Out of the Black - Lee Doty [97]
The Lights flickered back on then off-on again. She realized that the double shot of darkness had only lasted about two seconds, but she felt like a half-drowned sailor treading water between tsunamis of darkness.
Both she and Jeff were on their feet now, looking wildly around. "Stay with us- play." The Harms all said in perfect unison, arms and legs straining at their restraints. Were the Harm's faces changing? Their teeth seemed to grow more malevolent, their skin stretched tighter across their distorting faces.
Jeff bolted for the door. "Wait!" Talia shouted, grabbing unsuccessfully for his arm as he rushed by. Neither she nor Jeff carried any weapons for fear that they could be used against them. Talia reached for the only weapon she had. "We've got a major incident underway!" She shouted into the transceiver on her wrist, but static was her only reply. "Security! You copy?" More static.
Maybe Jeff had the right idea after all. She turned toward the door, but gunfire erupted at the airlock. It was a short burst of automatic fire that brought with it the sound of shattering glass and the unmistakable crash of a body hitting the floor. When she reached the airlock, she darted her head around the corner. Jeff was on the floor. Blood pooled around him, spattered on the walls and broken glass. He wasn't moving. Two men and one woman in dark casual clothes were moving through the shattered glass of the airlock doors. All three sported military assault guns.
She dodged back around the corner, but not fast enough. A needle from a three round burst caught her in the shoulder, knocking her off her feet, spinning her partway over. She landed on her back in what seemed to be a featherbed of shock, clutching at her shattered shoulder.
Dark laughter surrounded her. "All around you now," the chorus said.
She moaned; part shock, part desperation. Who would take care of her children now? She didn't think her sister would make a good mom, and her parents were getting old. Orphans. The word filled her with equal parts sorrow and fury.
She looked around, looking for anything she could use as a weapon. There was no place to hide, no place or ability to run. If someone handed her an automatic weapon now, she wouldn't be able to use it.
The woman came through the inner airlock door, tracking across the room with her weapon. Her aim moved across whatever the Harms were becoming and settled on Talia.
"Please..."the moaned, but there was no mercy in the hard lines of the woman's face, and no one here to save her. She never heard the shots.
Then she was in a bright place of familiar, beautiful music with Jack's arms around her. He was telling her that he'd missed her terribly and not to worry about the kids. He didn't really need to say it though; she'd already heard it in the music and in her heart.
Saved after all, she thought, clinging tighter to the man she'd lost and found.
***
Anne looked over Hawthorne's shoulder into the operating theater below. She'd worked here for six years now, had forged the intravenous connections between thousands of patients and their operating beds, yet she had no idea how the operation below was progressing. The surgeons worked efficiently, the tech monitoring the patient seemed hypnotized by the instruments before him. The time ticked by.
"You ever feel like the bull's-eye?" Anne said.
"Hm?" Hawthorne said, still staring down into the OR, only partially emerging from other thoughts.
"In your FBI life, you know... ever feel like there's a bunch of strangers out there who want you dead? Like everyone you meet is looking at you out of the corner of their eye, sizing you up? Like you're the target of a really lethal joke that everyone else is in on?"
Hawthorne examined Anne over her shoulder. "If it makes you feel any better, I don't get this joke either."
"So, you've never been the target of a vast conspiracy? Never been on the run from seemingly everyone?"
"Not 'til now." She gave a wry grin that, given a few seconds, spread into an expression of genuine humor. "...but I can't dodge bullets