Out of Range: A Novel

by Hank Steinberg

  “Not quite.” The voice was husky and male.

  “Who are you? Where’s my wife?”

  “If you ever want to see her again, you’ll come down to the basement. Now.”

  Charlie glanced upstairs. Where the kids were.

  “Your children won’t be harmed,” the voice assured him. “We only want to talk to you.”

  Charlie gripped his weapon, looking down at the blade.

  “And leave the knife,” the voice said.

  Charlie spotted a man standing in the shadows of his front yard, staring blankly at him through the kitchen window, muttering into what appeared to be a Bluetooth as he raised a gun toward him.

  Charlie considered his options—he could make a run for it, dash upstairs, grab the children, and try to get away. Or lock himself and the children in his bedroom and call for help. But for all he knew, there was another man already upstairs. Standing guard.

  Whoever these people were—they were professionals.

  Charlie set the knife down on the counter, moved to an interior kitchen door and opened it. At the bottom of the stairs was the basement. It was pitch-black down there. Charlie felt for the light switch and turned it on. Nothing happened. Had they shorted the circuit? Taken out the bulbs?

  Slowly, Charlie descended the stairs, the wood boards creaking beneath his feet. Even in the darkness, he could make out the shadow of a man down below.

  Charlie paused in the middle of the staircase, wondering if he was walking placidly toward his own death.

  “Keep coming,” the bland, husky voice told him.

  Behind him, at the top of the stairs, Charlie heard the door close and lock from inside the kitchen. He was trapped.

  Charlie took three more steps. As his eyes adjusted to the darkness, he thought he spotted another figure to his right. He paused again.

  “Keep coming, Charlie. If we wanted to kill you, you’d be dead already.”

  Charlie took the last two steps and felt his feet arrive on the hard stucco floor.

  “How about turning on some—”

  Charlie’s request was interrupted by a nasty zapping sound from behind him.

  He felt a jolt of electricity course through his entire body and everything went to black.

  When the veil of pain had parted sufficiently for Charlie to be aware of his surroundings again, he found himself seated and restrained, his body still buzzing from whatever it was they’d done to him. He would have asked what they wanted but there was a rolled-up sock in his mouth.

  The lights were on now, which was of very little comfort. He was in his own basement—cheesy Formica wet bar (inherited from the previous owner), paneled dark brown walls, baseball bats, hockey sticks and football helmets strewn around, the last vestiges of his days as a star athlete.

  To Charlie’s left stood two very large men wearing leather jackets. But from the deferential way they eyed him, it was clear the guy in the photographer’s vest was in charge. He looked to be about fifty, a bull of a man, with hard eyes and a bald head. As Bull pulled one of the signed bats off the wall, his vest gapped open, revealing a shoulder holster underneath. He slapped the bat in his palm and nodded at one of the goons, who took out Charlie’s gag.

  “Before you do anything stupid,” Bull began, “just recognize that if you scream and fuss and freak out the neighbors, I’ll have no choice but to kill you and your children.”

  Charlie’s heart was pounding, but he needed to maintain control.

  “You have my wife?”

  Bull took a couple of practice swings, the bat passing so close to Charlie that he could feel the wind of it on his face.

  “I think I’ll be asking the questions,” Bull said.

  “Who are you?”

  Bull aimed his cold smile at one of his men, then shrugged—“I guess he didn’t hear me”—and drove the knob of the bat into Charlie’s solar plexus.

  Charlie’s body tried unsuccessfully to wretch, but his diaphragm was so paralyzed that all he could do was double over in his chair and gasp. When he finally managed to sit up, Bull asked, “Who does your wife work for?”

  “She doesn’t work for anybody,” Charlie gasped. “I have no idea what you’re talking about.”

  Bull walked to the wet bar, set down the bat and picked up a small plastic first-aid kit, white with a red cross on top. He made a show of opening it, inviting Charlie to have a peek. Inside the kit lay a row of syringes on a bed of foam egg-crate material. Bull rolled up the sleeves of his button-down shirt and Charlie noticed a tattoo on his forearm—five stars on a blue field surrounding a red diamond with the Marine Corps logo in the middle.

  Bull pulled out two syringes and held them up, one in each hand. “You have two choices. Red. Or green.” He held up the syringes in turn, then approached Charlie. “Red?”

  But before Charlie could even begin to respond, Bull slammed the syringe into his neck. He felt a brief impact then a burning sensation running up the side of his face and head. Sweat poured from him, his heart began racing and his entire body began to tremble.

  “Your heart should be clocking about 250 beats per minute right now. That’s the norepinephrine. Pretty potent stimulant, don’t you think?”

  “I don’t know anything,” Charlie said, gritting his teeth.

  Bull just stared at him. Convinced he was going to die, Charlie thrashed wildly, trying to free himself from the chair.

  “You ever drop acid, Charlie? We got a new substance now—salvinoran A—it’s like acid on steroids if you can forgive the mixed metaphor. The thing we found is, if you mix it with norepinephrine, man, the whole cocktail’s like a giant fear amplifier. You got the fight or flight impulse combined with the hallucinogen, all I have to do now is mention your kids and boom! The thoughts you’re going to have about what I might do to them . . . Did you ever see that movie Saw?”

  Images flitted through Charlie’s mind, graphic and horrible. He clawed at the air, trying to reach out and touch his children, their eyes wide with terror, their mouths screaming . . .

  Bull held up a second syringe, this one containing the green fluid. He plunged it into Charlie’s neck. It burned even worse than the red one. But his heart rate slowed to a normal rhythm and his skin stopped pouring sweat. And the fear . . . the fear disappeared entirely, replaced by a strange emotional hollowness. He felt almost nothing, as though his mind was a tooth deadened by novocaine.

  “Who does your wife work for?” Bull asked again.

  But all Charlie could focus on was that tattoo on Bull’s forearm. Because he had seen it before—at the Marine Corps Special Operations Regiment at Camp Lejeune. It was the kind of elite unit from which operators often graduated to black ops work, the kind of work that was too sensitive to be performed by men in military uniforms.

  And it dawned on Charlie—the tattoo, the power of these drugs, the way Bull was talking about “we” . . . these men had to be working for the American government. CIA, NSA, Special Ops, some other shadow group. What the hell had Julie gotten herself involved in that she’d inspired the wrath of men like this?

  “I’ll ask you again, Charlie . . .”

  “I don’t know!” Charlie growled. “I thought she was in New York. I have no idea what she was doing or where she was.”

  Bull smiled, then leaned forward, studying Charlie’s face from only inches away. “You expect me to believe that?”

  “She told me she was going to New York. She even brought back a baseball with Derek Jeter’s autograph on it. It’s in the living room. On the mantel.”

  Bull nodded to one of his goons, who headed upstairs, apparently to check on the ball.

  Charlie was about to tell them the truth, that Julie had used Becca to lie for her, but quickly realized—if he told them that, they might soon be paying her a visit. He had to hold on—to keep Becca out of this somehow. Because if Bull was going to kill him, if he’d already killed Julie, Becca was the one they wanted to raise their kids. They’d already
decided that—six years ago when they’d left Uzbekistan and drawn up their wills.

  “I swear to God,” Charlie implored. “She told me she was going to New York. That’s all I know.”

  “And where was she supposed to be staying there?” Bull asked.

  “The Mercer Hotel,” Charlie insisted. “She likes to be downtown. She has some friends who live there.”

  “And did you call her at the hotel?”

  “No. I was only calling her cell. I never had any idea she wasn’t in New York.”

  “Wow,” Bull exhaled. “Pretty elaborate lie, huh?”

  “Yeah,” Charlie admitted. “Pretty elaborate.”

  Bull sighed sadly. “Doesn’t say much about your marriage, does it?”

  Charlie stared at the floor. For the first time since receiving the hit of green, he felt something—the sting of Julie’s betrayal and what it was costing all of them.

  “You know, Charlie . . . my instincts say that you’re telling me the truth. Unfortunately in this case, I don’t have the luxury of being able to simply trust my instincts.”

  Bull pulled out a second syringe of the Red.

  “No!” Charlie screamed, swirling his neck around in a futile attempt to avoid the shot. “No. Please, no . . .”

  The syringe bit into his neck, and once again, he began to shake. Once again, the fear blazed through his mind like an inferno of doom.

  “Please, no! I don’t know anything. I swear I don’t know anything.”

  Bull looked at Charlie, entirely unmoved, almost as though he was bored.

  “Well,” he said, “that’s what we’re going to find out.”

  Chapter Eleven

  Charlie? Charlie?”

  He awoke with a start, his pulse racing. He was lying on the floor. In the living room of his house, he felt sure of that. But he wasn’t sure how he’d gotten there. He tried to sit up but fell back against the couch. His head was pounding and his brain felt muddled and

  slow.

  “Charlie?” It was a woman’s voice, calling to him from the other room. A woman with an English accent.

  It was Julie. This whole thing had been a terrible dream, a drunken nightmare after his meeting with Sal.

  “Charlie?”

  “In here. In the living room.”

  He glanced at a clock—it was almost 9:00 am—and tried to steady himself, get a handle on what had happened. The only problem was that he didn’t remember going to a bar. Or drinking at home. Or the last time he’d gotten drunk for any reason.

  The woman entered from the kitchen, obscured ever so slightly by the morning light shimmering through the tall windows.

  “Charlie, are you all right?”

  Charlie rubbed his eyes. It wasn’t Julie. It was her sister Becca. What in the hell was she doing here?

  Becca walked toward him with concern. “The police called me last night. I took the first plane I could this morning. I didn’t even get your message until I landed. I just got here, the door was open.”

  Then it all started to flood back to him. The cul-de-sac. The cops. Bull.

  The kids.

  Charlie brushed past her and sprinted up the stairs. If Bull had done anything to them . . .

  Charlie tripped over Oliver’s PlasmaCar in the hallway, stumbled toward their bedroom and burst inside.

  The first thing he saw was a lump under Meagan’s blanket. His eyes darted toward Oliver’s bed. A mat of his hair and half his face poked out beneath his covers. Meagan was closer so he moved to her first, ripping away the blanket. And there she was, her chest moving slowly up and down as she quietly took in breath. Charlie bent down to Oliver’s bed and lowered the covers. His boy—his sweet, precious boy—was sleeping soundly.

  Unharmed. They were both unharmed.

  Charlie sat on the floor and quietly wept.

  A moment later, Becca appeared in the doorway. Charlie rose quickly, wiped his eyes and headed out of the room, closing the door behind him.

  “They must be so tired,” Becca said softly.

  But Charlie was in no mood for commiseration. He was furious and he wanted answers.

  “She said she was going to New York and you lied for her. Now what the hell has she gotten herself into?”

  Becca looked disconsolately at the floor. “I don’t know.”

  “Well, what did she say to you? Why did she have you lie for her?”

  “She wouldn’t tell me. I assumed she was having an affair.” Becca wiped away a tear. “I’m sorry, Charlie. I’m so sorry.”

  “You told the police that I was suspicious of her?”

  “No,” she protested. “I didn’t say that. I never said anything like that.”

  “Well, somehow they’ve got me lined up as the number one suspect. She was seeing somebody in London?”

  “I told you I don’t know. She called me last week, she said she had to go out of the country, she said she needed me to cover for her, to say she was visiting me in New York. When I asked her if it was about another man, she said she couldn’t get into it. I told her I was uncomfortable with all of it, but she kept begging me. She kept saying this was something she had to do. So I agreed.”

  Charlie marched down the stairs again, Becca on his heels. “Well, I just had three spooks in here shooting me full of psychedelic speed, demanding to know who Julie’s working for.”

  “Spooks?”

  “Special Operations, black ops, American military intelligence of some kind.”

  “Oh my God.”

  Charlie hurried through the kitchen and barreled downstairs to the basement. “They kept asking me who she was working for. Is it possible she was meeting someone involved with her old work? Someone at World Vision?”

  “I don’t know. I guess so.”

  He turned on the lights and studied the basement. Everything was perfectly in place. Not the slightest sign that Bull and his men were here last night.

  Charlie headed back upstairs, Becca following him once again.

  “Why don’t you call the police?” she asked.

  “They’re not going to believe a word I say.”

  “But if these guys were in the house . . .”

  Charlie paused, examining the kitchen. His famous marinara sauce (now burned and cold), the pot of overboiled water, the box of spaghetti on the counter—a poetic tapestry of the life they’d shared together. A life he thought he’d understood.

  “Charlie,” Becca pushed, “if they broke into your house—”

  “There’s no sign of forced entry. Nothing’s been left out of place. They wore gloves, so there won’t be any prints. The kids are perfectly unharmed and can’t vouch for my story. These guys were professionals. If anything, the cops will just assume I’m creating a smoke screen.”

  “But isn’t it at least worth having the police take a look? To tell them what you suspect?”

  “I’d rather have them spending their time canvassing the area where Julie was taken, even if they’re looking for evidence against me. Maybe they’ll stumble upon something useful. Besides, you don’t want to call the LAPD to take on the CIA or the NSA. I can tell you that.”

  “The CIA?” Becca pleaded. “Why would the CIA want to kidnap Julie?”

  Chapter Twelve

  Quinn stood inside a shipping container, a ten-foot-tall corrugated steel box lit by a dim droplight hanging from a hook in the center of the space. A cot lay in the far corner. In the other corner sat a chemical toilet and a small refrigerator containing various medical supplies—IV bags, saline, glucose, hypodermics.

  A medic and a guard were by the door, looking apprehensively at Quinn.

  The medic was a fat, sweaty little guy, a former Iraqi Army doctor with a sizable heroin problem. The guard—a large, intimidating Uzbek with a gun—had several grams of pharmaceutical grade smack in a bag inside his shirt. The medic would do exactly what the guard told him, no problem there.

  “Tell it to me again,” Quinn said as he closed
the door.

  “Me?” the medic said, holding a pudgy hand over his chest.

  “Who the hell else you think I’m talking to?” Quinn snapped.

  “Yes, yes, of course, sir!” The medic swallowed hard. “I keep the woman on the IV the whole time. Glucose, saline, vitamins. She will be fully sedated yet every eight hours I’m to let her come out of sedation just enough that she can stand and do her necessaries. As you say, letting her stand up and move around minimizes the likelihood of medical complications.” He hesitated and leaned forward in an insinuating way. “I presume, sir, your expectation is that once we reach our destination, she will not remember anything about the journey?”

  Quinn gave the medic a cold smile. “You presume correctly, Doc.”

  “Might I presume, also, to ask what our destination will be, sir?”

  “Sure. And I might presume to tell you to shut your goddamn mouth and concentrate your meager attention on doing what I goddamn tell you.”

  The medic’s head bobbed rapidly and he smiled a broad, please-don’t-hit-me smile.

  “All righty then,” Quinn said, clapping his hands together. “Bring her in.”

  The guard opened the door and waved to the van that stood outside the container. They were on Pier J at the Port of Long Beach, California, hidden in the middle of a giant tangle of semitrailers used for hauling containers.

  At the other end of the pier, Quinn could see a tramp steamer peeping over the trailers. That steamer would take this container to Juneau. From there the rest of the trip would be by air.

  Quinn watched as two of his men hauled Julie Davis out of the van. He’d given her a jab of something to knock her out earlier, so she was limp and essentially unconscious. As far as he was concerned, all of this was a needless complication. If it had been up to him, he would have had her in an abandoned warehouse outside Chino and been running the whole “red-green” drill on her right now, but the man calling the shots wanted her brought to him and there was nothing Quinn could do about it.

  Quinn’s men dropped the woman roughly on the cot, her head thumping as it hit the thin foam mattress.