Bodyguard Lockdown(36)

“So why not shoot us?” Booker prodded. He glanced around, noting Omar’s backpack shoved against the nearest console.

“Oh, I will, if I have to, but I’d much rather let you experience the full effect of what I’m trying to accomplish.”

“Let me go, General, and we’ll experience it together. Side by side.” Booker pulled on the handcuffs, rattled them violently and slipped his finger over his watch, finding the shim.

“So you can kill me?” The general laughed. “You are the hero, aren’t you? That’s why I didn’t recruit you years ago.”

“Anyone who works for you ends up dead,” Booker answered snidely. “Jim Rayo, for instance.”

“Other recruits are still alive. Omar Haddad for instance,” Trygg added slyly.

“My father?”

“Who do you think signed the obituaries? Helped me with the whole concept of making soldiers invincible?” Trygg questioned. “Ask Booker, Sandra. He’ll confirm what I’m saying.”

“Why didn’t you tell me?” She looked at Booker, the hurt, the rage, painful and obvious.

“Probably the same reason why he didn’t tell you your serum killed his wife and child.”

“You murdered them, not Sandra,” Booker replied, his voice hard.

“Emily?” Sandra paled. Her gaze sought Booker’s.

Booker refused to look at her. “The doc had nothing to do with it—”

“Look at her face, McKnight,” Trygg snapped. “She even knows you’re lying. She developed CIRCADIAN. The same weapon that’s about to kill her family. Ironic really.”

“Ironic?” Sandra whispered.

“I read your profile.” Trygg smiled, vicious. “You want your father’s approval. You want to be just like him. Now look at you, helping in the demise of your family. The ones he wasn’t able to destroy himself.”

Nausea swelled; bile caught at the back of her throat.

“Like father, like daughter,” Trygg added. “He’ll be so proud.”

“Don’t listen to him, Doc,” Booker ordered.

“And who should I listen to? You?” Sandra demanded. “Emily hemorrhaged to death but it wasn’t because of the miscarriage. She was on the base.”

“Doc—”

“Tell me I’m wrong!”

“She was there. But it’s not your fault,” Booker insisted.

“I think I should get some of the credit.” Lewis Pitman spoke from a few feet away. “I’m the one who changed the programming on the carbon nanites.”

“What are you talking about?” she argued. “The reports showed no change...”

“He falsified his reports,” Trygg explained.

Sandra’s eyes snapped to Trygg’s. “Lewis couldn’t have done that on his own. He needed—”

“I authorized everything,” Trygg admitted.

“Senator Harper supported him. They made quite a team,” Booker added.

“The DNA programming in the sensors malfunctioned in one of the first series of experiments,” Lewis inserted. “The nanites ignored the unhealthy cells and attacked the healthy ones, causing the breakdown of tissues. I took the results to Trygg.”

“Enemies slain by one type of nanite, while our soldiers are saved by the other,” Trygg commented with satisfaction.

“The best of both worlds,” Sandra reasoned aloud. But with the realization came anger. “If you are relying on Pitman to reconstruct my equations, he hasn’t the ability.”

“Then I will find someone who does,” Trygg countered.

“I can reconstruct them.” Lewis stood, his face mottled with anger. “And improve on your equations. Accelerate the process, strengthen the results.”

He reached over the console, punched the security code. A vault slid open. He pointed to the cylinders. “See those? They will be obsolete when I finish.”

“Be careful, Lewis,” Booker advised. “Rayo, Harper and the pilot are all dead. You can easily outlive your usefulness, too.”

“The pilot’s dead?” Pitman’s head shot up, his eyes on Trygg.

“This information is a little premature.” Trygg sighed. “But true. The airplane is on autopilot.”

“Have you lost your mind? Who is going to land us?”

“Me,” Trygg stated. “So I guess you’d better make sure I stay alive.”

Lewis glanced at the vault, realized his mistake.

“But now that you’ve opened the vault, I guess I don’t need you anymore, do I, Lewis?”

Lewis dived for the cylinders. A shot rang out. Lewis stiffened. A crimson target spread over the back of his white lab coat.

Slowly, he slid to the ground.

“You’re going to do this on your own?” Sandra asked.

Trygg stepped toward Sandra and grabbed her chin. “There are far more scientists out there like Pitman, who can be bought, than there are of you—who can’t.”

Booker broke free of the cuffs, grabbed the chains and kicked Trygg, knocking the gun free from his hand. Trygg bounced off the equipment, forced himself back on his feet.

“We both know how this is going to end.” Trygg stumbled back, grabbed one of the cylinders. He twisted the top, held it in place. “If you move an inch, I’m going to release this canister into the air.” He reached down and grabbed Omar’s backpack, then with one hand, shoved two cylinders into its pocket.

“Now, I’m going to walk past the good doctor and you,” he warned, and slung the strap over his shoulder. “Then up those stairs. And you’re going to let me do it. Because if you don’t, I’ll release the nanites.”





Chapter Eighteen



“Why did you let him go?”

“Because by the time he gets anywhere, this plane will be blown up,” Booker said, and quickly unlocked her cuffs. “Did you get a good look at the computer controls?”

“Yes,” She shook out her arms, rubbed her wrists, then hurried over to the console. “The lab is rigged for biological contamination. If he releases the serum, a biohazard alarm will engage.”

“Where’s the EMP shield?”

“By the radar.” She looked at the screen, saw the blips. “Three missiles are eight minutes out, Booker. They will enter the EMP zone...” She grabbed his wrist, glanced at his watch. “In two minutes.”

“Can you shut down the EMP shield?”

“Not without a ten-digit code.” She looked at the screen. “It will shut down automatically when the bomb is released to keep the tracking system from malfunctioning.”

Booker picked up Trygg’s pistol, and leveled it at the console. “Step back.”

When she did, he fired several shots.

Sparks flew; lights blinked off.

“That did it.” Sandra checked the radar. “The missiles are seven minutes out.”

“Right.” He shoved the pistol in his back waistband. “Let’s go.”

“Wait a minute.” Sandra grabbed the last cylinder, held it tight in her hand.

“Is that necessary?”

“Yes.” Sandra’s face was set, determined.

Booker grabbed her by the shoulders and pulled her close. “I know you heard a lot of information from Trygg, Doc. But don’t believe it all. Your father was on his way into this plane to destroy it with explosives. When he found out you were on board, he trusted me to save you and take care of Trygg.”

“Thanks.” She kissed him softly on the mouth. “So where are we going?”

“Cargo. Front of the plane. There are parachutes.”

“The same place where Trygg is heading?”

“Probably.”

“Is that necessary?” she asked, using his own words from a moment ago.

“Yes.”

* * *

THEY FOUND HIM AT the galley’s emergency exit. He’d looped the backpack over his chest, strapped the parachute on his back, the canister in his hand.

“Time to say goodbye, Doctor Haddad.” He jerked the latch, watched the door blow out into the air.

“Here’s your serum.” Trygg threw the canister, then jumped out of the plane.

The canister burst open at Booker’s feet. Within seconds, alarms sounded. Booker snagged the oxygen tank from the galley cupboard, pushed it onto Sandra’s face. “No!”

Her hands slapped at his arms. He grabbed her wrists, held them still.

“Listen to me! We don’t have time.” He took a breath, knowing he was breathing in a death sentence.

Sandra grabbed his shirt, hung on. “Booker! Don’t!”