Paula Graves - Forbidden Touch

He followed the others into the sheeting rain, shrugging out of his coveralls to make a makeshift umbrella for Sandrine. He'd given Tom directions to a place to hide the others until he arrived. It was slow going for the wheelchair, the wheels sinking into the rain soaked ground underfoot. But with the help of Piet and the other maintenance crew, they made it before the rain soaked through the coveralls,

"Thank God you're here!" Tom greeted him with a smile and hearty handshake. He waved the plastic-covered satellite phone at Maddox. "The cavalry should be here in fifteen minutes."

"Where's Iris?" Maddox asked.

Tom looked surprised. "I thought she'd be with you."

Maddox"s stomach knotted "What?"

"She went back in to warn you about what was happening. She thought she knew what was causing it, and she said she could hold it long enough for you and her friend to set out safety. You didn't run into her?"

Before Maddox could answer, a muted crack came from the direction of the laboratory, so faint that most of the others seemed not to notice. But Maddox did. So did Tom. They exchanged looks of alarm.

It had been a gunshot.

The ground shuddered under Iris's feet, and she staggered against the wall. She had told the others that Grinkov was telekinetic, but now she wasn't sure she was right. Whatever was happening here, she couldn't imagine Grinkov was doing it on purpose, for along with the sparking of energy came rolling waves of unadulterated panic. Grinkov was terrified, and that fear was finding substance through the energy pulsing through the laboratory, leaving chaos in its wake.

The combination of sensations overwhelmed her, driving her to her knees. She twisted until she was sitting with her back to the wall, trying to absorb the shock waves of Grinkov" s unfettered energy, hoping it would be enough to keep the lab from falling down around them before they could safely escape.

But the waves kept coming, rising on an angry sea of emotion. A large chunk of ceiling crashed into the floor a few feet from Iris, shattering into dozens of pieces that skittered across the tile floor. She blinked as particles stung her eyes and tried to push to her feet.

Suddenly, blinding pain exploded behind her eyes, and the world went black for a moment. It took a second for Iris to realize that the ringing sound in her ears was the dying echo of a gunshot ringing through the laboratory's maze of hallways.

The flood of energy was gone.

Her vision seeped back, bringing with it the dim lights lining the corridors. Though the surge of energy had abated, debris continued to fall in sporadic thuds around her, echoing down the hallways. She no longer felt anything from Boris Grinkov, not even pain. Only a cavernous emptiness she'd never felt before, not even from Alexander Quinn.

Grinkov was dead , she realized, her stomach twisting.

The nausea built, thick and fetid. She swallowed convulsively, pushing herself up the wall into a standing position. Sudden, dark emotions shook her, pushing her back to the floor. Rage. Hate. Vicious determination.

Footsteps moved closer, coming down the hallway around the corner. The urge to run pushed her back to her feet again, but the only two exits she knew of both lay around the corner. The person she heard approaching stood between her and escape. She started to run in the other direction, but her legs wouldn't move.

Her knees buckling, she fell to the floor, catching herself with her hands. Pieces of debris dug into her palms, but she barely felt the sting, too overwhelmed by the approaching darkness. A hard pain formed in her side, as if someone had kicked her. She found it difficult to breathe.

She pushed to her feet again and leaned against the wall, turning her head toward the sound of the approaching footsteps. Through tears of pain, she saw it was a man dressed in black jeans and a black long-sleeved shirt. A black ski mask covered his face, but as he strode purposefully toward her, his steps slow and steady, she glimpsed a pale patch of skin on the inside of his left wrist.

Tahir Mahmoud , she realized with a sinking heart.

"That was a gunshot, wasn't it?" Tom asked.

Maddox double-checked the dock's 18-round clip and tried to hide his rising panic, "Yeah, I'm going back in to get Iris."

"I'll go with you."

Maddox shook his head. "Someone has to protect these people until the extraction team arrives."

"Be careful." Tom said.

Swallowing a wave of nausea, Maddox nodded and headed back toward the lab.

Maddox stepped inside, took a deep breath, and listened over the thunder of his pulse. The building was unnaturally quiet; from their hiding place, they'd seen several vehicles speeding away from the laboratory, while other people ran down the rutted roads through the driving rain. Was anyone besides Iris left inside?

He took a few steps down the hallway, wincing as his toe caught a chunk of ceiling and sent it clattering down the hallway in front of him. The hall way was dim, it only by low-wattage emergency lights. Apparently whatever had caused the building to shake had knocked out the power, as well.

He crept down the hall, taking care not to displace any more debris, and turned the corner. Ahead in the gloom, he spotted what looked like a body lying in a heap halfway down the hall. Panic overcame caution for a moment, and he raced toward the crumpled form.

Halfway there, he realized that it was a man's body. The man lay face down drenched in blood from what could only be a gunshot wound to the head. There was no way to be sure, but it was the right build for the Russian scientist, Grinkov.

He skirted the body, avoiding the blood spreading across the tiles at his feet. Someone else hadn't been as careful, he noted, spotting bloodstained footprints heading down the hall. Tightening his grip on the dock, he followed the footprints as they turned the corner to another corridor.

And stopped dead.

Fifteen feet away, a man dressed in black from head to foot stood with a gun to Iris's head.

Maddox whipped into tiring stance on instinct.

"Do not do it. Sergeant." Tahir Mahmoud's clipped British accent was unmistakable. "I will kill her. You know that."

Maddox felt his vision blacken at the edges. He fought the gut-churning deja vu and met Iris's terrified gaze.

Not this time, he thought, taking slow breaths to steady himself, I won't let it happen this time.

"I see you find this as familiar as I." Tahir Mahmoud's breath burned against Iris's ear. He pushed the barrel of his weapon into her temple. "I would have liked to use a knife to make it truly authentic, but one does what one must."

"You know who l am." Maddox said.

"Of course. I know everything about you. When associates told me about Grinkov's experiments here on Mariposa, I knew I had to come here myself."

"Because I was here." Maddox murmured.

"I've been thinking about this a long time, you know. You cheated last time. Let a woman spill her blood to save you."

Maddox's face blanched as his gaze shifted from Tahir's face to lock with Iris's. She felt his fear, his pain, his shame, but she also felt something she'd never really sensed from him before. Pride. Determination. And a growing strength of will pouring into her veins like liquid fire.

"Put down the gun. Heller."

Maddox hesitated. Tahir knocked the gun barrel against the side of Iris's head. She tried to bite back a cry of pain.

"Do it now " Tahir ordered,

"You're going to kill her anyway, aren't you?" Maddox asked, not budging. "This is your game. You kill her in front of me. Then you kill me like you didn't get to do last time."

Tahir laughed. Pain shot through Iris's side, making her gasp. He was injured, she realized. Maybe a cracked rib.