Operation: Midnight Tango (20 page)

Zack had seen a lot of terrible things in the years he had been an agent. Not much bothered him anymore. But the cold-blooded premeditation of what was happening here made him feel sick inside, made him furious.

“My God, Zack, this is incredibly…vile.”

She was standing so close he could smell the sweet scent of her hair. He could feel the goodness and warmth coming off her. And suddenly he needed to be reassured that those things still existed. Putting his arms around her, he pulled her close and closed his eyes tightly.

For several heartbeats neither of them spoke. Then Zack looked into the depths of her eyes. If anything happened to this woman, he would never be able to live with himself.

Struggling to rein in his emotions, to concentrate only on the mission, he tore the pages from the notebook, folded them in half and stuffed them into the waistband of his pants. “Let’s see what we can find in Underwood’s office.”

Leaving Dr. Lionel’s office exactly as they had found it, Zack and Emily sprinted down the hall toward Underwood’s office. The area was well lit. He picked the lock as quickly as possible, knowing that if someone rounded the corner, they would be in plain sight. Thirty seconds later he was inside Underwood’s inner sanctum.

The office was furnished with dark, glossy furniture. The wall to Zack’s right was filled with books and volumes and legal tomes. Straight ahead, a computer sat atop an intricately carved desk.

“Underwood keeps everything on his computer.” Emily went directly to the desk and switched it on.

“He’ll have a log-in ID and password,” Zack said, following her.

“Everyone at Lockdown, Inc. has a similar log-in ID.” She settled into the chair behind the desk.

Zack watched her fingers play across the small keyboard, but he was uncharacteristically nervous. He couldn’t stop looking at the door. Couldn’t stop imagining all the things that could happen if someone walked in and caught them. Feeling sweat break out on his back, he glanced at the clock on the wall. Not yet 5:00 a.m. They still had some time before people started showing up for work. But they’d been inside for fifteen minutes. Another ten minutes and they were going to have to make a run for it whether they had what they needed or not.

“Damn it.”

He looked down to see Access Denied flash on the screen.

“I found the log-in ID, but not the password,” she said.

“What did you try?”

“He’s got two kids. I tried both names.”

“Try his wife,” Zack suggested.

Emily’s hands flew over the keys. Access Denied flashed.

“Any pets?” he asked.

“No.”

“Maybe it’s case sensitive,” he said. “Try capitalizing the first letter of each name. Then add a number, starting with one and working your way up. You have ten minutes, Emily.”

Keys clicked as she tried again. “No go,” she said.

Zack could feel desperation pressing into him.
He’d known before coming in that finding the proof they needed to connect both Underwood and Carpenter to the testing of illegal weapons was a long shot. The notes would help, but it wasn’t enough to convict. There were no names, nothing written on Lockdown, Inc.’s letterhead, nothing to connect Lockdown to Signal Research and Development. He needed definitive evidence. He wanted it so badly he could taste it.

But the longer they stayed, the better their chances of getting caught. If it were only him, he would risk it. But because he couldn’t bear the thought of Emily being hurt, he found himself willing to walk away empty-handed if that’s what it took to keep her safe.

“There’s got to be another way,” he said.

“I need more time,” she said.

“Finding that password is a long shot, Emily.”

She glanced away from the keyboard, her determined gaze colliding with his. “I know him, Zack. I know his administrative assistant. He keeps everything on this computer. If I can get in, we’ll have him cold.”

“It’s not worth your life, damn it.”

She looked back at the keyboard, her fingers playing over the keys at a blinding speed. Zack was about to reach for her to physically haul her from the room when she gasped. The screen blinked and a blue menu appeared.

“I’m in,” she said.

Relief penetrated the veil of fear that had been
about to choke him. “You’ve got two minutes.” He glanced uneasily toward the door. “I’ll search the desk and file cabinet.”

Anxiety churned in his gut as he crossed to the file cabinet and went to work on the lock. He could hear the computer keys clicking as she worked. The occasional curse. Then the file cabinet lock snapped and the drawer rolled open. Starting with the first file, he began to read. Most were medical files on inmates. The inmate was identified with a number, not by name. The information looked legit. Nothing about RZ-902.

“Oh, my God.”

The tone of her voice snapped Zack’s head up. Emily was sitting behind the desk, her face ghostly in the semidarkness. “I think I just found what we were looking for,” she whispered.

Zack came up behind her and looked at the screen.

“This is the project-tracking software Lockdown, Inc. uses. My God, Zack, the entries…they’re graphic and horrendous and…”

“And it details dates and names,” he added.

She hit another key and the next day’s log materialized.
Problem encountered with subjects resistant to RZ-902. Profuse hemorrhaging. Blindness. Skin lesions. Survival rate 68 percent with injection of antibody serum within the first minute of exposure. Dr. Lionel will begin another trial next week. Lockdown, Inc. will supply volunteers at $5,000 each.

“Shall I print this?” Emily asked.

Zack reached over and switched on the printer. “Print it and then I’ll e-mail a copy of the entire file to a couple of private accounts I have set up.” Leaning close, he used the mouse to open the e-mail software and then typed in several e-mail addresses. “Delete the e-mail in the Sent folder. If we’re lucky, they won’t figure out we were here.”

Emily clicked on the Sent folder and deleted the e-mails he’d sent. She opened another file. Zack saw names and amounts and his heart began to race.

“We’ve got them,” she whispered.

The rush of relief hit him with a force that was almost physical. Zack looked down at her and grinned. “Kind of renews a man’s belief in miracles, doesn’t it?”

Pulling her from the chair and to her feet, he cupped the back of her head and pressed his mouth to hers. Desire tugged at him as he kissed her. He could feel himself getting lost. Getting too close. Too deep. Too damn fast. He wanted to think it was his love affair with danger and adrenaline that had him breathless. But deep inside he knew it was the woman he held in his arms.

The printer spat a dozen pages and beeped. It took every bit of discipline he possessed to pull away. “Remind me not to kiss you when I need to think.”

“Same goes,” she said, looking more than a little shaken.

Zack crossed to the printer, snatched up the sheets, folded them and tucked them next to the
other pages in the waistband of his pants. “Let’s blow this joint,” he said.

“We can take the tunnels,” she said. “They’ll be faster and we’ll be less likely to run into anyone.”

He’d just reached for her hand when the door swung open and he found himself staring at four men, all of them holding high-powered rifles aimed at his heart.

Chapter Seventeen

Emily saw four men with guns, each muzzle trained on Zack. She could feel high-octane adrenaline pumping through her entire body.

“Move and I’ll put a bullet in his heart,” one of the men said. “Get your hands up.
Now!
”

She stared at the men, unable to believe this was happening. They’d been so close to getting away. One of the men strode toward her.

“I said get your hands up!” he shouted.

“Emily,” Zack said. “Do it.”

Snapping out of her shock-induced stupor, she raised her hands.

“Put your hands on the desk and spread your legs,” one of the men said to Zack.

She watched as Zack complied, wondering how he could be so calm about this. The men roughly patted down Zack, then seized the folded papers from his waistband.

“You, too,” one of them said to Emily.

Emily didn’t want them touching her but didn’t think she had a choice.

“Do what they say,” Zack warned.

Before she could obey, a sandy-haired man with cold blue eyes shoved her against the desk. “Put your hands on the desk.” He kicked her legs apart, then quickly and impersonally searched her.

“She’s clean.”

“We’ve got Devlin and Monroe,” one of the men barked into his radio.

Zack shot a hard look at Emily. “You set me up, you bitch,” he said loudly.

It took her a moment to realize the crude words were an act so the corrections officers would think he’d kidnapped her.

Doing her best to play along, she straightened and turned to face the officer who’d patted her down. “I didn’t think you’d ever get here.”

“Put your hands back on the desktop,” the officer snapped. “Now!”

Heart pounding, Emily obeyed. Dear God, they didn’t believe her.

“I forced her to bring me here,” Zack said.

“All of us have seen the security-camera videos, Devlin.” The sandy-haired man grinned in Emily’s direction. “Don’t tell me you haven’t had a piece of her.” He sneered at Emily. “Must have been pretty damn good to give up the rest of your life for a convict.”

Emily glanced over at Zack to find his eyes already on her, urging her to stay calm. She wanted desperately to believe they were going to get out of this, but she didn’t see how.

Movement at the door drew her attention. Everything inside her froze when Marcus Underwood strode into the room. His eyes sought Emily and he shook his head as if he were supremely disappointed.

“Why couldn’t you just do your job and stay the hell away from this?” he asked.

She stared at Underwood, her heart thumping like a drum against her ribs. She thought of the screams she’d heard in the infirmary and a fierce hatred for him surged up. “You’re a murderer,” she spat.

“
Emily,
that’s enough.”

She heard the warning in Zack’s voice, but her emotions were out of control. There was no way she could heed him. Not when the man she’d respected her entire professional life was responsible for untold misery and murder. “We know about the RZ-902,” she said. “We know you’re using the inmates as guinea pigs. We know the people at Lockdown, Inc. are about to sell it on the black market.”

A chill passed through her when Underwood smiled. “How astute of you.”

“You won’t get away with it.” She tried to make her voice strong, but it was trembling all the same. “We’ve already sent some of your files via e-mail.”

Underwood snapped his fingers at one of the men. “Contact our IT people and have the server taken down. Now.”

One of the men nodded, then fled the room.

Underwood’s eyes flicked to Emily. “What else do you think you know?”

“I know you’re not going to get away with this. I know there are people who are on to your sick research project.”

Zack moved toward her, set his hand on her shoulder. “Emily, don’t—”

Suddenly the officer nearest Zack swung his rifle like a baseball bat. The butt slammed against Zack’s solar plexus. Air whooshed from his lungs. Zack doubled over, choking back nausea as his knees hit the floor.

“Zack!” Forgetting about the men holding guns on them, she rushed to him and dropped to her knees at his side.

“Don’t say anything else,” he said through gritted teeth.

His entire body shook with the effort of trying to get oxygen into his lungs. She looked up at Underwood. “What do you want?”

“I want you to disappear,” he said. “Both of you. Permanently.”

He was going to kill both of them. Oh, dear Lord, how were they going to get out of this?

Zack raised his head, his face filled with fury. “The entire world knows about your operation, Underwood. It’s all about to come crashing down around you.”

The opening of the door drew Emily’s attention. Relief burst through her when Warden Carpenter entered the room. He would stop Underwood. The police would rush in and take the prison administrator into custody. She was about to go to him when
his gaze met hers. Relief turned to horror when she realized he was part of this.

“Warden Carpenter,” she said dully.

His gaze went from her to Zack, then back to her. “Sleeping with the enemy, Emily?”

“Please tell me you’re not part of this.”

“Ah, loyal to the end.” The warden crossed to her and set his hand against her cheek. “Such a shame you have to die because of it.”

“Stay away from her, you twisted son of a bitch.” Next to her Zack struggled to his feet, his eyes black with fury. “Your little empire is about to collapse.”

“My empire, as you so aptly put it, Mr. Devlin, is alive and thriving. I can have all evidence of any wrongdoing removed in a matter of an hour or so. Remember we do have a crematorium on-site.” He looked at Emily and one side of his mouth curved. “The RZ-902 is a roaring success, by the way. In fact, I’ve already got buyers lined up.”

“You sold out your country. You murdered dozens of people,” she said disgustedly.

“Come now, Emily,” Carpenter cut in. “Who am I killing? Murderers? Rapists?”

“They’re human beings,” she choked. “Men who’ve been sentenced to prison, not a life of torture.”

“Most of these men have committed atrocities,” Carpenter said with sudden passion. “Men who will never be a productive part of society.”

“You have no right,” she said.

“That’s where you’re wrong. I do have the right.
You see, the criminal justice system gave me the right.”

Zack gazed at him with utter loathing. “You’re selling weapons of mass destruction to terrorist organizations. You not only sold out your country, mate. You sold your soul.”

“My soul is my business.” The warden shrugged. “The rest is for Homeland Security to worry about. I’m merely a businessman.”

“You’re scum.” Emily tried to launch herself at him, but Zack moved quickly to grab her wrist and haul her back.