by Desiree Holt
“If you push those eggs around anymore they’re going to jump off the plate,” Mike teased. She knew he was trying to ease her tension.
“I’m sorry.” She set her fork down on the edge of her plate. “I’m just having a hard time waiting.”
“I know, kitten.” He took one of her hands in his and squeezed it. “But I promise you we’ll get this done. Now come on. Eat a little. Then we’re going to put some alternate plans together for when Ed gets here.”
Obediently she picked up her fork, put a tiny bite of egg in her mouth, chewed it and swallowed. It tasted like Styrofoam. “Do you think you should try calling Ron Pelley or that FBI agent again? Maybe they’ve heard something.”
On her other side Mark snorted. “I’m sure they have. And I can also tell you we won’t hear a thing from them until the ransom drop, whatever it is, goes down and they still don’t have the hostages back. Then they’ll be more than happy for us to save their bacon.”
“That’s sure the way things have been turning out the last year or so.” Mike could barely hide the bitterness in his voice.
Kat looked at him, eyebrows raised. “I thought you guys did some contract work for the government, or am I mistaken?”
“Not with the FBI though,” he told her. “They’re very territorial. Extremely so. And when they do end up needing us, you’d think we had shit all over us when they came to meet with us.”
“Forget it,” Faith said. “Turf wars can wait until we get everyone back. Safe and sound.” She reached over and touched Kat’s hand. “We’ll get them back. Don’t worry. These guys can do anything.”
They had room service send up a fresh pot of coffee, which the waiter brought when he came to clear their dishes. They pulled out the printouts of the aerial maps Andy had sent them, spread them on the table and settled down to try to figure out the best plan of attack.
“I wish I could have pinned down the location of where they are a little better,” Kat told them. “Sometimes it works really well but with the problems I’ve had lately, even with Brent out of the picture…”
“Quit it,” Mike said, lifting her hand and placing a kiss on her knuckle. “You’re doing great. You need to keep your mind clear so you can focus when we get more information to give you.”
“When you get a better location on Victor Herrera’s estate, or acreage or whatever it is, I can use those coordinates and pictures to give you a better look at what’s on the ground. Maybe see how many guards there are and exactly where on the grounds they’re being held. And don’t forget about the dog.”
“Thanks for reminding us. We’ll be counting on you for details, Kat.” Mark spread out the aerial photos. “And you can help us in the flyover too.”
She wrinkled her forehead. “How can I do that?”
“We’re going to get one chance to eyeball this. Mike and Ed will be doing their thing in the cockpit and I’ll be running a camera to capture everything we pass over. But we’ll need you and Faith to act as spotters.”
She felt a little better at having a useful role to play. “I can do that.”
“Good, good.” He cleared his throat. “Now. Let’s figure out what we need to take with us in our flyover. I emailed Ed a list of what to bring. Anything else we’ve already got in the plane.”
* * * * *
The hostages knew it was morning by the weak light filtering in through the high slit of a window. Eli climbed stiffly to his feet, gingerly working the kinks from his muscles. It had taken a long time but they’d finally stanched the bleeding from his nose and he’d satisfied himself that it wasn’t actually broken. He might have difficulty breathing for a while but at least it was intact.
Lissa had just stirred, lifting her head from Sydney’s lap, and Mari was just coming out of the terrible excuse for a bathroom. He couldn’t believe how uncomplaining everyone was. He knew his wife had great inner strength but he was so proud of the way she was handling things. He had a new level of respect for both her and their daughter.
And Mari. Ignoring her own injuries, she’d maintained a calm presence, never letting the others see how rattled she might be or what pain she might be in. She’d soothed Lissa when Sydney had retreated to the bathroom to pull herself together and worked hard to keep everyone’s spirits up, despite the pain he knew she was suffering.
He’d used part of the time, sitting against the wall in the hot, humid dark, to try to figure out who in hell had fingered them. Who could have hooked up with their kidnappers—and he knew with a sure certainty now it was at least one of the drug cartels—and planned this. Who needed money so badly. Or hated them so much. Or both.
His problem was the first people who came to mind he instinctively wanted to reject out of hand. He didn’t want to think that someone he was close to, did business with, would be involved in something like this.
The wood bar slammed outside, the door opened and Pedro entered. Enrique followed him, carrying a tray with bottled water and the by now dreaded tortillas. He set the tray down against one of the walls, then stood back, arms folded across his chest.
Eli had an urge to pick up the tray and throw it at him, but clenched his fists to keep from making a rash move. By now he’d kill for a steak and they all would have sold their souls for some halfway decent coffee. Even Lissa, who was being so brave and good he was enormously proud of her, said she’d be willing to beg for chocolate. But they said nothing, just waited for the two men to leave.
Pedro raked his gaze over each of them, the malicious smile they’d come to expect twisting his lips.
“Today may be a good day for you,” he said at last. “If everything goes according to plan, that is.”
Eli felt a thread of hope wiggle through him. Was the ransom going to be paid? Would they actually be released?
“What, nothing today?” Pedro prodded. “You should hope all the arrangements go through as planned. Otherwise,” he eyed Lissa, “I may have to find some other way to provide satisfaction to El Jefe.”
Eli reached for his daughter and pushed her behind him. “Leave her alone.”
“Or what?” Pedro laughed. “You aren’t in very much of a position to object to anything, Señor Wright. You should just pray your friends come through for you.”
“Who exactly is El Jefe?” Eli asked. “And why can’t we meet him? If he’s responsible for this, why can’t I look him in the eye and asked how this happened?”
“He has us to take care of things for him,” Pedro snapped. “He does not get personally involved in activities.”
“I want to see him,” Eli pursued stubbornly.
“Eli,” Sydney cautioned but he ignored her. He’d had enough. He wanted to meet his captor face-to-face.
But Pedro, instead of answering him, reversed his rifle and jabbed it into Eli’s stomach. He doubled over from the pain, fighting the nausea that threatened to erupt from his mouth. He knew it wasn’t smart to keep antagonizing these men but he couldn’t stand to let himself be bullied. Besides, he hoped if he took the brunt of the abuse they’d leave the women alone.
“We are done here,” Pedro told him. “That’s answer enough for you.”
He nodded to Enrique and the two men backed out of the door. Then the wooden bar slammed back into place again.
* * * * *
Anthony Delaware sat in silence while Ron Pelley signed the receipt for delivery of the bearer bonds. The messenger from the investment house tore off a copy and gave it to him, nodded and left as quietly as he’d come. Pelley ripped open the thick delivery envelope, slid the bonds out onto his desk and counted them very carefully.
“Is it all there?” the agent asked.
Pelley nodded. “All in order. I had my investment banker sign them so there was a neutral signature.”
“Ten million dollars doesn’t make as big a stack as I thought it would.”
Pelley grimaced. “The kidnapper wanted the bonds in large denominations. Doesn’t take up so much room that way.�
�� He looked up at Delaware. “I don’t suppose you’ve had any luck finding out who this is, have you?”
The agent swallowed a bitter taste in his mouth. “I wish. Whoever this is, he’s obviously done it before and often enough to know how to get around all our technological tricks. And no one on the streets is giving anything up. Believe me, we’ve hit all of our contacts.”
He’d had calls coming in all throughout the previous day and into the evening. Every agent had pulled in their snitches and pressed them for information. All with the same results. Nada.
“The problem,” his boss had told him when he called for some added muscle, “is there are so many kidnappings going on all the time it’s hard to sort out one from the other. Last year there were more than four hundred. That exceeds one a day.”
The news depressed Delaware even more. He’d also come to the realization that even if they knew something, people were too scared to talk.
“When they’re more afraid of someone else than the big, bad FBI,” Anthony said before ending his phone call, “you can be pretty damn sure we’re dealing with a cartel. They invented the word vicious.”
He realized Ron Pelley was saying something to him and jerked himself out of his mental wanderings.
“I’m sorry. What did you say?”
“I said,” Pelley repeated, irritation in every word, “that I don’t like the idea of just turning this ransom over without some kind of guarantee. You don’t even know where the bonds will be going.”
“We’re not that stupid, Mr. Pelley. We have a plan in place.”
He nodded to the tech who’d arrived back early that morning. The man stepped up next to the desk, took the stack of bonds, riffled through them and pulled one partway out. From his pocket he took a thin plastic envelope and a pair of latex gloves. Snapping on the gloves, he removed a tiny wafer-thin snippet of paper from the envelope and attached it to the underside of one corner of the bond he’d selected.
“What’s that?” Pelley asked.
“A brand new type of GPS tracker. Developed especially for Homeland Security but they’re letting us give it a test drive. If they run any scanners over it, they won’t find anything because the frequency is so different.”
“And if they do?” Pelley demanded. “They could kill the hostages without a second thought.”
Delaware stared at him, expressionless. “We know what we’re doing, Mr. Pelley. You just do your thing and we’ll do ours.”
* * * * *
They were still pouring over the aerial shots Andy had sent them when Mark’s cell phone chirped, he checked the caller ID and he flipped it open.
“Okay, Andy. Go. Uh-huh. Uh-huh. Okay, wait.” He pulled his laptop around, clicked on the email icon and a multi-page document opened up. “Okay. Got it. Thanks. And keep digging.”
Three pairs of eyes stared at him as he disconnected the call.
“Give,” Mike said.
“Andy’s got us a little more information on the three stooges.” They’d left the little printer hooked up in Mike and Kat’s suite, so all Mark had to do was click on the print icon and wait for the pages to spit out. He began handing them around as he pulled them out of the tray.
“Holy crap,” Mike said, scanning the first two pages in his hand. “Ryan Post seems to have gotten himself in a little over his head expanding his spas. He’d already gone through most of his trust fund and tried some quick schemes to get it back.”
“He certainly had some…um…exotic ideas,” Kat commented, reading over Mike’s shoulder. “How does anyone go through a million dollars in that little time?”
“By having his brains in his ass instead of his head,” Mark snorted. “And trying to outdo his very much smarter brother-in-law.”
“So are you saying he borrowed from the wrong people?” Faith wanted to know.
“Looks like it,” Mark told her. “Unfortunately Andy’s still trying to follow the money trail. The paper’s changed hands more times than a deck of cards. If it leads us back to Victor Herrera, we’ve got our answer.”
“Or,” Mike said, scanning the next couple of pages, “it could be Ron Pelley, whose personal net worth has taken a tumble with the economy. He’s been taking some high flyers in some pretty unorthodox ways to recoup his losses and keeping things hidden from Eli Wright. He also has an ex-wife who he pays hefty alimony to who isn’t the kind to be sympathetic to circumstances.”
“Let me see that.” Mark grabbed the sheet out of her hand. “Hmm. You know someone like him, if he found himself under the hammer of the wrong people, could be ripe to approach for a stunt like this. He could even have been pressured to use one of Wright’s companies to move drugs into the country.”
“I don’t like the sound of that. Andy better dig deeper into this.” Mike was reading over his shoulder. “Uh-oh. Look here.” He pointed to part of the report. “This could be an indication he’s trying to fix the problem by diverting Wright International funds into private offshore accounts. A piece of the ransom would get him healthy again in a hurry.”
“And what’s behind door number three?” Kat asked. “The mysterious Rand Prescott?”
“Not so mysterious,” Mike answered, looking at the last batch of sheets from the printer. “Started as an oil wildcatter, then began shuffling and flipping oil leases, expanded into real estate development and is now building in the Middle East and South America as well as the States.”
“How about Mexico?”
“Not that it shows up. But his last two megaprojects were contracted in partnership with Wright. Andy’s chasing the details to see if there’s some money business there. On paper, Prescott looks fine but words and numbers can easily be made to lie. If he’s in trouble, his share of the ransom could fix him up just fine and cover up anything funny he’s been doing with the partnership funds.”
“Well.” Kat leaned back in her chair and blew out a breath. “Before we weren’t sure if any of these men were involved. Now it seems we have no shortage of suspects. Just great.”
Just then the bell on the laptop dinged to announce an incoming email. Mark clicked on the icon to open it and the latest message from the kidnappers rolled across the screen.
“They’ve made no arrangements to turn over the hostages,” Mike pointed out. “I can’t believe the FBI would go for that.”
“They’re working in a delicate political situation here,” Faith pointed out. “I think they’re just hoping a miracle will happen and the hostages will show up on their doorstep.”
“Idiot,” Mike spat. “This is worse than I thought. There’s no mention of an exchange or anything.” He raked his fingers through his hair. “I just wish—”
“Wishing doesn’t cut it,” Mark said. “They’ll play games with the FBI as long as they can, just for kicks. You know it will be up to us to get them out, no matter what.”
Mark looked at his watch. “Okay. I’m going to touch base with Andy again. We should be hearing from Ed any time now. He said about eleven and it’s almost noon.”
As if on cue, his cell phone rang and he flipped it open. “Yeah? About time. What? Okay, okay. We’re on our way.”
“Something wrong?” Faith asked.
Mark shrugged. “I hope not. That was Ed. He’s at the airport and he says he’s got a surprise for us.”
“A surprise?” Mike lifted his eyebrows. “It better be a damn good one under the circumstances.”
“Well, let’s get going and find out.”
They gathered everything up and were out the door in five minutes.
* * * * *
The email arrived promptly at ten o’clock Central Time in Ron Pelley’s office.
“They want me to go sit in front of the Alamo with ten million dollars worth of bearer bonds like it’s scrap paper and just wait for someone to come along?” Pelley was incredulous.
“I don’t like it much myself,” Delaware said. “But don’t worry. We’ll have agents all over the place and don
’t forget the little surprise buried in the box.”
“This says to be there at twelve thirty and someone will get the package from me. Why do they keep dragging this out?”
“I told you,” Delaware said. “Creates more tension. Makes you dance to their tune. I hate these bastards. They think they’ve got all the cards.”
“Yeah? Well, right now they do.” Pelley rubbed his face with his hands. “Shouldn’t I call the others? Let them know I got the money together? That things are moving along? What time the pickup is?”
“And if they ask you about the hostages, what are you going to tell them? Let’s just wait until we see what happens. We still don’t know if either of them is involved.”
“And what about the people from Phoenix? We haven’t heard from them and that worries me. Doesn’t Katherine want to know what’s happening with her sister?”
Delaware slammed his fist onto the top of the desk. “I’m praying they keep their noses out of this and wait to hear from us but my gut tells us they may be ten steps ahead of us on this.”
“Maybe if we’d kept them in the loop—” Pelley began.
“You don’t keep Phoenix in the loop,” Delaware spat. “You bring them in and they take over. Katherine Culhane wants to know if we’re going to get her sister back and I can’t contact her because the people she’s with are…are…”
“Dangerous?” A funny smile twisted Pelley’s lips.
“Let’s get moving on this,” Delaware said, shoving the bonds into the padded envelope Pelley would carry them in.
“Give me a minute,” Pelley said, heading for the men’s room.
* * * * *
“I think it would have been appropriate for Ron Pelley to touch base with us after this latest email,” Rand Prescott said to Agent Hopewell. “I’m shocked that he hasn’t.”
“I spoke to Special Agent Delaware,” the agent told him. “He’s trying to keep everything contained as much as possible. This whole ransom thing is going to be tricky enough as it is.”
