Whispers in the Dark (39 page)

Resnick shook his head. “Who would know? The Petersons are dead. Grace and Shea were too young to remember this place much less get anyone back to it. They have Shea. They may even have Grace. We don’t know. Two of the scientists are dead. Two others went back to Russia. I know because I immediately did a search of everyone who was involved in this whole thing.

“All that’s left is me. And the few members within the government who okayed funding and got reports on the research findings, and believe me, none of those people are going to be lining up to do anything that would bring attention to this project or their involvement in it.

“If they’re getting this program up and running again and are using Grace and Shea as the basis of their research, they don’t want their dirty laundry aired, which is why they took out the Petersons and went after Grace and Shea. If they’ve made the connection between me and the Petersons, I’ll be next,” Resnick said quietly.

Donovan grimaced. “Well, fuck it all. I was going to take great joy out of letting Nathan nail your sorry ass to the wall and now we’re going to have to protect you too? You sure know how to ruin a man’s day.”

Sam stepped forward and Resnick and Donovan went silent. It always awed Nathan how much respect Sam commanded.

“Here’s what we’re going to do. Resnick said there are two entrances into the facility. The front door and the not so obvious back door. We can find the front door. We’ll need Resnick’s help to find the back entrance. So he’s going to go with Steele and his team. Except P.J. I want her positioned at the front entrance and Cole at the back entrance. If things go to shit, I want the two of you to take out anyone who isn’t us or Shea Peterson and provide cover for us.

“The rest of us will go in, take out any threats, locate Shea and get the hell out as quickly as possible. I’ve already given you all the GPS points of our rendezvous point. We’re on a tight time line. I want this to be a quick in and out. Clean and smooth. Just another day at the office. The chopper will be waiting to get us the fuck out of here. Don’t be late.”

“With all due respect, sir, where exactly do we fit into this extrication plan of yours?” Kyle Phillips asked as he stepped forward.

The Marine didn’t look at all happy not to have received orders and for all practical purposes had been ignored from the start.

Sam’s eyes narrowed. “The very
last
thing we need is for you to be the one who finds Shea. In her mind you’re responsible for where she is right now. What I need for you and your team to do is back P.J. and Cole up. Make sure no one comes in or goes out of this place except my team and Steele’s. And be our backup if things go bad inside.”

Phillips’s lips tightened, but Nathan had to hand it to the man. He obeyed orders. Without question. Without hesitation. Phillips gave a quick nod, took a step back and then signaled his men to fall back. In a moment’s time, they’d melted into the trees surrounding the facility buried in the mountain.

Sam gave the signal for Steele and his team to take position. P.J. remained with the Kellys while the rest of her team disappeared over a rise with Resnick to circle around back.

“Let’s go,” Sam said.

They paralleled the dirt road for the mile in, and when they reached the turnoff, they kept farther into the trees and picked up their pace for the last half mile.

Even though they knew where to look for the entrance, it was still difficult to find. It was very well disguised and surrounded by aspens and pine.

“Are you in position, Steele?” Sam asked into the radio.

After Steele responded in the affirmative, Sam ordered everyone to check in and confirm their positions. P.J. slung her rifle over her shoulder and climbed up a steep, rocky rise that overlooked the front.

Then Sam turned to his brothers. “Okay, you know what to do. Let’s get in, get out and get the fuck back home.”

Donovan hurried forward, ducking low to remain below the surveillance cameras aimed at the front. The others quickly followed suit until they were all hunkered down, plastered to the wall, waiting for Donovan to gain access.

He took out his handheld unit that hooked to a key card and swiped it through the security keypad. Within seconds, the door slid open and they rushed in, guns up.

As Resnick had warned, there were three hallways, one to the left, one to the right and one down the middle.

Sam pointed at Donovan and Joe and motioned for them to take the right hall. He directed Garrett and Nathan to take the middle and then jerked his thumb at Ethan to come with him to the left.

Garrett glanced at Nathan as they started down the hallway. “We’ll find her, man. We’ll get her out of here.”

CHAPTER 40

 
A
tear slid down Shea’s temple and disappeared into her hair. It worried her that she seemed to slip away with each passing hour. She was beyond the pain. She didn’t really feel it any longer. But she had a hard time conjuring up the simplest of things.

Her mind was a vast landscape of nothingness. Every once in a while she would try hard to remember what her purpose was. There was something she had to do. But when she did so, she was immediately assaulted with more pain and so she let herself slide farther into the abyss because there the pain wasn’t present. Her fear and anxiety faded to nothing. And she floated. Free.

Even as she knew this was all wrong, she was helpless to change it because she no longer had the strength to fight. She’d been brought to this place to be poked and prodded. Studied and observed. A nameless, faceless test subject with no feelings or rights. Her humanity had been wiped away as if it had never existed. Here, she mattered to no one.

She heard whispers in her mind. They called her name, but she desperately shoved them away and closed herself off, wanting to avoid the inevitable crush of pain if she allowed them to grow louder or, God forbid, she responded.

What did these people ultimately want? Did they already have Grace? Was it why they weren’t questioning her about her sister? It was Shea’s worst fear, that everything she’d done in the last year was for nothing.

A distant explosion rocked the tube she was imprisoned in. It shook one of the electrodes free, but there were still three attached, and fire sizzled through her body as fear spiked her brain waves. Above her one of the fluorescent lights crashed to the floor, just missing her makeshift prison.

The lab went into chaos. Screams, yells, equipment falling and being turned over as they all scrambled like rats to flee the room.

Shea strained at her bonds but there was no budging the bands. Panic set in and she started hyperventilating as the tube seemed to close in on her. Oh God, she couldn’t breathe. What was happening? Was it an earthquake?

Her mouth opened in a silent scream and then she yelled hoarsely as another electric current bolted through her body. She closed her eyes and retreated back into the void where insanity was the preferable alternative. To a place where there was no pain and no fear while everything around her went to hell.

JOE
slammed back against the wall just as Donovan flattened himself against the other. Bullets zinged from the opposing hallway and into the wall a short distance away.

“Motherfuckers,” Donovan swore. “On my count, you go high and I’ll go low. One, two…three!”

Joe turned the corner as Donovan went to the floor, guns up. Joe took out the two armed guys on the left while Donovan downed the remaining one on the right.

“Let’s go,” Donovan barked.

An explosion rocked the building and Joe reached back for the wall to steady himself. “Sounds like Garrett’s already having his fun.”

“It’s going to get interesting now. Keep your eyes peeled. Shoot first and don’t get
your
ass shot.”

“You have such a knack for stating the obvious,” Joe muttered as he broke into a run down the hall.

They passed the downed men, and Donovan stopped long enough to snag a security badge from one of them.

“Oh, come on,” Joe said. “You’re telling me the king nerd can’t get anywhere without a security clearance card?”

“Eat me,” Donovan growled. “This’ll take less time. Provided it works. If it doesn’t, we’ll just blow our way in.”

Joe grinned. “I like the way you think when you don’t have your head stuck in a computer.”

“I’m so kicking your ass when this is over.”

They ran down the corridor until they came to an open door. Donovan held up one hand then kicked in the door and went in, gun up as he swept the room.

“Clear here,” Donovan said.

They continued their path down the hall, finding evidence of hasty exits. There were overturned equipment, papers scattered everywhere, even a running faucet.

When they came out of the current room, a shot sounded and Donovan went down. Joe turned, laying down a heavy spray of bullets as he hit the ground to cover his brother.

Joe nailed one in the chest and he fell heavily. The other, Joe got in the leg and he disappeared around the corner before Joe could get off another shot. He turned his attention to his brother.

“Van, goddamn it, talk to me. Are you hit?”

“Get the fuck off me. I can’t breathe,” Donovan growled. “Fucker just winged me. I’m all right. Let’s clear the rest of the hall.”

Joe carefully pushed himself off his brother but kept careful watch as Donovan picked himself up from the floor. When Joe glanced down, he saw blood smeared on the white tiles.

“You’re bleeding, goddamn it. Where did you take the hit?”

Donovan put a hand to the tear in his sleeve. “It’s just a graze. Few inches over he’d have hit the Kevlar and then we wouldn’t be having this stupid conversation about blood.”

They moved more slowly down the hall, each facing a different direction. Donovan walked forward and Joe backed his way after his brother. At each open doorway, they stopped to clear the room but left frustrated each time.

“This is bullshit,” Donovan said into his receiver. “We’re coming up empty. What about the rest of you?”

“Steele and company are engaged. Phillips is helping round up everyone running from the building. They haven’t been able to clear their section. We’re making our way back as fast as we can,” Sam said.

“Us too,” Nathan relayed.

Joe could hear the frustration in his twin’s voice and the ache. He was afraid for Shea. Afraid he wouldn’t find her but also afraid of what he’d find if they came across her.

“We have to find her,” Joe said in a low voice to Donovan.

Donovan nodded and continued their path through the maze of rooms.

They burst into a room and quickly scanned the interior. Joe frowned, and for a moment it felt like someone had punched him in the stomach. He lurched forward, ignoring Donovan’s order to be cautious.

He turned in a circle, staring, remembering what he’d seen during his brief connection to Shea. “This is it, Van. This is where they had her!”

Donovan hopped over a chair on its side and turned the corner of the L-shaped room. Joe came up beside him and froze as he stared at the cylindrical cage. And it was a cage. There were no bars but it was no less a prison.

“Dear God,” Donovan whispered.

Joe bolted forward, his hand running along the top of the enclosure where Shea lay, her eyes glassy and fixed on the ceiling. Electrodes were attached to her head, though one had fallen off and lay by her ear. The monitor that he’d seen was to her left.

“Son of a bitch! We have to get her out of here, Van.”

Joe dropped his rifle and clawed frantically at the lid, trying to figure out how it opened. “Damn it, Van, how do I get her out?”

Donovan hurried around to the work station where the computers were and began tapping furiously at the keys. Joe stalked around to the other side and cut the lines that fed from the electrodes to the machine monitoring her brain activity. Then he leaned over the enclosure, pressed his hands to the plastic and put his face over hers.

Shea, can you hear me. Talk to me, sweetheart. They can’t hurt you now.

She didn’t move. Didn’t acknowledge him in any way. He felt nothing through their pathway. Just silence and nothingness. Calm. Eerie calm.

“Goddamn it, hurry, Van! She’s not doing good. Not at all. We have to get her out of here.”

“I’m doing the best I can. I’m flying blind here. It’s a complicated system. I’ll get it. I’ll get it.”

Joe continued to stare down at Shea, his fingers splayed out, pressed to the cool surface. He only thanked God that it wasn’t Nathan who’d found her. He’d have gone ballistic and there would have been no controlling him.

Suddenly the top lifted and started to open toward him. He backed off and ran around to the other side. The locks around her neck, wrists and ankles popped open, but she didn’t react.

Gently, Joe reached in and lifted her from the enclosure. She was limp against him and her head lolled onto his shoulder. Shit, this was scaring him.

“We have Shea,” Donovan said tersely. “I repeat, we have Shea. Give us your status.”

“Go out the front,” Sam barked. “We’re engaged in heavy fire. Back is not secure. P.J. will be covering your exit. Take one of the SUVs and meet us at the rendezvous point. Once we’re clear, we’ll meet you as scheduled.”