Chapter Seventeen
“I don’t like this plan.”
Big Tag paced the floor of the house they were renting on the outskirts of Kathmandu.
“Or rather I don’t like this timeline.”
From the small windows Zach could see the mountains in the distance, including the one where Devi was being held. Where she’d been held for the last three days. Seventy-two hours where she might be tortured. He had no idea what she’d been forced to endure while they’d been moving things into place and waiting for Ben Parker to let them know he was going in.
Zach was done waiting.
“I’m turning myself in, and I’ll do it whether the Canadians are ready or not. We honestly still have to think about what Huisman said. I find it interesting that they were so gung ho days ago they couldn’t wait for us, and now we’re twiddling our thumbs waiting for them.”
“Kenzie only got the key card a few hours ago,”
Big Tag pointed out.
“And Huisman set a time limit. You still have twenty-four hours before you turn yourself in.”
“Parker is being cautious.”
Kala sat at the small dining room table, watching them with hooded eyes.
“I know. I don’t like this feeling. I’m giving him the benefit of the doubt. I should be all Parker’s a traitor, but it doesn’t add up. I’ve worked with the man. He’s had several good shots at taking us out or handing us over, and he hasn’t. This is Huisman bullshit meant to divide us.”
“I tend to agree,”
Big Tag said.
He didn’t know Parker the way Kala and Kenzie did. He wasn’t the operative in the field. He was the guy who moved in when it all went to hell and they needed someone to start blowing shit up.
Sitting on his hands was killing him.
“She looked good in the last video.”
TJ stood in the doorway that led back to the bedrooms. Lou and Tristan and Tasha were set up in what they called command central. Tris had already gotten into part of Huisman’s security camera system.
They could see the workspaces but not his private residence, which was deep inside the mountain. They couldn’t see what was most likely his torture chambers.
Last night he sat up watching the monitors, waiting for any sign of her. He’d watched as she carried something from the loading docks back to the halls where there were no cameras to be hacked.
She’d been steady and calm, and beyond looking tired, there were no outward signs that she was being harmed.
But some scars were hidden.
“She’s acting,”
Zach replied.
“She’s staying calm so we don’t get freaked out. We won’t know what’s happened until we get her back.”
“Coop’s on it. He has to find a helo that will work at that elevation. He’s meeting a guy today who thinks he can get us one without Huisman finding out. The man has eyes everywhere,”
Kala said with a sigh. Her twin was currently sleeping, having had a long night of flirting with Huisman’s guards so she could get a working key card to his inner office.
“We checked and we’re all up to date on the anthrax vax.”
The military had taken care of the men. He, TJ, Cooper, and Tris had it as part of their military medical protocols.
“Yeah. I make sure all my puppies get their shots. And we’re all covered with Lou’s new trackers,”
Big Tag announced.
“I put it in Tris’s ass myself,”
Kala agreed.
“Whiny man baby. Like it hurt. But we all have to understand that we don’t know what he’s managed to do to the anthrax. We know Dare’s dad’s company made it more easily inhalable and concentrated, but the bacteria itself was basically the same and should be covered by our current vaccines.”
“However, Huisman works in medical tech. We know he’s got some doctors in Disrupt who specialize in bacterial infections,”
Big Tag continued with the bad news.
“Who knows what they’ve managed to do.”
“We will once we get in there and Lou downloads everything she can get her hands on.”
TJ moved to the table.
“I’m going to shadow Lou. Cooper’s going in behind Zach. He’ll stay back until the team goes in, but he’ll have eyes on you.”
Zach was surprised. He’d expected TJ to fight to be there with him.
“I thought you would do that.”
“Don’t need to. You love my sister. Cooper’s not going to let his brother die. So I can protect my girl. You need to understand there is no one else on earth I would leave this to, and that includes my parents. I love them, but it’s been a long time since they were in the field. And my uncle is old.”
All eyes moved to Big Tag, who simply shrugged.
“I would argue but even I can hear my knees creak. And I’m pretty sure I know what sciatica is now. However, we need Coop to stay close to the helo. He’s the only one who can fly it. I’ll go in with Zach and try not to hold him back too much. TJ, you should understand I will absolutely tell your mother you think she’s too old.”
TJ went a little pale.
“I didn’t say that. I said she was out of practice.”
“Not what I heard.”
Kala’s lips tugged up.
“Yeah, I definitely heard him say his mom was super old,”
Tris concurred as he walked into the room.
TJ was going to be his brother-in-law.
“I’ll let your mom know everyone is being mean to you. And TJ, I will get her out of there.”
“I know you will. And Devi knows where the cameras are.”
TJ sat down and pulled one of the energy drinks laid out on the table toward him.
“I looked through the footage you flagged last night. Did you see when she stopped and reached down and tied her shoe? Her shoe wasn’t untied. She pretended for her guard. She stopped right where the camera would pick her up and while she was down there, she flashed a peace sign.”
“Whoa, didn’t she and Bri and Devi used to send each other coded messages?”
Kala seemed to think.
“When they started dating they would try to be in the same places for the first couple of dates.”
TJ nodded.
“A clenched fist meant save me. A peace sign let them know she was okay and they could relax. She’s okay, Zach. She’s strong, and I think maybe your mom is helping her. I saw them going into the dining room together. She was holding your mom’s hand.”
Tears pierced his eyes. Was his mother working hard to ensure his girl was okay?
“The question becomes why risk bringing Zach in at all?”
Big Tag put his fear into words and then winced.
“Damn it. He’s got something up his sleeve. Something that will make Zach or this whole team look bad.”
“We can’t worry about that right now,”
Zach replied.
“All that matters is stopping him and getting Devi back.”
“I think he’s more likely setting up Ben.”
TJ sighed and took a long sip of the energy drink.
“He’s not my favorite guy or anything, but I know he’s not working for that fucker. Otherwise, why would he have put us all in harm’s way to make us believe Huisman’s the bad guy?”
“I don’t think we’re the real targets. He’s playing with us, and I don’t like it.”
Big Tag looked Zach’s way.
“I think you have the potential to get close to him. We all know the minute he realizes we’re raiding the place he’ll leave, but you might get into the same space. Langley wants us to bring him in.”
“I’m going to kill him,”
Zach vowed. He didn’t care what Langley wanted.
Big Tag nodded.
“Do it. Any of you. If you get the chance, take the shot. We’re not playing games anymore. Take him out and we’ll let Henry’s team deal with the fallout at Disrupt. I think MI6 is planning to send an agent in to take Lucy’s place. Once Huisman is done, we’re out of this mess.”
The door came open and everyone in the room went tense until they realized it was Cooper. He walked in and shrugged out of the jacket he was wearing.
“I’ve got us a helo, but we’re kind of stealing it. I’m afraid this is going to have to go down today.”
Big Tag sighed.
“I’ll go inform Drake. Someone wake Kenzie up. I’ll let Drake be the one to tell the Canadians it’s go time whether they’re ready or not.”
Cooper put a hand on Zach’s shoulder.
“You ready, brother?”
Zach nodded. He was ready to get his girl. No matter what he would make sure Devi was safe.
* * * *
“It’s done?”
Huisman stood in the lab, arms crossed over his chest and eyes on his prize.
Three small bombs he meant to explode midair over three heavily populated cities here in Asia.
Shannon turned from her place at the high table where she’d been working diligently. Or rather seemed to be working diligently. Devi happened to know Zach’s mother could have finished this project two days before but she kept putting it off, forcing Huisman to collect more “parts.”
She’d done a good job of buying them a little time. Time for Zach and the team to move into place and make plans.
Devi had to hope they were out there and they’d worked their magic. Last night when she’d been allowed to go to the loading docks to pick up a package for Shannon, she’d taken a chance. She’d stopped in front of one of the CCTV cams to tie her shoe and flashed a peace sign, hoping her brother would remember the signals she and Bri and Daisy used when they were younger. She hoped it told TJ that she was safe and they could take their time. Rushing in might get someone killed. It was all she thought about when she lay awake at night. She thought about her cousins dying. Her brother dying.
Zach’s big body cold and still.
“I need to…”
Shannon began.
Huisman held up a hand.
“I need you to think about what you’re going to say next. If it’s anything beyond yes, sir, it’s ready we might have a problem. My patience only lasts so long. Your son is coming soon. My men are picking him up in the village below us. They can treat him with care or they can be careless with him. It’s up to you. I need him alive, but I don’t need him unharmed.”
Devi’s stomach threatened to turn. She’d spent her days mostly locked in this lab with her future mother-in-law. She’d only been allowed out to gather things Shannon needed or when they ate in the small dining hall. Then they were shadowed by guards. For the most part, they’d been left alone to work. There was a guard on the door, and they had to deal with Huisman’s creepy check-ins.
They’d been offered separate rooms to sleep in, but Shannon insisted on keeping them together. She didn’t even like sending Devi off to grab the parts she needed. Zach’s mom was watching over her like she was something precious.
Of course Devi had to protect her, too. Zach’s father was almost always around. Always watching Shannon with greedy eyes.
And now Zach was coming.
She knew deep down he wouldn’t be coming alone. Things were about to get complex.
“They’re ready. All you have to do is slide the canisters in. They’re wired to respond to the detonation and will release in an umbrella pattern that will give you maximum coverage.”
Shannon’s arms crossed over her chest.
“Why do you need my son? I told you I would do what you wanted.”
“Ah, but you didn’t do what I wanted,”
Huisman said, facing off with her.
“I wanted you to teach me how to make the bombs. I wanted you to document your process.”
“I couldn’t do that and get them done in time. You gave me a few days to basically invent a new system. The bomb itself wasn’t made to disperse biological weapons.”
Shannon seemed fragile at first, but now Devi understood how strong the woman was.
“I assume you’ll want more at some point.”
Huisman stared at her like he was trying to decide how the rest of this conversation was going to go. If Devi had learned one thing about this man, it was that he was mercurial. Cautious one moment. Utterly reckless the next.
“You assume correctly, and that is the only reason I don’t kill you now. Well, that and I’m going to need leverage to get the captain to do my bidding.”
The reality hit Devi. This had been his plan all along.
“You’re going to make him do it, aren’t you? You’re going to make him drop the bombs.”
“Well, I’m certainly not going to do it myself. I’m going to tie Captain Reed to the Chinese and implicate his boss, Ian Taggart, as well. It shouldn’t be too hard. His wife has Russian syndicate ties,”
Huisman explained with a smirk.
“Most of the materials you used in those bombs were brought to me by that same syndicate. You’ll find that mobsters don’t take the time to vet who’s paying them. They don’t care, but I do. There’s a clear trail. Tying him to the Chinese and making your uncle look like a double agent will be far trickier, but I think there are some people at the Agency who will believe anything to get Ian Taggart behind bars and out of their lives.”
She was horrified because she knew he was right. There were people in the Agency who would love to see her uncle fall.
“Zach won’t do it.”
One shoulder shrugged.
“Then he will watch you die in a horrible way.”
“If he has to choose between me and a million people, I assure you he’s going to choose the people,”
Devi said and realized her mistake the moment she made it. She’d been so good at keeping her damn mouth shut, but she was starting to fray. Something would happen and it would happen soon.
Huisman turned on her like a predator scenting prey.
“Then he will not be useful to me either, and I will still find a way to pin it on his dead body. Do I make myself clear? Miss Taggart, this is not a negotiation. If Captain Reed complies, you will be allowed to leave. He will be allowed to leave. I would honestly rather have him alive and on the run, but I can manage it. So if you care about him at all, you will cry prettily and convince him.”
She wouldn’t. She would try to save them both, but she wasn’t about to allow Zach to kill millions of people to save her own skin.
“He’ll do it.”
Shannon moved between them. She did it a lot. She placed herself between Devi and whoever was coming at them.
“I assure you my son will do anything to save his fiancée. He’ll get it done for you.”
Huisman stared at her for a moment, the air ripe with potential violence.
“He better, and Ms. Reed, if those bombs do not work, I will let your ex have you. I’ve kept him on a leash. For an old man he still has quite the sexual drive.”
“They will work,”
Shannon replied, the tremor in her voice the only sign she was affected by his words.
“You should hope so. I will inform you when your son is here. Perhaps seeing you will make it easier for him to make the correct choice.”
Huisman turned and walked out.
Devi got a glimpse of the guard outside the door and then it clicked closed again.
“We can’t let Zach use those bombs.”
Shannon reached out and took her hand. Her voice went low.
“You are going to let Zach do what he needs to do to get you out of here. If I could have found a way to fake the bombs, I would have, but he’s monitored us far too closely, and despite what I said he could probably reverse engineer it at this point. He’s had a camera watching us for days. The last few adjustments I obscured with my body, but it won’t take much for him to figure out what I did.”
“Shannon, he’s talking about killing millions and starting a war that would kill millions more.”
Devi couldn’t get a grip on the enormity of what that man was planning to do. He was going to burn the planet and for nothing more than revenge on his perceived enemies. He was going to take down her family.
“Sweetheart, if there is one thing I have learned in this life, it is that we can only do so much and the rest is fate. Maybe if it was only me, I would leave this life. I’ve hidden and wasted years because I was too afraid. I thought Zach would be better without me. I know Cooper was better without me. If you weren’t here, I would set that bomb off. I would kill us all and make the world a better place.”
It sent a chill down her spine, but she had to consider it. She had to consider that her life wasn’t worth the lives of everyone who would die next.
“Could you do it?”
It would save her family since they were absolutely on the ground somewhere. Likely in Kathmandu. They would be there when the bombs went off. They would breathe in the air and they would die. She could make sure that didn’t happen.
Shannon’s chin came up.
“I could but I won’t. Those bombs are connected remotely to a computer that will control its detonation. Any computer is hackable. But I’m putting this in the hands of fate and my son, who is the absolute best thing I ever did. Sometimes I’m sure he’s the only good thing I ever did. I will not let the woman he loves sacrifice herself. Besides, it’s not like he’s given me access to the actual canisters. The ones he had me design around are empty. They don’t contain the anthrax.”
“But these do,”
a masculine voice said.
Shannon tensed, and Devi knew who was standing in the doorway before she even turned around.
Ray. He was the shadow always haunting them.
She worried he was hunting them.
Now it was her turn to stand in front of Shannon. He’d obviously come to take the bombs now that they were done.
This was happening. Anxiety pressed against her, but she forced herself to stay calm.
“You should take them and go. I think Huisman is getting impatient.”
“Huisman is fucking insane,”
Ray said with a chuckle. He nodded to the two men who stood behind him, and they moved in quickly, taking the bombs. Ray held back. He had a thin metal canister in his hand, one that would fit neatly into the space Shannon had built at the base of the small bombs.
So small to be so deadly. Shouldn’t something that could kill millions have more weight? Be harder to carry?
One of the men took the canister from Ray, promising to deliver it to Huisman.
Shannon waited until the other men stepped out before looking to her ex.
“Ray, you have to stop this. I know you don’t care about many people, but you have to know this will affect you in the end, too. If he does this, the world ends.”
Ray’s gray head shook.
“The world changes. It doesn’t end.”
“The one we know will end,”
Devi said.
“We won’t ever go back.”
“Little girl, I’ve spent the majority of my life working my way up. I’ve found the best way to make myself rich and powerful is to take from other people. When Huisman gets what he wants, I’m going to be a king, and I don’t care that my kingdom will be on fire. It will be mine and I will finally have what I deserve.”
He stared at Shannon for a moment.
“And you will be there at my side. I will make sure of it. You should know I won’t care that you don’t want to be there. In so many ways that makes it sweeter. So this better work or he’ll take it out on all of us, and anything that he does to me I’ll take out on everyone you care about.”
Tears filled Shannon’s eyes.
“They’re your sons, too.”
“Nah. They ain’t nothing to me but a way to control you,”
Ray admitted.
“And the second one, I don’t even know him. Zach was a disappointment. I’m sure the other one is, too.”
“You’re a fucking monster,”
Devi spat.
“Watch your mouth,”
Ray shot back, his eyes narrowing.
“Watch your back.”
There was a time to lay low and a time to fight like hell. It was looking like the latter.
Shannon quickly got between them.
“Don’t lay a hand on her. Huisman needs Zach to do this job, and he’ll be pissed if Zach hesitates because his fiancée is hurt.”
A feral smile crossed his face.
“Well then I’ll have to wait until the job is done. Then maybe we’ll see what my son finds so intriguing. I have to admit I wouldn’t have thought he would go for the athletic type. I like my women more womanly, but it might be fun to make him watch.”
“Don’t you dare,”
Shannon said.
“I dare and so much more,”
he snarled her way.
There was a pinging sound that always preceded an announcement.
“All security report to the loading dock.”
“Well, that will be our boy. I think it’s time to get this party started.”
He turned and started for the door.
It was time. No matter what Shannon said, she had to try. Even if it killed her.
If she was dead, Zach wouldn’t be forced into an unthinkable position.
She might not be a spy, but she’d been raised by two soldiers.
When Shannon turned away, she reached for the hammer Shannon had used earlier in the day and moved into position, following Ray. She was sure Huisman would have loved to ensure they had access to nothing, but tools were required to make bombs, and no one had come to pick them up the way they usually did at the end of the day.
He was sloppy because he had too many balls in the air, and she’d made him think she was harmless.
So it was time to do some harm.
She heard Shannon gasp but it was too late. She kicked out, catching Ray firmly in the back and sending him straight to the ground. Before he could get up, she brought that hammer down on his head. Hard. Twice. Blood spewed and Devi took a step back as Ray twitched and then went still.
“What did you…”
Shannon stared at the man on the floor.
Devi had to stay focused. They needed to get out of here. She just murdered someone. Murdered.
She had killed Zach’s dad.
No. She fought for her life. She was fighting for her family. Deep breath. She needed the key card, and she hoped the fucker had a gun.
Shannon was shaking but seemed resolute.
“He wears his gun in the small of his back. Always has. We need the key card, too, and we have to move because even though they’re preoccupied with Zach, they’re going to see the tape. You run. I’m going to destroy those bombs.”
“I’m going with you,”
Devi said, reaching in and pulling out the gun. It was a semiautomatic, like the one her mom had trained her on. She checked it and flicked off the safety before grabbing the key card.
“We need to stick together because we only have one key card and one gun.”
Shannon nodded slowly.
“Okay, but sweet girl, if anything happens, you have to let me go. If I’m not alive at the end of this, I can’t make more bombs for him. I wish I could promise you I won’t, but we both know I’ll do it if it means saving my boys.”
Devi nodded and grabbed the key card.
Shannon stepped over her ex’s body like he was a bit of trash.
Devi followed and prayed she wouldn’t have to make that choice.
They opened the door and she heard a blast from somewhere in the complex. The floor beneath her shook, and she knew Zach was here.