The Nexus Series: Books 1-3 (32 page)

19

JILL’S
phone vibrated.  She checked it while she laid out the next
blueprint.  “Uh-oh.”

“What’s the
problem?” Amber asked as she snapped another photo.

“Corey says we’ve
got company.”

“Isn’t that why
we left him and Bradley on guard?”

“Apparently
they’re outnumbered.”

“Hello in there,
Ms.
Luvinsky
!” Dr. Valentine’s voice sounded
distantly from the vault door.

The girls
exchanged an anxious glance.

“What do we do?”
asked Amber.

Jill got out the
next page.  “Hurry.”

COREY,
Bradley, and Jerry G watched in silence from their hiding place as the
professor made his speech into the open vault door.

“You’re really
very persistent, aren’t you?”  He laughed and shook his head.  “I
should have known you’d try something like this.  I made it all the way
back to my seat before I realized I’d been played.  And to think I almost
let you pull it off!”

In the dark hall
Bradley began raising his weapon.  Corey grabbed his arm and shook his
head. 
Just wait.

“Now, we could
come after you, guns blazing,” Dr. Valentine went on.  “And, of course, we
would find you eventually—you’re trapped in there, you know.  Why don’t
you just make things easier for everyone and come on out?”

“I
should just go,” said Amber.

“Don’t be
ridiculous!” said Jill.

“They think I’m
alone,” Amber insisted.  “If I turn myself in, the rest of you won’t have
to be involved.”

“We don’t know
what they’ll do to you,” said Jill.

“Most likely
they’ll turn me over to the authorities.  Then the department can sort
things out.  I’ll be fine, Jill, really!  It’s our best option.”

Jill
hesitated.  “Okay.  Give me the camera.”

AMBER
stepped out of the vault door.  “Hello, professor.”

He nodded at
her.  “Ms.
Luvinsky
...
if
that’s your
name.”

“Of course it’s
my name.”

Dr. Valentine
shrugged.  “Either way, it’s of no consequence.  Glad to see you’ve
chosen the wise move and given yourself up.  Would a couple of you
gentlemen escort this young lady back upstairs?”

Two of the
black-suited men stepped toward her.  “Hey,” one of them shouted, suddenly
drawing his gun and pointing it toward the dark hallway, “who’s in there?”

Jerry G squeaked.

Amber dropped to
the floor.

Corey and Bradley
opened fire.

Four of the
guards went down.  The professor covered his head and fled to the
stairs.  The other two backed toward the stairs and fired toward the
hallway. 

Another bodyguard
went down.  The last one finally disappeared up the steps.  “Get us
more men down here
now!
” he was yelling, presumably into his com.

Corey and Bradley
leaped into the room and stunned him simultaneously.

“I get that
one—you got the last one,” said Corey.

“Fair enough,”
said Bradley.

“We’ve got to hurry,
Jill!” Amber called into the vault.

“Not done yet,”
she responded from the depths of the storage room.

“Let’s just cut
our losses and get moving,” said Corey.

“We need the
entire blueprint or this has all been for nothing,” said Jill.  “The rest
of you go.”

“No, no!” Jerry G
said in a quivering voice, just now emerging, rubber-legged, from the hall.

“More security
are on their way,” Amber reminded Jerry.

“This is our
chance,” said Bradley.  “Jill can slip away from them more easily on her
own than all of us can together if we wait for her.”

“We’re not
leaving without Jill,” Jerry said adamantly.

Corey bit his
lip.  “They don’t know Jill is in there.”

Amber picked up
on his train of thought.  “We make a diversion.”

“The vault opens
easily from the inside?” he asked her.

“It looked like
it.”

“Jill, we’re
closing you in,” Corey called.  “We’ll lead them down the hall away from
you.  Contact us the minute you’re out.”  He shut the vault and
reloaded his gun.  “Let’s go.”

Bradley reloaded
his own weapon, then drew a second from beneath his jacket and handed it to
Amber.

“So everybody
gets guns but me,” said Jerry.

“Actually,” said
Corey, drawing a second weapon and extending it toward Jerry, “I’ve got a
spare.”

Jerry just
stared.  “I wasn’t complaining,” he said with a gulp.

“A little nervous
handling firearms?” Bradley asked with a frown.

“Don’t worry,”
Corey reassured him, “they’re stunners, not bullets.”

“Doesn’t
matter.  I couldn’t hit an elephant from three yards away.”

“We’re making a
diversion, remember?  The sound is more important than the aim.”

At last Jerry
cautiously accepted the proffered handgun.  “So it’s okay if I don’t hit
anyone?”

“Just try not to
hit one of us,” Bradley requested.

“Here they come,”
said Amber as footsteps began sounding faintly from up the stairs.

Jerry squawked as
the gun in his hand fired.  A stunner thwacked into the wall across the
room.

Corey put a hand
on Jerry’s shoulder.  “Not quite yet, buddy.”

Jerry smiled
weakly.  “Just making sure they knew we were still down here.”

“Let’s move,”
Bradley said impatiently.

The four of them
ducked down the dark hallway.

JUST
one more...

Jill snapped the
last photograph and put the final blueprint away.

Her phone
vibrated. 
You’re clear
, Corey’s message said.

She put the small
camera in her purse and retraced her steps to the vault door.  Corey said
the diversion had worked, but she still couldn’t help wincing at the loud click
and hiss the round door made as it opened.  She peered out into the
room.  Empty.

Jill closed the
vault behind her and started up the stairs.  If she could get back to the
gala she’d be in good shape—the professor’s bodyguard didn’t know she was with
Amber.  But if they saw her leaving this section of the building...

She froze at the
staircase’s first landing.  At the top of the switchback she saw the back
of two huge men in black suits.

She retreated
back down the stairs.  The only other option was down the hall—the hall
the others had used for the diversion.

HER
teammates emerged from a maze of basement hallways and stepped into a
classroom.

“I still hear
them back there,” said Amber.

“Then we did our
job,” said Corey.  “We led them away from Jill.  She’s probably back
upstairs safe and sound by now.”

The footsteps in
the hallway behind them were getting closer.

“What about us?”
asked Jerry.

“This should lead
us back outside,” said Amber, gesturing to the door behind the classroom’s
lectern.  She stepped to it and tugged at the handle.  “Great. 
Locked from the other side.”

It was the room’s
only exit besides the door back to the hallway.  The footsteps in the hall
were getting closer.

“This’ll be fun,”
said Corey.

“
Wh
-what do you mean?” Jerry asked in a quivering voice.

The first
black-suited man appeared in the doorway, gun raised.

JILL
felt her way down the dark hallway.  Somewhere there had to be a way to
get back upstairs.  Or, better yet, outside.

She heard a shot
up ahead.

“YOU’RE
telling me this isn’t fun?” Corey asked.  He and Jerry were crouched
behind a large desk next to the lectern.  Across the room Amber and
Bradley were behind an overturned table.

Jerry wrung his
hands.  “I should’ve left when you gave me the chance.”

“All right,” a
voice barked from the doorway to the classroom, “we know you’re in here. 
Come on out and make this easy.”

“Hey,” Corey
whispered, “look on the bright side.  At least you’re armed.”

“Apparently the
bad guys are too,” Jerry replied.

“
We’re
kind of the bad guys, actually,” Corey reminded him.

“Do you
s’pose
they have stunners instead of real bullets?”

“Maybe.”

The man who had
fired the initial warning shot fired a few more.  Bullet holes peppered
the wall behind the desk.

“Maybe not,” said
Corey.  He leaned out from the desk long enough to return fire.  The
men in black suits ducked behind some desks across the room.

A few more shots
were exchanged.

“If it’s any
comfort,” Corey whispered, “I don’t think they want to kill us.”

“Glad to hear
it.”

“We found them,”
one of the bodyguards yelled into his com.  “Get everyone down here to
classroom B7.”

Jerry gripped his
gun.  “Cover me.”

Corey looked at
him.  “What?”

“That’s what they
say in the movies.”

“Do you even know
what that means?”

“Just do it,
okay?”  Jerry leaped to his feet, shrieking as he emptied his gun’s clip.

Corey yanked him
back down.  “What’s wrong with you?”

“You said they
wouldn’t kill me!” Jerry hissed.

“I said I didn’t
think
they wanted to kill you!  Did you even hit anyone?”

“I don’t know, my
eyes were closed.”

“Are you kidding
me?”

It dawned on
Corey that the room had been silent for several seconds in a row.  He
glanced across the room at Bradley.  Bradley shrugged.  Slowly,
silently, Corey leaned out.

He saw four
motionless forms slumped over the desks.

Amber stood from
behind the table and stepped up to one of the stunned bodyguards.  She
relieved him of his weapon.

“Powerful
handgun,” Bradley observed.

“Good,” said
Amber.

A few shots later
the door behind the lectern wasn’t much more than splinters hanging from the
hinges.

JILL
paused.  A few more shots had sounded, followed by several moments of
silence.

Her phone
vibrated. 
We’re good.  Meet us NW corner of campus.

A shuffle sounded
behind her.  She ducked into a nook in the hall.

Several more of
the men in black suits walked past her.  They went into the classroom at
the end of the hall.  “They’re outside,” one of them said.  “You two
stay here.  The rest of you follow me.”

Jill peeked into
the dark hall.  To her left the two guards stood sentry.  To her
right there was nowhere to go but the stairs, where two more guards stood
sentry.

Trapped.

...Wait.  In
an alcove just down the hall she saw an elevator.

Jill crossed
silently to the alcove and pushed the call button.  The guards down the
hall didn’t seem to notice the sound of the doors humming open.  She
stepped onto the elevator and pushed the button for the ground floor.

The doors opened
again a moment later.  She heard the distant sounds of the gala, but at
the end of the hall between her and the party stood two more guards.

She shut the doors
and pushed the button for level two.

Level two seemed
deserted.  She walked down a hall and stepped onto the balcony that
overlooked the ballroom.  She leaned on the rail and peered down. 
The sights and sounds of the gala seemed so, so far away below her.

“Quite a party,
isn’t it?” Dr. Valentine’s voice came from behind her.

Jill didn’t turn
around.  She didn’t need to look at him to know he had a triumphant look
on his face and a weapon aimed at her.

“But then,” he
went on, “we like to do things big here at
Davarius
.”

“So I’ve
learned,” she said, still looking down at the party.  Stealthily she
opened her purse.  “You throw a gala; it’s the biggest one in town. 
You join a criminal ring; it’s the biggest one in town.”

“Oh, I don’t
think
I’m
the criminal here!”

Now she turned
and looked him in the eye.  “Oh, I think you are.”

THEY
were waiting in the limo across the street from the
Grinnel
Building at the northwest corner of the campus.  They hadn’t been
followed.

“What’s taking
her so long?” Bradley muttered.

“Did she respond
to your message?” Jerry G asked anxiously.

Corey shook his
head.

“Dizzie, are you
tracking her?” asked Amber.

“Should get a
location from her mobile,” Dizzie replied, frowning at her computer. 
“Okay, she’s on level two overlooking the ballroom.  She’s not moving.”

“She’s in
trouble,” moaned Jerry.

Corey’s phone
vibrated.  He answered it instantly.  “Jill?”

The others
watched him tensely.

“Well?” Jerry
asked after several seconds.  “What’s the deal?”

Corey wordlessly
put his phone on speaker.

“I’ve nothing to
do with them,” the professor’s voice was saying insistently.

“Except that
you’ve helped them disappear underneath the city,” Jill’s voice replied. 
“How much did they offer you for a look at the blueprints?”

“Not as much as they
should have, actually.  But at least they made an offer instead of
breaking into my vault!”

Jerry G wrung his
hands.  “We’ve got to get her out of there!”

“How do you
suggest we do that?” asked Bradley.  “Every guard in there is watching for
our faces.”

Corey stepped out
of the limo and knocked on the driver’s door.

The chauffer
rolled down his window.  “What’s going on?”

“You know, I’ve
always wanted to drive one of these things,” said Corey.  “I think
tonight’s my lucky night.”