Chapter 36
Garnet had tried to keep her keys from the jerk, but he’d grabbed them and used them to key back into the building. Most people were at work, so no one ran into them as the jerk forced her onto the elevator. At least the cameras would identify the man, if there were cameras left.
She wouldn’t put in the codes to fire the missile, or she thought she wouldn’t. The patch was on her computer, about to be sent out. She just needed to check it again. Could he read the patch and figure out what needed to be done?
“It’s funny that you have all this security, but you never knew Pearson broke into your place and planted cameras.”
She tried to turn and look at the man, but his grip was too tight. “What?”
“Oh yeah, we’ve been watching you for two years, just waiting for you to say something out loud we could use. It took you long enough to get there.”
She shook her head, and he shoved her against the wall, forcing his knee into her back as he keyed open her door.
“What do you mean?”
“We knew you were hiding something. You may think you have no tells, but he figured it out. When he approached me, I was all in. Now, you’re going to destroy DC, and we’ll all be better for it.”
Anger surged through her. “You won’t make it out.”
“It will be worth it to have chaos rule the country and the world. I don’t need to be here to know everything will change. The entire United States will thank you.”
She shook her head, and he shoved her away, then slapped her across the back of her head. She dropped to her knees, and he kicked her.
“Get up. You need to get on your computer and make it happen.”
There was no way she would blow up the city. The man was crazy, and she had to find a way to stop him. Maybe she could stall him for a few hours. She could tell him anything and enter bad code for an hour or maybe two before he killed her.
Maybe something would happen, and she would find a way out of this. Or he would kill her, but at least she wouldn’t be complicit in one of the worst disasters in history.
Their plane touched down, and Bean still couldn’t get hold of Garnet. Worry filled him. For a long while, her phone automatically dropped him to voicemail. Now it was ringing, but she wasn’t answering.
He wanted to toss his phone across the tarmac, but he shoved it into his pocket. “Shit, she isn’t answering.”
Chase jogged ahead of him. “I called her boss. Garnet left an hour ago. Said she was headed to her apartment.”
“Let’s go there,” Link said as he pulled open the door to the van that was waiting for them.
Bean punched in directions to Garnet’s apartment, hoping they got to her in time. If that bastard hurt her, he would make sure the man regretted living.
Traffic in DC was terrible. The time to get to her place kept switching from twelve minutes to fifteen back to twelve, then ten, then to fifteen. It felt like they were never going to get there.
When they were two blocks from Garnet’s place, a car raced a stoplight and lost the battle. Traffic snarled like a parachute packed wrong.
Bean opened the van door and hopped out. Everyone followed except Link, who was stuck behind the driver’s wheel. They raced past the traffic, and he even had to jump over the hood of a low yellow sports car.
He saw Garnet’s apartment building and picked up his pace. He prayed they could get in the front door.
“I’ll go around back,” Mick said.
“I’m with Mick,” Keel said.
The other guys ran to the front door with him. Bean was about to start pushing buttons to be buzzed in when a guy came out the front door and held it open for them. It was ridiculous that guys did that. For all he knew, they could be killers. They weren’t, but this jerk didn’t know that.
There were two elevators, and he pressed the button while Stanley took off up the stairs. “Third floor. Three eighteen,” he called out after Stanley.
“I’m going with him,” Chase said.
“I’ll stay down here, make sure they don’t come down the other elevator,” Link said as Bean stepped into the elevator.
“Thank you,” Bean said as the door slid closed.
The elevator moved quickly, but he felt like it was taking forever. He needed to have his eyes on Garnet, making sure she was okay. For all he knew, she could already be dead.