happen to small-scale people like her.
She would’ve thought it was all a dream, a nightmare, except that the sensations were too real: her head pounded from the blow that’d knocked her unconscious, her tears were cool on her cheeks, and the man’s shoulder dug into her belly as he carried her along the path. Opening her eyes, she saw that what she’d figured were signs of recent muscle gain were actually places where his uniform didn’t fit; the material gapped at the small of his back, where he’d tucked the guard’s weapon into his belt.
WWJBD? She knew she should struggle, she should try to escape, but when? Now or after they reached their destination? What were the chances she could grab that gun and turn the tables?
“Don’t,” he warned in a low voice.
Before she could respond, or act, or do anything, really, she heard another man’s voice from up ahead, saying, “I found a cave. Dump her and put a bullet in her. I’ll go get another load.”
The man’s voice was casual, careless, like he was talking about things rather than people. But to him she and the others were things, she realized. They were Americans. The enemy. Yet the speaker was blond, and his voice carried a trace of a Boston accent. She would’ve passed him on the street and never once thought to wonder about him.
Vaguely, she remembered a snippet of newscast that’d said one of the three escapees, Lee Mawadi, was a homegrown terrorist who’d hooked up with al-Jihad for the Santa Bombings.
Back then, sitting safe in her living room, terrorism had been an abstract concept, something she saw on TV and exclaimed over while secretly thinking that such things would never happen to her. She hadn’t even been in Colorado during the Santa Bombings; she’d been finishing a nice, safe rotation in a private practice outside Chicago, reveling in the early stages of a relationship she’d thought was The One, but had turned out to be another Not Quite.
Now, though, she was all alone, with terror her only companion.
“Sounds good to me,” the man carrying her said, his voice easy as he agreed to the plan of shooting her and dumping her in the cave.
But his touch, while firm, was disconcertingly gentle and he’d hinted at the possibility that she might live. Did that mean he had a soft spot for her because of their shared look out by the loading dock? Would he somehow prove to be an ally?
Get a grip, her inner voice of practicality snapped. He’s a murderer.
If the other speaker was Lee Mawadi, then the blue-eyed man she’d shared a long look with must be Jonah Fairfax. That meant he hadn’t been part of the Santa Bombings, but it didn’t make him innocent or safe. The ARX Supermax didn’t cater to white-collar criminals, and Fairfax had been jailed for torturing and murdering two of the FBI agents sent to infiltrate the anarchist camp he’d been a member of.
Yet he’d made it sound like he wanted to save her somehow. It made no sense.
When footsteps warned that the other man—Lee Mawadi—was passing them on the trail, Chelsea screwed her eyes shut. Moments later, the sunlight beyond her eyelids cut to black and the echoes told her that they’d entered the cave he’d spoken of.
The blue-eyed man—Fairfax—flipped her off his shoulder without warning, then caught her before she could slam to the ground. She kept her eyes shut as he lowered her so she was half propped up against a rock wall. She could feel him crouch over her, leaning close and blocking any hope of escape.
“I need you to stop playing dead and listen very carefully,” he said, his voice low and urgent. “I think I can get you out of this, but you’re going to have to trust me.”
She opened her eyes at that, and nearly screamed when she saw that he’d put her down right next to one of the body bags. Worse, it was open, revealing one of the dead guards, shirtless, his eyes open and staring in death.
She held in the scream, but plastered herself against the rock wall, her quick, panicked breaths rattling in her lungs.
“Look at me.” The blue-eyed man touched her chin and turned her head toward him. “Don’t scream and don’t move. Lee is going to be back in a minute, so we’ve got to work fast.” He paused as though gauging her. “I need to get something out of my shoe. Can I trust you not to try to run?”
She nodded quickly, though she didn’t mean it. The second an opportunity presented, she was so out of there.
He gave her another, longer look. “Yeah. That’s what I thought.” As though he’d read her mind, he stayed between her and the mouth of the cave, which was little more than a crevice in the rock, probably part of the canyon that’d been pushed up and over ground level by a long-ago glacier or earth shift, or maybe even one of the recent landslides.
Fairfax worked at his right shoe for a moment and came up with a small ampoule of pale yellow liquid. He crowded close to her, leaving no room for retreat or escape. “This is going to knock you out and depress your vitals so far that it’ll look like you’re dead, but you won’t be. You’ll come around in twelve hours or so, and we’ll be long gone.”
Then, before she could react, before she could protest, or scream, or any of the other things she knew she damn well ought to do, he’d broken off the tip of the ampoule, jammed the needle-point end into her upper arm, and squeezed the yellow liquid into her.
Pain flared at the injection site, hard and hot.
She opened her mouth to scream but nothing came out. She struggled to stand up and run, but her legs wouldn’t obey. Her muscles turned to gelatin and she started sliding sideways, and this time Fairfax didn’t catch her or break her fall.
She heard him stand, heard a weapon’s action being racked in preparation for firing. Then there was a single gunshot.
Then nothing.
FAX KNEW HE didn’t have much time, if any. He went to his knees beside the body bag containing the dead guard, whom he’d just shot. Pressing his hand against the wound, he got as much cool blood as he could from the dead man, and slathered it across the unconscious woman’s face, concentrating on the hair above her temple.
When he heard footsteps at the entrance to the cave, he readjusted the body bag and wiped off his hands on part of the woman’s coat, then tucked the stained section beneath her before he stood.
Feigning nonchalance, he put the safety on his gun and stuck the weapon in his waistband before he turned toward Lee, hoping like hell the lemming wouldn’t notice that the blood on the woman wasn’t exactly fresh.
Only the newcomer wasn’t Lee. It was al-Jihad himself.
The terrorist leader stood silhouetted at the cave mouth, a lean, dark figure whose presence was significantly larger than his physical self.
A shiver tried to crawl down the back of Fax’s neck but he held it off, determined to brazen out the situation and keep himself in the killer’s good graces. Gesturing casually toward the woman, he said, “She’s all set. Want me to go help Lee with the other guards?”
Al-Jihad moved past him without a word, gliding almost silently, seeming incorporeal, like the demon he was. Crouching down beside the woman’s motionless, blood-spattered body, he touched her cheek, then her throat, checking
