Yes, she admitted that she was very ambitious. And it was one fact she loved about herself. The only child of middle class parents, she was on her way to becoming a major player in global politics. With the war chest she was making out of the deal and the access to the autonomous weapon, she would finally be taken seriously. CID was not the only weapon in her arsenal to world domination.
At the thought, she giggled to herself. Yeah, giggled. Those who knew her would have been shocked to know that she even laughed. But she was almost giddy with how close she was to her goal. Over the last decade she had gradually accumulated technology that would keep her at the top of her game for the next few decades. CID was the latest coup and it vaulted her far above her expectations.
Mila K. Mayer had finally arrived. Maybe not at the top of the ladder, but she was definitely on one of the rungs and things could only get better.
Just then, the pilot’s voice came over the voice system.
“Ms. Mayer, I hope you are enjoying the flight. If you look to your left, you will find a bottle of Champagne on ice, compliments of our boss. If you need anything, please don’t hesitate to let me know.”
Mila nodded with a slight smile, even though she knew he couldn’t see her. She glanced to her left and sure enough, just beside her seat was a bucket of ice with a bottle of Champagne and a flute in it. She poured herself a glass and relaxed into the seat.
She decided to try Jack once again. When he still didn’t answer the call, she knew it was time to get hold of her contact in the White House. She pressed the number that was on speed dial and waited. It went to voicemail.
“What the hell is this?” she muttered as she ended the call.
She tried again and got the same results. Okay, this was becoming a cause for concern. She was beginning to feel apprehensive. It was a special line and he always answered her calls. Why was he not answering it now?
She set down the Champagne flute and picked up the handset attached to her seat. The plane and pilot had been arranged by her contact in the White House so if she could not reach him, there was a chance that the pilot could. Or maybe he knew something that she didn’t.
“Hello, Travis, I need some information from you…” She needed to put this delicately. “I need to get a message across to your boss and my phone’s acting up. Could you handle that for me?” Yes, that sounded right.
She waited a beat, but there was no response.
“Travis?”
Silence.
Hmm. That was odd. She took off her seat belt and gingerly got to her feet. It seemed most people were not taking calls. Was it a special day for not taking calls in America? Was it a holiday she was not aware of? She rolled her eyes slightly. There was no such thing, but something clearly was up. She had to get to the bottom of this…She did not become Mila K. Mayer by sitting down and letting things happen. If the stupid pilot would not reply her, she would just march in there and demand an answer.
She walked to the cockpit and pushed the door open.
“Hey! I was talking to you over the communication set, why didn’t you…?” Her voice trailed off as it suddenly occurred to her that there was no one in the cockpit.
“What the hell?” she murmured in confusion. There was no restroom in there, where could the pilot have gone?
Suddenly a flash of color caught her eye outside the plane. She hurried to the window and looked down. Was that a parachute?
Even though she knew what her eyes were seeing, it took a while for her brain to register the fact that the pilot had jumped out of the plane.
“What?” she screamed in rage. She ran her hand through her hair in horror. What on earth was going on? Why would the pilot jump out of the plane unless. . .?
Suddenly it occurred to her that there was probably a reason why her calls had gone unanswered. Well, they could just kiss her behind. The plane was on auto pilot, but she would surprise them. She had her pilot’s license so handling this baby would not be a problem for her. She was Mila K. Mayer.
With determination, she settled unto the pilot’s chair. That was when she heard it. An unmistakable ticking sound that made her blood run cold. She scanned her eyes and gasped when she saw the bomb. It was set to go off in less than four minutes. She had less than four minutes to get off the plane.
She jumped to her feet and searched for a parachute. There was no sign of any in the cockpit. She glanced at the bomb again. Three minutes and forty-six second.
“Damn it to hell!”
She rushed out of the cockpit and frantically searched through the cabin of the small jet for a parachute. Anything she could use to get the hell out of the plane. It did not take long to discover that there was nothing.
With the realization came the certainty that she was going to die. That beautiful luxurious jet was actually her coffin.
How had she misread the signs so spectacularly? Clearly she had trusted the wrong people.
Defeated, Mila sank into one of the chairs and closed her eyes. She could hear her heart pounding in her chest. If she was going down, she would not go alone.
She picked up her phone and dialed, then waited till she got the voice mail.
“You double-crossed me. Somehow, you and Jack Chance must have decided to get me out of the way. Well played. I’m going to die, but I will make sure you pay for this, you mark my words.”
She ended the call there and dialed nine-one-one.
“Hello?”
“There’s a bomb in my plane and it’s about to go off any minute now. The pilot, Travis Smith, took the only parachute and left.” Then she gave the details of the plane and who the suspect was.
“Are you sure about this?” the person at the other end asked.
“Positive,” she replied.
“Hold on, there’s someone from our bomb squad here, they’ll work you through how to deactivate the bomb.”
Mila heard the urgency in the voice, but she knew that it was too late.
“Ms. Mayer, are you with me? Tell me what kind of bomb it is.”
“It’s too late. The bomb will go off—”
There was a loud explosion and then nothing.
**
At the police department in D.C. there was a furor of activity as they heard the sound of the blast over the phone.
“Hello? Hello, Ms. Mayer…can you hear me? Are you with me?”
There was complete silence. The line was dead.
“Bomb blast went off. Private jet on a flight from D.C. to Kansas. Took off from…” Everyone scrambled to take the details. From the information provided, the plane had taken off about fifteen minutes before the woman called.
“From all indication, the plane was still in the D.C. area,” one of the police officers said.
“What’s going on?” the chief walked in just then. “Put out a BOLO, let every squad car in the vicinity be alert,” he said when he was briefed about the phone call that came in.
Leaving them, he walked into his office and made a call.
“A private plane just got bombed,” he said softly to the person on the other side. “One casualty suspected, a Mila Mayer, female.”
“Anything else?”the person asked.
“She named your man as the person behind it.”
“Hmm. Let me know if there are further developments.”
“Roger that, Sir.”
**
General Carter ended the call and shifted his attention to the man seated on the other side of his table. He was poring over data on his computer.
“Bad news, Sir?” Derek asked without looking up.
“Yeah. Mila Mayer might have been assassinated.”
Derek looked up then in consternation. “Might?”
“A bomb went off on a plane headed to Kansas. The passenger placed a call to nine-one-one just before the bomb went off.”
“That is not good.”
Derek looked as troubled as he felt. These people were not playing. If they were willing to elim
inate one of their own so brutally, he knew they would not hesitate to do the same to their hostages. For the first time, he began to feel true fear for the safety of Wayne and his family.
“Storming the place would be counterproductive,” Derek said, obviously thinking out loud. “How do we get the hostages out without harming them?”
“What do you suggest?”
The man leaned back on his seat, a thoughtful expression on his face. “We need to attack this from two ends.”
“Go on.”
“On one end, we try to negotiate with him, keeping him busy while we send in a highly skilled team to try to rescue the hostages.”
General Carter nodded, impressed. It was the method he had deployed.
“If only we had the Shadow Force to tackle this.”
“They are already on it,” General Carter said with a slight smile. “As well as the Silver Shield agents.”
“Silver Shield? That’s the outfit owned by Emily Silver. They are fast earning a reputation almost as legendary as that of the Shadow Force.”
In the general’s mind, they were probably better than his team for one reason…they hadn’t retired. The Shadow Force team hadn’t worked together in close to a decade. They had changed and the synergy between them was no longer what it used to be. The Silver Shield team, on the other hand, were completely in sync with each other. Had he been a betting man, he would have put his money on the Silver Shield team. If anyone could rescue the people being held hostage, it was them.
“We need this operation to be carried out with the utmost stealth and secrecy. The information must not get to the media.”
He glanced at his watch. It was almost time for the meeting at the Oval Office. He needed to be on his way to D.C. He thought about the name that the woman had mentioned before her plane went down. They had suspected him for a while and there was some evidence to bring him down. But finding a way to link him to this—the theft of CID, holding hostage American citizens and threatening a terrorist attack on American soil—oh, that would ensure that he went away for a very long time. He could not let the bastard know that they were on to him. Still, it would be nice to see if there was any sign of remorse on his face.
Chapter Twenty-One
Tuesday, 7:25 a.m., the old warehouse somewhere outside Dodge City, Kansas
Wayne sat on the floor with his back to the wall. Even though a wall separated them, he had felt Emily’s presence the entire night. At some point, he had forced himself to sleep for a couple of hours. It had taken sheer strength of will to tear himself away from the glass partitioning, where he had stood staring at his family, but mostly at Emily.
I’m going to get us out of here and when I do, I’m never going to let her go, Wayne thought fiercely.
It was the thought of being less than a hundred percent alert that had finally forced him to take a nap.
He rested his hand on his knee and went through the messages that were flowing between the Silver Shield team. He loved how in sync they were, even checking with him frequently. They were obviously all on the same page and he had no doubt that when in action, they functioned like a well-oiled machine. Heck, he’d seen them in action the time they’d saved Emily and Kendra from the Chinese mafia.
That incident seemed like a lifetime ago, he couldn’t believe it had only been two days since that had happened. Wayne ran his hand over his head. He was exhausted. Tired of the life he’d been living for too many years.
Just then the door opened and Jack walked in.
“Chance,” Wayne said, not bothering to get to his feet.
“Carter,” Jack said with a brief nod.
He noticed that the man kept a respectable distance between them. Smart man. He, more than anyone, knew how deadly Wayne was when he swung into action. He had more than a passing acquaintance with several martial arts including tae kwon do and jujitsu.
“When are you letting my family leave?”
“When I get the microchip.”
Wayne chuckled, but there wasn’t much humor in the sound.
“You must think I’m a fool,” he said, shaking his head. “Why would you let them go when you’ve already got what you want?”
Jack walked towards a wall and leaned on it.
“You will just have to trust me.”
Wayne snorted. “Sure. What I don’t get is how you became such a greedy bastard.”
“I was never like you, Carter. Back in the day, you were in it for the glory. I was only interested in the money.”
“But kidnapping innocents…threatening Americans. You are not that person, Jack,” Wayne said, trying to appeal to the man’s humanity.
“You don’t know who the fuck I am, Wayne,” Jack said with force. “I am not the man you used to know and even then, you didn’t really know me.”
“Apparently,” Wayne agreed. “You are the monster who has my family, who is willing to massacre other humans for the sake of your greed.”
Jack smiled. “Well, you might know me after all.”
“I am not going to let you harm my family,” Wayne said evenly.
It was no idle threat and Jack knew it.
“Believe it or not, Carter, I am not in the habit of doing harm to innocents,” he said, folding his arms over his chest. “I mean you no harm even though you all abandoned me in Cairo.”
“You don’t know, do you?” Wayne asked, shaking his head.
“Know what?”
“We went back for you. Asher and I.”
“Is that the best you could come up with? You’ve had what…close to a decade to perfect your lies and this is the best you could do?” Jack asked in disgust.
“Believe what you will, I honestly don’t give a fuck,” Wayne said with a careless shrug. “However the truth is that we did go back for you. We were captured by an extremist group and held captive for an entire month. We were beaten and starved. At the time, I didn’t mind because I was doing it for a brother and I believed you would have done the same for me.”
“How did you escape?” Jack asked. He did not know what to believe. He had gone for years believing that his brothers had left him for dead. He had carried that bitterness for so long. If what Wayne was saying was the truth… “If you were held captive, how did you escape then?” he demanded.
“Kadijah.”
Jack went still. “What are you saying?”
Wayne looked at Jack curiously. He had gone pale, like he’d just seen a ghost.
“Your friend, Kadijah? She’s the one who found us and helped us escape. She told us that you were dead.”
Very slowly, Jack sank to the floor and rested against the wall.
“That’s not possible.”
“Whatever, man, believe what you want to believe,” Wayne said with a shrug. He really did not care.
Well, that was not completely honest. If he had known then that the man standing there would hold his family captive, he would still have gone back to Egypt, but only to make sure that the bastard really was dead.
Whether Jack chose to believe him or not was irrelevant. What was important was getting Emily and Kendra out of there.
“Can I at least be with my family?”
“What?” Jack gazed at him in confusion. His mind had obviously been elsewhere.
“I want to be with my family,” Wayne repeated.
Jack gave him a blank stare then nodded. Very slowly, he got to his feet. He walked to the door as though in a daze and gave it three sharp raps. It was opened from outside and four armed men walked in.
“Take him to the next room, where the females are being held,” he ordered and then walked out without a backward glance.
Wayne wondered what the hell was going on with the man. He had obviously gotten a few screws loose. Most likely whatever he had experienced over the years had affected his sanity. Shaking his head, he followed the men out of the room.
**
“Do you think we’ll be here much longer, Mom?”
&n
bsp; Emily heard the exhaustion in her daughter’s voice and her heart ached. Kendra’s stomach let out a growl. Emily could not help feeling so helpless tied up that way, unable to help her daughter. They had thrown them in almost twenty-four hours ago and no one had thought to bring them any food. She felt anger burn inside her. She did not mind being starved, but she minded for Kendra. She was only a child, and though she hadn’t complained once, Emily knew it couldn’t be easy for her.
“Not if I have anything to say about it,” Emily said with determination. All she needed was for one of the guards to come in and she would find a way to get them out.
“I wonder what they want with us.”
She had wondered as well, but since she hadn’t seen anyone to ask, she was still in the dark. Her only guess was that it had something to do with Wayne. He was the one thing she and Kendra had in common.
Kendra’s stomach let out another growl.
“When we get out of here, I’m gonna order the largest hotdog I can get my hands on,” Kendra said wistfully.
“A hotdog? Why?”
“I don’t know,” Kendra said with a shrug. “It’s just what I feel like eating at the moment. Oh, with a large bowl of chocolate chip and caramel ice cream sundae.”
“Yeah?” Emily felt her lips tug into a smile. That was such a normal desire.
“Totally.”
“Chocolate chip and caramel is your father’s favorite combination.”
“Really?”
“Yeah.”
“Cool.”
They were both leaning against a wall. They had shifted and scuttled their way over to the wall the night before and leaning against it and against each other, they had been able to catch a few hours’ sleep.
Just then Emily heard footsteps approaching the door to the room where they were being held.
“I hear footsteps,” Kendra said.
The girl had obviously inherited Emily’s keen hearing.
“Yes, I hear them too,” Emily said softly. She didn’t know how she felt about that. On one hand, she wanted someone to come into their room, hopefully bringing food or more importantly, a weapon. On the other hand, after being ignored for so long, it was possible that something more sinister was behind the sudden visit. Whatever it was, she knew that she was not going to go down without a fight. However she felt about the visit, she was going to find out soon enough because the locks were being turned.
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