Chapter 14 #2
The door to the building opened, and two men dressed much like the other security guards who’d taken her from Miami stepped out.
Marta changed direction and ran toward the chain-link fence surrounding the building and the landing strip.
She made it halfway up the fence when hands grabbed her ankles and yanked her free.
Marta fell backward, landing in the arms of one of the men.
She kicked, flailed, and bit her captor, but his arms encircled her like thick steel bands. She couldn’t break free. The man carried her effortlessly to the van and stepped inside. Again, he didn’t give her a chance to make another dash for freedom.
As they closed the back door to the van, Teuling glared at her from where he stood beside a black limousine, his chin bleeding, holding his skinned hands out while a security guard applied bandages.
Marta didn’t feel the least bad for pushing the man. He deserved a lot worse treatment for all the lives he’d snuffed out and those he planned to kill in the future.
The man who’d carried her into the van sat on a seat, holding her across his lap, her arms clamped to her sides. The only windows were in the front of the van.
From what Marta could see, they were heading for a large building, maybe an industrial complex. As they drove up to a loading dock, she spotted HELVETIC BIOSOLUTIONS in large block letters over the dock doors.
All the other signs were in a language Marta couldn’t read.
Where had they taken her?
What country?
The van door opened. When her captor loosened his hold on her, Marta jabbed an elbow into his gut and dove for the door.
She hadn’t gone two feet when another large man snagged her around the middle, swung her around, and pushed her back into the vice-like arms of her former captor.
He carried her into a door beside the loading ramp.
They passed an older man pushing a large, wheeled trash bin toward the ramp.
“Help!” Marta cried. “I’m being held against my will!”
The man didn’t make eye contact, just kept pushing the bin through the door and out onto the ramp.
God, she hated when brute strength won out over intelligence. If she got out of this situation alive, she was taking some serious self-defense lessons. No more letting her smaller stature and weaker muscles relegate her to captivity.
No manner of yelling or screaming captured the attention of any of the workers in the complex. Not that they passed many. Just the janitor and more of the darkly dressed security personnel.
Eventually, she was deposited in what could only be called a cell no bigger than her apartment closet.
There was a small cot in one corner, a toilet in the other, and a sink affixed to a wall.
Her gorilla dropped her on the floor and backed through the doorway, closing it quickly between him and Marta.
“Bastard!” Marta called out. “You just wait. I’ll get out of here, and you’ll be sorry you ever brought me here!”
“Good luck with that,” a muffled female voice sounded through the wall. “I’ve been here for over a week and still haven’t found a way out.”
Marta’s heart sank into the pit of her belly. “You’re American?”
“Yes,” the woman said. “As are you,” she stated. “I’m Cate.”
“Cate,” Marta repeated. “A week?”
“A week,” Cate said. “And you are?”
“Marta,” Marta said.
“Marta Hale?” Cate asked, her tone pitched a little higher.
Marta frowned. “Yes. Do I know you?”
The other woman laughed, though the sound wasn’t full of humor. “I’m here because of you.”
“What?” Marta shook her head. “I don’t understand.”
“Do you know Devon Marsh?” she asked, her voice softer, a little shaky.
“The traitor who turned me over to Teuling?” Marta snorted. “Yes. Why?”
“He’s my father.”
“Well, damn,” Marta said.
“Is he...all right?” Cate asked, her tone tense.
Marta shook her head, though the other woman couldn’t see her. “I don’t know. He was there for the handoff. He got into the van with me and his security detail, and the next thing I knew, they shoved him out and took off with me. I don’t know if he’s okay.”
Something that sounded like a sob filtered through the wall. “I told him not to do it. He should never have tried to trade someone else for me. It’s just that we’re all each other has. Him and me against the world.”
“I’m sorry I can’t tell you what happened with him. I’m sure the man who rescued me from Colombia would’ve found him and gotten him the help he might’ve needed.”
“I hope so.” Another sob sounded from the other side of the wall. “Please, don’t hate my father for trying to save me. He’s a good man and did the best he could after my mother died.”
Though she was worried about the looming Vasquez timeline, she could do nothing about it while locked in a cell. Meanwhile, Marta’s heart ached for the girl, who had lost her own parents. “What happened to your mother?”
“Cancer,” Cate said. “Fuck cancer.”
“How long ago?”
“Ten years,” Cate answered softly, her voice barely carrying through the wall. “She didn’t get to see me graduate from high school or college. But my father was there, even though he was suffering from broken heart syndrome. The man has been there for me no matter what.”
“He must love you very much.”
“He does. I never doubted it.” Cate’s breath hitched. “He was there when I fell in love for the first time and when my heart was broken.”
“How did they capture you?” Marta asked.
“I was in London, looking for a friend who had gone missing. I took the underground late in the evening to the neighborhood where his cell phone was last located. A man walked up to me and asked if I was Cate Marsh.” A bark of laughter sounded, then silence.
“I didn’t answer but turned away and ran.
I didn’t get far before he tackled me, picked me up, and threw me in the trunk of a car.
He must have drugged me because I woke up in this cell.
They let me talk to my dad long enough to prove they had me.
I heard them say they wanted him to get Marta Hale out of Colombia to trade for me.
” She snorted. “I told him not to do what they wanted. He doesn’t always listen to me. You’re here because of me.”
Marta leaned her forehead against the wall. “And you’re here because of me.”
“So, what kind of doctor are you? Heart surgeon, internal medicine, family practice?” Cate asked.
“None of the above,” Marta responded. “I’m a virologist.”
“Someone who studies viruses?”
“Exactly.”
“Why were they so desperate to bring a virologist here?”
“Do you actually know where here is?”
Cate laughed. “I’ve been here a week and barely know anything. Most of the guards speak a little English, but it’s not their native language. It’s kind of like German and French. My best guess is Swiss.”
“All I know is that Pieter Teuling, the man who had me brought here, is a German billionaire who wants to save the world by spreading a virus to thin the population.”
Cate whistled. “You’re kidding, right?”
“I wish I were,” Marta said. “And then there’s the cartel kingpin who’d kidnapped me and held me in Colombia for six weeks. He wanted me to weaponize the virus to use on a world summit meeting.”
Cate laughed. “And I thought I had it bad being stuck in this cell for a week. You win.”
“Nobody wins if I don’t get to a lab, develop an antiviral for the cartel guy’s virus, and let the cat out of the bag about Teuling planning a pandemic for population control.”
“If I can help, let me know. Though how I can help from in this cell is the challenge.”
“We’ll think of something.” And there’s always the guy who rescued her from Colombia—if he hadn’t assumed his job had ended in Miami and that she was no longer his responsibility.
She could live with being only an asset to him, as long as he came to her rescue in time to keep Vasquez from releasing the virus at the Summit.