CHAPTER FOUR
KIMBER SAT IN in the back of Holden’s rental SUV staring at the phone in her hand, re-reading the short text message for the hundredth time, something that was much more difficult than it should have been because her hands were shaking like crazy.
Reply to this text when you have the chips. You have 30 hours.
It was the same simple message she’d gotten two other times already. The only thing that had changed with each warning was the countdown at the end, a stark reminder that the clock was ticking on her daughter’s life.
“We’re going to get those chips,” Wes murmured softly from the bench seat beside her. “Then we’re going to go save your daughter.”
She glanced at him, nodding her thanks. She was grateful Dalton had asked Wes to wait with her while he and Holden went out scouting the fence around JASCO. He’d probably known that if she’d been forced to wait there alone, she would have lost her mind.
Wes returned her nod, giving her a smile before going back to scanning the layout drawing of the main building that Dalton had created from memory. She was shocked at how detailed the floor plans were, complete right down to the position of light switches and which side of each door the hinges were located on. She’d worked at JASCO for over two years and still didn’t possess that level of detail.
As Wes ran his finger along the sketch, following the corridor that led from the main side of the facility to the secure side, Kimber noticed how much darker the bruise along his left jaw was in the dim light of the street lamp. She’d first seen it several hours ago when Holden and Wes had shown up at her apartment with four heavy black duffel bags full of gear. Holden had been scuffed up some, too, his knuckles torn and bleeding, his movements stiff, like his ribs hurt. She didn’t know much about that kind of stuff, but it seemed obvious the two men had been in a fight.
“Trouble?” Dalton had asked as he helped them unload the bags and spread the equipment out on her kitchen table. She hadn’t recognized anything beyond the handguns. Those had scared her, but not as much as the other stuff. She might not know what it was, but she knew one thing for sure. The stuff in those bags looked like something a criminal would use, not a Navy SEAL. Who had Holden and Wes gotten involved with who would have stuff like that?
Holden had merely shrugged. “It was a minor disagreement over terms. We dealt with it.”
If that wasn’t a cryptic answer, Kimber didn’t know what was. She’d thought Dalton would ask for details, but instead he grabbed a colored marker and started working up the layout of the JASCO facility, telling his teammates where the tight spots in the company’s security system might be.
She, Dalton, and the guys had ended up spending the next four hours coming up with the plan to break into the building. She hadn’t really thought much about when they’d break into her office. She knew they didn’t have much time, but she’d still been surprised when Dalton had informed her that they’d be doing it that same night at three o’clock in the morning.
“I don’t want to risk waiting until Monday night,” he told her. “Too much chance of some hard charging worker or late-night cleaning crew getting in the way of our timeline. We go in tonight.”
The sound of the SUV’s back door opening almost made Kimber jump out of her skin.
“Relax,” Wes said softly. “It’s Dalton and Holden. They’re back from their recon.”
Wes climbed out of the SUV, moving around the back to join Dalton and Holden. Kimber stayed where she was, trying to get her heart to slow down to something close to normal while attempting to convince herself that this was really going to work out okay. Dalton had told her that rescuing people was what SEALs did for a living. She had to believe in that with all her heart.
She was still trying to convince herself of that when Dalton opened her door. He held out his hand.
“We’re ready to go.”
Kimber took his hand and climbed out, amazed by the strength his touch gave her.
Holden had parked on the backside of another tech company located adjacent to JASCO. There were several vans and a few delivery trucks in the parking lot with them and only a few lights. If the police happened to drive back there, hopefully, they wouldn’t look at the rental SUV twice.
“You good?” Dalton asked, handing her a pair of lightweight gloves that were supposed to keep her from leaving fingerprints behind. Just thinking about that possibility had her heart rate picking up all over again.
From a practical point of view, she understood why they needed her to go into the building with them. They had no idea what the chips looked like or where they were located. But the idea that someone like her was going to break into a highly secure tech lab with a team of Navy SEALs was not only insane, it was simply more than she was capable of.
But for Emma, she’d figure out a way to do it anyway.
She took the gloves. “I’m good.”
Giving her a nod, Dalton swung a backpack onto his shoulders then led the way toward the JASCO fence line. He and the other guys moved so quietly. She on the other hand, sounded like a runaway elephant in comparison. How was this ever going to work?
Halfway there, Dalton dropped back to fall into step beside her. “As I thought, all of the external cameras are either focused on the main gate or the building entrances. There are large sections of the fence line and the main facility left uncovered. Getting in shouldn’t be that hard.”
For Dalton and his friends, it probably wouldn’t be. But for her? It would likely be a nightmare.
At least getting past the fence wasn’t as bad as she thought it was going to be. Instead of having to climb over the ten-foot high monstrosity, she was able to crawl through the little hole Dalton and Holden had already made in one of the back corners. It was so dark she hadn’t seen the opening until they were right on it. Even once she was on the other side, it was hard to see where it was.
As they headed toward the back of the building, Holden peeled off and disappeared from sight. According to the plan, he’d slip through a window and gain access to a service corridor near the main lobby. If everything went right, from there he’d hack into the computers that managed the facility’s cameras and security sensors and take all of them offline without alerting the night guards that he’d done it.
When she, Dalton, and Wes reached the building, the two of them dropped to a knee in the darkness. She did the same. A few minutes later, Dalton pressed his finger to the small radio earbud he wore.
“Security is down in this section,” he softly reported to her and Wes. “Cameras are on a loop and door sensors are deactivated.”
It was shockingly easy getting into the building after that. Kimber simply followed Dalton and Wes as they moved to one of the big glass doors outside the cafeteria, then she and Dalton stood there while Wes picked the lock. After he did, they stepped inside and started across the dimly lit space full of tables and chairs.
The break-in was going so well that she almost missed it when both Dalton and Wes suddenly stopped right in the middle of the cafeteria.
“What’s wrong?” she asked as she skidded to a halt.
She barely got the words out before Dalton clapped a hand over her mouth, then scooped her up in his arms and sprinted for the buffet line and the kitchen beyond, Wes right behind them.
They slid down behind the salad bar cart just as footsteps echoed on the linoleum outside the entrance. The moment Dalton took his hand away from her mouth, Kimber cautiously peeked out, praying whoever it was hadn’t heard them running. Dennis casually sauntered in swinging a flashlight back and forth.
Kimber held her breath as her friend slowly did a sweep of the room. Her gaze locked on the gun holstered at his hip. Would he actually shoot at them if it came to that?
She stiffened, expecting Dennis to stumble upon them at any minute. Beside her, Dalton was just as tense. Instead of being glued to the guard’s moves like she was, his gaze was locked on the outside door they’d just come in. Crap. It hadn’t closed all the way behind them and the gap was painfully obvious. But there wasn’t anything they could do. They’d already made the decision earlier that Dalton and the other guys wouldn’t carry weapons. If they got caught, there’d be no getting away.
After what felt like a million heartbeats, Dennis wandered past the door they’d left ajar, oblivious that it was open. She didn’t know whether to be relieved or kind of annoyed he wasn’t very good at his job. She crouched down lower as Dennis walked past the salad bar cart less than five feet away from their hiding place. Thirty seconds later he was out the door and heading down the main hallway.
Kimber sagged against the cart. Crap, that had been close.
“Stay here,” Dalton whispered to her.
He didn’t need to tell her twice. Right then, her legs were like noodles.
Getting up, Dalton cautiously made his way over to the door Dennis had just exited while Wes hurried across the cafeteria to close the door leading outside.
“We’re good,” Dalton called softly after poking his head into the hallway. “Let’s go.”
Kimber stood and ran over to Dalton even as Wes did the same from the other side of the room. She couldn’t believe she’d allowed herself to imagine for even a moment that anything about this break-in was going to be anti-climactic.
Once in the hallway, they quickly moved to the steel vault door that separated them from the high-value projects on the other side. There was a nine-button cypher lock above the door knob and a magnetic card reader on the wall to the right of the door.
Back at her apartment, when Dalton and the other guys had talked about getting past the facility’s security features, it had sounded simple. But now, after the near miss in the cafeteria, Kimber wasn’t so sure. She couldn’t stop looking over her shoulder down the hallway, worried Dennis or another guard was going to see them.
Wes slipped a large black box over the cypher lock and door knob while Dalton stood beside the card reader with an employee badge in his hand waiting to press it against the sensor on the card reader. She was about to ask him where he’d gotten the access card from—because she sure as heck didn’t have one—but the box on the door started to hum and make little clicking sounds, distracting her.
“What’s it doing?” she whispered.
“Running through all the possible code combinations for the lock,” Dalton said.
Kimber was never going to be a criminal mastermind, but she was techie enough to realize that wasn’t easy. “Isn’t that going to take forever? The possible permutations of five- or six-digit combinations from a nine-button cypher lock is insane. We could be here all night trying to get in.”
No sooner were the words of out her mouth than there was a click. Dalton quickly held up the access card to the reader. A moment later, the LED strip above the card reader turned green.
Dalton gave her a smile as Wes opened the door. “Actually, it’s not as difficult as you’d think. People tend to pick numbers that spell out something on a phone pad because it’s easier to remember.” He gestured to the box Wes pulled off the door. “In this case, the combination is 5, 2, 7, 2, 6, 2, which spells JASCO2. And I’m willing to bet the previous combination was JASCO1 and that the next will be JASCO3.”
Wes stuffed all the high-tech breaking-and-entering gear back in his pack and moved through the door, holding it open for them.
“Seriously?” she asked. “Our security is that bad?”
Dalton nodded and motioned her forward into the hallway beyond the vault door. “Don’t feel bad. You can get into top secret rooms in the Pentagon the same way.”
That wasn’t a very reassuring thought.
“Okay, but what about the access card?” She glanced over her shoulder at Dalton. “Where did you get that?”
Dalton chuckled and let the door close softly behind them. “I swiped it off Henry when we shook hands the other day. What, you thought I was holding onto his hand that long because I was attracted to him or something?”
Kimber gaped. Henry had been wearing his access card on a belt lanyard along with several others. She couldn’t imagine how Dalton had been able to steal it without any of them seeing it happen.
“You stole his card right in front of all of us?” She was both impressed and worried at the same time. “What if he realizes it’s gone?”
Dalton shrugged. “He left the building the same time we did so he’s not likely to notice the card is missing until tomorrow. And even if he does, he’ll probably do what most people would in that situation. He’ll wait until he comes to work, then retrace his steps to try to find it. By then, we’ll already have what we need and be on our way to getting our daughter back.”
Dalton sounded so convinced it was difficult not believing him. Even so, she could think of about a hundred different ways this could go horribly wrong. But she pushed her doubts aside and followed him and Wes as they started down the dimly lit central corridor of the secure part of the building.
She’d never been on this side of JASCO, but it looked similar to the non-secure side where she worked. There was one long hallway with ten lab bays on either side. Each of them were completely independent facilities, each with the raw materials and equipment necessary to create about any electronic prototype a tech nerd could dream up. And the tech nerds who worked there could dream big.
“Crap, this place is bigger than I thought,” Dalton groaned. “Please tell me you know where to find the chips we’re after.”
“I will in a minute,” she said, hurrying over to the computer monitor mounted on the wall beside the door.
It took a few moments for the thing to boot up, but once it did, all she had to do was punch in the product code the kidnappers had given her. A string of codes and names came up, but the only thing she cared about was the number that corresponded with the bay.
“Over there,” she said, pointing to the left side of the corridor. “Fourth lab.”
It was easy finding the chips after that, probably because nobody was too worried about security inside the vault. They had to use Henry’s access card again to get through the lab door, but after that, it was simply a matter of Wes picking the lock on a storage cabinet and finding the right chips. Even that part was simple since the product code was written on a label stuck on the plastic blister pack holding six of the prototype chips.
The code should have been meaningless because it was merely a random collection of letters and numbers. Whoever had kidnapped their daughter had known exactly which product code they wanted. That shouldn’t have been possible.
“What do these things do?” Wes asked, picking up the package holding the microprocessors and moving them back and forth in the light.
Each chip was about three inches on a side, which was huge. But beyond the code number stamped on top of the silicon wafers, there were no markings to give away what the things might be capable of. Back at her apartment, Wes had suggested they just grab a random chip from the nearest electronics store rather than break into the company. They’d all ultimately rejected that idea since the kidnappers might know what the chips look like. She was glad they had. No way would they have found a chip this size at an electronics store.
“There’ s no way of knowing from looking at it,” Kimber said. “But with a chip this large, you know it’s something that takes a lot of computing power.”
“It doesn’t matter what these things are or what they do.” Dalton took the package from Wes and slipped it into his pack. “The only thing that matters is that they’re going to help us get our daughter back.”
Getting out of the facility was a lot faster and uneventful than getting in and as they headed for the perimeter fence, Kimber found herself believing for the first time that this might actually work. They were really going to bring Emma home.