“Shit. Where is Garnet?” Chase asked.
“She’s in DC.”
Chase stood. “We need to get there, now.”
“Where are we going?” Stanley asked.
“DC.” Chase pulled out his phone. “I’m getting us on a plan now. We’ll figure out where she is and go in to protect her.”
Bean dialed Garnet, but she didn’t answer. She must still be in her meeting. Maybe they could make it to her before the jerk found her. They sure as hell would try.
There wassomething wrong with Garnet’s phone. She’d installed an update, but for some reason the battery was draining at record speed, and by the time she made it into her apartment, her phone died. She shrugged off the worry and vowed to charge it before she left this evening.
When she walked in, thoughts of charging the battery fell away when a horrible stink hit her. She must have forgotten to empty the trash. She set her purse and phone down on the counter and headed to the trash can. The stench was awful, and she had to open the windows before she could tackle taking the trash out.
The fresh air helped a little, but overcoming the powerful stench would be difficult even in gale-force winds. She grabbed her keys and ran the trash out, regretting not taking it out before she left town.
The dumpster was just outside the back door on the bottom floor of the apartment. She’d never liked the setup, but the price had been right, and there was a security camera pointing at the dumpsters.
She had just stepped outside when she saw someone. They were walking toward her with purpose. Fear flashed, and she dropped the bag of trash on the pavement and spun. Two steps was all she got in before the man’s hand came around her, pulling her back against his chest.
“You got Pearson, but you didn’t get me. Now you’re going to show me how to launch the missile, and we’re going to watch as terror rains down on us from the sky.”
Garnet struggled against the man’s hold, but he was too strong. There was no way she was getting out of this.
Chapter 36
Garnet had triedto keep her keys from the jerk, but he’d grabbed them and used them to key back into the building. Most people were at work, so no one ran into them as the jerk forced her onto the elevator. At least the cameras would identify the man, if there were cameras left.
She wouldn’t put in the codes to fire the missile, or she thought she wouldn’t. The patch was on her computer, about to be sent out. She just needed to check it again. Could he read the patch and figure out what needed to be done?
“It’s funny that you have all this security, but you never knew Pearson broke into your place and planted cameras.”
She tried to turn and look at the man, but his grip was too tight. “What?”
“Oh yeah, we’ve been watching you for two years, just waiting for you to say something out loud we could use. It took you long enough to get there.”
She shook her head, and he shoved her against the wall, forcing his knee into her back as he keyed open her door.
“What do you mean?”
“We knew you were hiding something. You may think you have no tells, but he figured it out. When he approached me, I was all in. Now, you’re going to destroy DC, and we’ll all be better for it.”
Anger surged through her. “You won’t make it out.”
“It will be worth it to have chaos rule the country and the world. I don’t need to be here to know everything will change. The entire United States will thank you.”
She shook her head, and he shoved her away, then slapped her across the back of her head. She dropped to her knees, and he kicked her.
“Get up. You need to get on your computer and make it happen.”
There was no way she would blow up the city. The man was crazy, and she had to find a way to stop him. Maybe she could stall him for a few hours. She could tell him anything and enter bad code for an hour or maybe two before he killed her.
Maybe something would happen, and she would find a way out of this. Or he would kill her, but at least she wouldn’t be complicit in one of the worst disasters in history.
Their plane touched down,and Bean still couldn’t get hold of Garnet. Worry filled him. For a long while, her phone automatically dropped him to voicemail. Now it was ringing, but she wasn’t answering.
He wanted to toss his phone across the tarmac, but he shoved it into his pocket. “Shit, she isn’t answering.”
