by Tawny Weber
She turned her head to the side on instinct alone and tossed up her lunch. Her head felt as if it would split with each convulsive heave. Cold sweat dampened her skin.
She must have some sort of stomach bug. A bad one. Where was she? A hospital?
With effort, she opened her eyes. Sunlight caused another jabbing pain.
Not a hospital. Not even inside a building. She was in a car. Bound in the backseat. She’d just vomited on the floor. All she could see through the window was sunshine and sky.
Where was she going? Who had taken her?
She couldn’t see the driver from her vantage point right behind the driver’s seat. As far as she could tell, she was the vehicle’s only passenger.
Where was Keith? No. Not Keith. Sean. She’d been with Sean in her apartment, hadn’t she?
The memory came back—opening the suitcase, the gas. Then nothing until now.
Again she looked out the window. City buildings came into view. She was still in DC. In blessed stop-and-go traffic.
She eyed the door handle, wondering if she could open it and roll out before the driver could react. Her hands seemed to be bound, but maybe with her feet?
“You’re awake,” an unfamiliar voice said. “Don’t bother trying the door. Child locks.” There was a slight accent to his voice that suggested an Asian background, confirming her fear. She’d been taken by Ling.
She tried to sit up, then discovered she’d been shackled—zip-tied, from the feel of the plastic at her wrists—to the metal child car seat latch next to the seat-belt buckle. With her arms behind her back, her range of motion was limited. Her ankles were bound together but not tethered like her arms.
She had no clue where this man was taking her, but odds were it wouldn’t end well for her if they reached his intended destination. Alone, he’d be in complete control.
She pulled her knees to her chest, ignoring the sharp jabs of pain every motion triggered inside her skull, and kicked at the window. She couldn’t quite reach.
Being short sucks.
She scooted downward, even though it meant torqueing her arms. Pain burned along her shoulder joint, but her heels hit the window. The rubber soles of her running shoes bounced on the glass.
The car swerved as the driver realized what she was doing. He said something sharply in what sounded to her untrained ears like Chinese. In English, he said, “I will shoot you if you try that again.”
She was dead when they arrived at their destination anyway. She kicked again. And again. On the fourth kick, the window shattered, safety glass rained down and out, and she screamed with all her energy for help, hoping the noise would rise above the traffic, that someone driving with their window down on the hot summer afternoon would hear her.
The muzzle of a pistol appeared in the gap between the driver and passenger seats. “Stop screaming.”
She took a deep breath and let out a scream that eclipsed the others, and braced herself for the gun to fire.
But it didn’t. Whoever this man was, he’d risked a lot to take her alive. They were probably headed someplace where he planned to torture the truth about Somalia out of her.
She kicked forward, hoping to dislodge the weapon, but missed. She had no leverage in that direction, tethered as she was to her side. All she could do was scream and flail her bound feet, hoping someone would hear and see her legs and alert the police.
And so she did. She screamed for all she was worth. This could be her only chance.
The gun fired, going high and into the seat cushion above her hips. Either he couldn’t aim while facing forward and driving with one hand, or he’d missed on purpose.
Surely the sound of the gunshot would have gotten someone’s attention on the city street.
Sirens sounded in the distance, then grew louder.
Please, let that be the cavalry.
The car lurched to a stop. The driver jerked open his door. Was he leaving her?
No such luck. The door by her head wrenched open, and there was her abductor—the man from the surveillance camera photo—lunging toward her with a knife. She cringed, closing her eyes as the blade sliced toward her.
Her hands popped free—he’d used the blade on the zip-tie, nicking her skin but cutting the circle that looped her wrists. She didn’t hesitate and scratched at him. He yanked her hair, pulling her from the vehicle. She spilled out onto the city street, feet still bound.
He sliced the zip-tie around her ankles. She tried to scramble up on all fours in spite of the pain of shooting pins and needles. He caught her again by her hair, dislodging her glasses, which fell to the pavement. He yanked her to her feet. The blade dropped and was replaced by the gun, which he thrust against her temple.
Panic filled her mouth with a metallic taste.
The world was a blur, her senses jumbled, and not just because her vision was poor beyond five feet. Cars were coming to a screeching halt on the street. Sirens, shouts, fear, and being jerked about by Ling had her in sensory overload.
She took a deep breath and tried to get her bearings. Squinting, she saw a park before them. Ling dragged her toward a statue in the center. She recognized the statue. Farragut Square.
Innocent bystanders stood between her and Ling and the statue. She screamed, yelling at them to clear the way. Mothers grabbed their babies and ran. A jogger stopped to help an elderly woman who stood frozen on the path. Ling pulled Trina relentlessly forward.
They reached the statue. Ling jumped the low fence and pulled her over. The metal bar that topped the fence scraped her spine. He scaled the three steps and pressed his back against a corner stone, holding her in front of him. She was a human shield.
Ling had made a final play to get the story of what happened in Somalia from her, but a driver who witnessed her struggle must have forced him from the road. Now he was trapped. There was no scenario she could imagine in which he would escape without keeping her as his hostage.
More emergency vehicles piled up on the roadway as traffic stopped in all directions. The park was cleared in a matter of minutes.
The gun pressed against her temple as Ling made sounds she assumed were Chinese curses. His hands shook.
There was no way her government would let him go, even with her as a hostage. Without a miracle, her life was forfeit.
Chapter 21
Dominick and Keith arrived within moments of the first officers. Keith watched as Trina was dragged to the statue and the man held her before him as cover.
Dominick’s phone was pressed to his ear as he shouted questions. But this was now an FBI hostage situation, which wasn’t Dominick’s specialty.
“I’m going to take him out,” Keith said to Dominick, then reached for the rear hatch of the SUV.
“You’ve got a rifle?”
He gave a quick nod and grabbed the case from the back. He scanned the area, looking for a good vantage point, where he could see Ling, but Ling wouldn’t know he was in his sights.
That parked car or that thick tree would do.
“You can’t, Hatcher—”
“I can and I will.”
“An FBI hostage negotiator will be here in minutes.”
He fixed Dominick with a hard stare. “You and I both know we can’t let Ling escape with Trina. She’ll never stand up to torture. And after he gets what he wants, he’ll kill her anyway. There can’t be a negotiation.”
“You can’t be the one to take this shot. Not when he’s using Trina as a shield.”
“I’m the only one who can take this shot, because he’s using Trina as a shield. Do you think I could trust anyone else with her life?” What if someone else fucks up and hits Trina? He’d…he couldn’t even consider it. “I will take him out. No one but me.”
Dominick must have heard something in his tone, because he gave a quick nod. Or he was simply living up to his reputation as a chess player and read the board as well as Keith had. They were short on time. They couldn’t wait for another sniper, and
Keith was here, with a rifle. Ready and willing.
He set up the M110 by rote. He cleared his mind by focusing on the only details that mattered now. Distance of the shot. Size of the target. An American flag on top of the building behind the statue gave him the wind direction, but it was too high to give him a good idea of wind speed at ground level. The leaves on the tree before him fluttered slightly. Light wind on a humid day.
He rested the barrel in the V of a tree branch, adjusted the scope, and used Trina’s known height to gauge the distance to the target. He dialed in, and her wide, scared eyes appeared in the crosshairs. He shifted immediately. No.
Don’t think. Do your job.
Four square inches of Ling’s face was visible above and behind Trina’s. A small target. But he’d made the same shot from a greater distance many times. This was what he trained for. This was what he did.
Strands of brown hair flashed in the circle of the sights, then disappeared. Trina’s hair. Her head was that close to his target. Agitated, Ling shifted, pulling Trina with him. Both their heads bobbed in the crosshairs.
Suddenly, Trina stilled.
Yes, babe. I’m out here. Don’t move, and I will take him out.
He placed the center a mil above Ling’s right eye. He took a slow breath, aware of his heartbeat. Habit. Training. This was where it all came together. He pulled the trigger, slowly, mindful to keep the release just as soft.
Blood splattered the statue behind Trina, and Ling fell to the ground.
The moment Ling’s arms went slack, Trina ran forward, jumping over the low fence. She didn’t look behind her, didn’t know if he was dead or if his gun was aimed at her back. She didn’t care. She just ran.
She heard a shout—Keith’s voice—and turned in that direction. She recognized the way he moved even without her glasses. He caught her in his arms and held her against his firm chest. “Babe,” he whispered over and over again.
She wrapped her arms around his waist and held him tight. She would collapse if she let go. Finally, she found her voice. “What happened to Sean? Is he okay?”
“He’s fine. He was bound and gagged in your apartment. He came to right as FBI agents smashed through the door. He said you’d both been gassed. A minute after that, reports of a woman kicking out a window and screaming bloody murder on Seventeenth Street came over the police scanner, and that another driver had run him off the road.”
“It wasn’t Sean’s fault. He searched my apartment before I went into my bedroom. No one was there. The gas—”
“I know. The same thing would have happened if it had been me who took you there, but I might not have been quick like Sean and hit the panic button before passing out. With the FBI having just been there, we were too confident it was safe.”
Once again Trina found herself pulled away from Keith to be checked over by a paramedic. The FBI was running tests to determine what gas had been used, but the effects at least appeared to be temporary, probably thanks to the fact that Ling—or whatever his name was—had needed to take her alive.
They returned to the DOJ, but Trina insisted on riding with Keith. She was done with the being-questioned-separately bullshit.
They gathered in Curt’s office. Swaddled in a thick, plush blanket, she sat on a couch and leaned on Keith instead of taking a seat in front of Curt’s desk.
They would probably never know who Ling was exactly. All they knew was he’d been in the US for at least six months, and in that time, he’d thoroughly manipulated two daylight-law activists into spying on their own country for him, managed to get a bomb planted in a computer that was supposed to detonate inside a building on a US Navy base in the nation’s capital, and he would have succeeded in abducting Trina and probably torturing the Somalia story from her if she hadn’t kicked out the window and made a scene before they got on the bridge and left the city.
Curt left them in his office to confer with the various department heads who had descended on the DOJ after the shooting of a Chinese spy in the heart of DC.
Alone with Keith, she shifted to his lap. They had no reason to suspect anyone was following her. With Ruby’s and Ling’s deaths, and Vole’s capture, the story of a UN force commander’s assassination by a Navy SEAL would go nowhere.
Keith’s father had surrendered peacefully when he was approached at a grocery store. They’d been told he’d broken down in sobs when he saw the recording of Trina’s abduction and Keith’s shot that saved her. He said he only knew the other RATinformants by their avatars and had no idea they’d been working with a spy. Keith was inclined to believe him, so Trina did as well, but regardless, his dad was facing prosecution as an enemy combatant. The man would never be able to spread stories about Somalia even if he was still so inclined.
As for Trina, she would never reveal what she’d learned. She was bound to the same code of silence as Keith’s SEAL team and the highest levels of the US military and government. Some secrets were worth keeping—in this instance knowledge was not power.
The only weak link was Owen Bishop. Josh had been successful in getting him back into rehab, and Keith and the rest of his SEAL team would watch out for him. They would do everything they could to help him beat the addiction and find his way back to the land of the living. There were no promises of success, but there was hope.
Trina stroked Keith’s stubbly cheek. “So, now that this is all over, you appear to be homeless.”
Keith smiled and pressed his nose in her hair. She loved the way he did that. “Not homeless. Tyler’s family rented a place in Annandale. When his mom called to say thanks for the gifts you sent, she offered me a room.”
She frowned. “Annandale’s almost on top of the Beltway. Pretty far out.”
His fingertip gently stroked her eyebrow, then circled down to her cheekbone, finally tracing her lips. “Not much farther than Falls Church.”
“Yes, but Falls Church is at least near a Metro station.”
Keith smiled. “And this is a problem why?”
“Well, you see, I don’t have a car. I couldn’t visit you there. And I’d like to visit you. Often.”
Keith’s grin turned bone-meltingly sexy. “I’d like that. I can think of another problem with Annandale. A seven-year-old in the house means no spontaneous sex in the living room. And I really like spontaneous sex in the living room.”
Trina felt a little dizzy just remembering the orgasm he’d given her in the living room last night. She liked thinking about that much more than what had happened in Farragut Square. “Well, if you take the job with Raptor, you’ll be working near the White House. And I happen to have an apartment centrally located in the city. Convenient to both the Dupont Circle and U Street Metro stations.”
“Before you invite me to live with you, shouldn’t you check with your roommate?”
“I thought you knew Cressida is only temporary—her internship ends on Friday. She heads back to Tallahassee this weekend.”
“Well, then, this is an intriguing offer you’ve presented. A two-bedroom apartment, centrally located, and you. What’s the rent?” He winked as he asked the question.
“Three orgasms a day. If you give me four, I’ll even throw in meals.”
He threw back his head and laughed. “How about we split the rent and food bill and you’ll still get four orgasms.”
“Promises, promises.”
He pulled her snug against him and dropped a light kiss on her lips. “Plus I’ll throw in that I’m willing to try to not be such a neat freak if you promise to try to organize a bit.”
“What makes you think I need to organize?” Yeah, she tended toward clutter, but how did he know that?
He nipped her bottom lip. “I’ve seen your office. And I’ve yet to see you enter a room without dropping everything you’re carrying right by the door. The laptop at my place. Shopping bags in the hotel. Your clothes last night—although that met with my full approval. You are always welcome to strip for me when you get home.”
<
br /> His lips moved to her neck, and she felt lovely chills as he nibbled along her sensitive skin. “If I have to clean up my messes, it sounds like living together is going to be more work than sex.”
“Probably. But worth it, I think.”
She nodded as she closed her eyes, envisioning what it would be like to share a home with Keith, hours spent reading, talking, and making love. She grinned at the mental picture and said, “I can’t wait until you organize my library.”
Dear Readers,
Thank you!
Thank you for reading Withholding Evidence. I hope you enjoyed it! For more information on Withholding Evidence and the other books in the Evidence Series, visit my website at www.Rachel-Grant.net.
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Acknowledgments
I’d like to thank post-apocalyptic/thriller author and US Navy veteran Steven Konkoly for his willingness to answer even the most mundane questions about the US Navy and naval actions in the Balkans and Somalia over the last two decades. Also, thanks for providing a key piece of information at just the right moment, which helped this story take shape. The information Steven provided on UN Peacekeeping operations was correct; all inaccuracies in my fiction are entirely my fault.
Thank you to the plot bunnies, Darcy Burke, Elisabeth Naughton, and Joan Swan, who helped me kick-start the writing of this story.
Thank you to the fabulous authors who critiqued this book: Darcy Burke, Krista Hall, Erica Ridley, and Bria Quinlan. Thank you so much to my wonderful agent, Elizabeth Winick Rubinstein, for your valuable feedback and insight into the story. Huge thanks to my editor, Linda Ingmanson, for helping make this story shine.
