Samuel: You really have no idea of the magnitude of what you ask sometimes.
James would’ve laughed but he didn’t want to give Jenna any hints at what was going on. Not that it would matter in a few minutes time because she would be in the dark, literally.
James:Is everything ready to go?
Samuel: Confirm. Lights down once you’re inside. The teams are on the platforms, ready.
James looked to the grocery bag which held Jenna’s phone. He’d reinserted the battery assuming Lisa would get an alert. She should now be tracking them with the phone, if not Jenna’s tracker, and with any luck she was not far behind. The phone was an olive branch and he hoped Lisa took it as such. The bag also had one additional item—one Jenna wasn’t going to like much. Matt had rushed to get there in time, to be in the convenience store before they arrived, and he’d made it with seconds to spare. James had seen him enter, but he knew Jenna hadn’t—she’d been too busy watching him when she should’ve been watching the streets. Even if she had been, though, James doubted she would’ve recognized him in the dark.
Jenna hadn’t touched her candy bar and that was a mistake. She hadn’t eaten nor drunk anything in hours whereas they’d had coffee and sugar. If a chase ensued, she was going to run out of energy fast. But, if everything went to plan, Jenna wasn’t going to have a chance to run.
He turned to face her. “We’re stopping in a minute and we’re going to walk inside the terminal. If you scream, if you try to run, if you do anything to draw attention, I will kill you. Lisa is about ten minutes behind us. She wants to make a deal, a swap of sorts. You, for information we need. If you run, I’ll kill you and then I’ll kill her. Understood?”
Jenna swallowed, then nodded, but James wasn’t sure if she believed his lie or not.
Deacon pulled the car to a stop and they climbed out. The darkness decreased their chances of a passerby raising any alarms at a cuffed woman, and the people of New York were too busy rushing to notice anyway.
Samuel’s voice came through his earpiece.“As soon as you step inside I’ll cut the power. Move quickly.”
“Copy,” James responded, his pistol pressed against Jenna’s back. He was not taking any chances.
Lachlan walked beside him with Cami at his other side while Deacon stayed in the car, ready to get them out of there as fast as possible should they need an escape.
James locked eyes on one of his men, exiting as they entered. That was the signal it was safe for them to walk through the doors.
As soon as they did, the terminal was cloaked in darkness.
James pulled the syringe from his back pocket and slammed it into Jenna’s neck. He wrapped one arm around her waist, bearing her weight as the sedative kicked in and her legs began to give way.
“She’s out,” James said as she slumped into his arms.
Night vision goggles were thrust over his head and suddenly he could see.
“Move fast, you have about six minutes,”Samuel said.
James lifted Jenna into his arms and they ran for the platform, weaving through frantic commuters, pushing their way and fumbling in the darkness. People screamed and ran, possibly thinking it was a terrorist attack. It was pure chaos, which was exactly what they needed.
“Five minutes,”Samuel said.
They were moving slower than normal, constantly getting blocked by people running the other way, out of the station. But they had needed to do this in the dark because James could hardly carry a sedated woman through the terminal and onto the tracks without raising some alarm bells and this wasn’t something he’d be able to easily explain to the security guards.
“Four minutes,”Samuel said.
His arms ached as Jenna felt heavier with every step he took. But he could see the platforms ahead and as he ran past the column, he saw the first posters.
Jenna’s face stared back at him.
Well done, Samuel.
Lisa wouldn’t miss a detail like that, but it didn’t mean she’d play nicely.
“Three minutes.”
They stopped at the edge of the platform. Lachlan jumped down first and held out his hands. James passed Jenna to him then jumped from the platform.
“Samuel has definitely stopped the trains, right?” Lachlan asked as he ran forward, Jenna still in his arms.
“Let’s hope,” James said.