Page 99 of Exit Strategy
“Very good.” He stepped up beside me and jacket concealing his hand, shoved the barrel of the gun into my ribs. I jumped.
“Open the door, and to the left,” he ordered.
I automatically tried to go to myotherleft because – hello brain damage, there’s a gun in my ribs and my heart ishammeringinto my ribs and my throat feels like it’s closing up andoh, God! He’s going to shoot me, and I’m never going to see Kurt again, and what do I do? What do I do? What do I do?
He shoved the gun into my ribs a little harder, indicating which way I should have been turning and I whimpered and moved in that direction instead, casting a longing look at the knot of people in the hallway just the opposite corner of us as they talked softly, likely about me and next steps. I didn’t want Soren to shoot me, but Ireallydidn’t want him to shoot anyone else, and so clutching and wringing my long braid over my shoulder in both hands, I complied with everything he said.
We were only on the second floor, so there weren’t a lot of stairs and this monster marched me bold as brass right through the front doors of the building’s lobby to a waiting eco-friendly SUV idling at the curb. He opened the back door, and I dropped the paper towel wadded in my hand against my braid at the curb.
It had my makeup on it, and hopefully… hopefully, I don’t know, Sadie would find it? She had done my makeup for me that morning. She knew what lipstick and eyeshadow I’d worn. Maybe it would help. Maybe it would tell her I’d been kidnapped. I don’t know. All I knew was that I didn’t want to die, and I needed to do everything to stay alive, so Kurt could come get me.
For a brief moment, I had a flash ofl’appel du vide, which was a crazy thing to remember the name for right now. It basically meant that I had that split-second flash of wanting to do something I knew to be detrimental or stupid, like a person swerving their car into oncoming traffic, or sticking their hand into a running garbage disposal – except in my case, I saw myself crying out, running, screaming, or even grabbing the gun and forcing him to finish me… but I did none of those things.
Instead, as calmly as possible, I got into the back seat of the SUV and slid over. I owed it to too many women, to Kurt, and tomyselfto survive. I had endured so much, and I would continue to endure, in hopes that someday, someway, we would all have justice.
Still, I jumped when the car door shut behind Soren and my stomach dropped out when he told the man behind the wheel, “Drive.”
I also have to admit, my hope dwindled the further behind the SUV the lawyer’s offices got.
Damn.
What were they going to do to me, now?
29
Kurt…
“I need you to say that again, slowly,” I said through gritted teeth.
“Callie was taken from the lawyer’s building,” Sadie said, her arms across her chest. “A man in glasses and a bow tie. It looks like he might have had a gun in his pocket.”
“Doesn’t the Fallout HQ lawyer’s offices have, I don’t know, metal detectors and basic fucking security?”
“There are a dozen ways to get around metal detectors,” the captain said, rubbing the sides of his face with his hand.
“And the most obvious one is that he never had a firearm, only something he could jab into her ribs and make her think he had one. It’s called a bluff and they’re actually pretty effective,” Kyle said. “But assuming the building was completely secure is on me.”
“The man in glasses and bow tie, the sort that looks like he swallowed a baby lemon, that’s Alexander Soren. He’s the right hand of August Emerson. He dresses like a jerkoff science teacher and insists that his callsign is the Dragon.”
“The Dragon?” Sadie asked.
“Yes, Soren was theDragon. Emerson wasArhat. It’s a title from some Eastern religion. Rex wasTomcat, Callie wasCardinal,” I said, feeling my hands clench in frustration.
“I have to ask,” the captain said.
“You’ve been quite the fucking spider the last few weeks, so maybe you should have a plan for how to deal with this instead of asking me about my handle,” I snapped.
“Yes, there is a plan.” He sighed. “As soon as we know where Soren and Callie are going, then we mount a rescue mission.”
“There was a contingency plan for this. The official name for that was Heimdall, the all-seeing guardian of Asgard. The plan covers the rapid removal and protection of high-level assets of New Eden, people like Arik Rex. Callie and Fallout would be a direct and total threat to both Rex and the entire organization, and they can’t really compartmentalize this.”
“I’d say not,” Kyle said.
“Arik and other potentially threatened people would rendezvous in asecretlocation before a collected evacuation plan went into effect. They will meet in a place of tangled jurisdiction and overlapping areas in influence, so that any attempt to detain them will fail because of agencies fighting each other instead of working together.”
“BWI?” Sadie suggested.
“Correct,” I said. “Which means Callie was likely taken to a safehouse to be held until the other people showed up for evac, and then they’ll all leave on a private chartered flight. The August, I mean Emerson, personally owns a Chinese Xi’an Y-20 cargo plane. It’s pretty much a parallel design to the American C-17 Globemaster – large, powerful engines, advanced electronics, and it can carry something like seventy tons of cargo almost anywhere in the world.”
