Chapter Eighteen
Zach wished like hell they’d zip tied his hands in front rather than the back. It made it hard to punch a dude.
Huisman stood in the big loading bay looking every bit like a fucking Bond villain. All the asshole needed was a white cat and maybe an eyepatch and he would be set.
Devi was somewhere inside. Not somewhere. From the intel Kenzie had dug up, she was likely being held in one of the labs close to the center of the compound.
“Hello, Captain Reed. It’s good of you to join us.”
Huisman’s lips curled up in a satisfied smirk.
“Welcome to Disrupt Earth. It’s what I like to call this place.”
This place was stark and streamlined for work and not comfort. Huisman was surrounded by several men cosplaying soldiers. At least that was Zach’s take. He could buy that a few of them had real military training, but most of these men looked sloppy. A few even seemed uncomfortable with their weapons.
The intel was correct. Huisman’s army was a ragtag group of mercenaries, and not top paid ones. These were men he culled from the bottom or hired from local towns. Likely he’d wanted to make sure no one in his employ had ties to intelligence agencies. He thought he could tie up their loyalty with money and the prestige of working in a place like this.
The dude highly underestimated Kenzie Taggart’s ability to flirt and roll a guy.
“I want to see Devi Taggart and my mother.”
Time. He needed to buy the team a little time to get everyone in place.
They’d picked him up on the outskirts of Kathmandu, and he was surprised they hadn’t roughed him up more than they had. He’d had his hands zip tied and a coarse fabric bag tossed over his head. That was the moment he knew Huisman was going to play this to the hilt.
Because if Ben Parker was working for him, wouldn’t he know they had the location of his base here?
They were risking a lot for Kenzie’s crush. If Huisman was telling the truth, this was one big-ass trap, and they were falling into it.
If he was lying, what Ben Parker did next would prove if he was an ally or the enemy.
Parker, who had told them he was ready to infiltrate Huisman’s pain palace. He was supposed to meet the American operative deep inside the base. He would be coming in via air ducts.
Kenzie would be entering with a little more shock and awe.
“I think we can arrange that,”
Huisman said.
“After we discuss your part in this.”
It was hard not to look around and get more of a lay of the land, but he forced his attention on Huisman.
“I thought my part in this was to show up and probably get murdered by you. Or stuck in a cage and used to make my mother work for you.”
“Your mother is a stubborn woman,”
Huisman said with a tsking sound.
“She claims my timeline was far too short to build a how-to manual. And she seemed to notice the cameras and where they were placed. There were a few things she did that I couldn’t see. Naturally it was all to the delivery system. A delicate operation, that if done improperly could explode in my face. Smart woman. I can’t toss her body off the side of the mountain. So yes, I do need you to ensure her cooperation with the next round of my plan. You see, she was right about the time crunch.”
“The World Economic Forum is slated to meet next week. You want it in chaos.”
He knew that much.
“I want it burning, but I’ll settle for chaos. That’s where the next bomb goes off,”
he admitted.
“I told your mother I needed three, but I think I’ll keep one. The whole world will be talking about the double agent who set this all in motion for Beijing. When the WEF is hit with the same thing a week later, the West will go to war with the East.”
The man liked to talk. It would be his downfall one day.
“Parker is taking the blame for you?”
Huisman chuckled.
“Ah, I should have said rogue American agent. I think you’ll find you now have five million dollars in a bank account in the Caymans. I have a friend in the States who is planting all the evidence even as we speak.”
Well, that shouldn’t be a surprise. Huisman knew how to use his assets, and he would see Zach’s separation from his team and his real life a definite asset. After all, hadn’t that been his plan all along.
“What am I supposed to do? Strap a bomb to my chest and blow up the city?”
“Heavens, don’t be so dramatic. You’re going to take one of my helicopters and deploy the bomb from the air. I’ll provide the pilot, of course. And a few guards to ensure you do your job. You see, this is how I know it will work. Your mother understands it’s you who will be setting it off, and she didn’t even scream and cry and try to fix it. So I’m sure she hasn’t sabotaged the bombs.”
Huisman neatly summed up the impossible position Zach’s mother had been put in.
“Once it’s revealed you are working for the Chinese, I won’t even need you to be the one to plant the WEF bomb. Everyone in the world will be hunting you down, and they won’t look to me at all.”
“Somehow I think my boss will disagree.”
A mistake. He needed to play into Huisman’s dreams.
“He might hate me right now, but he’ll back me up for his niece’s sake alone.”
A low chuckle came from Huisman.
“Well, he can disagree all he likes, but I happened to buy all of the parts for these bombs from a very specific Russian syndicate.”
Fuck. Now that was something they hadn’t counted on.
“Denisovitch. Ian doesn’t have anything to do with Dusan Denisovitch’s criminal activities.”
Huisman shrugged.
“Good luck proving that. I think you’ll find the world will be happy to have someone to pin this on. They will do anything to keep their peace, even ignore the truth. They will certainly ignore the train that’s barreling toward them.”
Two men entered the space. Zach recognized the bombs they held. His mother’s.
Shit. This was happening, and he prayed Parker was already in the building. Prayed Parker was exactly who he said he was because if he wasn’t, they were all dead.
Or his team would be dead and he would be forced to do everything Huisman commanded him to do because he couldn’t let him hurt Devi. Zach wished he was a better man but he wasn’t. He realized he would let the world burn if it meant sparing her a second’s worth of pain. He knew his baby was somewhere in this complex begging him to not do this. She would tell him her life wasn’t worth the thousands that bomb would take.
He wouldn’t listen.
His mind was racing with the possibilities.
“I want Devi with me. What guarantees do I have that I won’t come right back here to her dead body?”
“What guarantees do I have that you won’t simply dump the bomb in the mountains and take your girl with you?”
“Well, I can’t fly a chopper for one, so I assume your pilot and your guards will take care of that. It’s not like I can get rid of the pilot. I admit I’ve gotten good with light aircraft, but you know damn well it takes an experienced pilot at these heights and wind conditions. I’m surprised you can fly this high up.”
His brother had assured him it wouldn’t be a problem. After all, they wer.
“borrowing”
a helo built for these conditions.
“I assure you we can do everything I say we can. Now do you want to see her before you leave?”
Huisman seemed ready to get down to business.
“Your mother can give you all the instructions on how to deploy this. You will be assigned a pilot and a guard. If my explosion doesn’t happen within forty-five minutes after takeoff, I will have Devon Taggart killed and I will give your mother to your father. He’s eager. I’ve kept him off her until now. Personally, I don’t see the appeal since she’s old and fairly useless except for her bombmaking skills. She’s certainly not sexually attractive. Now the young Miss Taggart…”
Zach didn’t care about his hands. He could use his whole body to kill the fucker.
Strong arms gripped him, holding him back.
Huisman’s head shook, and he looked at Zach like he was nothing more than an animal.
“This is why you fail, Captain Reed. Tell me something. Did you follow my instructions, or did you tell Mr. Taggart where I am?”
Zach could breathe again.
Parker wasn’t lying.
If Huisman didn’t know the Taggarts were here in Nepal, then Parker was on the right team.
Or he was screwing with the boss.
No. He was going to trust his team’s instincts. He was going to trust Kenzie. Well, Kala didn’t think Parker was lying. He could trust that.
“I only told my brother. He helped me get away.”
Not a lie. When they realized Huisman would likely have someone watching him, he made his way from Liverpool to Kathmandu on his own with some forged passports and trying to duck Interpol as well. If Huisman looked, he would have seen someone matching his build and rough features checked into a rathole in a bad part of the city.
“Big Tag isn’t exactly happy with me right now. I think you’ll find he’s back in England trying to figure out where his niece is.”
“So he will be hunting you, too.”
Huisman clapped his hands together and pulled his radio.
“Make a general announcement. I need the rest of security down here at the landing bays. We’re going to be launching in less than an hour.”
An hour. Cooper was waiting until the right time. The wind patterns changed, but there was some research done on the best time to fly. Cooper would make the call. From there he had to hope the Canadians were in place. They came up without a helo. They’d been camping down the mountain for days, waiting for the right moment, studying the security protocols. They were coming in through a cave system, and then would get into the air ducts that would absolutely seem way too small. Tim would do fine, but Parker was a big bastard.
The announcement came over the loudspeakers that seemed to be everywhere. In seconds there were at least twenty men dressed in fatigues spreading out across the space.
Huisman gestured around.
“My army. We’re small right now. Most of the men I employ are based around the world. I didn’t want attention, and we don’t need more. That’s the key. Don’t overestimate. That’s how you trip up. I’ve found small teams are better.”
He looked back.
“Louis, où est Ray White?”
A young man stepped up, a tablet in his hand. His fingers moved over the face of it.
“Il est toujours dans le laboratoire. Ou du moins sa radio.”
His father was still in the labs. At least his radio was. That was what the younger man said in French.
Devi was in the labs. His mom was in the labs.
“Is he alone in there with them?”
Huisman ignored him.
“Va le chercher et amène-le ici avec la fille.”
Bring them. The man nodded to one of his fellow minions and they started walking toward the double doors. They swiped a key card and the doors opened.
He would need to get one of those. Of course it would be helpful to have hands.
Huisman stepped onto a raised dais and looked around at his assembled army and began to speak.
“Today we take the first step in creating our new world. A world where you are no longer ground under the feet of people who don’t deserve to lead you, who ignore your needs and raise up people who should lick your boots.”
Women. He was pretty sure Huisman was talking about women. When Eve McKay had done a profile on him in the early days, she talked about how his whole life seemed to be defined by the trauma of watching his father be killed, but Zach wanted to take a long look at that man’s relationship with his mother. Huisman hated Big Tag, but he hated women more.
Which was why he had to find a way to save Devi. His father hated women, too. He wouldn’t put it past the asshole to hurt her in every way just so he could tell Zach he’d done it.
What had she already been through? Would he find her huddled in a corner trying to survive?
Then he heard the gunfire and realized she wasn’t in a corner at all.
Huisman was interrupted in the middle of his evil villain monologue. He frowned toward the double doors. Another volley of gunfire and then one of the men who’d left to bring Devi back staggered in, holding his chest and reaching for help before falling to the ground.
That was when he heard the thud of the chopper rapidly approaching.
There was genuine shock on Huisman’s face.
“Occupe-toi de ?a. Tuez-les tous.”
Take care of that. Kill them all.
Zach started to move because the hands had come off him, the soldiers doing their king’s will. From the open bays, Zach could see the help approaching. TJ, Lou, and Kenzie would have been dropped at the site where Tim was set up. Tasha was back at base since there were only so many seats on the helo, and they were bringing two more back if they got the job done.
He could see Kala Taggart standing on the landing skid, an AR-15 in her hands. She began to give her husband cover by peppering the bay with bullets.
Huisman grabbed Zach’s arm.
“If you think this will save you, you’re wrong. I have plans in place for such a scenario. I will blow this whole base sky high and send those spores into the upper atmosphere and see what happens.”
Chaos erupted around them.
“Guess Parker isn’t on your side after all.”
Huisman’s eyes narrowed as they moved to the double doors.
“Not all is as it seems, Captain. As everyone here will learn.”
Huisman stopped, his shoulder jerking. Hit. He’d been hit. He dropped Zach’s hand and pulled out a small device.
“If I’m going down, so is everyone. You might be protected with your Army vaccines, but I don’t think your girl has had one. And perhaps I’ve managed to change it enough that it will still kill you.”
He pressed the button.
Kala was on the ground, having jumped down as Cooper began to land. Big Tag came out behind her, and father and daughter started spraying the place with bullets.
Fuck. He had to get to the bombs.
“Huisman,”
Kala shouted.
“Let’s see who wins this time, asshole.”
Huisman actually scrambled back. He looked over to the table he’d set the bombs on.
“This is far from over.”
Huisman raced through the doors.
Zach tried to get to him, to pull him back. The doors locked and then a signal began, a clanging sound that told anyone listening to it that the world was going to explode.
He turned and got his hands on the handle, but it was locked.
“Damn it.”
Kala rushed up.
“Did that fucker get away? You were supposed to stop him.”
“With what hands?”
It looked like she and Big Tag had taken out a good deal of Huisman’s security team.
“Where did the rest of them go? He had at least twenty guys.”
“They ran.”
Big Tag was in all white, the arctic version of fatigues. The combat uniform looked good on him. Kala’s vibrant hair contrasted with the white of her uniform. She’d pulled off her balaclava when she moved through the bay. Likely because she wanted Huisman to know she was there.
“It’s what happens when you hire mercenaries. Come here, Zach.”
Big Tag pulled a knife and quickly sawed through the zip ties.
“We have to get through that door. Devi’s back there, and I think she might have a gun.”
He moved to the nearest downed soldier and pulled the key card off him.
“Shit. Huisman started a timer for the bomb. It’s going to explode and kill everyone in here who isn’t protected.”
“We don’t know we’re protected.”
Cooper ran up, holding an extra semi and offering it to his brother.
“The intel Parker gave us said there were significant changes to the anthrax they took from Dare’s father’s lab. Huisman has been experimenting. I know we don’t care about the soldiers, but there are workers from town in here. Cleaners and cooks. They don’t know what goes on here.”
Tristan stood at the table with the bomb. He had his greatest weapon with him. While Tris was deadly with a gun, he was a hacking god. He pulled his laptop from the pack on his back.
“I can already tell you it’s on a timer. It’s set for forty-five minutes, which I suppose is what Huisman thought it would take to get out of here and find the right spot over Kathmandu. This is complex. I might need Lou.”
Big Tag touched his ear.
“TJ, are you in position?”
Zach wasn’t waiting. They could handle the bomb. He needed to get to Devi. His girl was out there, and she was fighting. He had to give her the best chance for survival, and that meant having every security asshole in the place chasing him instead of her.
He slapped the key card to the door and started to push through.
Tried to push through.
“Damn it. He’s shut the key cards down,”
Zach shouted back.
“I can’t get out of here, and Devi can’t get in. She’s got to know we would have to enter the facility from the landing bays. She’ll be making her way here.”
Unless all that chaos wasn’t about Devi and his mom escaping. Unless all that gunfire had already taken her out.
He couldn’t think like that. He threw his shoulder against the doors, trying to force them open.
“Hey.”
Cooper was suddenly beside him.
“You can’t let the panic take over. She needs you calm. She needs the soldier right now.”
“Comms are down.”
Big Tag’s face was set in harsh lines.
“I can get the doors open. Everything but the inner rooms Huisman uses are on the same system. It’s not complex,”
Tris explained. He moved to the doors and had the key card reader open in seconds. He plugged his laptop in.
“I think you should be working on the bomb,”
Big Tag said.
“Even a simple system will take time.”
Tristan hissed.
“Damn it. I have to unlock them one by one. And I’m getting some kind of code. Huisman enacted a protocol. I think he might have a fail-safe in place.”
“I assure you Lou is working on it. I don’t have to talk to them to know that Lou won’t let us down,”
Big Tag reassured them.
“Tris, get this one open and then you’re on the bomb. I’m going in with Zach. Cooper…”
Cooper nodded.
“I’m going to fly it out and have Tristan disarm it in the air. We can’t let it detonate here. It’s almost certain to get down to the village below. I’ll find a spot to minimize the chance of avalanche.”
His brother was going to fly the bomb out? They were at the upmost range of the helo.
“You can’t risk it. You just got married. I know I’m not the pilot you are…”
“Eww. Don’t do that.”
Kala frowned his way.
“No gross self-sacrificing stuff. And he did get married, which is why I’m going with him. So is Tris. He’s good under pressure.”
The doors clicked, proving her point.
Tristan unplugged his laptop.
“You’re on your own. Hopefully Lou’s figured it out. It’s simple but death by a thousand cuts since I’m pretty sure she’ll have to open the doors one by one. They’ll be worried about getting Kenzie to Parker first. Be careful. If we don’t die, we’ll come back and pick you up.”
Big Tag looked his daughter’s way.
“Take care of them, baby girl.”
“Always,”
she promised.
“Also, you should know Kenz is planning on telling Ben everything, so we’ll probably be happy if we blow up. We won’t have to do the family bonding crap with him. I bet he’s a chatty motherfucker.”
She looked at her husband.
“Let’s do this. Where you die, I die and all that, babe.”
“I’m not going to let us die.”
Cooper held a hand up.
“Go get your girl. I’ll be back when Tristan shuts this bomb down, but I’m not risking doing it here. We don’t know if Huisman can’t override.”
Another volley of gunfire forced his attention back to the job at hand. “Coop…”
“Save it, brother.”
Cooper didn’t seem to want an overly emotional good-bye. “Go.”
Big Tag pushed the door open and stepped out into the hall.
“We’re going to work our way to the lab. That’s their last known position. Do you remember the schematics?”
He’d studied them, but he also knew they were the basic building plans and could have changed. Still, they’d ID’d the labs. From watching the CCTV cams, he knew basically where he wanted to go. He moved left. Somewhere in the distance, he heard shouting and then it went quiet.
“We make a left at the intersection,”
Zach said softly.
“It’ll take us back to the labs. Shouldn’t there be more security?”
Big Tag moved to the wall, sliding along so his back was protected and he had the best angle.
“Good. Let’s do it. And I’ll be shocked if most of his security doesn’t take off. He’s hiring mercenaries. They require two things—pay and the knowledge that their jobs aren’t going to go bad. That’s the difference between a mission and a paycheck. And that’s why my fucking team works. Not a one of you would ever run. Well, except you, and even then you stopped and took care of Lou and Aidan in Toronto. That was impressive, by the way. You took out five guards, and most of them with your hands in cuffs.”
“They weren’t well trained.”
Talking was calming him down.
“And you’re right. The minute they figured out it was going bad, they tried to run. I couldn’t let them.”
He couldn’t let them now either because he wasn’t sure where Devi was and if they would encounter her. A security guard turned the corner and his gun came up.
Zach shot him without hesitation and picked up his key card because they might work on different doors.
He took out two more in the hallways as he and Big Tag made their way deeper into the complex. Big Tag took down his own. Every now and then they would meet someone who had to be on the cleaning staff. Big Tag would tell them to take cover. Or try to since there was a language barrier.
It was tense, and they had to find a way through two doors on their own before the third took one of the keycards.
Lou. Thank the universe for Lou.
A door opened to his right and Zach turned, but Ian put a hand out, stopping Zach from firing.
Kenzie stood there wearing Lou’s latest contraption. She was in all white, but that could change since her clothes were made of nanites. It wasn’t what she’d been wearing when they’d dropped her off. She smiled that smile she used when she knew she was caught and was going to brazen through it.
“Hey, Dad.”
Big Tag’s eyes narrowed.
“I issued you a perfectly acceptable combat uniform. What happens if that fucker sets off an electromagnetic pulse and all those nanites are suddenly on the floor?”
She gave him an even brighter smile.
“I’ll distract everyone.”
Her father growled but she shrugged.
“Well, it worked for Daisy. Oh, and Lou got the comms back on, but she didn’t want to interrupt you when you’re like murdering people. I know it’s fun for you.”
Tag sighed.
“Yeah, not so much anymore, kiddo. You see your cousin?”
“Lou’s looking for her,”
Kenzie replied.
“She’s got the CCTV cams back up and made sure they’re recording. She and Tim are now working with Tris. I’ve got to get this to Ben, though he doesn’t know it’s me coming.”
“You’re working.”
Big Tag could really put the judgment in there.
“I know, but you should be aware…”
“You’re going to tell him. I agree. It’s time.”
A wolfish grin lit the big guy’s face.
“And then all our cards are on the table, and he and I can have a real talk.”
Kenzie went a little pale.
“I’ll have to deal with that later.”
She touched her earpiece and winced.
“And they’re down again. Lou told me Huisman has weird programs running. She’s worried about some signal that’s coming from his inner base. I have to go. The last time we saw Devi she was moving toward the cafeteria. She’s got Shannon with her, and Aunt Erin is going to be proud of her. I don’t think that blood is hers.”
Zach felt his stomach bottom out. “Blood?”
Big Tag’s head shook.
“Go. Meet back at the helo. If there’s a helo. The Canadians better have their own ride.”
“I’ll let him know.”
And she was gone, disappearing down the hall.
He had no idea how Big Tag stayed so fucking calm. He was never allowing his kids to… He was going to have kids with Devi. He was going to have a family with her. Marry her. Be a husband. Live a life.
“Sir, I need you to know I’ll do whatever you say if you’ll help me come home.”
Big Tag nodded.
“I know you will, but we have to get her first. You remember the plan?”
Oh, he did. He took a long breath because one of the things Big Tag had come up with was a plan to deal with his mother’s situation. It was brutal and would be hard to get through. Especially since he couldn’t prepare her for it.
“I’m ready.”
Big Tag’s hand went to his ear.
“Lou? TJ? You there? You’re breaking up…what? Yes. We’ll go. Tell me…”
He cursed under his breath.
“And they’re out again. Huisman’s got something up his sleeve. I don’t like this. I don’t like it at all. Everything’s too fucking quiet. We need to get to the cafeteria. Lou says they’re holed up there but someone’s sneaking up on them. We have to move and fast.”
Zach took off, praying he made it in time.