“What happened then?”
“I don’t know.Our computer guy did a trace, but said it looked like a data dump, rather than a call for backup.McMiller hired some guys to track the signal, but we never heard from them.Guess they didn’t find it.Old Man Farrow was pissed.”
And that explained the guys who’d come after her.But I knew that those weren’t the answers she was looking for.
“Where’s this compound?’
The guy swallowed hard and looked like he was thinking about not answering.
Lacy must have thought so too because she shook the shark at him again, a sneer on her face.
“Just a few miles out of town.Can’t miss it.Head west on the main road and you pretty much run into it.”
Well, shit.It wouldn’t take the team and me that long to run that far, but I wasn’t sure that Lacy would be able to keep up.Leaving her behind wasn’t an option.
“Whereexactlyare they holding her?”
“I don’t know.There’s the main house and a couple of outbuildings.Probably one of those.I’ve only been there once!”
This was going to be like a needle in a haystack.And we only had tonight to figure this out or I was pretty sure we were going to become the next ship to disappear.
“Anybody got any more questions?”Maybe one of them would think of something I hadn’t.
Lacy nodded, gripping the shark tightly.“You got any working ships in here?Small ones?”
He swallowed hard but considered her question.“Naw, we strip them pretty quick.Most of us live in town and don’t have ships.There’s a shuttle in the corner that might work.Doors are a bit twitchy.”
“Which corner?”
He pointed to a section closest to the front of the hangar that we hadn’t cleared.
I leaned close to Lacy so I could whisper in her ear.“You got any more questions?”
She shook her head.
“What about keys or whatever it takes to fly it?”I asked him.
She turned her head, her lips curving into a smile.“I can hotwire it.”
The pure confidence in her voice was a turn-on in an otherwise tense situation.
“All right, let’s roll.”I nodded to Mercer.
He pulled the guy’s gag up and stuffed it back in his mouth, just in time to stifle his squawk of outrage.“Sorry, man.”He pulled an auto-injector out of the med kit he wore on his hip.He pressed it against the mechanic’s neck and the other man slumped in Orion’s grip.
“What did you give him?”Lacy asked.
“A light sedative,” Mercer said.“He’ll be fine.But since we can’t have him following us...”He shrugged.
Orion picked the mechanic up and carried him deeper into the shadows, tucking him into a corner.
“Time to go,” I said, when he rejoined the group.“Burn, you and Orion take point.Make sure no one is between us and the shuttle.If they are, knock them out like everyone else.”
I looked at Lacy.“We need to be out of here before they wake up.”
“Got it.”She unzipped the top of her suit and tucked the shark in.Then she transferred the wrench to her right hand.“I’ll need one of these tool chests when we’re at the shuttle.Hopefully there will be one close by.”
“Got it.”We’d deal with that when we were closer.
