Kill Shot (15 page)

“Rise and shine, Sleeping Beauty,” Gabe
said, pulling off the blindfold and smacking him a couple of times
on the cheek. “Let’s have a conversation.”

“My back. I think my back is broken.” Tears
streaked his face, and Grace shook her head at the pitiful sight he
made. She grabbed her Sig from her bag and dug around inside for
the silencer. She screwed it on slowly and went to stand on the
other side of the weeping man.

“Come on, Dr. Standridge. Let’s be a big boy
about this,” Gabe said.

“Who are you?” He looked back and forth
between Gabe and Grace, obviously confused.

“Seriously? Are you really so dumb as to
think a woman like her would want you? Damn, and I thought you were
supposed to be brilliant.”

“I don’t have any money. You can look. Take
whatever you want.”

“I will, thanks. Let’s talk about The
Passover Project.”

Standridge’s eyes grew big and round in
their sockets. The scent of fear wafted from his skin along with
the urine that ran down his leg and soaked his clothes.

“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
Standridge closed his eyes, and Grace couldn’t tell what prayer he
was muttering under his breath.

Gabe let his fist fly into Standridge’s
stomach with a meaty thwap, and Standridge’s crying turned to
all-out sobbing. Gabe grabbed the doctor’s face and held it still
between his hands.

“Open your eyes and look at me,” Gabe
ordered. Standridge didn’t have any choice but to obey. “You’re not
a nice man, Dr. Standridge. And if you don’t tell me what I want to
know, then I’m going to kill you. The world will be a better place
without you. So let’s try this again. I’m going to ask questions,
and you’re going to answer.”

“No, I won’t talk. I’m dead either way.”

“You’re right. Looks like you’re pretty
smart after all. So let’s cut the bullshit. Are The Passover
Project files here or at your lab?”

Standridge stayed silent, and Grace’s
estimation of the man went up a notch. Gabe was a scary son of a
bitch.

“You can either die easy or die hard. The
choice is up to you.” Gabe grabbed the chair by each arm and lifted
it back into a sitting position. Grace appreciated the sight of
muscles and the impressive show of strength. Gabe pulled the spare
9mm Ruger from his ankle holster and checked the clip. He pulled a
silencer out of his jacket pocket and screwed it on. Grace moved to
stand behind Gabe so she was out of the blood spatter range.

“You’ve got a lot of extra fat on you, Dr.
Standridge. There are plenty of places I can shoot that won’t come
near any major organs. You ever been shot?”

Standridge shook his head no, his eyes wide
as he stared down the barrel of the gun.

“It hurts like a bitch. Like liquid fire is
flowing in your blood and your flesh is being stabbed with a hot
iron poker.”

Standridge’s pasty complexion paled even
further.

“Where are the files?”

Dr. Standridge took a shaky breath and
swallowed. “Most of them are at the lab. I bring what I need home
with me every evening.”

“Good. That wasn’t so hard, was it? Where do
you put them once you get here?”

“Everything I have is on my desk. Just take
it and leave.”

Gabe barely took the time to aim as he
pulled the trigger. The smell of cordite and a blood-curdling
scream filled the air. Blood welled from a tiny hole in
Standridge’s right calf.

“Don’t lie to me, Doctor. I’m not a fool.
There’s no way you’d take the chance of anyone discovering what you
were working on. I’ll bet as soon as my associate rang your
doorbell you put all of your top secret papers in a safe. Tell me
where it is, or you’ll have a matching bullet in your other
leg.”

Standridge leaned to the side of the chair
as far as he could and vomited on the floor. His head hung down on
his chest for several minutes before he answered.

“There’s a safe behind the mirror over the
fireplace.”

Grace moved quickly and lifted the mirror
from the wall. A thick metal door, no bigger than a foot long and
wide, sat behind it.

“What’s the combination?” she asked.

“Even if you steal all of my research, you
won’t be able to recreate The Passover Project,” Standridge said.
“There’s not another scientist in the world who has the genius to
restore it to its original form. If the price is right, I’ll finish
it for you.”

The wheedling sound of his voice was getting
on Grace’s nerves. She was an assassin, for God’s sake. She’d
killed some of the most terrible people in the world. But here she
was, stuck with a man who was a combination of Boris Karloff and
Baby Huey. It was degrading.

“Nice try, doc,” Grace said. “You know as
well as I do that you’re not the only one who is capable of
recreating the formula. The list is short, but it still
exists.”

“And we might have forgotten to mention
something at first acquaintance,” Gabe said. “We’re not stealing
anything from you. We’re the good guys. The Passover Project isn’t
leaving this room. If you think for a second that your life is
worth more than the safety of the rest of the world, then you’re
completely out of your mind.”

“What’s the combination?” Grace asked again,
looking at Standridge. “This is your chance to do something right
for once.” Rivulets of sweat beaded across his face and snaked into
the crevices on his jowls and neck.

Standridge was quiet too long, and Gabe
raised the Ruger and pointed it at his other leg.

“No, don’t!” Standridge screamed. “I’ll tell
you. I’ll tell you.” Gabe put the gun down and waited. “S…seventeen
to the left. Three to the right. Six to the left. Twenty-eight to
the right.”

The safe door opened on well-oiled hinges.
“Looks like we have a winner,” Grace said, flipping though the
thick stack of papers inside. “There’s a lot of cash in here, doc.
What were you planning to do with all that money?”

He didn’t answer, and Grace didn’t press him
for one. She shoved the papers back inside the safe and left the
door open as she went back to her bag. She jiggled the box of
matches to make sure Standridge was watching and swiped the match
head against the rough surface on the box. Sulfur and smoke
permeated the air, and she flicked it onto the stack of papers and
cash and watched as the flame took hold.

“No! Are you insane? Do you even know what
The Passover Project is capable of?”

“Oh, we know,” Grace said. “It’s why we’re
here.”

“He’s all yours,” Gabe said.

Grace barely spared a glance at Gabe as he
pulled the charges out of her bag and dispersed them throughout the
house. Her eyes were all for Standridge.

She picked up her Sig, the cold steel
comfortable in her hand. “You know, Allen. It never would have
worked out between us.” She pulled the trigger and put a bullet
right between Allen Standridge’s eyes.

“Let’s ride,” Gabe said.

Grace looked at her shoes on the floor and
decided to leave them there. They deserved to be reduced to ashes.
She grabbed her bag and followed Gabe out the back door to the
black Audi he had hidden down the block. They got inside the car
and were just pulling away from the curb when the force from the
explosion shook the ground beneath them.

Neither of them looked back.

Grace pulled a black duffel bag from the
backseat into her lap and took out a change of clothes. She
unbuttoned the halter from behind her neck and peeled the dress
down her body.

“Good thing there’s no oncoming traffic. I’d
hate for some middle-aged stockbroker to run off the road at the
sight of your breasts.”

Grace snorted out a laugh as she pulled on
black cargo pants. “I hate to break it to you, but breasts like
mine are a dime a dozen.”

“Not true. They’re the finest breasts I’ve
ever seen.” He reached over and cupped one in his palm before she
could slip the black T-shirt over her head.

Her breath caught as the heat from his hands
sent shivers up her spine, but she shifted out of his grasp and
turned her attention to putting on her boots.

“Did Ethan send you the blueprints for
Standridge’s lab?”

A battalion of fire trucks and police cars
passed by them in a blur of blue and red flashing lights. Grace
watched them in her side-view mirror while she braided her
hair.

“Yeah. The security system isn’t registered
with any particular company, so I’ll have to see what we’re dealing
with once we get there. We should have plenty of time to get things
done. It’ll take awhile for the authorities to go through all the
legal channels and see that the company that owns Standridge’s
house also owns the building where his lab is.”

Gabe took a smooth right off Harvard Street
onto Trowbridge and looked for a decent place to park the car.
Things would be a little trickier in this neighborhood. The
buildings were closer together, and more people roamed the streets
since it was so close to the college.

He was in luck. An apartment complex sat to
one side of Standridge’s building, and a pizza place sat on the
other. Both of the parking lots were packed with cars. Gabe pulled
his car into the apartment building complex and parked in the last
row. The dense groupings of trees that could be found on every
street divided the lots and provided ample cover.

“How do you want to approach?” Grace
asked.

“I don’t suppose I could get you to stay
here and cover me, could I? I’ll be in and out in ten minutes.”

“Like hell, Gabe. Don’t try to keep me out
of the loop. I’m fine and I’m functioning.”

He gave her a long, studying look, but she
made sure her emotions were tucked deeply away. “Fine. Let’s go.”
He grabbed a windbreaker from the backseat and pulled it on so his
weapons didn’t show, and she caught the second one he tossed in her
direction. She pulled her black toboggan on to cover her hair and
tucked away the stray wisps. Gabe grabbed his backpack and walked
in the opposite direction of Standridge’s building.

She followed him into the trees and behind
the apartment complex, where a narrow alley housed dumpsters and
empty boxes. It dipped lower in the middle for drainage and was
cracked and uneven in several places. They stopped when they
reached the back entrance to the lab.

“Do you think the cameras have live feed?”
Grace asked.

“We’ll find out about two minutes after we
breach the front door. It looks like a key-code security system.
The windows are sensored, and there’s probably a trip wire and a
secondary system once you get past the key code.”

“It’s a pity Standridge didn’t have Ethan
design his system. I very rarely find a challenge nowadays. It took
me fifteen full minutes to get into his apartment the other
morning.”

She could see Gabe’s teeth gleam in the
light. “It took me eight. Though he never knew I was inside. Do you
want to do the honors?” Gabe asked, holding out his hand as if to
say “Ladies first.”

“As much as I hate to admit it, you’re
faster. Be my guest.”

The back entrance was surrounded by a black,
wrought iron fence, and Gabe had his pick in the lock and the gate
swinging open in a little over two seconds. He strode up to the
back door like he owned the place, and Grace kept her position at
the gate so she could keep watch up and down the alley.

Gabe had the door unbolted and the cover off
the keypad by the time she looked back. She shook her head in pure
appreciation. He could have made a hell of a living on the other
side of the law. He held a screwdriver between his teeth, and his
fingers were sure and steady as he cut wires and disarmed the
system.

Grace left the gate open and went to join
him inside the building. She pulled out her weapon and kept quiet
as Gabe dealt with the secondary system. The cameras panned and
scanned, and if someone was watching on the other end, things were
going to get interesting real soon. If the cameras recorded
straight to video, then it would all be destroyed anyway, and
they’d get away free and clear. It was a chance they’d have to take
either way.

“Done,” Gabe said. He hadn’t even broken a
sweat.

Grace looked at her watch. “Four minutes
start to finish. Not too shabby.”

He gave her a smile that made her pulse jump
and then headed further into the building. A series of see-through
cubicles ran the length of the space, and she assumed they were
different testing areas. Each one had a separate entry door with
its own security system. The cubicles were sealed across the top,
keeping whatever was going on inside completely contained.

“Damn,” Grace said. “This is going to make
things more difficult.”

“Maybe not. Logan gave me something new he’s
just developed. It would go faster if we could get into each room
and start a separate charge, but it’ll work just fine with one
point of acceleration.”

Gabe looked quickly into each room and chose
the one that was obviously Standridge’s main research room.
Mathematic formulas were written along the clear walls, and maps
were spread across every surface. He bypassed the security and
opened the door.

“All of these rooms are connected to one
electrical circuit,” Gabe said, squatting down next to the
baseboard and unscrewing the plate that covered the electrical
outlet.

“How does the bomb work?”

Gabe sliced plastic coverings and exposed
the raw wires and then pulled out a tiny glass vial.

“Logan wouldn’t tell me what the hell was in
it when I asked, but the basic concept is that once the liquid
touches the wires it travels through the entire electrical circuit.
It works like an acid and a combustive at the same time, the heat
getting so intense that it melts everything surrounding the wires.
Once the wires reach a certain temperature, they spontaneously
combust, which causes small explosions at each major circuit
point.”