“Security and defense contractor. Top of the food chain sort of venture. CEO is one Mark Price, also one of the hostages.”
“Mark Price...” Blackwell repeated the name as if uttering it could somehow release from the folds of his brain any memory of who this man was, but he kept drawing a blank.
“The younger brother of Senator William Price from North Carolina. Both men have been in the public eye recently, generating the sort of media coverage publicists get heavily medicated for.”
Who are these people? In the last four years, Blackwell hadn’t read a newspaper once or been in the same room with a television.
“This is NYPD’s jurisdiction. Why are we—why is the Bureau getting involved?”
“He will only negotiate with you, and you’re technically ours, I guess. NYPD is not yielding because they want to, but because they have to. Still, they’ve set up their own command post waiting for our first wrong move to pounce on this. In the meantime, we’re all pretending to be holding hands and singing Amazing Grace.”
Something about the way Carter’s eyes were shifting was bothering Blackwell. Is he being straight with me? There had to be another reason why things were moving so fast. Why Carter was dispatched in a Seahawk to fetch him. Why a Caribbean government was being bullied by the State Department to evacuate this island. This kind of traction is out of the norm.
Blackwell looked at the chopper and the crew of two men inside.
“How’d you get here so fast?”
“I was already in San Juan on a covert op. The Nimitz just happened to be close.”
A quick review of the time and geography in Blackwell’s head confirmed the feasibility of what Carter had just told him, but opened up a potential flaw in the overall plan of getting him to New York by the deadline.
“Even if I agreed to come, how the hell do you expect to get me there in time?”
Carter explained that the USS George H.W. Bush was positioned twenty miles north of Puerto Rico. The Seahawk would get them there in about ninety minutes. From the aircraft carrier, the plan was to put Blackwell on an F-15 and get him to LaGuardia in under an hour. A Bubird would fly him to the heliport in Manhattan, and from there by car to command center.
“We’ve set up shop across the street on Vanderbilt Avenue and have a team in place. They’ll brief you when you get there. You should get a good few hours with them before the deadline.” Once again, Carter’s eyes shifted away from Blackwell’s fixed gaze.
The little weasel’s definitely hiding something.
“How many are they?”
“One guy, unarmed, and no explosives. None that we know of, anyway. He’s wired with some future-age vest though.”
Blackwell observed the marine who was frozen in position, clutching the change of clothes and towel. A terracotta warrior, tuned out to what Blackwell and Carter were saying, just there to do his job and do it well.
“I meant the hostages. How many is he holding?”
A small grin crept on Carter’s face as if he was starting to remember what made Blackwell tick.
“Twenty to thirty. We won’t know until we’ve debriefed the ones he’s let go.”
“He’s already released hostages?”
“Yeah, admin and security personnel. He kept the top executives.”
Blackwell tried hard to resist formulating a mental opinion of the hostage-taker, just yet. His mind was fast at work, ploughing through the disjointed facts Carter had presented.
“That vest he’s wearing, is it a suicide bomb?”
“No, actually. He had to clear Exertify’s security buffer zone before they allowed him in. The vest is US military-grade and like nothing we’ve ever seen on a terrorist before.”
“What does it do?”
“It’s a life perception vest attached to his vitals. If he’s stressed or taken out, it reads his body and alerts his guys on the outside.”
“Have you considered he’s yarning?”
Carter sniggered.
“What’s the joke?”
“He’s not lying, he’s just got a great sense of humor. The vest is not a prop. We know that because it was developed by Exertify—the same company he’s now holding hostage.”
Blackwell paced around the sand. The story was getting odder by the second. Something wasn’t adding up.
“He’s got some kind of leverage on the outside that he’s insuring with that vest, otherwise the Hostage Rescue Team would have stormed through and taken him quick and clean,” Blackwell said.
Carter pursed his lips and ran his hand through his shaggy blond hair.
“What’s his leverage, Carter?”
“This is where it gets—how can I put this? Murky...”
“Ain’t going anywhere.”
Carter slumped his shoulders and took a few side steps. He cocked his head up and muttered something unintelligible.
“So?”
Carter sighed and dropped his gaze to the ground.
“Two weeks ago, the thirty-year-old daughter of Senator William Price, Julia, was lured from a bar in Rome to a nearby van, where she was abducted. The Bureau only found out a week later from the Italians, but it was all kept on the down low. Deputy Director Benny Marino is a family friend of the Senator and didn’t want this to go public until we figured out what the hell was happening. He’s covering for the director, who’s with the president in Europe.”
“Marino made deputy director?”
“Much has changed since your days.”
Blackwell surprised himself with this level of interest in Marino’s career. He had spent his first two years on the island deploring the FBI, and the other two trying to exfoliate it from his system. The stratospheric rise of a career agent like Marino shouldn’t have mattered to him.
“Go on. How’s the abduction connected to this whole situation?”
Carter explained there had been no word of what happened to Julia Price until this morning. Then at around ten thirty, an Arab man posing as a Gulf Prince based in London walked into Exertify’s Manhattan office. He had a scheduled meeting with the senator’s brother, Mark Price.
Instead of talking business, he announced to Price he was the one who had snatched his niece, Julia, and offered credible proof-of-life. He handpicked the hostages he wanted to keep, then evacuated the entire building.
“Our New York field office got a call on a secure line from the suspect confirming what we already knew from the 911 calls the released hostages had made.”
“What did he say?”
“He asked for you by name and threatened to execute Julia Price if we didn’t comply.”
“He made no other demands you said, right?”
“No. All the beautiful minds at forward command can’t figure out why he’s taken hostages if he’s already kidnapped a senator’s daughter. You and I both know that this alone would have a lot of people in Washington soiling their pants.”
Blackwell took a minute to absorb this narrative and the cast of characters Carter had just sprayed on him. Senator Price and his kidnapped daughter Julia. His younger brother Mark at the head of this company, Exertify. A hostage-taker pretending to be Arab royalty. Deputy Director Marino fending for his friends.
Then it hit him. Politicians and businessmen are always frolicking with the wrong people. This smelled like payday for someone they had short-changed, and most probably they were getting what they deserved.
“There’s one more thing you need to know, Alex.”
“What?”
Carter turned his head to the sea, unable to maintain eye contact.
“Monica’s leading the investigation.”
Shit.
The fire he had smothered earlier flared up like Carter had dropped a Zippo in a pool of gasoline.
Monica Vlasic was the lead inv
estigator on the case that ended Blackwell’s career. She was the first person he held responsible, and the last person he cared to see, let alone work with.
“Carter?”
“Yeah?”
“Next time I’ll shoot between your eyes if you come by for a friendly chat. Stay the fuck off my island.”
Blackwell turned and marched away from the Seahawk. He pulled his phone out to call Leron, and of course there was no reception. Not that the day couldn’t get any worse. He could be marooned on this island for God knows how long. The migraine was no longer coy but a full-on throbbing penetrating deep in his head.
“Former Special Agent Blackwell!”
He continued on, ignoring Carter. Many years had passed since anyone had called him that. Preceding it with ‘former’ only added insult to injury. Blackwell was given the title of special agent when he was sworn in on the first day of the new agents class at the FBI Academy in Quantico, Virginia. He would have retained it throughout his career if he hadn’t quit. Maybe even made supervisory special agent if he had stayed long enough to lead a squad.
Was Carter trying to provoke something in him? A loyalty to the organization they were hoping still lurked inside of him? How little they knew him.
Blackwell stopped and turned to face Carter, hoping the fire raging in his chest would reflect in his eyes the seriousness of his intent. “Don’t ever call me that again.”
“There’s something else you need to know before you turn your back on this,” Carter persisted, his voice rising for the first time.
“I’ve heard enough.”
A gnawing pang of emptiness erupted within him. Skipping breakfast was never a problem for him, but the swim to the island had consumed a big chunk of his reserves, and the migraine was coming in strong and with little mercy.
“He’s threatening to kill children, Blackwell. There, I said it.”
Words like a full-house smacked on the table by an expert player. A surprise hand that should have trumped anything Blackwell could say or do. Carter must have been certain he had cornered him and there was no way out.
“I’m not trying to twist your arm, which is why I didn’t lead with this. But it’s a threat the Bureau’s taking seriously. Going back without you is not an option. If I have to shoot you in the leg to take you back, I swear to God I will.”
Carter was as honest as the next agent and wouldn’t fabricate stories to manipulate a peer. His instructions were to convince Blackwell by any means necessary, but it wouldn’t have included lying. That was against the code, even if Blackwell was no longer on the inside.
For the first time all morning, Blackwell allowed himself to think of the man pulling all these strings to get him. The same premonition he had felt earlier on the boat once again prickled through his body. Whatever sinister energy was encroaching on his life was like quicksand. This hostage-taker, whoever he was, knew exactly how to bring Blackwell to his knees well before he had entered the ring or put his gloves on.
After four years in seclusion, the first two of which he was no more than a puddle of mush, Blackwell had allowed many parts of himself to dry up and wither away. His primary instinct to stand up against injustice was not one of them. He glanced at a single tattoo in Cyrillic on his left bicep, Невинные поднимутся. The innocent will rise.
The demons from his past invoked by Monica Vlasic, his insecurity about negotiating another case, and the long list of promises he’d vowed to himself when he was desperate to heal—all these things should have stopped him if he was thinking straight.
Eyes fixed on the terracotta warrior who hadn’t moved or changed his facial expression, Blackwell wondered if the two marines had placed bets on whether he would agree to come or not, and which one of them had ultimately won.
He reached out and took the change of clothes and towel.
FOUR
Two days earlier, Thursday, November 3, 2011—6:30 p.m.
Valley Village, CA
Seth left Bone in Studio City and made one last stop before his work in Los Angeles was concluded.
With his face buried into the massage table, the sound of oil squirting and Mai’s soft hands rubbing against one another lulled him. First she worked his shoulders by spreading warm oil on his back with her tiny, soft hands, then gently kneaded his entire body.
Mai gasped at the touch of his firm muscles encased in tight, warm skin. Why would someone with a body like his come to a joint like this, she may have been wondering. Certainly not for the therapy. Halfway through this charade, she would turn him around, hold her hand to her mouth and pretend to be surprised at the sight of his raging erection.
She will offer an upgrade to the next level of service, a blow job perhaps, some hand love, maybe even the works if he seemed loaded. In her defense, there was no way for Mai to know from their short interaction so far that sex with an Asian prostitute was the last thing on his mind.
She flipped him over and seemed baffled, almost offended he was still soft. Other men would have melted under her touch by now.
“Finish you with my han’, baby?”
He shook his head.
“Suck you hard?”
Negative.
She purred in his ears and ran her acrylic fingernails on his chest, from one nipple to the other.
Don’t touch the damn scar...
“You like fuck men better?” she whispered.
He shook his head.
“Sure? We have a lady boy, if you want...” She offered it like a vegetarian option at a steak house.
Seth got up and put his clothes back on, her hopeful eyes burning a hole in the back of his head. This was the moment he was expected to tip her, but after their short-lived and uneventful session, she must have been concerned he would complain to the Mamasan parked outside.
“Jasmine tea, help relax?”
He nodded, smiled as her eyes seared his heart. She reminded him of someone he had met years ago.
Mai slipped into a pearl-white robe and padded out of the room like a kitten.
In the mirror, he saw emptiness inside him. A deep melancholy etched permanently on his face even when he smiled, perhaps accentuated in the low candlelight. He retrieved a set of latex gloves from his backpack and slipped them on, then fished his gun out and shoved it in his back pocket. Earlier in his car he had wiped it clean of his prints.
For six years he had searched for Mai, which wasn’t even her real name, just the one assigned to her by her current Mamasan.They would change it to something equally evocative and demure the next time they moved her. But this was her last stop now.
Her name was Orapan.
Many years ago, he had made a promise to someone that he would find her and extend her the justice she deserved. A near-impossible vow to uphold as it turned out, considering she had been erased from existence. Seth hired a private investigator to help with the search, but all they had to go on was her picture and a threadbare story.
Born in the slums of Pataya in Thailand, Orapan was only fifteen when her stepfather sold her for three-hundred dollars to the Moldovan mafia.
Right after the transaction, she was moved to Shanghai for a few years. Eyewitnesses who knew her there said she was raped with heartless routine every day by her masters while she worked the back rooms, wiping misfired semen whenever it landed on the floor. Breaking her in so when it was time for her to screw for money, she would see it as a step up in life.
From China she was shipped to Bulgaria, then Turkey, after which Seth lost track of her for a few years and almost gave up on ever finding her.
A year ago, she landed in America and her trail warmed up again. They chased her from Charleston to Boulder, Seattle to Salt Lake City, and Miami to Vegas, always missing her by the thinnest of margins.
Then a month ago, they had a lucky break and found her in
Newport Beach, hours before she was scheduled to start this new job in Los Angeles. They kept her under twenty-four-hour surveillance since then.
The sliding door creaked gently when Orapan tiptoed back in the room with a white ceramic teapot and a matching cup in her hands. She kneeled down with premeditated seduction to showcase her curves as she placed the teapot and cup on a small table. A last effort to change his mind and get him to screw her.
When she stood up again, Seth marched toward her and grabbed her body with sudden force. Her eyes closed instinctively and her lips parted close enough for him to smell her sweet breath on his lips. A moan to crumble mountains escaped her, still expecting a kiss from him that would never come. Instead, Seth placed his cold, hard gun inside her soft palm and pulled her closer.
“Orapan,” he said.
First her pupils dilated and she gasped like the devil had tapped her on the shoulder. Then tears ran down her face, streaking her cheap mascara then circling around her cheeks. Her eyes swelled like impenetrable eight balls. Seth had never seen a woman cry without uttering a sound.
“Orapan,” he repeated, certain this was the first time she had heard her name uttered in captivity. “I’m here to set you free.”
Lips wide open, but still not a sound from them. Her eyes did all the talking. I could never leave this wretched place alive. Slavery and prostitution were the only constants in her life, they must have conditioned her to believe. He was prepared for this and knew what to say to break through to her.
Seth wanted to tell her everything. Who he was and why he had spent many years looking for her. Time, however, was not on their side.
Still whispering in her ears, he gave her two options, both involving his gun and the promise of dignity when she emerged at the other side. He had decided the road to salvation must start with free will. Either way, he told her, he had silenced the gun and disabled the security cameras. There would be no shame or repercussions in whichever trail she decided to take.
Out in the reception area, exotic essential oils assaulted his senses. A nifty trick to mask the stench of what really happens within these walls.
Terminal Rage Page 3