by Cassie Miles
“We’re running late,” Alex said.
“I guess.”
Making the flight wasn’t all that important to Troy. If he’d been truly motivated, he could have pulled strings and gotten private transport that would take him directly to his team on the ground. He couldn’t stop thinking about what he was leaving behind. When he checked the rearview mirror, he saw nothing but traffic, an endless stream of vehicles rushing to their various destinations. Where am I going?
His choice was to join his team. A sense of duty and responsibility dictated his decision, but it was more than that. To be sure, his team might benefit from his expertise, especially when it came to dealing with the other intelligence agencies involved. His knowledge of terrorist activity and strategy might also be useful. But that wasn’t why he was on the road. Loyalty was what drove him. The men on his team were his brothers. If they were in danger, he needed to be there.
What about Olivia? How the hell could he leave her? Even if she couldn’t admit it, the woman needed him.
“You can still change your mind,” Alex said. “I can get off at the next exit and take you back to her sister’s house.”
“Is that where you think I should go?”
“It depends. Are you a soldier or a father?”
“Both.” One occupation didn’t exclude the other. “There’s no reason why I can’t be a daddy and a marine.”
“What’s your priority? In my professional opinion, Olivia looks like she’s ready to give birth. It’d be a shame for you to miss that.”
“Not being a medical person,” Troy said, “I’m not so enthused about the hospital part. When Olivia is in labor, she’s going to be in a lot of pain, right? There will be yelling and cursing, and she’ll tell me that I’m a scumbag for getting her pregnant.”
“Olivia isn’t going to freak out. She’s delivered hundreds of babies. I’m guessing that she’s got everything figured out, and the birth will be natural and serene.”
“And gross?”
“For a guy who’s been to war, you’re kind of a wuss.”
His brother could be a real ass. “Thanks for your opinion, macho doc.”
“If you don’t want to know what I think, don’t ask,” Alex said. “You know whether you should be with your team or with your woman. Cut to the bottom line.”
Taking his feelings out of the equation, Troy balanced the odds. His men were trained, well-equipped and had each other for support. Olivia was alone. All she wanted was to get back to her mountain cabin and have her baby. He could give her that. “Turn around.”
“Good choice.” Alex took his hand off the steering wheel to punch his shoulder. “When do we tell Mom and Dad?”
Troy winced. His parents lived a quiet life in retirement off the coast of Oregon. For years, they had wanted a grandchild. “Don’t push it. I can still change my mind.”
His cell phone rang. The caller ID showed it was Olivia. Happily, he answered. “Miss me?”
“Excuse me.” She sounded far away. There was a lot of background noise. “Where are you taking me?”
Someone answered her in a low growl. “Shut up, bitch.”
Troy sat up straight. Adrenaline shot through his veins. Olivia was being taken somewhere. She’d been abducted.
Olivia spoke again. “I want to thank you gentlemen for not hurting me. Can’t you tell me where we’re going? It seems like we’re headed east.”
Again, the growl. “Knock her out.”
“I’ll be quiet,” she said. “Not another word.”
The only sound through the phone was a rumble, and then he heard a car horn. They were in a vehicle.
“What is it?” Alex asked.
“Olivia. She’s been taken.”
Troy turned off the speaker on his phone so his voice wouldn’t be transmitted. He held the phone to his ear, listening to empty air. She’s not hurt. Thank God, she got that message to him. If he’d thought she was injured, he would have gone ballistic.
Somehow, she’d managed to keep her phone with her. If the line stayed open, he might be able to figure out where they were taking her. It was too damn bad that he’d disabled the GPS on her cell phone.
He snapped his fingers at his brother. “Give me your cell.”
Alex handed over his phone, and Troy put in a call to Olivia’s father.
It was her mother who answered. Her voice was shaky. “Four men in balaclavas. Looked like mercenaries. They forced the car to stop at the corner of Bianca’s block. Used a stun gun on Richard. They took her, Troy. They took my daughter.”
“Is Richard all right?”
“Physically, yes.”
Troy heard the catch in her voice. She was barely holding it together. “Is an investigation underway?”
“The FBI is here.”
“What have you found out so far?”
“The van was abandoned in a forested area near here. They must have switched vehicles.” As she talked, she became more coherent. “They appear to be professional. They’re avoiding traffic cams and surveillance.”
Troy heard Olivia’s voice through her phone. Immediately, he disconnected the call to her mother.
Olivia said, “Are we here already? That was quick.”
“I told you to shut up.”
There were shuffling noises. A car door opened.
The man with the deep voice spoke again. “What’s that in your pocket? Hey, the bitch has a phone.”
Another voice responded. “Take care of it.”
The line went dead.
Chapter Seventeen
Olivia watched her phone being crushed beneath the boot heel of her captor. Her hopes for escape were being stamped out, one by one.
From the moment they’d grabbed her, she’d been poised to run. She knew her mother had time to memorize the license plate on the van, and she expected the police to be in immediate pursuit.
But her captors had driven into the forested area near her sister’s house and moved her from the van into this old, battered camper attached to the back of a truck. The makeshift vehicle looked like something deer hunters might use for a weekend in the mountains. Nobody would suspect the camper of being a getaway vehicle for kidnappers.
She was in the back with two of the four men who had attacked the Range Rover. Inside the camper, they both had to stoop. The younger of these men was black, nearly as tall as Troy but half as broad. Everything about this guy was narrow, from his nose to his pointy-toed cowboy boots. The older one was white. He had a scraggly beard, a barrel chest that made his voice resonate and cruel blue eyes. He grabbed her ruined cell phone from the floor and shoved her so she was sitting on a bench against the back wall of the camper. He held the phone an inch away from her nose.
“This phone was a mistake. A real stupid move,” he said. “You got any other electronics?”
“I don’t have anything else.” She glared up at him. “Go ahead. Frisk me.”
His buddy snorted a laugh. “She could be hiding a basketball—or a basketball team—under that gut.”
“You think this is funny?” The big man snarled at the skinny guy. “Kidnapping’s a federal crime. If we botch this, we’ll be in a federal pen.”
“I get it, sir.”
“Act like it.”
“Yes, sir.”
The military phrasing made Olivia think these guys were an organized unit. No longer part of an army, they might be mercenaries. With a shiver of horror, she remembered Troy’s warnings about the vicious deeds of Hatari. These men could be terrorists. Oh, God, what did they want with her?
The bearded man turned back to her. “If you cooperate, you won’t be hurt. Your baby won’t be hurt. Understand?”
Too scared to speak without having her voice quiver, she nodded.
“Don’t try anything cute like you did with the phone.”
Again, she bobbed her head.
“Say it,” he growled.
“I’ll cooperate.”
He cocked his arm and threw a quick punch that glanced off her cheekbone. Her head snapped back and hit the wall of the camper. Flashes of light exploded behind her eyelids. She was dizzy but fought to stay conscious.
His face was close to hers. “That was a warning. Do what I say.”
“I will.”
The side of her face throbbed with bone-deep pain. Gingerly, she touched her cheek where he’d hit her. It had already begun to swell.
The back door of the camper swung open. None of the men were wearing their balaclavas, and she thought that was a bad sign. There was only one reason that they wouldn’t care if she could identify them. They didn’t expect her to survive.
She had only one chance, only one hope. That was Troy. He knew how to deal with this kind of threat, and he was motivated. If not to rescue her, he’d come back for their baby.
“Let’s go.” The thin black man took her arm. “Come with me, and be quiet.”
Any thought she might have had about running or screaming for help had been knocked out of her. If she caused a problem, they might beat her or, worse, shoot her up with sedatives. She couldn’t take that risk with the baby.
As she stood, she felt a reassuring kick from inside her, as though the baby was urging her to stay strong. They had to make it through this.
Outside the camper, they were inside an airplane hangar. Quickly, she looked around for someone who might notice a hugely pregnant woman being hustled across the concrete floor. She saw no one but the four men who herded her toward a black helicopter with a blue stripe on the side. They could be going anywhere, even leaving the country. She didn’t know how Troy would find her. But he had to figure it out. Her life depended on him.
* * *
AT THE SECURE facility where Clark was being held, Troy accompanied Olivia’s father to the interrogation cell. Clark had specifically asked to speak with Richard to verify intelligence Clark had about an espionage debacle in 1998. If Clark’s information proved valuable, the CIA might cut him a deal. This meeting was supposed to be a negotiation.
But that wasn’t why Troy was here. Clark’s comment about knowing who was stalking Olivia was the only clue Troy had, and he needed that name.
Other leads regarding Olivia’s kidnappers had dispersed like smoke from a chimney. The sedan that was left at the scene was rented under a false name. The only viable evidence from the abandoned van was a set of fingerprints belonging to a guy who had been in and out of prison twice for robbery; his whereabouts were unknown.
Thus far, the kidnappers had been lucky. If they hadn’t arranged to switch cars, they would have been in trouble because the shots fired by Olivia’s mom had punctured both rear tires. Though the FBI was doing extensive research on traffic cameras, the kidnappers seemed to have successfully disappeared into traffic.
The most valuable lead came from Olivia’s open phone line. Before the phone went dead, she’d indicated that they had reached their destination, and it hadn’t taken long to get there. That meant they were still in the Denver area. Still close.
When Troy thought of what she must be going through, an intense rage tore through him. Going after a pregnant woman was sick, disgusting and cowardly. Anyone who would do such a thing deserved worse than death. It took an effort to hold his temper in check. His woman was in danger. His son.
Entering the room where Clark was being held, Troy noticed slight but significant changes. Clark’s chair behind the table had been upgraded to a more comfortable version with padding and arms. He was sipping hot liquid from a ceramic mug, and he’d changed clothes. By asking for small favors, Clark encouraged his captors to help him even more.
Richard sat in one of the chairs opposite Clark. Troy thought the two men were well matched. They were close in age and dressed in tailored perfection. Both were clearly under stress. Even after a lifetime of CIA training, Olivia’s father couldn’t control the throbbing pulse of a vein in his forehead.
Clark looked up at Troy. “Won’t you sit down?”
“I’ll stand.”
“Once a marine, always—”
“This marine saved your ass.”
“So I’ve heard,” Clark said smoothly. “You were first on the scene outside my condo. I believe you took out four men with grenades and AK-47s.”
Troy neither confirmed nor denied. Clark was familiar with the training and skill level required in military intelligence, special operations. He was well aware that Troy had twenty-three ways of killing him with his bare hands before anyone could stop him.
“The name,” Troy said. “I want the name of Olivia’s stalker.”
“I might have given you the wrong impression. This individual isn’t a trained operative, and I can’t guarantee that he’s the man you’re looking for.”
Troy seethed inside. This pompous old fart wanted to play games while Olivia was going through hell. Troy flexed the fingers on his right hand. His weight balanced on the balls of his feet, ready to leap across the table and rip the answer from Clark’s throat.
“A bit of advice,” Richard said. “Tell him what you know and do it fast.”
Clark looked into Troy’s eyes. What he saw must have scared him because when he picked up his mug, his hand was shaking too much to lift it to his lips.
“The man I suspect of stalking,” Clark said, “isn’t part of the intelligence community. He’s an acquaintance of mine, a business contact. He owns an oil firm that CRG occasionally works with. I saw him a few months ago, and he was in obvious distress. On the verge of a divorce.”
“Speed it up,” Richard said.
“I thought I’d take advantage of his heightened tension to push through a business deal involving oil leases. Manipulation is a most useful skill for a spy or for a businessman.” He gave a shaky smile and winked at Richard. “You know how it works. People like you and I are good at getting information.”
“The name,” Richard said.
“When he started talking, he couldn’t stop. The dam broke and all his hatred and fury came gushing through. He’d lost his infant son, and he blamed the midwife. He said her name over and over: Olivia Laughton. That’s why I remembered.”
“Jarvis Rainer,” Troy said.
“Yes.”
Troy pivoted and left the room. He’d check in with Richard later. Right now, he needed to reach his brother and pay a visit to that sweet-faced lady who worked as a receptionist at the clinic—Jarvis’s ex-wife, Carol.
* * *
IN THE BACK of the helicopter, Olivia sat quietly with her hands clasped over her belly. She wore earphones that muffled the whomp-whomp-whomp of the rotors. The four men and the pilot were talking and laughing, but she wasn’t hooked in to their conversation.
She’d discovered a bruise on her arm from where they’d yanked her out of the Range Rover, her cheekbone ached and she desperately had to pee. The bearded man who hit her seemed to be in charge. Bad luck for her, he didn’t seem like the kind of person who would have a shred of sympathy for a pregnant lady with a squashed bladder.
The skinny black man was much kinder. In her shorts and lightweight top, she’d been shivering, and he had tossed her a windbreaker to cover herself. If anyone was going to help her, it might be him.
Through the windshield of the chopper, she saw that they were headed west toward the mountains. A vague sense of déjà vu prickled at the edge of her consciousness. There was something she needed to remember. She closed her eyes, waiting for the nascent memory to complete itself.
When she’d been seven years old and kidnapped, she’d felt angry and helpless but not really afraid. Her mother had been with her. As a child, Olivia had believed that her mother was an all-powerful being who could prevent anything terrible from happening to her.
As an adult, she knew better. Her kidnappers were terrorists or mercenaries who couldn’t care less if she lived or died. They were paid killers, and she was deeply frightened of what they might do.
The chopper took a sudden bu
mp. Jostling in her seat, she remembered.
Her eyelids flew open. She’d been in this very helicopter before. The noise of the rotors was a heartbeat that she’d never forget. She stared at a small crack at the edge of the window. She’d seen it before. A metallic smell hit her nostrils.
The last time she’d been in this chopper, there had been another stink. The smell of blood.
She remembered Carol lying on the floor, unconscious with her broken ankle twisted at an unnatural angle. In her hands, Olivia held the limp body of the tiny infant. She’d rubbed at his back, pressed his rib cage, breathed into his mouth.
About to give up, she’d thought she saw movement from his hand. And she’d redoubled her efforts. Nothing she did had the slightest effect, but how could she quit? How could she give up this fight?
In nightmare memory, she saw the red, furious face of the baby’s father. Spit gathered at the corner of his mouth. His eyes were red as fire, and he screamed at her. “You killed him. You killed my son.”
She didn’t defend herself. What was the point of making excuses? The baby was gone, and none of them would ever be the same.
A tear slid down her cheek. She knew exactly what had happened to her. Her kidnapping had nothing to do with Troy’s terrorist cell or her parents’ CIA contacts. She’d been stalked and abducted by Jarvis Rainer. And he would want his revenge.
Chapter Eighteen
At sunset, the skies over the mountains were on fire with streaks of red, yellow and gold. The furious light suited Troy’s attitude. He was angry with himself for leaving Olivia unguarded and vulnerable to the approach of a madman.
He took minor solace in the fact that Jarvis hadn’t harmed her. In the open-line call from her cell phone, she’d said that she hadn’t been hurt. Not yet, anyway. What did Jarvis Rainer want from her?
His brother parked at the curb in front of Carol Rainer’s home in the Cherry Creek district. The stucco two-story was small but elegant with a red tile entryway. A light shone through the front window.
“Nice place,” Alex said. “I didn’t know Carol was rich enough to live in this area.”
