Rx Missing (Decorah Security Series, Book #10): A Paranormal Romantic Suspense Novel (21 page)

“Is he okay?” Mack asked anxiously.

“I hope so.”

Mack was still leaning over the man when his eyes snapped open, and he focused on the people hovering over him.

“You bastards,” he spat out. With surprising speed, his arm snapped up and pulled Mack down, grabbing him around the throat.

As steely fingers dug into his flesh, Mack dimly heard Lily scream. But her voice was in the background as he struggled to suck air into his lungs. The grip on his neck tightened, and he saw black dots dancing in front of his eyes.

Desperate to get Preston’s hands off his throat, he bucked his body, and scrabbled at the man’s fingers with his own, but it seemed that the hacker had no intention of letting go.

Mack fought the blackness closing in around him, feeling his strength draining away from the lack of oxygen. He tried to tell himself that none of this was real, but that had no validity as he felt the life being sucked out of him.

Then he heard a clunking sound, and suddenly the pressure on his neck was gone. Through dulled vision, he saw Lily grab Preston by the hair and roll him to his back, dropping him heavily on the floor.

“Wha.. ?” Mack tried to ask.

“Same technique I used in the lab. Only instead of a paperweight, I conked him with an
objet d’art
,” she said, gesturing toward the expensive-looking Oriental vase lying on the floor. “Are you okay?”

“I guess I’d better be. Thanks.”

“I guess he figured a woman wasn’t going to do anything dangerous.”

“Helpful that he underestimated you.”

The man was still out, but Mack knew that when he came to, he was going to be just as dangerous as when he’d attacked.

He didn’t want to leave the hacker alone. If Roper could disappear in this place, so could Preston and gather his fantasy forces for another attack.

Picking up a leg that had come loose from a chair, Mack held it at the ready.

“Go down to your room and get Landon to send in a gun,” he said. “Hurry.”

Lily nodded, then ran down the hall to the room where Preston had held Grant and Jenny captive.

Mack divided his attention between the hallway and Preston. When Lily came back carrying an automatic pistol, Mack breathed out a little sigh. She handed him the weapon, and he checked the magazine.

Preston groaned. His eyelids fluttered. Then his eyes snapped open, and he focused on Mack.

“You bastards,” he repeated what he’d said when he’d first spotted Mack and Lily.

“Take it easy.”

“You tried to kill me.”

“No, just put you out of commission—to keep you from hurting my brother and Jenny—or anyone else in here.”

Preston snorted, then pushed himself up and gingerly fingered the lump on the back of his head.

“Your deal with the FBI is still on.”

The man’s eyes narrowed. “You know about that?”

“Yeah. An agent named Weld showed up at Hamilton’s lab.”

“He’s Mr. Smith?”

“Yeah.”

“Shit.”

“No. It’s good—for all of us. He told us about the chemical warfare bombs—and that you’d identified Roper.”

“Uh huh”

“We don’t know how much time we’ve got before the damn things go off. So let’s get to it. How about we set up a scenario where Roper thinks there’s no escape—unless he cooperates.” When he explained what he had in mind, Preston laughed.

“I like the way your mind works.”

“So you’re in?”

“Yeah.”

“You set up the room we’ll need, and Landon can bring Roper back to the VR.”

“I can do little stuff on the fly, but for something like this, I can’t work with thin air. Can Landon send me a laptop?” the hacker asked.

“I don’t see why not.”

“A MacBook Pro.”

The three of them went back to the bedroom and spoke to the VR designer. While they waited, Mack asked, “If Sterling is rich, why would he hatch a plot to kill thousands?”

“I think he didn’t think it would happen. He’d get his money transferred to a Swiss bank, and everything would come out okay.”

“But why risk it?”

“Apparently he was born with a silver spoon in his mouth. He always got everything he wanted, and when he fraudulently lost the contract, he was mad enough to shit bullets.”

“What a sense of entitlement,” Lily murmured.

“And what do you know about Roper?” Mack asked.

“Just what I skimmed off of his nasty little mind. He’s a con man and a petty thug who was willing to take a dirty job for money.”

The conversation halted when the laptop Preston had requested flashed into existence on the nearby dressing table.

The hacker sat down and started typing, and Mack started pacing back and forth, wondering if they were going to get the news of a chemical attack before they pried the information out of Roper.

After a few minutes, Mack saw a picture appear on the screen.

“Like this?” Preston asked without stopping what he was doing.

“Yeah. I like the stone walls.”

“And we’ll make it cold and damp.” He looked over his shoulder at Mack and Lily. “Maybe you want to put on heavier jackets.”

The bedroom vanished, and they were suddenly standing in the middle of what looked like a medieval dungeon with stone walls and only one high, barred window letting in a thin shaft of light. The air smelled musty and felt ten degrees lower than it had been. Torches burned in sconces. Manacles dangled from one wall, and various torture instruments decorated a nearby table.

“What do you think?” Preston asked with a note of pride in his voice. They couldn’t see him, but they could hear him loud and clear.

“Perfect,” Mack answered as Lily shuddered.

“Where are you?” Lily asked.

“Around the corner where he won’t see me. It will seem like it’s all coming from you.”

Mack followed the hacker’s voice and stepped around a section of the wall to a hidden alcove where Preston was sitting at a glass-topped table in an expensive modern office chair. The hacker had changed his clothing. He was now dressed like an old-time gunslinger in a leather duster, black cowboy hat and snakeskin boots.

He grinned and eyed Mack critically. “What was I thinking? Those running suits are much too tame for this performance.”

Mack blinked as his own outfit changed. Now he was dressed like a medieval torturer, wearing tights, a tunic and a hood over his head with eyeholes that didn’t obstruct his vision. High leather boots completed the outfit. And when Lily hurried around the corner, he saw she was similarly dressed—like a man.

Nice,
a silent voice said in his head, and he knew his brother was commenting.

“What’s this?” Lily demanded, waving her arm as she gestured toward the outfit.

“Women had no power back in those days,” Preston explained.

“Thanks,” she answered.

“We’d better get on with this,” Weld called from the computer screen. He and the others were gathered in back of Landon.

As he studied Mack’s costume, he asked, “Is this going to work?”

“You mean are we going to scare the shit out of Roper? I think so. He already suspected Preston was after him, which was why he hid in the hotel basement.”

“You’ve got a point,” the FBI agent conceded.

Mack addressed Preston. “One more thing I want. A brazier full of hot coals. With a poker sticking out.”

“You got it.”

A deep iron bucket with coals glowing in the bottom appeared in the corner. The long handle of a poker stuck out, topped with a blood-red hot pad to hold it.

“Thanks. Now send him in,” Mack said. “I want him to wake up shackled to the wall.”

“Naked?” Landon asked from the screen, obviously getting into the spirit of the drama that was about to unfold.

“No. We’ll take care of that in here.”

Lily gave him a startled look. “We’ll do what?”

“Make him think he’s going to be sorry if he doesn’t talk.” Mack added. “I know you’re going to feel bad for him, but remember he was willing to kill a lot of people for money.”

Mack motioned Lily back into the main chamber. When he turned toward the empty shackles, she followed suit, but more slowly.

“You can go back to the lab,” he said.

“No. He might need a doctor.”

“Yeah, he might.”

Twenty seconds later, Roper flashed into view. His hands were circled by metal cuffs which pulled his arms up and fastened them to the wall. His feet were secured to metal chains that were cemented to the floor.

When he saw the two hooded figures, his head snapped up. He stared at them before his gaze flitted around the room.

When he tried to pull his hands away from the wall, the manacles and chains held him fast.

“Who are you? What’s going on?” he demanded, but fear tinged his voice.

“You’re here because you did a dirty little job for Avery Sterling.”

Roper tipped his head to the side. “Wait a minute. I know that voice. You’re the smart-ass Mack Bradley.”

“If you say so.”

Mack took a step forward, aware that Lily had cringed farther away from the man chained to the wall. He knew she didn’t like this, but she wasn’t going to run away from it, either.

“You’re Bradley,” Roper said again.

“Yeah, playing a new role.”

“Let me out of here. You have no right to do this.”

Mack ignored the assertion. “You caused a lot of grief in the VR.”

Roper kept his face stony. “I had a right to protect myself.”

“What’s the last thing you remember?” Mack demanded.

Roper sighed. “Okay. Have it your way. I was in the hotel basement.”

“Doing what?”

Roper started to answer, then pressed his lips together as he remembered why he’d been there.

When he didn’t follow through, Mack did it for him. “Hiding from Preston.”

“What do you mean? Everybody was trying to get away from Preston.”

“Yeah, because he was trying to find
you.”

Roper shook his head, still putting up a good front.

“It’s your fault all those innocent people were scared out of their minds.”

“No.”

“You know it’s true. And you’re going to find out that lying won’t do you any good. We need to know where those bombs are, and you’re going to tell us.”

The man shook his head.

Mack looked at the implements laid out on the table and picked up a large pair of scissors. He held it up as he walked toward Roper.

“You were working for a guy named Sterling,” he said. “Only you were afraid he was going to kill you when he finished with you. So you ran away.”

Roper kept shaking his head, but he’d lost his bravado.

“The good news is that the FBI has him in custody. He can’t hurt you now. It’s safe to tell us where the bombs are.”

“What bombs? I don’t know about any bombs.” Roper looked desperately around, but he still refused to give up the information they had to get.

Mack opened the guy’s jacket and pushed it out of the way, then snapped the elastic of his waistband against his middle—hard.

Roper winced. Mack pulled the elastic away again so that he could insert one blade of the scissors between the fabric and Roper’s body. Then he started cutting his way down the side of one pants leg.

The captive screamed. “What . . . what are you doing?”

“Making a point.” As Mack kept cutting, Roper started to struggle, trying to pull his hands free of the wall, then trying to kick out at Mack. But he was secured to the wall.

“Better stop moving around,” Mack said in a dry voice, “Or I might cut something you don’t want to lose.”

Roper moaned.

Mack finished one leg, then turned to the other. “You’re going to be naked from the waist down, in front of Lily Wardman.” He inclined his head toward her. “But actually, she’s a doctor, so she won’t be seeing anything she hasn’t seen a lot of times before.”

“Get off me,” Roper howled. “Get off me. Stop it.”

Mack ignored him, cutting down the other leg until the sweatpants fell away and pooled around the man’s feet.

Mack stepped back inspecting Roper’s body and making a tsking sound.

Then he came forward again and inserted the blades in the fabric of the man’s tee shirt, cutting partway up, then ripping the shirt the rest of the way.

“Are we ready to talk?” he asked.

“No. Leave me alone.”

“You planted chemical warfare bombs in subways. They found one in Boston. What about the rest of them?”

The man shook his head violently. “I don’t know about any bombs.”

“Oh, right.”

Mack studied the implements on the table, then shook his head. Instead he went to the brazier in the corner, wrapped the pot holder around the handle of the poker and picked it up. The end that had been in the coals was glowing red.

“I don’t think this is going to feel too good,” he said as he strode back to the man who was watching him with a horrified expression on his face.