Hard and Fast (25 page)

Out in the hallway, she walked quickly toward the staircase, looked behind her repeatedly to ensure she wasn’t being follow by Lucas or anyone else. Once she got to Marco’s hotel room, she would send a text message to Ned and he could meet her there. Sure, he’d be mad, and so would Lucas, but Alex really didn’t care what either of them had to say at that moment.

Once through the heavy metal exit doors, she started jogging down the stairs, staying alert to any sign of movement around her. But the only thing she could hear was the echo of her footsteps and the sound of Lucas’s dismissive voice in her mind.

Alex stopped on the landing of the second floor, when the lump in her throat became too constricting to breathe around. A deep sob escaped her lips before she could cover her mouth and stifle it. She was not going to stand here and cry over a man. Not now
.

Determined to get herself together, Alex bit down hard on her bottom lip and pressed the heels of her hand into her eyes, trying to suppress any tears that still threatened to escape. Once she was with Marco, everything would be fine. She’d have time to think things through and hopefully remember what was real.

Alex took another deep breath and reached out to open the stairwell door. But it suddenly swung toward her, causing her to stumble in alarm. She tried to step back, down to the lower step, but she missed it in her haste and faltered backward wildly. Arms flailing, she tried to grab the handrail to prevent herself from falling. Then, rough hands were gripping her arms, pulling her back onto the stair landing.

“Whoa,” said Bobby Chiu, the Magnus race-team driver. “You okay?”

She let out a deep breath of relief.

“Yeah, you just caught me by surprise. For a second, I was sure I was heading down those stairs, ass first.”

“You’re lucky I have quick reflexes,” the younger man declared with a cocky grin.

“I suppose so,” Alex agreed.

“When did you get in town?” he asked.

Alex paused for a moment, remembering that Marco was not going to update her team until just before the press release, so Bobby still thought she had been on vacation in Europe for the last six weeks.

“Late last night,” she lied. “I was just on my way to see you guys. How are the road tests going?”

“Pretty good. We’ve been given an hour window to do trials on the highway along the race route, so I’m headed there now,” he explained, looking at his watch. “Why don’t you come along?”

Alex was ready to say no. By now, Ned and Lucas must have realized that she had left and would be looking for her. Marco’s hotel room would be their first stop, and all hell would break loose if she wasn’t there.

“Niles and Randy are prepping the car right now,” added Bobby, as though sensing her reluctance. “At least go over to say hi to them. They’ll want to hear all about your trip.”

She sighed. What could be the harm, as long as the Fortis team knew where to find her?

“Yeah, sure I’ll come along. Can’t wait to see what you guys have put inside the Evo,” she finally agreed with small nod. “Just let me tell Marco where I am.”

Alex reached into her right pocket, but it was empty. So was the left one. She tapped the pockets of her jeans. No cell phone. She then searched her purse, but already knew it wasn’t there. In her haste to leave the hotel room and get away from Lucas, she must have left her phone on the bed. She groaned with frustration. Lucas was going to kill her for breaking all of his security protocols.

“I left my cell phone back in my hotel room,” she explained.

“No worries, I’ll send Marco a note now,” Bobby offered cheerfully. “We can grab your phone when we get back.”

She didn’t want to explain why she didn’t have a room key, so Alex just agreed. He quickly tapped in a message on his phone, and they both heard a ping as it was sent.

“Okay, we’re all set,” he stated, then they both headed down the last flight of stairs and out the side entrance of the hotel.

CHAPTER 25

“Lita is a great cleaning lady, Lucas. What more do you want?” asked Kathy Anderson, Lucas’s neighbor.

“Maybe someone less difficult, for starters,” he shot back with exasperation.

“She’s not difficult, honestly,” she insisted.

“This is the fourth time in three weeks that you’ve called me about this,” Lucas reminded her, striving to keep his voice even.

“Weeell—”

“Well what?”

“Maybe I exaggerated a little. To Lita about how long you needed her.”

“Kathy—!” Lucas growled.

“Just a little!” Kathy stammered quickly. “It was the only way that she’d stay.”

Lucas sighed and rubbed the back of his head. Who on earth spent this much time discussing housecleaning?

“Kathy, I really don’t have time to deal with this right now. I’ll speak with Lita when I’m back in town next week, and you will likely need to find yourself a new maid.”

“Come on, Lucas. I know you’re annoyed with me, but just think about it a little more.”

“Kathy, I’m hanging up the phone.”

“Okay! Okay, I’ll talk to you when you’re back.”

They said a brisk good-bye and Lucas shoved his phone into his pocket, wishing he could get back the last five minutes of his life. He walked swiftly across the room and through to the connecting room where he and Alex would be staying until after the races. Since the door to that room had shut just a couple of minutes earlier, Lucas assumed that Ned had returned from the truck with their extra weapons and supplies. Yet no one was there. The room was empty. He walked around, thinking that maybe he had missed something while talking to Kathy.

Then, he spotted the cell phone on the bed, almost hidden between the pillows. Lucas leaned over and picked it up, just as the room door opened. It was Alex’s.

“You all set?” Ned asked as he carried their locked trunk inside and put it down on the desk across from the bed.

“Where’s Alex?” Lucas asked, standing up and looking around.

“What do you mean? I left her here,” Ned stated. “Did you check the bathroom?”

The door was closed, but something at the base of Lucas’s stomach told him she wasn’t in there. But he checked anyway, pushing open the door and finding the dark room empty.

“She’s gone,” he declared sharply. “We need to find her, now!”

Ned had the trunk popped open, and they each started to load up on concealable weapons.

“Where would she go? And why would she leave her cell phone? She knows the protocol.”

“I don’t know. Maybe she just forgot it.”

“Or someone took her?” asked Ned, and the two men looked at each other, trying to gauge the threat level.

“I don’t think so. Not forcibly. It was too quiet. I only heard the door close and I assumed it was you returning,” Lucas replied. “Call Sam and get him up to speed. I’ll call Marco. And let’s check both staircases and meet up at the truck. We need to find her fast.”

Lucas pocketed Alex’s phone, then took out his own as they strode out the door. He called Marco Passante while Ned was already talking to Sam.

“Is Alex with you?” he demanded as soon as his client picked up the phone.

“No. Should she be? I thought you guys were lying low until the press conference,” Marco stated with obvious surprise.

“That was the plan. But she’s left the hotel room by herself and doesn’t have her phone,” Lucas explained as he ran down the stairs, two at a time. “Call me if you see or hear from her. Tell your team to do the same.”

“Of course. They’re working on the Evo in the trailer. We have our practice run at ten thirty,” added Marco.

“Okay, my men with be there shortly,” Lucas confirmed. “I’m headed there now. I’ll keep you posted.”

Ned was already in the truck with the engine running.

“Sam and Renee are heading to the Magnus trailer, leaving the driver, David Ferguson, with the hybrid,” Ned provided. “No sign of Alex yet.”

“Passante hasn’t seen or heard from her either,” added Lucas. “There is no way she would just wander away without her cell phone and not go straight to the Magnus team. She knows where they are.”

“Which means that someone has her against her will.”

Lucas swore viciously, while his heart pounded with an erratic drum. He quickly made another call to Raymond Blunt, the Fortis tech wizard.

“Raymond, I need your help,” he demanded briskly when the line picked up, then quickly provided the pertinent details of the immediate situation. “I want a full search of the Whistler area over the last hour. Utilize every surveillance option, open source portals, and government assets. Pull in any people or resources you need and send anything remotely useful to the ground team.”

“You got it,” Raymond acknowledged.

“This is a diversion,” Ned stated the second that Lucas hung up the phone. “They want us looking for Cotts, leaving the Cicada car and design vulnerable.”

“Yeah, I know,” agreed Lucas.

Every fiber of his being was vibrating with the instinct to tear this town apart to find Alex. The idea that people had her, were threatening her, or planned to cause her any harm made him sick to his stomach. And he tried not to think of what he knew they were capable of or how far they would go to get what they wanted.

Then minutes later, they arrived at the Magnus race team trailer, sandwiched between two similarly sized car haulers with enough space between to fit a race car for quick repairs. Lucas jumped out of the truck and ran up to meet Sam and Renee who were approaching him from the side entrance. Ned joined them.

“We just missed her,” Sam stated gruffly. “She’s left with the Magnus driver to start the trial run for the Evo.”

“What?” Lucas growled. “Why would she do that? It doesn’t make any sense.”

“The guys here were surprised to see her. But there is no evidence she’s under threat,” Sam continued.

“Damn it!” muttered Lucas. “Who’s the driver? I want to know everything about him.”

“Bobby Chiu. He had checked out in our original security evaluation, along with all of the Magnus employees.”

“Then something must have changed since then. They’ve sent in someone familiar to lure her away—”

“What the hell?”

The exclamation came from inside the trailer. Lucas ran forward to look inside the long space. The two Magnus engineers whom Lucas remembered as Niles and Randy were standing in the middle of the long space, looking at all the equipment display screens that were now flickering as though the power was being disrupted.

“Purdy is here. He’s going after the Cicada,” Lucas growled, turning back to his team that now surrounded him. “Sam, you and Ned have to go after Alex. We don’t have much time. You have to get her back.”

“We’ve got it, Lucas,” his friend stated firmly. “The trials run south on the highway. We’ll head in that direction, and we will get her back safely.”

The two men ran back to the truck that Ned had been driving and took off again. Lucas ducked back inside the trailer to wait for the network attack he knew was coming.

“Lucas!” called Renee from outside, and the alarmed tone of her voice said everything.

He stepped outside with his pistol drawn. Three big henchmen were approaching walking shoulder to shoulder, with big guns barely concealed under their shirts.

“Any ideas?” prompted Renee as the men slowly walked closer.

“Let’s start by improving the odds,” Lucas stated, then fluidly pulled a small knife out of his belt and flung it at the thug closest to him, embedding the blade deep into the side of his neck. The man stumbled back from the force while his companions paused in surprise, trying to figure out what happened. Lucas and Renee both leaped forward to attack the remaining two, as the first guy fell forward onto his knees, clutching at his neck and trying to breathe.

The opponent Lucas faced recovered quickly and struck out at him with a big right hook. But Lucas saw it coming and ducked low, then came up with a hard punch to the guy’s kidneys. The thug groaned in pain and backed away while reaching for his gun. Lucas used the back of his left elbow to knock away the guy’s arm and the weapon went flying out of his grasp to land a few feet way. Lucas then rammed the heel of his hand into the guy’s face, crushing his nose. He repeated the hit two more times to ensure the pain was debilitating. The attacker dropped to the ground, grabbing his face and cursing in low, muttered whispers.

“Guys!” yelled one of the engineers from inside the trailer. “Something’s happening!”

Lucas turned around to assess the situation with the other assailants. Renee was dominating her opponent with a series of hard elbow hits into the side of his jaw, then she finished him with a roundhouse kick, catching his temple with her heel.

“Renee, I need you to locate Edgar Purdy,” instructed Lucas. “He’s here, somewhere close enough to access the computer system in the trailer through the Wi-Fi. I’ll counter his attack into the network, but we can’t let him get away.”

She nodded swiftly, then turned to jog down the side of the trailer into the busy crowd that passed steady in front of it. A few people did a double take at the sight of the three men strewn haphazardly on the ground.

Lucas went into the big hauler, pulling the side door closed and locking it from the inside. He sat down on a work stool in front of the onboard computer, quickly absorbing the rows and rows of code script than ran across the screen. Then he got to work. There was no doubt the hacker was highly skilled and sophisticated, using an incredibly fast spidering malware that was slowly breaking through the virtual personal network firewalls. Lucas immediately tried to stop the intrusion, but already knew it was too late. The hacker had a big head start and was only minutes away from breaking through. So, he changed his tactics, and focused his energy on wiping the system of all of the valuable design information with a custom, highly efficient data destruction software he had preloaded.

“Did you stop it?” asked Randy as Lucas pushed the stool back while clenching and unclenching his cramped fingers.

“No, I had to wipe the data instead,” he replied.

“But what about our information?” Randy probed.

“It was the only way to stop the attack,” Lucas explained patiently. “But we’ve only lost any modifications you guys have done since last night. I have your backup on a secure drive.”

The two men looked at him speculatively.

“This is about Alex’s hybrid, isn’t it?” Niles asked. “They’re still trying to steal it.”

Lucas’s phone beeped with a call.

“Renee, any luck locating Purdy?” he quickly asked after answering.

“I’ve got eyes on the target in the conference center, boss,” she confirmed. “He looks a little different from the pictures, with a full beard and his hair dyed dark brown. But it’s him. There are very few people in the foyer working like crazy on a very expensive piece of hardware, while a racing event is going on.”

“Keep your eyes locked on him. I’m on my way.”

“He’s sitting in front of the left fireplace, and I’m standing just inside the closest entrance doors,” she explained before they disconnected.

“What’s going on?” asked Niles as he and Randy followed Lucas as he unlocked the door and strode out of the trailer into the morning sunshine.

“We’ve identified the hacker. You two need to stay here and lock the door behind me,” Lucas instructed, then he was running through the parking lot toward the big building that was also headquarters for the Sea-to-Sky race.

It was a fast, three-minute sprint, yet it felt like an hour. All Lucas could think about was whether Sam and Ned had located Alex. Was she okay? Was she safe? Maybe he should take the time to call them for an update? But Lucas knew he couldn’t allow the distraction. If they hadn’t found her yet, and she was still in the hands of Purdy’s people, Lucas honestly didn’t know if he could stick to the mission plan. Magnus and Alex would only be safe if Fortis took down Purdy and his Crow organization. That had to be his main priority, and there was no room for any other focus.

He found Renee positioned exactly where she had indicated, and Edgar Purdy was still working on his intrusion attempt. She was right, his appearance was a little altered from the last picture they had, but it was definitely his old boss and mentor.

“Any change?” he asked right away.

“Negative.”

“Well, get ready for him to make a move,” suggested Lucas. “Any second now, he’ll be deep enough in my network to realize he’s too late, and there’s nothing there.”

They watched him silently for another couple of minutes.

“Any word from Sam or Ned on Alex?” Renee asked quietly.

“Not yet,” he replied in a neutral voice. “Okay, looks like it’s showtime.”

Purdy had just shut his laptop with enough force to suggest he was frustrated. He then looked around as though he suddenly realized his distractions may have been thwarted.

“You stay here, and I’ll flank him on the right,” he told Renee. “Then we’ll follow his exit, and take him down while he’s still on foot.”

“You got it, boss,” she agreed, and they split up.

Purdy stood up just as Lucas passed his position across the room. But their eyes locked for a couple of seconds from a gap in the crowd, and it was enough to spook his target. The hacker took off in a dead run away from him, pushing his way through a path of people, directly toward Renee’s position. Lucas sprung forward in pursuit, his eyes fixed on the top of Purdy’s head, only losing sight when the other man rushed outside through one of the exit doors, looking pretty agile for someone in his midforties.

When Lucas got outside, he was only a few paces behind Purdy who was sprinting hard across the grass in front of the conference center. Renee was even closer. She was breathing down his neck, when Purdy twisted his upper body and fired a gun straight at her. The loud bang echoed across the open area, and several people screamed. Lucas watched with alarm as his agent ran for a few more steps, then fell flat on her face. More people screamed, running away from the scene in fear.