Deadly Holidays

by Lisa Phillips

  Steve said, “Don’t get in my face. If I need a second, I’m going to take one. And then I’m going to focus.”

  Adrian walked over to stand beside Mint, who watched quietly.

  Steve glanced at Mint, then Adrian, then at Bradley. “Tell me if it was one of your women that you wouldn’t need a minute to collect yourself? Because you’re all a bunch of robots? Well you’re not. And I’d give you that minute.”

  “This isn’t getting my sister back.”

  Did Bradley think he didn’t know that? “You want me to hit you again?”

  “That sissy-girl shove?” Bradley clipped Steve’s shoulder as he passed him. A completely juvenile move Steve was going to ignore. Because that wasn’t going to help them. “Why are we here, Walker? What does this have to do with Rachel being gone?”

  Bradley stopped. He turned back to Steve, Mint, and Adrian. All the color drained from his face. “Wait. Don’t tell me that’s her.”

  “Just realized why we’re here?” Steve asked. It was plain to see there was someone lying on the ground at the edge of the water. A body, surrounded by federal agents.

  A woman. With dark hair.

  Steve said, “We’re all going to ignore your completely sexist remark about girls being sissies and should probably pray for Alexis since she has to live with you now.” He took a breath and turned to Adrian. “Please tell us that isn’t Rachel.”

  “It’s not her,” Adrian said in one quick breath. “I’m sorry you thought that.” He glanced between them. “Any of you. I’m sorry you even thought for one second that was Rachel.”

  Bradley glanced at Steve, a certain knowing in his eyes. Steve didn’t wait for an apology, given Bradley wasn’t good at that stuff. He could cut the guy some slack, considering he hadn’t even fully processed his reaction to seeing that woman lying on the ground—before he quit breathing for a second.

  Bradley jumped on the weakness. The delay. Steve wasn’t going to drag that out. He understood it. He turned to Adrian. “Who is she?”

  “Ellayna Sanchez. She’s Rachel’s intern.” Adrian started walking, and they all fell into step around him.

  Megan stood with the agents close to the body, but not so close they ran the risk of stepping on evidence. The ground was covered in frost and the extra dusting of snow that had fallen in the last few hours, but the body was not. Which meant she hadn’t been there all that long—not long enough for the weather to settle on her skin and clothes.

  “One shot to the forehead,” Megan said.

  Mint shifted. “Just like the Secret Service agents.”

  Bradley moved close to Steve’s side, like he thought Steve was a loose cannon about to completely dissolve. Or maybe Bradley was about to himself, and focusing on Steve meant he had something to keep him from falling into the downward spiral of what he thought could happen. What might have already happened.

  Steve’s mind came up with things that were a thousand times worse than what she’d already been through. She doesn’t need this.

  Bradley said, “David, or the Vice President’s brother?”

  “David,” Steve answered. “A shot like that, one bullet and they’re dead? It’s military. At least someone with the training David has had. The Vice President’s brother may or may not have computer skills. We haven’t seen any kind of weapons training. Especially considering every shot was taken by someone he coerced into doing it. Or hired like that team of Venezuelans.”

  “So where did he take her?”

  He looked over at Bradley. That had better be a rhetorical question. Steve didn’t know where David would take Rachel. Why had he even grabbed her? This made no sense at all.

  He wanted to rage and scream at all of them. Throw punches. Fire the weapon tucked in the back of his jeans that he wasn’t going to tell Adrian or any of the other feds about, given he was in a legal gray area until the federal judge woke up tomorrow and made a ruling.

  He didn’t even know why they’d let him out. Why had they? They hadn’t known Rachel would be taken. Two men were out there. Throwing a third, an unknown one, into the mix only made things more complicated. Especially when they could’ve kept him overnight without charges.

  He glanced at Adrian and wondered if this man had pleaded Steve’s case. Or if the feds had decided they’d catch him doing something, or they’d catch the men they were chasing because of him.

  “So what does this tell us?” Mint asked. “Because there has to be a reason we’re standing here—”

  The end of his statement was cut off by the sound of a plane overhead. It roared above them, wheels down, and landed at Ronald Regan international airport.

  Steve turned to Adrian. “The airport?”

  “We think he dumped the intern—didn’t need the extra body with him; she’d outlived her usefulness—and then took Rachel with him. Hopped on a plane.”

  “He could be anywhere by now,” Bradley said.

  Steve nodded. It was true. Now they had to widen their search grid to include…the whole world. He pinched the bridge of his nose.

  Adrian said, “From her phone—which didn’t have a passcode—we know he messaged her instructions for the grab. Told her where to meet him. We think from there they hit her house. Ellayna got him in, and he took out the Secret Service agents.” He blew out a breath. “She probably didn’t even know what she was getting involved in.”

  Or she did. Steve didn’t much care what this Ellayna woman knew or didn’t before she died. Nothing could change her fate. Not now. But Rachel’s fate—they were going to do their level best to safeguard.

  “She didn’t need this.”

  Steve glanced over at Bradley. His friend wasn’t talking about Ellayna, he was talking about Rachel. “I know.” Everything she’d been through? She didn’t need to be kidnapped again. To have God only knew what done to her again. It made Steve want to be sick just thinking about it. Same with Bradley by the look of it.

  He reached out and set his hand on Bradley’s shoulder where the tendon joined his neck. Steve squeezed, and leaned in so their faces were close. “We are going to find her.”

  “Good,” Megan said from the other side of Adrian. “Let’s go then. Double Down doesn’t have much, but we still have a plane.”

  Steve dropped his hand from Bradley’s neck. “And you know where he took her?”

  “He wants to kill both you and the Vice President’s brother, right?”

  Steve nodded.

  “So he’s bringing the one thing you both want, and he’s going to stick her in the middle of that showdown. After you guys are done fighting, he’s going to kill whoever is left.” She shrugged, but even in the dark he could see the sick look on her face. “He’ll probably keep her as a souvenir. If she’s still alive.”

  Mint brushed past them all. “Let’s go!” He called it out, loud enough it could be construed as a yell.

  Steve seconded that sentiment.

  Megan followed them. “Don’t you want to know where I think he took her?”

  Steve pulled open the back door of the truck so she could get in. “Where?”

  “The one place that links you all. The place where this all started for the vice president and his brother.” She climbed in.

  Adrian nudged Steve back before he could get in and sat in the middle seat beside his girlfriend. “Where this all started?” He buckled up.

  Steve got in. “Venezuela? That’s where you think David took Rachel?”

  “It’s a theory.”

  Adrian pulled out his phone. “I’ll check with the agents I have running down all the private flights departing shortly after she was taken. We’ll see if we get a hit on the flight plan.”

  It would confirm their theory. One step closer to finding her and getting her back.

  Bradley drove like a man possessed. Steve was surprised no cop noticed and pulled them over. He held onto the door handle as they careened over to the airport and he prayed in a way he’d never prayed before.
Rachel wasn’t a believer, as far as he’d been able to tell. Not the way he was, or her family was.

  But she certainly needed God right now.

  **

  Rachel’s legs threatened to give out. Her hands were bound in front of her. Bad, but not the worst it could be. She just kept repeating that in her head. Bad, but not the worst it could be. Trying to trick—or convince—her brain into thinking this was okay.

  He shoved her along, which was about all the touching he’d done. She wanted to land on her knees and take a second to thank the God everyone believed in that he hadn’t raped her. Not yet, anyway.

  She hadn’t remembered the first time that had happened to her, as she’d been drugged. But she remembered how much she ached afterward. Rachel had no desire to go through any of that again.

  A tear rolled down her face.

  The trek from the car to wherever they were going was nothing but dusty dirt. Uneven ground. She stumbled over a root, or something. It was still dark. Vegetation was sparse. She wanted to ask him where they were, but conversation would remind him she was here. That he could interact with her.

  He likely hadn’t forgotten, since he was walking her to…wherever. But she didn’t want to start a conversation. Not when she didn’t know what it would end with. The more he left her to her own thoughts, the better.

  Who’d ever have guessed she would have learned something from being kidnapped, repeatedly. Not her. But here she was. This was turning out to be her life.

  Maybe her New Year’s resolution should be to not get kidnapped anymore.

  There was a good goal. Solid.

  He shoved her again, this time with the barrel of his gun. Rachel gritted her teeth and had to bite back the urge to tell him she was walking as fast as she could. Climbing this hill that probably led nowhere, in whatever country they were in.

  They crested a ridge and she gasped.

  The valley below was…nothing. Dirt. Mounds of what probably used to be buildings. Maybe even a whole village.

  “Whoa.” She said the word under her breath.

  To her disdain, he spoke to her. “Behold, the might of the American government.”

  She didn’t turn to look or ask him what he meant.

  David shoved her in the back so that she stumbled down the hill, before she managed to get her balance back. “This is where it all happened.” He waved his hand to encompass the whole area. “Where America started a campaign to destabilize an entire country, just because these people had something we wanted.”

  Rachel glanced back at him. First he’d sounded like he was a bitter ex-operative with ties to nowhere. Now he sounded oddly proud of what they’d accomplished. Like he’d been a part of it.

  “Venezuela was a thriving country with a strong economy. This village was probably a bustling community, full of people working and living with their families. Then a team comes through. Fire and destruction. Nothing left but ash and pain.” David was quiet for a second, then he said, “The VP’s brother told me the water in the river ran like it was blood for a week. And for what?”

  He shook his head. Rachel glanced back at the scene in front and tried to imagine everything he’d said. Venezuelans. A mission, here where the vice president had grown up. Gunmen. The military. Death.

  He said, “So we could get richer. Leave the rest of the world floundering, and we don’t even care. Scrabbling for scraps. Destabilized, so cartels take over. People scared for their lives while Americans grow fat and lazy, hiding behind their border and their rules. People are dying.”

  “It’s easy to make a stand for an ideology and preach to the whole world how you feel.” She stared out at the first glances of the morning sunrise. “It’s harder to take a hand and help someone out of the dirt.”

  “And which are you?”

  She turned, then. “You know nothing about me, other than what you’ve read online. Or seen.” He’d probably watched the video. He was probably like all the others.

  Rachel turned away, unable to look at him. He shoved her on. Forced her to walk into the center of the destruction. Half walls, charred structures partly demolished. Beyond, he moved her to the river where trees grew. Tents had been raised, and shelters made with blankets strung between trees. Fishing boats were moored at a ramshackle pier.

  The gunshots came out of nowhere.

  She screamed and crouched. Lifted her hands to cover her head, before she looked back at him. David held the gun up. He fired into the air until his clip was spent.

  People ran. Kids. Teens. Adults. Even an old man, helped by a younger one. Screaming. They rushed away, along the river bank. Some jumped into boats and rowed away.

  Rachel wished she could go with them.

  “Inside.”

  He shoved her into a dwelling. A one-room house, the walls made of boards and sheets of metal. Blankets covered the walls, decoration and protection from the elements. A spider ran across the floor. It was definitely a spider. It couldn’t possibly be something worse.

  She wasn’t going to get bitten by a nasty creature.

  That was enough to induce her to start praying to God. Whether He was really up there, or not, He was in charge of those things, right? He could keep them away from her.

  David kicked out the back of her knees.

  She yelped as they gave out and she hit the dirt, then rolled onto her hip. He left the “house.” Someone’s home. Rachel squeezed her eyes shut. These people didn’t need their lives disturbed the way David was doing. He wasn’t likely to leave anything but destruction in his wake.

  Why had he brought her here? She didn’t want to be the bait.

  Rachel looked around, trying to distract her mind from falling into dark despair. It didn’t work.

  A worn leather book sat on the collection of blankets she figured was a bed. The words La Santa Biblia were written across the cover. Nearly worn completely away. Even here, where life was nothing like the existence she lived in Washington DC, people had God in their lives.

  She wanted to know why they did that. Weren’t they mad at God that they had so little? Maybe they thought they had everything they needed. What if they even pitied wealthy Christians in affluent countries? There were so many distractions. The person who lived here had a comparatively meager existence, but all that focus could be placed on things that were actually important.

  Did Rachel need to experience what that kind of life felt like? She certainly knew what it was like to have everything taken away, even if it was only her reputation and her privacy. She’d thought she was going to die many times over the past few weeks.

  She had things she wanted and didn’t yet have.

  Steve was top of that list.

  A husband. A family of her own, not just the one Bradley and Alexis were going to make. That would be theirs. Rachel wanted to know what that would be like for her. She wanted to know what it felt like to be loved like that. Like she was the only person in the world for the one she loved.

  Another tear escaped, but she refused to give in to it. She was not going to fear. She was going to trust that they would come for her. At least Bradley would. Steve…she hoped he would. But the truth was, she didn’t know.

  Help me.

  The prayer sounded strange on her lips. Like a foreign language. At once, peace moved through her. She wanted more of that. God. Help me. She didn’t know what else to say. All that sin Alexis had explained to her about weighed heavy on her shoulders, and she knew He wanted nothing to do with it.

  And so she prayed that Jesus would clear her of the consequences of everything she’d done, and all that had been done to her. In all the ways she was dirty and stained, he had come to wash her clean.

  Would He come for her even now?

  David stuck his head back into the dwelling. The grin on his face made her stomach churn. “He’s here.”

  Chapter 22

  Steve crawled on his stomach to the edge of the ridge and lifted binoculars to his eyes. Mint an
d Bradley had positioned themselves away from him. They formed a grid that boxed David in and would allow them to tighten the noose. Steve didn’t care if the man walked away from this or not. It only mattered that they got Rachel back. That she was alive to be able to heal.

  Adrian shuffled up beside him.

  Below, in the few dwellings that remained here after the destruction so long ago, there was little movement. People had scattered. One resident had told them about the gunman and the woman with him who’d been tied up. Which structure were they in?

  Steve said, “Update?”

  The fed settled flat beside him. “An agent took a look at Rachel’s computer. There was a resignation letter on it, one we think Ellayna started typing to make it look like Rachel planned to leave.”

  Steve said, “She would never give it all up.”

  “I don’t know,” Adrian said. “Things have been crazy lately. Maybe she wanted to get out.”

  Steve didn’t know, and couldn’t without talking to her. If they got her out of this, then he’d find out. “Whatever they had planned, it didn’t work. We weren’t fooled.”

  The radio in Steve’s ear crackled. A woman’s voice. “I’m in position.”

  “Copy that,” he replied to Megan.

  Five of them. What was left of Double Down’s team, plus Adrian who refused to let them go without him.

  “I figured you’d have stuck with her instead of me,” Steve said, considering Megan’s recent injuries. “Babysitting me so you can report back to the FBI?”

  “What if I am? You want to skirt the lines of legality being here, am I really going to make much difference? I’m hardly a restraining force.”

  Steve’s hold on restraint was thinning with every minute Rachel was down there. The only things that had held him together all these years, through countless missions and top secret operations, were his honor and a loose hold on morals. Lately he’d come back to the closer relationship with God he’d had when he’d been a chaplain.