by Stephen Frey
She’d been mad as hell at first when she thought Christian had screwed her. Then promised herself she’d never let him down when she realized the truth. She’d played along with Dorsey these past few months, because what else could she do? If he had known where her loyalties truly lay, it would have ruined everything between them. Wouldn’t have done Christian any good, either. Might just have gotten him killed faster.
The easiest thing to do when she’d found out what the establishment boys had in mind for Christian would have been to tell him. The problem was, she still wanted Lloyd Dorsey—despite what he was helping do to Christian. She loved Lloyd and she wanted to be with him. He’d made it clear he was going to leave his wife soon—he’d shown her a draft of a letter he intended to send to Dallas asking for a separation—and she didn’t want to screw up her chance at ultimate happiness. But she couldn’t give Lloyd information on Christian, and she couldn’t tell Christian what was going on because Lloyd might ultimately find out she was the snitch. Then she’d have no chance with him.
What she needed was someone to get close to Christian, and Melissa had been the perfect candidate. She was young and beautiful, in dire need of money, and one great actress. An Oscar winner. Who could be better for the job?
Graham had gone to great lengths to create another life for Melissa. A fake background for Beth Garrison that Quentin Stiles would have a difficult time piercing. It had taken some doing, but she had friends in that small Missouri town and at the University of Nebraska—through the insurance world—and she’d made it happen. Even made certain the woman who had played Beth’s mother had known the background. According to Melissa, Christian had started asking the woman questions at the hospital once, but she’d sidestepped the whole thing beautifully by going into a coughing spell so he hadn’t had the chance to dig into details.
Christian and Melissa’s “chance” meeting in the forest east of Camp David had gone perfectly. The men had chased them to the edge of the Potomac River, then the chopper had come roaring in just in the nick of time. They’d had a harrowing experience together, which was a perfect way to begin a passionate relationship. Christian had been the knight in shining armor, Melissa—Beth to Christian—the damsel in distress. He’d fallen for it so fast, and she’d played it so well. Graham shook her head. Melissa had suggested the whole dying-mother routine herself, even after being bedside when her own mother had died. Amazing. Well, it just went to prove that the Hollywood types were a little off.
It had all fallen into place so neatly, and now it was all actually happening. Graham had gotten word five minutes ago that Sanchez had Gillette in the trunk of his car and was heading back toward Miami from Naples.
AS CHRISTIAN STARTED to regain consciousness, he figured he was in an oven: It was pitch-black and 150 degrees in here. Loud, too, and it smelled like rubber. There was something soft beside him. It felt like another person. Maybe it was Quentin.
When his mind was clear, he realized he was actually in the trunk of a car. A car going fast, judging from how loud the noise of the wheels was. He moaned loudly when he tried to move. His head was killing him—from whatever gas had exploded in their faces right after they’d shut the doors of the rental car—and the arm he’d been lying on for however long he’d been inside here was asleep. He tried to scratch an itch on his nose, but his hands were tightly tied behind his back.
“Quentin,” he hissed. “Quentin.” No response. He started to call again, then he remembered. The transponder.
Slowly he moved both hands to the right side of his body and was able to slip two fingers into his front pocket. He could feel the intense pressure ratchet up on the ligaments in his left shoulder as he stretched, but he was able to shift slightly in the trunk to give himself more flexibility, to allow his fingers a little more play. Still he couldn’t feel it. Maybe whoever was driving had found it and gotten rid of it. Maybe the person had known it was there because he or she was the one who’d been tracking him—with Beth’s help.
“Damn her,” he muttered, pushing one more time as deeply as he could into his pocket. There it was. His fingers curled around it, and he managed to pull it close to the top of his pocket. But he had to make sure it didn’t fall out. He’d never find it if that happened.
Then he felt the car begin to slow down. He kept trying to pull the top of the transponder up, time after time, so he could engage it, but it was almost impossible to do with just two fingers. It was maddening. Then the car suddenly slowed down, and it rolled him forward. His head hit something sharp—probably the trunk hinge. He almost yelped, but managed to muffle his cry. He nearly had the damn top up, almost to the point where he could flip the tiny switch. Jesus, come on. The car screeched to a sharp stop, banging his head against metal again. He shook it off and kept trying. Just a little more. Just a little more.
Then he heard the car door open.
SANCHEZ HOPPED out of the car, supremely satisfied with himself. It had been so easy to outwit Gillette’s security team, to break into the rental car. And the canisters of chloroform had worked perfectly. Five unconscious men seconds after he’d set off the tiny charges remotely. He’d hauled Gillette across the passed-out bodyguard and out of the backseat, thrown him into the trunk of his car beside Mari’s body, and tied his hands behind his back. Then calmly driven out of Naples and back to Alligator Alley. Now it was time to get rid of Mari’s body.
He’d pulled off into a deserted, trash-strewn rest area. There were no amenities here, it was just a place to stop if you were tired. But it was bordered on one side by something important to him: a canal.
Sanchez glanced around, making certain no cars were coming. He popped the trunk—glad to see that Gillette was still passed out—picked up the heavy cinder block with the rope attached, and lugged it to the fence by the side of the canal. Then he jogged back to the trunk, picked up the woman’s body, laid her down next to the cinder block, and tied it around her waist. Giving a grunt, he hoisted the block over the waist-high fence and let it land with a thud. He did the same with the body, then reached down and gave the block a strong push. The block rolled and, after an odd moment of stillness, the body followed it over the bank and into the water. She disappeared beneath the surface. A couple of days with the gators and there’d be no trace of her, not even bones. Problem solved.
Now it was time to send the communication to Victoria Graham that would blow her mind.
MELISSA HART trotted through the impressive lobby of the Naples Ritz Carlton, past a huge arrangement of fresh flowers, and out the front door into the warm Florida sunshine. She just wanted to get out of here as fast as possible. She’d even left her bag up in the room. There was no need for it anymore. Besides, she didn’t want to keep anything that reminded her of Beth Garrison.
An attractive young man dressed in blue shorts, a beige golf shirt, and tennis shoes smiled at her. “Can I help you?” he asked. “Do you have a car with us?”
She shook her head. “I need a cab.”
“Where you going?”
“The airport in Fort Myers.” The Fort Myers airport was the big, regional airport—about thirty miles north of here. The Naples airport was more for general aviation and corporate jets. She hadn’t even decided where she was going yet, but she already couldn’t wait to get there. “Quickly. Please.”
“Sure.”
She watched the young man jog out from under the porte cochere and down the driveway, waving toward a small parking lot at the bottom of the gently sloping hill. A minute later a cab pulled to a quick stop in front of her. “Thank you,” she said, handing the young man two ones. She could tell he wasn’t happy about how small the tip was, but too bad. He was lucky to be getting anything at all. She’d never see him again. “Fort Myers airport,” she said to the driver.
“Got it.”
At the bottom of the hill that led down from the hotel, the driver turned right.
Melissa had been checking in her purse to see how much cash
she had, happy to have made it out of the Ritz. At this point, Christian, Quentin, and the bodyguards had probably been incapacitated—that was the plan. But she’d been worried that somehow it wasn’t going to be that easy. Quentin had been suspicious of her—that was obvious—and he was careful. She didn’t know much about him, but she knew that.
“Excuse me,” she said, looking up. “Aren’t you going the wrong way?”
“Wrong way?” the driver asked. “What do you mean?”
“When we came into the hotel this morning, we came from that direction,” she explained, pointing back over her shoulder. “From Vanderbilt.” He was slowing down behind a black sedan parked by the side of the road. “Hey, what are you—”
Suddenly she realized she was in trouble—that the cabbie wasn’t taking her to the airport, never intended to—and she lunged for the door, even as the taxi was still moving. She tumbled onto the grass and scrambled to her feet—right into the arms of a tall African American man.
“Lemme go!” she screamed, beating him around the face. “Lemme go!”
Then someone grabbed her wrists and brought them firmly behind her back, locking them in place with handcuffs. Before she knew it, she was in the back of the black sedan and it was speeding away. Getting her out of the Ritz without raising any suspicions had been choreographed perfectly, she realized, and she’d fallen right into their trap—whoever they were.
SANCHEZ HAD RENTED the small house several months ago in anticipation of his huge score, in anticipation of everything that was finally coming together. The run-down three-bedroom ranch was in a poor section of Miami. A crack house was on one side, a single mother with eight children on the other, and a burned-out shell of a house across the street. A neighborhood of trashy yards, gangs, and kids dressed in rags playing in the street. Perfect for what he needed.
He had an errand to run—needed to send that e-mail to Victoria Graham—and Gillette was back there in a closet of one of the unfurnished bedrooms, tied up tightly. There was no way he could escape. Sanchez had tied up lots of people in his time, and no one had ever managed to get out of his knots. Besides, Gillette still hadn’t recovered from the chloroform—which was beautiful. Sanchez hoped the bastard didn’t wake up for another couple of days.
He swung into the parking lot of the Cyber Café. The place was only five miles from the nasty ranch house where Gillette was tied up in the closet, but this was a much better neighborhood. An upscale shopping area full of high-end stores. Amazing how closely huge wealth and poverty coexisted in Miami.
Sanchez locked the old Cadillac with a turn of his key in the door, moved casually into the café, ordered a latte and thirty minutes of Internet time, then headed for an open table in a corner in the back. It was late afternoon and the place wasn’t crowded. He sat down, took a sip of the latte, then accessed his newest untraceable e-mail account and began tapping out the message. Just three lines, short and sweet. A demand for $50 million. But not the fake letter he had agreed to send. This one was real and the woman would quickly realize how real.
He chuckled as he hit the SEND button. He’d figured out that this was the chance for a big score only a few minutes after the mission had been proposed to him. Realized that he could make enough money on this one job to retire forever. It was beautiful. What was so beautiful about it was that Victoria Graham had never seen it coming.
Sanchez spent the rest of the twenty-seven minutes of Internet time he’d purchased looking at porn. He was surprised that the computer would actually let him do it, but, hey, this was Miami.
VICTORIA GRAHAM let her head sink into her hands after she read the e-mail from Sanchez for the third time. He’d called himself Emilio in the e-mail, but she knew exactly who he was with his talk of the “Nepal Package”—obviously a reference to Everest Capital and Christian. He wanted $50 million and he wanted it right away. This wasn’t the fake demand they’d carefully scripted out, this was real. She’d completely misjudged the situation—and Sanchez. God, how could she have let herself be taken in like this?
She reached for the phone. She needed to talk to Lloyd. He was the only one she could think of to turn to at this point. She’d have to lay it all out for him, beg his forgiveness. The people Lloyd knew were the only ones who could save Christian now. And they wanted to save him, needed to save him—at least at this point. As with anything in life, you could count on people with incentive. They had an incredible incentive—and they were good.
She let her head sink all the way to the desk. She’d tried to have it all. Tried to save Christian, have her relationship with Lloyd, and screw President Wood’s health-care initiative. She’d gotten greedy, taken it too far. Now she might not get any of it. She shut her eyes. She should have known better.
“WHAT HAPPENED? ” Quentin’s face was two inches from Beth’s. She was trying to turn her head, but he had a firm grasp on her chin, and two of the men he’d sent down here a couple of days ago to scout the area were holding her still. She wasn’t going anywhere. “Tell me,” he hissed. They’d taken her into a grove of trees beside a deserted field. She was whimpering, clearly scared for her life. Well, she ought to be. “Tell me!” he roared.
BARRADO WAS RACING through the streets of Miami in the SUV with his two men, headed toward an address he knew was in a nasty neighborhood. The men back in Maryland had found out where Gillette might be. A transponder that had been planted on him in Naples was still sending out a signal. It was weak, but they’d pinpointed it to the house ahead thanks to an urgent call from Senator Dorsey. There was no way to tell if it was really leading them to Gillette, but it was worth a try. It was the only lead they had.
“ALLISON, ” Quentin barked into the phone. “It’s me.” Thank God he’d been able to reach her so quickly on her cell phone. “Christian’s been kidnapped.”
And thank God that Beth Garrison—or, he now knew, Melissa Hart—had broken so fast and told him all about Victoria Graham paying her to get close to Christian. Told him that Graham was behind it all, and that Melissa had planted the transponder on Christian before he’d gone to meet with Padilla.
“You’ve got to find Victoria Graham right now,” he said loudly, interrupting Allison’s cry from the other end of the line. Quickly he explained why. “She’s the key for us at this point, Ally.”
SANCHEZ KNELT DOWN beside Christian and pulled his head up by his hair—he was still tied up. Gagged now, but no longer blindfolded. “You’re going to make me a lot of money, you rich prick.” He laughed loudly and the harsh sound echoed in the empty house. “I should have told her I wanted more than fifty million. You could easily afford that, according to Forbes, anyway. But you see, I’m not a pig. I just want my fair share.”
He let Christian’s head fall heavily to the wooden floor, then stood up. As he turned to leave the room, he came face-to-face with the long, shiny shafts of three double-barreled shotguns. Suddenly he realized he hadn’t flown far enough below the radar on this one. Not even close.
The single shell Barrado fired completely disintegrated Sanchez’s heart, blowing his body violently backward against the closet wall.
QUENTIN’S CELL PHONE finally rang. He and his men had been standing outside the Ritz for what seemed like an eternity.
“Hello.”
“I got everything out of Victoria Graham,” Allison said quickly. “She set the whole thing up. That young girl Christian’s been seeing, the kidnapping, everything. I should have known, damn it, I should have known.”
“Calm down, Ally.” She was talking a mile a minute, sounded as if she was on the verge of tears. “What do you mean you should have known?”
“Graham told me a few weeks ago that Christian was going on a trip, a very secret trip involving national security, and that he’d be away for a while. She’d found out somehow, not from Christian, and she told me she was very worried about him. I didn’t know then how she found out. I asked her but she wouldn’t tell me. Now I know. That’s why I was m
ade vice chairman, Quentin, because Christian was going to be away. Turns out he was going to be away because she was the one kidnapping him. She was trying to help him, trying to save his life, but it backfired on her. At least, that’s what she claims. Apparently the guy she used to kidnap Christian turned the tables on her. She’d told me to keep an eye on Christian when she told me about the trip, but not to say anything to him. And I didn’t because I trusted her. But I should have said something to Christian, or you. It’s all my fault. If I had just let you know.”
“It’s not your fault,” Quentin said firmly. “How did Graham find out about Christian’s trip?”
“Senator Dorsey. She’s involved with him or something. She found out last fall about this thing in Cuba.” Allison hesitated. “Do you know about that?”
“Yeah,” he admitted, “I do.”
“Well, I bet you don’t know this. They’re going to kill Christian while he’s down there.”
Quentin’s eyes narrowed. “Kill him?”
“Yeah. After he meets with some people who are working with the military to take down the Commun—”