Gage (Contract Killers Book 1) (2 page)

Chapter Two

The sound of metal scraping on something had Neeka waking. She instantly sat up and pushed herself toward the wall, feeling her flight or fight instinct take root. She didn’t know how long she’d been here as there was no clock, no window for her to tell if it was night or day. She was in this endless pattern of food being pushed under the door three times a day. That was her only way of knowing the time, and even that was sketchy at best.

But since being here she’d been taken out of this room repeatedly, all but pulled down a barren, cold hallway with no doors or windows, and tested like some kind of animal.

“You know the drill,” one of the men said, his big body blocking the door, his arms crossed. The other man held a syringe, and she knew if she fought they’d knock her out and take her anyway. She didn’t want to get drugged again, but knew it was fruitless to try to reason with them.

Still, she wouldn’t lie down and take this. Neeka wouldn’t make this easy for them.

Getting off the bed, she felt her entire body shake at the knowledge of where they were going to take her. Each man grabbed an arm, and although she wanted to struggle, she knew from past experiences that all it would get her was more pain and fear.

They pulled her down the long, cold hallway, and into a room. After shutting the door they led her toward the cold stainless-steel table. For weeks now they had been taking her to this sterile room, drugging her if she acted out, and taking samples of her blood. They lifted her easily onto the table and strapped her ankles and wrists down. She pulled at her bonds, knowing she couldn’t escape, but her instincts still told her to fight.

“Why are you doing this?” she asked for the millionth time, but she was greeted with silence.

She watched, feeling her eyes widen, as one of the men went over to the table and picked up a needle and vial.

“No, please no more.” She struggled against the bonds harder now.

He turned and came toward her.

“Shut up.”

“Get the hell away from me, you bastards.” The bigger of the two men who had brought her to this room smirked down at her and walked to the edge of table, running his hand over her bare ankle. His touch made her skin crawl.

“You sure do have a mouth on you, don’t you?” He licked his lips as his gaze traveled up her exposed leg. “I can think of all kinds of things to do with that dirty little mouth.”

She stared at him, refusing to show him how scared she truly was, not about to give him that satisfaction. He moved his hand up her leg and under the hospital gown she wore, the one they made her wear. They’d removed her clothing when she’d first been taken, and in its place given her a thin pair of cotton underwear and this god-awful gown.

His hand continued to creep up until the tips of his fingers brushed her upper thigh.

“Don’t touch me, fucker,” she screamed at him as she struggled. This was the first time one of them had actually had the balls to touch her in this way. Normally if she behaved and they didn’t have to drug her they just took her blood and that was it.

“For fuck’s sake, Kal, leave her alone. You know the boss wants us to get the rest of the samples before he comes in tonight. Touching her will only piss him off.”

Kal grinned mockingly, but stopped touching her. “Maybe another time, sweetheart.” He walked toward his companion, and only when his back was toward her did she let out a breath. It took all her willpower to keep from crying. They both turned around, Kal now the one holding a long, thick needle. There was a clear solution in the barrel, and he looked far too pleased with being the one to stick her.

“God, stop.” She started struggling harder, knowing what they were going to do, knowing they were going to sedate her so they could take blood samples without her fighting them. This was the same routine they performed every time they took her to this sadistic room, and she wasn’t going to let them have the easy route. She worried about what else they did to her while she was sedated.

The men moved toward her until they were at the edge of the table on either side of her. The other man wrapped a tourniquet around her arm at the same time Kal injected her with the sedative forcefully. The solution moved through her bloodstream quickly, burning her from the inside out and having her instantly dizzy.

As the medication kicked in, Neeka couldn’t hold her head up any longer and had no desire to fight.

“You’d think you’d know by now to just take it and not fight us,” Kal said, but his voice sounded distorted because of the drug in her system.

She relaxed against the table, her whole body feeling numb. She was still awake for the time being, and Neeka knew she would probably never be found, or escape.

****

Gage headed back to base to grab his supplies before he got on the road in search for Neeka. He already had a few feelers out, men that were shady, worked the streets, and knew some really fucked up people. If she were taken for sex work he’d find that out, and if not, he was a hell of a tracker and wouldn’t stop until he got a lead. This was what he was good at, what he was trained for.

The facility where the men that worked for the organization was located in the Swallow High Mountains. The base itself had been built underground, with a concrete main house atop that. It was impenetrable, and a place where the men could go to gather supplies, find intel, and crash.

He stopped in front of the gate that was attached to the twenty-foot-high stone wall. The security wall surrounded the perimeter of the entire compound, and if anyone did find this place it would seem like an estate and not what it truly was.

Once he entered in the code and the gates opened, he drove down the unpaved driveway and into the underground garage.

He got out of his car and made his way inside, striding swiftly through the compound. There was also a training facility that was attached to the main tech house, one that allowed them men to work out and train with a number of weapons. He headed into the room he’d been using for the last few weeks, grabbed a large duffle, and started stuffing his supplies in it. Black thermals, fatigues, boots, and of course a few handguns he kept in his bunk were among the gear he’d bring. He didn’t know how long he’d be on the road, tracking Neeka and following leads, but he wouldn’t stop until he knew where she was.

Gage slung the duffle over his shoulder and left the room, moving down the hall and into the weapons supply room. He grabbed several handguns, a rifle, night vision goggles, knives, a few semiautomatics, a Beretta, and several other miscellaneous weapons. He walked back to the garage, passing Terrick, Ruick, and Caleb on his way out. The three men were SEALs, men were no longer on active duty, but needing that adrenaline rush, the same as Gage.

He set his duffle on the passenger seat and made his way around to the driver’s side, getting in and starting the car. He grabbed the file he had on Neeka, the background check he’d done, the information he’d collected thus far from people that knew her … everything. Even though he’d just been hired by Edward McCarthy, as soon as he’d been given the job he’d started the check on her to find out what he could.

The last people to see Neeka were the employees at her job two weeks ago. He scanned the police report, reading how her coworkers said she stayed late, as usual, and that she’d been the last one to leave. The police had nothing to go on, no motive, nothing. It was a missing person case with no leads. There was mention of Edward McCarthy having an enemy, or someone that wanted to get back at him, maybe even ransom Neeka off, but there hadn’t been any calls demanding money for her safe return.

Neeka worked in the city, and he was willing to bet there was
someone
who had seen
something
. It was the twenty-first century, and no one in America vanished without a trace. Maybe someone wasn’t talking, scared of what might happen to them? Well, Gage would find answers.

He tossed the folder onto the passenger seat and pulled out of the garage. Once he was down the mountain and on the main road, he headed to the last known place Neeka had been seen.

It took an hour, but he finally arrived at the Franklin Beldon Tower. After parking and cutting the engine, he scanned the lot, trying to see that night she’d gone missing.

The sun had already set, and the parking lot and building were deserted. Gage got out of the car and moved toward the side of the building. He wore all black, so he blended into the shadows. Gage checked for any security cameras, and noticed a small one rotating from left to right. If he kept to the darkness and the side of the building, the camera wouldn’t pick him up.

When Gage got to the side door, he pulled out a small bag, got on his haunches, and started on the lock. It wasn’t a difficult one to pick. He pulled out a small leather case that held various devices that would aid in disarming it. He kept a watchful eye on the camera, the shadows still concealing him as the machine scanned the perimeter. He worked the tool inside the lock until he heard a click and it finally gave way.

Once the door was open he slipped inside and shut it silently behind him. A set of stairs led to the upper floors and another led toward the bottom levels. When he’d studied the layout of the building earlier, he knew the security room was in the basement of the building. He needed to get a look at the camera’s hard drive, see if anything had been caught, maybe even overlooked. The tapes were still in police custody, and it would have taken too much time to either retrieve them through their channels or break in and take them. No, the computers should still have a hard drive, one that might be difficult to retrieve, but a task he could still do.

He descended the stairs and stopped at the landing, listening for any movement. Satisfied when silence greeted him, he reached in his bag and pulled out a set of earbuds and an otoamplisizer. The otoamplisizer was one of many devices the company he worked for had created. They had their own engineers, ones that worked on new weapons, devices that could immobilize someone without so much as breaking a sweat.

This device was an amplifier that would let him hear conversations through the thick cement wall as if he were standing on the other side. He put the small box against the cement and adjusted the dial, instantly able to hear the buzz of the monitors and the low beat of a song. He put the equipment away and drew out his knife, preferring the weight of the blade to the coldness of a gun.

The door was closed, but Gage opened it soundlessly, seeing the security officer leaning back in his chair, his eyes closed and his earbuds in. Video monitors covered one wall, each flickering to a different view of the outer and inner perimeter of the building. He walked up to him and stopped when he was standing right behind him. The security officer, whose name appeared on his badge as Herbie, was pleasantly unaware.

Gage could hear the song Herbie was listening to fade out as it ended, and he idly thought how easy it would be to run the blade over the man’s exposed throat. It was these emotions that had the darkness in him festering, these feelings that fed the beast.

Herbie opened his eyes and cursed as he saw Gage looming over him. Gage smiled and cold cocked him in the side of his head with the butt of the blade. Herbie groaned momentarily before he slid down the chair, passed out.

Gage went over to the control panel and started hacking into the system, bringing up the images from two weeks ago and scanning through the time frames. This particular system automatically discarded the videos after a week’s time—but the information was sill encoded in the hard drive.

It also made sense that the cops hadn’t been able to pick anything up from the videotapes, since the information was erased automatically to clear the drive and make room for memory. This set-up was low budget, for sure.

It had been tricky to hack into the computer’s database and access the dates he needed, and if it weren’t for his extensive IT training with the government as well as the current company he was employed with, he wouldn’t have been able to find anything.

He stared at the screen once he pulled up the date he needed, and saw Neeka McCarthy walking to her car. She looked scared. That was clear by the way she stopped in the middle of the parking lot and looked around. He could also see the worry on her face. Gage froze the image when she stopped at the vehicle. He stared at her. Her gaze was off to the side, her dark hair a halo around her head as if the wind teased it. She was a beautiful woman, not something he should even be noticing, but an observation that couldn’t be ignored.

He let himself admire her for a second longer before he ran the video clip in slow motion. She got into her car, and that was when he noticed the dark figure behind her seat and the bright white swatch of cloth in his hand.

He watched the rest of the video, taking in every minute detail until finally her small body fell forward, clearly drugged, and an unmarked van pulled up. The shadows obscured most of the features of her kidnappers, and they wore masks, too, hiding any distinguishing features.

Someone drove her car away as the van sped off. Before the van could disappear off the screen Gage froze the frame, leaning forward and seeing a piece of information that would get him one step closer to finding Neeka.

“Got you, motherfucker.” Gage was able to make out the plate number. He wrote down the information he needed, made a copy of the information and video he’d acquired, and packed up his gear. He needed to get back to the compound and on the database and see if the plate number matched with anything in their system.