Noella Chu hissed something under her breath. She couldn’t afford a miscalculation.
“If you’re lying to me, trying to stall, I’ll kill you. Don’t test me.”
“Oh my God, no, I swear,” Penny insisted.
“Take me to your car.”
Penny fumbled with her keys and then unlocked the doors to a white Kia minivan. Noella Chu climbed in on the passenger side and ordered her to drive.
“Where are we going?” Penny asked, backing the Kia from the parking space.
“We are going to find your brothers.”
Penny looked incredulous. “But I told you, I don’t know where they are.”
“Sooner or later they will answer the satellite phone, and when they do, they will tell me exactly where to find them or their sister will die.”
CHAPTER 87
After the disappearance of Sidney and Robin, Gaston Dunbar had realized it was only a matter of time before they came for him. Only a matter of time before they grabbed him, locked him in a cell and threw away the key. He’d known they were watching, that his every move was monitored. He should have run immediately, but he waited too long. He should have disappeared while he had the chance.
Because of his hesitation he was forced to plan for the inevitable. He had to look into the future and analyze his options.
The most important thing was to hide the money. His precious five hundred million dollars. Stash it somewhere. Somewhere far from the eyes and hands of the Feds. Someplace where he could easily retrieve it, if and when the opportunity arose.
He hid it well, outside the country, buried deep in the databases of foreign banks in numbered accounts. With the touch of a button his millions had raced across thousands of miles of fiber optics, leaving Los Angeles and scattering around the globe.
And then, just as he had foreseen, they caught him and locked him away.
His master plan had come to him in a dream, in the darkness of his cell. It came to him like a vision, clear and real and fully formed. In the dream he watched the layers of the plan unfolding. All the players were present, their roles clearly defined. It had unspooled in his subconscious like a Shakespearian drama. Perfectly calculated, from beginning to end, like a gift from God.
Dunbar had awakened in a state of euphoria. The smells and sounds of San Quentin had fallen away. His eyes had fluttered open. He could remember every detail, every face, every nuance of the plan. He knew it would work, and he knew it would require tremendous patience and discipline. All he had to do was wait for the perfect moment. Wait for all the pieces to fall into place.
And now, finally, the time had come.
Gaston Dunbar was scheduled to be executed by means of lethal injection in less than forty-eight hours, yet he was sleeping like a baby.
CHAPTER 88
A few hundred miles to the northwest of Las Vegas, Archer crawled on his knees through the mud and brush, making his way forward an inch at a time. Through the night-vision goggles he could see movement in the distance. He was trying to get a better look without giving himself away. He saw two men heading east with automatic weapons.
Rain pattered around him. He folded the bipod down from the barrel of his rifle but couldn’t get a lock on them with the scope. He raised his head, gazed out through the green field of view of the night-vision goggles, and momentarily lost track of them. Then he saw a flash of movement and again spotted the dark forms moving through the gnarled trees and scrub.
Archer didn’t want to let them get ahead of him. He didn’t want to waste his energy playing catch-up. He needed to get close to them and get the job done while he was still between them and the bunker. He pushed up off the ground into a crouch and swung the rifle out of his way on its sling. He moved low to the ground through the shadows and rain.
The Motorola he’d stolen from the dead mercenary crackled as the storm raged. Communication between the remaining nine was sparse. Archer listened carefully. He was picking up names. They were using the military alphabet to identify one another. They were calling to someone named Echo, but Echo wasn’t responding. Archer quickly came to the conclusion that he had blown Echo’s head off. From the sounds of things, Alpha was the team lead. Archer filed that away.
He traversed down the slope of a ridge, closing the distance to them. They were angling to cross his path. He settled in against the landscape. They came toward him. He raised the Beretta and aimed it. Echo had been wearing a Kevlar vest, so Archer had to go with the assumption that they all were. It had to be a headshot, which was not an easy thing in the dark and in the rain.
The first shot was dead on. A single bang. The muzzle flash popping between flashes of lightening. He caught the mercenary nearest him in the throat, blood spouting into the gloom. The man dropped to his back on the ground like dead weight. He groaned and coughed, making a wet gagging sound.
Archer made an instantaneous adjustment, reset his aim, moving the gun two clicks to the right. Pulled the trigger again. A second bang. A good solid shot that ripped open the second man’s shoulder, squirreling him around but not taking him down. The second man then dropped to find shelter.
Archer did not move. He could hear the first man gagging for breath, dying a painful death by suffocation. The two blasts had lit up the night-vision goggles with blinding flashes. Archer blinked rapidly, desperate to clear his vision.
Suddenly the rat-tat-tat of automatic gunfire seared through the rain, bullets pocking the mud around him. The second man was engaging him, firing blindly. Archer could see only the blur of the muzzle flashes. Archer fired toward the light.
The clatter of gunfire faded into the rain. Thunder rolled. Lightening banged in the distance. Archer was nearly deaf from the huge bang of his Beretta. He could smell the tang of the spent rounds. Silence returned.
Archer listened, straining to pick up any sounds of movement, but heard nothing. He carefully rose to his feet and approached the first man down. The mercenary lay on his back. His head lay in a pool of blood, his throat destroyed. He had suffocated, his mouth open, a hand clutching at his wrecked windpipe.
The second man was nearby among the bushes. He’d slumped onto his side, his forehead peeled open.
Archer staggered several steps away.
Three down.
CHAPTER 89
Archer listened to them talk. They had heard the shots. He listened to the discussion as each of the men reported in. He learned what he could, and applied that to what he already knew, but he wasn’t prepared for what Tango had to say.
“Tango to Team Lead.”
“This is Team Lead,” Alpha said. “Go ahead, Tango.”
“I’ve exited the mountains. I’m at the desert floor and I’ve come across a metal panel that I believe is some kind of door.”
“What kind of door?”
“Not sure. Appears to lead underground.”
“Will it open?” Alpha said.
“Negative. I’ll have to use a grenade and blast my way in.”
“Copy that,” Alpha said. “Proceed and use whatever force necessary.”
CHAPTER 90
“Raj? Simeon? Do you copy?”
Both men responded.
“One of them has reached the doors to the bunker,” Archer said. “Can you see him?”
“Negative,” Simeon answered. “The storm is killing visibility. I will have to move down off this ridge to get a better view.”
“Do it! Hurry!”
“From my position I can’t see anywhere near the doors,” Raj said.
“How did he get around you guys?”
“I don’t have a good answer to that,” Raj said. “He must have landed to the south of us.”
“Somebody get over there!” Archer said.
“I’m on my way,” Simeon answered.
* * *
Simeon put his arms out for balance. The rifle shifted against his back as he edged carefully around a protruding rock escarpment. His trek up the ridge in search o
f a satisfactory perch had placed him in a saddle with a poor view of the outlying desert plain. It was going to take a few minutes to make his way back. He groped along the muddy slope. The intersecting ridgelines were like a maze, and the storm was disorienting. He realized he was getting turned around.
He stood in the rain, studying his compass. He couldn’t have traveled far. He slapped the compass shut and scrabbled toward the crest of the ridge before him.
CHAPTER 91
Tango set his Heckler & Koch MP5 aside and leaned it against the mound that the metal panel doors were set into. He studied the doors as he probed his fingers down the middle seam. The metal was slick with rain and grit. He hammered on one of the panels with the back of a gloved fist to get some idea of the density of the steel.
Tango inspected the seam running down the centerline again, heaved against it, the ropy muscles of his arms bulging through his wet shirt. Thick veins stood out from his neck. His fingers probed the outer edges. The door measured perhaps ten feet from top to bottom, and fifteen across. It was set into the earth at a forty-five degree angle. It looked like it had been there awhile.
He pulled a grenade from a pouch on his hip and rested his bodyweight against the rain-slicked surface where the seam split it in two. He unwrapped a stick of stiff brown putty and molded the lump onto the rounded shell of the grenade. He then pressed the putty side of the grenade against the door at the seam. He eased his hand away. The explosive remained adhered in place. All he had to do was pull the pin and stand clear.
But he didn’t get the chance.
The shot hit him high in the chest and spun him around. It rocked him backward off the door and off his feet.
* * *
Simeon didn’t move. He was an old pro. Kept his eye to the scope, his finger on the trigger, ready to take a follow-up shot. He watched through the gloom and rain, confident that he had made the kill.
* * *
“There it is again,” Wyatt said. “Hear it?”
He was standing on the fourth step up, one hand on the rail. He listened again to the ringing sound, then turned to glance back into the secure room for reactions from his mother and sister.
Ramey was still seated on the floor, her arms hugged over her chest.
Lindsay stood several steps safely back from the open door, glaring sourly at her son.
“Come back inside. I don’t want to tell you again,” she said.
“But Mom, I hear something. Some kind of beeping or ringing noise.”
“I don’t care, Wyatt.”
“You’d hear it too if you just came out here where I’m standing. Please, just for a second.”
“Archer told us to stay in here, and that’s what we’re going to do.”
Wyatt extended up on tiptoes, most of his weight shifting to the handrail, straining to peek around the corner of the wall toward whatever was making the curious sound.
“Wyatt, I said now!”
“Huh…” He ignored her.
“Wyatt, I’m not going to tell you again.”
“I think it’s a telephone.”
She sighed, not really listening to him.
“What? You think what is what?”
“That beeping. It’s like a phone, like a ringing phone. They have phones down here, you think?
“I don’t know, but you need to get back in here with us where it’s – ” but she bit off her thought. Wyatt had disappeared. Lindsay took four long strides into the open doorway, staring up the stairs into the upper lever of the bunker.
“Wyatt!”
Ramey sighed.
“Just let him go, Mom.”
But Lindsay clamored quickly up the steps, the metal clanking underfoot. She reached the landing and craned her neck around. She didn’t see him but she heard the beeping sound for the first time. It was a sequence of digital chirps like a cell phone ringing. She frowned.
“Wyatt?”
The sound was coming from down the corridor, past the kitchen and beyond the library. Lindsay’s impatience was ratcheting up.
“Wyatt?” she said again.
“In here.”
She found him in the camera monitoring room. Wyatt was standing at the long table holding a black cordless telephone in his hands. He was staring at it, inspecting it.
“What is that?”
He glanced up at her.
“It’s like…I don’t know, some kind of funky telephone,” he said.
The ringing had suddenly stopped.
“Give it to me,” she said.
He handed it to his mother.
She’d never seen anything quite like it. Kind of bulky, like a primitive mobile phone circa the 1980s. It was clunky and ugly, with a thick six-inch antennae extending out the top.
“I think it’s a satellite phone,” Wyatt said.
Lindsay pursed her lips and gave a small shrug. She set the satellite phone down on the table.
“Is this where you found it?”
Wyatt nodded.
“Yup.”
“OK, then. Leave it alone and let’s get back downstairs.”
“Oh, whatever,” Wyatt said.
She motioned him out of the room.
Then it rang again.
Lindsay froze and glanced back down at the table. Wyatt spun around to face her, the rubber soles of his sneakers squeaking on the concrete floor, his facing brightening.
“See, I told you,” he said. “Somebody’s trying to call.”
“I…do…not…care. I said leave it.” She pointed at the door. “Go back downstairs.”
She stood in the doorway and watched him slink back toward the secure room. Then she turned back, standing at the table, staring at the satellite phone as it continued to ring.
Lindsay picked it up. Pressed the TALK button and raised it to her ear.
“Hello?” she said.
“Who is this?” a woman’s voice asked.
Lindsay hesitated to respond.
“Where are they? Where are Raj and Simeon?” the voice asked.
Lindsay pushed a hand through her hair, glanced at the door.
“They aren’t here,” she said.
“Where is Archer?”
Lindsay frowned, stunned to hear Archer’s name mentioned in such peculiar context.
“Who am I speaking to?” she asked.
Then Lindsay heard a rustling sound, like the phone was changing hands. She heard muted voices.
“Hello?” Lindsay said again.
A new voice came on the line, again female.
“Are you Lindsay Hammond?” the voice asked.
Lindsay felt her chest fill with ice. She stopped breathing. She couldn’t bring herself to answer.
“Lindsay?” came the question again.
“But…how could you have…” Lindsay stuttered, her thought trailing away into utter mystification.
“Lindsay, please listen very carefully to me. I need you to give Raj and Simeon a message. Tell them their sister is in great danger. I need to speak to them. They can save her. I need to speak to them or she will die,” Noella Chu said.
Lindsay stood frozen, paralyzed by confusion and indecision.
“What is your name?”
“Tell them Penny is trying to reach them. That’s all that matters. I will call back. Tell them to be ready when I do.” The line went dead.
CHAPTER 92
They stood in the glare of bold overhead lights outside a gas station on the outskirts of the Las Vegas city limits. Noella Chu hung up the phone. It was an ancient payphone mounted to the crumbling brick on the exterior of the building.
Penny Lockwood was trembling. She was tired and confused and terrified. She simply couldn’t wrap her brain around what was happening, why this small woman was holding her at gunpoint and what she could possibly want from her brothers. Ryan Archer had contacted her only once. It had to be for a reason, and it had to be serious. Penny couldn’t imagine what sort of circumstance had put their lives o
n this collision course.
Noella Chu glanced at her Rolex. She stood for a moment, thinking, calculating. Then she glanced over at Penny.
“Get back in the car,” she said.
* * *
Lindsay stared numbly at the satellite phone, held it briefly away from her body as if it might be radioactive. Then she quickly dropped it on the table and she stepped away.
Both Simeon and Raj were outside the bunker. She had to find a way to reach them, to let them know that their sister was in some kind of danger. She remembered the rucksack Simeon had left for them in the secure room. She hurried back through the maze of low-ceilinged corridors and dropped down the metal stairs into the pulsing orange light. She nearly collided head-on with Wyatt who was standing lookout in the doorway.
“What the hell, Mom?” he said.
“Watch your mouth,” she scolded, rushing toward the stacked crates against the wall.
“What are you doing?” Ramey asked. She hadn’t moved an inch.
“Just…nevermind.” Lindsay tore back the canvas flap and dumped the contents, letting them spill out onto the wooden lid of the top crate. She grabbed the walkie. Then she grabbed the gun with her other hand and glared at it a short moment. She decided maybe she’d be better off with it than without it. She took a breath, then turned to her children. “I’ll be right back, okay?”
“I’m coming with you,” Wyatt said.
“Stay with your sister. I’ll be gone five minutes, tops. Do not set foot outside this door.”
He shrank away, leaned against a wall and stared at the floor.
“OK,” Lindsay said. “Sit tight.”
Wyatt cut his eyes toward his sister. She hadn’t moved. She sat on the floor with her knees pulled up, arms crossed over her chest, the pulse of the orange light radiating over her neck and face. She looked at him, expressionless, met his glare with her own, and shrugged.
* * *
Tango opened his eyes. He tried to estimate how long he’d been out. A few seconds? A minute? Ten minutes? One guess was as good as another. He lifted his arm from the mud at his side. His hand peeled up out of the muck with a wet sucking sound. He could feel the pain drilling through his chest. The pain pulsed. He raised his head off the ground a couple of inches, glanced down at his torso. No blood. The bullet had not penetrated the Kevlar vest.
72 Hours (A Thriller) Page 17