Chapter 25
CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE
Katrina woke in a panic. She jumped to her feet and stood beside the bottom bunk, where she’d lain down for a nap. For a second, she saw the plain walls of the tiny room she’d been kept in for almost a year. She felt the cold wooden floor beneath her bare feet and the weight of the shackle tight around her ankle.
With her heart thudding out of control and breathing shallow and fast, she slowly looked down—to find warm socks on her feet and a generic gray carpet on the floor.
“Not my prison,” she whispered. “Not my prison. Not my prison.”
She curled her toes, the soft wool of her socks reassuring her that this was now. That she was out of that room where she’d been imprisoned. That she could leave this space any time she wanted. There were no shackles. No armed guards. No cameras.
Unsteady on her feet, she stumbled the few short steps to the nearest wall and flicked on the lights. All the lights. The shadows disappeared, taking the worst of her bad dream along with them.
“Panic room. Not hell,” she said aloud, but it didn’t help. There’d been many a time while locked up when she’d talked to herself. She needed to hear other people.
Forcing herself to breathe deep and steady, she walked over to the bank of security monitors on the far wall and turned up the volume.
There were two cops in reception, engaged in a heated discussion about a soccer match. Another officer was in the first-floor kitchen while two were going through the flats in the attic that were kept for any staff who needed them. The last one was in the armory, near the panic room in the basement, cataloging Benson Security’s weapon stash.
“Okay,” she said, her voice sounding much steadier this time. “You’re in the panic room. It’s three forty-five, so Ryan and Rodrigo will be here in fifteen minutes. You need a coffee, Kat.” Although, adrenaline helped sweep away exhaustion too.
Years earlier, she’d realized that the dreams would always be a part of her life, but they didn’t control her. She just had to deal with it and move on. It was no different from someone who suffered from a long-term illness experiencing unexpected flare-ups. She was fine. Everything was fine. It was all good.
Just as she finished making the world’s largest cup of coffee, her phone rang. The display said Julia, but she knew Ryan had commandeered her phone.
“Hey, Ryan,” she said when she answered.
“Good. You’re awake,” he said, making her smile.
“Of course I’m awake; we have a date.”
She heard the grin in his voice when he replied. “I’m telling Sarah you said that.”
“I’m sure Sarah wouldn’t mind sharing you if I asked nicely,” she said, and he laughed with delight.
Ah, Ryan. Katrina heaved a mental sigh. In another lifetime, he would have been everything she wanted in a man. But they’d met at the wrong time and gone in different directions. Still, she had a soft spot for him and would never forget his kindness in the weeks following her rescue.
“If you two are done flirting,” Rodrigo said, “we have a business to break into.”
“Yeah, and how sad is it that it’s our business?” She could almost hear Ryan shake his head in disgust. “What’s the status at your end, Katrina?”
She pulled out a chair at the desk under the monitors. “Six police officers, all over the building. Two in reception, one on the first floor, one in the basement, two in the attic.”
“Are they all awake?” Ryan sounded hopeful.
“Unfortunately, yes.” She glanced at the clock; it was a couple of minutes off four. “Are you guys here already?”
“Parked outside and waiting for the fun to start,” Rodrigo said.
“Are we sure this is going to work?” Katrina asked.
“Well, it scared the crap out of the London staff when it happened to us, and we knew about the security system,” Ryan said. “So these guys should wet themselves.”
“And call for reinforcements,” Rodrigo drawled.
“We’ll still have a window to get in and out before the cavalry arrives.” Ryan sounded sure, and it gave Katrina confidence too.
“Okay then, let’s get this show on the road,” Katrina said as she brought up the building’s back up system controls.
“Welcome to another edition of Thunderdome,” Ryan muttered, making her grin.
She pressed a button, and every phone in the building ran twice. On the screens, the police got to their feet and reached for the nearest phone. But there was nobody on the other end of the line. Two rings was a security signal Elle had set up to alert the team to an intruder’s presence.
“What are they doing?” Ryan asked.
“Talking, looking a bit shaken, but they’ve shrugged it off.” She watched as the cops at the reception desk sat back down.
“Hit them again,” Ryan ordered.
The phones rang again. And again, they tried to answer, but there was still no one on the line.
“There’s something weird going on,” one of the cops in the attic said to the other. “We’d better head downstairs.”
To Katrina’s dismay, everyone in the building who wasn’t already in reception headed there—exactly where they didn’t want them to be.
“This isn’t good; they’re all gathering in reception,” she told the men.
“Do the phones again,” Ryan said.
She did as he instructed and watched as the cops hurried down the stairs. “That just made them move faster.”
“Don’t worry about it,” he said. “Set off the intruder alarm.”
Katrina hit the button, and a computerized voice announced over the PA system, “This is an intruder alert. You are not permitted to be here. The police have been called.” The message was set to repeat on a loop.
“The cops are already here,” one of them shouted as they entered the reception area.
“There’s a glitch in the system,” said the female cop, who’d come up from the basement. “There has to be some way to reset it. Or a wire we can cut or something. I can’t listen to this on repeat all night.”
One of the cops in reception spoke into his shoulder-mounted radio. “We’ve got a problem here; the security system at the Benson building is going haywire.”
The radio crackled, and a voice replied: “We received an alert to send officers your way.”
“Cancel that. We’re fine. It’s a system problem.” He sighed. “Can you send someone to wake Elle Roberts-Knight and ask her how to shut this off?”
The female cop looked shocked. “Why would she tell us? We kicked her out of her building and put her in holding.”
The cop shrugged. “I’ve always found the Benson Security team easy to deal with. They’re good people.”
“Good people who’re in jail,” the female officer muttered.
Katrina hit a button, and the phones rang again.
“Are they all in reception?” Ryan said.
“Yep, they’ve called off police support and requested that they wake Elle to ask her how to disarm the system.”
Ryan burst out laughing. “Cut the lights.”
Katrina plunged the building into darkness.
From the sounds of it, the cops were freaked, but light from the street lights meant they weren’t in total blackness.
“I don’t like this,” one of the male officers said. “Maybe we should get out of the building.”
“Leave our post?” The woman sounded horrified. “I don’t want to have to explain that to Commander Fitzwater.”
“They’re talking about leaving,” Katrina said.
“Lock the doors. We don’t want them outside with a clear view into reception. The lamp we need is sitting on the desk in plain sight.”
“Where do we want them to go?” Rodrigo asked.
“Basement would be best,” Ryan said. “No windows and far away from reception.”
“The cop’s radioing the station again,” Katrina said.
“Jam all signals in and out of the building,” Ryan said. “I have an idea.”
There were worried complaints when their police radios fell silent.
“I’m calling reception,” Ryan said. “Once I’m done, cut the phones.”
“Got it,” Katrina said.
She watched the screens as the phone in reception rang. The cops ignored it until it rang for a third time.
“Officer Grayson,” the tall male cop said when he answered.
“This is base,” Ryan said. “There’s something interfering with your radio signals. Elle Roberts-Knight said this is supposed to happen. The phones will go out next. She also said the doors will be locked by now.”
The cop signaled one of his colleagues to check the front door. “It’s locked,” he reported.
“There’s a control room in the basement,” Ryan continued. “It’s near the changing rooms. Ms. Roberts-Knight said that from there, you’ll be able to reboot the system. The instructions are in a folder beside the console. You just need to—” Ryan hung up.
Katrina’s phone rang as the cop raised his voice. “Need to what?” he shouted into the now dead line.
“Katrina,” Ryan said. “Set off the fog.”
“Are you sure it won’t harm anyone?” Katrina brought up the controls for the fog cannons, which were ducted into the reception area through vents near the floor.
“Nope, it will just make it damn hard for them to see, which should hurry them down to the basement.”
“Okay, I’m trusting you here.” She hit the button, and fog started to stream into the reception area.
The cops went nuts.
“What the hell is this stuff?” one of them shouted.
The female cop coughed. “We need to get out of here.”
“The doors are locked,” the guy who’d checked them called out.
“The basement,” Officer Grayson shouted over the rest of them. “There’s a control room down there, and we can reboot the system.” The room was filling up fast. The police were just shadows in the mist now. “Time to go. We don’t know what’s in this stuff. Basement. Now.”
Coughing and spluttering, they ran for the door to the basement stairs.
“They’re heading downstairs,” Katrina said. “Is there really a folder in the control room with instructions on how to reboot the system?”
“Yeah,” Ryan said, amusement in his voice. “It tells you to do the hokey-pokey, then hit the big red button. Elle and I made it to play a joke on Isobel because she freaked out the last time this happened. We stuck a button to the desk for her to press. We got it in a joke shop. It says, ‘You rang?’ when you press it.” He burst out laughing.
Katrina shook her head. “We’ve only got a couple of minutes before they hit the fake red button and I need to switch everything off. I’ve locked the door to the basement behind them, and I’m clearing the fog out now. Front doors are wide open; you guys had better run.”
“On it,” Ryan said, all business now.
“I’m beginning to think I’m with the wrong team,” Rodrigo said as they jogged up the stairs to the front entrance. It’d been quite some time since he’d had this much fun. “You London guys sure know how to enjoy yourselves.”
“You’ll get there,” Ryan said as he held the door open for Rodrigo. “Takes time for a team to bond enough to take the ribbing.”
“Yeah?” Rodrigo asked. “How long?”
“Six years,” Ryan said with chuckle.
Rodrigo shook his head as he followed Ryan through the wisps of smoke to the reception desk. They weren’t armed, but then neither were the UK cops—something Rodrigo couldn’t get his head around. Anyway, they didn’t need weapons. This was a stealth mission: Get in. Get the info. Get out.
They were using Julia’s phone to talk to Katrina. It was in Ryan’s back pocket, but Rodrigo could hear her because they’d split a pair of earbuds between them. It was about as low-tech as they could possibly go without using hand signals.
“There it is.” Ryan pointed to the white desk lamp. “Keep an eye out while I grab the code.”
“On it,” Rodrigo said as Ryan rounded the reception desk.
“Katrina,” Ryan said. “How’re things going down there?”
“They’ve found the instruction manual and are arguing over the hokey-pokey step. The general consensus is that part’s a joke. Maybe. One of them thinks there are sensors set to record the dance as part of the disarming process.”
Rodrigo couldn’t help but laugh. “Where did he get that idea? Watching Spy Kids ?” he asked Ryan.
“You guys need to hurry up,” Katrina said. “Any minute now, they’ll press that big red button, and I’ll have to fake a reboot.”
“Got it.” Ryan held up a piece of paper with a shit-eating grin.
Then, as Rodrigo watched, his face went slack, and he let out a strangled groan. Clutching his head, Ryan dropped to the floor.
Rodrigo ran to his side, took the paper from Ryan’s grasp, and secured it in his pocket while Ryan writhed on the floor, holding his head.
“Katrina, we have a problem,” Rodrigo said to his teammate. “Ryan’s having some kind of seizure.”
“Can you carry him to the car?” Katrina sounded worried.
“I can try.” He bent to lift Ryan, but lights flashed on the other side of the glass front doors.
He ducked behind the reception desk and slid Ryan closer so no part of him stuck out from behind the desk.
“Somebody’s out there,” Rodrigo whispered. “Have you got a visual on the outside cameras?”
“Damn. It’s more police.” Now she sounded panicked. “Two officers with flashlights. They must’ve been sent to check on their colleagues.”
Beside him, Ryan groaned.
“Katrina, if you have any ideas, now would be the time to voice them,” Rodrigo said evenly as a flashlight beam scanned the reception area.
“I’m thinking.”
There was a rattling sound as someone tried the locked doors.
“Think fast,” Rodrigo told her.