Fifteen seconds had passed since the door had opened, and all three agents were incapacitated. She shook her head. If this was any indication of the level of expertise at Arthur’s disposal, it was no wonder he needed competent help.
The strap buckle had made an effective weapon, as the first unlucky man had discovered, and the rest of the binding straps had proved useful to provide a cradle between the exposed pipes running along the ceiling, where the sheetrock had long ago rotted away.
The man she’d body-slammed didn’t look good — he was still struggling for air, flailing like a fish on the deck of a fishing boat. It was possible that one of his ribs had punctured a lung, judging by his inability to breathe, but it wasn’t her problem — they were all lucky to be alive. She dragged him by the hair and dumped him in the room with his unconscious colleagues, then took a moment to consider the pile of bodies before pulling the door closed, driving the bolt home and then turning and surveying the hall. A few still-wet footprints in the accumulated dust told her which direction the men had come from.
The agent’s pistol back in her hand, she crept cautiously down the hallway, past thirty doors identical to the one she’d been locked behind, towards the stairs at the far end. Light filtered in from above, and she saw a slick of greasy fluid tracing its way down the stairwell, which stank of rot and filth. Wherever this was, it had been unoccupied for a long time.
She ascended and paused at the landing, allowing her eyes to adjust to the unexpected gloom of the ground floor. All of the windows had been boarded up, and the only illumination came from an exposed incandescent bulb hanging from a workman’s scaffold; motes of dust floated in orbit around the sixty-watt glow.
Jet crept to the double doors and peeked through one of the spaces between the moldy plywood. A broad driveway stretched into the distance, empty except for a black and white cat skulking near an empty fountain in the center of the plaza that served as the arrival area. A few outdoor lamps lit the immediate surfaces with a harsh white glare, but thankfully it got darker farther away from the building — if she could make it to the shadows undetected, she would have a running chance. Glancing at her watch, she saw that it was seven o’clock. So she’d lost at least almost a full day.
Whatever the time, she wasn’t going to stick around and see what kind of reinforcements showed up after the men locked in the tomb below missed their check-in calls.
Jerking her pistol free, she pushed one of the oversized doors ajar a foot and slipped through the opening into the frigid evening air. She didn’t see anyone, so if there was any exterior security, it was lax, unless the grounds were wired for motion or infrared — which she’d discover soon enough.
Keeping to the overgrown hedges that lined the drive, she trotted in a crouch to the massive iron gates that sealed the compound from the road beyond. A rusting chain held the barrier closed, but she was able to squeeze through the gap between the two sections, turning to take in the hulking faux-French facade of the building she’d escaped. It looked abandoned, except for the new fencing that ran just outside of the rock perimeter wall that circled the grounds.
“Hey. What are you doing here? Go on, get outta here. This is private property,” a gruff man’s voice yelled at her from near the left wing’s entry. Jet could see that the guard was uniformed and carried a shotgun. She slipped the pistol back into her jeans and pulled her light sweater over it. He was far enough away that he wouldn’t be able to make out the detail in the half-light of dusk.
“Sorry. I was just looking,” she called and waved, then backed away from the entrance, turning after a few feet and jogging down the darkened road in the opposite direction.
Sensing that something was off about a woman in the middle of nowhere without any car, the guard screamed at her again.
“Hey! Wait a minute. Come back here.”
She ignored him and picked up the pace, the exercise a welcome relief after being immobile for countless hours.
“I said come back here.”
His voice trailed off in the distance as she ran.
Depending upon how smart he was, she could expect him to call in a suspicious person to whoever he reported to sooner than later. And then it would be a manhunt, unless the CIA wanted to keep its abduction of innocents on American soil to itself. She hoped that was the case, but couldn’t bet on it.
She would need to get off the road. Soon.
Once she was out of sight of the guard, she moved onto the grassy shoulder, maintaining her speed as she raced along the roadside, the last gray light fading into the darkness of night. At the first sign of headlights she could be in the trees, which grew dense on both sides. Barring infrared gear, she could probably remain undiscovered until she could sort out her next step.
Her first priority was to find Arthur. Find Arthur and she would find Hannah.
This same man had stolen her daughter away from her twice. First working with Hannah’s father, David, and now this time, for his own selfish ends.
He was about to discover that he’d been right to be scared of her when he’d been in the room, regaling her with his troubles. The instinct to keep her bound like a deadly predator had been a sound one.
One way or another, she would find him. And when she did, what she would do to him would make whatever nightmare had burned his face off seem like a Hawaiian vacation.
Chapter 7
Jet’s footsteps thudded against the hard-packed dirt of the road shoulder. She hadn’t seen a single vehicle since leaving her prison’s grounds, but she knew it was just a matter of time until her captors mounted a search. Twenty minutes after escaping, she came to a clearing that housed a few rural buildings — a market, gas station and a restaurant with an attached bar, its tired neon sign blinking intermittently.
A dozen vehicles sat in the seedy lot, almost all pickup trucks. The place looked like a working man’s watering hole, where after a long day on the construction site, its patrons could throw back a few to soften life’s inevitable harsh blows.
Perfect for her purposes.
She slowed, checking to ensure that the pistol was completely concealed by her top. Satisfied with the result, she pushed her way through the doors and took a quick survey of the patrons. Mostly male, mostly mid-thirties to late forties, almost everyone sporting a baseball cap adorned with a heavy equipment company’s logo. She moved easily to the long wood bar, most of the eyes in the room on her, and then pulled up a stool and sat down. A bald man with a flushed face and about a hundred pounds of extra bulk waddled from a corner where he’d been cleaning glasses while watching a talent program on the Seventies-era television that served as the primary point of interest.
“What’ll you have, darling?”
“I’m sorry. Nothing just yet. I’m…I’m waiting for a friend.”
He appraised her.
“I wouldn’t leave someone like you waiting very long,” he said, then returned to his position near the TV.
Jet caught a glimpse of herself in the mirror that lurked behind an army of half-empty liquor bottles that were seemingly lined up for inspection. She wiped a smudge of dirt from her cheek. All things considered, she didn’t look bad for a woman who’d been kidnapped and imprisoned, had neutralized three armed guards and run at least a good three miles.
She sensed the presence of a body sidling up to her before she turned to face the man. Decent enough looking, with a day’s growth of stubble and a profile starting to go to fat, but with twinkling blue eyes that hinted at some joke known only to him.
“Hello there.”
Jet ignored him for a few measured seconds, then smiled. “Hello yourself.”
“What are you drinking?”
“Nothing right now. I’m waiting for someone. We’re supposed to meet, but I got here late, and he’s not…I’m waiting for someone,” she repeated.
“Barkeep! A drink on me!” he yelled to the desultory bartender, who reluctantly tore his eyes from the screen and glared over
at them. “What can I get you?”
“That’s very sweet, but it’s not necessary…”
“Of course it is. So what’s it going to be?”
She hesitated. “A light beer?”
“A light and another Seven and Seven,” he called out, and then returned his attention to her face. “What’s your name?”
“Alison.”
“Alison,” he pronounced the name slowly, rolling it in his mouth like a fine wine. “Alison. That’s a beautiful name. For a beautiful woman — fortunately for me, alone in my favorite bar on the outskirts of nowhere.”
“Maybe not for long. Remember, I’m waiting…”
“Then it sounds like I don’t have much time.”
She smiled again, wanting to encourage him. “Better work fast.”
“He only brings drinks at one speed.”
“Not really a race car, is he?”
“More dependable transportation.”
“Like a bus.”
“Or a tractor.”
They both laughed easily as the bartender approached with their order.
“What’s your name?”
“Jim. Jim Bassenger.”
She held out her hand, and he took it in his, giving it a shake. She noted that he had large hands, the nails relatively clean; he wasn’t a laborer.
“So, Alison, who’s waiting for luck to walk through the door, and what brings you to this part of Virginia?”
Virginia? She racked her brain for her mental atlas. Virginia was somewhere on the east coast. She had last been in Nebraska. A long way away. Then she remembered. Langley, the CIA headquarters, was in Virginia. Of course, they would have transported her there. Where else?
“I’m headed to New York. I have some friends who invited me to come stay for a few weeks, to see if I like it.” She shrugged and took a sip of her beer. “You know. Have a little adventure in my life in the big city.”
“New York, huh? That’s full of adventure, all right, but it’s dangerous as hell, too. And really expensive.”
“I’ve heard. But sometimes a girl’s got to take a chance, right?” she said and then glanced at her watch.
“Who are you waiting for? Boyfriend? Date?”
“No. One of my friend’s buddies who lives somewhere around here. She said to look him up…”
“Well, if he’s not going to show, looks like I’m buying,” Jim announced.
She threw him a long, appraising glance then smiled and held her beer up in toast.
“To unexpected new friends,” she said.
“I’ll drink to that.”
Fifteen minutes later, they emerged from the bar arm in arm, and he led her to his black Dodge crew cab truck. Jim was divorced, thirty-seven, an electrician working on commercial buildings, and had a small house only four miles away. He invited her to come over to watch a movie or something, which she correctly interpreted as meaning drink too much and have sex with him, and after she finished her beer and he had knocked back two more of his favorites, they arrived at an unspoken agreement.
The big engine started with a roar, and he gunned it as they pulled onto the road, leaving a spray of gravel behind it as he let the wild horses run free. She looked out through the side window and smiled again — this was a perfect cover. A couple, in a local truck, smelling of alcohol, on their way home…she reached next to him on the seat and picked up an orange baseball cap with CAT stenciled on the front and pulled it on, reaching up to study her reflection in the rearview mirror as he drove.
“Looks good on you, baby.”
She beamed at him. No wonder he was single.
He turned off the main road, and she saw a convenience store near a huddle of closed shops, its neon sign proclaiming speed and economy in blinking red and blue.
“Pull over, Jim. I need to get some stuff,” she said, pointing.
He obliged and swung into one of the parking stalls.
“I’ll just be a minute. I wonder if there’s a pay phone?”
“Don’t know. Maybe,” Jim offered, sounding distinctly unenthusiastic at having his party interrupted.
“Be back in a few. Don’t take off without me. I still need you to take me back to get my car at some point,” she said, the implicit promise that it would be much later obvious by her tone.
His mood perked up. “I’d wait all night. But don’t make me,” he said, delighted that things seemed back on track.
She walked into the store and performed a quick scan. There was a rear exit by the storeroom. She approached the old man at the register and gave him her most winning smile.
“I hate to bother you, but do you have a bathroom I can use? It’s kind of an emergency…”
He looked her up and down with cynical eyes, and then his expression softened.
“Emergency, huh? I would tell you to go down the road a quarter mile and use the gas station’s, but it’s pretty grim. Wouldn’t wish that on a pack of starving dogs.”
“Please? I’ll only be a minute. I would really appreciate it…”
He pointed a gnarled finger at a doorway leading to the rear of the store. “Second door on the left. Don’t take forever,” he growled, then resumed reading his paper.
She stopped for a few moments at the bathroom, then continued to the rear exit, taking care to unlock the deadbolt as quietly as possible before easing it open and stepping into the night.
A quick glance confirmed that there were several dozen homes nearby, and she was confident that she would be able to find a vehicle she could hotwire. Jim had served his purpose — she was now at least seven miles from the hospital, so the odds of them being able to mount a coherent search were dropping with each passing minute.
A small residential street stretched fifty yards behind the shops; she darted for it, using the trees as cover. Her brief romance with Jim had come to an abrupt end. She wondered how long he’d sit out in front waiting, then switched mental gears. She needed wheels so she could put real distance between herself and the CIA goons.
Jet prowled the street, eyeing the various cars parked along the curb, and then her ears detected a sound that wasn’t consistent with a rural Virginia town — the thumping of rotors in the distance. A helicopter.
The search had begun.
She moved from shadow to shadow, trying the door handles of the sorry procession of vehicles, and stopped when she came to a ten-year-old Nissan Maxima. The door opened with a squeak, and she slid behind the wheel, taking care to shut off the interior light so as not to alert anyone. She reached below the steering wheel and felt for the bundle of wires she knew would be there and then paused.
The whumpwhump of the helicopter’s blades were definitely closer.
Jet resumed her project and, within a few moments, had the wires separated and was pulling at the two she would need to start the car. She got them free and quickly stripped the insulating rubber from them using her teeth, and then crossed them, causing a spark. The engine turned over, but didn’t start. She was about to give it another try when some instinct caused her to look up through the windshield.
A hundred and fifty yards away she could see the blinking lights of a helicopter, hovering a few stories above the tree line.
How the hell had they found her?
The car wouldn’t do her any good now if they’d narrowed her position down this closely. She threw the door open and bolted for the woods across the street, glad that her clothes were a muted color that wouldn’t stand out in the night.
As she ran, she heard car engines approaching on the road she had just fled.
This was impossible.
She willed her legs to greater speed and tore through the brush, branches cracking beneath her feet as she distanced herself from her pursuers. There was no way they would be able to get her in the woods. Too dark and too much manpower required.
Up ahead, she could make out some more buildings through the trees. Houses. Another subdivision.
She altered her cou
rse and made for the closest home, and was just rounding a large tree when a car swung onto the cul-de-sac and pulled to the curb no more than thirty yards away.
Arthur opened the door of the black Lincoln and stepped out, looking directly at her position behind the tree.
“It’s over. Stop wasting my time. If you ever want to see your daughter again, step away from the tree, put down the gun and move slowly towards the car,” he said, his distinctively unpleasant voice straining to be heard.
She debated her slim options and then did as he instructed, placing the gun on the grass and then moving to where he stood.
A Chevrolet Suburban lurched to a halt behind the Lincoln, and two muscular men in suits emptied out of the back doors.
She raised her hands over her head and stood still as they stepped to where she waited.
Arthur watched as they forced her arms behind her, cuffed her, then walked her to the SUV. She glared at him with obvious hatred.
“My dear, save your energy. You’ve caused me considerable trouble this evening. That was your one chance. If you ever want to see your daughter again, you’ll get with the program and knock this shit off. I’m not the enemy, or at least not yours. Now get in the truck, don’t try anything, and stop this now. Do I make myself clear?”
“How did you find me?”
“Chip in the gun. New technology. You never had a chance.”
She nodded and allowed herself to be led to the back seat of the Suburban.
“If I agree — how do I know that you’ll keep your word about Hannah?”
“Because I have no reason not to. And because I’m quite sure you’ll kill me if I don’t.”
She studied him.
“We agree on something.”
“Yes, I suspected as much. Look, this whole escape thing was pointless. All you accomplished was to injure three of my men and piss me off. You are no closer to getting your daughter back. The truth is that there is only one road to accomplishing that, and you’ve been told where it leads and what you need to do. Just get that through your skull, and we’ll get along better. In order to get her back, you need to pay me back for my assistance in bringing down Grigenko. Everything has a price. David knew that. I know it. Now you know it. Pay the price and go on to live happily ever after. Don’t invest any more energy in these childish theatrics. They are getting you nowhere,” Arthur suggested, spittle spraying occasionally from the effort of stringing so many words together.
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