by Vicki Hinze
“I can do this. I can do this.” Darcy gritted her teeth, willed her heart rate to slow down. She wasn’t the woman she had been then. She was wiser, stronger, more disciplined. She’d learned to compromise, to improvise, to do what she had to do to make it through tough situations intact. She’d learned to struggle and persist and, God knew, she’d learned to endure.
“I will do this.” She reached for the car door, half climbed, half fell out of the Jeep. “I will change the tire. I will get to Los Casas before Santana and GRID take off. I will succeed in this mission.”
Steadier now, she walked to the back tire and took a serious look, blinking hard until the spots obscuring her vision left her eyes. The tire seemed to be intact. She checked the valve. The stem had been tampered with so the air would leak out.
First the phone from work was bugged, then dead; clearly service had been cut to it. Now her tire was flat. Someone wanted to make sure she didn’t make it to Los Casas.
Had to be Wexler. He’d given her the phone. He had the book. He took down the coded messages and relayed them to others. Had to be Wexler.
Or Thomas Kunz.
If he’d recognized her.
Chapter Eight
Officially off-duty, Ben lingered outside the cinder-block building at Los Casas and watched Wexler work the incoming traffic. He’d taken over the stall about thirty minutes ago to give Mick a break. Mick had gone inside to grab a cola from the fridge.
Something niggled at Ben. Something he couldn’t yet grasp but which just didn’t feel right—in addition to his worrying about Darcy. He again checked his watch. 9:00 p.m. She should have been here ten minutes ago—and her phone was out. That could be incidental; there had been static on the line, and she’d been fine when it had gone out.
Likely, anticipation and dread just had him edgy. He wasn’t confident she’d hold up when things started coming down, and not holding up when confronting GRID could get her killed.
Mick walked back outside, a thermos in his hand. “Coffee,” he said. “Figured I needed a healthy jolt of caffeine. Lucas and his buddies kept me up too late at the bar last night for me to be doubling back here tonight, pulling a graveyard shift. It’s going to be a long night.”
It would be for all of them. “Bobby Meyers will be in shortly to relieve you,” Ben assured him, then leaned back against the building, propped his foot against the blocks and watched a Lincoln Navigator pull in, turn around and back into the slot at the far end of the parking lot.
No one backed in around here except cops.
“I ran into Darcy outside the hotel this morning. She looked...upset.”
“Tired, I expect.” Two guys got out of the Lincoln. Santana’s cohorts from Broken Branch. Ben looked back down the road but saw no lights. So where were the FBI agents supposedly tagging these two jerks? Adrenaline shot through Ben’s veins, and his worry deepened. They’d somehow ditched the agents. This had to be it.
Santana’s cohorts stood near their vehicle. Mick glanced their way, clearly noticing them, but didn’t comment on their presence. “I expect she was tired. Heard her car was acting up and you two were out late last night.”
“Yep, pretty late.” They were watching Wexler’s stall.
“So are you two—”
“Yeah, we are.” Ben swung his gaze to Mick’s. “Definitely.”
He smiled, wrinkling the skin under his eyes. The lines alongside his mouth became grooves. “Glad to hear it. You had me worried there for a while. It ain’t healthy, you spending so much time alone.”
“Waiting for the right woman. That’s all.” After Diane, he’d needed a break. She’d shoved him through the wringer so many times. The last thing he’d wanted was to risk it again.
“What about you? You’ve been on your own a lot longer than I have.”
Mick hiked his eyebrows. “Who says I ever been alone?”
Ben frowned at him. Mick had been in love with Wexler’s wife, Elizabeth, his whole life. He’d never even been seen with another woman. The truth slammed Ben between the eyes. “You’re still with Elizabeth?”
“You know, Ben,” Mick said softly. “When a man’s got her at home, he ought not be stepping out.” Mick shrugged. “If he does, someone who appreciates her is sure to step in.”
So while Lucas was out playing around on Elizabeth, she’d renewed her relationship with Mick. Surprised, Ben grunted and looked back to the stall, wondering which had come first: Lucas’s extramarital ventures or Elizabeth’s. Either way, Ben had to give it to Elizabeth and Mick. They’d been discreet. He’d bet money that no one in Devil’s Pass suspected a thing about them, while everyone knew in intimate detail all about every one of Lucas’s affairs.
“Why are you hanging around here?”
Ben looked at Mick, who was taking a sip of steaming coffee and squinting at him over the rim of his cup. “What else am I going to do tonight? You’re here—the Oasis is closed.”
“What about Darcy?”
“After last night, she’s wiped out.” True, if not the truth.
Mick nodded. “She seems like a good woman.”
An eighteen-wheeler pulled into Wexler’s stall, pulling a trailer with no markings on it. Was this it? Ben stole a glance at the two men, who’d perked up, paying attention. This was definitely the GRID shipment carrying fireworks laced with radioactive waste. Dirty bomb-loving scum. “Excuse me.”
Ben walked back inside and tried again to phone Darcy.
Still no answer.
What was he supposed to do now? Wexler was giving the paperwork a cursory glance. In minutes, he’d put the truck through. Ben could follow them, but where was she? Was she okay?
“I’m not feeling well, Mick,” he said on rejoining Mick outside. “Guess I picked up James Grady’s bug. It hit me like a ton of bricks—all of a sudden.”
“Did you drink water out of the cooler?” Mick frowned.
“Yeah,” Ben lied. “A little while ago.”
“Darn it, I told Wexler to change out that bottle. I think it’s contaminated and that’s making everyone sick.”
“Tell him again. It’s got me.”
“Sorry to hear it.” Mick looked him over, genuinely concerned. “Go ahead home, buddy. I’ll take care of this until Bobby Meyers gets in to relieve Wexler—and I’ll let him know you’re down.”
“Thanks. I think I’d better do that.” Ben headed toward his Jeep, stopped and turned back. “Mick, get rid of that bad water, will you?”
“You got it.”
By the time Ben cranked the engine, Wexler had backed off and the truck pulled through. Raw terror struck Ben in the stomach. Terror and fury—and fear that GRID would succeed with its plans and successfully attack White House spectators at the fireworks celebration.
Determined it wouldn’t happen, Ben tried yet again to call Darcy, but still got no answer.
Santana’s cohorts pulled out in the Lincoln and followed the truck. Ben pulled in behind them, and someone fell into line behind him. Who, he didn’t know, and their lights blinded him. He couldn’t even make out the type of car. Fortunately, they were all heading toward Devil’s Pass, and fortunately there were no other roads leading to it. No one should be suspicious about being followed.
Though, if all General Shaw had told Ben about Thomas Kunz and GRID proved true, Ben would never be so lucky.
Kunz and GRID suspected everything.
Where the devil were those FBI agents?
Darcy whipped into Los Casas’s parking lot. Wexler’s truck was gone. Ben’s Jeep wasn’t in sight, either. He’d followed them!
Her blood chilled. He wasn’t equipped to deal with Kunz or his GRID thugs. At least, so far as she knew. And if he wasn’t, he was going to get himself killed.
She drove up alongside the concrete barrier at the open stall. Mick stood outside, under the overhang. “Hey, Mick,” she shouted out. “Where’s Ben?”
“He left about fifteen minutes ago,” he said, not see
ming to be surprised to see her. “He wasn’t feeling well.”
He was in pursuit. Oh no! She stuck out her hand and bent her fingers. “I need your cell phone. Mine’s broken.”
Mick frowned. “What’s wrong, girl?”
“Oh, I left the stupid iron on and I’m scared to death I’m going to burn down Ben’s cottage. He’ll never forgive me.”
“Long as you keep coming back, he’ll forgive you just about anything.” Laughing, he passed her the phone. “Get you one of them irons that shut off automatically.”
“Next paycheck. Thanks, Mick.” Hitting the gas with a little more force than she intended, she left Mick standing in a cloud of dust.
She hadn’t passed them on the road to Devil’s Pass, which meant they’d cut cross-country to Broken Branch. There was nowhere else for them to go out there. The odds were slim to none, but she tried calling Ben at home on the off-chance he really had gone home sick.
No answer.
She tried again—this time, his mobile.
Listening, she didn’t hear it ring, but there was activity—noise, actually. She focused hard, bumping across the barren terrain. Faint voices sounded in the background. Shouting. Cursing. Scuffling. More cursing. The voices grew louder, then louder.
“It’s happening!” Ben shouted. “It’s happening!”
A huge thud crackled in Darcy’s ear. Someone hitting Ben? Oh God! Someone throwing his phone? No! No!
Grunting. Smacking. Something even more distant, more muffled caught her attention. Horns. Party horns and...music.
Darcy didn’t believe her ears. Was she really hearing what she thought she was hearing, or had her senses and her ability to process sensory input accurately parted ways?
There were no party horns at Broken Branch. She’d learned enough about their strict disciplinary ways to know better than that. Yet she hadn’t seen or heard anything that precluded them from music. Was Ben there, or somewhere else? If somewhere else, then where?
Think, Darcy. Think. You can’t fail again. You lost Merry. You can’t lose Ben, too!
Another man’s shout came through the phone. “No, don’t shoot him!”
Thomas Kunz’s voice. She was certain of it.
Certain? How can you be certain of anything?
Yet she was certain. It was Kunz’s voice. She recognized it from the Intel interceptions. Every known torture he’d ever committed ran through her mind, and terror, stark and cold and unrelenting, seized Darcy.
The psychos had Ben.
Chapter Nine
Darcy hit the brakes hard, swerved to a stop, grabbed her satellite phone from the seat beside her, and ripped into it. She’d repaired it before and, by God, she would again.
She pulled the schematic from memory, compared it to what she was looking at on the phone, and spotted a loose connection. She fumbled with her purse, snagged a penny, and used it to tighten the loose connection, then snapped the casing back into place.
She got a tone.
Grateful, she dialed Home Base, and when Maggie answered, her words came out in a rush. “They’ve got Ben. I need a locator put on his phone.” She reeled off the number. “And I need it now. Kunz has him. GRID, Santana and Kunz—they’re all together and they have Ben.”
“Okay, Darcy, we’re on it. Give me a minute. It’s seeking,” Maggie said. “How did GRID get Ben?”
“I don’t know. Wexler—someone—tampered with the stem valve on my tire. I got a flat out in the middle of nowhere. The shipment had gone through by the time I got to Los Casas.”
“How do you know that?”
“Wexler had already left. One of the other guys, Mick, said Ben went home sick.”
The guy that runs the bar? That Mick?”
“Yes,” Darcy said. “I figure Ben followed the shipment and they snagged him.”
For fear of taking off in the wrong direction and putting more distance between her and Ben, Darcy stayed put, waiting for the locator to work its magic and tell her where to find him. “His phone is active,” she said, more to reassure herself than Maggie. “There was fighting and party horns in the distance, and music.”
“Sounds like a party.”
Darcy gasped. “Not a party, a festival. He’s in town, Maggie. They didn’t take the fireworks to Broken Branch. They took them somewhere in Devil’s Pass. I heard music. There’s an opera performance at the open-air theater tonight. He has to be somewhere around there.” Certain of that much, she hit the gas, made a sharp turn for town, and then stomped the accelerator.
“Definitely in Devil’s Pass, Darcy.” Maggie confirmed it. “Downtown, but off Main Street. We’re getting a specific address on it now.”
“I know Colonel Drake wanted to wait and monitor all three shipments, but I’ve been working on the code and I think at least one is already here.”
“Intel confirmed that about ten minutes ago.”
“We can’t wait, Maggie. They could already have the third, or go without it. We need immediate FBI intervention or we risk losing Thomas Kunz again.” They’d lost him before, thought they’d killed him three times and put him in Leavenworth once only to discover they’d never had him, just his body doubles.
“Colonel’s briefing General Shaw and Secretary Reynolds now.”
Darcy came to the edge of town. People stood crowded in the streets, dancing, laughing, drinking. It was a huge block party—only it went on forever. Frustration and fear stacked and spread in Darcy. She’d never find him.
“Warehouse, Darcy. Third and Main.”
“I know it.” She steered around a group of teens, sitting in the street, their heavy metal screeching, setting Darcy’s teeth on edge and fraying what was left of her nerves. And then she felt the snap. The tight chest, the scattered thoughts she couldn’t seem to grasp, and those telltale spots that blurred her eyes. Having no choice, she whipped into a parking place and slammed on the brakes.
Not now. She bent forward, leaned her head against the steering wheel. Not now, please. Please, not now.
Her thoughts ignored her, sped ahead to what could be happening to Ben. The rest of her tried to keep up but she just couldn’t do it. She was functioning a few beats behind, and clammy with sweat.
You can do this, Darcy. For five years, you’ve done nearly everything a few beats behind. You can do this that way, too. You have experience at it, lots and lots of experience at it. Just do what you have to do, Darcy. Just do it!
She snapped her phone to her black slacks, concentrated hard and checked her weapon—ready to fire—then got out of the car. Okay. Okay, where are you?
Slowly, she turned around and spotted the flag and wide stone steps. The courthouse. You’re at the courthouse. Three blocks to the warehouse.
She started out on foot, winding between the throngs of people, humming to minimize their input into her senses. She held her nose to block out smell, kept humming and moved quickly—too quickly to grasp impressions. Ah, move quickly!
Run, Darcy. Run!
She focused hard to get her feet to work in rhythm with her brain, sideswiped people and just kept running, shouting, “Sorry. So sorry. Sorry.” She ran two blocks—and took in nearly nothing on impressions. Then she ran headlong into Mick and a petite brunette, dancing in the grass above the sidewalk. “Sor— Mick?” She’d left him at Los Casas, working. How had he gotten here so quickly?
“James Grady came in to help out Bobby Meyers.”
Odd. Ben had said James had the flu.
“I’m keeping Elizabeth company. Elizabeth Wexler, meet Darcy Clark.”
Lucas’s wife. A pretty brunette with doe eyes and full lips. Darcy nodded. “Great to meet you, Elizabeth,” she said, because it was easier than explaining anything. “Have fun,” she added then rushed on.
The crowd thickened. The tightness in Darcy’s chest felt like a vise, and someone wrenched it a half hitch. The crush of people squeezed and her feet lifted off the ground. Her back and neck muscles twitched, lock
ed for seconds in little spasms, warning of bigger ones to come. She could barely breathe. The hyper-stimulation was strengthening....
You can’t fail. Not again. Not Merry and Ben. You can’t do it, Darcy. Die if you have to, but don’t fail.
“Ben, please be alive,” she muttered to herself. “Please be near your phone. I need you!” She snaked toward the building, pushing and shoving, bit by bit making her way out of the crush. A man grabbed her shoulder, spun her around and kissed her. She pushed away, looked him in the face. He was drunk. Harmless and drunk.
“Come on, hon. Let’s go party.”
Darcy didn’t have time for this, and she certainly didn’t have the patience for it. When he grabbed for her again, she popped him with a right cross that knocked him back off his staggering feet. To the laughter of the men, and gasps and cheers from the women right around them, Darcy took an exaggerated bow and then walked on.
She didn’t have time for this, but the last thing she could afford while others watched her was to appear panicked. She looked back and saw Mick looking her way. He shot her a big grin and a thumbs-up.
Why was he watching her? Why was he with Elizabeth Wexler?
Regardless, it was time for Darcy to disappear. She wound through the crowd and around the back of the warehouse. Finally, she touched the building’s cool metal. Its windows were dusty, the door padlocked. For all intents and purposes, it appeared empty.
She double-checked with Maggie on the phone. “Are you getting the same location on my phone as Ben’s?”
“You’re right on top of each other.”
“Get me some help, Maggie. Now.”
“On the way. It’ll be a few minutes. They were staked out at Broken Branch.”
“That’ll be ten minutes, at least.” Ben could be dead in ten minutes. So could she.
“At least.”
It was too little, too late.
Handle it.
He was here. No. No, his phone was here.
Darcy lifted her leg and pain shot through her spine up to her nape. Her knees collapsed and she crumpled to the ground.