Rendon shook his head. “I still can’t believe that. The tropical rain forests are a breeding ground for new viruses. Given your lead, we’re fairly certain at this point about the person who brought the drug into the country, and as you suggested, he probably runs drugs for a living. That doesn’t sound like any terrorist plot. It’s just business as usual.”
“Exactly.” Harry nodded and bit down on a piece of bacon. “That’s the thing about this scheme. The terrorists involved people who didn’t know what they were doing, in fact thought they were doing something else entirely. According to Ferenzi, the terrorists were running several diversionary plots at the same time, just for that purpose. The people would think they were doing one thing, while in reality, some small portion of what they were doing fit into the overall scheme to force the cancelation of the games.”
Rendon wrinkled his brow. “I guess so, but I’d need more evidence to believe it.”
“That, at least, you should get this morning if all works well.” A shadow fell across the table, and with a start, Harry looked up at the face of the bouncer.
“OK, start talking, reporter.” The man’s wide face was drawn up into a scowl, made all the more threatening by the scar that ran across his cheek and the meaty hands curled tight into huge fists.
“Uh…,” was all Harry managed to get out before the doctor interrupted.
“Evan, from the dance club,” Rendon said.
Surprised that the doctor knew the bouncer, Harry kept his mouth shut.
Rendon stood up, getting out of the booth, and beckoned the bouncer to sit. “Harry told me he had asked you to help.”
Rendon smiled at Harry. Evan blinked, stared at the doctor for several seconds, and then slid into the booth. “You’re the doctor that was asking all those questions?”
“Yes, we were investigating the spread of this virus…uh…disease that’s been striking Atlantans. I’m hoping that with your and Harry’s help this morning we may be able to make some significant progress at solving the mystery of the spread of the disease. We’ve got to think outside the box.”
“Oh,” the bouncer said and pulled one of the menus out of the napkin holder.
The meal was high in cholesterol, grease, and sodium. Harry drank three cups of coffee as he stared uncomfortably at the still unfriendly face of the club’s bouncer. As he watched the fork disappear between huge fingers, Harry remembered why he had named the man “Hands.” Thank God the doctor had quickly sized up the situation and decided to reassure the bouncer.
In a half hour, all three had eaten and paid their bills to the waitress. Harry explained his plan in detail, at least the part of it he wanted them to know. The doctor and bouncer rode in the doctor’s car, following Harry. There was little traffic, rush hour being over and the lunch crowd not yet out driving. The ride was short. In his rearview mirror, Harry watched Rendon pull into the parking lot of a quick-foods and gas place. He got out of the car and opened the hood. Evan stayed in the car, with a small radio receiver that Harry had picked up at the electronics store next to the Woolworth’s. With a few batteries, it worked fine.
Harry glanced at his own set on the seat beside him. Would it work over this distance? He reached down and put the receiver under the seat and wished he had a higher-tech system that would have him wired, with Evan and Rendon listening in on the other end. He’d been in a hurry and obtained what he could.
His heart pounded as he pulled into the driveway of a warehouse. It was the location Ferenzi had given him. Gravel crunched under the tires. A dark-colored Pontiac sat at the entrance to the warehouse.
Getting out of his car, he headed for the doorway. He was to meet Ferenzi inside.
The warehouse door stuck, and at first Harry thought it was locked; then it gave and he stumbled inside. The area inside was huge and dark; the ceiling, several stories up from the floor. The air smelled of saw dust.
Harry took a few steps forward, and the door closed behind him, leaving him in murky shadows. Meager light streamed in from windows high on the walls. The place looked deserted. A few rows of boxes lined the back wall.
Harry whirled around at the sound of footsteps coming from the side.
“You Harry Adams?” The voice came from the darkest corner of the space. Booted footsteps approached, tapping on the concrete floor. Finally, Harry made out the shape of a man, holding a large, long-barreled gun. The gun pointed directly at Harry’s chest.
“Yes,” Harry said.
“Go back there and go through the door. Take the hallway to the left until you get to the second door. You’ll find Ferenzi there. He’s waiting for you.”
Harry took a deep breath and walked straight back through the darkness. He could feel sweat trickling down his ribs. It was not warm. He wiped moisture off his brow. Before he went through the backdoor, he stopped and took another deep breath to try to calm himself. Still, his stomach felt wrung tight. He had to force himself to not turn and run.
The hallway was cluttered with odds and ends of construction materials. He stepped over a torn piece of sheetrock and walked around several five-gallon cans of mud. The light was better in the hallway, though still not bright. Down at the end of the hall, Harry could see more light coming from a room and hear the sounds of voices. One of them, Ferenzi’s, Harry decided, sounded agitated.
Harry walked quietly and stopped before going inside. He could hear the conversation clearly. The voice that sounded like Ferenzi’s had increased in volume. “How the hell could they have known we were coming? Who did you tell?”
“I didn’t tell anyone,” came the reply from a male voice Harry had not heard before. “I’m telling you, no one knew other than that fool you told. If you’re looking for a leak, that’s the place to find it.”
There was silence for a moment. “No,” Ferenzi said. “I don’t think so. He wouldn’t have told anybody. Too important to him. Maybe this is just a part of their plot. Something they’d planned before. But at this point, we’ll have to leave the reporter out of it. It’s too dangerous. We’ve got to stop them even if we lose the woman. Right now, we can’t take any chances. The risks are far too great.”
Tension shooting up his back and turning his neck to cord, Harry stepped back a little farther away from the doorway, though not far enough to be out of earshot. He pressed against the wall.
“Yeah,” said the other voice. “Out there at the park, it’ll be a lot harder to control, and you know they’ll be protected. I believe that’s where they’ve got it stored. This must be the last step. They’ll release the rest of the virus and get out of here before anyone knows. If we don’t stop them now, it will be too late.”
“All the more reason we’ve got to stop it. Take Jerry and you two go on down to the area near archery; make your way over through the woods around the shed on foot. I’ll meet with the reporter and tell him some story. If the tracer on their car indicates they’ve gone somewhere else before I get there, let me know on the phone. Oh and by the way, be sure to take five bucks. It costs to enter the park.”
Harry scrambled back and then started walking toward the room as if he had just arrived. His mind was spinning. Ree wasn’t wherever it was she had been hidden. Something had gone wrong. She was at a park that cost five dollars to enter—one that was nearby.
Stone Mountain Park, the site of many of the games events. Had to be.
Near where archery was to be held…a shed?
A middle-sized man dressed in an ill-fitting suit came out of the doorway, saw Harry, and drew a gun from his shoulder holster. “Who are you?” he demanded.
Harry stopped and raised his hands. “Harry Adams. I’m looking for Ferenzi.”
The gun went back in the holster. The man rubbed at his chin. “You just get here?”
“Yeah.”
“He’s in there.” The man pointed toward the doorway and brus
hed past Harry.
Ferenzi sat at a table inside the room. Harry rushed inside. On the table, illuminated by the glare of a hanging bulb, were Ree’s tunic and leggings. Harry grabbed them, panic tearing at him. There was blood on the tunic. “Where did you get these?” He shoved them at Ferenzi.
The man shied back away from the accusing evidence. “We found them in the warehouse where she was being kept. I had one of my men watching this morning early. They took her and several suitcases out. We searched the place after they left. There was nothing there but these. We’re trying to track them now, but so far we’ve lost the trail.”
Harry dropped the clothing back on the tabletop. He needed to get away from there fast. He’d been cut out. He needed to rethink. Decide on a new plan. Now he needed to mount his own operation.
Across the room from him was a calendar with a bikini-clad woman posing above the dates. Coarse graffiti had been drawn all over the picture. He looked at it a moment and then returned his attention to Ferenzi. “Shit. So what are we going to do? What can we do?”
“We’re going to wait until we know what they’re trying to do, until they’ve settled somewhere else. We’ll track them to their new lair and then figure out what to do next. It’ll depend on where they are. And don’t tell anyone.” He gave Harry a long stare. “I’m afraid someone told them that we knew where they were. It may have blown everything.”
“Wasn’t me,” Harry said and wondered. Could Evan or Rendon actually be involved on the wrong side? He bit back his thoughts.
Ferenzi frowned and then settled back in his chair. “You go back to your apartment and wait. I’ll call you when we know something else.”
“OK,” Harry said, letting his facial muscles drop, trying to give his countenance a defeated look while his heart kept pounding. He forced himself to walk slowly out and back to where his car was parked.
The man who had met him at the doorway was gone, as was the Pontiac. The air outside was cool; the sky above, bluster-driven puffy clouds. It looked like another Atlanta winter day.
Harry got in his Chevy and sat for a minute, gritting his teeth. Those had been Ree’s clothes. There’d been blood. His stomach was burning now. He had to help her, to get her out of this before she got hurt. This would be the last chance. The operation was coming to an end. Whoever had her would kill her to remove evidence.
He’d been cut, eliminated from the plan, and it was obvious Ferenzi’s people weren’t going to try to protect Ree. Harry could understand, though something felt disastrously wrong about that decision. He shook his head. If terrorists were going to loose the virus on Atlanta, didn’t stopping that have to be Ferenzi’s first priority? That left Ree a distant second. A second that Harry couldn’t take, but what if rescuing Ree resulted in the loosing of the virus? How did you add up one life to many?
Whatever he did, he’d have to keep in the background, stay hidden. For a terror-struck moment, he considered telling Rendon and Evan that it was off. He gave up that idea. They could stay hidden, too, but be there if he needed them. At the last minute, without jeopardizing Ferenzi, Harry and his compatriots would get Ree out of danger. That had to be the plan. Any other thought was far too painful.
In the meantime he’d have to keep an eye on both Rendon and Evan just in case one of them was the leak. He didn’t believe either of them was.
Hands shaking, he managed to insert the key and turn on the ignition. Backing up, he pulled out of the parking lot and drove down the street. Rendon was still staring at the engine with the hood up. He looked like he was staring at nothing, his hand on the hood, his eyes cast down. He seemed to have not moved since Harry had left them.
Harry looked into the rearview mirror, saw nothing, but decided to be careful. He didn’t stop and instead drove past, pulling down a side street and finally stopping in front of another warehouse.
Rendon had not looked convincing. He looked like he was staring at the engine to waste time. At least he could have pulled out the dipstick and wiped it off or taken out the air cleaner.
Harry retrieved his walkie-talkie from under the seat and pushed down the call button on the radio. “Evan, can you hear me?” He let up the button.
“Loud and clear.” The voice was half obscured by heavy static.
“Drive down the street a block and turn left. I’m parked another block down on the right.”
“Got it,” came the deep voice of the bouncer.
Harry leaned his head back against the headrest. Ferenzi’s men were going to park near the archery area, wherever that was, and head through the woods to a shack. That meant Harry and his group had to park somewhere else, but near archery, and then find the shack.
He wondered if Evan had a gun. At the moment, it sounded as if they might need one. The thought frightened him.
Harry squeezed his eyes closed for a second. What if the whole thing did get out of hand? He could not rid his mind of the thought: thousands of people dead, the games canceled, millions of dollars lost. Was one person’s life worth it? Could what he was doing be justified? Was his love for Ree clouding his judgment?
Or when you measured a gift so precious as life, did you measure by ones, each individual’s life worth that of the next or at least the probability of the next twenty, each individual’s life and loves a separate entity that could not be lumped together with any other person’s—like adding apples and oranges? Could you ever justify the death of any individual for anything, especially something that was only a chance? Wasn’t that the final question?
Rendon’s car pulled up behind Harry. The two men got out of the car and raced up to Harry’s window. Harry stared at them, wondering what he would say.
Ree was sandwiched in between the two men so tightly she couldn’t move; besides, her arms were still tied behind her. The piece of tape they’d put on her to gag her earlier that morning had been removed. Her pulse pounded in her ears.
The driver of the car sailed through the entrance to Stone Mountain Park using the sticker lane. The guard waved them through, sticking his head out the window only momentarily. There was no way to gain his attention.
They drove around the heavily wooded park and finally stopped along the side of the road. Pulling the car off the edge of the macadam, they parked. The men dragged Ree from the car, taped her mouth again, and then forced her down a path through the woods. After what seemed like an eternity of being bruised by branches and stuck with thorns, they came to a small opening in the woods. In the center of it on a small promontory was a storage shed with a gravel road leading up to it. They ripped the tape off her mouth and led her up the hill to the shed and forced her through the doorway.
Three men stood inside the small wooden structure. One of them was overweight and had an olive complexion and dark hair. The other two were blondes. Dirty and unshaven, they looked like they’d been picked up off the streets. All three carried guns with silencers.
Ree saw them for one brief moment before she was thrown to the wooden floor of the shed, knocking the breath out of her.
“There’s been a change in plans.”
Still gasping for breath, she twisted her neck to see one of her captors speaking. It was the one who had brought her the water—her jailor.
“Oh yeah?” This came from the darker of the new men. He raised his pistol menacingly.
“Yeah. Put your gun down. Instead of you taking her out when you see one guy, there’s going to be three.”
The two blondes shifted uneasily. The dark-complexioned man kept the pistol up and pointed. “We didn’t say anything about handling three of ’em. How do we know they don’t have guns?”
“You don’t have to handle them, so don’t worry about it. Besides, they don’t have any weapons. They’re not expecting trouble. They think it’s a peaceful transfer. The girl’s the bait, and they’ll take it. If she starts screaming—all the better:
it’ll just let ’em know where she is faster. We’ll be right in the woods down there. All you gotta do is wait until we give you the signal that they’re here. Then take the girl out. They’ll start running up to you. When that happens, kill her, but make sure they can see you doing it. That will distract them enough that we can get all three easy. When they’re down, leave the gun you used and get out of here. Shouldn’t be hard.”
Terrified, Ree squirmed against her bonds, her pulse booming in her ears. They were talking about killing her.
The man who had been Ree’s jailor walked over to the back wall and pulled a small metal box from behind several bags of pesticide, the skull and crossbones clearly marked. “Here’s your computer files. You’ve got your end of the deal.”
The other man grabbed the box and opened it. His eyes widened. “OK. You got it. When will they be getting here?”
“About fifteen minutes. One is medium height and brown hair. The other two are over six feet, though one is bigger than the other. We’ve got the area cordoned off. There won’t be anyone else coming up here, and chances are good they’ll take the same path we came from.”
He turned to leave and then looked back. “Just remember we’ll be out there, too. Take care of your end of the deal, or you won’t be leaving here alive either.”
Her jailor and the other man left. Ree pressed her face into the wooden floor. They were going to kill her.
She breathed deep and gagged. The place stank of death.
Twenty-Four
Harry reached across and unlocked the car doors. The other two men jumped into the car, the doctor in the front and the bouncer in the backseat.
“What’s going on?” said Rendon. “I thought we were going to meet you somewhere and watch from a distance.”
A car drove by and Harry scrutinized the driver carefully. Was it the terrorists or one of Ferenzi’s people? Either one could ruin his chances to save Ree. The car kept going. Harry put the Chevy into drive, turned around in a parking lot, and headed back to East Ponce de Leon. He took a right and started driving as fast as he dared.
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