Freedom Does Matter (Mercenaries Book 2) (33 page)

Derek agreed that, if a substantial threat did exist, she could take some liberties with Haleef. Some. But Beckie was pretty sure that Millie would intervene if she thought they were pushing the limits.

She’d known when Derek pressed the Mondeo’s Start button that without more information, the information that she hoped Haleef had, there was no way to make a good decision. The whole of the ride confirmed it. After Derek parked next to the hangar entrance, he reached over and patted her hand.

She put a smile on and asked, “Are you gonna head home to see Emily?”

“No need,” he said. “She knows we’re workin’ so she’s sound asleep. If we go more than a couple days, I’ll ring ‘er to check in.”

A taxi with Jean-Luc and Mathilde pulled up beside the SUV a couple of minutes later; Jean-Luc led the way to the offices, where he was welcomed and permitted to enter, “
Avec mes amis.
” He went with them to the plane, but once they were inside, he returned to the office to discuss the remaining work. While Beckie was pretty sure they wouldn’t leave in the next twelve hours, she had been clear that it was a possibility, depending on Haleef’s condition and information.

In the clinic, Millie set to work. Her first order was for Beckie to take two pain-killers and then sleep. “So you’re not looking over my shoulder!” Kevin took Beckie’s arm and sat beside her while she tried to rest.

“What do you think’s goin’ on, Kev?”

“Damn sure don’t know. Where we found you, the one guy had knocked out the other.” Kevin shook his head. “Since Derek killed him, we don’t know why. Or what they were after. You’re sure all he asked was your name?”

“Yeah. Well, after I screamed your name…” Her chagrin was still evident. “…he asked who you were, but nothing else. Oh, yeah. After I gave him the fake Susan name, he called me ‘Miss Beckie.’ Haleef must have given it up.”

“Yeah, well, I wouldn’t hold it against him too much,” Kevin said. “Millie said they worked him over with boots and lashes.”

Beckie groaned in sympathy, then caught her head as it drooped. “Damn. I’ll bet Millie gave me a sleeping pill, too. I’ll kill… her…”

The smell of coffee awakened Beckie’s appetite once she regained consciousness. Feeling her head, she was sure Millie’d doped her up; the logy, didn’t sleep enough or well feeling gave it away. Slowly, she began to move, first her head, then right arm and so on until she tried sitting up. Wow! I am stiff and sore. She rubbed at her side, but it didn’t help.

By this time, her motions had attracted Mathilde’s attention; the woman touched Millie’s arm and pointed.

“Hello, sleepy-head.” Now Beckie was certain she’d been medicated; Millie’s attitude wouldn’t allow any other interpretation. “You should still be stiff.” Beckie nodded as she moved further along toward upright. “Good. Tomorrow, you can begin light exercise, but today, you sit on your butt, hear?” She waited for a response, but Beckie had been paying no more than partial attention. “Beckie? You hear me?”

Beckie lifted her head to scowl at the doctor. “Yes. I hear.”

“Good. Kevin’s fetching you a coffee and some food. After you eat, we’ll talk.”

Millie’s words gave Beckie reason to sit when Kevin brought juice, eggs, toast and coffee. When Beckie tried to question him, he shook his head, stuffed another piece of toast in his own mouth and pointed to her tray.

Finally she’d eaten enough that he took the tray away. In less than a minute he’d returned, trailed by Millie and Derek. They seated themselves around her.

“First,” the doctor started, “Haleef’s damn lucky. It looks like he’s only got a mild concussion, and the broken bones in his jaw and his fingers set nicely. Twelve stitches in his face and fifty more in his scalp. A few on his hand. The X-ray shows his skull isn’t broken, though his headache will rival Ian’s for the next couple days. With the bruises, he’s not as pretty as he was, but those’ll heal.”

“Can he talk to us?”

“Yeah,” Millie said. “But not today. Both of you are going to do nothing, Haleef especially. I want to make sure his concussion is as minor as I think it is. So he’s sleeping, and he’ll keep sleeping for now.” Before Beckie could voice a protest about the time lost, “I know,” Millie said emphatically. “Time’s a wasting. But, he needs rest.” She waved toward the clinic. “With you awake, I want some X-rays of your ribs. And maybe your head. Mathilde brought some of your clothes, too.”

Beckie could see no upside to arguing with the doctor; she was as obstinate as Beckie’d ever seen her. She turned to Mathilde. “Thanks, I appreciate it.” She glanced around the cabin. “Is the shower working?”

“Not in the plane,” Mathilde said, “but they have facilities in the hangar. I can show you.”

“Do it now,” Millie suggested. “You have time. But first…” She took Beckie’s arm and helped her up, walking her back to the X-ray.

Almost an hour later, a clean, refreshed Beckie, outfitted in a comfortable blue shirt and denim shorts, sat just forward of the hospital, hoping Haleef would wake up. She and Kevin were continuing the conversation she’d ended the night before by falling asleep.

“Haleef. Where they dropped him is funny.”

Beckie stopped rubbing her forehead—Only place I don’t hurt!—and stared at him, her puzzled expression making painful creases across the bruises.

“It’s funny because it’s a long way from the hotel, and from CLRR’s headquarters. Why take him so far?”

Beckie hadn’t been worried about the junk yard. She puzzled a moment before saying, “Because they thought he was… dead and wanted him well away? Or maybe the place… the HQ? Maybe that’s not where they took him after all.” She tried to find a comfortable position. “But I think it was to get him away from where they are.”

“Yeah.” Kevin heaved a great sigh. “It’s just… There are a lot of other places to dump a body. Places just as good as that wrecking yard.”

“I know, watching Derek drive there last night. We need more information.” She tried to twist on the seat. “Damn. Millie pulled the tape really tight. It feels like the corset Captain Jack cut off—”

Kevin’s guffaw would have been infectious if laughing didn’t hurt her so much.

“Anyway,” she continued, “we have till next Sunday to stop whatever it is we’re looking for.” She gave Kevin a long look. “What do we need? Help?” She buried her face in her hands. “We don’t know enough to know what we don’t know, do we?”

Chapter Thirty

Day Thirty-two - London

THE NEXT MORNING, BECKIE AWOKE despairing of time lost. Yesterday’s enforced rest had energized her at the expense of a day of investigation. However, she could almost move, though her ribs ached like she’d fallen from Hoshi… if Hoshi’d grown to thirty hands!

She sat up, grateful that Kevin had taken rooms at The Cornerhouse Hotel, a couple of miles from the airport. Sleeping on the seats in the plane would not have been restful. Okay, Millie can change the tape when we get to the plane. She dressed and met Kevin and Derek for the short trip.

In the hangar, she waved to the security guard and followed Kevin up the stairs. Inside, Kevin called “We’re here. Anyone home?”

Millie answered from inside the clinic. “We’re back here, the link is up, and our boy’s feeling chipper enough to talk to us.”

The medical space extended the full width of the fuselage, not quite twelve feet, and about the same fore and aft. With the equipment and the cot, the five found it a snug fit, especially since Millie had shoved a chair at Beckie and ordered her to sit. A laptop computer was open on Millie’s fold-down table, with a webcam pointed at Haleef. Jean-Luc and Mathilde were outside, though Jean-Luc had his head pushed through the door.

After Beckie got over Millie’s obstinacy about sitting and resting, she glanced at the computer, hoping to see Ian. Instead, Millie had it set up to display Haleef.

The young man was sitting up; he looked more comfortable than Beckie felt. Several small bandages decorated his face, but a very large one covered the left half of his head from crown to ear and from eyebrow to almost the nape of his neck. She recalled his jaw being broken, but nothing hinted an injury. His right hand, though, the fingers were all taped together, with three aluminum splints holding them in what must have been someone’s idea of the correct shape. The bandage went up his forearm, immobilizing his wrist.

He frowned and looked at his feet when Beckie came in, and once she’d settled, he said, “I am sorry, Beckie. First—”

“Don’t you be sorry! It’s my fault.” She flushed, angry with herself. “No! No, we’re not gonna go there. You and I did the best we could and we both came out a little the worse for wear. Thanks to Kevin and Derek, and then Millie, we’re here, alive and patched up, so let’s go from there, okay?”

The doubt was clear in his demeanor. “I…”

“No. Put it behind you. Let’s move forward.”

“All right, Beckie,” Haleef said. “But even so, I… I fear I gave them your name when…” He lifted his hand.

“Did they stop after?” Kevin asked quietly. Haleef shook his head. “Then you learned a valuable lesson,” Kevin said. “The questions don’t stop until you can’t talk anymore, or you’re dead. If you know one thing and try to hide it, there are more things you are hiding. At least, that’s the philosophy of interrogation. Don’t worry about it. It’s done and we can recover.”

“Oh. I didn’t know that.”

“So, besides getting beat up and shot, what happened?”

“They took me to a big building. The drive—”

“Why’d they take you outta the apartment?”

“Huh?” He paused a second, brows wrinkled as he peered at his hands. “I’m not really sure. It was a surprise when Sedki left and three men entered and overpowered me.” He raised his head. “Maybe I asked too many questions, but I’m—”

“Never mind, then. Sorry for the interruption,” Beckie said with a faint smile.

Haleef sighed, then winced. Beckie flinched in sympathy. “Anyway,” he continued, “once we left, the drive was many minutes, but with my head covered, I don’t know where. There weren’t many turns.

“They’d thrown a rag over my head, but it fell off as I was yanked out of the car, and no one bothered to get it. The car stood in a garage in an older brick building. It was raining outside.”

Millie handed Haleef a cup; he sipped once, then drank several swallows. Beckie sat as close to the edge of her seat as the uncomfortable folding chair would allow.

“Well, they closed the door—before I got the idea to run,” he said with a forced laugh. “And pushed me inside to stand against a shipping container.” He sipped again. “Several men were working inside, all in dark overalls. Some of them stopped what they were doing to watch me, but a couple continued working on white bins.”

“Bins?” Beckie said.

“Remember, trash containers ‘ere are called bins,” Derek told her. “Any idea ‘ow big they were?”

Haleef held his hand about three feet above the floor. “About this tall. Most of them were blue, but the ones they were working on were white.”

“Hmm.” Derek mused while Beckie and the others watched him. “Two wheels, or four? And so?” He held his hands a couple of feet apart. “Or bigger?”

“Two wheels, the ones I saw. That’s about the right size.”

“Well, bins are made to standards. Like everything else in the EU, from pencils and paper clips to… to X-ray machines…” He waved at Millie’s rack of equipment. “… where standards actually make sense. Anyway. Sounds like 240 liter bins. Big enough to be useful, small enough for one person to handle.”

“What were they doing?”

Haleef shook his head again. “I haven’t any idea. The lid was open, where they were working, but I couldn’t see any detail. And it was only a minute before they opened that shipping container and shoved me inside. But while they were unlocking the door, I saw a manifest pasted there. The Port of Houston caught my eye. That’s in the United States, isn’t it?”

Wait, does that tie what’s his name, Faraj, the fake copilot, to this, too? Beckie felt Kevin’s eyes on her just before he said, “On the plane, the itinerary. Remember?”