Element 42

by Seeley James

  Part of me was amazed those things work at all and part of me thought they had a long way to go. I relayed the rough translation into my comm link and ordered Miguel to check it out. Ms. Sabel took off, out-running the big guy with her first stride. I tried to order her back to her assigned position but she wasn’t listening. I had Miguel take her place on the right flank and cursed not leaving her back at the Gardens.

  “I can see Betty,” Ms. Sabel reported. “Oh god, she’s so scared. There’re two Kazakhs. One holding a pistol at my head, the other ten yards out holding a rifle to Betty’s.”

  “You should’ve let Miguel handle this part. I had a negotiation planned.”

  “Bad time to mention it.”

  All the muscles in my body tightened up.

  Across the comm link, Carmen said, “It was in his mission brief, ma’am.”

  “Oh.”

  Yeah. Oh.

  A blown assignment like that could get us all killed. My anger exploded, but I kept myself in check with a deep breath. It was my own fault. I chose to work for Ms. Sabel instead of finding a sous-chef gig.

  I handed the vials to the stocky shadow. He shined a UV light on them, the kind the TSA guys use in airports. I didn’t know what he was looking for but I knew he wouldn’t find it. He texted someone.

  Mercury said, Told you this was a bad idea. What’s that phrase? INCOMING!

  “Bail,” I said into the comm link.

  A few awkward seconds ticked by. A reply text came in. The Kazakh started shouting at me, his foul breath forcing me back two steps.

  I jumped sideways between two oak trees as bullets raked the air where I’d stood. Carmen and Miguel opened up, blasting Sabel darts in every direction. The Kazakhs fired back. Like me, they were firing blind around tree trunks. Across the Clara Barton Parkway, at the Naval Surface Warfare Center, the guards would interpret the Kazakh’s distinct AK-47 fire as a terrorist attack on their facility. We were seconds from becoming friendly-fire casualties. A fate I’d barely managed to evade for over a decade in the wars.

  After two full seconds, everyone had to switch magazines at the same time.

  Grabbing the opportunity in the eerie silence, I shouted a cease fire and took a peek, looking for a sucker. Instead I heard the Kazakh running away from me.

  Ms. Sabel’s strained voice came over the comm link. “The guy is taking Betty. The other guy’s still holding me.”

  “Bring ’em down, people.” I chased after the nearest noisy feet. A shadow loomed out of the dark. I bent under what turned out to be a branch. While I ducked shadows, my quarry turned right. I slipped on muddy leaves. Reports came in over the comm link from all directions at once.

  Our backup agents at the park’s entrance reported Navy’s security massing across the parkway.

  Ms. Sabel’s impatient voice demanded someone take out her captor and free Betty.

  Carmen reported the darts were ineffective.

  Surprise.

  After losing my man, I headed for the parking lot and arrived in time to see the Kazakh holding Ms. Sabel. I fired a dart from twenty yards and caught him in the cheek. He dropped.

  Ms. Sabel took off running into the trees. I followed as best I could to a wide trail where I saw nothing.

  When I stopped to listen for them, Carmen’s voice blew out my earbud. “They have a boat. They have a boat!”

  I heard noises fifty yards north of me, toward the river. Following the sounds down a steep slope, I came to a granite cliff thirty feet above the banks of the Potomac River. Below me two shadows were launching an inflatable boat into the river. I ripped off three shots but didn’t hit flesh. Ms. Sabel had taken the same route and was twenty yards to my right, climbing down the rock wall in a place where the cliff offered more hand and footholds.

  “Ms. Sabel, hold your position!” I said. “We have the county cops coming. They’ll cover the shore.”

  She kept climbing and reached the mud as I made it halfway down. The bad guys engaged an electric motor and left the shore at a slow but steady pace. Farther up the bank I saw Carmen and the Major running toward us. I reached the ground in time to see Ms. Sabel shedding her body armor, jacket, Glock, and shoes.

  “No,” I said. “Do not go in the water. Do NOT go in the…”

  Her splash was the last I saw of her. Everything else I heard.

  Carmen and the Major joined me on the beach, breathing hard from their sprints.

  “If Pia drowns,” the Major said, “I’m going to kill her.”

  The splashes of Ms. Sabel’s strong, athletic strokes beat out the little motor on the raft. She caught up to them and dragged herself into the boat. I heard her beating on both men. Having seen her fight before, I theorized they would surrender shortly. But everything stopped. We heard only the whirring motor.

  There was no need to see it; I knew what happened.

  One of the Kazakhs put a pistol to Betty’s head.

  CHAPTER 22

  “Problem,” Carmen said as she peered through thermal binoculars. “They’re not going upstream or down. They’re crossing to Virginia.”

  “Goddamn, son of a bitch,” the Major said. She turned and dialed up the Fairfax County police. Before she connected she tugged my sleeve and asked, “Why didn’t your drone see the boat?”

  “Downside to thermal imaging,” I said. “The boat was cold.”

  Miguel walked down the river bank carrying a Kazakh by the shirt collar the way a country boy would carry a rabbit by the ears. He tossed the man facedown in front of me. “You clean what you catch, Jacob.”

  The only method I had of crossing the river was by car. With a snap of my fingers, I marched to the staging area. Carmen and Miguel, dragging my Kazakh, fell in behind me.

  “What the hell happened?” Alan Sabel stormed across the staging area in the dark, scattering Sabel agents in his wake.

  “Your daughter is an operational nightmare, that’s what happened,” I shouldered past him and grabbed Verges. “Where are your people?”

  Verges put his phone in front of me, displaying the text from his boss: AG says this is a local matter.

  “Really?” I shouted. “Kidnapping across state lines is local now?”

  He tossed up his hands. “I’m trying, Jacob.”

  Alan Sabel is not a small man. Nor is he the kind of man to let someone shoulder past him. When he spun me around, I thought my arm would come off. “Where is Pia? What are you doing to get her back? I want answers, goddamn it.”

  “If you leave Jacob alone,” the Major said, stepping between us and disengaging his grip, “he might get some answers. Right now, you need to step back and let my people work.”

  “Naval security team from NSWC crossed the road, sir,” one of my agents reported via comm link.

  “Verges,” I said, “please tell me the AG will let you flash your badge and defuse the situation.”

  Verges took off for the entrance at a dead run.

  On my second deployment in Iraq, I’d sworn off getting to know rookies because they were the first to die in a firefight. But Verges was hard to beat for enthusiasm. I began to hope he’d live through his Sabel Security assignment in spite of the odds against him.

  Carmen spun her tablet on the hood of the Jaguar I’d taken for the op. She had a GIS map of the Virginia river bank. There were a few homes on the Virginia side but no obvious landing areas.

  “What I’d give for air support right now,” Miguel said as he leaned over my shoulder.

  “What about the county sheriff? Can he—”

  “That’s what I’m talking about. Sheriff says the river’s the flight path for commercial jets. And Fairfax County’s a bit slow to respond. They requested a long debrief from the Major.”

  Carmen, Miguel, and I looked at each other and jumped in the XJR. The Major would handle the Maryland side with the other agents. As soon as I heard all four doors slam, I stomped on the gas.

  “Could I have an earbud?” Emily’s voic
e floated from the back seat as we slid around the Carderock picnic area, heading for the exit.

  I twisted in my seat as we reached eighty miles an hour, then turned my eyes back to the road in time to evade a police cruiser rushing the other way. My swerve took us off the pavement, around a tree, and across an open grassy area. I eased my way back to the lane. Once I had the car under control, I snapped a glance at Miguel in the passenger seat.

  “What’re you looking at me for?” he said. “You brought her on ops when you were banging her.”

  I slammed on the brakes. The screech of tires and the smell of melting rubber broke the car’s serene acceleration in an instant. I jumped out and ripped Emily’s door open. “I apologize for my associates’ callous description of meaningful, consensual relationships, ma’am. Nonetheless, you’ll have to get out.”

  “No way!” Emily said.

  “I’ve read your work. Now get out.”

  Emily crossed her arms and uttered an obscene challenge. Or invitation, depending on your mood. I wasn’t in the mood. Carmen unbuckled Emily’s seatbelt and I dragged her to the street. I gave her a shove and kicked her door shut.

  “Where is she?” Emily snarled. “Where’s your precious boss? You lost her, didn’t you? Is that the story you want me to print? Sabel agents lose CEO? That’s all you’re leaving me, Jacob. I’ll print it.”

  I ignored her, jumped back in and kicked the five hundred supercharged horses into gear.

  As we sped up the Clara Barton to I-495, I broke the awkward silence. “For the record, the one time I took Emily Lunger on an operation, I was not ‘banging her.’ And also for the record, I do not approve of insensitive phrases for thoughtful, engaging relationships. ‘Banging’ makes it sound like nothing more than sex.”

  “You got something against sex?” Carmen asked.

  “Did either of you see what she wrote about Sabel Security?” I asked.

  “She didn’t make the company look bad,” Miguel said. “She made you look bad. I’m OK with that.”

  Gotta love veterans. They’ll take a bullet for you in a war zone, but land on the front page of the Style section in your boxers…

  “It was all true,” Carmen said from the back. “The problem is, you just left a major reporter with the wrong story.”

  “Major reporter? She was a travel writer until yesterday.” I shot her a look in the mirror. “Get Otis Blackwell on the phone, will you?”

  “Do I have to bang him?”

  “Up to you. I only want him for the rescue story.”

  “You’ll make an enemy at the Post.”

  “True that,” Miguel said.

  “Otis was Ms. Sabel’s date for Senior Prom.” I frowned at Miguel. “You’ve had a relationship with Emily for one night. Which one is our go-to reporter?” I waited a moment but neither of them said anything. “You two have a lot to learn about brownnosing.”

  “I got something,” Carmen said. “Pia’s GPS flickered.”

  “Where is she?”

  “Just south of the Madeira School, on the river, heading northwest.”

  We came to the Georgetown Pike exit and flew at three times the 25 mph suggested speed limit and kept going. Traffic was light but still a serious problem on the two-lane road. I got by two cars early on and had only one more. Passing him on the double yellow at the hillcrest spooked me but it had to be done. We caught some air on the next hill and banged down hard.

  “They’ve landed at a spot called Black Pond,” Carmen said. “I think we can get there from the Madeira School’s property.”

  We drove up the tree-lined drive and flew past the private school’s main buildings and sports fields.

  Mercury said, Wrong side of the river, dude.

  I said, They doubled back to Maryland?

  Mercury said, Fool, wrong side of the tributary. You took the wrong road.

  Who do you trust, a long forgotten god—or satellite GPS?

  The drive ended at a circle where we piled out. A hundred yards away, a lone security guard started to jog our way. Carmen pointed our direction, into the woods, and we were off at a dead run. We exited the trees at a large expanse of rock that stretched fifty yards to the river.

  Miguel scanned with thermal binoculars.

  Nothing.

  “They’re two hundred yards southwest,” she said.

  We covered the distance quickly and found the inflatable, its electric motor still warm. Lying on top of the center seat was the boss’s phone. Everything around us was dead quiet.

  Mercury said, Oh no, don’t listen to a god when you can listen to a mortal with a machine in her hand. I should toss you back where I found you—scared and shivering in a Baghdad ditch, praying to Jesus. You never listened to him either. Dawg.

  CHAPTER 23

  The same cold breeze slid through the trees, forcing an involuntary shiver across Pia Sabel’s skin and wet clothes. Hooded, she relied on her senses to assess their situation. Betty was a step behind her, being shoved into Pia every fourth step. From the bumps, she could feel that Betty’s hands were bound on the girl’s front, a good sign. Pia’s were tied behind her back.

  They hiked up a slope a hundred yards where the Kazakhs pushed them against a tree and forced them to sit. Then she heard the Kazakhs walk away a short distance.

  “Your agents are coming, right?” Betty Weir asked in a quaking voice.

  “Shh,” Pia said.

  A man’s feet strode toward them, crunching through leaves and bramble.

  Betty said, “I’m sorry to cause you so much trouble. I should’ve—”

  A rifle butt slammed into Betty. The girl screamed and sobbed, earning a slap.

  Pia twisted her hands against the rough rope, but she was powerless. “Stop it! She’s just a—”

  A rifle butt pounded her belly, knocking the wind out of her.

  Pia remained quiet. The Kazakhs said nothing until the women understood them, then the sound of their boots receded some distance away. Pia moved close enough to Betty’s ear for a whisper. “Your hands tied in front. I’m going to put my head in your lap. Get my hood off. Then we’ll work on our hands.”

  “Are we going to fight our way out?”

  “Shh.”

  Pia slid into a prone position and felt Betty’s leg with her head. The young girl’s fingers wandered for a moment but quickly found the drawstring and freed her.

  Clouds obscured the moon but reflected enough city light to see shapes. A slipknot held Betty’s hands. Pia picked at it with her teeth until her protégé’s wriggling did the rest. A second later, Betty had her own hood off and worked on freeing Pia’s hands. A second before they finished, footsteps approached.

  Betty froze.

  Pia willed her to keep working. She needed her hands for defense. But Betty remained frozen, her eyes as big as saucers.

  The footsteps kept coming from deep in the trees. The two Kazakhs appeared out of the shadows, glaring at Pia. One grabbed Betty while the other unbuckled his belt, unzipped his pants, and laughed.

  Pia jumped over her hands, landing her feet on the ground in time to smash her bound hands into the man’s chin. His pants fell to his knees as he staggered backward into his pal. Twisting her core, she gave him a backhand that sent him to the ground and left her facing the other Kazakh.

  He swung his rifle up, his icy stare locked on Pia.

  He never saw Betty.

  The girl took two steps and smashed her foot into his groin from behind. As he doubled over, Pia brought her hands around his head and pounded his face into her rapidly rising knee.

  Betty took the opportunity to kick the fallen man in the ribs. Repeatedly. But the man grabbed her ankle and yanked. She fell on her butt.

  Pia finished off the first man with a serious kick to the head as he lay on the ground.

  The second Kazakh straightened up and pulled his rifle to his shoulder. Betty rolled away. Pia planted her left foot in the man’s hip hard enough to send him over.
Betty, back on her feet, jumped up and landed her heels on the man’s face. The uneven surface of his skull provided a rough landing. Pia caught her in midair.

  Suspended for a moment between heaven and earth, Betty’s eyes blew wide open.

  “We did it!” The young girl stood up and threw her arms around Pia. “I can’t believe it! We won!”

  “Could you finish untying my hands now?” Pia asked. “We’re not done until we have them in jail.”

  Once her hands were free, Pia took a deep breath, put two fingers in her mouth, and let out a loud, shrill whistle. Betty did the same. The racket they made stirred one of the Kazakhs. They kicked him at the same time. Then they waited and listened. Pia shivered, her teeth chattering like a machine.

  In the distance, an answering whistle and distant shouts came through the trees.

  Pia held a rifle on both Kazakhs while Betty went through their pockets, tossing everything into a pile. Knives, flashlights, pistols, cord, tape, ammo, and a phone piled up. Betty tried a few random numbers to unlock the phone but gave up quickly. There was a rucksack where Betty stuffed the pile of weapons. Pia picked at the bindings and cords, tying the ends together until she had a six-foot length. With a slipknot at each end, she put it around the Kazakh’s necks and drew it tight. If either man were to run, he’d strangle them both.

  Taking turns whistling for help and trying to revive the Kazakhs, they eventually got the men on their feet.

  “Let’s hike out of here,” Pia said. “If we head west, we’ll find cops.”

  Yanking the cord three times, the Kazakhs quickly understood their fate and obediently walked between the women. Betty led and Pia brought up the rear. They found a wide, well-travelled trail that led uphill and west. Half a mile later, their whistles were answered by shouts.

  A Fairfax County police officer ran to their assistance. Within minutes police officers swarmed the trail. Pia was given a blanket and led to a warm squad car. Betty’s parents set out to join her as soon as they were informed.