the chair across from a man who was calling himself John. If Easton was into gambling, he’d bet everything that wasn’t the dark-haired man’s name.
“Just tell us what you need, and we’ll get it for you. We want to work together as a team.” The man’s voice was a little raspy, but oddly soothing.
Which was just an illusion. “So are you the good cop, then? Or good kidnapper, whatever.”
The man’s eyes narrowed a fraction, but then that easy smile was back in place. “My associates got a little carried away at first, didn’t understand how important you are.”
Uh-huh. Yeah, right. Easton kept his expression as neutral as possible. He’d been drugged again, then moved to some sort of lab. Everything here was state of the art, a lot different than the cold, empty house he’d been in before. He looked around the room again, though he’d already memorized most of the items in it. Whoever had kitted this place out had some serious money.
“Just tell me what you want, and we can move forward from there.” They’d released his wrist and ankle restraints as well, so he had range of movement.
But the guy in front of him, while acting all concerned, was definitely trained. And armed. His gun was hidden, but Easton had seen the bulge at his back earlier when he’d turned to talk to the other armed guy by the door. Now, that guy wasn’t hiding his weapons. As in plural.
“I know you’ve been working on new treatments for ALS.”
Easton blinked, nodded. “Yeah.” It wasn’t a secret—he’d published articles about it and had been featured in a few online journals.
“I’ve also heard that you’re close to finding a cure.”
Well, that was a big fat lie. But Easton wanted to live, so he nodded slowly, acting as if he was weighing telling the truth or not. “You have good sources.”
Apparently, it was the right thing to say because the guy’s mouth curved up slightly. “We blew up your lab.”
Wait…what? Easton blinked, tried to digest the words. “Was anyone hurt?” he managed to rasp out through his surprise. His coworkers, friends… Oh wait, Jesse.
“No, of course not.” The man dismissed his question. “But all your research has been destroyed. And you’re going to replicate it.”
He frowned at the man. “All my research is online. In the cloud.”
The man gave a patient nod. “Yes, we figured as much. You’re going to log into your account with FACE, Inc. and download all your research. And you’ll be monitored the entire time.”
“That’s all you want? Why did you go to all the trouble of kidnapping me, then?”
“Because of how close you are to finding a cure—and we haven’t been able to hack into your files.”
If he gave them all his files, he’d be useless to them. They’d kill him. Well, he was certain they’d kill him eventually anyway. Because none of them had been wearing masks. He’d thought maybe he’d been kidnapped because of the suspected money laundering he’d stumbled onto. A colleague from Innovative Labs had come to him about an issue with odd financials and labs that didn’t seem to exist, so Easton had started looking into it in his spare time as a favor. But his own research was in a different stratosphere of what he’d imagined he’d been taken for.
“You’ll have anything you need at your disposal. You just have to ask. How close do you think you are?”
He rubbed a hand over his face, trying to ground himself. Because he had to think fast, to lie his ass off. Something he hated to do. But to stay alive, he’d do it. “A few weeks out, maybe a couple months. If you really did blow up my lab, I’ll need to replicate some experiments, but mostly all my and my team’s research is saved.”
The man nodded, clearly pleased—and clearly a dumbass. “Good, we’ll get started, then.”
He nodded once at the guard, who opened the door, stepped out, then returned with a laptop.
After “John” set it in front of him, he sat right next to him. “Get all the information you need.”
Easton was stiff as he worked, his fingers flying over the keyboard as he logged into his Cloud account. “These are the files,” he said, nodding at the screen. “This is a lot of information. Can this laptop handle it if I transfer?”
The man simply nodded so Easton got to work transferring. It took a while, but once he was done, the man said, “That’s it?”
Easton nodded, wondering if this was when he was going to die. Sure, he could have refused to grab all his research, but then he’d have been tortured or killed. And he needed to buy himself time, to figure out a way from wherever here was. Besides, it was clear they needed him to work on this anyway because there weren’t any other scientists here. And he’d have to do more live trials…something these people didn’t seem to understand.
The man slid the laptop away from Easton, then plugged in a red flash drive. Easton watched as something started happening to his Cloud account.
All the information started to disappear, as if it was being eaten up by bugs.
“What are you doing?” he demanded.
“Corrupting your account.” Looking pleased with himself, the man stood, laptop in hand. “I’ll be back shortly.” His tone was dismissive as he left the room, watching the destruction on-screen.
Nausea swelled up inside Easton as he thought of all his work being destroyed. He had other backups, but this was the most comprehensive of all of his research over the years. He jolted to his feet, and the guard shoved off the door, but he ignored the man as he bent over a nearby stainless-steel garbage can and threw up, emptying what little contents remained of the food they’d recently fed him.
He really needed to get out of here.