Page 68 of Be Courageous
He had unlatched the door and was stepping out onto the wing when a large hand clamped down on his shoulder. As fast and strong as Miles was, his father outmatched him in pure muscle. He had no choice but to halt his exodus. “What?”
“That’s it? You’re going to go off on your own? I thought you were smarter than that.”
Considering the trouble Miles might be walking into, he knew he could use his father’s help. But Dad could get fired for simply not stopping him, let alone helping him outright.
“I guess I’m not that smart.” Wresting free of his father’s grip, he leapt to the spongy ground with his duffel bag, then took off at a brisk walk toward the bright lights of the General Aviation Terminal. The humid air smelled of salt water and cypress. At the same time, he placed a call on his cell phone to Hertz Car Rental. His alias, Tom Keane the yacht salesman, would have a vehicle waiting by the time he reached the lot.
Miles figured his father would fly off in disgust shortly. Leaving was what Dad did best, after all.
CHAPTER3
McKenzie dozed in fitful spurts, waking periodically with her heart in her throat. Had she dreamed someone was knocking on her motel door, or was it real?
She rolled groggily out of bed and stumbled past her lit bathroom. Wiping a grain of sleep from one eye, she peered through the door’s peephole with the other.
The familiar sight of Miles wearing a hoodie made her heart leap with joy. He had dressed like that while posing as a teenager at the Centurion Men’s Shelter, the place where she’d volunteered so much time and effort, thinking she was doing a service to her community. Her father, meanwhile, had used the shelter to launder money as well as to recruit and groom the men who would become his followers.
With a dry mouth and fingers that could scarcely unlatch the safety chain, McKenzie hauled the door open.Miles!Her cry of anticipation curtailed abruptly as the light from her bathroom hit the caller’s face.Not Miles. She was letting in a total stranger.
She tried slamming the door on him, only the stranger stuck a boot out, keeping the door from closing. Forcing his way inside, he pinned her against the closet with his sturdy frame. A moist cloth came out of nowhere, covering her mouth and nose and stifling her screams.
Caustic fumes scalded McKenzie’s airways. She caught her breath and fought her captor’s cruel grip, but he was stronger. In her panic, she saw two more strangers slip into the room, one of whom resembled the man on the balcony. Ordering the third man to fetch her belongings, he watched with a smirk as McKenzie’s lungs convulsed for air. Cloying vapor seared her throat, and darkness gathered at the edges of her eyes.
How did these men even find her here?
Anguish speared her as the darkness took over. Now she might never get to see Miles again.
* * *
Once inside the elevator at the Hilton Garden Inn, Miles pushed the elevator button for the third floor, then jabbed the Close-Door button until the elevator finally lurched upward. Adrenaline juggernauted through his bloodstream. Anxiety twisted his intestines.
Three years. He had dreamed so often of the moment when he and McKenzie would be reunited; every one of those dreams had been impossibly sweet—not like this. Foreboding robbed him of any real anticipation.
For Centurions to have found herthreetimes, WITSEC had to have been infiltrated by none other than the Architect. Who would keep McKenzie safe if WITSEC couldn’t?
I can.
He pictured them running away together to a place like Morocco, where his sister was assigned. Imagine finally marrying McKenzie, getting to watch her graceful interactions with the locals, with their own children! On one hand, it sounded like paradise. On the other, could he bring himself to walk away from his mother like his father had?
The doors parted with a chime on the third floor.This is it.
Drawing a deep breath, he marched onto the landing and turned left toward 314. At the end of the hallway, two men were pushing through the emergency stairwell exit, and one of them was carrying a woman small enough to carry like child.
The unsettling sight broke Miles’s stride.
The woman had long auburn hair, not dark brown like McKenzie’s, but she could have colored it. He couldn’t see enough of her face before they stepped out of sight to be sure it was her, but her scent—a blend of gardenia and honeysuckle—seemed to hang in the air. Given the way her head had lolled on the man’s shoulder, she had to be passed out, cold.
They’d gotten to her first!
The realization had him pausing to retrieve his Glock 36 from under his pant leg. Pistol in hand, he knocked on room 314 just to be sure. When silence answered him, he pursued the two men, slipping stealthily through the fire door. Several levels below him he could hear footfalls and low-pitched voices. There were three of them now, not just two.
Silencing his pursuit as much as possible, he flew down the steps after them. But they were already on the ground floor, exiting the building.
As the door clanged shut behind them, Miles bounded recklessly down the remaining stairs. He couldn’t let them get away. How would he ever forgive himself?
Reaching the ground floor, he barreled through the exit and found himself by a parking lot gilded by a pewter sky. Less than thirty feet away, the man who’d been carrying McKenzie had just unloaded her into the back of a van and was about to climb in himself.
“Hey!” Miles yelled at him.