Page 13

Chapter 13

Giva’s heart pounded in her chest like a bass drum at a rock concert as she ran through the stone-lined passages. Using the numerical code Dax had given her at each locked door, she eventually came to the last one leading out to the street beyond.

She’d become complacent after passing through two doors with no one on the other side to challenge her. The corridors seemed to be rising in elevation.

Because of the urgency of her exodus, she hardly noticed the incline.

At the third door and keypad, she almost didn’t take precautions, expecting the door to open into yet another tunnel.

When it opened onto a street, she leaped to the side into the shadow of the interior tunnel.

A guard peered in through the door, his rifle held out in front of him.

Giva didn’t have time to think through her every action. As the man entered and turned to look into the shadow where she stood, she grabbed the rifle and shoved it upward into the man’s face, hitting him hard in the nose. He yelled and flung the rifle away.

The weapon skittered across the stone, out of reach of the guard and Giva.

She leveled the pistol at the man’s chest.

Starlight glinted off the barrel of her pistol.

When the guard realized she had a gun aimed at him, he raised his hands into the air.

Now that she had him cornered, what did she do with the Russian? She didn’t have time to deal with him. She needed to get to the other Brotherhood Protectors and bring them back to help Dax.

Impatient to be on her way, Giva tipped her head toward the tunnel, indicating he should go through the door.

Not that she’d allow him to get very far. With every intention of using the butt of the handgun to hit him over the back of his head, she waited for the moment.

The Russian bent toward the interior passage. As he ducked through the entrance, she held the pistol pointed at him.

In a flurry of motion, the Russian’s arm shot out, knocking the pistol from her grasp, sending it flying through the air to land against the wall of a building.

Giva dropped into a defensive stance, her hands balled in fists, her head held high.

The guard dove into the passage and ran. By the time Giva retrieved the handgun he’d knocked from her grasp, he’d disappeared, and the door was closing.

She hesitated for a moment, worried he would catch up with Dax and keep him from reaching the Nexus Collective’s command center. She wanted to follow the man and stop him from interfering with Dax’s mission. If she did, she risked being taken and wouldn’t get to the team to pass on information or bring them back to help Dax.

Dax needed more help than she could give alone.

Giva spun on her heels and raced to the end of the building.

As she rounded the corner, she plowed into a large man.

He gripped her shoulders and shoved her against the wall.

She fought, kicking and punching, anything to free herself. Time was running out for Dax. She had to get help

“Giva,” a voice broke through her desperate struggle.

She looked up into the face of the man she’d been pummeling.

Fearghas Gordon stared down at her, his brow furrowed. “Giva, where’s Dax?”

Her knees buckled. If Fearghas hadn’t been holding her by the shoulders, she would have collapsed in a heap at his feet. “He’s in there,” she said, her voice catching on a sob. “You have to help him.” She broke free of his grip and spun back toward the door hidden in a stone wall. “Hurry.”

Fearghas grabbed her arm. “Slow down. Tell me what happened.”

“He doesn’t have time. If we don’t get there soon, they’ll kill him and then kill twenty-five million people.” She tried to pull free of the hand on her arm, but Fearghas held tight. He tapped his radio headset. “Located Giva. No, he’s not with her. Will wait for you before we go in.”

“We can’t wait,” Giva cried. They’re going to send an EMP to Shanghai. Dax is trying to stop them. But he’s just one against several armed Russians.”

Fearghas’s brow creased. “Dmytro, Atkins and I are going with Giva. The Nexus Collective are planning to fire off an EMP at Shanghai. Dax is trying to stop them.” He released Giva’s arm. “Go. I’m right behind you.

Freed, Giva raced ahead of Fearghas, skidding to a stop in front of the stone wall that had been a door moments before.

Her brow was knit as she skimmed her hands across the stones, searching for the metal plate hiding a keypad beneath it. She finally found it, slid it upward and entered the code.

As the door opened, Peter Atkins appeared at the end of the building and ran toward them.

With an abbreviated glance toward the two men, Giva shot through the door. She raced down the tunnel, pausing at the first locked door to enter the code.

Peter and Fearghas caught up with her as the first door opened. They ran through, following Giva as she led the way along the stone-lined passages to the great room where she’d last seen Dax.

Her heart hammering against her ribs, Giva rushed across the floor to the corridor Dax had disappeared into. Time was running out. She felt it in her bones. For Dax, for Shanghai and twenty-five million unsuspecting people.

One locked door led to a second. Her fingers shook as she keyed the code and waited, her pulse pumping hard through her veins. She almost cried when she reached the third door.

“How many of these are they?” she muttered, keying the code and waiting for the door to open enough for her to slip through it.

She sprinted down the passage without looking back to see if Fearghas and Peter were behind her. If she ran into Russian guards, she’d kill them and keep going.

As she rounded a corner, an explosion erupted from a doorway ahead, rocking the ground beneath her feet and sending debris shooting out, followed by dust billowing like a gray cloud into the tunnel.

Giva staggered backward, dropped to the ground and covered her head.

Thick dust enveloped her, making it hard to breathe.

“Giva,” Fearghas called out behind her.

“I’m all right,” she choked out and coughed. She pulled the collar of her shirt up over her mouth and pushed to her feet.

The lights in the passage still glowed, reflecting off the dust particles, making it impossible to see a hand in front of her face.

The explosion had to have come from the command center. Had Dax managed to destroy Maas’s setup?

Oh, God. Had he been inside the command center when it exploded?

Giva rose up on her hands and knees and pushed to her feet.

“We need to get out of here,” Fearghas’s disembodied voice sounded in the haze. He coughed and continued. “The explosion could have compromised the stability of the structure.”

“Dax could be in there,” Giva said, her voice raspy, dust clogging her nose and throat.

“If he was in there, he’s—” Peter started.

“We have to look,” Fearghas said.

The lights overhead flickered for a moment and then steadied.

“I’m going to find him.” With her hand on the wall beside her, she eased forward, sliding her feet across the rubble-littered stone.

When her feet bumped into something softer than stone, she gasped and bent to find a body lying amid the debris.

She dropped to her knees.

The body was big enough to be a man and covered in dust.

With her heart in her throat, Giva felt her way to the man’s head and turned him over enough to peer into his face.

As she wiped the dust from his skin, she released the breath she’d been holding in a whoosh.

It wasn’t Dax.

A groan sounded nearby.

“Dax!” Giva rose and stepped over the body. “Dax!”

A cough sounded from further along the passage.

“Dax?” she cried and rushed forward, stumbling over chunks of broken stone. “Dax!”

“Giva?”

“Where are you?” she cried.

“I’m here.” Dax materialized out of the haze.

Giva fell into his arms. “Oh, Dax. I thought... I thought...” Her body shook with sobs as she clung to Dax.

“I’m all right,” he said. “Are you?”

She nodded her head, her cheek pressed to his dusty chest. “I am now.”

“Giva? Dax?” Fearghas called out.

“Here,” Dax replied, his voice rumbling against Giva’s ear.

He was alive. Thank God. Dax was alive.

Fearghas and Atkins appeared in the mirky haze of swirling dust.

“We have to get out of here,” Dax was saying. “Maas and the others are on their way to a backup location. We have to get there before they set off the EMP.”

“Injured?” Fearghas asked.

“Nothing that will slow me down,” Dax said. “Let’s go.”

With his arm around Giva, Dax followed Fearghas and Atkins back the way they had come.

Giva didn’t want to let go of him. She had an irrational fear that if she did let go, he’d disappear into the dust that didn’t seem to settle.

After they went through the first locked door, they were free of the dust and able to move faster.

“Do you know where the alternate location is?” Fearghas asked as they waited for Giva to enter the code on the second door.

“I overheard him say something about a bell, a deer, and maybe an abandoned hotel.” Dax shook his head. “Maybe Dmytro can make sense of that.”

The lock clicked, and the door opened.

They sprinted to the next door and finally emerged into the night.

Fearghas immediately contacted Dmytro and gave him the bits of information Dax had overheard. “He’s looking.” A moment later, Fearghas said, “I’m here. What do you have?”

Giva stood with her arm around Dax, holding her breath, straining to hear what Dmytro was saying to Fearghas.

“Belvedere Hotel, west of Old Town. We’re on our way.”

“We’ll need transportation.” Peter Atkins sprinted ahead of them.

Giva turned to Dax. “Can you make it?”

Dax’s eyes narrowed in his dust-covered face. “Yes. Let’s get there.”

Giva hurried alongside Dax as they headed for Pile Gate. The clock was ticking for twenty-five million people.

They had to stop Maas.

When they passed through the gate, Peter Atkins shouted and waved. He stood next to an SUV and several motorcycles with riders.

Despite the late hour, traffic moved slowly past the gate as people left restaurants and bars in Old Town to return to their lodgings outside the walls.

As they neared Peter, he shouted, pointing to the car and the line of motorcycles. “Your choice!”

Giva and Dax veered toward the motorcycles.

Fearghas and Peter did as well.

Dax climbed on the back of one and held onto the driver.

Giva didn’t hesitate. She slipped onto the back of another with a driver she didn’t know. She preferred to drive the motorcycle herself, but they didn’t have time to switch.

Dax’s driver shot away from the curb and merged into traffic.

Giva wasn’t far behind. The motorcycles weaved in between vehicles as they navigated the busy city streets.

Traffic thinned further away from Old Town, and the drivers opened their throttles.

Giva and Dax couldn’t communicate or hear what was happening without radio headsets or earbuds. They had to trust that Hank Patterson’s reinforcements were good, armed and knew where they were going.

They followed the coastal road as it climbed up a hill with sharp drop-offs and stunning views of the Adriatic Sea in the starlight.

Giva clung to her driver, praying he didn’t miss a turn and send them plummeting to their deaths off a bluff. When he leaned into a curve, Giva leaned with him, hoping they would reach their destination soon.

With Dubrovnik’s lights behind them, they drove on, passing fewer and fewer structures. The motorcycles slowed as they approached a blind curve.

The lead bike with Dax on the back slowed even more and pulled off the highway onto a winding, overgrown road leading down the side of a hill toward the sea.

Tree branches formed a canopy over the road, blocking any view of what lay ahead.

Dax’s motorcycle slowed to a stop. The driver killed the headlight and the engine.

The others followed suit one by one, and the riders hopped off.

Peter hurried over to Dax and Giva. “Do you have radios?”

Dax shook his head. “No.”

“Me either,” Giva added.

“I thought as much.” Peter dug in his pocket. “I brought extra headsets.” He handed one to Dax and the other to Giva. “Weapons?”

“No,” Dax said again.

Peter pulled his jacket off to reveal a shoulder holster with a handgun tucked inside and a submachine gun slung down the middle of his back. He unslung the submachine gun and handed it to Dax.

When Peter turned to Giva, she held up the pistol she’d taken off the Russian. “I’m good.” She settled the radio headset over her ears.

“Comm check. Who have we got here, and from what Brotherhood branch? I’m Fearghas, International,” Fearghas said into her ears.

“Giva, International,” Giva said, raising her hand.

The dark-haired man who’d been her driver lifted a hand. “Chase from Montana.”

Dax’s driver, a big guy probably six feet four or five, raised a hand. “Bubba, Yellowstone.”

Peter Atkins raised a hand. “Atkins, International.”

Another one of the new guys nodded. “Falcon, Yellowstone.”

“Gavin, Montana,” the last of the reinforcements said.

Dax stepped into the middle of the group. “Dax, International. We don’t have much time.” He briefly explained what he’d discovered about the plot to aim an EMP at Shanghai and the people behind the plan. “We have to stop them before they let loose that EMP. Not only could they destroy the lives of twenty-five million people in Shanghai, but this event could also trigger a world war.”

“Not if we can help it,” Fearghas said. “Dmytro said, this is a big place with eighteen levels and hundreds of guest rooms. It was abandoned in 1992 after it was bombed by Serbian and Montenegrin forces. A Russian billionaire purchased the property in 2014. My bet is he’s one of the oligarchs involved in this plot. Let’s divide into teams of two to cover as much ground as possible. Dax with Giva will be one. Atkins and I will be a team. Yellowstone another, and Montana will make a fourth team. If you find the location, let the others know where.”

“Does each team have a flashlight?” Atkins asked, handing his flashlight to Dax.

Fearghas, Chase and Falcon held up their flashlights.

Dax nodded. “Let’s go save the world.” He led the way, his limp less pronounced.

They followed the road as it descended the side of the steep hill. As the trees thinned, Giva saw a towering white stucco building with a terracotta tiled roof.

As they neared the first structure, Dax clicked on his flashlight and shined it across the wall.

Stains marred the white stucco, and tiles were missing from the roof. Though the hotel was abandoned and in disrepair, it must have been a beauty at some time. Old bougainvillea vines covered some walls in bright magenta flowers, a throwback to more prosperous times.

The hotel was a multi-level complex clinging to the side of the hill with views from every section.

The teams split up and slipped into the darkened complex, looking for lights or sentries guarding certain buildings.

Starting at the top, they spread out and worked their way through buildings.

Giva and Dax entered the original reception building with its tall ceilings and modern architecture, now covered in graffiti with plants growing through cracks in the floors. Starlight streamed through what had once been glass walls but now were open arches, allowing the elements free reign.

After a quick search of the building, they didn’t see anything or anyone that would indicate the presence of the Nexus Collective or an array of computers poised to deliver a fatal blow to one of the largest port cities in China.

“This place is massive. It’ll take too long to search every building,” Dax said. “Maas had to have driven vehicles into the complex. If we find their cars, they have to be nearby.”

Moments later, Fearghas's voice sounded in Giva’s ear. “Cars parked on the third level down. This area appears to have been the office complex and one of the main entertainment facilities. There are a couple of guards standing in the shadows at an entrance.”

“Coming,” Dax said.

He and Giva had already moved to the second level, hurrying through, looking for vehicles or people.

From her perch a level up, Giva paused and listened. The faint hum of an engine rumbled in the night. “Do you hear that?”

Dax nodded, grabbed her hand, and hurried down the driveway to the third level.

They found Fearghas and Atkins at the corner of a building. The guards Fearghas had reported leaned against the wall, their rifles pointed downward.

“Yellowstone and Montana in position at the opposite end of the target building.”

“Cover me,” Dax said. Before Giva could stop him, he slipped around the corner. With his back to the wall, clinging to the shadows, he eased toward the guards.

Giva scooped up a couple of rocks from the ground and followed Dax, placing each foot carefully to avoid making a sound. Overgrown bushes and vines helped to conceal their approach from the guards.

When they were as close as they could get without being seen, Dax stopped.

Giva took his hand and placed the rocks in his palm. “Distract them,” she whispered, tucked the pistol into her waistband and bent to retrieve the knives from her ankle sheath. She eased around Dax for a better position, holding the blade of one of the knives between her fingertips at the ready—a second blade balanced in her other hand.

Giva focused, remembering all the practice she’d put in, perfecting her aim. The small knives wouldn’t necessarily kill the target, but sticking one in the right place would distract a guard—hopefully long enough for Dax and her to move in, disarm and neutralize them without too much noise.

Dax stood for a moment, unmoving. Then, as if making up his mind, he said, “We have to get inside.” He threw the stones into the overgrown garden area in front of the guards.

The sound made both men jerk to attention and move forward.

Giva flung the knife, aiming for the farthest man’s face. The blade stuck in the man’s cheek.

The man cried out, dropped his weapon and clawed at the blade embedded in his cheek.

When his partner turned toward him to see what was wrong, Giva launched another blade, aiming for the back of the second guy’s neck. It missed, sinking into the man’s shoulder.

Dax sprinted past Giva. She followed close behind, a third knife in hand.

The second guard yelped and spun toward Dax, one hand holding his rifle, the other reaching over his shoulder for the cause of his pain. By the time he spotted Dax, it was too late for him to raise his rifle.

Dax flew into him like a linebacker going in for the tackle. He hit him with enough force to knock him backward into his partner, sending them both sprawling across the concrete.

With his rifle trapped between himself and Dax, the guard couldn’t reach the trigger. Dax had him pinned with his forearm pressed hard against his neck, cutting off air to his lungs.

The other man fought to free his arms from beneath the guard on top of him. He stretched out a hand, straining to reach the submachine gun he’d thrown to the ground. His fingers were mere inches from the weapon when Giva threw herself at him, plunging the knife into his throat.

He grabbed her throat with his free hand and squeezed hard.

Giva couldn’t breathe. With one hand, she clutched at the man’s hand in an attempt to pry his fingers loose. With the other, she felt for the knife she’d stabbed into his neck. Had she missed his carotid artery? If she could just find the knife...

The grip on her neck weakened.

She pulled his fingers away, and the hand dropped to the ground. The guard lay with his eyes wide open, staring up at the starry sky. Lifeless. He’d bled out.

Dax gave one final shove against the other guard’s neck and rolled off the man’s limp body.

Giva pulled her knife from her guard’s throat. “Need this?” she asked, holding the handle out for Dax.

“No, he’s dead,” Dax said.

The other members of the team converged on the entrance. “Peter and I will take lead,” Fearghas said.

“Follow the sound of the generator.” Dax tipped his head toward the submachine gun the guard had dropped. “Take that and use it. Just be careful not to damage the equipment if you can. Even if we eliminate the Nexus Collective, the EMP capability is still up there in those satellites. We need access to the programs to incapacitate the devices completely. We don’t know who else Evan Maas brought in on their development.”

Fearghas nodded. “Roger.” He lifted his chin toward Peter. “Ready?”

Atkins nodded.

Fearghas and Atkins entered first.

Dax followed, limping more heavily.

Giva had his back.

Teams Yellowstone and Montana brought up the rear.

The broken glass doors led into a massive entryway stretching three stories upward. Moonlight streamed in from huge broken glass windows, casting strange prisms of light and shadow across the space. At the center, a ghostly-white spiral staircase snaked upward from the ground to the floors above.

In the cavernous foyer, the generator's hum echoed eerily off the walls, making it impossible to determine the direction from which it emanated.

Fearghas pointed to Team Yellowstone, then pointed to his left, indicating they should search the corridors leading off the left side of the entrance. He pointed to Team Montana and then to the right corridors. The two teams took off, moving quickly.

Fearghas pointed to Dax and Giva and then to the corridors on the other side of the spiral staircase. They were to start there.

Fearghas and Atkins climbed the spiral staircase to the floor above.

Dax and Giva quickly moved down the corridor at the rear of the building, clearing room after room. All they found were pieces of broken furniture, graffiti and trash left behind by squatters.

They emerged in the grand foyer to find Team Montana and Yellowstone coming out at the same time.

“We hear the generator on the second floor, near the rear of the building,” Fearghas’s voice filled Giva’s ears.

“Hold fast,” Dax said. “We’ll come up the rear stairwell.” He motioned for the others to follow him to the corridor he and Giva had cleared. They’d noted a staircase at the end that would be a much better way to climb to the next level without exposing the entire team.

Dax led the way up the stairs, moving as quickly as his injured leg would allow. At the top, he eased open the heavy metal door and peered out into a dark hallway. A little light shone through the open doors of the rooms lining the corridor from windows long broken with views of a midnight sky sprinkled with diamond accents that never quit.

Fearghas stepped out of one of them and waved them into the room.

With all eight team members in one place, Fearghas gathered them in a circle and dropped to his haunches. With his finger, he drew in the dust.

“We found the room with the generator. It’s on the next corridor over, running parallel to this one. The door appears to have a series of heavy padlocks securing it and one guard standing outside. We think their alternate command center is at the end of the same hallway and around a corner. The rooms are set up similarly in each corridor in this section of the resort. We think they’ve set up in the suite at the end of the hallway.”

“Do they have a stairwell at the end, like on this hallway?”

Fearghas nodded. “We spied at least one guard pacing outside the suite, but I would guess there are two. The alcove in front of the door is large enough for two guards.”

“What about shutting down their power source in the room coming from the generator?” Chase asked.

“We thought about that,” Atkins said. “If they’re smart—and Maas is tech savvy—they’ll have battery backups to keep the computers running even if the generator goes down. Granted, it might be for a limited amount of time.”

“But enough time to kick off the EMP,” Dax said, his face grim.

“And if we turn off the lights by killing the generator, we’ve alerted them that we’re in the building.”

“They might already know if they’ve tried to contact the guards we took out at the front of the building,” Giva said.

Fearghas nodded. “True.”

“Based on the number of guards we saw in their original command center, we’ve whittled them down to maybe a handful.” Dax glanced around the room. “I believe we outnumber the guards with eight of us.”

“Agreed,” Fearghas said.

“And we’re running out of time,” Dax said. “They got here before us. They probably had to spend a little time booting up the generator, the computers and the satellite connection. If we move now, we might stop them before they initiate the command to launch the EMP.”

Fearghas nodded. “We’ll need to take out the guard in front of the generator door and the two in front of the suite.” He turned to Chase and Gavin. “Team Montana will take the guard at the door to the generator room. Team Yellowstone, you’ll set up a perimeter at the opposite end of the hallway from the stairwell door in case they recall other guards we haven’t accounted for.”

The men from Yellowstone and Montana nodded and began checking and adjusting their weapons and gear.

Fearghas continued, “The International Team of four will approach via the stairwell, which means going up a level and working our way around to the other corridor, then coming back down the stairwell next to the suite. Once we’re all in position, we’ll attack the generator room and the suite simultaneously. Can everyone hear via their radio headsets?”

Giva nodded along with the others, happy that Atkins had the foresight to bring extra communications devices. The short time she and Dax had been out of communication with the others had made her feel strangely blind and exposed.

Before they left the room, Fearghas contacted Dmytro and informed him of their plan.

Dmytro responded with, “Roger. Go get ’em.”

The teams split, moving out in opposite directions.

Dax moved ahead of Fearghas. “I’ll take point.”

Fearghas’s eyes narrowed, but he didn’t argue.

Giva figured Dax had a little vengeance in mind after nearly being killed in the explosion. She’d like to know more about how that went down after they stopped Maas from sending the electromagnetic pulse.

Once they had that locked down and the players corralled, she had a rain check to cash in. Her blood hummed with the excitement of the mission and the reward when it was all over.

She just had to keep Dax alive through it all. As point man, he was making it difficult for her to have his back. Giva squared her shoulders and stayed close on Dax’s heels as they climbed the stairs to the next floor and hurried around the corridors to the other stairwell.

She had more than a rain check in mind as she followed Dax down the stairwell to their position outside the target suite.

The short amount of time she’d spent getting to know Dax had reminded her of how much she’d been missing.

Family.

People she loved and who loved her. Making new memories.

For so long, she’d been afraid to open her heart to love again. Not after losing everyone she’d loved at one time. Dax had been in a similar situation, having lost his wife. He hadn’t let himself love again.

Despite having lost her family, she couldn’t imagine her life without them for the time she’d had.

Could two closed-off people learn to open up and dare to love again, knowing one or the other might die at any given time? Dax could die that night for all she knew.

Her belly knotted. Would she wish she’d never met or fallen for him to save her the pain of loss?

No.

Giva was glad she’d met Dax. She felt more alive than she had since her family’s death.

While pretending to love Dax, Giva had fallen in love with the man. If he died that night—she prayed he wouldn’t—would she regret not telling him how she felt?

As she waited for everyone to report that they were in place, she leaned toward Dax. “Hey,” she said, her heart racing for an entirely different reason than the imminent battle.

As the teams reported in, Dax turned toward her.

Giva leaned up on her toes and whispered into Dax’s ear. “I love you.”

“We move on my count,” Fearghas said. “Three...two...one...go,” he said softly.