Page 7 of Jacob

She sighed. “No.” Then, remembering her manners, “Thank you.”

He sighed too, reluctantly removing his hand from the decanters. “Remember, I have strict orders to make sure you are comfortable and treated well. I wish you’d drink something, anything. Even water. At least I could report that you accepted a drink. There are probably sandwiches somewhere in the limo.”

Michael Caine’s voice sounded from a speaker. “Indeed ma’am. Not just sandwiches. There is fresh fruit and a cheese platter in the mini fridge. But with all due respect, we have arrived.”

The limo slid to a smooth stop and Alex saw another helicopter. Again, the driver helped her out of the limo as if she were a queen and she walked up the stairs of the helo, looking around. Again, it was an airfield, one she’d never seen before and there was no signage to show where they were. The sun was high in the sky and it was hot, almost hotter than Atlanta. Were they in Texas? Arizona? Southern Florida? How many hot places were there four hours from Atlanta? No, they were out west. Her watch said three, but the sun was at noon. At least three hours west, in another time zone. Wherever she was, she was many hours away from home. Wherever she was, she was probably going to have to stay the night.

Wherever she was, only a handful of people knew her location. But whoever was guiding this whole thing seemed to mean her no harm. She certainly couldn’t complain about her treatment. Clearly the police were not going to find her headless body by the roadside.

Maybe.

She didn’t even try talking to Dylan through the headset as the luxury helicopter took off. After fifteen minutes of anonymous small houses and rundown industrial lots, water was visible on the horizon, to the west, and then it was clear where she was.

San Diego.

The helicopter swung out over the ocean then swung east, and she saw San Diego’s beautiful skyline on the horizon.

The helicopter was fast. They crossed toward land and soon she could see the landmark buildings so close to the water they were reflected upside down in the ocean. A black cube with a distinctive profile came up and the helicopter swung around, hovered for a moment, then settled gently on the roof.

Two men and a woman stood to one side on the roof, watching the helicopter as it landed. They shielded their eyes against the rotor wash but otherwise stood at attention as if they were soldiers. The two men were at the steps the instant the skids touched the surface of the roof. The pilot didn’t cut the engines. One man stood sentry at the bottom of the steps, one leaped into the helicopter, looking as if he were prepared to carry her down. They were her age, maybe mid-thirties, very fit and, though dressed casually in sports jackets and chinos, they looked hard and tough.

“We’ll take it from here, mate,” the man who’d entered the helicopter shouted in pure Aussie to Dylan. The man took her briefcase in one hand and with the other guided her down the three stairs as if she would trip at any moment. On the rooftop, Alex turned and saw Dylan give her a two-fingered salute off his forehead and mouthedgood luckas the helicopter rose. She bowed her head, then turned again at the feel of a hand at her back. The two men flanked her as they approached the woman standing near an elevator door.

“Dr. Hethering,” the woman said, shouting over the noise of the helicopter taking off. She held out her hand. “It’s a pleasure to meet you. My name is Catherine Macy. I am Mr. Black’s personal assistant.”

Whoa. Personal assistant to the big man himself. Jacob Black, reclusive genius billionaire founder of Black Inc. Good God. Was she here to meethim?Could that possibly be good? He was immensely powerful. In turning to Black Inc. for help, she’d wanted to keep the lowest possible profile. Jacob Black spoke with presidents and heads of state. A prickle of unease went down her back, but she kept her face calm. No sense giving anything away.

Alex shook the woman’s hand firmly. “Pleased to meet you, Ms. Macy.”

“Catherine is fine. This way please.”

She was in her forties, tall and elegant, looking efficient and no nonsense. Well, Jacob Black wouldn’t have an idiot as his personal assistant. Catherine Macy pointed at the open doors of the elevator and they all walked in, the two men flanking her. Alex, Catherine and the two men who looked very much the way bodyguards looked in movies. They acted that way, too, keeping close to her, attention diffuse but still focused on her. They moved together as a unit, with her in the middle.

It occurred to her that maybe they weren’t bodyguards after all but… guards. She shifted her weight on her heels and they instantly turned to her. For just a split second, but still. There was no doubt that if she changed her mind and wanted to cancel the upcoming meeting and simply walk away… she couldn’t. Certainly not if they had orders to stop her.

So.

She was in an elevator with two hard men who looked and acted like guards. True, there was another woman here. Presumably Catherine Macy meant her no harm, but she was an employee of Black Inc. and if Black Inc. meant Alex harm, Catherine would not come riding to her rescue.

Alex had come to Black Inc. because it had experience with the CDC. But what if—what if her most horrid, darkest suspicions were true? And the CDC was involved? What if someone at the CDC was involved in bioterrorism? What if that person thought she knew more than she did? What if that someone wanted to simply… get rid of her? Wipe out a problem before it even began? More than fifteen thousand people worked in the CDC and everyone she knew who worked there was smart and hard-working and dedicated to making the world a safer place. But if even one or two were bad apples, that was enough to present an enormous risk, given what they knew.

And what had Alex done? She’d run right into the arms of a tough, secretive security company, famous for getting the job done no matter what. A company that made tens of millions of dollars a year from the CDC.

Right now, right this instant, no one in the world outside Black Inc. knew where she was. The two men in the elevator with her looked perfectly capable of violence. They were lean and hard, and both were unmistakably armed, slight bulges under their jackets. Both faces were set and hard. Their hands were open and loose and the way they stood, balanced lightly on their feet, showed that they could spring into action at any second. Both men were much taller and much bigger than she was. The six-week self-defense course she’d taken five years ago would be no use to her against them.

If they meant her harm, she was as good as dead. If they had been given orders to somehow contain her, dispose of her, well then she was lost.

Catherine was looking up with that bored thousand-yard stare of someone in an elevator, closed off entirely. No help from that quarter.

A musical note sounded and the elevator doors opened.

The two men and Catherine stepped immediately to the side and looked at her. Only one way to go—forward. They were in a large corridor with travertine floors and white walls with a few pieces of very good art on the walls. They turned a corner onto a two-story reception area so large you could have planted corn there. Sleek, modern, elegant. Almost extravagant in its use of office space.

Alex moved forward slowly, very aware that she might have made a huge and deadly mistake. Every nerve tingled and she felt her shoulder muscles tensing at the thought of the two armed men behind her, watching her back.

At the end of the space was an enormous glass wall with an inset door and beyond that a large metal door with black marble around it.

Catherine Macy had kept pace with her for a few steps, but then she halted, tilting her head toward Alex and pointing with a manicured nail. “Walk through the glass doors to the door beyond. It will open automatically. He’s waiting for you.”

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