Authors: Piper J. Drake
Maylin warmed at the thought he’d put behind it. “I’m all about whatever works.”
Besides, she wasn’t sure how much longer she’d be here. Or if she’d be a regular visitor...after.
There would be time to think on it later, closer to when they’d gotten through it all. But now there were much more important things.
“What did you find out?” Maylin couldn’t touch her bowl, even though she’d mostly decided to make this dish for herself.
Marc glanced at Gabe before answering her. “Your sister isn’t in the California facility. We suspected as much the last time we checked in and this trip confirmed it.”
“But Phoenix Biotech had quite a few interdepartmental communications going by actual physical mail to locations throughout the US.” Victoria tossed the information out there between noodles. “It’s very likely she’s being kept at one of three of those, judging by the lengths taken to secure the envelopes and then make them look like normal mail.”
“Only three to search through? And we know the addresses of each of them?” Maylin almost bounced in excitement. Then she caught sight of Marc wielding his spoon. “Ah! Don’t cut the noodles!”
Gabe paused midbite and slurped up the rest of his noodle instead, almost choking.
Marc slowly put down his spoon. “Okay. Why?”
Embarrassment burned Maylin’s cheeks but, well, they needed all the luck they could get. “To cut the noodles is to cut short longevity.”
Silence.
Marc’s eyebrows were raised, but after a minute he shrugged. “Okay. Good a reason as any. They’re pretty slippery anyway, so cutting ’em would be more trouble than it’s worth. It’s fine to slurp them, though, right?”
In answer, Maylin handed him an extra paper towel.
Lizzy chuckled next to him.
Maylin’s loaner phone screen flashed, catching her attention from where it sat on the counter. It was a game notification. Hope flared and Maylin headed for her phone.
Victoria managed to gather her noodle in her spoon and eat it all at once. After a moment to chew and swallow, she continued. “Montana, Oregon, North Dakota. All northern tier. We’ll analyze the three locations tonight to see which is most likely. It’s going to be time consuming if we need to do reconnaissance on each one.”
“I’ll see if we can leverage trainees to do some of the analysis in parallel. Can you work some satellite magic?” Gabe had directed his question toward Marc, who was working on slurping.
Maylin shoved her phone in the midst of them. “There’s a new message in my inbox. It’s from a new account. But it’s got to be An-mei.
Got to be
.”
“Are you sure?” Victoria sounded suspicious.
Excitement buoyed Maylin and she nodded vigorously. “My account is set to private. Only users who know my exact user ID can send me messages, and who is going to know an eleven-digit user ID off the top of their head?”
Gabe stared straight at her. “You have your sister’s memorized.”
“And she has mine,” Maylin finished with a grin. “Besides, look at the message!”
There it was on the phone screen:
aTaaaaGc aTTaaaaG aTTaGccG aaTaaacc aTaaGccc aTTTcGcG
Marc hastily grabbed a napkin and scribbled out the code. “Short and sweet.” He started the conversion on the napkin, writing the binary under the letters.
“So you say,” Victoria muttered.
Marc continued to scribble without acknowledging his partner. “So the DNA translates to binary code. And the binary code translates to letters. I got that far. But this is what it says—”
aTaaaaGc aTTaaaaG aTTaGccG aaTaaacc aTaaGccc aTTTcGcG
01000010 01100001 01101001 00100000 01001000 01110101
Bai Hu
“Why? That’s how I translated it too, but I thought there had to be some change to the code.” There was something tickling the edge of Maylin’s mind. “Bai Hu isn’t even a monster or character in the game.”
“What is it?” Lizzy asked.
“It’s a white tiger.” Maylin stared into her ho fun. Thinking. An-mei sent her the answer. “It’s one of four celestial gods. Creatures. It depends on how you translate it. They’re also a part of the Chinese constellations.”
Gabe had his laptop out again and Marc was scribbling notes as she spoke.
“Keep talking. Something will catch,” Marc encouraged her.
“None of the locations had a white tiger or even a stylized animal as a logo.” Victoria tapped her spoon against the side of her bowl.
“There’s Xuan Wu, the black turtle in the north.” Maylin scraped at her memory for the mythology. It’d been a favorite back when they were children. There’d even been a Japanese anime based on the mythology, which An-mei had watched over and over. “Then there’s Qing Long in the east. He’s the azure dragon. Zhu Que is the vermillion bird in the south and Bai Hu is the white tiger in the west.”
“Vermillion, red?” Victoria asked. “Like a Phoenix?”
“Yes, Zhu Que represents the fire element.”
“And it’s in the south.”
“Basically.”
Marc jumped up off his stool and leaned over Gabe’s shoulder. “Bring up a map of the United States.”
While Gabe complied, Maylin rushed around the counter to look too. She had to crane her neck and get up on her tip toes to see over Gabe’s shoulder.
“If Phoenix Biotech in California is the south—” Marc pointed “—we assign the other celestial god animal things to the other states: Oregon, Montana, North Dakota. Your turtle could be either Montana or North Dakota depending on whether north refers to the state or the actual facility location. But what we care about is your tiger in the west. Seems pretty simple to me.”
Victoria piped up. “Each of these facilities are leftovers from the cold war, believe it or not. A satellite check showed the Oregon site is underground. Couldn’t get close because there’s high-level security restricting access to detailed imagery.”
“More and more likely,” Gabe commented.
“Oregon.” Maylin whispered, because stating the obvious seemed unnecessary, but she needed to say it for herself. “All this time and An-mei might be so close.”
“Might be. We need to get a closer look at the facility and get more intel on it.” Lizzy reached around Marc to pat Maylin on the shoulder.
“I’m betting it is.” Marc slapped his notepad on the counter. “If we’re right, it’ll save us days of recon. It’ll make a huge difference now that Edict knows we’re looking.”
Maylin froze. “Are we running out of time?”
Gabe turned on his stool as she settled back hard on her heels. He took her hands in his. “You’ve just won us back more time than anyone is expecting. Even if they try to move her, we’ll be watching in the right place now. We’ll see.”
“What do we do next?” Maylin meant the question for all of them, but she was looking at Gabe.
“We confirm with preliminary reconnaissance that the location is active, receiving the sorts of supplies to indicate the research we’re looking for, and bulked up enough on security to indicate our target is there. Then we start planning. This is going to move fast and we might have random questions for you.” Gabe gave her hands a squeeze. “It’s a lot of hurry up and wait.”
“Anything I can do.”
Chapter Eighteen
“Oh, Maylin.”
She paused at the front door as Marc popped his head out of the surveillance room.
“Thought you might want your smartphone back.” Marc strode toward her, hand outstretched. “I only used it once or twice while you were gone to make it look like you were checking your email. Didn’t check it at all once you two ran into Jewel in DC. Not much point since she and her team knew you weren’t here.”
Jewel wasn’t someone she wanted to think about right about now. But Maylin took the phone with a smile anyway. “Thanks.”
“It doesn’t hurt if you use it while you’re here. It’s pretty obvious you’re under our protection.” Marc flashed Gabe one of those male looks that wasn’t as indecipherable as they thought it was. “There’s probably a charger that fits it in the guest cabin.”
“I’ll show her.” Gabe sounded grumbly. He probably wouldn’t appreciate the description but to her, it was perfect.
The walk to the cabin was silent and awkward. When they reached the porch, Gabe came to a halt. “It’s going to be a busy afternoon for us, and probably a late night too.”
She nodded, clutching her phone to her chest to keep herself from fidgeting. “There’s plenty of noodles and soup left if you all get hungry later in the afternoon. And I can come up and make dinner.”
“Only if you want to.” Gabe shoved his hands deep into the front pockets of his jeans. “You should take the time to rest if you can.”
“I’m not going to get much sleep while we’re this close.”
“I know, but this kind of operation is something we need to prepare for in every way before we go in. Too many things can go wrong if we’re not ready, and these people—Edict at least and probably their sponsor too—they aren’t the type to have regrets if they end up killing people.”
Fear cut her breath short. For An-mei, for Gabe, for the people who’d so quickly become friends. “If there’s any way to do this without people getting hurt...”
“Being prepared will minimize the damage.” Gabe looked up, catching her in a fierce gaze. “We do what we do to ensure the best outcome. Believe that.”
Maylin swallowed hard. “I do.”
His expression softened. “Not like you’ve had much reason to believe me recently, but it’s true. We’re going to do everything we can to get your sister back safely for you. Let us do what we’re good at.”
She ached to hear his words. He was right, and she wasn’t going to lie to him or herself and say her faith in him had been completely restored. But it was rebuilding, and maybe he didn’t realize how much it had to do with him taking accountability for what he’d done, acknowledging how she’d felt and committing himself to rebuilding faith with her. Those things all mattered.
And most of all, she didn’t want things between them to be broken.
“Will you be coming back here at all?” The last few words came out in a whisper. She didn’t want him to feel obligated but she’d miss him.
His expression softened and yet his gaze intensified, heated. “There’s a lot of work to do. To be honest, if I come back here I’m going to be tempted to do all sorts of things to bring us closer together that have nothing to do with the mission or the team.”
She blinked, surprised by the answering heat coursing through her. Damn it, her nipples tightened.
“Shouldn’t play with temptation.” And she was going to have a nasty discussion with herself about priorities. Her body was distracting in the worst possible way and she wasn’t ready yet to give in that way again. Was she? She needed to edge them back towards steady ground. “Why don’t I come back up in a few hours and cook the kind of dinner you can grab and get back to whatever it was you were doing? The kind we can leave out on the counter for you all to snack on through the night.”
“Wouldn’t say no.” Gabe grinned at her and her breath caught to see it. “Entire team appreciates how you’ve been feeding us. We’re going to have to up our PT, though.”
“PT?” Nope. Her brain wasn’t capable of recovering fast enough to remember simple acronyms yet. Full-blown fantasies of kissing him were taking up the majority of her mental capacity at the moment.
If anything, his grin widened. As if he could know. Well, maybe he could. “Physical training.”
And how did one volunteer for it?
She dragged in a full breath of chill air. Cold shower might be better. “Good food is worth it.”
He winked. “Agreed.”
If he didn’t turn down the charm, her heart was going to crash right through her chest. Or stop for good.
“I’ll see you later,
coração.
” When he leaned in, she didn’t duck. His kiss seared her lips and when his fingers touched her jawline she opened her mouth so he could deepen the kiss. In moments, she was lost.
Then the kiss ended and he took a step back. Off balance, she almost stumbled forward and he reached out to steady her, letting her go as soon as she had regained her equilibrium. Physically, at least.
She thought he might say something. He opened his mouth, closed it. Then he turned and headed back.
What had she been hoping for? Had to be something, because the pang of disappointment hurt and she didn’t think it was Gabe’s fault. There was no doubt of the attraction between them, and he was walking away to do exactly what she’d wanted him to do from the first time she’d met him. Every minute she spent with him, her reasons for holding distance between them crumbled. And he had to know.
And he was giving her time. She should be thankful for it. But she wasn’t sure whether she wanted to help him close the distance or run.
She turned and walked inside the cabin, heading for the kitchen out of habit. But standing there, she couldn’t lock on to anything. Cleaning had been a great way to burn off the combination of confusion and frustration she’d felt this morning, but she wasn’t about to do it all again. There was keeping busy and then there was being crazy.
Pacing helped for about a minute or two.
Heading into the bedroom, she flopped onto the bed and stared at the ceiling.
It’d be silly to go back over there right away, even with the excuse of starting to cook something complicated. Gabe had just walked her over here, possibly to keep her out of their hair.
Besides, seeing Gabe and having him ignore her in favor of something else? It’d be hard. And not fair to want him to devote all his attention to what mattered, then be around distracting them both with the obvious lust issues they had.
No. That was unkind and unfair to the both of them. Whatever this was, it wasn’t just lust. It was more, for her at least, and Gabe wouldn’t be trying so hard if it was passing desire for him.
At lunch, she’d had a harder time than she liked to admit resisting the urge to tap at his shoulder and ask him to help her while she’d been cooking. He hadn’t been ignoring her at the time, but she’d wanted his full attention. And she didn’t like the way she wanted it because it hadn’t come from affection. It’d come from insecurity.
Where did they stand with each other?
The ball was mostly in her court. He’d made it obvious. So the indecision was all hers too. Great. She had no patience for indecision, especially her own.
She needed to trust him again. On a whole lot of levels.
Sitting up, she pulled out her smartphone and turned it on. It had about a twenty percent charge. Not bad but she hated having her electronics anything less than fully charged if there was an outlet nearby.
She started poking around in drawers and cabinets for a stash of chargers. There were a couple of interesting things, like a first aid kit and a mystery duffel bag in the little alcove under a shelf in the closet, but no chargers.
Out in the living area, where Gabe had been sitting with his laptop earlier in the day, there was a power strip and—found it, a charger that fit her phone. Hah.
She hadn’t checked email or messages in days. It’d been one thing to install the game app on the temp phone but Gabe had warned her not to check the things most likely to be under surveillance.
There were messages in her digital voice mail so she decided to clear through those first. A few client messages in response to her out of office notification asking her to respond as soon as she returned. Nothing urgent. She saved each of them to address later, when she was officially back from her “vacation.”
“Maylin. I need you to listen.”
She froze. Charlie’s voice was so strained, she barely recognized it.
“
Please
. There’s people. They won’t let me go. They’re giving me forty-eight hours and then they’re going to kill me.
Kill me!
They said all you have to do is let them come get you and they’ll take you to your sister. It’s what you wanted, right?”
Oh, no. Charlie.
No, no, no.
His voice dropped to a pleading whisper. “Everyone gets what they want, right? Please tell me this is the right thing to do. Please. I don’t want to die.”
A sinking feeling in her stomach turned and twisted into a tight knot of fear. How long had it been? Fumbling, she saved the message and cursed as she got the voice mail service to replay and announce the time stamp. It’d been a day and a half ago. A day and a half.
She should run to the main house. Right away. Ask Gabe...
Shuddering, Maylin went to the bathroom and threw up.
As she ran cold water from the tap and splashed her face, she pulled herself together piece by piece. She needed more information for Gabe and the team. This would split their attention, take precious time away from finding An-mei. But she wasn’t about to leave Charlie with whoever had him.
Still not sure she was doing exactly the right thing, she opened an app on her phone and set it to record, then she dialed Charlie’s number. She’d done it in the past to be sure she recalled details when planning an event, but this time, it mattered a lot more.
Before she bothered Gabe, she’d find out more about who had Charlie and what they wanted.
“Maylin, it took you this long to answer your friend’s call for help?”
Jewel’s voice came across the line, crystal clear.
Maylin fought to modulate her voice to calm and cool. “What do you want?”
“He told you.” Jewel chuckled. “Just allow us to come get you. We’ll let him go back to his life and we’ll take you to your sister. And everyone goes on into happy-ever-after.”
“If you know where I am, you know I can’t just walk out to the sidewalk and hop in a car. And I don’t know why I’d be of use to you anyway.” An-mei was the scientist, the brilliant resource. The closest Maylin could come to creating a biological warfare weapon was cooking up a devastatingly spicy batch of curry. Why, why, why were they after her?
Maylin started to wander back through the cabin, taking stock of what was actually tucked away. People like Gabe and his team had useful things at hand squirreled away in every nook and cranny. Even in their own base of operations, they didn’t seem like the types to keep everything in the obvious locations. Not that she’d know where they kept their weapons or anything anyway. But they all walked around with something on them. Harness, knife, sometimes even their guns. They were always ready for something to happen.
How likely was it there would be something in every building? She was betting they had small caches stashed everywhere in preparation for the worst-case scenario, including the guest cabin. And well, the mystery duffel bag she’d seen earlier wasn’t likely to be extra toilet paper.
“I’m sure Gabe’s told you by now. We have history.” Jewel said it in a way that left a million things implied. But Gabe had already told Maylin, so it irritated her but it didn’t catch her flat-footed. “I used to be a Centurion and I know the area and their security precautions quite well.”
“As if they wouldn’t change things.” Maylin didn’t know for sure but it sounded good.
The duffel bag was heavier than she anticipated as she hauled it out of the closet. With no idea what was in it, she handled it carefully and placed it gently on the bed.
Jewel sighed. “Change, yes, but they’re so predictable.”
Unzipping the bag, Maylin pushed it wide open so she could survey the contents and try to figure out what might help her. If—and this was a very tiny
if
—she ended up going with Jewel and the Edict team, she wanted something with her.
There were several guns and boxes of ammunition, but she’d never fired one and didn’t even know what ammunition went with what gun. Besides, she’d read articles about how women carrying guns usually had the very weapons they carried for self-defense used against them. Probably not her best option.
Some of the weapons were unidentifiable to her eyes. The letters and numbers printed on the sides didn’t help, either.
Then there were the canisters. “Flash Bang” was printed on the side of each one, along with a delay time. Simple pictures for directions. It didn’t take much to get the idea. Recognition and relief. Those could buy her time.
“We’ll manufacture a distraction. All you have to do is come along quietly and your friend lives.” There was ambient noise on the call, but Jewel was raising her voice to cover it. “Are we agreed?”
Maylin’s mind raced. “You haven’t asked me not to tell Gabe.”
“Oh, honey.” Jewel laughed. “I wouldn’t give you time to do that.”
In the background, someone said, “Location confirmed.”
Panic gripped Maylin. She was out of time. She didn’t know how, but it was a fact.
* * *
The explosion sent Gabe and his entire team crouching for cover and moving. Gabe headed for the front door, staying low, with Victoria right behind him. Both of them had handguns drawn and ready. Marc was two steps ahead, breaking off into the surveillance room. Lizzy had headed in the opposite direction, toward her room.
Gabe called out, “Anyone get a visual?”
Lizzy answered first, leaning out the doorway of her room as she slung her sniper rifle over her shoulder. “Came from the training side.”
“Contacting Training now to see if it was a misfire,” Marc called out from the surveillance room.
“Not likely! That was an ASM.” Victoria spat out a curse. “Heard too many overseas. Unless they added the missiles to the training program here, that wasn’t a misfire.”