Chapter 40
FORTY
“This place is giving me the creeps.”
Ash opened a file cabinet. “There’s nothing here. They cleared out, and this facility is basically a ghost town.”
The commander of the whole base had left only a couple of pencil stubs, and some blank requisition forms that were in German.
“Yeah, one that’s giving me the creeps.” Kyle stood at the doorway to this office.
“Find the source of that signal yet?”
“It isn’t a GPS. It’s just a signal.”
Ash nodded. “Let’s keep looking around.”
He didn’t say this place was giving him the creeps, too. Nor did he ask Kyle what got him enrolled in the Phoenix Network program in the first place, either. Usually wasn’t kosher to ask a guy that kind of question, even if he was curious.
Ash might’ve met Noah and Caleb’s parents once, but Kyle was the one who had recruited Adam personally. Rescued him from that hospital himself. “Tell me”—he figured there were some things he could ask—“if Adam hadn’t broken out of that mental hospital, would you have gone in and pulled him out?”
Kyle held his phone in front of him like he was scanning for signals, or trying to find the source, even though he said it didn’t work like that.
“Of course. That was the job. Little did we know the guy busted himself out.” He seemed amused by that.
“Not your average guy who survives something like that and breaks free.”
“Why do you think I work for the guy?” It was “Adam” in a nutshell to go through all that and save himself in the process. Still, even with what Kyle had told him, Ash figured there was more to the story.
Some reason Kyle had stuck around, supposedly helped out the team, and had come all this way with Ash just to back them up. Just out of curiosity, or because the Phoenix Network had requested him to do so? Or for some other reason.
Kyle turned the corner at the end of the hall, all of it gray and drab. No furnishings except an old table and chairs in a conference room. A breakroom with a small kitchen that smelled like old water.
Ash ran his finger through the dust. “Feels like no one has been here in seventy years.”
“No kidding.” Kyle pointed to a room down the hall. “This way.”
Which begged the question of what the signal was. “You think this place is some kind of CIA relay station?”
“Interesting idea.”
“Vesper told Steph about it, like this is where the team was being held, but we all know the program Earthnet has can spoof a voice. Maybe this whole thing was just a trap, and we were lured here.” Ash was creeping himself out now.
“I need a bad guy to shoot before I lose my mind and start running for my life.”
Kyle chuckled. “The signal is stronger here.”
“Good. Keep searching for it.” Ash grabbed the radio. “Nix, come back.” They kept walking down the hall, deeper into the building where the darkness seemed to thicken and their flashlights grew dim. “Nix!”
Kyle spun to him. “Dude, we should go back outside.”
“Find the source of the signal, then we will.” His head spun, and he planted a hand on the wall. “You don’t feel that?”
“What?” Kyle shook his head. “I have a headache. Is that what you’re talking about?”
Ash couldn’t focus on the guy with the hallway swirling. Kyle seemed to swim about in front of him. “Something’s wrong.”
“Yeah, no kidding.”
Ash palmed his pistol with the other hand. The radio crackled to life. “Ash?”
“Steph?” Ash frowned. “Where is Nix? Why isn’t he on the radio?”
He had to fight through the fog in his mind, trying to string words together—let alone actually figure out what was going on.
“I don’t know where he went.” She sounded terrified. “The blast doors closed, and Adam is gone.”
Kyle turned to Ash. “Let’s go.”
“We’re coming to you.”
They raced through the halls to the exterior door, which they’d propped open. As they moved toward the fresh air outside, Ash felt his head clear. It still throbbed, but he could think straight. With the first inhale of air, he almost felt fine again.
“Okay, something in that building was throwing me for a loop.” Ash shook his aching head. “Steph, you still there?”
“I’m still here. The lights are on, but I can’t get out.”
Kyle pointed down the row of buildings. “They went to the missile silo.”
“Let’s go.” Ash lifted the radio. “Steph, we’re coming to you.”
“Where did Adam go? I didn’t even hear a door, or anything.”
“Just hang on.”
Kyle took off ahead of Ash, who focused on running—not the questions swimming through his mind. If Adam was gone as well now, that meant Earthnet was here. Or whoever they sent to capture the rest of the team.
Ash wasn’t the guy to figure this out. He was a soldier, not the one who issued the orders. Kyle was a wildcard at best. He’d dragged them into this without warning, and now the whole team was who-knew-where.
Kyle skidded to a stop at the door and ducked inside.
Ash took a look at the blast door, nothing else in the entryway but leaves that had blown in from outside, but didn’t go in.
Kyle pressed against the door, as if that would move the whole thing or it would retract up or something.
Ash’s fingers flexed on his weapon, scanning the ground around them. Watching the horizon for movement. Listening for aircraft that might signal an incoming team.
“I can’t get it open.” Kyle came out and grabbed the radio. “Watching my six? So sweet.”
Ash balled his fist and punched Kyle.
“Ouch! What was that for?”
Ash shoved him back against the exterior wall. “You’re the one who dragged us into this. You’re the one who is going to get her out. Find Adam. Find all of them.”
“You think I know where they are?”
“You’re telling me in all your digging through Earthnet files, this place never came up? You found the lab in that boat. You were watching them. Where is my team? Where were they taken?”
“I get that you’re pissed—”
Ash shook his head. “Where are they?”
“We were probably sent here to get dosed with whatever hit you in that hallway and turn on each other. They’re still trying to round us up!”
The radio crackled. “Guys?” Steph sounded frantic. “Can you get the door open?”
Kyle lifted the radio to his mouth. Ash still had two handfuls of his shirt and wasn’t about to let go.
“We’re working on it,” Kyle said. “Are there any other ways out? Maybe some kind of hatch or a door disguised in the wall? Adam must’ve left the room somehow.” As if things were fine out here, and they weren’t in the middle of a heated discussion.
“I’m trying to find one,” she said. “He can’t have just disappeared. There has to be a door.”
Ash stared at Kyle.
“She sounds scared,” Kyle said. “We should help her rather than doing whatever this is.”
“If you were behind any of this, I’ll kill you myself.”
“So much for Phoenix Network loyalty.”
“Maybe the Phoenix Network is all you have, so you doubt anyone who isn’t as sold out to it as you are.” Ash pulled him closer. “But I have my team as well as PN, and right now the team needs my help.”
“Let go of me and let me help you.”
As if that was the whole reason Kyle had come here. Maybe it was, but Ash would wait for proof. His grip on the guy loosened.
A split second later, Kyle grabbed him and tackled him to the ground. Ash fought him until he realized gunshots had snapped over their heads.
“Stay down,” Kyle ordered.
Ash shoved the guy off him and rolled over so he could crawl to cover in the bushes that flanked the sides of the building.
Bullets snapped into the open door and hit the blast door with the distinctive ping of metal hitting metal.
Ash rolled and pointed his gun at the source, but saw nothing to shoot at.
“What’s happening?” Steph yelled. “Is that gunshots?”
Kyle ducked into cover beside Ash and got on the radio. “We’re under attack. Keep looking for a way out.”
Ash scanned the tree line across the old runway, all cracked asphalt and bushy weeds. He saw a few mercenaries in black emerge from the woods around this base and cross the fence. One sank to his hips in the water. No one helped him out.
The team kept going, and the wet guy hurried to catch up and get back into formation.
“Why take potshots at us?”
Kyle glanced at him. “You want them to introduce themselves first?”
“They could at least buy me dinner.” Ash checked his gun. “One pistol against those guys isn’t going to go down well.”
“Two pistols.”
“If we knew where Adam was, I’d be more optimistic.”
“I’m gonna pretend you didn’t just completely dismiss me,” Kyle said. “Paranoid much?” He touched the back of his hand to Ash’s forehead. “That signal messed with your head.”
Ash watched the mercenaries, not the guy beside him.
“Still doubting my loyalty?” Kyle asked. “The Phoenix Network gave me a way out, but it was Adam who saved my life.”
Ash frowned. “How’s that?”
“I was there. At the facility.” Kyle let out a quick breath, as if needing to relieve some tension. “Feels like a lifetime ago now, but I got out when he did. The Phoenix Network approached me for information about Montrose, and in exchange I got a new life.”
“The guy who killed himself.”
“It had to look definitive.”
Ash didn’t know what that meant, but it probably involved Kyle playing dead for a while.
“They used that drug that mimics death and almost stops your heart entirely. It took a lot of trust to let them do that to me after everything I’d been through. But the Rourkes were true to their word and always have been. And no,” Kyle said, “I don’t have anything else.”
Ash shot him a look. “How does this story get us out of a gunfight with an overwhelming force?” And he didn’t have Kai by his side, backing him up and annoying him with things he thought were amusing.
“I’m saying you can trust me.”
“Okay, cool.” Ash would rather have a plan than a promise.
“You need to believe it so I can explain the plan.” Kyle lifted the radio. “Steph, we’re going radio silent for a while. Sit tight and don’t worry. We’ll get you out.”
“Find Adam.”
Ash grabbed the radio. “We will.”
“Going dark.” She signed off.
Kyle grabbed the radio and twisted the dial, turning it off. “Wanna find your friends?”
“I’m not going to like this plan, am I?” Ash gritted his teeth, trying to figure out why this entire conversation sounded like a trap.
“I can find you.” Kyle didn’t sound as certain as he should. “I can always find you. That’s what the Phoenix Network does.”
“What about Adam? Because you should be able to find him.” Then it would be three against those eleven guys making their way over the runway now.
Getting closer every second. It was time to start picking them off.
But as soon as they started shooting, those men would know exactly where they were hiding.
“I can find him,” Kyle said. “But if you allow yourself to be captured—”
“No way.”
Kyle ignored that. “—you’ll know where they took Kai, Dan, and anyone else they have. Maybe everyone else. You’ll be with your team, and you can tell them that we’re on our way.”
“Find Adam, prove to me this magical resource works,” Ash said. “I’ll think about it.”
“We don’t have time for you to be indecisive. Let them capture you. I’ll find Adam, and we’ll come get you and the rest of your team.”
Definitely a trap.
“I don’t know you and I don’t trust—”
Kyle pistol-whipped him before he could even finish.