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Chapter Thirty

U p ahead of them, somewhere down the hall that seemed to stretch forever, gunshots rang out.

“Axel is going to run out of bullets.” Ramon glanced at her. “You okay?”

“My head is swimming, but I’m good.” She’d been headbutted, but that felt like forever ago. “I’m good.”

“I’ve got you. And if you’re not all right, I’ve still got you.”

“Back atcha.”

Ramon chuckled. “Ten-four, good buddy.”

“Can we just do this?”

“There’s the Kenna we all know and love.”

She rolled her eyes. “How was Wisconsin?”

“No go.”

“What? That’s a shame.”

Ramon sighed. “Can we just do this?”

Kenna figured that was the end of their conversation, so she picked up the pace and headed for the source of the sound while keeping her gun up.

Her feet moved the way they’d been trained, almost silent on the floor.

Everything loose. Aches and pains forgotten.

Nothing in her mind but instinct and the need for justice.

It was who she was supposed to have been.

An agent.

An investigator.

“Those kids had better be where Nicola said they were,” she muttered. “Or I’m going to crack some heads together.”

From the phone tucked in her vest, Maizie said, “There are bigger rooms up ahead.”

“Copy that.” She had to ask, “Are we still broadcasting live online?”

“Yes. And in true social media style, I manipulated what everyone was shown next, so it went out to millions. The views just crossed half a billion, and it’s climbing. We also have TV news broadcasts coming in and out as part of their programming.”

“Assuming people believe it’s real.” Kenna figured there were some people watching who didn’t think this was live. Probably more like a fabrication or some kind of simulation.

“No one will be able to ignore this.”

Kenna said, “That’s exactly what I’m afraid of.”

She slowed at the end, knowing Ramon would want to go through the door first. He didn’t even hesitate. Her friend stepped past her and went first, hooking around the door and going left. She did the same, moving right.

Any analyst who knew what they were looking at would see that as a cop move.

They’d look into Kenna, and assuming they could see his face in the footage under his hood, they’d find him.

They’d learn that she had been at Quantico with Ramon, giving them more to talk about when they discovered the disgraced and then exonerated former FBI agent was here working with her.

He deserved to have people see that he was a good man, who worked to save people now.

“Nicola’s group got up two levels so far. They haven’t encountered anyone,” Maizie said. “And the agents are inside, heading toward them.”

“Good.”

Ramon looked around. “What is this place?”

She stared at the huge vats of liquid, bubbling behind Plexiglas. “They’re warm.” She could feel the heat coming off each one. “Eight of them.”

More gunshots, this time from all the way at the far end of the room.

She spotted movement through the glass and liquid. There was someone on the other side of this vat. Above them, a raised metal walkway surrounded the room, suspended from the wall.

“I don’t think I wanna know what’s in these,” Ramon said. “Whatever it is, they’re mass-producing it.”

She tracked the person moving on the other side, watching them try to sneak around behind her. Kenna waited until the last second and swung around, slamming her rifle against the person’s shoulder. She caught the edge of the face as well, and the porcelain mask shattered.

Earnest’s black eyes stared back at her, and he launched toward her, no mercy in his gaze.

Kenna got the rifle up just before he was too close. The gun jerked between them, and Earnest froze. She pushed him away with one hand and the gun, and he toppled back. The bullet had gone through the right side of his abdomen and exited out the back, hitting the Plexiglas of the vat behind him.

The round hadn’t penetrated the glass.

Cracks began to form, and a slight dribble of liquid ran down from the spot where the bullet had smashed into the exterior.

Kenna said, “Time to go.”

She spun around and hurried after where Axel had gone. Ramon was right behind her.

“I should?—”

“It’s fine.” Kenna kept running. “You don’t always have to be in front.”

He grunted, but she ignored it when she spotted an open door. Axel cried out from inside the room that was full of rows of hospital beds. Tiny bodies lay on each one, hooked up to wires connected to IV bags. Beeping machines. Each patient had a mask on their face.

Ramon dragged her back and went into the room first, saying nothing.

She followed him and shut the door behind her.

Axel lay on the floor, the gun discarded out of reach. Or dropped because the slide was back. He had run out of bullets before he even finished the job.

“Did you kill him?” Kenna asked.

Doctor Marcus Buzard stood over Axel with a hard expression on his face. An interesting change from the usual blank he gave her. Not that Kenna had all that much experience with him.

He wore black shoes, slacks, and a cream shirt under a white lab coat with two pens in the breast pocket. His skin was still clammy, as it had been the last time she saw him. She might wish that was a sign of some kind of end-stage illness, but if he died, she wasn’t going to get Jax back.

“I really wanna kill this guy,” Ramon muttered.

“Maizie, are we still live?”

Buzard flinched, just a tiny flex of the skin around his eyes.

Maizie said, “Yes. Everyone can hear you.”

Kenna rolled her shoulders. “You have eleven children in this ward. You had even more that were in holding cells. You and your staff kidnap people and keep them here, where you do experiments on them. Do you deny that, Doctor Marcus Buzard?”

The doctor stared at her. “How can I? The evidence would appear to be damning.”

“What justification can you possibly have for stealing people like this?”

He lifted his chin, just a fraction.

She spotted a tiny amount of movement on the floor. Axel wasn’t dead. He’d just been knocked to the ground. “Ramon,” she whispered.

“On it.” He went over, dragging Axel away from the doctor just in case either one of them decided to end this more decisively.

“Well?” Kenna asked. “Surely, you have a reason for what you’re doing. Some kind of master plan or research project no one would sign off on because you’re certifiable.”

The corner of the doctor’s mouth curled up. “Is that a clinical diagnosis?”

“That you’re bat crap crazy?” She shrugged. “It might be. You’ve given me enough justification to believe that with the amount of times you’ve kidnapped me . Experimented on me. Altered me in ways I don’t even begin to understand.”

“You think I’ve experimented on you, Kenna?” Buzard looked around. “When I’m so busy in here, working on my master plan?”

“Tell me what it is!”

Buzard said nothing.

“The FBI are on their way down here. You’re done. It’s over,” she said. “Whatever you’re doing down here, you won’t get to finish it.”

Rage built in her, not just for what he’d done to her but for these children lying helplessly in their beds. If only she could kill him for what he’d done.

Maizie’s voice came from her phone speaker. “Bruce and I would like you to know that killing him doesn’t get Jax back.”

Ramon asked, “How about a citizen’s arrest? Are we allowed to do that?”

“You cannot stop me.” Buzard didn’t move. “You cannot stop any of us.”

The look in his eye was unsettling. This felt wrong. Her head was pounding, her thoughts swirling around like a whirlpool in her mind. She looked at Ramon but couldn’t figure out what to say or what should happen next.

His eyes were glassy and slightly unfocused.

From her phone, she heard, “They shut the feed down. Someone hacked my system and stopped the broadcast! We’re blind.”

Buzard’s lips curled back, revealing neat rows of white teeth. “I guess it’s over.”

Ramon lifted his gun, and she had to step in. Kenna shoved his aim to the side, and they both stumbled. Her hands braced against the floor. She needed to get up but couldn’t figure out how to do it.

“No.” She got up, pushing upright and finding her weapon. Moving on instinct.

She was kneeling, so she aimed the weapon at the fleeing man and squeezed the trigger.

The sound echoed through her head.

Doctor Buzard hit the floor at the end of the room, his hands pushing the door open. A spray of blood coated the door.

She had to know he was dead.

Kenna grabbed Ramon’s arm and tugged. “Come on.”

She managed to get up but didn’t move. Like she’d forgotten what she was doing. Who didn’t sometimes walk into a room and forget what they’d gone in there for?

She turned to Ramon.

“Why do I feel like this?” Ramon crawled over to Axel, shoved him to his back, and pressed two fingers to his neck. “He’s alive.”

Alive. Dead.

“The doctor.” Kenna went to Buzard, doing what Ramon had just done but finding no pulse in the doctor’s neck. “He’s dead.”

Ramon swore loudly.

She shared the sentiment, given the situation, but didn’t like hearing those harsh consonants. “Jax.” Tears gathered in her eyes.

Maizie said, “I have an update about that.”

Kenna frowned. “What is it?”

“As soon as you found the doctor, Bruce made a call. The law office answered.”

“Did he betray us?” Kenna had to ask, even if she didn’t want to know the answer.

“No. He’s giving them a shot to do us a favor. To earn our trust back.”

“I don’t want to trust them.” Kenna needed to focus on finishing this operation so they could get out of here. Get him back.

But how? Nicola was trying to escape, and the doctor was dead.

Ramon came over. “What is he doing, Maizie?”

At least he looked about as happy as Kenna was about this.

Maizie said, “They feel so bad about everything that, as a show of good faith, they’re going to go get Jax back for you. Bruce said he should go with them just to make sure it all goes down in a way that means he comes out of it alive.”

Kenna winced. “I don’t suppose there’s any way to stop it?”

“He’s already out of the hatch.”

Back they way they’d come in? She shook her head. “He told you to tell me after it was too late?”

“I was going to tell you before, but I would’ve interrupted you getting the doctor to confess live online. And it would have compromised the mission to get Jax because the Santinos might’ve been listening.”

Kenna said, “At least they don’t know the doctor is dead.”

A move like that could’ve cost Jax his life if the Santinos found out that she had reneged on the deal. Ramon squeezed her shoulder. Before he could say anything, the doors slammed open and armed federal agents raced in.

Kenna and Ramon both lifted their hands.

“Guns down!”

Ramon crouched to put his weapon on the floor. She held still while an agent lifted hers over her head.

“Are there any other weapons on your person?” the guy pretty much yelled in her face.

She nodded. “I’m not going to use any of them. I’m Kenna Banbury. My husband is?—”

“We know.” Special Agent Herron strode into the room wearing tactical pants, her vest over a shirt, a pair of black boots, and clear glasses she’d pushed up onto her head.

“You should tell me where you got those pants.”

Special Agent Herron’s brows rose. “How about you tell me where to find SAC Jaxton? And why these children are here. And all the rest of what on earth is going on here.”

Uh-oh. “I can explain.” But could she jeopardize what was happening to Jax? If she told the FBI and they went after the Santinos, she might compromise the lawyers’ attempt to rescue him. “I just want Jax back safe, that’s all.”

“Then start talking.”