Abducted: A Jake Badger Mystery Thriller (23 page)

Chapter 47

Tuesday Night

We went out of the guesthouse
the way we had come in and paused at the back corner of the house to survey the
backyard and the back of the main house. Everything was quiet. The breeze still
blew, the shrubs still swayed, the trees still cast otherworldly shadows. The
main house appeared to be asleep. We moved cautiously toward it.

I got the back door open, and
we went in. Alex closed the door quietly. We were in the kitchen. We stood and
listened. Nothing. I put my gun back in my shoulder rig. Alex holstered his as
well.

We headed toward the front of
the house and the wide stairway that would take us to the safe room in Mr.
Durrani's
bedroom. We went from the kitchen into the dining
room, into the formal living room and into the entry hub. On one side it opened
into a massive family room. On the other side was the stairway to the second floor.
Just as we entered the hub, broken nose was coming down the stairs, stepping
off the last step. He was wearing workout pants and a tee shirt. We saw each
other at the same moment. He didn't seem surprised.

I reacted without thinking,
combat training taking over. He did the same. His first move was a sidekick at
my head with his left leg. He was faster than he looked. But not fast enough. I
moved my head and shoulders to the right and dropped down. His calf ended up
just above my left shoulder. I came up with a hard upper cut to his crotch and
then took his right leg from under him. He hit the floor hard. I came back
around and came down with a hard right to his already broken nose. I heard a crack
and he went limp.

I rolled him over and put a
plastic restraint band on his wrists. Alex put one on his ankles. Alex took his
roll of duct tap from the small bag he was carrying and looked at me
questioningly. I shook my head. I knew his nose was too messed up to breath
through. If we taped his mouth, he'd suffocate.

I turned his head to the side
so he could breathe easier. As I did, there was a noise behind us, a scrape of
a foot on the floor. As we turned another man, almost my size was coming at Alex.
He, too, was wearing workout pants and a tee shirt. Alex was still squatted on
the floor. He put his hands down for balance and put a solid sidekick up into
the man's middle as he came at him. Air gushed out of the man as he doubled
over. Alex then stood, spun to his right and put a left hook into the side of
the man's face. It spun the man around to his left and he was unconscious when
he hit the floor. We put restraints on his wrists and ankles and duct tape over
his mouth.

We stood still, waiting and
listening. Silence. We moved quickly but quietly up the stairs. At the top
landing we paused. Alex was standing next to me. There was no sound. I took a
step, and a Middle Eastern man in a black suit stepped out of one of the
bedrooms with a gun in his hand. As black suit fired, I dove right, Alex dove
left. The first shot missed. He hesitated a second, trying to decide which of
us to go for. That second gave us time to react. I had my gun out but was at an
awkward angle and didn't yet have a shot. Black suit decided to go for me. As
he fired at me, Alex fired at him, two rounds. Black suit's shot hit me high in
the left side of my chest, knocking me back against the wall. Fortunately, I
was wearing my Kevlar. Alex's shots hit black suit in the chest, knocking him
into the wall. He wasn’t wearing Kevlar. He slid down the wall to the floor,
leaving a smear of blood on the wall behind him.

Alex looked at me. I put my
hand up and nodded that I was okay as I got to my feet. I'd have a nice bruise
on my chest tomorrow. Better than having a hole in it. We stood for a moment,
listening. Again, there was no sound. But there should have been. The shots
should have alerted the house. Mr.
Durrani
would have
awakened. Mrs.
Durrani
should have responded. And the
young woman, where was she? Something wasn't right. Alex knew it as well. But
standing still was not an option. We went down the hall to Mr.
Durrani's
room.

His door was open. He lay in
his bed. The shots should have awakened him. I motioned for Alex to check him
while I stood at the door, watching the hallway. Alex studied him for a brief
moment and then touched his head, as if checking his temperature. Then he felt
for a pulse.

“He's dead,” Alex said
softly.

“Something's not right here,”
I said.

Alex nodded toward the
walk-in closet. “Check the safe room,” he said.

I nodded, took one last look
down the hallway, and went into the closet.

The back wall of the closet
looked like the normal back wall of a closet. But I knew it wasn't. I examined
it and could not see how it opened. I pressed on it. Nothing. Then I pressed on
it and slid it to the right. It slid open, revealing a steel door. On the steel
door
was
a numeric keypad and a handle. If
Kodi
had been able to disable the locking mechanism, the
door should simply slide open. I took hold of the handle, pushed it down to the
left, and slid the heavy door to the right.

Behind the door Monica sat in
a chair. It was a formal chair, part of a dining room set. Monica's wrists were
tied to the arms of the chair. Her ankles were tied to its feet. She was
barefoot, and wore a pair of jeans and a tee shirt. A piece of duct tape covered
her mouth. To the right was the young woman we'd seen in the house, and whose
image had been captured on my security camera as she delivered the third note.
She was dressed in black leggings and a black tank top. She held a
nine millimeter
Glock in her hand, pointed at me. Behind
Monica, also with a Glock in her hand, was
Bahara
Durrani
.

Chapter 48

Tuesday Night

“That you got this far, Mr.
Badger, is a testimony to your skill,”
Bahara
said. “You
are to be congratulated.”

“Not really,” I said, shaking
my head. “If you think those three were good, you don't know what good is.”

A small rueful, smile
softened her face momentarily. She shook her head. “Typical,” she said. “You
Americans are so arrogant.”

“Yeah,” I said, “but with
good reason.”

I looked at Monica. Her
intense eyes willed me to understand what she was about to do … the same thing
I'd do in her place. I gave a nearly imperceptible nod. Suddenly, she bent
forward, exposing most of
Bahara
Durrani's
upper body. Before
Bahara
could respond, I brought up
my gun and fired. At the same time, Alex, who’d had come up behind me and
realized what was about to happen, shot the young woman on my right. My shot
had taken
Bahara
in the center of the chest. Alex's
shot had also been center mass. In an instant, both women lay dead on the
floor. Neither of them had gotten off a shot.

Monica raised back up as I
stepped to her. I removed the duct tape from her mouth and she said, “What took
you so long?” She was clearly annoyed.

I smiled. “I love you, too.”

“Yeah, well, that's no
excuse. Untie me.”

I could have used my large
bowie knife, but that would have been overkill. I pulled a smaller knife from
my pocket and cut the cord from each of her wrists and ankles. She stood up,
threw her arms around my neck, and kissed me like I’ve never been kissed. It
was deep, and powerful, and long. Wow.

When the kiss ended, I asked,
“You all right?”

“Couple of bruises. Other
than that, I'm okay.”

“I'm sorry it took so long.
We didn't even know where to begin looking.”

Before she could respond,
gunfire filled the small room. Alex went down. With my left hand, I pushed
Monica away, reaching for my weapon with my right. I dove over her and rolled
and came up gun in hand ready to fire. In the closet just outside the door to
the safe room, was another young woman, a replica of the young woman who lay
dead on the floor. Behind her was another large Middle Eastern man. Each had a
nine millimeter
and were firing in my direction.
Fortunately, they weren’t very good shots. The young woman threw herself to her
right. I fired twice and the big man went down. The young woman was still firing.
One of her shots hit me in the middle of the chest and knocked me down,
momentarily stunning me.

The next thing I knew, she
and Monica were fighting in the small room. I assumed she had emptied her clip
and then charged in to finish the job by hand. The young woman was good, but
she was giving away thirty pounds and five inches to Monica, who was blocking
every punch or kick she threw. And that’s all Monica was doing, just blocking.
I realized she was toying with her.

“That's it?” Monica asked, as
she blocked another kick. “That's all you've got? Not so easy this time, huh?
Last time your boyfriend held my arms from behind while you kicked me. Gonna be
different this time, bitch.”

Then Monica attacked. She
came straight and fast, with a front kick to the young woman's gut and a punch
to the throat. That’s all it took. The young woman was down and out.

Alex had taken one in the
chest that had knocked him down and stunned him, and one in the leg. Monica
checked the young woman she had been fighting.

“She’ll be all right,” she
said.

I found a belt in the closet
and used it for a tourniquet around Alex’s leg. It looked to me like the bullet
had gone through and had not done too much damage. There was a large towel
hanging next to a sink. I tied it around the wound.

“You okay?” I asked him.

“No major damage. Maybe you
should go check the other rooms to make sure there are no more surprises.”

“Yeah, I think so.”

Monica picked up the pistol
the first young woman had carried and checked the load. “I'll go with you,” she
said.

“I'll make a couple of calls,”
Alex said, “while you secure the scene.”

Monica and I went from room
to room and secured the second floor. Then we went back downstairs and went
through each room. No more surprises.

When we returned to the safe
room, Alex said, “Heidi is on her way and so is Caleb with a team.”

“Heidi?” Monica asked.

“She drove us,” I said.

“Heidi?” she said.

“She wanted to help,” I said.
“She also wanted to keep an eye on Alex, make sure he'd be okay for their date.”

Monica looked at Alex and
smiled. “A date with Heidi?
Alex, good for you.
Heidi's hot.”

“Yes, she is. And she's also
a discerning woman of taste. That's why she's interested in me.”

“So that’s what you were
doing this past week,” she said. “While I was being held prisoner, you were
cozying up to Heidi.”

“Hey, we were busting our
butts looking for you. Had to kill a bunch a people in the process, too.”

Monica looked at me.

“Esposito, Junior.”

Her eyes searched mine for a
moment. I gave a small shrug. She’d ask me about it later. She turned her
attention back to Alex, knelt beside him and kissed him on the cheek. “Thank
you,” she said. Then her smile got bigger and her eyes got mischievous and she
said, “You dog, you.”

“Really? I've been shot, and
you're making sex jokes.”

“I'm just happy for you Alex.”

“Uh-huh.”

“So, who's this other person
you called, this Caleb?”

“One of my agents.”

“We should probably call
Frank, too,” I said, “don't you think, just out of courtesy?”

“Sure,” Alex said. “You or
me?”

“I'll do it while I go down
and wait for Heidi.”

“And you,” I said to Monica,
“need to call your parents. They’re worried sick.”

“They’ll be in bed,” she
said.

“Call them.”

I called Frank as I went down
the stairs and gave him a brief explanation of what had happened. He said he
was on his way.

Heidi was just pulling into
the driveway when I opened the front door. As she came into the house I told
her Alex had been wounded.

“Is he okay?” she asked,
horrified.

“Just a leg wound. Bullet
went clear though. He'll be fine.”

“Where is he? I want to go to
him.”

I led her upstairs and she
ran to Alex and knelt beside him. She asked if he was okay, inspected his leg,
and kissed on him on the mouth.

I looked at Monica and said, “Why
don't we wait downstairs for Caleb and his team?”

As we were going down the
stairs, I said, “There were three of them, weren't there? And you killed one of
them.”

“Yeah. Got a good shot to his
throat. Collapsed his windpipe.”

“And broke the other guy's
nose and injured his throat, too.”

“Yeah. I'd have killed both
of them if it hadn't been for that little bitch. She hit me from behind while I
was dealing with the big guy. Then, when he got hold of my arms from behind,
she kicked me in the ribs and got in a good right hook. Knocked me out.”

“And they kept you in the
safe room the whole time?”

“Yeah. Kept one hand cuffed
to a safety handrail near the toilet. I had water to drink and could use the
toilet. They brought food twice a day.”

“Did Mrs.
Durrani
explain why she took you?”

“Yeah. Said you killed her
son.”

“I did.
In
Afghanistan.
CIA sanctioned.”

When we reached the bottom of
the stairs, she turned to me, took my face in her hands and said, “I knew you’d
come. I never doubted it.”

“I love you,” I said.

“And I love you.”

We kissed again, and while we
were kissing the FBI arrived.