Reflex (4 page)

"Custody?" She said that word slowly. The NSA had kidnapped her, seeking to use her as a lever to control Davy.

Anders dropped his eyes and cleared his throat. "The point is, I was one of those agents watching your college apartment. He grabbed me and teleported me to Orly Airport, in France."

She let the old business pass. It didn't matter now. "Then you know about him. Right. Davy left me at five minutes until eleven the night before last, central time. From what I understood, he was meeting Cox at midnight, eastern time."

Anders nodded. "Yes, a coffee shop called Interrobang."

"Ah, I didn't know the name. We never went there together because... well, because I'd had enough involvement with the NSA. Did they meet?" She was perched on the edge of her chair now and couldn't remember shifting forward.

"Yes. The night duty officer got a distress call from Cox's cell phone at twelve twenty-five. Cox gave his location and said it was a snatch... a kidnapping."

"Davy?" The knot in her chest was aching.

"Probably. Witnesses say an ambulance pulled up to the front door and four men started inside. While they were in the foyer, Cox pitched a chair through the front window, threw his companion over his shoulder, and left through the window."

"His companion. Was it Davy?"

"The agency has some recent passport photos and we presented them mixed with others. Three of the witnesses picked Davy's picture. Several others didn't."

"Why wasn't Davy walking? Why didn't he jump?"

"He was drugged. Our lab found a cocktail of droperidol and gamma hydroxy butyrate in the dregs of his tea. As they took effect, it must've become clear to Cox, and that's why he scrambled the alert team. There was a waitress who wasn't a waitress at Interrobang. She bribed the manager fifty dollars to wait on Cox and your husband. Said it was part of a fraternity joke."

"That same waitress and the ambulance crew ran out of the restaurant after Cox. The witnesses heard distant gunshots and when our alert team arrived they found Cox a block and a half away, dead.

"There was no sign of your husband."

Millie leaned back again. They wouldn't have drugged Davy if they just wanted to kill him. The fear subsided slightly, then surged back.
They don't balk at killing, though.
"Who did this?"

"Who do you think could've done this?" More mirroring.

"If it wasn't the NSA, I have no idea."

"Ah." Anders shook his head. "We don't know who did this."

Millie stared out the window for a moment. "Well, it was someone with
access.
They either knew about the specific meeting or they knew Cox was Davy's control and have been monitoring him continuously until they met." She thought for a moment. "It might even be another US intelligence branch. One of those agencies that Davy provided transport for. Someone who wants those services at their disposal."

Anders frowned, started to say something, then stopped himself. Finally he shifted in the chair and dropped his hands to his knees. "You're right, those possibilities are under consideration. Everyone in Cox's unit is undergoing polygraphs right now and they're doing a major screen for electronic intelligence."

Millie looked blank.

"Bugs, wiretaps. We're also checking his family, to see if any of them mentioned the meeting to anybody. Now I need to ask you the same question: Did you mention his meeting to anybody?"

Millie shook her head. "I didn't actually know about the meeting until ten minutes before he left. We were having an argu—well, a rather heated discussion about something else."

"And that was?"

"None of your business," she said, blushing. "You'll just have to trust me that it had nothing to do with Davy's disappearance."

Anders stared at her for a moment, then nodded. "All right."

Millie frowned. "How can they hope to control Davy? The minute the drugs wear off, he'll be out of there."
Perhaps earlier, even.
It hadn't happened lately but in the early years of their marriage, Davy would get nightmares and end up hundreds of miles away, fleeing an illusionary danger, jumping before he was fully awake.
Unless they chain him.
She decided not to mention this to Anders.

A deeply paranoid thought hit her.
What if this interview is not about finding Davy, but learning how to control him?
Her next thought, also paranoid, brought up a different possibility.

She opened her mouth to speak, then closed it again, licking suddenly dry lips. Finally she said, "So, if Cox's unit is compromised, then I'm also in danger. Threatening me might be one way to control him. Is that why you had them establish a perimeter? Do you expect the same people to come after me?"

Anders waited a moment, frowning slightly. Finally, he just said, "Yes." She stared at him for a moment, thinking it through. What she concluded frightened her very much.

"And you want them to. If you can catch them trying to take me, it's one way to find out who's behind this."

His eyes widened and for a moment she thought she was wrong. Then she realized the surprise wasn't about the idea of using her as bait. He was surprised that she'd figured it out so soon.

"I'm not stupid, Mr. Anders."

His nod was respectful. "Obviously not. We hadn't planned on telling you that part."

She felt herself hunch down, her neck drawing down between her shoulders. "Doesn't matter. If it stands a chance of leading us to Davy, we've got to try it."

Her last client canceled on her and she was able to go home at four-thirty but didn't actually leave until five. Anders went over the route she would walk to her condo, then deployed his men accordingly.

"I'd lose the suits if this is to go on. Your guys could pass for college jocks if they dressed right."

Anders smiled. "We're not amateurs, Mrs. Rice. The men in suits are not the only assets on site."

Ah, the inner perimeter.
The outer perimeter was probably in place before Anders had ever entered the office. She had to laugh. "Obviously not. But it is
Harrison-Rice
and I prefer Ms. To Mrs."

"All right, Ms. Harrison-Rice." He bent his head to one side and covered his ear. He was wearing an earplug now that snaked up his neck on a flesh-colored cord. "Right. My men are in place."

Anders took a thin oblong, flesh-colored plastic case perhaps two inches long out of his coat pocket. He did something to the side and it opened, revealing circuit board, lithium battery, and a small slide switch that he moved before recovering it. He touched something inside his jacket and spoke. "The locator is on—are you getting a signal?" The answer was apparently positive.

He turned back to Millie. "We'd like you to wear this on your person. It's a GPS tracker, a backup should they get close enough to snatch you."

She stared at it. "On my person? That's a little vague, isn't it? Not in my purse or jacket, right?"

Anders colored slightly. "The bra is probably your best bet. Underneath, to, uh, secure it." He handed her the case. "I'll be outside." He left the office, closing the door behind him.

Alone, the humor drained away and she felt small and frightened. She was wearing a sports bra under her blouse and when she pushed the case between her breasts it stayed there, without any telltale bulges visible, even before she rebuttoned the blouse.

Again, she put on Davy's leather jacket, taking a moment to bury her face in the lining and inhaling deeply. "Oh, Davy. What have you gotten into?"

The route she'd given Anders wasn't her usual one, but a slight detour past a city playground. She stopped at the fence, watching mothers with preschool-age kids playing. One woman under the trees was being buried in leaves by twin girls. All three of them were giggling insanely and Millie felt tears come to her eyes even as she smiled. "Oh, Davy," she muttered. "I wish you'd knocked me up before you disappeared."

Enough of that!
She walked on, trying to push the thought away but she wasn't just worried about Davy. She was scared she'd never have the chance to have his children.

She looked around more obviously, looking for Anders's men and had to admit she couldn't really pick them out. This was fairly close to the university so there were a lot of pedestrians and vehicle traffic.

Only once was she sure. A blond man in an OSU sweatshirt with a backpack slung over one shoulder passed her, going the same direction. The bright orange silkscreen of the university mascot, Pistol Pete, on the sweatshirt had obviously never been washed and there were still creases from a hanger standing up on the shoulders. The clincher, though, was a coil of flesh-colored wire trailing down his neck from his right ear.

Orange is not your color.

She halfway expected Anders to be waiting in the lobby of the condominiums but he wasn't there. There also wasn't anybody on the stairs or in the hallway.
Did they even check the building?

She hesitated before her door.
God dammit, this was my refuge. Now it feels like a trap.
She started to turn away when it opened.

"Come on in, Ms. Harrison-Rice. It's all clear."

It was Anders.

She glared. "I don't suppose you needed a key."

He shrugged apologetically. "It was better than hanging around in the hall."

She pushed past him. There was another man sweeping an antennaed box across the far wall and a third standing beside the door to the balcony, looking outside through a part in the drapes.

"Do you plan on moving in with me?"

"No, ma'am. We've been sweeping for bugs and to get the layout. There's a unit available on the next floor up. We're arranging for its use."

She looked around. The climbing rope and plug of concrete from the cliff house was still in the corner. When she'd arrived back here, this morning, it had seemed spacious. With the three men present, it felt like the walls were closing in.

Anders must've seen this. "We'll be out of here shortly."

Millie swallowed. "Leaving me alone?"
Make up your mind, girl. Do you want them here or not?

"We've put a camera in the hall and we'll be watching the entrances to the building. There's the three, right?"

Millie shook her head. "Four. There's a stairway from the parking garage in the southeast corner. Then there's the front and back door, and the one by the pool, though they'd have to go over the fence to get to that one." She felt her breathing slow. "Where do you monitor the camera?"

"We've got a van parked down the street." At her look of alarm he added, "But there'll be men on the premises, closer."

She didn't know whether that made her feel better or not, but she said, "All right. I'm going to take a shower and change. Um, you didn't put any cameras
in
the apartment did you?"

Anders shook his head. "No... but you should be aware—" He licked his lips. "Well, the tracking device I gave you has a microphone."

Before she could say anything he quickly added, "I'm sorry I didn't mention it earlier, but I realized that no matter what you thought about the invasion of
your
privacy, you wouldn't tolerate the invasion of your clients' privacy."

Her initial surge of anger subsided. "Quite right. We'll have to talk about this, but right now I want a shower."

She shut the bedroom door and stood, her back to it, her hands over her face, rubbing her eyes.
First things first.
She dug the tracker/bug out of her bra and put it on the bedside clock radio, right on the speaker grill, then turned on the news.
Hope that didn't hurt anybody's ears.
Only then did she feel like she could continue into the bathroom.

She ran the water hot and let it stream across her face. Then, like melting ice, the tears came and the sobs and the fear and grief.
Davy, Davy, Davy—you better be all right!

The next morning she met Anders in the parking garage and followed him to a full-sized custom van with mirrored windows whose chrome roof rack barely cleared the cement beams above. He opened the door for her and she climbed in. Instead of the plush carpeting and upholstered seats the exterior led one to expect, the interior was metal and utilitarian with racks of electronics, monitors, and cable.

A man wearing a tee-shirt and shorts sat in a pivoting vinyl seat. Anders directed her to a backwards-facing bench seat behind the driver's station, and perched beside her, shutting the door behind them. It was warm in the van, despite the late winter temperatures outside, and Millie shrugged off her coat.

Anders gestured at the other man. "This is Watson. That's his first name."

Watson smiled. "I'm named after three famous sidekicks."

Millie thought about it a second, then said, "Sherlock Holmes's Watson. Uh, and Watson and Crick? Who's the third?"

Watson grinned. "The most appropriate one—Alexander Graham Bell's assistant, at the other end of listening device. 'Watson, come here, I need you.' "

Anders waved his hand impatiently. "Give us Ms. Harrison-Rice's bug on speaker."

Watson pushed a slider bar up and there was a slight hum. When Anders said, "It can pick up those around you, too," his voice echoed out of the speaker. "But, you can turn it off." He held out his hand.

Millie took the tracker out of her pocket and handed it to him.

"It comes apart like this." He put pressure on the two faces and slid them in opposite directions. The face popped off and he indicated a slide switch with a zero at one end and a two at the other. "At zero it's all the way off so don't do that. In between, it's just the GPS locator. And all the way to the right, it's a GPS locator and an audio bug." He slid it to the middle position as he was saying this and the speaker stopped echoing his voice.

Watson pointed at a computer screen that seemed to be a street map of her neighborhood with a flashing dot at the appropriate space. "But we're not getting the GPS coordinates right now, because you're in this ferroconcrete garage and can't get the satellites. That'll change when you walk outside."

Anders turned the audio bug back on. "Is that satisfactory, Ms. Harrison-Rice?"