by Tee O'Fallon
Chapter Seventeen
Low voices, a man and a woman. A pecking sound.
Warm, dank air blew on Alex’s face as she struggled to open her eyes. Streaks of white flashed behind her lids, and her head pounded like a jackhammer. Her left shoulder ached, and her back stung. Slowly, the pain cut through the fuzziness.
Explosion. Flying debris. A needle in her arm, then…falling.
She tried to move and couldn’t. Her hands were bound in front. Tugging confirmed her wrists were taped solidly together. She snapped open her eyes.
I’ve been abducted.
Panic seized her, and she nearly screamed. She sucked in long, draughts of air.
Calm. Stay calm.
The floor pressing against her cheek was wood, old and musty. Something pricked against her cheek. Hay?
Alex shifted slightly and nearly gasped. The top button of her blouse had come undone, and now the black locator device peeked out from behind the clasp of her bra.
I have to turn it off.
If they haven’t already wanded me for a signal, they will.
The fact that she was still alive implied they hadn’t.
The downside was that once she turned the locator off, Gray wouldn’t be able to find her. Unless she turned it back on after they wanded her.
Alex winced when her bound wrists scraped on the wood floor. She froze, but the voices continued, as did the pecking.
Her fingers finally located the tiny device on her bra, and on the third attempt she managed to hook the tiny lever with her fingernail and push it in the only direction it would move. Now all she had to do was rebutton her shirt.
A chair scraped on the floor. Alex went still.
Footsteps drew near, until they stopped beside her.
She forced her body to go slack. Keeping her breathing even was difficult.
An accented female voice from the other side of the room said something in what Alex recognized as Farsi. She was hardly fluent in it, but she’d picked up a basic understanding from Nicky’s father, enough to know the woman was asking her partner if Alex was awake.
For a moment, whoever was standing over her said nothing. Alex feared he would detect she’d come to. And if he forced her onto her back, from his vantage point above her he would easily see the locator.
Several more seconds passed.
“No.” The man’s footsteps receded.
Alex held back an audible sigh of relief and got back to work. Holding her breath, she strained against the tape until it cut into her wrists. Biting back the pain, she managed to push the button into the hole.
She exhaled a silent whoosh.
Footsteps, lighter this time. The woman, Alex assumed.
A hand grabbed her shoulder, flipping her onto her back.
“Wake up!”
The woman slapped Alex on the cheek. Her cheek stung, and she couldn’t hold back a cry of surprise. Tears came to her eyes, but she blinked them back, refusing to show this evil creature any sign of weakness.
“That’s what I thought,” the woman said in English as her male companion strode over. “Abdullah, bring her to the table.” With quick, military precision, the woman spun and headed for a metal table in the center of the room.
The voice on the phone. Alex would recognize it anywhere.
The bitch who threatened my son.
Alex clenched her hands into fists then squeezed her eyes shut, stemming the urge to tell the bitch to fuck off.
She opened her eyes and stared. No surprise that the woman appeared to be Middle Eastern.
Olive skin tone and dark eyes set in a wide forehead. A long black braid swung at her back. Wearing black slacks and a green turtleneck sweater, she would have fit in anywhere. No one would ever suspect beneath that plain garb was a deadly assassin.
Alex recognized Abdullah as the man waiting for her at the meet location. The one she’d handed the envelope to.
“What do you want from me?” Alex blinked away the wetness in her eyes. The woman ignored her. “Why are you doing this? I gave you what you asked for. Kidnapping me wasn’t part of the deal.”
Abdullah grabbed Alex by her sore shoulder and hauled her to her feet. She gasped then swayed, the latent effects of the drug still influencing her system. White stars clouded her vision, threatening to send her back into unconsciousness. Only Abdullah holding her upright as he pushed her toward the metal table prevented her from falling on her face.
Blinking away the fuzziness, Alex glanced around the room. She was in a barn. Fluorescent light fixtures hanging from the ceiling buzzed and flickered. The wood plank walls were lined from floor to ceiling with old vegetable crates, cardboard boxes, a few bales of hay, and several red metal cans. In the center of the room on the floor was a wooden door with a large metal ring. A root cellar. She recognized it from one of her books on New York City’s historical architecture.
Abdullah shoved her into a chair. The envelope containing the NYPD documents rested on the table in front of her, along with several large blueprints. At the other side of the table perched a laptop.
“Check her again,” the woman ordered. “And the next time you forget to change the batteries in that thing, I’ll turn you in to the police myself.”
They already wanded me, but the batteries were dead.
Alex nearly sagged off her chair, so great was her stroke of luck.
“Yes, Fatima.” Abdullah pulled what looked like a cell phone from his pocket, all the while muttering something under his breath that sounded to Alex like kussi, the Farsi word for whore.
Interesting. Dissension among the ranks.
Clearly, Abdullah didn’t relish taking orders from Fatima. No surprise there. It would no doubt be decades, if not centuries before Arab women were on equal footing with their male counterparts.
A red light glowed as the detector turned on. Abdullah extended a six-inch antenna from the top of the unit and passed it over Alex from head to toe, around her back, then up the front of her torso. She held her breath as he ran the detector over her breasts. Nothing. No beeps, no flashing lights. Slowly, Alex exhaled.
“Are you the woman who called me?” Alex knew she was but needed to hear it. “Answer me, damn you! Are you?”
“You are in no position to make demands.” Fatima rounded the table and stood before her. Without warning the woman backhanded her across the same cheek she’d slapped before.
Sharp pain radiated throughout her head. Alex clenched her jaw, determined not to let it show. The unfamiliar urge to kill surged inside her until it was all she could think about.
I will kill you before you ever touch Nicky.
Abdullah said nothing. He stood there, his lip curling with the sick enjoyment a violent person took from seeing another human being hurt.
“You see, Abdullah? This is the way to treat American women. With brute force. They have it all, and still they want more. Batting their eyelashes, wiggling their asses to get what they want. You disgust me.” Fatima spat at Alex, but she saw it coming and turned her head before the woman’s saliva made contact. “Abdullah, make yourself useful and turn up the heat.”
Abdullah turned to do as ordered, but not before sneering at Fatima over his shoulder, reaffirming Alex’s belief that he respected the woman as much as a cockroach. He turned a knob on the heater, making the flames roar and echo inside the barn. A blast of invisible heat struck Alex in the face, the side that hadn’t gotten smacked. Yet. She watched Abdullah haul over another gas tank to refill the heater.
“Pay attention!” The woman grabbed Alex’s chin, jerking her face around.
“For God’s sake.” Alex wrenched free. “Tell me what you want!”
“Information.”
“I got what you asked for.” Alex tipped her head to the envelope resting on the table.
“Please.” The woman smirked, then grabbed the unopened envelope and shoved it through the heater’s open grill. The envelope glowed, then crackled as it caught fire
and turned to ashes. “Whatever is in that envelope is as useful as pig shit.”
“I fulfilled my part. I got what you asked for,” Alex shouted. “Now leave me and my son alone!”
“Ah, yes. Your son.” When the bitch smiled it was pure evil, giving Alex a sick feeling in the pit of her stomach. “Don’t you mean, yours and Jan Mohammad’s son?”
Alex’s heart felt like it stopped beating.
This can’t be happening.
She hadn’t heard that name in a very long time. Seven years to be exact. Since the day she’d fled California. Her worst fears were being realized, and there was nothing she could do to stop it.
Fatima leaned forward until she was inches from Alex’s face. “I wonder what Jan would do if he knew the location of his child.”
Alex gritted her teeth, breathing heavily. “Don’t you dare.”
Fatima sneered. “I will if you don’t cooperate.”
“How many times do I have to say it?” It was all Alex could do not to launch out of the chair and ram her head into the woman’s stomach. “I’ve done nothing but cooperate. What the hell do you want from me?”
“The documents you brought are bullshit. Even if you are not working with the police, there is no way you would have access to anything useful. No, Aileen Alexanderson.” Fatima came behind the chair, resting her hands on Alex’s shoulders. “What I want from you is something far more valuable.”
Fatima moved her face closer to Alex’s, until she felt the woman’s warm breath on her cheek. “I want you to walk me through every entrance and exit to NYPD headquarters—One Police Plaza. I want to know every security checkpoint. All the screening procedures. Armed officers, how many and where they are posted. Shift changes. And don’t leave anything out.”
Alex widened her eyes, staring at Fatima when she moved from behind the chair and leaned against the table in front of her.
They want to infiltrate One PP and kill everyone inside?
Alex leaned forward in the chair. “You’re insane.” And a bitch. “I’ll never give you that information.”
The woman yawned. “Then I’m quite sure Jan would love to know where his son is.”
No, Alex’s mind screamed. If Jan found out where Nicky was, he would take him away.
“I see the fear and hatred burning in your eyes.” The woman smiled. “You want to kill me. You should know that if you don’t give me what I want, or if I die at the hands of the police, notification will be made to Jan, providing him with your son’s location. Jan will take the boy out of the country, and you’ll never see him again.”
Alex clenched her bound hands. A guttural scream came from her throat. “Bitch.” She launched from the chair, hitting Fatima rock solid in the midsection. The table rocked, its legs scraping the concrete floor as it pushed backward. Alex staggered, her chest heaving. Fatima fell on her ass. The laptop perched on the table slid to the floor with a whack.
“Abdullah!” Fatima shouted.
Alex began kicking Fatima in the ribs. She hadn’t known she was even capable of such violence.
Abdullah laughed then grabbed her arms from behind. He shoved her roughly to the floor. Momentum had her rolling several feet from the table until she faced away from Fatima and Abdullah.
The locator. Turn it back on.
This might very well be her only opportunity. Not bothering to unbutton her blouse, she reached down the front of her shirt to her bra.
“You American whore.” Fatima’s footsteps sounded behind where Alex lay struggling to reactivate the locator.
Alex braced for the blow, but not before pushing the locator’s activation switch fully in the other direction. Gray said the locator’s signal was weak, but it was her only chance.
A woman’s enraged scream filled the barn. Fatima’s booted foot connected with Alex’s side. A bolt of pain stabbed into her ribs and she cried out, gasping for air. Fatima grabbed her by the arm, but the blow never came.
“Abia. You idiot,” Abdullah shouted. “If you kill her, she won’t be able to give us what we need.”
Another scream, this one out of frustration. “Tie her to the chair.”
Abdullah grabbed Alex by the arms again and hauled her to her feet. His grip was tight, his fingers digging into her like talons. He dumped her onto the chair. White stars flashed behind her eyelids. Alex leaned over, rocking forward and back, trying not to throw up.
“Well?” Fatima’s tone was demeaning. “Tie her up!”
“If I tie her up, how will she point out anything on the blueprints?”
Alex slowly opened her eyes. They were slow to focus. The laptop still lay on the floor next to the table, but that wasn’t what grabbed her attention. A thumb drive rested on the concrete floor nudged up against the table leg.
A Pyramid thumb drive. The contents of which could be priceless to law enforcement.
Alex sat up slowly, tensing for whatever was to come. When she raised her gaze, the first things she latched on to were Fatima’s eyes glittering with unconcealed malice. The second thing was the gun Fatima pulled from under her shirt and pointed directly at Alex’s face.
She squeezed her eyes shut and tensed. Tears trickled from her closed lids. In her wildest nightmares, she never imagined the end of her life would come this way. So many regrets. No chance to say good-bye. To Nicky. To Gray.
Dear God. This is it. Please, Gray, take care of Nicky.
…
Alex was gone. Kidnapped. He’d promised Alex nothing would happen to her. He’d promised he would protect her.
And I failed.
Gray turned from the patrol car to face the assembly of twenty detectives and uniformed officers. “Witnesses?” he shouted. “Did anyone see anything?”
“Yes, sir.” One cop flipped open his notepad. “I got a couple who saw a blond woman being shoved into a blue van by a dark-haired, swarthy-skinned man. The van headed uptown.”
“How long ago?” Gray shot back.
“About twenty minutes,” the cop responded.
“I got the same information from a couple visiting from Cincinnati,” another cop said. “Blond woman, blue van, dark-haired man. The van went uptown immediately after the explosion.”
“Shit.” Gray blew out a steadying breath. He had to keep it together. If he didn’t, he wouldn’t be worth a damn at finding Alex. He turned to Dom. “Canvass the area for city and store cameras. Look at all footage for the last hour. Anyone gets a license plate off the van, run it and the owner’s name and get back to me ASAP.”
“Already on it,” Dom said. “There are two city cameras that may have captured the meet and the van. City techs are downloading the footage as we speak. I’ll go with the uniforms and check every shop and bodega within eyeshot for other cameras.”
Thank God for competent partners.
“I’ll start driving uptown.” Gray took the keys Dom handed him. “If Alex’s locator is still active, maybe I’ll get lucky.” But if it was still active, chances were the Pyramid had already scanned her for transmissions and found it. He choked down the ramifications of what that could mean.
Alex might already be dead.
To Dom, he added, “Get all the other locator receivers you can get your hands on and sync them to the one I put on Alex.” He scribbled down the frequency on a small pad, tore off the sheet, and handed it to Dom. “Make sure you give at least three units to the choppers and have them fly as low as possible to max out coverage. They can cover more territory than we can on the ground.”
“Will do.”
To the other officers, Gray ordered, “If anyone finds or hears anything else, hit me on the radio.”
Without waiting for assents, he got into the police sedan Dom had somehow managed to drive through the crowd, and rechecked the locator receiver. Nothing. No red dot. No Alex. He twisted the unit’s audio dial to max out. If Alex was anywhere within range, the unit would ping like active sonar.
After angling the case so he could se
e it while driving, Gray headed uptown, stopping at red lights just enough not to plow into pedestrians. The range on the locator was short, so the chances of finding her were slim to none. On the one hand, he wanted to get a blip. But if he did, that meant the locator was active and the Pyramid would find it, too. That locator device could be Alex’s lifeline.
Or her death sentence.
I should have told her. I should have told Alex I believe her, that she wasn’t using my ass to get information on the Pyramid investigation. Gray gripped the steering wheel tighter.
Now it might be too late.
He drove slowly, glancing from time to time at the monitor, straining his ears for the telltale ping.
Emotion and regret pounded his brain from all sides. He’d only just begun to explore his feelings for Alex, and now he might never get the chance to see where things could have taken them. The only thing he knew for certain was that he was crazy about her. If only he’d believed her, trusted her from the beginning instead of being such an almighty rigid asshole. He should have trusted his own instinct, but his black-and-white brain refused to trust his gut.
This time, I should have, dammit.
He didn’t know how long he drove, hours he assumed. North up Manhattan, well into the Bronx. Then he turned south, back into Manhattan, alternately looping east and west between the Hudson and East rivers. Still nothing. Time was running out. If they didn’t get a hit soon…
Gray’s cell phone rang. Dom. He cued up the call. “Anything?”
“We got the van on one of the city cameras. Plates are a dead end. They were reported stolen this morning.”
“Damn.” He figured that, but he’d been hoping for a break anyway. “Where were the tags stolen?”
“A house in Brooklyn. I’ve got a team searching that location. Still nothing.”
“Keep me posted.” Gray hung a U-turn at Riverside Drive and headed east again.
“Ten-four. And Gray?”
“Yeah?”
“This wasn’t your fault.”
“The hell it wasn’t,” he shouted. “I should have trusted her sooner.”
“You had your reasons.” They both knew what it was. Marina. Dead for more than fifteen years and that double-crossing bitch was still screwing with his head. “Stop kicking yourself. Shit happens.”