Take Down (The Men of the Sisterhood)

by Fern Michaels

  “Wha . . . what do . . . do you want?”

  “Actually, nothing from you personally, Mr. . . .” Jack looked at the man’s name tag. “Mr. Lee. Special Agent Collins will stay here with you while we conduct our business. Do you understand what I just said, and do you understand that this warrant gives me the authority to do whatever I want in this building?”

  “Yes, sir, I do, sir. My favorite show is Law & Order. I know how it works. Glory be, I never thought I’d be in the presence of the FBI. I’m supposed to report to Security when something like this happens.”

  “Don’t worry about it. We’ll report it for you. For now, turn off all those monitors.”

  “I can’t do that, sir. They are to be left on twenty-four /seven. I could get fired.”

  “Special Agent Collins, see to things.” Jack moved off toward the bank of elevators, Dennis in his wake. “You have Farrell live on the phone?”

  “Yes, I sure do. He’s telling me to go to the seventh floor, turn right, and Ms. Martha Wicked Witch of the World’s office is at the end of the hall. Her underlings sweat in the other offices. He said no one will even lift their heads if they see us, that’s how well-conditioned they are to her tirades and mean mouth.”

  After exiting the elevator on the seventh floor, Jack strode purposefully down what was certainly the longest hallway he’d ever seen like he knew exactly where he was going. He heard Dennis ask Farrell if the office would be locked. He waited for Dennis to clue him in. He didn’t have long to wait.

  “Jamie said the office is left open during the day, even when she isn’t there, because the slaves have to be able to put their reports on her desk the minute they’re finished. He said all the offices are locked at five-thirty on the dot. If someone has the misfortune to be inside when that happens, they spend the night until they are opened in the morning.”

  “Then I guess we had better hurry,” Jack said, looking at the green numerals on his watch. “It would cut our time down if Jamie would tell us exactly where to look for the checkbook in case it isn’t where he originally told you it would be.”

  “Jamie said that if it is not in the bottom desk drawer, then it would be on the third shelf in the closet, under the cushion of the chair she usually sits in to read the trashy novels she thinks no one knows about, or in the drawer of the table that the ficus plant sits on.” At Jack’s strange look, Dennis said, “Hey, I’m just repeating what he said to me.”

  Jack looked around. It was a very nice suite of offices, tastefully decorated. Everything was exactly as depicted in the drawing Jamie had faxed to them yesterday. There was the ficus tree Jamie had mentioned, several lush ferns, and two inviting and comfortable-looking chairs off to the side of the main office space. Good lighting, he thought. Good carpet, too. A magnificent teakwood desk held very little other than a phone console and a computer. He liked the feel of the carpet under his shoes. He eyed the liquor bar, the bar sink, the minifridge, the Bose sound system, and the enormous—he guessed ninety-inch—TV mounted on the wall. Nice, expensive digs. He saw the copy of Fifty Shades of Grey on the table between the two comfortable-looking chairs. It looked worn, like it had been handled a lot. He grinned to himself.

  “Dismantle the computer; we’re taking the hard drive with us. I’ll check for the register. Work fast, Dennis.” Five minutes later, he hissed to Dennis, “Tell your guy it is not in the bottom desk drawer or any of the other three places he mentioned.”

  Dennis relayed the information as he continued to work on dismantling the computer and removing the hard drive. “He said to try the small linen closet in the bathroom, where she hides her stash of cigarettes and Reese’s Peanut Butter Cups, which she’s addicted to.”

  Jack raced into the bathroom and ripped open the door. He gasped at the cases of candy and the cartons of cigarettes. He rummaged behind and under them, and finally found what he was looking for under a stack of lace-edged purple towels. Purple towels?

  A minute later, he was back in the main part of the office, waving the small checkbook in the air.

  “That’s it!” Dennis hissed.

  Jack laughed. “Maybe she has an aversion to big, cumbersome, hard-bound desk registers. Nikki has one like this. According to the balance”—and Jack whistled as he flipped the pages—“this is it! You ready, Dennis?”

  “I am so ready to get out of here I could scream.” To Jamie, he said, “We got it. I’ll be in touch in the next day or so. I’m ending this call now so we can get out of here.”

  They were halfway down the hall when they saw a very tall man dressed in a three-piece suit heading their way. Dennis muttered under his breath that the dude looked meaner than cat shit.

  “Remember who we are and let me do the talking,” Jack said.

  “Who are you and what are you doing here? Who let you up here?” the big man boomed.

  Jack whipped out his credentials so fast, Dennis got light-headed. “FBI. And you are . . . ?”

  “Evan Bell, head of Andover Security. How did you get in here and up to this floor?”

  Jack waved the warrant and said, “This is the only introduction I need. Is there going to be a problem here?”

  The big man planted his feet a little more firmly, looked Jack in the eye, and said, “If you tell me what and why, I don’t see a problem. Does that warrant say you can take that hard drive I see in your partner’s hand?”

  “It does. It also gives me the power to take you to headquarters and hold you for seventy-two hours.”

  Bell reached for the bogus warrant Jack Sparrow had sent and pretended to read it. Jack knew full well the man needed reading glasses at his age, and wasn’t at all surprised when Bell said, “Well, it looks in order. Do you mind telling me what’s going on here?”

  Jack smiled while his insides roiled. “We ask the questions, we don’t answer them.”

  Out of the corner of his eye, he saw Dennis hit a number on his speed dial. Jamie Farrell, he thought. The kid was learning fast. He motioned for Jack to move to the side so he could talk to him out of earshot of Evan Bell.

  “You know either Bell or the two downstairs are going to call someone about this the minute we leave the building. Jamie said that the locking mechanism for every floor is in a utility closet at the beginning of the hallway. I think we should get all three of them back into Martha Gellis’s office and lock them in. At least they’ll be warm. That guy out there in my Humvee, Spinelli, must be about frozen. Jamie told me how the system works. What do you think, Jack?”

  “I say that’s good thinking. I’ll take this guy back to the office, you go get Spinelli, and tell Maggie to bring her guy up here. Go!”

  Jack turned around and motioned for Bell to follow him back to Martha Gellis’s office. “Have a seat, Mr. Bell.”

  Bell did as instructed, his eyes wary. “I don’t understand any of this. I’m the head of Security; you should have come to me first.”

  Jack surmised that Bell was ex-military, what with his crew cut, spit-and-polish suit, and, of course, his height and weight, which was around six-four and 220. “How long have you worked here, Mr. Bell? I’m going to need your cell phone.”

  “Fifteen years.”

  “Is there anything about the people who own this company, and by that I mean the Andovers, that you’d care to tell me? By the way, do you get stock options in case Andover ever goes public?”

  “I take care of Security; that’s my job, and I’m very good at what I do. I hire good people. The first thing we were all told when we hired on was to mind our own business and do our jobs. We’ve all done that. The Andovers don’t give second chances. And yes, as head of Security, I get stock options. Not that they are worth anything until there is a market for them. I keep hoping the company will go public. When it does, I will probably retire and go live somewhere in the Caribbean.”

  “Care to tell me your personal feelings in regard to the Andovers? I’m just making conversation now, guy to guy.”

  B
ell debated the question for a moment. “Hard to deal with. Look, I just work here. I came here right out of the military and worked my way up to the head of Security. Guy to guy, does this have anything to do with that leukemia drug? My wife wanted me to quit when that all came out. Said between my military pension and her job, and with Social Security only a few years away, we would do just fine, thank you very much. Then, over Christmas, we saw on the Internet that another little girl died. You guys got any openings for someone my age at the Bureau?”

  “Yeah, as a matter of fact, we do,” Jack said. “I think you might be a good fit for the new director. Stop by on January 2. I’ll put in a good word for you.”

  Bell looked at Jack, trying to figure out if he was stringing him along or not. Whatever he saw in Jack’s expression made him grin. “I’ll do that. So, is your game plan to lock the three of us in here until tomorrow morning? If so, can I call my wife to tell her I won’t be home till tomorrow? Then you can have my cell phone. You’d better cut the phone line, too. But please leave the heat on. It’s supposed to go down to five degrees tonight.”

  “Okay,” Jack said agreeably. “Anything else you want to tell me?”

  “Yeah,” Bell drawled, “the only one I would trust out of the three is Philip, and I’m not really sure about him.”

  Just as he finished speaking, Dennis showed up with Lee and Spinelli, along with Maggie. They held a brief conference by the door, with a lot of head shaking and hand waving. Maggie pointed to her watch.

  The trio worked quickly to cut the phone lines and scour the office to make sure there was no way for the occupants who were going to spend the night to communicate with anyone on the outside.

  “Mrs. Gellis keeps a supply of candy and crackers in the linen closet. I saw some blankets in there, and there are drinks in the minifridge. Are you all okay with this?”

  A chorus of “No!” rang out. To which Maggie replied, “Tough!”

  Jack didn’t know why he did it, but he walked over to Bell, who towered over him when he stood up. He held out his hand and said, “Just remember, we’re the good guys. And I really am sorry about all of this.”

  “Obviously you all have someplace you need to get to. I learned a long time ago never to sweat the small stuff.” The handshake was firm and hard. Jack nodded as he followed Dennis and Maggie out the door.

  “What was that all about, Jack?” Dennis asked.

  “Never you mind, kid. Just do what you need to do and let’s get out of here.”

  Dennis raced down the hall and activated the locking mechanism. He winced at the sound of the hydraulic hiss as the lock shot into place. “Oooh, we screwed up, Jack. We didn’t check the other offices to see if anyone is in them.”

  “Oh, well, no one is going to freeze if they have to spend the night. We are good to go, so let’s go. Anyone call in?”

  “No. Well, yeah, they did, but they’re still on the road. No one has a definite ETA as yet. Roads are bad because it’s snowing harder. This is three glitches now. That’s my limit,” Dennis snorted as he raced for the front door. “C’mon, c’mon, why are you lagging behind? Yeah, yeah, first one out has to clear off the snow. Man, I always get the shit detail,” Dennis grumbled.

  “What did I tell you about FBI agents? They do not whine; nor do they dither. As in ever.”

  “Shove it, Jack. I’m not an official agent. Make-believe does not count.”

  Jack’s cell phone vibrated in his pocket for the seventh time since they had arrived at the Andover headquarters. Now he could finally see who had been calling him.

  Uh-oh.

  “What?” Maggie said as she saw the expression on Jack’s face in the light spilling out of the lobby.

  “It’s Nikki. She’s home and wants to know where I am. Each message is a little more frantic. She said if I don’t return her call in the next five minutes, she’s calling the police and the hospitals.”

  “Well, crap!” Maggie said succinctly. “Now what?”

  “Try Plan B,” Dennis shouted as he gave the back windshield one last swipe.

  “Just get in the damn car and drive while I figure out what to do,” Jack said with a groan.

  Chapter 11

  It was a tense ride to the home of Martha Gellis. While Jack and Maggie marveled at Dennis’s expert driving on the slippery road, they also knew he was at the mercy of other drivers, who weren’t as cautious as he was. And then there was Mother Nature, who didn’t seem to care who was driving what kind of vehicle. The wind whistled sharply, sending the swirling snowflakes into a sideways avalanche. The windshield wipers fought valiantly, but it was a losing battle, so all Dennis could do was keep his eyes on the tiny pinpoints of red taillights in front of him and hope that the driver knew where he was going.

  “You’re doing good, kid, just take it easy. Take deep breaths. This truck is like a tank. We’re good here, so don’t panic. According to this blabbering GPS, we’re only a mile from our destination.”

  Dennis clenched his jaw so tight he thought it would crack. Somehow, he managed to get the words through his clenched teeth. “Okay, Jack.”

  “Maggie, what are the others saying?”

  “Abner said they are two miles out. Their ETA at Otto’s home, he’s thinking, is about another hour. Very slow going, and Harry is like a wet cat on a hot griddle, according to him. But he did say he’s a good driver.

  “Espinosa said they are a half mile from Philip’s home. He said it’s snowing heavily, but they managed to get a few cars behind a snowplow and are holding steady. That’s the good news. The bad news is, I don’t know if we’re going to be able to make it out to Pinewood after our snatch and grab. We might need an alternate location to . . . um . . . do our thing. And here is more bad news, in case anyone is interested. Snowden is not responding to my texts.”

  Jack pondered all of this as his cell phone continued to vibrate in his pocket. All he could think about was Nikki calling around to hospitals and the police, not that the police would care about his disappearance with the storm going on. Crap! He shifted his thoughts to what Maggie was saying. An alternative. Where? His mind raced. The only place he could think of was Maggie’s Georgetown house, which was two doors away from his own. Crap again! The constant vibration of the phone in his pocket was making his thigh numb. Such a problem.

  The robotic voice on the GPS continued to give directions.

  “Her name is Gisella,” Dennis said.

  “Who?” Jack asked.

  “The voice on the GPS. I wouldn’t buy the car until they told me. They thought I was nuts. Hey, if someone is going to talk to me constantly, I want to know who it is. It’s a personal thing. You know what else, those voices get paid big bucks to do that. You have a problem with that, Jack?” he demanded. His voice stopped just short of being shrill, indicating he was stressed to the max.

  “Not one little bit, kid. Gisella it is. She’s talking again; listen.”

  “Turn right one hundred feet ahead,” Gisella instructed.

  Jack lowered the window and was rewarded by a gust of stinging snow to his cheeks. “I think I can see a green sign; slow down, Dennis.”

  “I’m crawling, Jack. If I go any slower, I’ll be at a full stop.”

  “I see it! I see it! Quick, make a right. Easy now; can you see, Dennis?”

  “A little.”

  Gisella spoke again. “You are a quarter of a mile from your destination. Stay on this road; make no turns.” And then, finally, they could see houses and pinpoints of yellow light. There were lampposts and Christmas lights twinkling in the swirling snow. Gisella spoke again. “You have now successfully arrived at your destination. Thank you for allowing me the pleasure of helping you.”

  Dennis slumped against the steering wheel. All he wanted to do was get a cup of hot cocoa and go to sleep, but he knew that wasn’t going to happen. “You’re driving on the way back, Jack.”

  The trio climbed out of the Humvee and didn’t bother to lock it. Up
ahead, they could see a structure that looked just like every other house on the cul-de-sac. There was a light over the door that displayed a Christmas wreath bare of any ornaments other than a red bow that looked to be soaking wet. On close inspection, the wreath turned out to be artificial.

  Shivering and stomping their feet, Maggie and Dennis huddled close together as Jack gave the door knocker a resounding thump. They waited, hardly daring to breathe, for someone to open the door. When it opened, they saw a plump, pink-cheeked woman wearing granny glasses wrapped in a bright red bathrobe. She immediately became aggressive, demanding to know who they were and why they were knocking on her door in the middle of a storm. “If you’re stuck, call AAA,” she snapped.

  “FBI, Mrs. Gellis,” Jack snapped in return. “Stand aside so we can enter the premises. We have a warrant. I am Special Agent Anthony Lupine, the man to my right is Special Agent Donald Ryder, and the lady is Special Agent Lucinda Collins.” When the woman refused to move, Jack repeated, “I said, step aside, ma’am.” She finally backed up a step as she clutched the cherry-colored robe around her throat.

  “FBI? What do you want with me? I didn’t do anything. If you want to question me about my neighbors, I have nothing to say. I barely know them other than to wave when I see them. What do you want?”

  “We want you to get dressed and come with us. Special Agent Collins will accompany you, but first we want you to turn over your cell phone to us. Is there anyone else in the house?”

  “My husband is somewhere. Probably in the basement, working on one of his stupid birdhouses. Why? Did he do something?”

  “We ask the questions, you answer them. Do you understand that?”

  “No, I don’t understand that. You invade my home, so I have the right to ask why.”

  “Right now you have no rights,” Jack said. Already he didn’t like this woman and knew he would never grow to like her. He jerked his head at Maggie, who took the woman’s arm and led her across the room.