by Linda Ladd
“That’s not funny, Claire,” said Holliday. “I don’t like to think of you helpless in their hands. They’re butchers.”
“Well, I don’t like to think about it, either, but now I have nine minutes to get downstairs before they lose patience and put a gun to Black’s head. Just follow our plan, and if I can get word out to you, I’ll do it.”
All three men now looked as if she were already dead and buried, which was a bit disheartening but probably pretty much on target. Claire picked up her backpack by the strap, the one with another GPS chip hidden in the buckle, and ran down the hall to the elevator. Okay, at least the show was now on the road. That was better than waiting around for something to happen. God help them.
Eight minutes later, Claire was standing alone on the round heliport, still waiting to be picked up. Tourists moved all around on the vast hotel grounds, taking dips in the waterfall pools, checking out the boats to cruise the lake, playing tennis on the courts, enjoying their leisure time. Claire watched the sky. She was armed, hell yes, she was armed. Not for long, probably, but maybe they thought she was some poor helpless bride-to-be a.k.a. sissy girl, scared too silly to put up a fight. Maybe they didn’t know much about her. Maybe they would underestimate her ability to survive. That would be to her advantage. And the only one. She turned her head slightly and looked back down past the marina.
Booker, Holliday, and Novak were out there somewhere, out of sight, well concealed, their automatic rifles aimed and ready to put Black’s captors down, just in case Soquet decided to take her out there on film, instead of taking her along. She didn’t believe Soquet would do that, not for a moment, not after reading his file. He was obsessed with his hatred of Black, blamed him for every bad thing that ever happened to him, especially the death of his wife. He had used and nursed his hatred to raise his children into psychopathic murderers and all to get revenge on Nicholas Black, who hadn’t done anything except tell Soquet’s wife the truth.
They wanted Claire alive all right. She was their leverage over Black, who could probably pretty well hold his own against their nasty games of death. And Claire had those GPS chips inside her body now, well hidden, and three very capable tough guys coming in right behind her, no matter where she was taken. She had already accepted the fact that she might be mistreated. Most likely would be. She knew that. She was trying to come to terms with it. She was their ace in the hole, but maybe not quite as much as they thought. And she had read a thorough account of all the major players and what made them tick.
First and foremost, she could not come off meek and subservient. They did not respect weakness; Black had emphasized that over and over in his evaluations. So had Booker and Holliday. Still, she would have to walk a very narrow line on how far she could push them, observe them up close and personal and see what they would and would not tolerate. But she had the dope on them now, and she planned to use it to her full advantage.
After all, Claire wasn’t exactly stupid or an untrained amateur. She knew there was no guarantee Booker and company would succeed in getting them out, despite their expertise and experience. Black’s friends might not be able to swoop in and save the day like a cadre of superheroes. More likely, she and Black both would end up as captives of Psycho Girl and that sure as hell wasn’t gonna be pleasant. But Black would still be alive for a little longer. Claire was going to make sure of that.
So Claire was gonna stay alive, too. No matter what. She would stay alive and kicking long enough to make that red-haired devil bitch endure some serious pain of her own. That scenario would be Claire’s incentive to keep going. Getting Black out and paying the girl back for her cruelty, blow by blow, and with the self-same decorated sap. Nobody was gonna abuse Black like that when he was tied up and get away with it. Not while Claire lived and breathed.
Several minutes later the low thut-thut-thut of helicopter rotors in the distance echoed in over the lake. She scanned the horizon for the approaching chopper. She had watched that same part of the sky over the lake many times when Black was returning home from his travels, more times than she could count. She wished it were him now, gliding low over the lake like a graceful bird. But it wasn’t him. It was a very serious threat, one that she was going to meet head-on in about two minutes tops.
The helo arrived, hovered above the round pad, and then sat down expertly in the middle of the big white X. Claire crouched down against the blast of the rotors, and then the passenger door was thrust open, and the pilot motioned her over with a jerk of his arm. Frowning, Claire took a bracing breath and then bent down low and ran for the door. She climbed in and looked at the pilot. He was dressed in a uniform of sorts. Black pants and a white polo shirt with some kind of small logo on the breast pocket. She couldn’t read it.
“You Claire Morgan?” he shouted over the noise of the rotors.
“Yes.”
He smiled. “Okay, then, guess you’re my cargo. Ready to fly?”
“Who are you?”
“Name’s Roger Keaton. Keaton Aviation. They hired me to pick you up and bring you back to my airstrip just outside Columbia. That’s where I’ve got my business. Go ahead, buckle up and put on these headphones, ’cause it’s gonna be a little bit noisy.”
So they’d sent some innocent messenger boy to get her, one who didn’t have a clue what was really going on. Smart, that was. Oh, yeah. Soquet and crew weren’t dummies. Unfortunately. The Soquets were covering their bases, just in case Claire had enlisted an FBI team to watch on radar, just waiting to take them into custody and sweat them for Black’s location. They weren’t careless, and they weren’t stupid, she’d give them that. At least, not so far.
Claire obeyed the pilot and the chopper slowly lifted off the ground and banked gracefully out over the lake again. Neither of them said anything, but Claire sure hoped the tiny GPS chips inside her head and leg were busy sending out signals galore that would lead the guys right to her. The fact that she still wore both her guns and had a fringed bowie knife stuck down in the back of her waistband was comforting, too.
In about fifteen minutes, they were skimming over wooded tracts and treetops and deserted highways through the verdant hills of rural mid-Missouri. The man wasn’t saying anything, and she sure as hell wasn’t in the mood to chat. She just sat there, nerve endings standing straight up and quivering around to beat the band. Inside her mind, she kept seeing Black’s battered face and black eyes and reliving the dull thud of that sap against his skull. She was going to have to hear it again, she was pretty sure, and watch it happen, too.
That psychotic redhead was gonna pay big-time for all of it, even if it killed Claire taking her down. She was gonna make sure she got one shot at that lunatic with that damn sap before she bit the dirt, count on it. The thoughts of the other woman made her so furious that she could feel the pulse pounding in her temples, and her heart was going crazy inside her breast. She took the deep breaths she knew would help counteract the rage. She could not lose it. She had to bide her time. Take what came, calm, thoughtful, and unafraid. Come on, Claire, get it together.
In time, they reached a little grassy valley scooped out of heavily wooded hillsides. Smack-dab in the center was a long blacktopped airstrip. A sleek private jet was lined up at one end, ready to take off. The helicopter pilot sat the helo down at one side of it, innocently ready to deliver his lone passenger and collect his fee. He flipped the switch to stop the rotors, but they continued twisting slowly. The loud noise was gone and everything seemed very quiet and foreboding. Nobody moved around the plane or anywhere else on the tarmac.
The stooge pilot took off his headphones and sunglasses. “Okay, Ms. Morgan. They told me to tell you to get out and walk toward the plane, ma’am. Said they’d have the steps down and ready for you to board. Glad to get an opportunity to serve you.” He smiled, real big and happy, already counting his money. Totally unaware that he was in a life-and-death situation.
“Yeah, right,” Claire said. She looked at him a mo
ment and then out at the deserted plane. “Do yourself a favor, Mr. Keaton, and take off right now, as soon as I get out. These guys are dangerous and unpredictable. Trust me. I know them.”
“The lady I dealt with seemed nice enough. You know, your redheaded friend. She said the two of you were good buddies at UCLA. And I really need to collect my fee. Business is slow. But you have a nice day now.”
“I don’t think nice is in my future.”
Claire climbed out slowly and stood for a moment beside the door, surveying the field. It still had that strange silence going on, nothing moving, no cars coming down the road at the end of the runway, no psycho girls brandishing saps, no gun-toting goons. She remembered the pictures of Black’s plane exploding in a fireball. She wondered if that was the plan. Kill her on film and torture Black by making him watch her go inside that plane and die moments later inside a fiery inferno. They’d already pulled that trick on her, sending her into a grieving tailspin when she’d thought Black had died in an explosion, along with deceiving all the rest of Black’s friends and family. It could very well be that. If nobody else was on that plane, hell yes, she was gonna take a big leap out the door and run for the hills. Keaton still sat in the pilot’s seat, holding a clipboard and totaling up his bill and not looking at her, so she started walking slowly toward the shiny black Learjet.
Halfway there, Jaxy herself appeared in the cabin door and then ran lightly down the lowered steps. She appeared very agile and athletic. Okay, Claire wasn’t going to die yet. Not in an explosion, anyhow. Two great big guys followed Jaxy out, both well over six feet and beefy and frowning. They had on jeans and Tshirts. Very casual and unthreatening, just innocent as little lambs. One of them had black curly hair in a long ponytail and a huge tat of a roaring lion on his bare forearm. The other guy had short blond hair and a severe case of sunburn that had started to peel and a Chicago Cubs cap. They looked like prison inmates who were trying to fit in at a Cardinals baseball game, right before they robbed the concession stand.
Jaxy looked more stylish. She had on tight indigo skinny jeans and black knee boots and a sleeveless T-shirt that you could see through. She didn’t have on a bra and her nipples were hard with excitement. Her arms were as freckled as her face. The two men immediately flanked Claire, one on each side. Psycho Girl was grinning like she was going to have one helluva good time torturing Claire, and the sooner the better. As if her pink sap was all warmed up and ready to cut hunks out of flesh. Her big, ugly companions looked wary and afraid she was going to hit them with it. She had a feeling that everybody was afraid of Jacinda Soquet. Even her father and brother.
Claire stopped walking. She was absolutely itching to pull out her nine millimeter and shoot all of them down, blam, blam, blam, with maybe an extra blam between Jaxy’s cruel eyes. But she could not, so she didn’t. There would be others aboard, anyway, to send word ahead: Doublecross. Kill Black. Make him suffer first.
“Well, hello, beautiful,” Jaxy trilled out to Claire, still smiling and showing lots of little white piranha teeth and swinging her long red braids all around. She looked like Pippi Longstocking on steroids and speed and with a bad case of the measles.
“Well, hello, bitch,” said Claire, just as sweetly.
The two men glanced quickly at Jaxy, as if very afraid she would go sap-happy and kill Claire on the spot. But the tall girl just laughed merrily, oh, so pleased with herself, and insanity in general, it seemed. Or maybe it was murder that caused the happy in her case, just killing, anybody and everybody, anywhere, anyplace, anytime. Fun, fun, and more bloody fun.
“You are such a little dickens, now aren’t you, Claire?” Jaxy said in her accented English. Black’s report said she’d been educated in a California prep school and then UCLA so her English was really good. Americanized. “Lie down on your stomach, if you please. Spread-eagled, hands out to the side.”
Claire observed the trio of crazies. “Know what? I don’t think I want to do that. So sorry.”
The girl wasn’t one to hide her reactions. Her face was as readable as the New York Times. She was quite obviously surprised at Claire’s refusal to cooperate. She hesitated, but only for a fraction of a second. “Okay, then. As you wish.”
She gave a toss of her head, flapping both braids to one side, and the two men advanced on Claire and grabbed her arms. As she stood staring defiantly at the girl she hated with a purple passion, they frisked her quickly and roughly and found all her weapons. Then they forced her arm behind her back and pushed her down on the ground with a very hard knee pressed into her spine. Then the bigger one, the guy with long curly black hair, pulled out some kind of digital wand thing, and started moving it slowly up and down her body. Oh, God, they were checking for GPS chips right off the bat. But they hadn’t found one of Black’s, so maybe they weren’t so good at it. Maybe they’d miss hers, too. Maybe her luck would hold. She was lucky sometimes, not usually, rarely, but she could hope.
“Hey! What the hell are you guys doing? Let her up! Now, or I’m calling the cops!”
That was poor Roger Keaton, the still clueless helicopter pilot, being a hero, a decent person, coming to Claire’s rescue. Claire didn’t have time to warn him off because Jaxy just drew out her weapon, a chrome-colored Ruger semiautomatic pistol, and opened up on him, hitting him at midchest in a tight pattern of four shots that put him down, dead as a doornail before he hit the ground.
About that time, the wand beeped shrilly, and Claire started struggling against their hold, but the other guy with short blond hair and the sunburn jerked out a knife, flicked it open, and sliced the chip out from behind her knee. Claire gritted her teeth as he dug it out without an iota of finesse or concern for her pain, but she didn’t make a sound.
“Naughty, naughty little tough girl,” said Psycho Bitch. “You just might need a spanking with my belt if you don’t behave your little self.”
The blond guy jerked her over on her back and held her down with both hands, while she struggled to throw him off, and Lion Tattoo continued scanning her body for chips. Claire grimaced, as he grabbed a fistful of her hair and moved the wand slowly over her face and head. Please, please, don’t let them find it. But a second later, the wand began to beep again, and then she felt the knife again, slicing into her scalp behind her right ear, painfully digging out the chip that was designed to save her life. Unless Black’s chip was still sending signals, she was pretty much dead now. So was Black.
“My, my, tricky, tricky, tricky. And I can see right now that you are going to be a real handful. Aren’t you, sugar?” Jaxy said to her, as Lion Tat let go of Claire’s hair and shoved her away.
“Want me to check her again?” he asked, looking up at Jaxy. His accent was French-tinged English, too, but his accent had something else in it, too. Something she didn’t quite recognize. Guttural and hard.
Then they grabbed Claire’s arms again and jerked her back up onto her feet, leaving her backpack lying on the ground. They marched her between them to the waiting aircraft and up the steps to the cabin door. Claire went in without a fight, knowing she had no choice.
Chapter Five
When Will Novak watched Claire climb onto that helicopter at Cedar Bend Lodge and fly off with no backup whatsoever, he was pretty sure she was going to end up dead. He had hated the idea of her going off by herself from the beginning, but he knew she had no choice and had shown a helluva lot of guts to do it. She did it because she loved Nick. Novak understood how a person could love somebody that much, and only too well.
Booker’s simplistic plan for extraction didn’t sit well with Novak, either, or anything else about the whole damn stupid scenario. Although he did understand Claire’s reasons, truth was she never should have gotten onto that helo. Nick Black had been right when he had demanded that she be left behind when and if he was ever captured. She was nothing now but the enemy’s prime pawn to use against Nick, human bait, human sacrifice, and they all knew what the bait was for. Even Nick had for
eseen that. And soon, Black just might have to watch the woman he loves die in front of his eyes, helpless to do a damn thing about it.
As soon as the chopper had flown out of sight, Will grabbed his gear and weapons of choice, a Colt AR 7.62 NATO with a Leupold VX-3 scope, and his personal .45 handgun, a Kimber 1911, and followed John Booker and Jack Holliday out to Black’s silver and black Humvee. They had to get to the airstrip quickly. They had to get Jack’s plane in the air and follow Claire’s signal. And they had better stay close to her if they intended to intervene if things at her end got dicey. Just as soon as anything went wrong, and it sure as hell was gonna go wrong. He knew that in his gut. Had similar sensations in the past when on his SEAL missions, and he had usually been right on. His companions knew the same thing in their guts, both of them. Even Claire knew it. She was just too brave a girl for her own good. He hadn’t known her all that long, but he had already seen it happen several times. She had guts all right.
Not long after they boarded Jack’s big private jet, they lost Claire’s GPS signal.
“They found her chips, both of ’em,” Jack said, staring hard at the monitor, as if he could make her signals reappear by force of will. He looked like he couldn’t quite believe it had gone so wrong and so fast. Then his expression changed to horror at what he assumed was gonna happen to Claire now.
Novak cursed inside. This was bad, and the worst part was that there was nothing he could do about it.
“She’s on her own now,” Booker said, but his face was creased with worried lines. “They’re gonna use her against Nick. They’re gonna threaten her to coerce him into doing whatever they want him to do. We all know that. She knew that.”
Novak shook his head. They were wasting too much time. “Yeah, we all do. We took a stupid chance, and now they’ve got her. And they’re taking her straight to him.” He turned to Booker. “You do know how to find him, right? So let’s get this goddamn plane in the air. They’ve got to be headed to Marseilles if they want to taunt Nick with her. And they can’t be that far ahead of us. We’ve got to get there, too, right behind them. Otherwise, Claire and Nick will both be dead by the time we go in.”