***
Inside the house, FBI Agent Martin Cantwell looked out the kitchen window and saw a naked woman, screaming. He called to his fellow agents, who were watching TV in the living room.
“We have a situation at the rear of the house.”
The two men came running just as Cantwell opened the back door, and he gestured for them to stay put.
“I’ll handle this, it could be a ruse. Carter, you stay with Mrs. Rothman, and Hopkins, guard the front and call Brice.”
Swan had made it to the house and was climbing the back steps. The two agents stared at her nakedness for a moment before going off to their assignments.
Agent Cantwell grabbed Swan by the arms.
“What the hell happened to you?”
“I was kidnapped and raped,” Swan cried, and then her eyes widened as she spotted the gun on Cantwell’s hip.
“It’s okay. I’m an FBI agent, you’ll be safe here.”
After cutting her wrists free with a kitchen knife, Cantwell took off his dress shirt and placed it over her shoulders, he was a large man and the bottom of the shirt reached Swan’s knees.
“Have a seat while I call for an ambulance.”
Swan buttoned the shirt, covering herself, and then fell into a kitchen chair.
As Cantwell took out his phone, he spotted movement over by the trees, and to his amazement, a second naked woman ran towards him.
“There are two of you?” he said to Swan.
Swan looked perplexed, but when she stood and stared out the window, she saw a naked Victoria Belle running towards the house.
“Oh my God! Shut the door! Shut the door!”
But it was too late. While Belle sprinted up the steps, she reached behind her back and grabbed the knife she had taped there, hidden from view.
Cantwell dropped his phone and fumbled at his holster, but Belle stabbed him deep in the stomach just as he gripped his weapon. Cantwell pitched forward as the gun fell from his hand, then Belle plucked the blade from his belly and shoved him down the back steps.
After Belle scooped up the gun, she ran into the kitchen and past a cowering Swan, even as the sound of gunfire erupted from the front of the safe house.
***
The FBI agent that Cantwell sent to guard the front looked on with disgust as a news van came down the driveway.
“Goddamn Press, we don’t need this shit right now,”
The driver of the van parked with the engine still running, and the FBI agent came out of the house shouting.
“Just keep on driving, buddy, or I’ll have you arrested for trespassing.”
The driver of the van stepped out, and with the sun hanging low in the sky, all the agent could make out was a set of grinning teeth below a baseball cap and mirrored sunglasses, however, when he spotted the video camera, he came pounding down the steps and flashed his credentials.
“You’re not filming shit, now move that van, now!”
Rothman tossed the camera at the agent, reached behind his back, and brought out the gun he had found in Swan’s nightstand.
The FBI agent sidestepped the camera and looked back just in time to see the muzzle flash. Rothman fired at the agent six times, but only the fifth shot found its mark, as the bullet entered below the agent’s nose, killing him instantly.
Rothman dropped his empty weapon, rushed over to the dead agent, and ripped the gun from his holster. When he heard a sound come from the front porch, he raised the Glock and saw a naked Victoria Belle grinning at him.
He smiled back. “Let’s go get my wife.”
He had taken only four steps when Brice arrived back from his dinner meeting, seated in the back seat of his SUV were Jessica and her husband.
“There’s a naked woman on the porch, and she has a gun,” Jessica said.
Brice yelled, “Get down!” and skidded to a stop ten yards behind the news van. He had just managed to bring out his weapon when Rothman rounded the rear of the van and fired. The SUV’s windshield shattered and the tires went flat. Brice opened his door and rolled out onto the ground.
In the backseat of the SUV, Jessica’s husband covered her with his body.
“Where did John go? Was he hit?” Jessica said.
He raised his head slightly over the headrest and took in the scene.
“I think he left the car to draw fire away from us. He took cover behind a tree on the left.”
“Where did the woman go?”
“She’s gone. She must be in the house; I hear gunfire coming from inside too.”
There was a scream of pain and he turned his head to see Brice fall to one knee with a wound in his shoulder, the injury had also caused him to drop his weapon, and it laid at the edge of the driveway, out of reach from the cover of the tree. Then, he spotted Rothman moving towards Brice, gun arm extended, as he moved in for the kill.
“If we don’t help Brice, Rothman will kill him.”
“But we don’t have a weapon.” Jessica said.
He scrambled into the front seat. “Yes we do,”
***
Rothman smiled at the wounded fed as he closed in on him. He was just about to shoot him in the face when he heard the revving engine. He turned his head and saw the SUV limping towards him on three flat tires.
He was an instant too slow and the lumbering vehicle nicked him and sent him tumbling. He wound up lying on his back atop the safe house’s lawn with multiple scrapes and cuts. When he checked his hand, he saw that it was empty, but had no idea where the gun had gone, then, a face appeared above him, and he realized that it was the man from Belle’s photos.
“You’re on the wrong side, brother,” Rothman said, and then watched as the man raised his foot high in preparation to stomp down hard on his face, but before he could deliver the blow, Belle appeared, hit him on the back of the head with a gun, and smiled as the man fell to the ground, dazed.
“Get in the van, Robert. It’s all gone to shit,”
Belle was still naked, and her leg was bleeding, but she was on her feet.
Rothman pulled himself up to his hands and knees. “I have to get Claire!”
“You can’t! There’s an agent in the room with her. The son of a bitch shot me through the door when I tried to take her.”
Two shots rang out then. It was Brice. He had reclaimed his weapon from the road and was firing clumsily with his left hand. The two shots were his last and missed completely.
“Shoot him!” Rothman yelled.
“I can’t. I’m out, and there’s no time anyway, I heard the guy in the room call for back-up, we have to get out of here now. Get in the van.”
Rothman gave the house a look of longing. He then walked over to Jessica’s husband, grabbed him beneath the arms, and dragged him towards the van.
“He’s coming with us. I can trade him for my wife later.”
Belle climbed behind the wheel of the van.
“Whatever, let’s just get the hell out of here.”
When Jessica saw Rothman dragging her husband away, she bolted out of the back of the SUV. As she ran past Brice, he grabbed onto her and held her with his one good arm.
“No, don’t, they’ll kill you,”
Jessica struggled until she broke free of Brice’s grip, but when she reached the news van, it took off along the driveway, headed for the exit at the other end.
Jessica ran behind it in a vain attempt to keep up, but after the van fishtailed onto the road and sped away, she stood at the edge of the driveway and cried.
CHAPTER 9
In the rear of the news van, Rothman handcuffed his captive’s wrists behind his back, while up front in the driver’s seat, Belle scanned the road ahead, looking for a place to turn off.
When she saw a dirt road on the right with a rusted chain blocking its entrance, she made a squealing turn and rammed through the chain.
“Where’s this go to?” Rothman said.
“This is the other end of the dirt road that runs behi
nd the safe house; this part of it dead ends at the lake. Once we get there, we can make our way through the woods.”
“Why didn’t you just keep driving?”
In answer, Belle stopped the van, and shut off the engine. “Listen!” she said.
The sound of sirens was growing louder and seemed to be coming from everywhere at once.
“Every cop and fed in the state is headed this way,” Belle said. “We fucked up Robert. We had one shot at getting Claire back and we fucked it up.”
Rothman pointed down at Jessica’s husband, who was just regaining his senses.
“I’ll trade him for her.”
“I don’t know who he is, but he won’t be enough, we killed a fed back there, maybe two, after that, all they’ll want is blood.”
Rothman put his hands up to the sides of his head and squeezed his eyes shut.
“I need time to think.”
“Right now, job one is to hide this van.”
Belle put the van back in gear and continued down the unused road. They came to a house with obvious water damage that had condemned signs placed about it. The edge of the lake was so close here that the water lapped at the home’s front steps.
Belle parked the van twenty feet from the water’s edge and got out. When she walked around to the sliding side door, it opened, and Rothman handed her a shopping bag.
The bag contained a pair of sneakers along with a jogging outfit and her purse. Belle put the clothes on quickly as Rothman guided Jessica’s husband out of the van. Once Rothman had him out, he patted him down and found his cell phone and knife. After turning the phone off, he tossed it in the lake, but pocketed the knife.
Rothman looked down at his captive. “Are you a fed?”
“I’m... an advisor.”
Belle stared down at him with wide eyes.
“Look at him, Robert. He’s as much like us as anyone I’ve ever met. He’s lighting my brain up like a flare.”
Rothman nodded, he didn’t normally share Belle’s innate ability to spot his own kind, but he could with this man. This man made him feel like prey.
Belle bent down and smiled.
“You’re one of us, we know it and you know it. There’s no need to deny it.”
“I’m not like you. I’ll never be like you.”
She patted him on the cheek.
“Oh, Dreamboat, lie to yourself all you want, but you are what you are.”
Rothman pointed upward.
“We’ll get to know each other later; right now, we have to dump this van before a helicopter spots it.”
Belle walked back around to the driver’s side, climbed in, and put the van in gear. When the nose of the vehicle hit the water, she jumped out and walked back to dry land with her pants wet up to her knees. The van traveled a little farther before the mud halted its progress, but it was enough, and the top of the van sat beneath the water.
Rothman jerked his captive up onto his feet and pointed to a lake home a few hundred yards away.
“We’ll go there and make plans.”
CHAPTER 10
Jessica released Kaye Swan’s hand as the EMTs loaded her onto the ambulance. Despite the angst she felt over her husband’s abduction, she had tended to the traumatized young woman and was a soothing influence, as Agent Dyer had questioned Swan about Rothman and Belle.
Cantwell, the agent stabbed by Belle, had been taken away and was expected to live, while Brice was having his shoulder wound treated inside the house. Rothman had failed to retrieve his wife, but his bloody attempt left one agent dead and two wounded, while the fate of their hostage, Jessica’s husband, was unknown.
Jessica was outside the safe house, standing in the driveway with Agent Dyer and Sheriff Stevens, as they watched the ambulance speed away.
“What’s being done to find my husband?”
“Everything,” Dyer said. “We had every road cordoned off within three minutes of their exit from the scene and we’re confident that they’re still in the area. Sheriff’s Deputies, State Troopers, and FBI Agents, are all checking every vehicle and we’re preparing to go on a house to house search. We’ll find him, Doctor, and they won’t escape.”
Brice walked out of the house with his arm in a sling. He looked pale and instead of standing like the rest of them, he sat down on the steps and leaned against the railing.
Jessica checked his shoulder and found bloody bandages.
“You need to go to the hospital, John, that wound is serious.”
“I’m not going anywhere until I know your husband is safe. The man saved my life. If he hadn’t come at Rothman with the vehicle when he did, I’d be dead.”
Jessica wiped at tears.
“Is that why Rothman took him, do you think he wants revenge?”
Dyer laid a comforting hand on her shoulder.
“I think it’s more likely that they took him as a hostage, in which case, they need him alive.”
“They’ve likely abandoned that news van by now; they’ll know that we’ll be looking for it,” Brice said, and then spoke to Sheriff Stevens. “You know this area, where would they go to hide?”
“Well, the good news is that this area is sparsely populated, most of the homes around here are lake homes and places that sit out in the woods like this one, so a house to house search wouldn’t take long.”
“What’s the bad news?” Jessica said.
“It’s these woods, they go on for miles and there are too many trails to cover. If they decide to travel on foot, they just might avoid us, at least for a while.”
Jessica shook her head.
“No, they can’t stay hidden. My husband will signal us somehow.”
“He won’t be able to; they’ve likely got him tied up,” Dyer said.
Jessica stared at her.
“My husband is very resourceful.”
***
“Don’t kill him!” he said, as he watched Belle hold the knife against the old man’s throat. The man was in his seventies with stringy white hair.
Belle had gone alone to the door of the first house they came to, a split-level with cedar shingles. When the old man answered her knock, she shoved him backwards to the floor and motioned for Rothman to follow.
As he entered with Rothman, he found Belle down on one knee, threatening the terrified old man with her knife.
“He’s right,” Rothman said. “Don’t hurt him, we could use him.”
Belle said, “Killjoys,” and stood.
Belle and Rothman herded their two hostages into the kitchen, where Belle found a box of take-out chicken in the refrigerator. She grabbed a drumstick and began eating as she walked away.
“I’m going to go check the house. The old man said he lived here alone, but maybe he’s lying, I’ll also find a bandage for my leg, and oh yeah, I’ll cut the phone lines, just in case.”
“I’ll keep an eye on these two,” Rothman said, then he punched him in the stomach and shoved him to the floor beside the old man. “Stay there!”
Rothman rummaged through Belle’s purse and brought out a roll of duct tape. There was just enough tape left to bind the old man’s wrists together.
“They’re looking for you,” the old man said. “I heard it on the radio right before you got here. Your name is Rothman, right?”
As if to punctuate the old man’s words, a helicopter flew low over the house and along the lakeshore, as if its pilot were searching for something.
The kitchen had a patio door that opened out onto an elevated deck. There was an ancient and unused hot tub in one corner and trash and recycling cans in the other, beyond lay a wide lawn of cut grass with a real brick grill.
Belle returned holding a first-aid kit, along with a rifle. It was an old .22. She handed it to Rothman.
“I found that in the hall closet next to the mop and broom. It’s a piece of shit, but it’s loaded.”
“I use it to scare the raccoons away from the trash cans,” the old man said, and then
they all looked up as another chopper flew over the house.
“It’s just a matter of time, Rothman,” he said.
“Dreamboat’s right, Robert, if we stay here they’ll find us, our best bet is to try and slip out through the woods, and the sooner, the better.”
Rothman shook his head.
“You go, but I’m staying. I’m going to trade these two for a chance to talk with Claire. I have to see her at least one more time.”
“They’ll lock you up forever,”
“I have to see her again, I have to.”
Belle sighed. “You poor lovesick fool,”
Afterwards, she walked over, bent down, and caressed his cheek.
“What about you, Dreamboat, are you ‘in love’ with that blonde I’ve seen you with?”
“She’s my wife.”
Belle stood and laughed at both of them.
“You’re two of a kind, in more ways than one.”
Rothman handed her the rifle.
“Take this and go, quickly, and don’t return to the car; I’m sure Swan told them about it.”
Belle declined the rifle.
“If I fired that thing it would attract more attention than it’s worth, and I’ll still have my knife.”
Rothman nodded, and then he and Belle embraced.
“Goodbye Victoria,” he whispered.
When they parted, Belle headed for the patio door, but turned and looked down at him on the floor as she slid it open.
“I’ll see you again, Dreamboat, count on it.”
He said nothing in return, and Belle parted.
Rothman strolled out onto the deck and watched her walk off into the woods.
While Rothman’s back was turned, he rose up from the floor silently.
The old man shook his head and whispered.
“Don’t do it. He’s got the rifle.”
He ignored him and crept forward, his hands still cuffed tightly behind his back. When he saw Rothman turn to look at him, he lowered his head and charged.
Rothman gripped the small rifle in both hands and raised it up to use as a club.
He buried his head into Rothman’s midsection as the butt of the rifle struck him on his lower back, however, the momentum of his charge was so great that it carried both of them over the waist high railing and they fell to the grass twelve feet below.
The TAKEN! Series - Books 5-8 (Taken! Box Set Book 2) Page 30