Bounty Hunter Honor Page 16

  Yes, that was the answer. As they drove to the outskirts of Payton, where JanCo was located in an isolated, wooded area, Nadia refined her plan. It could be done, she realized, and without much trouble. Everything she needed was in the lab.

  They pulled up to the employee parking lot entrance. Peter rolled down his window and stuck a plastic card into the slot, and the gate opened. He’d taken her card from her purse, she realized.

  “How will Denise get in?”

  Peter didn’t answer, but he still wore that smug smile, so clearly he’d planned for this ahead of time. He pulled his car into a spot in the very back of the lot.

  It was close to five o’clock, when most employees clocked out. Soon most of the cars in the packed lot would be gone. But there were always a few left. Many of JanCo’s scientists and technicians worked odd hours. Contrary to what Nadia had told Peter, no new security measures had been instituted, no 8:00 p.m. curfew. Em ployees could and did work in their labs until all hours. No one would notice Peter’s car or think it strange.

  “You have thirty minutes,” Peter said.

  “That’s not enough—”

  “Of course it’s enough. The samples are already made up—you forget, I know something about how the nano lab operates, thanks to your loose lips. You could do it in ten minutes. I’m being generous because I don’t want you to appear rushed. Everyone must think you’re simply there to catch up on work you’ve missed while you were out sick.”

  That was exactly what they would think. Nadia rarely took time off. She was responsible about deadlines and timelines, and she didn’t like to inconvenience other members of her team by not delivering work when promised. She often stayed late when she got behind.

  “What if someone sees me?”

  “No one will question you. It’s your project.”

  “How will I explain the missing sample? Inventory controls are very tight.”

  “That will not be my problem. You of course will do nothing to implicate me, or Lily will never be safe. Not so long as I walk this earth. Should I be arrested, it will not end your problems. I have many friends with long arms.”

  Nadia shivered. She’d told Rex that early on—that so long as Peter lived, even incarcerated, he was a threat. “That’s just it,” she said softly. “If I give you the Petro-Nano, and you turn it over to the wrong people, none of us will be walking this earth, because the earth will be a cold, dead rock.”

  “You must think I work for idiots.”

  “I think you work for desperate people. If they do not win the dangerous game they’re playing, if they see they are about to fail in their goals, they will not hesitate to destroy everyone along with themselves.”

  “That is American propaganda talking,” Peter said. “The men I work for know what they’re doing. The only way to stop American imperialism from destroying the earth is to balance the power. I am helping them to balance power, Nadia.”

  “If you believe that, you’re a bigger fool than I thought.”

  His face tensed, and she thought for a moment he was going to hit her again. But he didn’t. He relaxed and flashed that smug smile. “You cannot provoke me. I have won, darling.” He opened the glove compartment and pulled out her ID badge, which he’d also apparently retrieved from her purse. He looped the chain around her neck. Then he produced a silver ballpoint pen from the glove compartment and clipped it to the collar of her sweater.

  “This is the microphone,” he said. “It is very sensitive, picks up your conversation as well as any around you. If you attempt to remove it, I will be able to tell, so don’t.

  “And don’t think you can signal anyone without speaking. Remember, you can turn me in. But you do not know where Denise and Lily are. And if any cop cars show up, if anyone approaches this car, if anything out of the ordinary happens—anything—Denise will do exactly as she promised. If you do not return in the allot ted time, Lily will die in a most unpleasant manner. I think Denise is actually hoping something will go wrong. She enjoys torture, and she is surprisingly good at it.”

  Nadia fixed her gaze on her ex-husband, and it must have been as hard and cold as she meant it to be, because Peter’s smile died on his lips.

  “If anything happens to my child, I will hunt you, and I will find you. And if you kill me, there are others behind me. The bounty hunter is a former marine sniper who will not think twice about shooting you between the eyes.” She did not have anything to lose by telling Peter now, she reasoned. She wanted him to know fear. If he got away from here, she wanted him looking over his shoulder, terrified—until Rex found him.

  Rex would find him, and then Peter would wish he’d never been born.

  “The clock has started,” Peter said, just as steely. “You are wasting time.”

  Nadia got out and walked briskly toward the main entrance to JanCo Labs, going over in her mind what she would do once she reached her lab. She wondered if there was any way she could ditch the wire without Peter knowing. Could he really tell if she removed it?

  She was afraid to try it.

  She entered through the heavy glass doors and into a well-appointed lobby dominated by a huge front desk. Lonnie, JanCo’s longtime receptionist, presided over the lobby, looking deceptively harmless. But she was former air force, trained in all kinds of weapons, and behind that desk she was armed to the teeth. She smiled at Nadia, recognizing her. Nadia smiled back and inserted her magnetic badge into the reader near a steel door. The door slid open, and Nadia entered.

  She walked along the familiar maze of sterile white corridors. On the way, she passed one of the security guards. “Hi, Tim.” She tried to act as normally as possible. Now that she had committed to her plan, she did not want anyone to stop her. And they would stop her. But the more she thought about it, the more she realized her plan was the only way.

  If she summoned authorities, Lily would die.

  If she delivered a fake sample of the Petro-Nano, Peter would discover she’d duped him, and Lily would die.

  No, her way was the only way to save her daughter’s life.

  The nano lab was on the basement level, a level dug into solid limestone. She took the stairs rather than waiting for the elevator. At the bottom of the stairs she pushed through another heavy metal door, walked down another corridor. The hallways seemed strangely quiet to her.

  Another security guard was stationed just outside the nano lab. Normally it was the same guy, Lars. She started to greet him when she realized it wasn’t Lars at all.

  Rex was standing there, dressed in a JanCo Security Force uniform of black pants and a white shirt. She cursed silently, torn by conflicting emotions at the sight of him. She felt relieved that she was no longer fighting against Peter alone—Rex was here, he wanted to rescue her, rescue Lily, bring Peter to justice. But she was also upset that he’d violated the confidence she’d placed in him. Clearly he’d told someone—probably Robert Candless, JanCo’s Chief of Security—about what he perceived as a threat to not only national security, but world order.

  Damn it. Damn it! He should have trusted her. Did he think she would actually turn over a hazardous substance to a terrorist when she’d promised him she wouldn’t?

  “H-hi, Lars,” she said, signaling frantically that she was wired.

  He nodded. “Hello, Dr. Penn. Haven’t seen you in a couple of days.”

  “I had some kind of stomach thing, but I’m better now. I thought I’d catch up on some work.”

  “Sure thing.”

  She reached the door leading to the nano lab, Rex at her heels. Entrance required not only her magnetic badge, but an iris scan as well. Unless things had been changed, Rex wouldn’t be able to follow her into the lab—nor did she want him to.

  “I’m really far behind,” she said. “But I’m sure I’ll have everything under control soon.” She gave him the “okay” hand signal, placed her right eye in front of the iris scanner, and waited to be admitted through the first of two sets of doors. If R
ex tried to follow her, the pressure-sensitive floor between the two doors would detect his presence, and the second doors would not open.

  He didn’t try to follow her. She entered the lab alone.

  A couple of her co-workers were there, scientists who were running their own nano projects, and two lab technicians. They all greeted Nadia with surprise.

  “What are you doing here?” asked Dick Haney.

  She gave them the same speech she’d given Rex, and asked if anything was going on that she needed to know about.

  “No, it’s been pretty quiet,” said Dick. Everyone soon returned to whatever tasks they’d been absorbed in before her arrival, leading her to believe they did not know what was going on. But that was how Robert Candless would handle it. He would inform employees of the security risk only on a need-to-know basis.

  Left to her own devices, Nadia quickly got to work. She had everything here in the lab that she would need—cyanide salts and some hydrochloric acid. The phone rang. She let someone else get it.

  “Nadia?” It was one of the technicians. “For you.”

  Panic rose in her throat. Should she take the call? Would Peter think she was betraying him? “Can you take a message?” Nadia asked. “I just walked in the door. I need to catch my breath.”

  As she donned a white lab coat over her street clothes, she heard the technician murmuring into the phone. Then he was talking to Nadia again. “It’s the guy from requisitions,” he said. “He’s called about ten times already. He needs to know something about ribonucleic acid you ordered—”

  “All right, I’ll take it.” Then she whispered, “Peter, I’m answering the phone. They’ll think it odd if I don’t. I won’t say anything to give you away.” She picked up an extension near her and put it to her right ear, farthest from the microphone. “Nadia Penn speaking.”

  “It’s Rex.”

  “Yes, Mr. Perkins.”

  “You can just answer yes or no. Is Peter on the lab premises?”

  “Yes, that’s right. But you mustn’t send the sample now—I’m not ready for it. I’ve been out a couple of days and I’m behind schedule.” Did Rex understand what she was saying?

  “You don’t want us to move in?”

  “No, I don’t. But it sounds like everything is under control.”

  “Is Lily still in danger?”

  “Yes, that’s right. But it won’t be too long.” Could he trust her? She knew what had to be done, and she could do it. “Please, just put that order on hold,” she said. “I’ll call you when I’m ready for it.”

  “You won’t be allowed to leave the building,” Rex said.

  “Oh, yes, I will. Thank you so much. I appreciate your patience. It will all work out. Bye, now.” She hung up before she thought of anything else inane to say. She would be very lucky if Peter hadn’t caught on to the fact she was giving someone signals over the phone.

  As she’d talked with the phone tucked between her shoulder and her ear, she’d been assembling the ingredients she would need, and also a very special container that would allow her to dump the cyanide salts into a small beaker of HCl simply by removing the top. She rigged up something that looked complex, something that Peter would believe held the real Petro-Nano. In reality, the contents of the beaker would be deadly, but not for billions of people—just for one. The moment the cyanide salts hit the acid, hydrocyanic acid fumes would rise from the beaker. One good whiff would kill a human being in seconds.

  She’d thought about using it to kill Peter. But chances were, he wouldn’t open the beaker here. He would take it to someone who could verify the contents. And even if he did open it now, nothing would be accomplished by killing Peter. Denise would see what had happened and make good on her threat.

  So Nadia had come up with another idea. She would inhale the cyanide fumes herself. She would kill herself as Peter looked on, horrified and helpless to stop her.

  A dead woman couldn’t be blackmailed, or manipulated in any way. After he realized she was dead, he would know his plan to get the Petro-Nano was just as dead. No purpose would be served in harming Lily—he would harm Lily only to hurt Nadia.

  Furthermore, murdering a child would turn him into a baby-killer, which would only intensify the manhunt. No, his best interests would be served if he released Lily and fled. Once the child was found safe, the incentive to find Peter would drop considerably. Without a hostage or a weapon of mass destruction, he was hardly worth chasing down.

  She could only hope Peter was smart enough to figure that out.

  Chapter Thirteen

  Rex disconnected the phone. Robert Candless and Ace had listened in on the conversation. They were in a small “situation room” set up for any type of security breach. It came complete with secure, encrypted phones and enough weapons to arm a small revolution.

  “She was trying to tell us she has everything under control,” Rex said. “She has a plan.”

  “A plan to sell out, you mean,” Candless said. The security director was a fireplug of a man with a loud, grating voice, a shaved head and a God complex. Rex hadn’t liked the guy from the moment they met. Ace had said he was former CIA, reason enough not to trust him.

  “No,” Rex argued. “She won’t give Peter anything dangerous. She didn’t tell me what Peter wanted,” Rex lied, “but she told me it was too dangerous to put into the hands of a madman.”

  “To put it mildly,” Candless said. “Nadia is a good person, don’t get me wrong. But her child’s life is at stake. I don’t expect a mother to behave rationally.”

  Rex fixed Candless with a steely glare. “Nadia is rational. She will not put innocent lives in danger. My guess is she’ll deliver a phony sample to Peter, to buy some time.”

  Candless made a sound of disgust. “She’s a woman, and she just spent almost twenty-four hours with her ex-husband. You don’t think he put the moves on her? I hate to be sexist, but women are vulnerable to their emotions. If Peter made her believe he still loves her, that he’s really one of the good guys, all bets are off. He could have appealed to her Russian heritage. He could have offered to cut her in on the payment he’s undoubtedly getting for this little job. He could have convinced her they would return to Russia and live like royalty.”

  Rex shook his head. “She’s not that stupid. He kidnapped her child. He threatened to cut off her ear. Nadia isn’t going to forgive him that.”

  “We can’t take the risk.”

  Rex wanted to argue the case further. He’d spent only a few days with Nadia, but he felt he knew her better than any human on earth. She would not cave in to Peter’s demands. Not even to save Lily. But before he could try again to convince Candless to give Nadia her head, a phone rang and Candless grabbed it.

  “Candless here.” He listened, tense, as Rex and Ace held their collective breath. “We’re on it.” He hung up and looked at the other two men. “My men have reviewed the surveillance video. Nadia entered the JanCo employee parking lot in the passenger seat of a gold 1994 Lincoln Town Car. The man driving looks like our Russkie. No one else in the car. The car is now parked in the lot. The man is still there. I’ll send some men in to take him. Then give me ten minutes with him. He’ll tell us where the kid is.”

  Rex couldn’t believe the depth of this guy’s ego—or his stupidity. “If it was that easy, Nadia would have just told us where he was the moment she walked in.”

  “The microphone—”

  “She would have written it down. There’s a reason she doesn’t want him taken, and I think it has to do with her daughter. She’ll never get her daughter back if his plans go south at this point.”

  “Just what do you suggest?” Candless asked with a sneer.

  “Let someone from my team go in and do something to his car. That way if he tries to drive away, he won’t get far.”

  “Nadia is still not leaving the building.”

  “I didn’t say she had to. Just don’t tip Peter Danilov off. Not yet.”

 
“Our guys can do it,” Ace added. “We can disable the car without his ever knowing.”

  Candless sighed. “Where’s your team? I’ll have to try to get them on the property without Danilov seeing them.”

  “Oh, they’re already here,” Rex said easily. The shock in Candless’s eyes was almost funny, and Rex would laugh about it later—after Nadia and Lily were safe. “Your security sucks.” And it did. It had been simple enough to smuggle Craig and Lori beneath the cargo cover of Rex’s Blazer. Chances were his two team members had already spotted Peter. But they wouldn’t move until he gave them the go-ahead.

  Beau and Gavin were outside the JanCo perimeter fence, scouring the surrounding woods and farmlands for signs of Peter’s co-conspirators. Peter would prob ably have someone on the outside, ready to warn him if law enforcement was approaching.

  Candless’s mouth thinned while Ace tried not to laugh. “Give your people the go-ahead to contain Danilov however they see fit. But if he escapes, I’m holding you personally responsible.”

  Rex made a quick call to Craig on the encrypted cell phones they were all using. Candless had come up with a dozen of the things after declaring the headset radios too vulnerable to eavesdropping.

  “Did you spot Peter?” Rex asked.

  “He’s in a gold Lincoln Town Car. All alone, just sitting there with a smug look on his face.”

  “Disable his car.”

  “Not a problem,” Craig said.

  IN THE LAB, NADIA WAS ready to leave. The suicide cocktail was tucked into her inside jacket pocket. But she had to do one more very important thing. She tore a page out of one of her lab notebooks and, always conscious of the time ticking away, scribbled out a note to Lily, explaining why she’d killed herself and expressing her love in embarrassing, flowery excess. She debated, then added a note to Rex: “I love you for trying to save me and Lily.”

  She thought for a moment, then added, “I love you because you’re you.” She found she no longer blamed him for betraying her trust. If he wanted even a chance at recovering her and Lily, he needed Robert Candless’s cooperation. There were many things she wanted to say, but she didn’t have time. She folded the note, left it on the counter and headed for the exit.