Apocalyptic Visions Super Boxset (116 page)

The moment Sarah’s phone rang on their drive to Milwaukee, she breathed a sigh of relief (which she made sure Mack couldn’t hear) over the sound of his voice. She needed something, anything, to get her mind off the funeral, off her family, off her pain. And the fact that Mack said it was urgent only made it better.

“What was that about?” Bryce asked when the call had ended.

“Mack didn’t give the details, but he’s pissed about something.”

“I hope the transition to the satellite location went smoothly.”

“Yeah, what the hell’s up with that anyway?” Sarah asked, shifting in her seat and looking at Bryce, who had his hands at two and ten on the wheel, looking stiff as a board. “Why Milwaukee? It’s like Chicago’s unpopular cousin. The one that keeps hitting on you at family reunions.”

“GSF wanted to keep things in close proximity. In the event of a breach, it was most likely that whatever person or persons committed the breach would be hunted down by the remaining agents. However, in the unlikely event that some of the enemies of GSF remained at large, the agency felt the easiest place to hide was close to the original location, a ‘hide in plain sight’ type of deal. And Milwaukee happens to be a very popular city.”

“You always drive like that?” Sarah motioned to Bryce’s hands and posture, mimicking him. “You look like you have a stick up your ass that’s so long that it’s keeping your back rigid enough to be a level.”

Bryce adjusted his grip on the steering wheel and shifted in his seat. “Good posture is nothing to make light of. I spend most of my day at a desk, so it’s important that I don’t slouch. I don’t want to need a walker when I’m fifty.”

“What happened to the Bryce who peeled out of HQ in Chicago when we were under fire from Demps’s goons?”

“Look around! We’re not under fire. There’s no reason for me to even do that.”

Sarah pulled the pistol from the inside of her upper thigh, where it had been concealed under her dress. “We can change that.”

“I knew we should have taken separate cars.”

The rest of the drive consisted of Sarah bugging Bryce to the point of his threatening to turn around, but the two arrived in Milwaukee without any physical harm done to either of them, although Sarah wasn’t sure how much more emotional berating Bryce could take.

The sun was just coming up when they rode the elevator down to HQ and were greeted by a very tired, very irritated, very caffeinated Mack. “What in the Sam Hell took you so long? Did you walk here?”

Before Sarah could respond, he turned on his heel and marched toward his office. Sarah did her best to look focused on the back of Mack’s head on the walk through the floor. The last thing she wanted right now was a bunch of people consoling her about the funeral.

“Shut the door,” Mack said after Sarah and Bryce walked in. “This doesn’t leave the office, you understand me?”

“Like, the words we’re about to speak?” Sarah asked. “Or everything inside the office, including us, because I just drank like a gallon of lemonade on the way here, and I’m most definitely going to have to pee soon.”

“I know who the mole is,” Mack said.

The news was enough of a shock to keep even Sarah’s mouth shut. Both Bryce and Sarah instinctively moved forward. Mack snatched a piece of paper off his desk and handed it to Bryce. Sarah edged over to get a better look, and before she had a chance to read it, Bryce almost collapsed to the floor. “Oh my god.”

“It’s deep,” Mack said.

“What’s deep?” Sarah asked, looking over the paper then snatching it out of Bryce’s hand. “This? This is the crap you make me fill out every time I go on a mission.”

“That is a GSF expense report that all members of the agency are required to fill out and is used as a tax write off for the agency’s cover corporation,” Mack said.

“It’s how we get our funding,” Bryce said.

“Wait, we’re a company?” Sarah asked. “I thought we were just funded by some philanthropic billionaire who wants to do good in the world. Like the speaker box in Charlie’s Angels.”

“The company is just a front,” Mack answered. “Our financial board that funds our operations is made up of some very wealthy individuals who would prefer certain political factions not know about their philanthropic deeds. When I was approached by them, I was told that I would have sole control of who and what our missions were and to ensure that it didn’t coincide with any personal vendettas the review board had.”

Bryce pointed to the paper in Sarah’s hand. “The review board is in charge of making sure all the expense accounts are in order and that nothing is being handled inappropriately. Checks and balances.”

“That expense report is from two years ago and involves a lot of construction material,” Mack said. “The volume of equipment outlined there is enough to build a compound.”

“Where?” Sarah asked.

“New Zealand.”

The words came out flat and deadpan, but they stung Sarah’s ears nonetheless. “You knew they were building something in New Zealand and you didn’t try and see what it was?” Sarah flung the paper back at Mack.

“I did know what it was. I also know that it was cancelled,” Mack answered. “That paper was filed the year after the construction had already been completed, so I didn’t know about it until I started going through the old financials last night.”

“None of this is digital?” Bryce asked, looking around at the piles of paper.

“No,” Mack said. “Everything’s done the old-fashioned way. You can’t hack a filing cabinet.”

“No, but you can steal one,” Sarah replied. “Who is it?”

“The financial board is a committee of twelve men, all of whom have detailed knowledge of our operations, at least from a financial standpoint. I checked to see if any of them had ties to Tuck Investments, and one did own a substantial share of the company.”

“Why wasn’t it caught?” Bryce asked. “We would have run a background check on everyone, including the agency.”

“The account was under a fake name, but I had Johnny check on the withdrawals to see if there were any slip-ups, and he found one, a substantial amount sent over to his personal account.”

Sarah edged closer to Mack, her knuckles cracking from the pressured squeeze on her hand. This was what she needed, her starting point, something to sink her teeth into. “Who is it, Mack?”

“Branston Clark.”

***

Sarah already had one foot out the door and a hand on her 1911s before Mack finished the sentence. She loaded up on some gear and headed to the helicopter pad on top of the building that housed their new digs. The CEO of the financial holdings group that inhabited the skyscraper was constantly coming and going, so the sight of a chopper wasn’t anything to bat an eyelash at.

During the whole flight to the location, Sarah kept her grip on the pistols. It felt like forever since she had held them and even longer since she had used them. They were oddly heavy, almost foreign, when she first picked them up, but she continued to hold them until the familiarity returned, which took all of about sixty seconds.

“All right,” Bryce said. “The chopper’s gonna drop you off two miles from Branston’s estate.”

“Estate?” Sarah asked. “Jesus, how much money does this guy have?”

“What do you think an estate is?”

“It’s the name of the place where the guy lives that I’m going to beat the shit out of.” Sarah ejected a magazine, checking the rounds, then slammed it back in.

“No,” Bryce said. “That is not what an estate is.”

The chopper touched down, and Sarah jumped out, keeping her head ducked low as the chopper quickly disappeared back into the sky.

“We’ll keep the bird in the air for you until it’s time for the extraction,” Bryce said.

“Shouldn’t take too long.” Sarah fell into a light jog as she made her way through the open fields of northern Illinois. In the distance, she could see other sprawling estates with large gates and enormous mansions. “How many people you think live in those things?”

“According to the heat signatures, there are ten people in the house to your left, twelve people in the house to your back, and eight in the house to your right.”

“And what about Clark?”

“He has twenty-five.”

“Any bets on how many of those are guards?”

“I really don’t feel like throwing my money away today.”

Much like the neighbors, Clark had his own stone-wall fences surrounding the fifteen-room, three-story brick mansion. The lawn was well kept, and a smaller building, which looked like the size your middle-class family of four would live in, was the garage. Sarah snuck a peek in one of the windows and found a cluster of Porsches, Ferraris, and Bentleys. “They even have my color.”

“I have movement on the other side of the garage,” Bryce said. “Two men, armed with assault rifles, loaded down with Kevlar, heading your way.”

“Time to start the show.” Sarah unsheathed her knife, gripping the hard rubber handle and drumming her fingers along the side. She crouched low at the corner of the garage, listening to the thump of the footsteps grow louder until she saw the tip of the first boot.

Sarah jumped up from her crouched position, ramming the tip of the blade under the chin of the guard closest to her, then spun around, slamming her elbow into the nose of the second guard. When she pulled the knife from under the first guard’s chin, a waterfall of blood cascaded down, and the man reached for the pistol at his side, which Sarah kicked out of his hand while bringing the knife into the side of the second guard’s neck before he recovered from the elbow to the face. A stream of blood ejected from the guard’s neck as she removed the blade then shoved it into the throat of the first guard to finish the job. The sequence took less than four seconds, and neither of the guards had time to radio any of their comrades. Sarah wiped the blade on the leg of one of the guards’ pants and picked up his assault rifle. She dragged the bodies behind the garage and peeped back into the window at the cherry-red Ferrari. “I’ll be back for you later.”

“Three other guards are making their way around the back of the perimeter,” Bryce said. “You have about four minutes before they see the bloodstains and notice that their buddies are missing.”

Just before Sarah had her foot past the side of the garage, she stopped and grabbed the radio off one of the dead guards’ ears. She popped it into the ear opposite her GSF uplink so she could hear both sides of the party.

The gravel that outlined the driveway crunched under Sarah’s boots as she made her way toward the side of the house. The radio was quiet as far as chatter went. Whoever this Clark character was didn’t think it was important to have a better rotation of security. Arrogant. The house had a security system installed that monitored any break-ins, but Sarah had Bryce and a satellite. She waited outside the door for Bryce to work his magic, keeping an eye out for any sentries. “Hey, I just wanted to let you know we’ve got plenty of time. No rush.”

“I don’t need the sarcasm,” Bryce replied. “I’m just getting used to the new setup. I haven’t worked from another desk in a very long time.”

The guard radio in Sarah’s ear crackled, and she brought the barrel of the rifle up to the walled ledge above her. “Open the door, Bryce. Now.”

“Almost in.”

“That’s what she said.” The voices in the guard radio grew louder, and Sarah kept her eye on the wall, knowing that any minute, there would be two men turning the back corner and spotting her in plain sight. “Bryce?”

“Got it!”

Sarah turned the handle, slipped inside, and closed the door behind her just as the guards stepped around the corner. Bryce let out a sigh of relief. “Nothing like cutting it close.”

Sarah made her way down the hallway slowly. Massive portraits lined the walls; beautiful chandeliers hung from the ceiling. The shelves and tables were adorned with polished vases and silver plates gleaming under the sparkle of the lights. The rugs beneath her feet were decorated with intricate stitching of flowers and trees. “Damn, I’ve got to get the name of this guy’s maid.”

“Heat signature shows there are ten people inside the house. Four are spread out, and there are six people in a room on the second floor,” Bryce said.

“Then that’s where our boy is.” The carpet muffled Sarah’s footsteps as she moved swiftly down the hall, still wielding the rifle in her hands and Bryce giving her the heads-up on anyone getting close. So far, everyone she snuck past looked like a servant, but she was betting the second floor would offer a little more excitement.

A curving staircase guided Sarah to the second floor, where she heard voices down the hall talking to one another in a group. The guard radio in Sarah’s ear burst with chatter, breaking the silence of the house and interrupting the card game down the hall. “I think they found the bodies.”

“You’ve got company coming down the hallway,” Bryce said.

“Looks like I’ll have to get a hand in on the next game.”

The guards stampeded out of the room. Sarah let the hall fill with their bodies before she started firing, taking out the first two with ease. With the doorway blocked by their fallen henchmen, the rest of the guards took to using the door as cover, only revealing themselves to shoot.

“The rest of the household is heading your way. You’ve got less than sixty seconds to make a move,” Bryce said.

“I’ll only need twenty.” Sarah slid on a pair of glasses then pulled the flash grenade from her belt on a sprint down the hallway toward the door. When the first guard turned the corner to fire, she caught him on the outside of his forearm. The gun flew from his hand, and she kicked him out of the way, pulling the pin on the flash grenade, which detonated into a hundred blinding explosions.

The tint of the glasses shielded Sarah’s eyes as she easily maneuvered through the crowd of guards, who grabbed their eyes and screamed. The flashes didn’t radiate just inside the room but also through the hall and down onto the first floor. The light bounced off the walls and ricocheted against any surface it came into contact with.

With each guard trying to palm his way to freedom, Sarah shot each of them through the back of the head, dropping them like flies, one by one, until she pushed her way into the room where Branston Clark was on his side, digging his palms into his eyes to try and block out the light.

“Sarah,” Bryce said.

His voice was soft, almost inaudible as Sarah picked Branston up by the collar and rushed him out of the room, past the dead guards, and down the staircase, where another cluster of guards had collapsed helplessly from the light. Keeping hold of Branston in one hand, she pulled one of her 1911 pistols.

“Sarah!”

Sarah heard him but ignored him. She gave a bullet to each guard she came into contact with, leaving a trail of bodies as the flash grenade slowly petered out. She made it to the garage and shoved Branston into the passenger side of the Ferrari and peeled out of the garage and down the road to where the chopper waited for her. She tossed Branston on the chopper’s floor and scanned his body for a tracker, which she found in his shoulder.

Branston screamed as Sarah dug the tip of the blade into his flesh, carving out the thumbnail-sized chip. She crushed it in her palm and let Branston collapse where he lay. She wiped her nose then gently pressed the edge of the knife against Branston’s throat, and he quit his screaming. “You and I have a lot to talk about.”

Sarah forced the helicopter pilot to take a little detour before they headed back to HQ, despite both the pilot’s and Bryce’s pleas to do otherwise. When the chopper touched down at an abandoned safe house in Wisconsin, Sarah dragged a still-bleeding Branston inside and tied him up in one of the living room chairs.

“I don’t know what you think happened,” Branston said, his body breaking out into cold shakes as sweat mixed with the blood covering his body. “But you were given false information, Agent.”

Sarah formed a fist and brought her right hand hard across Branston’s jaw, ejecting a tooth and a combined solution of spit and blood. His head wobbled on his neck, disoriented from the blow.

“Sarah, you need to get him back to base,” Bryce said. “Mack wants to interrogate him.”

“What do you think I’m doing?” Sarah landed another vicious blow against Branston’s jaw that caused his entire head to go limp.

“Sarah, enough!” Bryce said, but Sarah fingered the inside of her ear and ripped out the small communication link and flicked it away, getting Bryce out of her head. She gripped Branston’s face with her left hand, squeezing his cheeks and lips together.

“Where. Is. Demps?” The tone of Sarah’s voice sharpened with each syllable. Then, with her hands still squishing his face, Branston laughed. At first, Sarah thought they were sobs, but as the shaking grew, she felt his cheeks widen in a smile. Sarah ripped her hand off his face, and the laughter filled the house. It wasn’t like anything she’d heard before. She un-holstered her pistol and pressed it to Branston’s forehead.

“I’m glad we finally have some time alone, Agent Hill, but shooting me won’t get you what you want,” Branston said, the laughter slowly subsiding.

“No, but it’ll make me feel better.” Sarah aimed for his shin, squeezed, and the .45-caliber piece of lead connected with the bone, splintering it and sending a gush of blood and bone onto the floor. Branston shrieked in pain then slowly fell back into his fit of laughter.

“You’ve changed, Agent Hill,” Branston said, his body shaking. It was a physiological symptom of shock. It wasn’t something the body could fight, only something you could deal with. “You could have left those guards alive. You know it. Bryce knows it. But you shot them down like dogs. Did that make you feel better?”

Sarah stepped in the growing pool of blood beside Branston’s foot and jammed the Colt’s barrel into his cheek, almost knocking another tooth loose in the process. “I could shoot off your jaw so you couldn’t speak, break your fingers so you couldn’t write, and claw your eyes out so you couldn’t see, and I’d still be able to get what I wanted from you, so do you really want to play this fucking game?”

Branston’s pupils eyed her from the corners of his sockets, looking at her then the gun. The laughing stopped. “No. I don’t suppose I want to play that game at all.”

Sarah pulled the pistol back from his skin but kept it aimed at him, glad the laughing had ended. It irked her. It sounded unnatural; it felt untamed and evil. “Where is Demps?”

“I know where he is,” Branston said. “But I’m not going to tell you. At least not yet.”

“I thought you said you didn’t want to play games.”

“I don’t. I want the same thing you want. Revenge.”

“You don’t know anything about what I want.”

“No? With the way you’ve treated me, the reckless abandonment, a key asset in the biggest security breach in GSF’s magnificent history, I would say it’s exactly what you want. But to get it, you’ll have to give a little to get a little, as the saying goes.” Branston ended each of his sentences with a smirk. “Rick Demps, along with the rest of the Tuck Investments Board, was willing to give me up like that!” He snapped his fingers still tied behind his back, accentuating his point. “I know who they are and where they’re hiding. You kill them, and I’ll give you Demps.”

“No,” Sarah said. “You give me Demps now.”

“The moment you have his name and location, I’m a dead man,” Branston snapped. “I don’t know how you would feel in my situation, but I think you’d want a few more days of life to enjoy.” He glanced down at the bullet hole now clotting on his leg. “As much as I can, at least. And as for the board members, they had just as much of a hand in your brother’s death as I did. You could even save me for last. A triumphant ending to the rage-induced bloodlust your mind and body crave.” Again he smiled.