Cliff Ryder - Out of Time

In the end, he turned off the computer without checking the e-mail. There would be time to straighten things out with Brin, and when that time arrived he’d do it face-to-face. She deserved that and he didn’t think he could stand seeing her pain or anger in the impersonal words of an e-mail.

He stood and walked quickly through the kitchen and out into the garage. He had a small workshop there, a place he sometimes went to be alone. Brin had a similar retreat in a small room off their bedroom. Hers was lined with material related to her career and a collection of books she’d been gathering her entire life and had been unable to part with. Alex seldom ventured into that room, and never when Brin was away. She’d given him the same privacy in the workshop. It was a good thing—he hadn’t wanted to go off-site to stash the tools of his trade.

He stepped around to the side of the workbench and pressed hard on a small, lightly etched square on the wall panel. At the pressure from his hand it slid inward and clicked. Alex tugged gently, and a panel swung out and moved to the side, revealing a series of shelves, cubbyholes and drawers.

There was no time to infiltrate MRIS in his normal fashion. It was after-hours, and there wasn’t anyone he could pretend to be to make it easier to get inside. Things could shift once he’d breached security, but for now he thought armament was more important than disguise. He strapped on a replacement for the Glock 9 mm pistol he’d lost in Beijing, and he also took some electronic devices that he could use for knocking out their security systems.

Once he had everything he needed in place, he carefully sealed the panel on the wall. His right leg ached, but his left seemed fine. His shoulder was stiff, but he thought if he didn’t push it too hard ahead of time, it would work for him when he needed it.

He started to turn to his car, which hadn’t been out of the garage in weeks, and then stopped. He glanced back at the house, took a deep breath and jogged back to the front hall. He grabbed his bag, took it to the kitchen and opened it, rummaging inside until he found the two brown medicine bottles. He carefully sliced one of the painkillers in half, about a quarter of the prescribed dose. Then he grabbed the bottle of Klonopin and read the instructions again to be sure he had it straight. He took two of the pills and dry swallowed them, grimacing at the taste.

He started to stash the bottles in a pocket, then caught himself and put them back on the counter. He put them in plain sight. If and when he and Brin got back home, there was no reason to continue with any secrecy. If he didn’t get back, it wouldn’t matter.

On his way out, he saw that the answering-machine light was blinking. He frowned. It wasn’t likely that the message was for him, but he couldn’t risk not checking it. If Brin was in trouble, she’d try to contact him, and the answering machine was one way to do it. He crossed the hall and hit the play button.

“Brin?”

The voice was familiar, husky and feminine. It was Karen, a friend of Brin’s he’d met on several occasions. Karen was an ex-cop and a little rough around the edges, but a good friend. She’d watched Savannah for them more than once.

“Brin, if you’re there, pick up. This is Karen.

I’ve got Savannah. There was almost some trouble at the school—you didn’t tell me we were playing with the big boys. I got there first, thankfully, and I had Savannah in my car when things got strange.

A bunch of guys in black suits—not Feds, I’d know Feds, but not cops, either—they converged on the school. I saw them covering the exits, but we got out. I hope those other kids are okay, but I promised you I’d watch this one, and I will. When you can, let me know what the hell is going on. You know how to reach me.”

The phone went dead. Alex stared at it, rewound and listened again. They’d tried to get to Savannah.

That meant, at the very least, that Brin knew what they were up to. If they were trying to coerce her into working, Savannah was their best bet. If they had him, they could have used him, as well. Alex was glad Liang had ruined their chances of that.

He was also glad to know that Karen had Savannah. She truly liked their little girl, and if anyone they knew—short of Room 59 agents—

could keep her safe, Karen was the one. She’d retired with honors from the force, and despite having to fight her way through a machismo-drenched hierarchy of officers, detectives and poli-ticians, she’d made quite a reputation for herself while she was active.

The men in the suits worried him. If MRIS had that kind of force active, then he would have to use more caution than he’d anticipated. He’d thought maybe Rand was aware, and that people from Beijing would come in and take over the operation.

Now he wondered if the bastard wasn’t in it a lot deeper than that.

Alex returned to the garage and slipped in behind the wheel of his Porsche. It wasn’t the most inconspicuous car, but he knew it would cover the miles between home and Brin’s office complex quickly. That was all that mattered. He opened the garage door, backed out and hit the road with the tires squealing. He didn’t bother to close up the garage. He knew Brin would be angry when she saw it, but he thought that her being angry with him over something mundane would feel good.

He kept the sports car just barely above the speed limit, fighting the urge to hit the gas. He couldn’t afford to draw too much attention to himself, and the last thing he needed was a police escort to the MRIS complex. He had to get as close with the car as he could and then go in on foot. Brin told him a lot about her work, but most of it was over his head. When she’d talked about the security systems, however, he’d perked up. He was familiar with the company that had installed them, and he knew that the lab was protected by perimeter cameras and motion detectors, as well as a state-of-the-art cipher lock system.

He was familiar with the systems because he’d been through them before. If he drove into the parking lot and walked up the front steps, they’d know he was there immediately, but he had picked Brin up several times at the loading dock, and once at a service entrance. He knew the side streets, and he had memorized the interior of the building on the two visits where he’d actually been escorted up to Brin’s office and laboratories. He hadn’t intended to create an internal map, but his training was too much a part of him to prevent it. He knew how to get to his wife’s office, and he knew where Rand’s office was located, as well. He only hoped Brin was working in her normal spaces, or if she wasn’t, that he could find someone and force them to tell him where she was.

He saw the complex long before he arrived, rising several stories above the other buildings near it. There were a number of side streets, mostly fronting warehouses and industrial office spaces.

Alex drove within half a mile of the complex and pulled the Porsche up in front of a small office building. There were two marked spaces with signs, and one of them read Vector Executive Parking. He took the spot marked CEO and smiled.

If only Brin got out, he’d be able to tell her where to find it. If neither of them made it out, it would be found quickly and reported, and once there were reports in the system, Denny and Kate would see them and know something was wrong.

Alex left the car unlocked with the keys in the ignition and turned toward the MRIS complex. He took off at a quick trot, and was happy to find his legs cooperating and the jarring rhythm of the pace only mildly painful to his shoulder. There were a few lights on, and he knew they were on Brin’s level. He sped his steps, gritting his teeth against the increased pain.