“Not what you could call conversation. I did most of the emailing until the very end. And then he might have been lying to make a fool of me. He was mocking as hell.” She threw herself into a chair. “But I don’t think so. He’s not stupid. San Kabara didn’t matter to him, so he was willing to give me a little on the chance that he might need a safety net at some point.” She tossed her laptop to Brandon. “You can skim it until you come to the last pages. That’s the only important thing to us.” She closed her eyes. “I hope it’s important. He might have played me.” Her lids flew open. “But I think we have to go with it, don’t we?”
“Shh.” Brandon was already scanning the message. “My God, what have you been doing, Rachel?”
“The only thing I could do. I couldn’t help you, so I thought I’d try to reach out to him. I knew it would be a long shot. But judging from his remarks and attitude, I thought there would be a good chance he’d be monitoring me. I had all night to see if I could make him listen to me.”
“Evidently you did…” Monty said. He’d come around to read over Brandon’s shoulder. “No one could say you aren’t persistent, Rachel.”
“It paid off … maybe. I think it’s worth a chance.” She fell silent, waiting for them to finish.
“Hell, yes,” Brandon said as he glanced up from the screen. “Monty, you look up everything you can find on San Kabara Island. I’ll call Claire Warren and see how fast we can put something in motion.” He reached for his phone. “I don’t think she can refuse to explore the possibility of an attack since Nemesis furnished her with a specific target. Langley would roast her alive if she screwed up.”
“He didn’t,” Rachel said. “Not specific.” She jerked upright in the chair, galvanized by Brandon’s acceptance of the hope that she’d been trying to keep alive. “But maybe enough.” She got to her feet and was dialing as she headed for the door. “And I’ve got to call Catherine.” She hadn’t talked to her since yesterday afternoon, she realized. Everything had been so crazy, she hadn’t even told her about the call from Huber. Catherine was not going to be pleased. But perhaps the information Rachel had managed to get from Nemesis regarding San Kabara might distract her.
It did distract Catherine, but not enough for her not to say grimly when Rachel had finished, “Unacceptable. You ever leave me out of the loop again, you’re going to hear from me. I can’t help you if you don’t let me know what’s happening. I don’t care how upset you were.”
“Warning noted,” Rachel said. “And deserved.”
“You bet it is.” Catherine was silent. “You think that he was telling the truth?”
“I believe that there’s a good chance … if I read him right. He wants to have it all ways.” She added, “But there’s also a chance he’s playing me. I just don’t think it’s a good idea to risk it. As I said, Brandon is calling Claire right now, so he doesn’t either. There’s less than five hours left, Catherine.”
“I know that. San Kabara. A hotel,” she repeated thoughtfully. “By not telling you the name of the hotel, he might be trying to save his ass with Huber.”
“Or he might not know it; he said it wasn’t of value to him.” She turned as Monty came out of the bedroom with laptop in hand. “Wait a minute. Monty just came in, he’s been looking up San Kabara.” And his expression was not encouraging. Her hand tightened on the phone. “Got it, Monty?”
He handed her the laptop. “Or it’s got us,” he said curtly. “Look at the number of hotels on San Kabara. Brandon said to tell you to get Catherine nudging Claire Warren to get Homeland out to that island and begin evacuation. She was giving him double-talk and stalling.” He turned and headed down the hall. “I’ve got to get Nate to arrange for a speedboat at the marina. Brandon said he wanted to leave the house in five minutes.” He disappeared around the corner.
“Did you hear any of that?” Rachel asked Catherine as she balanced the computer Monty had thrust at her. “Brandon asked you to make Claire begin evacuation and—”
“I heard it,” Catherine said shortly. “I didn’t hear why.”
Neither had Rachel, but she was trying to read the page Monty had pulled up on his computer. San Kabara was a jewel of an island, it had a full-service marina and all the sport and casino facilities anyone could wish. The photos showed a magnificent white beach dotted with colorful umbrellas only a short distance from the marina. Wonderful exotic hotels stretched beyond the pounding surf and curved toward the south end of the island. A lush green rolling ridge bordered and formed a background for the hotels. A winding path planted with a hibiscus tree border led up the cliff to a few more hotels.
All those hotels … Rachel’s gaze was frantically racing over the text, weeding out the hyperbole that publicity had issued about the island. Then she came to the sentence that had sent Monty scrambling.
“Oh, shit,” she breathed.
“What is it?” Catherine asked.
“Nineteen luxury hotels,” she read to her. “And most of them are on wait-list status during this season.”
“And it’s an island,” Catherine said. “It could be an evacuation nightmare if we don’t have an exact target. I’ve got to go, Rachel. Claire can’t ignore this, and she’s going to need every one of the team to help Homeland. We’ve got to get to San Kabara.” She hung up.
Rachel’s heart was beating fast as she thrust her phone back in her pocket. Nineteen hotels. Four hours before one of them could be destroyed. How many people could die if those hotels weren’t evacuated on time? The numbers and possibilities were overwhelming. Except she couldn’t be overwhelmed. She wouldn’t curl up and let Huber have it all his own way.
Five minutes.
Brandon had told Monty they’d be leaving the house in five minutes for the marina. Not that she was probably included in their plans. As she’d told Brandon, he and his men were joined at the hip by the experiences of years. She might have given them the clue to lead them to Huber’s disaster scenario, but that didn’t mean that she’d be invited to help stop it.
Too bad.
She turned and made a stop in the kitchen before she headed for the front door.
Two minutes later, she had reached the car where Brandon sat in the driver’s seat. Nate was in the passenger seat, but Monty had not yet arrived.
“No, Rachel,” Brandon said. “You’ve no business on that island. We’ll take care of it.”
“Business? No one has more business there than I do.” She opened the rear door and put her black-leather medical bag on the floor before she got in the car. “None of us knows what we’re going to face when we get there. But I do know it probably won’t be good. I spend my life facing disaster situations of one kind or another. I might not be able to stop this one, but I’m better qualified than you to face what comes later.” She met his eyes in the rearview mirror. “So shut up, Brandon, I’m going.”
“Evidently you are,” he said curtly. “I don’t have time to throw you out or argue with you.” As Monty got in the backseat beside Rachel, Brandon backed out of the driveway. “It will take us at least forty minutes to get to the island from the marina, and by that time, if Claire’s done her job, Homeland will be in the process of locking it down. That may not be good. All we need is to have to cut through their red tape.”
SAN KABARA ISLAND
Brandon was right, Rachel noticed, as she jumped out of the speedboat onto the pier. Even in this short time, there were two Coast Guard ships already at the pier, plus multiple police and civilian boats. Even as she watched, two helicopters were landing about a mile down the beach in front of the Andorra Hotel, which towered at least twenty stories above the crashing surf. Hotel personnel were shepherding bewildered guests out of the other hotels along the strip to the beach. Two police officers were putting up a yellow crime-scene-tape barricade to keep anyone boarding any of the boats at the pier.
“Wait here,” Brandon said curtly as he made his way toward the police officers. “I need to know where th
e command center is going to be—”
Then she didn’t hear anything else as she saw Catherine get off that second helicopter. She ducked under the tape and started running down the beach toward her.
“Rachel!” Brandon was right behind her. “Stay close, dammit. I don’t need to be chasing after you.”
“No, you don’t.” She said over her shoulder, “Go look for someone suspicious or something. Can’t you see they need help to get those people out of the hotels? I’m going to ask Catherine to put me to work.”
Brandon muttered a curse. “We don’t even know what the threat is going to be. We assume that it will be a blast because that’s Huber’s modus operandi, but we can’t be certain. We need to go with the bomb squad into all the hotels and see if we can find anything.”
“Then go do it. I don’t know anything about bombs, but I know about people. Those guests streaming out of those hotels look like lost sheep. Some of them may have decided to stay put instead of wandering around on the beach. That can’t happen.” She put on a spurt of speed as she saw Catherine coming toward her. “Get away from me, Brandon. I didn’t come here to have you hovering over me.” She’d almost reached Catherine, and she called to her, “Tell me what to do. Where’s Claire?”
“The other helicopter,” Catherine shouted over the sound of the rotors. “She wanted to show up with Matt Delvan, who’s heading the Homeland investigation.” She looked beyond Rachel’s shoulder. “Where’s Brandon going?”
Rachel glanced at Brandon, who had done an about-face and was heading toward a police command center that was now being set up near the pier. “I have no idea. Probably something world-shaking. That’s his business. My business is to save as many of these people as I can.” She glanced at her watch. A chill went through her. A little less than three hours. “Can you give me an ID or something so that I won’t get arrested for interfering with Company business?”
“Better than that.” Catherine took off her CIA windbreaker and handed it to Rachel. “But I don’t believe you’re going to have problems. Everything is going to be in frantic mode from now on. No one’s going to ask too many questions if you appear to be rescuing, not killing, someone. Phone me if you get into trouble. I’ll take care of it.”
“You always do.” She slipped on the windbreaker. “But then we’ll both be in trouble. What should I do first?”
“Start at the Andorra and work your way down the beach toward the path that goes up the cliff. The Andorra Hotel is the largest on the island, and the bomb squad has already checked it out. But we can’t be too careful.” She nodded at the hotel. “Knock on doors. Get a master key E card from security and throw open all the doors you can. If any are on security chains and your E card doesn’t work, make a note and have someone go up and cut them. Make sure everyone knows there’s a threat. We called management and told them to set off the fire alarms because we thought that would be the quickest way to alert the guests. But when you’re dealing with this many people in a tourist area, you can never be sure that someone’s not drunk or ill or whatever.” Catherine was looking up at the glittering glass windows of the Andorra. “We think that Huber would probably choose the largest, most prestigious hotel because it would garner him the most attention. We’ve narrowed it down to five possible hotels in that category. The Andorra, Sea Surf, Gold Haven, Neptune’s Castle, and The Vineyard.” She gestured to the luxurious skyscrapers dotting the beach. “We’re sending bomb-detecting crews to all five, and they’re going through them from top to bottom.”
Rachel slowly shook her head as her gaze traveled up to the top of the Andorra. “That’s a very high top, Catherine. Less than three hours now. Can they guarantee that they’d find it even if you’re right?”
“No guarantees,” Catherine said. “That’s why we’re knocking on doors and making sure that everyone is out.” She was looking at the dozen hotels in the curve of the beach at the far end of the island, then to the small hotels nestled on the cliff overlooking the sea. “We can only do what we can. We had to pick and choose and hope they can get a few more bomb units to us ASAP.” She was still frowning at those small hotels. “Look, I’m going to take a couple operatives down to that end of the beach and make certain the evacuation is going well there. Those smaller hotels may not be priority, but they deserve our attention. You stay here and help out at the Andorra, then go to Neptune’s Castle.” She was already moving away. “But Claire wants everyone out of those hotels by ten thirty regardless of what they find. Good move. How can we be sure that Nemesis was accurate about Huber’s time frame when he didn’t even know which hotel is targeted?”
“Or told us that he didn’t,” Rachel said. “But changing the evacuation limit means we only have an hour and thirty minutes left.”
“Providing that there’s even going to be an attack on this island,” Claire said shortly. She had come up behind them and was frowning at Rachel. “I’m forced to treat this as a credible threat, but this is a very expensive operation, and my reputation is on the line. I hope you realize that I’m not going to be pleased if this turns out to be a puff of smoke.”
“And I’ll be very pleased,” Rachel said quietly. “I hope I’m wrong. I hope Nemesis lied to me. Excuse me, I’ve got to go knock on doors. Don’t you have a bomb or something to find? I hear Huber’s very fond of explosives.” Rachel heard Catherine smother a chuckle as she turned and ran into the hotel.
The lobby was in turmoil. Hotel personnel, police, military, and panicky guests were everywhere.
The evacuation had clearly not gone as planned, she thought as she saw the guests streaming down the exit stairs. The elevators had stopped and locked when the fire alarm had gone off, a common safety measure.
She fought to get to a police officer who seemed to be in charge, then gave up. She shouted at him over the crowd. “How many floors have been checked?”
He recognized the CIA jacket. He tossed her an emergency master key. “Fifteen through twelve,” he shouted back.
She turned and ran for the staircase. She had to fight the downward flow of panicky guests to get up the stairs. By the time she reached the eleventh floor, she was bruised and breathless. But once she was away from the staircase, the corridors were almost empty. She ran through the eleventh floor, knocking on doors, throwing them open, shouting.
No reply.
The same for the tenth and ninth floor.
On the seventh floor, a heavyset man in Room 701 opened the door. Weaving back and forth, drunk, and belligerent. It took her almost five minutes to get him to the staircase and put him in the care of one of the policemen on the landing.
No reply on the sixth floor.
On the fifth floor, she found little Dory. She was a big-eyed little girl of about five or six who reminded Rachel of Maria. She was wandering around the halls with her Frozen Elsa doll clutched in her arms. Rachel knelt beside her. “Hello, I’m Rachel. What’s your name? And where’s your mama?”
Tears were running down her cheeks. “My name is Dory,” she whispered. “I think Mama went to the pool. I can’t find her.”
“Then let me help. I’ll take you down to find your mama.” She took her hand and led her to the stairwell. But she had to take her down to the next floor before she could turn her over to a policewoman. Then she ran back up the steps and did a tour of the floor to see if the child’s mother was not at the pool but in one of the rooms.
No reply to her shouts.
No reply from any of the rooms on the fourth floor.
No reply on the third floor.
When she reached the second floor, she saw two National Guard soldiers going down the halls and knocking on doors.
Time to go next door to Neptune’s Castle to see if she could help there.
She fought her way through the lobby and out onto the beach.
Her phone was ringing. Brandon. It had been ringing all the time she was in the Andorra, but she hadn’t taken time to answer it.
“
Where are you?” Brandon asked as soon as she answered.
“The beach. I just left the Andorra.”
“Stay where you are. I’ll be there in five minutes.”
“I’m going to Neptune’s Castle.”
“Did you hear me?” His voice cracked like a whip. “Stay where you are. I’ve just come from Neptune’s Castle. I was with the bomb squad team that was searching the hotels. Don’t move until I get to you.”
“There’s no time to wait around. It’s almost ten, and Catherine said—”
“We found an explosive rigged to explode in the basement of Neptune’s Castle.”
“You found it?” Relief was flooding through her. “Were they able to disarm it?”
“Yes. No real problem. Which made it one hell of a big problem.”
She frowned. “That doesn’t make sense. What do you mean?”
“Stay where you are, and I’ll tell you. I’m almost there. Don’t you dare take off again.”
She could see him now coming from the direction of the pier, pushing through the crowds on the beach.
Then he was beside her. “Come on.” He grabbed her arm and drew her away from the Andorra. “I don’t want you anywhere near these hotels. Hell, I want you off this island.”
“What are you talking about? You said you’d found the explosives and disarmed them.” She grimaced. “Claire will be ecstatic. She’ll claim she saved the day.”
“It was too easy,” he said curtly. “The captain of the bomb squad said the same thing. Those explosives were easy to find and only a little difficult to disarm. Huber has experts who set his explosives. I saw their work firsthand when he had my father’s sailboat blown up.”
“I remember.” She frowned, trying to understand what he was telling her. “Then it wasn’t Huber?”
“Oh, it was Huber,” he said bitterly. “It was Huber with a message. He wanted us to be able to disarm that explosive so that we’d be able to take it apart and see what he’d sent us.”
“Sent?”
He reached into his pocket and took out a small, glossy photo. “Surprise.”
Vendetta Page 22