Zero Hour (NUMA Files 11)

Joe lifted his head. He made sure to look weary and woozy. “Is that… all you’ve got?”

This time, the thug reared back and fired an overhand right at Joe’s eye. Joe snapped his head to the side with surprising quickness. The torturer’s fist slammed into the wall of rock behind Joe, and a sickening crack rang out.

The big thug shrieked in pain and dropped to his knees, cradling his wrist.

Joe managed a smile. Gregorovich laughed out loud.

“Enough of this!” Janko shouted. He stepped toward Hayley and grabbed her by the hair. “Talk or I’ll take it out on her!”

Before he could do anything more, the steel door opened. Three men stood there in the shadows. Joe’s vision was a little fuzzy at this point, but he was fairly certain the man in the center was wearing some kind of mask.

They stepped into the room.

Janko snapped to attention.

“So these are our enemies,” the masked man said. His eyes lingered on Hayley until she returned his gaze. Next, he glanced at Joe, and finally Gregorovich.

“When they get done with you,” he said, “you’ll need a mask like mine.”

Gregorovich only stared.

“What did they bring?”

Janko pointed to the hard-shell-suitcase bomb.

“Has it been deactivated?”

“There was a timing device,” Janko said, “but we have disabled it.”

The masked man looked to his guards. “Bring it,” he said, and they quickly lifted it and took it out into the hall.

As the guards vanished into the hallway, the masked leader turned his attention back to Hayley. “Get her cleaned up and bring her up to me,” he said. “I have something to show her.”

“She’s part of this,” Janko replied. “She’s been with the ASIO from the beginning. She knows what’s at stake here.”

“Yes,” the man replied in a sinister, raspy voice. “She knows more than you think.”

He turned around and left. Janko stood still, looking stunned.

Slowly, he began to act, doing as ordered, moving to unlock Hayley’s cuffs and disconnect her shackles from the wall. He left with her in tow. The two interrogators followed him out. One of them, no doubt, headed for the sick bay.

As the steel door slammed and locked tight, Joe and Gregorovich were left in the room with the dead commandos.

Joe glanced over at Gregorovich. “You’re welcome,” he said.

Gregorovich turned back to Joe, his face mostly bruises and blood. “I didn’t need your help.”

“Really?”

“But thank you anyway.”

Joe figured that was the best he would get out of Gregorovich. “You take a punch pretty well for a Russian.”

“Sure,” Gregorovich said. “And you handled your pain fairly well for a decadent American. You didn’t even need any whisky to make you strong.”

Joe accepted the backhanded compliment. “I’d take some,” he admitted, “if you happened to have a bottle on you.”

The two men stared at each other for a moment, and finally Gregorovich began to laugh. Joe joined him. It hurt like crazy, but it was worth it.