Page 57 of No Going Back

“No bullets, no wounds, no struggle. He’s holding cutters. The power’s still on in this room.”

“Electrocuted?”

“Maybe. We need to get the cutters away from him, before we touch him.”

Mackie pulled protective gloves from his backpack. Putting one on, he gently pried Tyler’s hands off the cutters and tossed them to the side. With his ungloved hand, he checked for a pulse.

“He’s alive.” Mackie slapped Tyler’s face, trying to bring him around. “Come on, sleeping beauty, time to wake up.”

Dex activated coms. “Base one, we got five.” Nothing. “No coms in here, that’s why we couldn’t reach him.”

“That and him being unconscious.” Mackie added dryly as he continued to try and rouse him.

Dex scanned the room, gaze stopping on the cage secured by a padlock. “He was trying to take the hard drives. The cage must be booby trapped with a charge that tripped when he tried to cut the lock.”

Tyler began to come around.

“Hey, brother, good to have you back with us.” Mackie grinned at him. “Fancied a nap, huh?”

Dex heard the relief in Mackie’s voice.

“Fuck, what happened?” Tyler tried to sit up.

“Shocked, we think. Take it easy.”

“How are you feeling?” Dex studied him, concerned.

“OK, I think.”

“How many fingers am I holding up.” Dex held up two.

“Twelve,” Tyler answered sarcastically.

“Your mouth still works, I see. Seriously, can you stand, we have to get out of here now. Tangos are inbound any second.”

“Yeah, think so.” Gingerly, Tyler got to his feet with Mackie’s help. Taking a couple of breaths, he steadied himself and straightened. “I’m good.”

“You were going for the hard drives?”

“Yeah, that’s the last thing I remember. I was trying to cut the padlock.”

Dex squatted, getting a better look at the cage. “It sure would be nice to take these babies. But we’re about to have a lot of pissed off Gomez soldiers on us. We need to get out of here.”

“It was the lock.” Tyler pointed. “I remember. It was when I touched the lock. If we can cut the power, we should be good to cut the lock and get the drives out.”

“That’s all good, what if there’s another booby trap. Time?” Dex asked Mackie.

“Thirty seconds.”

There was no way they were going to make it out of here and to the Zodiac before Gomez’s men arrived. Ryan and the others will have left with Gomez as he’d instructed. “Well, I guess we’ve missed our ride, so what the hell. We’re going to have a firefight on our hands, regardless. Thirty seconds and we’re out of here, with or without them. Power source? Anyone see it?”

Mackie put both protective gloves on and lifted the cage. Sure enough, underneath was a bunch of wires. Grabbing the cutters, he snipped them all. If it set off more alarms, who cared? Gomez’s army were already onto them.

“Well, I guess we’re about to find out if that did it.” Mackie said going to grab the padlock.

“Wait! We could just take the whole cage?” Tyler suggested.

“No. We don't have anything big enough to keep it waterproof on the swim back.” Dex said. He grabbed the cutters from Mackie’s hand. “Let me do it.”

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