The Ultimatum--An International Spy Thriller

by Karen Robards

  Along with Sturgeon. Clapping her binoculars to her eyes as she hung over the nearest rail, she was just able to make out what she was almost positive was his stocky form behind the wheel of the small open boat.

  Thrusting the binoculars back into her purse, she stared after the retreating vessel and tried to keep her cool. She needed her thinking to be clear and collected. No telling what Sturgeon had in mind for the prototype. For all she knew, it would be whisked far away within hours. Likewise, there was no telling when Lover Boy, for want of a more accurate name, would be fished from the bay. Would he tell his rescuers all about her? Who knew?

  Meanwhile, here she was, stuck on the damned boat.

  She could almost hear her father recommending a calming spot of mindful meditation before she did anything else.

  This was how people developed high blood pressure.

  Okay, one thing at a time: come up with a plan C.

  Anytime now.

  * * *

  She stole a Jet Ski. Right out of the Conquistador’s toy garage, pressing the button to lower the thing into the water and then steering it quietly away from the boat before juicing the throttle and heading out in hot pursuit of the tender.

  She might have caught it, too, or, more feasibly, reached the place where Sturgeon was docking in time to snatch the briefcase away before he could do whatever he meant to do with it, except for one thing.

  The Jet Ski died. Just sputtered and quit. While she was still a good distance from shore.

  After trying everything in her considerable arsenal of tricks to get it going again, she was happy to accept the offer of a tow from a passing fishing boat.

  By the time she clambered up on dry land, Sturgeon and the briefcase were long gone. She checked the locator beacon—it was still tracking. At that point the briefcase was maybe fifty miles away, heading south.

  Plan C had just officially crapped out.

  At least she would be able to find the thing again. If she wanted to. Knowing for sure that the briefcase was being watched and was the bait in a trap for her father put a whole new spin on the situation. While the threat posed by the video was real, the threat posed by Lover Boy and whoever he was associated with was more immediate.

  She’d feared that the video might lead investigators to her, to Doc, to Savannah and Guardian Consulting and everything that constituted her ordinary life.

  If she was caught here as she attempted to steal the briefcase, they wouldn’t need the video to lead them to her. They would have her.

  She faced the fact that it was time to call it a day—and might be time to call it an operation.

  It was after 4:00 a.m. She was exhausted and absolutely not thinking clearly enough to make a final decision.

  Better to get some sleep, think the situation through in the morning and then decide.

  Two of the very nice fishermen gave her a ride to her hotel in their pickup truck.

  Getting a key from the front desk, she went upstairs, showered and fell into bed.

  And refused to even allow herself to wonder whether that jackass was still out there swimming around in the bay.

  19

  Bianca sank down in the black vinyl booth across from Doc. It was 9:00 a.m. and they were meeting for breakfast in the hotel café as arranged. The small restaurant was crowded and noisy and smelled of bacon and syrup.

  “We’re going home,” she said. “We’re leaving right after we eat.”

  He’d been looking at his phone. At her words he glanced up, blinking at her as if he was only at that moment becoming aware that she’d joined him. His Brillo-pad hair hung loose in a kind of modified pyramid shape that almost reached his shoulders; he needed a shave, and his eyes were puffy. He looked like he’d been up most of the night, which should make him feel right at home in her company. His T-shirt was a bright orange abomination that read Fat Guys Try Harder.

  Next time she’d know better than to tell him to try to look like a tourist.

  He said, “Uh—what?”

  “Would you get off the internet for a minute and pay attention?” She gave him an impatient look. “We’re going to drive to Vegas and take a plane from there. I want to make it as difficult as possible for anyone to track us.”

  Doc’s face brightened. He sat up straighter in the booth. “You got it? You got it! Way to go, boss!”

  He was referring to the prototype, she knew. Bianca hated to admit the truth. Failing was hard for her. Quitting was even harder.

  “I didn’t get it. I failed to get it.” That last carefully enunciated clarification was just to rub her own nose in it, she supposed. “It was there, but...I ran into a problem. A cop—at least I think he’s a cop—was on the boat. I’ve run into him before—” she hadn’t told Doc or anyone about that episode in the restroom in Bahrain, and she wasn’t about to start now “—and he recognized me. Oh, not as me—Bianca—but as—” casting a quick glance around, she lowered her voice “—a thief. I managed to get away, but now he knows we’re here. Going after that prototype is just asking to get caught. I’m making the call—it’s not worth the risk. After we eat, I’m going to have you send an email to the client telling them the job’s off.”

  “Coffee?” A waitress appeared beside them, a steaming pot of coffee in her hand. At Bianca’s nod and Doc’s “Yeah, thanks,” she turned over the two cups that were already waiting upside down on saucers in front of them, poured and at the same time asked, “You know what you want?”

  Bianca ordered a fruit plate. Doc looked conflicted but hurriedly ordered eggs, bacon and pancakes. The waitress went away.

  The instant she was gone, Doc said, “Oh, jeez. This is bad. Like, way bad.”

  Bianca frowned at him. “What’s bad?”

  “You didn’t get the briefcase. Somehow they must know you tried and something went wrong. They upped the ante. I don’t think we can go home.”

  He sounded agitated. He looked agitated.

  “What are you talking about?”

  “This.” He thrust his phone at her. “It came early this morning. I didn’t see it until I sat down here to wait for you and started checking email.”

  Taking his phone, Bianca glanced down and then nearly went into shock at the face that stared up at her from the paused video on the small screen.

  It was Marin.

  Numbly Bianca hit the play button.

  “Daddy, please do what they want.” Tears welled in the little girl’s wide blue eyes. Her face was pale. Her mouth shook. Her long brown hair was loose, and from what Bianca could see of her, she appeared to be wearing a pink flannel pajama top or nightgown with a ruffle around the neck and bunnies on it. It was a head-and-shoulders shot, dimly lit, with her up against an unpainted, poured concrete wall. Looking at her, listening, Bianca felt the blood slowly freeze in her veins. “I don’t like it here. I’m scared. Hurry.”

  Marin disappeared, to be replaced by another image: Margery. Head and shoulders, up against the same background. She wasn’t crying, but it was obvious that she was afraid. The look in her eyes—they were blue, like Marin’s, Bianca noticed for the first time—was stark; she bit her lower lip as her face came on the screen, and her hands were steepled in front of her chin as if in supplication. Her face was scrubbed clean of makeup. Her coffee-brown hair was pulled back from her face. She appeared to be dressed, although haphazardly, as if she’d gotten ready in a hurry, grabbing the first clothes that came to hand.

  “Edward.” Margery’s voice cracked as she stared into the lens. “They say your name isn’t even Edward. I don’t know. I don’t care. These people—they have Marin and me. Please, do whatever they say.”

  The video shut off abruptly.

  “There’s a message with it. Hit the arrow to go back,” Doc said.

  Bia
nca did. An email took the place of the video.

  Your wife and child are being held as collateral. If you want to see them alive again, you will satisfy the terms of our agreement. Contact us when you have the object and we will provide instructions for its delivery. The original timetable still stands.

  Reading it, Bianca’s heart started to slam in her chest. Her stomach knotted.

  The scared little girl in the pink bunny nightdress was her sister. Bianca didn’t know her at all, had never had the chance to develop the smallest relationship with her. She’d even occasionally felt jealous—God, that was hard to admit!—of the child’s seemingly warm and affectionate relationship with their father.

  But now she felt outrage, anger—and stark, cold fear. The outcome she’d most dreaded had happened: whoever this was, whoever was hunting Richard, had found a trail that led them to his family.

  Doc was right: going home was no longer an option.

  Think the problem through before you make a move: it was another one of the rules. Bianca had always considered it Richard’s version of the builders’ mantra of Measure twice, cut once.

  It was possible that there were two different entities at work here: the client who wanted his prototype back, and the law enforcement contingent who were using this as a trap for, as they thought, her father.

  She didn’t think any kind of legitimate law enforcement agency would kidnap a woman and child, but that left all kinds of illegitimate ones. Richard had many powerful enemies.

  A terrible possibility struck her: Was Mickey/Lover Boy/whoever part of the group that had taken Marin and Margery? If so, what kind of man condoned the kidnapping of a little girl?

  Bottom line, though, at the moment it didn’t matter who had done this. What mattered was that it was done.

  The question now was, what to do about it?

  Contact the police, the FBI, Scotland Yard, Interpol, whoever, for help?

  If she did, she would ruin her life, go to jail, the whole nine yards. Ruin Doc. Bring exposure to the whole criminal web in which Richard had operated. Make many, many more dangerous enemies than even Richard had. Enemies with long arms and longer memories.

  None of that mattered when weighed against Marin’s and Margery’s lives.

  But going to law enforcement would eat up time. It would be cumbersome. Whatever agency she went to would have logistical issues, because she was American, Marin and Margery were British citizens, and while she had no idea where the kidnappers actually were or where Marin and Margery were being held, she doubted that it was the United States. Jurisdiction would have to be established. Multiple investigations would be launched. And all the while the authorities would be agog over who she was, what she had done and her father.

  While all this was happening, she would be in custody and helpless. And every contact she had inherited from her father who might be able to help would be running for the hills.

  On the other hand, if she went through with the job, if she delivered the prototype as agreed, the kidnappers might actually let Marin and Margery go.

  But whether they did or not, she would be able to track them down. She could follow the briefcase wherever it went. Hopefully that would be directly to where Marin and Margery were being held. If not, at least she would find out who was behind this.

  That would be the time to call in the favors her father was owed by some very bad characters. Which would give her plenty of backup if needed when she went in to get her little sister and her sister’s mother out.

  Richard was gone. They were her responsibility.

  I’m coming for you, she promised Marin and Margery silently.

  “Here you go.” It was the waitress, setting the fruit plate in front of Bianca with a clatter. Then, to Doc as she put his food down in front of him, “Hon, you want to be careful—these plates are hot.”

  * * *

  By 4:00 p.m., the plan was almost at the execution stage, awaiting the completion of a few minor details. Bianca sat in the passenger’s seat of a white panel van with Doc behind the wheel in a parking garage in beautiful downtown San Jose, carefully surveying the top (sixteenth) story of the building across the street through her binoculars. The adhesive-backed listening device she’d planted on the reinforced concrete “skin” of the building via a crossbow shot from the roof of the parking garage seemed to be holding well. From the walkie-talkie-size receiver she’d placed in between the seats, she and Doc had already been treated to a conversation of the “How about them Raiders?” variety. For the listening device itself she’d had to improvise, but the solution—a modified baby monitor the size of a pack of cards—seemed to be working beautifully.

  “You think one of those guys in there is Williams?” Doc asked. He was looking down at the thermal imaging camera app on his phone, which was linked to the thermal imaging camera that was among the supplies that Bianca had purchased earlier in the day. A quick trip to a Walmart, another to a medical supply store, a third to a uniform shop and a fourth to a controlled demolition company (that last was more in the nature of a burglary than a shopping trip) and she had everything she expected to need.

  Right now, Doc was watching the movements of a pair of what Bianca thought must be security guards patrolling the sixteenth floor.

  Hacking the security cameras would have been easier than resorting to the far-less-clear images provided by thermal technology, but although the rest of the building had video coverage, there were no security cameras on the Allied Industries floors.

  The only reason for that would be that Sturgeon didn’t want any record of who, or what, went in and out of there.

  Which worked for her. As far as she was concerned, the fewer cameras she had to fool, the better.

  Doc’s question was pertinent because Williams was the only one who might recognize her despite her disguise.

  “His name isn’t Williams,” Bianca said. Neither of the voices coming over the transmitter sounded like his, but given the distorting effect of the device, it was impossible to be sure. Her earlier anger and fear had hardened into cold resolve: she was prepared to do what she needed to do to rescue Marin and Margery. She’d given Doc a highly edited version of last night’s encounter with “the cop” and had passed the badge she’d taken off him to Doc as well so that Doc could check out his identity in hopes that it might lead to some scrap of information that could help her figure out who was behind this. What Doc’s internet search had come up with was a complete backstory for Zane Williams. Bianca had barely begun to glance through it before she recognized it as a total fabrication. She’d used enough legends herself that she knew them when she saw them, and this one in particular had Zane Williams working personal protection in New York when she had firsthand knowledge that he’d been in Bahrain. The information Doc had uncovered was the false flag that had allowed Zane Williams to infiltrate the ranks of Sturgeon’s security, and that was it. It told her nothing about who not-Williams really was.

  Subsequent facial recognition searches yielded zero hits. That told her that whoever-he-was had worked really hard and had enough specialized knowledge or help with specialized knowledge to cover his tracks.

  What she did know, what the fact that Mickey (calling him that was just simpler) had been there on the boat told her, was that whoever was behind this had the ability to anticipate her moves.

  They’d been expecting an attempt to steal the prototype. Where they’d gotten it wrong was that they were looking for her father, not her. If the briefcase babysitter had been anyone except Mickey, she never would have been made, and she would have the prototype now.

  After getting out of the bay—supposing he had gotten out of the bay—had Mickey told them about her? She had no way of knowing. The kidnapping of Marin and Margery had certainly been aimed at Richard, not her. It told her that they were still expecting Richard to sh
ow up.

  As she had several times already that day, Bianca experienced a nearly overwhelming urge to reach out through every channel she had in an attempt to contact her father. And once again, she talked herself down off that particular ledge. At this point she had to assume that some or all of his communication links had been compromised. To attempt to reach out to him would only bring the hounds to her own door.

  Besides, if by some miracle he wasn’t dead and was free to do so, her father would be monitoring his communications himself.

  These people clearly thought he was alive. The knowledge brought a flutter of hope with it. Was it possible?

  Dismissing all such speculation as nonproductive, she focused instead on the problem in front of her.

  The thing to keep in mind was that whoever was behind this was absolutely expecting another attempt on the prototype. After kidnapping Marin and Margery, they were all but assured it was going to happen, and happen today. She would be stealing the thing in their teeth.

  Inside that building, they would be locked and loaded, waiting for their sitting-duck target to appear.

  Well, she was locked and loaded, too.

  And she was nobody’s sitting duck.

  Doc said, “Remember, once I cut the power to the building, you have two minutes before the generator kicks in.” His tone was uneasy.

  Bianca nodded. “I know.”

  What that meant was, there were two minutes when all of the very elaborate security systems Allied Industries employed on the sixteenth floor would be down. That was her window to get the prototype and get out.

  “You know what to do if something goes wrong,” she said.

  He nodded reluctantly. They’d gone over it (argued about it) several times before he had agreed. Doc was to return the van to the rental lot, walk from there to the nearest hotel, take a taxi to the airport, rent a car at the airport and drive to Vegas. Once he was in Vegas, he was to call the FBI and report Marin’s and Margery’s kidnapping, giving their address in England so the fact that they were missing could be verified, without giving them his name or any identifying information. Then he was to fly to Chicago, take a train to New York, fly from New York to Atlanta and from there drive back to Savannah, switching out IDs along the way. Doc had protested, but she was adamant. If she was arrested, caught or killed, there was nothing he could do to help her. And the people behind this were bad. They would be searching hard for any trail she might have left behind, for any associates, for a path to Richard.