by Kara Lennox
She was so close to Lily now, she could almost feel the baby in her arms. Maybe Lily was in Peter’s car. She stood on tiptoe and tried to peer over the food shelves, but she was too short.
“One minute,” Peter said. “Diapers.”
“In the very back,” the clerk said in a bored voice, completely oblivious to the relationship between his two customers.
This time Peter headed straight down the center aisle—straight for her. She kept her gaze resolutely toward the snacks. He brushed past her with a murmured “Excuse me.” She almost let herself breathe.
Then his footsteps slowed, and stopped. There was a squeak of rubber sole as he pivoted around. She dared a peek sideways at him, and he was staring at her with malevolent green eyes.
Could she possibly pretend this was a coincidence? But she could tell from the expression on his face that he already knew it wasn’t. Before she could do anything—scream, fight, run—he grabbed her and held her in a headlock. She flailed harmlessly, succeeding only in dashing a row of chips to the floor.
“Don’t make any noise,” he growled into her ear. “I’ve got a gun pointed at your head.”
“Hey!” The clerk had apparently noticed the struggle.
Peter’s reaction was immediate and violent. He extended his arm, and he was indeed holding a gun, a huge Smith & Wesson .45.
“Hands up, and do not even think about hitting an alarm button. We are leaving, and if you are smart you will live to tell your children about this.”
The clerk thrust his arms skyward, utterly terrified.
While Peter’s attention was on the clerk, Nadia con tinued to struggle, but she stilled when he brought the gun back to her head. “Be still.”
“You won’t kill me,” Nadia said, praying that by some miracle, Rex was paying attention, had been watching her. He was protective of her. But his priority would be the job, so his attention was more likely to be on the houses he was supposed to be watching. “You need me.”
“I’ll kill you if that’s what it takes to survive. But then what will happen to poor Lily? Orphan girls don’t fare well in Russia.”
Nadia immediately ceased struggling. She couldn’t bear to think of Lily neglected in some orphanage. “All right, I’ll go with you,” she said softly.
Peter shifted his grip to an armlock, guiding her along almost effortlessly. The slightest hesitation on her part brought excruciating pain to her shoulder and elbow, and she knew he could break it with only a small effort. The clerk followed their departure with terrified eyes, and she felt a moment of pity for him, for the helplessness he must be feeling.
At the last moment, Peter fired his gun. The large mirror behind the clerk shattered and the clerk fell, or ducked, Nadia wasn’t sure which. She hoped he hadn’t been hit. It would be on her head if anything happened to that poor boy.
Peter dragged her to his vehicle, a beat-up white minivan. He opened the back door, obviously intending to toss her inside. Self-preservation instincts kicked in and Nadia renewed her struggles, hoping to somehow break free. But Peter hit her in the head with the gun, and blackness engulfed her.
Chapter Eleven
Rex knew he’d been a jerk. But he’d thought for sure they were about to break the case and bring Lily home. The signs had looked good. Maybe he’d been too optimistic, too anxious to be Nadia’s hero. Maybe he hadn’t read the signs with realistic expectations.
After his failure, his frustrations had bubbled to the surface, and he’d taken it out on Nadia, who truthfully hadn’t done anything to jeopardize the operation. She’d been two houses away, and so well concealed he’d almost walked right by her. Although he still believed team members should follow orders, he had to give her high marks for chutzpah.
If this was the way he treated a woman he thought he was falling in love with, how badly had he treated the others? No wonder they didn’t stick around. Maybe he needed more therapy, much as he resisted. Was there a special therapy for a sexist bastard with a bad attitude? A twelve-step program?
He’d just settled in to resume his watch on the target houses when he heard the shot.
There was no mistaking it. It wasn’t a car backfire or a firecracker. It was a gun, and the report had come from the direction of the gas station where Nadia had gone.
He started up the van and careened onto Dupree toward the gas station. “Gunfire at the Conoco station, Dupree and 42nd. I’m checking it out. Nadia’s in there. Over.”
“On my way,” said Craig. “I heard it, too. Wait, it’s coming over the police radio now. A holdup—no, a kidnapping!”
Nadia! Rex’s stomach sank even as his adrenaline surged high enough to give him a heart attack. As he pulled into traffic, he saw a white minivan speed out of the gas station parking lot at an alarming speed, tires screeching.
“I’m in pursuit of a white Dodge minivan,” he shouted into the walkie-talkie. “Texas plates, I’m not close enough to see the number. Heading east on 42nd Street.” He gunned the van, and though Lori had made a few modifications to the beast to give it more get-up-and-go, it was not built for speed, especially going uphill, and the minivan was already putting distance between them.
Once it crested the hill, the Peepmobile picked up speed again. The minivan had slowed. Perhaps Peter was trying not to call attention to himself. If he could blend into traffic now, and no one got his plate numbers, he could get away. Rex dropped back farther, not wanting to spook him. Peter might not know he’d been followed.
If it was Peter. If this was even the right vehicle. Maybe the driver was simply an innocent bystander who’d heard shooting and gotten the hell out of there.
“Craig, I need info,” Rex said into the headset radio, which had only a short range. “I’m almost out of range. Let’s move to the CB.”
They were back in touch moments later. “I’ve still got the white minivan in view,” Rex said. “I need to know if I have the right vehicle.” Craig, being on the police force, would be the best bet for getting accurate information in this situation.
“Stay on that van,” Craig shot back. “According to the clerk, it was a man with a Russian accent, and he kidnapped a pretty girl with black hair and a hooded sweatshirt. He threw her into a white minivan.”
“I’m tailing him, and I’m not sure he knows I’m here. I could use some backup.” He provided the intersection he’d just passed.
“We’re on our way,” said Lori, who had apparently taken over communications.
“Me, too,” Beau chimed in. “We’ll tag team him.”
It was an exercise Beau and Rex had practiced often enough, taking turns tailing a suspect so he wouldn’t spot any one car too often.
Unfortunately, Peter noticed Rex behind him before they could put their tailing plan into action. Rex knew the minute he’d been spotted. The minivan suddenly accelerated, then made a series of dazzling twists and turns, moving with surprising speed and agility.
There was no way Rex could keep up for long, and the minivan was getting farther and farther ahead of him.
“I’m dying here, I need help.” Beau’s souped-up Mustang would come in handy for this kind of chase. Rex related street names as they passed by in a blur, and after what seemed like an eternity he saw the black muscle car behind him.
Moments later it screeched past him.
“He turned left about six blocks up!” Rex yelled into the radio. Another few seconds, and the Mustang turned, also. By the time Rex made the turn, both cars were out of sight. “Do you have him?”
Beau’s answer was a series of curses that would have embarrassed a longshoreman. “He had too big a lead on me. I never even saw him.”
They roamed the neighborhood independently for a few minutes, hoping to get lucky and stumble upon the van, but Rex knew with sick certainty that it was a lost cause. Peter had gotten away.
Nadia was gone.
Damn, he should have anticipated that risk. He shouldn’t have allowed Nadia to let herself be so visible right in P
eter’s backyard. Granted, it had involved supreme bad luck that Peter had picked that moment to buy gas at his neighborhood station, but any operative worth his salt counted on supreme bad luck.
His only consolation was that Peter wouldn’t kill Nadia, not so long as he believed there was any chance Nadia would give him what he wanted. She had sworn to Rex she wouldn’t cave in to Peter’s demands, under any circumstances. But now that she was under her ex-husband’s control, all bets were off. If he was connected to the Russian Mafia, which was a definite possibility, he was in the company of people who knew how to make reluctant hostages cooperate.
Rex didn’t even want to consider what means they might use.
“We’ll never find him this way,” Beau said.
“Let’s meet at the office,” Rex returned wearily. “Plan our next move.”
“What about the houses on Dupree?” Beau asked. “Peter probably won’t be dumb enough to return, knowing how close Nadia was to his hideout. But what if her baby and the rat-faced woman are still there?”
Damn. Rex had been so focused on Nadia’s fate, he’d almost forgotten about Lily. They might still be able to recover Nadia’s baby. Then they would only need to focus on one hostage.
But Craig’s next words dashed his hopes. “Witnesses reported seeing a woman with a baby in the van. They’re all together.”
And they had all slipped through the net.
ACE WAS ON HIS WAY HOME from the airport when the kidnapping occurred, and Gavin was in his car on his way back from Dallas. The two men joined the war party at the First Strike office. Rex had a full complement of experienced bounty hunters at his disposal, a seasoned detective in Craig, plus Lori and her estimable computer hacking skills.
In addition, the Payton Police Department had opened an official investigation into what they were calling a foiled robbery and subsequent kidnapping. While Craig drove back to First Strike, he’d been on the phone trying to find out what all the police knew.
“At this point, their information is thin,” Craig re ported to the group. “They have sketchy descriptions of the van, the suspect and the victim.”
“Any video surveillance?” Rex asked.
Craig shook his head. “The store had a video camera, but it was incorrectly aimed, so all they got were pictures of the clerk.”
Ace shook his head. “Idiots.”
“So the question is, do we tell them what we know?” Beau asked. “Give them names, descriptions, motives? The police could get the information out to the media.”
They all looked at Rex, putting the decision on him.
“Who’s in charge of the kidnapping case?” he asked Craig.
“You’re not going to like it.”
Everyone in the room groaned. “Not Lyle Palmer,” Rex said, voicing everyone’s worst fears.
“’Fraid so.”
Lori made an exasperated sound. “Who is that guy sleeping with to get assigned every high-profile crime to hit Payton?”
Rex envisioned going to Lyle and telling him the whole story. He would have to hold back the part about the Petro-Nano, of course. Nadia had trusted him with that information, and nothing in the world would make him betray that trust. But Lyle would want to know the motive for the kidnapping.
Rex could pass it off as a domestic crime, a spurned ex-husband trying to get his wife and kid back. That might work.
“He’ll screw it up,” Gavin said, as if he could read Rex’s thoughts. “Bet on it.”
“I haven’t exactly done stellar work the last day and a half,” Rex said.
“Maybe we should go higher up,” Lori suggested. “Homeland Security.”
“It would take forever to work our way through Homeland Security to get to someone who could actually do something,” Rex said. “We might not have that long. Originally Peter specified midnight tomorrow as his deadline. But now that he has Nadia…” He let his voice trail off.
“Is Peter looking for information?” Ace asked Rex. “Or a physical thing?”
“It’s a physical thing,” Rex answered. “Which means she has to go to JanCo to get it. And even if she only pretends to comply with Peter’s demands, she might well go there to buy herself some time.”
“I know the security director at JanCo,” Ace said, which was typical. Ace knew everybody—he had an incredible database of contacts ranging from foreign dictators to the guy who sold newspapers downtown. He remembered their names and their kids’ names, probably their pets, too. “We could bring him in.”
“If we’re planning to launch any kind of operation at JanCo, we have to bring him in,” Beau said. And again, they looked at Rex.
He nodded. Rex was relieved that the others hadn’t urged him to turn this case over to the Payton cops or government agencies. On one hand, it would be a relief for someone else to take over responsibility for saving Nadia and Lily. On the other hand, he knew everyone on this team, knew they were some of the most intelli gent, capable operatives he’d ever worked with. Even Gavin, who was Beau’s brother-in-law and had been hired right out of prison to do skip-tracing, had quickly proved himself indispensable and was now a full member of the team.
Given the kind of small-scale operation they were contemplating, he would pit his team against anybody, anywhere. They had the experience, the equipment and firsthand knowledge of Peter and Nadia.
“I’ll make the call,” Ace said.
NADIA WAS FIRST AWARE of a dull, throbbing ache in her head and the taste of blood in her mouth. She’d bitten her tongue, she realized, gently running the injury along her teeth to see how bad it was.
Gradually, as full consciousness returned, she discovered she was tied up, her hands behind her, and she was in a moving vehicle. She knew she should be frightened out of her wits, but she was so consumed with trying to remember how she’d gotten here that her fears were merely nibbling at the edge of consciousness.
Then she remembered in a rush—Peter. He’d spotted her at the mini-mart. She didn’t remember exactly what had happened, but clearly she’d been knocked out, so a slight memory loss would be normal. Nana had been hit in the head once and had lost an entire week. Nadia supposed she was lucky she’d only lost a few minutes. At least, she thought that was all.
Now, to the present. Peter had kidnapped her. Had Rex seen? Or had he been focused on the 4200 block of Dupree Street, oblivious to events occurring just up the block? By the time he missed her, she could be miles away.
She had a blanket over her, but since she’d been trussed up like a rodeo calf she couldn’t toss it off, couldn’t move at all. Maybe it would be best if she feigned unconsciousness, if she made Peter believe he’d injured her more severely than was the case.
She listened. A car radio played a news station. The car rolled along smoothly, not stopping for lights, so they weren’t in city traffic. Where was he taking her? Would she be hauled out to the countryside and executed? If Peter had determined she’d double-crossed him, he might not be satisfied with merely killing her. And what about Lily?
As she lay there, despair washed over her. But at least she knew one thing: Lily was still alive, and she was being cared for. Why else would Peter have been buying milk and diapers?
She heard a noise, and her ears strained to identify it. Was it—could it be?—then she heard it again.
Lily! Her baby was in the car with her, only a few feet away, and she was fretting. It was all Nadia could do not to cry out to her child.
“Oh, God, would you just shut up?” an annoyed female voice said. It was the rat-faced woman, Peter’s girlfriend. “I swear, all this kid does is eat, pee and cry.”
Peter laughed. “That’s what all babies do, Denise.”
“No wonder I never want kids.”
“You don’t strike me as the maternal kind,” he agreed.
“So what are we going to do with her?” Denise asked, and Nadia knew she was no longer talking about Lily. “What if you killed her?”
“I didn�
�t hit her hard enough to kill her. She’ll come around.”
“Then what?”
“Then we do what we should have done in the first place. We make her bring us a sample of the stuff.”
“She hasn’t done it yet. She was trying to double-cross you. We already know she has help.”
“If that one guy in the beat-up van is the best she can do, we have nothing to worry about.”
A guy in a beat-up van could only be Rex. That was encouraging—at least he knew what had happened to her. He’d seen the car Peter was driving. If there was ever a time to bring in the police, this would be it. If Peter got pulled over now, the game would be up.
But clearly no one was chasing them now. And Peter would no doubt ditch this vehicle at the first opportunity.
Her theory proved itself out a few minutes later. The car they were in pulled to a stop, and Peter cut the engine. Without saying much, they got out, opened a back door, and together wrestled Nadia out. She did her best to go completely limp. Nana Tania had once told her that the key to pretending you were asleep was to slacken your eyes and your jaw. She ordered every muscle to soften, and she slowed her breathing.
“Is she alive?” Denise asked fearfully.
“Yes, she’s alive,” Peter said impatiently. “I’ve got her. You get to work wiping down the van.”
Nadia was dumped in the trunk of another car. But she’d gotten a glimpse of both vehicles when the wind had whipped her blanket aside briefly. Not that she thought the knowledge would help much, but she’d just been put into the trunk of a gold Lincoln Town Car, an older model.
Nadia had also seen where they were parked, but that wasn’t any use. They were in a rural area, a field. She’d seen no identifying landmarks.
The Lincoln’s trunk backed right up against the back seats, so Nadia could hear some of the conversation going on up front once they took off again.
“Can’t we go back to Vlad’s house?” Denise asked in a whining voice. “I’m tired of staying in dumps.”
“Vlad would kill us if we brought hostages to his place. That’s what we have safe houses for.”