The Defender (The Carrier Series Book 2) (27 page)

“…hold post…ission tech…cryption.”

“We’re deep under the park.” I looked up at the ceiling,
thinking about what was above our heads, and then took out my phone. “I’ve got
no reception.”

“Guess we’re on our own down here,” Drew said, pocketing his
phone. “Wonder how long she’s going to take back there,” he said, pointing at
the door Darcy had walked through.

With his arm extended it was easy to notice. “The watch,” I
said, pointing. “It’s counting down.”

Drew studied the face for a moment. “It’s at twenty-nine minutes
and twenty-seven seconds.” He put the watch up to his ear and then jumped up
from the ground quickly like he had just sat on a bee’s nest. “That bitch! It’s
a bomb!” Drew frantically attempted to get the watch off, but there was no
traditional watch fastener, only a tiny box with an up and down arrow button.

“Stop! If it is a bomb, we need to be careful. Come here.” I
waved for Drew to move his arm near my hands. I carefully studied the watch,
and when I put it to my ear it sounded just like a watch and nothing more. “I
don’t think it’s a bomb. But I do think she wants us to do something in the
next twenty-eight and a half minutes.”

Drew screamed at his wrist, “Why are so you cryptic, Darcy?”

And as if she had heard him, the watch spoke to us. “Adam’s
coming back to let you through the door. Follow his instructions carefully. Oh,
and check the cabinet.”

Drew yelled at the watch, “Darcy! Darcy, can you hear me?” He
lifted the watch to his ear but heard nothing.

“Check the cabinet?” I repeated, perplexed. I turned around,
looking for any kind of storage unit, but found nothing.

Almost immediately the heavy, metal door began to slowly slide
open. Drew and I approached the entrance and as soon as Adam’s face appeared in
my sight I punched him hard in the jaw.

Man, that felt good.

He fell to the floor and I stood over him, looking down on the
punk. “That’s for trying to steal my girl.” He groaned and rolled over from his
side to his back. Although I knew this would be the perfect vantage point from
which to kick him squarely in the nuts, I knew I needed Adam to help me get Ava
out of Myers’s grip. I offered a hand to help him up.

He reluctantly accepted and stood, rubbing his jaw. “I don’t
think I deserved that, mate.”

“Are you really a double?” I asked quietly.

“This is not the place,” Adam replied grumpily. Then he turned
and led us through a clean, grey metal hallway with curved walls like a tunnel.
A strip of blue lights glowed at the point where the wall met the floor.

At the end of the hall Adam stopped in front of a door cracked
open to give us more instructions. “We’re going to have to take out the guards
on the other side so they don’t alarm Myers to your presence.”

“Hey, you know anything about this watch?” Drew held out his
wrist for Adam to see. “It’s Darcy’s.”

“No,” he said barely looking. “After we take out the guards,
we’ll advance through and enter the viewing room outside the operating room
where Myers is holding Ava. Darcy’s in there with her right now.”

I felt that familiar nervous feeling zooming around in my belly,
mixed with adrenaline, sleepiness, and anger. I was a complete emotional mess
and wasn’t sure if I could handle what was in store for me.

“Why is he holding her?” Drew asked. “If he wanted her dead, why
hasn’t he done it already?”

“He’s preparing to take a sample of her DNA. He’s not sure, but
believes she might be one of the Desirable Eight. All of us here,” he pointed
to Drew and me, then back to himself, “know she can’t be.”

“So go in there and tell Myers Ava’s not one of the Eight!” I
challenged.

“Darcy believes we should allow Myers to realize on his own that
Ava’s genes are not weakened to the point he needs them to be.”

“Can’t you just take a DNA sample with a cotton swab and a lab
kit?” Drew questioned. “What’s with the operating room?”

“Not this kind of sample. Myers needs a specific gene part that
has disintegrated just the right amount from a cell deep within her brain. He
knows my training in neuro-genetics and has asked me to perform the operation.”

“Absolutely not! What’s the problem with just busting in and
whisking her out of there right now?” There was no way I would allow Adam slice
her head open again—last time that didn’t go so well.

Drew came to the conclusion before I did. “Myers isn’t much closer
to the cure than we are, is he?”

“No. The agencies don’t want Darcy and me to risk revealing our
true selves yet. We believe Myers has more to discover and he is the only one
with access to the correct resources.

“It’s in his father’s research,” I spoke quietly.

Adam continued, ignoring my discovery. “We need him to create
the cure for us before we take him down. If we can get him to decide he doesn’t
need Ava’s DNA for the cure, then we can get her out of here without him
suspecting anything.”

“But he wants revenge for Ava’s grandmother killing his
parents!” I frantically whispered. “If he realizes he doesn’t need her for the
cure, then he’ll undoubtedly kill her right there on the spot!”

“Excuse me? Ava grandmother killed Myers’s parents?” Adam looked
genuinely surprised. “Blimey,” he said in a whisper.

“It’s a long story,” Drew replied. The watch on his wrist spoke
to us again, “Get in here! What’s taking so long?”

“Twenty-four minutes,” Drew whispered to me.

“Let’s go!” Adam pushed the door open and silently snuck
forward.

Three guards sat attentively around a half moon grey desk
occupied with computer screens and keyboards. The men drank from coffee mugs
and were dressed in khaki uniforms, completely oblivious to the intruders
standing behind them.

“Agent Raddemann, you’re back quickly,” one of the guards
stated.

Agent Raddemann?

Adam didn’t reply, but threw a crippling uppercut, knocking the
guard off his chair. Drew and I rushed in and took out the other two men as
they sprang to their feet, grabbing for their guns. Within seconds we had
knocked out and disarmed all three. Adam snatched the key ring off one of their
belts as we stepped over their bodies and quickly entered a hallway beyond the
desk.

As Adam led the way I was overcome with the oddest feeling, as
if cold pressure from the park above us was pushing down on our heads. I closed
my eyes tight and shook my head, trying to chase away the impending gloom
surrounding my very being.

We entered a small dark room lined with a tilted wall of windows
revealing an operating room beyond it. There were chairs for observers and even
a screen for displaying close-ups from the surgery. The lights were off in this
room, the darkness shielding us from view.

Inside the white operating room, Ava was strapped to a medical
table and draped in a hospital gown, her eyes closed. A gag was positioned
across her mouth. My heart leapt when I saw her so near me, looking so
helpless. Had she been knocked unconscious? Darcy and two other men stood
nearby.

“Why can’t we hear what they’re saying?” Drew asked.

“The intercom system is not on. Stay here while I go in. No one
will be tempted to look in here if you don’t bring attention to yourself. I’ll
clear my throat two times loudly if I want you to come in and back me up.” Then
he left the viewing area and entered the operating room, locking the door
behind him.

Curious, I tried the door we entered through. “He locked us in,”
I said, when the door wouldn’t move.

“I’m not sure this is going the way we’d like it to,” Drew said
somewhat nervously, trying again to get the watch off.

“I couldn’t have said it better.” I walked over to Drew and
crouched down. “Give me one good reason why I shouldn’t bust open that door
right now and steal Ava away.”

“Might I remind you we are in Myers’s funhouse, and if the rest
of it is anything like that whacked-out elevator, we’re in trouble. We are
basically at the mercy of two”—he used air quotes for emphasis—“double agents,
one of whom may want to bomb my arm off, and the other is about to slice your
lover’s brain wide open.”

He was right. We needed a real plan in order to end this thing
in our favor.

The people through the window busied themselves around the room,
preparing. They washed instruments, brought in sterile linens and solutions,
and laid out surgical tools. Adam checked Ava’s vitals and Darcy attended to
some computers in the corner. Ava’s eyes were still closed when Adam bent down
near her face and whispered something into her ear. I was so intent on watching
Ava that I hadn’t noticed Drew crouched down on the floor.

“What are you doing?” I asked.

“I’ve got the overwhelming feeling that we’re walking right into
a trap. Presently I don’t trust Adam or Darcy, and I can’t fathom a way out of
here for us.”

Scattered around Drew on the floor were several small tech
objects. He had the GPS device he used to identify hiding enemy agents in the
student center, a few tablets of different sizes, and a long, skinny device
somewhat like a keyboard but turned vertically. Positioned at the top of this
machine was a small square monitor and a probe that extended off the end about
four inches. Drew was waving this one over Darcy’s watch.

“Hot damn, it isn’t explosive! It’s just counting down.” He
smiled and then looked up through the window at Darcy as if he was asking her a
question. “What’s supposed to happen in nineteen minutes?”

“Dude! Where do you keep all those gadgets?”

“Never underestimate the real estate in your cargo pantaloons,
friend!”

I laughed. It felt good to laugh.

Drew picked up the long, skinny device. “This little guy can
scan a radius of fifty feet for environmental abnormalities, explosive devices,
weird biometric readings—you know, anything we should be aware of before we
bust in there and thrown down!”  

Drew was always prepared. The machine beeped rapidly, and I
tried to read the monitor, but the data was unfamiliar and I had no idea what
was displayed.

When I looked up again Adam was dressed in a surgical gown,
holding Ava’s hand with both of his and staring into her open eyes. Adam placed
the anesthesia mask over Ava’s mouth. It was difficult to be sure, but I
thought I saw a tear flow from her eye and land on the table.

“Everything looks normal. No sign of explosives or harmful
toxins—wait….Wait, what is…?” Drew typed on the strange keyboard and looked
quizzically at the screen. He rubbed his eyes and muttered under his breath.

“What?”

“Wait, let me scan again. This must be a mistake.” He typed in a
command and then waited while the machine beeped for a few moments. He looked
down while he waited. “Sixteen minutes on the watch.”

Suddenly we could hear Adam’s voice over the intercom. Through
the window, I could see Myers, dressed in a medical gown, standing against the
back wall of the room.

“Sir?” Adam said to Myers, “The Desflurane is not entering the
mask. Something is wrong with your anesthetic machine.”

“Fix it!” Myers barked. Darcy rushed over and they played with
the hoses and tubes for a few seconds.

What were they up to?

Drew spoke up at my side. “No, it’s reading the same…. Huh….”

“What!” I was getting impatient.

“I’m getting an abnormal reading from…well, from Ava.” He
continued typing on the machine.

“Then give her Methohexital intravenously!” Myers snapped.

Darcy spoke up. “Sir, your supply has been depleted.”

Myers gave a loud grunt of disapproval and frustration.

“Drew, what do you mean, a strange reading?” I asked
impatiently.

“It’s her body. There is some type of foreign substance in her
body.” Adam wrinkled his nose and played around with the machine.

“Is it dangerous? Did Myers pump her veins with something?
Drugs? Did he drug her?”

An angry fire burned within me again, but my attention was
pulled back through the window when Myers’s voice became much louder.

“This is unacceptable!” Myers paced the operating room while
Darcy and Adam quickly prepared instruments. “I suppose we are forced to
proceed without placing Miss Gardner under anesthesia.”

Ava whined loudly and squirmed on the table, tears pouring from
her eyes.

“Drew! What’s the deal? We’ve gotta get in there!” My body was
shaking, revving up and ready to break loose.

Just like my heart.

Myers’s demeanor changed rapidly as he realized for the first
time that Ava was awake.

“Ah, Miss Ava Gardner, I finally get to meet you.” He walked
over to where she was lying, but stayed behind her head so she couldn’t see
him. “Can’t say it’s a pleasure, though. Your very name makes me want to vomit
right here on the floor.” His laugh was disgusting. “Though not because of lack
of beauty. You’ve got that one covered, my dear.” He took one oversized plump
hand and stroked her brown hair.