Jared stood and turned to see Seth stirring and disentangling himself from Queen’s limbs.
“The Creator?” Seth inquired.
“He is well. Enos is dead. One of them got a shot off,” Jared said with disgust.
“Regrettable,” Seth said, walking over to Ridley. “Help me get him up.”
Jared walked over, pausing only to kick the unconscious Bishop hard in the face, fracturing the man’s nose. Blood sprayed against Jared’s pant leg.
“Leave them,” Seth said.
“They will hunt us.”
“The Creator is our priority, and time is short.”
Jared nodded and helped Seth lift Richard Ridley up. They dragged him toward the door. By the time they reached it, Ridley was waking up.
Seth and Jared carried Ridley through the door, and he began to take some of his own weight. They guided him to one of the chairs in the room, easing him down. Ridley raised a hand and rubbed it on his forehead, as if he were waking from a long slumber.
Seth moved to a nearby locker, pulled out a black zip-up security jumpsuit and handed it to Ridley.
The man stood and stepped into the legs of the suit, then pulled it up on his body and yanked the zipper up to the middle of his broad, hairy chest. Then he started to lace up the boots Seth passed him. “Thank you, Seth. Where are our enemies?”
Jared pointed his thumb over his shoulder at the still open door to the room full of unconscious bodies. “What would you have us do?”
Ridley looked at his bare wrist, as if a lifetime of habit was driving him to check the time. Seth handed him the limited edition silver and black Rolex Submariner from his own wrist. Ridley smiled and donned the expensive wristwatch. “What’s the situation?”
Seth replied before Jared could. “Your brother Darius has amassed a sizeable force. He was poised to attack the facility any day now. We didn’t see him on the way in, but the last I heard from our informant, he was near. We’ve taken precautions. We used Chess Team’s resources to get to you, but King is apparently dead, as is Alexander Diotrephes. The rest of the building is empty.”
“And the Chest?” Ridley asked.
“We were unable to locate it, but we have some leads and—” Jared began.
“Never mind. I know where it is.” Ridley smiled at his two duplicates.
Jared flipped on three security monitors, adjusting the reception on the CCTV cameras hidden around the installation to show the large garage filled with vehicles heading down the ramp to the loading dock and armed soldiers stationed outside the amphitheater. There were men at the foot of the stairs leading to the surface as well.
Ridley’s smile evaporated. “Looks like they’re here already. Disappointing.”
“The timing could not be helped,” Seth said.
“We are so very close. Let’s leave Chess Team and Darius to squabble among themselves. I want the prize.”
Jared pointed at the monitor showing the stairs to the amphitheater, behind the secret janitorial closet door. “This way.”
Seth turned to the cell door and slammed it shut, listening to the lock tumble.
THIRTY-ONE
Peter Machtchenko held his breath. He raised his hand up to Lynn, behind him in the small supply closet filled with uniforms hanging on pegs and cardboard boxes filled with three-ring binders. She was already being silent though. They were out of practice, but training like theirs, despite being forty years old, was impossible to forget, even if the body wasn’t always up to the task. When the bio-seal door had begun to open, Peter obeyed the rising hairs on the back of his neck and had leapt into the security room’s closet with Lynn.
Now inside the cramped space, listening to the voice of the man he knew to be Richard Ridley, Peter was hoping desperately that his daughter was still alive. He had already lost one child this day, and two over the course of his lifetime. Losing the third would destroy him.
He overheard something about a chest, a sizeable force and a man named Darius. That was all Peter needed to hear to know things were going to go from bad to worse. After a minute, the voices receded on the other side of the door. Lynn reached around him for the handle. He grabbed her hand and held her there for a few seconds more, just to be sure. They might be ex-spies, but neither of them were armed, and Peter wouldn’t feel better until he had a 9mm in his hand.
He let go of Lynn’s hand and she turned the handle on the dark wooden door. It opened smoothly and slowly. No squeak. They stepped out into the empty security room and quickly scanned the area. Ridley was gone. One of the monitors on the desk showed a view of the nearby loading dock. Vehicles were pulling in, one by one, and an army of soldiers were getting out.
“Not good, not good,” Lynn said.
Peter moved to the locked door in the corner. He had tried to scope out the facility earlier in the week, when Alexander had brought them here, but the man was always unexpectedly around whenever Peter had tried to creep through the place unnoticed. Peter had made it down to this security room, but he hadn’t seen inside the closed door, which he assumed led to some kind of a holding cell.
They had come looking for Asya, only to unexpectedly see someone emerging from the locked door. Peter and Lynn had ducked into the supply closet just in time. But now all the old alarm bells were ringing in Peter’s head, and his hackles were on high alert. He didn’t know what was behind the door, but he guessed it was connected to everything.
Peter scanned the edges of the door quickly, noted the un-inflated rubber biohazard seals around the edges, and then ignored the threat they implied. Now was not a time for caution. Now was a time for action. And that meant opening this door, risks be damned.
Peter glanced around the room and saw a security officer’s belt hanging on a peg. The belt was glistening black leather with pouches. It held a radio and a ring of keys. More importantly, he found a variation of what he was looking for. He wanted a wooden police baton, but what he found was a 16” telescoping steel and chrome baton in a holster. It was better than no weapon, so he snatched it from the belt and turned back to the door. He knew Lynn was behind him monitoring both the door and the video feed of the loading dock.
He unlocked the latch as Lynn spoke, “Hurry. No time left.”
Peter whipped open the door and was ready to swing down with the baton.
Instead, a hand shot upward, restricting his downward thrust, as a blonde woman’s face plunged through the door.
Peter staggered back, dropping the baton, slipping and falling backward on to the floor. His head connected with the hard concrete and he unconsciously shouted out. “Fuck!”
The blonde woman’s hair was sweaty and plastered to her face as she staggered into the room. “Sorry,” she said.
Asya came out of the room next, supporting a beefy man with a blonde goatee. Asya looked ill as well, while the blonde man just looked weak.
Then came a small unhappy Korean man, followed by a mountain of an Arabian man with a broken nose and a bloodstained face. Each of them was armed with rifles and wore tactical battle armor. Peter recognized them as the rest of his son’s team.
“No time!” Lynn shouted, picking Peter up off the floor. “Must go now.”
Already the blonde man was at the outer door with Asya. Despite the fact that they were not armed, Lynn shoved Peter after the two, ahead of the rest of the team.
They turned right outside the door, heading past the door to the loading dock, Lynn shoving Peter the whole way, so that he was pushing against Asya and the blonde man.