by Desiree Holt
“Love?” Mike snapped a glance at him. “Me?”
“Yes. And this time, don’t be such a jerk about it.”
* * * * *
They had all used the very crude and primitive facilities that passed for a bathroom and cleaned themselves up as best they could with the trickle of water from the one faucet in the sink. But dust and dirt still clung to them and the oppressive heat created little rivulets of perspiration on everyone’s body. Eli had talked quietly with the others, doing his best to keep them calm while he tried to figure out what to do.
Maybe I can talk them into just keeping me and letting the women go.
But his gut told them that suggestion wouldn’t fly. If they wanted money, the more bargaining chips these men had the better.
After debating whether the food was drugged and should be left alone, they decided to go ahead and eat.
“We especially need the water,” Mari pointed out. “Otherwise we’ll get too dehydrated and it will sap our strength.”
“You’re right,” Eli agreed. “We’re going to need that strength and I can’t see any reason why they’d put drugs in our food. They needed to do it before to get us here without any problems. But now we’re here, where can we go?”
“Do you think people are looking for us yet?” Sydney asked, panic curling around the edge of her words.
“Absolutely. When we don’t arrive at Waikiki, or check in with anyone, they’ll be all over this.” He made himself sound as confident as possible.
Eli knew his wife was trying to maintain a calm front for Lissa and Mari and he could do no less. He smiled at her, this woman he loved so much and silently cursed that somehow he’d been the one to put her and the others in such jeopardy. He was sure he was the target. These days anyone with the kind of financial resources he had was fair game and he should have provided better protection for all of them.
The Phoenix Agency had contacted him three or four times about training their security people and he’d kept putting them off. There hadn’t seemed to be any sense of urgency to get it done and before today he’d been satisfied with what his own people could do. But Phoenix had the best reputation in the business. Others who used them said they trained men as if they were going into combat, prepared for absolutely anything.
If they got out of this alive—and he couldn’t allow himself to believe anything else—that would be the first call he made.
“We’ll be fine,” Mari chimed in. “And I can guarantee you, when my sister doesn’t hear from me, she’ll call out everyone but the National Guard.” Her smile too was forced. “Maybe them too.”
“I’m good, Daddy,” Lissa told him. “We’ll get out of this. You can handle anything.”
“Thanks, kiddo.” He pinched the bridge of his nose. “But somehow I have the feeling all of this is my fault.”
“Oh no, Eli,” Sydney said quickly.
“Mr. Wright, that’s ridiculous,” Mari added. “You even had security guards with us.”
“Yeah. Fat lot of good they did. I should have—”
Before he could finish they heard the shifting of the wood outside and the door slammed open. Two of the men who had brought them stood there, now in filthy fatigues with what Eli was sure were AK47s pointing at them. The women scrambled back into a corner and Eli placed himself in front of them.
Here goes nothing.
“Whatever you want,” he said, “take me and let the women go. I can be very valuable to you by myself.”
The man on the left spat on the dirt floor. “You are all valuable.” His eyes moved to each person in turn, then back to Eli, and he gestured threateningly with the gun. “I am Pedro. I am in charge of you.” He swept the gun from side to side. “All of you. You will do exactly as I tell you.” He jerked his head at the man with him. “This is Enrique. He will also be your…friend.”
Eli tried to ignore the cold knot that had settled in his stomach. “And if we don’t? What will you do, shoot us? We’re no good to you dead.”
Pedro lifted his lips in what was a caricature of a smile. “I don’t need to kill you, señor, to make my point. I can hurt you very, very badly. Starting with the women. Is that what you want me to do?”
Sydney stepped forward to stand beside Eli. “What is it you want us to do? Why are we here?”
“You’re going to be television stars,” he told them. “We’re going to make a little video here to send to some people. We want to make sure your friends know we’re taking good care of you. No one pays for damaged goods.” Raising his voice, he yelled, “Come on, asshole. We haven’t got all day.”
In a moment a man in jeans and t-shirt, carrying a video camera and a newspaper, hurried into the hut.
“Hold this so the front page shows. No talking,” he warned.
Eli wanted to punch the man in the nose but he had the women to think of.
So. This was definitely a kidnapping and they were arranging to send a proof of life. Eli had read stories about enough other high-profile, wealthy people who had been taken, held until the money was received and in many cases set free. In some, not. At the moment he had no choice but to go along with whatever was happening. As long as whoever was paying the ransom demanded proof of life, the kidnappers had to keep them alive and in relatively good condition.
Lissa flinched as Pedro tugged at her arm with his less than clean hand, pulling her into place. Sydney and Mari stepped up without being touched. Pedro pushed Eli into the middle and gave him the newspaper.
“Smile for the camera,” he taunted.
Eli could see how pale all the women were, as well as exhausted but he was proud of each of them for holding their heads up high and refusing to let their dignity be taken from them.
The man with the camera took shots of them as a group, then zoomed in on each person individually and finally on the newspaper with the banner showing the date. When he was finished, he nodded at Pedro and walked out.
“There are guards outside,” Pedro informed them. “Your best bet at the moment is to do everything we tell you to. We’ll see how much people think you’re worth.”
He backed out, the other man with him, and slammed the door into place.
“Daddy?” Lissa’s voice was unsteady. “They really aren’t going to kill us, are they?”
Eli pulled her against him, hugging her. “Not if I have anything to do about it.”
“But what can you do?” his wife asked, her own voice slightly shaky.
“My sister will start shaking some trees, if she already hasn’t,” Mari told her. “Believe me. These guys won’t know what hit them.”
But first they have to find us, Eli thought to himself but refrained from saying it out loud.
Everyone was doing their best to hold it together and he didn’t need to shatter their fragile composure by pointing out the obvious. He was a resourceful man, with personal strength that had allowed him to grow Wright International to its present size. He’d have to figure out if any of those skills could get them out of what was a steadily deteriorating situation.
Chapter Six
“Do you have the video?” the man known as Rip asked the person on the other end of the phone. His nerves were fraying and he wanted this damn thing over as soon as possible.
“I’m insulted you even ask,” Nando answered. “We’re getting ready to email it in a minute.”
“This has to be timed just right,” Rip reminded him. “Hit all the key people as simultaneously as possible.”
“Just be sure to play your part,” Nando ordered.
“Get off my back, okay? I have more at stake here than you do.”
“Just making sure there are no slip-ups on your end. You know what you have to do. This has been discussed over and over. The plan is made. Follow it.”
“Yeah, yeah, yeah. Let’s just get this over with.”
Rip snapped the cell phone shut and tossed it onto his desk. Waiting for the two men from the Phoenix Agency hadn’t done a lot for his nerve
s and their conversation was even worse. He just hoped he’d pulled it off. At least he wasn’t the only one they were focusing on. And maybe they’d think him the least likely one, if he was lucky.
Shit!
Never in his life did he think he’d be in bed with a drug dealer cum kidnapper. But a rampant taste for high-priced call girls and any form of gambling had put him financially between a rock and a hard place. Little did he know his habits had been carefully noted and he’d been targeted. Since when did drug dealers become entrepreneurs in the world of crime? Rip thought they just sold drugs and killed people.
At that last thought his stomach cramped. If Eli Wright or any of the people with him were murdered, the police wouldn’t stop looking until they had their answers, no matter who they caught in their net. He could only be invisible for just so long.
Shit!
Once he got out of this he was taking his share and leaving for an isolated island someplace, no matter what.
Picking up his mug of coffee, he went to stand by the huge window facing east, looking at the view below and waiting for the next step in this disaster to take place.
* * * * *
Mike made sure Kat was fully settled in the cabin before heading into the cockpit. She’d been checking her cell phone constantly just in case somehow she’d missed a call from Mari.
“Your phone’s rung several times,” Mike pointed out. “Is it possible some of them were from her and she somehow got cut off?”
Kat shook her head. “I have a special ringtone for her, a favorite song of hers. I’ve just let everyone else’s go to voice mail.”
“Someone’s spending a lot of time trying to reach you.” He tried to make a joke of it but he’d noticed her checking the caller ID, then letting the calls go to voice mail. He couldn’t help wondering who she was trying so hard to avoid.
“No one important,” she told him but her mouth had tightened.
Mike had given Faith a knowing look that said Take good care of her as he made his way up front.
He was very worried about Katherine. The anxiety about her sister was almost making her physically ill. Faith had told him she’d only pretended to eat one of the donuts while he and Mark were out shaking the trees. When he tried to tempt her with some of the snacks he kept on the plane she just shook her head.
“Maybe later,” she said.
He knew she was still worried about the current instability of her psychic gift. She’d tried to see Vivi Alderson again before they left but the woman wasn’t at home. So now, in addition to everything else, the one thing she might be able to contribute to their search was wobbly. And how was he going to help her with that?
His brain told him he should wait until this was all over before telling her how he felt about her. But he had the gut feeling that right now it might be just the thing she needed. If he could get her to believe him.
Tonight, he told himself. He wasn’t waiting one minute longer to make sure this relationship was where it should be.
“I don’t like the brother any more than I did the vice president,” Mark commented once they were in the air. He was riding in the copilot’s seat as he usually did when the two of them flew together.
“Neither do I,” Mike agreed as he piloted the Phoenix plane toward the west coast.
“While you were doing the preflight check I called Andy,” Mark told him. “I gave him Pelley’s name, Post’s and Rand Prescott’s. Andy discovered Prescott is coincidentally in San Antonio on business. That’s why his house is available. He called the man’s office, figuring he’d try the simple method first, but they refuse to tell us where he’s staying. I told him to get into the registration records of every hotel from San Antonio to Austin and get me a location. Then I want him to hack into every piece of electronic equipment he can find that they’re attached to. I especially want to know about cell calls and emails.”
Mike gave a humorless chuckle. “If Uncle Sam knew how easily the Dragon can suck up cell phone calls they’d bury us somewhere deep in their underground facility in Colorado and no one would ever hear from us again.”
“Or else pay us a ton of money and threaten us to keep our mouths shut.”
“Neither is acceptable,” Mike reminded him. “This is our little secret, just like Andy is.”
“Let’s hope our boy genius can work his magic. I have a feeling we don’t have a lot of time.”
“You don’t suppose they’re all involved somehow, do you?” Mike tossed the idea out. “The brother and the vice president? And even somebody else? Like this Rand Prescott, who so conveniently was able to lend his house to the Wrights?”
“Anything is possible, I guess but it seems pretty farfetched.”
“Not any more than some other things we’ve worked on.”
Kat unbuckled her seat belt as soon as they were in the air and leveled off, stretching muscles stiff from accumulated tension. She couldn’t sit still but pacing wasn’t going to do her much good. She smiled her thanks at the cup of coffee Faith handed her.
“I’m not very good company,” she apologized.
She just couldn’t make idle conversation right now. On top of her overwhelming concern for Mari, she had more than two dozen missed calls from Brent Fontaine. She didn’t even want to listen to her voice mail. She was sure everything in the mail box was from him and the last thing she wanted to hear right now was his voice. She’d spend a lifetime regretting her rebound relationship with such a narcissistic egomaniac.
Faith waved a hand dismissively in the air. “Not to worry. You’ve got plenty on your mind.”
Despite everything, Kat was more than curious about this very self-possessed woman who seemed to be taking everything in stride.
“You’ve done this a lot?” she guessed.
“Go on missions with the guys?” Faith chuckled. “Hardly. But I got my baptism by fire when Mark was still with Delta Force, his mission was blown and he was captured by a terrorist arms dealer. The mental connection we have is what saved him.”
“Mike told me about it. How the only messages Mark could get out were telepathic ones to you. And that you were a rampaging tiger fighting the government who wanted to sweep everything under the rug, and getting Phoenix to rescue him.”
“That was enough excitement for me,” Faith grinned. “But then Dan met Mia and we decided with both of us having psychic abilities it might be time to set up a Psi department in the agency.”
Kat sipped at her coffee. “And how is that working out?”
“We’re basically just getting it off the ground,” Faith explained, “trying to figure out how each person’s psychic gift can fit into a given situation. And then of course there’s Kelly, Rick’s wife, and her psychic dog.”
“That I have to see.” Katherine actually laughed, something she hadn’t been doing for the past twenty-four hours.
“I’m between books right now,” Faith went on, “and Mark thought if we got separated doing whatever we had to, our mental communication might be of some help.”
They sat in silence for a while, neither woman wanting to speculate on what they might find when they landed. Finally Kat put her empty mug in the cup holder and stretched again.
“I’m going to try one of your aunt’s exercises now,” she told Faith. “Then I’m going to see if I can do a remote viewing session in the plane.”
Faith lifted an eyebrow. “Don’t you need a dark, quiet place for that?”
“I think I can make it work here if we can dim the lights. The engine hum is actually quite soothing.”
“I’ll get the lights.” Faith walked over to the cabin wall and turned a round button set into the paneling. The lights obediently dimmed almost to nothingness.
Kat sat on the couch, cross-legged, and tried to empty her mind of everything. A tiny smile tilted one corner of her mouth as she realized no matter how much she pushed everything away, Mike D’Antoni’s face hung stubbornly on her mental image screen.
&nb
sp; She was still amazed at how quickly and easily he and Phoenix had stepped into the situation. Especially since things between them were still unresolved.
Changes had happened to him during the past two years. He seemed more settled, less flamboyant. Before he’d been the go-to-hell flyboy willingly taking on every dangerous assignment Phoenix had offered. Not that he didn’t do that now, he just did it with a quiet control she hadn’t seen before.
Or maybe she’d just chosen not to look. When he’d bailed on her, it was easier to label him as a user, an adrenaline junkie, than to try to look behind the wall he always kept around himself.
But this time she hadn’t seen the wall at all. The one that said “Caution”, not knowing which way to jump with her. There was an openness she knew hadn’t been there last time. The sex had been great from the start. No, stupendous. Off the charts. Every joining was spontaneous combustion.
But it hadn’t gone any deeper than that, at least on Mike’s part. So when he’d disappeared, she’d pulled up her socks and tried to wipe him from her mind. The problem was she couldn’t get him out of her heart. And Brent Fontaine had given her more heartburn than relief.
But this time. Ah, this time she saw something that hadn’t been there before. The coincidence of running into him in a strange city had to mean something, didn’t it?
Not now. Get out of my head, Mike. I have important things to do.
And then he was gone and all she saw was a blank space, empty, nothing there.
Concentrate, she told herself, when she felt her muscles relax.
And so with the plane humming along at thirty thousand feet, she placed the sheet of paper with the San Diego coordinates on it in front of her, projected her mind and tried to bring back the scene.
This time the first thing that hit her was glittering sun, blindingly bright as it reflected off the nearby water. A small building sat at its edge, its red canopy reaching out to the curb. But the scene was fractured, like an image on her television screen when bad weather distorted the signal.
She focused harder, shutting everything else out of her mind, and without warning the scene changed. Now she saw a blurry image of a road again, leading nowhere. A piece of a chain link fence intruded itself, then the vague outlines of two figures in an SUV.
