Perfect Weapon. Amy J. Fetzer

he did, he’d go postal on the wrong target. So he banked it.

      Right now, rage was his only comfort.

      8:45 A.M.

      The rank smell of blood and her own fear filled the back of the sedan. People were dead, killers were on the mountain and it was a stroke of luck she hadn’t been caught in the crossfire. The cold eyes of the hooded man flooded her mind. He saw me. And he really wanted to kill me. It wasn’t easy to accept that another human being wanted you six feet under. She didn’t have to ask why again. The gas. It was like candy to hungry terrorists. That meant someone directly involved had talked. The list was short, but someone had slipped up.

      Chilled, she reached to turn up the heat and realized the driver was breaking the speed limit about the same time the car rocked hard over uneven ground. She looked out the tinted windows at the terrain shadowed with trees. They were climbing higher. Oh, hell. It’s not D.C. Behind them, another car and an SUV pulled up and flanked them as the car skidded to a halt outside a cabin surrounded by trees. A man in a dark suit and heavy coat hurried to open the door. He offered his hand, but Syd ignored it, stepping out on her own power. He didn’t even glance at the blood covering her clothes and took her arm, two more men rushing close and walking backwards as he led her inside.

      She felt almost presidential.

      No one spoke, no one informed her where she was, or what was happening. Inside, she stood still as they moved around her in a choreographed dance of secure and lock. The interior had a great room, kitchen/dining, a hall leading off to the right. Lots of wood, and rustic. A nice retreat, but she could see that the windows had steel shields that would slide into place, the locks computerized. And there were, of course, five men with guns.

      A safe house. She let out a long slow breath, then heard the vehicles outside move off.

      “Someone tell me what happened.” Sydney waited for an answer.

      No one stopped doing their check of the house, going about their business with a silent determination. Creepy. Syd shivered just as lights blinked on, and warm air pushed up through the vents.

      Worry nibbled at her insides. “Gentlemen, it’s going to get rough if one of you doesn’t start talking.”

      Still nothing.

      “I’m working up to some major hysterics, people.” Only fair to warn them.

      They paused, glanced at each other, then one blond-haired man stepped near and stared down at her. He was gigantic, a Mac truck with arms. “We have orders to secure you and nothing more, ma’am.”

      Okay, they were keeping her safe. That was good. But she needed to know more and somebody had better start talking. “Then get on your nifty radios and find out what happened! Why didn’t the alarms and sensors go off? How did those people get inside my lab? Where is the rest of my team?”

      “Ma’am, you need to calm down.”

      Sydney removed the gun from her waistband. It was muddied with Tanner’s blood. “Calm is not an option. You be calm when a man dies in your arms, pal.”

      The others reached for weapons hidden inside their coats until the big guy waved them off. The agent’s features tightened, even though he tried not to show a thing. “Yes, ma’am. I do understand. And I’m sorry for your loss.”

      Sydney wrapped her fingers around the weapon as she stared ahead, seeing Corporal Tanner with a hole in his chest and breathing his last. She looked at the 9mm pistol, blood prints over metal black. And for the first time in her life, she wanted to watch someone die for that.

      Deliciously slow. Yeah, that worked for her.

      “You want to give me that, ma’am?”

      She met his gaze. “No, I don’t.”

      “You’re safe here, Dr. Hale.”

      “I was supposed to be safe in the Cradle too, Agent…?”

      “Combs, ma’am.”

      She didn’t think that was his real name, but it would do. “But now my team is probably dead, a Marine guard is dead and I’m here, under house arrest.”

      “Protection, Dr. Hale. For your own safety.”

      Sydney wanted to hit him just for the emotionless chill in his words. But she accepted that she wasn’t getting a thing out of him and he likely didn’t know any more than she did. NSA agents had taken her away within minutes of her phone call and left the disaster of the Cradle behind them.

      “There are bedrooms that way.” Combs nodded to the hall. “With clothes in the closets and drawers.” He sized her up and looked doubtful. “You might find something to fit.”

      Sydney flipped the safety on the gun, but kept it. “I’ll be in the shower.” She took a few steps to the hall, then stopped and turned. He hadn’t moved, but now the others were staring at her. “You aren’t asking any questions, Agent Combs. Why is that?”

      “Following my orders, ma’am.”

      And not letting one hand see what the other’s doing, she thought. NSA field agents, a necessary evil. “Let me know when they change.”

      Luray Caverns 8:58 A.M.

      The pilot started his descent. Pebbles and dry leaves spun upward like a twister, then were beaten back down by the slowing pound of the blades. Infrared painted the area clean, which wasn’t a plus on their side. Cisco didn’t doubt that if there was a “they” out there, they were long gone. He had to assume they’d made off with the gas vials. It was the only thing of value down there aside from the research. But until he received the satellite shots in increments, he wouldn’t know a thing. Infrared was wading in official channels.

      The building came into sight below. Mother, a cheezy acronym for Mechanized Operation Tether/Habitat Environmental Regulator was a fireproof building that housed the air filtration, sewage, computer, surveillance and electricity systems—and just about anything else the Cradle needed to operate. Cisco didn’t know who had come up with the cute names, but at least they were easy to remember. Mother was self-contained, designed to not need a keeper. There were only eleven people in the underground facility, including armed sentries and there was no way now of telling if anyone was alive.

      Without a list handy, Cisco knew the name of only one person—Dr. Sydney Hale—on shift. Average height, better than average-looking. Reddish brown hair, brown eyes, with a smart mouth and a brain like a vault. She was the reason this facility was in operation and as much as he’d trained himself not to feel a thing, the thought of her dead pissed him off.

      Cisco shoved open the helicopter door, hopped down. Field agents were combing the ground in a line up the mountain like black bears scouring for honey. He headed toward the flat-roofed building surrounded by an electric fence. Fishing in his pocket, he tossed his keys at the fence. Nothing. Damn. He punched a code and still nothing.

      Lock-out. Cisco popped open the keypad and jimmied a wire. If it were that easy, he thought, anyone could get in. It took another ten minutes for the explosive experts to set the charges and blow the gate. It took prima cord, and a considerable C-4 to get through the eight-inch-thick doors.

      A flood of men and women followed him inside the yard. He hadn’t had time to brief them, and wouldn’t now. The closer he played this to the vest, the better. He opened the steel door and stepped inside Mother. He motioned to Marcuso.

      “Get in there.”

      The technologist opened the back of a tall box that looked like a freezer. “It’s probably fried.”

      “Of course it is. Find out how. This pumps air below and as far as we know there are a dozen people down there.”

      People scrambled.

      “Don’t turn on the generators till I give the word.”

      They frowned collectively. He didn’t give them a reason. Aside from the scientists