Sophia couldn't help it, she started to cry. “Yes, I understand.”
“You make an excuse, and you leave—by yourself,” the man said. “We know where you are, we're watching. Anyone other than you gets into your car, Dave is dead. Anyone leaves the building after you, Dave is dead. We're monitoring calls, both from your cell phone and from the Trouble -shooters office. Anyone makes a call about this, Dave is dead. Your friends are going to tell you that I'm bluffing, that we don't have the technology to do that, but we do. The choice of whom to believe is yours, but if you believe them? Dave is dead.”
Decker nodded his encouragement, and through a tight throat and frozen lips, Sophia managed to say the words, “Yes, I understand.”
“Winston Park,” the man said. “Drive completely around the park— make a full circuit before you pull over and park on Barrett Boulevard. There's a webcam near the fountain. When we see you, we'll call with further instructions. You have ten minutes to get there.”
“Ten minutes!” Sophia said. “I mean, yes, I understand, but—”
The connection had been cut.
“We can do this,” Decker said, despite the fact that Winston Park was in the dead opposite direction from the place they believed Dave was being held. But he was already unlocking the front door, his sat phone to his ear as he called Tess.
“Get moving,” he said into his phone. “We've been contacted by the kidnappers. I've got Sophia—we'll catch up. We're shutting down the bogus signal to the security cameras. No one should come back until this is over, or until they contact me—spread the word—but first tell me how the hell to do this.”
After Tess climbed in, Lindsey pulled the surveillance van away from the curb.
“Wait,” Tracy said. “Where's Sophia?”
And Deck? Where was Deck? She was counting on getting at least another glimpse of him as he delivered Sophia to the van. She wanted to look into his eyes and see if she'd been hallucinating when she'd seen him say what she thought he'd said.
She didn't even dare to think it—that he might actually love her, too. True, he'd made clear his intention. She knew without a doubt that after this was over, after Dave was safe, she and Decker were going to spend a significant amount of time locked, alone, in her apartment.
She was guessing it would be several days, at first. Then, he'd come home with her every night after work, when he wasn't OCONUS. And after a few weeks had passed, after the sense of urgency wasn't quite so fierce, they'd fall into a comfortable pattern where he'd visit a few times a week and maybe stay over on the weekend.
Tracy had been ready for that. She'd been willing and even content with the idea that her relationship with this incredible man would last only as long as it lasted. She'd resigned herself to the fact that, having completely fallen for him, she was going to end up hurt.
But that was far into the future—far enough to push away, out of sight and out of mind.
But then he'd gone and said what he'd said—maybe. He might've been saying I love zoos. Or I love shoes. Or I lurk, too. But her twisted sense of perception had seen it as the big proclamation with love as the verb, and now she was filled with the kind of wanting that could, way too quickly, turn desperate and unattractive and painfully needy.
And, if she weren't careful, everything she said or did would telegraph her single-minded goal, which was please, please, please love me forever.
So she swallowed her question—Where's Decker?—aware that Jo Heissman was sitting quietly behind her, and instead asked Lindsey, “What's going on?”
Lindsey and Tess were both talking on their sat phones.
“ Uh-huh,” Lindsey said as she drove. Tracy couldn't keep herself from turning in her seat to watch out the rear window as they left TS HQ behind.
“The program is running on a laptop that I've hooked into the main system,” Tess was saying. “It's on my desk, in my office.”
“ Uh-huh,” Lindsey said again. “Roger that, ma'am. We're on the move.” She looked at both Tracy and Jo in the rearview. “Alyssa said that Deck said to get moving. Sophia's been contacted by the kidnappers. They're dealing with that.”
“ Dealing?” Tracy asked. “How exactly are they dealing?”
Decker couldn't get the fucking computer to work.
He had Tess on the phone, on speaker so Sophia could hear her, too, and she was saying something about the system parameters and how her laptop was connected to the main computer and, Jesus, time was running out.
He interrupted her. “If I simply pull the plug—if I disconnect your laptop from the main system—will that do the trick?”
“Well, yes, but you're not going to get it up and running again by—”
“If I don't go out there, right now,” Sophia spoke over Tess, “if they don't see me on that camera, in the parking lot? They're going to kill Dave.” She grabbed and pulled before Decker could stop her.
“Wait,” he said, but it was too late.
“Oh, no.” She immediately realized her mistake. She should have let Deck go out first, so he could hide in her car. “Oh, shit.”
“Tess, I gotta go.” Deck hung up his phone. “Okay,” he told Sophia as he hustled her to the door. “It's okay. The north side of this building has a blind spot between two cameras.” She knew this—they'd all helped design the security system here at the Troubleshooters office. They'd put in a blind spot for this very reason—as an alternative escape route. “I'll go out the conference room window.”
“Those windows don't open,” she told him.
“Every window,” Decker said, “opens. Go—take a left out of the drive, pull over in front of the hydrant. I'll meet you out there.”
She nodded and pushed open the door.
“Soph,” he said, and she turned back. “Wait there for me. I'm right behind you. Do not leave without me, do you understand?”
“Yes, I understand,” she said—it was the phrase of the hour—and went out the door.
Jimmy got a call from Tom Paoletti on the secure phone line, with an update on Ken Karmody's condition. The SEAL had survived his surgery and was in ICU. He wasn't out of danger, but at least they'd finished sewing him back together.
“I'm still here in the hospital, too,” the CO said. “It's driving me frigging nuts. I'd walk out but… like you, I'm under the protective eye of guards.”
“I don't know what's worse,” Jimmy admitted. “Getting updates or not getting updates.” He laughed. “Tess keeps calling me with little jobs to do. Research. I'm working support for her.”
“She's a good operative,” Tom said.
“Yes,” Jimmy agreed. “She is. And I'm sorry, sir, I've got to go—she's calling me right now.” He clicked over. “Yeah.”
“www.WinstonPark.org,” Tess said. “Click on their webcam. What do you see?”
Decker grabbed a length of mountain-climbing rope from the equipment locker, digging for the key to the section that was kept double-locked—the section where the C-4 was stored.
They didn't keep much of it on hand—the building's insurance policy didn't allow it. But they kept enough.
And right now he didn't need much. He tore off a chunk—it was like putty or modeling clay—and grabbed a fuse and blasting cap, then locked the cabinet back up. As he headed for the conference room—and the window in question—he rolled the explosive in his hands like he was making a Play-Doh snake for Charlie Paoletti or Haley Starrett.
It was strange to think that Sophia was going to have a child, that she was pregnant. And that, in turn, made him think about something Tracy had said, just a few days back—Jesus, it seemed like a lifetime ago. But she'd accused Decker of imagining Dave and Sophia's relationship as being G-rated, and yeah, he definitely had. Because he couldn't think about Sophia having sex with anyone without thinking about all of the pain and abuse she'd lived through in the months after Dimitri had died. And now he had that added image of Dimitri's head on the table beside her bed—thanks so much, Dave
.
And Jesus, Dave was a better man than he was, to be able to look past all that horror, to just wipe it away and be able and willing to start fresh. But Dave truly loved her. Dave had always loved Sophia, enough to get past anything.
Deck put the strips of the C-4 on the window—it wouldn't take much, and it didn't have to be artful—and he attached the fuse, which didn't have to be very long.
“Fire in the hole.” It was stupid to say it aloud when he was alone, but say it he did, after lighting the fuse and ducking into the hall. He used the time to secure the end of the rope around the entire conference room door and …
Poof. Cssssssh.
The explosion was junior-sized—most of the noise came from the window shattering, and even that seemed subdued. It had broken as he wanted it to—inward—and he crunched over the glass on the floor as he tested the rope.
It held against his weight, so he went out the window and down the side of the building, and ran out into the street toward Sophia's waiting car.
“Where's Winston Park?” Jules asked. “What's the terrain?”
Dawn had broken, giving the fog an unnatural, almost alien glow as Alyssa looked into the backseat where Jules and Sam were sitting as they rode with Commander Koehl in his SUV.
Which was kind of weird. Koehl's leadership style was vastly different from Jules's. He was one of those I am God, obey me–type commanders.
But Koehl shook his head now, as did Alyssa. “I don't know it,” he said.
Sam did. “I took Haley and Charlie over there—it's near the 5, south of the Nature Center. It's not big like Mission Trails or Balboa. It's a city park. Fountain in the middle, playground, chess tables, sidewalks, and lawn. A coupla blocks long at the most, little parking area at one end. Really little—pretty useless—but there's street parking. You can pretty much drive around the park until a spot opens. I think there's one of those old-time bandstand stage things near the fountain, although they might set it up and take it down as needed. We went to see some kind of dog show— an agility contest—and they were using the stage to give out the awards.”
“We should call Decker with that information,” Jules said.
“Deck knows the park—we ran into him there,” Sam said. Both Alyssa and Jules looked at him, so he shrugged and explained. “He told me he volunteers at a local animal shelter. He'd brought one of their dogs out to compete, maybe find her a home.”
And okay, that wasn't the most surprising thing about Decker that Jules had discovered today, but it was pretty close.
Alyssa wasn't quite as amazed. And she was, understandably, a little freaked out by her decision not to divert any additional support to back up Decker and Sophia. But how could she? They didn't have the personnel to split into two groups—one of them about to attempt the take-down of a not-yet-surveilled location.
As it was, Sam was going to need to replace Decker as his second-in-command. It shouldn't be Jules, because if something went wrong, he was needed to call in the local FBI.
Which he couldn't do in advance, because that information would be received by the Agency—God, he hated this. But one thing he was going to love? After this was over, he was going to love walking into the Agency and arresting Doug Brendon's ass. Tess had been pretty certain that the Agency head was at least loosely involved. The man had—at least—participated in a cover-up.
Alyssa was back on the phone with both Lindsey and Tess. “Any word from Jones?”
“Why did Stafford call Sophia now?” Sam mused aloud. “Unless they know we're coming and they're trying to delay or divert us.”
“Maybe they were waiting for dawn,” Jules said. “Decker said they mentioned the park's webcam. You ever look at a webcam shot at night? Not much to see.” He aimed his words at the CO. “Excuse me, sir, can this thing move any faster?”
Koehl stepped on the gas even as he said, “There's no way we're going to get there, do the surveillance we need, and execute the take-down within that ten-minute time frame.” But he was telling them what they already knew.
Sam, meanwhile, was playing devil's advocate. “Okay, so Sophia shows up at the park. What's to keep 'em from taking a sniper shot?”
“They don't want to kill her.” Jules was virtually certain. “Dave's not talking. They want her as leverage.”
“So they're going to try to grab her.”
“Yup.”
“She better fucking not get out of her car.”
“Whatever happens,” Decker told Sophia as they sped toward Winston Park, “whatever they say, whatever they tell you, do not get out of this car.”
She nodded, her knuckles nearly white on the steering wheel as she drove.
“I want to hear you say it,” he said. “I will not get out of the car.”
“I will not get out of the car.”
“What you need to do is stall,” he told her, but she didn't respond. “Sophia, I'm not convinced you're listening to me. They're not going to kill Dave, okay? They're going to keep him alive, because they know if he's dead you're not going to help them. You have the power here. So you circle the park. You keep moving. And you tell them that you want proof of life, and that they're going to have to be on your timetable now. Tell them to call you back in ten minutes, and this time you want to hear Dave's voice on the phone. Tell them that you want to talk to him. He's going to have to answer your questions so that you know it's not just a recording. You tell them all that, okay?”
She nodded.
“Take it slowly when you're talking,” he said. “Repeat yourself. We're buying time. And right now, we're doing great on our travel time,” he tried to reassure her.
His phone rang. It was Nash. “Yeah.”
“I am here, in Safety Central, looking right now at the view from the webcam over at beautiful, downtown Winston Park.”
Decker put his phone on speaker so that Sophia could hear Nash, too. “Tell me more.”
“The camera's positioned on top of what looks like some kind of statue in the middle of some kind of fountain,” Nash continued. “It's pretty fucking stupid—every few minutes the fountain shoots its wad and the water completely obscures the view. I don't know, maybe it's supposed to be artistic, but I'm finding it annoying.”
“Can you see the cars on the street? And you're on speaker, by the way, so try your best to keep it clean.”
“Yes, I can see the cars—but only on Fremont Street. Barrett, where they want Sophia to park, is out of the webcam's range,” Nash reported. “And hello, Sophia. By the way, I'm not dead.”
She actually smiled at that. “Yes, I heard a rumor about that.”
Nash continued. “I can not only see the cars on the street, I can see into them. The quality of this camera is pretty intense. High-def. If you hide in Sophia's car, anywhere but in the trunk? They're going to see you. Or the suspicious-looking blanket that you use to cover yourself.”
“You're not hiding in the car,” Sophia told Decker. “I won't risk that.”
He nodded and told them both, “I'm going to get out three blocks from the park.” He dug in her glove compartment and came up with a map. “I want you to pull over, a block after that, and look at this map as if you're lost. Let me go past you. Give me enough time to get in place.”
She nodded, but Decker wasn't convinced she was going to remember anything he said. So he signed off with Nash, and tried to bring her back into a world where there was more than just her anxiety and fear.
“When's the baby due?”
She glanced at him as if he'd spoken in Japanese.
“The baby,” he said again. “Your baby. Dave's baby. How long until—”
“I don't know exactly,” she said. “I haven't been to the doctor yet, but… Early April?”
“Dave must be over the moon.”
“He is.” Sophia smiled at that, but her smile faded rapidly. “Deck, if Alyssa calls to say that Dave's not there—”
“If he's not there,” Deck said quietly,
“then we'll find out where he is, and we'll go there to get him, okay? We're going to find him.”
She nodded. Then she said, “I'm not afraid.”
“That's good,” he told her.
“But if he doesn't get to a hospital, he's going to die.”
“Yeah, well, Dave's pretty tough,” Decker said. “And he's got an awful lot to live for.”
“I know how serious this is,” she said just as quietly. “I read the lab report. I know this could end badly. And I know if we don't find him this morning, his chances—” She cut herself off as she pulled up to a red light. She turned and looked at him. “Sometimes, for such a smart man, Dave can be pretty idiotic. That last bit that he wrote in his letter to you … As if he could die and you could just step into my life, as if you and he were interchangeable—”
“He wants you to be happy,” Decker said. “That's all he's ever wanted. I think he must've loved you, Sophia, from the moment he met you.”
Sophia nodded. “That doesn't make him any less of an idiot, to think …” The light turned green and she stepped on the gas. “Lindsey told me about you and Tracy.”
“Lindsey did,” he said, because he didn't know what else to say. Lindsey, who had been there in the office when Decker and Tracy had … They'd tried to be quiet, still. …
But when Sophia turned and smiled at him, her smile seemed more genuine, and there was real life and sparkle in her eyes. “Are you actually blushing?”
He looked out the window. Just a few more blocks. “I might be.”
“She's smart and she's funny and she's beautiful and very sexy—”
“She sees me for who I am,” Decker interrupted. “And she treats me like a man. Like an equal. Not some hero or… I don't know what. She's not afraid of me. She says what she thinks, she never pulls her punches and … I like the way she needs me. I really do. It's clean and … honest.”
“And guilt-free,” Sophia added.
Dark of Night Page 46