He turned the corner and saw his car parked at the end of the road. In a few minutes he would be out of the rain. He would log into the hospital computer using his cellphone, enter the passcode he had retrieved from the Laundry Services managers office, and look up Jordan Quest’s patient information file. Taking her out at the hospital was no longer an option. She was now under the protection of the FBI. Alternate arrangements to terminate her would have to be made.
Rigel glanced back at the car parked across from the party house. It occurred to him he hadn’t heard its door open or close. The driver had not left the vehicle.
The car pulled away from the curb, turned on its headlights, then accelerated up the road toward him, gaining speed.
As the black Mustang GT approached, Rigel saw a short metal cylinder resting on its sill. He recognized it as the barrel of a silencer.
He darted across the lawn of the nearest house and shoulder-rolled to cover behind a Jeep Wagoneer parked in the driveway.
Thwup, thwup, thwup, thwup, thwup, thwup, thwup, thwup, thwup, thwup…
It was the sound of a suppressed machine pistol operating in fully automatic mode.
He was under fire. And unarmed.
The weapon spat out a steady stream of bullets, ripped holes in the vehicle, and blew chunks of brick and mortar off the wall of the house. A hall light came on inside the residence, followed by the porch light. The front door opened.
The Mustang screeched to a halt several houses down. A second volley of bullets blistered the house. The rounds missed Rigel completely.
Behind him, a wooden gate led into the back yard. Rigel pulled the lid from a metal garbage can, scrambled to the other side of the Jeep and launched it into the air, sending it rolling across the neighboring lawn. The diversion worked. Gunfire followed. Rigel took advantage of the opportunity.
He ran around the car, raced up the walkway, tackled the teenager standing in the open doorway, knocked him back inside the house and held him down. A third spray of bullets serrated the front hallway, blew pictures off the wall, and shattered a glass vase filled with fresh flowers.
Rigel pressed the kids face against the floor. “Who’s home?” he yelled.
The teens eyes were wide with panic. Rigel pressed down harder.
“J-just me,” the kid said.
“You keep guns in this house?”
The kid nodded.
“Where?”
“Safe… downstairs.”
Rigel closed the door. “Get up,” he said. He forced the teen to his feet, shoved him down the hall. “You know the combination?”
“I think so.”
“You have five seconds to open it or we’re both dead. Understand?”
“Yes.”
“Move!”
29
ANDREW DUNN SLID a guest chair across the room and took a seat beside Jordan. “You think you know where Shannon and Zoe are?” he asked.
Jordan nodded. “I got a flash off the necklace when the nurse handed it back to me. It was weak, but it might be something to go on.”
“What did you see?”
“A ranch house, white clapboard with green trim and adjoining stables.”
The anticipation in the FBI Director’s voice quickly fell. “With all due respect Mrs. Quest, there are literally dozens of ranch homes, hobby farms and horse stables like that outside Los Angeles.”
“I know.”
“What makes you believe the one you saw is where we’ll find my girls?”
“It’s the only one with shackles hanging from the ceiling in the stables.”
Dunn sat back in the chair. The thought of his daughters bound in chains and imprisoned sent a chill down his spine. “Go on.”
“I saw something else. But I don’t know its relevance.”
“Tell me.”
“Is Shannon a fan of the circus?”
“The circus?” Dunn asked. “Not that I’m aware of.”
Jordan held the necklace. “I keep seeing a circus... a hooded face… costumes. Somehow that’s important. I just don’t know how.”
“There are a few professional circuses that still follow a circuit through small towns from here through to Arizona and into New Mexico,” Dunn said. “Bands of grifters mostly. Do you think Shannon and Zoe could have been abducted by one of those groups?”
“I don’t know,” Jordan replied. “But it’s worth investigating.”
“I’ll run a search,” Dunn said.
“One more thing, Director.”
“Yes?”
“The house. There’s a darkness about it, a very negative energy. Something terrible happened there. I’m sorry, but that’s all I’m getting for now.”
Dunn stood. “Every little bit helps. You’ve no idea how much I appreciate your assistance in finding my girls, especially under the personal circumstances you’re dealing with on today of all days. Thank you for trying.”
“We will find them, Director.”
Dunn nodded. “I just pray that when we do, we’re not too late.”
A knock came to the door. “Come in,” Jordan said.
Chris Hanover entered the room.
“Anything?” Dunn asked.
“No, sir. We been through the facility from top to bottom. There’s no sign of Mrs. Quest’s attacker. I don’t know how he slipped out of here, but he did. Security is checking CCTV footage. If the closed-circuit surveillance cams caught a picture of him, we’ll run a still through NCIC. If he’s in the system, we’ll soon know who we’re dealing with.”
Dunn was angry. “Tell them to look harder. If they can’t find anything send the file to Quantico for analysis. The man’s not invisible, for God’s sake. It wasn’t a ghost that did that to your neck. At least one camera in this damn place must have caught a picture of him.”
“Yes, sir.”
The Director turned to Jordan. “I’ll have to insist we place your family in protective custody and move you to a Bureau safe house. This hospital isn’t safe. It’s clear someone wants to harm you and your family. I’m not about to let that happen.” To Agent Hanover, he said, “You and Agent Carnevale make the arrangements. I want a full tactical team at the location. Mrs. Quest and her family are to be escorted out of here within the hour. Understood?”
“Copy that, sir.”
Jordan sat up in her bed. “My family isn’t going to any FBI safe house, Director,” she said.
Dunn was taken aback by the objection. “We’ve followed this protocol hundreds of times before, Mrs. Quest. I assure you that you and your family will be safe.”
“I’m quite willing to accept your offer of protection, Director,” Jordan said. “But I’m not going to lock my family away in some hotel until the FBI figures out what’s going on. We’ll stay at my father’s mansion, Farrow Estate. The place is a fortress. Its security system is state-of-the-art. Most importantly, my children are comfortable there. I don’t want them to be any more upset than they already are. The same goes for my in-laws and Marissa. That is where we’ll be the safest. And you’re welcome to bring as many tactical teams as you like.”
Dunn considered Jordan’s proposal. “I don’t know about this. We haven’t vetted the location.”
“You can send an advance team there right now,” Jordan replied. “Agent Carnevale knows the address. But regardless, that is where we’re going.”
Dunn looked at Chris Hanover.
Hanover didn’t wait to be asked for his opinion. “Sounds solid to me, sir.”
Dunn agreed. “All right, Mrs. Quest. We’ll take your family to the estate. But only on one condition.”
“And that would be?” Jordan asked.
“That my men maintain overwatch,” Dunn insisted. “I understand your father uses a private security team?”
“Yes. All ex-police or military. They’ve been part of my father’s personal detail for years.”
“Doesn’t matter,” Dunn said. “They’re to stand down. Only FBI personn
el are to be on the grounds.”
“Agreed.”
“And if there’s even a hint of trouble you and your family are to follow our extraction protocol to the letter. Deal?”
Jordan nodded. “Thank you, Director.”
Dunn nodded. “You can thank me when this thing is over.”
The Director turned to Hanover. “Find Carnevale. Arrange tactical team transportation. Prepare to move the family to Farrow Estate.”
“Copy that,” Chris replied.
30
HARRISON TASKER YANKED open the secret passenger seat compartment, grabbed a second fully loaded magazine, stepped out of the car, shoved the clip into his waistband, and took a few seconds to observe the activity on the street. All quiet. No lights had come on in the neighboring houses. The street was empty. The Tec-9’s sound suppressor had done its job. No one knew that the inhabitants of the charming two-story bungalow had come under siege.
It shouldn’t have come to this, he thought. If he’d been able to catch up to Rigel a split-second earlier the man would be dead now or, at the very least, wounded. He could have walked up to him as he lay on the lawn, dying and bleeding out, and finished him off with a double tap; one bullet to the heart, the second to his brain. Standard operating procedure. Clean and simple. Problem solved. Easy as taking out the trash.
The irony of that analogy was not lost on him. In New York’s opinion, that was precisely what he had been contracted to do.
But the kid had heard the rounds pierce the Wagoneer, ricochet off the front of the house and come to the front door to investigate. If Rigel had been hit, he would have seen him lying on the front lawn and tried to help him. He would have yelled for help and gotten the attention of his neighbors or ran back into the house and called 9-1-1. He wouldn’t have made it more than a foot. Tasker would have been forced to cut him down with a dozen rounds from the Tec-9. Which would have presented him with a whole new set of circumstances to deal with. He wasn’t fond of killing the teen. But the kid’s death would be necessary if he was to avoid a police response. New York might be free of Rigel, but a family would be without its child. Instead of standing his ground like a man, Rigel had forced his way into the kid’s home and taken refuge there. Tasker decided he would take every precaution to preserve the boy’s life, so long as it didn’t interfere with his primary objective of terminating the contractor.
Tasker approached the house with caution, staying low, using the bullet-riddled Jeep for cover. Back pressed against the wall, he crept forward and peered into the front window through a slight part in the drapes. No lights were on inside the house. Pieces of a bullet-shattered mirror hung on the wall but reflected no movement. One of the rounds had taken out the porch light and plunged the front of the house into darkness. Tasker considered returning to the Mustang to retrieve his night-vision monocular. The ability to see in the dark would have been advantageous. But at this moment, time and the element of surprise supplanted his requirement for the device. He knew Rigel would already have swept the house, bound, gagged or murdered its occupants, committed its layout to memory, and established a fortification point somewhere inside that would provide him with a clear line of sight to both the street and the front and rear entrances. To take Rigel down quickly he would need to breach the premises hard and fast, blister the place with gunfire, and force him into a position of retreat. It would be just like Rigel to use the kid for cover, thinking that might cause Tasker to hesitate or avoid taking the shot. He wouldn’t. He had his orders. New York wanted Rigel dead and the Farrow contract was his now. That was all that mattered.
Tasker evaluated his options. Entering the premises through the front door would certainly put him directly in Rigel’s line of fire. He would need to find another way into the home. He took a step back. Quietly, he lifted the gate latch and entered the back yard, stopping every few feet, listening for sounds of movement within the home that would give away Rigel’s location. He heard nothing. He proceeded to the back of the house. From the ground floor basement window, a flash of light appeared, followed by the sound of muted voices, one urgent and demanding, the other fearful and pleading. The rain fell harder. Droplets splattering on the in-ground pool cover made loud thwacking sounds. Past the window well a set of sliding glass doors offered a possible point of ingress. Tasker tried the handle. Locked. He moved further along the back wall, checking each window as he went. Outside the kitchen entrance he found what he was looking for: a crank-style window, slightly ajar. Tasker eased the window open, removed a knife from his back pocket, cut the bug screen out of its frame, and slipped inside. He raised the Tec-9 to eye level and listened. No sounds came from beyond the kitchen or the second floor. A narrow shaft of light emanated from beneath a closed door in the hallway ahead, probably the entrance to the basement. Tasker walked along the kitchen floor to the edge of the hall. He could hear the voices clearly now. The boy was terrified, no doubt believing his life would end tonight and that he would die soon, alone and afraid, in the basement of the home that was his sanctuary from the outside world and the evil that dwelled in it. But that evil had introduced itself to him tonight, forced its way into his world, his life, his home. Tasker knew that after tonight the teen would never be the same again.
Anger welled in him.
He would not let the bastard get away with it. He would see to it that tonight James Rigel took his last breath.
Tasker advanced through the kitchen. He stopped suddenly when a floorboard squeaked under his weight.
The dim light beneath the doorway suddenly vanished. The voices in the basement fell silent.
He had made his presence known.
31
ZOE AND SHANNON explored the rest of the fully equipped, self-contained dwelling. The hexagon-shaped nuclear fallout shelter was unlike anything they ever had seen before. Six rooms branched off the main corridor. The first, the master bedroom, was fully furnished, with a king size bed and en suite bath. The second room was Lily’s, clearly defined by the sign on the door which read, “Lily’s Room. Keep Out!” The third room was an open-concept design that combined the living room with the kitchen and featured a wall-mounted television, shelves filled with technical manuals, dozens of books and magazines, a sofa, three easy chairs, a wet bar, wine rack, and a desk. The fourth room was the main bathroom with a tub, shower and toilet, the fifth the laundry room. The sixth, a maintenance room, housed two Honda generators which provided the place with light and power as well as equipment and devices to control heating, ventilation, and air conditioning.
“This place is incredible,” Zoe said.
Lily smiled. “I know. My dad built it.”
“For your Uncle Emmett?”
The girl shook her head. “For mom and me.”
“I’m confused,” Shannon said. “I thought this was your Uncle Emmett’s property.”
Lily shook her head. “This is our home. Uncle Emmett stole it from us.”
“How is that possible?” Zoe asked.
The girl curled up in one of the chairs and told her story. “He showed up on our doorstep one day with my cousins, Ben and Basil. That was them on the ATV’s. Uncle Emmett’s nephew, Denny, was also with them. He’s the one you killed.”
“The clown.”
Lily nodded. “Denny was mentally challenged. His mom was killed in a car crash a few years ago. Uncle Emmett adopted him. He liked to dress up and loved anything to do with the circus. My Aunt Chris, Uncle Emmett’s sister, who died in the accident, had made half a dozen outfits for him. One day he’d dress up like a clown or a strongman, other days a lion tamer or big top announcer. The clown outfit was his favorite. But he was mean. I mean, real mean. He beat me up all the time just for fun. Dad said that when Aunt Chris died something broke in Uncle Emmett, my cousins too. We’d heard that the boys were always getting into trouble. Most of the time it had to do with drugs. When they showed up, I heard Uncle Emmett tell my Dad someone was after them. Ben and Basil had gotten in
way over their heads with the wrong people and that they had no place to go. When Dad asked Uncle Emmett what the boys had done, he said they’d ripped off some drug-dealers. That’s when Dad flat-out refused to let them stay with us. He told Uncle Emmett he didn’t want that kind of trouble showing up on our doorstep. He started yelling at him and told him he had a lot of nerve putting our lives in danger because of Ben and Basil’s stupidity. He closed the door in their faces. Uncle Emmett started banging on the door, saying they weren’t leaving, that we had plenty of room and that as his brother Dad had a responsibility to him to let them stay. When Dad refused to open the door, Ben kicked it in. They walked into the house. He told Dad it was theirs now and that we’d better deal with it or he’d kill us. Dad lost it. He ran at him. That’s when Ben pulled out a gun. He shot my father four times in the stomach, then shot my Mom. He wanted to shoot me too, but Uncle Emmett stopped him.”
“Why didn’t he kill you?” Shannon asked. “You’re a witness.”
“He said they needed someone to clean the house and take care of Denny.”
“Motherf---,” Zoe started to say. She held her tongue. “How long have these losers been living here?”
“A year, maybe longer.”
“Jesus! You mean you’ve been their prisoner all that time?”
“Uh-huh.”
“And they buried your parents in the horse stable?” Shannon asked.
Lily nodded. “Made me help.”
Zoe looked at the girl. How could she have made it through such a horrifying ordeal and remained so psychologically intact? Perhaps, like her, Lily was damaged inside, beyond repair, but refused to let the world see her pain. She thought of how she too had once been forced to put up the fight of her life, and how killing her father was the price she had to pay to preserve her sanity. She’d been only a few years older than Lily at the time of her ordeal. But at least she had a choice, such as it was, and opted to accept the outcome of her actions no matter the cost. At least she hadn’t been forced to watch her parents die at the hands of maniacs like Lily had, then cast into servitude. And she sure as hell had never been forced to bury her parents. What sort of animal could do that to a child?
The Jordan Quest FBI Thriller Series: Books 1-3: The Jordan Quest FBI Thriller Series Boxset Book 1 Page 13
