by Dale Mayer
She knew many in the world blamed her mother for everything that had gone wrong in Turkey, the same as they had blamed her father. And Zadie also understood Zack’s point, but, the thing was, her mother was really a simple woman. And she had loved her husband to distraction. She’d taken the abuse because he kept making excuses, saying it was okay, and he didn’t really mean it.
Zadie had been trying to get her mother away from her father for a long time. And now, just when she was about to make that happen, somebody had kidnapped Zadie. It was incredibly frustrating. You set all these plans in motion, and then it didn’t do you any good.
She laid back down, stared out through the window to the sky above for the umpteenth time, wondering what was going on inside. Part of her wondered if she should have just stayed in Komotini, where she was safe. If she was taken now, it’d be that much harder for her to escape. Her leg was killing her. She’d taken the antibiotics and another pain pill as soon as they arrived. She could only hope that, if she did have to move, the pain pill would kick in, and her leg would be strong enough for her to rely on. No guarantee though. The painkillers had taken the edge off but didn’t really help with the strength to move her legs.
She needed to be curled up in bed for a few days to heal. Not curled up in the back seat of a car, parked in the middle of nowhere, hoping that the two men who had driven her here didn’t get shot. And, if they were, then what was she supposed to do?
Just then her phone buzzed. She looked down to see a text from Zack, saying, We are here.
She smiled at that and sent back a thumbs-up. What else was she supposed to say? That they were there didn’t mean it was all good. That they had arrived didn’t mean that they would have a chance to do a full search of the place either. Nor did it mean her mother was fine.
Zadie laid down and waited, the phone resting on her chest, in case she dozed off.
When there wasn’t another text for ten minutes, she started counting the time. At fifteen, she frowned. How long would it take for them to make a plan? How long would it take them to find out who was inside and who wasn’t? So many damn questions.
At twenty minutes, she marked off each successive minute in her mind. At twenty-five and then thirty, she fretted. By the time forty-five minutes had gone by, she was seriously getting worried.
And then she thought about all the things that took forty-five minutes to do in her world. That was everything from peeling a pot of potatoes and getting them fully cooked, to her normal morning walk that she liked to do when she wasn’t into running. It took her forty-five minutes to do a lap around their property on a slow move. It really wasn’t all that long, considering the two men had to scout out what was going on, find a way to get back in, potentially take out the guards, of which there may be more than they thought, find her mother, hopefully in some shape that she could be moved, and then they all had to get out.
It could take hours.
At that, she groaned and closed her eyes, determined to at least rest a bit.
The last thing she needed was to be so worked up that by the time they returned here that she’d be of no use to her mother because Zadie would be so exhausted.
Just when she determined that was the best avenue, headlights shone in the back of her vehicle. She sucked in her breath and swore silently. She didn’t need anyone to come up and stop at the vehicle, asking who she was, what the hell she was doing here.
It came up slowly, then drove on past. She sat up between the two seats and watched as the vehicle carried on. It had gone so slow that she worried about it. Were they coming back to check on the car? Or was it somebody looking to steal the vehicle? She wanted to think it was some Good Samaritan worried about a car being broken down and wanting to offer help, but, more than likely, it was the exact opposite. Even worse would be if they called in the vehicle and said something suspicious was going on.
Bonaparte had pulled it off the shoulder and had parked it close to the trees. So there could be many reasons for it being here. It didn’t look like it had crashed or had a flat tire, but who knew what people thought.
Slowly she laid back down, wondering if she should send the guys a text, letting them know. Exactly who were these people driving by? And how many vehicles would likely come upon her? Because she hadn’t worked all that into her equation. There was always so much worry she could pass around before she couldn’t handle too much more.
Just when she contemplated getting out of the vehicle to find a place in the woods to sit down and wait, her phone buzzed again. She checked her phone, but, as soon as she lifted it to look, the vehicle that had gone past was slowly coming back. She swore, grabbed her pillow, and checked to see if anything else was left inside the vehicle. The men had left it relatively clean, taking their bags with them, as they might need them, depending on what they came upon, and had left her a little water and her medications.
With the door opened slightly, she waited to make sure that she was out of their rearview as they came round the corner, and, taking one last look around the interior of the vehicle, she snuck out the side and slipped over to several trees.
Just trying to walk was damn-near killing her with pain. Giving her a hell of a good idea that she had very little reserve of strength there, if she needed to run. Which meant she had to hide first. She moved over a couple more trees and hid in the back behind several that were close together. If somebody came looking for her, it wouldn’t be too hard to find her.
She had filled her pockets with as much as she could and held her phone up. If need be, she could tuck it into her bra. She looked at the trees, trying to find a place to hide. Climbing up was one option but not a good one. Continuing to travel wasn’t ideal either.
She managed to get up into one tree with a low lying branch. But her leg wasn’t making it easy. Holding back cries of pain, she got up another branch and then another one. She had to make sure she was above eye level and hidden from flashlights.
It took her another ten minutes to get there, and, by that time, the headlights were coming upon the car again. For a fleeting moment, she wondered if she was being a complete fool, but it slowed and rolled to a stop on the road across from Bonaparte’s car. The last thing she wanted to do was end up without a set of wheels, but, even worse than that, she didn’t want to get caught by somebody who would take her to the Turkish authorities.
She had no clue who was behind her original kidnapping—surely not the hired staff she recognized in the main house—so she had to be cautious. Pulling out her phone, she read Zack’s message, which basically said, No news yet. She sent a quick text. Vehicle stopped. Hidden in trees.
Immediately he texted back, Are you okay?
She smiled, wrote, Yes, they are searching the car.
She could just imagine his response to that. She watched as two men got out, searched around and inside the vehicle, and then shone flashlights toward the trees. They walked around a little bit, using the flashlights to check for tracks. But the ground was dry, and there was no sign of her footprints. At no point in time did they look up.
She waited in the tree with bated breath, hoping like hell these guys would take off. And they did, but it took a while. Finally, with them taking several photographs of the vehicle, they got back into their car and left. As soon as they did, she immediately texted Zack. They’re leaving. But they searched the inside and took photographs of the license plate and the vehicle.
Did you know them?
No, just two men, tall, in uniforms.
He immediately sent back one single word. Shit.
She gave a crack of sad laughter. That was one way to put it. She didn’t know what she should do. Were they coming back yet again with a tow truck? Would the police come to check it out to see if it was stolen? And then she thought about it and texted him back, Did you steal the vehicle?
As she waited for him to get back to her, her reaction set in.
Swearing, she sat down on the closest branch and hug
ged the tree. She sent back a quick message. You better get back here soon. I’m up the tree, and I’m not sure I can get down. For all I know, we’ve got cops coming to tow away the car.
When she got a response from him, she was surprised. Understood. But it really didn’t tell her anything, Zack was a man of few words.
*
Zack was once again inside the basement of the house, haven gotten in the way he had gotten Zadie out. With Bonaparte at his side, they’d already done a full sweep of the basement, but it was empty. Now they were listening through vents to find out who was where. Counting the number of enemies inside.
Once they went up the stairs, it would be hard to keep their presence hidden. So far, they’d heard a couple men, but that was it. They needed to hear a lot more before they could make a clear-cut plan.
Zack couldn’t believe that somebody came across the vehicle. There’d been few places to hide it, so they’d just pulled off the road, hoping it would be ignored. But obviously its presence caught someone’s attention, and they had come and done a thorough search.
The thought of her up in a tree with her wounded leg sent ice through his veins. It would have been hard enough for her to get up, but trying to get her back down again without hurting her wouldn’t happen. Not to mention they were inside the house, and they had no time to get her. Not until they were done here. Trouble was, there’d been no confirmation that her mother was even in the residence.
They had attached listening bugs in the vents, trying to hear part of the conversations on the first floor, but, so far, the guards had been arguing about beer and dinner. That two guards were here meant that there should be something worth guarding. But, other than that, there was no conversation about the prisoners under house arrest.
As he was about to pull off the three bugs from the vents, he heard someone on the stairs, coming down. He exchanged hard glances with Bonaparte, and both of them melted into the shadows. The guard walked down the stairs, turned the corner, and headed to the far corner. Zack and Bonaparte had already searched this floor. Rooms were back there, but they were empty. Zack thought he heard voices, and he had to wonder, had they missed a room? But the guard was talking to himself as he walked up and down the hallways and then headed to the stairs again.
“Complete waste of time this is,” he snapped. “The basement is empty. Why go down and check?” he muttered.
But whoever had sent him down had better instincts than he did because both Bonaparte and Zack were here. But the guard didn’t make any attempt to do a thorough search, or they would have been found.
He muttered a little bit more as he moved toward the stairs. Zack gathered that he felt he should be sitting back, watching the game, and having a beer. It was an interesting concept for a guard. Zack wondered if it was the same guard who had been involved in Zadie’s kidnapping.
The woman who’d been involved in Zadie’s kidnapping had had access to the rest of the house and could have let her accomplices in any number of times, so that trio could also have been involved in the parents’ crimes, in the guards’ activities for the current regime, and who knew what else. Or maybe not. If they could find the female kidnapper, that would be a different story. Zack would be happy to haul her away with him too. But she wouldn’t go quietly, and his priority was the mother, not the assistant cook and maid.
With a final look at Bonaparte, the two men nodded and crept up the stairs. Since they were at the back of the house, opposite the front door, Zack tipped to the left, where the guards would be, while Bonaparte did a quick search on the right. Zack cleared one room and was heading up to the second one when he heard voices down at the far end, two doors down. He did a quick search of the second room, then made his way to the third. It was empty too.
Bonaparte joined Zack then, who held up his finger, connected in a circle to his thumb, saying zero, as in he hadn’t found anybody else on the main floor. Which meant anybody here was in that final room.
Zack wondered for a moment if they could make it up the stairs. He motioned upstairs to Bonaparte, who frowned, looked in the direction of the guards, gave a shrug and a nod. And then, in a move Zack had never seen before from his partner, Bonaparte grabbed the railing right from where they stood, which was at least six feet up. He jumped, lightly landing on the banister, and was up and out of sight in seconds.
Zack quickly put away his gun and followed his partner. If they could search the upstairs, while the guards were in one room downstairs, that would be ideal.
Upstairs, they did a quick sweep from room to room to room, but nobody was here.
Back at the same location again, the two looked at each other and frowned. He pulled out his phone and sent a message to Zadie. No sign of anyone but the guards in the one room. Then he pocketed the phone and whispered to Bonaparte. “We’ve got no argument with the guards,” he murmured.
Bonaparte nodded. “But they will know what happened to her mother. And we can’t leave without that information.”
Zack winced at that because Bonaparte was right. Zadie was persistent, and, although they could let her deal with the fact that they didn’t question the guards after they came all this way, that wasn’t something he was comfortable doing. He nodded and said, “Let’s go get the guards then.”
They made their way down the stairs by again walking along the top edge of the railing, until they got low enough to lightly jump and land softly with his feet widespread. They walked a little bit down the hallway, and Zack heard voices at the end. He raced forward with his gun out, Bonaparte on his heels. At the noise, the gunmen burst through the door of the room, and Zack held up a gun and said, “Halt.”
Three men all froze to see the two of them there. Anger flashed across their faces and then calculating looks as they studied the weapons the two men had.
Zack immediately raised his gun a little higher and motioned at them to turn around and go back into the room.
They backed up slowly into the room.
At the doorway, Zack glanced around, but it was just a large office with several desk monitors. “Interesting. You chose a room well away from the action and without a back door in case there was a problem,” he said.
Bonaparte nodded. “Bad choice of location.”
The men just glared at them, letting them know that they understood English perfectly.
“What happened to the older couple who was here?” Zack asked menacingly. The men just gave him blank looks. He smiled, nodded, and said, “I will shoot you point-blank, and I won’t give a shit.” His tone was low, but his words rang true. “I want to know what happened to the old woman.”
Instantly the men looked at each other. One man was about to give him a bit of a smart answer; Zack could see it coming with a curl of his lips. He popped him in the knee before he got the chance.
The man went down screaming. Zack kept the gun on him for a second, but then moved it between the two of them still standing. “I’ll do it again,” he said. “The mother who was here, the woman, what happened to her?”
The men shrugged. “Two men came and took her.”
“And her husband?” Zack asked.
The man shook his head slowly.
“What would they do with her?”
“I don’t know for sure,” he said. “There is a chance that they would kill her. But they wanted something.”
“Of course they did. What did they want?”
“Some books that her husband kept.”
“And her husband, what happened to him?”
At that, he stilled and said, “He didn’t make it.”
“Right, so they killed the politician, and now the wife knows that she will die because there is no need to keep her alive. But they wanted something from her first?”
He nodded slowly.
“And what exactly is this book?”
“I don’t know,” he said. “They just said they wanted the book.”
“Did she say she would get it for them?”
>
“Yes,” he said.
“Where is it then?”
At that, he fell silent. Bonaparte immediately lifted his gun, pointed it at his knee.
He screamed out, “No, no, I think they would go to their house.”
“What house?”
“Another one, the one they lived at most of the time.”
“Did you have anything to do with kidnapping the daughter?” Zack asked.
“We did not kidnap her,” the man protested. “No, she came here to visit her parents, and then was told she was a prisoner,” he said.
The other gunman shrugged. “We had orders. She shouldn’t have come.”
“Maybe not,” Zack said, “but she was kidnapped from here. Did you have anything to do with that?”
He frowned and looked at the others. Immediately they shook their heads. “No, we did not.”
“Really?” he said. “Then what happened to her?”
They looked at each other, shrugged, and said, “We thought the same men took her.”
“No, they didn’t,” Zack said with a sigh.
“Now I know you are dying to give me the address, where they took the old woman to,” Bonaparte said, his voice harsh. When nobody answered, he took a step closer.
Immediately the one at the back said, “I don’t know the address, but the daughter should have it.”
“And yet she is missing, isn’t she?”
“We know nothing about the daughter,” said the one on the floor, as he gasped in pain. “She was here, and then she was gone.”
“And you did nothing?”
“Of course we did something,” he said in outrage. “We searched for her, but she was gone.”
“She was being held in your basement,” he said in a quiet voice. “Where is your hired help?”
He looked up at him. “The cook is gone, as well as her husband and brother-in-law,” he said. “When the daughter, the prisoner, left, and then after her father died, there was no need to keep the staff on.”
“Where does the cook live?”
“In the village,” he said, “not far from here.”