Vicious Cycle (28 page)

Lance’s hand closed over the door latch, but Zeke raised his gun. “Zeke, who are you turning her over to?”

“Somebody who can make good use of her,” Zeke said. “Nobody else ever has.”

Lance heard a noise; the hangar’s bay door was opening slowly. Inside, just beyond it, he could see the man who’d been at Jordan’s house with the woman that day.

God, please help us.

Carrying an automatic rifle, the man walked over to Lance’s side of the car, opened the door, and told him to get out. Lance slid out, holding his hands above his head. His knees threatened to buckle. “Don’t shoot,” he said. “I haven’t done anything wrong.”

Jordan bolted out, seemingly without fear. “Do you have my baby?” she demanded.

“Hold it.” The woman emerged, her gun aimed at Jordan. “What’s the boy doing here?” she yelled.

“He was with her, so I had to bring him,” Zeke said. “Don’t worry about him. I’ll take care of him myself.”

The man stared at Zeke as if he wasn’t pleased. Lance raised his hands innocently. “Let me go, man. I swear I won’t tell anybody.”

“Inside,” the man bit out, looking up the road. “Pull the car in.”

The man went back to the door and yelled something, and the door to the second bay rolled open. Zeke pulled his car in.

As they walked Lance in, a gun against his back, he saw that there were two cars, a sleek plane that looked like something a corporation would own, and at least one other guy in the dimly lit building. As the door closed behind them, Lance’s lungs locked—he couldn’t breathe. This was it.

“Give me the gun, Zeke,” the man barked.

Still behind the wheel, Zeke handed his gun out the car window—then gasped as Nelson lifted it to Zeke’s head. “Out of the car, Zeke.”

“What? Put the gun down, man. We’re on the same side.”

“Where is my baby?” Jordan screamed, her voice echoing through the metal building.

“We’ll bring her to you,” the woman said in a calm voice. “Come back here with me, and we’ll get her for you. Hands over your head. All of you.”

Lance did as he was told. He followed Jordan into a small room that looked like a manager’s office. It had a metal desk in the center of the room and some folding chairs.

Lance took the seat by the wall, as far from the man’s gun as he could get. Jordan sat down, watching the man hopefully, as if he’d produce Grace at any moment. As Zeke stepped over the threshold, the man lifted Zeke’s gun …

… and shot him in the back.

Jordan screamed as her brother hit the concrete. Lance grabbed her and pulled her against him, pressing both of them against the wall.

God please help us. God please help us
… He was going
to die. Jordan too. They would find them here in a pile on the floor.

The other man and woman looked undaunted as they dragged Zeke’s body from the doorway. Jordan’s screams bounced off the walls, echoing through the building—but Lance doubted anyone was close enough to hear. “Shut up!” the man yelled, his voice booming her into silence. She sobbed, sucking in breaths, trying not to make noise.

“Take your jackets off,” he said. “Darlene, get two syringes.”

Sweat dripped from Lance’s chin as he pulled off his jacket. His eyes searched for an escape. The walls were some kind of heavy corrugated metal, but there were no doors except for the ones they’d come in. No windows either.

The woman came back, syringes in hand, and came to Lance first. He drew back. “What is that?”

“Something to help you relax.” She slid up his sleeve.

Lance jerked his arm away, but the gun barrel pressed against his temple. He squeezed his eyes shut, bracing himself for death.

Darlene put a tourniquet on his arm and shoved a needle in. He heard Jordan’s anguished scream just as liquid fire burst through him. His vision went blurry … his ears muffled Jordan’s cries.

As he prayed for God’s intervention, Jordan’s screams grew more distant. Unconsciousness hit like a sledgehammer, blacking through his brain. As he sank into it, he heard voices over him.

“Put the girl in the plane with the baby. We’ll set up Zeke and the kid to look like they killed each other. Put the pistol in Zeke’s hand, and shoot the boy with it. Then get in the plane and we’re outta here.”

A
cross town, Barbara sat by the phone with Emily, watching the news for some mention of Lance. Part of her still expected him to come ambling up the driveway with some perfectly logical explanation for where he’d been. After all, they didn’t know for sure he’d been kidnapped. But if Zeke hadn’t taken him, where was he? “Mom, it’s a press conference!” Emily’s voice pulled her out of her thoughts, and Barbara turned up the TV. The spokesman from the police department—the same one who talked to the press on every major case—stood in front of a podium with four or five microphones from the local channels.

She listened, astonished, as they focused on the baby trafficking scheme and the missing baby and her mother, failing to mention anything about Lance. The public relations officer for the police department showed a poster with Zeke’s face.

“If you have any information about the whereabouts of this individual, or information about someone you know who’s been approached to exchange her baby for cash, you’re asked to call the Jefferson City Police Department at 555–3214.”

“Nobody will recognize that,” Emily said. “He doesn’t look like that anymore.”

It was true. Zeke was at least thirty pounds lighter now. His meth use had left him a skeleton.

Finally, the officer said that an AMBER Alert had been put out on Jordan, Lance, and the baby, and their pictures flashed up. The picture was one they’d taken from Lance’s Facebook page; it was last year’s school photo. His hair was shorter and he’d grown a lot since then. She hoped his image imprinted itself on viewers’ memories.

“At least we don’t have to wait thirty-six hours or whatever for them to call him a missing person,” Emily said.

Barbara sat down on the couch, put her arms between her knees, and tried to imagine what Zeke might do with them. If he was still trying to get the money the traffickers were paying for the baby, maybe that was all he wanted. As horrible as it would be for the baby to be handed over, at least Lance might be unharmed.

But a lump rose in her throat as she realized that no one involved would let Lance go if he were a witness. In fact, there was only one reason Zeke would have taken him in the first place. To kill him.

If Lance were dead, would she know, somewhere deep in her gut? Would there be some jolt of pain the moment he stopped breathing?

“Mom, are you all right?”

Barbara looked at Emily and thought of telling her that, yes, she was fine … that everything would be all right.

But she couldn’t force any words out of her throat. Slowly, she shook her head.

J
ordan didn’t sink as quickly as Lance had, because she’d developed a tolerance to the effects of all kinds of drugs. She kept fighting, trying to keep them from giving her another dose. But they held her down and injected her again.

Then she heard a baby crying. Wrestling away from them, she tried to get to the door. The cry was coming from the other side of the hangar, in one of the cars … or in the plane. She struggled to get to it, but it was like swimming through mud.

They tackled her again, all three people holding her down. As the needle found another vein, her screams fell into a whimpered prayer.

“When the swelling on her face goes down, she’ll be pretty,” someone said.

“Yeah, we can put her into service right away. Keep her high and she’ll do whatever we want.”

No, she thought, but the words wouldn’t come out. I won’t … never … But even as she tried to protest, she knew she’d done worse things for drugs.

The baby’s panicked cry rose hoarse and tinny through the building.

I tried to save you,
she wanted to say.

But her mouth was dry, and a bittersweet numbness warmed her. She felt her arms and legs going limp, her eyes falling closed.

Don’t hurt her… Grace didn’t do anything… suffering for my mistakes.

But wasn’t that always the way it went? She’d known dozens of mothers who’d sacrificed their children to the altar of drugs.

She was one of those children.

As the drug pulled her under, she hated her mother … her brother … her captors … herself.

God was the only One who could save her now. But she didn’t even know if she was still on His radar.

K
ent was surprised when Dathan told him the Chief was alerting the SWAT team. He hadn’t expected the Jefferson City police department to have one. Even then, he expected a ragged crew of patrol officers who doubled as sharp-shooters on the rare occasions that required the big guns. He was impressed with how quickly they gathered, though, and hoped they were well trained.

He and Dathan met the squad a couple of miles from their destination. The men were assembled in a van, with assault rifles and bulletproof vests. Kent pulled one on, then hurried back into Dathan’s car.

They drove to the scene with lights and sirens off to keep from alerting the perps. He tried to switch his brain into detective mode, focusing only on the choreography of getting inside the headquarters, disarming and restraining the
bad guys, and rescuing the victims. He forced his affection for Lance out of his mind. Letting emotion get tangled with crime scene strategy could cause lethal mistakes.

They paused a few hundred yards from a building that looked like an old airport hangar, maybe for a corporate charter service that had shut down long ago. Kent used binoculars to scope out the hangar. The doors were all closed and there were no cars in sight. On the side of the building were a fuel tank and a long runway.

“If that tank is full, it could be a problem if we start firing,” he said to Dathan. “Tell the SWAT team to shoot clear of it.”

As Dathan radioed the men in the van and the other cruisers serving as back-up, Kent got out of the car and walked a few feet to get a better look at the other side of the building. If these men could afford a jet and forty thousand dollars to pay Jordan’s family, they could afford a team of hotshot lawyers. That meant they’d probably come without a fight, knowing they could bond out and fight any charges against them.

A Piper Jet sat on the airstrip, poised to take off. Exhaust heat rippled in the air. Through the plane’s windows, Kent saw a pilot and the silhouettes of passengers. The plane looked ready for take-off. Then he saw the beacon light on the tail flash on.

He ran back to the car. “Plane about to take off!” he said. “Let’s go now!”

Dathan relayed the message into the radio, then yelled, “Let’s go! Let’s go! Move in around the plane!”

Blue lights flashing, the cars sped to the airstrip as the plane began to taxi down the runway. Kent drew his weapon and steadied it on the dashboard as Dathan pulled onto the grass beside the plane. The pilot saw them, but kept taxiing,
picking up speed. The sirens came on, warning them to stop, but the plane went faster, faster … ready to take off. Dathan kept up with them, going forty, fifty, sixty miles an hour …

“Shoot out the wheels!” Dathan yelled as he drove. “I can’t get in front of them.”

Kent took aim, getting the wheels in his sights, and he squeezed off a round. One of the small tires blew, tipping the plane slightly, pulling it to the right. He fired again, targeting the other tire. The plane skidded and slowed. Its take-off was aborted, but the plane kept its trajectory down the runway.

“Hang on!” Dathan tore around the plane and screeched to a stop in front of it as the other cars moved in, blocking the plane in every direction. The piper rolled to a halt. The pilot’s door flew open, and he saw the barrel of a rifle as the pilot fired. Kent fired back, aiming low to knock the shooter out, but a bullet shattered Dathan’s windshield. Kent got out of the car and ducked behind it.

Someone on the passenger side of the plane began shooting now, bullets flying from both sides. Kent fired back, praying he wouldn’t hit Lance or Jordan or the baby if they were in the plane.

The pilot fell back inside the plane, pulling the door shut.

Kent turned his fire to the other shooter, hoping to take at least one of them alive. He fired toward the leg of what appeared to be a woman.

But other cops surrounded the place, SWAT team snipers positioning themselves around the plane.

“Stand down!” Kent cried into the radio. “Victims may be in the plane! Hold your fire!”

Before Dathan’s firing stopped, the woman was hit. She tumbled back, hit the wing, and slid off onto the tarmac.

The firing stopped. Kent braced his gun in both hands and made a run for the plane, hoping to get underneath it before the pilot rallied. If there were only the two of them, maybe he could climb in, take the pilot, and find Lance and Jordan. But where was Zeke? And what if there were others?

A shot from the cockpit burst through the plane’s windshield, the bullet ricocheting off the concrete next to Kent just before he reached the plane. Fire ripped through his shoulder. He fell back, lightning flashing in his brain as his head hit the ground.

G
unfire shook Jordan out of her stupor. She forced her eyes open. She was in the plane, lying on the backseat. The world swirled, a tornado of confusion spinning around her head. What had they given her?

Bits of glass showered her as the guns kept firing. Were they shooting at her? She tried to get up, but her head was as heavy as lead and felt as big as a watermelon. She pushed her knees under her, tried to push up with her hands.

“What you shoot for? You crazy, man? They kill us!” a man’s voice said in the cockpit.

“We can’t let them take us.” Nelson’s voice was raspy, and he was breathing hard, as if in pain. “There are two bodies inside. They catch us, we’re going down for murder. We’ve got to get this plane off the ground.”

Jordan lifted her head and squinted toward the front
of the plane. The man with the accent squatted behind the front seats, firing out between the seat and the door. Nelson crouched on the floor, blood soaking his shirt.