I touched his arm. If it had been almost any other friend, I’d have hugged him.
“Is Donna okay?”
He seemed to realize he was digging into my arm and let me go. “This is Donna’s night at her group. I don’t know if the babysitter’s still alive, but Donna won’t even be home for two, maybe three hours. She doesn’t know.”
“Let’s go,” I said.
We turned and started walking down the hallway. Ramirez yelled behind us.
“Where are you two going? I thought you’d want to be in on it.”
“Personal emergency,” Edward said, and kept walking.
I turned around, walking backwards, trying to talk at the same time. “In two hours call Ted’s house. The call will be forwarded to his cell phone. We’ll join you on the monster hunt.”
“Why two hours?” he asked.
“The emergency will be taken care of by then,” I said. I had to touch Edward’s arm, to keep walking backwards and not fall.
“Everything could be over two hours from now,” Ramirez said.
“I’m sorry.” Edward was at the doors that led into the next section of hallway. He pulled me through; the doors shut behind us. He was already punching numbers on the cell phone. “I’ll have Olaf and Bernardo meet us at the turnoff to Riker’s place.”
I don’t know which of them answered, but he gave a long list of things to bring, and he made them write it down. We were out of the hospital, through the parking lot and getting into his Hummer before he clicked the telephone off.
Edward drove, and all I had to do was think. Not a good thing. I was remembering last May when some bad guys kidnapped Richard’s mother and younger brother. They’d sent us a box with a lock of his brother’s hair, and his mother’s finger in it. Everyone that had touched them was dead. Everyone that had hurt them would never hurt anyone again. I only had two regrets: one, that I hadn’t gotten there in time to save them from being tortured; two, that the bad guys hadn’t suffered enough before they died.
If Riker hurt Peter and Becca . . . I wasn’t sure I wanted to see what Edward would do to him. I prayed as we rode through the darkness, “Please, God, don’t let them be hurt. Let them be safe.” Riker could be lying. They could already be dead, but I didn’t think so. Maybe because I needed them to be alive. I remembered Becca in her sunflower dress with that sprig of lilacs in her hair, laughing in Edward’s arms. I saw Peter’s sullen resentment when Edward and his mother touched. I remembered the way Peter had stood up to Russell in the restaurant when he threatened Becca. He was a brave kid. I tried not to think about what could be happening to them right this second.
Edward had gone very, very quiet. When I looked at him, the dark crystal vision showed me further into him than I’d ever seen before. I didn’t have to guess whether he cared for the children. I could see it. He loved them. As much as he was capable of it, he loved them. If someone hurt them, his vengeance was going to be a thing of great and awesome terror. I wouldn’t be able to stop him no matter what he wanted to do to them. All I would be able to do was stand and watch and try not to get too much blood on my shoes.
54
IT WAS A DARK night. It didn’t seem to be cloudy, just dark, as if something besides clouds was blocking the moon. Or maybe that was just my frame of mind. The one thing I’d wanted to avoid while I was doing my favor for Edward was dealing with Edward at his most illegal. We’d picked up Olaf and Bernardo at a crossroads in the middle of nowhere with those empty rolling hills stretching out and out into the darkness. There had been no cover except some scrub bushes, and when Edward stopped the car and cut the engine, I thought we’d have a wait ahead of us.
“Get out. We’ll need to suit up.” He’d gotten out without waiting to see if I was getting out or not.
I got out. The silence seemed as big as the sky overhead, an immense emptiness. A man stood up not five feet in front of me. I had the Browning pointed before the man held a flashlight under his face and I realized it was Bernardo.
Olaf had magically appeared on the other side of the road. There was no ditch on either side of the road. There was nothing on the side of the road. What was even more impressive was that they began lifting large black bags of equipment out of that same nowhere. If we’d had the time, I’d have asked how they did it, though I doubt I’d have understood the answer. Training probably. Training I didn’t have, though it might be nice to get it.
Of course, most of the things I hid from could have heard Bernardo’s and Olaf’s heartbeat no matter how well hidden they were. It was almost a relief to be up against mere humans. It meant you could at least hide in the dark.
Twenty minutes later we were on the road again, and Edward hadn’t been joking on the suiting up part. I’d had to strip to my bra and put on a Kevlar vest. It was my size.
Which meant it had to be a special purchase because Kevlar doesn’t come in my size off the rack.
“It’s your prize for spotting all the weapons,” Edward said. He always knows just what to buy me.
I needed to adjust the shoulder holster after putting on the vest, but I was told to do it in the car. I didn’t argue. We had less than ten minutes to get to Riker’s place. My T-shirt didn’t quite fit over the body armor. I mean it did fit, but not well. Bernardo handed me a black, long-sleeved, man’s shirt. “Put it on over the T-shirt. Button it up part way after you’ve got your holsters adjusted.”
The shoulder holster was just a matter of readjusting straps. The inner pants holster just didn’t work once the vest was on. I put the Firestar down the front of my jeans and angled it until I was as happy as I was going to get with the way it fit. It still dug into my stomach, but I wanted it where I could get it fast. I could live with bruises tomorrow.
I practiced drawing the Browning through the half open shirt a few times, though it’s hard to practice drawing from a sitting position, but we didn’t have time for me to get out and practice standing.
“You guys are making me nervous, putting me in Kevlar.”
“You didn’t argue,” Bernardo said.
“We don’t have time to argue. Tell me what to do, I’ll do it. But why the Kevlar?”
“Olaf,” Edward said.
“Riker employs twenty men, ten are just hired muscle. We’ve met half of them already. But he’s got ten that he keeps close to him. Three ex-seals, two ex-army rangers, one ex-police, and four guys who have black files. Which means whatever they do or did, it’s top secret and maybe rogue.”
I remembered what FBI Agent Bradford had said about Olaf. That he had a black file. “Isn’t this a little too commando raidish for a pot hunter?”
Olaf continued like I hadn’t said anything. Bernardo started showing me the contents of a large leather purse at the same time. I listened to Olaf and watched Bernardo.
“Riker has connections in South America that supply him with contraband. Suspicions are that he’s running more than just artifacts. Maybe drugs. The locals have no idea how big a bad guy they’ve got here.”
“When did you find all this out?”
“After they came to the house,” Edward said.
“How did you find all this out?” I asked.
“If we told you, we’d have to kill you,” Olaf said.
I started to smile, thinking it was a joke, but I caught a glimpse of his face as the only car we’d seen passed by, flashing lights over us as it passed. He didn’t look like he was joking.
Bernardo said, “This looks like a can of hair spray. You can even squirt out a small amount of cresol.” He demonstrated. “But lift here.” He did and revealed a second layer of metal. “This is the pin. This is the depressor. It’s an incendiary grenade. You pull the pin, let up on the depressor, and you have three seconds to get a minimum of fifty feet away from it. It’s got white phosphorus in it. This shit burns underwater. If you get a tiny piece on your sleeve, it will eat through the cloth, your skin, bone, all the way to the other side.”
He cli
cked the secret compartment shut and handed it to me. “Damned heavy for hairspray,” I said.
“Yeah, but how many ex-navy whatevers are going to notice?”
He had a point. Next was a small thing of breath freshener that was really heavy-duty mace. A key ring that when you hit the button on it, a four-inch blade popped out.
There was a heavy ink pen that actually wrote, that if you pressed the little switch, a six-inch blade came out the end. There was real perfume with a higher than normal alcohol content. “Go for the eyes,” was the advice. A disposable lighter, because you never know when you might need some fire, and a package of cigarettes to explain the lighter. There was a transmitter in the collar of the black shirt that would allow them to find me inside the buildings or at least find the shirt. I was beginning to feel like I’d been shanghaied into a James Bond movie.
I lifted out a hairbrush with a heavier than normal handle. “What’s this?”
“It’s a hairbrush,” Bernardo said.
Oh. I looked at Edward. The only thing he’d changed was putting a white Kevlar vest under his undershirt and white shirt. He was even still wearing his cowboy hat. Olaf and Bernardo were both dressed in commando black, and had backpacks that looked full. They were bristling with weapons, blacked so they didn’t show up at night, but not hidden.
“I take it that the guys here aren’t going in the front door with us,” I said.
“No,” Edward said. He hit the brakes, and Olaf and Bernardo slipped out of the car and into the darkness. Because I knew what I was looking for, I could see them in a running crouch going over the hill. But if you hadn’t been looking, you’d have missed them.
“You’re scaring me, Edward. I’m not like a commando raid, James Bond kind of girl. Where the hell did you get a hairspray grenade?”
“A lot of female secret service now. It’s a prototype.”
“Nice to know where my tax dollars are going.”
We were going down a long gravel driveway. There was a big house sitting up on a hill. Lights blazed out of the windows as if someone had gone through and hit every light, as if they were scared of the dark. If Riker really thought the monsters were coming, the analogy was accurate.
Edward outlined his plan as we drove the last few yards. I was to pretend to do a spell of protection for Riker. While I delayed, Olaf and Bernardo would try to find the kids. If they couldn’t find them or couldn’t get them out, Olaf was supposed to find a man and kill him as messily as possible in a short space of time, leave the body where it would be found, and hope to make Riker think the monsters had already gotten inside. They might take us to the point where the monster kill had been found to get my expert advice, which would put us and whoever was with us, hopefully Riker, near where Olaf and Bernardo could help us kill them. If that failed, Bernardo would start blowing things up. Which would create panic and hopefully allow us to find the kids. Unless Bernardo decided the structure wasn’t sturdy enough to blow up and not cave in around us. Then we’d need another plan.
Edward stopped the car at a gravel turnaround near the crest of the hill. Men armed with automatic submachine guns walked towards the car. None of them were Harold or Russell. They moved like Olaf and Edward moved, like predators.
“You don’t believe they’re going to give back the kids, do you?”
“Do you?” he asked. He’d put his hands on the steering wheel at ten and two, in plain sight.
I raised my hands in the air where they could be seen. “No,” I said.
“If the kids are okay, we’ll do as little killing as possible, but if the kids aren’t okay, it’s zero survivors.”
“The police are going to find out about this one, Edward. You will blow your Ted ‘Good ol’ boy’ Forrester image all to hell.”
“If the kids don’t make it out, I don’t give a damn.”
“How will Olaf and Bernardo know whether to kill or not?”
“There’s a wire worked into my vest. They’ve both got ear pieces, so they’ll be able to hear.”
“You’re going to tell them to kill,” I said.
“If I have to.”
The machine-gun-toting men were at either side of the car. They made motions for us to get out. We did what they wanted, being sure to keep our hands in sight. We wouldn’t want any misunderstandings.
55
THE MACHINE GUN GUY on my side wasn’t that tall, five foot eight or maybe shorter, but his arms were corded with so much muscle that veins stood out against his skin like snakes. Some people vein up if they lift even a little, but most of the time you don’t get that much popping up without some major effort. It was as if he was trying to make up for the lack of height by being obscenely strong. Most muscle-bound guys are slow and rarely know how to fight. They rely on sheer strength and just being a bully. But this one moved smoothly, almost gliding on his feet, sort of sideways, which hinted at some martial art training. He moved well, and his bicep was bigger than my neck. He was also pointing a very modern looking submachine gun at me. Muscle bound, trained fighter, and better armed than me—weren’t there rules against that?
“Lean on the hood, assume the position,” he said.
I put my hands on the hood and leaned. The engine was still warm, not hot, but warm. Muscle man kicked my legs. “Farther apart.” I did what he asked. I looked across the hood and met Edward’s eyes. He was getting the same treatment on his side from a taller, slender man who wore silver frame glasses. Edward’s eyes were at their empty, pitiless best. But somehow I knew he wasn’t pleased. When I realized that, I realized I still had the sunglasses on, and my vision was still good through dark lenses at night. Funny, how neither Olaf nor Bernardo had asked in the car. There hadn’t been time for many questions.
The vampire vision had toned down, but it was still there or I’d have been night blind with the glasses on. Wondered what Muscle Man would think of the eyes.
He kicked my right leg again, hard enough that it hurt. “I said, lean!” He had that drill sergeant voice going.
“If I lean any farther, I’ll be lying down.”
I felt him move behind me and had my head turned to the side when he slapped me in the back of the head, hard enough that my cheek hit the hood. It would have hurt if it had been the front, nose, mouth. He’d meant it to hurt.
“Do what you’re told, and you won’t get hurt.”
I was beginning not to believe him, but I leaned, cheek pressed to the hood, arms out flat like I was being nailed down, feet spread so far that one good foot sweep would have dumped me to the ground. But it was nice and unsteady, the way he wanted it apparently. In a way it was flattering. He was treating me as a dangerous person. A lot of bad guys don’t. Usually, they live to regret it, but not always. If muscle man died tonight, it wasn’t going to be because of carelessness.
He searched me, top to bottom, even running his fingers through my hair. He’d have found Bernardo’s stiletto hairpins that the others had missed at the house. He took the sunglasses off and looked at them as if looking for things that I would never have thought to find in a pair of sunglasses. He didn’t really look at my face, didn’t catch the eyes, or maybe they weren’t glowing black anymore. Muscle Man found everything but the transmitter that was sewn somewhere in the shirt and the contents of the purse. He did dump it out on the ground and shine a flashlight on every item. He made sure the ink pen wrote, that the hairspray sprayed, and took the breath freshener mace as if he recognized it on sight. But that was all he took out of the purse, though once it was empty, he kneaded it with his left hand, the right still holding the submachine gun.
“This wouldn’t be one of those with a compartment for a gun, would it?”
I’d raised my head enough to watch him empty the purse, so we could look at each other while he held the gun on me and glanced down at things. “No, it wouldn’t be.”
“I was betting it would be,” he said.
“Nope,” I said.
He finished by s
tanding on the purse and stomping it flat. Glad it wasn’t really my purse. “I guess there’s no gun,” he said.
“Told ya.”
He took three big steps back, out of reach. He was treating me like I was dangerous. Darn. I sometimes counted on passing for harmless, but I guess I’d been packing too much hardware to pass for anything but dangerous.
“You can stand up.”
I stood up.
He tossed the sunglasses to me. I caught them. My eyes were in the light from the house now, but he never flinched. Apparently, the glowy stuff had faded. He motioned with the gun for me to pick up the contents of the purse. I put everything back inside and almost put the sunglasses in, but decided to put them back on. Two reasons: one, when the night got too dark to wear them, I’d know the vampire stuff had left me completely; two, knowing Edward, they were probably expensive, and I didn’t want to get them scratched up.
He motioned with the gun, and said, “Just walk slow, straight to the house, and it’ll be all right.”
“Why don’t I believe you?” I asked.
He looked at me with eyes as dead and empty as a doll’s. “I don’t like smart mouths.”
“You’ll have to wait until I do the spell before you can shoot me,” I said.
“So they tell me. Get moving.”
The slender guy with glasses who had Edward at gunpoint was waiting for Muscle Man to get me moving. When I started walking, Glasses moved Edward forward. They kept us walking side by side, telling us to stay together. They kept us together so that if they had to start shooting they could kill us both with one spray of bullets. True professionals. I hoped Olaf and Bernardo were as good as they were supposed to be. If they weren’t, we were in deep trouble.
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