Into the Crossfire (32 page)

Nicole listened, heart pounding.

"I said--you saw that gun!" the voice roared.

Nicole tried to get her voice to work but her mouth and throat were too dry.

No sound would come out. She coughed, managed to croak, "Yes. Yes, I saw the

gun."

"Good. Remember that gun. Now listen carefully. This is what I want you

to do." The voice was back to cool and calm. Giving instructions as if indicating

which way to Balboa Park. "Call a taxi, tell him to take you to Fleetridge, to the

Westwood shopping mall parking lot there. Keep this line open so I can hear and

see what you're doing, otherwise your father will pay the consequences. If you

don't come alone, your father's dead meat. He's dead meat, anyway, anyone can

see that, but I'll make him suffer before he goes. If you don't do exactly as I say,

I'll disappear with him and you'll never see him again, but you'll know that every

second of what's left of his life I'll be hurting him. Is that clear?"

The temperature in the room had suddenly dropped. Nicole was shivering

with terror and cold. "C-clear," she whispered.

"If you call anyone, if you signal anyone, if you don't come alone, your

father will pay first, then you. At the parking lot there will be someone to meet

you. Is that clear? Deviate one inch from this and your father gets a bullet in the

knee, first thing. I don't have to tell you how excruciatingly painful that would be."

"No, no!" Panic exploded in her head. "Don't do that! Oh God, please!

Don't worry, I'll follow your instructions to the letter."

"Of course you will." That horrible voice, now sounding genial and chirpy.

"Oh, and pray that you find a taxi right away, because I'm giving you twenty

minutes to get to the meeting point, after which I start shooting bits of your father

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off."

"N-no." Her teeth were chattering so hard she could barely get the words

out. "D-don't. P-please."

"Then bring me what I want."

Oh God. What was it? "I don't know what you want!"

But she was talking to dead air. He hadn't hung up, though. He was keeping

the connection open.

So terrified her hands wouldn't work properly, Nicole tried to pick up Sam's

cordless handset, fumbled it badly and watched as it bounced on the floor. It took

her trembling hands three tries before she could hold it, and she ripped a page out

of the telephone book pawing through it to the Ts. It took her two tries before she

could punch in the taxi service's number. While waiting for the call to go through,

she fumbled her shirt on and pulled her jeans up, sliding her feet into loafers,

picking up her purse.

The instant she heard the taxi dispatcher tell her that a car would be arriving

in four minutes at the front gate, she rushed out to the bank of elevators, punching

the button over and over again in her anxiety.

Her skin prickled with panic as she got into the elevator and punched for

the ground floor. The damned thing was so slow! When, after a million years, it

finally reached the ground floor, she shot out and ran across the lobby and into the

landscaped front garden, checking anxiously along the dark road for a car with a

taxi sign on top, trembling with anxiety.

It was 2 A.M. and the residential area was quiet, the vast darkness of the

ocean across the road silent and oppressive.

She was holding her cell phone in her hand, gazing at it longingly. Sam.

Sam was at the other end. All she had to do was close this connection and call

him. He'd come running. Oh God, Sam. For just a moment she yearned with all

her heart to be able to listen to that deep, reassuring voice. Sam would know what

to do, would know how to help her father.

But that cold implacable voice had been very specific. Don't make any

calls. Keep the line open or your father will pay.

She couldn't risk it. She'd give anything in her power to communicate with

Sam, but not if her father was going to pay the price. A small voice somewhere

inside her said that her father was going to pay a horrific price, anyway. And so

would she. But she had to play this according to the rules set down by that sadistic

bastard.

The man had been willing to casually slice her father's face open just to

make a point. If he felt that she wasn't obeying his orders...

It didn't bear thinking about.

She hopped up and down, chilled to the bone in the dark night, checking the

time feverishly, obsessively. Twenty minutes. He'd said she had twenty minutes to

get to the mall parking lot and five had already gone by. Another couple of

minutes and they couldn't possibly make it in time.

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Ah! Bright headlights and a taxi sign on the roof, traveling fast on the

empty road. Inside a minute she could see the taxi sign clearly and heaved a sigh

of relief as the yellow cab pulled to the curb. She rushed out, wrenching the cab

door open.

"I'll pay you double if you can get me to the Westwood shopping mall

parking lot in Fleetridge inside of fifteen minutes." Her voice was high, hysterical.

The driver looked like a student, clean-cut and very young, a bit astonished

at the wild woman flinging herself into the backseat.

"You got it," he grunted, taking off so fast the tires squealed against the

asphalt.

She stared out the window at the black ocean disappearing from sight as the

driver turned inland, making good time on the empty streets.

Sam, she thought again. She wanted to hear his voice with a ferocity that

astonished her. A tear rolled down her cheek and she brushed it away impatiently.

Tears wouldn't help. Nothing could help.

She shuddered as she thought of her father in that man's hands. Her dad was

barely kept alive with all the love and care in the world, and all the tricks the

medical profession could pull out of its bag. Being held against his will by a

violent man capable of hurting him...it could kill him. She might be speeding

toward a place where she would only find her father's corpse and a violent thug

willing to harm a helpless old man. A thug who wanted something from her,

though she had no idea what.

She imagined he wanted her computer files, even though there was nothing

in her hard disk that could possibly be of any use to anyone besides her and her

clients. When the man discovered this, discovered that she didn't have what he

wanted, whatever it was, he'd kill her. She was speeding toward her father's

possible death and her own certain one.

The young cab driver reached the parking lot and entered with a dramatic

turn, slewing slightly on the gravel of the soft shoulder. The lot was empty except

for a dirty off-white van, a man standing outside the driver's door. The lot was

illuminated with streetlamps except for the one directly above the van, so she

couldn't make out the man's face.

"There you go," the driver said cheerfully, stopping the meter. It read $15.

"Fifteen minutes on the dot."

Nicole didn't trust her voice. She simply threw a twenty and a ten at him

and climbed out of the car on rubber legs.

Nicole crossed the parking lot slowly, her legs barely holding her up. By

the time she reached the man standing by the van, he had his hand out.

It wasn't the intruder. There were at least two men involved in this, then.

Deep down, there had been a faint hope that somehow she could outwit the

intruder, even if she couldn't outfight him. She wasn't going to be taken by

surprise. Maybe she could whack him over the head with something while he

wasn't looking or...her imagination stopped there. But it wasn't going to happen.

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There were two men involved and she wasn't going to come out of this alive.

"Phone." This man's voice was just as calm, just as cold as the other man's.

Cut out of the same mold. Alert, icy and deadly.

Her hand shook as she held the cell out to him.

The man gave a short jerk of his head. "Get in."

Never get into the car.

One of the cardinal rules for State Department families in countries where

kidnapping was a major industry. Never get into the car. Make a run for it. Attract

attention by screaming. Carry Mace and use it. But never, ever get into the car. If

you got into the car, you were as good as dead.

Wonderful advice. Only one thing. The clever men and women running the

State Department Security Force seminars never told their listeners what to do

when a loved one was being held hostage.

Never get into the car.

She got into the car.

The man threw her cell phone on the ground, crushed it with his boot heel,

kicked it into the scrub off the lot and got behind the wheel.

Never get into the car.

Nicole was in the car and her last hope of reaching Sam was lying in shards

on the dark asphalt.

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Sam walked into his office, which looked like Mission Control. Every

single light was on, the banks of computer monitors all lit, and four men were

sitting around his desk. Harry, Mike and two guys he had no trouble at all

identifying as Feebs.

All looking grim.

"Show me what you have," Sam said, sitting down behind his desk.

Silence for a moment, then Mike stirred. "Nothing good. First let me

introduce the two newcomers. They're--"

"FBI," Sam said. "Yeah, I could tell."

Two bland looks. "It's the shoes," Sam explained. If they'd been from

military security they'd have been wearing boots. If they'd been CIA, the footwear

would have been top quality.

A moment's silence. The taller one, obviously senior, nodded. "Special

Agent Ross and this is Special Agent Vanzetti."

Sam didn't care if they were Special Agents Mulder and Scully. He'd never

liked the Feebs. He just wanted them to cut to the chase.

"So give me the lowdown." He looked each in the eye.

But it was Mike who answered. He'd been staring at a laptop screen. He

turned it around so Sam could see it.

It was a page scanned from a military jacket. Prominent in the upper left

hand side of the page was an unsmiling photograph of the man who'd broken into

Nicole's office.

The man was wearing a black beret, had a skull with two crossed knives

flash on his shoulder. Ranger tab on the left sleeve.

Dishonorable discharge, for selling military arms off base.

It was all there, the massive threat to Nicole.

Sam's jaw tightened and he bit down hard on his back teeth as he read

carefully. The man's name was Sean McInerny, 75th battalion. Saw action in Iraq

and Afghanistan. Dishonorable discharge in 2005.

Sam looked up at the four men. "A Ranger, like you said."

Special Agent Ross replied. "That's right. We've been chasing him for a

couple of years. After he got his discharge--"

"Dishonorable discharge," Sam interrupted.

"Yeah." Special Agent Ross's jaw muscles jumped. "After he got his

dishonorable discharge he simply dropped off the face of the earth. We suspect

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he's become a contract killer. There was a partial found at the site of what was

made to look like a mugging but was an assassination of a bank CEO. And a

security tape caught a half profile at another killing. We were lucky this time, your

tape caught him full face. We have no idea where he lives. There is no record of

any Sean McInerny renting or buying a house or a car, or using credit cards or

entering or leaving the country. We don't know where he is. He's off the grid."

"You do know where he is," Sam pointed out coldly. "He's here in San

Diego, obviously on a job. Have you checked the hotels?" He kept outwardly calm

but inside he was raging. A Special Forces soldier as a gun for hire. The news

couldn't have been worse.

"We've done this before, believe it or not," Ross said. "We're making the

rounds now with a photograph, because if he's in a hotel, he's using an alias. We

want him worse than you do."

I doubt it, Sam thought grimly. They were just doing their job, wanting to

bag a bad guy. It would go on their record, maybe snag them a promotion. He

wanted to keep his woman safe. Big difference. He opened his mouth to say

something when his cell vibrated, three times in quick succession.

Every hair on his body stood up. He could actually feel them brushing

against his shirtsleeves and shirt front, tiny little spears of terror. He froze, unable

to move, unable to breathe, panic exploding in his head in a surge of white-hot

light.

The two Feebs didn't notice, though Harry and Mike were looking at him

strangely. Sam shook his head sharply and they got the message. Not now.

Ross was checking something on the laptop, pointing to the screen and

Vanzetti was talking quietly into his cell. He switched off and turned to his

partner. "We've just checked all the hotels and motels in the metropolitan area.

Nothing."

Sam clenched his jaws. Even if they'd started checking immediately, they'd

only had a couple of hours. The fact that they'd already checked with all the hotels

and motels in the area meant that they'd called in local law enforcement officers,

too. Probably the entire SDPF. This was a huge manhunt. All the more reason to