Retribution (SSU Trilogy Book 3) (The Surgical Strike Unit) (32 page)

Then Kaufmann grabbed her throat and squeezed until her vision dissolved and her consciousness shattered.

R
afe stepped over another inert body, making his way farther into Kaufmann’s compound. Once they’d breached the outer security, they’d tossed canisters of fast-acting, quick-dissipating knockout gas into the building. Gas that had been specially formulated to knock out Kaufmann’s subjects.

The gas had worked like a charm. While Chin’s team secured the unconscious men and guarded against further attacks from the rear, the other teams headed deeper into the compound, searching for Gabby and Kaufmann.

For Rafe, it meant walking back into the scene of his worst nightmares. As he moved through familiar corridors, he heard echoes of the past. Exerting all his newfound self-control, he kept his face impassive while inside he trembled in fear. Just around this corner was the cell where he’d been held. His pace slowed. His breathing turned ragged and his heart tried to beat a retreat through his spine.

Fuck. He could do this. He had to do this. What if Kaufmann had Gabby down here?

“Rafe? You okay, bro?” Niko asked over the microphone. His team was on the other side of the building. Rafe didn’t know if there was another cellblock over there, but he hoped not. He didn’t want his brother seeing the conditions Rafe had endured.

“Yeah. I’m good,” Rafe said. His team didn’t need to know he was terrified of facing his old cell. He’d push through the fear. Get the job done. All that mattered was rescuing Gabby as quickly as possible.

“Let’s go,” he said. Taking a deep breath, he stepped around the corner and into hell.

G
abby came awake to the disorienting sensation of falling. Her head banged against something hard and her eyes flew open. She was upside down, arms dangling overhead as she hung over the shoulder of one of Kaufmann’s guards. The man’s powerful arm pinned her thighs to his chest and his shoulder dug painfully into her belly. With each running step he took she bounced against his back, which rattled her teeth and jostled her head. Her vision whirled and for a moment she thought she was either going to pass out or throw up.

She coughed, trying to draw air into her starved lungs, and found her throat tight and painful from where Kaufmann had squeezed. Hoping to see where they were, she lifted her head. But the corridor was dark, illuminated only by a thin strip of emergency lights at baseboard level.

Gabby caught snatches of conversation between the guard carrying her and Kaufmann. Enough to understand that Kaufmann and his key scientists were heading toward an escape tunnel where a helicopter waited to take them all to safety.

Gabby knew her chances of being rescued were next to none if she let Kaufmann take her into the tunnel. But all the wriggling in the world didn’t break the guard’s hold on her legs. She tried pinching him, then balling her bound hands into fists and punching him in the kidneys, but it was like hitting a wall. He didn’t so much as flinch and all she got were sore hands.

She tried screaming, but her damaged throat barely managed a croak.

Okay, so if she couldn’t force him into dropping her, then maybe she could grab a weapon. She raised her bound arms and skimmed her hands over his sides, not close enough to touch, but close enough to feel any weapon. She thought she remembered a holster at his belt. If she could just find it…

Well, hell. Her fingers met an empty leather holster. A quick search didn’t locate any other available weapon. She closed her eyes to think, then realized that the hard object jabbing into her stomach wasn’t part of her captor’s shoulder holster, but the syringe she’d put in her coat pocket.

Her eyes flew open. Ah-ha!

She tightened her back muscles and lifted her torso off his back mere inches, just enough to allow her to slowly work her fingers through the folds of her coat. She had to rest several times, letting her body sag against his while her aching back muscles protested the strain.

Lifting herself one more time, she inched her fingers forward until she met plastic. She slid the syringe out of the pocket and held tightly to it while she let her torso go limp and her hands dangle again. When she’d recovered some strength, she flicked the cap off.

She had no idea what effect the contents of the syringe would have on a man, since the drug was one of Kaufmann’s creations and had always been mixed with two other drugs before being administered. Since it was the only weapon she had, she had to hope it would disable the guard long enough to let her break free and run.

While she waited for the right moment for her to strike, she grabbed hold of the guard’s belt with her other hand, steadied herself so that her head and torso didn’t bounce so much, and settled in for the ride.

F
uck.

All Rafe’s resolve to stay strong crumbled when he stepped through the door into the main cellblock. The chill, the damp, the scent of desperation and fear hit him with the strength of a knockout punch, nearly sending him to his knees.

He grabbed the doorframe for balance. He…his…

He shook his head. Christ, he didn’t want to think about it. Didn’t want to walk down to the fifth cell on the right and see if his former cell now contained another prisoner.

“Sir, are you all right?” Jerome MacTavish asked quietly.

Rafe nodded and pushed away from the doorframe. “Yeah, I…uh—”

“That’s okay. I understand. You were held prisoner here, weren’t you? Got to be hard to come back.”

“Yeah,” Rafe muttered. “You’ve no idea.” He wasn’t that man any more. He’d survived. He was free. But the men inside the cells weren’t.

He forced himself to move forward. To peer into every cell, searching for Gabby. Some of the men noticed him and snarled, straining against their chains. Others hung limply with heads down. A few men stared straight ahead but without registering the presence of Rafe’s team, too locked within their own hell.

Memories swamped Rafe. The shame of being chained to the wall. The fear of knowing he was completely helpless, with no chance of rescue.

In the beginning, the cold and damp ate away at a man’s resistance. Then the drugs kicked in, numbing the system so that nothing caused discomfort and only near-crippling injuries caused even the faintest pain.

Rafe’s hands trembled. Each step felt like he was slogging through tar. But he knew that if he stopped, he’d be lost. There was only a thin barrier holding back his rage. He had to stay focused on the job or he’d end up tearing this place apart with his bare hands.

As it was, each cell he passed, each prisoner he left behind, weighed him down. But he couldn’t act. Not yet.

These men could not be released from their cells while conscious. No matter how disconnected some of the men appeared, they’d all been programmed to attack strangers. Several agonizing minutes later, Rafe’s team finished canvassing all four corridors. With a nod, Rafe sent Andersen and MacTavish back to the main entrance into the cellblock to detonate more tranquilizer canisters. That would keep the prisoners unconscious for several hours, denying their aid to Kaufmann’s team. And allowing Chin’s team to come through and secure the men for transport back to the SSU.

But there was still no sign of Gabby, and Rafe was getting worried.

“Niko, any sign of her?” Rafe asked.

“Negative. We’ve just got one more lab to clear. Ah, shit. Hold on.”

Andersen and MacTavish returned, signaling that the canisters had detonated. Rafe waved his teammates forward and followed at a slow jog.

“Rafe?” Niko’s voice came back over the comm link.

“What happened?”

“We found the body of a young boy chained in the corner of the lab. He can’t be more than ten. Looks like he’d been living in the woods or something. He’s filthy and undernourished. Christ. Someone fucking shot him in the chest.” Even over the link Rafe could hear the anger in his brother’s voice.

Rafe swore in Greek.

“You got that right,” Niko said. “Listen, Kai’s team is here. I’ve got to move on to the next wing. Later.”

The comm clicked, then Rafe heard Kai’s broken curse.

“Kai. You okay?”

“Yeah.” Kai’s voice cracked. “Ah, sorry. Wasn’t expecting a child.”

“I hear you.” Rafe rubbed the back of his neck. Kai had his own disturbing memories of captivity, having spent time chained first in an Indonesian warlord’s prison, then in the dungeon of Mexican crime lord Jaime Alvarez. But like Rafe, Kai had been an adult during his imprisonment. The idea that Kaufmann would treat a child that way turned Rafe’s stomach.

“Any sign of Gabby?” Rafe asked, steering the topic back on less painful ground.

Kai cleared his throat. “The lab shows recent signs of use, although there aren’t any notes, but…hmm…”

“Kai?”

“Sorry. Had to check the microscope. Looks like Gabby was here. There’s a slide that has a piece of tape in her handwriting.”

Relief crashed through Rafe. He kicked up his pace. If Gabby had been able to write, she couldn’t have been hurt too badly. Now all he had to do was find her.

G
abby didn’t know how long the guard ran with her over his shoulder, but eventually she felt him slowing down. Good. Maybe he was tiring. She wriggled and kicked her legs, but he hadn’t weakened enough to let her slip free.

Not much later, the guard stopped.

“Do you have your pass card?” Kaufmann demanded.

“Yeah…I mean, yes, sir!” The guard shifted his hold on Gabby and started to lower her down in front of him. “Just let me put the girl…”

Gabby formed a two-handed fist around the base of the syringe, arched her back and swung her fist over her left shoulder. When she felt the needle sink into flesh she jammed her thumb on the plunger.

“Aagh!” The guard instinctively brought his hands up to yank at the syringe, letting go of Gabby. A second later, he jerked and pitched forward. Gabby twisted and pushed back against his shoulder as he fell, ending up sprawled along his back and legs. The man didn’t move, even when her knee dug into his hamstring as she scrambled away.

Oh, God, was he dead?

Don’t think about it. You have to get free, not worry about whether you just killed a man.

Kaufmann’s fingers closed around her ankle, but Gabby kicked back with her other foot and he let go. She lurched to her feet, stumbled once as her body adjusted to being upright again, then dashed forward.

A bullet ricocheted off the wall beside her.

Damn. She’d forgotten that Kaufmann had a gun.

“Get up you fool! Get her back,” Kaufmann shouted.

Gabby ignored the pain in her body and ran faster. She raced around a bend in the corridor.

And ran smack into an oncoming team of Kaufmann’s security men.

Chapter 27

G
abby slammed into the lead guard’s chest before she realized he was there. Unfortunately, he had great reflexes. He grabbed her by the shoulders, spun her around before she’d taken more than a half step, and shoved a gun between her shoulder blades.

“Walk,” he ordered.

Tears of frustration stung her eyes as she walked around the corner and back along the corridor, which seemed like a much shorter trip than when she’d run from Kaufmann.

Kaufmann met them almost immediately. “Good, you’ve retrieved her. Follow me.” He turned and headed toward the faint outline of a door set in the wall.

So, she still had value to him. How far did that extend? If she put her life in danger, could she force him to release her?

While she ran possible scenarios in her mind, Kaufmann swiped a key card through a reader set beside the door, then pressed his thumb to the biometric plate. The light changed from red to green and the door slid open.

The guard nudged Gabby forward. But her attention was riveted on the unmoving man on the ground with the syringe still sticking out from the base of his skull.

“Lucky kill, bitch,” the man behind her snarled. “We won’t be so easy. Search her.”

Another guard yanked her coat off, then ran his hands quickly, but thoroughly, over her body. “She’s clean.”

“Good. Let’s go.” The man behind her shoved her shoulder with the palm of his hand, sending her staggering forward.

Gabby barely noticed. She’d
killed
a man.

She shuddered and ran her tongue across suddenly dry lips. As a doctor, she’d devoted her life to helping others. She swallowed back the taste of bile. She hadn’t meant to kill the guard. Only to disable him. Yet that didn’t relieve her guilt.

The roar of a giant engine coming to life snapped her out of her thoughts. Gabby glanced around her and discovered that they’d entered a giant cavern. Most of the space was bare. To her left, a guard manned a command console, working a series of switches and keeping an eye on several monitors.

In the center of the cavern a transport helicopter squatted menacingly. Its rotors shoved currents of air toward Gabby that nearly sent her off her feet. About half a dozen people in lab coats walked toward the helicopter from other entrances into the cavern.

Kaufmann was evacuating his people. If he got away, he’d be able to go underground again. Start his program anew. Subject another batch of men to his hideous program.

Somehow, she had to stop him.

But how? She wasn’t a fighter. This was Rafe’s area of expertise. Searching the area for inspiration, she noticed several metal barrels she thought might contain fuel for the helicopter. So, was there a way she could get close enough to the barrels to set off an explosion without killing herself?

As Kaufmann’s group reached the boarding area near the helicopter, one of the guards near the nose dropped to his knees, then toppled over. Another guard fell. Bullets pinged against the metal skin of the helicopter and ricocheted off the concrete floor.

More guards collapsed.

The scientists who were farthest from the helicopter broke into a run. Someone screamed. One of the scientists already in the boarding area pounded on the side of the helicopter, shouting for the pilot to open the door and let them in.

Kaufmann reached back and grabbed Gabby, using her to shield his body as he turned to face this new threat. He pressed the tip of his gun against her right temple while his left arm pinned her in front of his chest.