by Brad Taylor
I heard a bunch of background noise, then he came back. “Pike, they’ve just made a demand. I have to go. Call George Wolffe. Tell him Prairie Fire. He’ll open the world.”
I heard the command and felt some comfort. Prairie Fire was the code word for a catastrophic event, when Taskforce lives were on the line. He was giving me the keys to the kingdom for his niece, and I had no doubt he would back it up.
I said, “Thanks, sir. Gotta go.”
He spoke again, hope seeping through the connection, penetrating the disaster he was dealing with. He said, “Wait. The reports here are bad. Very bad. At least seven bodies all burned beyond recognition. Why do you think she’s alive?”
“Because she’s from your genes. Trust me, she’s alive, and I’m bringing her home. Like I promised.”
* * *
Kylie heard the door open to the cellar, then the stomping of feet, the adrenaline spurt from past events failing to appear. She remained prone, no longer having the energy to care, the virus that was ravaging her body siphoning off any energy to respond.
The bearded one removed her hood and forced her upright, saying, “What’s wrong with you?”
Listlessly, she said, “Nothing. Asshole.”
He set her food in place, and with an urgency he’d never shown before, he said, “You sick? You need to see a doctor?”
She heard Nick shout from the other side of the room, “Yes, you dumbass. Yes, she’s sick. You want the leverage, you need to help her.”
She saw him stalk to Nick, hood still on, and cuff him in the head. Nick hit the ground, and the man leaned over, saying, “You a doctor, asshole?”
Nick sat up, staring in the wrong direction in his hood. He spit out, “Fuck you. She’s your golden egg and you know it. And so am I. You can beat me some more if you want, but she’s going down fast. Fix it. Now.”
Colin ripped his hood off, kicking him to the floor. In the back, Travis began whimpering, curling up in a ball. Colin said, “I could kill you right now, you fuck. I have him and her. I have the power.”
Nick glared at him and said, “No, you don’t. You bring the food. You’re a fucking lackey. You have nothing but the power of your boot, you miserable shit.”
The words caused Kylie to sit up at last, afraid of the response. She saw Colin’s face and knew Nick was dead.
Instead, Colin kicked the wall, cursing in aggravation. She realized Nick was right. For the first time, she clearly saw he knew more about their predicament than anyone else. Colin satisfied himself with a boot to the gut, then stormed up the steps, slamming the room into darkness.
She waited a minute, then said, “Nick, please don’t do that again.”
He chuckled and said, “Yeah, that probably wasn’t smart. I let my anger get the better of me. I thought I was dead.”
From the fetal position, Travis said, “Yes, yes, please don’t do that again.”
Nick leaned over in the dirt and clawed his way forward a few feet. He put his face next to Travis’s hood and said, “I can see you. You know why? Because he left without putting my hood back on. Because I’m not a pussy.”
Kylie said, “Shh. He’s talking just outside.”
They grew quiet and heard Colin’s voice.
—“I need to speak to Ratko.”
—“Because he’ll want to hear what I have to say, that’s why. Quickly, I don’t have a lot of time.”
They sat in their underground tomb hearing nothing. Waiting. Eventually, Colin’s voice floated out again.
—“Ratko? Yes. I’m Colin. I work with Seamus and don’t like how this is going. I have nothing to do with what’s happened.”
Silence, only the shuffling of Colin’s feet on the deck of their prison. Then, a more subdued voice.
—“Ratko, I don’t want you chasing me. That’s why I’m calling. I have the people we took. I don’t know what Seamus is up to. If he crossed you, it had nothing to do with me, but I can give you more than that necklace.”
—“Damn it, listen to me! We’ve caught the son of the vice president of the United States. Along with his fiancée. They’re worth more than that necklace. Seamus is auctioning them off as I speak.”
—“Because I don’t want you hunting me, that’s why. Look, Seamus is going to be wondering what I’m doing. Am I good? I pass them to you and I’m not on your list?”
—“Okay, okay. If Braden doesn’t show, I’ll call you. Will that work?”
There was a long pause, then Colin said, “I understand. I’m not working with Seamus on this. No tricks. Trust me, you want him, I’ll set it up.”
They heard nothing else. Kylie said, “What does that mean? What’s he talking about?”
Nick said, “It means we have a seam. Something to exploit.”
She looked at his face in the shadow of the heat lamps and saw despair. She knew he was lying, and things had gone from bad to worse.
55
Jennifer turned from the computer and said, “Okay, I think we have something. A start.”
I stopped pacing the hotel room and said, “What?”
“The number the flip phone called is dead. Turned off or gone, but it has a history. The guys at the Taskforce triangulated from the cell towers, and it was used most right here.”
She pointed to the computer, showing a section of buildings that looked like everything else in Paris. The usual five-story baroque structure surrounding a courtyard that you saw all over the damn city. I said, “That’s too much terrain. We don’t have days to search.”
Knowing what I was asking, she said, “I . . . I can’t get any closer.”
I said, “Bullshit. There’s something that’ll neck it down. Squeeze over.”
She moved aside, letting me in front of the computer. I switched screens and found myself looking at some geek who was apparently bored to be working the problem. I said, “Hey, you there?”
He snapped to the screen and said, “Yeah. I’m here.”
“That’s the best you can do? Give us a thousand-meter grid square?”
“The phone isn’t on. All we have is historical data. Yeah, that’s the best we can do.”
“Well, that ain’t good enough. I need a miracle. What can I give you for that? What do you need?”
He looked over his shoulder again, and I heard something in the background.
I said, “Pay attention.”
He became truculent, saying, “We’ve got a situation here. Possible casualties. Forgive me if I don’t give you my undivided devotion.”
As if he would feel the death of Knuckles more than me. I said, “Did you get the Prairie Fire alert from the command? For my element?”
“I got a Prairie Fire, yeah, but I don’t think it was for you. I couldn’t find a ‘Grolier Recovery Services’ active as a Taskforce element. You aren’t even authorized to be talking to me. I don’t even know how you have the encryption.”
I couldn’t believe it. I took a deep breath and said, “Listen to me closely. The fact that I have the encryption is proof I can talk to you. My Prairie Fire is real, and you’d better start helping.”
He turned to respond to something said offscreen, and I was losing the fight. I felt the rage grow, compounded by a feeling of impotence. In a low voice, I said, “Mr. Geek, turn back to this computer.”
He heard the tone, the violence leaking through the connection, and he snapped to the screen. I said, “There are lives on the line. If they die, I will come back and find you. When I do, I will replicate whatever happened to the hostages.”
He started to say something smart, then his confidence faltered at the sight of my expression. He said, “Okay. What do you need?”
I said, “You got a geolocation request for a phone that was dead. I want you to juxtapose the Galaxy smartphone locations with the history of that phone.
Tell me where they intersect. It’s plugged in right now on this end.”
Thirty seconds later he said, “That phone only made one call on the cell network, and it’s miles from there, in another section of Paris. It has a VOIP application that’s been used, but we can’t trace that.”
“Voice-over-Internet Protocol? Is that what you mean? You can’t trace it because it’s going over the Internet instead of the cell system?”
“Yes.”
I said, “Okay, now give me an IP address search. Find the Wi-Fi nodes the smartphone touched. If he’s using the Internet, it had to touch something.”
He started typing, and the Samsung hooked to our computer lit up, getting probed from over three thousand miles away. He said, “There are quite a few, but one stands out. It spent more than twelve hours at a time hooked to a Wi-Fi node called Linksy 201.”
Because it’s in the bed-down location. I said, “That’s where he’s staying. How can I find that node?”
“You have a Growler? If it’s in that building, you could find the signal.”
“No. I’ve got no equipment.”
He squinted. I knew he was reflecting on the fact that we weren’t in the active lineup, something confirmed by a lack of basic Taskforce equipment.
I said, “I don’t have a support package. It diverted to the crisis site. I need something else.”
The answer seemed to make sense. He said, “Well, I could find the Internet service provider that’s tied to the IP address. I could locate who’s paying the bills for the ISP.”
“Do it.”
We waited ten minutes and he came back on. “It’s an apartment rental service. They provide fully furnished short-term apartments in Paris for international travelers. Unfortunately, they pay for Internet service at all of their apartments. They’re scattered throughout Paris. I know that’s not much.”
It was more help than he understood. “Can you hack into the rental service?”
“Yeah. Probably won’t be too much trouble.”
He started pounding the keys, shouting over his shoulder to another guy, speaking in computer geek code and finally getting into the mission.
I said, “Give me the apartment address Braden McKee is renting. He’s from Ireland.”
They worked a bit, and he said, “Okay, we’re in. The problem is the foreign registrations are logged by passport number and nationality, I guess for privacy purposes. I’ve got twelve apartments in Paris for Irish nationals. I can’t get any better without having the guy’s passport.”
I heard Jennifer start ripping through the knapsack of jewels we’d pulled off Braden. She turned to me, holding the key to the hostages in her hand.
I smiled and said, “Guess what I have?”
56
Eating her bowl of cereal next to Mack, Kaelyn Clute had grown used to the routine. After the scare when they’d driven to the rundown apartment, things had drifted back into an endless repetition of darkness and light, split only by the once-a-day feeding. The hood had become almost a welcome cocoon, though she still despised the gag. It had grown crusty with her spittle and had begun to stink.
She rubbed Mack’s leg with each spoonful, and he did the same in return, a system of connection that reassured her and gave her strength. She saw the level of her bowl and had learned through repeated feedings that she had about another five minutes with McKinley.
The man in the chair to her front slapped his back pocket and pulled out a phone. He glanced at the other man and flicked his head out the door. “Be right back. Probably Braden.”
It was the first time since they’d made the video that the routine had been broken, and for some reason it scared her. She put the spoon down and tried to listen but heard nothing through the door. She ate more slowly, catching Mack’s eye.
The man returned, talking into a phone.
—“Braden told us to wait. He would take the video. Why are we executing now?” He looked into her eyes.
—“Yeah, let me talk to him.”
—“Seamus, what’s up? We still tracking?”
—“Yeah, yeah, I can do it,” he said, still looking at her. “Kevin gave me the instructions. I won’t screw up. Look, Fayetteville was a mistake, but it doesn’t make me an idiot.” His next words proved the statement a lie, an unnecessary call to action to the two hostages in the room.
—“Leave the bodies here?”
She heard nothing else, unable to focus on the conversation, her hands shaking, the spoon rattling in the bowl.
The man ended the call and said, “He wants us to execute, but Seamus doesn’t trust us. Wants me to send him a Snapchat first so Kevin can analyze it. Make sure we’re clean.”
He pulled out an iPhone, then a piece of paper with instructions on it. He began going through the phone settings, manually manipulating the privacy settings. When he was done, he said, “Look over here.”
The other man grunted and said, “You want me to smile?”
He held the phone up and said, “I don’t give a shit.”
Two minutes later, he sent the video and said, “Get them back into the hoods.”
Kaelyn saw the man advancing, telling her to replace the gag around her neck, and she knew it was now or never. She looked at Mack and he nodded, understanding the same thing she did. They were going to die.
But not on their knees.
She leapt up, her ankles still flex-tied, and threw herself at the first man, catching him just below the waist. He shouted and went down. She rolled over and began screaming, “Help us, help us!”
Hopping like he was in a macabre three-legged race at a company picnic, McKinley drove himself into the other man. He dropped the phone and scrambled for his pistol in the small of his back. McKinley beat him to the draw, launching forward with his entire weight, punching the man and tying up his arms.
Kaelyn rolled over, getting on top of the first man, still screaming as loud as she could, hammering him in the face. The man elbowed her in the temple, causing stars, but she continued fighting. She clawed his eyes, desperately trying to put him down. He drew his pistol and slammed the barrel into her forehead. The fight left her, the light from the room tunneling away. She fell over.
Her vision blurry, she heard the man shout something, his barrel pressed against her forehead. She tried to yell, to tell Mack that at least one should live. To tell him to continue fighting. Nothing came out. She saw McKinley sag back, the will gone from the sight of the gun to her head. The man punched him in the face, knocking him to the floor. She began to weep.
The gag was placed in her mouth, and McKinley was dragged over to her. Their hands were flex-tied again and they were pulled to their knees, side by side. The man to the left screwed in a suppressor to his pistol while the first man lined up the phone. He said, “One at a time. Seamus wants to drag it out. Make them think one is still alive.”
“Which first?”
“The Marine. I’m sick of his shit. Remember, only the barrel in the picture.”
Kaelyn grabbed Mack’s bound hands, squeezing tightly. The pistol floated forward, six inches from his head. She closed her eyes, not wanting to see the death. Praying for a miracle.
The apartment doorbell rang.
The man with the phone said, “What the fuck.”
“Someone heard her shouting.”
He left the room, then came back. “It’s some hot beur. What should I do?”
“She by herself?”
“Yeah.”
“Let her in, act like everything’s normal. Tell her a story, but don’t let her get past the anteroom.”
He made the mistake of doing so.
57
We fought through the Paris traffic, going faster than was allowed, crossing the Seine yet again and hauling ass toward the target. I checked my weapon, making sure
the thing would function, a rote habit born from many, many assaults.
Jennifer did the same, saying, “You’re getting better and better at the acting. You scared the hell out of that guy. I’m sure he believed you’d hunt him down. Kill him.”
I looked up and said, “I wasn’t acting that time.”
She said nothing, reading me. Seeing the truth. She changed the subject. “So what’re we going to do when we arrive?”
“Go in strong. Full bore.”
Nung said, “I do not have a weapon.”
I chuckled and said, “I thought your hands were lethal weapons.”
He didn’t smile. Instead, he said, “I should take Jennifer’s weapon. She can stage the vehicle for retreat.”
I looked at her, considering. She raised an eyebrow, telling me she didn’t care and she’d do whatever I thought best. So I did what I thought was best.
“Nung, sorry. No offense, but I trained Jennifer. I know her skills. She’s going in with me.”
I saw a ghost of a smile flit across her face and realized she did care.
Nung scowled and said, “That is a mistake. I still get my full payment whether I’m fighting or sitting in a car waiting like a taxi driver.”
“Yeah, I got it. You still haven’t told me what that is.”
“The bag of jewels will do.”
I said, “Nung, I can’t give you those.”
He said, “We’ll see.”
Looking at the moving map on her phone, Jennifer said, “Two blocks up.”
Nung continued, and she pointed to a large wooden double door. “That’s it.”
Shit. If it was locked, allowing only residents in, we were screwed.
Nung pulled to the curb, leaving barely enough room for another car to pass. We exited and jogged to the door. I tried it, and it opened, showing an archway and a corridor leading to a courtyard, a set of mailboxes on the left and a stairwell on the right. I said, “Okay, we get to the apartment and you knock. Get them to open it. First order of business is to make sure we’ve got the right place.”