Wicked Sexy (Wicked Games #2)(99)

“It’ll be messy. It probably won’t work. But if you get lucky, you can stab yourself in just the right spot on your neck and use the hollow part of the pen as a breathing tube, allowing you to live long enough for the authorities to arrive. And if you don’t get lucky, I can rest easy in the knowledge that I gave you a fighting chance, and you died because you were just too lame to save yourself. What d’you say?”

S?ren’s lips are turning an interesting shade of blue. He flails an arm at me, but I lean back, cross my arms over my chest, and shake my head. “I think you’re wasting valuable time here, but hey, it’s your life.”

His eyes are watering. He nods frantically, pointing at his desk. At the drawer beneath the keyboard.

I open it and find a pad of white paper and two mechanical pencils. “You and your pencils, S?ren. Seriously, who uses pencils anymore?”

He rolls to his knees, tries to find his balance, can’t. He falls over, collapsing to his side. He jabs his finger in the air repeatedly.

“I’m telling you, there are no pens in this drawer—oh. I found one. Here you go.”

I drop the pen and a pad of paper on the floor. He scrambles over to it, wheezing, his entire face starting to turn the same blue as his lips. He scribbles something on the pad, shoves it toward me over the floor, and then frantically unscrews the top of the pen.

“Press F1,” I read aloud. Must bring up a schematic. It’s not like he has time to hand draw me a map of the caves.

I turn quickly to the desk and its sea of buttons, hunting for the F1 key, surprised to find it so easily. I press it, and instantly all the white lights in the cave change to flashing red ones. An alarm blasts. I hear shouts, barked orders, boots pounding up the stairs.

I whirl around and stare at S?ren. Like an animal, he savagely bares his teeth at me.

Then he plunges the pen straight into the base of his neck.

Blood spurts through his fingers. His body jerks. He makes an awful gurgling sound, and that’s all I can watch. I turn quickly back to the computer because I’ve only got seconds left before the guards are at the top of the stairs.

I press F1 again to get the alarm to stop, but it doesn’t work. There’s a different kill key, so I’ll just have to do my business with a horn blasting in my ears. Although there are many unmarked buttons on the console, the keyboard is a standard computer keyboard—I start there. I have just enough time to enter a set of instructions and hit the Enter key before I hear an angry shout behind me.

“Stop! Put your hands up!”

Slowly, I raise my hands in the air and turn.

The guards.

Three rush to help S?ren. He’s sitting upright, although he looks like he could pass out at any moment. His white shirt is covered in blood, as are his hands. A small silver metal tube protrudes from the base of his throat.

Son of a bitch. He actually did it.

S?ren looks at me. He looks at the guard with his rifle trained on me. Then he points sharply at his thigh, a motion I don’t understand until the guard readjusts his aim, pulls the trigger, and shoots me in the leg.





Thirty-Nine





Connor




When we’re approximately ten meters from the fence, a noise breaks the stillness of the night. I hold up a fist, and the team instantly stops.

The repeating electronic bell is faint but unmistakable. We haven’t yet reached the fence or the field of infrared beams, but somehow we’ve triggered an alarm.

Shit. I wonder briefly if there are pressure-sensitive triggers buried in the rocky soil underfoot, but push that aside. It’s time to switch gears.

I look at Ryan, make the hand signal for a breach, and point to a spot in the fence. He slides off his ruck, removes a small breach charge, and sets it on the ground adjacent to the chain link. We pull back about twenty meters, each of us with our back to a tree. Then Ryan blows the charge.

In a way, this makes things easier. Or at least more direct.

On my command, we move out in file, moving fast through the mangled chain link. Big Swingin’ Dick stays behind as overwatch to lay down suppressive fire if we encounter any hostiles, but we make it to the boulder and the three dead guards without meeting resistance.

When we’ve established there’s no one coming out of the tunnel the boulder concealed, I signal the all clear to Dick. As soon as he’s made it to us, I glance at each member of the team.

“Stay frosty. And remember, no quarter asked, no quarter given.”

Which basically means that anyone who doesn’t surrender gets a bullet in their brain.

Everyone nods.

Holding my M16 at low ready, I lead the way into the tunnel. It’s dark and damp, but thanks to the night vision goggles, the details of our surroundings are perfectly visible in gradient shades of green. We move quickly, heading toward a barrier at the end of the tunnel that appears to be a solid steel door or entry gate of some kind, listening to the alarm growing louder. And then we hear another unmistakable noise, this one worse than the alarm.

A single gunshot.

My blood turns to ice. Tabby! If she’s hurt, I’m gonna go Old Testament-style retribution on that motherf*cker. If she’s worse than hurt—No. Don’t even go there.

I clench my jaw and force myself to focus.

The tunnel widens. Silent as ghosts, we move at a steady pace until we reach the steel door. It’s about eight feet tall, double that in width. No handle. No lock. No way in.