Ryan threw her the other one and then started to shimmy the woman’s dress over her hips and down her legs. She wasn’t as tall as Tess, but the dress would have to do. He shot Tess an impatient glance. “If you don’t hurry up and change, we’re never going to get out of here. And I don’t think we have enough syringes to take down every goon that walks through that door.”
Tess studied him for another minute and then in a single instant, she seemed to make up her mind. She tore at the tie at the waist of her pants, stripping them off and then sliding her cotton shirt over her head. There was no embarrassment or false modesty.
Ryan struggled not to stare, but it was a losing battle. He drank in the welcome sight of her firm breasts and the gentle curve of her back, hips and belly as she bent to pull on her new set of clothes.
He felt his mouth go dry and he shook his head. How in God’s name did his body manage to betray him at such an inopportune time? He pushed the thought aside. He was simply experiencing a reaction to stress.
Ryan grabbed her discarded clothes and started redressing the nurse. Tess stepped forward to help him buckle her into the restraints, and he paused long enough to slap several pieces of medical tape over the woman’s slack mouth. It wouldn’t hold for long and with the woman’s dark hair, he didn’t figure she’d fool the security camera forever. But it might buy them enough time to get out.
He looked up to find Tess watching his every move, the distrust still lurking in their green depths. “So, you think that because you’ve drugged her and tied her up, I’m going to believe that you’re really on my side?”
Ryan reached out and gently ran his finger along the curve of her delicate jaw. She didn’t pull away, but her tough, no-nonsense gaze didn’t waver, either.
He sighed. “Do you remember back at my house when you asked me if my job was so all-fired important that I wouldn’t listen or believe anything my heart was telling me?”
She nodded.
“Well, I needed to come and find you to tell you that my job isn’t that important. I’m willing to listen. I’m willing to sacrifice everything and anything to make sure you are safe.”
A small smile tugged the corners of her lush lips, and he knew he had managed to reach her.
“Do you believe me now? Even just a little?” he asked.
Her lashes, thick and dark, swept the crest of her cheeks as she paused to consider his question. Finally she lifted her head and nodded. “I’m not really sure why, but I do.” She glanced toward the unconscious nurse. “Do you have some kind of plan for getting us out of here?”
He grinned ruefully. “Unfortunately, we’re pretty much left with trying to walk out of here undetected.”
“Oh good, I love it when my hero arrives with a well-researched, well-mapped-out escape plan.”
“Hey, you got any better ideas?”
She waved a hand. “Sorry, I get a little cranky when I don’t get much sleep. Let’s get moving.”
He eased the cell door open and checked the hall.
Empty. The cameras on both ends were off. Brian had seen to that, but there was a limit to how long they would stay off without someone correcting the glitch in the tampered program.
He nodded and slipped out, and Tess followed. She closed the door behind them and the electronic lock reengaged, clicking home with a finality that reminded Ryan there was no going back.
The hall leading from her cell to the elevator was eerily quiet. Their feet echoed hollowly on the metal decking.
Tess figured part of the eeriness was due to them being so deep underground. So deep in fact, that nothing, no noise or smells from the outside filtered down into this section of the facility.
They passed only one other person, a man in a lab coat who was more interested in the PalmPilot in his hand than the two of them. He nodded curtly to Ryan and essentially ignored her.
At the end of the corridor, Ryan punched the elevator button for up. “We need to go two floors up to get to the loading dock area. That’s the only exit.”
“Guess they didn’t take into consideration the possibility of a fire and needing alternative escape exits,” Tess said, tugging at the hem of her dress. The nurse was a good two inches shorter than her, and the dress rode a little too high on her thighs.
“I don’t think they care. Everything has been designed to keep this portion of the lab as tightly confined as possible.” Ryan’s fingers drummed restlessly on the elevator panel.
She reached out and covered his hand with her own. “We’re going to get out.”
He smiled and nodded, but she could tell he wasn’t convinced.
“Who’s this person helping you?” she asked. “Are you sure you can trust him?”
Ryan checked the location of the elevator. “He’s my secretary’s boyfriend. He works in the center’s computer department. According to Alice, he’s a little odd, a puzzle freak. He’s been curious about what’s been going on down here for a while, and he’s been trying for months to breach the security system without being detected.” Ryan thumbed the bottom edge of the plastic security badge clipped to his shirt. “He reprogrammed this badge, put my picture in for some lab tech assigned down here. The man is a whiz.”
“How did he change the information in the system?”
“He simply substituted the picture from my assigned badge for this one. Essentially gave me this other guy’s identity.” He chuckled ruefully. “This guy’s file showed him as chronically late for work. So we crossed our fingers and had me come in posing as him a little early. Hopefully, the guy will stay true to form and come in late today.”
“Risky chance.” Tess lifted her own badge and stared at the picture on it. “It’s not hard to see this isn’t me.” There was only a likeness, but she also knew that there would be no picture of her in the system. She didn’t work here. She wasn’t even supposed to
“We went through the entire data bank of pictures in the personnel file trying to find someone close to your size and features. This woman was the only one even close to your general description. Lucky for you, she’s on the medical staff.”
“Looks like we’re running this operation on a wing and prayer,” Tess said dryly.
“Guess that’s what you get when you rely on a last-minute rescue.”
Tess smiled up at him. “Okay with me, as long as you’re the last-minute rescuer.”
The elevator arrived with a ding, and the doors slid open. The car was empty.
“Keep your face away from the camera in the corner,” Ryan warned. “We couldn’t play with any of the other cameras. We’re live from now on.”
He stepped onboard and maneuvered himself so that most of his body blocked her from the prying lens.
Tess dipped her head so her cap shadowed her face and climbed on after him.
The doors closed, and they headed upward, their fate awaiting them two floors up.
FLYNN SLID OFF his uniform jacket and hung it over the heavy oak clothes butler sitting outside the bathroom door of his luxurious suite of rooms at the Bloom Research Center. Turning on the gold-plated faucet in the bathroom sink, he leaned down and splashed cold water on his face. He straightened up, leaning his broad hands on the sides of the cool porcelain and stared at his reflection in the mirror.
Bloodshot eyes and deep lines of weariness scarred his lean angular face. He stared defiantly at the old man staring back out at him. One more year till mandatory retirement. He looked older than dirt. Not surprising considering the crap he’d put up with during the duration of his military career. Bumbling idiots. Vision-impaired drones and lack-luster, boring intellectuals who drained the life out of every dream he’d ever had for the advancement of his country.
It wasn’t until he was invited to join the board of directors of the conservative think tank, The Patriot’s Foundation of Family Values, that Flynn felt rejuvenated. For the first time in years, he thought that his beloved country wasn’t doomed to stumble down a road of mismanagement, mediocrity and ruin.
Less than two years after taking his seat on the board, Flynn found himself totally committed to the Patriot’s progressive and unprecedented vision for American government. When CEO Markus Richardson, ultraright conservative and multimillionaire, tapped him on the shoulder to spearhead the Patriot’s Freedom Project, Flynn hadn’t hesitated a moment before accepting the job. He had agreed to take the position of project director because he knew that Richardson would see that left-wing crazies didn’t find a way to take over the Oval Office with the election of turn-coat Republican Jacob Tibias Starling-the man who had readily agreed to serve as vice president of the United States and then decided that the Republican Party no longer fit his vision for the future.
