Abduction (13 page)

LARRY
drove through the open gates of NC Transport at a little after eleven a.m.  He parked in a slot outside the office, got out of the Dodge and went in.  He had made the decision to give up the girl to Logan, until he saw that Cady was already in the office, sat talking to Carla.

“What the hell are you doing here?” Nick said to Larry.  “You should be out finding Logan and his sidekick.”

Larry’s nerve went.  “I was going to call Vince at home if he wasn’t here,” he said.  “I just spoke to Logan on the phone.”

“What did he say?” Nick said, standing up and facing Larry.

“That I should drive north on 41 with the kid, and that he’d call me again with further instructions.”

“And?”

“I don’t know,” Larry said.

“What else did your new buddy say?”

“He isn’t my buddy. He told me that if I didn’t do it, then he’d kill me, then Vince, and then you.  He also said he has a crew.”

“We need to find him and deal with him,” Nick said.  “Fleming didn’t know a lot, but Logan will have pumped him, and he has his laptop.  I’d guess that if he got the kid back he’d hand over everything he has to the police.  And if that sounds paranoid, it’s because I am, Larry.  I don’t want to draw heat from the FBI, DEA or any other fucking law enforcement agency that uses acronyms.  They’re like backyard pit bulls, and once they get their teeth into you they don’t let go.”

“So how do we play it, boss?”

“You do what he told you to.  We can have cars out on the highway, and keep in touch with you on an open line.  When he calls and tells you where to take the kid, he’ll walk into a trap.”

“Great,” Larry said.  “I’ll go and get the girl.”

Nick shook his head.  “No.  She stays here under lock and key.”

“What if he demands proof that she’s with me in the car?  He could ask to speak to her. He isn’t stupid.”

Nick thought it over and reluctantly agreed that Larry was right.  He then called Vince to jack up the operation.

Boo was in the back of the pickup truck.  Shafts of mote-filled sunlight shone through the narrow cracks high above, between the planks on the west side of the barn.  He was bound by duct tape, and his left leg had swollen up like a balloon. The women had shown some pity.  He was lying on an air mattress, and had been given more painkillers.  Next to his head was a large stainless steel bowl full of water, so at least he wouldn’t dehydrate.  The guy called Tom had been going to gag him, but Logan had said that there was no need, because if he started shouting for help and by some chance was heard, then the police would be called, and he would find it impossible to give them a satisfactory story for why he had been left injured in a barn.

It was hugs all round, and then Gail and Debbie set off east in the late Lee Harper’s Pontiac Firebird.  They would keep in contact by phone, but not give Logan or Tom the name or location of whichever motel they decided to stay at.  There would be no way that they could be tracked down.  And with a wall full of car number plates in the store, both the Firebird and Camaro were now anonymous again.

“We need a change of wheels,” Logan said as they set off towards Fort Myers.  “This muscle car is too noticeable, and they’ve seen it.”

Tom drove another mile and then left the blacktop and took a back road, to then make a right onto a track that led to a small ranch house.  As he got out of the car a slim old guy wearing a pair of Dickies stone-washed bib overalls, a check shirt and a sweat-stained and misshapen straw cowboy hat came out onto the porch and raised a hand in greeting.

“Hi Merle,” Tom said.  “How’re you and Ginny doing?”

“Thank the Lord we’re doin’ just fine, son.  We planned on drivin’ out to the store on Saturday for a couple of things, and maybe some of those mean and spicy spare ribs that you cook low and slow out back.”

“Look forward to it,” Tom said.  “My friend here is Logan.”

Merle Peterson stepped down from the porch and held his hand out in greeting.  Logan shook it and gave the man a small smile.

“So spit it out, son,” Merle said, turning his attention back to Tom.  “You didn’t drop by just to introduce me to Logan or beg a cup of coffee.  You have the look of a couple of coonhounds that are runnin’ somethin’ down.”

“We need to borrow a vehicle,” Tom said.  “I’d like to tell you why, but it’s best if you just know that it’s for a damn good reason, or I wouldn’t be asking.”

Merle narrowed his eyes and scratched at the gray stubble on his chin.  Decided that Tom was right in saying that it would be best that he kept his curiosity in check.  Life had taught him that sometimes ignorance really is bliss.  “You can take my Pathfinder,” he said.  “I daresay I can put up with drivin’ your sporty little number till you bring it back.”

“Thanks, Merle.  We should have it back by tomorrow morning.”

“The world’s in a big damn hurry,” Merle said.  “You don’t have to be.  Better to get things right, like your ribs, than to rush around and get things wrong.”

Logan liked what the elderly rancher said.  It was the musing of a man that ‒ like his grandfather had done ‒ worked with the land and the weather and had learned that without due care, attention and deliberation you could come unstuck in a hurry.  It was the long haul that usually paid off, if you were lucky and life let you do it.

The big Nissan SUV was in a double garage at the side of the house.  There was also an old Chevy standing next to it that hadn’t traveled an inch in over twenty years.  Logan swapped the plates over as Tom and Merle talked about country things, and Tom declined going inside to try Ginny’s homemade cinnamon hot cakes and freshly ground coffee, but said that they would like to sample both when they got back.

The great egret flew slowly down the palm tree-lined road that was Crescent Cove Drive, lazily flapping its long, broad wings as it picked out a place to land. Maybe what it did was purely motivated by instinct, or perhaps it knew exactly where it was going, and which ponds had an abundance of frogs, and what type of hedging was home to numerous lizards.  It settled, took a few steps and then stood perfectly still on the sidewalk like a garden ornament, unblinking and deadly; its long neck like a snowy-white u-bend pipe, held back in the way that a snake poises itself to strike.  A fat lizard appeared, to lick at the air as it settled in the warmth of the sun, to be snapped-up in an instant by a dagger like beak.

Vince opened the door.  Looked across at the Jaguar and felt a spike of fury at the memory of finding it with its tires slashed in the parking lot outside Jade’s apartment building.  He wanted Logan tied to a chair in the Bunker, so that he could carve him up like a Halloween pumpkin.

Aiming his remote at the car, Vince thumbed the button and heard the thunk of the locks opening.  He had only taken two steps across the grass to the driveway when his cell phone chirped.  He stopped, took the phone from his pocket, saw that it was Nick and accepted the call.

“Where are you?” Nick said.

“Just leaving the house.  I planned on picking Alan up from the hospital.”

“Fuck Alan.  We have a chance to take Logan down.  He’s somewhere out on highway 41, and he thinks that Larry will meet him and hand the kid over.”

“Okay, I’m on my way in,” Vince said.

As he ended the call, Vince sensed that he was not alone.

“I’m standing about eight feet behind you,” Logan said.  “If you want to live, don’t move, just make like a statue.”

“Logan?” Vince said.

“Yeah.  I decided to pay you a house call.  I thought it was time we met face to face and discussed the best way to settle the dilemma we have.”

“I thought it was a done deal, Logan.  Larry was going to take the kid out to the highway and hand her over.”

“That’s what I call distraction,” Logan said.  “We’d have been watched and gunned down.  I gave Larry time to talk to you or Cady and to put men in place.”

“So what exactly do you want me to do?”

“I want you to go back in the house.  Leave the door wide open and take four steps down the hallway.  Then slip your jacket off slow and easy and lose your weapon.  You know how to do it, finger and thumb.  If you decide to go for broke, that’s fine, you get a bullet.”

“Relax,” Vince said.  “I don’t think that this is worth dying over.”

“Actions speak louder than words, Palmer.  You have a problem; you’re ex-SAS and think that you’re superhuman.  I expect you to try something.”

Vince turned to see Logan pointing a gun at his chest.  He recognized some of the same qualities in the guy that he possessed.  Logan was tall, extremely fit-looking, and his slate gray eyes held the inflexible look of someone that had been the distance, endured hardship and overcome all adversity. He was not the type to take lightly, or to be able to talk down.

Vince decided to do what he always did when caught up in unforeseen circumstances; trust in what he was proficient at and act instantaneously if the opportunity arose.  He returned to the door, unlocked it and carefully pushed it back to the wall, before taking four steps and shrugging his jacket off.

He was wearing a black shoulder rig that was constructed of premium saddle leather that included holster, spider harness and ammo carrier; an expensive Miami Classic produced by Galco.  He unfastened the brass clip and lowered the rig gently to the floor.

“Hands on top of your head, fingers interlocked,” Logan said.  “And then walk into the kitchen and kneel down.”

Vince followed instructions, up to the point of kneeling down.  As he prepared to, and began to bend his knees, he used the hardwood floor as a platform to spring backwards and throw himself into Logan, simultaneously unclasping his hands and bringing his elbow down and back into his adversary’s stomach.

Logan had no time to react against the sudden move.  The weight of the man and the blow to his stomach knocked him down like a pin in a bowling alley.  But as his back thudded on the hallway carpet and Vince twisted to face him, already grasping his wrist to immobilize the gun, Logan came back up from the waist, whipped his head forward and butted Vince on the bridge of his nose, breaking it.

Vince hardly flinched.  He had the ability to absorb very high levels of pain.  He maintained his grip on Logan’s wrist and fisted his other hand, to hammer into his opponent’s ribs several times.

Logan had not met his match.  He ignored the blows, leaned forward so that his face was next to Vince’s, took the lower half of the Limey’s right ear into his mouth and bit down hard, twisting and shaking his head until the flesh came free.  He’d done the same thing a few months earlier to a lowlife named Dusty Quaid in New York City.  If something works, then employ it when need be.

Only an infinitesimal number of people have a congenital insensitivity to pain.  Vince was not one of them.  He had learned to tolerate and absorb a great deal of physical discomfort, but having a piece of his ear ripped off was not something that he could ignore.  He yelled something indecipherable at Logan, and was unaware that his grip on the man’s wrist had relaxed.

Logan shook the hand off and thrust the barrel of the gun into the pit of Vince’s stomach as he spat the bloody piece of ear out of his mouth, for it to stick briefly on the front of the gangster’s white shirt, before slipping down and falling off.

“I thought for a second that I’d have to step in and help you out,” Tom said from behind them, where he was standing with the Remington pump-action pointing at Vince’s head.  “Up until you bit his ear off.  I haven’t seen that done since Mike Tyson did it to Evander Holyfield back in ninety-seven.”

“It was a decent workout,” Logan said, wiping the blood from his mouth with the back of his left hand.  “And I wasn’t fighting to the Marquess of Queensbury’s rules, either.”

As Logan taped Vince to a tubular steel kitchen chair, Tom stood well back and kept the shotgun aimed at their captive’s head.

Logan searched Vince.  He was not carrying any other weapons, but had a wallet with over three thousand dollars’ in fifties, and his cell phone.

“Nice place,” Logan said as he folded the bills and stuffed them in a side pocket of the chinos he was wearing.  “Away from the hustle and bustle and next to a swank golf course and country club that I’d bet the farm on you being a member of.”

“Get to it, Logan,” Vince said.  “I don’t want to listen to your rabbit.”

Logan frowned.  “Meaning?”

“It’s cockney rhyming slang.  Rabbit is short for rabbit and pork, which translates to talk.  And I have nothing to say to you.”

“You’ll talk to me or you’ll die in that chair, Palmer.  It’s your choice.  Do you really want to take the fall for Cady?  Is he worth it?”

Vince and loyalty were already passing strangers as far as Nick was concerned.  He was motivated by money, not individuals.  But he had too much pride to just sit there and answer any questions that Logan asked.  He had been subjected to interrogation techniques by experts, back when he had gone through the SAS training course and passed with flying colors.

“You know all you need to,” Vince said.  “If you came here to kill me, then do it and piss off.”

Logan drew a Gerber lock-blade knife and opened it. The blade was sharp enough to shave with.  He pressed it up against the slight dimple in the center of Vince’s chin, and then applied enough pressure to cut to the bone as he opened up an inch gash.