Authors: Beverly Barton
"You look like you haven't been hurt too badly either," Gideon replied. "For a man who got himself caught by the Coalition. You did a dumb fool thing, brother."
"Talk about a dumb fool thing to do. Want to tell me how they got their hooks back into you?"
"Hell, Jake, I knew you'd never find the damn disk and would probably get yourself caught. What else could I do but come in after you?"
Jake chuckled. "What's that old saying? The road to hell is paved with good intentions."
"Well, bro, we need to figure out a way to get out of this mess."
Jake knew that his brother was as aware as he was that the room was bugged. He didn't kid himself that the two devices he'd found were the only two in the room. "Old Agnes and Oliver seem to have us by the short hairs, don't they?"
"Maybe we should just cooperate," Gideon said. "Make it easy on ourselves. After all, they'll wind up reprogramming us eventually."
Jake put his arm around Gideon's shoulders and leaned close enough to whisper. "The Feds know where we are.
They'll be storming this place soon." Jake cleared his throat.
"You don't have to remind me about Brooke." Gideon responded as if Jake had actually asked him something about his woman. "They've already reminded me that they can get to her quite easily and that they will if I don't help them."
Gideon's expression changed ever so slightly. Just enough to tell Jake that he understood help was on the way.
Now all they had to do was play along with Agnes and do their damnedest not to get themselves killed before Mariah and her fellow agents rescued them. If they lived through this, Mariah would sure get a kick of saving his sorry hide once again.
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***
The Coalition's Arizona compound was high in the Cerbat Mountains in the northwestern part of the state. At one time the region had been dotted with silver and gold mines. Although the area didn't look like much now, at one time millions of dollars of silver pay dirt had come out of the mountain. Many of the old horizontal shafts had been shut by dynamite, but undoubtedly the Coalition had bought property up here and constructed a compound in one of the old mines. The place was a safe haven undetectable by airplane surveillance and the entrance disguised as an abandoned mine kept it hidden from anyone who came upon the place by accident. The first thing Mariah had noticed was the rusty metal sign with the words Verde Valley Mining Company printed in bold letters.
"It's been four hours since they took Jake inside," Mariah said. "We know Gideon is already there, so Jake should have used the microtransmitter by now.''
"Which leads us to believe they found the transmitter on him," Johnson said.
"We've waited long enough. If Jake could have gotten word to us somehow, he would have, so I say we strike now."
"I agree." Johnson took out his digital phone and dialed the number for headquarters. "All I need is an official okay."
Mariah waited while Johnson spoke softly into the phone. After hours of trailing the gray van, staying miles behind, and allowing the ever-changing parade of agents to keep closer tabs, they had waited for hours once they were in position to strike. Mariah's nerves were frayed. She kept wondering what was happening to Jake. Had they harmed him? Drugged him? Beaten him? Were they torturing Gideon Faulkner in front of Jake, trying to break him?''
"We're moving in," Johnson told her as he put his phone in his jacket pocket. "Jake Ingram's siblings have contacted the bureau with some very interesting information. It seems that someone—possibly Gideon Faulkner—was able to forward, via the Coalition's own computer system, some very damaging information about the Coalition and their plans for future crimes. .Within the hour other agents will be moving in on the Oregon compound."
"They know the location?" Johnson's assistant, Agent McBride asked, his black eyes wide with wonder.
"The coordinates for the location were included in the transmission to the siblings," Johnson replied.
Emotion tightened Mariah's chest and it was all she could do not to cry with joy. One of Jake's goals had been met.
The Coalition was going down. If the information sent to Jake's siblings wasn't enough to put away every last member of the Coalition for life, then surely the bureau would find enough damaging info at the Oregon compound to accomplish the job. Now her only concern was Jake. And Gideon, of course, because his brother was Jake's top priority.
Mariah suited up. Full battle gear. Adrenaline pumped through her wildly. She was on an epinephrine high. Energy charged. Locked and loaded in every sense.
A surprise attack. Fast and furious. Take the enemy off-guard and destroy anything in the path of your objective.
Despite the bureau's past mistakes, every man and woman prepared to storm the compound knew they were here to do a dirty job, one that might later either garner them some really bad press or win them the praise of a grateful nation.
Either way, they were ready to do their duty.
Marksmen, trained as advance men, went in first, to prepare the way for the others. Once they sent back a signal to precede, Mariah and Johnson were in the first team to take the elevator and descend into the bowels of the earth. The minute the elevator opened, they heard gunplay. Using a defense mode, their team cautiously began moving into the open corridor. They took one room at a time, searching for Jake and Gideon. The advance team had done a great job of clearing the path, but as the minutes ticked by and they exposed one room after another, trekked up and down corridor after corridor, Mariah began to fear that Agnes and Oliver were holed up somewhere in this high-tech maze and had every intention of using Jake and Gideon as shields.
When they approached an unexplored hallway, one of the agents on the advance team hightailed it directly to Johnson.
"We've found them," the agent reported. "Grimble and Payne have asked to speak to the one in charge. They want to negotiate the terms of their releasing Ingram and Faulkner."
"Damn!" Just as Mariah had thought—Jake and Gideon remained hostages. The ever-clever Agnes would sacrifice anyone or anything to save her own neck. And Mariah knew that no way in hell was she going to trust the woman.
"You can't negotiate with her," Mariah told Johnson. "You can't trust her. You've got to know that."
"What do we do?" the advance guardsman asked. "She's given us five minutes to get back to her with a reply. And my guess is that she's timing us down to the millisecond."
"Can you tell me anything about the room where she's holding Ingrain and Faulkner?" Mariah asked.
"The best I can tell, all the rooms along this hallway are identical. Check out any one of them and it'll give you a good picture of the one where Payne and Grimble are holding their prisoners."
"Is there anyone else in the room, other than the four of them?" Johnson inquired.
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"Yes, sir. We're pretty sure there are at least two others, but one of the guards is badly wounded and we're certain that Grimble took a hit to the shoulder."
Mariah turned to the agent. "Go back and tell her that Special Agent Johnson is in charge and he's on his way to talk to her."
"Mariah?" Johnson gave her a questioning stare.
"You talk to Agnes Payne. Stall her. I'm going to check out a couple of the rooms and see if I can find a way to get access to the room where Jake is. If I can find an alternate way in, then we have a chance of saving Jake and his brother, and maybe taking Agnes and Oliver alive. Keep radio communication open. I'll alert you about whatever I plan to do."
"That's good of you." Johnson mulled her suggestion over in his mind quickly, then said, "Be careful, will you, Daley. I would say don't take any unnecessary chances, but I know I'd be wasting my breath."
Marian grabbed the other agent's arm. "How many rooms down the hall is the room where Jake Ingram is being held?"
"The last one, ma'am. The sixth room on the right."
Mariah turned to Johnson. "Wish me luck."
"You'll need more than luck," he told her. "I'll pray for a miracle."
While Johnson headed down the hallway with the other agent, Mariah scouted out two of the empty rooms—
empty. She studied every aspect of the small rooms. The vent in the ceiling might be large enough for her to squeeze through—if she got rid of her coat, bulletproof vest and other equipment, then sucked in her breath and didn't mind the edges of the vent scraping her from shoulders to knees. After removing her heavy winter coat and vest, she shoved a desk directly under the vent, then placed a chair on top of the desk. She scrambled around in the desk drawers, searching for something she could use as a screwdriver. She found a letter opener and knew it was the closest thing she'd find to the tool she needed.
Using her communications device, Mariah contacted Johnson. "I'm going to crawl through the ventilation shaft.
Once I'm inside, I figure I'll be making enough noise for them to hear me, so I'm going to need a loud distraction for a couple of minutes until I can make it from Room Two to Room Six."
"On your signal, we'll provide the loud distraction," Johnson assured her.
Making sure the new weapon had provided her was secure in her new shoulder holster and checking the small flashlight stuffed inside her bra between her breasts, she climbed onto the table and then up onto the chair. Her fingertips just did reach the ceiling. Thank God she was five-ten and had long arms, otherwise she wouldn't have been able to use the letter opener to unscrew the bolts holding the vent cover in place. It took patience and tricky maneuvering to accomplish her goal, but eventually she managed to remove the cover. Instead of dropping it to the floor, which would have been the easiest solution, she climbed off the chair and laid the cover down on the desk.
Maybe sounds weren't echoing down the hallway or the vent shaft, but on the off chance they were, she didn't want to alert the enemy about her plan.
After climbing back up onto the chair, she stood on her tiptoes, grabbed hold of the side of the gap in the ceiling and did the equivalent of a chin-press to hoist herself up and into the vent. Once inside, she scooted away from the opening. After undoing the first few buttons on her shirt, she pulled the flashlight out of her bra and turned it on. She shined the light forward and backward. The ventilation shaft was barely wide enough for a slender person. Most men would have a difficult time squeezing through the space.
She contacted Johnson again. "Get ready to make a very loud noise and keep it up for several minutes."
"Will do."
On her belly, using her arms and legs to advance her body along the ventilation tube, Mariah crawled as quickly as possible, heading directly to the final room on the right. Suddenly she heard voices shouting, then the
rat-a-tat-tat
of machine-gun fire. Good God, what was Johnson doing? What difference does it make as long as it distracts Agnes and her cohorts? While Mariah made her way down the shaft, the racket continued, effectively drowning out the rumbling sound of her body hitting against the sides of the air duct.
Hovering directly over the vent into Room Six, Mariah peered through the open slats. One guard lay either dead or unconscious in the far left comer. The other guard stood with his back to the wall near the door, his rifle up against his chest, a terrified look on his face.
Scanning the room further, she caught a glimpse of Oliver seated on the floor, his hands pressed tightly against his shoulder, blood oozing out between his fingers. He was wounded, but didn't look as if he was at death's door. Moving her gaze toward the opposite side of the room, she saw Jake standing tall and straight, Gideon at his side. Agnes Payne held a handgun to Gideon's head. Damn the woman. She knew exactly how to keep both brothers in line without assistance from anyone else.
The gunplay outside the room tapered off. Johnson's voice called out loudly. "We just finished off what was left of your little army inside the compound."
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"What do I care?" Agnes shouted. "The odds are still in my favor. I have Gideon and Jake. If you want them alive, then you'll agree to my terms."
"And what are your terms?" Johnson asked.
"Safe passage out of this place for my husband and me. I'll take Gideon with us until we're out of the country, then I'll set him free."
"What guarantee do I have that you'll keep your word?"
While Johnson and Agnes went back and forth on the details of a deal that would never happen, Mariah used her fingertips and the letter opener to loosen the screws in the vent cover from the back side. No easy feat. When she had two screws very loose, barely hanging on, she took a deep breath, then shoved the cover down, giving herself free access to a clear shot. The simultaneous events occurred at lightning speed. Mariah's first bullet hit Agnes in the head. She'd had no choice but to kill Agnes; otherwise the woman would have murdered Gideon. Jake swung forward and knocked the gun out of Agnes's hand just before she fell to the floor. The guard by the door realized what had happened and turned his rifle on Mariah. Jake bolted across the room and dove toward the guard, knocking him to the floor. His rifle fired as he hit the concrete, but the bullet missed Marian, embedding itself in the ceiling several feet away from the vent. Gideon Faulkner noticed Oliver Grimble removing a pistol from his pocket and called out to Jake, who was closer to Oliver than Gideon was. Mariah jumped down through the vent opening and landed haphazardly.
She fell on her side. Pain radiated through her hip. She rolled over twice, aimed her gun and fired at the guard who had roused and was aiming the rifle at Jake's back. Jake jumped on Oliver, struggling with him for possession of the gun.