Breaking the Rules (62 page)

They’d gone as far they could risk going in via car, but they still had about a half a mile of ground to cover before they had to slow their pace and move covertly.

Normally, a half-mile run would’ve been a piece of cake. But Dan hadn’t done more than very short spurts of fast movement for quite a few weeks. Running half of a mile seemed as daunting a task as running a full marathon immediately after eating a huge Thanksgiving dinner.

Izzy was on the phone again with Jenk as Dan hauled Izzy’s bag out of the backseat of the car that they’d driven off the dirt road and down into a gully, where it wouldn’t be seen by any casual passersby.

The sun was going to come up soon, and the sky to the east was already giving off the start of a predawn glow.

It was actually a good time to approach a guarded facility. If the guards had NVs—night-vision glasses—they’d have to take them off. Even just that little glow from the sky would prove to be too bright and would distort their vision. But without the NVs, the desert would seem
otherworldly. Heat would stir and shimmy. And darkness and shadows would prevail.

Now, if the guards had infrared glasses, able to pick up the heat signal from a human being … Then they were completely screwed.

Because Izzy and Dan had, between them, a series of kitchen knives, each blade duller than the last.

Dan would have preferred an M16 or a grenade launcher.

Izzy snapped his phone shut as they headed briskly south. “You know Tess Bailey? She works at Troubleshooters with Lindsey? She’s their comspesh. She’s got mad hacking skills.”

“I’ve met her,” Dan said. “Yeah.”

“Jenk says Tess is using her home setup to try to access those satellite images, give us a better read on how many tangos we’re up against.”

“She can just hack into a high-clearance FBI—”

“I’m not asking questions,” Izzy cut him off. “When people want to help, I say thank you. If
you
want to be a Boy Scout—”

“No,” Dan said, working hard to keep up. “I’m just impressed. I didn’t think anyone besides WildCard could do that.” Navy SEAL Chief Ken Karmody, nicknamed WildCard for obvious reasons, was currently OCONUS, with most of Team Sixteen. So Tess Bailey would have to do.

“Jenk’ll send a text when she gets through. Dude. Gimme that.” Izzy took the bag from him. “You should’ve reminded me.”

“I’m okay,” Dan said. “But if you’ve got the bag? I’m good to run.”

Izzy looked at him hard, but then nodded. “Your pace,” he said. “Save something for when we get there.” But then he softened the implied
I’m reminding you because we both know you’re an idiot
of his words by adding, in his best Groucho Marx, “And save a little something else for even later, to throw to Jennilyn.”

“Zanella, you’re an asshole.” Dan started to run, slowly at first and then faster. Jesus, his leg hurt. And after all those weeks of sitting on his ass, his wind was for shit.

“What?” Izzy said as he easily kept up, bag and all. “I’m just saying. I got
my
self a post-mission plan …”

“TMI,” Dan gasped.

Izzy ran closer and put his free arm around Dan’s waist. “Arm around my shoulder, bro.”

And with much of Dan’s weight transferred to Izzy, they could both punch up the pace.

Izzy, of course, started to sing, because
he
clearly had wind to spare.
“The road is long, with many a winding turn …”

The song was “He Ain’t Heavy, He’s My Brother.” Through the years that they’d worked together, Dan had heard Izzy singing it plenty of times, along with a whole playlist of similarly themed tunes. He’d always thought Izzy’d done it to purposely annoy and just generally be an asshole.

But it was entirely possible that Dan had been wrong—and that Izzy sang the sappy lyrics because he meant them.

“Actually,” he gasped now, cutting Izzy off
mid-brother
. “I’d prefer ‘Lean on Me.’ ”

Izzy laughed his surprise. “I was trying to piss you off,” he admitted. “Get a little stamina-building rage burning.”

“I got plenty of rage,” Dan told him. “Those assholes have my family.” He corrected himself. “Our family.”

“Not for long,” Izzy said. And he started to sing.
“Sometimes in our lives, we all have pain, we all have sorrow …”

He really did have a nice voice.

The entire back section of the warehouse was air-conditioned.

It was separated from the main area by a heavily insulated wall with a single door in the middle that opened into a significantly cooler but still-warm hallway.

The hallway was windowless and ran the entire length of the back of the building, with one of those white acoustical-tile drop ceilings overhead and cheap linoleum tile in an industrial shade of speckled tan underfoot.

Eden’s heart was pounding as the two men who were escorting her
and Jenn led her to the left, past two, then three, then four doorways, all of which opened into dark rooms. She didn’t get more than a peek inside. Two had typical cheap office setups, with desks and chairs and file cabinets—she couldn’t see if there were phones on the desks—and one was simply empty.

“I really need to use the bathroom,” Jenn said again.

“I’ll get a bucket,” the man holding Jenn told her as he pushed her toward the very last room at the end of the hall. The door was shut and locked with a big thumb bolt on the outside, and he opened it and shoved Jenn in.

“Oh, my God, and towels, too,” Jenn said. “And that bag, from the van!”

Something was wrong—Eden could tell by the tone of Jenn’s voice, and as she, too, was pushed forward, into the open doorway, she saw … “Ben!”

Her little brother was lying on the floor, on his stomach, with Jenn beside him, checking for his pulse.

“What did you do to him?” Eden cried as she scrambled down next to him. He was naked—his jeans and briefs draped almost modestly over his bottom by whoever had left him there—and she imagined the worst. “No, oh, no, Boo-Boo …”

“He’s alive,” Jenn told Eden, her hands in Ben’s hair. “I’m not feeling any lumps or bumps. I don’t think he’s got a head injury.”

But he’d definitely thrown up, and he’d absolutely been hit. Repeatedly. His lip was bleeding and his face was scraped and swollen. He had a bruise already forming on his rib cage, too, as if he’d fallen and then been kicked.

Jenn leaned close as if whispering to him, murmuring something that Eden didn’t hear—as if beseeching him to be all right—as she started to cry.

Eden reached for his pants, dreading what she’d find beneath them, but to her surprise, Jenn reached out and caught her wrist, stopping her.

“Come over here,” Jenn said. “You need to …”

“I thought you said he didn’t have a head injury,” Eden said as Jenn physically moved her closer to Ben’s head.

But then she gasped, because his eyes opened.

Ben looked directly at her, and it wasn’t the unfocused, hazy look of a diabetic going into shock. His eyes were clear and filled with apology and understanding.

And as Eden turned her gasp into noisy pretend crying, as she shifted slightly to make absolutely sure that the guards couldn’t see Ben’s face, she understood why Jenn had been whispering and murmuring. She’d been talking to Ben, who was faking his unconsciousness.

“I’m okay,” he told her silently.

Was he, really? She had to ask. “Did they …?” She couldn’t say it.

He knew what she was asking, and he shook his head, furtively, barely moving at all. Still, he was definite. “I’m okay. I made myself throw up. Did you bring insulin?” But then he closed his eyes again, because the second guard was coming back into the room with a bucket and a sorry-looking pile of rags.

“There’s a bag,” Eden told the man—it was Nathan—as she wiped her nose on the sleeve of her shirt, “outside in the van. It’s got insulin and needles in it. I need it in here, or my brother’s going to die.”

“One of you’s gonna die anyway,” Nathan told her.

“Yeah, well, it’s not going to be him,” Eden said fiercely. “You get us that bag, or neither one of us”—she looked at Jenn—“will talk to Dan. Without proof of life, he’ll never give you Neesha.
Never.
”

Jenn nodded her solidarity as she used the rags to wipe Ben’s face, as well as the arm that he’d convincingly let fall into his own vomit.

“We’ll see about that.” Both guards left them then, pulling the door closed behind them and locking it with a thunk.

Ben sat up, talking softly but quickly, as he pulled on his shorts and his jeans. “This is all my fault. I couldn’t sleep, so I went out. They grabbed me in the courtyard. Eden, God, I’m so sorry—”

“They were planning to kick in the apartment door,” Eden told him. “If they hadn’t bumped into you the way that they did? Izzy
would be dead right now. They would have killed him. So no blame.” She hugged him, hard, then pulled back to look him in the eye. “They really didn’t …?”

“No,” he said. “I’m okay. They took pictures of me. That was it.”

“Pictures of you naked?” Unlike Eden, Jenn still hadn’t figured it out.

“They’re going to auction me off,” Ben told her.

“Oh, my God,” Jenn said.

Jake had originally said that Eden and Jenn were to be photographed, too. Until he’d decided he was going to kill one of them.

Ben looked at Eden. “Are Danny and Izzy—”

“Coming,” Eden said. “They’re going to get you out.”

“Us,” Jenn said sharply. “All of us.”

Eden didn’t look at her. “I’ve already decided. If it comes down to it? It’s going to be me.”

Ben looked from Eden to Jenn and back. “What—” he started.

“We’re
all
getting out of here,” Jenn said again. She turned to Ben. “Ben—”

“Don’t scare him!” Eden said hotly.

“He’s not a child,” Jenn countered. “Not with
that
mother. So don’t treat him like one.” She turned to Ben. “Jake—the skinhead—said that if Danny didn’t tell him where Neesha was? One of us was going to die.”

Ben turned to look at Eden, his mouth open, as he realized what her words had meant.

“None of us are tied up,” Jenn continued, “so I say, if it comes to that, we …” She took a deep breath. “We go for it. We jump them. We try to get their guns. In fact, why wait? The next person who opens that door—”

“Unless he’s got Eden’s bag from the van,” Ben interrupted her. He turned back to Eden. “Did you bring only the insulin, or the glucagon, too?”

“I brought everything,” Eden told him. “The meter, too. We didn’t know what you’d need.”

“I don’t need anything,” Ben reassured her as Jenn looked up at the ceiling, which was too high for them to reach, even if Eden stood on Ben’s shoulders. “I was thinking we could try to use the glucagon on the guard.”

“That’s the drug that raises your blood sugar?” Jenn asked, turning her attention to the air conditioner that was set into the wall.

“Yeah,” Ben said. “Unlike the insulin I use, it’s super fast-acting.”

“What’ll it do to him?” she asked.

“I don’t know,” Ben said, “but I’m pretty sure it’ll mess him up. When I take it? When I
need
it? It knocks me to my knees. Total puke-city.”

Eden said, “At which point, we grab his gun.”

Jenn smiled at her. “That’s a much better plan. Not that I didn’t appreciate your selfless sacrifice, but … You’re not expendable.”

“Still,” Eden said. “If it comes to it …”

“It won’t,” Jenn insisted, back to gazing at that air conditioner.

Ben nodded up at it. “It’s in there solidly. Believe me. I’ve been in here for a while—the only way out? Is through that door.”

Neesha had to pee.

She’d been crouched there, back behind the sofa for such a long time. And even though she hadn’t had anything to drink or to eat, nature called.

She considered relieving herself right there, but it seemed ungrateful and impolite.

So she took the gun and the cell phone that Dan had given her, and she went into the bathroom. She left the door open and the gun on her lap. It was cold against her knees, so she pulled her pants up a little bit farther than she normally would and kept the fabric between the metal and her skin.

She didn’t hear it over the sound of her water. That was what her mother had called it—
making water
.

And because she was making water, she didn’t hear the sound of the key in the lock. She didn’t hear the sound of footsteps in the entryway, or even down the hall.

He just suddenly appeared, standing right outside the bathroom doorway, with a gun of his own in his hand, aimed directly at her, and she froze.

Todd.

He smiled when he saw her.

Neesha couldn’t keep her terror from her face, from her eyes, and his smile grew into a grin and then a genuine laugh of amusement. “Well, isn’t
this
a lovely surprise,” he said.

And instead of sending a bullet into her head and killing her right then, right there, he slipped his gun into a holster that he wore beneath his left arm, and he locked it into place. At first she didn’t understand, but then he reached for the buckle of his belt, because he thought he had the power, because he hadn’t seen her weapon. “I don’t have to call the boss
right
away,” he said.

And she didn’t wait a second longer.

Neesha picked up the gun from her lap with her right hand, bracing it with her left the way Danny had demonstrated.

And now Todd’s were the eyes that were widened in fear, as she didn’t hesitate. She aimed for the center of his body, and she pulled the trigger and pulled the trigger and pulled the trigger and pulled the trigger as he fell back against the closed bedroom door, leaving a smear of blood behind him.

The noise was incredible and someone was screaming—not Todd, though. He’d screamed his last. When he’d fallen, one of her bullets had connected with his head, and she had no doubt that he was dead.

It was Neesha, herself, who’d made that noise like a wild animal, high-pitched and rough in the back of her throat as the trigger clicked and clicked and clicked—her gun long emptied.

So she put the weapon down on the counter and finished her business, carefully washing her hands in the sink.