Heartbreaker (Siren Publishing Ménage Amour)

by Simone Sinna

  “But you know about them, and he knows you know about them.”

  “Yes.”

  “So where will he go?” Zac stood in front of a large map of the States. Right now it looked bigger than it ever had.

  “Somewhere I didn’t own so it wouldn’t come up if anyone was asking that question.”

  Zac nodded. “I need to go put a grenade up the military. In the meantime find out if Channing has any country residences.”

  Kane went to leave.

  “And Kane?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “You get to lead this one if you find anything.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “And Kane?”

  “Yes, sir?”

  “If you do lead this, bring her back alive or you’ll be back on the desk for the rest of your life.”

  * * * *

  The woman brought her some food and water without looking at her.

  “Where am I?”

  Nothing.

  “Who are you? Hezekiah Tanner’s group, right?”

  Nothing.

  “Channing’s daughter? Are we half sisters?”

  The woman grimaced.

  “You won’t get away with this. They’ll put you all in jail and throw away the key.”

  The woman stopped at the doorway. “What makes you think we want to get away with anything? The Lord is the righteous path and we are on it.” The door closed behind her and Savannah ate every last drop of the watery stew, not sure when her next meal would be.

  * * * *

  Zac went to his boss, knowing he had no choice. He was going to get the same threats and a good deal more dressing down than he had given Kane, but he needed the key to the military records and the man with the key was his boss.

  Larry Hudson listened without saying anything, not even when it became evident Savannah and Zac’s stepbrother had been with him on a solo crusade. At least Zac had brought in the reinforcements prior to the abduction. He just should have had more. Larry went through it with him, made him go through all the possibilities, then they agreed on what the most likely scenario was, and he called the president.

  Chapter Thirteen

  Ben bumped into Kane as he was leaving. “What’s happening?”

  Kane hesitated. Ben could see he wanted to tell him to piss off, but was working through what would happen if he said that to his boss’s stepbrother, who had been injured in the line of FBI duty. The bump on his head was the size of a melon and he wasn’t looking pretty.

  “Channing owns a farmhouse in Vermont. We’re heading out there.”

  “Count me in.”

  “Not a hope in hell.”

  “Farmhouse is in the middle of some goddamn big woods, right?”

  “So?”

  “So how good are you city boys at night in the country? Know how barns are set up? Where the escape routes are likely to be? I grew up on a farm just the other side of the border.”

  Kane hesitated again but Ben was already following the other team members to the chopper.

  Ben poured over the maps as they flew. Someone threw him night goggles. Kane asked him about his firepower experience and was impressed enough with the answer to give him a gun as well.

  Kane outlined his plan. “We land the chopper in the town two miles south. I’ve got the local cops to pull in some reinforcements and will meet us with three SUVs. There are three roads in. We take one each.”

  “No,” said Ben.

  “No what?”

  “When were these maps made?”

  Kane frowned. “Says there.” He pointed, adding, “Two years old.”

  “Then there aren’t three roads in. There are four.”

  “What?”

  “If they’re using it as a hideout then there is an escape route. Probably had one regardless they wanted kept quiet,” said Ben. “They’ve put in a route, probably not even visible to satellites, except maybe in winter. SUV only.”

  “So where will it be, farm boy?”

  “There,” said Ben, ignoring the put-down. “Along the river. Easier to excavate, those gridlines aren’t too fierce, and will look like it’s part of the river. Better still, it’ll come out somewhere here.”

  They all leant in. Ben was pointing to a major freeway intersection.

  * * * *

  Corey was nearly there. First collect his uncle, then the bitch. Everything was going according to plan. He’d be on time, back in Hezekiah’s good books, and put in charge of the prize.

  Hezekiah had made it clear she had to be kept alive, but it hadn’t seemed like he cared about her condition at the end. Corey salivated at the thought.

  * * * *

  At the time Ben was suiting up for the chopper ride Zac was sitting with the Chief of the armed forces, being made to squirm.

  “You think what?”

  “I need to know if the person who used the name Todd Wilson was in military intelligence. I need to know in particular if he was tracking ANO, the Abu Nidal organization. And I am running out of time.”

  “You think he’s dirty?”

  “No, sir, I do not.”

  The Chief relaxed a little. “How about we ask him directly?”

  * * * *

  Savannah heard the car arrive. The clock said 2:00 a.m. She lay tense under the blankets, wondering if they would wait until the next morning. She didn’t have long to wait. The door burst open and the lights went on. She squinted into the space, saw a large man, no, a huge man. Behind him were the bear and the footballer who looked small in comparison.

  “Hezekiah Tanner, I presume.” Savannah stood up, keeping her voice cool and even.

  “You presume right. You’ve given me a lot of grief, girl.”

  His voice boomed, the jowls of his cheeks melding with the flesh of his neck, all shaking as he spoke. His eyes were a bright and deep blue and she felt pinned by them. She knew how to put her eyes to use, but this man made her look like a novice.

  “It was a pleasure.”

  Hezekiah laughed. “Got your daddy’s guts, I see.”

  “Is that why I am here? Because of my father?”

  “You’d better believe it,” Hezekiah replied. “Both of your daddies, actually.”

  So that confirmed one thing. Sal had brought him on board.

  “You helping Sal?”

  Hezekiah burst out laughing, then stopped as suddenly as he started. “The way I’m gonna help Sal if I ever see him again,” he said, leaning into her, “is to feed him his own balls.”

  * * * *

  The general looked a little bemused.

  “You want to know what?”

  “Did you investigate the ANO, in 1985 and 1986? Rome and Berlin?”

  The general looked puzzled, and glanced at the Chief of Staff, who nodded.

  “It was top secret.”

  Zac breathed easier. He had gotten it right. Now General Pearson just needed to put the pieces together for him.

  “We have a situation, sir.” He outlined everything as fast as he could, but without mentioning Savannah’s background.

  The general gave no indication of what he was thinking. Came with the job, Zac imagined.

  “Let me summarize,” Pearson interrupted. “You believe Tanner is working with Channing and Mazzola, and that the kidnap of this young woman had something to do with me?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “Then I’m not sure how you got to that decision but it is nonsense.”

  “Bear with me, sir,” said Zac. “There are two final pieces of information you don’t have. One is that Mazzola is the girl’s stepfather.”

  The general frowned.

  “The second is that we have reason to believe that she is your biological child.”

  * * * *

  The police were waiting for them, with the extra SUV.

  “You take one,” Kane ordered Ben. “Take one of the cops and go look for your road. Don’t go any closer than five hundred yards and call us in you location. You
’re Kappa, I’m Alpha.” He designated the Beta and Gamma teams. “We are all set to get into position and sit until further notice. Do not, I repeat do not, approach the house, unless you hear orders from me.”

  Ben grabbed a guy that reminded him of his police partner, back when he was with the police department and he’d gotten shot. Without his partner the second shot would have been in his head.

  “Howie.”

  “Ben, ex-detective sergeant San Fran PD. Late also of New Hampshire farming land.”

  Howie grinned and shook his hand. Ben’s qualifications for this job would have been next best thing to a local as far as any Vermont cop was concerned.

  “Let’s go prove something to the Feds.”

  Even better qualifications.

  It took him longer than expected. The road came out well south of the river and he’d been thinking north, an escape to Canada. But maybe that was the point. Trying not to be obvious. Howie was impressed Ben had thought of there being an escape route and even more impressed that four hundred yards from the house Ben found a car pulled off and covered in branches. A car with a warm hood. Ben crawled back to where he had left Howie and called in their position and the information that someone had arrived in the last hour.

  “We saw them. White SUV parked out front.” Kane had hung up before Ben could tell him about the other car. Or that he recognized it.

  * * * *

  Zac thought when things moved fast in the FBI it was impressive, but the military were something else again. Once the general heard Savannah’s birth date it clinched it. He was on the phone and then heading to the helipad to join his special force team for a rapid departure north.

  “She told me she was going back to Australia, that she was home sick,” he had said quietly to Zac on the way. “I wrote, sure there was something more, that I had upset her and had a bit of an idea why. Then she wrote back and said she’d found someone else and was going to have a baby. I was devastated. But what could I do? I got on with my life.”

  “Can you put the missing bits in for us?”

  “She never knew I was undercover. I said I was working in Italy when we met but she never knew what sort of work. But then I got injured in the Berlin blast. She knew I had been to West Point. She probably put it together. She hated the idea I had a dangerous job.”

  “Were you investigating Hezekiah? Where does Sal fit in?”

  “I have had my eye on Hezekiah since my early days at Yale. Him and Channing were the men most likely to succeed at doing every god damn thing you didn’t want them to.” The general’s face hardened. “Sal was different. We figured he tipped us off about Odeh. Then he was there in Rome, pretending to help with the casualties. He met Audrey same time as me.”

  “When did he become a suspect?”

  “Not until later, when I connected him with Odeh. I wasn’t sure until Berlin. I followed him there. He lured me in. I was meant to be meeting with him. He had hoped I’d be killed. Just gave me this instead.” He showed a scar across his abdomen.

  “So if you were injured, he had time to spin a story to Audrey and get to Australia.”

  “I left him with a facial scar. My guess is he told Audrey I was the one working with ANO. He was a pretty smooth liar. He had me conned for a while. Audrey…well Audrey was delicate. She once told me Sal made her feel safe.” He shook his head. ‘I wanted to tell her how wrong she was but I couldn’t, it would have jeopardized the mission.”

  “He must have thought you would go after him.”

  “I would have but by the time I was back on duty he and Audrey had left, though I had no idea it was together. If I had I’d have killed him.”

  Zac thought one of them might still have a chance at that, or at least getting him put away.

  The general continued, “The USA was busy bombing Libya in retaliation and that more than took up my time. I let Sal go.”

  “Until now.”

  The general frowned.

  “You’re behind the push to reopen the Odeh case.”

  The general nodded.

  “And that is why Savannah was kidnapped.”

  * * * *

  “Then why do you want me? To get back at him?” Savannah looked at Hezekiah in bewilderment. “I’ve got bad news for you if so. He hates me.”

  Hezekiah nodded. “I gathered that, which is what got me thinking.”

  “About?”

  “Why was he worried about you looking for some guy in a photo? He just wanted me to get your rucksack, was afraid one of the photos you had picked up from his house might spell trouble for us both. Wouldn’t say why, beyond it was a photo of someone we both knew who could cause us problems over a past issue.”

  “The Odeh bombing.”

  “Yes, smart girl, I can see why he was worried about you.”

  That Hezekiah wasn’t worrying about what he was telling her was concerning her right now.

  “See, I was really pissed off at them, thought I kill off two birds at once with that bombing in San Francisco. Kill an Arab and blame the Jews.” He burst out laughing. It was a sound that was getting to be seriously irritating.

  “But Sal is Arab.”

  Hezekiah smiled, the sort from a spider to a fly. “Only half. Was happy to take my money for information about Odeh, though he didn’t know what I was planning until afterwards. Seems he had a crisis of conscience after and joined some raghead group after. At least they weren’t killing decent Americans.”

  This sounded like Sal. Went for the money without asking questions. The ANO involvement would have been in the moment of a crisis of guilt, until he got scared about being caught and a safe way out came along. Her mother. “So you worked out who was in the photo?”

  “Oh yes siree. That was when I decided to pick you up.”

  “So why am I here?”

  “Because my guess is that when General Pearson, whose only child, a son, was killed in Afghanistan two months ago, finds he has a daughter, he might just stop the push to reopen the Odeh case.”

  * * * *

  “What’s she like?” The general had had to shout because air travel his style was without a selection of movies or a hostess service.

  Zac couldn’t look at him, sure he would give away too much. “Looks like you, but all woman. Beautiful, smart, savvy and …”

  The general looked at him sharply.

  “…a bit lost. She hates Sal, if that helps.”

  The general didn’t say anything. His smile said it all.

  Chapter Fourteen

  Savannah was sleeping lightly when the door opened. It was not more than a soft click but she was instantly alert, heart racing. No announcements, no light, but she could hear someone breathing. For a second she thought maybe Channing’s daughter was going to let her out or that Zac had arrived to save her. Instead, as soon as she heard him speak she froze. Turning slowly, she saw it was Corey.

  “Thought you were going to get away from me, did you?”

  In the moonlight she saw him step towards her, face leering, the smell of beer strong.

  Savannah sat up, throwing the blanket off her. “Come any closer and I’ll scream.”

  Corey laughed, and as he grabbed for her she ran at him with a closed fist drawn, screaming like a banshee.

  * * * *

  Kane had everyone in place and was waiting half an hour after the last light dimmed to give the order. There was still ten minutes to go when they heard the scream.

  “I’m going in,” Ben heard him say in a low voice. “Beta, am timing now. We have sixty seconds, Gamma cover and Kappa hold and stop anyone escaping. Given we aren’t taking them by surprise we shoot to kill anyone who resists. Hostage to be saved at all costs.”

  Ben tensed as he watched his timer.

  “We need to move closer,” he said to his partner.

  “But…”

  “Follow me.”

  Howie shrugged. He was probably itching to get in on the action too. But Ben was more worried
about why Savannah had screamed, and more to the point, who she was with.

  * * * *

  Corey had grabbed her arm and with the other slapped her to make her stop screaming. It had the opposite effect. Savannah figured she’d keep screaming unless unconscious. She was too busy trying to kick Corey to be able to make sense of what happened next. There was a lot of noise. Wood splintered and a roar of something that sounded half-bull, half-bear overshadowed any attempt she had made at being heard. Then there was a smell and her eyes started streaming as she struggled to breathe. Tear gas.

  Corey grabbed her arm roughly and pulled her after him, coughing loudly as he pulled her through the door. To Savannah’s left she could make out a number of shapes, and that was when she heard gunfire. Loud automatic fire lit up the corridor. She saw two men fall, another let out a yell. Corey was pulling her in the opposite direction, and as much as she didn’t want to go with him, the only other option was even more dangerous.

  * * * *

  When Zac and the general arrived on the edge of the woods with a small group of specialized forces men and women, the first thing they heard was the gunfire. Kane hadn’t been answering his phone so Zac had no updates since he’d left DC beyond a single message that they had found the house and were trying to identify the occupants.

  “Advance,” ordered the general. “Beware of friendly fire.”

  Zac ran with them, hitting the forest floor when the house came into site.

  “I recognize those two from New York,” he shouted. The general had seen them at the same time. The men were in the front room, lit up by gun fire. The biggest of the two men was holding an automatic weapon and wasn’t shy about firing it. As best Zac could judge Kane and his men had entered the house around the back. Another of his teams was engaged in battle fire with the two New York thugs.

  “Savannah must be still in there,” Zac called out urgently. The general didn’t show any response but Zac rather imagined it wasn’t because of lack of concern. He turned to his team and issued some orders. Zane saw the six of them crawl off in two different directions.