Page 122 of Until the End

1:30 p.m. EDT

Castle’s stomach clenched and his head swam. He’d expelled the cookies some time ago—an act of sheer will. But the drug was still in his system. At least his vision had cleared and feeling returned to his limbs.

He glanced around the panic room. The door was wide open.

Kit. Was she still alive? Or did Sanborn have some psychotic plan for her?

He went to move, but his wrists were bound behind him to the storage unit bolted to the wall. Handcuffed. His feet were zip-tied in front and his boots had been removed.

Damn it. He had a vague recollection of them binding him, but he’d been so out of it from the side effects of the halothane.

The whole world had flipped upside down and everything was surreal. He tried to fit the pieces together, force the sordid picture of Sanborn working with the enemy to make sense.

Not working with the enemy.

Sanborn was the enemy.

Castle tugged at his restraints and the iron shelving unit he’d reinforced into the wall. Nothing budged. All his weapons were on the other side of the room, far from reach. They’d cuffed him to the unit with food and water and not a single item he could knock off the shelf to help himself.

He straightened, looking for a better angle to jerk the storage unit, perhaps get a bolt loose. His back pressed against the steel bar and the knife hidden in his belt dug into his spine. It was custom-crafted from hardened one-eighth-of-an-inch-thick stainless steel.

That might work.

Slipping his nails up and under his belt, he fumbled for the finger loop. He twisted his wrist a little to the left and snagged it. Slowly, he wiggled the knife free of his belt.

Now came the hard part.

Castle felt around. His fingers glided over the short connecting chain of the cuffs that bound his wrists, past the swivel, the double-strand cheek plates to the keyhole, cursing his damn boots sitting in the hall with a key. He skimmed the riveted teeth of the single bar swing arm locked in the pawl.

Using his right hand, Castle angled the tip of the blade, aiming for the sweet spot where the swing arm hooked into place. Pain bit into his wrist when he cut himself. Not too bad, but blood trickled down his hand.

His pulse pounded. Anxiety constricted his veins. Every second he delayed was one more second where he might lose Kit forever.

Another slice. Hurried and deep. This time, he cut a gash across his abductor pollicis brevis, the muscle in his palm located between the wrist and base of the thumb. It stung like a son of a bitch.

Drawing a steady breath, he tried again, forcing himself to slow down.

The blade just missed the groove he was aiming for. Metal scratched metal. He focused, visualizing the cuffs. The tip of the knife slipped into the small gap between the swing arm and the pawl. He hit the round gear, and one by one, he forced the teeth of the rivets to retract.

Each time, the swing arm loosened more, widening around his wrist until the cuff opened.

Castle sliced through the zip tie binding his feet and scrambled off the floor. Knock him down and he would keep getting back up, every time.

Releasing the other side of the cuff was a cinch with his hands in front of him.

He tugged on his boots and grabbed the GPS tracking device from the desk. Downstairs, he found Kit’s Nitrostat, shoved it in his pocket, and jumped in his car.

* * *

Potomac River

2:05 p.m. EDT

The high-speed cabin cruiser carried them south along the river. Fifty-mile-per-hour winds whipped Ashley’s blond hair about her face as she scanned their surroundings while keeping an eye on Westcott. The woman was bound and gagged and shivering.

Bravo had a tight leash on Khan, who was stowed in the cabin.

Sanborn had finally wrapped up preparations for the final step, but he was keeping her in the dark on many of the details.