Page 21 of France Face-Off (Brotherhood Protectors International #6)

A splitting headache woke Alex. She hadn’t felt this kind of pain since she’d had too much vodka with her friends at a nightclub in Moscow. The trouble was she couldn’t remember drinking anything. She couldn’t remember what she’d been doing to cause so much pain.

The last thing she did remember was…the summit…leaving the hotel through a rear door…a bomb threat.

She blinked her eyes open and frowned. This wasn’t her hotel room, and it wasn’t Daniel’s.

No, Daniel wasn’t right…

Dane. But he liked to be called Striker. Why was her head so fuzzy, and what was that roaring noise?

The room she was in dipped. She tried to put her arms out to steady herself, only to discover she couldn’t move them. Alex looked down at the duct tape wrapped around her wrists. She tried to move her legs but couldn’t. They were bound at the ankles.

Then it all came back to her.

The bomb threat. The truck. The men in coveralls, wearing baseball caps, who’d grabbed her.

Her heart pounded against her chest as she stared around at the walls surrounding her. They weren’t like normal walls, and she was in a small space with small round windows, lying across a couple of seats. And that roar like jet engines…

She was in an airplane.

Alex raised her bound hands to her right breast, where she always tucked the flash drive in her bra. Her breath caught in her throat, and she almost moaned out loud.

It was gone.

The thunk of something dropping below her and snapping in place indicated landing gear had been deployed. But where were they landing? And who had taken her?

She struggled to sit up, just to fall back onto the seat as the plane landed hard on the tarmac and screamed to a stop.

Two men appeared above her, grabbed her beneath her arms and hauled her to her feet.

“Who are you?” she demanded. “Where are you taking me?”

One of them stuffed a wad of cloth in her mouth. The other man dragged a cloth sack over her head and body, and then lifted her up, slinging her over his shoulder.

She bounced along, the man’s shoulder digging into her belly as he descended the stairs out of the plane and walked across a hard surface.

When he stopped, he dropped her onto another hard surface that smelled of rubber and oil.

Then something slammed over her, taking away what little light had made it through the thick canvas of the sack that had been thrown over her.

An engine started. Not the roaring engine of a jet airplane, but a smaller one, like that of a car. Soon, they were moving along what sounded like paved roads with the occasional pothole.

Alex figured she was in the trunk of a vehicle.

The wad of cloth in her mouth gagged her.

For several minutes, she pushed at it with her tongue until she finally shoved it past her teeth and spit it out.

Once she was able to breathe normally, she wiggled and scooted, trying to work the bag off her body.

After several failed attempts, she finally managed to push it up over her head.

Still trapped in a dark, confined space, she had only herself to get her out of this mess.

Striker wouldn’t have any idea where they’d taken her.

He might even think she’d taken the opportunity to leave the summit and go back into hiding.

She wondered if he’d be sad that she hadn’t come to say goodbye.

Her heart ached at the thought of never seeing him again. He’d been the only person in a long time that she’d wanted to be around. The only person she’d trusted.

And making love…

How would she survive without knowing that feeling again? For that matter, how would she survive if she didn’t find a way to free herself soon?

She felt around the interior of the trunk, searching for a rough edge to scrape the duct tape off her wrists.

Every edge was smooth and of no use. With no other way to work through the tape, she tore into it with her teeth, working as quickly as she could.

She had no idea how long they’d keep her in the trunk or where they were going.

Just as she tore through the last layer of duct tape around her wrists, the vehicle slowed to a halt. Muffled voices sounded outside. Alex strained to hear them. She only caught a few words, but it was enough to know they were speaking German.

They were being questioned by someone who was manning a gate. A moment later, she heard the clink of metal and something moving.

Alex reached for the tape at her ankles and tore at it with her fingernails, searching for the end so that she could unwind it.

Then the vehicle lurched forward and drove at a sedate pace for a short distance, eventually coming to a complete halt. The engine was shut off, and car doors opened and closed. Footsteps sounded around the side of the vehicle, coming to a stop behind the trunk.

Alex still had to work at getting the tape off her ankles. She wouldn’t get far if she attempted to make an escape with her ankles bound.

Working quickly, she reached down to pull the tape from around her ankles. It only took her a moment to find the end and unwind the rest.

To keep her captors from discovering that she’d freed her wrists, she pulled the canvas sack over her head and lay still.

Just as she settled against the bed of the trunk, the lid opened and cool air wafted in. They weren’t in Nice anymore.

Alex shivered. Wherever they’d taken her was much colder. She was almost thankful for the bag since she didn’t have a coat to keep her warm.

Strong arms scooped her out of the trunk and flipped her onto a massive shoulder. She was carried into a building. They seemed to walk for a long time before they came to a stop. She heard the sound of a metal gate or door sliding open.

The man carrying her stepped forward. They sank a tiny bit, enough to let her know he’d carried her into an elevator.

The metal door closed, and the car descended at least one level before coming to a stop.

Alex was carried out of the elevator and dropped to the ground.

She landed hard on her hip and rolled to her side.

The sack was ripped off her head, and she blinked up at lights hanging overhead. She held her hands together so that her captors wouldn’t know she’d broken her bonds.

She’d been brought to what appeared to be some kind of control room with an array of monitors on one wall. The monitors were all blue screens with nothing else on them.

Men sat at keyboards, keying frenetically, shaking their heads.

“Anya Federov,” a familiar voice spoke from behind her. “Or should I call you Alexa Sokolov? What name are you most comfortable with?”

Alex rolled over and sat up.

Sergei Baranovsky stood with his arms crossed over his chest, his lip curled up on one side.

“Where are we?” Alex asked in Russian.

“You are at one of the Nord Stream substations, which is currently under attack due to ransomware.”

“Why have you brought me here?”

Baranovsky held up a small object.

Alex’s heart sank into her belly. He had the flash drive. For two years, she’d kept its secrets safe. Just when she’d planned on turning it over to the CIA, Baranovsky had come along and taken it before she could deliver it.

She tipped her head toward the device. “What do you think is on that flash drive, Sergei?”

“A way to keep from being crippled by vicious ransomware.”

Alex raised her eyebrows. “The pipeline has been hit?”

“Yes. Two hours ago.”

“I thought you had software to protect the pipeline from cyber-attacks,” Alex said.

“I do, but my source is withholding delivery.”

“Why?”

“For a bigger payoff.”

“How many cubic feet are you losing every minute?” Alex asked.

“Too many. I must get the software that runs the distribution back online, immediately.”

Alex shook her head. “Or you’ll be found out for the fraud you are?”

“He will have more to lose than his dignity,” a female voice sounded from across the room.

Natalya Zotin emerged from the shadows, wearing the royal purple dress she’d worn to the summit meeting earlier.

Baranovsky’s face blanched. “How…?”

“How did I get here before you?” She laughed.

“You forget, I have my own jet. I can go anywhere in the world whenever I want. My plane is faster than anything you can charter with government money. I knew where you’d go as soon as the grid went down.

All you had to do was give me a percentage of what you’re siphoning off, and none of this would have happened.

The delegates would have eventually signed off on the Nord Stream two project, and you’d have made even more money while keeping the gas flowing, both to the EU, and to me, because I hold the key to the ransomware. ”

Alex glanced from Natalya to Baranovsky, sick that she hadn’t seen through Natalya’s facade. “So, Sergei is stealing gas, and you want in on it?”

Natalya snorted. “He’s not stealing anything right now. No one is getting natural gas out of this substation until the ransom is paid. And the ransom is fifty percent of what Sergei skims off the top and half of what he’s put back in his Swiss bank accounts.”

Sergei’s eyes narrowed. “I don’t need you or your key to the ransomware.” He held up his hand. “I have the key.”

Natalya’s eyes flared so briefly Alex almost didn’t catch the movement. Then she laughed. “You have nothing. My people have changed the parameters since the Federovs pirated a copy of my software. You have nothing.”

“We’ll see about that.”

Natalya’s glance went to Alex, and her lip curled up in a sneer. “You have the old software. Why did you bother to bring the Federovs’ daughter here?”

“I might still have use of her. I understand the Federovs were keen on using biometrics. If they have any security in place, I might need the girl.”

“I should have supervised the burning of the house myself. Everyone and everything was supposed to burn to the ground.”

Alex’s face heated with the anger burning deep inside as the final key to her mother and father’s murders became clear. “You were the one who ordered my home to be destroyed with my mother and father inside,” she stated.

“They trespassed on my system and stole something that belonged to me. I made them pay for their transgression.” The woman stood taller, her chin lifted high. “You were supposed to die with them, along with the pirated copy of software I paid for. They had no right to take it. And neither did you.”

“You’re pure evil.”

Natalya laughed. “All’s fair in love and blackmail.”

This was the person who’d pulled the trigger on her parents.

The bitch seemed proud of the murders she’d orchestrated as if their lives had meant nothing.

Alex drew in a deep breath, let it out and then lunged for Natalya, her claws out.

She’d almost reached Natalya when two men stepped out from behind the woman and grabbed Alex’s arms.

She fought them, kicking them in the shins and groin, but they didn’t let go, stubbornly maintaining their grips on her arms.

“You killed my parents,” Alex hissed through gritted teeth. “I will avenge them.”

Natalya raised her arm. In her hand, she held a .40 caliber pistol, and she aimed it at Alex’s face. “Not if you’re dead.”