UntilMidnight

by Desiree Holt, Cerise DeLand

  “No shit.” She crouched beside him, sweat pouring down her face, peering through the tall grasses and the leaves of a large holly to see what was happening.

  “Don’t tell Mossad I had to be rescued by a woman,” he joked, leaning back against a rock.

  “If we don’t get out of here, no one will be able to tell them anything. Damn. I’d give everything I own right now for a cell phone.”

  “Can you see if there are any buildings along the road?” he asked. “Any place where we might make a call?”

  “I can’t tell yet, and I don’t want to move until those idiots are looking someplace else.”

  The men crashed through the bushes with all the grace and delicacy of a bull, swearing at each other in two languages. Nicki held her breath as they headed in the direction where she and Adam were hiding. Her hand came to rest on a large rock and she hefted it in her palm. She’d been a great softball player in high school and college and she hoped her throwing arm was still true if she needed it. At least she’d get one of them.

  But the corner of the building was as far as they seemed to look.

  “No place for them to go,” Ray-Bans shouted to his friend.

  “They didn’t just disappear,” Neon Tennis Shoes retorted.

  “I guarantee you they went the other way,” Ray-Bans insisted, just as Nicki had figured he would. “Neither of them is in condition to go clambering over rocks and through bushes. Come on. Let’s check over here.”

  As soon as they’d moved far enough away, Nicki released the breath she didn’t even realize she’d been holding.

  “Okay, tough guy.” She helped Adam get to his feet as best she could, supporting his weight again. “Let’s see if you can make it the last mile.”

  She blessed all the overgrown flora that offered them concealment as they made their way up the embankment and onto the road. Helping Adam over the guard rail was a little tricky, but then they were on solid ground. Cars whizzed past them as they stumbled along the shoulder of the road. State Route 657 declared a black and white sign. Virginia. And there across the street was a dinky, dingy convenience store.

  They were both sweating profusely, but Nicki thought that might be a good thing. Helping to flush the drug out of their systems. She didn’t want to leave Adam alone while she went inside, but she also didn’t think he’d be able to stand up long enough for her to make a phone call. And she was not interested in creating any more questions than she knew the store owner would have just by looking at her. A tiny copse of oaks and pines grew at the back of the store, so she helped him to sit down and lean against one of the tree trunks. They offered as much concealment as they were going to get, and anyway, they weren’t in the line of sight of the cars driving by.

  The man behind the counter eyed her suspiciously when she walked inside. She was well aware that her appearance left a great deal to be desired, but she’d pulled together a cover story that sounded somewhat plausible.

  “Could I use your phone to make a call and reverse the charges?” she asked the man. “My friend and I were kayaking on the Bay and a speedboat sideswiped us. Smashed the kayak all to hell.”

  The man raised an eyebrow. “Yeah? How come your clothes aren’t wet?”

  “Do you have any idea how hot it is out there? They dried in the sun while we climbed up to the road.”

  “Where’s your friend?’ he asked suspiciously.

  “Waiting outside. Still trying to dry off. He got a bit rattled. I just need to call a friend in Washington to come pick us up and I lost my cell in the Bay.”

  She waited while the man debated the issue, keeping an eye on the traffic outside. Finally he nodded.

  “All right. You can use the store phone. But the call better be collect.”

  She sighed with relief. “No problem. I’ll be quick.”

  She almost cried with relief when she got Maddie on the phone. “Don’t ask for details right now,” she told the woman. “Here’s where we are.” She gave her the location and description of the store. “Someone has to pick us up. Quick. And I do mean quick. Who have we got in the Virginia area that you can poke with a hot nail and get on their way?”

  “Just a sec.” She could hear the clack of fingers on a computer keyboard. “Lane Hallowell is just finishing an assignment. I talked to him twenty minutes ago. Hold on.” Nicki tried to hang onto her patience while she waited, but she expected Ray-Bans and Neon Tennis Shoes to burst into the store any minute.

  Then Maddie was back. “Okay. He knows exactly where you are. He’ll be there in fifteen.”

  “Tell him we’re at the back of the store. He should make sure he doesn’t see anyone wearing Ray-Ban sunglasses or neon tennis shoes, then honk for us. Bring water and a few bananas and yogurts. We’re dehydrated and starving. But not injured.”

  To Maddie’s credit she didn’t ask any of the questions Nicki knew had to be on the tip of her tongue. She’d save those for later.

  “Thank you,” she told the store owner. “Someone’s coming to pick us up.”

  “You should be careful on the Bay,” he warned her. “Not everyone pays attention out there.”

  “I know. Thanks for your concern.”

  She found Adam still propped against the tree where she’d left him. His eyes were closed and for a moment she felt a fist clenching around her heart. Then he opened his eyes and gave her a halfhearted smile.

  “I’m never walking home from a date with you again,” he joked, in a lame attempt at humor.

  “And I’ll make sure it never happens again,” she told him and brushed her lips against his.

  She crouched beside him, tensely watching in all directions, flinching every time she heard a car pull into the parking lot. Sore and aching, she didn’t dare close her eyes for fear of attack by their two thugs. At last a tall, lanky familiar figure rounded the corner of the building, and she was so relieved she wanted to cry.

  “Someone here call for a taxi?” Lane asked.

  “Oh, god, you are such a sight for sore eyes,” Nicki told him. “Listen, Adam can’t walk too steadily.”

  “Not a problem.” He looked at the man next to her. “I assume this is Adam. And that when we get away from here you’ll tell me what this is about and where we go from here.”

  “First, we’re in need of water and food,” she told him as they each hooked an arm under one of Adam’s and walked toward the Humvee. “Then we’re up for a little help from a few friendly law enforcement types.”

  Chapter Ten

  “Friends like the FBI,” Lane declared, “require strong evidence to enlist.”

  He had listened to their breathless summary of what the two of them had been through in the past day.

  Nicki nodded. “We’ve got it,” she told him as she sank limp as a rag doll into the back seat of one of the Nemesis Humvees.

  “We were locked inside one of Henderson’s warehouses,” Adam added as uncapped his second bottle of water. He needed to flush the remnants of the drug out of his system as fast as possible. “We had oxygen masks fitted to our faces inhaling their so called fragrance, which they apparently store there before shipping it out. The police need to be fast to get there before the two thugs who abducted us go in and clean up the evidence.”

  “Lane, call Maddie right now,” Nicki managed as she rubbed her arms and rolled her head around to relieve the stress. “Tell her to alert the Virginia State Police to illegal trafficking in and out of that warehouse. And maybe the FBI. See if they want Adam and me to come in to press charges or if they can find a way to lock it down without our testimony. Then, tell her to find Henderson’s location. We need to know where he is. And if he is still on his island, well then…” Her voice drifted off, the exertions of the last few days washing through her system like a typhoon. “And we’ve probably got only until midnight to get this all done or everyone will scatter. They’ll be out of our reach.”

  “We have to figure out who to send in to arrest him there,” A
dam worried. Having downed his third bottle of water he now chomped on a protein bar. “He’s actually out of our territorial jurisdiction, and it could take longer than we’ve got to get international cooperation.”

  Nicki agreed as she peeled down her own energy bar and began to munch on it. “Not sure who has top jurisdiction on this, but we need all the law enforcement we can get.” Swallowing the last of the bar, she leaned her head back, eyes drifting shut as exhaustion took over.

  Two hours later, she startled awake when she heard Maddie’s voice on the speaker phone. They were crossing over the Potomac when Maddie reported that the Virginia State Police and the FBI had surrounded the beachside warehouse and secured it.

  “Evidence of your abductions intact,” she said with triumph. “What else do you need?”

  Nicki rubbed her eyes, leaned forward and reached for another bottle of water. “When you called the Bureau, was it Jared Donnelly you talked to?”

  “No. He was out. I got his next in line. Why?”

  “I need to talk to Jared myself, Maddie. He might need DEA as well on this. But our big fish is Henderson and to hook him, we need to know where he is.”

  “Hot damn! Well, for that, my friend, you are in luck.”

  From Maddie’s tone, Nicki could envision her friend grinning. “Is that so?”

  “Henderson is on his way to a meeting right in D.C.”

  Adam swiveled to check Nicki’s gaze. “Do we know where?”

  “He flew into Dulles this morning on his own Lear. Due to have lunch in a private dining room in a small Italian restaurant on Seventeenth Street at one o’clock.”

  “How convenient.” Nicki grinned at Adam.

  “How the hell did you learn that?” Adam marveled.

  “Hold on to your hat,” Maddie said. “He’s meeting my father.”

  Nicki began to choke on her water. “You’re kidding? How’d you find out?”

  “I happened to call my father on a personal matter and his new secretary is more incompetent than anyone expected. She told me where he is and how I can find him without any prompting or prying.”

  “And who he’s having lunch with.” Lane whistled as he steered the car past the Lincoln Memorial. “She’ll be on the unemployment line by five o’clock.”

  Adam, still a little shaky, bumped Lane on the shoulder. “His loss, our gain.”

  “What’s the name of the restaurant?” Nicki asked Maddie and nodded when she heard the name. “I know the owner.”

  “So do I,” Lane put in. “I’ve been dating her, off and on.”

  “Is that so?” a chorus of Nicki, Adam and Maddie said together.

  Lane shrugged as he turned east to head toward Seventeenth Street. “What can I say? I love Italian food.”

  “And Italian women,” Maddie added in a sultry imitation of the Romance language.

  “If you three will stop ribbing me, I’ll call her,” Lane offered, “and tell her to give the two of them the private room on the first floor. It’s easily accessible by the stairwell and the back entrance to the building.”

  “Deal,” said Nicki. “Let us know, Maddie, when you get Jared over at the Bureau and what their ETA can be at the restaurant. They need to get an arrest warrant from a judge so they had better be quick about it or we lose Henderson on U.S. soil.”

  “Will do,” Maddie agreed and clicked off.

  Lane meanwhile overshot the restaurant, pretending to search for a parking space and giving Nicki and Adam a good view of the interior through the glass front.

  “Maria’s maître d’ won’t let us in looking like this,” Nicki muttered.

  “Lane, my man,” Adam grinned at the big blond guy as if they were old pals, “looks like you volunteered to see if our two birdies are in the nest yet.”

  “Not a problem,” Lane agreed as he swung the Humvee down a side street and double-parked. “You okay to drive?”

  “I can manage,” Adam assured him.

  After the men changed seats, Adam had them circling the block once more. In front of the restaurant he stopped long enough to allow Lane to get out.

  “Just sit here for a while,” Nicki told Adam. “You’ll look like a native disobeying the law.”

  He grimaced. “And if a policeman comes and wants to check my driver’s license, I just turn out my empty pants pockets?”

  “And tell him you were abducted,” she finished.

  His dark brows danced. “Oh, that’ll work well. Meanwhile, here comes our man. Do not look left. He just pulled up in back of us. Climbing out. Going around to the street side. Okay, gone.”

  “And here’s Lane,” Nicki breathed. “Just in time.”

  “We’re good to go,” Lane announced as he climbed inside and kept his face averted from Henderson who passed him on the sidewalk. “Back private room is on. Drive, Adam. We’re going to the alley. Turn right. Yes. Then again. Good. Okay, boys and girls, time to bring out the party favors. Nicki, can you reach the toolbox in the back?”

  “Oh, can I!” Nicki exclaimed, having herself proclaimed it company policy that no Nemesis vehicle was ever without a “tool” box supply of two rifles, two handguns, two hand grenades and two bows and arrows. Taking a brand new LaRue Tactical rifle for herself, she handed a Beretta M9 with two fifteen round clips up to the front. “For you, Adam.”

  Lane, who favored a Glock 21 with a thirteen round clip, was checking his own pistol.

  “Ready,” he said.

  “Now comes the hard part,” Nicki murmured.

  Lane agreed. “Waiting for the FBI posse to arrive is always a nail biter.”

  Half an hour later they were still waiting and the three of them were ready to scream.

  “I’m going to chew my hand off,” Adam said, “if they don’t come soon.”

  Lane, whose big broad face was strained with the wait, smacked his lips. “Takes a while to get a warrant here.”

  “In Jerusalem, we work a lot faster.”

  Nicki rolled her eyes at Adam in the rearview mirror. “Could you live this way?” She knew it was a question that had implications for the future.

  Could you work with me? Here? For how long?

  Suddenly they spotted two black SUVs quietly rolling down the alley, one coming to a stop in front of their Humvee. One in the back. Two men in each vehicle climbed out.

  “Jared!” Nicki greeted her old friend from the Bureau’s Washington office. “Thanks for coming. On short notice, too.”

  “Happy to.” The tall man in sunglasses grinned at Nicki, making Adam narrow his eyes at him.

  Amused at Adam’s jealousy, Nicki hoisted her rifle. “Shall we?”

  “I have what I need,” Jared told her, patting his coat pocket. “Got the assistant attorney general to sign it over a bowl of clam chowder at the Boat House.”

  Lane snorted. “Bet he wasn’t happy.”

  Jared chuckled as he took out his service revolver. “Told me to come home with the goods or I was buying his lunch.”

  Adam shook his head. “Let’s go before it’s dinner time!”

  Nicki widened her eyes at Adam, then introduced him around. “Chill.”

  Lane joked. “We’re on this, buddy.” Then he looked at Jared and explained, “Long day for these two.”

  Adam grumbled something profane.

  The team turned for the back entrance of the building and the ground floor location of the restaurant.

  “You have the layout of this place?” Adam asked Jared as they went in on cat’s feet to the side of the restaurant.

  “We do. This back room that Lane has them in is the best. Trust me, we’ve done a few takedowns like this before.”

  Adam shook his head. “Sure. Sorry. Not used to your…uh…nonchalance.”

  Jared stared at him a second. “Not used to your intensity.”

  Nicki elbowed Adam. “We’re good.”

  Jared looked at each of them in turn and his own four men. “On the count of three.”

 
; The seven of them moved like the wind. No sooner were they through the heavy service door, than they were down the short hall and crowding the tiny private room. There only Henderson and Maddie’s father sat at a tiny table, two large pieces of bruschetta to their lips. Mouths open, both men gaped at the crowd pointing various types of weaponry at their faces.

  “What the hell is this?” Maddie’s father put his appetizer down and scowled at the assembled law officers. Then he saw Nicole and recognized her as Maddie’s friend. “Nicole, this is an outrage!”

  She ignored him.

  “I said stand up, Mister Henderson,” Jared directed the man. “Good, good. Nice to comply so easily. Cuff him, Howell. Shall I read you the charges, Henderson, or shall we skip the formalities?”

  Henderson glared at Nicole. Then Adam. “I should have known.”

  Nicki grinned not so much at him but at the skill she and Adam had used to outwit him and his henchmen.

  “Known what?” Jared attacked while one of his men Mirandized Henderson. “Remember what you say can and will be used against you.”

  “You bitch,” Henderson spat at her.

  The four agents shook their heads at his audacity.

  “Not wise,” said one.

  “Can’t hear you,” said Adam, who promptly took one step forward and kneed him in the nuts. “Now,” Adam proclaimed as the older man doubled over, “want to repeat that?”

  Henderson gulped back whatever expletive he had on his lips.

  Arthur Somers was standing by his chair, his face taut with anger. “Paul, I’ll call your attorney for you. Don’t say a word. Whatever this is, we’ll get it taken care of.”

  “Don’t count on it,” Jared told him.

  “I think Maddie will be interested to find out what you and this scum were discussing over lunch,” Nicki said, her voice taut.

  “This was a business meeting,” Somers spat at her. “I’ll have everyone’s job for this.”

  “Yeah, yeah, yeah,” Donnelly said. “Get in line.”

  As the four agents hustled Henderson from the dining room, Adam put an arm around Nicki’s waist and said, “I would have hit him harder but the poor man just recovered from surgery.”