Chapter 11

11

B y the time she and Leslie had finished their shared brownie ala mode, Will and her uncle had returned and ordered themselves dessert. Now, twenty minutes later, Gwen hugged her family and nodded to Leslie's beau, before climbing into Will's Jeep. She glanced at him. "That's your phone I hear."

"Will Strongbow here," Will answered and studied her while he listened.

Seconds later, her cell rang. The caller's number was a university exchange. Since she was the supervisor of the research lab for the next two weeks, her phone number had been passed to campus security for any emergency. She took a deep breath. "Hello, this is Gwen MacLaine."

"Officer Starnes here. We received an alarm from your lab and checked it out. Looks like someone tried to break in."

Her pulse sprinted. She took another deep inhale, but to no effect. "Okay."

"We want to make sure nothing's been stolen. Considering the high-risk value of the lab, we'd appreciate if you could come in to campus as soon as possible."

She glanced at her watch. Seven-thirty. It would take at least an hour to get there. Maybe more since tonight was Saturday. "I'm up in Westchester County. It's going to be a while before I get there."

"Try to come tonight," the campus cop urged. "I left a man guarding the scene, but I'd already started the shift a man short."

"Yes, I understand. I'm on my way." She hoped. She glanced at Will, who'd ended his own call by now. How was he going to feel about driving back to the city tonight?

Sterns said, "Let me know when you're close and someone from security will meet you at your building."

"I will." She disconnected and dropped her hand and phone into her lap. "Guess what?"

Will turned in his seat, and from his expression he seemed to already know what she would say. "You have to go back to Manhattan."

"Yeah, work." She explained about the attempted burglary. "I need to handle this. I can drive down myself, if you'll take me over to my place to pick up my car."

"Let's leave your car where it is for now." Will rubbed the back of his neck. "Someone may have put a GPS tracker on it. You shouldn't drive it until I can check it over. Do you particularly want to take it?"

A tracker? She shivered. "No, but that was the university police. I need to go on campus and check that the lab is secured. Could you take me? I hate to ask you another favor."

"Not a problem." He squeezed her hand. "We're a team now."

"Thanks." Gwen sank back against the seat, liking the sound of his "team." Her last boyfriend used to get huffy when she even seemed on the verge of asking for a favor. "I didn't want to assume. I know you have your own life."

"Not until this situation is resolved and Winston and whoever else is harassing you are out of the picture."

She looked down at their joined hands. "Thanks."

He let go and started the Jeep. "It's the least I can do. I still feel bad about asking you to come downtown to my office."

"I volunteered, remember? I'd been putting you off all week."

"I noticed you put the study guide on Erin's bed." Will put on a blinker and merged onto the expressway.

"I want to be sure she sees it right away when she gets home. Ohmigod, I should probably warn her about the car in the bushes."

"Good idea. Just tell her to be careful."

Gwen sent a message to her roomie. "Done." A breath swooshed out. "I really hope we get a resolution soon. I'm sure it was Evan Winston who tried to get into the lab."

"I think so, too." He rubbed the gear knob, and Gwen flashed back to last night and how his hands had felt on her. "You want to tell me the best way to get to campus?"

She jerked her thoughts back to the task at hand. "I will. The good thing is that you won't be called on to rescue anyone who's fallen down an escalator. My building only has stairs. Tell me what Uncle Tim had to say." She paused. "Unless it's private."

"You should know about this, too." Will joined the flow of traffic. "Your uncle gave me the photos of the car he saw cruising his neighborhood. He got a portrait of the man in the back seat. I sent those to Clay and he just called back."

"What did Clay say?"

"The man who was sitting in the back seat is named Jacok Caruceko. He's a Romanian arms dealer wanted by Interpol. I've got your uncle's photos on my cell if you want to look at them." He handed her his phone from off the dash.

She studied them. "This is the businessman who came to my boss's seminar presentation with Evan Winston. They must be working together. If Winston's a mercenary, this is probably who hired him."

"That's what Clay thinks, too." Will gestured out the windshield where green highway signs glowed in the distance. "Which way now?"

She told him to head to Riverside Expressway. "And Winston wants the virus."

"Use my phone and call Clay back. Tell him what you just now told me. And that we're going over to your lab now because of the attempted break-in."

Gwen did as he requested and hung up. "The agent who's working all leads on the arms dealer is going to call you." She settled Will's phone in the center console.

Almost immediately, his cell chimed again. Will grabbed it up and identified himself.

Gwen nibbled a fingernail, anxious what he might be finding out. He suddenly glanced at her. "What building houses your lab?"

She told him. He spoke a little longer and then disconnected. "Clay and the other agent will meet us at your building."

"It's always locked over the weekend, and locks automatically when someone exits. I have a key, but I can't see how Winston got inside." When they were close, Gwen called campus security and directed Will to the parking lot nearest her building.

Officer Starnes met them at the outside door with a man from maintenance. After making sure the entrance closed and locked behind them, they proceeded to her lab. The alarm had been shut off, and their footfalls echoed in the silence. "We searched the building earlier. Didn't find anyone."

Upstairs, she led the way to their lab, where yellow crime scene tape crisscrossed the lab's entrance. A junior officer straightened and detached one end of the tape so they could enter. "No one's been back."

Good. Her shoulders relaxed. "I hope it stays that way."

Cracks riddled the wire-enforced window in the corridor door. She rubbed her finger over the scrapes and gouges around the lock and the keypad.

Starnes pointed out the smashed-in-but-intact window. "We think he ran off when the alarm sounded."

"Sounds like a reasonable assumption." She keyed in the four-digit combo, turned the knob, and entered the lab's outer office. Nothing looked disturbed. The burglar hadn't gotten through the door. The knot between her shoulders loosened.

Will and Starnes followed her inside, but the maintenance man stopped to access damage to the entry door.

Four desks with computer workstations and filing cabinets filled the office. Everything looked as it should. She peered through the window in the first of the two card-protected doors leading to their laboratory. The first door led to the small room where techs suited up. The second opened to the lab with the isolation units where they worked with the virus.

"These are still locked." Starnes tapped on the door's window. "We're assuming the lab hasn't been tampered with."

"They each require a separate card for entrance." She tried the handle, reassured the entrance to the first room remained secured. A glance through the window revealed an undisturbed interior.

Replacing the hall door would be a hassle, but not the disaster she'd been imagining. "Do you have any idea how the burglar got into the building?"

"We're not sure. But the alarm on the side entrance has been flukey in the past."

While the maintenance man propped open the hallway door with a chair and took measurements, Will pulled his cell which must have been on vibrate, and turned away to answer the call. He disconnected and leaned close. "Clay and another agent are outside. I told them to wait, that they don't need to come up here. Right?"

Gwen nodded. "We should meet them downstairs." She made sure the maintenance man had her phone and office numbers. He promised to return with enough plywood to patch over the window and then he left.

A call crackled on Starnes's radio. "Emergency, Chief. Gunshots reported in one of the residential halls."

Everyone standing in the office heard the alert.

Starnes headed to the door. "I need to take Officer Simmons, if you don't need him. You'll be able to leave, but let me know you're ready, and I'll send him back here to reset the alarm."

The officers disappeared, their boots soon thudding on the stairs. Gwen went around the office to confirm all desks and workstations remained locked down. Reassured, she started to follow Will out, but a figure rushed through and slammed him against the opposite wall.

Were the cops still in the building?

"Help!" She yelled and bolted toward the door.

Winston tried to block her path, but she sidestepped him and lunged into the corridor. A long hallway stretched to the stairs. She only managed two yards before a figure in black blocked her path. She stumbled back, hitting the side wall. A large, powerful-looking automatic pistol gleamed in the light. She gasped. A big hand pointed a gun straight at her. She lifted her gaze to the bulky man with black hair in a bespoke business suit holding the pistol.

She recognized him instantly from her uncle's photos, Jacok Caruceko, the criminal wanted for illegal arms dealing as well as the older businessman with Winston at the seminar. She couldn't catch a breath, couldn't—She pressed a hand to her chest where something pinched hard.

"Do not speak another thing," he said in accented English. "Or I blow the head off."

She stared at the man's gun, sucking in air as a strange sense of calmness drenched her panic. He didn't really want to kill her. He wanted the virus, and she was the only person who could hand it over. "Where did you come from?"

"We come back from side door. Easy-peasy when you think to prop it open. Then we creep the stairs while you are all shooting the breeze."

He motioned with his gun toward her lab. "Go back."

The sounds of scuffling and grunts came from down the hall Will was in there. Her chest tightened as if in a straitjacket and her heart pounded. She retreated, Caruceko and his pistol keeping pace.

Evan pressed Will to the floor with a knee. Even facedown and with his arms twisted behind him, Will caught the other man's leg and flipped him. Both men scrambled for Winston's loose gun.

"You!" Caruceko thrust his gun at Will before he could grab the other weapon. "Do not move." He jerked his head at his mercenary. "Take him downstairs and finish him off."

"No!" Gwen cried as Evan hauled Will out the door.

The gangster closed the hallway door. "Now, we get down to business." He gestured with his pistol to the first of the doors to the lab. "Open the door. Hurry. Give me the virus."

"It's very dangerous if disbursed." Would he understand that word? "If it's scattered around." She would explain this to any untrained individual. Convincing Caruceko of this would buy her time. And then what? The police were gone. The maintenance man was gone. And Will—? She bit her lip.

Perspiration ran down her temple, but she didn't dare move for fear Caruceko might overreact and shoot her!

"Do not worry. I do not plan to release here," he said. He probably planned to sell the virus samples to the highest bidder amongst the bad actors who made up his customers.

He spoke so calmly, she doubted he really understand the consequences of letting this virus loose in the world anywhere. Gwen watched his hands. "What I meant was you should wear protective covering before handling it."

Now, if they entered the second room where the virus was stored without suiting up like CSI techs at a crime scene, they would contaminate the lab.

"It is in container, no?"

Gwen had transferred the office key and the card to the passageways to outer pockets before she and Will had met the officers earlier. She found the access card for the first room, the room where they suited up in the jump suits.

Something hard pressed into her back, and the man's strong garlic breath made her ill. "Why you no answer?" Caruceko's voice rose. "Is in container?"

She squelched the urge to gag and tried without success to stiffen away from the gun barrel. She blanked on what he'd asked and then remembered. "Y-Yes, it's in a container. Can you step back so I can insert the card?"

He shifted away, and she swiped the card, still trying to come up with a solution to get rid of him. Would that even be possible? Her throat threatened to close, but she forced herself to calm down.

"It is open, no?" The arms dealer stepped on her heels in his effort to get inside the room.

Pushed off-balance, she staggered, searching for a handhold to stay upright. Her fingers closed around the handle of the refrigerator. Why not use the cultures of harmless bacteria inside this cooler? She tried to turn that way, but the gangster crowded too close. "Move back, please."

He barely retreated, but she managed to pry open the door. He looked past her at the tray of vials and then at the maximum-security room where they kept samples of the deadliest strains. He reached past her to rap on that door. "The virus is not in there?"

"I'm the one who works here and I know where it's stored." She eyed him, but her ruse must be working because he didn't seem suspicious. She removed the tray with the common cultures. "This is the virus, but you must carry them in this."

The air in the tiny room grew stifling even as cold air flowed from the open fridge and chilled her feet. With his gun trained on her, she packed the vials in a molded foam box with a fitted lid, continuing her deception. Something made her look up. Behind Caruceko, outside the shattered hallway door, an indistinct form loomed. Was this Winston? Coming back alone because he'd killed Will? The vise in her chest squeezed tight. No!

No. Will had to still be alive. The shadow could be him. Or the FBI agents. She thrust the lightweight box at the gangster. "Go. I need to close the door."

The arms dealer barreled into the main office. Loud popping noises burst forth. Gunshots.

Gwen ducked out of sight. Scenes of bloody carnage on the other side of the barrier spun through her mind. Suddenly, everything stopped. Silence descended. After a few minutes, the ringing in her ears faded.

Someone was standing on the other side of the door. She crouched lower, her heart pounding. It could be?—

A male voice called, "You can come out now, Gwen."

Was that Will's voice?

"It's safe."