Helena Cassadine looked over the report in front of her. Samantha McCall
had been diving near where the Ice Princess had been lost. She had then
terminated her relationship with Jasper Jacks and managed to convince
Lorenzo Alcazar to take her under his protection. Alcazar dealt with
diamonds.
Helena picked up her phone and dialed Tracy.
"What?" the phone was answered rudely.
Helena was accustomed to Ms Quartermaine's rougher edges. "Lorenzo Alcazar may have something that belongs to me."
"Well, I doubt he's going to just hand it over," Tracy observed.
"I want you to organize a raid on the compound. My man will be there to search the house once the inhabitants have been taken care of."
"That place is a fortress, Helena. I won't be able to just send in a hit squad."
"Then make them want out. Badly." hr Lorenzo was an early riser, something Esmerelda knew well. She was always up before him with his fruit plate and hot coffee at the ready. Unfortunately, she did not yet know the preferences of the rest of the guests, so she was preparing to make quite a spread for breakfast. Mr. Alcazar had invited so Imany/I young women here to stay. In her day it would have been scandalous. As it was, she just hoped he would find a wife among them. Esmerelda remembered how inconsolable he had been after Miss Germaine's death. It was more than time for him to find someone to ease his heart.
When Lorenzo had finished his breakfast, he took the plate and glass to Esmerelda in the kitchen.
"Esmerelda, please inform my guests that there will be a house meeting at 5pm." hr Sam didn't even want to know how much the pool cost to heat. She had dipped a toe in earlier and found the temperature much warmer than the Atlantic, and even sufficient for swimming. She missed the water and cold weather wasn't going to keep her from it.
Elizabeth and Alexis watched her through the window. She was like the energizer bunny, peeling off lap after lap. Seven splashes followed by a pause as she flipped and kicked off again. And they'd both seen her take off her robe and slip into the pool wearing only a bikini. Elizabeth suddenly felt very fat and Alexis very old.
Elizabeth was the first to comment. "She must have to build up a big calorie debt to eat the way she does. Did you see her at dinner?"
Alexis was not prone to gossip, but she had to admit that for such a small person, Sam really did eat a lot. "I noticed when she took her third helping of shark. Dessert, too."
Elizabeth nodded. "I get cold just looking at her."
Gia wandered in and went to see what they were looking at. "No way. Is it even above freezing? That there must be a white girl thing, cause there is no friggin way you'd catch me freezing my ass off like that to just for some exercise."
Alexis gave Gia a look. "You won't see me in the pool either, Gia."
Elizabeth nodded. "Me either. I think that's strictly a Sam thing."
Gia shook her head in disbelief. "Are you ready to go Alexis? I've got a visa card and no makeup. It's time to hit Wyndham's." hr Lorenzo's attention wandered from Faith as he caught sight of the McCall girl swimming laps in the pool from the window in his office with a certain degree of shock. For aesthetic reasons the pool was kept heated enough to allow it to remain full and uncovered, but not to comfortable swimming temperatures. Apparently the girl really was a creature of the water.
"I'm sorry, Mrs. Rosco. What were you saying?"
Faith was annoyed. "Eyeing another member of your harem, Lorenzo?"
Lorenzo was surprised to hear the term applied to their situation, but once the idea was in his head it stuck. Lorenzo laughed at the thought.
"I should be so lucky."
Faith had always thought Lorenzo knew how attractive he was to the opposite sex. He certainly had the ego. "Oh, but you are that lucky. Just watch out you don't play favorites. You don't want to be around when they stop fighting with each other and turn on you."
Lorenzo shook his head in amusement at the idea. They were all adults. Faith talked about them like they were a bunch of teenage girls.
"We should see what the raid on the Corinthos-Morgan warehouse turned up before we meet with the former lieutenants. I want to have enough information to know if we can trust their information."
Faith was displeased. Lorenzo was taking a hands-on approach to the turf war when all she really wanted from him was the money to fund it. This wasn't the time to push him, though, not when she was about to ask him for some major money to finance the latest piece of the puzzle.
Faith snapped her fingers at Lorenzo, whose eyes had wandered back to the McCall girl. "Everything is at your warehouse. Are you ready to roll? Or do you want to stare some more?" hr After swimming her mile, Sam moved from the pool to the spa to warm up. If only she could put a spa on the salvage boat, then she'd really be living the high life.
Sam relaxed and watched as what looked like exercise equipment was delivered.
After a good long soak, she was too hot, so she fiddled with the spa controls to turn off the bubbles. In the silence that followed, she heard something that made the hair on the back of her neck stand up. It wasn't much, just some twigs snapping. She doubted that anyone else had even heard it, but she was trained to listen.
She climbed out of the tub and put on her bathrobe and made her way out of the garden and through the main door, which was still open for the delivery men.
"Stop. Shhh," she said to the men nearest her, then she walked all the way to the wall. There were definitely people moving outside the compound.
She tried to be casual as she strolled to what she knew would be the security headquarters at the back of the garages. The antennae on the roof were a dead giveaway.
Max and Marco heard the knock at the door and looked at the video feed activated when somebody stepped on the welcome mat. Miss McCall was standing there dripping wet in a bathrobe. They looked at each other with identical grins and opened the door.
"I heard something funny. Do you guys have video feed from the area surrounding the compound?"
Max spoke up. "Yeah. We haven't seen anything."
Sam scanned the row of monitors. They were men. They weren't going to admit that they had probably not been watching closely enough. That was the problem with this kind of setup. Lorenzo needed infrared cameras that would automatically alert the guards to anything warm-blooded that might approach the compound.
Sam decided to do her best impression of a girl who wanted to learn what the big, strong men have to teach her. "OK. Wow, this is so cool. Why don't you two show me how all this works?" Sam said in her husky voice.
As they showed her all of the video feeds, something flashed in her peripheral vision. She pointed to the monitor on the corner. "What was just on here, before it flipped?"
They reversed the order of the feeds to that monitor.
"Zoom in on this," she said, pointing to what looked like a black twig and a smudge.
It wasn't a twig. It was the barrel of a sniper's rifle with a man laying behind it, under what was probably a camouflage ground cover. The rifle was aimed at the gates.
"There are more of those. That's not where I heard the sound come from."
Johnny and Max suddenly took over, zooming out to the line of trees with all of the peripheral cameras.
"We're surrounded," Sam observed, the excitement clear in her voice.
"This place is built like a fortress. You'll be safe inside," Johnny said confidently.
"I saved your asses, so you're going to listen to me and do exactly what I say," Sam said, her 'curious girl' demeanor gone.
"They are obviously waiting for us to leave the compound. This makes me think that they have sent something in to make us Ibneed/I/b to leave the compound. We just took delivery of a bunch of exercise equipment. I bet there's a special present in one of the pieces. You're going to help me find it."
"We can take it from here, ma'am. You should go back inside," Marco said, wishing the boss were around. He had been in charge of security for Mr. Alcazar for years. Nobody but Alcazar himself, or now Mrs. Rosco, gave him orders.
"Look, I'm sure you're very good at your job. It just happens that I'm in the salvage business. I have experience blowing stuff up, and I understand the basics of bomb-building. Why not let me help? We're going to have to pry open some very expensive equipment. You can let me take the blame for it, just in case I'm wrong?"
Deniability was good. Marco looked at Max. "OK, you can help. First get everyone into panic room through the closet in this room here," he said, pointing to a floorplan on the wall.
Sam agreed, only because it would give her a chance to throw on some clothes and make a quick call on her satellite phone. hr Lorenzo answered his phone with a terse, "Alcazar." This was his business phone, not his personal one, so his voice was all business.
Marco knew the boss liked things short and to the point. "There are snipers positioned around the entrance to the compound. The delivery truck is still here. Miss McCall mentioned the possibility that a bomb was brought into the compound in one of the pieces of equipment, and that the snipers may be trying to force us out. We are currently investigating that possibility."
Lorenzo suppressed the urge to swear. He should be back at the compound supervising this. Something suddenly struck him as odd.
"And how did Miss McCall come to be involved in this security matter?"
"She was apparently finishing her swim when she heard the sounds of the men moving into position. She alerted us and we located them on the monitors."
"Very well. Move the guests into the panic room until this matter has been taken care of."
It was already done, but Marco answered with a "Yes, sir."
"Keep me informed"
Lorenzo turned back to Faith. "Someone apparently waited for us to leave the compound before staging an apparent attempt to breach security.
Faith looked at Lorenzo speculatively. "What is at the compound that they could want, if since this is obviously not an attempt on us?"
Suddenly Lorenzo remembered the McCall girl mentioning that Helena Cassadine would "crawl over broken glass" to get the Ice Princess back. He began to wonder if the timing of Sam's arrival and this armed attack were more than coincidence.
Lorenzo dialed a number, hoping to reach the only bomb expert he knew. hr
As they headed for the house, Sam and Max saw the delivery men carrying a stairmaster away from the truck.
Sam called to them. "How much more do you have to unload?"
"This is the last piece."
Sam pulled Max aside. "If there is a bomb, it's either on a detonator, or it's on a timer. If it's on a detonator, they would be waiting until they knew it was inside to blow us up. I'm thinking that the delivery truck leaving would be the signal to them that everything is inside. Either that, or one of the delivery guys is working for the other side. Either way, someone should lock the two of them in a room and take their cell phones, until all this is over."
The men started to protest, but the presence of the armed men who seemed to converge around them stilled their tongues. hr Alexis and Gia were still shopping when Johnny received the call on his cell phone. He had been assigned the unenviable task of maintaining security for two women in a crowded department store. Upon receiving word of the potential ambush at the compound, Johnny wanted nothing more than to escort the women to the armored limousine that waited outside.
Gia had been watching Johnny with mild interest in between her forays to the various makeup counters to find the colors that best suited her mocha colored skin. Alexis was strictly a Chanel woman, and was now waiting for Gia to finish. When Gia had noticed Johnny taking a call, Alexis had followed her gaze.
Now Johnny's blank look had returned, but he was paying extra attention to the shoppers surrounding his two charges and moved in closer. Alexis felt a strange paranoia creeping up on her and wondered if she would receive an answer if she asked Johnny what the phone call had been about. hr Sam was too excited to notice that she was cold. She jogged into the house, making a beeline for her phone. As she talked, she put on her clothes. It took only a second to find her thick multitool pocketknife.
Sam went back downstairs to find Skye and Elizabeth. Skye was in the living room, reading. "Skye, where is Elizabeth?" she asked urgently.
"They're in Kristina's bedroom." In truth, Skye had been hoping they would come out.
"Come help me," Sam ordered, heading toward the bedroom.
"What's the matter," Skye called out. Sam ignored her.
Elizabeth and Kristina were on the floor, surrounded by toys.
Sam looked from Skye to Elizabeth. "Look, this is probably nothing, but we have some reason to believe that there might be a bomb in the stuff that just got delivered. It would be best if you guys went to wait in a space with no windows."
All of the rooms had floor to ceiling windows looking out on the garden. "There is a panic room that's blast-proof. You can take some toys for Kristina and hang out there there till we get the all-clear."
"There's no way I'm going to let you lock us in a panic room?" Elizabeth said with certainty.
Sam stared at Elizabeth. What part of this was she not getting? Then something from the dossier Sam had read percolated to the top of Sam's mind. "Do you really think that Mr. Alcazar would install a panic room that he could be trapped in? I'm sure it will be a matter of you locking us out."
Elizabeth shook her head. "Who knows why Alcazar would have it installed? He held Carly hostage. I'm not going in a panic room."
Sam glanced at Skye, who was no help at all. Skye had noticed that Sam kept using "you" instead of "us". "And where will you be, while we're waiting patiently in the panic room?"
"I have experience with bombs," she said simply. "We occasionally blow things up in the salvage business."
"The salvage business. Right," Skye said, not buying this for a second. Sam might know about bombs, but Skye doubted that the knowledge had been gained legally. hr With Skye, Elizabeth, and Kristina safely ensconced in the panic room, Sam made her way to the exercise room.
She found Max and two other guards examining the half-assembled equipment.
Obviously they hadn't found anything.
"We need to search every nook and cranny of every piece. Get the other guards in here."
Three men appeared. "Where's Marco?"
"He went to call the boss."
"Are you trying to draw him into an ambush?" Sam asked in exasperation.
"No, ma'am," Max said, trying not to stare at the leather-clad woman before him. He couldn't help but find her attractive. She was able to command respect in spite of her tiny size, and she was apparently more excited by danger than afraid of it. hr Elizabeth had begun to feel better the moment she saw the panic room. This room had no bed, and was smaller than the panic room in her former house. There were also two plunger-type buttons against the wall by the door- one was red and one was green. It would be impossible to lock someone inside this room. In fact, it appeared that it was impossible for anyone on the outside to get in unless they were let in.
Kristina hated the panic room, and hated that she wasn't allowed to touch any of the fun-looking controls in front of the monitors. Elizabeth could tell that the room wasn't child-proofed, so she was doing her best to contain Kristina within her arms.
Finally, tired of her struggle, Kristina burst into tears.
Skye had been watching, wishing she could intervene. At last she spoke up. "She likes it if you dance with her. Especially a waltz, but she likes the foxtrot, too."
Elizabeth frowned. "I don't know any of those ballroom dances. But we can try what I can do."
Kristina and Elizabeth did the two step for several minutes, but Kristina's crying was only slightly less strident.
Kristina's crying echoed loudly in the concrete room, and before long, Elizabeth and Skye were each wincing.
"Why not let me try," Skye said at last.
Elizabeth was tired, her feet were swollen, and she knew Skye would do Kristina no harm. "We can't mention this to Alexis," she said as she handed the baby to Skye.
"No, of course not."
Skye began to do a sweeping waltz within the confines of the room and Kristina's cries subsided to burbles of excitement.
Elizabeth moved things out of the way to make more floor space for Skye.
Skye and Kristina were in their own little world, and Elizabeth felt only mildly guilty. Kristina was happy. Skye was wonderful with her. Elizabeth even found herself wanting to learn to waltz if it had this effect on the little girl. hr Sam surveyed the room. One man was examining the treadmill, another the elliptical trainer, and Max was going over the weight machines.
Sam slipped over to the stairmaster and began taking it apart with the screwdriver of her utility knife. When she was able to pull away the plastic shield covering the mechanical parts inside, she sucked in a breath. Before her was a very complexly assembled bomb with a detonator ignition.
"Bingo."
The guards in the room looked at her, and then at the bomb mounted to the inner assembly of the stairmaster. Sam had a very curious expression on her face. The guards had their carefully-practiced blank stares that meant trouble. Marco pulled out his phone.
Without preamble, he said, "We have located the bomb."
Sam was memorizing the configuration, wishing she had a small mirror so she could see all sides of the bomb.
"It's on a detonator. We don't know how much time we have. We need to move this outside the walls of the main house, quickly."
Max and the other guard picked up the machine and began to carry it through the garden and out the main door.
Lorenzo had heard Sam's voice through the phone. "Do not attempt to disarm the bomb until I have my man on the phone."
"Yes, sir," Marco replied. hr Kristina and Skye were playing patty cake on the floor of the panic room while Elizabeth watched the monitors. Skye was concerned only with this precious time that she had been given with Princess Brat. The room was bomb- proof. What did she have to worry about?
Elizabeth was more concerned. "They're carrying something out of the house now, and around to the side. Sam's going with them."
Skye rolled her eyes. "No big loss. You know Sam claimed to be in love with Jax, but I bet you she dumped him so she could steal the Quartermaine treasure. That treasure belongs to my family, and there's nothing I can do about it, not if I want to stay here."
Elizabeth's eyes opened wide. "What Quartermaine treasure?" hr "Just let me pay the lady and I'm done," Gia said to an impatient Alexis.
Alexis was thinking about the work involved in preparing for a murder trial with an uncooperative client. "I had no idea you were this. selective. about your make-up."
"It's easy for you, Alexis. You're white. Most of the major cosmetics companies consider anyone non-white a niche market. I have to pick and choose what actually looks good on me. I buy foundation at one counter, powder at another, concealer at another. Then there are color products, that's a whole different story. It was nice while Laura owned Deception because they had to carry products that worked with my skin, but now that the new owners have taken over, they dropped that line like a hot potato."
Alexis held up her hand. "OK, Gia. I get it. You're not just being picky."
Johnny overheard and was slightly less aggravated than he had been. For a while it had seemed like they were purposefully making his life difficult. He was already annoyed that he had to be the one to tell them what was going on back at the compound. Johnny waited until they were trapped in the car before filling them in.
Lowering the divider between front and back, Johnny spoke.
"There is a security problem outside the compound. We have to sit tight until it's resolved."
Alexis was instantly suspicious. "What kind of security problem."
"Nothing serious," Johnny lied.
"My daughter is back at the compound. What is going on?"
"You should ask Mr. Alcazar," Johnny said with relief.
"OK," Alexis said, her heart going a mile a minute. If Johnny wouldn't tell them, it must be bad.
All Alexis got was his voicemail. She left him a message asking him to call her immediately. Thinking quickly, she dialed Elizabeth's cell phone. Voicemail again.
"I got his voicemail. I think you should tell us what is going on, Johnny. Exactly." Alexis had instantly come up with a half-dozen scenarios, all of them bad, and all of them involving her baby.
"Sorry, Ms Davis. If it makes you feel any easier, there is a blast-proof panic room in the main house. I'm sure if there is any real danger, that's where your daughter is right now."
"You think there will be a blast!"
"It's just a descriptive term," Johnny lied again. He was definitely going to confession this week. hr Sam elbowed her way in between the guards and knelt down in front of the bomb.
Pulling a pencil out of her pocket, she began diagramming the bomb on the concrete using letters for the wire colors and arrows to different symbols.
When she was satisfied with her work, she pulled out her pocketknife and unfolded the scissors. The guards suddenly started hemming and hawing. "Ms McCall, Mr. Alcazar left instructions that we aren't to try to disarm the bomb until he calls back."
"Do any of you know anything about bombs?"
No one spoke up.
Sam sat back slightly and the guards relaxed. as much as they could considering they were standing in front of a bomb. "So we should wait for Mr. Alcazar to call us back?" Sam asked, sounding sincere.
Before anyone could stop her, she had grabbed the grey wire and snipped it.
Max and the other guards had all felt a sudden adrenaline rush in the moment he saw her going for the bomb with her scissors. Sam had seen them flinching in her peripheral vision and chuckled to herself.
"Sorry," she said apologetically. "It's kind of like ripping off a band- aid."
Max glared at her. "It's nothing like ripping off a band-aid. Ripping off a band-aid wrong doesn't kill you."
"Waiting only increased the possibility that someone would hit the detonator switch. Now you can worry about all the men hiding outside the compound. That should keep you and Mr. Alcazar busy for a while."
They all watched Sam walk back inside. Now that the adrenaline had worn off, they had time to admire the way her hips swayed when she walked.
Max laughed at the ridiculousness of the situation. The woman they were supposed to be guarding had saved their asses.
"I call dibs."
Helena picked up her phone and dialed Tracy.
"What?" the phone was answered rudely.
Helena was accustomed to Ms Quartermaine's rougher edges. "Lorenzo Alcazar may have something that belongs to me."
"Well, I doubt he's going to just hand it over," Tracy observed.
"I want you to organize a raid on the compound. My man will be there to search the house once the inhabitants have been taken care of."
"That place is a fortress, Helena. I won't be able to just send in a hit squad."
"Then make them want out. Badly." hr Lorenzo was an early riser, something Esmerelda knew well. She was always up before him with his fruit plate and hot coffee at the ready. Unfortunately, she did not yet know the preferences of the rest of the guests, so she was preparing to make quite a spread for breakfast. Mr. Alcazar had invited so Imany/I young women here to stay. In her day it would have been scandalous. As it was, she just hoped he would find a wife among them. Esmerelda remembered how inconsolable he had been after Miss Germaine's death. It was more than time for him to find someone to ease his heart.
When Lorenzo had finished his breakfast, he took the plate and glass to Esmerelda in the kitchen.
"Esmerelda, please inform my guests that there will be a house meeting at 5pm." hr Sam didn't even want to know how much the pool cost to heat. She had dipped a toe in earlier and found the temperature much warmer than the Atlantic, and even sufficient for swimming. She missed the water and cold weather wasn't going to keep her from it.
Elizabeth and Alexis watched her through the window. She was like the energizer bunny, peeling off lap after lap. Seven splashes followed by a pause as she flipped and kicked off again. And they'd both seen her take off her robe and slip into the pool wearing only a bikini. Elizabeth suddenly felt very fat and Alexis very old.
Elizabeth was the first to comment. "She must have to build up a big calorie debt to eat the way she does. Did you see her at dinner?"
Alexis was not prone to gossip, but she had to admit that for such a small person, Sam really did eat a lot. "I noticed when she took her third helping of shark. Dessert, too."
Elizabeth nodded. "I get cold just looking at her."
Gia wandered in and went to see what they were looking at. "No way. Is it even above freezing? That there must be a white girl thing, cause there is no friggin way you'd catch me freezing my ass off like that to just for some exercise."
Alexis gave Gia a look. "You won't see me in the pool either, Gia."
Elizabeth nodded. "Me either. I think that's strictly a Sam thing."
Gia shook her head in disbelief. "Are you ready to go Alexis? I've got a visa card and no makeup. It's time to hit Wyndham's." hr Lorenzo's attention wandered from Faith as he caught sight of the McCall girl swimming laps in the pool from the window in his office with a certain degree of shock. For aesthetic reasons the pool was kept heated enough to allow it to remain full and uncovered, but not to comfortable swimming temperatures. Apparently the girl really was a creature of the water.
"I'm sorry, Mrs. Rosco. What were you saying?"
Faith was annoyed. "Eyeing another member of your harem, Lorenzo?"
Lorenzo was surprised to hear the term applied to their situation, but once the idea was in his head it stuck. Lorenzo laughed at the thought.
"I should be so lucky."
Faith had always thought Lorenzo knew how attractive he was to the opposite sex. He certainly had the ego. "Oh, but you are that lucky. Just watch out you don't play favorites. You don't want to be around when they stop fighting with each other and turn on you."
Lorenzo shook his head in amusement at the idea. They were all adults. Faith talked about them like they were a bunch of teenage girls.
"We should see what the raid on the Corinthos-Morgan warehouse turned up before we meet with the former lieutenants. I want to have enough information to know if we can trust their information."
Faith was displeased. Lorenzo was taking a hands-on approach to the turf war when all she really wanted from him was the money to fund it. This wasn't the time to push him, though, not when she was about to ask him for some major money to finance the latest piece of the puzzle.
Faith snapped her fingers at Lorenzo, whose eyes had wandered back to the McCall girl. "Everything is at your warehouse. Are you ready to roll? Or do you want to stare some more?" hr After swimming her mile, Sam moved from the pool to the spa to warm up. If only she could put a spa on the salvage boat, then she'd really be living the high life.
Sam relaxed and watched as what looked like exercise equipment was delivered.
After a good long soak, she was too hot, so she fiddled with the spa controls to turn off the bubbles. In the silence that followed, she heard something that made the hair on the back of her neck stand up. It wasn't much, just some twigs snapping. She doubted that anyone else had even heard it, but she was trained to listen.
She climbed out of the tub and put on her bathrobe and made her way out of the garden and through the main door, which was still open for the delivery men.
"Stop. Shhh," she said to the men nearest her, then she walked all the way to the wall. There were definitely people moving outside the compound.
She tried to be casual as she strolled to what she knew would be the security headquarters at the back of the garages. The antennae on the roof were a dead giveaway.
Max and Marco heard the knock at the door and looked at the video feed activated when somebody stepped on the welcome mat. Miss McCall was standing there dripping wet in a bathrobe. They looked at each other with identical grins and opened the door.
"I heard something funny. Do you guys have video feed from the area surrounding the compound?"
Max spoke up. "Yeah. We haven't seen anything."
Sam scanned the row of monitors. They were men. They weren't going to admit that they had probably not been watching closely enough. That was the problem with this kind of setup. Lorenzo needed infrared cameras that would automatically alert the guards to anything warm-blooded that might approach the compound.
Sam decided to do her best impression of a girl who wanted to learn what the big, strong men have to teach her. "OK. Wow, this is so cool. Why don't you two show me how all this works?" Sam said in her husky voice.
As they showed her all of the video feeds, something flashed in her peripheral vision. She pointed to the monitor on the corner. "What was just on here, before it flipped?"
They reversed the order of the feeds to that monitor.
"Zoom in on this," she said, pointing to what looked like a black twig and a smudge.
It wasn't a twig. It was the barrel of a sniper's rifle with a man laying behind it, under what was probably a camouflage ground cover. The rifle was aimed at the gates.
"There are more of those. That's not where I heard the sound come from."
Johnny and Max suddenly took over, zooming out to the line of trees with all of the peripheral cameras.
"We're surrounded," Sam observed, the excitement clear in her voice.
"This place is built like a fortress. You'll be safe inside," Johnny said confidently.
"I saved your asses, so you're going to listen to me and do exactly what I say," Sam said, her 'curious girl' demeanor gone.
"They are obviously waiting for us to leave the compound. This makes me think that they have sent something in to make us Ibneed/I/b to leave the compound. We just took delivery of a bunch of exercise equipment. I bet there's a special present in one of the pieces. You're going to help me find it."
"We can take it from here, ma'am. You should go back inside," Marco said, wishing the boss were around. He had been in charge of security for Mr. Alcazar for years. Nobody but Alcazar himself, or now Mrs. Rosco, gave him orders.
"Look, I'm sure you're very good at your job. It just happens that I'm in the salvage business. I have experience blowing stuff up, and I understand the basics of bomb-building. Why not let me help? We're going to have to pry open some very expensive equipment. You can let me take the blame for it, just in case I'm wrong?"
Deniability was good. Marco looked at Max. "OK, you can help. First get everyone into panic room through the closet in this room here," he said, pointing to a floorplan on the wall.
Sam agreed, only because it would give her a chance to throw on some clothes and make a quick call on her satellite phone. hr Lorenzo answered his phone with a terse, "Alcazar." This was his business phone, not his personal one, so his voice was all business.
Marco knew the boss liked things short and to the point. "There are snipers positioned around the entrance to the compound. The delivery truck is still here. Miss McCall mentioned the possibility that a bomb was brought into the compound in one of the pieces of equipment, and that the snipers may be trying to force us out. We are currently investigating that possibility."
Lorenzo suppressed the urge to swear. He should be back at the compound supervising this. Something suddenly struck him as odd.
"And how did Miss McCall come to be involved in this security matter?"
"She was apparently finishing her swim when she heard the sounds of the men moving into position. She alerted us and we located them on the monitors."
"Very well. Move the guests into the panic room until this matter has been taken care of."
It was already done, but Marco answered with a "Yes, sir."
"Keep me informed"
Lorenzo turned back to Faith. "Someone apparently waited for us to leave the compound before staging an apparent attempt to breach security.
Faith looked at Lorenzo speculatively. "What is at the compound that they could want, if since this is obviously not an attempt on us?"
Suddenly Lorenzo remembered the McCall girl mentioning that Helena Cassadine would "crawl over broken glass" to get the Ice Princess back. He began to wonder if the timing of Sam's arrival and this armed attack were more than coincidence.
Lorenzo dialed a number, hoping to reach the only bomb expert he knew. hr
As they headed for the house, Sam and Max saw the delivery men carrying a stairmaster away from the truck.
Sam called to them. "How much more do you have to unload?"
"This is the last piece."
Sam pulled Max aside. "If there is a bomb, it's either on a detonator, or it's on a timer. If it's on a detonator, they would be waiting until they knew it was inside to blow us up. I'm thinking that the delivery truck leaving would be the signal to them that everything is inside. Either that, or one of the delivery guys is working for the other side. Either way, someone should lock the two of them in a room and take their cell phones, until all this is over."
The men started to protest, but the presence of the armed men who seemed to converge around them stilled their tongues. hr Alexis and Gia were still shopping when Johnny received the call on his cell phone. He had been assigned the unenviable task of maintaining security for two women in a crowded department store. Upon receiving word of the potential ambush at the compound, Johnny wanted nothing more than to escort the women to the armored limousine that waited outside.
Gia had been watching Johnny with mild interest in between her forays to the various makeup counters to find the colors that best suited her mocha colored skin. Alexis was strictly a Chanel woman, and was now waiting for Gia to finish. When Gia had noticed Johnny taking a call, Alexis had followed her gaze.
Now Johnny's blank look had returned, but he was paying extra attention to the shoppers surrounding his two charges and moved in closer. Alexis felt a strange paranoia creeping up on her and wondered if she would receive an answer if she asked Johnny what the phone call had been about. hr Sam was too excited to notice that she was cold. She jogged into the house, making a beeline for her phone. As she talked, she put on her clothes. It took only a second to find her thick multitool pocketknife.
Sam went back downstairs to find Skye and Elizabeth. Skye was in the living room, reading. "Skye, where is Elizabeth?" she asked urgently.
"They're in Kristina's bedroom." In truth, Skye had been hoping they would come out.
"Come help me," Sam ordered, heading toward the bedroom.
"What's the matter," Skye called out. Sam ignored her.
Elizabeth and Kristina were on the floor, surrounded by toys.
Sam looked from Skye to Elizabeth. "Look, this is probably nothing, but we have some reason to believe that there might be a bomb in the stuff that just got delivered. It would be best if you guys went to wait in a space with no windows."
All of the rooms had floor to ceiling windows looking out on the garden. "There is a panic room that's blast-proof. You can take some toys for Kristina and hang out there there till we get the all-clear."
"There's no way I'm going to let you lock us in a panic room?" Elizabeth said with certainty.
Sam stared at Elizabeth. What part of this was she not getting? Then something from the dossier Sam had read percolated to the top of Sam's mind. "Do you really think that Mr. Alcazar would install a panic room that he could be trapped in? I'm sure it will be a matter of you locking us out."
Elizabeth shook her head. "Who knows why Alcazar would have it installed? He held Carly hostage. I'm not going in a panic room."
Sam glanced at Skye, who was no help at all. Skye had noticed that Sam kept using "you" instead of "us". "And where will you be, while we're waiting patiently in the panic room?"
"I have experience with bombs," she said simply. "We occasionally blow things up in the salvage business."
"The salvage business. Right," Skye said, not buying this for a second. Sam might know about bombs, but Skye doubted that the knowledge had been gained legally. hr With Skye, Elizabeth, and Kristina safely ensconced in the panic room, Sam made her way to the exercise room.
She found Max and two other guards examining the half-assembled equipment.
Obviously they hadn't found anything.
"We need to search every nook and cranny of every piece. Get the other guards in here."
Three men appeared. "Where's Marco?"
"He went to call the boss."
"Are you trying to draw him into an ambush?" Sam asked in exasperation.
"No, ma'am," Max said, trying not to stare at the leather-clad woman before him. He couldn't help but find her attractive. She was able to command respect in spite of her tiny size, and she was apparently more excited by danger than afraid of it. hr Elizabeth had begun to feel better the moment she saw the panic room. This room had no bed, and was smaller than the panic room in her former house. There were also two plunger-type buttons against the wall by the door- one was red and one was green. It would be impossible to lock someone inside this room. In fact, it appeared that it was impossible for anyone on the outside to get in unless they were let in.
Kristina hated the panic room, and hated that she wasn't allowed to touch any of the fun-looking controls in front of the monitors. Elizabeth could tell that the room wasn't child-proofed, so she was doing her best to contain Kristina within her arms.
Finally, tired of her struggle, Kristina burst into tears.
Skye had been watching, wishing she could intervene. At last she spoke up. "She likes it if you dance with her. Especially a waltz, but she likes the foxtrot, too."
Elizabeth frowned. "I don't know any of those ballroom dances. But we can try what I can do."
Kristina and Elizabeth did the two step for several minutes, but Kristina's crying was only slightly less strident.
Kristina's crying echoed loudly in the concrete room, and before long, Elizabeth and Skye were each wincing.
"Why not let me try," Skye said at last.
Elizabeth was tired, her feet were swollen, and she knew Skye would do Kristina no harm. "We can't mention this to Alexis," she said as she handed the baby to Skye.
"No, of course not."
Skye began to do a sweeping waltz within the confines of the room and Kristina's cries subsided to burbles of excitement.
Elizabeth moved things out of the way to make more floor space for Skye.
Skye and Kristina were in their own little world, and Elizabeth felt only mildly guilty. Kristina was happy. Skye was wonderful with her. Elizabeth even found herself wanting to learn to waltz if it had this effect on the little girl. hr Sam surveyed the room. One man was examining the treadmill, another the elliptical trainer, and Max was going over the weight machines.
Sam slipped over to the stairmaster and began taking it apart with the screwdriver of her utility knife. When she was able to pull away the plastic shield covering the mechanical parts inside, she sucked in a breath. Before her was a very complexly assembled bomb with a detonator ignition.
"Bingo."
The guards in the room looked at her, and then at the bomb mounted to the inner assembly of the stairmaster. Sam had a very curious expression on her face. The guards had their carefully-practiced blank stares that meant trouble. Marco pulled out his phone.
Without preamble, he said, "We have located the bomb."
Sam was memorizing the configuration, wishing she had a small mirror so she could see all sides of the bomb.
"It's on a detonator. We don't know how much time we have. We need to move this outside the walls of the main house, quickly."
Max and the other guard picked up the machine and began to carry it through the garden and out the main door.
Lorenzo had heard Sam's voice through the phone. "Do not attempt to disarm the bomb until I have my man on the phone."
"Yes, sir," Marco replied. hr Kristina and Skye were playing patty cake on the floor of the panic room while Elizabeth watched the monitors. Skye was concerned only with this precious time that she had been given with Princess Brat. The room was bomb- proof. What did she have to worry about?
Elizabeth was more concerned. "They're carrying something out of the house now, and around to the side. Sam's going with them."
Skye rolled her eyes. "No big loss. You know Sam claimed to be in love with Jax, but I bet you she dumped him so she could steal the Quartermaine treasure. That treasure belongs to my family, and there's nothing I can do about it, not if I want to stay here."
Elizabeth's eyes opened wide. "What Quartermaine treasure?" hr "Just let me pay the lady and I'm done," Gia said to an impatient Alexis.
Alexis was thinking about the work involved in preparing for a murder trial with an uncooperative client. "I had no idea you were this. selective. about your make-up."
"It's easy for you, Alexis. You're white. Most of the major cosmetics companies consider anyone non-white a niche market. I have to pick and choose what actually looks good on me. I buy foundation at one counter, powder at another, concealer at another. Then there are color products, that's a whole different story. It was nice while Laura owned Deception because they had to carry products that worked with my skin, but now that the new owners have taken over, they dropped that line like a hot potato."
Alexis held up her hand. "OK, Gia. I get it. You're not just being picky."
Johnny overheard and was slightly less aggravated than he had been. For a while it had seemed like they were purposefully making his life difficult. He was already annoyed that he had to be the one to tell them what was going on back at the compound. Johnny waited until they were trapped in the car before filling them in.
Lowering the divider between front and back, Johnny spoke.
"There is a security problem outside the compound. We have to sit tight until it's resolved."
Alexis was instantly suspicious. "What kind of security problem."
"Nothing serious," Johnny lied.
"My daughter is back at the compound. What is going on?"
"You should ask Mr. Alcazar," Johnny said with relief.
"OK," Alexis said, her heart going a mile a minute. If Johnny wouldn't tell them, it must be bad.
All Alexis got was his voicemail. She left him a message asking him to call her immediately. Thinking quickly, she dialed Elizabeth's cell phone. Voicemail again.
"I got his voicemail. I think you should tell us what is going on, Johnny. Exactly." Alexis had instantly come up with a half-dozen scenarios, all of them bad, and all of them involving her baby.
"Sorry, Ms Davis. If it makes you feel any easier, there is a blast-proof panic room in the main house. I'm sure if there is any real danger, that's where your daughter is right now."
"You think there will be a blast!"
"It's just a descriptive term," Johnny lied again. He was definitely going to confession this week. hr Sam elbowed her way in between the guards and knelt down in front of the bomb.
Pulling a pencil out of her pocket, she began diagramming the bomb on the concrete using letters for the wire colors and arrows to different symbols.
When she was satisfied with her work, she pulled out her pocketknife and unfolded the scissors. The guards suddenly started hemming and hawing. "Ms McCall, Mr. Alcazar left instructions that we aren't to try to disarm the bomb until he calls back."
"Do any of you know anything about bombs?"
No one spoke up.
Sam sat back slightly and the guards relaxed. as much as they could considering they were standing in front of a bomb. "So we should wait for Mr. Alcazar to call us back?" Sam asked, sounding sincere.
Before anyone could stop her, she had grabbed the grey wire and snipped it.
Max and the other guards had all felt a sudden adrenaline rush in the moment he saw her going for the bomb with her scissors. Sam had seen them flinching in her peripheral vision and chuckled to herself.
"Sorry," she said apologetically. "It's kind of like ripping off a band- aid."
Max glared at her. "It's nothing like ripping off a band-aid. Ripping off a band-aid wrong doesn't kill you."
"Waiting only increased the possibility that someone would hit the detonator switch. Now you can worry about all the men hiding outside the compound. That should keep you and Mr. Alcazar busy for a while."
They all watched Sam walk back inside. Now that the adrenaline had worn off, they had time to admire the way her hips swayed when she walked.
Max laughed at the ridiculousness of the situation. The woman they were supposed to be guarding had saved their asses.
"I call dibs."
