Confusion had sprouted when one of their captors had sat on the floor with Irene cradled in front of him. He’d held her tightly and slipped his hand over her mouth as the older guy, the man she’d thought was kinder than the others, had spoken on the phone.
She’d listened to the call with interest. Why bring them together? Was it some sort of proof of life test? She’d relaxed at that thought. That had made sense. No one was going to hand over that amount of cash unless they knew for sure they had her and Kristen.
But they hadn’t asked her to speak. Instead, they’d used her screams of terror and pain as a substitute for Kristen’s.
Three kidnappers had been in the room, each one wearing a mask. They’d lifted her hood so she could see the large garden snips they’d brought along to do the job. She’d panicked and fought when they’d grabbed her shackled hands. The man holding her had hooked his hands into the crook of her elbows and left her bound hands trapped and immobile. She’d screamed when she’d felt the cold bite of steel pressing into her skin. The agony when they’d kept asserting pressure against her unprotected flesh.
Who wouldn’t scream in that situation? Inside, she was still screaming.
Bile formed in her mouth as she thought of them doing the same thing again to extract more money from hers and Kristen’s parents. She wanted to hurt them back. To cut off their fingers like it was no worse than snapping a twig.
The shock was slow to wear off.
Irene pushed the hood up enough so she could exam her butchered hand while she lay curled up on her side. The kidnappers had wrapped a bandage around the wound, but it had bled through.
They were arguing again downstairs. Someone was saying one of them was an idiot who needed to fix his mess.
Was that her? Was she the mess?
She sat up and fought the woozy feeling. She wasn’t going to lose all her fingers so they could get more money. She’d kill herself first.
Last night, she’d waited and waited for Kristen to come to her. Irene had intended to tell her to leave and find help for them both. There was no way Irene was getting out of these handcuffs anytime soon. But Kristen hadn’t come.
Something must have happened. Maybe she’d been knocked out with a sedative. Perhaps she’d been unable to jimmy the lock on the wardrobe, or maybe she’d been caught making the attempt?
Irene didn’t know what had happened but today she’d heard the terror in her friend’s voice. Absolute horror and terminal regret. This wasn’t Kristen’s fault. This was all on the heads of their kidnappers.
Irene refused to let in the sliver of hope that the ransom would be paid tomorrow, and they would both be released. Hope hurt more than cynicism and despair, and Irene was already hurting too damned much.
Chapter Twenty-Five
Lucy followed Max down the stairs and out of the front doors of the embassy. Onto the street.
“Where are we going?” She didn’t have time to go on a wild goose chase.
Max looked both ways then grabbed her hand, leading her across the road, through the park and down another street. She was out of breath, they were walking so fast.
A battered old van pulled up to the curb, and the door opened. Lucy froze to the spot.
Did he know something?
Was this some sort of black-ops rendition led by Max, and she’d been completely clueless?
Please, no.
He let go of her hand, climbed into the van. After swallowing the large lump in her throat, Lucy followed. It was that or run, and she was pretty sure it would be pointless trying to outrun Max Hawthorne. Time to face the music.
The door was pulled quickly shut behind her.
Inside were three men all dressed in jeans and t-shirts. One was tall and lean and had light brown hair starting to gray at the temples. He had piercing blue eyes and tanned skin.
“Unit Chief Jon Regan.” He shook hands first with Max then with Lucy. “Excuse me while I run a wand over you both.”
His grip was firm, and he didn’t let her go.
Lucy felt nervous. Those eyes of his didn’t appear to miss much. Seemingly satisfied they had nothing on their persons, he opened a small box. “Cell phones.”
“I need the work one in case the kidnappers call.”
Regan nodded, held out his hand for the phone, and tossed it to a second agent who grabbed a laptop and attached Max’s phone while sliding the phone itself into some sort of shielded case. He tapped quickly and then set the laptop into a tray to check the phone for spyware.
Max placed his personal cell in the container, and Lucy dug hers out of her small purse and placed it in the box which was then snapped shut. Jon Regan held out his hand for her purse, which he examined thoroughly again with his bug detector.
When he was finally done, and they’d been cleared of electronic listening devices, he said, “Meet Isaac Navarro and Dexter Kim.”
The first man was behind the wheel and looked to be in his early thirties. He wore a bored expression and had soulful dark eyes that were almost a match for the beauty of Max’s—and the guy knew it. The second man who’d set up the laptop was slightly older and had a grin that lit up the whole interior of the van. He slid into the passenger seat and turned to watch them as Navarro pulled into traffic.
Lucy stumbled when the van jerked forward.
“Better grab a seat,” Regan told them.
She did as suggested, sitting on the bench that ran down the center of the cargo hold. On one side was an array of screens. The other side was stacked with equipment cases.
“This is Lucy Aston. My…interpreter.” Max offered with a smile.
“I know who she is.”
Lucy froze.
Jon Regan’s eyes gleamed as he hit a key on a laptop. A picture of Max bending her over his arm and kissing the heck out of her filled one of the screens. She was clutching at his jacket like she never wanted to let go. Unlike other images she’d viewed recently, it was one of the most beautiful things she’d ever seen.
A line of humor creased Max’s cheek. “Emergency tactics for convincing the possible bad guys I’d had a better offer regarding where I slept last night.”
“Well, you convinced me,” Regan said with a sly grin. He pressed another button, and the image of the man who’d called himself Felix came up on screen. He was sharing a drink with the woman in the red dress. “Anotoly Agapov. Russian Intelligence. He came in via the back entrance after you ran after Miss Lucy.” Cynicism rang through Regan’s tone, as if he’d seen it all and believed none of it.
The idea of deceiving this man was daunting.
“I believe ‘Teresa from Texas’ sent him a text after you left.” Regan pulled a face. “Unfortunately, I haven’t been able to hack their system yet to see what it said.”
“She have a room at the hotel?”
Regan nodded. “They had an adjoining suite. Something tells me if you’d gone back to her room, you’d have been starring on the adult movie channel before midnight.”
Lucy felt like she’d been gutted with a knife.
“Assuming they didn’t kill him first,” Navarro said darkly from the front seat.
Max shot the guy a look. “What about my room?”
“Bugged.” Regan looked almost bored. “Dex dressed up as a housemaid this morning and found several. They didn’t even try that hard to conceal them. We didn’t remove them. I want you to go back there later today. Maybe settle in for an hour before you get a phone call from your lovely interpreter temptress suggesting you are about to get lucky again.” Regan wiggled his eyebrows at Lucy.
She told herself to smile back at him, but her face refused. The muscles weren’t working.
“There’s some sort of beacon coming from Lucy’s car that we suspect they’re tracking,” Regan said.
She jolted.
“How’d the Russians know I was traveling with Lucy?” asked Max.
“Russians like to know everything.” Regan shrugged but really it was
the million-dollar question. “No doubt they are watching the embassy, unless they have sources inside.”
“A spy?” asked Max sharply.
“More likely an asset. Witting or unwitting.” Regan held her gaze as he said it. Lucy willed her expression to remain blank.
Navarro blasted the horn and yelled at someone in Spanish for cutting him off. Regan looked out the front windscreen.
Released from Jon Regan’s penetrating gaze, Lucy stared down at the floor of the van. What did he know? What did he suspect?
How? Why?
“That was why I had you run across the park and meet us without telling anyone where you were going. Unless Argentine police are in cahoots with the Russian Foreign Service—which has been known to happen if you remember that drug bust a few years back in the Russian embassy no less—they won’t be able to track us.”
Lucy cleared her throat and tried not to shiver. “What should I do about the bug on my car?” She’d suspected they’d put a transponder on her Mini, but her superficial search that morning had failed to turn up anything.
“We can go over it for you later if you want. Then leave it in place until you really don’t want them to know where you’re going.”
Lucy nodded.
Max crossed his arms. “What’s the plan now? Why’d you call this meet?”
Regan coughed into his fist. “Well. I had a little time on my hands while Navarro was hacking the hotel’s security system and Dex here was busy straightening the sheets and changing the towels in your hotel room. I was on the phone updating the guy at CNU—”
“Eban?”
“Yeah, Winters. And he told me you had the name of a possible suspect in your kidnapping case. Alberto Núñez.” The lines around Regan’s eyes did not detract from his good looks. “And I decided to see if I could track the guy down.”
Max tensed beside her. “Did you?”
The smile that crossed Regan’s features was sly and self-satisfied. “Damn right I did.” He brought up a photograph of a hunch-shouldered scrawny guy with a pointy chin and shifty eyes. “Meet Alberto. You can call him Al.”
“How do you know he’s the right guy?” Lucy frowned.
Regan tapped his nose. “Trust me. And I also somehow managed to find out his cell number and,” he pressed another button and another screen lit up with a red dot overlaid on a map of the city. “His cell phone just happens to be in Buenos Aires at this exact moment. What are the chances?”
The chances were pretty good, considering.
“You’re positive this is the right guy?” asked Max.
“I’d bet my balls on it.” Regan nodded.
“Won’t the Argentine police have all this information too?” asked Lucy.
Regan leaned forward to smile at her around Max. It didn’t quite reach his eyes. “Yes, eventually, but they have to go through all the proper channels. We don’t. You know why that is, Ms. Lucy Aston?”
She shook her head.
“Because we don’t exist.”
* * *
The TacOps guys parked the van on a busy street in the Boedo barrio, a working-class neighborhood west of La Boca. The vehicle’s windows were tinted to prevent anyone looking inside and spotting the equipment.
“Are you familiar at all with this area?” Max asked Lucy.
She shook her head. She looked uneasy. He supposed Jon Regan with his steely gaze seemed pretty intimidating, but these guys were the best of the best at covert surveillance techniques. However, they were doing something that wasn’t a hundred percent legal.
She had nothing to worry about professionally. He’d dragged her along with him. And from a safety point of view, she was surrounded by American law enforcement, three of whom were armed.
Cafés lined the streets and Max watched a man push a stroller down the sidewalk while local moms wrangled children as they tried to enjoy coffee outside with friends.
“According to the phone signal, he’s in one of those apartments.” Regan pointed to a building above a bodega with an ornate-looking, carved-stone balcony.
“Do you think the girls are being held there?” Lucy asked him.
“I don’t know.” Max caught Regan’s gaze. “Any chance of getting some ears inside?”
“Dex, Navarro,” Regan ordered.
Both men climbed out of the van and slammed the doors shut. Max heard the rear doors open and realized there was a false back to the van. Ninety seconds later, he heard them pulling a ladder off the roof and, when they walked past, they wore white overalls and were carrying drop cloths under their arms, the ladder stretched between them. They moved unhurriedly through a small unimposing doorway that led to the apartments above, and no one tried to stop them. No security. Not even a locked front door.
“What are they going to do?” asked Lucy.
“Nothing I can say out loud,” Regan replied.
The guy was careful in case he was being recorded. Max appreciated that. His phone buzzed. That it had again been cleared of any potential spyware was reassuring.
“Brian Powell is looking for me.” Max texted him to say he was in a meeting and would call him back later.
They all watched the front of the building. Dex came out and rummaged in the back of the van again. He left carrying a large pot of paint, some green tape, and rollers.
“Will they actually paint the place?” Max asked.
Regan shrugged. “If they have to.” Then he held out his cell to show him a text from Navarro. It showed an electrical socket with the front plate removed.
“What happens if the local cops turn up?”
Regan checked his watch. “Won’t take that long.”
Lucy grabbed Max’s bicep. “I see him.”
Sure enough, there was Alberto Núñez coming out of the front door of the apartment building with a ball cap pulled low over his eyes. He wore shades and scanned the area as if looking for cops.
Definitely squirrelly.
Regan’s cell buzzed with another text. Navarro warning him that Alberto was heading their way.
“Does he know he’s blown?” Max asked.
“I doubt it, but he sure as hell looks nervous.” Regan didn’t even look at the guy directly.
“Should I call the cops? Before he gets away?” Max itched to jump out and arrest the guy but, not only did he not have jurisdiction, that wouldn’t tell them where the girls were being held if they weren’t in this apartment. And who knew how el jefe—assuming Alberto himself wasn’t the boss—would react to having one of his men lifted. The guy might assume Alberto would roll on him and kill the girls before making a run for it.
Regan shook his head. “We can’t afford to have the cops know we’re in town. If we’re caught, a whole bunch of shit hits the fan. They’ll catch up eventually and we’ll see if we pick up anything off the bugs we plant in the meantime.”
Max shoved his cell into his pocket. “I’m going to follow him.”
“Don’t get made,” cautioned Regan.
Max opened the door just as Dexter and Navarro strolled unhurriedly out of the apartment carrying their ladder.
Lucy followed. “I’m coming too. You don’t speak the language.”
Good point.
Alberto was rapidly disappearing down the street.
“Can you track us?” he asked Regan.
“Sure.”
“Let’s see if this guy leads us to the girls.”
Max grabbed Lucy’s hand as they set off down the street at a fast walk. Alberto was thirty yards in front of them and obviously in a hurry to get somewhere. Was he late for his shift guarding the hostages or had someone tipped him off that the cops were looking for him?
Alberto ducked into a convenience store on a corner.
Max put his arm around Lucy’s shoulders and hugged her close as they hurried to catch up. They passed the shop entrance, and Lucy stared up adoringly at his face. “I see him walking down this side street.”
Max nodded, and the
y crossed the street before turning right and following along on the opposite side.
“There’s a subway station up ahead,” Lucy warned him. She kept her expression and body language loose. Max smiled down at her. She was a natural.
Alberto crossed to their side of the street and shot them a glance, but they were busy being absorbed by one another. Max figured they looked like a guy meeting his girl for lunch. He enjoyed the feel of Lucy against him. He hoped she was good with it, although she was the one who pressed closer and laughed as if he’d said something witty.
Alberto was only ten feet in front of them when they got to the head of the stairs for the Subte. He raced down into the tube station. Max let Lucy go first, tamping down on his inclination to simply grab the guy. Lucy skipped down the stairs, and he followed, staring at her, pretending to be infatuated.
Lucy walked up to the ticket machine and paid for a card for him. Thank god she was here else he’d have been screwed.
She whirled and grabbed his hand and tugged him to follow her. He grinned. He wasn’t sure where Alberto was but, most likely, he’d gone ahead of them.
They reached the platform. No sign of Alberto.
“Shit,” Max said.
Lucy turned to him and grabbed the front of his t-shirt and went on tiptoes to press a kiss to his lips. “He’s sitting on the bench behind the woman with the stroller.”
Max hugged her to him and let his hands rest on her hips as he looked over her head. He spotted Alberto. Did the guy know they were following him?
Max pulled his cell out of his pocket and called Regan. “We’re in the Boedo subway station.”
“Which direction is he going?”
“Toward the city, I think. That’s the next train anyway.” He could hear Regan and Dexter plotting their route.
The noise of an approaching train had Lucy stepping away from him. He gripped her hand. Then kissed her knuckles. Lucy blinked at him from behind her glasses.
Had he gone too far? It had felt completely natural to kiss her after she’d kissed him, but it didn’t mean it was right. “Sorry.”
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