Books by Maggie Shayne (19 page)

Cringing backward, she screamed, lashed out with her feet. His reaction was to simply lean into the car, absorbing her kicks as if he were a sponge. His large chws sank into her shoulders and he drew her toward him. Closer and closer as she struggled and howled. Right out into the frigid, icy rain that pelted her face and soaked her hair. Right up against his chest, with his arms pinioning hers to her sides. She writhed and kicked, but he was oblivious.

"Come on, Wayne, I don't have all day. The hypodermic is in my back pocket. Take it and inject her so we can move on with The words terrified her, and she struggled all the more as she heard D.C. hurrying out his side, slamming his door, his footsteps slapping the wet ground as he came around the car.

"No," she cried.

"No, you can't" -- And then the fine, sharp tip of a hypodermic pierced the flesh of her buttocks. She stiffened, fighting. But the rain grew louder and louder until it enveloped her. And at last she went limp, unable to do anything more than listen. So groggy.

Scorpion rearranged her, hefting her up and over his shoulder, and she felt the cold rain soaking her back but couldn't move to avoid it.

 
He opened the car door, tossed her down onto the front seat again.

"She won't give you any trouble now," he said, and his shrill voice made her teeth hurt.

"You, Asbahd, drive the car around to the back, and right inside, before it's seen. Tie her up. But don't kill her. I might need her later.

Mr. Wayne and I have some business to conduct in the office." She felt weight on the seat beside her and then the car was moving again.

"I'm sorry, Chief Stern," the young I-CAT recruit moaned, lowering his chin and shaking his blond head.

"It was as if he knew he was being followed."

"If he knew, then you got too close!"

"He never saw me." The young man pride was showing now. His eyes flashed and he met Stern's gaze head-on. "There's no way in hell. But he knew, all the same. And he took evasive action to lose me. No one could've done better, not even you, Chief Stern."

Stern waved a dismissive hand in the air, while Torch paced a path up and down the roadside in the pouring rain, wishing the icy wetness could shake the sick feeling from the pit of his stomach. But it didn't. It couldn't. Nothing could.

This was where the kid had lost D. Ci Well away from the city, on a country road that branched off in four directions. He could be anywhere.

"He had the woman with him?" Torch asked the kid yet again, stopping his pacing long enough. to await an answer. "You're sure of that?"

"Yes. There was a woman with him. She had long dark hair. That's about all I could tell in the dark."

"But she was alive?"

The kid nodded.

"I could see her moving her head and then. Yeah. I'm sure she was alive."

 
Alive and terrified, he thought in silence. Alive and in the hands of brutal killers, because of him. Dammit, he'd get her out or die trying.

Aloud, he only cleared his throat and nodded toward Stern. Get on the horn and get us a map of this area. And where the hell is that chopper you asked for? "" Stem ans~vered, but Torch was almost beyond hearing.

He had no idea where D.C. had taken Alex. But he knew she'd be turned over to Scorpion along with the formula. Unless he could get to her first.

"Use your brain, Alex," he whispered.

"Be smart. Help me, for God's sake."

The thug of Scorpion's choosing didn't obey his orders to the letter.

He did drive the car around and then inside the frighteningly dilapidated building, She knew that by the sudden, more complete darkness, and the cessation of the raindrops pelting the roof. Then he simply got out. In the brief flash of the cat's lights, she saw the dashboard and the steering wheel. And D.C. "s cellular phone. Hope leapt to life in her breast.

The door slammed and the darkness returned. Even the sounds of the rain died away as the thug closed a large, creaking door. She heard his footsteps approach, then pass and fade in the distance.

He hadn't tied her Up or even taken her out of the car. He'd taken the keys, but that didn't matter. She sat up slowly, dizziness whirling in her fogged head. And she found the number Torch had given her, in the pocket of her jeans. And then she fumbled some more, her hands groping for the door handle, missing, groping some more. She found it and shoved it open, and the light came on. Then she snatched up the cellular phone, and with dulled wits and achingly slow movements, she punched in the numbers. Carefully she closed the door again, praying the light hadn't been seen as she listened to the seemingly endless ringing on the other end.

Stern snatched up the car phone and barked at it. Then his face went lax, and his gaze snapped to Torch's.

"How the hell... ? No. Go ahead, patch it through." He covered the mouthpiece. 'Dispatch has a call from Alexandra Holt. Wait, I'll put it on the speaker. " He hit a button.

Torch's heart cracked into bits when he heard her slurred voice, so soft, fear filled and obviously impaired.

"Torch? Puh-puh-leease... I nnneed to ssspeak to" -- "Alex, it's me.

Are you all right? "

She sighed, long and low.

"Talk to me, Alex!" Torch all but shouted at the speaker.

"Shhh. They'll hear you. T-Torch they... they drugged me."

"I know, baby. Can you tell me anything? Anything about where you are?"

Silence.

"We... we crossed some tracks."

Torch frowned.

"Railroad tracks?"

"Umm-hmm. An' we passed... water." More air than substance, her voice.

She wasn't saying the words, but breathing them. Sighing them.

"Now I'm in ... it's old... and... and dark."

He could hear the tears in her voice.

"I'm coming for you, baby, I swear to God, I'm coming for you. Hang on, you hear me?"

She didn't answer. Only sniffed, and he could sense her nodding at the phone.

"Now what kind of place are you in? Tell me everything you can."

"Abandoned," she said after a moment.

"A facfa -factory o-or a warehouse. Something like that." She drew a breath.

"It isn't your fault," she said, her words coming faster, more desperately than before.

"Torch..." f anything happens . take care of Max. " He heard her gasp.

"They're coming. I" -- "Alex, don't hang up!"

"But" -- "Listen to me." He prayed she would.

"Alex, . you're smart and you're strong and you can get through this.

You hear me? Use your head, Alex. Stay alive. I'm coming for you.

I..." He stopped speaking when the click of the cutoff told him she'd hung up.

Or someone had done it for her.

She hadn't wanted to hang up the phone. It was like cutting off her last connection with Torch. The sound of his voice gave her hope. And there was anguish in ~ tone . too much anguish for a man who was supposed to be incapable of caring. He did care, dammit. The jerk was just too dense to realize it. She hoped to God she could live long enough to prove it to him.

And there was another reason she hadn't wanted to hang up. Somewhere in her fogged mind she'd thought if she just laid the phone down, without breaking the connection, Torch would have been able to trace the call and find her. She wasn't even sure that was possible with a cellular phone. Probably not, but it was worth a try. But then she'd seen the way the little md light on the phone glowed, illuminating the entire front seat. It only went out when she depressed the cutoff button, which she did just before the driver's door was yanked open again.

She slumped against the eat, lying very still. And then a pair of hands caught her under the arms and dragged her out of the car.

"I have just the place for you, pretty one," a deep, heavily accented voice told her.

Her back thudded from the car to the floor, then scraped over rough, cold concrete as the man dragged her. She heard voices. The man lowered her to the floor for a moment and turned away to open a door, from the sounds of the creaking hinges.

Only the location was wrong.

"... pay me now," D.C. was saying.

"I kept my end of the bargain. You have the formula."

"Yes, I do." It was Scorpion's voice.

"But not your loyalty, hmm?"

"What do you mean?"

"Come, Mr. Wayne. Do you really think I don't know what you've been up to? That you've been negotiating with' certain factions, trying to get yourself a higher bid on the formula?" Scorpion made a little clucking sound with his tongue.

"You're a fool, Wayne. I know everything you do."

"B-but I didn't go through with it" -- "You might have, though, if I hadn't arrived here and monitored your every move. You've put me to a lot of trouble, you know. All the expense and effort of trying to take the formula from Palamaro before he turned it over to you, just in case you developed the gall to go ahead with your plot to betray me."

"None of that matters, now," D.C. all but shouted, his voice trembling.

"I got the formula for you. You have it in your hands fight now."

"Indeed," Scorpion said slowly, calmly.

"And as a bonus, I have a hostage, to ease my passage out of the country. You've outdone yourself. So your reward will be that much greater."

"It will?"

"Yes," Scorpion hissed.

"I'll kill you quickly."

"Sco--No.t" The single gunshot exploded, echoing endlessly through the hollow building, and Alex jerked in reaction, then forced herself to be still. She'd be next unless she was very careful.

She heard Scorpion speaking, as if to himself.

"You sold out your best friend for a price, Mr. Wayne. You gave me the information I needed to kill his family, for money, and to cover your own hide. I knew all along you would turn on me as well."

Alex cringed, trying not to envision the bulky D.C. " lying on the concrete, bleeding, dying, as Scorpion stood over him, watching with those terrible pink eyes.

And then Scorpion's words sank in, and she understood that Torch had been betrayed by his best friend. A man he trusted. But there was no time to think about that now. Her thug was back to tugging at her again. She went limp, then utterly stiff when he shoved her through an opening in the floor. The shock of suddenly falling through space sent every bit of air from her lungs. She couldn't have screamed if she'd wanted to. And by the time she managed to draw in another breath, her back was slamming into the bottom hard enough to force it out again. And then her head snapped backward, hitting the concrete, as well. Pain was a blinding white light before her eyes. And that was all.

She lifted her head slowly, blinked past the dizziness and focused on the ache. Her fingers gingerly probed at the back of her head, only to find the cut and pull away from it as she What was she going to do? How could she help end this madness?

She tried to focus on her surroundings, but there wasn't much to see.

She was lying on her back, on a cold cement floor, in total darkness.

Dankness. She heard an choing trickle of water from somewhere, a scratching sound from somewhere else.

She drew a breath and swallowed hard. She didn't like this. Forcing herself up into a sitting position, she closed h~r eyes against the new waves of dizziness washing over the beaches of her mind, carrying things like balance and depth perception away in their brutal undertow.

Okay, just take your time. Get your bearings.

Right. She had to stay calm and stay sharp. She was thinking clearly now. Before, in the hotel room, she'd been one hundred percent emotional, reeling from Torch's rejection. And after that, when she'd realized what was happening, she'd been overcome with shock and fear.

Now she had to use her brain.

She'd gotten to know Torch Palamaro very well in the past f~ew days.

Probably better than she'd ever known anyone in her life. And she knew that Torch would not give up until he got her out of here . or died trying. That was what she was afraid of. That he'd get himself killed trying to rescue her. Damreit, she couldn't let that happen.

She had to do everything she could to save herself before he did something stupid.

Rising, a little unsteadily at first,~she moved forward until she felt a cool, rough wall against her palm. She turned to the right and moved forward, holding her other hand in front of her face. She encountered cobwebs, and then a drip, coming from above. And finally, another wall.

- She turned the corner, and her shins banged against what felt like a wooden crate, nearly tripping her: She got her balance after a moment and continued in the same way, and when she finished, she knew the shape of her prison. It was a square. No windows. No doors. No stairs or steps or any possible way out, other than the way she'd come in. She'd completed the full Circuit thrce times before she made herself believe that, and then she felt her bronchial tubes spasm with fear. She started to pant' and gasp.

No, dammir! She wasn't going to succumb this way! She sank to the floor, calming herself with mental reassurances, forcing herself to focus on her breathing, willing her heart rate to slow down. If she could control the fear, she could control the attack. She knew she could.

And eventually she did.

And then something furry brushed against her leg, and the attack hit her full force.

 
He waited until Stern was busy with the new arrivals. All of them gathered together while Stern organized a search grid, charting it on a map. At the same time, Stern manned a walkie-talkie, giving instructions to the pilot of the chopper that hovered above them.

Torch knew I-CAT's standard operating procedures too well. The formula for this virus was--to I-CAT's way of thinking--a much higher priority than the life of one woman. They'd figure out the locale--and soon.

Stern had heard Alex's caR. The railroad tracks, the water, an abandoned warehouse or factory. It wouldn't take I-CAT long to determine exactly where Scorpion was hiding. And when they did, they'd sun ply storm the place. Alex would be lucky to survive the first volley of bullets they exchanged with Scorpion and his thugs.

Torch was determined to get her out before that could happen. So he wail~t until they were all too busy to notice, and then he muttered that he had to sit down for a few minutes, to try to pull himself together.

He got a guilt-ridden, sympathetic glance from Stern.

"Go ahead, Torch." Torch. Not Palamaro. Torch. "You'v~e been through utter hell this past year."

Torch heard the unspoken completion of Stern's sympathetic words. And I'm about to put you through more by getting your girlfriend blown away.

$o go ahead, rest. You'll need your strength.

But Stern didn't say that. He just looked guilty as hell, and Torch wondered if his plans were the reason, and then decided they couldn't be. He'd been acting guilty before he'd had a chance to devise the plan. Torch sighed, shaking his head. Stern's change in attitude was something he'd worry about later.

He turned and headed through the crowd of I-CAT men, earning several friendly slaps on the shoulder as he went, behind them all. He picked up his pace neared Stern's car. Then he got inside, closed the door, took a quick look to be sure no one was paying any undue attention to him. Most of them were looking at Stern. Like Patton speaking to his troops, Torch thought. He crouched a little lower in the seat as he reached for the cellular phone. And then he dialed the number for D.C.'s car phone, and he let it ring for vhat seemed like an hour, before someone--probably one of Scorpion's flunkies--snatched it up.

"Tell your boss Torch Palamaro wants to make a deal. Tell him to come to the phone. Now."

The man muttered, but Torch heard footsteps. And a few seconds later the grating voice he recognized came on the line.

"Palamaro?"

"It's me," he confirmed.

"Is she still alive?"

"She is. Is this call being monitored by fifty I-CAT troops?"

"No, I slipped away for a moment. It's like you said before, Scorpin.

This is personal. Between you and me."

"That it is." Scorpion chuckled.

"So you want to make a deal, eh?"

"She's, expendable," Torch said softly.

"I'm being straight with you, Scorpion. I-CAT doesn't give a damn if you kill her or not. All they care about is the, formula. They'll probably just call in an air.

strike on that warehouse~' of yours and call it a day. "

Torch heard the harsh intake of Scorpion's breath. Good. He'd bought the bluff.

"But if you had me as a hostage," Torch hurried on to say, "a decorated member of the team, one of-their own,-it would make a difference. You might he able to bargain for safe passage out of the country. That's what you want, isn't it?"

"You're offering to join her as a hostage, Palamaro?"

 
"No. I'm offering a trade. Me for her."

"Does it matter to you that I will use you to make good my escape, and then kill you anyway?"

 
"Not in the least," Torch whispered.

"Not as long as you let Alexandra live. She's not part of this, Scorpion." "Touching."

Torch held his breath while Scorpion breathed slowly and evenly into the mouthpiece. Finally the bastard spoke. "Done. Take a car and drive south for five miles, Palamaro. I'll have men waiting there to...

provide you an es ort."

His relief was palpable. His body bowed with it.

"If I see the slightest sign you're not alone, I wffi... hurt her, Palamaro. You'll hear her screams in your sleep for the rest of your life, I promise you."

I'll be alone," Torch said quickly. " if you touch her, Scorpion, I'll kill you. I swear I will. "

Torch hung up the phone/ He get Alexandra out of this. No matter what it took. Even if it meant let ling Scorpion walk away.

He stopped, his eyes widening as he realized what he'd just vowed.

That he'd let Scorpion go--when he'd thought there was nothing more important to him than exacting his vengeance--in order to save Alexandra's life.

And he'd thought he was incapable of loving her? "Idiot," he whispered.

Then he started working out what he'd say when he asked the inexplicably guilt ridden Stem if he could borrow a car to go somewhere. Torch would have to look as if he were beside himself, half out of his mind with worry. He'd have to convince Stem that he was going to break if he didn't get. away from all this for a few minutes. or grab a stiff drink somewhere. He had to make it beliew able.

He closed his eyes and realized it wouldn't be hard.

He had four weapons. Two were his own. He liberated the other two, complete with ammo, from the glove compartment of Stern's car. The Ruger was in a shoulder holster, Scorpion's men would find that.

There was revolver--the infamous Saturday night special--in a pancake holster at the small of his back. The belt in his jeans fit right over the gun's bulge. But if they were careful, they'd probably find that, too. He doubted they'd spot the little derringer he anchored just above his ankle, though. Or the bowie knife on the other leg. His boots covered them.

He dig covered something interesting in Stern's glove compartment. A small silver-trimmed crystal flask. Opening it, he sniffed. Whiskey.

Okay. He'd take that along, as well.

The asthma attack eased, but not for some time. And it had taken a lot of the strength out of her. It had almost come on all over again when she'd heard the thug tell his boss that Palamaro was on the phone. And she'd heard Scorpion take the portable phone from the man, and heard his end of that entire conversation. She knew what was happening. Torch was coming in, alone. He was going to try to trade his life for hers.

She'd wring his neck when she saw him.

Her writhing in the throes of the asthma had landed her on her back in the middle of the cold floor again, as she'd struggled for air and clawed at her chest. It had been a bad episode. She'd almost passed out with no medicine on hand to ease her breathing. She'd torn her shirt to ribbons as she'd clutched herself in panic.

Now, though, from this position, she could see the tiny pinstripes of light above her.

And then she heard Scorpion again.

"Send one of the men to meet him.

Be certain he is alone. Search him for weapons and bring him to me. I want the pleasure of killing him myself. "

"And the woman?" the other asked.

"I keep her. A trophy of my triumph over my most worthy enemy. How do the Americans say it? To the victor, go the spoils? The woman... I keep the woman."

 
Alex blinked back her revulsion and stared up at the wooden hatch she'd been dropped through. It was not nearly as distant as it had seemed when she'd been falling through darkness. The light came down between the boards and touched her face. And she knew it was a way out.

The only way out. She couldn't just sit down here in the dark and wait for Torch to walk into a death trap. Not as long as there was a breath left in her body to prevent it.

She calmed her breathing through sheer force of will, and sought out the wooden crate she'd found earlier, then dragged it to the center of the room. She stood on it, reaching up to the hatch door and push' rag testing.

To her surprise, it gave. No locks? What was this?

She shoved it harder, and light streamed in, making her blink like a mole. And she heard their voices again, though not as close. She wasn't up high enough to climb out, just enough to see over the edge.

Not daring to lift the door more than an inch or two, she peered out.

She saw two pairs of 'booted feet, moving through a square doorway big enough to drive a truck through, and into another part of the building.

She shifted her gaze and saw no one else. Only gray cinder block walls, and a dull, cracking cement floor.

She had to lower the hatch and get down, trying again after turning-the crate on its end to make it higher. This time, her head and sl~oulders emerged from the pit when she pushed the door open.

The voices were more distant now. Too far away to understand. She could no longer see them. Good. She looked around, saw no one and wriggled out. Then she lowered the door carefully and ran, crouching, to the nearest wa~. Pressing. her back against it, she listened.

The only sounds were the beating of her own heart and squeaky wheeze each time she exhaled.

Slow it down, she thought in silence. Easy breaths.

out. Slow. That's it. That's better.

Her heart rate slowed as if in obedience. The eased. She lifted her head and looked at the huge portion the building around her. She'd already seen the gray cinder block walls. They reached up high. Over her head, steel grid like structures supported the roof. Here and there, long fluorescent tube lights gave the place a dull, artificial glow. Some flickered, obviously worn-out. The result was eerie and surreal.

Her gaze earn down again, locking in on the normal-size doorway in one wall. Was that the "office" she'd heard Scorpion mention? With a quick glance to her left and right, she tiptoed across the spiderweb of cracks in the cement floor, gripped the doorknob, pressed her ear to the metallic door. No sounds came from inside. She twisted her hand, and the knob turned.

Her heart in her throat, she pulled the door open and stepped inside, closing it behind her. Pitch-dark in here. Her foot hit something that gave with the connection. Startled, she reached behind her for the door again, pushing it open.

The dim light spilled in, and she wished it hadn't. D.C. Wayne lay on the floor, a neat round hole in the center of his forehead. Dark red streams had painted a bloody headband across his brow. And the whites of his opened eyes gleamed in the light. For just an instant she'd sworn he was staring right at her.

All of that in a fragment of a moment, and she was turning to lunge back out the door. Then she heard that squeal of a voice and footsteps. They were coming back. She jerked her head around and spotted another door on the opposite side of the office.

Her decision was made. She pulled the door closed silently and moved forward, forced to feel for D.C. "s body so she could step over it rather than trip and give herself away.

The steps came closer. She lifted her hands, palms out, and found the opposite wall. Moving sideways, she felt the door, located the knob, turned it.

Nothing. The door was locked.

 
Her heart sank to her feet when she heard the approaching steps stop just outside the door through which she'd entered. Scorpion was talking about dumping the body. Desperately she closed both hands around the little round doorknob. and then she felt the protmsion from its center, poking her palm. The lock. on the inside? Deftly she turned the small locking device and cranked the knob again. It turned this time. She slipped through, having no idea where she'd emerge, having no time to think about it. She could hear the other door opening as she stepped out. At the last moment, she flicked the lock again and pushed the door dosed behind her.