Chapter Thirteen #2
She pulled on the handle and swung the door open, pointing her weapon straight ahead. Two people turned. One of them stood up at the sight of her, reaching inside his jacket.
“Was—”
“Scheiss—”
Helen never missed this close. She shot the one who’d stood and pulled a gun on her, hearing the muffled thud of the bullet hitting him in the chest as he crumbled to the floor even as she swerved and pointed her weapon at the other man who was staring at her with wide, afraid eyes.
She glanced around quickly. Yeah, this was the room—same shelves, same desk, everything looked the way she had seen it.
There were some things she hadn’t been able to discern in remote viewing, especially the exact arrangement and size of the room.
The desk she’d seen was to the left; during her RV session, it felt as if it was in the center.
That was to be expected since her focus was on the missing electronic key which was still attached to the some kind of device on the same desk.
She walked into the room and kicked the door shut with her foot. She kept her weapon on the man and waited till he raised his hands in surrender before speaking. “I see my target, Center. And I have one hostile down, another one being obedient for now.”
“Where’s the key?” De Clerq asked.
“It’s on the table, hooked up to a decoder, perhaps? I don’t know. How should I retrieve it?” She watched as her captive listened to her conversation and addressed him, “Sprechen Sie Englisch?”
The man nodded but didn’t say anything. Helen kept her weapon on him as she made her way toward the desk.
“Cancel him,” a voice suddenly said in her earpiece.
“What?” she asked, stopping at the desk. The side of the device had blinking numbers.
“Cancel him. You need your attention on the device and we don’t want any witnesses.”
“Who is this?” Helen asked.
“Hell?” De Clerq’s voice came back on.
“Didn’t you hear that?”
“Hear what?”
“You didn’t hear another voice coming into our conversation, giving me instructions,” Helen stated.
“No.”
She frowned. “Is there an override feature with the devices we use to communicate? For example, if I want to talk to you alone.”
“Of course. We all can communicate privately or to different sectors.” There was a pause. “You’re saying you’ve just gotten instructions from someone else other than Command?”
She looked at the man sitting there. In all her years as an operative, she’d never killed in cold blood before. She had shot back in self-defense or in the middle of a shootout, but this was different.
“I can’t do it,” she said.
“Do what, Hell?”
“Someone told me to cancel the remaining hostile. I’ve never shot at an unarmed man on purpose.”
There was a pause. “I see,” De Clerq said. “The suggestion was a wise one. You’re looking at the enemy and given the chance, he’ll kill you.”
“I know that but I’d much prefer it if I kill him while he’s actually trying to kill me,” Helen said dryly.
“Then I’d have a reason to take his head off.
But for some stupid reason, I can’t pull the trigger when he has his arms up in the air and he’s smart enough to keep on doing it, too, since he told me he could speak English. ”
“Then you do what you have to do. We don’t have much time. It’s your call but you’re going to be debriefed about it. Did the person talking to you say it’s an order?”
“No, he didn’t. And do you know who would give me orders besides you?”
“Since he spoke to you on private link, no, I don’t know.”
If De Clerq had a clue, he wasn’t sharing it. “Are you sure?” Helen pressed. “Make a guess.”
“Any member of the team could have suggested that, Hell,” De Clerq told her. She couldn’t tell from his quiet tone whether he was trying to be ambivalent or not. “And I agree with him. But it’s still your call. Time’s running. Get the key and get out of there ASAP.”
A man’s life was in her hands. She had never been put in this situation before and she didn’t like it.
It was different when she was fighting for her life.
This was—she looked straight into the eyes of the man in the chair—someone who was looking at her with fear and hope.
A long time ago, when she was caught stealing food, she had been the one looking at her would-be killer with the same fear and hope; he had let her go. She couldn’t pull the trigger.
“Please don’t kill me,” he begged in accented English.
She approached the man. “If you want to live, put your hands very slowly behind your back,” she ordered, pulling out the thin rope from her side pouch.
He did so obediently. Quickly stepping behind him, she looped his neck.
He jerked in surprise. She tugged in warning before adding in German, “Just in case you think about surprising me while I’m securing you, this cord is made of a material that would cut through your skin. Verstehen Sie?”
He nodded to show that he understood her and sat very still.
She quickly stretched the rope downward and looped both his hands together, then putting the weapon down within easy reach, she pulled, tied a knot, and relooped it around the back steel support of the chair.
Then she did the same thing with his feet. She taped his mouth.
That done, she went back to the desk. She turned the laptop around so she could keep an eye on the man as well.
“I’m removing the key from the device, HQ. That will interrupt whatever program that’s running on the laptop,” she said.
“Download the information into the flashdrive then destroy the laptop, over,” De Clerq instructed.
“Done,” she said, after several minutes.
She took out a microdigital camera and panned the room as she recorded it. She wanted Hades to see how accurate they had both been. She headed for the door and gave the man a last glance.
“I’d rather not say wiedersehen, if you don’t mind,” she told him then exited.
“Not a good move, Elena,” a voice told her.
That got her attention all right. “Where are you?” she demanded as she ran down the corridor, retracing her steps back to the elevator.
Silence.
The elevator was still open. She checked her watch.
Not that much time had passed. She got inside and pressed the button.
Once she had the key, she was to return to her group, give it to Alex, and they would then head back down.
Alex would somehow pass the key to their insider so that if they were stopped and searched, they wouldn’t have anything on them.
“Helen?” De Clerq interrupted her thoughts.
Helen caught a note of urgency in his voice. “Yeah?”
“Our feed is showing a male speaking urgently on a mobile and running into one of the offices on the twelfth floor. There’s an elevator behind a set of closet doors. We’re assuming this is the same elevator you’re on.”
That made sense. It would be a pain to have to go all the way up to the boss’s office if someone were needed on the ground floor.
“Wait, another one’s just appeared. Weapon drawn. Two hostiles, repeat, two hostiles heading your way.”
The guys running didn’t bode well.
“What do you want me to do?” she asked calmly. There was no way to stop the moving elevator. “Take him out?”
“Not if he has his mobile on. We don’t want each floor blocked off. We’re monitoring the other feeds right now. So far, none of the other security seems to be aware that anything’s wrong.”
There wasn’t any time to debate about this. “I’m climbing up into the elevator shaft,” Helen announced, pulling out her rappel shot. “If you don’t hear anything, it means I’m busy.”
There was silence from De Clerq’s end. She could see them all at CCC exchanging doubtful glances. The decision had been instinctive, and at moments like this, she usually followed her instinct rather than question it.
The webbing from the rappel-shot was made to hold triple her weight.
She aimed at the top corner of the elevator and pulled the trigger.
A “twap” resounded in the enclosed space as the prong pierced the metal.
She pulled and flipped at the same time, using her feet to kick on parts of the ceiling panel as she “ran” across it, looking for the escape hatch used by repair technicians.
At the third kick, a part of the panel gave way.
She landed on her feet and pulled on the webbing again, this time running up the sides of the elevator and using her speed to give her enough momentum to let go of the rope so she could shove aside the open hatch.
She pushed up quickly, popping the panel to the side as she hung on, half in and out of the elevator car.
It didn’t take her long to pull herself into the space above.
Air rushed like a miniature wind tunnel as the elevator continued moving upward.
Helen ignored the lurching motion, the cracks of light flickering from between cinder blocks giving her an idea how fast the car was moving.
The reverberation of speeding air and moving cables humming together distracted her for a second.
Still on her knees, she pressed the trigger that would release the prong from the wall and felt the webbing snap back into the rappel-shot.
She moved the paneling back into place even as the elevator was slowing down.
That had the same effect of a train shuttle coming to a stop, and she had to hang on to an illuminated box attached to the top of the elevator car to keep her balance.
Someone who had been there before her must have spilled some kind of oil; she could smell it and her shoes had no traction as she slid sideways, barely missing the cable.
“That wouldn’t have felt good,” she breathed out, more to herself than anyone.
“We have that on video here. Pretty nifty move, Agent Roston,” De Clerq came in. “The door is opening. Our hostiles are looking into the elevator, weapons drawn.”
Helen rose up on her knees, looking down at the panel, prepared for anything.