The door to the surveillance room was closed as Ryan passed, but he still couldn’t help holding his breath as he crept by. The only way to get to the kitchen was through here, but the thought that James Darien was just a thin sheet of metal away from him was unnerving. As he reached the next turn, he heard a sharp cry and the sound of something impacting the wall, hard. Ryan cringed and tried not to imagine what Darien was doing to his partner. The only way that he could help Hawkins now was to do his part, fast. So, he forced the thought it out of his mind and hurried onward. Reaching the end of the long hallway, Ryan found himself in front of the entrance to the kitchen; he pushed open the door cautiously, fumbling for the switch. Fluorescent light filled the room and what he saw surprised him. The space looked empty and untouched; nothing out of place or unusual in any way. Stainless steel gleamed under the lights, the pots and pans all hung neatly from their hooks and boxes of non-perishable foods were stacked unobtrusively along the walls. There was no sign of Amanda, no sign of a device of any sort. Cold fear gripped him and sweat broke out all over his body. What if they had made a mistake? What if this had all been some sort of ruse or misdirection? If what he was looking for wasn’t here, then it was all over. They didn’t have time to look elsewhere. Ryan took a breath and tried to calm himself; he pulled the blueprints out and spread them on the prep table. Looking over the plans, he tried to identify where the marked room with the rigged door was supposed to be located. Not for the first time, he wished that blueprints were easier to read. Using the sink and doorway as a guide to orient himself, he slid his gaze systematically along the walls and finally his eyes alighted on what he was looking for: the door to the walk-in freezer. His heart sank for the second time in as many minutes. Sprinting across the room, he peered through the small, foggy window, and his fears were realized. Amanda lay unconscious on the floor, face deathly pale. She was wrapped in some sort of thick blanket, but that wouldn’t be of much help, especially since she was unconscious and unable to keep herself warm by moving. The temperature gauge on the freezer read -18°C; if she wasn’t dead already, she certainly would be soon. There wasn’t much time. He rubbed his face with his hands, then forced his gaze away from the window. Kneeling, he searched for the tripwire that must be there. It took a moment, but finally he found it: a slim, almost invisible wire, running away from the corner of the door; if he hadn’t been specifically looking for it, he would never have seen it. Tracing the length of the wire with one finger, he followed it behind a large stack of boxes sitting against the wall. Ryan reached out to move them, but unexpectedly, the entire façade fell away in one piece. It was suddenly apparent that the boxes were not really boxes at all, they were just the front flaps, attached together to act as camouflage for what he now saw nesting behind them. The contraption matched the technical drawings exactly, and the metal canister emblazoned with the biohazard symbol left little room for doubt that this was what he was here for. Ryan reached out hesitantly and flipped open the panel on the front, then he swore vehemently as the mess of wires was exposed. He was supposed to disarm this tangled bowl of spaghetti? Still muttering curses under his breath, Ryan rose and turned to retrieve the blueprints from the prep table. He didn’t have any time to waste, but he needed to do this right; he couldn’t risk rushing and detonating it himself. But, as it turned out, time was not the only thing that was not on his side. As he reached for the plans, the door to the hallway suddenly swung open and Ethan Cross burst into the room, only inches from where Ryan stood. For an instant, neither of them moved. Ryan hadn’t expected Cross to arrive so soon, and Cross hadn’t expected him at all. Cross recovered first and his gun was trained on Ryan before he could react; Ryan froze.
“What the hell are you doing here?” Cross snarled.
“Cross, I…” Ryan realized how compromising his position was right now, and he wasn’t sure any excuse would be good enough.
“Never mind, I get it. Oh, I get it all now!” Cross said slowly, a strange, manic gleam in his eye. “You’re in on this, aren’t you? You’re working with him! You’re the inside man! What the hell have you done with my sister?”
As he spoke, Cross grabbed him by the shoulder with his free hand and shook him violently, his other hand pressing the gun firmly into Ryan’s ribs. Ryan saw it in his eyes: Cross was dangerous right now. It was clear that he hadn’t been sleeping, and equally clear that he had been driven to the brink by his sister’s abduction. Ryan felt a pang of sympathy for the man; Cross may not be his favourite person, but no one deserved this. Sympathy aside, he needed to think of something, because as it stood, Cross would most likely kill him, either directly, or indirectly when he opened that damn freezer.
“Cross. Ethan,” Ryan tried to personalize. “I’m not your enemy. Please, this is a trap. Surely you were expecting that. I can help you.”
“Help me?” Cross laughed desperately. “You must think I’m a complete fool. This was your plan the whole time, wasn’t it? Even getting close to Amanda, right? I warned her about you, if only she had listened to me, this wouldn’t be happening. But it doesn’t matter, it doesn’t matter. I’ll end this now and everything will go back to normal. Now, you are going to tell me what you’ve done with my sister.”
When Ryan hesitated, Cross punched him in the face, dropping him to his knees. Rearing back to hit him again, Cross suddenly froze, and Ryan saw his body tense, he knew Cross had caught sight of Amanda through the window. Without hesitation, Cross shoved Ryan aside and lunged for the door. Cursing under his breath, Ryan struggled back to his feet. No matter what, Cross could not be allowed to reach that door. For an instant, Ryan thought about drawing his gun, but the man was so focused on his goal, he would likely just ignore that, Ryan couldn’t risk it. Instead, he launched himself at Cross’s knees, knocking him to the ground. Cross spun around and for a moment the two of them grappled on the floor. Neither man could seem to gain the upper hand, but Cross managed to get his gun free, first. Spinning around, the desperate agent trained his weapon on Ryan, who grabbed the barrel and tried to push it aside. There was a sudden explosion and Ryan cried out as red-hot pain lanced through his side. Ignoring it, he tightened his grip on the firearm and managed to finally wrench it from Cross’s grasp. Still holding the barrel of the gun, Ryan swung it around hard, cracking the grip violently into Cross’s temple, stunning him momentarily. Before he could recover, Ryan pinned Cross to the floor and turned the gun on him, pressing the muzzle into his adversary’s forehead.
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“Don’t move,” he panted.
The other man struggled beneath him. Ryan jammed the gun harder into his head.
“I really don’t want to kill you,” Ryan panted. “But if I have to, I will put a bullet between your eyes. Are we clear?”
Cross stopped struggling and went limp, despair written on his face. Ryan didn’t wait for him to change his mind, pulling Cross’s handcuffs from his belt, he secured the man to the prep sink and patted him down for more weapons.
“I don’t have time to deal with you right now, so just shut up and wait here, ok?”
Satisfied that Cross was neutralized, Ryan got to his feet; he cringed as the bullet wound on his hip throbbed painfully. Grabbing a dish towel, he pressed it onto wound to stem the bleeding. That would have to do for now. He retrieved the blueprints from the table and quickly returned to the explosive device.
“What are you doing?” Cross strained against his cuffs, trying to see around the prep table.
Ryan ignored him, he didn’t have time to explain right now.
“I can’t believe that you are doing this,” Cross changed tactics. “I mean, how can you be in league with a vicious killer like Parabellum? Did you do it for the same reason that you sold out those undercover agents? Is it the money? Or is there something more to it?”
Ryan sighed wearily, but still he said nothing. Even if they survived this, could they hope to clear up all of the misunderstandings that were stacked against them? One step at a time, he thought. He focused on sorting the tangled assortment of coloured wires in front of him. They were a real mess. He had to keep checking the diagram every few seconds to be sure he was following the right paths, so his progress was slow. This was going to be very difficult.
“What I really want to know is,” Cross continued, still desperately trying to engage him. “Is Taylor involved in this too? Or is she still off selling lives for profit? Do you two split the dirty work up?”
At last, Ryan couldn’t resist responding.
“You know,” he muttered, tracing a red and green wire with his finger. “I can’t believe that you would buy that crap about her so easily. I mean, me I can understand, you don’t know me from Adam, but you worked with Hawkins, you know her. Apparently, you’re just the type of guy who’ll believe whatever your superiors tell you, no matter how outrageous it is.”
“Don’t bullshit me, there was evidence,” but Cross sounded unsure, as if he had never quite believed it in the first place.
“It was a frame up, idiot,” Ryan snorted, poking at a suspicious yellow wire and wondering what the hell some of this stuff was. “God, I thought you were supposed to be a smart guy.”
“That’s crap! Who would go to all that trouble to frame you?”
“The same person who went to all of the trouble of rigging this damned explosive filled with anthrax to a fucking freezer door. And, might I add, tangling all of these wires ridiculously in the effort,” he grunted in frustration.
“Anthrax?” Cross sounded suddenly more alarmed, which was saying something, given the situation he already found himself in.
He twisted again, and this time must have managed to catch a glimpse, because Ryan saw his eyes go wide.
“Yup,” Ryan rolled his eyes. “I told you this was a trap, didn’t I? The moment you opened that door to get to Amanda, it would have blown spores everywhere. It is rigged into the ventilation system. Parabellum wanted you to trigger it, to be responsible for killing everyone in the building. It’s kind of his thing. That’s why he took Amanda, as bait. He wanted this to be on your head, to torment you before you died, too. And of course, it would have been. I could explain further, but I am trying to disarm this thing and I am a not exactly an expert. The distractions are not helping.”
“If you are telling the truth, then you know that Amanda will die in there, if you don’t hurry,” Cross said softly, the venom had drained from his voice, replaced by profound fear. Cross actually seemed to believe him, at least a little bit.
“She’s not the only one,” Ryan mumbled.
“What?”
“Nothing, I’ll explain if we get out of this. In the meantime, I am working as fast as I can. If I hurry too much and screw this up, she’ll die anyways. Do you understand that? Damn, she made reading this look easier than it really is.”
“She? You mean Hawkins? She’s here?”
“Yeah, she’s here,” Ryan decided not to elaborate. “How the hell does she know what all this shit means?”
Cross laughed,
“Don’t ask me. She makes everything look easy,” Cross furrowed his brow. “Why doesn’t she just disarm it herself, if she’s here?”
“She’s busy right now,” Ryan replied vaguely. “So, do me a favour, huh? Shut up and let me work.”
“Tell me one thing first. Are you actually working with Parabellum? Are you a traitor?”
“Of course I’m not,” Ryan scoffed impatiently.
“And if that thing is disarmed, you’ll let me take my sister out of there? Really?”
“Yes, obviously. God, I want to get her out of there too, you know,” Ryan was getting pretty frustrated with Cross’ incessant interruptions.
“Then let me help you,” Cross blurted.
“What?” Ryan turned sharply to look at his captive.
“The way I see it, if you wanted me dead, you could have done it by now. I may not believe that you aren’t a traitor, and I may not know why you’re really here,” Cross said slowly. “But I couldn’t care less about that, right now. All I care about right now is getting Amanda out of here safely. You are clearly in over your head dealing with that thing,” he gestured at the explosive, “and I really don’t want to die when you fuck up and set it off. So, I figure that if I disarm it myself, then we all get out of here alive, and the details can be sorted out afterwards. Win-win.”
Ryan looked over at Cross suspiciously,
“What makes you think you can do any better than I can?”
“Before I joined NIA, I was with the bomb squad,” Cross replied. “From what I know of Parabellum, I imagine the irony was intentional. I can see that you have the schematics right there. With those, I can have this done in no time.”
“If I let you go, and you open that door…” Ryan hesitated, Ethan made a good argument, but he wasn’t sure if he should trust him.
“I won’t, I promise. I believe you about the bomb, if nothing else.”
Staring at a mess he barely understood, turning to recheck the schematics over and over, Ryan knew that he would need more time, time he didn’t have. Even then, he couldn’t be sure that he wouldn’t make some sort of crucial mistake and doom them all. As he had told Hawkins, he was no bomb tech. If Cross really knew what he was doing, Ryan figured that needed to take the chance.
“Alright, I’m going to let you go,” Ryan drew his gun and aimed it at Cross. Then he tossed him the keys to the handcuffs. He positioned himself as close to Cross as he could, without being within easy reach.
“If you make even one move for that door, I’ll kill you. Please don’t make me do that to her,” he nodded at the freezer door.
“I understand,” Cross had already unlocked the cuffs, he moved slowly towards the device, suddenly all business. “Keep the gun on me if you want, just shut up. Now I need to concentrate.”