The Sphinx Project (24 page)

I rapped my knuckles against the door, listening intently. I heard footsteps and it opened a crack.

I found myself looking down the barrel of another assault rifle. For goodness sake, didn't they think for once they could just have a hand gun? All this 'my gun is bigger than your gun' crap was getting to me.

"What do you want?" the guy asked gruffly. He was dressed casually in jeans and a sports jersey, but he handled the gun like he knew how to use it.

"We're here to see Matt," I replied grumpily. In the past week I'd had more guns pointed at me than I had in my whole life and I was sick of it.

"Matt's not here," he sneered.

Pulling the phone from my pocket, I unlocked it and pressed call. Jake had set it up so I didn't have to figure anything out.

My eyes didn't leave the man's face. Moments later, the sound of a phone ringing erupted inside the building. The place must be one huge room; the sound reverberated from wall to wall.

Lifting the phone to my ear, I cocked an eyebrow in satisfaction at the guy pointing the gun at me.

"Hello?" Matt replied.

"Apparently you aren't here?" I said, a hint of a question in my voice. If he was planning on wasting my time, he was sorely mistaken.

The phone clicked and the end-call signal sounded. I heard steps striding to the door and a hand emerged, pushing the barrel of the gun high.

"Come on, Harvey, stop being a dick," Matt said, obviously tired. He nudged the other guy to the side and waved a hand to invite us in.

I stepped forward, examining the large warehouse.

The inside wasn't what I'd been expecting, to say the least. There were no piles of crates or cartons, nor was there any indication that any products were ever stored here. Instead, I saw a huge hall with two rows of beds down the middle.

Men milled around everywhere, all dressed in similar colors—black, brown and khaki—and similar styles, and yet they weren't uniformly dressed.

Gazing at the weapons being polished and prepared, I could see everything from basic hunting rifles and combat weapons, right up to the most elite of the sniper rifles. Every man handled his weapon with care and expertise. These were professionals. I doubted most of these men were anywhere near the right side of the law.

With a gasp, I turned my head back to Matt, who had followed me. I caught his gaze easily, since his eyes were resting on me already. He seemed to be waiting for a reaction.

"What's all this for?" I asked.

"A rescue. I told you that already," he murmured.

"Do you know where they're being held?"

"Not yet. We're still waiting on the intel."

"What if I told you we know?" With all of these men and resources, it made me happy to know something he didn't.

"We need to go somewhere private to talk about this," he said in lieu of an answer.

He turned on his heel and strode to a staircase set against the wall of the warehouse. He didn't wait for a reply or turn to see if we were following.

I wanted to growl. I didn't like him very much at all.

Raising my eyes, I could see that the steps led to what must have been a supervisor's office and a cat walk stretched the whole length of the building to a second office on the opposite side.

The office on the other side of the building had its windows covered over with black fabric. As we climbed the steps to the closest office, a tall woman with cascading mahogany curls stepped from the other.

She stepped onto the catwalk, but instead of walking toward us and the steps we were climbing, she dived headfirst over the railing. She was like a character from a video game or movie; she executed a perfect somersault, landing gracefully in a crouch below before straightening herself.

My eyes widened with shock. I had never seen anyone but the girls with whom I was raised do anything of the sort, and even then we probably wouldn't do it just to avoid the stairs.

Looking back, Matt saw what held us enthralled. "You didn't think you were the only ones, did you?" he asked.

I shook my head, following him into the office.

As I sat down, I couldn't stop thinking about the woman. Some of the men below had displayed expressions of shock, but most just continued what they'd been doing.

Matt sat down at a table in the center of the room. He didn't offer us seats, but I took one anyway. The table held a huge map, with counters resting on a variety of locations. He didn't waste any time.

"Where are they?"

"Apparently they're being held in New York, in some mountains. We have a list of properties in the car that we can cross-reference the description with," I said, annoyed that we'd forgotten to check the list before coming here.

"How did you find that out?"

"I'd rather not talk about it," I said, cringing at the memory.

"The people who run the operation control several different facilities. Twelve, to be exact. Most of them are within the continental United States, but the rest are scattered around the world." Matt stood, picking most of the counters off.

"There are two in New York. One's right in the middle of the city. The other is next to a little lake in Essex County, located on the southwest slope of Mt. Marcy."

"So how are we going to get them out?" I questioned, wishing he would get to the point.

"How do you think?" He gestured in the direction of the men downstairs. "The scientists have a small airfield outside of Albany. As far as we've been able to learn, they're going to transport them on Christmas Day. We just never knew which facility we needed to target.

"We're going to break them out before they can leave the compound. If we let them leave, they'll be near impossible to stop on the open roads. They've got additional security for the transfer too."

He took his time explaining every minute detail, from how many men there would be to what they'd be doing.

Mouse and two others would work on disrupting the surveillance equipment and breaking the electronic locks on the entrance to the labs. One team of mercenaries would sweep in, taking down the majority of the defense, and then a second team, containing Matt and myself, would follow with the primary target of locating and retrieving Nicole and Marissa.

I didn't like the idea of splitting from Mouse. Especially if it meant I had to put up with Matt. My head told me I hated him, but I still felt a strange urge to be closer to him. It was similar to the sensation his eyes had evoked as he lowered his head to kiss me.

I shook my head, jolting myself out of a daze. Why was I thinking about that kiss so fondly? He'd only done it to distract me before ruining our plans.

"There will be more men arriving over the next couple of days. The rescue will occur at midnight on the twentieth. We hit the road at seventeen-hundred hours on the twentieth."

"Why so early?" I asked.

"It'll take that long to trek up to the mountain."

"What are we going to do until then?" Mouse asked.

"I don't care. You can crash here if you want, but you have to stay out of our way," Matt said.

I nodded. That sounded okay to me.

"There's another office opposite here for the women to sleep."

"Are there many women?" I asked.

"Two others. Nike and Iona."

"Nike, like the shoe?" I asked, a little confused.

"No, Nike, the goddess of victory," Matt explained, a little exasperated.

"Oh." I wanted to slap myself. We'd been taught about Greek deities before. Heat flooded my cheeks as I realized I'd made myself look like an idiot.

"Iona is human, but she knows what she's doing. Don't talk to her. She's a bit weird about people. Nike is like you, sort of. You saw her before. You probably want to talk to her at some point. In fact, you need to," he said. His face softened slightly as he talked about the strange woman.

I felt an unusual tug inside me. It wasn't a pleasant reaction, but I couldn't place exactly what emotion it was. It seemed similar to how I'd felt when Nicole had gotten more chocolate than me when we were younger.

This was going to be weird. We'd never been trained to work with so many people. We knew the other girls' reactions as well as our own. What would it be like working with men?

"Go get your car. We'll open the garage next door for you," he said.

We turned to leave, but I heard him call me, voice soft. "Close the door."

I did as I was told.

"These men are good at what they do, but they're not exactly model citizens. You may be born to fight, but you're still a teenage girl. Stay out of their way unless you're with me or Nike. I don't want any problems." The weight of his eyes caused my skin to prickle.

"What sort of problems are you anticipating?" I asked coldly.

"You kissed me after knowing me all of ten minutes." He was calling me easy.

"You're an asshole." Tears welled up in my eyes. I tried to hide them as I spun to leave. "And for the record, you kissed me." My voice hitched. Why did it have to be now, of all times? Why did I even care what he thought?

I yanked open the door but he was behind me. His big hand reached over my head and pushed it closed again.

"I'm serious. If I find you flirting with anyone, you're out. Your sister can stay where she is."

He was so close that the heat of his body was warm against mine.

"For your information," I said, turning to face his judgmental eyes, "you're the only guy I've ever kissed. Some first kiss, huh? I guess it's better than nothing. If we hadn't escaped, I probably never would have had the chance, so I guess I should thank you. At least if they catch me again, I've got something to remind me why being a lab rat isn't so bad."

He stared at me, like he was only seeing me for the first time. I turned and yanked the door open, his hand no barrier.

"I'm sorry." His faint words drifted behind me as I stormed down the stairs.

A single tear ran over but I brushed it away before it could fall.

We retrieved our car and, as promised, they raised the rolling door high enough for us to drive in.

We unloaded our things and made our way up to the office housing the girls' sleeping quarters. I could feel Matt's eyes on me every time I passed his office, but I refused to meet them. I held tightly to my anger so I wouldn't break down and cry.

Iona, I assumed, sat cross-legged on a sleeping roll. She had earphones stuck into each ear and was thoroughly cleaning her weapons. Every one of them was disassembled and laid out precisely before her.

As we entered, she lifted her face briefly. She ran her observant gaze over us before lowering her eyes back to her work. There wasn't even a flicker of acknowledgment.

Another sleeping roll was set next to Iona's, leaving a large empty space on the other half of the room. We left our things there and returned to the car to retrieve the rest of our belongings.

Jake helped us cart everything in. Before we started actually arranging it, we set up a bed downstairs for him. We chose the one farthest from the others; he looked uncomfortable being here.

Every time I saw the sadness and resignation on his face, a huge sense of guilt rushed in on me. We'd pretty much ruined everything he'd worked years to achieve. It helped me forget my confused feelings about Matt.

We returned to where we'd be sleeping and for the first time since we had left James and Julie's, we sorted through all of our belongings. We had a lot compared to the men downstairs. Even Iona had very little in the way of equipment.

"Are you okay about working with the techs?" I asked Mouse quietly. I didn't mind Jake hearing, but would prefer it if Iona didn't.

"Yeah, you know it's what I do best," she murmured back. "I don't like the idea of you on your own up there."

"I'll be fine. Matt seems to know what he's doing and I want to find out more about this Nike woman." I didn't want to work with Matt at all, but if I told her she'd worry. "I wonder what will happen with you?" I asked, drawing Jake into the conversation.

"I don't care as long as I'm out of the way," he declared from where he was sitting, turning a tactical blade over in his hands.

"Careful, mister," Mouse cautioned. "I don't want to have to reattach your finger."

This brought a shy little smile to his face and he placed it back onto the pile.

"We'll need more ammo," Mouse offered, counting what was in the cases and the magazines. "I bet we can trade for some from some of those guys downstairs."

"Yeah," I agreed, "we'll see Matt about it before we leave." We had plenty here to trade for some extra rounds. Inside, I groaned. I wished there was someone else I could talk to instead.

Twitching the black fabric to one side, I could see exactly what was going on below. I watched them go to bed, one by one. Most kept their weapons close at hand and fell straight into slumber.

When the majority of the men were asleep, Jake slipped silently down the stairs to his little camp bed. Iona had fallen asleep ages ago, the little wires still stuck into her ears. I could hear some sort of heavy music with lots of drums and screeching and yelling.

She was weird, but considering her line of work, that wasn't really surprising. It was easy to see that everyone here was either a mercenary or an assassin. Already I could tell that they worked well enough around each other, but not really with each other.

They were used to working on their own and that was the one point I was the most worried about.

As soon as my eyelids closed, I heard the sound of the door handle turning. My eyes flew open and I watched a woman in black enter the dim room. She stripped down to her underwear silently before pulling the rough blanket over her incredibly long legs. I'm tall, but I was sure Nike would dwarf me. She said nothing, although she surely knew we were awake.

I could see that her boots, which she'd discarded haphazardly beside her sleeping roll, actually had a thick heel on them. This woman was completely badass, the way spies should be.

Chapter Twenty-four

I awoke late in the day but heard little noise from below except for the steady breathing, beating hearts and the occasional snarling snore. Iona was gone to who-knows-where and Nike was sitting in her bed, painting her nails a shimmering royal blue color.