The Men of Search Team Seven

“Except we’re not armed,” he said. “And where do we go when we do get out of here? We’re miles from any major road, we don’t have a map and, in case you haven’t noticed, there’s snow out there.”

“I’d rather freeze to death in the mountains than sit here waiting to be blown up.”

Until she showed up, Mark would have opted for sitting. Truth was, he had given up months ago. Without his wife, without his daughter or his work, he had nothing to live for. But Erin was young. Not that much younger than him in terms of years, but she was so full of life. She had every reason to avoid death.

“Why is Duane doing all this now?” he asked. “Why lure you back to him after years away? Why demand a bomb in a week after I’ve been working on it over a year? He hasn’t shown any sign of impatience with the project before now.”

“Maybe he’s tired of paying for all the man power needed to keep you up here,” she said.

“He hasn’t balked at paying the money before. Has something happened to make him worried about finances?”

She shook her head. “Duane’s grandfather was some kind of robber baron who made a killing in insurance in the twenties. Apparently, even the Depression didn’t touch his fortune. His father parlayed those millions into billions with a string of tech companies. Duane apparently inherited their knack for business and invested in everything from highways to high tech to fund his more nefarious activities—the actual source of the money all neatly hidden in various shell companies and shadow corporations. Add to that the donations he receives from people who support his cause and he’s got an endless supply of bucks. All this—” she swept her hand around the lab “—probably only qualifies as a footnote on a spreadsheet somewhere.”

“If it’s not money, what else is driving him?” Mark asked. “Has something happened on the world scene to make him think now is the best time to strike? I haven’t heard a news report in the last year, so we could be ruled by Martians right now and I wouldn’t know it.” He’d been like a castaway on a deserted island. He had told himself he didn’t miss knowing what was going on in the rest of the world, but now that Erin was with him, he fought the urge to bombard her with questions: Who was president of Russia these days? What was the dollar worth? What was the hottest tech gadget? Who was hosting the next Olympic Games? Who’d won the World Series?

But he had held back, and now, with that horrible collar around her neck, didn’t seem the time to worry about trivialities.

“There’s nothing much new in the world situation that would have set him off,” she said. “Though maybe his accident has him thinking about his mortality, and that’s given him this sense of urgency.”

“What kind of accident?” Mark asked. “I’ll admit I was shocked by his appearance this afternoon—I haven’t seen him in months. I thought maybe he had cancer or something.”

“I’m not sure what is wrong with him, but I don’t think it’s cancer,” she said. “I only heard bits and pieces of the story from my mom or from things people said when they didn’t know I was listening. It’s something to do with the FBI—he was injured when they tried to capture him or something like that. It’s one of the reasons he hates them so much.”

“Did you overhear anything else interesting, about Duane or his plans?”

“There was some rumor about a power struggle between Duane and his second in command, a man named Roland Chambers. He lived with us for a while when I was a teenager and he practically worshipped Duane, so I don’t know how much truth there was to the rumors that he was trying to take over after Duane was injured. But Roland was killed last month, so Duane doesn’t have to worry about him anymore.”

“So no money problems, no political upheaval and no rival.” Mark ticked off the possible reasons for Duane’s sudden change of plans. “Maybe you’re right and it is a mortality thing. I guess it doesn’t matter why he’s putting the pressure on us, only that he is.”

“We’ve got to find a way out of here,” she said.

“If you think of a plan, I’ll try it.”

She surprised him once more by leaning over and gripping his hand. “We’ll think of something,” she said.

Her conviction both stunned and moved him. A wave of emotion—regret, longing, even hope—welled up in him, so strong he had to look away for fear of betraying his weakness. Five hours ago he had been contemplating ways to end his life. Now, thanks to Erin, he was desperate to hang on to all the time he had left—to not only survive, but to live.

* * *

THE COLLAR WASN’T tight enough to choke her, Erin reminded herself, fighting the panic that lurked at the very edge of consciousness. But the thick metal band felt like Duane’s hands around her throat, threatening to squeeze the life from her.

Mark had returned to his workbench, bending over his experiments as if the previous hour hadn’t happened. She supposed his work was his escape, the way some people lost themselves in television shows or books. But she had no escape, only a hyperawareness of the weight around her throat and the fear that a wrong move could set off the bomb that would tear her to pieces. She had lived with fear so long she thought she had grown accustomed to it, but Duane had found a way to ratchet up the terror until it was almost unbearable.

She replayed every conversation she had had with him since she had returned to his sphere of influence—not so much conversations as arguments and debates, often exchanged at top volume while her mother hovered nearby, a diminutive referee prepared to throw herself between the opponents should they come to blows.

Erin’s refusal to follow Duane’s dictates or believe in his worldview had always annoyed and even angered her stepfather. As a teen, his attitude had only egged her on. As an adult, she saw a hatred she hadn’t noticed before, lurking beneath the surface ranting. Maybe this whole charade with the kidnapping and the collar was an elaborate revenge plot. Maybe she was the primary target of Duane’s latest ultimatum, not Mark and his bomb-building assignment. He was collateral damage incurred along the way.

Engrossed in his work, Mark didn’t even seem aware she was in the room. She studied him, determined to distract herself from thinking any more about the collar. He was a fairly tall man—over six feet, his frame lanky beneath the loose-fitting lab coat. His dark hair just touched his collar, the cut uneven, as if he had done it himself with the pair of nail scissors. The thought of him struggling to remain well-groomed despite the direness of his situation touched her.

He had probably shaved this morning, but now dark stubble shadowed his jaw, sharpening his features and making him look less like a scientist and more like an outlaw, or a fugitive on the run.

She wanted to be on the run, but the wire mesh on the windows and the guards at the doors blocked their escape. She studied the ceiling. If they could find a way to climb up onto the roof, could they jump off and flee before the guards noticed? But the cabin didn’t appear to have an attic, and she doubted they had tools capable of sawing through the metal roofing. The concrete beneath the floor meant tunneling wasn’t an option.

She sighed and closed her eyes, determined not to give in to the tears that threatened.

“It’s getting dark.”

Mark’s voice startled her. She opened her eyes, surprised to note the landscape around the cabin was no longer visible through the windows.

“Darkness comes early at this elevation, this time of year,” Mark said. “Are you hungry? You should try to eat.” He moved from the workbench to the refrigerator and began pulling out cold cuts. “I’ll make sandwiches.”

“I couldn’t eat,” she said, but he kept assembling bread and ham and cheese.

He set a sandwich and a bottle of water in front of her and took the chair across from her. She stared at the food and shook her head. “I couldn’t.”

He looked down at his own plate, then pushed it away. “Yeah. I don’t have much of an appetite, either. Maybe we should just call it a night. The batteries drain pretty fast once the sun goes down, so I’ve gotten in the habit of retiring early. Maybe in the morning we’ll think with clearer heads.”

She looked at the double bed with its tangle of sheets and blankets. “I don’t think I could sleep,” she said.

“Take the bed,” he said. “I’ll stretch out on the floor.”

“That’s ridiculous. I won’t take your bed.”

His expression grew stubborn. “Call me old-fashioned, but I’m not going to rest in comfort while you try to make do on the floor.”

“Then we’ll share the bed.” She looked him in the eye, striving for a calm she didn’t feel. “We’re adults. We can do that. Under the circumstances, it’s ridiculous to be prudish about something like this. There’s only one bed and two of us, so we should make the best of it.”

“All right. Suit yourself.” He stood and returned their leftovers to the refrigerator, then removed the lab coat and draped it over the stool at his workbench.

Erin blinked. The baggy coat had hid the outline of his body. Beneath it he wore a blue flannel shirt that stretched across lean but muscular shoulders, and canvas hiking pants that hugged a narrow waist and decidedly attractive backside.

He turned and caught her staring at him. “Is something wrong?” he asked.

She shook her head, fighting to hold back a blush. “I was just...lost in thought.” The thought that there was more to the depressed scientist than she had first surmised.

They moved to the bed. The metal frame was shoved into the corner. “I’ll take the outside,” she said, not wanting to be trapped between him and the wall.

“All right.” He removed his shoes, then, still wearing his pants and shirt, slid under the covers and rolled over to face the wall, his back to her.

She sat on the side of the bed and slipped out of her own shoes, then switched off the lamp and lay back on top of the blankets. The metal collar rubbed against the underside of her chin and she tried not to think of the possibility that she might roll over in sleep and put pressure on the wrong wire or something...

She closed her eyes and tried to focus on her breathing—eight slow counts in, eight slow counts out. A friend who taught yoga had assured her that this was a surefire technique for releasing tension and falling asleep.

On the first count of eight Mark shifted, the movement rocking the bed and banishing all thoughts of achieving calm. The heat of him caressed her skin and she sensed the shape of him only inches from her, the jut of his shoulders, the long line of his spine, the length of his legs. The memory of him brushing his fingertips along her throat made her heart speed up and her breath catch. Not because she could ever be attracted to a man like Mark Renfro—a man still in mourning for his dead wife and lost child, a man whose eyes held a despair that tore at her. She was reacting this way only because it had been a long time since she had slept with a man. A long time since she had lived in the same house with anyone else. She had avoided close relationships, fearful of exposing anyone else to Duane’s manipulations and hate. Duane controlled people by threatening those they loved, as he had done with Mark. Avoiding love protected other people, but it was also a way of protecting herself.

But that kind of life was lonely, and clearly, Erin was paying for that now. She told herself simple human contact, not sexual attraction, had set her heart pounding and her skin heating over Mark’s proximity.

She took a cue from him and rolled over to put her back to him, clinging to the side of the bed and trying to ignore the weight of the bomb collar against her throat. She closed her eyes and allowed the tears to wet her lashes and slide down her cheeks as she prayed for sleep to take her.

* * *

MARK LAY AWAKE deep into the night, stretched out rigid on the mattress, the events of the day playing and replaying behind his closed eyelids. The sudden appearance of Erin, followed by Duane’s visit and his homicidal ultimatum, unsettled him more than he would have thought possible, like a trumpet blast disrupting the white noise of the lab, or a slash of vivid crimson across a black-and-white photo.

When sleep finally pulled him under, he dreamed restless, confusing vignettes: he was at a birthday party for four-year-old Mandy, Christy leaning forward, cheeks puffed out, helping her daughter blow out the candles on the cake. He saw Christy in the kitchen, long blond hair partially covered by a pink bandanna, a smudge of flour on one cheek, brows drawn together in fierce concentration as she studied the directions in a cookbook.

Then Christy was in bed beside him, the thin straps of her nightgown slipping off her shoulders, a warm smile deepening the dimple in one cheek as she pulled him to her. She was so incredibly warm and soft, skin as fine as silk as he glided his hands over her shoulders, turning her around and pulling her back tight against him, the curve of her bottom snugged against the hard length of his arousal.

He cupped her breast, the beaded nipple nuzzling into his palm. She murmured and shifted, then made a sound of alarm and jerked away.

Mark stared into a pair of wide feminine eyes—not blue like Christy’s, but the gold-green hazel of the forest floor. Erin’s eyes, filled with accusations and questions.

Chapter Four

Erin had surfaced from a stupor of exhaustion to luxurious warmth—the warmth of a firm male body pressed to hers, strong hands caressing her. She smiled, and snugged into the heat of him, this dream man whose fingers played across her skin as if she was precious to him. She gave a purr of satisfaction as he cupped her breast, a glow building within her. Yes. How long had it been since she had felt so aroused—so cherished?

The question intruded into the fantasy, demanding an answer, summoning reality. Opening her eyes, she stared at the lab equipment on a counter across from her, shadowed in the dim light of early dawn filtering through the mesh-covered windows of the cabin. Emotions tumbled over her like falling debris—confusion, anger, fear—topped off by the knowledge that whoever had his hands on her and his body against her, it wasn’t a lover, because she hadn’t had one of those in a long time.

Fear lanced through her as she pulled out of his grasp and rolled onto her back to stare into the troubled face of Mark Renfro. “I’m sorry.” He held up his hands, like a robber caught reaching into the till. “I didn’t mean... I was dreaming... I’m sorry.”

She did a quick check as her initial panic receded—they were both still dressed, nothing out of place. Mark looked so horrified she had to believe him. After all, she had been dreaming, too, and the dream hadn’t been at all unpleasant. “It’s okay.” She managed a smile. “Nothing really happened. I guess this just proves you’re human.”

He rose up on one elbow and wiped his hand over his face. “Nothing like this has ever happened to me before.”

“I think we could both say that about pretty much everything these days.” She sat up and hugged her knees to her chest. “Must have been a nice dream, huh?”

The room had lightened enough to show the flush of color on his cheeks that made him look much younger and quite endearing. “It’s okay,” she said again. “The mind is a funny thing. The subconscious can throw up the oddest stuff when you least expect it.”

He sat up also, then leaned over and pulled a small transistor radio from beneath the bed and switched it on. The white noise of static surrounded them. “I read once that was one way to make it tougher for a hidden microphone to pick up conversation.” He shrugged. “I don’t know if it’s true or not, but it doesn’t hurt to be careful.”

“Where did you get that?” she asked.

“I found it under the bed after I had been here a couple of weeks. I guess whoever owned the cabin before left it behind.” He leaned back against the iron bedstead. “I don’t suppose your subconscious has come up with a way to get us out of here?”

She touched the collar at her neck, the metal smooth and heavy and deadly. Then she glanced at the array of lab equipment. “There must be something there we can use as a weapon,” she said. “I mean, you’re supposed to be building a bomb. So you must have some dangerous stuff.”

“Radioactive material is potentially deadly,” he said. “But by itself it doesn’t kill or disable instantly, like a bullet or a knife. If we threatened the guards with a chunk of radioactive rock, they would just shoot us.”

“What else have you got? Chemicals?”

“I have some solvents, a couple of acids—”

“That’s it.” She leaned toward him. “Throw acid on someone and you could certainly disable them.”

“But they have to get close enough for you to be sure you don’t miss,” he said. “You might take out one guard that way, but not both of them.”

She mulled over this problem. “I could create a distraction. Something they would both have to respond to. You could douse them with acid and we could make a run for it.”

He didn’t automatically dismiss the plan, which she considered a positive sign. “What kind of distraction?”

“I don’t know. It would have to be something that would bring them inside. What about a fire? Or a minor explosion in the lab?”

“I tried that the second week I was here. One of them stuck his head in and told me if I burned the place down with me in it, I would save them all a lot of trouble. I ruined my only sweater putting out the blaze.”

“I could scream rape.”

He shook his head. “From what I’ve seen of this bunch, they’d either want to watch or participate.”

She cringed. “Right. Bad idea.” She rubbed a finger under the collar. “If I told them something was wrong with this, they would probably want to keep their distance.” She looked around the cabin. “What do they care about in here?”

“Nothing,” he said. “The only time they set foot inside is to bring food, and then one of them keeps his gun on me while the other one sets the bags on the table. The whole process takes about three minutes.”

“So you’ve been practically living in solitary confinement.” No wonder he was depressed.

“I would rather be by myself than have anything to do with people like them,” he said. “Killers who justify what they do with a pretense of saving the country from itself.”

“So we’ll have to make our move when they bring the food,” she said. “When do they usually bring it?”

“Midafternoon. I thought they were making a delivery when they brought you.”

“Do they come every day?”

“No. Three or four times a week.”

“Next time they come we won’t make our move, but we’ll watch and see if we can spot any weak points. Have you ever seen any other women up here?”

“Never.”

“I’ve seen a few hanging around Duane’s compound—a few wives and girlfriends of the men who follow him. Maybe a few of the women are followers, too. But there’s never any female muscle. That runs counter to all those old-fashioned values they like to espouse.”

“What are you getting at?” he asked.

“These guys aren’t around women a lot,” she said. “They don’t know how to handle them.”

“They don’t have any problem killing women,” he said, and she wondered if he was thinking of his dead wife.

Her stomach knotted. “I don’t intend to let them kill me if I can help it. But I was thinking if I got a little hysterical it might throw them off balance long enough for you to douse them with the acid.”

“That’s a lot of ifs.”

“The alternative is sitting here and waiting to be blown up. I would rather take the risk.”

“And what happens after that?” he asked. “After we get outside? I don’t even know where we are. Do you?”

“No. But there is a road leading up here, and if we head down the mountain and keep walking, we’re bound to eventually reach a house or a highway or someone who can help us.” She angled her body toward him. “We can gather supplies to take with us—food and water and blankets. When we get to a phone we can call your brother the FBI agent.”

“The guards will come after us. It won’t be as simple as walking away from here.”

“If we disable both guards on duty, we’ll have a head start. I’ll admit it won’t be easy, but if we don’t at least try it, we’ll die for sure.”

He let out a long breath. “You’re right.” His eyes met hers, a strength in them she hadn’t seen before. “We’ll do it.”

* * *

ERIN’S DETERMINATION TO escape kindled a fire in Mark. He felt like a man awakening after a long sleep, dormant emotions coming to life once more. Last night’s erotic dream was just one more sign of his reawakening. When he had first come to the cabin, he had fought, but weeks of isolation and torture and no success from his efforts had left him listless and numb. The sight of the beautiful woman sentenced to death by the bomb around her throat hit him like an injection of adrenaline.

“I did an inventory of the lab equipment and supplies,” he told Erin as they ate lunch—the last of the sandwich fixings—that afternoon. She had spent the morning looking out the windows, not speaking. Maybe the direness of their situation was sinking in.

“How do you replenish your supplies?” she asked. She lifted the top slice of bread on her turkey sandwich and frowned at the grayish meat inside.

“I make a list and give it to the guard who delivers the food.” Mark bit into his own sandwich. After his first weeks here he had learned to eat when food was offered, since he could never be sure when the next meal would arrive. “I’m pretty well stocked right now, but I need more nitric acid. I use it to process the plutonium.” Any chemist would recognize this as a gross oversimplification of what he did, but the guards didn’t strike him as chemistry majors.

“So you think they’ll bring more food this afternoon?” she asked.

“I hope so. We need more food since there are two of us now.”

“It must be pretty boring for the guards,” she said. “I’ve been watching them all morning and they just walk around the cabin all day. What do they do when it snows, or at night?”

“There’s someone on guard all the time,” he said. “Sometimes they build a fire in winter, and they have a trailer parked nearby, where they can take turns warming up.”

He could almost read her thoughts. She was thinking if they could get out of here at a time when only one guard was outside, they would have a better chance of getting away.

“They keep the doors locked from the outside,” he reminded her.

She nodded, still thoughtful.

The crunch of tires on ice alerted them to new arrivals. “This might be our dinner,” he said, standing.

She stood also, and together they faced the door. A car door slammed, locks turned and the door swung open to reveal a guard Mark had named Tank—a thick-muscled, broad-shouldered guy with a shaved head, a gold front tooth and a permanent scowl. The floor shook as he strode toward them, two plastic grocery bags looped over one hand, the other balled into a fist at his side.

A second guard—a wiry black man with a thin mustache—positioned himself by the door, a semiautomatic rifle held across his chest. He glanced at Mark, then his gaze fixed on Erin and one corner of his mouth lifted in a sneer. She moved a little closer to Mark, her breath shallow, skin pale. He wanted to put out a hand to steady her, maybe squeeze her shoulder to reassure her, but doing anything to draw attention to her felt like the wrong move.

Tank set the grocery bags on the table, the cans and bottles inside rattling. At this point, he usually turned and shuffled out, but this afternoon was different. He moved toward Erin, who shrank back.

“I’m supposed to check your collar,” he said, and took hold of her arm, dragging her toward him.

She stood rigid, jaw clamped shut, as he ran one thick finger under the edge of the metal collar. The other hand slid down her arm to cup her breast. “Yeah,” he murmured. “Nice.”