Garrett pointed to the old Russian who had pleaded for his life. When she’d seen the old man on his knees, she wondered if he was a victim. Now her sympathies for the old guy drifted away with the smoke. Bukolov would pay for what he’d done to all the innocent lives they’d never know about.
“Before you leave, thanks for sticking with this,” Garrett told her.” We never could have pulled this off without you. The Sentinels are pleased.”
She didn’t exactly count it as a blessing to be on the radar of the Sentinels—a far-reaching global organization that had confederates in every country, allowing Garrett’s alliance to operate in secrecy—but something he’d said stuck in her mind.
“What were you talking about…I’m leaving for somewhere?”
“Your bounty hunter is about to put her foot in it. She sent up a flare. Tanya tracked her to St. Lawrence Island. When she couldn’t get ahold of you, she made sure I got the message. If you hurry, you can keep her breathing for another day.”
Jessica knew not to contact her unless it was an emergency. And knowing the bounty hunter, she’d be in the thick of a firefight before she’d admit she needed help. After all, she had first met Jessica in the midst of a thermite explosion.
Once she heard about St. Lawrence Island, it only took a moment for her to connect the dots to the coordinate they’d dismissed in the Bering Sea. Somehow Jessica must have figured out the erroneous location was a hair off.
With her current location outside Providenija, Russia, Alexa did a quick calculation in her head on how long it would take to fly to St. Lawrence Island, but Garrett interrupted her.
“Take your team and the AW139. I customized it so it’s got speed and enhanced range, a bird tailored for our kind of ops. Tanya will feed you the exact coordinates when you get airborne. I’ll clean up here, but stay in touch. If you need backup, call me.”
Garrett didn’t look surprised by Tanya’s message to her, or surprised that she’d been tracking Beckett. As she rushed from the room, grabbing her team and making quick arrangements for the next order of business, she yelled back to him.
“You knew, didn’t you?” She narrowed her eyes. “You could have picked any of the coordinates to assign me, but you picked here. You knew I was tracking Jessica. With us being so close to St. Lawrence, we might have a chance to help her.”
“If you persist in believing I’m all powerful and have a magic crystal ball, then go ahead.” He shrugged.
“I don’t know anything about your crystal ball, but if I had to guess, I’d say you had a pair…of brass ones.”
Despite the grim setting, some of the men chuckled. But Garrett only shook his head and said, “Your bounty hunter—she’s an interesting woman.”
Alexa raised an eyebrow and said, “Yes, she is.”
Jealousy was an ugly affliction. Even now she’d been struck by it when Garrett gave his personal insight on Beckett. But as she raced for the helicopter, with her team following, she prayed she’d be in time to help the headstrong bounty hunter.
Northeast Cape
St. Lawrence Island
His men awaited his order. Petrovin shifted his gaze from face to face, thinking over his position on the breach in his security perimeter. Although he didn’t know the extent of the problem and would have handled the situation differently, he knew what Bukolov would want.
And Stas didn’t want a repeat of Chicago. He’d blown apart the evidence, but not before a handful of cops turned into a multitude that he’d narrowly escaped. And similar to that situation, there might only be a few intruders outside now, but more might come. No, he wouldn’t toy with them today.
He simply wasn’t in the mood.
“Immediate evacuation. And this time, no hostages,” he told his man. “I will handle the detonation myself. We leave in twenty minutes and I wait for no one.”
Every man in the control room stared at him.
“You know what to do,” he prompted. “Make sure they are all locked in their cells, except for the girl in the operating room. She will get my personal attention.”
He was done talking. For the sake of drama, he hit the silent alarm, a button on the console in front of him. Immediately, beacons of red rotated through the room and his men rushed to their duties, an all too familiar sight for him these days. Before he left the security room, he would set up for the detonation of the facility, an act he would control.
But first he placed a call to the operating room. One matter remained unsettled.
“We have no time for precision, Doctor,” he said. “Harvest what you can from the girl now, and leave the rest. I will be there shortly.”
Calmly, he walked out of the security station toward the operating room. In controlled chaos, his men scrambled down the halls, securing prisoners and making their way to freedom—an escape tunnel where the helicopters would be fueled and ready.
He would soon join them for their final farewell of this hellhole, but not before he had the girl’s heart and other sundry parts in a box. This would be one delivery he’d make personally.
CHAPTER 30
Northeast Cape
St. Lawrence Island
Tanya Spencer had provided Alexa the coordinates where she believed Jessica Beckett had last signaled. The woman hadn’t tracked her cell phone this time, but used the beacon signal off the necklace Alexa had given her for emergency use only. A more reliable means.
While they were en route, Tanya had also given Alexa a quick yet thorough summary of what to expect once she got to the island. But once she arrived, Alexa had a hard time believing her eyes. What would Jessica be doing on this remote island? And why would the bounty hunter send up a high-tech distress signal here?
Searchlights from the helicopter strafed the ground around the old Air Force radar site, giving her perspective on the scene. Bright white swept the ground and the rubble below, washing everything out. The place was a pit, looking more like a war-torn village. From what she could tell, this part of the island didn’t have much of a population. Yet according to Tanya, this was the place.
Eventually, Alexa saw something to clue her in that she’d arrived at the correct coordinates. Several red flares burned on the ground near a collapsed cyclone fence. And a man in a trooper uniform came out of a dilapidated building and was waving his arms to flag them down.
Speaking into her headset, she gave an order to her pilot, “Set down near that gate.” And to the man next to her, she said, “We’re going in to lend assistance to the local law and get a quick assessment of the situation, but once we hit the ground, I want you to head out again and do a perimeter search.”
“Anything in particular you’re looking for, Marlowe?”
“Yeah, a stash of helicopters on the ground or a locale to hide them.” She briefly explained what had happened in Chicago and how the Russian got away. “I want a tracking device on any aircraft you find. I don’t want any of these bastards getting away from me a second time.”
“You got it.”
Before they landed and talked to the trooper, she made another judgment call. She wasn’t in the mood for flack.
“Now that we’re back in the good old USA, break out your FBI credentials. And I’ll do all the talking. I’m not
