Page 9 of Croatia Collateral (Brotherhood Protectors International #3)

Chapter 9

Giva was still kicking herself for being so stupid as to be caught by a couple of Russian weightlifters. She should have been paying more attention to her surroundings than to the footprints illuminated by the black light.

Once she was inside the compound, it was too late for regrets. She had to come up with a reason to be snooping around. When she’d seen Dax standing next to the Japanese woman, she’d said the first thought that had come to her.

“Of all the women you could have, and you choose some old Asian lady?” She pushed to her feet and held out her wrists bound with zip ties. “Look, I don’t care who you leave me for. Tell them to untie these plastic thingies, and I’ll be on my way. I shouldn’t have come to this dusty old town anyway. I wanted to go to Monaco. But nooo . You had to come to Croatia.” She thrust her hands toward his face. “Get these off me now.”

“Let her go,” Dax said to Rabinovich. “She’s not a threat.”

One of the Russian heavies held up two sets of throwing knives.

Rabinovich cocked an eyebrow. “If she is not a threat, why is she armed?”

Giva snorted. “They were a gift from Evan.”

“That’s right,” Dax said. “She can never be too prepared for an attack. You don’t know how many times someone has tried to kidnap her to hold her for ransom.”

Giva lifted her chin defiantly. “Evan taught me how to throw knives, and he put me through self-defense training.”

Dax pursed his lips and shook his head at Giva. “All of which has proven a waste of money and time. You couldn’t even defend yourself against a couple of Russians?”

“I wouldn’t have had to if you’d taken me with you,” she said, pouting like a true spoiled brat.

“I told you to stay at the hotel.” He crossed his arms over his chest. “How did you lose the bodyguards?”

She snorted. “They were playing cards outside my door. I slipped out onto the balcony and climbed down the fire escape ladder. Bet you didn’t know there was one, did you?”

“No, I didn’t. I’ll have to fire the bodyguards.” Dax turned to Yamaguchi. “This is Sasha, my girlfriend.”

“Fiancée,” Giva corrected as the man who’d taken her knives selected one and sliced through the zip tie. “You promised we’d get married soon. That’s a proposal if I ever heard one.”

A muscle in Yamaguchi’s jaw twitched, and her lips pressed tightly together. “You were to come alone.”

“I did,” Dax said. “I gave Sasha specific orders to stay at the hotel while I conducted business.”

Yamaguchi met and held Dax’s gaze. “We cannot allow her to leave.”

“Then she’ll stay with me,” he said.

“You don’t understand,” Yamaguchi said. “She can never leave. She knows too much and now has seen too much.”

“Seen what?” Giva continued to play the part of the entitled girlfriend of one of the wealthiest men on the planet. “A bunch of TV screens showing boring documentaries? What are you afraid of? That I’ll tell someone that you’re brainwashing Russians with documentaries?” She snorted. “Please. I’ve been inside the home of the kingpin of a major Columbian drug cartel. This is nothing.”

Dax met Yamaguchi’s glare with one of his own. “She stays, and no one hurts her or I’m out, and I take my toys with me.”

“Or you can let me go, and he can stay for your boring indoctrination.” She ran her gaze over the Japanese woman from head to toe and lifted a corner of her lip in disdain. “I have nothing to be jealous of here. I can clearly see you’re not Evan’s type.”

Yamaguchi’s eyes narrowed to slits. She glanced at her watch and back to Evan. “Run the test, and we will discuss your mistress later.”

“We discuss now,” Dax said, “or I won’t run the test or the final EMP targeting Shanghai.”

Holy smokes. Giva clamped her mouth shut to keep her jaw from dropping.

Targeting Shanghai, a city of twenty-five million people, with an electromagnetic pulse would be catastrophic. With no electricity, no transportation other than bicycles and no way to evacuate that many people, it wouldn’t be long before chaos ensued.

“ Signore Maas is a businessman and has made more money than any of us. He wouldn’t jeopardize the operation because of a woman,” Galeotti said. “Let her stay.”

Yamaguchi shifted her glare to Giva. “She stays down here.”

“I’m as serious as a heart attack,” Dax warned the Russians. “You hurt her, and this operation is over.”

Yamaguchi led the way up the steps to the room overlooking the lower floor.

Dax followed.

Giva was there, but she couldn’t help him in the room above. She gauged her chances with the people remaining on the floor with her. She wasn’t worried about the oligarchs. Though the Italian and German might put up more of a fight, it was the four Russian bodyguards she’d be hard-pressed to neutralize. They’d already proved much stronger than her. But she wouldn’t be surprised this time. She’d be ready.

She paced the room, her gaze going to Dax, wondering what the Japanese woman expected him to do. What test was he supposed to run? Would it require a password only Maas would know? They’d know for certain he was a phony when he couldn’t access whatever system they were running.

Dax sat at a workstation with a computer.

Giva couldn’t see what he was doing with his hands, but he leaned forward, placing his eye close to what appeared to be a biometric scanner. Either a retinal or iris scanner, neither of which would work with Dax’s eye.

After a moment, he leaned back and said something to Yamaguchi.

Her eyes narrowed, and she nodded her head toward the scanner as if telling him to try again.

Dax leaned toward the scanner for a long moment.

Giva tensed, prepared to start fighting her way out of the room.

When the biometric scanner failed to allow him into the system, Yamaguchi would realize Dax was not Evan Maas. Their charade would end, but they would still need to get the hell out of the dungeon and report what they’d found. Then, they’d have to figure out how to stop the Nexus Collective from implementing their plan.

Or, in a different scenario, Giva and Dax could shut it down before leaving the dungeon. If Maas was the only one who could set off the pulse, Hank Patterson would have to detain the man indefinitely. At least until they determined how to disarm whatever device Maas had built that could deliver targeted EMPs.

After his second attempt at the biometric scanner, Dax pushed to his feet and faced Yamaguchi, his expression angry as he said something to the woman. He waved his hand at the computer monitors and swung it again, knocking the biometric scanner against the wall.

Giva couldn’t hear what he was saying. The plexiglass muffled his words.

Yamaguchi lifted her chin, her eyes narrowing to slits.

Dax pushed through the door, still ranting. “Whatever you’ve done to the system will take time to repair and secure another biometric scanner. I’ll need at least a couple of days to run diagnostics and determine where the fault lies. Until then, the test will remain on hold.” He strode toward Giva. “Come, Sasha, we’re done here for now. We’ll return in the morning to sort through hardware and software to locate and fix the bugs.” He shook his head. “I should’ve been here to oversee the final installation.”

He hooked Giva’s elbow and started for the exit.

“Do not allow him to leave,” Yamaguchi called out from the doorway of the plexiglass room.

The four Russian guards blocked the exit.

Dax spun. “Excuse me? Who made you in charge of this effort?”

“Evan Maas San tasked me with the construction of the command center.” She descended, one step at a time. “A fact he would remember clearly.”

“I’m a very busy man, managing multiple corporations that span the globe. When I give orders, I expect them to be carried out. You have failed to carry out my instructions. The system is not ready. It won’t even boot.”

“It was as you had it delivered. We installed precisely according to your direction,” Yamaguchi said, her chin held high. “The system will only come up when the biometric scanner finds a match with Evan Maas’s eye.”

She gave a brief nod to the men behind Dax and Giva.

The four Russians stepped forward and reached for Dax and Giva.

Giva tensed at the same time as Dax and spun, sweeping her leg out, knocking one of the Russians’ feet out from under him.

He staggered into the man beside him, grabbed the front of his jacket and dragged him down with him.

Dax attacked, knocking one of the men backward and sending him crashing into the wall. He performed a sidekick, hitting the second man in the chest.

While Giva’s two Russians were untangling themselves, she turned to help Dax.

Dax threw a punch, making contact with the man’s cheek.

The Russian barely blinked before jabbing a fist into Dax’s ribs.

Before the man could cock his arm for another punch, Giva combined her hands and swung her bunched fists at Dax’s attacker, catching him hard on the chin. He staggered backward.

Giva followed, kicking the man in the knee and then in the gut.

He captured her heel and yanked hard, pulling her off her feet.

Giva landed hard on her backside; the wind knocked from her lungs. The guard who’d caught her foot threw himself at her.

Giva rolled to the side at the last moment.

The man hit the ground and quickly came up on his hands and knees.

Giva shot to her feet, darting out of his reach.

Dax slammed one of the Russian guards into the two oligarchs, sending all three to the ground.

With the other man out cold, he ran for the keypad next to the door, pushed the metal plate upward and keyed in the numbers he’d seen the guard use. The lock clicked, and the door swung toward them.

“Let’s go,” he called out to Giva.

“A little busy here,” she said, straining to get air into her lungs as one of the Russians grabbed her in a headlock.

She let her body go completely slack, forcing her captor to either drop her or take on her full weight. His arm loosened enough; Giva ducked out of the crook of his elbow, landed her elbow into his gut and slipped behind him. She planted a hard kick into the center of his back, sending him flying forward.

That’s what you get for trying to choke me.

Out of the corner of her eye, she spied movement near the slowly opening door.

Dax’s gaze was on her, so he didn’t see the man in the doorway.

“Look out!” Giva yelled.

Before Dax could fully turn, a man stepped through and pressed a handheld device into Dax’s chest.

Dax grunted and dropped to the ground.

A stun gun.

Giva started toward Dax but didn’t get far.

The Russian she’d swept off his feet wrapped his arms around her from behind and lifted her off the ground.

No matter how much she twisted, turned and kicked, she couldn’t break free of the steel bands of the arms the big man had clamped around her.

As the man who’d stunned Dax strode toward Giva, her heart sank into her shoes. He and Dax could have been twins.

Evan Maas was in the building.

He stepped to the side of her flailing legs and pressed the stun gun against her arm.

A bolt of electricity burned through her, turning her muscles to mush. Her entire body went limp.

The Russian lowered her to the floor beside Dax, pulled out zip ties and secured her hands behind her back. Not that she could move them or inflict any harm.

Then he secured Dax’s wrists behind his back.

Giva lay her cheek against the cold stone floor, her eyes open as their cover was blown wide open.

“What the hell is going on?” Evan demanded. “Who called this meeting ahead of our proposed schedule? And who the hell are these two?” He waved a hand toward Giva and Dax.

Yamaguchi stared at Evan Maas. “Who the hell are you?”

“You know me, Hochi,” Evan said. “I helped you gain control of your father’s holdings after you had him assassinated.”

Her brow furrowed. “If you are Evan Maas, who is that man?” She pointed at Dax’s inert body next to Giva’s. “And is that woman, not your fiancée, Sasha?”

“Sasha is on a shopping trip with her sister in Paris. I have no idea who those two are. How much do they know?”

Yamaguchi’s lips thinned. “Everything. We thought he was you.”

Evan shoved a hand through his dark hair. “My cell phone had been compromised. Once I realized it, I went through my messages and found one from you, reminding me of an invitation I never received. When I tried to contact you, your secretary said you were in Croatia. I flew out here at once.”

Giva tried to will her body to move. Now would be a good time to leave. Five minutes ago would have been better. Before the real Evan Maas had shown up.

Evan walked up to where Dax lay on the floor. “You thought this man was me?” He shook his head. “He looks nothing like me at all.”

Giva wanted to tell the man he was full of shit but kept her mouth shut. The less they said, the better.

“Who do you work for?” Evan demanded.

Dax said nothing.

Evan cocked his leg and swung hard toward Dax’s ribs.

Dax rolled away, catching only a whiff of Evan’s shoe against his side. He inched his way around, positioning his feet between himself and Evan.

“What do you want done with them?” Yamaguchi asked.

Evan spit on the floor near Dax. “I’d have you kill them, but I want to know who they are and who sent them to take my place before we dispose of their bodies.”

“Grab the girl,” Maas said.

The effects of the stun gun were wearing off. She could move all her fingers and toes and was working on her arms and legs when two of the Russian guards bent over her and hoisted her onto her feet.

Maas grabbed her hair, yanked her head back, and stared down into her eyes. “What’s your name?”

Giva bit down on her tongue, her gaze holding his steadily. She didn’t answer.

Maas slapped her hard.

Her head jerked to the right, her face stinging. She blinked several times and then turned to face the man again, her face poker straight.

“What is your name, woman?” Maas said through gritted teeth.

When she refused to speak, he slapped her again, nearly knocking her off her feet.

“Leave her alone,” Dax said.

“I will when I get answers,” Maas said. “Either she tells me who you are, or I keep hitting her.” He raised his hand. “Unless you want to spare her and tell me what I want to know.”

Dax’s eyes narrowed, but he didn’t say anything.

Maas hit Giva with enough force to break her lip. Blood trickled from the corner of her mouth. Still, she remained silent.

“We don’t have time for this,” Yamaguchi hissed. “We need to test the device.”

“We had a plan,” Maas said. “Why are we deviating?”

Yamaguchi lifted her chin toward Dax and Giva. “Word is getting out. How else would these two have known about our group and the meeting?” She glared at Dax.

Maas nodded. “I want answers before we dispose of them.”

“If they were able to discover we had something in the works, how many others know?” Yamaguchi said. “We must initiate our plan now. Once it’s underway, we can dismantle or destroy this operations center and all proof of our involvement, including these two conspirators.”

Maas nodded, his gaze on Dax. “Is everything ready according to my precise instructions?”

Yamaguchi nodded and then shook her head. “Everything was ready until the imposter attempted to gain entry using the biometric scanner.”

“You can’t unleash an EMP on Shanghai,” Dax said.

Giva swallowed hard. She still couldn’t believe they planned on hitting Shanghai with an EMP.

“There are twenty-five million people who live there,” Dax said. “Shutting off power and transportation to that many people at once would be catastrophic. People will die.”

“Precisely,” Maas said. “There are too many people in China as it is. Losing twenty-five million is a drop in the bucket of the over 1.4 billion who live there. That kind of jolt to their population and economy will provide opportunity for so many other corporations across the globe.”

“It’s murder,” Dax said.

“And unleashing a virus on the world wasn’t murder?” Maas demanded. He turned to Yamaguchi. “Let’s get this ball rolling.” To Rabinovich he said, “Get these two out of here. Take them to the dungeon.”

Giva would have snorted softly. Like all the rooms in the dark basement of Old Town, Dubrovnik wasn’t part of a dungeon? She almost asked what could be worse but thought better of it. By the look on Maas’s face, he had worse in his dungeon of horrors.

As if he’d read her mind, Maas gave a maniacal smile. “I had it outfitted with traditional shackles and torture devices used back when they built this city. After we take care of business, we’ll work them over. I’m betting if I use those torture devices on the girl, my imposter will squeal like a stuck pig. I want to know who sent them.” His eyes narrowed. “Just don’t let them go or let them out of your sight.”

Rabinovich gave orders in Russian.

One guard took her ankles, and the other slipped his hands beneath her shoulders. Evan keyed the code into the pad, making the door swing open.

The other two guards carried Dax out first.

As they passed Evan, the wealthy, crazy man, shook his head. “He looks nothing like me.”

“I beg to differ,” Yamaguchi said as she stepped up beside him. “The resemblance is uncanny.”

Maas snorted disdainfully. “You were too easily fooled.” He handed his stun gun to the Russian leading the guards. “Use this if needed.”

Rabinovich translated.

The lead man nodded and tucked the stun gun in his jacket pocket.

Maas turned back to Yamaguchi. “Now show me what he damaged, and I’ll tell you if I can fix it.”

As Giva was carried through the door, she could hear Maas and Yamaguchi discussing the biometric scanner.

“It’s a special brand,” Maas said. “If it’s broken, I can have another flown in overnight.”

“We can’t wait that long,” Yamaguchi argued. “There must be another way to work around it.”

The door closed before Giva could hear Maas’s response.

They had to get free of the Russian guards and stop Maas from carrying out their plan. The Chinese government couldn’t ignore an attack that impacted that many people and such a major port. They would look for the culprit and rain fire down on them.

Giva counted the number of guards positioned outside the door leading into the command center and along the passage to Maas’s dungeon.

Two guards stood on either side of the door. Each man held a military-grade rifle with a thirty-round magazine.

They had to get free first and then leave the subterranean maze of Old Town to report back to the team. Maybe Dmytro had a way of blocking the computer commands that would activate whatever device Maas had created to deliver such a devastating attack.

Her stomach roiled at the thought of such a massive attack. Though it wouldn’t kill people directly, the instant cessation of all electronics could and would kill people. Ships would become dead in the water, possibly crashing into each other. Cranes might drop shipping containers and crush people standing below them.

Airplanes in the vicinity would lose all electronics and struggle to make safe landings if they could land at all. People in apartments would lose heating or air-conditioning as well as the ability to prepare and store food. Vehicles would be stranded in the streets. Delivery trucks would cease to work and block roads. Phones, television and radios wouldn’t work.

Twenty-five million people could be stranded with no way to secure food and water. Evacuation would have to be on foot.

Twenty-five million people.

Giva had to find a way to stop the Nexus Collective from carrying out their plan.

When they’d left the command center, the guard in charge led the four carrying Dax and Giva. They made an immediate right turn, walked to the next intersection of passages and turned left. Another guard stood at that corner, holding a submachine gun.

Now was not the time to make a break for it. Giva remained still, focusing on how far they’d come, how many turns they’d made, where guards were located, and the weapons they wielded.

The lead man came to a halt in front of a door with thick iron bars and an ancient lock. One of the Russians lifted a ring of metal skeleton keys from a hook on the wall, fit a key into the lock and twisted.

The lock clicked easily enough for an old lock and an equally old key, and the metal barred door swung inward.

So far, the guards had worked under the orders of their Russian leader, Rabinovich. He’d translated every order into Russian. It would be reasonable to think they couldn’t speak much, if any English. And maybe Rabinovich wanted it that way to keep them from learning or understanding what was going on beyond what they needed to know.

Dax had to be planning to make a break for it. If they were dumped into the dungeon and the door locked, they’d be helpless to get word to anyone who had half a chance of stopping what the Nexus Collective had planned.

Giva couldn’t let that happen without a fight. Before they carried Dax through the door, she sang a verse from one of her father’s favorite songs, “It’s now or never.”

In front of her, Giva saw Dax buck and twist.

Giva did the same, jerking her ankles out of the Russian’s grip. Her feet dropped to the ground.

The man holding her under her armpits tipped forward with her full weight. She bent her knees, bringing him further forward and then pushed to the ground, slamming her head into his chin.

He lost his hold under her arms.

Giva dropped to the ground. With her arms secured behind her, she couldn’t break her fall. Her shoulder hit the stone floor, pain shooting through her, but she couldn’t let it stop her. She rolled to the side, pulled her feet beneath her and pushed to her feet.

Scuffling and grunting sounds came from behind her. Giva bunched her muscles, ready to make a dive past the Russian she’d hit in the chin. She’d only moved a step when something pressed into her back and a bolt of electricity shot through her.

Giva dropped to the floor, unable to move, her muscles completely useless.

She was dragged into Maas’s dungeon and unceremoniously dropped beside Dax’s still body.

A moment later, the click of a key turning in the lock made Giva’s heart sink. She’d failed.

Now, twenty-five million people would suffer the consequences.