by Sable Hunter
No, of course they hadn’t heard. They were halfway across the property by now at the ranch office.
“Yes, I’m the one.” Scott answered her with a maniacal tone. “I’m the one who set fire to the plant. I’m the one who tried to end this fiasco early by blowing the Dukes up with a car bomb! I’m the one who killed the engineer, the one who blew up their damn rocket. And I’m the one who’s going to stop this fuckin’ launch. If anyone gets to Mars, it will be me and my people!” Waving the gun around, Scott began to issue orders. “What room can be locked?” When no one said anything, he pointed the gun at Cato. “Quick, I’m losing my patience. What room can be locked?”
Ryder tried to get away, but he yanked her back. His associate moved up to point his gun at the other women.
Everything looked hopeless. “The study.” Ryder finally offered. “The study can be locked.”
“Take the women in there and secure the door, Oleg. Cut the phone line if there’s one in there and bar the door with another piece of furniture. We need to buy time to get out of here.”
Ryder watched in terror as Oleg herded Pepper, Cato, and Molly to the study to lock them in. “All right, let’s move.”
“What are you going to do? Where are we going?” She almost stumbled as he pulled her along.
“Did you know I’ve always wanted you? How could you give yourself to those two perverts instead of me?”
“Because each of them are a thousand times the man you are!”
“If you think that, you’re dumb and blind, Ryder. I could’ve given you everything. But no – you chose them over me.” He got to the front and waited, giving Oleg a chance to catch up. “You’re going to make sure I get what I want, Ryder. Since the Dukes have moved up the launch, it’s fortuitous to have this opportunity to use you as collateral.”
“What do you mean?” Ryder cried as they began to drag her to the limousine. “Help! Help!” she screamed, hoping that someone – anyone – would hear her. Where were all their hands? Where were Gabriel’s men? In despair, she remembered Samson saying that his team were all out checking leads, only Laramie had been left behind to help. “Poor Laramie,” she whimpered. “Do you think he’s still alive?”
“Who cares? If the Dukes don’t cooperate, you won’t live to see tomorrow anyway.”
“I don’t understand. What do you want?”
“For your safe return?” He barked out a laugh before shoving her in the back of the white limousine. “Simple. I want a great deal. One billion dollars and the canceling of the launch – permanently. I want all of their information, all of their knowledge, but I also want OuterLimits to cease to exist. And you’re going to get it for me. Your safe return…for everything I want.”
A sinking feeling hit Ryder in the pit of her stomach. “There’s something you don’t know, Scott.” Part of her was sad – and part of her was triumphant that this idiot wouldn’t get his way. “The Dukes don’t negotiate with terrorists. Ever. You won’t get anything you want.”
“Well…we’ll see. Once we’re a safe distance away, I’ll call your brother and make my demands. He can relay them to your lovers. That will be a little extra revenge – forcing them to work together to save you.” He laughed, a bitter, hard laugh. “But they’ll fail, they’ll never find you. If they don’t meet my demands, I’ll have you out of the country and on a Soviet sub before they ever know what happened.”
* * *
“Never let it be said that a locked door can stand in my way.” Cato struggled to get the screen off the window. “Here, Molly, hold this shutter back. Let me see if I can get my big butt through this opening.”
“God, Cato, do you think they’re gone?” Molly sounded scared to death. “I can’t believe none of us had a phone!”
“Hey, it was your idea that we needed to have family time without anyone checking their messages.”
“Yea, it’s the new mother syndrome,” Molly mumbled. “Heath had his phone, I saw him.”
Everyone ignored her complaining, realizing they were all under tremendous stress.
“What about Ryder? I’m so worried about her.” Pepper was in tears. “We’ve got to find her before that psycho hurts her.”
“We will, that’s what we’re doing…” Cato grunted. “Just as soon as I - made it!” Cato announced as her feet touched the ground. “Here, give me your hand.” She helped Molly through the window. “I know you want to get to those babies, but be careful. Make sure they’re gone before you head through the door. I’m running straight over to the office to alert Heath about Ryder’s abduction. Pepper, you check on that poor boy and call an ambulance. Call the police too.”
“Hurry, Cato!” Pepper urged, following her sisters-in-law out the window. “We need to get Ryder back!”
Cato hurried. She ran as hard as she could – across the yard, down the road, and by the barn. By the time she reached the office, she was out of breath. “Heath! Help! Heath!” Cato began to scream as she bounded up the steps. “Help! Heath!”
The door flew open and Heath stood there, his face white. He could tell panic in his wife’s voice when he heard it. “What’s wrong, baby?”
“Scott Eagleton pulled a gun on us. His assistant shot Ryder’s bodyguard. He may be dead! He locked us up, but we escaped.” She grabbed his arms. “Except for Ryder.”
Heath’s face turned stark white. “What about Ryder?” he urged her to get to the point.
“Scott took her hostage, he’s the one who’s been sabotaging the Duke’s Mars mission.”
“Fuck, fuck, fuck!” Heath dry scrubbed his face, pulled Cato into the office, then turned to face his brothers who looked as horrified as he did. “I brought the fucker into our home! How could I have been so blind?”
Tennessee took off running. “I’ve got to get to Molly and the babies!”
“They’re fine, Ten!” Cato called, but he didn’t wait to hear more.
“Jaxson, Phillip, you two take off and see if you can catch Eagleton. Take your guns!”
The two brothers immediately followed his instructions. Heath moved into the office and grabbed his phone. “I’ll call the cops and the Dukes. God, we don’t have a clue where he’s taken her. You know he won’t go home. He’ll take Ryder somewhere to hide her until he can get his dirty work done.”
Before he could dial the number, the phone rang in his hand. “Blocked call,” he read off the display. Answering it, he shouted. “Yes? Ryder?”
“No, it’s not Ryder.”
“Eagleton!” Heath bellowed. “You son-of-a-bitch, bring back my sister!”
“Tut, tut,” Scott said with malice in his voice. “Not going to happen. Listen to me, friend.”
“I’m not your friend!” Heath bellowed again.
“That’s what you called me when you wanted my money. Listen to me carefully, if you ever want to see your sister alive again. I want you to call the Dukes to deliver a very important message. Tell them I want a billion dollars and I want them to scrap their launch – immediately and permanently. I not only want them to scrap it, I want them to destroy all their components, their factory, and their rockets. The only thing I want retained and sent to me are the blueprints and calculations. I want everything else obliterated. If they don’t, I’ll kill your sister.”
“You no-count son-of-a-bitch,” Heath growled.
“Ryder tells me the brothers don’t ever negotiate with terrorists – well, this time they need to reconsider.”
Heath thought he was going to throw up. He knew the Dukes could be ruthless businessmen. “Please, Scott. Don’t do this. What you’re asking might be impossible. Could you kill Ryder? Could you destroy your own life like this?”
“I have a life you know nothing about, Heath. The authorities will never find me. Even if they do, I’ll be where no one can touch me.”
“Well, I’ll find you, you son-of-a-bitch. You’ll have to go to Mars to escape me? Do you hear me?!”
“I hear you making a l
ot of noise, McCoy. Give this number to the Dukes and tell them I await their call. I’ll give them an account number to deposit the money in and an email account to begin sending the files. Also, I want visual evidence of the destruction of their property.”
“Don’t hurt my…”
The line went dead in Heath’s hand.
“Oh, God – what have I done?”
* * *
“I’m glad we went to see Ellis’ widow. The money we gave her will go a long way to helping those little girls have a good life.” Samson felt optimistic.
“Everything else is falling into place. I’ve promised time and a half to everyone involved. Once Heath gets the fuel delivered, we’ll be ready to rock and roll. We won’t call a press conference until the last possible minute. We don’t want to alert Rasputin – whoever he is – to our plan.” Gideon was excited. “Let’s call Ryder and tell her we’re coming home. I think we can take care of the rest of this over the phone, don’t you?”
“You’re just anxious to get back to Ryder,” Samson observed dryly, amused.
“Well, aren’t you?”
“Hell, yes! We need to call Thurgood and direct him to get the chef to prepare something special. We want a romantic dinner to set the stage for our proposal.”
The sound of his cell phone cut off Samson’s line of thought. He glanced at the screen. “It’s Heath. Hello? Something wrong?”
As Samson listened, Gideon picked up on the darkest tide of emotion he’d ever felt rolling from his brother.
“Fuck, no!” Samson screamed, jerking the Lamborghini off the road. Fuck, no. Fuck. Fuck. “Heath, let me put you on speaker. Repeat what you just said so Gideon can hear.”
“Scott Eagleton took Ryder. He’s the one behind all your troubles.”
Samson and Gideon looked at one another. They’d never felt so devastated. They’d never heard Heath sound so hopeless. “What does he want, Heath?”
“One billion dollars and for you to scrap the launch. Not only scrap the launch, but destroy everything – he wants OuterLimits to cease to exist. The only thing he wants - in addition to the money - is your intel. He wants your theories, your calculations, your blueprints. Essentially, he wants to be you.”
“Done,” Samson said flatly.
“Scott said Ryder told him you don’t negotiate with terrorists,” Heath announced with little to no emotion in his voice.
Gideon gave his answer. “We’re not going to negotiate with the terrorist. We’re going to meet his every demand. This is Ryder. There is nothing in this world we wouldn’t give up for her.”
“I have a number for you to call to talk to Eagleton.” Heath gave it to them. “I want to be there with you when this goes down. This is all my fault. I’m the one who invited Eagleton into our home.”
“Meet us at Falconhead,” Gideon told Ryder’s brother. “We’re on our way now.”
“Hold on,” Heath said. Samson and Gideon could hear Heath talking to someone.
“Cato told me to tell you two things. First, your man was shot, the one who came with Ryder.”
“God, no,” Gideon said, clutching his fists in anger. “Is he still alive?”
“I don’t know, yet. Tennessee has gone to check on the folks up at the house. We were down at the office, working on the fuel transport plan. That was why all of this went down – Fuck!” he cried out again.
“What else?” Samson urged. “Was there something else?”
“Yea, Cato read Eagleton’s lips while he was making a phone call. She says Eagleton took Ryder to Galveston. He’s always wanted her. He’s been obsessed with her for years.”
“I’m sure he’s planning on getting out of the country!” Gideon exclaimed.
“Yes, and if he doesn’t kill Ryder first, he’ll take her with him.” Samson slammed his palm against the steering wheel. “Okay, Heath. Change of plans. Gather whomever you trust and we’ll bring our team and meet you on the island. Come to the Galveston Yacht Club on the bayside, the Gemini is docked there.”
“We’ve got to get her back.” Heath’s voice was weak with fear.
Samson and Gideon understood, they felt the same way. “I won’t tell you not to worry, Heath. We’re worried. We love Ryder with our whole heart. What I can tell you is that we will get her back safely – anything else is unacceptable.”
* * *
Samson and Gideon wasted no time. Even though their world had just crashed at their feet, they refused to give an inch. They fully intended to do what needed to be done. Even as they set out to catch their plane to take them to Galveston, they sat side by side ready to place a call to a person who was their enemy in every sense of the word.
“I want to kill him.” Gideon didn’t beat around the bush.
“I know the feeling,” Samson agreed, “but we’ve got to keep our head. We need to do what this man says, but at the same time, we need to put into motion a plan to save Ryder. I don’t trust this man’s word.”
“You know what kills me?” Gideon whispered, pain lancing through his heart.
“What?”
“We never told her we loved her. We were waiting on the right time, waiting to give her the ring.” In anguish, Gideon looked at his brother. “Right now, in her heart, Ryder doesn’t think we’re coming for her. She thinks we won’t negotiate for her release. She might expect her family to come for her, but she has no hope we will.”
Samson groaned. “Don’t say that. Surely she knows.”
“I don’t know, Samson. With all our bluster, with all our money, we’ve failed to make the one person we love more than anything in the world aware of her value. She’s everything to us.”
“Everything!” Samson repeated. “When she’s back with us, when she’s back in our arms – this must be our greatest priority.”
Taking a few breaths to get a handle on his emotions – Gideon placed the call.
In a few seconds, there came an answer. “Rasputin, here. Is this the mighty Dukes?”
“Eagleton, we want Ryder back.”
“Uh-uh, not so fast. You know my demands. Here’s the account number.” Scott rattled it off. “I expect one billion to hit there in one hour. That’s your down payment. The rest – the disassembling of OuterLimits, the transfer of information - you have twenty-four hours to set it into motion.”
“You know that’s impossible,” Gideon spoke plainly.
“And you have to know I mean business. I want video evidence that you are destroying rockets, capsules, computers – everything. I want you out of the commercial space travel business.”
Samson looked at Gideon. “Why don’t we just give it to you? Legally. Lock, stock, and barrel. You give us Ryder and we give you everything we own.”
In the background, they heard a gasp.
Thank God, Eagleton had them on speakerphone. At least Ryder knew the truth. They would give everything they possessed for her safe return.
Their offer seemed to stump Eagleton.
Gideon kept his eyes on Samson. They were in total agreement. “Just give us a place to make the exchange. We want Ryder and we’ll give you a deed to OuterLimits. We’ll walk away from it all.”
“How do I know I can trust you?”
“The same way we know if we can trust you! We don’t!” Samson yelled. He swallowed, this time lowering his voice. “Look - we give you our word. The only thing more valuable than our word to us, is the woman you’ve stolen from our arms – Ryder McCoy. We’re willing to turn over our fortune and our company to you in exchange for the woman we love.” Essentially, they were giving him a deal he couldn’t refuse.
“I’ll call you back.”
When the line went silent, Samson and Gideon closed their eyes in prayer.
…When the McCoys needed to rally their troops, they could raise an army. Within a few hours, men were flying into Galveston from every direction. The Highland McCoys converged with the Tebow McCoys. Their Cajun friends – all former Seal members, togeth
er with Harley LeBlanc, a foremost bomb expert, all gathered their arsenal and set out for Texas. The Equalizers assembled, including the Texas Governor who’d just announced his candidacy for President – all super-qualified – all potentially deadly. But their secret weapon was already on the island. Equalizer Jet Foster, a Navy Seal Black Ops diver, was sitting on his pirate/treasure hunting ship, checking to find out exactly who was on the island and what ships were docked off-shore.
With Jet was his best friend, former Intelligence guru, Micah Wolfe. “We’ve got this, Kyle. I’ve got a bead on this bad boy. The intelligence community is abuzz.” Micah lounged on the deck of Jet’s boat, his computer in his lap, his phone to his ear. “Eagleton, or Rasputin as he likes to call himself, is Putin’s boy. And get this, my friends in Navy intelligence tell me that we have a Russian nuclear sub in the Gulf. It’s lurking just off the coast of Mexico and appears to be waiting for a signal.”
“What the hell?” Chancellor exclaimed. “I’ve got a damn nuclear sub off the coast of Texas? Do I need to mobilize the state National Guard?”
Micah sipped a colorful alcoholic drink through a straw. “Not yet. We don’t want to alert them to the fact that we know they’re here, not till we get Ryder back. Plus, I don’t think we want to trigger an international incident. You know, back in 2012, a Russian sub armed with long-range nuclear missiles meandered all over the Gulf, and we didn’t know it until after they left. Thanks to that fiasco, we’ve kept a closer eye on the area or we wouldn’t be in the position we’re in today.”
“God, what a mess!” Kyle muttered angrily.
“Boss!” Jet hollered from across the way.
“Hand him the phone, Wolfe. Tell Jet I can’t hear him bellowing from Austin.”
Micah handed his cell to Jet Foster. “Here, Champ, the Guv wants to talk to you.”
“Boss, I just got some new info. My sources on the island tell me that Eagleton has a house down on the far end of West Beach. One of those big fuckin’ mansions with a wall built around it.”
“Will that be a problem?” Kyle asked calmly.