Donovan was mildly surprised, more by the continued deception surrounding exactly how she and Donovan met, though it came as no shock that his wife had taken Montero to meet Michael. Lauren hadn’t made it a secret that she thought Montero would be a perfect fit within Eco-Watch. “Yes, I’m well aware of her sensitivity to her name. I’m glad you’ve met her, it makes all this easier. We need to be a team the minute we hit the ground.”
“I have to ask. Is she coming with us as an independent contractor, or did you make her a job offer?”
“Contract, I can’t think about the other right now. Let’s go get Lauren, and if we both think Montero is a good fit afterwards, we’ll offer her the job.”
“I like your attitude,” Michael said. “Hang in there and I’ll see you in a few hours.”
CHAPTER FIVE
LAUREN HEARD A BOAT on the river long before it came into view. She’d heard several in the last few hours and wasn’t overly concerned. From her hiding spot she was invisible from the water, as well as from the path. Earlier, while contemplating what Daniel had told her, she’d grown restless. Barefoot, she’d paced the same pattern over and over in a small open section of green grass, while she wondered about the jump drive and its contents. She wasn’t sure what he’d given her, and without a computer, she had no way to know for sure, but Daniel would have crammed as much data as was available into the drive’s memory.
The boat steadily cruised past, then the motor slowed, and shouts erupted. Lauren checked to make sure the path was clear and quickly crawled to a spot where she could survey the river.
The boat was maybe twenty feet long and looked to be a civilian vessel. The helm was set forward, with a flat wooden afterdeck where several pallets of cargo sat. Two men were starboard, pointing into the river as a third man positioned the boat. One of the deck hands used a long-handled gaff to hook something below the surface. He set his feet and pulled. His deck mate joined in, and an object finally broke the surface. Lauren put a hand over her mouth when she realized it was a body. She glanced down and found Daniel still secured out of sight next to the log. The sailors slowly walked to the stern, careful not to lose what they’d found. Together, they heaved and strained to get the water-soaked corpse up over the low gunwale.
The instant the body broke the surface, Lauren saw the aviator’s epaulets; the four gold bars meant it was the captain. Once the body was on the deck, the boat sped upstream, turned, and began running up and down the river, searching. In the distance, Lauren heard the faint thumping of rotor blades. She listened until she was positive it was getting closer. Startled birds called out sharp warnings as they took flight. A large animal, either a deer or something else, fled through the underbrush.
Lauren listened to the helicopter as it approached. She couldn’t see it, but it sounded less than half a mile away, which would put it overheard in twenty seconds or less. She was about to move when she heard another threat. Lauren crouched behind a tree trunk and made herself as small as possible. A small truck was trundling down the crude trail toward her. A quick glance told her there were two men in the cab, plus two riding in the bed, the men in the bed were holding weapons. The discovery of the body, especially one wearing a pilot’s uniform, would draw hordes of people, police, military, and finally recovery crews. She needed to go. Now.
Coming up behind her, the helicopter roared overhead at treetop level and then banked upstream. It was French built, an Alouette. From her years of studying satellite imagery for the DIA, she recognized it as an older model, the tail boom an open assemblage of tubes and wires. The Plexiglas bubble surrounding the cabin gave it the look of an overgrown wasp. As the truck rounded a small curve and rolled out of view, Lauren was up and moving. She dashed to the river. A quick look up and down the waterway and she didn’t spot any more boats, though from the sound of it, the helicopter was circling back around.
Lauren slid down the bank, and knelt until only her head was above the brownish water. As the helicopter closed on her position, she undid the belt holding Daniel at the surface, took a deep breath and submerged. Eyes closed, Lauren put her hands around Daniel to keep from drifting away. The beating of the rotor blades permeated the water and it sounded as if the helicopter was directly overhead.
Lauren’s lungs began to burn. She willed herself to remain calm and not to move, to save every molecule of energy. She risked opening her eyes in the murky water and turned to look upward. Silhouetted against the sky was the slender shape of the helicopter. It was flying away from them. Lauren held on to Daniel and eased her head above the surface and gulped huge quantities of fresh air. She took one last big breath and slipped back underwater.
Lauren still clutched Daniel as the helicopter flew overhead once more and then slowly moved away. When she popped to the surface, she could feel the current pulling at her. It felt strong enough that she thought she’d be able to move faster in the river than on foot. She listened for the helicopter, the beating blades filled the air, but it seemed to still be moving away from her, flying in a large arc.
Lauren kicked hard and pulled Daniel’s rock-laden body as far out into the channel as she dared. She lifted his face out of the water, kissed the fingers on her left hand and pressed them to his lips.
“Goodbye, Daniel,” Lauren whispered, her vision blurred by tears as she released her grip on him, and he slipped below the surface for the last time. Lauren took a breath, submerged, and swam toward the shore while letting the current propel her downstream.
Moving downstream, the road was above her and out of sight to her left. The helicopter was still in the area, but now seemed to be hovering in the sky upstream. Lauren could only assume they were looking for, or perhaps had already found, the crashed Learjet. She needed to keep moving as fast as she could, because by sunrise there would be divers in the water, and once they found the emergency exit door open, the search for survivors would intensify.
Lauren swam into a small cove before she saw the wooden dingy where a single man sat quietly monitoring several fishing poles. Her bare feet dug into the mud and she used her arms to counteract the current. She furiously kicked toward the shore. When the river was shallow enough for her to touch bottom, she clawed her way up the bank. Through the trees to her right, a truck engine cranked to life.
She sprinted across the road, down a faint trail that took her deep into the woods. Behind her, she heard shouts that became more urgent, and then they abruptly ceased. Lauren could only guess that she’d been spotted and now she imagined men spreading out, weapons at the ready, as they followed. In the distance, the sound of the Alouette drew closer.
Lauren came to a sudden stop as the trees gave way to an open field. She took one look at the hundred yards where she’d be exposed and made the decision that she couldn’t risk being spotted out in the open. She ducked off the path just as the helicopter, flying only feet above the treetops, roared overhead.
Lauren hid as the helicopter wheeled in a tight bank and circled back around and began to slow. Lauren realized the helicopter was landing, and her immediate impulse was to bolt in the direction she’d come, but then she’d risk running straight into the men from the road. She held her position, calculating her odds of escape as the helicopter touched down in the field. The instant the first man dropped to the ground, Lauren started moving deeper into the brush. She glanced back and took a long look at the man who appeared to be shouting orders. Even at this distance she could see that he had dark hair, cut short, accentuating his sharp facial features. He stood just shy of six foot and looked solid without being fat. Despite the heat, he was dressed in black clothing, and in his left hand, he held a pistol. Two men with shouldered Kalashnikov automatic weapons jumped to the ground behind him and began moving toward her.
Lauren ran as fast as she could, roughly paralleling the path she’d used before. She weaved in and out of the trees, trying to make use of the thinner undergrowth where the trees blocked the sunlight. Behind her the helicopter
throttled down, and the beating rotor faded in the forest. She scanned ahead, hoping to see her pursuers before they spotted her.
After running as far as she dared, she stopped and leaned against the trunk of a tree, waiting, listening. The sensation of being hunted from two separate directions was unnerving. Lauren was about to continue when the snap of a branch echoed through the trees just ahead of her. She instinctively dropped into a crouch. Undetected, she slowly peeked around the trunk.
A man was moving cautiously in her direction, leading the way with a rifle. His clothes were civilian, he was stocky, bearded, and he walked with his eyes cast downward, as if he were looking for tracks. There were dried leaves all around Lauren’s feet, if she moved, she’d certainly be heard. On an impulse, she grabbed a limb above her head and used her bare feet to gain traction on the rough bark. With surprising quickness, she silently climbed until she was crouched on a sturdy limb nearly ten feet above the forest floor. She steadied herself with both hands, trying to keep her breathing under control, while beneath her, the armed man moved closer. The only sound that reached her ears were the drops of water falling from her saturated clothing and pooling in the rough bark beneath her feet.
CHAPTER SIX
DONOVAN FINISHED EXPLAINING to William and Montero everything Calvin had told him at the stable. He and Abigail had returned home half an hour earlier. He’d gotten her to change out of her riding clothes and into shorts, so she could go down the street and play with her friend Molly. For the moment, the three of them were alone in his study.
“How long has it been since her plane went down?” Montero asked as she leaned forward, her calm voice a sharp contrast to the immediate tension that seemed to radiate from her now rigid posture.
“No way to know, but the best guess is less than twenty-four hours,” Donovan answered.
“So we have nothing but questions,” William said.
“I agree with Donovan,” Montero said. “If a jet crashed, I think it would be news by now, which leaves us with the distinct possibility that they were either arrested or kidnapped before they took off or after they landed.”
Donovan locked eyes with Montero, knowing that she would tell him what she thought, not what he wanted to hear. “What’s our play?”
“The way I see this, is we need to create leverage on three fronts. The first is political, which would be William’s area of expertise. Sir, you need to apply pressure as high up the political food chain as possible until someone tells us what we want to know. Where was the jet headed? Who’s involved, who the bad guys are, and finally, where do we find them? The second issue is geographical. We need to be in Eastern Europe—now. Third, we need answers from Dr. Pope’s daughter. If she’s in protective custody, maybe I can call in some favors from the FBI and we can lean on her. She may know more than she thinks.”
At other times in their relationship, Donovan had felt the need to tone down Montero’s take-charge attitude—but not today. His decision to include her had been a wise one. They’d come a long way in three years. The first time they’d met, she’d been a special agent with the FBI. She’d been in her late thirties then, blond, pretty, and athletic. She was attractive and knew it, using her looks as one of the many weapons she had at her disposal. Armed with confidence and intelligence, as well as an innate dislike for rules and structure, she’d breezed into an interrogation room in Boca Raton, Florida, and put Donovan in the middle of her investigative crosshairs. In the course of her investigation, she discovered the truth about his past, and instead of revealing this truth, she’d blackmailed him into helping her find a killer. They’d succeeded in a spectacular fashion. Montero was publicly hailed as the federal agent who had brought down one of the most dangerous terrorists in America and averted a catastrophic attack that would have killed hundreds of thousands of civilians. In reality, Donovan and Lauren had killed the terrorist, but Lauren brokered a deal to give Montero the full credit and deflect attention from Donovan and Eco-Watch. Montero became a household name, as well as a media centerpiece for all of law enforcement. She’d kept an earlier vow and promised Donovan that his secret would remain safe.
Eventually, she grew to hate every minute of the attention and adulation and resigned from the FBI. A year ago, Lauren contacted Montero to bring her in on a problem that required her unique blend of superb investigating skills as well as her ability and willingness to apply force when required. After that, his wife and his former blackmailer had become great friends, and now, if he made her the job offer, Montero was going to be a permanent fixture.
The blond, outgoing, impetuous FBI agent he’d first met was now a dark-haired, quiet, confident, more mature woman, who did as much as possible, short of surgery, to downplay her appearance. Montero and Donovan had much in common these days, and the irony wasn’t lost on either of them.
William nodded his agreement and produced his phone. “I’ll start with the Secretary of State, and perhaps he’ll bring in the Attorney General.”
“Wait,” Donovan said. “Let’s think about this. If we start strong arming people on the Hill, the CIA will most certainly take notice and try to stop whatever we’re doing. I think we need to keep everyone in the dark except Calvin at the Defense Intelligence Agency. He said he’d help us, and I believe him. That said, it doesn’t mean you can’t reach out to people outside of our government, as long as there’s no chance of blowback to the CIA.”
“I have contacts in Poland, but really no one in Slovakia.” William stroked his chin as he thought. “Considering what’s at stake, have you considered Kristof?”
“Who’s that?” Montero asked.
“Kristof Szanto?” Donovan’s eyes narrowed at the thought, the implications far too complex to process all at once. “Do we know if he’s even still alive?”
William shrugged. “From what I understand, no one has seen him for years. I could make a call.”
“No, leave it to me,” Donovan said and then turned to Montero. “You’re right, though, we need to be in Eastern Europe.”
“Okay,” Montero nodded her agreement. “What have you already put into motion?”
“We’re wheels up on a chartered Gulfstream V for Vienna at three o’clock.”
“You’re not taking an Eco-Watch jet?” William asked.
“No, I don’t want anyone to know I’m involved. Plus, with a charter, the three of us can get some sleep and be ready to go once we arrive.”
“Vienna?” Montero said and then cocked her head. “Wait, three of us? Who else is going?”
“I set up the charter to Vienna, which puts us close to Slovakia without making it obvious. Once we land, the plane will remain with us,” Donovan explained. “We’re taking Michael. If needed, Michael and I can, at a moment’s notice, fly the Gulfstream anywhere. We might ruffle a few feathers, but a Gulfstream allows a level of flexibility we can’t get any other way.”
“What will you tell Michael?” William asked. “Especially if you end up contacting Kristof?”
Donovan knew what William was driving toward, the three of them sitting in this room all shared the secret that Donovan would go to any length to protect—the one thing that Michael Ross could never know. Donovan Nash was born Robert Huntington, the heir to the Huntington Oil fortune, a family-held company, founded by his grandfather and turned into an industry giant by his father. Robert’s trajectory from birth was that one day he’d take his place at the head of the family business. It was something young Robert never questioned.
When he was fourteen years old, he and his father, mother, and a crew were yachting in the South Pacific when they were caught in a savage storm. Battered by the storm, the ship capsized and broke apart, and everyone but Robert perished. It was the day Robert became an orphan and also the day he learned how quickly loved ones could be taken and how profound that loss could be.
Once rescued, Robert fell under the guardianship of William VanGelder, his father’s right-hand man. William, childless, assu
med his position as acting chairman of Huntington Oil and raised Robert like his own son, grooming the young man for the course set for him at birth. Robert went to Dartmouth, then Oxford. He graduated with honors, but spent more time indulging his passions than studying.
Flying topped the list of Robert’s loves. A licensed pilot since he was seventeen, he collected advanced ratings as well as exotic airplanes. With Robert in the cockpit of his prized P-51 Mustang, the residents living in the English countryside heard sounds they hadn’t experienced since the war. Hearing the Mustang was often all the people on the ground could do, for Robert loved to fly low, weaving through hedgerows for miles until he pulled back on the stick and climbed the spectacular machine straight up into the sky. If he wasn’t attending and flying in local air shows, his other passions included snow skiing, fly fishing, European sports cars, and redheads. In typical Robert Huntington style, he excelled at each particular pursuit.
Upon graduating from Oxford, Robert returned to California and took his seat as the chief executive officer of Huntington Oil. William was elevated to chairman emeritus, and together, they proceeded to build the company into a first-rate global energy conglomerate.
A newly minted billionaire, Robert believed in the philosophy of work hard, play hard. His business savvy became front page news in the financial community; his social life became front page news on the Hollywood gossip circuit. Robert was often photographed with the latest A-list starlet on his arm as they boarded one of his private jets, bound for some glamorous destination. He mostly ignored what was said about him and lived as he chose, focusing on building Huntington Oil, his growing collection of planes, and dating whomever he wanted. His carefully orchestrated life began to unravel at a Malibu fundraiser to save the whales.
Pegasus Down: A Donovan Nash Thriller (Donovan Nash Thrillers) Page 4