A Deadly Distance

by L. T. Ryan

  "Where's Sarah?" I said

  "In the waiting room," Frank said.

  "Figured she'd want to see the injuries."

  "I wanted to talk to you first and make sure things were OK."

  "Things are OK."

  "Did he call again?"

  "Yeah."

  "What did he say?" Frank said.

  "He laughed and said I passed the test. He also said he'd call back with further instructions."

  Frank exhaled loudly and placed his hands on his hips. "I don't like this, Jack." He pointed at Tammy. "She say anything about the accident?"

  "Only that they took her son, again."

  "Anything else?"

  "That he might be dead already."

  "Already?"

  "Yeah, that's what I thought, too. Why already? Did they say something to her or did something happen earlier that led her to believe this was going to happen? That the end result would be the death of her son?"

  "Did you ask?"

  "She passed out."

  Frank nodded. His lips worked side to side and I could tell he was thinking something through. "You think she wasn't really coming onto you at the party? Maybe she was scared and hoped to get you alone so she could talk to you?"

  I shrugged. "It's possible, I suppose. But why wouldn't she come out and say she needed help?"

  "I don't know. Maybe with everything she's been through, she has a hard time trusting. Of everyone in that room, I would think you would be the one she felt she could trust. You did save her son from perishing in the fire, after all. She received the full story. She knows you could have left, but you stayed and risked your life for her kid."

  "And here I figured that was the reason she came on to me."

  Frank walked toward me and came to a stop at the foot of the bed. "Tammy," he called in a soft voice. The woman didn't stir. "Dammit, I wish she'd wake up so I can ask her a few questions."

  "Me too," I said. "I can't help but feel we're missing something."

  "We're missing a lot of things, Jack."

  Someone cleared their throat outside the room. I looked up and saw Sarah standing there, half in the room, half in the hall. "Sorry, got tired of waiting out there." She stepped into the room, walked over, stopped between Frank and me. "How is she?"

  "Beat up, burned up, and passed out," I said.

  She nodded and took a step forward and leaned over me to inspect Tammy up close. Her body brushed up against mine and strands of her hair became caught in the stubble on my face. Her hair smelled of smoke and alcohol, but still retained a scent of lavender or some kind of exotic oil.

  "What are you looking for?" Frank asked.

  "I'll know if I find it," Sarah replied.

  "What the hell does that mean?" Frank said.

  After working with Frank for more than two years, I knew that of all the things someone could do to get under his skin, being indirect was the main infraction. It drove him crazy to not have all the facts and know what was going on at all times.

  "It means I'm looking," Sarah said. "I don't know what for. If I find it, I'll know." She shook her head and continued examining Tammy. "And maybe I'll tell you," she added.

  Frank waved his hand at her and shook his head. I could sense his frustration filling the room.

  "Frank, let's talk in the hall," I said.

  Outside the room, he said, "What?"

  "I've been thinking we need to get a couple guys down here to watch over Tammy. I don't trust this creep. His guys could be anywhere, and the moment we leave, he could pounce and kill her, leaving him to slip away with the boy."

  "OK," Frank said.

  "We need to get some security around those other kids and their families, too."

  Frank nodded, said nothing.

  "If he came after one, he might go after the others as well. I think this guy has an ego problem."

  "Yeah, we squashed it and now he's trying to prove he's bigger and badder than us."

  I nodded. "My thoughts exactly."

  "We don't have the resources locally to pull this off. I guess I could recall a few of the teams from here to the mid-west…"

  "Nah, don't do that. We'll have to bite the bullet and ask for help."

  "OK. You're right."

  "Don't tell them too much, though."

  Frank nodded and then looked up the hall, and then back down. His eyes settled on a room labeled Conference and he took off in that direction.

  I backed into the room. Quiet and undetected. Sarah bent over Tammy's motionless body. Her hands worked expertly around the woman's neck, torso, and abdomen. She glanced over her shoulder, then flinched and stood.

  "Didn't hear you come back in," she said.

  "One of my specialties," I said.

  "Must have paid dividends in your younger years." She winked.

  I smiled and said nothing.

  "I didn't find anything unusual."

  "Didn't think you would."

  "Why's that?"

  "A hunch."

  "Something tells me it's more than a hunch."

  I shrugged.

  "Don't trust me?" She asked.

  I didn't reply.

  "Whatever," she said. "Don't tell me."

  "I won't."

  The click-clack of hard-soled shoes echoed down the hall. They moved quickly and with a purpose. A doctor, I figured, rushing to save a patient that had coded. Only thing was, I hadn't heard an announcement or a series of tones through the speakers. I reached for my pistol and aimed it at the open door.

  The footsteps came to a halt and Frank stuck his head in the room. "Jack, we gotta go."

  "Why? Did you get everything arranged?"

  "Yeah," he said. "And then I called into headquarters and got some bad news."

  "What?"

  "Remember Pablo?"

  "Yeah."

  "He's had a heart attack."

  CHAPTER 15

  I sat in Frank's office with the chair pushed back to the glass window that separated him from the lobby. I leaned my head back against the cool glass and stared at the clock on the wall. Behind his desk, Frank pounded away at his keyboard, searching for who knows what. I didn't ask. He didn't tell. We barely talked, and during those moments when we did, it was about nothing in particular.

  Sarah assisted Doc with Pablo in the infirmary. While not a cardiologist, Doc was capable of treating the man. That's why he'd been chosen for the SIS. The guy had experience in the field, running with Special Forces in some of the deadliest areas in the world. And the infirmary was state of the art. The care Pablo received was as good as any hospital in the area. I hoped it would be good enough to keep him alive. We couldn't afford to lose him, yet.

  We had three of the guys from the house detained below, and they could offer information. However, Pablo offered us something none of them could. He was from outside their organization, a part of it, but not really. He could get in the house without a problem, and they all knew him. He knew everything, and kept his distance, which would serve to cloud his judgment and memory a bit less. He had other interests that they wanted no part of, or perhaps were allowed no part of. Either way, Pablo was the key to us bringing down whoever ran the ring. And that, I was sure, was the key to getting us close to the man who'd kidnapped the little boy.

  I felt ashamed that I could only think of him as the little boy at that moment. Christ, what was his name? I struggled with my memory and eventually recalled Tammy calling her son Christopher. It seemed odd, that a man could rescue another human being and not be bothered to learn their name. I was built that way. Business was business. Everything that happened went down in the line of duty. I didn't deserve any credit for what I did. Didn't want it, either. Wish I hadn't gotten it, because then we wouldn't be sitting up at three forty-five in the morning hoping that some asshole named Pablo pulls through after having his heart take up protest against living.

  Frank must have noticed something was wrong with me, because he said, "Everything a
ll right?"

  I didn't answer. Watched the second hand sweep through the bottom half of the wall clock as it made its ascent back to twelve. After an hour or two, it becomes somewhat hypnotic.

  I heard footsteps approach from across the lobby. I saw Sarah poke her head through the open doorway in my peripheral vision.

  "He's going to make it," she said. "It was a very minor heart attack."

  "Can we talk to him?" Frank asked.

  She shook her head. "Not for a day or two. Like I said, minor, but he doesn't need the extra stress you'd heap on him."

  "We don't have a day or two," Frank said.

  "Take it up with Doc," she said. "I'm only here to help."

  Frank looked at me, and I shrugged. It wasn't my call.

  "All right," Frank said, resigned. "Send him in. I want to hear what he did."

  "Well, he-"

  "I want to hear from him," Frank interrupted.

  Sarah stopped and stepped back, mouth open, hands held out in front of her. "OK," she said.

  I turned in my chair to watch her walk away. She disappeared into the infirmary. I turned back, looked at Frank and said, "You didn't have to go dictatorial on her."

  He hunched over his desk. "I know. I'm stressed. This thing's going to give me a heart attack."

  "Don't take it out on her." I stood and wrapped my hands into a fist and set them on the desk where he could see them. "And you better not try and take it out on me."

  He looked up, nodded and didn't say anything, which was the correct thing to do.

  "Am I interrupting?" Doc said from outside the office.

  I straightened up, turned away, said, "I was leaving."

  We squeezed past each other, chest to chest. He went in. I went out, catching a whiff of the sterile air that always hovered around his body. Sarah sat across the lobby on a vinyl wrapped cushioned bench. I walked to my office, poured two mugs of coffee and then went and sat down next to her.

  "He always like that?" she asked.

  "He's stressed," I said, holding one of the mugs out in front of her.

  She grabbed it, brought the mug up to her lips and gently blew into the liquid, sending a puff of steam into the air. "So does that mean yes?"

  I laughed. "You could say he's wound a bit tight."

  "He's wound a bit tight. There, I said it." She smiled and locked eyes with me. Then her face drew tight and serious. "What about you, Jack? Are you wound a bit tight?"

  I shrugged. "Sometimes, I suppose."

  She repeated what I said, substituting 'you' for 'I', and then added, "I'm going to be a bit bold here, if you don't mind." She took a sip of coffee to give me time to answer. I didn't, not at that moment, at least. "Would you like to go out to dinner when this is all over?"

  "I don't mind, and I'd like to."

  She took a second to process my answers, forgetting that she asked me two questions. Her smile returned. "It's a date then."

  I nodded my agreement. My knees opened to the side. Our legs pressed together, flesh separated by millimeters of thin fabric. Her right hand fell to her thigh. My left hand did the same. The backs of our hands touched, momentarily.

  "So what now?" she said, bringing things back to the matter at hand.

  What now? The question I had no answer for, so I told her the obvious. "We wait."

  "For?" She stretched the word a beat too long.

  My cell vibrated against both our legs from inside my pants pocket. Reluctantly, I broke contact and stood up so I could retrieve it. Unknown caller. "This," I said. I flipped the phone open and answered.

  "Thirty-two hours, Mr. Noble."

  "Thanks for the update, asshole."

  The man said nothing. I heard him snicker, though. A robotic laugh, something akin to a second-rate fifties movie about a legion of robots out of control and hell bent on destroying every living thing on Earth.

  "Thirty-two hours till what?" I prodded.

  "You'll find out soon enough. For now, I need you to show me a sign of faith and goodwill."

  "Screw you."

  "Let me finish, Mr. Noble."

  "OK, finish, and then I'll tell you to go screw yourself."

  He chuckled in that creepy robotic way. "Release my men."

  Instead of screw you, I decided to have some fun with him. "What men?" Turned out to be a mistake. I heard a smack in the background, and the little boy started to cry.

  "Don't mess with me, Jack. You've got ninety minutes to get them to Lake Pine, New Jersey."

  "Where the hell is that?"

  "Google it. But you had better be there. Ninety minutes, Mr. Noble. You, your partner, the woman, and my men. I'll call you when time is almost up to give you the drop point."

  "One condition," I said. "Exchange the boy."

  "No."

  "You gotta give me-" The line went silent. The faint hum of static that was always present in the background during his calls faded away midway through my sentence.

  "Christ," I yelled.

  "What the hell was that?" Sarah asked.

  I looked down at her, well aware that the tone in my voice and the look on my face had given her cause to be taken aback. "It was him."

  Frank emerged from his office with the doctor close behind. His face was tight, twisted, and there was concern hidden behind his eyes. "Jack? What's going on? Did he call?"

  "Yeah."

  "What did he say?"

  I walked across the lobby, hand covering my face. Thumb and little finger massaging my temples. I stopped at the other end of the room and turned around. "He said thirty-two hours. And he said he wants his men back. He said you and me and her, we need to gather up his guys and go to frickin' Pine Lake-"

  "Lake Pine?" Sarah said.

  "-Yeah, what she said. It's in New Jersey. And we have ninety minutes."

  "There's no way," Frank said. "It'll take that long to get to Philly."

  "What about a helicopter?" Sarah said. "It's how we transport patients with catastrophic injuries."

  I looked at Frank. He shrugged and said, "That'll work. We'll have time to spare. But I'm not crazy about turning these guys over. There's still information to get out of them."

  "We're not turning them over without some kind of contingency plan." I looked and nodded toward Doc. "How long will it take you to install one of those tracking devices in one of them?"

  Doc smiled. "Not even twenty minutes. Some laughing gas, a quick incision, then sew him back up."

  Frank smiled. He caught onto my plan. "They'll lead us right to him."

  I nodded. "Sarah, would you mind assisting Doc with the procedure?"

  "No problem." She got up from the padded bench and stood next to Doc.

  "OK," Frank said. "You two go with Doc and pick one of the men. I don't care which one. I'm going to get on the phone and get a car to meet us at Lake Pine and a chopper to get us there." He jogged to his office and slammed the door shut. Sat down at his desk and started hammering on his phone.

  The doctor disappeared for a moment, and then returned with the necessary equipment for the procedure. We followed him down the stairs to the holding cells.

  "Still up for this?" I said to Sarah.

  She smiled in response, but her eyes showed worry.

  "Don't worry," I said. "I've got your back."

  "This one work?" the doctor asked pointing at the first cell we came to.

  "Sure," I said. I punched in the security code and the door unlocked. I opened it and stepped in.

  The man got out of bed and looked me up and down. He spat at my feet. "What the hell do you want?"

  I smiled. Then I took a long step to build momentum and kicked him in the solar plexus. He bowed at the waist, head to knees. I grabbed him by the back of his head with my left hand, pulled him up a foot or two, drove a powerful uppercut into his chin with my right. His body slumped and fell to the floor in a heap.

  "Save that laughing gas, Doc," I said. "He's out."

  The surgery took
less than five minutes. Doc used a scalpel to make an incision where the neck meets the skull. Plenty of hair to cover the wound, I figured. Enough meat to hide the tracking device, which was nothing more than a thin tube, made from steel and hollow in the middle. That's where the guts of the device lived. He stitched the small incision up. We lifted the man and secured him to a wheelchair. Shackles clamped down on his wrists and ankles.

  I brought the other two men out, one at a time, and handcuffed them by the wrists and by the ankles. We took the elevator to the roof. Frank was waiting for us there. A few minutes later, the heavy thumping sound of the helicopter's rotors and the whine of the turbine overwhelmed the silence of the still night.

  We piled into the helicopter moments after it landed. Frank first, me last, Sarah and the prisoners in between. I settled in, sitting with my back to the pilot, which left me facing the men. They glared at me, snarled. I saw the curses they wished upon me in their eyes. I smiled in return, while aiming an HK MP7 at their stomachs.

  CHAPTER 16

  The helicopter got us to our destination in under an hour. The three men across from me didn't move except when the helicopter pitched or rolled. The three of them swayed left, right, forward, and backward in unison, their eyes fixed on me, traveling between my face and the gun I held. One of the men had been sweating profusely, and I could tell he didn't like flying all that much. His eyes were wide and he tensed up every time the helicopter moved. I assumed he had to take a heavy sedative to make it to the U.S. from wherever the hell he was from. No such luck today, though.

  We landed on an abandoned dirt airstrip covered with the iced over remains of a recent snowstorm. No plow had touched the soil, nor had a shovel scraped the ground in advance of our landing.

  The pilot informed us that we were halfway between Cherry Hill and Lake Pine, neither of which was a place I had any familiarity with.

  Sarah stood at the edge of the platform, prepared to hop down. I offered her my hand. She took it. I smiled. She did the same. Once on the ground, I pointed at the dark blue Chevy Suburban parked nearby and told her to wait at the front.