The wheels touching down on the runway jolted her out of a semisleep. She looked out the window. Dark still, but the sun had just begun to lighten the eastern sky. An unbroken line of mountains stood in jagged silhouette beyond a sprawling city. A glance through the window on Ben’s side showed more dark peaks. They’d just landed in a wide, flat valley between two mountain ranges. It didn’t look like Texas to her.
“Where are we?” she asked Ben.
One of the men behind them broke his hours-long silence. “Salt Lake City.”
Nikki and Ben exchanged a glance.
“I thought we were going to Texas,” she said.
“Change of plans.” No explanation, just that abrupt answer.
Why? She wanted to scream at them, but one backward look at their stony faces told her it would do no good. Tendrils of panic reached for her, tried to draw her emotions back into a frenzy, but she gritted her teeth and pushed them away. She had to stay clearheaded for Joshua.
The jet reached the end of the runway, turned and taxied back in the direction they came. Snow, piled in tall mounds, lined the runway. Off to one side stood a small building, much smaller than she expected.
Ben ducked his head and looked through the window on her side of the plane. “We must be at a private airstrip. This place isn’t nearly big enough to be Salt Lake’s main airport.”
Nikki glanced backward for verification, and one of the men nodded.
As the jet approached the building, Nikki caught sight of another small aircraft parked on the tarmac. Not far from it, a limousine awaited.
She faced Ben and twisted her lips. “I think our ride’s here.”
The jet rolled to a stop next to the other one. The engines had not powered down all the way before one of the silent men left his seat, opened the door and dropped a narrow set of stairs to the ground. Nikki and Ben navigated the stairs before the second man could get his seat belt unbuckled. Nikki’s breath formed visible puffs in front of her face, and she shivered in the frigid cold. Their donated Mexican clothing was totally inappropriate for a chilly morning in Utah. Beside her, Ben folded his bare arms and rubbed his hands along them.
The door to the limousine opened. A man in a dark suit and blindingly white shirt emerged. He strode toward them, his expression inscrutable.
“Mr. Dearinger. Ms. Hoffman.” He dipped his head to each of them as he addressed them. “My name is Paul Bentley. I’m Senator Webb’s aide. I trust your flight was satisfactory.”
Nikki wanted to fly at him, to slap the indifference off his face and demand to see her son. Ben must have sensed her reaction, because he stepped close to her, as though ready to hold her back if she tried.
“It was extremely uninformative,” he replied, his voice heavy with sarcasm. “I hope those two goons back there don’t ever try to get jobs as tour guides. They’d be lousy at it.”
How he sounded so calm, Nikki couldn’t imagine. When she looked at him, his eye twitched closed in a private wink that lessened the tense nerves knotting her insides.
He’s right. We won’t get anywhere with these people by making demands.
Mr. Stone Face didn’t blink. “If you’ll please come with me, the senator is waiting for you.” He gestured toward the limo.
Nikki conquered her first instinct, which was to run to the car, fling open the door and jerk the senator out by the scruff of his neck. She forced herself to match Ben’s sedate pace. The windows had been tinted black, rendering the interior invisible. When they arrived, the impeccably dressed man opened the door and gestured for them to enter. Nikki ducked inside first.
A dim, yellow glow lit the interior. Warmth engulfed her even as soft brown leather caressed her bare legs when she slid across to make room for Ben. She sank into the plush seat and looked around with wide eyes.
Crystal gleamed from a bar to her right, a flat-screen monitor embedded in the panel above it. Luxurious, high-backed bench seats curved in two semi circles facing each other. In the center space, folded sections of a newspaper lay atop a highly polished cherry tabletop. And across from her, one leg resting casually across the other as though he conducted meetings like this every day of his life, a familiar face studied her through slightly narrowed eyelids.
Senator Adam Webb.
Unlike Mr. Bentley, the senator was dressed casually in tan slacks. A cream-colored turtleneck protruded from the collar of a striped wool sweater. He uncrossed his legs and reached for a carafe on the bar. When he poured the dark steaming liquid into a china cup, the pungent odor of coffee flooded the limo. He picked up the cup, extended it toward her and asked, “Do you take cream and sugar, my dear?”
Numb, Nikki shook her head. He set the cup on the table between them and gently scooted it across the surface to her side.
When Ben was in the seat beside her, the expressionless aide stepped inside the limo, closed the door behind him, and sat in the corner facing them. He folded his hands in his lap and looked at the senator.
Senator Webb filled a second cup with coffee and placed it in front of Ben. Wisps of fragrant steam rose from both cups. “Cream and sugar, Mr. Dearinger?”
Ben’s eyes narrowed to slits. “Keep your coffee. Just give me my son back.”
The senator’s eyebrows arched. “That’s why we’re here.”
Tears filled Nikki’s eyes. How could this…this kidnapper be so calm, so cold? She blinked, and the tears spilled over to run down her cheeks.
“Please, Senator. I’ll do whatever you ask, I promise. Just don’t hurt Joshua. He’s only a baby. Please don’t hurt him.”
The expressive dark eyebrows drew together, separated by a deep crease. “I think there’s been a misunderstanding.” His glance slid sideways at his well-dressed assistant and then back to her. “You think I have your son?”
Nikki blinked. “You don’t?”
Beside her, Ben leaned forward with a menacing glare. “I saw the list, Webb. I know what you’ve been up to. Don’t mess with us.”
“That again.” The senator heaved a loud sigh. “That information has caused more trouble than you can possibly know.” He looked from Ben to Nikki, realization dawning on his face. “You think it’s real, don’t you? You believe I’m being paid off by the Reynosa drug cartel.”
Nikki studied him. He looked completely transparent and a little offended. She glanced at Ben, suddenly uncertain. Had Ben been mistaken in what he saw in that computer file?
Ben retreated slowly into the soft rear cushion, his gaze locked on Senator Webb, the confident cockiness gone from his expression. “You mean, it was a fake?”
“Of course it was a fake.” The senator leaned forward, arms on his knees. “My entire political career has been devoted to stopping transcontinental criminal organizations like Reynosa. I’m an enthusiastic supporter of the Mérida Initiative, which provides practical tools to crack down on the appalling violence, the illegal weapons that flow from the U.S. into Mexico and the drugs that come across our southern border.”
An image flashed into Nikki’s mind—the men on the boat in Cozumel with wicked-looking guns clutched in their hands. Were they weapons from illegal arms dealers in the United States?
Ben shook his head. “So you’re not on the Reynosa payroll?”
The senator straightened and held Ben’s gaze. “I am not, nor have I ever been. I give you my word.”
Nikki closed her eyes and tried to clear her thoughts. “Then do you know who has my son?”
“Oh, yes.” Webb’s smile was grim. “Not only that, I know where he’s being held.”
His assistant cleared his throat. “Senator, we should get going.”
The senator nodded. “Of course. I’ll explain on the way.” He pressed a button in a console at his side. “We’re ready, James.”
A disembodied voice sounded from a speaker above Nikki’s head. “Yes, sir.”
“Where are we going?” Nikki asked.
Senator Webb smiled. “We’re going to get y
our son back.”
When the limo started to roll forward, the coffee in the cup in front of her sloshed. Nikki picked it up and gulped down the scalding liquid. Maybe the caffeine would still the whirling in her head. She wanted desperately to believe the man. He seemed sincere, especially when he spoke of stopping the drug cartels. And besides, he was a powerful senator. If she and Ben were going to get Joshua back safely, they needed all the help they could get.
TWENTY
Ben studied the senator through narrowed eyes. The senator’s claim of innocence had the ring of truth. But Ben just couldn’t believe the computer file that had caused him so much trouble over the past five months was a fake. He wasn’t sure he did believe it. There were too many questions still unanswered. And topping the list was the most important.
“So if you’re not responsible for kidnapping Joshua, who is?” he asked.
“This woman.”
He nodded toward his assistant, who extracted a piece of paper from a briefcase at his feet and handed it to Ben.
A color snapshot depicted a woman in a long coat holding a child in her arms, a bulky overnight bag slung over her shoulder. The picture had been snapped as she exited an airport security checkpoint. Ben looked closely at the child. The photo was fuzzy, the features not quite clear but still discernable. Dark, curly hair, just like his. A slender face, like Nikki’s, but the shape of the eyes, the nose, the chin—they were his in miniature. It was like looking at a baby picture of himself. His heart turned a crazy somersault.
My son. This is my son.
Nikki took the photo from his hands, tears streaming down her face. She looked at it and held it to her chest. “It’s Allison, but she’s wearing a blond wig.”
“Her name is Alicia Strickland,” the senator said.
Looking dazed, Nikki examined the photo again. “I don’t understand. Isn’t her name Allison Scott?”
The senator shook his head. “That’s the name she assumed a little over four months ago, when she moved from Little Rock to Portland and took a job with the company where you work.”
Ben couldn’t believe his ears. The way Nikki talked about this woman, he’d assumed they had been friends for years. He turned a disbelieving stare her way. “You’ve only known her four months, and you didn’t suspect anything when she gave you a time-share for a week?”
Nikki’s face emptied of color. “She was new to town. Lonely. She didn’t know anybody, and we hit it off immediately. She was just so…so nice.”
Her stricken expression set off an ache inside Ben’s chest. The guilt she must be feeling had to be agonizing. And here he was, being a jerk, trying to make her feel worse. He slid sideways to slip an arm around her and pull her close. “It’s okay. She was working you, that’s all. It wasn’t your fault. Women make friends quicker than men.”
“Mr. Dearinger’s right.” Senator Webb affirmed Ben’s words with a nod. “The man who sent her there was counting on the fact that you’d befriend her. He’d discovered Mr. Dearinger’s role in the disappearance of that computer file through his spy inside the Reynosa organization, and a little background work led him to you, my dear.”
The hair on Ben’s arm stood at attention. These people had discovered things about him that he didn’t even know himself. Kind of creepy to know someone had investigated his background so thoroughly.
“If she doesn’t work for you, then who sent her?” He watched Senator Webb closely, looking for any sign of deception as he answered.
A grim smile deepened the lines at the edges of the senator’s mouth. “Have you ever heard of Robert Harlow?”
The name sounded familiar, but Ben couldn’t place it. “Maybe.”
“He’s a politician, isn’t he?” Nikki asked.
“That’s right. He’s a senator from Arkansas, and one of the front-runners to become our party’s candidate in the next presidential election.”
The connection dawned on Ben. “So are you. He’s your competition.”
The senator dipped his head, acknowledging the fact. “About eight months ago, certain members of my staff received word of a scheme to discredit me by leaking a false report to the press that I’m on the Reynosa cartel’s payroll. The so-called proof was a chart that supposedly listed deposits into an untraceable bank account in Switzerland.”
“The Cayman Islands,” Ben corrected.
“Ah. That makes more sense, just for accessibility reasons.” Senator Webb nodded at his aide, then continued. “It didn’t take my people long to discover the existence of the data and the source. Harlow. His spy within the Reynosa organization was supposed to deliver a flash drive documenting the fake deposits to the news media in Mexico. Of course, news like that would immediately be relayed to media in the U.S. and plunge me into an instant scandal. Even when I was eventually cleared—and I would be—the damage would be done, my reputation tarnished.”
“Wait a minute.” The pieces were beginning to make sense to Ben. “Harlow’s spy was Sergio Rueda.”
“He was one of them, a minor player in the Reynosa cartel who thought he could make some money on the side. Unfortunately, the Reynosa people didn’t take kindly to one of their own double-crossing them, or to an outsider like Harlow using them for his own purposes. They found out about the computer file, and Mr. Rueda was killed. But they failed to recover the flash drive.” Webb stared at Ben. “Instead, you did.”
“You said he was one of the spies inside the cartel.” Nikki leaned forward, her expression intent. “There are others?”
“Of course. You know the saying. There is no honor among thieves. Many people in that organization think nothing of taking money in return for small, um, favors. The person who gave the file to Mr. Rueda also worked for Reynosa and was also on the take from Harlow. When the Reynosa cartel discovered his identity, they killed him, as well. News of his death in Mexico City was lost in the midst of the dozens of violent crimes that are perpetrated there every day.” Webb glanced at his assistant. “Even I have an informant inside the cartel.”
“You?” Ben asked. “Isn’t that kind of unethical?”
The senator shifted in his seat, uncomfortable. “I’ve wrestled with that question. But you’ve got to understand. Information is power. The more you have, the more effective your decisions will be. If I know what’s going on inside the Reynosa cartel, I can be more effective in my fight against them.” He straightened. “In this case, my informant alerted me to the existence of that data file, and, as we followed the trail, it led to you.”
Nikki glared at him. “So those two Reynosa thugs who assaulted us in Key West and again in Cozumel also worked for you?”
Bentley, the senator’s aide, pulled another snapshot out of his briefcase. “Do you mean these men?”
Ben examined the photo the man handed him. Señor Mouth and the goon who strong-armed Nikki stood in front of a souvenir shop Ben recognized from Key West. He nodded and handed the photo to Nikki. “Yeah, that’s them. They’re your spies in the Reynosa cartel?”
“No, certainly not.” Webb’s denial was vehement. “Nor do they have any connection to the Reynosa organization. They work for Harlow, who apparently has realized his mistake in upsetting one of the most murderous criminal organizations in the world. He hired those two men to recover the lost flash drive.”
Nikki looked at Ben. “And we thought they were Reynosa.”
“I’ll bet the ones on the boat in Cozumel were the real Reynosa,” Ben said.
“Boat?” The senator looked from Ben to Nikki.
Either the man was a terrific actor, which was possible, or he really was telling the truth. He held their eyes without wavering. Ben’s suspicions slipped a notch or two.
Ben filled him in on the incident in Cozumel, then nodded toward the photo. “Even if those two goons in Key West weren’t from the Reynosa cartel, I’m guessing the men on the boat were. They were carrying assault rifles.” He shook his head. “I don’t understand one thing, though. Why
did Reynosa want that computer file back so badly if it was a fake? I mean, if your reputation is ruined, surely that would be good for them since you’re such a thorn in their sides.”
Webb’s shoulders jerked in a humorless laugh. “Because the information about me was fabricated, but the rest of it wasn’t. Harlow’s spy in Mexico City stole a real file and touched it up to implicate me. A smart move, actually. The real information would lend authenticity to the charges against me.” He fell silent a moment, his gaze distant as he considered. “What I don’t understand is why Alicia Strickland took your son last night. If the Reynosa men on that boat recovered the file, that would take you out of the equation. And you told Harlow’s men that you gave the file to Reynosa, so he certainly knows it.”
Nikki covered her mouth with both hands, her eyes wide. “I know why. Because I told Allison—I mean Alicia—that Ben has a copy.” Her hands dropped like lead into her lap. “It’s my fault.”
The senator’s gaze slid sideways to lock on Ben. “Is it true? Do you have a copy of the computer file?”
Ben returned the senator’s stare while a silent battle raged in his mind. Could they trust this guy? Sure, he looked honest, but that might be a ruse. After all, he was a politician. This convoluted story could all be a load of garbage, meant to convince them of his innocence just so Ben would turn over the only proof he had. The only leverage he had to negotiate the return of his son.
Into the Deep Page 14
