by Linda Ladd
“Okay. Tell me who the woman is. Why do they want me? And who the hell are the Soquets? What do they have against Black?”
Booker and Holliday shared a worried look, both reluctant to tell her anything. Finally, Booker said, “Marcel Soquet is an arms dealer. Sells mostly to terrorist organizations, has for decades. He’s a bomb maker and assassin, and he’s raised his two children to be soulless, cruel killers. He’s always been as dirty and violent and brutal as they come, and now he’s taught his children to be the same thing. They specialize in torture and tracking down and murdering people in witness protection, or for any other reason, as long as they get paid for it. He’s as bad as they come. All three of them are, Claire. And they have hired thugs to help them. But Black’s abduction has nothing to do with what we do as a team. Marcel’s beef with Nick is strictly personal. He has made it known before that he’s gonna get him and make him pay for what he thinks he did.”
Booker blew out his breath, which told Claire how worried he really was. “I still can’t believe they got him this time. Nick knows about the threat, and he’s good as they come. He must’ve been tricked somehow. Otherwise, they wouldn’t have gotten to him. You sure it was him on that tape? You sure it wasn’t a computer-enhanced video?”
Claire thought of Black’s hoarse voice, trying to warn her off, the way his eyes looked dizzy, and then so frantic to tell her, and the way they had rolled back into his head when the woman had hit him with the sap. “I’m sure. He talked to me at first before she knocked him out.”
When she said that, the men all just stared at her in silence. Claire tried to make sense of everything, but it all seemed so shocking and inconceivable, that Black could be living this double life without her knowing the depth of it. That he could have an enemy of this magnitude and aggression. She looked at Novak for his take, but he just stood back and said nothing, watching and listening, which meant he didn’t have any encouraging words to offer her. But that was his way. He was quiet, thinking, always figuring out his next move. She was glad he was there. He was an ally, moral support. She hadn’t known him all that long, but she knew he was with her in whatever she did. He’d proved it. He had been a Navy SEAL, for God’s sake. He was steady as a rock all the time, no matter what was going down. His presence would help her stay calm, if nothing else, and she sure as hell wasn’t calm right now. She was about ready to rend her clothes and scream her head off.
Booker and Holliday waited another moment. Then Booker said, “Marcel Soquet’s completely ruthless. They practice torture, have made their techniques into a fine art, have even taught other terrorists how to do it with filmed videos of their torture sessions. But one good thing. Nick knows what to do, if and when he was ever taken captive. He’s put together dossiers on the Soquet family and their torture techniques and how to withstand them. He knew they were after him. He knew they’ve tried before and failed. He’s got the training to survive whatever they do to him until we get there.”
“When did they try before?”
“The first time they hit him was in France, about five years ago. They tossed a grenade into his car when he was working in Paris, but it didn’t go off. That’s their specialty, Claire. Grenades. Marcel Soquet makes them himself, special ones designed to do more damage. He’s even got his own specially designed suicide vests hung with those kind of grenades. That’s his sobriquet—the Grenadier. INTERPOL wants him, dead or alive. They’ve tried several more times, but Nick was either too careful or they flubbed it.”
Jack watched her a moment, still hesitant to include her, and then he said, “Remember that night when you were out on the houseboat with Nick and Gabe last Christmas? That was the last time they tried to get him. We’re pretty sure now that Soquet threw those grenades. Either him or one of his kids. Nick thinks it was the girl. Jacinda’s her name, but they call her Jaxy. Apparently, they’d been following you while we were in New York. So they knew you had stayed on the houseboat a few nights. We think they were lying in wait out there, just to get you. They probably didn’t even know Black was back or Gabe was aboard with you that night. They wanted you dead so Nick would know how it feels to lose somebody he loves in an explosion. And you would’ve been dead, too, if he hadn’t happened to show up just before they struck.”
“Oh, my God.” Claire stared at them, almost in disbelief. She had thought the killer she was seeking at the time had thrown those grenades. He had never admitted it, but it stood to reason at the time. That’s what Gabe had thought, too. But she knew full well that Black had managed to save all three of their lives that night and been injured himself for his trouble. That was when he had told her about his covert missions and his team, not everything, not much really, but it was the first time she’d heard of it. She tried to absorb everything they had just revealed to her, and was almost afraid to ask the most pertinent question. “Tell me what Black did to this man to cause him to want him dead like this?”
They didn’t want to tell her, that was pretty damn obvious, but Jack finally said, “Soquet thinks Nick is responsible for his wife’s death.”
Claire took a deep breath. “Was he?”
“Not really.”
“Not really? What the devil does that mean?”
“Black was on assignment and did his job. He couldn’t help what happened afterward. It was ten years ago.”
“Look, you guys, this is too serious for you to beat around the bush like this. They are beating the hell out of Black while we sit around and you drag this out, giving me riddles for answers. I want you to tell me everything there is to know about this, and tell me now. I’m the one going in there, and I have to know everything about these animals.”
Booker again tried to reason with her. “Okay, just calm down. You cannot go off half-cocked, not this time. This is not a routine police investigation. We are dealing with hardened criminals, murderous, evil people. Freaks.”
“Yeah, I’ve seen a few of those myself. If you’ll remember, Jack.”
Holliday frowned, because that was very true, and then he planted both hands on his hips and decided to come clean. “Okay, I don’t know everything. Like I said, this was a personal thing, at first, anyway. It happened about ten years ago. Soquet’s wife, Lorraine, was a shrink, too, and Black met her at some kind of a mental health conference in Tel Aviv. They were just friends, but he found out through our contacts that her husband was a bomb maker and sold arms to terrorists. That Marcel Soquet was on INTERPOL’s and other intelligence services’ most-wanted lists. Anyway, as it ended up, Black thought she had a right to know, so he told her what her husband really did. That’s how it started.”
“Yeah, go on. There has to be more to it than that.”
“The way I understand it is that she wanted proof, and Black was able to give it to her. She wanted to keep her family safe. Apparently, they already had the son and daughter then, but they were fairly young children. She became afraid of her husband, and so she gave some information to Nick about the things she’d overheard, the people who had come to their chateau outside Marseilles. That info got a lot of Marcel’s terrorist cohorts captured and killed by law enforcement, which caused some serious backlash against Soquet’s criminal enterprises. Nick said her husband found out what she had done and killed her with one of his own handmade car bombs. Murdered his own wife in cold blood. Black found out from an undercover informer that Marcel affixed a remote-controlled bomb to the underside of her car, and then stood in the driveway with his two children and watched her drive off. The car exploded halfway down the driveway, right in front of their eyes. A piece of metal hit his daughter in the head, too, and almost killed her.”
Holliday stopped there, shook his head. “After that, Soquet blamed Nick for Lorraine’s betrayal and for forcing Marcel to kill his young and beloved wife, and only because Nick told her the truth about her husband. Apparently, Marcel swore vengeance on Nick the day he murdered his wife in that blast. He taught his children that Nick was thei
r enemy, that Nick had arranged the blast and was ultimately responsible for their mother’s death. He continued to brainwash them about it until they were both eaten up with the same kind of bloodlust that he was.”
Claire could not believe it. She couldn’t fathom that all this had been going on and Black hadn’t told her any of it. She had suspected something, but nothing of this magnitude. Now it had come back in a headlong catastrophe, and they finally had him in their hands. It could not be any worse.
Holliday said, “That’s why Black thought Marcel might have been behind those grenades thrown at you on that houseboat down in Lafourche. The Soquet trademark.” He hesitated. “I’m sorry we had to tell you all this, Claire, but you need to know everything.”
“Is that it? Is that everything?” Claire asked, but she felt like she was pretty shaky. She didn’t know how many more shocks she could handle.
“The good thing is that Black knows what to do, how to handle anything that they throw at him. Like Book said, he’s done those psych evals on Soquet and his kids, and especially Max and Jaxy. He knows what makes them tick better than they know themselves. He’ll be all right for a while. He can hold his own against them until we get over there and get him out. And he knows we’ll be coming in to get him.”
Claire tried her best to digest all the information, most of which left Black in a terrible dilemma. “So that redheaded girl most likely is Soquet’s daughter, named Jaxy, is that right?”
Jack nodded. “Yeah, it’s gotta be. Nick said she was about ten when she stood in that driveway and watched her mother get blown to hell. A piece of the motor hit her in the cranium and damaged the frontal lobe of her brain. She’s never been the same. Defective mentally. She cannot tolerate frustration. She’s easily provoked and aggressive toward anybody that crosses her. She can’t control her anger.”
“Good God, can this get any worse?”
Nobody said anything because it could get worse, a lot worse. Black could get killed.
“Okay, I get it now, I guess. They want me to come there so they can torture me in front of him, right? You know, you made me blow my wife to bits, so turnabout is fair play. That it? Good-bye, Claire, with Black having to watch me go down.”
“Exactly. Nick felt like that was what they would do, according to his psych write-ups on the three of them. That’s why he made us promise to keep you away. And that’s why we can’t let you go over there. They will kill you, Claire. No doubt about it. That’s what they want you for. To kill you in front of Nick, just like you said. They’ll make him watch them do horrible stuff to you and then they’ll strap you into one of their deadly grenade vests and detonate it right in front of him.”
“Then she’s not going,” said Will Novak. “No way is Claire walking into that.”
Booker glanced at him and then back at Claire. “If you do go in, they’ll do inconceivable things to you, and then they’ll kill Nick, anyway. He told us that himself. Told us it was imperative that they never got hold of you or either of us or anybody else that Nick cares about.”
After hearing all that, Claire had to sink down in the nearest chair and try to think up a sensible solution to Black’s dire predicament. But she knew, and she was pretty sure they knew, too, all three of them, that there was no other way to get Black out alive. As it stood, Black was dead if she went to him, and he was dead if she didn’t.
After a few moments of silence, Claire sighed heavily. “Okay, we really don’t have a choice here, and I think you all know it.” She lifted the iPhone in her hand. “They are going to call me back any time now, and I am going to tell them I will go with them. So you need to tell me anything else I need to know before I meet those psychos… .”
Shaking his head, Holliday cut her off. “No, you’re not. No way in hell are you gonna put yourself in the hands of those murderers. We cannot let you do it.”
Booker gave it a try. “Claire, listen to me. We can get him out another way. You don’t have to sacrifice yourself like this. Don’t you see, if you do go over there and try to save him, that’s gonna put him in even more danger because I know him well enough to tell you that he’ll do anything to protect you. I think you know that, too. He worries about you all the time. You being there is going to make him more vulnerable than he is now.”
Now Booker looked scared. Claire had never seen him look that way. She’d never seen any of these men look scared. They were big, tough, army-trained warriors who had put their lives on the line plenty of times. But the Soquets frightened them, and that in itself absolutely terrified her. But it all came back to the same thing. She had no choice.
“Okay, I understand all of that. I understand that these people are crazy. I understand that I will be putting myself in danger. Been there, done that, okay?” She glanced back to the map, at the blinking red light. “If you already know where Black is, you can come in and get us before they can kill us. Sounds to me like they’ll take their time torturing us to death, so they can enjoy every minute of it, right? That’s gonna give you time to act. And that crazy bitch is definitely a psychopath, and a sadistic one. I know that already, after just a few minutes on the phone with her. She’ll want to drag it out, trust me on that. I could see the joy in her eyes at the thought of getting me, too. So all that should give you time to come in and extract us.”
Claire paused for a moment, took a deep breath. “You just said they didn’t find Black’s other chip. You can follow his signal. You can get to us, if I can find a way to slow them down. I can do that. I can. I’ve been in tight spots before. But we can’t sit here and do nothing. They’re gonna call soon, and we have to be ready. I’m gonna do whatever they say and hope I survive. Sorry, but you can’t stop me.”
The two men were not convinced. “We don’t have time to plan a feasible extraction. We can’t call in the French authorities, or Soquet’s just gonna kill Nick and disappear. We understand that they’ve got ties to some corrupt people in the French government and have some dirty cops on the payroll in Marseilles. They’ve been around a long time, and have their tentacles in everything, all through France. We could pull it off, if we had more time, but we don’t. We need more men, too.”
“If I go in, it’ll buy you more time. Time that we’re wasting right now talking about it. And Novak’s here, he can help you. He has ties in France that might be helpful. Right, Novak? You’ll help me, won’t you?”
It took a moment, and Novak didn’t look convinced, but he finally nodded. “I’m in. But this plan better be good. Or I don’t want you going anywhere close to those bastards.”
“And you can insert a microchip in me, put a dozen in me, I don’t care. If they didn’t find one of Black’s, chances are they won’t find mine. I will go there, and I will find a way for Black and me to survive long enough for you to get inside and get us out. I’ll do whatever it takes to do that, I will. I swear to God that I can do it.”
“Good God, Claire, listen to yourself. Don’t you see how weak your plan is? There are so many holes that it doesn’t have a chance in hell of working. No way will you come out of that scenario alive.”
Now Black’s two best buddies were exhibiting some major nerves of their own. Claire remained composed. “You think I don’t know that. And I know this, too. They will kill Black, if I’m not ready to go when this phone rings again. So get with it. Inject that chip in me, or put it in however the hell it’s done. Just tell me what to expect from these people, and what to do to appease them for a while, and how you’ll come in after us. I can handle this. I can handle it!”
Booker was now beginning to look resigned. “Like I said, it’s a family thing. Soquet works predominantly with his two kids. He has other men, but he doesn’t trust them like he does blood kin. There’s a son, Maximilian, called Max, and the daughter Jaxy. All three of them are certifiably insane, but Max has more sense than his sister. You saw her for yourself. Black says she’s downright crazy, and she’s the one who likes to make her victims suffer
and beg. She loves to inflict pain. Max is more sedate with his victims. He is cold and calm and methodical and sometimes loses his patience with his sister. Last I heard, Soquet has maybe a dozen armed men around him all the time. Loyal ones. I think he might have some cousins somewhere in France. He moves around constantly to safe houses all over Europe, but there’s an old chateau on the coast outside Marseilles, up in the foothills of the Apennines. He’s probably got Black there or someplace near there.”
Booker turned back to his computer screen, and another photograph popped up on the screen in front of them. “This is what that place looks like on the satellite map. It’s heavily guarded and hard to penetrate the perimeter, but we’re familiar with the layout from the last time we checked it out. We can get satellite pictures of recent activity in the vicinity, too. We can get in, but once you go in, you have to stay alive and keep Nick alive until we get there.”
“Jaxy is the most dangerous because she never stops to reason. Like we said, she’s impulsive and easily angered. According to Black, Max is just the opposite. Nick said she should’ve gone into a mental institution years ago. He thinks she’s criminally insane.”
“Well, I’m going there and I’m gonna put a bullet in her head.”
“Claire, Nick does not want you there. He made us swear to keep you safe. Goddamn it, Claire.”
“Of course, I understand all that so no need to keep repeating it. But I’m not going to stand back and sit around and watch on my phone while they slowly beat him to death for my viewing enjoyment. I can buy time for you to get there and get in, and that’s what Black needs right now. He needs you to come in. So quit talking about all this and get busy with planning his rescue. It’s been almost an hour. They are going to call again, and they said they would beat him senseless right then if I’m not ready to go. So do something. Make a plan. Inject me with the chip, tell me anything else I need to know. We don’t have time to waste.”