Stronger Than Sin (29 page)

Sanchez made a circular motion around the fairly empty area surrounding the possible location. “Seems like a lot of open space.”

His tech Manny piped up. “There are lots of small towns with fairly spread-out homes. Most of the space you see is probably
part of either Fort Dix or Fort Maguire.”

“Are you saying the military is involved in this?” Sanchez challenged.

Ramon was quick to clarify. “What he’s saying is that the two bases take up a great deal of area in that part of South Jersey.
In between them are the towns and lots of green acres.”

Sanchez bent and peered at the monitor once again. “According to this satellite photo, there are no buildings in the area.”

Manny tapped away on the keys and then said, “Satellite photo is nearly two years old.”

“The Wardwell scientists and their patients went missing just over a year ago. Someone could have built a facility there in
the meantime,” Ramon offered for consideration.

Sanchez pulled back his suit jacket and placed his hands on his hips. With a nod, he said, “I’ll call and try to get us an
updated satellite image.”

Ramon straightened from the monitor and faced Sanchez. “Can I call the local police? Ask them to check out the area and report
back to us?”

The FBI agent hesitated but then nodded. Almost immediately thereafter, he held up his forefinger and said, “But make it clear
they are not to engage. We’re dealing with a dangerous crowd who they are not equipped to handle.”

“Confirmed,” Ramon said and went to make the call.

Jesse’s unnatural roar, so much like Santiago’s lunatic howling when she had been held captive, stopped Liliana as she went
to exit.

She turned and watched as Morales jabbed Jesse with the cattle prod again.

“Run!” Jesse shouted and then grunted with pain as he dropped to his knees.

Morales stuck Jesse again, but this time her lover ripped the rod from Morales’s hands.

As Jesse rose, his sheer size and muscular physique intimidating on their own, Liliana noted the wicked gleam on Jesse’s face.
She’d seen that kind of emotion before—on Santiago as he killed the psycho mercenary who had been holding her captive. On
her ex-fiancé as he had pummeled her one night in a rage.

Debilitating fear gripped her, making her hesitate.

“Go, Liliana,” Jesse called out and she finally moved, dragging open the heavy warehouse door.

“Run,” she heard Jesse say once more, weaker this time. Then the howling began again. A strange, desperate howl filled with
pain and frustration.

Turning, she saw that Morales was on the floor but slowly rising. Before him, Jesse jerked and staggered as Jack laughed with
glee.

“Hit me, will you?” the man said, his hands wrapped around a small box. Wires led from the box to Jesse, who was still howling,
although not as strongly as before. His body twitching as he crumpled to his knees.

It took Liliana a moment to register that Jack had Tasered Jesse. That Jack was continuing to pump electricity into him, heedless
of the fact that it might be fatal.

Jesse was enduring the torture so that she might escape. All she had to do was step out the door, only something had her turning
back to the tableau before her.

Morales, cattle prod back in hand.

Jesse falling to the floor, his body still reacting to the flow of electricity.

They were going to kill him, she thought. They were going to kill Jesse because of her.

Liliana couldn’t allow that.

“I’m pretty sure there’s a warehouse up a ways from the road,” the sheriff said in response to the address Ramon had given
him.

“Is there any way you can send a man to the area to confirm that?” Ramon said, and the FBI agent beside him nodded in agreement
with his request, listening to the exchange over the speakerphone.

“Possibly. I think I have an officer who passes by there toward the end of his shift.” A muffled sound came across the phone
line, as if the sheriff had covered the mouthpiece while he was asking something, but then he came back on the line, loud
and clear. “Make that a definite. Should be able to swing by in no more than five minutes.”

“Make sure your man understands he’s not to be seen and not to engage. These are dangerous individuals with whom we’re dealing,”
Special Agent Sanchez advised.

“Ten-four. I’ll make sure he understands.”

Ramon met Sanchez’s gaze as they stood there, hunched over the speakerphone. He understood what the other man wanted. “We’re
on our way down, Sheriff. We could use backup if we need to enter the premises.”

A long pause was followed by a loud, uncomfortable sigh. “We’re a small force, Chief. Only four of us, and two are already
on patrol.”

“Roger that. I’ll see if I can’t muster up another man or two here,” Ramon said and then provided the sheriff with his cell
phone number so he could keep them advised of developments.

Ramon straightened and looked around his squad room. His department was bigger, but not by much. Besides his computer technician,
there was a desk sergeant and a community-relations officer. All were trained officers and certified to use a handgun, but
none had the experience necessary for any kind of raid.

His four other officers were out on patrol.

“Wintertime is quiet around here. I have two officers I can pull off patrol,” he advised and for a moment considered phoning
Mick but then remembered his promise to Liliana.

Sanchez was already dialing his cell phone. As it rang, he said, “I can roust two agents from the Philadelphia branch that
are working with me on this case.”

Ramon did the math. Six of them against Whittaker and at least two others. Two-to-one odds being generally good until he recollected
the information he had gotten
on Whittaker and his men, plus the 411 that Sanchez had provided.

“We could call in the state troopers,” he said, worried for his men and for Liliana and Jesse.

Sanchez nodded. “Once we confirm the existence of the warehouse, I’ll make the call.”

Which seemed logical. No sense pulling in a dozen officers only to find nothing of value, although with every second that
passed, Ramon worried about what was happening with his cousin and Jesse.

“I’ll yank my men from patrol. It shouldn’t take all that long,” he said, hoping their delay would not cost someone their
life.

Liliana took a deep, steadying breath, rallying her courage. Then she charged back toward the trio of men, setting her sights
exclusively on Jack, who was so gleefully electrocuting Jesse.

The little man clearly hadn’t been expecting her.

He cried out in surprise as she barreled into him, knocking him to the ground but failing to dislodge the Taser from his hand.
It was jabbing her in the midsection, since she had landed on top of the slight man, driving the air from his body.

She reached beneath her and pulled it from his grasp. For good measure, she yanked loose the wires from the machine.

From behind her came a footstep.

She knew what was coming and rolled off Jack, avoiding the first blast from the cattle prod.

She rose, but as she scrambled to get away, her feet got
tangled up in the loose wires from the Taser. She fell hard, scarcely a foot away from Jesse. He was lying facedown on the
ground, eyes open but barely focusing.

As Morales grabbed her, Jesse surged up off the floor and captured the scientist, freeing her. Jesse fell and hauled Morales
down with him, urging Liliana, “If you love me, you’ll go.”

Her heart broke with his words, but she understood.

She scrambled for the door, Jack just a few feet behind her. He caught up to her as she struggled to open the heavy door,
but she knew the only way to now save Jesse was to get free.

With strength she didn’t know she possessed, she jabbed the man in the solar plexus, driving the air from his body. When he
doubled up, she turned and drove upward with her knee. A sickening crunch told her she had connected successfully and Jack
stumbled back, hands to his face, blood leaking from between his fingers.

She dashed out the door and into the woods, searching for some way to hide. The pines here were thin and provided little cover,
but she ducked down, dodging from one large bit of underbrush to another. Trying to keep her steps quiet to avoid detection.

Finding one large pine overgrown with trailing vines, she hid beneath it and waited. Held her breath as from a distance came
pounding footsteps and the crunch and rattle of leaves and debris.

“Bitch, I’m going to kill you,” Jack called out and continued mumbling over and over as he traipsed through the woods, attempting
to locate her.

His noisiness was good, she thought, huddling in the protection of the foliage. She could tell that he was
heading away from her, searching closer to the road she had noticed on her dash from the warehouse. She had to get to that
road and follow it to what she hoped would be a main thoroughfare. For now, though, she just had to sit tight and stay free.

She didn’t know how long she hid there, waiting for Jack to finish his search. She didn’t dare move and possibly alert him
to where she was concealed.

The groan of metal filtered through the afternoon air, followed by the sounds of screams. Multiple voices, and in that cacophony
she searched for Jesse’s but couldn’t discern it.

Then came the heavy thud of a door closing, shutting off the cries of the patients.

Had they been screaming all during the melee to escape? she wondered. She had been so focused on Jesse and securing their
freedom that she hadn’t noticed. But now those cries, along with Jesse’s unnatural howl, whipped at her soul, forcing her
to act.

Cautiously she moved the first inch, holding her breath to listen for any sounds that might give her away.

Nothing.

She shifted another inch, finally poking her head from the protective cover of the vines and evergreen.

Nothing again.

As she peered back toward the warehouse, she noted the door was closed. No sign of Jack anywhere, not that she could rely
on that.

Carefully, keeping her head down, she moved from her sanctuary and out into the woods. Cautiously considering each step to
remain undetected. Pausing every few feet to wait and see if someone was still trying to locate her.

A loud snap came from up the road, followed by the sounds of tires crunching along the uneven ground of the dirt-and-stone
path.

Someone was coming.

She crouched low to the ground, held her breath as the noise grew louder, signaling the approach of the vehicle. As she waited,
she prayed it would not be Whittaker returning with his men.

Instead, as the car passed by, she noticed its two-tone paint—dark blue and white—with some kind of emblem on the side.

Police?
she thought and gingerly inched a bit higher, confirming that it was a police car heading toward the warehouse.

Joy surged through her, but she tamped it down.

She had to warn the police officers.

Risking discovery, she hurried after the cruiser.

M
orales jabbed Jesse with the cattle prod, but the only response he received was a reflexive jerk to the electric shocks. He
would have kept on electrocuting Jesse as punishment for his helping Dr. Carrera escape, except Whittaker would be angry if
Bradford ended up dead.

The warehouse door slammed shut and Jack rushed in, bits of branches and leaves sticking to the blood that had streamed down
his face and onto the front of his shirt. His nose was swollen, and the skin beneath his eyes was already turning black from
the female physician’s blow.

Unfortunately, Jack was alone.

Not a good thing. It wouldn’t take Carrera long to make it up to the highway and flag a car to a local police department.
They didn’t have much time left before discovery, especially if whoever had been monitoring the GPS signal had gotten a good
read before he had destroyed it.

As Jack approached, hunched over and eyes averted like a whipped dog, Morales pointed to Jesse with the prod.

“Get him back in his cage. I’ve got to contact Whittaker and advise him of what’s happened.”

Morales hurried to his office and slammed the door, dialed Whittaker while he watched Jack dragging Jesse’s body across the
warehouse and into the cage.

He waited while the phone rang and rang, then went to voice mail.

Weird,
he thought. Whittaker never failed to take a call.

Trying his partner Edwards, he had a similar result.

Unsure of why they were unavailable, Morales was certain of one thing—he had to clear out before any law enforcement types
arrived. As for Jack, there was no reason to bring him along for the ride. He needed someone to watch the patients until he
could decide what to do. If the police did arrive before that…

Jack had always been an expendable part of the operation.

Opening his drawer, he removed two handguns and laid them on his desktop. Grabbing his coat from a nearby rack, he slipped
it on and then tucked one of the guns into his coat pocket.

Walking to the far wall where Jack was busy cleaning himself at one of the slop sinks, he laid the second gun on the edge
of the sink.

“I’m not expecting trouble anytime soon, but just in case.”

Jack’s gaze jerked down to the gun, but he didn’t hesitate to tuck the weapon into the gap between his jeans and stomach.

“What do you want me to do with them?” Jack jerked his thumb in the direction of the cages, where the patients had finally
quieted down.

“Same as always. Keep an eye on them. I’m going to
meet Whittaker at the other location. I’ll call you with instructions.”

With that, Morales walked out, only to find a police cruiser pulling up in front of the warehouse.

Fuck,
he thought but planted a bright smile on his face and strolled to the clearing in front of the building.

Liliana was halfway back to the warehouse, keeping hidden along the underbrush, when the building door opened and Morales
exited.