Tucker picked up his radio. “About fucking time.”
It was unfair, he knew. The rocks out there were a bitch. But dammit, he hating waiting this long. He wanted to know who was sneaking around their operation, and what he wanted.
Two minutes later, Base said, “Ready for video hookup.”
Tucker already had the video window open on his computer. The light level was a little low, but he could still make out several of his men moving around in the background. Then a face appeared on the screen. Tucker recognized him as a guy named Carter.
“You have a picture?” Carter asked.
“Yes. Could use a little light.”
“Hold on.”
A few seconds later, the picture lightened up by twenty percent.
“Better,” Tucker said. “Let me see him.”
“Over here,” someone barked on the other end.
A body moved into the shot. Male, dark clothes.
“Can’t see his face. I need to see his face,” Tucker said.
Someone adjusted the light on the other end, illuminating the intruder’s face. Tucker couldn’t help feeling a moment of disappointment. He’d been hoping the man was Jonathan Quinn. He would have liked to have seen the look on the cleaner’s face once he realized who was in charge here. A fucking laugher that would have been. But apparently Mr. Quinn had lost the Dupuis woman’s trail.
“Who the hell are you?” Tucker asked.
The man kept his face neutral and his mouth shut.
A rifle butt swung into the frame and slammed into the captive’s stomach. The man doubled over and fell out of the frame.
“Get the fuck up,” a voice off camera yelled. “You hear me? Get the fuck up.”
Tucker could hear retching off camera, then something scraping against the concrete floor. For several seconds nothing happened, then the captive’s head moved back into the frame, rising unsteadily from the bottom.
“Let me ask you again,” Tucker said. “Who the hell are you?”
“No,” the man said.
This time the rifle hit him in the kidney. The man flew forward, screaming, almost running into the camera.
Tucker smiled. Not because of the man’s pain, he was ambivalent about that. He smiled because the man spoke, and in Tucker’s experience once someone opened his mouth, he would eventually tell whatever he knew.
“Bring him in,” Tucker said.
He could hear Carter starting to say “Yes, sir,” but the guard was cut off as Tucker quit the program.
He pushed himself away from his desk and stood up. There were two empty cells along the hall where they were keeping the woman. One of those would be fine for their new guest.
He took a deep breath, then picked up the phone and punched in the number for the lab.
“Yes?” The voice was young. One of the technicians.
“I need to talk to Mr. Rose,” Tucker said.
“He left a couple of minutes ago. Headed up to the main level.”
Tucker hung up without saying anything, then rushed out of his office hoping to catch his boss before the old man disappeared into his quarters. Mr. Rose’s rule number one: If the door to his private room was closed, he was not to be disturbed. There wasn’t even the phrase “except in cases of emergency” tacked on. If he was inside, all could wait until he reappeared.
Tucker passed only one other person in the corridors on his way to the elevators, one of his security men on patrol. When the facility had been built, it was designed so that a hundred people could work inside at the same time. Mr. Rose’s operation was manned by less than half that amount—twenty security personnel, seventeen technical staff, Mr. Rose, and Tucker. Thirty-nine total. Of course, that wasn’t counting the Dupuis woman. Or Mr. Rose’s special packages.
When he reached the elevator, the car was already there and empty.
Frowning, he headed to Mr. Rose’s suite, hoping he wasn’t too late. As he turned onto Mr. Rose’s hallway, he nearly ran into the old man. He was standing just five feet around the corner, talking to a technician Tucker had seen a couple times before.
Whatever conversation they’d been having had stopped the minute Tucker appeared.
“Glad I caught you,” Tucker said.
Mr. Rose just stared at him.
“We’ve caught an intruder.”
That woke the old man up. “What? Where? Here in the base?”
“No,” Tucker said. “He was outside the fence, near the gate. He tripped the sensors, then hid when my men
