Chapter 29

His quarry may have been a woman, but she'd fired a weapon at Steve and that threw chivalry right out the window. Steve didn't bother to remove the dart from his arm; it would hang there harmlessly enough for now. (If she'd fired at him a fraction of a second later, he'd have been turning toward her voice and the dart would've hit flesh.) Steve threw the weight of the entire right side of his body into the machine, sending it toward the wall...and pinning his would-be assailant. A member of his team plucked the offending dart from Steve's arm and placed it in an evidence bag.

''Now that's one hell of a way to greet house guests,'' Steve chided. ''And we haven't been introduced yet. So I'll take care of that. You are Anna Kingsley - and you're under arrest. Oh...and me? I'm probably the last person in the world that you'd want to hear those words from!''

''Too tight!'' Anja gasped. ''Can't...breathe.''

''If you're talking, you're breathing,'' Steve shot back. ''So I assume this is your life's work, this thing that's holding you to the wall? What if I move it a little closer, huh? A little tighter against you...the irony of being crushed by your own creation...''

''You don't remember me - do you?'' she asked, trying to work her left arm and hand free. If only she could reach it; she was so close!

''Should I?'' Steve pushed the machine a few millimeters closer and watched his quarry squirm. Of course, he remembered her - but he wasn't about to admit it.

''We could've been good together - happily ever after, as they say here. But your thoughts, they were elsewhere.''

''Sorry. Does not compute. You have to be special to be retained in MY memory banks,'' Steve taunted. ''So...how many people have you zapped with this wonderful creation of yours?''

Anja laughed, sucking in her breath because the motion hurt. ''This...thing? I found it at a junkyard. I am an artist and will use the pieces in my next sculpture.''

''How many?!'' Steve thundered at her.

''I don't know. But let's find out together, shall we?'' Anja's left hand was finally free just enough for her to reach the lever she'd never flicked before. She coiled the tip of her index finger around it to move it upward so she could hit the confirmation button hidden directly below. This was her fail-safe. She called it her Berserk button. If it was over and she truly wouldn't get the vengeance she'd sought, Anja would at least have this.

On the bench down in The Hole, Russ bellowed with pain worse than any he'd felt before - and handcuffed to the bench, he couldn't even grab his head. When the guard didn't open the door, he began hitting his head against the wall, irrationally trying to knock the pain away. ''Dammit, I need help!'' he shouted. The guard wasn't about to fall for another trick. Russ had cried wolf once too often.

In his padded cell with four guards just outside, the same blinding, off-the-charts pain had hit Oscar. He had the presence of mind to knock on the small observation window. ''Don't open this door!'' he told the startled guards, one of whom was already on his radio paging for medical assistance in the Locked Ward because of the way Oscar looked. Oscar heard him. ''No!'' he insisted. ''Don't open this door; not even for medical help.'' His hands pressed hard against his temples as he tried to rid himself of the pain through sheer force of will. ''One thing...I need...'' The guard moved closer, hanging on Oscar's every word and then following his instructions because - after all - he was still Oscar Goldman.

Jack Hansen felt no pain at all. He'd been programmed more efficiently, progressively over time - the way Anja preferred it so he wouldn't have those pesky headaches to forewarn him. He'd just gotten off the elevator and was preparing to enter the locked ward because he'd heard the page and one of his primary duties was to keep his 'boss' informed. He did so automatically, the way she'd so carefully instructed and implanted the directions into his mind. He never realized that he was making these calls or what led up to them, but every time an incident occurred, he would be right there under the guise of inter-agency helpfulness but really (without it even registering in his mind) he was gathering information for Anja. There was more Intel to gather and he was just about to do that when he turned on his heels, got back into the elevator and headed down to the ICU...and the nursery.

Outside of the house he'd driven to without knowing why, Michael was still struggling under the effects of the headache he'd left National Medical with. His sole thought was to get inside that house - he had to get inside! - and the penguin suits Steve had brought with him were denying his admittance! He couldn't muscle past that many and he couldn't trick them. He knew he should try and focus, to subvert the headache and its effects and he'd just chosen the flowering tree next door and pinned his gaze to it when real, true pain hit...and he fell to his knees in anguish.

Back in the nursery, Hansen found the crib rail closest to the door was raised to full height but the opposite side was only raised a few inches, so he walked around the crib, smiling at the nurse to let her know he just wanted to look. He snatched up the tiny bundle within and Mark Conrad stepped out from behind the retracted partition, jabbed a needle into his neck and pushed the plunger hard. The unexpected intrusion into his efforts startled him...and he dropped the bundle, which flew open to reveal a blanket had been swaddling another blanket. He'd been tricked - and now they could move him into the cell next to Oscar's to keep him safe (and to keep others safe from him) until things had settled down.

At the same moment, Steve had pulled the machine away and handcuffed his prey. He instructed two of the teams to stand guard over the machine until it could be transported and then he personally loaded Anja into one of the cars, with the directive to take her to NSB Headquarters. As he prepared to slam the car door, she got in one final jab. ''Your precious daughter? You'll never see her again!''

Steve ran back into the house, grateful to find it had a working telephone. He dialed the direct line to the ICU/Nursery...and got no answer. Had Becca been left all alone? Had something happened to her? And what about Jaime?

Where was his family?

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