Station Alpha: (Soldiering On #1) (15 page)

Chapter 18

Christine sat, perched on the edge of the office chair, her heart in her throat as Paul manoeuvred the satellite into position. The same one that he’d once used to save her life.

He found the correct street. Sam, Duncan, and Blake were hovering a few car lengths down from the Disik house, huddled together and no doubt making some kind of plans.

It all looked calm. Orderly.

Inside, Christine knew it would be a different story.

Klim was in there, apparently having driven straight over after his conversation with the two of them. It had been twenty minutes since Sam had seen him walk in there. From what Christine had understood, Sam thought Klim might have had a gun tucked into the waistband of his pants when he entered the house.

If that was true, it seemed likely that Klim now held Mr. Disik hostage.

Whatever the old man had done in the past, he was sick. No doubt he was hurt, scared, and didn’t even understand what was happening. There was no way he could answer any questions that Klim might have.

Which put him in danger, if Klim was as irrational and angry as they all suspected.

Worse, it was all Christine’s fault. She’d put them in this position by telling Klim about Mr. Disik’s condition. Anything that happened to him was on her head.

“Sam, what’s your status?” Paul asked. Christine watched on the screen as Sam tapped her ear, activating her headset.

“No change. No gunfire heard. We’re planning to do a recon from outside, but we want to figure out the best way to go about it.”

Christine whispered in Paul’s ear. “What will they do if they see Mr. Disik in danger?”

“Then we go in,” Sam replied, obviously having overheard.

Something occurred to Christine. She leaned forward and enunciated clearly into the microphone. “Is the alarm going off?”

Sam glanced towards the house, her ponytail swinging. “No. No alarm that I can hear. Why?”

Something tugged at Christine, a strange feeling that things weren’t quite right. “Mr. Disik has a pretty sophisticated alarm system on his house. He must have turned it off when Klim entered.” Why he’d do that, though, was a mystery. Perhaps Klim had held the gun to his head to force him.

Sam replied. “We’ll check on it once we get in closer. It might be a silent alarm.”

They were silent for a moment, then Christine interrupted again.

“Forgive me for asking, but shouldn’t you call the police?”

Sam scoffed, then must have realised that Christine was serious. “We all heard what Destiny said about the police. For all we know, they won’t even bother rescuing Disik. For now, all we are doing is being neighbourly. Checking up on Disik and making sure the conversation between him and Klim stays friendly.

“If we call the police now, it will give them an excuse to make things difficult for your old Mr. Disik. Besides, if they do have to breach the house so save him—or not—they won’t be any better at this than we are. Likely worse. This way we can keep control of the situation and the flow of information. They won’t be able to blame you or us for any of this. And they won’t be able to use your association with Disik against you.”

Christine’s guilt assailed her again. She must have made a sound, because Paul grabbed her hand, squeezing tight. “Don’t worry,” he murmured.

Christine took a deep breath.

“All right, just get him out safely.”

“Do we have to?” Blake asked, apparently having got his own comm system working. “I mean, the guy is a criminal mastermind.”

“He’s not. Not anymore. I doubt he even remembers most of that. Now he’s just a confused, sick old man.”

Blake grunted, but didn’t reply further. Duncan distracted him with another suggestion for a possible breach. They were prepared to go in on their own, without backup, if they saw Mr. Disik in danger. Christine would have to hold onto that knowledge, and hope her employer would be all right. That they’d keep him safe.

She heard Duncan murmuring to his two team members, talking about the fact that the chances of Mr. Disik being able to get himself out or follow their directions when they went in were slim. They had to minimise the risk of Disik getting himself hurt, which would mean that if they breached, they would have to prioritise disabling Klim as quickly as possible.

So, their two options were either talking Klim into coming out, or using the element of surprise to go in and get him.

“Let me talk to him,” Christine said aloud. “Perhaps I can get him to leave Mr. Disik alone.”

Sam paused in her discussion with Duncan and glanced up in the direction of the satellite they were looking at her through. She hadn’t quite figured out where it was—her gaze was a little off to the left—but her exasperation was still clear.

“Given that the last time you spoke to him you riled him up enough to do this, do you really think that’s a good idea?”

Christine swallowed, ashamed. She wanted to help, but knew she would just get in the way.

Sam’s voice gentled. “Leave this to the professionals.”

Christine nodded, despite knowing that Sam couldn’t see her, unable to get any words out.

Sam went back to talking to Duncan. They were still discussing their options when a loud crack echoed through the comms. All heads on the ground swivelled in the direction of the house.

Silence. No more gunfire, no shouting. Just silence.

Christine held her breath. After a moment more of waiting, the Soldiering On team sprang into action. All three whipped guns out from the air, pointing them at the sky in a two-handed grip. Duncan shouted orders, gesturing furiously.

They encroached upon the house, quicker than she would have expected given their stealth. They melted into the hedges surrounding the property, getting into position.

No words were spoken. Christine had no idea what was happening, but she assumed they were communicating somehow.

A shadow flashed across the lawn, then disappeared. Seconds later a flashbang went off inside the house. Even without the bang, Christine jumped.

The team appeared, melting from the long, afternoon shadows and converging on the house. They breached the front and back door simultaneously, storming the building. That’s when the flurry of voices assaulted them. Yelling commands and information to one another. She could hear gunfire among it all at different distances to the comms. She guessed that Klim must still be returning fire.

“Disik is still alive,” Christine heard at one point, but had no idea whose voice had said it. She breathed a sigh of relief.

“Get down!” came another command, and a second flurry of gunfire and activity followed. Chaos reigned, sounds coming from all sides, surrounding her in panic. She squeezed her eyes shut, but, of course, it didn’t help. Just fired her imagination more as the ricocheting sounds bounced around in her brain.

As if a switch had been flicked, all the sound abruptly stopped. No, wait, not all the sound. A rattling breath could be heard over the comms.

“Blake?” came Sam’s voice. “Blake, can you hear me?” No answer. Dread pooled in Christine’s gut as a sense of foreboding settled over the proceedings.

“Klim’s unconscious and in custody,” Sam said, possibly to them. Christine could hear the sound of repressed tears in her voice. Oh God. “Blake’s been hit. He needs an ambulance. Now.”

“One’s on the way,” was Duncan’s reply. “The cops will probably be here soon after. Paul, call Destiny and see if she can hold them off for a minute or two.” Paul nodded. He took one look at Christine’s face and backed out of the room, his phone in hand.

Christine’s legs went weak and she nearly slid out of the chair, boneless and trembling. Blake was hit. Unresponsive. Obviously in a bad way. Sam’s tear-filled voice haunted Christine, echoing through her with increasing condemnation.

This was her fault.

Her own stupidity had got them to this point. And if Blake died? She didn’t know how she would ever forgive herself.

Ambulances pulled up. Christine could hear the sirens, but was unable to look at the screens. She couldn’t bear to see Blake like that after having seen him so vital and alive so recently.

One of the ambulances pulled away, then the other. She cracked her eyes open. Paul came up beside her.

“Klim’s awake,” Duncan’s voice said. “Let’s ask him some questions before the cops arrive.”

Paul zoomed in to see Klim sitting on the front steps of the house. Duncan was standing over him.

“What are you going to do with me?” Klim asked. His voice was distant, since they were only hearing it through Duncan’s comm.

“Hand you over to the police for due process,” Duncan replied. Klim seemed resigned to his fate. Duncan continued. “What made you go after Mr. Disik?”

“You’d hidden Christine too well after the fuck up with her being attacked. I couldn’t find her anywhere, so Disik was the next best thing.” He paused. “My father had always told us to avoid him. That he was the Devil reborn. He was terrified of the old man, but we never understood why. Admittedly, he had quite a reputation back in the day, but it just made my father look fearful. Weak.” He spat in disgust.

“But then you found out he was sick.” It was a statement, not a question.

“Exactly. Not even my father could deny it was a perfect opportunity.”

“And Christine?” Duncan prompted.

“Well, if after everything Christine really doesn’t know where the money is, then Mr. Disik is the only person who does. He was my last hope at getting the money back for my father. And he was at his most vulnerable.” He picked absently at the flaking wood on the stairs. “But time was ticking, if he was losing his memory.”

“Why is the money so important to you? Why now?”

“My father needs it. His company is failing. We figured at first that Christine knew where he’d stashed it. She’d seen all his files, and he kept meticulous records. And if he was still in the blackmail game, it was just like Disik to use his secretary to do his dirty work. That would mean she was in his circle of trust.”

“But she didn’t know.”

“Apparently not.” Klim sighed.

“It wouldn’t have worked anyway. Christine tells me that Mr. Disik has very little memory left. And stress makes the issue worse. I can’t imagine more stress than being held at gunpoint.”

Klim straightened. “Hey, I didn’t pull out the gun. I was just chatting with him. I planned to get him to either tell me where the money was, or get his permission to search the house. He was the one that went for the weapon. Just out of the blue.”

“That little old man? He bested you?”

“No, but the gun still went off. In the struggle.”

“Why would he attack you?”

Klim shrugged, seemingly uncaring. “Maybe he saw through me. I was pretending he and my father were old friends and I was just visiting. He seemed willing enough to go along with it, but something must have spooked him, because he lost it.”

“I’ve heard that people with dementia can react violently when scared.”

“Yeah. I mean, I guess that’s what it was.” He didn’t sound so sure. In fact, he sounded weary. “How did you get to me so fast? I thought I’d have more time to interrogate him.”

“We had someone watching you. Your phone call with Paul and Christine tipped them off.”

Klim shook his head. “Amateur,” he muttered, apparently to himself.

“So, you admit responsibility for all of this? With everything that happened to Christine?”

Klim sighed. “Yeah. I suppose it is all my fault.”

Paul interrupted. “Duncan, police are on their way. Two minutes. Destiny wasn’t able to hold them off any longer.”

Duncan passed on that message, and Sam slid into her vehicle, waiting for the command.

“Are you going to just leave me here?” Klim asked.

“Nah,” Duncan replied. “I know the local police. I’ll hand you over personally.”

Paul cut the feed, and the screens went back. They were silent for a long moment.

“So, it was Klim all along, huh?” Paul asked.

“I guess so.” Christine wasn’t sure all the pieces fit together, but she was too emotionally drained to give the thought the attention it required.

“It makes sense. If he was crazy enough to take a man hostage to try to get information, it’s not so farfetched that he’d also try kidnapping.”

“I suppose so.” She stared blankly ahead, trying to sort out her mind. It was too scattered for her to make much progress. “Will Blake be all right, do you think?”

“He’s tough, and he’s been through worse than a bullet wound. I think he’d be pissed if that was how he ultimately went out.”

“This is all my fault,” Christine whispered as tears welled in her eyes. They hovered a moment, then slipped down her cheeks.

Paul twisted his chair around to face her. He cupped her cheeks, stroking his thumb over the tracks of her tears. “No, no it’s not. Blake’s a professional. He made the choice to participate in this, as did we all.”

She took a shuddering breath. “Mr. Disik didn’t. He must have been so scared.”