Cassidy Jones and the Secret Formula (33 page)

Unmoved, he said, “I have seen you in P.E., remember? Trust me, climbing will be no problem for you.”

“Okay, I’ll trust you. So, you cut the electricity. Where?”

“In the basement.”

“Okay, you turn it off, dismantle the generator, and I climb to the top floor. Then what?”

He smiled. “We cross that bridge when we get to it.”

Briefly contemplating the possible bridge, I asked, “How do we know King has your mom and my dad up there?”

“We don’t, but it’s likely that he does. This is his fortress, his design. From the top floor, he monitors everything in the building and has made it difficult for anyone to get up to him. If he needed to escape quickly…Look.” He pointed to the building’s roof on the blueprint. “He has a helicopter pad, and I’m assuming a helicopter. You probably noticed the lights on the top floor. Someone is there, and most likely it’s King. If he doesn’t have our parents at this location, we’ll find out where he does.”

Again with the confidence
. “All right, what now?”

“You’re going to take out the security cameras in the lobby. Then I’ll come in, and we’ll locate and open the elevator door. I’ll go to the basement, and you’ll go up the shaft. From there—”

“I know, I know, we’ll cross that bridge. How do I get into the lobby?”

“You’re going to rip the door off the hinges.”

“I thought you said there would be no ripping doors off hinges.”

He grinned. “I said this plan would involve more than just ripping doors off hinges. I didn’t say it wouldn’t be included.” He pulled the hood from the backpack. “Put this on, and I’ll pin it down.”

After he safety-pinned the hood, I hugged him, which seemed appropriate before entering a criminal’s lair. “Goodbye, Emery.”

He hugged me back. “I’ll only be a few minutes behind.” Releasing me, he smiled. “Now, rip that door—”

Before he finished his last command, I stood before the tall, tinted glass doors of King Pharmaceutical.

Twenty-One

My eyes pierced through the obscured glass. The lobby, illuminated in dim light, appeared pristine, spotless, sterile, and without a security guard in sight. There appeared to be an unpreparedness about the scene, an invitation. I knew it was a trap.

Tuning in, I listened for ambushers, thinking perhaps they hid behind the long, sleek desk. I detected no movement, no breathing, only silence. Straining my ears beyond the lobby, I found only silence. I was dumbfounded. Why would King leave the entrance to his fortress unprotected?

An episode from the campy 1960s
Batman
television series popped into my mind, where the Joker trapped Batman in a room, releasing a poisonous gas. I wouldn’t have put poisonous gas past my Joker. Wondering if my lungs had super strength, I decided there was only one way to find out. I reached for the door handle. Grasping the polished steel handle reminded me of the forbidden door I had imagined when I made the fateful choice in P.E. Stepping through this door, I knew, would produce unfathomable consequences. My hand hesitated, until I realized Dad’s rescue could be the consequence or outcome of this action. For my dad, I could face the unfathomable.

As I yanked the handle, the door pulled off the hinges, hitting the concrete and shattering into thousands of pieces. An alarm blared that sounded like an old police car siren, and colorful lights bounced erratically off the white walls, floors, and ceiling. Stepping through the doorway, I entered King’s fortress.

As I walked across the stainless white floor, the alarm turned off. King’s face appeared on the huge monitor behind the desk. The strange strobe effect of the bouncing lights made his face appear ghoulish. He was the thing nightmares were made of.

“Hi, there, ninja. What took you so long? It’s not right to keep a guy waiting like this. So I see you’ve come alone. Arrogant little fella, aren’t you? Think you can come in here and take me on yourself, huh? Not that I have a beef with arrogance. Usually, I’d respect a man for it,
if
he hadn’t been sent to kill me. Don’t get me wrong. I’ve got nothing against you personally. I mean, come on, you were amazing earlier. Poom! Poom! Back and forth like that, and
then
…” King burst into a giggling fit. “The cinnamon roll stunt, now that was creative. It really gave me a chuckle. You know, I could use a fella like you around here. A busy guy like me needs a good laugh now and then.”

A voice in the back of my mind whispered,
Cassidy, don’t listen. Take out the security cameras. You don’t have much time
, but King’s rambling drowned out the whisper’s wisdom. Like a mouse locked in the mesmerizing stare of the cobra, I was locked in King’s madness. As if in a trance, I stared at his ghoulish face on the monitor and continued listening.

“If only I had found you before your lousy boss did. Now understand, ninja, my problem isn’t with you. My issue is with that no-good, two-timing Takahashi. Sending you after me…Who does he think he is? WHO DOES HE THINK HE’S DEALIN’ WITH?” He paused to take a breath. “Okay, I admit, I’m a little rough around the edges, but I’ll give a guy a fair shake. For instance, in a situation such as this, when an assassin shows up on my doorstep and stupidly gets caught, I might let him get down on his hands and knees and beg for mercy. Heck, I’d even hire the guy if he jumped fences and massacred the scumbag who sent him. That is, if I didn’t already hate the scumbag’s guts.

“Unfortunately for you, I hate your scumbag boss’s guts, and the only way I’m okay with all this is if I send you back to him in pieces, packed up in a nice pine box, with a BIG, FAT BOW ON TOP…So, ninja, now you know how this is goin’ down tonight. You die. But
before the gore fest begins, I’ve got one question. It’s been buggin’ me, really gnawin’ at the brain. What’s with the purple face? Don’t think I didn’t notice. I’m not blind.” He circled his fingers around his eye area. “All that purple. Now, that is just
weird
. Is it like some kind of tradition in your ninja order? Like a ranking thing? Your know, instead of belts, you bozos get different-colored faces?

“Be a pal, ninja, tell me. What? Cat got your tongue? Well, if the cat doesn’t have it, I will. Hey, I’ll mount it to my office wall and salute it with a cinnamon roll now and then.”

Entwining his finger, he placed his hands behind his head. His weasel face was smug. “Kind of amateurish of you, just standing there like that, or maybe it’s the arrogance. Doesn’t matter, anyway, ‘cause either way, you’re going to give me a good show. This will be fun. I get goosebumps just thinking about it.

“Now, you and bullets, I’ve already seen. Don’t get me wrong. It was exciting and all, but I don’t like reruns. We’re going to spice things up. Do it like real men used to. Hand to hand. Steel to steel. Blood, guts, the whole shebang.” Lifting his lips in a sneer, he growled. “Grrrr. Barbarians.” His eyes looked thoughtfully skyward. “I’ve always been partial to the Roman Coliseum. What I would pay to see those gladiators shred each other.”

As I overcame my numbness, my instinctive radar warned me of approaching danger. Senses alert again, I heard them coming down the hall and inhaled their scents. I counted seven. Their footsteps were heavy, and a clanging sound, like metal hitting metal, told me they were armed. Bending my knees, I crouched down in a defensive position. My heart galloped with anticipation.

 I am not an animal, but I will defeat these men
.

“That’s more like it, ninja! You can taste the blood, too. Hope you like the taste of your own. Now, if you don’t mind, I’m going to lean back in my big leather chair and be entertained by
my
coliseum. Don’t let these animals take you apart too quickly. I want to get my money’s worth.” His insane laughter rang through the room.

The strobe lights turned off. Overhead, a spotlight shone down on me, creating a wide circle. I understood the stage had been lit. My attackers were near now. I could smell them.

Then they appeared. Entering the room single-file, they fanned out, unhurried. The sight of them would have made me laugh if they hadn’t been there to kill me.

Done up King style, the huge men were ludicrously dressed as gladiators. They wore metal mesh tunics, tall gray boots, and scalloped metal breastplates slung over their broad shoulders. Their muscular chests were bare, shiny, and hairless. On their heads they wore steel helmets with nose guards and colorful plumes sticking out of the tops. Each man carried a medieval-looking weapon: a long-handled ax; a thick, studded club; or a spiked metal ball hanging from a chain.

One gladiator carrying an ax held it in the air. As he let it drop, the others let out a battle cry, rushing toward me with weapons raised. Though the advancing men were dream-like, my mutant side didn’t allow me to get lost in it. Without delay, survival kicked in, releasing adrenaline. With my blood rushing and lungs expanding, vision became my dominant sense, slowing the men’s motion and blocking auditory and smell. In the quiet, a focused calm took over as my sharpened eyes followed every man’s movement. My body prepared to engage. As the first weapon swung toward me, a dance began.

My body instinctively moved into a spontaneous choreography, following the rhythm of the swinging weapons and eluding them. Missing me, their weapons struck one another. During these moments when deadly metal bit into flesh, stimuli seeped in through my eclipsed senses, and I dimly heard screaming and clanging metal, and smelled fresh blood. But none of this interrupted the dance’s flow.

Seconds into the dance, I decided to end the gory performance. Now choreographer, my body moved fluidly through step combinations influenced by earlier imprinting. The other performers couldn’t keep up. When the performance ended, limp bodies, strewn weapons, and blood covered the white stage, and I stood in the center of it all. King had his gore fest.

Quickly evaluating the fallen men, I heard strong heartbeats and air flowing into their lungs. Though unconscious and bloodied by the weapons, no one was mortally wounded. Knowing this didn’t lesson the horror at my feet.

With the attack ended, my mind released me from the intense focus. I could now hear King’s prattle that had been an irritating background buzz during the attack. He hadn’t shut his mouth once.

“HOW’D YOU DO THAT?” he howled like a dog gone mad. “YOU! YOU CHEATED! YOU’RE A STINKIN’, LOUSY, CHEATIN’ NINJA!”

Looking at his seething face, rage burned in my gut.
This evil, sick man took my
dad from me, from my family
, I fumed,
and all of it is a game to him. This is a
game you will lose entirely, Arthur King
, I vowed.

Scanning the walls, I spotted four security cameras, one in each corner. Running toward the first corner, I leapt like I was making a slam dunk, grabbing the camera and pulling it off the wall. As his digital eyes came down, King’s rage matched mine.

“STOP! STOP! THIS IS VANDALISM! DESTRUCTION OF PROPERTY! I CAN’T SEEEEE!”

With the cameras down, I leapt up on the desk, making momentary eye contact with King on the monitor before ripping it off the wall and slinging it across the room. With his insane voice out of my head, I plopped down on the desk, sitting so my legs dangled from the edge. My eyes wandered over the unconscious, bloodied men, and then dropped to my black polyester pants, splattered with blood.

“Cassidy, are you all right?”

At the sound of his voice, my dry eyes filled with tears. Dropping my face into my hands, I wept.

Emery’s hands gently touched my knees. “I know this is shocking for you, but we have to move before reinforcements come. Focus only on the mission, and don’t let anything else crowd your mind. You can’t afford to lose concentration.”

Lifting my face, I looked into his determined eyes. “But look at what I did,” I whispered.

“They will all survive. You showed them mercy, and that’s more than they would have given you, and that’s more than King will give your dad and my mom if we don’t rescue them.”