The sun would be down soon and she’d have the cover of darkness to make her move. Night vision gear and the element of surprise would give her team an advantage. She looked at her watch again. In less than fifteen minutes their sweeping raid would be under way. And once Garrett gave the signal, nothing would stop it.
An advance team had done an initial assessment of this site and communicated their findings via the device she wore in her ear. Thermal imagers indicated warm bodies were inside. For an abandoned enterprise, the presence of people on the property gave her a warm and fuzzy feeling that their assumptions about Globe Harvest having a location here had merit. Working with trusted locals, the advance team had also acquired a blueprint of the facility, giving them entrances and exits that would be invaluable when the time came.
Alexa was prepared to proceed when Garrett’s voice came over her earpiece.
“Inbound aircraft, stand down until further orders. Anybody have a visual on the passengers, call it in.”
Like a racehorse champing at the bit, Alexa’s adrenaline kicked into high gear. She hated being forced to stand down now, so close to the launch of the assault, but she understood the need for taking precautions. And an inbound craft could change things significantly.
“Acknowledged,” she replied.
She heard the sound of a helicopter but couldn’t see the aircraft through the trees. Nearly ten minutes later, with the sun slipping below the horizon, no one made contact with intel on the new players to the party. If they moved forward with the plan, it would be Garrett’s call.
“We’ve got nothing on the inbound.”
She heard disappointment in Garrett’s voice, but she had a job to do.
“Does that change things?” she asked.
To keep chatter to a minimum, she didn’t say anything more. Garrett knew her well enough to read between the lines. They had too much riding on this operation, here and at other locations, and he knew it. Timing would be critical. In less than five minutes the maneuver was set to go. Only Garrett could pull the plug on the whole thing, but she hoped he wouldn’t.
“No. We proceed on schedule…on my order,” he replied.
All hell was about to break loose, and Alexa hoped no one had to die—except for any Globe Harvest bastard who fought back. She gripped her weapon and gave a hand signal to her men, preparing them to move on her mark. When Garrett gave the order, she wanted to make a good first impression on Globe Harvest.
Despite her posturing with Garrett—that taking down the organization behind the abductions was vital—she knew what mattered most in an operation like this. She risked her life on the front lines to rescue hostages, a countermeasure that tipped the scales against the necessity of killing. The hostages ranked above everything. Seeing the relief on their faces when they knew their ordeal was over, especially after they’d given up hope, had kept her in the game and able to sleep at night.
In the end, it was enough for her.
Nikki remembered how, back in Chicago, she was thrown into a dark room with other girls. She’d been confused and nearly paralyzed with panic, but when she sought comfort and answers from the others, they rejected her. They cowered in the shadows, too afraid to move or speak. Eventually, their silence wore her down. And their fear leached under her skin, infecting her too.
But here, she was locked in a cell, completely alone. And she didn’t know which was worse.
The small cell had one recessed bulb in the ceiling, and it cast a pale light. She had a narrow bunk, a nasty sink, and a stainless steel toilet that had seen better days. Reluctantly, she chose to sit on the bare mattress. And as minutes turned to hours of silence, her mind wandered.
She even watched a roach scurry across her cell, and hadn’t been repulsed by the clack of its small legs on the concrete floor. In a strange way, she felt comforted by its presence until it finally slipped under the door and was gone. At that moment she wished she could trade places with it. Even a roach had more freedom.
Before her abduction, she thought she understood who she was. But sitting alone in this place, waiting for what would happen next, she realized she’d been wrong. And images of home and the way things had been drifted cruelly through her mind, more of a torment than a consolation. She would have given anything to feel her mother’s arms around her, even though being home again wouldn’t be the same without Uncle Payton. His death would always be a reminder of her blinding and selfish stupidity.
Grief and regret swelled through her belly, making her nauseous until a steady thrum resounded down the hall. It took a while for her to recognize the sound of footsteps. The noise brought back horrid memories from Chicago. She knew what it felt like to pray that the footsteps down the hall weren’t coming for her, even if it meant someone else would be targeted.
But today, when a key slid into her lock, she knew they’d come for her. The Russian was first to enter her cell. His depraved eyes slowly traveled down her body. Two men came with him, standing in his shadow. What had they come for?
Her heart thrashed in her chest and she choked on her next breath, shoving her back into a corner behind her bed. She had no place to go. Her eyes grew wide and filled with tears, and she couldn’t make her body move, not even to defend herself. The rush of fear had paralyzed her into someone she didn’t know.
She was convinced they intended to rape her—all three men—when the Russian leaned against a wall, amused and entertained by her panic.
“I have come to reunite you with your friend. That is all. Come. She is waiting for you.” He grinned, then waved a hand. He’d taken the normal bite from his voice. “It is not far.”
As she walked down the dark passageway behind the Russian, manhandled by the two guards at her side, she caught movement behind sealed doors. A small finger at one portal, an eye looking through glass from another. She had no idea how many were being held here against their will, but the sight sickened her.
The Russian turned a corner, and at the end of the corridor, another light filtered into the murky hallway. It shone through a small window on a door. Instinctively she knew he’d be taking her there, but a peculiar odor distracted her. She remembered the smell from the other night when they first arrived, the odor she couldn’t quite place.
When the Russian opened the door to let her inside, she had to cover her eyes from the intense brightness. It blinded her, and she raised a hand to shield her eyes. When her vision cleared enough to look around, she was surprised by what she saw.
A surgical room, pristine in white and stainless steel. Large overhead lights hung over an operating table, the main focus of the large room. An observation window was positioned above, but that room was empty. And a man dressed in pale blue hospital scrubs and a white lab coat stood across from her, looking like a doctor. His eyes were on her, but his expression was unreadable.
Now the smell made sense. It was the medicinal odor of iodine and something else more pungent—coppery and sweet.
When she turned to ask the Russian why he’d brought her here, she discovered the answer on her own. A body on a gurney, not much more than a bloody heap, had been shoved to a corner of the room.
“Oh God,” she gasped, stumbling back with a hand over her mouth.
No one had bothered to cover the remains. The sight horrified her, but it wasn’t until she saw the small heart-shaped birthmark that she finally understood what the Russian had said in her cell.
The bloody heap on the gurney was Britney Webber.
In shock, she asked questions aloud while her mind grappled with unfathomable answers, trying to understand what had happened. It didn’t take long for her to piece the truth together. The girl’s eyes had been hollowed out, leaving darkened pits. Her chest and abdomen were splayed open like some science experiment gone terribly wrong. And the coppery sweet tang of fresh blood hung in the air, a morbid reminder.
The Russian had killed Britney for her body parts.
“Here at this facility, we harvest and sell to the highest bidder, quite a profitable enterprise. Capitalism at its finest,” the Russian said. The humor in his voice and the smirk on his face made a mockery of Britney’s murder and forced a simmering rage to grip her.
