“The details are still being worked out. For now let’s just get you and Miss Donleavy out of here.”

“You found Susan. How is she?”

“Shaken pretty badly. She was raped.”

“After what those bastards did to her they still raped her? So help me God, Dan Singer is going to pay.”

“So it’s your former partner behind this,” Ski said and helped Merrick to his feet.

With their charge between them, Ski and Mike worked their way back to the door. Geoffrey Merrick charged ahead when he saw Susan standing next to Eddie Seng, her face wan in the moonlight. He opened his arms to hug her but stopped, a look of confusion clouding his features.

“Your face,” he said, bewildered. You’re not —”

That was all he could get out. Susan shoved Eddie at the same time she yanked his pistol from its unsecured holster. Her eyes were wild, defiant, as she brought the weapon to bear, her thumb flicking off the Beretta’s safety.

“Die, you son of a bitch!” she screamed at the top of her lungs and pulled the trigger.

Eddie’s reactions were lightning fast despite the irrationality of the situation. But even as his body reacted he thought through what had happened. Susan Donleavy wasn’t a victim at all. She was in league with the kidnappers and that was no rape in the other cell block but two lovers who’d gone to find a place to be alone.

He swung his hand upward, hitting Susan’s wrist an instant before the Beretta discharged. The recoil and the strike sent the gun clattering into the dim hallway and left her throat unprotected. Eddie whipped his hand around and slashed the edge into her neck, pulling the blow at the last second so he didn’t crush her carotid artery and kill her. He turned quickly.

Geoffrey Merrick was on the floor, Ski and Trono hunched over him. The blood splattered on the wall behind them looked like a Rorschach test.

“Is he alive?”

“Yes, but she got him high in the chest,” Ski said pulling a sterile dressing from a medical kit. Merrick’s face was bone white and he took choppy sips of air as he struggled against the pain. His chest was sodden and more blood leaked from the wound. “I don’t know if any major organs were hit, but for now you’ve saved his life.”

“Not yet I haven’t,” Eddie said as he plucked the dressing from Ski’s hand. “We don’t have time for that. She’s one of them and no doubt lied about the number of guards. This place is going to be crawling in about ten seconds. Pick him up and let’s go.”

“What’s happening?” Linc asked over the tactical radio.

“Donleavy shot Merrick. I think she’s working with the kidnappers.”