The Project 04 - Black Harvest

she felt his erection against her naked buttocks.
    His breath was hot in her ear. "We're going to back out the door and lock your friends inside. Be careful. We'll continue our session somewhere else. It's gotten crowded in here, don't you think?"
    In the hall, Lucas waited. One chance.
    As they backed into the hall Lucas pulled the hand with the needle away from Stephanie's neck and twisted the gun away. Stephanie broke free. Lucas kept his grip on the man's hand and drove the needle down, deep into the side of her captor's leg. He felt the needle strike bone. He pushed the plunger in all the way.
    The man screamed and fell to the floor. The others came out of the cell. Selena went to Stephanie. Nick handed Selena his jacket. She draped it around Stephanie's body and put her arms around her.
    "It's okay, Steph. You're all right now. You're safe."
    Steph began sobbing on Selena's shoulder.
    On the floor, the little man writhed and shrieked. Froth and spittle foamed from his mouth. His eyes were wide, terrified. His body went into terrible spasms on the floor. He became rigid, then arched backward in an impossible curve. Nick heard bones snapping. He gave a final scream of unbearable agony and died.
    Lucas looked down at the body.
    "Asshole," he said.
    Then he went to Stephanie and held her close.

CHAPTER FIFTY-NINE

    Lucas and Stephanie lay on her bed, face to face in each other's arms. He felt her warm breath on his shoulder, the pulse of her life beating against him. Lucas stroked her hair. It was damp from the long shower she'd taken when they'd gotten to her apartment. She hadn't talked since they'd left the safe house. It was beginning to worry him. He held her and tried to surround her with calm, with safety.
    Lucas knew what it was like to be tortured. He still bore the scars. The anticipation was almost as bad as the actual act. Knowing you were helpless. Knowing you were at the mercy of a psychopath.
    Lucas was no choir boy. He'd grown up in the ghetto. He'd been an agent for a long time. He'd done and seen his share of things no one should have to endure in the name of duty or expediency or survival. But he had never resorted to inflicting excruciating pain to gain intelligence. Torture disgusted him. He thought of Wendell Lodge and what had happened to Stephanie and for the first time felt the kind of hatred that would inflict pain for its own sake. He imagined Lodge helpless before him. Maybe strapped naked on a hard chair, in a cold room where knives gleamed under harsh light.
    Steph stirred.
    "I didn't tell him. But I would have. Whatever he wanted."
    "Sshh. I know. You did good. It's all right now."
    "His eyes. He had awful eyes. He liked what he was doing."
    "They always do. But he won't hurt you or anyone else again."
    "How did you find me?"
    "Nick called me. They found your purse in the garage, they knew you'd been taken. It had to be Lodge, they said. That house was the best bet."
    "What if you'd been wrong?"
    "I wasn't, that's what matters."
    "The drug he gave me. It was awful. He told me it would wear off and I should think about it. He told me he was coming back."
    "Yeah, they like to do that, people like him."
    "He was getting ready to start again when the shooting began upstairs. That's when he put that poison in the syringe. He told me what it would do. In detail." She shuddered. "Then he just waited for you to find us."
    Lucas stoked her hair.
    "I love you."
    "I love you, too, Steph."
    "What are you going to do about Lodge?"
    "I don't know."

CHAPTER SIXTY

    James Rice thought there were times when being President was the worst job anyone could imagine. Like now. He sat alone in the Oval Office, at the power center of the world. Outside the White House the city got ready for another evening. The folder on his desk contained the reports on Nebraska. The analysis was grim. The damage was spreading at an alarming pace, a vast, diseased sore oozing in the heart of America.
    Two hours earlier he'd had a meeting with the experts and the Joint Chiefs and the Secretary of Agriculture. The Pentagon thought it could be a terrorist attack. The Generals were arguing about what to do, how to respond. The stress level within the administration and the Pentagon was rising. Rice had boosted the alert status to DEFCON3. He hadn't revealed Lodge's involvement. It was a hell of a mess.
    Harker had briefed him about Texas. She would take care of Dansinger. Rice had to take care of the country. The experts