Freedom Does Matter (Mercenaries Book 2) (36 page)

The man’s hands were leading his motion; when one touched her shoulder, he grabbed her shirt and yanked. While she squealed and tried to throw herself away, his hand scrabbled for her throat. Her collar tore as she flung herself off his back, but the hand at her neck held tight and began to squeeze.

She gave up pushing away and tried to peel his hands off.

“Back up, Beckie!”

She twisted away as Kevin swung a lamp at the man’s head. Whump! The man’s head rocked back, hitting her in the lip before dropping to the floor.

“Damn, Kev.” She tasted blood when she licked her lip. “Bit my lip. And the tackle didn’t do my ribs any good. But…” Rubbing her throat, she crawled away from the unconscious man, over to Jean-Luc. “How is he?”

Kevin patted her arm, then Jean-Luc’s back. “We’ll know for sure in a minute. How are you?”

“Fine.” She massaged her throat, but smacked his hand away when he tried to examine it himself. “I’m okay,” she repeated, more defiantly than she felt. “How’s Jean-Luc?”

“Well, the guy had a knife, but I don’t think he had the room… Like Millie said, if they’d taught these guys how to fight, we’d all be… whatever.” He blew his breath out in disgust, then stood. “If you can, help me roll him over so I can see if he got cut. Then, give Millie a call, and then the police.” He stopped, a quizzical look on his face. “No, let’s ask the desk to call the police.” He gave Beckie a hand up. “Oh, wait…” He used towels to secure the attackers, then dragged them over beside the door. “They’ll keep there. Now for Jean-Luc.”

Jean-Luc had regained consciousness and despite the discomfort of having a couple of loose teeth, a slash on the upper arm and a headache from hitting the floor, he was anxious to keep moving.

After the calls to Millie and the desk, Kevin talked to Derek, who had to be dissuaded from abandoning the evening’s plans and returning to ‘man the fort,’ as Beckie thought of his protests.

The call to the desk had resulted in cleaners and waiters with replacement dinners; Kevin opened the door carefully when the new waiters knocked.

Ian was even more taciturn than usual once they had reviewed their day. Neither he nor Shen had ideas about the photos Kevin had sent, and Beckie was almost relieved when the arrival of the police cut the call short.

Three hours later, she wasn’t as relieved. The men had been taken away, but the investigators were still worrying at the several stories, looking for something that would explain the attack better than mere chance. When Millie arrived, they had a whole new line of questioning to follow; Beckie thought they appeared to be excited, hoping, perhaps, that she would reveal something that no one else had.

Finally, just before eleven, the police departed. At the door, the lead investigator asked, “Will you wish to press charges? Beyond the breaking and entering, that is?”

Kevin looked at him and then at Beckie and laughed. “No, seeing my friend here…” He hugged Beckie close to his side. “… tackle the big guy was enough payback for me. I assume the hotel will press the trespass and similar charges?”

With a nod and a tip of his cap to Beckie, the officer agreed.

By a quarter past midnight, Beckie was approaching nervous. The five of them had done all the topics to death, at least until they had more information. Their conversation now was in repetition mode; Beckie tuned out after Millie told them she’d left three security guards at the plane to make sure Haleef and Mathilde kept safe.

The light knock on the door put them on high alert. Kevin used the peephole; from the door of her room, Beckie saw him smile and then wiggle his head even further before opening the door. The two men clasped hands and did a quick ‘guy’ hug, then Kevin closed the door and called them together.

“Since you ‘ad more fun than me, I’ll not bore you with the details. We ‘ad no problems, saw nobody, just as we wished.” He dug in a jacket pocket—Beckie suddenly noticed that he was wearing a thigh length jacket over his black tee-shirt and jeans. Those pockets are deep, she thought as he extracted a small metal… Is that a bottle? No…

He set the thing on the desk. “While you can look all you want, I’d be quite chary of doing anything else with it. Like trying to open it. Least till we can get it some place where whatever nasty’s within can be contained.”

Kevin nodded and Millie said, “I have what we need on the plane. It won’t meet the most severe CBW guidelines, but it’ll keep us safe. If it doesn’t blow up.”

Beckie glanced at the doctor, then turned her attention to the object on the desk. It looks a little like one of those CO2 bottles, she mused. It was cylindrical, about two inches in diameter and five or six inches long. At one end, a metal block had been fitted, out of which the hollow screw protruded. At the opposite end, there was a seam. “Hey, this is in two pieces. See?”

Derek stood back as the others gathered round. “We noticed that, too,” he said. “Oh, almost forgot. Each of those frames had two of them.” He rooted in his pocket again, withdrawing a twin to the cylinder on the desk. He placed it beside the first.

“Since you’ve been carrying them in your pockets, I doubt that touching them will be a problem,” Kevin said as he picked the new one up and studied it carefully.

“Yeah, well, don’t be dropping the bloody thing,” Derek retorted.

“Right,” Kevin mused. “The body is steel. Maybe stainless, but this bottom section is plastic.” He looked up at Derek. “I gotta believe the bad stuff is in the steel container, not the plastic.”

“Yeah, but there could be a trigger if you play with it.”

Kevin nodded and set the cylinder on the desktop. “Why plastic? Why a separate compartment?”

“My mate Frankie was wondering if it’s on a timer, or how it might be set off.”

“Could be a timer,” Kevin said. “Nobody has to do anything. They just go off. But then… What are the odds someone’s doing this for ransom?”

Beckie stood, then winced. Rubbing her side, she glanced around to see if anyone else would point out the obvious. “Well, since we have no clue who’s doing this, it could be ransom. I doubt it, though, because who would you pick out to send the note to? To save who? Too many choices. Unless some government’s gotten a demand? It’d be like a husband doing this to get rid of his wife. Overkill.” She sighed and pulled her hair around to twist it into a rope. “And then we have the whole ‘Allah will be glorified’ thing.” She looked around, but no one objected. Of course not. They don’t have a clue either! “Wait a second. Plastic. ‘Cause metal interferes with radio signals? If the trigger is radio. Like a remote control car or plane? Or a cell phone? Something like that, to cover a bunch of them.”

“It’s not as clean as a timer, but, possible? Yeah, it’s possible.”

“Okay,” Beckie said with a sigh. “It’s after one. I’m gonna take these and stuff them in the bottom of my backpack. Tomorrow, we’ll go to the plane and see what we can learn without killing ourselves. Kevin, do you want to take some pictures and send them off to Ian and Shen? I’ll wait, if you do.” She took Derek’s hand. “Good job tonight.”

Chapter Thirty-Three

Day Thirty-three - London

THE NEXT MORNING, BECKIE HAD rolled over hoping for another minute of sleep when a sharp rap on the door brought her head around.

“Mmpf. Yeah?”

“’Arf six, love. We should be going.”

“Okay, Derek. Gimme a minute.” She wiped hair from her face and, catching her breath, sat up in the bed. God! My side’s still sore! She gingerly eased herself off the bed to stand, not quite as stable as she wanted. Okay. A shower, then Kevin can wrap me up again. Or Millie.

Fifteen minutes later, she walked through the door to the outside garden and over to the table where breakfast had been set. “This is sure a change from last night,” she said, waving at the blue sky, one puffy white cloud floating innocently. The sun was brilliant.

Derek chuckled. “Enjoy it now. Lasts for the morning.”

Beckie scowled at him and turned to Jean-Luc, finishing his steak. She flashed him a smile. “How’s the arm?” He nodded and cut the final piece as if to show her he was fully functional. She gave her attention to the serving dishes. Scrambled eggs, bacon, bagels, potatoes and a few slices of ham were still left. “Who’d they think was coming? There’s still enough to feed us three times over.”

“Kevin’s not had any yet,” Derek said. “’E’s down in the business center getting something printed.”

With her mouth full of eggs, Beckie questioned him with a glance, but he didn’t rise to the bait.

Her plate empty, Beckie pushed herself away from the table. “Millie in her room?”

“Yeah. She wanted to check with Sam before we trundle out to Gatwick.”

“Everything okay with him?” she asked quickly. “I thought—”

“’E’s okay, from what I heard,” Derek answered as Kevin came through the door. He smiled and dropped big prints of the devices in Beckie’s backpack on the table. “Before,” he said.

“You think it’ll be safe to take them apart?” Beckie asked as she studied the photo on top.

“I’m hopeful we can get the plastic cover off so we can see what it’s hiding.”

“But…”

“Yeah. We’ll be dead careful,” Derek said with more vehemence than Beckie expected. She glanced at Kevin; his surprise showed, too.

Millie returned to the table, but didn’t sit. “Did Kevin wrap your ribs?”

Beckie admitted he had not and she and Millie retired to her bedroom. Millie used another twenty yards of two-inch tape to encase Beckie’s torso from her belly button up to the bottom hem of her bra.

“Oof, Millie, I don’t know if I can breathe,” she protested, but Millie kept on winding.

Eventually, she tore off the roll and patted the end down against Beckie’s back. “There, in case you’re tempted to take it off early.” She grinned in response to Beckie’s black look.

As they went back into the front room, Kevin and Derek entered from the garden. “We’re ready to go. ‘Ow about you guys?”

“Let’s do it,” Beckie said, “before I pass out from not bein’ able to breathe!”

Jean-Luc and Millie waved to the security guards as they led the way up the ramp to the plane. Aft, Millie squeezed herself into the tiny lab space, allowing Beckie to stand beside her.

“We’ve only got room for one, since usually nothing done here requires two people.” She glanced back at Kevin and Derek, who had their heads far enough through the doorway to follow the action. “Based on the suspicion that the cylinder holds a gas or vaporizable liquid and not a bomb, we’ll put it in this.” She pointed to a stainless steel device with a handle, glass view ports and inside-out gloves laying on the bench. The gloves had been clamped into rings set below the window. The box didn’t look very big, no more than three feet across and less than two high.

“What is it?” Beckie asked.

Millie smiled. “It’s my favorite toy. A custom-built Class III BSC Glovebox.”

Beckie returned Millie’s smile with one of her own. “Thanks, Millie. Doctor. Now, what is it?”

This time Millie patted the front of the box. “It’s a biological safety cabinet, built to Class III specifications, which includes the gloves. It gives me a one hundred percent isolation of whatever’s inside.”

“Cool,” Beckie said. “What’s it used for?”

“It’s overkill for most of what it’s used for, but, bacteria incubation, preparation of slides, stuff like that.” She touched a switch under the bench and fans started. “We’ll put one of those…” She pointed to the cylinder in Beckie’s hand. “What happened to the other one?”

“Kevin’s got it. We thought we’d bring them separately.”

“Oh. Okay. Anyway, we’ll put one in there, and see if you can get the plastic part free. The air inside’s monitored for any contamination, so we’ll know if it begins to leak.”

“We decided Kevin would do the work,” Beckie said. “Me being injured and all.” She was sure her face gave away her opinion of the decision, but if any force had to be applied, well, Kevin was better suited. Millie nodded and shooed Beckie out so Kevin could get in.

After half an hour, Beckie was less impressed than she had been with Millie’s explanation. Takes a lot of time to set things up. She kept the thought silent, not wanting to upset Millie. Or Kevin, collecting tools so everything he’d need would be inside. No one wanted to open the ‘chamber’ once he started.

Beckie’s contribution was to suggest they hang a webcam pointed through the window, so everyone didn’t have to be ignorant of the progress, or try to squeeze in, bumping Kevin and ruining the whole experiment. She sat on the cot, a few feet forward of the lab, making sure the camera had a view of the work space. She’d called Else to have her pick up the video stream and record it. Just in case.

She looked up, ready to begin. The others were, too. Millie stood by the door to help if Kevin needed. Beckie chose not to worry about things he might want or need help with. Everyone else was sitting near her, where they could see the laptop’s screen. With perfect attention, they stared as Kevin’s gloved hands started to move.