Maybe a dozen houses on either side, empty, windows boarded up. Where was everyone? She was in Europe. Had to be a town somewhere. A highway, a farm, a gas station, whatever, somewhere with a phone. Keep moving. Not too much weight on the leg.
She hoped at the top of the hill she’d see lights. She hoped she hadn’t wasted too much time, hoped Jacques and Lilly were out for a nice long dinner or doing whatever kidnappers did when they weren’t kidnapping. The bike seat had made her ache where she’d stuffed herself with the bottle, and remembering the bottle made her think of Rodrigo and—
No more thinking.
She had never felt so lonely.
At the crest of the hill, she mopped the sweat from her eyes, bit her hand against the pain in her leg. She wondered if the ankle was broken. It was swelling for sure, the bone disappearing under a glove of stretched-out skin. She touched it lightly, wished she hadn’t.
A thick black chain blocked the road ahead, metal signs attached to the posts, facing out. Warning against trespassing, probably. Beyond the chain, the road was paved, cracked but paved. They’d kept her at the end of the line, the outer edge of this failed development. Did they own it, or had Jacques just found it somehow, the Lonely Planet kidnapping boards?
More unfinished houses lay to the right. Beyond them, the land sloped down and she saw a cluster of lights. She couldn’t judge how far. Didn’t matter, she couldn’t possibly navigate open ground on one leg. Stick to the road.
She hobbled around the chain. Ahead the road dipped slightly, then rose. The next crest was maybe five hundred feet away.
Move. Move, Kira, move. Her mother’s voice.
The flatland wasn’t too bad. But when she had to climb, the steps sent fire up her leg, her ligaments giving more with each step. Sooner or later she would tear them off the bone and her pain tolerance wouldn’t matter, she’d be on her hands and knees no matter what.
Ten minutes to the top of the second hill? More? She didn’t know. At the top, she went to a knee. Wiped her face. Sweat and tears mixed. She’d been crying and hadn’t even known.
She pushed herself up. The land ahead was nearly flat, just a few low hills. The road cut straight across it. East, west, north, south? She didn’t know. She was a child of GPS and turn-by-turn directions. No one had ever taught her to read the stars.
Anyway, the road was empty on either side, no more houses. No wonder the development had failed. Why had they stuck it out here? Four widely separated clusters of lights glowed in the distance. Villages, she guessed. Closer, two miles ahead, maybe, red and white lights blurred through the night.
Taillights. Headlights. A highway. The one she’d heard before when the wind was right.
With the bike, she could have ridden to it in ten minutes. Less. Even without the bike if she hadn’t sprained her ankle she could have covered the distance in half an hour at most.
If, if, if. If she had an Uber waiting for her she’d be back in Barcelona already, hanging out on La Rambla with Becks and Bri and Tony, telling kidnapping stories. Then I shoved the polish remover bottle up my twat, ouchie, hilarious, right?
* * *
You want help? Get to the highway. Stop whining and move. Brian’s voice this time.
She walked again, faster now, putting the pain in a corner, loving the pain—
And saw a white blur pull off the highway. Headlights. The blur swung right. Onto this road.
Yes, someone was coming, help—
No.
Nobody good was driving down this road at this hour. Nobody was coming home to see the fam, hang out in the man cave. Jacques and Lilly had finished the night’s errands, setting up the auction or whatever—one tall American not-quite-virgin, do I hear eight million euros?—and were coming home to check on the merch.
She was in the worst possible place. She had to get off the road.
The land around her was barren, low scrub. Maybe seventy-five feet away, down a slope, there was a strand of bushes. Not heavy enough to hide her if they searched, but if they just drove by—
She hop-hobbled across the road, down the hill, moving as fast as she dared. If she tore her ankle she’d have to crawl and wouldn’t have a chance.
She kept her eyes on the bush, not the road, she didn’t want to know how fast they were coming—
Sixty feet, fifty—
Forty, thirty, twenty—
Ten—
The hill steepened a few extra degrees. Enough to throw her off. Her ruined left foot slid in the soft soil. The ligaments popped, she heard them go. The pain in her leg rose like someone had pushed the volume button on the remote and forgot to let go.
She screamed and dropped the knife and fell forward. Landed hard, flat on her face.
Crawl.
She grabbed the knife and crawled. She didn’t know what the bush was, but it had spiky green leaves and thorns. The branches hung low. She crawled around it, pulled her knees up, made herself small, tried not to think about the pain in her leg. She could see the road through it, which meant they could see her if they looked hard enough. But would they look at all?
She ran her hands through the crumbly dirt, smeared it across her face. Camouflage. No one had to teach her that one. The soil smelled faintly of sage. Surprise. Now she heard the car, saw its headlights tearing open the night. Closing fast. Not a car at all, a high-sided van, white, maybe the one they’d used to bring her here. It bounced along the rutted pavement.
Had she ditched the road fast enough?
She tucked the knife by her side. She couldn’t run anymore, but if Jacques came for her she still had a chance at putting the knife in him. If he killed her so be it, she’d die before she went back in that closet.
She tucked her head—
The van sped by, disappeared. She heard it stop at the chain. A door opened. Seconds later it slammed shut, and the van began to move again.
Okay, they were on their way to the house. In a minute or two they would find Rodrigo.
What then?
Would they take him to a hospital? Kira didn’t think so. Maybe they had a doctor they could call. But he wouldn’t be their priority. They’d have their eyes on the prize. Once they saw the bike and motorcycle were still in the garage they would know she had gone on foot.
But they couldn’t know she’d hurt herself, or how long she’d been gone. Even she couldn’t be sure. She thought no more than twenty minutes had passed since she’d trapped Rodrigo, but time had turned blurry, elastic. Rodrigo would be even more confused. Being newly blinded and all.
Jacques would have to worry maybe she’d already found a phone, called the cops. Maybe he’d just grab Rodrigo and run.
But she didn’t know who his bosses were. Maybe someone would be angry at him for losing her. Someone who could hurt him even more than the Spanish police. Then he’d have to look for her. And Mr. Magoo could follow the tracks she’d left.
What would he do if he found her?
Probably give her a prize for being so clever and resourceful, ha-ha.
Nothing she could do about it now. This bush was the best hiding spot within crawling distance. She smeared more dirt on her hands and face. In a way she was lucky, if she’d moved faster and been closer to the highway they might have seen her when they turned off.
They had to be at the house now.
She felt her heart fluttering, skipping beats. How did soldiers live with this fear every day? How did they not lose their minds? Her hand ached from gripping the knife.
She made herself count to twenty. Thought of her brother’s goofy smile. How her mom’s eyes had lit up when she’d seen the piano in the apartment in Barcelona. Of—
A scream from the house, carrying through the night. Rodrigo.
An engine backfired in the night. The scream ended as abruptly as a light going out.
Not an engine. A shot.
Guess Jacques had decided not to find a doctor for Rodrigo.
Nothing for a couple of minutes
.
Then the van’s engine. It roared up the first hill, stopped at the chain, roared again as it came up the second rise.
Kira pushed herself into the dirt as the van appeared. It was speeding, bouncing hard on the broken road, no way they could see her.
It swerved and slowed as it approached the bush. Kira saw Lilly in the passenger seat, jaw set in fury. Lilly looked down the hill. Kira could swear they’d made eye contact.
Don’t stop—
The van sped off, its taillights streaking the night.
* * *
She stayed still until the red lights faded to pinpricks, then nothing.
They were gone. She’d done it. She’d escaped. She was free. Truly free this time.
Euphoria.
But it didn’t last.
Because now what?
Wait for the morning and then crawl for the highway on her hands and knees. How many feet could she cover in an hour? How many hours without water could she survive?
Cops or the locals must drive on this road sometimes, it wasn’t the middle of the desert. Someone would spot her—
She smelled smoke.
From the house.
She couldn’t see the fire directly, but the night was aglow. Jacques had decided to put all that gasoline to good use, burn the evidence.
The smoke thickened. She wondered if she should pull herself up to the road right away, but if she did and Jacques came back, she’d be stuck. Anyway, she could wait now, she didn’t have to get to the highway, the firefighters would come sooner or later to check on this burning house and when they did she could climb to the road and they’d see her. She could even wait for daylight.
She waited. Curled in on herself in the dirt like a brown leaf. Let herself imagine seeing her parents and her brother. What would she say to them? How quickly would they go back to normal? What would she tell them about what had happened, what she’d done?
From the outside they’d think she was brave. She’d beaten her captors. But she felt monstrous, felt like she’d found the weak link, tricked him, made him suffer in a way she couldn’t even dream.
No, she couldn’t imagine telling anyone the details about Rodrigo, not even her mother. Even when she slept he’d be with her. She was glad she’d won, glad she’d escaped, but she’d paid her own price, hadn’t she?
She closed her eyes.
And only then did she feel the warmth on her leg. The wet.
Blood. From her left calf, the wound a couple of inches long. Deep, too. She hadn’t noticed, she’d assumed the pain in her leg was just the ankle. How? The last time she fell she must have rolled across the knife. The knife. The useless knife. But she’d been so amped up in her desperation to reach the bush, hide behind it, that she hadn’t felt it.
Now—
Her leg was slick with it. The wound hurt, not terribly, an ache inside the muscle almost like she’d pulled it. Not bad compared to the ankle, to be honest. But the blood kept coming, a steady trickle. She pushed her palm against it, the pressure ratcheting the pain higher. Pushed as hard as she could, but the blood seeped between her fingers.
She didn’t know anything about veins and arteries in the leg. Didn’t know what she’d cut. Didn’t know how much blood she’d lose in the next minute, the next hour. But she knew she couldn’t survive until sunrise, much less crawl two miles to the highway with this.
What, then? Up to the road and hope that someone would find her. The firefighters had to be coming, right?
She pushed herself back from the bush and felt the wound open wider. She stopped. Looked down. The blood was coming faster now. More than a trickle.
Kira breathed in deep. Not fair, this wasn’t fair. Crawl up, tear open your leg, die in a few minutes. Wait right here and bleed out nice and slow. There was a name for this problem, but she couldn’t remember it right now. Yeah, she was a little distracted.
She wasn’t ready to give up. Truly. She ought to crawl while she still had some strength, she shouldn’t close her eyes. But right now she couldn’t fight. Maybe in a few minutes the cut would clot and she’d have a chance. Maybe. Meantime she would gather her strength.
She ignored the voice in her head, screaming, Don’t quit, come on, Kira.
But she had nothing left.
She closed her eyes.
Fucking hell. And she’d been so close.
33
Outside Zaragoza
The train took forever to stop at the platform, the doors even longer to open. The phone from the kidnappers remained stubbornly dead. They had no more messages from the NSA or anyone else. Frustration and fear pounded Rebecca. She had to have had a better play, another move, but she couldn’t figure it out.
Finally the door slid back. Brian followed her out, holding the green two-million-euro bag, its weight tugging his arm. Two men in blue uniforms waited. A third man in civilian clothes stood a step behind, a phone against his ear. The station was modern and handsome, big triangular ceiling windows alternating with slabs of alabaster. 22:55, the digital clocks above the platform told them. Almost exactly two days since Kira had disappeared. The two longest days of Rebecca’s life. Whatever happened next would be easier.
Unless—
She wouldn’t even let herself think it.
The handful of travelers who had left the train at Zaragoza walked past, stealing looks at the drama.
“Mr. Unsworth? Mrs. Unsworth?” The man in the suit held up a single finger, Hold on, please. A minute ticked by on the digital clock. Behind them, the train’s doors closed. A moment later it pulled out of the station, accelerating, leaving the platform behind. Rebecca felt strangely sorry to see it go. Maybe someone on there had been watching them. Maybe they’d missed a clue.
The clocks ticked to 22:57. If this cop was talking about anything other than Kira, Rebecca would kill him.
“Sí. Sí.” Finally he pocketed the phone, turned to them.
“I’m Lieutenant Suarez. I’m sorry, but that call was about your daughter. Come with me, por favor.”
“We were told to wait here for instructions.”
Suarez shook his head. “It’s possible we may have found where they held her.”
“How?” Rebecca said.
“A fire, a ghost town in the area where the CIA”—he meant NSA, Rebecca assumed—“found the phone. Come, please.”
“Ghost town?” Nothing was making much sense.
“A housing development that was never finished. Because of the financial crisis. Spain has many—” He walked down the platform, giving them no choice but to follow.
“We sent a patrol to the area northwest of Zaragoza as soon as we received the information about the phone. Now the officers say they’ve seen a fire in one of those developments. They’re going to the house. But it’s kilometers off the highway.”
“Hold on.” Brian grabbed Suarez’s shoulder.
“Señor—”
“No one knows if this fire is connected to any of this. If Kira was there, much less if she still is.”
“The timing is strange. To say the least.”
Rebecca reached for Brian, found herself looking at pure male rage, his eyes slits. If he couldn’t calm down he would deck Suarez and then the cops would have no choice but to arrest him.
And Suarez was right, coincidences were rarely coincidences at moments like these.
“Bri, listen—”
“You’re the one who said we should wait here.”
“No, this is good news, I promise.” Maybe better to keep him away just in case. She handed him the phone and the Toyota key. “I’ll go. Stay here if they call.”
She saw him gather himself, nod. “If they do, I’m doing what they say. Whatever it is.”
“Yes, but call me—”
“Go, then.” He turned away, stalked down the platform. Toward the west, open end of the station. Toward nothing.
* * *
She understood. Wasn’t even upset with him. Suarez led
her through the station, outside. Two police cars waited in front, their lights flashing. He walked her past those, across a wide boulevard, into an empty parking lot.
“Where are we going?”
He pointed east into the night sky. She heard the thrum of a helicopter, distant but closing fast. A minute later she saw its spotlight, following the train tracks toward the station, just a couple hundred feet off the ground. She couldn’t see the bird itself, though. Must have been black.
The engine noise picked up and the spotlight pinned them. She shielded her eyes against the glare as the bird leveled out and then landed in the lot. A Bell 407, a standard long-range seven-seater. The FBI used them too. The door swung open. Garza, the special ops colonel, waved to her. She ducked her head, ran through the wash, glad to see him despite everything. Two men dressed in black were in the back, along with an empty seat. For Brian, presumably. Rebecca buckled herself into the harness and pulled on her headphones. The Bell rose into the night and turned north over the center of Zaragoza.
“You followed us?”
“Yes.” Garza’s voice was raspy in the headphones.
“Thank you.”
“Your husband?”
“Waiting at the train station for instructions. He has the money.” Though she wondered now, what if this were some ruse to divide them, isolate the cash, take the bag from Brian with no cops around? Could the kidnappers have guessed they’d split up?
“They told you about the fire? They’re sending firefighters but it will be a bit. The nearest station is twenty kilometers and they say the road to the development is not good. We may get there first. The police just reached it but the house is burning too fast, they can’t go inside.”
“Have they seen anyone?”
“No.”
Good news, bad news? She didn’t know.
* * *
The Bell topped out at one hundred sixty miles an hour. They left downtown Zaragoza behind and sliced through the night, roughly paralleling a four-lane highway. Houses and stores blurred beneath them.
“This road we’re following goes to Pamplona,” Garza said. “Probably another six, seven minutes to the house.”
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