Phd Protector

“I did an inventory of the lab equipment and supplies,” he told Erin as they ate lunch—the last of the sandwich fixings—that afternoon. She had spent the morning looking out the windows, not speaking. Maybe the direness of their situation was sinking in.

“How do you replenish your supplies?” she asked. She lifted the top slice of bread on her turkey sandwich and frowned at the grayish meat inside.

“I make a list and give it to the guard who delivers the food.” Mark bit into his own sandwich. After his first weeks here he had learned to eat when food was offered, since he could never be sure when the next meal would arrive. “I’m pretty well stocked right now, but I need more nitric acid. I use it to process the plutonium.” Any chemist would recognize this as a gross oversimplification of what he did, but the guards didn’t strike him as chemistry majors.

“So you think they’ll bring more food this afternoon?” she asked.

“I hope so. We need more food since there are two of us now.”

“It must be pretty boring for the guards,” she said. “I’ve been watching them all morning and they just walk around the cabin all day. What do they do when it snows, or at night?”

“There’s someone on guard all the time,” he said. “Sometimes they build a fire in winter, and they have a trailer parked nearby, where they can take turns warming up.”

He could almost read her thoughts. She was thinking if they could get out of here at a time when only one guard was outside, they would have a better chance of getting away.

“They keep the doors locked from the outside,” he reminded her.

She nodded, still thoughtful.

The crunch of tires on ice alerted them to new arrivals. “This might be our dinner,” he said, standing.

She stood also, and together they faced the door. A car door slammed, locks turned and the door swung open to reveal a guard Mark had named Tank—a thick-muscled, broad-shouldered guy with a shaved head, a gold front tooth and a permanent scowl. The floor shook as he strode toward them, two plastic grocery bags looped over one hand, the other balled into a fist at his side.

A second guard—a wiry black man with a thin mustache—positioned himself by the door, a semiautomatic rifle held across his chest. He glanced at Mark, then his gaze fixed on Erin and one corner of his mouth lifted in a sneer. She moved a little closer to Mark, her breath shallow, skin pale. He wanted to put out a hand to steady her, maybe squeeze her shoulder to reassure her, but doing anything to draw attention to her felt like the wrong move.

Tank set the grocery bags on the table, the cans and bottles inside rattling. At this point, he usually turned and shuffled out, but this afternoon was different. He moved toward Erin, who shrank back.

“I’m supposed to check your collar,” he said, and took hold of her arm, dragging her toward him.

She stood rigid, jaw clamped shut, as he ran one thick finger under the edge of the metal collar. The other hand slid down her arm to cup her breast. “Yeah,” he murmured. “Nice.”

“Get your hands off of me,” she warned.

“Now, sugar, seeing as how you’re going to be here awhile, we might as well be friendly.” He squeezed, and Erin brought her knee up toward his crotch, but he blocked the move and twisted her arm around her back, hard enough that she let out a cry.

Mark launched himself at the thug, landing a knuckle-bruising blow that sent blood spurting from Tank’s nose. Howling, the guard released Erin and swung the butt of his rifle against the side of Mark’s head. Mark staggered back, his vision blurring. Erin’s screams mingled with the pounding of his pulse and the animal growl that rose from Tank. Mark fell backward over one of the kitchen chairs and tried to regain his balance as Tank lunged toward him. He scanned the area for a weapon and grabbed for the chair, swinging it up to block a second blow from the rifle. Then the barrel of the weapon zeroed in on him, stalling his heart in his chest as he stared death in the face.

Chapter Five (#ulink_deeab176-e0b3-5468-8274-0f20ff9394ae)

“No!” Erin’s scream tore through the noise of their struggle. “Don’t be an idiot.” She lunged toward the biggest thug, held back by the black guard, who wrapped his arms around her and lifted her off the ground as if she weighed no more than a pet dog. She kicked and flailed anyway, desperate to keep the other man from hurting Mark. “If you kill him before he finishes the bomb, Duane Braeswood will make sure you suffer,” she shouted.

The big thug hesitated, and Mark staggered to his feet. He swayed, blood trailing down the side of his face, but he managed to glare at the guard, who snarled, but lowered the rifle. Then the thug turned and stalked to the door. The black guard shoved Erin toward Mark and seconds later the front door slammed behind them and the locks slid back into place.

“You’re bleeding.” She rushed to Mark, her fingers fluttering over the broken bruise on the side of his head, fearful of hurting him more if she touched him. But when he swayed alarmingly, she gripped him by the arm and led him to the bed. “Stay here and I’ll get something to clean you up.”

He opened his mouth as if to protest, then closed his eyes and said nothing. She hurried to the sink and ran cold water over a clean dishrag, keeping one eye on him in case he toppled over. The guard had hit him so hard she had been afraid at first that he’d been killed.

But he opened his eyes when she returned to his side, and sucked in his breath when she dabbed at the wound with the wet rag. “Sorry,” she said, “but I need to clean up this blood. You’ve got a nasty bruise, and it broke the skin.”

“At least I’m not dead,” he said. “If you hadn’t said that about Duane and the bomb, I probably would be.”

“You shouldn’t have punched him.” Her hand tightened on his shoulder as she continued dabbing at the blood. Now that her initial terror had faded, she felt light-headed and shaky. “You didn’t ask for me to come here and it’s not your responsibility to defend me.”

“I wasn’t going to stand by and let him maul you.” Mark turned his head to meet her gaze. “I didn’t ask for you to come here, but I’m glad you’re here.”

The sad, defeated look had left his eyes, replaced with such strength and vitality she might have thought she was with a different man altogether. She lost track of everything in the heat of that gaze and for that split second, he wasn’t hurt, she wasn’t wearing a bomb around her neck, they weren’t trapped and this whole nightmare had never happened. They were a man and a woman making a connection.

But under the circumstances, that kind of moment couldn’t last. The situation was too dire, their need to get away too urgent. She squeezed his shoulder again, then dropped her hand. Her voice trembled only a little as she changed the subject. “Did you notice?” she asked. “The one who grabbed me after you hit the big guy left the door unguarded. We might be able to use that information.”

“I don’t think we can risk trying the same moves again.” He touched the wound on the side of his head and winced. “Next time they might kill me. They might kill both of us.”

“No, we can’t risk it. But that tells us that under the right circumstances, the man on the door will abandon his post.” She stood. “Let’s see what they brought us to eat.”

The two plastic grocery bags the guard had carried in had tipped over and spilled their contents across the table: canned soup and fruit, sliced cheese and cheap lunch meat, a partially smashed loaf of bread, toaster pastries, instant coffee, crackers, corn chips, canned ravioli and a box of chocolate cupcakes. Mark picked up the cupcakes. “This is new,” he said. “They never bring anything sweet.”

Erin stared at the cupcakes, heart pounding. It was just a stupid box of cupcakes, but still...

“What’s wrong?” Mark asked. “You look like you’re going to faint.” He put a steadying hand on her arm.

She shook her head, trying to clear the fog. “It’s silly.”

“But you think you know why the cupcakes are here this time?”

She swallowed, trying to keep her composure. “They’re my favorite. When I was a kid, my mom would buy them as a special treat for my lunches. And even as an adult, she would keep them around for me.” Erin swallowed tears at the memory of sitting at the kitchen table after school, peeling back the thick chocolate frosting with the white squiggle through the center to reveal the cream-filled chocolate cake beneath, while her mother sat across from her, sipping coffee and asking about her day. “Mom must have persuaded Duane to include them in the delivery for us. Either that, or it’s his sick way of reminding me that he knows all about me.” She turned away, fighting to regain control of her emotions.