Chapter 3
Jurgens disconnected the call, closing
the cell phone with a snap of his wrist and a silent snarl. It
hadn’t been a pleasant conversation. Hardened as he was from years
in his profession, he was irritated at the level of venom he’d
sensed over his refusal. His annoyance made him more thorough about
the methodical destruction of the phone. The largest piece when he
was done could have been hidden under a dime.
He had turned down the contract on
Davros Gianikopolis, citing both other work and a conflict of
interest. He didn’t go into details, wouldn’t. No questions had
been asked.
Frowning, he pondered the
repercussions.
“My love,” Caroline said, gliding into
the brightly lit room, her robe a lush flow of rose silk over her
skin. “Come to bed.” She came up behind his chair and automatically
began to massage his shoulders, easing the tension there with her
touch alone.
He turned his face to kiss the hand
that eased him so.
“I made the call,” he said, knowing she
would understand.
“I see.” Her hands never stilled,
though he felt the brief hesitation, understood it. “What was your
decision?”
“I declined.”
Her fingers stilled, and then squeezed
before resuming their relaxing strokes. “Good.”
They stayed connected there, for long
silent moments, both thinking their own thoughts as Caroline
continued to rub his shoulders, releasing the tension that had
taken up residence there when he’d made his decision, notified the
potential client. He’d done work for the man before, successfully
of course. Perhaps it was that which made the client so angry.
Perhaps not.
He was unsure which reaction concerned
him more, the lack of respect for their previous relationship or
the vicious severing of their business when he’d refused the
contract. He knew people, their reactions, their reasoning. It made
him good at what he did. Perhaps that was why he knew this would
not end here, not with this client.
“Now what? Will you let him know? Will
you tell Davros that he’s targeted?”
“He knows this, I am sure,” he said
dismissively, knowing it to be true, but giving her the opening to
continue the discussion.
“He doesn’t know about this one. You
said—” She stopped and he could feel her hesitation.
“Nein.” He
stopped her kneading hands by spinning in the chair, gripping them
in his own. “Do not hide your thoughts from me. We must be clear
together, always, ja?”
She sighed and kissed him as he pulled
her into his lap. She fit there with remarkable ease, something he
never failed to appreciate.
“I am sentimental,” she said
hesitantly. “I know he had nothing to do with our finally being
together—you took care of that.” When he frowned, she saw it and
added, “Yes, I know, we both played our parts. But his situation
with the art fraud, the way his people dug it out, gave us a cover
and an opportunity that might not have come up for several more
years.” She smiled and he loved her all the more. Everything about
her lit him from within.
“You want me to warn him.” He said it
matter-of-factly. He knew this was what she did want. It would not
be the easiest, or perhaps the wisest course, but for her, for
sentiment, he would do it if she asked.
“Yes.”
“Hmmm,” was all he said, shifting her
to lean on his shoulder, enjoying the feel of her lithe body in his
arms, on his lap. As always, she waited while he thought it
through. No questions, no pleading. This was another thing he loved
about her. She was clear, concise. If he asked for reasoning, she
would give it, though perhaps in this case she wouldn’t since she’d
already admitted she was motivated by sentiment, perhaps even
superstition.
His decision made, he straightened and
she looked him in the eye, a connection that few others would ever
make, a looking into his very soul. For that, as much as anything,
he would take on the world for her, anyone and
anything.
“It will be difficult. I will need to
be away, you know this.”
“Ja, mein
liebchen.” She spoke the words with precision and care. She
was learning German so she could greet his mother in that tongue,
when they met. That trip would be in summer and he was looking
forward to it. One step closer to their wedding.
“Gut,” he
praised. “I will need to think. Go on to sleep, I will come join
you soon.”
Without another word, but with the
warmest of looks, she stood. Bending forward, she kissed him. The
connection was strong, powerful and intoxicating. It captured him
and blocked out every other thought. When it ended, he felt
renewed, alive.
“Make it soon.”
He watched her leave, heard her kiss
the boy, even caught the faint rustle of the sheets and blankets as
she got into bed.
His Caroline.
He could refuse her very little, and
since his inclination ran parallel with hers, he wouldn’t refuse
her this.
Decision made, he began to plan. He
would sell this house as soon as they left in the morning. It had
been a good bolt-hole in his single days, but it was too dangerous
to keep any longer. It was unlikely that anyone would trace it to
him, but there were other properties. His corporation would sell it
at a loss, he was sure, given the market, but no matter. The
proceeds would go to fund a scholarship at a school he’d randomly
chosen from a directory. Having made that call from here, he must
disconnect himself from it immediately.
He fired off an e-mail to his lawyer
that would set a sale in motion. Now, for research. He needed to
know who else had been offered the contract on Dav, and which of
them had taken the bait, for he knew this party would not have
waited to hear from him before taking action.
Dav wasn’t dead yet, but he soon could
be. His Caroline didn’t want that, so Jurgens would be sure it
didn’t happen.
Ever.
Dav was sick when he woke in the dark.
The nausea and pounding headache reminded him of his failings the
moment he returned to consciousness. Vibrations thrummed through
the metal under his hip and rattled his bound hands. He heard the
drone of turbines and the whistle of the wind that told him he was
in a plane.
Given the metallic flooring, he was
probably in a cargo hold or the back of a small plane, with the
seats removed. His hands were tied behind his back, cuffed maybe,
but he wasn’t sure because he couldn’t feel his fingers—the
circulation was cut off.
It took him a minute to conquer the
fear and anger that rose to choke him. His father had liked to
discipline his son by shoving him into the darkest part of the
cellar. Dav could still hear the door slamming behind him and his
father yelling, “Grow some balls, boy. Can’t stand to see any son
of mine afraid of the dark.”
It hadn’t been the dark that frightened
him. It had been the closed-in space, the dank walls smelling of
old bones and old blood. He knew people had died in that room, and
died badly. More than that, it had been the roaches and rats that
had sniffed at him or crawled on him, a small boy huddled by the
door, praying to survive and get out.
The terror had come from
knowing—believing—that he had no control over getting out. Release
would come at his father’s whim, or not at all.
The shudder was impossible to suppress.
All these years later, the fear still haunted him. He drew a deep
breath and focused on two very important details. There wouldn’t be
rats or roaches on a plane.
“Then eeseh enea
chronon,” he whispered to himself. I am no
longer nine years old.
Using only small movements, he shifted
on the floor. Getting onto his side a bit eased the feeling of
illness. He waited a heartbeat to see if anyone noticed him move or
was watching him. Facedown as he was, with his head covered, he
couldn’t tell if he was alone or not.
Struggling to quiet his breathing, he
strained to hear any other noise over the engine’s roar. Bracing
his aching elbows on the floor, he made another shift to the right.
He was just getting his balance when the plane banked sharply and
threw him over onto his side again. He nearly screamed at the pain
in his arms and shoulders, but he worried more when he realized
he’d landed on something soft. Something that smelled of flowers
and woman.
Carrie.
He wanted to leap up, pull her up with
him, but it was impossible. Instead, he struggled to calm his
racing heart and mind enough to feel or hear if she was alive.
She’d made no sound when he crashed into her, so he feared the
worst.
He held his breath and scooted closer,
ignoring his aching arms. “Carrie?” he whispered, the bag over his
head muffling his voice. “Carrie?”
Leaning toward her, he searched for
some sign of life.
In a lightning shift from deathly
stillness to action, she burst upward, her elbow pressed into his
neck. Her skin was warm. She was alive.
Before he could do more than appreciate
the fact, she shifted her weight with a grunt, and knocked him
back, pinning him to the floor. Once again, his shoulders and
elbows were racked with pain.
“Touch me and I will kill you,” she
hissed even as she wobbled above him. Shaky as she was, her arm
stayed tight on his windpipe.
“It’s Dav,” he wheezed as her elbow
pressed harder. “Carrie, it’s Dav.”
“Dav?” The pressure eased off and he
drew in a lungful of musty air, still catching a faint whiff of the
darkly sweet scent of the drug they’d used to knock him out. “Dav,
it’s you? Are you okay?”
As she clutched at his jacket, he felt
the shaking in her arms, the tremble in her body. “No, but I’m
alive, and thank God you are too,” he said with heartfelt relief as
her shaking hands raced over him. He could tell she was bound as
well, since her hands moved together, tugging at his shirt and his
lapels. More than anything, he wanted to crush her to him, hold her
tightly, feel her life. “I’m okay.” He said it over and over until
she began to relax and stop running her hands frantically up and
down his chest.
Then he added wryly, “But when we get
out of this, Gates is going to kill me.” He felt her stiffen, then
felt a tremor rock her body. “Carrie, are you okay?”
“Believe it or not, I’m laughing,” she
said, and her voice quivered. “Although that doesn’t seem
appropriate. If we get out of this, Gates will probably want to
kill me too.”
“Oh, Carrie,” Dav said, his heart
sinking. “I am so sorry.”
“Hush, Dav,” she said, her voice firm
and sharp now. “We’re here. We’ll figure it out. What is it they
say? While there’s life, there’s hope.”
Please God, let her be
right.
First things first—they had to figure
out where they were and where they were going. “Can you see?” he
asked.
“Oh, say can you see?” she sang softly,
then giggled again, her voice returning to the wavery tremolo it
had held before. “I think I’m still drugged up. That was far
funnier than it should have been.”
He grinned, even as he worried for her.
In spite of everything she was magnificent. “Yes, it
was.”
She sobered a bit and added, “It’s a
plane, it’s dark. No one else is back here with us.”
“Good, that’s good.” He shifted, trying
to make sense of it all. Unfortunately, that brought him in more
intimate contact with her body, driving anything practical out of
his head for a moment. “I wish I could see.” He felt his heart rate
leap as she moved against him. The race of his blood made his bound
hands throb.
“You’re too pretty to have a bag over
your head,” she snickered. “Oh, Lord,” she half moaned. “I’m sorry.
Don’t listen to me. I’m just drugged enough to say stuff and just
sober enough to realize I’m being stupid.”
Well, at least she thought he was
pretty. That was something to take to the grave with him. “It’s all
right,” he said, smiling at the thought of her talking without
censor. “Can you use your hands? Can you feel anything around
us?”
“Yes, I think so. Can you lift up?” she
asked, then hummed another tune. He heard her faintly singing
words. Something that sounded like “up, up and
away...”
Dav struggled to a sitting position,
and both felt and heard her rustling around behind him. The bag
lifted off his head with a rush, and he could hardly believe it,
since he still couldn’t see. The fresher air, however, was like
sweet wine and he drew in the cold, fuel-tinged air with
gratitude.
They were in a cargo plane, as he’d
guessed, but it was smaller than he’d thought it would be. There
were empty crates and bins strapped down to the grooved floor and
walls, their gaping sides showing up as darker squares or
rectangles in the gloom.
“How long have we been here? Do you
have any idea?” he asked, scanning the space for any telltale
markings or anything that could help them. Knowledge was power. In
any dangerous situation, you had to assess the weapons available,
some of which might be data. Of all the possible kidnap scenarios
they’d run, figured out how Dav could survive, nothing had been
like this.
“It’s dark outside,” she said, lifting
her hands to point toward the small round window on an exterior
door about ten feet away near the narrowing tail section. “We met
at noon. It was probably twelve thirty when everything blew up.”
She spoke with calm lucidity, then snickered again. “I’ve never had
a date blow up.”
“I strive to be unique,” he answered,
matching her humorous tone, though he worried that she still was
feeling the effects of the drugs, based on the inappropriate
laughter. “I have no idea what they used on us, to drug us.
Hopefully it’ll wear off.”
“Yeah,” she said, “I really suck at
drugs. Even with the dentist.” He heard her gasp, turned toward the
sound, but she was just a black shape in the gray void of the
space. “Whoa!” she gasped again. “Now I want to cry. That was
sudden.” Her silhouette swayed and he wished he could move to brace
her. “I feel like I’m on a roller coaster.”
“Deep breaths,” he said, harkening to
more of Gates’s advice. “It’ll clear your head and get your blood
moving, which will get the poison out of your system
faster.”
As she drew in steady, measured
breaths, he tried to calculate the time in his head, forcibly
ignoring the image of Declan’s body flying backward through the
glass, the vision of Declan bringing down a waiter and panicked
patrons, as blood blossomed scarlet on his blue dress
shirt.
Dav vaguely remembered seeing the other
members of the team beyond Declan, fighting their way through the
narrow spaces between the tables. To block the thoughts, he
visualized a map in his mind, tried to calculate, push away the
faces of his fallen friends. “I’m guessing it’s at least seven.
Maybe later. We’re either somewhere close to the Mississippi, if we
took off right away, or over the Yucatán, or the Pacific Ocean. If
we went north, we’re well into Canada.” He called off the
directions and considered the possibilities of each compass
point.
“Somehow, I doubt it’s Canada,” Carrie
said, her voice more even now. “I can’t see anyone lofting you off
to the Northwest Territories and dumping you there. Snowbound Dav.
That would be weird.” Now the giggle was back. She was having
another manic reaction to the drugs, swinging from morose to giggly
to normal.
“It would be smart, though,” Dav said,
thinking it through, trying to ignore the worry that Carrie might
have been really sickened by the drugs, or that she’d been given a
higher dose than he for some reason. “Who would suspect
it?”
“Terrible, but true,” Carrie said. “It
doesn’t feel cold though. The cabin’s not pressurized, so we’re
flying low. If we were over Canada it would be cold. It’s only
April.”
“True. Same goes for the East Coast,
probably. We may already be over Texas, or out over the Gulf of
Mexico.”
“They could be planning to dump us in
the ocean,” she said, and he heard terror in her voice, the
incipient panic.
“No, I don’t think so,” he said,
forcing conviction into his voice. “They want something from me, or
I’d be dead already.”
“What about me?” Carrie said softly.
“What do they want from me?”
He leaned toward her, trying for
comfort, though both of them were obviously thinking the worst. “I
don’t know. You may be leverage to get me to do what they want. I
hope that’s all it is.”
“It’s weird,” she said, in another
lightning change of mood. “I’m scared, terrified really, but it’s
like this is happening to someone else. The drugs are doing that, I
guess,” she added. “I need to lie down, or lean on something before
I fall down,” she said, her voice normal once more. She scooted
around to put her back against the side of the plane, and then
helped him do the same. “Hey, look. My purse is here, so’s your
coat.” The last was said in an easy, conversational tone. The shift
and weave of Carrie’s emotional state was almost as disturbing as
their current difficulty.
“Really? Where?”
“Over there.” She gestured with her
bound hands. He wondered if he dared try to get his hands in front
of him. He decided not to attempt it yet. There was nowhere to go,
no one to fight in the middle of the air, in the dark.
“The plane seems to be flying fast and
level,” he observed, forcing himself to think about the situation,
rather than worry about Carrie. If he kept worrying about her, he
wouldn’t think, not constructively or logically. If there was any
chance of escape he had to be rational to see it, to plan. “We’re
not close to wherever we’re going yet,” he said slowly, thinking it
through, trying to get past the panic, the fear for Carrie. “If we
hear anything though, like the pilot or someone is coming back
here, you need to put the bag on my head. I’m guessing they don’t
want me to see anyone. Let’s make sure I don’t. If I’m not supposed
to see them they may only be out for ransom.”
“Then why did they take the bag off my
head?” Carrie asked, and there was further panic in her voice.
“They don’t think I’m worth ransom? They’re going to kill me,
aren’t they.” She made it a statement, not a question. “Or
worse.”
“I don’t know, Carrie, but here’s what
I do know,” he said softly, forcing her to listen by the very
softness of his voice. He moved closer to comfort her, bumping his
shoulder against hers for the human connection. If his hands were
free, he would hold her. For now, this was all he could do. “Look
at me.”
She hesitated, turned his way. He could
make out the glint of her frightened eyes. Even in the gloom, he
could see that her pupils were so dilated there was barely a rim of
the rich blue showing. “What?”
“Carrie, just focus on me, on my voice.
You’ve been drugged, you’re scared. Eh-la, you know all that. It
may be that they were counting on your still being out,
unconscious.”
Her eyes flickered away, darting around
the dark cargo hold as if searching for answers, or villains. He
could see the trembling in her shoulders. Whatever sense she’d made
earlier was being subsumed by the fear, and the drugs were making
it worse.
“I’m cold. Where are the blankets?” she
said fretfully. She was struggling now, struggling to get up, to
move. If the plane banked again, she’d fall and hurt
herself.
“Here, come sit with me, darling,” Dav
crooned, coaxing her to sit down again. She’d struggled to her
knees, trying to rise. “I’ll keep you warm. I’ve got
you.”
Encountering an air pocket, the plane
dropped briefly. Carrie rocked over from her kneeling position,
falling awkwardly onto his chest.
“Ow!” she exclaimed, and he barely
managed not to cry out with the pain.
He’d wanted her next to him, imagined
her in his arms. It would be nice if her falling into him hadn’t
hurt so much, but he’d take what he could get.
With her body pressed to his, he
realized how cold he was. The imprint of her warmth was a dramatic
contrast. He briefly wished the coat she’d spotted weren’t so far
away. They could use it for warmth. Even the breath mints in the
pocket would help ease the nausea that still lurked in his gut.
With grim humor, he wondered how long they could survive on mints
and whatever she had in her purse.
The warm silk of her hair brushed his
neck, and he realized that for both their sakes, he’d have to get
his hands in front of him. He couldn’t hold her; nor could they
stay warm enough with his hands bound back.
“Here now, sweetheart—” He used the
endearment as much to soothe his own fears as hers. “Sit up for a
moment and let me get my hands in front of me. Just a minute,
okay?”
She nodded and he felt the movement on
his body. He hated the deepening gloom in the plane’s interior, the
yawning, inky black maw of the tail section. Her delusions and fear
made it worse. The residual drugs in his system made it harder to
fight back the memories, the sensory details of rats and roaches.
He shuddered again as he began the agonizing task of getting his
hands in front of him.
Sweat ran a damp trail down his spine
as he struggled with the twists and turns necessary to pull his
bound hands under his hips, and from there, under his knees. It
took him forever to get his feet through the circle of his arms.
Red fury threatened at several points, his temper unbound by the
drug and the situation. The pain in his shoulders and elbows raced
fire over all his nerves, even as cold fear rose within him because
he couldn’t feel his hands.
More than anything, he was castigating
himself at the sheer hubris he’d displayed. To have his decision to
relax security measures cost him his life was bad enough, but to
have it potentially cost Carrie her life was
almost more than he could bear.
“Dav? Are you okay?” Carrie asked, her
voice stronger.
“Yamot ti Panayia
mou!” The vulgar curse burst forth from him as he lost his
patience with being helpless, with trying to get his hands from
underneath him while balancing against the plane’s movements. The
only plus was that stress and the steady physical activity brought
him momentary warmth in the cold of the cargo area. His hands stung
in pain with the banging around generated by his struggles. At
least he was feeling the pain; it would be far worse, he knew, if
his hands had remained numb.
When he finally got them in front of
him, he almost wished he hadn’t. Swollen and bluish, his hands were
secured together with three heavy-duty plastic zip ties. One on
each wrist was linked by the third, not only immobilizing him, but
deliberately exacerbating the potential for pain.
After one look, he ignored the ties. He
couldn’t change the situation right now and Gates had told him to
consistently focus on the things he could change. “Here, Carrie,”
he said when he got his pain under momentary control. “Sit closer.
We’ll keep each other warm.”
She moved immediately under the arch of
the arm he painfully lifted, and burrowed into his chest. “Thank
you.” After a moment, she spoke again. “I’m scared, Dav,” she
murmured.
“I know. I am too,” he admitted, hoping
it would help her to know it. “All we can do is wait, and look for
opportunities to escape or make a deal.” Pain raced over him with
every bump of the plane. He blocked it by letting his face caress
her glorious hair.
That was in the present moment; that
was beautiful. Her skin was soft and sweet on the rasp of his
stubble-scratchy face. He could still smell her perfume and he
focused on that, ignoring all other smells, all other thoughts. He
knew it was a momentary respite, but that separation from fear,
that brief, sweet lull let his mind clear.
“We could die here,” she muttered, and
he heard the fear again. “We could die.”
“No.” He made it a statement. He would
not allow that possibility. She was his future. He would not allow
it to be otherwise. He would use the stubborn will that helped him
survive his father and countless business rivals and they would
survive. “We’ll make it out of this. My people, they’ll know to get
Gates. He has all manner of ways to figure out what’s happened.
He’ll find us. He and Ana are the best.”
“But they don’t work for you anymore,”
she said.
“I know, sweetheart,” he said, smiling
into the dark. “But friends don’t worry about little things like
that. They’ll find us.”
“Dav,” she murmured, sliding her hands
up to touch his face. “Dav, why did we wait?”
Dav was distracted momentarily by the
shift in the sound of the engines, the subtle drop in the slant of
the cabin. “Wait?” he replied, still thinking about the change in
the plane’s altitude. “Why did we wait for what?”
He looked down into her eyes, loving
the feel of her hands on his face. While he recognized all his
reactions were off-kilter from the drugs, though not as badly
skewed as Carrie’s, just the touch of her, the feel of her in his
arms, was inflaming his body, his mind and senses.
“Carrie?” he whispered, seeing the dark
of her eyes, feeling every inch of her in new ways.
“We fought it, Dav, both of us,” she
said, her voice serious. But her eyes were still deeply dilated,
the effect of the drugs. “We waited for the right time. We didn’t
make a move, either of us.”
While he was puzzling through what she
meant, she shifted closer, whispering, “Don’t wait anymore. Kiss me
now, just in case. I need to know how it feels, I need ...” she
trailed off, quieting in order to bring her lips to
his.
The connection was instant and
powerful. Every thought about the plane, their situation, sank out
of his mind, replaced by the magnificent roar of triumph in his
heart. No pain could compare to the sweetness, the fire, of her
mouth moving on his. All hesitancy fled as she pressed into him,
wriggling closer, heating his body. Nothing mattered but Carrie.
Nothing was real or present but her mouth, her breasts pressed to
his chest, her hips bumping his.
His mind leapt forward to her
straddling him, taking him into her, rising over him, pleasuring
them both. He nearly lost control just thinking the thoughts as her
mouth moved frantically on his, driving them to a frenzy of
movement, making their bodies mesh as best they could in the
situation. The pain in his hands and shoulders throbbed a
counterpoint to his body’s needs. He ignored the pain and focused
on the pleasure.
He might never get another
chance.
“Dav, oh, Dav, I... I...” She stumbled
over the words, pressing kisses to his face, her bound hands
cradling his jaw.
Whatever else she might have said was
lost when the plane banked hard again. Now she fell into him,
slamming her head into his chin as the altitude
dropped.
“Ouch!” she groaned, and he wished he
could speak at all. It was all he could do to hang on to
consciousness as the blow reawakened every one of his other
pains.
Passion doused, Dav struggled to shift
gears from their sensuous connection back to the situation at hand.
For several long moments, they just lay still, panting as they
tried to recover. He knew this wasn’t the time or the place, and
that Carrie was reacting to the drugs, but the confirmation that
she was interested, attracted, gave him hope despite their dire
state of affairs.
While there’s life,
there’s hope.
“What do you mean you left him alone?”
Gates snarled the words into the phone. He and Ana were racing
toward the city, Ana taking the curves with the competent speed of
a driver trained by the military in evasive maneuvers.
“Not alone. We were there, we were
close,” explained Jasper Whitney, one of the security team. He’d
been first on the scene when Dav’s team called in the emergency
from the city.
Gates shook his head in frustration. No
one was off duty now. And yelling at Whitney didn’t matter and
didn’t help. No excuses could change the fact that Dav’s security
had been breached and he’d been taken.
“Never mind. What about—” he
began.
“We found his locator fifteen miles
outside the city,” Whitney said. “Along with the getaway car, a
Chevy Suburban. Rented with false ID. There was blood, but not
much.”
“Damn.” Without the locator, the
chances of recovering Dav and Carrie alive went from unlikely to
near impossible. “What about Declan? And Damon?”
“Declan’s still in surgery,” was the
worried reply. “They’re not telling us anything, but they’ve all
got that tight-lipped look. Damon took a bullet along the left side
of his head, as he tried to block the getaway, but he was treated
and released. Georgiade and Queller both have cuts from flying
glass, and a lot of bruises from the panicked restaurant patrons
stomping on them. Thompson has a through and through in the meat of
his shoulder.”
“Not good. Damn it. Damon could just as
easily be dead. Thank God everyone had on vests. Not good, any of
it. We’ll be there in—” Gates turned to Ana.
“Twenty minutes, tops.”
Gates repeated the time. “Until then,
sit tight. Get everyone together and we’ll meet in the hospital
chapel. That’s open twenty-four-seven. Barring someone being in
there praying, we can use it as a mini conference room while we
wait for news. Two people from the FBI will be meeting us there.
Keep an eye out for them.”
He hung up without saying good-bye and
turned to his wife. “What chance do we have of getting Agency
help?”
“A lot, unofficially. I’ve already sent
word. They’ll do it for me, and for Dav. He made a lot of friends
last year. Not that he didn’t already have plenty.”
“True.” In the silence, he went over
the situation again, every step his former team had outlined for
him. “Damn,” he muttered, considering all the angles. “This was
brilliantly executed. They took advantage of the change of command.
How did they know? How could they know?”
“How would you have done it?” Ana
replied quietly. “You’re among the best I’ve seen at running
scenarios and coming up with the least likely and most workable in
any given situation. And yes, that was a compliment.”
“Thanks,” he said, knowing that from
Ana it was high praise indeed. He’d been trained in the military,
but hadn’t taken the classes and courses she’d had. He just knew
what it was like to lose the people you loved. It made him sharper
when it came to seeing the loopholes or gaps in protection. He’d
promised himself never to lose another person he loved. In all the
time since his family had been killed, he’d managed to keep that
promise.
Until now.
“I just can’t find a perp in my head.
He’d settled with most of the people who were after him. The
business last year turned out to be about me, not him,” he
muttered. “I don’t get it. The Saudis were on board with a bunch of
new projects. Colombia just hired us. It does them no good to
kidnap him. They’ve already paid us.”
“Keep thinking that way and we won’t
get him back,” Ana cautioned. “Think outside the box.”
Anger rushed through him, followed just
as quickly by the realization that she was right. “That’s a pisser,
but true. Okay. Unknown origin. Not the usual
suspects.”
“We can’t handle alien abduction,” Ana
quipped. “Anything else, we’ll figure it out. We’ll find him,
Gates.”
“Them,” Gates corrected. “They took
Carrie. That’s important. Whitney said they took her first. One
thread we need to pull is to see who her enemies are. Can’t do like
we did last year and assume it’s about Dav.”
“More likely than Carrie,” Ana said on
a huffed out breath as she whipped the SUV around a tight turn. She
was slim but strong, and she held the powerful vehicle into the
turns like a barrel racer. “Probably she’s going to be leverage, a
hostage to force him to do something. We can’t ignore the angle
that they wanted Carrie, but it’s probably too expensive an op for
someone after her. Four Suburbans, decoy cars peeling off to
confuse pursuit, the movie camera setup to gain cooperation from
total innocents? That was pure genius.”
“They’re all being held, pending,”
Gates said, using shorthand to say the fake film crew and decoy
drivers were still in custody until the San Francisco police, the
FBI and Gates got some answers.
Ana took a hand off the wheel long
enough to squeeze his. “Let’s just get there before we draw
conclusions. We need more facts.”
“I know. And we’ll find him,” Gates
said, squeezing back, trying desperately to believe
it.
“So, you have him on the ground now?”
Niko smiled into the phone, delighted. “Take him to the camp and
put him where I told you. Yes, down there. It’s a perfect spot for
a holding pen. Yes. I’m sure.”
“Sí, Niko,” was the brisk reply, and
the line went dead.
Niko leaned back in his opulent leather
chair, relaxing for the first time in hours. Anything could have
gone wrong between the States and Belize. Anything. Now his brother
was in his control and nothing could save him.
It was perfect.