Brainrush 04 - Everlast 01: Everlast (7 page)

Thirty minutes later, the noise in the hallway had finally
dissipated, but the noise in his head hadn’t. He was amped up, and his attempt to
get some sleep had been in vain. So he got up and opened the closet safe to
retrieve his iPhone. That’s when he discovered that Lacey’s was there, too. In
her hurry to leave she’d forgotten it. It wasn’t uncommon since, unlike him,
she hated the concept of being at the beck and call of anybody who wanted to
ping her. However, with the current crisis she’d probably need it. He pulled out
both phones and powered them up, figuring he’d check her messages to see if he
needed to forward any to Penny. He lay back on the bed to wait for them to boot
up.

The doorbell rang again.

“Who is it?”

“Room service, Mr. Erickson.”

Marshall grinned. It was probably a surprise from Lace, a
consolation gift she must have asked Penny to order from the kitchen. Maybe his
favorite desert—lemon meringue pie.

Make that my second favorite desert
, he thought,
recalling how sexy she’d looked earlier.

“Coming,” he said, rolling to his feet. He’d taken one step
when both phones rang with the “Danger Zone” ringtone.

The doorbell rang again, only this time it sounded like an
alarm in his head.

“Give me a minute,” he shouted, grabbing her phone and
running in a crouch toward the door. “I’m getting dressed.”

“Yes, sir.”

He took a quick glance through the peephole and saw the champagne
waiter, and any doubt of the danger he was in evaporated faster than data from
a demagnetized hard drive. He pulled up the message screen and confirmed the
worst. His heart rate tripled but his fingers didn’t hesitate as they pulled up
Penny’s number from Lacey’s Favorites list and hit the
call
button.

After four interminably long rings, an automated message
informed him her voice mail was full.

You gotta be friggin’ kidding me.

“Mr. Erickson?” the waiter called.

“Yeah, I’m tied up. Just leave it at the door.” He quietly
swung the door chain into place.

“But I need a signature.”

Marshall ignored him, his eyes spotting another name on
Lacey’s Favorites list.

The electronic door lock suddenly disengaged and the door
opened two inches to the stop.

“It’s chained,” said a new voice.

“Out of my way,” growled a third man.

Marshall’s thumbs were a blur as he backed into the room,
scribing the message he prayed would save Lacey’s life. He hit the
send
button just as the door crashed open and the three men rushed toward him.

L
ACEY WOKE TO AN
incessant pounding on the door
of her trailer. A squint at the clock told her it was 3:00 a.m.—an hour before
she’d planned to wake up.

“Who the hell is it?”

“It’s Pete. We’ve got to talk.”

“This’d better be important,” she grumbled to herself,
rolling out of bed and slipping on her robe. “Come on in.”

The crusty, mid-forties Irishman edged through the door, his
broad frame dominating the space. He wore his usual multipocketed vest over a
wrinkled shirt and cargo pants. His thick red hair was swept back over a
weathered face with a trim beard that showed the first hints of gray around the
chin. His normal jovial expression was replaced by a look of concern that set
her immediately on edge.

“What’s wrong?”

“I amn’t sure yet,” he said in a thick brogue, the
I
sounding more like
oi
. “But I’ll not be leavin’ your side ’til ye tell
me about it.” He handed his smartphone to her. “I woke three minutes ago to
find this.”

The text message from Marshall was brief:

Life or death, tell Lace: NOW!

She staggered backward, and suddenly Pete’s strong hands
were on her shoulders, guiding her onto the couch.

“What’s it mean, lass?”

My husband is in danger.

She made a move toward the door, but Pete stepped forward
and blocked her path. “Hold on now.”

“Out of my way!”

He crossed his arms. “It’s three in morning, deary, and yer not
even dressed. Now settle down and tell me what the hell is going on before you
make a hash of things and get yerself hurt.”

She glanced down, and the sight of her bare feet and robe
brought on a flush of confusion that she shoved away with an angry grunt. Using
a technique she’d learned as a child from her
sensei
father, she closed
her eyes, inhaled through her nose, and blew a long steady breath through
pursed lips. Her body responded to the long-practiced skill, channeling her
energy and clearing her mind. She opened her eyes to find Pete nodding
admiringly. He knew about her martial arts experience.

She returned the nod, holding her emotions in check as she
read the message again. It had been sent at 11:15 p.m. and there were no other
messages afterward. That was nearly four hours ago, which meant Marshall had
either followed protocol or—

No, she would not think about the alternative, which was
more likely than she wanted to admit. Otherwise he would have raced to her side
long ago. She cursed herself for having forgotten her phone at the hotel. She
would have received the broadcast message at the same time he had and—with any
luck—they’d be together right now. Either way, she knew what had to be done. Her
grab bag was still at the hotel, but even that possibility had been considered
during their drills. She pulled some clothes from her closet. Pete turned his
back while she dressed.

“I care about you, Pete. That’s why I’m going to give you
one chance to leave the trailer and forget all about that message.”

“That amn’t going to happen.”

“Yeah, I figured,” she said, tucking her shirt into her jeans.
“But this is as serious as it gets. And mark my words, you’re going to regret
it if you get involved. The life or death reference was real.”

“Nuff said. Now spill it.”

She studied the big lug and considered barging past him for
his own sake. But he’d simply follow and then there’d be a scene, which was the
last thing she needed right now. Besides, she was frightened to the core. And
all alone.

The bravado leaked from her shoulders and she slumped into a
chair at the dinette table. “Thank you,” she said softly.

Pete settled onto the chair opposite hers, cradling her
hands. His calloused palms reminded her of her father. Pete’s caring expression
was like a warm blanket.

“It’s a long story,” she said, sliding her hands free and
powering up her tablet. “Marshall and I and a few friends have a—let’s call it
a dangerous history. One that appears to have suddenly caught up to us.”

Pete listened intently as she continued.

“It wasn’t illegal or anything, at least not for the most
part. In fact, our actions saved a lot of lives. But in the process we pissed
off a lot of the wrong kind of people.” She pointed at his phone on the table.
“That message means one or more of them are coming after us. And since my
location here isn’t much of a secret, I have to assume that the only reason I’m
still kicking is because of the tight security we’ve got around the trailers.”

Pete’s brow furrowed as he picked up his phone and made a
call. “Wake the crew,” he said into the phone. “We got us some work to do.
First off…”

She appreciated how he’d embraced the situation. They’d
developed a strong bond over the years, having worked on several movies
together. Ignoring his conversation with his second in command, Lacey
considered her next move. The protocol was straightforward: Once the emergency
message was sent she was supposed to ditch her cell phone, get her grab bag,
and stay off grid as she made her way to one of the meeting points. That meant
disguising her appearance, not using credit or ATM cards, and staying away from
people she knew. That’s terrific, she thought, if only I had my damn phone and
bag with me like I was supposed to. She took a sidelong glance at the trailer
door and shivered as she wondered if someone was monitoring it through a
high-powered scope.

When Jake and the rest of them had come up with a game plan
against possible retribution, it had seemed like a good idea. But in the months
that had followed, she’d allowed herself to accept the illusion of normalcy of her
life with Marshall. The Order was gone and the world was focused on rebuilding
after the chaos unleashed by the alien pyramids. They were safe.

Or so she’d thought.

The tablet booted up and she typed in the Web address for
the encrypted chat room that Marshall had created as the team’s secure medium
for communication. By now everyone else should have checked in and a meeting
place would’ve been designated. She held her breath as she entered her login
password, praying that Marshall was part of the conversation string.

A window opened with a message:

You are the second person in the room
.

Her heart froze.

There were thirteen people on the emergency list. Each of
them should have logged in hours ago. Instead, the only messages were from
Jake. The first two were pleas for people to check in. The third read:

Francesca, the kids, and Timmy taken, can’t reach anyone else. I’m
en route to Amsterdam. Will check back in when I land
.

Amsterdam? He wouldn’t be going there unless that’s where he
thought his family had been taken. And nobody else had checked in? Did that
mean they’d been kidnapped as well? Or worse? But Jake’s words meant she wasn’t
alone and it gave her a kernel of hope. She typed:

I’m in Rome. Marshall’s missing, likely taken, too. I’m working on a
plan to get off grid. Will contact you here as soon as I’m free
.

She was about to hit the
Enter
key when her intuition stopped
her.

What if the site’s been compromised? If everyone else has
been taken, isn’t it likely they’ve been interrogated? Including the children? Is
someone monitoring the chat room right now, waiting to pounce on any reply to
Jake’s message?

She ground her teeth in frustration as she backspaced
through the message one letter at a time, each click of the keyboard feeling
like another nail in her coffin. She couldn’t reach out to Jake or anyone else,
at least not until she was off grid and mobile. But Marshall was alive, she
insisted to herself.
He has to be.
And one way or another, she’d find
him. But first, she damn sure had to evade the net that was surely awaiting
her.

Pete hung up the phone. “I’ve got the ball rolling,” he
said. “Skylar and the rest of them will be here shortly.”

“Good,” she said as a plan started to come together in her
mind. “Because I’ve got a few changes I’d like to go over regarding our scene
tomorrow.”

She set aside her fears and filled him in. By the time the
rest of the crew arrived, Pete’s astonished reaction to her wild scheme had
transitioned to an approving nod.

“It just might work,” he said.

It’d better, she thought, discounting all the things that
could go wrong and focusing on one of the many lessons her father had taught
her:

A single warrior fighting for his home and family is
deadlier than a hundred fighting for a warlord.

Besides, if there was one thing she’d learned over the past
several years, it was that with Jake Bronson in the mix, anything was possible.

T
HE WOMAN WHO
stared back at Lacey in the
mirror looked like she’d been through hell. Her face was bruised, her hair
soiled, and her running outfit was dirty and torn. The film’s previous action
segments had set the stage for today’s car crash a block from the Pantheon. Her
character—a disavowed CIA operative whose cover had just been blown—had barely
escaped with her life when the terrorist group she’d infiltrated had attacked
her on a running trail in Villa Borghese park. The car chase that followed
ended on the twisting narrow side street just outside Lacey’s trailer.

Life imitates art.

The makeup and wardrobe were masks, but the desperate
expression on her face was real. She had gone over and over the plan and knew
exactly what needed to be done. But she was scared. Sure, Pete and his crew would
make sure things didn’t go south, and the two guys he’d posted outside her
trailer made her feel better, but she still felt all alone. There’d been no
further word from Jake or anyone else on the website, and when she’d broken
protocol and borrowed Pete’s phone to call Tony and Sarafina, whose numbers she
knew by heart, neither had answered.

There was a rap on the door. “We’re ready for you, Miss
Hunter.”

That’s
Ms.
Hunter-
Erickson
, thank you very
much, she thought proudly. Fans and film hands alike had gotten to know her as
Lacey Hunter before her marriage to Marshall a year and a half ago, and getting
them to switch to her new name was next to impossible. She straightened her
shoulders and commanded her features to relax. She was an actress, and it was
time to go to work.

Once outside, she maintained the ruse that it was business
as usual, offering casual greetings to support personnel as she made her way
across the cobbled square toward the set. The two men from Pete’s crew ambled
behind her.

“I got it,” Penny said, jogging toward her from the parking
area, holding up a leather shoulder bag. “It was on the top shelf in the closet,”
she said breathlessly. “There was no sign of Marshall.”

Lacey forced a smile, hiding a surge of anxiety at the
mention of her husband. “I’m not surprised,” she said. “He’s probably getting
an early morning workout.” Lacey had asked her assistant to retrieve the grab bag
from her hotel room, but had kept Penny out of the loop to protect her. Fortunately,
Penny was less about questions and more about getting things done.

“In the trailer?” Penny asked, holding up the bag.

“Sure. And thanks.”

“Of course,” Penny said, turning toward the trailer. “Break
a leg!”

Hope not
, Lacey thought, as she exchanged a knowing
look with one of the men behind her. He tipped his head and followed Penny
toward the trailer. He’d make sure to get the bag to Lacey when the time was
right.

She continued toward the cameras, noting the pair of
uniformed EMTs standing beside the ambulance that was always on station for
action scenes. She silently prayed she wouldn’t need their help. The morning
air was fresh and cool, but a sheen of perspiration was forming on her brow. She
avoided glancing at the crowds of onlookers standing behind the barricades. Pete’s
crew had photographed several suspicious targets earlier, and she’d immediately
recognized one of them as the waiter who’d served the champagne flutes last
night. Her anger at the sight of him probably tasted fouler than whatever drug
he’d slipped into the champagne. The waiter had obviously been involved in
taking Marshall—
or worse
—and she was champing for her chance to have a
one on one with the bastard. But their plan wouldn’t allow it, at least not today.
According to Pete, the waiter and two others had met with an officious-looking
fourth man who’d appeared to be issuing instructions. The guy in charge had left
the scene and the trio had split up to take different positions around the
piazza.

Three pairs of eyes to witness the performance of a
lifetime.

 “First team,” the first assistant director’s voice sounded
over a megaphone. He stood with several others behind one of the cameras that
would track the car’s movements. The director was on the dolly, his eye to the
lens as he sized up the shot. Extras took their positions along the street and
at the sidewalk cafe in the background.

Pete waited for her beside the BMW she’d be driving. After
his crew had left her trailer earlier to set the stage for their plan, she’d
given him the highlights of her history with Jake and the gang, information
she’d kept secret despite the years she and Pete had worked together. At this
point, she figured he deserved to know the extent of the risks he and his crew
faced. To his credit, he’d taken it all in stride, adding that he’d have loved
to have been part of
Jake’s
crew.

The front hood of the car was propped open. Two of Pete’s
crew appeared to be working on something in the engine compartment.

 “Is everything ready?” she asked, fighting back a tremor of
fear. In the script, this first half of the scene involved nothing more than a
skidding turn into a tight alley. Then the stunt driver was supposed to take
over for the final crash. But their quickly hatched plan called for changing
things up.

A lot.

“No worries,” Pete said with a confidence she didn’t share.

The car looked exactly the same as it had the day before, but
then again, that was the point. She climbed in the driver’s seat and strapped
herself in.

“You’re going to do fine, lass,” Pete said with a squeeze of
her shoulder. “Start ’er up.”

A press of the ignition button and the engine rumbled to
life. The two men in front of the car lowered the hood and nodded to Pete.

“Just another scene,” he said with a wink. “Remember, we’ve
got your back.” He waved to the director and stepped out of the shot.

“Quiet, please,” the megaphone boomed. “First positions.”

A long, slow breath.

“Roll cameras.”

She said a silent prayer.

“Speed,” a tech reported from behind a bank of monitors.

The familiar commands were like a salve on her nerves. She
focused her mind on the task at hand, forcing the tension from her limbs and
loosening her white-knuckled grip on the steering wheel.

I can do this.

“Mark,” the director said, and she heard the click of the clapboard.

“Action!”

Lacey held her breath and stomped on the gas.

***

Colonel Giuseppe Abruzzo was in the
back of a tactical truck a block from the piazza. He sat beside the tech who
managed the video and sound feeds streaming from the eyeglass cameras each lead
operative had to wear. The colonel’s gaze focused on one of the six LCD screens
as the actress exited the trailer and made her way toward the car that would be
used in the upcoming scene.

As a former operative of the GIS—
Gruppo di Intervento Speciale, or
Special Intervention Group—an
elite counterterrorism tactical response unit of the Carabinieri, he’d been on
dozens of operations like this one, though as the group’s director it had been several
years since he’d felt the need to get personally involved in the field. But even
after the group’s many run-ins with the likes of the Red Brigade and the Sicilian
Mafia, the stakes were never higher than they were today. What was supposed to
have been a simple snatch and grab of the actress and her husband at the hotel last
night had turned into much more when he’d been forced to report the failure to the
robotic phone voice he knew only as Geppetto.

The message from his tormentor had been short and to the
point. Noncompliance would not be tolerated. Fail again and everything the GIS
had worked to achieve since its formation in 1977 would be destroyed with the
click of an
Enter
key. The colonel had been given no information regarding why the actress and
her husband needed to be taken, but he’d been provided with plenty of details
regarding what would happen if they
weren’t
, in the form of top-secret
data that had streamed across his home computer screen. It included names,
dates, even video footage that incriminated the GIS in dozens of circumstances
where its operators had crossed lines to get the job done. Bribery, illegal
wiretaps, torture, and even murder, all documented from information taken from
the GIS’s most secure archives. The evidence would crush the organization,
regardless of the good it had accomplished. That such secrets existed within
the cyber files of every similar organization across the globe was a moot point.
Geppetto—the reference to the famed puppet master fueled the colonel’s
frustration at being so easily manipulated—had the goods on the GIS and the
colonel personally. If the information got out, he’d face a prison term he’d
not likely survive.

And they know where I live.

Coinciding with the original telephone contact from Geppetto
was the arrival of a package containing the high-tech eyeglasses the operatives
now wore, in various styles to appear innocuous. The eyewear had
interchangeable lenses for night and day, and the miniaturized electronics
embedded within the slender frames allowed them to appear no different from
those worn by people everywhere. But these devices included voice-managed
computers featuring HUDs—optical heads-up displays—visible only to the wearer,
comm and Internet access linked to the wearer’s cell phone, and a high-def video
camera. The wireless feature provided a 24/7 audiovisual link between each
operative and his handler—Geppetto, in the colonel’s case—as did the damn lapel
camera and earbud system he had to wear. The quality of the equipment was
superior to anything he’d ever seen, which worried him even further.

He spoke into his headset. “All teams report.”

“Alpha team in position.”

“Bravo ready.”

“Charlie standing by.”

Three teams. Fifteen operatives strategically positioned
within and around the scene. What had started out as a simple three-man mission
at the hotel had grown to include much more. But after the unexpected events of
last night, he wasn’t about to take any chances. The abduction had to occur
quietly and as soon as it was practicable. They needed to cover all the exit
routes and be ready for the right opportunity.

Failure was not an option.

As soon as the actress stepped into the car and started up
the engine, the buzz of activity within the piazza seemed to still all at once.

“
Quiet, please,”
an amplified voice announced.
“First
positions.”

The ambient voices subsided. The colonel’s gaze skipped from
screen to screen as he watched the film crews focus on their equipment and the extras
freeze at their starting positions. The three men standing beside the car
stepped out of the scene.

A few additional commands, and then the director said,
“Action!”

Music streamed from inside the cafe, extras came alive, and
the car suddenly lurched forward. Moving too fast. The director jumped to his
feet, actors startled, and crew members jerked from behind their equipment. The
car accelerated as if the gas pedal was stuck. It crashed headlong into the
plaster wall of a building. Airbags deployed and the car immediately filled
with smoke.

The director shouted,
“Cut! Cut!”

A chorus of screams was accompanied by a mad rush toward the
BMW, led by the three men who’d been working on it earlier. But before they’d
covered half the distance, the car burst into flames.

There was a heart-shriveling scream.

The driver’s door burst open and the actress tumbled onto
the pavement, her torso and hair engulfed in flames. She writhed on the
cobblestone as the rescue team doused her with portable extinguishers. A third
man threw a silvery blanket over her, tamping down the remaining flames, and then
carried her away from the car. Two EMTs rushed forward with a gurney and the
man laid her down.   

One of the EMTs lifted the blanket, a GIS operative zoomed
in, and the colonel grimaced as he caught glimpses of her quaking body. Her
clothing and skin had been turned into a crusty, oozy mix. Smoke rose from her
blistered face and scorched scalp. A milky eye stared sightlessly beneath a
shriveled lid.

Sirens seesawed in the distance.

The colonel peeled his eyes from the screen. “It’s over,” he
said into his microphone. “Disperse immediately.”

He exited the rear of the van and dialed the number he’d
been given, pushing out a long breath as he waited for the robotic voice to
answer, praying he wouldn’t be held responsible for what had just happened.