Maya Banks: No Place to Run

She turned frantically in her seat, searching for direction. Her gaze locked onto the house they’d come from. It grew smaller and smaller as the Hummer streaked through the rocky, arid landscape. Into nothingness. As far as the eye could see, there was nothing but rock and jagged hills.

WHEN an explosion rocked the house, Sam and his brothers flattened themselves on the ground, and Sam’s heart nearly stopped.

Sophie. Grenade.

Dear God, what had she done?

“Sam, no!” Garrett barked close to his ear.

He hadn’t even realized he’d gotten to his feet and run for the door until Garrett flattened him. He lay on the ground, Garrett sprawled on top of him, his gut about to explode with what-the-fuck.

“Goddamn it, Sam, we’re going to do this right, and that doesn’t include you getting your ass shot full of holes.”

“Get off me,” Sam gritted out. “I have to find her.”

The sound of a helicopter landing diverted his attention for all of two seconds as he glanced back to see Resnick hustle Marlene Kelly aboard.

Relief for his mother mixed with god-awful fear for Sophie.

Slowly Garrett moved off Sam, and Donovan and Ethan moved up beside them, guns drawn and trained toward the entrance of the house.

“We do this together,” Garrett said. “As a unit. Backup. Familiar concept? As in you go nowhere without it.”

“Shut the fuck up,” Sam growled. “You get off way too much giving me orders.”

“Yeah, well, when your head is up your ass, someone has to give them.”

Ethan and Donovan crouched on either side of the entrance. Ethan held up one finger, then two, and when he popped the third up, he and Donovan swung around and bolted inside.

Sam and Garrett followed, then moved ahead beyond the foyer.

“We’re inside the house,” Sam said into his receiver. “Steele, Rio, give me your status.”

“Engaged,” came Steele’s short reply.

“Coming in from the west,” Rio said a moment later. “Cleared our area. Backing up Steele to clear the riffraff. No casualties to report.”

“Good,” Sam murmured. He hoped to hell he’d be able to say the same.

“Over here,” Ethan called from the left.

Sam, Garrett and Donovan carefully picked their way across the room to where Ethan stood with his rifle up and pointing down a hall.

“Holy hell,” Donovan muttered. “I’d say this is where the grenade went off.”

Sam swallowed. His stomach lurched and he swallowed again.

The room was toast. Rubble was everywhere. The walls had collapsed and the doorway was askew leading into the connecting room.

Carefully they picked their way through the destruction. Sam hoisted a large section of Sheetrock, but nothing was underneath it except more debris and the floor. He let it fall and continued a path into the adjoining room.

“There’s blood here,” Ethan said.

Sam hurried over to where Ethan stood. A beam from the doorway lay to the side, and there was a scraped area on the floor that looked as if someone had been pinned underneath the mess and had shoved their way out. The question was who? Sophie? Her father?

He glanced around the room, but it was silent except for the staccato of gunfire in the distance. There was no sign of Sophie or anyone else. Which meant she’d survived the blast. He could be thankful for that, at least, but she was still in the grip of her father. And that terrified him.

They pushed down the hallway, meticulously combing each of the rooms they encountered. There was nothing. No one. Not even hired help. Either everyone had fled or no one had ever been brought in.

Each time they came up empty, Sam’s hope sank a little further. He needed her safe. He needed her back with him.

At the end of the corridor, they reached a dead end. But when they turned into the room, guns up, ready to confront Alex and Tomas Mouton, they found only silence and an empty room.

“What have we missed?” Sam demanded.

His gaze swept the room again, looking for anything that didn’t fit. He frowned when he caught sight of a small splatter of blood on the polished marble. Head down, he searched the area around it, looking for more.

There, just a drop.

He followed the sparse sign and came face-to-face with the wood-paneled wood. Deep cherry. Custom crafted. It would have cost a fortune.

“What’s up?” Donovan asked.

“The blood trail ends here. There’s something behind here. Has to be.”

Donovan raised the stock of his rifle and rammed the butt into the wood. It held fast, but the thud sure as hell sounded hollow.

“Amateurs,” Garrett muttered.

He shoved by Sam and Donovan, pushed them back away from the wall and then fired a series of rounds into the panel. Wood splintered and fell away. Garrett lowered his gun and then stepped forward and kicked at the fragmented wood.

Ethan joined him, and the two men managed to knock a hole big enough for them to get through. Ethan stuck his head in and then whistled.

“Give me a light,” he called back.

Donovan yanked a small flashlight from his belt and thrust it into his brother’s hand. Ethan flipped it on and then shined it inside the hole.

“What is it?” Sam asked impatiently.

Ethan withdrew. “Looks like an elevator shaft. No elevator though. If they took it down, it’s probably sitting there. Don’t see a way to make it come up, so it probably requires a security code or key inside.”

“We’ll rappel down,” Sam said.

Donovan sighed. “I knew you were going to say that.”

Ethan gave a slight smile. “Haven’t gotten over your fear of heights, flyboy?”

“I like heights just fine. In an airplane. Or helicopter. I don’t like dangling from a rope.”

“Let’s go.” Garrett broke in. “Save the chitchat for later.”

Sam was already in the process of securing the hook around the steel beam that framed the shaft. After he was securely belted and had tested the hook’s hold, he stepped off into darkness and began a rapid descent.

“Goddamn it, Sam, slow your ass down,” Ethan growled.

He estimated they were thirty feet down when his boots knocked against a hard surface.

“Throw a beam down here, Ethan,” he called.

Just a few feet above him, Ethan turned on the flashlight and directed it down. He landed beside Sam a few seconds later and flashed the light across the surface. They were on top of the elevator.

Donovan and Garrett landed on either side, and while Ethan held the flashlight, Sam bent down to pry open the hatch. As he pulled upward, Ethan shined the light inside the elevator, and Donovan and Garrett pointed their rifles downward.

“Clear,” Garrett said.

Not waiting for more, Sam threw the strap of his rifle over his shoulder, then knelt and angled his lower body through the opening. He dropped down and waited with seething impatience for his brothers to join him.

“Goddamn, it’s dark,” Donovan said after they pried open the elevator doors. He left the others, and Sam could hear him sliding his hands over a surface. “We’re in a damn tunnel.”

Ethan raised the light, but Sam put his hand out and pushed Ethan’s arm down. “Douse the light.”

They moved stealthily down the corridor. Sam pressed, almost at a run. When they rounded a bend, he blinked as a distant light source came into view. He held up his hand and motioned silently for his brothers to fan out.

They inched toward the opening, and Sam strained his ears to hear something, anything. As they got closer, the hum of fluorescent light tubes filled the space. Otherwise it was quiet. Too damn quiet.

Sam and Donovan on one side of the tunnel, Garrett and Ethan on the other, the two pairs faced each other, guns up. Sam held up one finger and then two. On three they burst into the opening.