Page 21 of I Dream of Danger (Ghost Ops #2)

This wasn’t working. Was it deeper than she thought?

But no, she could feel it. It should have been out by now.

With her left hand she pulled a clean washcloth from the counter, stuffed it into her mouth and before she could rethink it, braced her feet and pulled as hard as she could.

The washcloth muffled her screams as she bent her head back, incapable of breathing from the pain.

Her head spun, black spots danced before her eyes. She was a whisper from passing out when the chip moved under her finger. She pulled harder, the pain so sharp it felt almost like a living thing, then staggered back when she finally pulled the chip out.

Elle spat out the washcloth, head hanging over the washbasin, her panting loud in the room, trying hard not to throw up. Finally, the room stopped swimming. The tears of pain dripped into the sink, her arm throbbed.

Everything disappeared though, when she brought the chip up for inspection.

It had the Corona logo of three tiny crowns in one corner.

It was a standard chip except for one thing—there were tendrils growing out of it, twisting and curling.

Alive. Holding the chip close to her eyes, she touched the tendrils with a set of tweezers and watched, horrified and fascinated, as they retracted, as a sea anemone’s tendrils would.

The tendrils had grown out of the chip. Whatever it was in the chip, it was semi-alive. No, scratch that. Alive.

There was no time now to explore the chip, though. She left it on the edge of the sink, then set about repairing herself. She applied gel from her Dermaglue tube that would hold the skin together better than stitches, then stuck on an antibiotic bandage with a painkiller gel.

There. The best she could do.

The pain had powered down to a dull throbbing that hurt like hell but didn’t impede her movements.

She moved fast now, in the dark, choosing cold weather sports clothes from her closet.

There might be the faintest of chances that Arka had seeded its employees’ clothes with trackers, and she wanted clothes she’d never worn to work.

Warm cashmere sweater, wool pants, thermal socks, boots, long down coat.

In the living room her fingers ran across one of the shelves until she reached a familiar book by feel.

She couldn’t read the title but she knew what it was.

A thick tome on advanced biochemistry, guaranteed to spark not an atom of interest in anyone.

Inside she’d carved out a hole in the pages large enough to hold cash.

She pulled out the entire stash—$8,000. She knew only too well what it meant to be on the road without cash.

She bolted for the window. Sophie’s voice had been raw with fear. Sophie was so steady and stable. Hearing that note of panic in her voice had galvanized Elle.

There was no background light to betray her as she peered out the edge of her front window.

In the back of her mind, she knew what she wanted to see and she saw it.

The small empty garden of the front of her building and the empty street beyond it.

It was a dead-end street and she knew every car on it and knew every person who lived there.

Nothing. Dark and silent and safe. Was she overreacting? Had Sophie been somehow having a psychotic episode? And yet—that chip with the terrifying tendrils…Maybe it would be best to disappear for a few days. She started to turn away then stopped as something dark glided into view.

A car she’d never seen before—black and unfashionably huge—slid to a stop and four men exited. The interior lights didn’t come on as they slipped out of the car like shadows. Dressed in black, they seemed to meld into the night, but not so much that Elle couldn’t tell where they were headed.

Straight to her building.

The car rolled forward, made a U-turn on the empty street, and stopped right in front of her building’s driveway.

Her four-story apartment building was built slightly back from the road with a small garden in front. The garden was protected by a chest-high wrought-iron fence with a six-foot gate in the middle.

The four men had black full-face helmets with the dull black lenses of night vision.

Two of the men moved like shadows to the corners of the fence and crouched, the other two disappeared. Elle had no doubt where they had gone—to the back of the building via the alleyway. As she watched, the two men out front tapped their ear and stood.

It didn’t take much to guess what they’d heard. The other two were stationed in the back and they could make their move. In a synchronized flow that would have won medals at the Olympics, the two black-clad men smoothly cleared the fence in a lithe leap and moved slowly, deliberately forward.

Toward the front door. And, eventually to her apartment on the second floor.

Oh my God, Sophie was right!

Elle realized she had seconds to get out. Run and go—she drew a blank. But wherever she was going she had to be fast. She scooped her purse off the floor and ran.

Her apartment building was part of a complex of four condos, connected by basement corridors invisible from outside the house.

Heart thumping, she tumbled down the stairs to the first floor, then kept on going down.

She swiped her card past the basement entrance sensor, slapped her hand on the sensor that read the vein pattern of her palms, and let out a sharp exhale as she heard the click of the front door unlocking.

The building had excellent security, both digital and bio.

She’d traded space for safety. If these men were able to circumvent it in mere seconds, they were very good.

Professional. That scared her more than if Dopa addicts were breaking into her home.

Her car was lost to her. They’d parked right across the driveway, blocking her. She had to get as far away as she could on foot, when she could hardly stand.

There was no noise from the building. If they were breaking into her apartment they were doing it silently. Well, her security was a step down from the building security they’d laughed at when they broke in.

The basement corridor was long and almost completely dark, the only light coming from dim chemical bulbs every ten feet. It felt like the corridor stretched forever. She leaned against the wall, legs weak, arm throbbing.

It had to be done. The wall at the end of the long corridor looked at least a mile away, receding constantly, like some movie effect. Cold sweat covered her face and chest. She swayed and would have fallen if she hadn’t slapped a hand against the wall.

For a moment, for just a moment, she was tempted to simply slide down that wall and wait for whoever was up there to make it down to the basement. If they were thorough, they’d check the building plans on record. The underground connecting corridor was a feature of the building.

If she didn’t move, they’d come for her and find her.

Three people were missing from the program—four now with Sophie—and it was very likely they’d been abducted by whoever had sent the men who were right this moment going through her house. Whatever they wanted, it wasn’t good.

Sophie had risked precious minutes warning her. Had maybe compromised her escape to warn her.

Go , Elle told herself. And a couple of seconds later, her feet obeyed.

She was gasping with fatigue when she reached the end. She stopped, leaned against the wall, catching her breath. It was so awful, the drumbeat of imminent danger sounding in her head, but her body unable to obey. Stress and danger hummed in her, but she could barely stay upright.

Every minute spent here increased the chances of her being found. If the men in black came down to this basement corridor, she’d be the easiest prey on earth. She’d read somewhere that the latest generation of stunners could kill or maim at five hundred feet.

She straightened away from the wall and turned, her feet moving in a maddeningly slow shuffle.

There were two exits, one up the building stairs that led to the front door and one that let out the side of the building. Instinct had her taking the side exit. She opened the side door cautiously and peeped out. There was absolutely no one in sight.

How much time did she have?

Even if they circumvented her personal security system as easily as they did the building one, surely it would take some time to establish that she wasn’t home? A few minutes at least.

It would have to be enough.

She knew her neighborhood well enough to make it through backyards, going as fast as she could, until she finally came out onto another section of town.

On foot it took about ten minutes. By car it would take longer, even if they knew where she was.

As it was, when they discovered she wasn’t home, they’d probably cover her neighborhood in a grid search which would take time.

Elle exited the warren of backyards and service alleys into an entirely new neighborhood. Not a savory one, either.

Great, because maybe they wouldn’t look for her here.

Elle stopped, leaning against a broken street lamp, catching her breath. She needed a plan that covered more than the next five minutes, but it was eluding her. Pain and adrenalin and exhaustion were blocking her thought processes. She needed a safe place, but where?

An expensive hotel was out. So were the three or four hotels that the company habitually used for visiting professors, because the men after her would have that list. And of course they’d know if she used her credit card.

Think Elle! She clung to the lamppost, head down, trying to reason her way through this.

She was so very tired. The test session had drained almost every ounce of energy out of her.

Then the shock of the phone call, the pain of digging around in her own arm, of pulling that chip out, the terror at seeing those men in black after her…