by Diane Capri
The big man used his left forearm like a crossbar and put his weight behind it as he shoved Mason into the van. Inside, two men knocked him to the hard, steel floor.
The big man jumped inside, slid the door closed, and ordered the driver, “Get us out of here!”
The van lurched forward and kept accelerating, headed north. The big man staggered into the front passenger seat.
The kidnapping was practiced and efficient and completed in less than sixty seconds, from the time the van stopped until it sped away.
Mason was on his knees, dazed, probably in some kind of shock. He’d fallen against Lawton, who was out cold.
A pair of rough hands patted him down, found his wallet, and pulled it from his pocket.
The guy cursed and said, “You’re gonna want to see this, Hector.”
A solid blow to the back of Mason’s head bounced his nose to the floor and smashed it all over his face. He tasted his own blood before he fell into oblivion.
CHAPTER TWO
Monday, April 11
12:10 p.m.
Detroit, Michigan
FBI Special Agent Kim Otto’s late night at work followed by an early morning meeting with her team had caused her to miss her morning run along the streets of Detroit.
She exercised for stress relief as well as exercise and training. When she missed a day, she felt out of sorts, body and soul. Which was why she’d completed her run on her lunch hour today.
There were more people on the streets at noon, which was not great. Navigating around them was a nuisance. She changed up her route, running along the side streets and through the park instead of north and south on Woodward Avenue.
But there were compensations to the change of scenery. The weather was warmer than early morning. There were no icy patches on the sidewalk to worry about. She pounded the pavement, basking in the slices of sunshine that fell between the tall buildings, until she’d completed her miles.
Which left her in front of one of her favorite places on earth. One of Detroit’s best coffee shops. She pulled the door open and stepped inside to wait in the line of java addicts, inhaling the best brew in the world.
After she’d left Jake Reacher in San Diego back in February, her life had settled into a predictable pace. She’d picked up a few routine cases in the Detroit Field Office, consisting mostly of paperwork and phone calls and assisting in occasional surveillance instead of dodging bullets. She arrived at work in the mornings and returned home again in the evenings on a more or less steady schedule, like a normal human being with a dependable government job she’d always loved.
It was the same kind of work she’d done before that first four a.m. phone call from the Boss back in November had upended her life and sent her on a breathless chase, hunting Jack Reacher.
She hadn’t found Reacher. Not yet.
But she would. Eventually.
Because Mrs. Otto’s daughter Kim was no quitter.
Even if hunting Reacher was the scariest assignment she’d ever had.
Not that she’d let anyone know that. Not a chance.
There were downsides to this peaceful break in the assignment and her new work rhythm, though. The search for Reacher had pumped her adrenaline sky high for weeks, making the routine field office work she’d once found fascinating now seem sleepy and dull by comparison.
Which caused her to question her career choices, too. The Boss she’d admired since before she joined the FBI had tested her faith. She was no longer sure she could trust him. The knowledge worried her.
But she didn’t have time to think about that today.
The line moved slowly toward the barista taking orders. Kim shuffled along with everyone else in the line until she heard a woman shriek like a frightened three-year-old behind her.
“He stole my purse!” she said, pointing the gloved hand that extended from her mink coat toward the guy dashing out the door.
“Oh, hell,” Kim said, pivoting on the balls of her running shoes and heading after the guy. Chasing purse snatchers wasn’t her usual line of work. But that looked like a twenty-thousand-dollar Cartier bag. Which made it grand larceny, at the very least.
More importantly, a ring of thieves had been working the neighborhood lately. The locals suspected a counterfeit luxury goods ring. Kim lived here. She didn’t like the idea of letting him get away with anything.
The dude wasn’t a very good thief and he was a slow runner, too. He might have been a high school footballer, but the weaving between cars parked at the curb like a running back failed. She caught him in the middle of the second block.
She wasn’t even slightly breathless. But she was pissed off that she’d missed her coffee.
She grabbed the guy and walked him to the closest precinct. When she handed him off to the desk sergeant, she identified herself and gave him a business card.
“You can find the owner of that bag at Java Joe’s on Woodward,” she said. “Give me a call if you need me. I gotta get back to work.”
She hurried to the lobby of her apartment building, slightly winded but feeling smug about braving the cold instead of running on the treadmill inside as she usually did in the mornings when the temperatures were cold.
Walter Hill, the private security guard manning the front desk, waved her over.
“Hey, Kim. Have a good run?” he asked, friendly as always.
“Yeah. Great.” Breathlessly, she swigged water from the bottle she’d attached to her belt.
“You’re working pretty hard out there,” he said. “But don’t forget to have a little fun, too. That John Lawton seems like a nice guy, for a Treasury agent. The good ones won’t wait forever, you know.”
“You sound like my mother.” She grinned to take the sting out of her words and moved along. Her mother was constantly asking about her nonexistent love life. Avoiding the topic had become second nature.
Walter nodded like an indulgent big brother. “I’d be proud to have one of my daughters dating a man like John Lawton. My guess is your parents would, too. Have they met him yet?”
“Not yet,” she said, waving her way past the desk as she headed toward the elevator.
She and Lawton had been dating now and then, when they had the time, for a few months. He lived in New York, which made the dating sporadic. She liked him well enough. He was fun and interesting to talk to. Nice-looking, too.
She punched the elevator’s call button and waited for the car to arrive. It seemed to stop at every floor on the way down. She stretched her sore muscles so they wouldn’t stiffen up.
Maybe Lawton had been coming around a little too often lately, if Walter Hill was already pleading his case.
She’d given little thought to whether there was a chance the relationship could develop into something more. She wasn’t looking for that and she assumed Lawton wasn’t, either. She’d been married once. Not an experience she wanted to repeat.
The elevator finally reached the first floor. The doors opened and several people she didn’t know piled out. She entered the car and selected her floor. She pushed the button to close the doors and held onto her stomach as the elevator shot skyward.
Lawton was working on some big case somewhere out west now. Chasing down a whistleblower who’d called the tip line, he’d said before he left. She hadn’t heard from him for a few days and she hadn’t noticed whether his absence was making her heart grow fonder. Which she supposed meant he wasn’t all that special to her.
Still pondering the question, when the elevator stopped at her floor, she walked down the hall and used her key to enter her apartment. Maybe Lawton would be back in a couple of days. Did that thought make her body hum with anticipation?
She considered the question as she showered and dressed. John Lawton was a good guy, just like Walter said. But no. He wasn’t what her younger sister would call “the one.”
Which meant he was a great guy to date. Nothing more. And that was fine, too. Left her open to new possibilities.
The
digital clock on her bedside table caught her attention. She was late already. Her supervisor was waiting to hear the results of last night’s operation in Greektown. A routine arrest after a boring surveillance. Nothing remotely anxiety provoking about it. Which didn’t mean she could blow it off, either.
When Lawton came back, she’d know what to do. If nothing else, the Reacher assignment had taught her to trust her gut.
She grabbed her gun and her keys and hustled back to the office.
CHAPTER THREE
Monday, April 11
1:30 p.m.
Albuquerque, New Mexico
Four blocks from the Last Chance Saloon, Pinto Vigo waited behind the wheel of a black SUV. The IRS agent had left the restaurant prematurely and Vigo’s team had to scramble, but they’d done the job adequately.
Except for the extra hostage, everything was on track.
He tapped his fingers on the steering wheel, marking time until he could safely follow the van to the meeting point. He thought about how to deal with Mason O’Hare. He was both clueless and beloved at Glen Haven. Vigo would need to tread carefully with him.
Kidnapping a member of Glen Haven was just one more piece of bad luck in a string of bad breaks Vigo’s cartel had suffered lately. And the timing couldn’t have been worse. His big shipment was on its way and expected to arrive Friday. Nothing must interfere. He needed the money.
He wasn’t worried about being noticed while he waited for the van. Nothing about the vehicle was the least suspicious.
The SUV was purchased with cash and registered to a man who didn’t exist. Which meant its Nevada license plates were legitimate.
Should Vigo be stopped by authorities for any reason, a records search would turn up nothing out of the ordinary.
He possessed a valid Nevada driver’s license issued to the same nonexistent man who owned the SUV. The license tracked to the normal batch of identifiers for an American citizen with no criminal history. He had a birth certificate, a passport, a social security number. He had a job and he paid taxes.
He also had a fictitious wife who possessed a similar set of counterfeit credentials.
Her real name was Maria Vigo. She was Pinto’s sister, his only surviving family. His father and his brothers had been killed long ago. Only Maria was left to stand back to back with him and she was tough as nails. Like he was. Like their father had been.
Vigo and Maria had many enemies in the US and in Mexico. Which had made him a vigilant and careful man. He was also a vulnerable one. He’d learned the hard way that there truly was no honor among his enemies. They’d kill him and steal his people and his business in a hot second if they had the chance.
Which was why the Last Chance Saloon, a front for Vigo’s operations here in Albuquerque, was staffed exclusively with cartel members.
Maria worked as a waitress at the Saloon, where she could keep an eye on his business and his crew could keep a careful watch to be sure she was safe. Maria’s bodyguard was Big Sela Juarez, a monstrously huge and violent woman, who protected his sister around the clock.
Vigo pictured Big Sela and grinned. She was a vicious piece of work, to be sure. She was paid well for protecting Maria, but she would have done it anyway. She was a little in love with Maria.
Vigo smirked. He was masterful at finding and exploiting the weak spots in people. It was a skill that had served him well.
In Vigo’s experience, love was like electricity. Useful and dangerous at the same time. So he kept an eye on Big Sela, but his gut said Maria would never be harmed by someone else as long as Big Sela was around. A man like Vigo lived and died by instincts.
His cartel had been active in Albuquerque for years. He’d moved central operations here several weeks ago. The system Vigo had in place had worked well until now.
Someone inside the organization could not be trusted. He didn’t know the identity of the mole, but he knew it wasn’t Mason O’Hare because the nerdy accountant didn’t know anything about Vigo’s business. He wasn’t the one responsible for leaking information that resulted in several recent losses.
He checked the clock on the dashboard. The van had a fifteen-minute head start. Vigo pulled out into the street and drove the speed limit to the spot outside of town where the van would be waiting and he’d get the name of the mole.
CHAPTER FOUR
Monday, April 11
2:30 p.m.
Chihuahuan Desert, New Mexico
Mason regained consciousness when his body bounced on the hot steel floor as the van traveled over rutted road. He heard the wind rushing past, but no traffic sounds. His wrists were tightly bound behind his back and a rough canvas bag covered his head. He lay on his belly, shoulder to shoulder with another man, probably Lawton.
“Pull off here.”
The voice giving orders from the front passenger seat belonged to the big man.
The van’s left tires ran off the shoulder of the road and bounced hard through a big hole, slamming Mason and Lawton against the floor. Lawton groaned slightly, letting Mason know he was awake.
The van continued off-road for about fifty feet of rough terrain and then stopped. The engine idled a few seconds before the driver shut it off. Mason heard the van’s door hinges scrape open and the two men up front climbed out. Then the side door was shoved back and a rush of welcome fresh air came inside.
“Get up! Now!” A man grabbed Mason and another grabbed Lawton. Mason was muscled outside where he was pushed to the ground. He heard Lawton land just as hard.
Mason felt the heat and the hard dirt, but he saw only the inside of the canvas bag over his head. He assumed Lawton had the same view.
“Get up!” A sharp boot kicked Mason in the side. He cried out in pain and scrambled to his feet. He heard a similar blow land on Lawton, who probably stood, too, but he offered no complaint.
Calmly, Lawton said, “I’m a federal agent.”
Two of the men laughed and the big guy, the one Mason assumed was the leader of the pack, said, “You think we care?”
“You should,” Lawton replied. “Makes me worth more. My team will do whatever it takes to get me back.”
The leader said, “Let’s go.”
Mason felt a gun jab into his back and a hand shove between his shoulder blades. He stumbled forward but managed to stay upright. His leather-soled shoes slipped on the rocky surface as he shuffled along.
He heard Lawton walking beside him and the four kidnappers walked behind. They advanced twenty feet or so before Lawton stumbled and fell against Mason’s right side, knocking him off his feet. Mason landed painfully and let out an involuntary yelp.
A split second after Mason went down, the fight started. He heard a sickening crack, like a tree branch breaking, and one of the kidnappers began to scream. He landed hard on top of Mason, knocking the wind out of him. From the guy’s stench, Mason guessed the guy wasn’t Lawton.
Mason scrambled along the ground to get the man’s weight off him. With his hands secured behind his back, the struggle seemed impossible.
He heard the unmistakable sounds of flesh hitting flesh and grunts of pain from the men fighting with Lawton.
Another man fell to the ground near Mason’s feet. He rolled aside. It seemed safer to stay on the ground.
A moment later, a vehicle with a powerful engine pulled up and stopped. Mason heard a door open and close, followed by the deafening blast of a shotgun. Then, by more screaming from one of the men on the ground.
Mason’s terrified heavy panting filled his canvas hood with damp breath. He heard a second blast and another man screamed, but only briefly before the sickening sound of a gun butt slamming into a human body.
A loud grunt followed the blow and a heavy thud shook the ground behind him when Lawton fell.
An eerie silence seemed to fill the air once the fighting stopped.
“Get him back in the van,” a new voice ordered roughly.
One of the men jerked Mason roughly to his fe
et and shoved him into the van’s open doorway. He stumbled and fell. He lay still, until he felt a needle puncture his neck.
It was the last thing Mason felt before his whole body seemed to collapse into nothingness.
CHAPTER FIVE
Monday, April 11
2:45 p.m.
Chihuahuan Desert, New Mexico
After Mason was stashed in the van, Vigo tilted his head toward the dead men. “Get that garbage away from the road.”
“Of course,” Hector replied, without the least whiff of disapproval.
Hector had always been a practical man. No doubt he realized the precariousness of his situation. Vigo had shot and killed two of his own men without warning. He could easily do the same to Hector and Freddie when he was finished with them.
Hector scanned the area until he saw a pile of rocks about a hundred feet away. They could stash the bodies behind the outcropping. The occasional vehicles speeding past on the roadway shouldn’t notice. If they covered the bodies with loose dirt, perhaps the vultures wouldn’t find them for a few hours.
“Freddie,” Hector said, tilting his head toward the first body. “I’ll take the head. You grab the feet.”
As always, Freddie did as he was told. His unquestioning obedience kept him alive. He approached his dead compatriot and lifted his feet as Hector lifted the head and shoulders. They began to move toward the outcropping.
The relentless sun was hot and the rocky terrain was difficult to walk. They waddled along as swiftly as possible. Hector was sweating profusely before they’d reached the halfway point. Freddie, too. But they kept going.
Vigo nodded his satisfaction. The situation was far from ideal.
Traffic out here was sparse but unpredictable. The longer the project took to complete, the more likely they were to be discovered. Which would mean more bodies to dispose of.