walked a few feet away, she let the breath she'd been holding trickle out of her lungs.

In her mind she was making desperate calculations, weighing advantages and disadvantages of her next move.

Trainer made the decision for her. “Maybe your boyfriend isn't coming for you.”

“I hope he's not.”

“You don't mean that.”

She turned her head toward him.

“If you're going to kill me, I don't want him dead too.”

“It's not a question of if.”

Instead of responding to the taunt, she asked, “How do you think I got here?”

“My moneyman came up with a scheme to get Jack and his friend away from the safe house. We attacked their offices, and while they were rushing to the rescue, he swooped in and got you.”

“And how did he do it?” she pressed.

“He gave you a knockout shot.”

“I mean, how did he tell you he was getting past the safe house defenses?”

“What does that matter?”

“Did you know he's the man who hired Jack to spy on you?”