Entrance to Nowhere Page 21

  Once again, we waited. I wanted – no, needed – to hear from Pete. I wondered how long it would take the pilot to call us. Of course, if there was a GPS tracker, it was too late to worry about it.

  Trap snapped his fingers. “I think I’ve got it. It’s too late to call Human Resources now, but I think someone named Gerard Compton worked for me for a short time. I never met him, but as I recall he was let go for… Let me think.” He was quiet for a few minutes. “I think they caught him trying to steal classified technology. I’ll call Human Resources first thing in the morning.”

  My aunt’s cell phone rang, surprising all of us. She glanced at caller ID, raising her eyebrows in surprise. “It’s Griz.”

  Trap and I glanced at each other.

  Without preamble, my aunt answered and said, “What’s wrong with you? We’ve all been worried sick. Where are you? Is everyone okay?”

  She listened for a moment.

  “Is that so? What’s all the noise in the background?”

  “Put it on speaker phone,” I said.

  She waved me off.

  “Ask him if – “

  She looked annoyed and put her finger in her ear so she could hear what Griz was saying. “I’ll let them know.”

  She hung up.

  I sighed in frustration. “What did he say? Are they on their way back?”

  “Compton left the park with a couple of other fellows, and Layne had the car ready and waiting. They followed them to some kind of compound. Layne called in the troops on their way. They raided the compound and made several arrests.”

  “Did they arrest Mr. Compton?” Trap looked hopeful.

  “No. He got away. Of all things, he, too, has a helicopter. And there’s more. Apparently this was only one of a few compounds.”

  “I wonder if Compton is The General or if he’s just one of the underlings,” Trap speculated.

  My aunt shrugged her shoulders. “I don’t know.”

  She turned to me.

  “What was your question, Sandi?”

  “I just wondered if Compton has a lisp. That could tell us a lot.”

  Chapter Thirty-eight

  The pilot called Trap before I could worry more about the lisp. Their conversation was brief.

  “He didn’t find anything,” he said. “I’m quite surprised, to say the least.”

  I thought for a moment. “Two things come to mind. There could be a GPS tracker on one of your vehicles. The question in my mind is how many people know the location of your mansion? Could there be a leak?”

  Trap looked surprised. “I can’t imagine who might leak something like this. I trust Griz and Scott with my life. Layne is a government agent, so it wouldn’t be him.”

  “How do you know he’s really an agent?” Aunt Martha asked.

  “He has all the proper identification, and he’s been working for me for quite some time. You understand, he uses his job as a cover.”

  I nodded. “Besides, he just helped take down some of The General’s followers. He has to be on the up and up. I mentioned leaks, which brings up another question. How did The General know that he needed to get out of the compound when he did?”

  “It is a conundrum.” Trap watched the four young men who’d come into his life. “I seriously doubt if it’s any of them.”

  They were hard at work on the computers. Ethan seemed to be giving them information, which I assumed meant they were helping with research on the dark web.

  Scott stuck his head out of the security room door. “Chopper coming in.”

  I stopped talking and listened. Yep. I could hear the helicopter flying in. Pete and the others were finally back.

  Heading for the tunnel, I motioned for my aunt to follow me. Before we reached the end of the passageway, I heard the chopper take off again, and heard laughter coming from the entrance.

  The men sounded jubilant after their semi-successful take down. It was a shame they weren’t able to capture The General. I still believed there might be a leak, but who on earth could it be?

  My aunt, surprisingly, ran to Griz. “You ol’ goat! You scared me half to death. Don’t do something like that again, do you hear me?”

  He smiled at her. “Who do you think you are? You can’t give me orders. After all, we just met each other.”

  Her face registered both surprise and annoyance.

  His smile grew wider. “Although, it’s kinda nice to have someone worry about me.”

  Pete followed Griz. Obviously, Layne had stayed behind.

  I ran forward and gave him a hug, which he returned with gusto.

  “Pete, you may not be an old goat, but you sure had me worried.”

  He let go and took a step back. “You shoulda been there, Sandi. Griz and I snuck into the compound while Layne called for backup. You can’t imagine how well equipped those yahoos were.”

  The tunnel is long, and Pete talked nonstop while we headed back to the Safe Room. He had a war story to tell and he was excited, as only a man who’d been through what he went through could be.

  “Griz and I were able to take down two of them who were guarding their arsenal. We took their clothes and no one noticed the two new guys doing the guarding.”

  I could tell his adrenaline was still pumping. He was talking fast, not to mention that Pete never talked that much.

  Griz just kept smiling and squeezing my aunt’s shoulders.

  “You had quite an adventure, didn’t you?” His enthusiasm was catching, and I was beginning to feel excited.

  Pete rolled his eyes at me. “Layne called in the troops. They’ve been after this group for a long time and this was the first time they came up with a location. The General always seemed to be two or three steps ahead of them.”

  “So Layne called in reinforcements. Does that mean you now know what agency he’s with?”

  “Nope. Not a clue. They all wore camo fatigues. Griz and I both feel like they may be attached to the military. They took down those people with precision. Very little was said and since Compton’s men couldn’t get into the arsenal, thanks to me and Griz, they didn’t put up much of a fight.”

  “What about The General? We heard he got away.” Aunt Martha was almost too interested in the story Pete was relating.

  Griz filled us in. “We heard a chopper take off about five minutes before Layne’s people got there.”

  We were nearing the entrance to the Safe Room and Pete was ready to tell more of the story.

  “Wait,” I said. “Don’t say anything else when we get inside.”

  “Why?”

  “We think there’s a leak, and we can’t figure out who it is.”

  “Griz and I talked about that, too. Someone had to have warned Compton that something was about to happen. It couldn’t have been a coincidence that he left when he did.”

  Aunt Martha stepped away from Griz and approached Pete. “It’s got to be one of those computer geeks. We know we can trust Trap and Scott, but we don’t really know much about the boys.”

  Pete nodded. “We’ll figure it out. Trap should be able to tell us more about them.”

  “Okay, let’s go inside. Save your war story for later, sweetie.”

  Pete nodded again. “Is Stan still working on finding what he can about Compton?”

  “No. I told him it was too dangerous and suggested he and Felicity lay low. He gave the information he had to Ethan, and the boys are working on it.”

  “Oh.” Pete didn’t sound happy. Funny how you can get a feeling from a one word answer.

  I sighed. “That was before we realized one of them could be a leak.”

  Aunt Martha stepped away from Griz and put her hand on Pete’s arm, looking up into his eyes. “Mum’s the word. We’ll keep everything a secret.”

  “Good.” Pete patted her hand.

  We walked into the Safe Room and found everyone watching the door expectantly.

  “So what happened?” Ryan asked.

  Pete closed his eyes an
d reopened them slowly. “Everyone at the compound was arrested, except for The General. He got away. We’ve determined there are other compounds. That’s the gist of it. And don’t ask questions. Layne’s working on it.”

  The boys looked disappointed, but didn’t ask anything. They simply went back to their computers and began working again.

  Pete followed them. “What are you working on?”

  Mason spoke first. “I’m trying to find everything I can on Gerard Compton, aka The General, aka Danger.” Calling the man Danger made him chuckle. “Isn’t that the dumbest nickname you ever heard?”

  “Yeah,” Pete replied. “And what are you working on, Ryan?”

  Without turning, Ryan said, “I’m doing more research on Danger.” He chuckled, too. “And they think we’re weird. Danger? Give me a break.”

  “Jason? What about you and Ethan?”

  “We’re working on a hunch,” Jason replied.

  “A hunch? I’m not sure this is the time for hunches.” Pete sounded unconvinced.

  Ethan looked up. “Jason and I have some suspicions about that secretary, Greta. We’re looking into her background.”

  “Good idea,” Pete said. “How did she get hooked up with Compton in the first place?”

  “Our thought exactly,” Jason said. “Maybe we’ll come up with the answer and that’ll lead to something worth following up on.”

  Pete returned to the living room, or at least the part where the rest of us were sitting. “Let’s go upstairs and talk. We don’t want to bother the boys.”

  My aunt frowned. “I thought it was safer down – “

  I narrowed my eyes at her, and since I was facing away from the boys, I put my index finger to my lips to shush her.

  “Now that I think about it, that’s probably a good idea,” she said.

  Trap turned to the boys. “If you need anything, let us know.”

  Three of them nodded absently and one didn’t react. They were totally engrossed in what they were doing.

  Pete found Scott in the security room. “We’re going upstairs to talk. I’ll fill you in later.”

  “Sure.”

  “This has been one of the longest days of my life,” I said. “I feel like we fit a week into one day.” I glanced at my watch. “Do you realize it’s one o’clock in the morning? It’s Wednesday already. I don’t know about the rest of you, but I’m tired.”

  Pete stood and pulled me up. “Go get some sleep. I’m too wired to go up with you right now. We’ll talk in the morning.”

  I gave him a kiss and headed upstairs with my aunt right behind me. At this point, who cared if it was safer downstairs in the Safe Room? The General was probably busy regrouping, anyway.

  “Goodnight, Sandi.”

  “Get some sleep, Auntie. I have a feeling that tomorrow, actually today, is going to be worse than today. I guess I mean yesterday.”

  She stopped and smiled. “We did a good job yesterday morning, didn’t we? We got that floozy of a secretary to give herself away.”

  “That we did.”

  We hugged each other and went our separate ways.

  ~ * ~

  I awoke early, tired but knowing it was going to be another unusual day. I rolled over and saw that Pete had slept next to me, but he was already up.

  I took a quick shower and washed my hair, pulling it back into a ponytail. Looking in the mirror, I was shocked at how unkempt and tired I looked and decided to put on a little make-up. I’d do whatever it took to avoid scaring everyone with my tired face.

  As I descended the stairs, I could hear excited voices.

  Layne was back.

  Chapter Thirty-nine

  Layne was back and he looked exhausted.

  “Okay, okay, give me a minute to catch my breath,” he said.

  Everyone seemed to want answers, and they wanted them now. Even Bubba and Clem were prancing around the man. The excitement in the room seemed to be catching.

  “Come and get it,” Aunt Martha called. “Breakfast is ready.”

  Layne smiled. “Good! I’m starving. We’ll talk while we eat.”

  After staying in the Safe Room the day before, I was surprised everyone was in the main part of the house. I hoped they weren’t feeling overconfident after the arrests of the night before.

  My aunt had gone all out with breakfast. There were plates of scrambled eggs, bacon, sausage, and French toast, along with fried potatoes. There was enough to feed a small army, but I guess in a way, that’s exactly what we were. I recalled thinking this exact same thing before and realized I really felt like we were warriors.

  Layne filled his plate and ate several bites before speaking.

  “I’ve got good news and I’ve got bad news,” he said.

  “Let’s hear the good news first,” I suggested.

  “We made a lot of arrests last night. At least we’ve made a little headway.”

  Aunt Martha filled a plate with food. “Don’t give us the bad news until I come back. I want to take breakfast to Scott. We can fill him in when we go back downstairs.”

  Everyone ate quietly until she returned.

  “Okay,” Pete said, “let’s hear the bad news.”

  “The bad news is that we don’t know much more than we did before. Most of the people we arrested are keeping their mouths shut. My suspicion is that they know a little, but for the most part they were kept in the dark – kind of a need-to-know situation.”

  “So The General is a sly guy,” my aunt said.

  “This is kind of off the wall, but did anyone notice if The General lisps?” I asked. “We’re assuming he’s the big boss, but if he doesn’t lisp then he’s not the one who’s been calling the shots.”

  “Well, along those lines, there’s more bad news,” Layne said, setting down his fork.

  “And what would that be?” I asked.

  “Compton isn’t the head honcho. We heard him talk when we were at the park, and he doesn’t lisp. One of the people we arrested sang like a bird, and he said he’s overheard Compton on the cell phone with… He didn’t know who. He said that whoever it is, is giving Compton orders.”

  “I’m surprised you got someone to talk, considering everyone else is keeping their mouths closed,” Griz said.

  “This kid wasn’t as committed to the cause as the others. He wanted out but he was afraid to leave. He said they’ve got people watching every move he makes. He seemed to be glad he was arrested. It got him out of that place.”

  I thought about this for a moment. “Last night Pete said there were other compounds. How did you determine that?”

  “Someone was angry that Compton didn’t get him out of there, too, and he gave things away before he realized what he was saying. He says there are other compounds, but he swears he doesn’t know where they’re located. We confiscated several computers, but I doubt they were the ones the leader has been using. These people seem to be experts at covering their tracks.”

  Sometimes Pete says he thinks my middle name is Suspicion. This was one of those moments. “Why are you sharing this information with us so freely, Layne?”

  “Because this mansion and Trap are key to the group’s plan, and you happen to be here.”

  Everyone began talking at once.

  Pete gave me a look that I couldn’t read. He nonchalantly nodded toward Trap’s office.

  Oh. He wanted to speak to me privately.

  I gave him a small nod that no one else would notice, and made up an excuse to leave the room.

  “Trap, would you mind if I use your office to call Stanley? I won’t be able to hear him if I call from here.”

  He was a smart man and took a moment to reply. The look on his face told me he knew something was up. He finally said, “Sure. Go ahead. If you need anything, let me know.”

  “Pete? Would you come with me? Stanley may want to speak to you while I have him on the phone.”

  Without a word, Pete followed me to the office and closed the door
behind us.

  “What’s up?” I asked.

  “We need to talk to Layne about the leak. He’s spilling his guts to that group, not knowing that someone is in touch with the leader of this rebellion.” His face looked pinched with worry.

  “Rebellion. That’s a good word for it. They want to take down our government by blackmailing them about taking down the electrical grid. Yeah, it really is a rebellion – of sorts.”

  “I just picked that word out of the air,” he said. “Don’t go overboard with it.”

  “But you’re right. I hadn’t looked at it that way until now.”

  “Okay, I’m right. I’m also right about filling Layne in on what’s been going on around here. I think things are about to get pretty ugly, Sandi. We need to be prepared.”

  “You’re on the mark,” a voice said from behind us.

  We’d been so intent on our discussion that we hadn’t heard Layne quietly open the door and close it behind him.

  “Don’t do that, Layne,” I said. “You just scared me out of ten years growth.”

  He smiled. “Sorry.”

  “How much did you hear?” Pete asked.

  “Only that you want to fill me in on something.”

  “Yeah, something key to all of this. There’s a leak and we don’t know who it is. I’m sure you already figured that out, though, since Compton flew out when he did. I don’t think it was a coincidence.”

  “Neither do I, but if there’s a leak, it’s got to be one of those kids.”

  I spoke slowly and thoughtfully. “No, it doesn’t. How did the kids know how to find this place?”

  “That doesn’t matter,” Layne replied. “They’re here now, and someone is keeping Compton updated. It’s got to be one of them.”

  “No.” I spoke firmly. “It could be, but something tells me it’s not them.”

  “You’re that sure?” Pete asked.

  “I am.”

  Layne smiled. “Women’s intuition?”

  “No.” I still spoke firmly and I didn’t think he was funny. “Things have been happening since before Pete and I arrived. Of course, there was the kidnapping, but how did the big boss, whoever he might be, know how to find this place? We can rule Trap out because he certainly wouldn’t have set up his own kidnapping.”