A SEAL Always Wins Page 26

  The door closed quietly. Whoever had entered the house was trying to maintain silence, something that made Elena’s heart hammer and her palms slicken with nervous sweat. A shadowy figure advanced through the foyer, and Elena and Anya moved at the same time. “Stop right there,” Elena said, her voice strong and steady despite the fact she struggled to draw a deep breath. They kept a safe distance from the figure so that whoever stood there couldn’t grab the guns from them and put them at the disadvantage.

  “Elena? Anya? What the hell are you doing?” Phantom’s shocked voice greeted her ears, and she had to restrain her cry of joy.

  “Phantom! You’re okay! We’ve been worried sick. Where is the rest of the team? Why did you come here by yourself?” She had a thousand questions to ask him.

  “It would be easier for me to tell you everything if there weren’t two rifles aimed at my head.”

  “Oh!” Anya and Elena exclaimed at the same time, quickly flipping the safety back on the guns. Elena passed her rifle to Anya so she could throw herself into Phantom’s arms. She wrapped her arms around his waist and buried her face in his chest, struggling not to shed tears of joy.

  “Is everyone safe?” Anya asked, her voice wavering with emotion.

  Phantom’s arms wrapped around Elena, stroking her long, curly hair. “Yes. Everyone is safe. But we aren’t finished yet.”

  Elena pulled back and looked at Phantom intently. “What do you mean? What’s happened?”

  Phantom pressed a kiss to her forehead, then sighed heavily. “We found the barn you mentioned. It looks like Jonas finished it, and it’s far more than just a barn.”

  Elena’s stomach did a somersault. “What is it? He showed me the blueprints about a week ago, but I didn’t look at them closely. I just wanted to get away from him. Are-are the rest of the men trapped there or something?”

  “No, no.” He shook his head and looked over at Anya, who looked like she could pass out depending on what he said next. “Stryker is with the rest of the team standing guard over the building. There’s a chance the hostages are being held there.”

  “W-why don’t you already know? Aren’t you able to get a good look inside?” Anya asked.

  “The building is a complex structure, and even that is an understatement. There are passageways and rooms we can’t gain access to because they’re all locked with—”

  “Puzzles,” Elena finished for him, remembering the conversation she had with Jonas.

  “That’s right.” Phantom watched her closely. “How did you know?”

  “He said I was his inspiration for the design. He said he used puzzles throughout the barn but I thought he meant merely as decorations. Now it makes more sense. He must have wanted a creative way to hide his secret, and now we know what it is.”

  “There’s no guarantee the hostages are there. We checked the entire barn area and found a few guards, who we captured, but other than that, the place is silent. We don’t even know if Jonas is there. But we can’t take any chances. We have to explore the entire facility, even the areas that are closed off.”

  “Why did you come back here, Phantom? Is there more you aren’t telling us?” Anya asked, having moved to stand by Elena.

  Phantom fished in one of the numerous pockets of his utility pants and pulled out a piece of paper. “We found this when we arrived at the barn.”

  Elena took the paper with trembling hands and read the scribbled handwriting.

  The entire place is set to explode if you make one false move. Each puzzle has only a few steps to make in order to be solved. Exceed that number, and it will all be over. Elena is the key to unlocking these puzzles. Bring her here, and you may win my game. Ignore the rules, and we all lose.

  Elena’s gaze clashed with Phantom’s. “The way this is written it sounds like he’s there. We may be able to still catch him!”

  Phantom cupped her face in his hands. “I don’t want you to do it, Elena, but it seems we have no choice. If there was any way around it…”

  “I told you I wanted to be a part of this to the end. This is my chance to help you take down Jonas. Please don’t deny me this opportunity.” She gripped his wrists and turned her head in his hands, kissing one palm and then the other.

  She could see him swallow hard before nodding. “All right. Come with me. We need to move fast.”

  Chapter 25

  Security had failed him. Jonas had tried checking with his guards around the area three times already and hadn’t received a response. His security cameras showed nothing out of the ordinary, but, in his gut, he knew something had gone horribly wrong.

  He looked above him and listened carefully. If anyone walked within the new barn, their footsteps were silent. He wasn’t comforted by the thought. He had built the structure so that noise couldn’t penetrate. For all he knew, there could be an entire group of people combing the area for him.

  Jonas had less than an hour before the two transport trailers arrived to take the hostages to San Antonio. He had to find a way to get out without being noticed by anyone. He needed to know what he faced. He checked the cameras again, but nothing moved. He needed to take action, and quickly.

  He climbed up several steps to a spot he had designed specifically for looking out into the barn area. Peering through the narrow crack, he saw none of his guards, but he didn’t see anyone else either. Something didn’t add up.

  Frowning deeply, he scanned the area once again, and his heart began to pound heavy in his chest. Elena. They had found his note and brought Elena. Without her, they wouldn’t be able to open the various areas of the facility. Eventually, if he let her get far enough, they would find him and destroy everything he had worked so hard to accomplish.

  Little did they know he had already worked out the possibility of Elena solving all the puzzles. He needed her. He needed to use her as leverage against whoever had brought her. All he had seen were a couple of men in military tactical gear. He didn’t know how many more there were. Where had they come from? Did Sheriff Verduzco have connections he didn’t know about?

  He smiled to himself. He knew exactly what he could do to not only escape with his own life, but, if everything worked according to his plans, take the hostages as well. The men were as good as dead.

  * * *

  Elena shivered as a chill slipped down her spine upon entering the new barn. She gave a half-hearted smile when she saw the rest of the team, even though she struggled to make out who was who in their night-vision optics. Phantom pulled on his own set and handed a set to her.

  He helped her slide it on and gave her the thumbs up sign to signal, asking silently if she could see. She nodded and he smiled at her. Drawing a deep breath, she began to walk through the barn, moving lightly on her feet as Phantom had instructed her. They couldn’t afford to make any noise, especially if Jonas hid somewhere within.

  Her eyes scanned the walls and crevices, searching for the puzzles. Gradually she found a few, but she knew, based on the letter, that they had to be solved in a specific order. The puzzles began to jump out at her as if they were glowing, separate from the rest of the wood and metal in the barn. Her heart pounded in her ears. She had to get the sequence right, or it could mean the end for all of them.

  Gradually, a pattern began to emerge to her, and she recognized it as a formula equation. “I need a pencil and paper,” she whispered to Phantom. He reached into one of his pockets and pulled out a small notepad with an equally small pencil. She began to jot down the formula quickly, working it as fast as she could. Within moments she knew the order in which she had to solve the puzzles.

  The other men were stationed in strategic positions all around the building, watching for any potential threats that could come their way, while Santo and Phantom guarded her inside, keeping a close eye on her movements. She went to the far entrance to the barn and kneeled down where a math puzzle
had been carved ornately into the wood.

  Using the notepad and pencil Phantom had provided, she worked the puzzle as fast as possible until she came to the right answer. Beneath the puzzle lay a cylinder with a dial full of numbers. The correct answer had to be clicked into place using the dial. Holding her breath, she began to turn the dial.

  When the last digit slid in place, a loud clanging sound made her jump and Phantom wrapped an arm around her waist, hauling her back and placing her behind him. He held his gun ready, and she realized she stood between Santo and Phantom—Phantom guarding her from the front and Santo guarding her from the back. She couldn’t see what happened as she heard the sound of gears and levers working before once more everything fell silent.

  “If he’s here, that certainly got his attention,” Santo muttered. Elena leaned to peer around Phantom and realized a ramp had opened up, leading down partway to the lower level.

  “Snap, Buzz, I need you in here to check out this new section Elena just opened for us,” Phantom said softly.

  Snap and Buzz moved into the barn silently and descended the short ramp, sweeping from side to side, pressing on the walls and examining the floor. “Clear,” Buzz said, and he and Snap returned to their posts guarding the exterior of the barn.

  “May I see it now?” Elena asked, whispering the same as the men.

  Phantom grabbed her hand and hooked it onto his belt. “We’ll walk into the area together. If you see something, yank on my belt so I know to stop. Don’t ever let go of me. This is how I’m able to protect you.”

  Elena hated being reminded that their lives were at risk, but she knew there wasn’t anyone she could be safer with than Phantom. She gripped his belt tightly and nodded to him. They moved into the small section, and, the same as before, the puzzle seemed to glow at her from within the wood and metal. She pulled on Phantom’s belt, stopping him, and pointed to the puzzle.

  “Is this the one you’re supposed to solve next?”

  “No.” She shook her head. “I think it is meant as a trap. It doesn’t follow the pattern of the others. I need to stick to the other ones in order to open this area up properly.”

  Phantom nodded, and they returned to the main area of the building. She moved to the second puzzle and within minutes had solved it. She concentrated intently on her work, sweat trickling down her forehead from stress and the heat of the hot summer night.

  With each puzzle she solved successfully, more sections opened up. She didn’t share with Phantom how disturbing the puzzles were. Most of the answers were number combinations that matched up to important dates in her life—her birthday, her high school graduation date, her college graduation date—all of them special times for her. It made her even more certain that Jonas had been stalking her.

  When she had solved all the puzzles in the main area of the barn, she took her time to explore each stall, each storage room that wasn’t locked by a puzzle, and every common area that could potentially hold additional puzzles. There were none to be found. She drew a deep breath and looked at Phantom. “It’s time I start solving the puzzles in the newly opened areas. The pattern doesn’t match what I’ve already found up here, so it’s going to take me a little while to figure out the correct sequence.”

  “You’re doing wonderfully,” he said softly, caressing her cheek just below her night-vision optics. “We’re here to support you with anything you need.”

  She wanted to kiss him. She wanted him to hold her. She wanted desperately for it all to be over so she could be in his arms again and she didn’t have to worry that their lives literally rested in her ability to correctly solve a madman’s puzzles.

  She pulled in a fortifying breath and headed for the exposed passageways that had opened as she had solved the puzzles. All of them led to a dead end, but she knew that only meant there was another puzzle to solve. Her eyes scanned the areas, taking in the shapes of the puzzles, the design, the type, and she finally figured out the pattern and the correct sequence.

  The first puzzle was Sudoku. She had to slow herself down and concentrate because it was far more difficult than any of the other puzzles she had encountered so far. She worked it out on the notepad, afraid to move any of the pieces and use up too many of the “moves” she could safely make. She scribbled out the second attempt and flipped the page in the notebook to attempt her third.

  She sat cross-legged on the concrete floor, focused intently on the puzzle—so intently she was startled when a warm hand settled on her shoulder. She looked up and recognized the lower half of Santo’s face below his optics. “We have all the confidence in the world in you. This is your element. Forget about everything else that is going on. Treat this as you would a regular puzzle you were playing for fun.”

  “I just can’t stop thinking about that note. If I make a mistake, Santo, I could very well kill all of us.”

  “That’s exactly why he sent that note. It was meant to rattle you. Don’t let it. Don’t let him get to you. Take a deep breath and pretend it’s a lazy Sunday afternoon and you’re just teaching Phantom how to do this puzzle. Let it come naturally.”

  She smiled at him and leaned forward, pressing a soft kiss to his cheek. “Thank you, Santo. I needed that.”

  He grinned and stood again, leaving her to the puzzle. She closed her eyes and concentrated on breathing evenly. Santo was right. The letter had been intended to upset her, and it had been successful. She had to set it aside and concentrate on what she knew she could do.

  Ten minutes later, she had solved the puzzle. She slid the pieces into place and gasped as she felt the floor move beneath her. Again, Phantom was instantly there, pulling her back away from the moving part of the barn.

  The section she had been in had dropped lower, and she swallowed hard. They were getting closer to finding whatever Jonas wanted to hide in his creative facility. She had to focus on making it through the remainder of the puzzles.

  The next puzzle was a sliding one, where she had to move the pieces around in a block until they formed the correct image. She knew she had to do it in as few moves possible. She stared at the image, running through the moves she needed to make. Drawing a deep breath, she began to slide the pieces, and a loud clang sounded when she slid the final block in place. The floor beneath her didn’t move, but the floors in other areas of the barn did.

  “How many more puzzles are there?” Phantom asked softly.

  “At least four. There may be more that opened up in the other sections.”

  “Where’s the next one?” Santo asked.

  “It’s located down the corridor that opened at the far end of the barn.” She looked down at the puzzle she had just solved. “Have you checked all the secure rooms? Have they opened up yet?”

  Phantom nodded. “Two of them have. The others remain locked.”

  Elena stood and rubbed at her sore back. “So many puzzles…so much effort to keep everything secure. Was there anything important in those secure rooms?”

  “Nothing that will help you with what you’re doing. Only files and information Jonas probably intended to destroy.” Phantom eyed her closely. “Do you need a break? You’ve been at this for nearly an hour now.”

  Elena’s gaze slammed into his. “When the hostages are safe, I’ll take a break. I can’t rest until then.”

  Phantom nodded and guided her to the corridor at the other end of the barn. As in multiple places throughout the barn, the concrete flooring tilted down, leading to a lower level beneath the main portion of the stalls. So far the areas didn’t connect, but she hoped with only another puzzle or two the panels would open and they would know why Jonas had gone to so much trouble.

  She moved quickly through the next puzzle and grinned as it clicked into place. The sound of gears and levers clamored once more, and she scrambled to her feet. Phantom pulled her behind him once again, but they couldn’t see the changes taki
ng place. They could hear them, though, around the corner where the panels had yet to connect.

  “Stay here,” Phantom said. “Santo, cover the corner and keep an eye on Elena. I’m going to investigate the area that’s opened up.”

  “Be careful,” Elena murmured as he moved past her, and he flashed her a reassuring smile.

  She wrapped her arms around herself as Santo and Phantom advanced to the corner. Phantom peered around it with a mirror before stepping into the newly opened corridor. She held her breath as he disappeared, watching Santo keep his semiautomatic angled into the hallway, ready to take aim if needed.

  Her heart hammered in her chest. Everything still seemed surreal. She had just learned that Phantom was a Navy SEAL, and she had her experiences with him to tell her that he was cautious and carried himself with confidence that spoke volumes about his skills. Still, she didn’t know enough about his abilities, and she couldn’t help the anxiety that caused her hands to shake.

  She frowned when a new sound greeted her ears. A faint click, followed by a scraping noise unlike anything she had heard so far seemed incredibly close. Santo must have heard it, too, because he pivoted sharply on his feet, swinging his weapon around with him. “Elena!”

  His shout echoed off the walls as strong arms wrapped around her, yanking her backward. “Hello, Elena. I’m glad you got the invitation.”

  The blood in Elena’s veins turned to ice at the sound of Jonas’s voice. She kicked backward and connected with his shin and he grunted in frustration, but it wasn’t enough to dissuade him. His arm tightened on her waist, making it hard to catch her breath.

  “Go ahead and take a shot,” Jonas taunted Santo. “You can kill me with one shot. You’ll probably kill her, too, but that shouldn’t matter to a military man like you.”

  “Jonas, you need to release her. Let her come with us, and we can try to work out something,” Santo said, his gun leveled evenly at them.