Brain Storm (US Edition) (33 page)

"Down," Carla replied after thinking seriously for a moment. "There is less to search below us. It would be awful to spend hours making our way up through the building and all the time it be taking us further and further away from where we need to be."

Sara nodded. "If it turns out that there isn't anything down below
then
we can start searching up through the rest of this place."

They approached the fire escape and another plan came to Sara. A way that the searching process could be accelerated greatly. The trouble was the plan entailed a high degree of risk. It would involve using Carla and placing her in
harm’s way. A  part of Sara, the most clinical no nonsense part of her that took control on operations, would do it in an instant. But that part of her wasn't the only part that had a contribution to make in this. Over the course of their time together Sara had started to think of Carla as more than just the object she viewed most people as. Somehow Carla had slipped past her defenses and Sara no thought of her as something like a friend. Carla was easily the closest thing Sara had had to a proper friend in a number of years, perhaps ever, could she really bring herself to do this act of betrayal?

Carla stopped walking and regarded Sara. As the younger woman's eyes
scrutinized her face she got the feeling that she knew something was the matter.

"I have a bad feeling about this."

Sara managed to keep her tone even as she replied. "It's just nerves."

Carla continued to regard her. Years of training helped Sara to keep her face from giving anything away but still she got the feeling that Carla somehow saw through her. The younger woman held her in her gaze for a couple more heartbeats and then nodded and turned back to the fire escape door.

"I guess so."

Carla brought her hand to the bar running across the fire escape door. Sara had to choose now. In the end her indecision decided for her. Carla pushed on the bar to open the door and the fire alarm started blaring.

Carla released the bar and stepped away from the door but the damage was done. The younger woman was white with shock, all of the blood drained away from her skin as she listened to the alarm. She was frozen in place having no idea what to do now.

With her mind made up for her because of the initiation of the alarm Sara was ready to act. She grabbed Carla's arm and pulled her away from the fire door. She dragged the younger woman to the elevator and hit the call button.

Carla stared at Sara. "You knew that would happen." It wasn't a question.

Sara knew that they had only moments before a security team came to investigate. She should ditch Carla and get herself out of the way.

"Yes, I knew." Sara grabbed Carla's shoulders and turned her to face her, she spoke quickly and sternly. "Listen, I'm sorry but this is the best way. Any second now a security team is going to come up here. They're going to find you and they're going to take you and they won't be gentle. They aren't going to find me. You have to pretend that you are alone."

Carla couldn't believe it and it almost broke Sara's heart to see the hurt and betrayal on the younger woman's face. She shut her emotions off, she had to think clearly to get them out of this.

"Why?"

Sara continued, "When they take you it will be to whoever wants you. It will save us a lot of time. I'll always be watching you. You have to trust me, I will get you out of this."

Tears formed in the corners of her eyes but Carla blinked them back. "Bitch."

"I will get you out of this," Sara repeated.

Carla was still in too much shock to fully comprehend what was going on around her. The elevator doors opened in front of her and Sara pushed her inside. Sara stepped in behind her and hit some random buttons on the elevator control. She jumped up to open the hatch in the roof of the elevator as the doors closed behind them. She jumped up again catching a hold of the edge and pulling herself up into the shaft. Cables and motors beside her came into motion as the elevator started to move upwards. Sara maneuvered herself around the equipment and started to put the hatch back in place. Carla looked up through the hole, looking into her eyes Sara felt as though she had just shot the other woman in the heart.

"Trust me, this will work. You'll be taken to whoever is behind all of this. I'll be right behind you the whole time. You won't see me they won't see me but I'll be there watching over you. But they have to think you're alone for this to work."

"How do I know you won't just abandon me?"

Sara shook her head. "You don't, and nothing I can say will convince you. Maybe before I would
have just let them take you and cut my losses but not now. You are the only friend I've got and I don't plan on loosing you."

The two women regarded each other until the lift came to a stop. Carla looked away at the doors as they started to open and Sara quickly, but quietly, moved the hatch back into place.

The elevator shaft was in complete darkness the only light came through the holes in the access hatch from the elevator itself. Sara kept away from those small points of light but made sure that she could just about see down into the elevator.

Carla backed away from the doors as they came fully open. She looked even more frightened than she had done before. Again feelings of guilt over this treatment of her threatened to close in on Sara but she forced them aside so that she could act with a professional detachment. She hadn't been lying when she told Carla that this was probably the best way they had to get at the people who were behind the attacks on her.

A pair of armed security men, their weapons up and pointed at Carla, entered the elevator. One kept his weapon on Carla the whole time when the other swept his around the box in case she wasn't alone. Carla raised her hands and stood staring at the men.

"Turn around now." One of the security men barked instructions at her. "Hands, give me your hands."

One man covered the other when he grabbed Carla and roughly put restraints around her wrists. A third security man dressed in a slightly different uniform to the others entered the elevator as Carla was turned back around.

The newcomer regarded Carla and nodded. "This is one of the ones we were after," he addressed Carla. "Where is the other one? Where is Fox?"

Carla didn't respond. Sara's hand was on the grip of the tactical pistol under her jacket in case Carla decided to give her away. She found that she was holding her breath and forced herself to start breathing normally. If she had to act she would need the oxygen.

The newer security man, obviously the man in charge, took a step closer to Carla. He reached up to take a hold of her face under the chin. He tilted her head back so that she was looking directly at his face. "Where is she? You wouldn't have come here alone, you couldn't have got inside without setting off our alarms but she could have. Answer me, you won't like it if I have to persuade you to co-operate."

There was another moment of silence and then Carla spoke, "She left me. We came here to try and find out what you want with us. She got us inside but when I opened the fire door and the alarms started to go off she called me a stupid bitch and she abandoned me. She went back out of the window where we came in but it was too high for me to get down after her. She abandoned me."

Carla's words had the ring of truth to them, no doubt because she found it easy to believe that Sara truly had abandoned her. The security man in charge regarded the young woman for a long moment and Carla didn't flinch or look away.

"Very well." He turned to some of the men behind him who Sara couldn't see. "You, you and you join the team searching the first floor in case Fox is still there or returns." He addressed the two men in the elevator with him, "You two will escort Ms. Swift here with me." He addressed Carla, "You wanted to know who is after you and why, I'll take you where you might get some answers before you die."

With that the security man turned and left the elevator. One of the security men followed immediately behind the other grabbed Carla and shoved her out after them. As soon as they were out of sight Sara took her hand away from the grip of her machine pistol and started to remove the access hatch.
She set it aside and dropped back down through the hole. She landed as silently as a sure footed cat and moved out of sight of the open doorway. Coming down so soon after they left was a calculated risk, she couldn't follow too closely in case they spotted her but she also couldn't let them get too far out of the way in case she lost them.

Three of the security men entered the elevator at the far end of the corridor. Sara caught a glimpse of one of the others, who must have been one of Carla's escorts, as he left the corridor through a nondescript door on the right hand side of the corridor.

Sara hid back in the elevator until the doors on its counterpart closed on the three security men who were going to help the team looking for Sara on the first floor. She left the shelter of the elevator as soon as they were out of sight and headed off after Carla. She meant to keep her promise to get the younger woman out of this before anything happened to her. On her way she pulled each of her weapons making sure they all had rounds chambered that would fire the instant she wanted them to. She had prepared each of the weapons before they set off and several times since but it soothed her to check them again.

***************

"We have located the intruder, it is Swift."

The communication from the chief of his internal security team was short and to the point as always.

"We discussed this possibility. Swift can be dangerous but she has nowhere near the level of physical skills that Fox possesses. Swift could not have made it this far without Fox."

The security chief replied, "She doesn't claim to have, sir. She claims that when the alarm was initiated Fox cut her losses and left her behind."

"You believe her?"

"I do, sir. Fox is a pragmatist. Her training would urge her to leave Swift behind in order to ensure that she herself would be able to make a clean escape."

"I know all about her training. She has demonstrated that she can go beyond her training."

"I left a team searching the area where the alarm was initiated and investigating the point of entry. Further teams are conducting a search of the surrounding areas. If she is lying and Fox remains in the building we will find her."

As always the security chief had anticipated his needs. "Good. Make sure they are fully alert, Fox is very good at what she does we need to be better."

He cut the connection with the security chief and turned to the other person in the room with him. "It would be a good test of the new models skills to have them join in the hunt for Fox. It is a pity that the next batch won't be ready for another few years."

The woman in the room with him nodded. "We wanted to give the prototype a thorough test in the field before we tried to introduce them properly. In hindsight it seems we could have done with accelerating the procedure. Of course if we had been able to install a proper control mechanism on the prototype this would not be a problem," Christine said.

"I am sure you will be able to manage," he replied. "We should go to Swift to question her. We need to know what she knows about project Brainstorm and who she may have told. Of course I will need you there to ascertain the veracity of any answers she gives."

Christine nodded. "It will be my pleasure, Josh."

"This could be interesting," Josh Barret, the founder of Omnitech, said. "We will be able to see how her potential has come along without the proper education. Grosset has presented us with a unique opportunity."

***************

The security chief swiped a card through the reader and the large steel door opened automatically. The chief went through first followed by one of the other officers, the last security officer jabbed Carla in the small of the back with the tip of the barrel of his automatic weapon to get her moving after them. The last officer then followed her in and the door closed behind them.

The door led into yet another identical security corridor. Unlike those they had passed through previously this one was occupied. A pair of security officers, armed and wearing body armor similar to the two who were escorting Carla, stood on either side of the door they had just passed through. A corresponding pair stood flanking the door at the opposite end of the short, straight hallway. Again there were no other doors leading off the corridor which Carla took to be a good sign. A third pair of security officers were walking in the opposite direction and passed through the door Carla had just arrived through. The security chief nodded as they passed him.

She had no idea whether Sara was planning on keeping her promise to come and get Carla out of this situation that she had put her in, or whether the tale she had told to the security chief had been closer to the truth that Sara had allowed Carla to be captured to better effect her own escape, but if Sara was coming for her at least the trail was straight forward.

Carla was marched along with her escort to the door at the end of the corridor. The security officers either side of it remained stood as though they were made of stone. Only their eyes moved checking out Carla and her escort and even they were quickly brought back to their previous position staring at the other end of the corridor.