Hell for Leather

by Julie Ann Walker

  “Yorp!” Fido sang demandingly, upset that her attention had turned from him.

  “So sorry,” she soothed, resuming her petting, watching the dog’s entire back end swing to and fro with the force of his tail wagging.

  “There’s nobody on the second floor, and the garage is empty save for a pretty cherry El Camino,” Zoelner announced as he descended the stairs and marched into the living room. “I called back to headquarters and had Becky run the plates. The car belongs to Sander. No real surprise there. Oh, and FYI, Becky told me to inform you guys that Ali delivered a daughter. Nine pounds, six ounces.”

  “Mazel tov!” Ozzie crowed, then, “And, damn! That’s a big baby!”

  Zoelner nodded. “Anyway, mom and baby are doing well. Though, supposedly, Ghost is a wreck.”

  “And speaking of big,” Ozzie grinned, wiggling his eyebrows, “check out the size of this thing.” He brandished the bong in Zoelner’s face. “It’s Goliath’s bong!”

  “Yeah, yeah,” Zoelner rolled his eyes, yanking the contraption from Ozzie’s hand and tossing it on the ruined sofa. “I heard you the first time. Very witty. Now shut up.”

  “Any sign of a struggle upstairs or in the garage?” Mac asked. He posed the question to Zoelner, but he was staring at a kitchen chair that was tipped on its back. Eyes narrowed, he glanced over to the old-fashioned tin coffee cup turned upside down on the floor before turning to study the newspaper lying beside the table leg.

  Obviously, Fido, hungry and looking for any small form of sustenance, had gone after the coffee mug Charlie had left on the table and, in the process, created this little tableau of mayhem. Which reminded Delilah…

  She scooted her chair back and walked over to what she suspected was a pantry door. Turning the knob, she nearly lost her balance when Fido rushed ahead of her, barking ecstatically and turning in tight circles within the small space that was, indeed, the pantry. His thick tail whacked against her shins hard enough to leave bruises.

  “Okay, okay,” she soothed. Then, spotting a thirty-pound bag of Hills Science Diet pushed into the back corner, she nudged Fido aside and used the large bowl she found inside the bag to scoop out a healthy portion of dog food.

  “Yorp! Yorp!”

  “Who’s a hungry boy?” she asked in that weird sing-songy voice women tended to don around infants and canines. “Who’s just about starving to death?”

  “Yorpyorpyorpyorp!”

  “I gotcha, big boy. Just a second.” She exited the pantry and set the bowl of kibble in front of the stove. “Here you go. Eat up.”

  Fido attacked the food with gusto, his hind end swinging back and forth so forcefully he caused himself to stumble.

  “Poor dog,” Zoelner observed before turning back to Mac. “And to answer your question, that’s a negative on any signs of a struggle upstairs or in the garage. All appears as it should.”

  “Maybe they were abducted by aliens,” Ozzie posited unhelpfully.

  “You’ve been watching too much of the Syfy channel,” Zoelner said, crossing his arms and tilting his head at Mac, who was back to staring at that silly, knocked-over chair.

  “Yeah, right,” Ozzie scoffed. “There’s no such thing.”

  “No such thing as aliens, or no such thing as watching too much of the Syfy channel?”

  “Well, the second, naturally.” The look on Ozzie’s face was dubious. “Because of course there’s such things as aliens.”

  “Of course?” Zoelner’s lips quirked.

  “Yeah. I mean, the universe is a pretty big place, right? And if it’s just us, that’s an awful waste of space.”

  “You stole that from Carl Sagan,” Zoelner accused.

  “No, I didn’t. I stole it from the movie Contact. Maybe they stole it from Carl Sagan.”

  “Whatever.” Zoelner waved him off. “The point is, Charles and Theo were not abducted by aliens, and—”

  “So, I get why ol’ Sander decided to stay tucked away in the middle of nowhere, holed-up in this hellhole of a crumbling house,” Steady interrupted, emerging from the door leading to the basement stairs. “The guy’s got a state-of-the-art grow room set up down there. It’s enough to make Jay and Silent Bob weep with envy.”

  Ah, the marijuana. Delilah knew she recognized that smell when she was standing out on the porch. And it hadn’t been the dried-out, skunky aroma like the kind emanating from the bong—the odor of used Mary Jane. It’d been the earthier, almost sweet smell of freshly growing weed. Not that Delilah was an expert or anything. But her roommate in college, Sarah Moore, had been a philosophy major and had kept a couple of pot plants flourishing under a UV light in her closet for…wait for it…strictly “medicinal/experimental purposes.” Feel free to insert eye-roll here.

  Of course, the presence of the jolly green downstairs could also account for the discrepancies she’d seen in Charlie’s financial records. So then the question became, was it possible his disappearance, as well as her uncle’s, was some sort of drug deal gone terribly wrong? As her stomach took a nosedive into her biker boots, she posed her theory aloud.

  “Are all the plants still there?” Mac asked Steady, continuing to stare at that stupid chair until Delilah was forced to glance down at the thing. What in the world is so mesmerizing about it? But no matter how hard she looked, she couldn’t discern anything exceptional about the standard wooden ladder-back.

  “Sí, hermano,” Steady replied, his Puerto Rican accent lilting in the stale air of the house. “Everything appears to be in order. Nothing missing that I can tell. Nothing moved.”

  “It doesn’t make any sense.” Mac shook his head, blue gaze narrowed, the too-sexy dimple twitching in his chin as his substantial jaw sawed back and forth.

  “What doesn’t?” she asked.

  “If Sander was attacked and taken because of some sort of dust-up between pot growers,” Mac explained, “if it was a turf war gone bad or something, then whoever eighty-sixed him would’ve grabbed his plants. They’re too valuable to leave here to rot.”

  Attacked and taken. Eighty-sixed… None of those words were ones Delilah wanted to hear.

  “What makes you so sure he was attacked and taken?” Zoelner asked, still eyeing Mac curiously. And when Mac reached up and rubbed a wide palm over the back of his neck, Zoelner lifted a brow. “Is that Spidey sense of yours acting up again?”

  Okay, and that was the second time Zoelner had used that term. “What in the world are you guys talking about?” she demanded. “What is Spidey sense?”

  “Spidey sense is Spider-Man’s sixth sense about danger,” Ozzie supplied. “Except Mac’s superpower comes more in the form of an uncanny ability to piece together subtle clues.”

  “Uh-huh.” She nodded, not one to believe in the black arts of extrasensory perception. “You’re kidding, right?”

  First aliens, now this? Maybe she’d been wrong to enlist the help of the Black Knights for this particular undertaking. Because, apparently, they were all batshit crazy. Who knew?

  “It’s not a sixth sense or a superpower,” Mac assured her, and she breathed a sigh of relief. “It’s just good, ol’-fashioned FBI training.”

  “Okay, good.” She nodded. “So then to reiterate and rephrase Zoelner’s question, why does your good ol’-fashioned FBI training tell you that Charlie was attacked and taken?”

  “For the record,” Ozzie interjected before Mac could speak, “I’m still leaning toward alien abduction.”

  Oh, for heaven’s sake…

  Delilah, along with the rest of the group, watched as Mac walked over to the coffee cup. Using the steel-toe of his biker boot, he flipped the mug over. Beneath it was a small brown puddle of dried coffee.

  “At first I thought Fido here,” the dog’s tail went from a side-to-side wag to a full-on circle at the mention of his name, “knocked the chair over in an attempt to get at the mug on the table,” Mac explained. And, yup. That gelled with Delilah’s take on events. “But then I saw there was a r
ing of coffee surrounding the lip of the cup. No way the Lab would’ve left that if he was after its contents. He’d have pushed the mug around until he lapped up every last drop. So, then if Fido wasn’t after the coffee, I asked myself, why is the cup on the floor?”

  Delilah lifted a brow, glancing from the coffee mug to Mac.

  “No one?” Mac’s eyes sparkled in the lamplight as his gaze swung around the group. “Okay, then. Let me demonstrate.”

  He bent to pick up the tin mug and the newspaper. Then, he righted the kitchen chair before settling himself in it. Holding the paper in his left hand, the coffee cup in his right, he called to Zoelner. “Come up behind me. Grab me and drag me backward like you’re tryin’ to wrestle me out of the house.”

  Dumbfounded, Delilah watched Zoelner crouch down and sneak slowly forward. Then the former CIA agent reached out and struck, quicker than—as she’d once heard Mac put it—greased lightning. One of Zoelner’s arms wrapped around Mac’s throat. His other arm clamped tight around Mac’s broad shoulders. A second later, Mac was yanked out of the chair.

  The cup went flying. The newspaper fluttered to the ground. The chair tipped, and only after Zoelner dragged Mac halfway across the living room floor, Mac’s boots scrabbling for purchase, did Mac reach up and tap the guy’s forearm, saying, “Okay, that’ll do.”

  He stood to his impressive height, adjusted his biker jacket, winced and touched his side like his stitches hurt—yeah, she still felt guilty about that—and gestured toward the kitchen. As a group, Delilah and the rest of the Knights turned to look. And, sure as shit, the chair was lying on its back. The paper had settled beside the table leg. And the coffee mug, though not quite where it’d been before, was still pretty darn close.

  “Jesus,” Ozzie muttered, his face void of its usual grin.

  Okay, and now Delilah was a convert, a wholehearted believer in Mac’s Spidey sense. We’re talking ready to prostrate herself in front of the altar of his Spidey sense because…damn…

  A fresh wave of cold fear crashed over her, chilling her to the bone. Charlie Sander had been attacked and abducted from his own house. And her uncle, who’d come here to meet him, was missing now, too. It was one thing to suspect foul play, but another thing entirely to know something dark and treacherous had happened here.

  She rolled in her lips as all manner of violent scenarios flicked through her head, as every ax-murderer horror movie she’d ever seen scrolled through her mind’s eye on fast-forward. And she must’ve made a noise, or else what she was feeling was radiating around the room, because Fido—finished with his kibble—bumped her limp, dangling hand with his head and stared up at her, whining in doggy concern.

  Grateful for his presence—for one, he was warm and wiggly and alive, which was comforting, and two, he gave her an excuse to bend down and bury her face in the scruff of his neck, thereby hiding the tears that threatened at the back of her eyeballs—she hugged him and kissed him and told him he was a good boy before getting control of herself enough to lift her gaze to Mac.

  “What’s going on here?” she asked, not surprised her voice came out sounding like she’d been choking down broken martini glasses. “I mean, seriously, what’s going on here?”

  Mac leveled a look on her. And not a dismissive look, or a disapproving look, or his standard inscrutable look. No. This one was a look of one hundred percent pure confidence. “I don’t know, darlin’. But I sure as hell aim to find out.”

  ***

  “They have stopped at Sander’s house,” Haroun whispered through the phone, and Qasim sat back in the rickety plastic chair, marveling at how easily things appeared to be falling into place. First Theodore’s speedy arrival in Cairo, and now Delilah’s. Perhaps qadar, along with Allah, really was on their side…

  “Your plan?” he asked after impatiently signaling for Sami to get off the big, shining motorcycle parked in the center of the dusty room. Ever since riding Theodore’s Harley-Davidson into the dilapidated Main Street building—they hadn’t dared leave it parked in Sander’s driveway for fear it would draw the attention of some random passerby—the silly man had been mesmerized by the thing.

  Qasim, for his part, didn’t understand the allure. The motorcycle was loud and flashy and obnoxious… Just like the Americans, he supposed, curling his lip. It was certainly not the kind of vehicle he’d ever choose for himself, preferring the nearly inaudible hum of the two electric cars they’d rented in Canada. Not only were the little rentals stealthy, but they also weren’t vehicles likely to draw attention. Just the kind of attributes a man like him both revered and required.

  “I am in the backyard, hiding behind a doghouse,” Haroun breathed, his voice so low Qasim strained to hear, “watching them as we speak. My plan is to take the woman as soon as she is alone.”

  “And if she leaves with the men before you have the opportunity?”

  “I will follow,” Haroun assured him. “I taped the extra cellular phone beneath the seat of her motorcycle. No matter where she goes, I will find her.”

  Qasim hadn’t thought they would have a need for the third phone and hadn’t wanted to spend the cash on it or the “find my phone” application Haroun had downloaded onto it. But in his firm but respectful way, Haroun had insisted. And that was exactly why he’d risen through the ranks to be Qasim’s second-in-command. The man was a consummate professional, always prepared for every eventuality.

  Qasim rose from the chair to walk toward one of the large cracked windows at the front of the building. Carefully pulling back the thick, black cloth, he peeked outside. The main thoroughfare was as deserted as it’d been since they first arrived, the golden rays of the sun slipping over the eastern horizon dimly illuminating the decaying facades of the buildings, the trash littering the street, and the broken glass globes sitting atop streetlamps that hadn’t functioned in years.

  “It will be daylight soon,” he murmured, as much to himself as to Haroun.

  “Which will be perfect,” Haroun said. “People drop their guard during the day. And I know how to stick to the shadows.”

  Qasim knew that to be true. Haroun was like those small, electric cars. Silent, unassuming, and incredibly efficient. Still, even if his second-in-command happened to apprehend the woman… “If you take her, the men with her will tear this town apart searching for her.”

  “They will,” Haroun agreed. “But it will take them time to do so. And, by then, we will have the information, the Marine and the woman will both be dead, and we will be long gone.”

  Haroun obviously had more confidence in the timeliness of this particular plan than Qasim did. Not that Qasim doubted Theodore would—how did the Americans put it?—spill his guts as soon as Delilah’s life hung in the balance. But he did doubt how long it would take the motorcycle fanatics to find them once they began looking. Thirty minutes, he wondered? Forty? An hour at the most? The town was fairly large and sprawling, but it wasn’t a metropolis by any means. Did Haroun’s plan really give them enough time to secure the information they were after and silently make their escape?

  Qasim ran though the logistics in his head, scowling at the number of ways it could all go horribly wrong. On the other hand, it could also go really, really right. And Fate did seem to be favoring them…

  “Yes,” he finally decided. “Grab the woman when you can. Be quick and quiet about it.”

  “Am I ever any other way?” Haroun asked, a hint of pride entering his tone.

  Qasim closed his eyes, letting the black cloth drop back into place. “No, dear friend,” he assured Haroun. “You are the very epitome of stealth. And I eagerly await your arrival with Miss Fairchild.”

  Clicking off the phone, he turned and sauntered over to Theodore. The man’s head hung limply on the column of his neck, his chin touching his chest. Qasim grabbed a handful of snowy white hair and wrenched the old Marine’s head back, gratified by the grunt of pain he elicited and unfazed by the fury sparking in those aging blue eyes.


  “My second-in-command has your pretty niece in his sights,” he said in English, smiling when Theodore’s look of hot fury was replaced by one of cold fear. “She is here. In Cairo. So, now we can… How is it you say? Do this the easy way or the hard way?” He chuckled in delight that he’d found himself in a position to use that particularly charming little colloquialism. “You can either tell me what I want to know, and I will call my man and instruct him to leave Delilah alone. Or you can remain stubbornly mute, forcing me to bring your niece here where I will kill her if you do not give me the answers I seek.”

  He leaned down until he was nose-to-nose with Theodore, until the smell of the man’s spilled blood filled his nostrils. “I suggest you go with the first option,” he whispered, loving the way Theodore’s chest heaved with emotion.

  Struggling against his restraints, the old Marine mouthed something around his bloodied gag.

  “What is that?” Qasim lifted a brow, reaching around to untie the cloth.

  The minute the gag slid free, Theodore spit in his face, yelling, “Fuck you!”

  Sami and Jabbar raced forward, but Qasim waved them back, straightening. He used the hem of his Western-style T-shirt to wipe the saliva from his cheek, the anger he usually kept in check—it didn’t do to lose one’s head to fury—boiling just beneath the surface.

  “Go fuck yourself! You goddamned terrorist sonofa—” That was all Theodore managed, because Qasim slammed his balled-up fist into the man’s jaw, effectively knocking him out cold. Haroun wasn’t the only one who’d learned a thing or two from the mujahedeen.

  Flexing his hand, reveling in the pain radiating up his arm, Qasim threw the bloody gag to Jabbar, absently noting the black eye Jabbar had sustained in the initial struggle to bring Theodore down. He was getting very tired of the old Marine’s antics. “Put this back on him and then revive him,” he said, walking back toward the plastic chair, sinking into it wearily. Anytime he gave into the violence roiling inside him, he felt both elated and, at the same time, strangely drained. “I want him awake when Haroun arrives with his niece.”