by Cate Noble
“You’ll be okay?” Gena asked. “With your temptation?”
“For today. Tomorrow?” Lupe shrugged and waved farewell.
“That is enough.” Gena bit back another platitude. One day at a time.
The house seemed abnormally quiet with Lupe gone. The quartet of uninvited crickets that had infiltrated the back porch started to chirp.
Great! Bugs for company. Gena crossed the room and plugged in the ancient radio sitting on the far counter. The only good thing about the analog monstrosity was that thieves ignored it.
She twisted the tuning dial but heard nothing until she smacked the case. Then static came over the speakers. She spun the dial until she found an AM Spanish-language station. Having grown up bilingual, thanks to a Mexican nanny, Gena understood the lyrics even if she didn’t like the fifties music genre.
Right now she just wanted to drown out the crickets. Turning, Gena paused midstep. From this angle, she saw the entire kitchen and realized how hard Lupe had worked earlier to clean it. The grimy layer of construction dirt was gone. The floors gleamed, the appliances sparkled. Even the windows had been polished.
For the first time, Gena could envision the room decorated. Curtains—no, plantation blinds—at the windows. Maybe some potted herbs on the sill. Women and children would gather at the table sharing food. Sharing hope.
Her eyes watered. God, she wished Vianca were there to see it all finished. She’d be so proud. With ten bedrooms and dorms, it doubled the existing shelter’s capacity.
And Vi wouldn’t have rested on her laurels for long. “After this project wraps, I want to look into re-habbing the old shelter,” Vianca had said with her usual verve. “I’ll need your help with that, too. Just to get started. Then you can leave.”
Vi knew Gena had never intended to stay in Sugar Springs. It had been a place for her to hide and heal after hitting rock bottom. Already Gena had remained longer than planned. Over three years longer. Finishing this project was a huge turning point in her life.
Wandering around the kitchen, Gena ran a hand along the smooth Formica countertop, enjoying her sense of accomplishment. Who would have guessed that the spoiled, multititled beauty-queen daughter of the once powerful Jefferson Armstrong—the same girl who couldn’t wait to flee the citrus belt of southern Texas—would have returned to champion the same poor people her father had once exploited?
Darn it, she was pretty proud of herself.
“We did it, Vi,” Gena whispered.
You did it. You kept your word. You saw it through for both of us.
“But I couldn’t have done it without you.”
If Vi were really listening, she’d know Gena wasn’t talking about the shelter anymore. Helping to build this made up for a lot of old mistakes. Most of them anyway. Some remained unforgivable.
“Guilt is my cue to get busy,” Gena murmured.
The sound of the front door opening and closing echoed in the empty building. Alert, Gena called out, “Who’s there?”
“It’s me,” Lupe said just as Gena recognized the uneven footsteps. “Where are you?”
“I’m still in the kitchen.” Gena looked around for her purse, spotted it hanging on one of the hooks near the back door. Lupe had probably missed her ride to the factory and needed a lift. Don’t ask. “Let me grab my bag.”
Lupe rushed through the doorway, her limp more pronounced than usual. Her face drawn, her breathing rapid. “Do you have your phone?”
“Yes, of course. What’s wrong?”
“I think those vandals came back.” Lupe wrung her hands. “I saw two men around your car. I … I ran back here, but they might have seen me. I must go!”
Poor Lupe was terrified of being caught, of being deported.
“It’s okay. Let me call the police, and then we’ll hide you upstairs.” Gena moved to retrieve her cell phone from her purse. She hovered in the open back porch doorway where the signal was strongest and punched in numbers.
“Did you lock the front door?” Gena asked.
“Uh … I think. I will check.”
“Lupe, wait.” But the other woman had already disappeared. The operator came on the line just then, drawing Gena’s attention.
“Nine-one-one. What is your emergency?”
“This is Gena Armstrong at the new women’s shelter on Rio Street. We-—”
The rest of Gena’s response was cut off as an explosion ripped through the building.
Chapter Three
Arlington, VA
October 4, 12:25 A.M.
Rocco knew the man would call back. Proof of life always preceded a demand. This forced wait was a ploy to make Rocco sweat.
Mission accomplished, asshole.
But when Rocco’s phone finally rang again, Maddy was still screaming. Or screaming anew. These men would die for harming an innocent woman.
“Whatever you’re doing, stop!” Rocco ordered with a deadly calm. “If she continues to scream, all deals are off.”
It was an empty threat, but voicing a promise to kill them, as he wanted to do, would only kick off a pissing contest, making Maddy’s situation worse.
Still Minh Tran’s crony laughed—laughed—before barking another command in that same Thai dialect. Maddy’s screams ceased with a suddenness that stopped Rocco’s pulse midbeat. He didn’t want to think about what they’d done to silence her. That they’d gone after her to begin with meant they believed they had Rocco on an emotional leash. He couldn’t let his reactions confirm that. I’m sorry, Maddy.
“If she’s dead—” Rocco began.
“It does not take much for a woman to faint. Now listen closely,” the man continued. “You have ten hours to get our mutual friend to San Francisco. Bring that cell phone with you. You will need it to receive new instructions.”
Oh. Shit.
Rocco did not want it to go down this way. “That’s impossible. I haven’t even confirmed our friend’s location. That will take a day or two in itself. And the moment he disappears, my usual channels of travel will close. I have to get out of the country on my own, which will take longer.”
“We have sources who have confirmed our friend is indeed close to your current location. You need only use your resourcefulness to get to San Francisco. Ten hours. You do not want to see what we do next.” The line went dead.
Rocco hit REDIAL, but got nothing. Not even a ring-tone. He knew the drill: if he traced the number, it would come back stolen or hijacked. The electronic jammer they’d employed would have scrambled GPS tracking coordinates as well.
“Goddamn it!” Rocco gave in to his frustration and kicked over the coffee table, sending a stack of magazines and newspapers across the carpet.
Minh Tran’s ten-hour deadline was calculated to be nearly impossible. It was roughly six hours’ flight time from coast to coast. Commercial flights were out, which left Rocco four hours to find Rufin and secure a private jet. Either Minh Tran had no idea of the security surrounding Dr. Rufin right now, or he’d greatly overestimated Rocco’s abilities.
Hell, four hours wasn’t long enough to make plans, let alone set traps, tags, wires, and ambushes. He had no time to waste.
He also needed to return Travis Franks’s call. Despite Rocco’s anger over the mishandling of Maddy’s case, he knew that somebody at the Agency needed to be in the loop about Maddy’s situation and Minh Tran’s claim of knowing Rufin’s location. Even if it was a bluff, the Agency would take no chances.
While Travis might be pissed that Rocco had kept this situation close to his chest, ultimately Travis would understand. The two men had a long-standing, unspoken agreement when it came to Rocco’s tendency to “disappear.” As a high-ranking Agency official, Travis’s need for plausible deniability increased with each televised congressional hearing. What Travis didn’t know couldn’t be used as sworn testimony. And right now, Travis was dealing with his own peculiar set of circumstances.
Before contacting Travis, though, Rocco wanted t
o replay the recording. To see what he’d missed and to listen for background noise as well. Anything that might give a clue to where Maddy was being held. At one point there had been others talking in the background, too.
Grabbing the digital recorder, Rocco turned up the volume and hit REPLAY. Maddy’s soft voice came over the speaker. Minh Tran and company knew how to exert pressure. “Rocco?” Her single word walloped him again.
“Silence!” Tran’s crony roared.
To concentrate, Rocco closed his eyes as he listened to the recorded exchange. Or rather, around the exchange. The slight satellite echo distorted the words. Static from the jammers flared every two seconds. The man shouted in Thai.There.
Rocco paused and backed up. Replayed it. If he was translating accurately, the man had shouted the equivalent of “make the whore talk.” The blare of a horn distorted the man’s words.
Once more he paused and replayed, to hear the horn. Yes. He’d spent enough time near the docks to recognize a ship’s horn. The man had been on or near water while they talked. Bangkok harbor? Probably not. Too obvious.
He thumbed the PLAY button once more, bracing himself for what would come next. Maddy’s scream. So help him, whatever they’d done to her would be paid back tenfold.
Inaudible words came across the speaker. Someone had been shouting while Maddy pleaded. Again he backed up the recording. Then he increased the volume, needing to hear those words.
The sound of Maddy’s scream filled his living room. “Her screams will draw attention,” someone had shouted in Thai.
At that same moment, Rocco’s front door flew open, as if kicked in by an angry giant. Swinging wide, the door smashed into the wall.
Rocco jumped over the arm of the couch and took cover in the hall. Staying low, he peered around the corner, his Glock drawn and ready.
Two men spilled into his living room, their hulking silhouettes backlit by the ambient light from outside. The men moved quickly, aware of their status as targets. They had handguns drawn and were oddly … familiar.
A third man slipped inside, his weapon drawn as well. Rocco recognized the tall newcomer’s broad shoulders. Travis Franks. The other men had to be his newly acquired “shadows.”
“Travis! It’s me!” Rocco shouted.
“Where’s Maddy!” Travis demanded. “We heard screams.”
“She’s not here. It was a recording.” Rocco didn’t waste time. Ten hours. “Close the door. I’ll get alight on.”
The overturned coffee table made the place look worse than usual in the harsh overhead light.
Travis glanced around as if not believing Maddy wasn’t there. Then he moved straight for the recorder still lying on the couch next to Rocco’s cell phone. “You were listening to this?”
At Rocco’s nod, Travis hit REWIND and PLAY.
Maddy’s tremulous voice came across the speaker again. “Rocco?”
He stared at his feet as Travis let the entire conversation play.
“When did this come in?” Travis’s voice was heavy with censure.
“Less than five minutes ago. It’s why I ignored your earlier call,” Rocco said. “Look, I was going to buzz you after I finished listening to the tape again.”
“This”—clearly furious, Travis held up the recorder—“suggests you knew in advance to expect the call. Exactly how long have you been meaning to call me?”
“It’s not what you’re thinking.” Rocco glanced at the two watchers who’d taken up positions next to the door, uncertain how freely he could talk in front of them.
While Travis had been largely incommunicado the last several days, Dante Johnson, Rocco’s coworker and closest friend at the Agency, had suggested Travis wasn’t happy to be hamstrung with the mysterious shadows whom Dante had jokingly dubbed Thing 1 and Thing 2.
Whoever they were, Rocco didn’t like them any more than Travis did. Both “Things” were big guys and each packed a small armory beneath their identical black suits. Clearly they were more than overseers. And they definitely weren’t spooks. NSA perhaps? Or bodyguards?
Travis nodded almost imperceptibly when Rocco frowned, indicating he should speak cautiously. Interesting. Given that the Things had already heard the recording, they now knew about as much as Rocco did.
“I got an e-mail from Minh Tran this evening,” Rocco said. “It had been sent yesterday to my personal account but got flagged as spam.”
“I want to see it. And anything else you have from Minh Tran.”
Rocco retrieved his laptop from where he’d left it charging on the small dinette table. He tapped in his password, opened a browser, and retrieved the e-mail.
Your eyes only. Call this number or your girlfriend dies.
Travis read the message. “Jesus! Maddy was abducted because Tran thinks you two are still involved?”
Rocco nodded. “And I’m damn sure not going to correct him.”
“Let me see the picture.” Travis stepped closer as the photograph of Maddy in the crate appeared on the screen. He groaned at the image. “Enlarge it.”
Rocco complied. “You can see Tran’s symbol here.”
“Can you forward a copy of that to my Blackberry?”
“Sure.”
“Any chance the crate is a ruse, to make us think she’s overseas when actually she’s still in the U.S.? Tran’s got strong connections in San Francisco.”
Rocco shook his head. “He knows we’d expect that. The best way to secure a hostage is to keep her close to his home turf. Which explains why we haven’t heard anything before now.”
“Transport time.” Travis rubbed the back of his neck. “What else do you know?”
“That this will ruin your claim of plausible denia-bility when I disappear again.”
Travis snorted. “Trust me; it was ruined earlier by a tip that the Thai government is circulating your photograph with REWARD printed on it. It doesn’t sound like Minh Tran is the only one expecting you.”
Shrugging, Rocco shut down his laptop and slid it in his rucksack. “I wouldn’t read too much into that. It’s no secret Tran keeps a few officials on his payroll.”
“This time it’s different. Tran and the government have a conflict of interest. The Thai government wants Dr. Rufin, too. They’ve tripled the reward for Rufin’s capture. Consequently, we’ve got bounty hunters springing up like mushrooms after rain.”
“Great,” Rocco muttered. “Guess I’ll have to be extra sneaky.”
“You can’t go after her.”
“I have to. The official investigation’s been bungled from the get-go. And we both know the Agency’s policy on hostage negotiation.” The CIA didn’t negotiate. Period. “I’m Maddy’s only chance at a rescue.”
“Do you really think I’d abandon her, too?” Indignation flashed in Travis’s eyes and quickly disappeared. “She’s been part of the team since Dante’s return. Some of her research has been invaluable.”
“But I feel personally responsible,” Rocco said. “It’s my fault she was targeted to begin with.”
“No, it’s Minh Tran’s fault. Maddy will get help. Just not from you.”
“Then whom?”
“Someoneweboth trust. Someone who can follow up other leads as well.” Travis’s eyes slid to his watchers. “There are other developments you’re not aware of.”
“Like?”
“Tran’s hedging his bets by going after others he thinks you care for. Your sister’s place was broken into earlier tonight. A neighbor called police. Two Thai thugs, both suspected associates of Tran’s, were picked up. One had a ransom note addressed to you.”
“Jesus!” Guilt over ignoring Adele’s phone call swamped Rocco. Was this what Tran’s crony meant by “what we do next”? “Where is Adele?”
“I had her and your nephew relocated to a safe house, but she’s making crazy demands. I hoped you could talk some sense into her.”
“I’ll call her.”
“I’d prefer you talked to her in per
son,” Travis said. “These men will take you.”
The suggestion irritated Rocco. “Sounds like someone’s worried I’ll slip away.” Or get in the way of an existing op. Travis was hiding something. “What aren’t you telling me?”
Travis scowled. “We’ve heard the Thai government has a lead on Harry Gambrel’s location, possibly in Burma. The Thai secret police want to retrieve him and offer a trade for Dr. Rufin. It’s vital that we get to Harry first.”
Harry Gambrel had disappeared two years ago, along with two other operatives: Dante Johnson and Max Duncan. The three men had been reported dead, but both Dante and Max had recently turned up alive. Making it highly plausible that Harry was alive, too. To Travis and others at the Agency, Harry was a brother in arms. Their unspoken code of honor meant allegiance.
The fact that Rocco didn’t much like Harry had no bearing on the situation. Maddy, however, did.
“So you’re saying that recovering Harry is more important than saving Maddy.” Rocco met Travis’s gaze. “Got it.”
“You haven’t got shit.” Travis rocked onto the balls of his feet. “You can’t even see how you’re being manipulated. Tran’s going after anyone he thinks you care about and you’re playing right into his hands. You’re too damn close to the situation. That’s why I’m doing this.” Travis turned to his watchers. “Get him out of here. Take him to this address.” He withdrew a slip of paper from his pocket.
“You can’t be serious!” Rocco wasn’t about to be locked down. “You’ve got to trust me!”
Travis exhaled, clearly exasperated. “I do trust you. Like a brother. The problem is, I know you. And I’d do the same thing you’re contemplating.”
“Then at least let me work it stateside.”
“You can work it from lockdown.”
“But what if Tran goes after someone else now that he can’t reach Adele?”
“To get to you?” Travis sighed and pinched the bridge of his nose. “If there’s someone new you’re seeing, I’ll order her picked up as well.”