Check Mate Part 11

"Shut the h.e.l.l up!"

Apparently Agnes didn't deal well with the cold, the dark and Jake's insolence. Keep pus.h.i.+ng her, he told himself. Force her to make a decision. Even knowing he couldn't trust her, he was willing to make a deal-he was willing to bargain with the devil if it might give Gideon and Mariah a fighting chance. The only advantage he had was using him self as a bargaining tool. Agreeing to cooperate fully with the Coalition was his only hope of getting Gideon and Mariah out of this d.a.m.n mess alive. The odds weren't in their favor, but they were the best odds he was going to get.

"What's wrong, Agnes? Are you afraid I'll double-cross you?" Jake goaded her.

She marched over to him, slapped him soundly across the face and replied, "Do you take me for a fool? Of course, you'll double-cross me. As long as we have Gideon, you'll cooperate. If I set him free, you'd stop cooperating."

"Maybe. Maybe not."

"Stop playing games with me, Jake. I'm not releasing Gideon. He's valuable to us in many ways, not only for himself, but as a means of keeping you in line."

Jake grinned. "Then you won't kill Gideon, will you? If you kill him, you lose not only his usefulness to you, but you lose any power you might have over me."

Agnes uttered a feral growl as she realized she and Jake were at a stalemate. No winner. No loser.

"Gag him," Agnes said. "I'm tried of listening to his prattle."

Burgess obeyed instantly, then shoved Jake onto the sofa and gave him an if-you-move-you'll-be-sorry glare. Leaning back into the dilapidated sofa cus.h.i.+ons, Jake smiled to himself, then crossed his legs. He might not have won this round, but he was still in the fight.

Agnes turned and headed for the kitchen. As the door swung open, Jake wondered what was happening to Mariah. He had to believe that she could take care of herself since at the present moment there wasn't much he could do to help her.

Lester shoved Mariah into one of the rickety kitchen chairs, then pulled out a chair and draped his legs over the seat as he eased down backward and placed his arms over the back of the chair. Oliver Grimble stood just inside the doorway, apparently keeping an eye on them and waiting for further instructions.

Lester rubbed his hands together. "Why the h.e.l.l did we come here? This place is a dump. And it's freezing a.s.s cold in here."

"We'll just be here until morning," Oliver replied. "And if I were you, I wouldn't complain in front of my wife. She isn't sympathetic to men who bellyache."

"A broad with b.a.l.l.s of steel, huh?" Lester raked his gaze over Marian. "I like tough women. You must, too, huh?"

Oliver simply glared menacingly at Lester.

Mariah wondered what was happening in the living room. Was Jake all right? Before she had a chance to really worry, Agnes entered the kitchen. Oliver stood at attention.

"Lester?" Agnes's voice had a sharp edge to it.

"Yes, ma'am?"

"I want you to take our Dr. Brooks for a little ride."

Oliver snapped his head around and stared questioningly at his wife.

"I have no idea whether she's who she represents herself to be or not. And frankly, I don't care. What is obvious is that for whatever reason, she chose Jake Ingram over her loyalty to the Coalition. We don't tolerate that sort of disloyalty. Not for any reason."

"I take it that you don't want Dr. Brooks to come back with me," Lester said.

"That's correct."

"Well, well, looks like old Lester's been given a dirty job, but I promise I'll give you something to smile about before you die." He looked right at Mariah.

"Take her now," Agnes said. "And by all means, do whatever you'd like to her before you dispose of her. Just make sure you dump the body where it won't be found. At least not for a long time. Do you understand?"

"Yes, ma'am." Lester yanked Mariah up out of the chair. "It's party time, Doc."

No. It was decision time, Mariah told herself. If she screamed for help, who would hear her? Jake. And if he tried to help her, he might get hurt. So she was on her own. Better to wait until she was alone with Lester before she made her move. He would try to rape her first, before he killed her. All she had to do was wait for the right moment-then make her move.

"You seem awfully calm for a woman facing death." Agnes studied Mariah closely. "Lester, you'd better watch her. Something tells me that Dr. Brooks has some misguided idea that she can persuade you not to kill her."

"Then she'd be wrong, Dr. Payne. I know how to follow orders."

"You'd better," Agnes told him. "Because if anything goes wrong, you'll pay for your mistake with your life."

Lester gave Mariah a shove toward the door leading into the living room.

"No, wait," Agnes called to him. "Take her out the back door. I'd rather Jake not know anything about this for now. I prefer to tell him in the morning that the good doctor escaped during the night, that she left him behind without another thought."

d.a.m.n the woman! Jake won't believe her, Mariah told herself. He'll know that I'd never willingly desert him. Please, G.o.d, please, don't let him lose faith in me.

Within minutes Lester had her out the back door and strapped into the front seat of the Saturn. She wondered if Jake could hear the vehicle's motor roaring to life. What explanation would Agnes and Oliver give him? They'd probably tell him they'd sent Lester off for supplies or some such nonsense.

Lester turned on the radio as he zipped the SUV down the mountainside. A country station blasted out a cla.s.sic she-done-him-wrong song. Mariah held her breath as he took several dangerous turns at top speed.

"You're in an awful big hurry to kill me, aren't you?" she asked.

"I'm in a hurry all right," he replied. "But not to kill you. Not for a while. But I am in a hurry to screw you, Doc. And I plan to keep you alive long enough to tire myself out."

Mariah cringed at the thought. She was at a disadvantage with the handcuffs on, but all she needed was one opportunity-one chance to overpower Lester.

After they'd traveled halfway down the mountain, Lester pulled off on a side road. He drove along until the road forked. She saw the gated gravel road before he did, but the minute he caught a glimpse of it, he got out, then took a pair of wire cutters from the back and locked her inside the SUV. Within minutes he'd cut the chain and latch and swung open the gate, then he got back in the SUV and headed down the private drive. When they came to the end of the driveway, a large building loomed in the darkness. Mariah could make out the silhouette of a ma.s.sive log cabin.

Lester parked, then unsnapped Mariah's seat belt. "Come on, Doc, get out."

"Where are we?" she asked.

"Looks like some rich guy's home away from home."

"What makes you think no one's here?" Apparently Lester had seen, as she had, the For Sale sign on the gate, the bright-red letters appearing dark-red in the moonlight.

"There was a For Sale sign out front," Lester replied. "Don't pretend you didn't see it."

He reached over and dragged her across the console, then pulled her out of the vehicle. She landed on her feet unsteadily. He grabbed her around the shoulders and forced her into step alongside him. When they reached the front door, he used the b.u.t.t of his 9 mm to break the stained-gla.s.s panel. After sliding his arm through the opening, he unlocked the door from the other side and shoved it open.

All the while Lester pulled her deeper inside the house, Mariah didn't resist. Soon, she told herself. Very soon. He shoved her down on the sofa in the cathedral-ceilinged room, then shrugged off his coat and positioned himself on top of her. His foul breath fanned her face as his tried to kiss her. She turned her head just in time to avoid their lips making contact. Instead he wound up kissing her jaw.

When he started undoing her jacket, she squirmed against him. By the time he had her s.h.i.+rt unb.u.t.toned, she was rubbing herself against his arousal.

"You're getting all excited, aren't you, Doc? You want some really good loving before you die, don't you?"

"You got that right, Les," she said breathlessly- a second before she kneed him in the groin. "I want some good loving-but not from you. Never from you!"

He howled like a wounded coyote. While he was yelping with pain, Mariah managed to knock him off her and onto the floor. Before he had a chance to recover, she used her feet to beat the living daylights out of him. The final blow landed along the side of his face and effectively knocked him senseless. Mariah knelt beside the unconscious Lester, then turned sideways so that she could reach inside his pockets, which was no easy task with her wrists bound together with the metal cuffs. She retrieved what she was fairly certain was the key to the cuffs, but she had a h.e.l.l of a time inserting the key into the lock. After what seemed like an hour of hit and miss efforts, she finally managed to free herself from the handcuffs.

She raked her hand back into Lester's pants pocket and retrieved the keys to the SUV. But just as she rose to her feet, she heard a noise behind her. When she glanced over her shoulder she saw Lester staring up at her, his 9 mm pointed right at her back.

Eleven.

Mariah had looked down the barrel of a gun before, had been faced with danger and even death. Quick and appropriate action had saved her life several times.

"Think you're pretty smart, don't you, Doc?" Lester's hand holding the 9 mm trembled ever so slightly. "Well, you're not. All you did was make me mad and when I'm mad, I'm mean."

Breathe deeply. Stay calm. He's not going to shoot you. Not yet. He wants to make you pay for your actions. Don't do anything hasty. Wait until you're close enough to strike. There was no doubt in Mariah's mind that Lester would give her the opportunity to stop him before he killed her. He was too determined to rape her. He wouldn't kill her yet. Not until he'd satisfied his sick needs.

"Nothing to say?" Lester held out his free hand and motioned to her by crooking his index finger. "Come just a little closer."

She turned around and took several tentative steps toward him.

"That's close enough," he told her. "Now take off your coat."

She removed the coat. If she'd been a few feet closer, she would have tossed it at him, but she was too far away for the tactic to have been effective.

"Now strip, starting with your s.h.i.+rt and bra."

Marian took her time unb.u.t.toning her s.h.i.+rt, letting Lester's s.e.xual tension build. As she removed her s.h.i.+rt and the frigid air hit her naked arms and shoulders, she s.h.i.+vered. With Lester's gaze glued to her b.r.e.a.s.t.s, she was able to move forward a few steps. Instead of removing her bra next, she eased her belt from the loops on the waistband of her slacks.

Realizing she wasn't following his instructions about the order in which he wanted her to disrobe, Lester came toward her, just a few steps, but enough to bring him within range.

"Not the pants next, dammit! Take off your bra. Now!"

Mariah grinned, a seductive, come-hither look in her eyes, and while Lester tried to figure out why she was smiling, she took that final step to put her in a perfect position to act. Before Lester knew what was happening, Mariah brandished her belt, using it like a whip. The thick, supple leather hit Lester's gun hand, snapping loudly as it made contact with his flesh. He yelped in pain and the 9 mm Glock fell from his hand and hit the floor with a resounding thud. Shock registered on Lester's face, then horror, just as Mariah flung herself forward and down, her hands reaching for the weapon lying only a feet inches from Lester's feet.

Her fingers touched the Clock's cold metal surface. Lester bent over and reached for the gun, but Mariah managed to grasp it and pull it to her. He raised his foot, intending to kick Mariah, but she nipped over just in time to avoid his boot connecting with her face. Cursing a blue streak, Lester lunged at her. She rolled over a couple of times. He landed on the floor beside her instead of on top of her as he'd planned. She held the gun in both hands and pointed it directly at his heart.

"d.a.m.n b.i.t.c.h!" He growled the words as he rose up and hurled himself at her.

Mariah didn't hesitate, she pulled the trigger- once-and the bullet entered Lester's chest, missing his heart by several inches. As his wiry body came down over her, blood oozing from the wound and dripping onto the floor, she fired a second shot. This one hit the mark. Lester's heart. He dropped like a ten-ton stone. Mariah rolled out of the way as his body crashed to the floor. His blood splattered over her. She jumped to her feet and moved cautiously toward his lifeless body. Using her foot, she rolled him over onto his back. His sightless eyes stared up at the cathedral ceiling. Mariah let out a long, deep breath, relief spreading through her as the rush of adrenaline pumping through her body began to subside.

Ignoring the dead man lying nearby, Mariah picked up her belt, put it on and slid the gun into her hip holster. Not a perfect fit, put close enough. Focusing on what she had to do, she picked up her discarded s.h.i.+rt, then walked over to the sofa, lifted a cotton knit afghan lying across the back and used it to clean Lester's blood off her skin. She hastily put on her s.h.i.+rt before searching the room for a telephone. When she spotted a phone and lifted the receiver, there was no dial tone. Undoubtedly the owners had had the phone disconnected. And her digital phone was back at the cabin in her Chevy Trail-Blazer.

After putting on her coat, she went outside and got in Burgess's Saturn. She wasn't sure she could back-track to where Agnes and Oliver were holding Jake, but she d.a.m.n well intended to try. She had two choices-either try to save Jake on her own or risk wasting time by hunting for the nearest town and a telephone. By the time she could get to a town, use a phone and get a.s.sistance from fellow agents, it might be too late for Jake. Agnes and Oliver planned to move him to a new location at daybreak. Her best bet was to find her way back to where he was now being held and rescue him before he was moved again. Once there, she could use the micro-transmitter to alert the bureau of the location so they could pick up Agnes and Oliver.

As she started the SUV and turned it around, she wondered if Agnes and Oliver would wonder what was taking Lester so long. Probably not. They had known he intended to rape her before killing her. They probably didn't expect him back for hours. If she was lucky, the gruesome twosome would be asleep and Burgess would have been left to guard Jake. She'd have to park the SUV on the road and walk to the cabin, then break in and get to Jake without alerting the others. And if necessary, she was prepared to kill anyone who got in her way.

Agnes Payne stood over Jake where he was manacled to the ladder-back wooden chair in the corner of the living room. "How does it feel to know that Dr. Brooks has abandoned you, that she chose to save herself and apparently doesn't give a d.a.m.n what happens to you?"

Jake glared at the manipulative, conniving woman whose ruthless ambition had turned Henry Bloomfield's scientific experiment into a nightmare for his children. When he'd heard a vehicle leaving earlier, he'd questioned Burgess about Marian, but the man had told him nothing. Then for the past few minutes, Agnes had been trying to torture him with her comments about Mariah's disloyalty. He'd tried to shut out her voice, tried to tell himself that maybe Marian had escaped, maybe she was safe now. But he knew better. Marian hadn't abandoned him. She'd been taken away-by Lester.

Jake closed his eyes as Agnes's voice droned on and on, but he could not shut out the pain that gripped him. Mariah alone with Lester. Her hands cuffed and without a weapon. The little monster would rape Mariah first, then kill her. In all his life, Jake had never known such agony. Every instinct within him wanted to growl like a beast and rip Ag nes, Oliver and Burgess apart with his bare hands. Then he wanted to track down Lester and kill him slowly, painfully. The frightening part of this scenario playing inside his head was that he knew he would feel no guilt at killing them, that the primitive, animal side of his nature would actually enjoy it.

Jake had cared for many people. He loved his adoptive parents and his brother, Zach. He'd loved Tara once. And he loved his newfound siblings. And the child in him loved his biological parents. But the love he felt for Mariah surpa.s.sed any other love he'd ever known. He didn't understand how it was possible to love someone so fervently, so completely, in such a brief span of time. But he did. The thought of living without Mariah was more than he could bear. Until he'd realized that she was probably dead, he hadn't known the depth of his feelings for her. But now-too late to tell her-he knew.

You can't fall apart, he told himself. It's too late to save Mariah, but you can still save Gideon. And you can bring down the Coalition and make Agnes and Oliver and everyone involved with Code Proteus pay for what they've done -pay dearly.

"He's shut you out, my dear," Oliver Grimble told his wife. "Our Jake seems to have developed the ability to totally control his mind. It will be difficult, if not impossible to ever reprogram him. I see that more plainly now. I should have known that as an adult, he would be the one out of all the children who would be able to resist our control."

Agnes reached out, grabbed Jake by the chin and forced him to look up at her. "But we can control you, can't we, Jake? As long as we have Gideon, you will do as you're told."

Jake ignored her completely.

She slapped him on one cheek and then the other. "Respond, d.a.m.n you!"

He continued ignoring her.

"There are ways to make you suffer. How will you feel watching your brother being tortured?"

The muscles in Jake's jaw tightened, but other than that minuscule reaction, he remained deadly silent, not allowing Agnes the pleasure of a reaction.

"Be that way," she told Jake. "Sooner or later, I'll break you." She turned to Burgess. "Leave him here in this chair all night. Oliver and I will take the bedroom. You can bunk down on the sofa, but keep one eye open until Lester returns from the little errand we sent him to do."

Agnes eyed Jake. He didn't move a muscle. She huffed loudly, then turned to her husband. "Let's get a few hours sleep. I want to leave here at daybreak."

Oliver followed his wife into the bedroom, leaving Jake alone with Burgess, who turned and walked over to the sofa. He jerked the one tattered plaid pillow from where it rested in the center of the couch and placed it on the armrest, then lay down. He put his head on the pillow and propped his feet on the opposite sofa arm.

"You behave yourself," Burgess said. "I don't want any trouble out of you."

Jake didn't respond. Just what sort of trouble did the man think he could be with his arms twisted behind the back of the chair, his wrists tightly cuffed and his ankles bound with rope? Apparently Burgess had left the leg irons behind and been forced to make do with rope. But the rope was completely effective. Jake wasn't going anywhere. Not without help. And he had to admit the truth-there was no one to help him. If Marian was dead-and there was a very good possibility that Lester had killed her-n.o.body knew where he was. He was completely on his own.

G.o.d, Mariah, I hope you didn't suffer. I hope- Emotion lodged in Jake's throat. He wasn't the type of man p.r.o.ne to tears, but at this very moment he longed to cry. Crying might ease the agony trapped deep inside him.

Mariah took more than one wrong turn during her nerve-racking journey of retracing the route Lester had taken last night. But finally, at precisely one-eighteen the next morning, she pulled the Saturn up in front of the gate that led to the small, rustic cabin where she and Jake had been taken the night before, where she prayed Jake was still being held. Before getting out, she searched the SUV thoroughly after parking it on the side of the road. She found ammunition for the Glock-several boxes of clips-and she also found a rifle and another handgun. The weapons might come in handy later. And she'd unearthed a laptop computer, hidden under the front seat. She wasn't sure if it belonged to Burgess or if it was a Coalition issue. She hadn't been issued one, but that didn't necessarily mean anything. Despite her curiosity, examining the computer would have to wait. First things first.

The Bowie knife in a leather sheath that she'd found, she strapped to her calf beneath her slacks. Pulling a knit cap that had probably belonged to Lester down over her head and turning up the collar on her down jacket, she left the Saturn unlocked and headed up the driveway. Snow fell softly, silently, a gentle shower of glistening white shapes moistening her face. The moonlight reflected brightly off the bed of new-fallen snow, lighting the area far more than Mariah would have liked. On a mission such as this, darkness was an ally.

Mariah paused long enough to remove the micro-transmitter and send out an SOS. Hopefully she and Jake would be long gone by the time the Feds arrived, but if luck was with her, Agnes, Oliver and Burgess would not escape.

As she approached the cabin, she noted that the only light on inside was the one in the living room, but just a pale glow shown through the dirty window panes. She crept up to the house, then circled it, checking for any sound from inside, but she heard nothing. She peered in each window. The bedroom windows were dark with blinds, but the living room windows were bare and she was able to make out the form of a large man lying on the sofa. Not Jake. The guy was too muscle-bound. As she scanned the room, her heart stopped for a split second when she saw Jake bound to a ladder-back chair. His head was slumped over, but she doubted he was asleep. If she knew Jake, his mind was working at top speed.

Did he think she was dead? What had Agnes and Oliver told him? Whatever lies they'd told him, she knew he hadn't believed them. He must have figured out that they'd sent her away with Lester, that they had intended for Lester to return alone.