by Неизвестный
Hope disintegrated.
* * *
TWENTY-ONE
AS SOON AS THEY WERE AIRBORNE, Jack offered to fly. Dillon was surprised when Kate relinquished the controls and sat in the back. She took out her laptop and booted it up.
Dillon glanced at his brother. “Thanks, Jack.”
“Thank me when we rescue Lucy. Do you have an update on Patrick?”
“Same.”
“Shit,” Kate said from the rear of the Cessna.
Dillon got out of his seat and, hunched over, carefully made his way to the seat next to Kate. “What?”
“You don’t want to see this.”
“I have to.”
She turned her laptop to face him.
Dillon stared at the screen, his heart pounding as his fists opened and closed.
He wanted to punch something. Someone. The bastard who was raping Lucy. He would kill him, so help him God. He would kill him with his bare hands.
But the rape was almost not as bad as the poll in the corner of the screen.
Vote Now!
How should Lucy “die”?
o Stabbing
o Strangulation
o Suffocation
The time stamp was 16:54:00. They had less than seventeen hours to rescue Lucy and they were still four hours out of Washington.
“Don’t watch,” Kate said, turning the laptop back to her. Her fingers typed quickly, Lucy’s screen was minimized, and five minutes later she’d shut down her laptop. “There’s been no further communication from Trask or the undercover agent, Mick Mallory.”
“He’s letting this happen.”
“If he exposed himself, he’d be dead,” Kate reminded him.
“I don’t care.” Dillon stared out the window but didn’t see the desert or the bright morning sun. “The FBI doesn’t even know where Mallory is. They don’t know if he’s dead or alive.”
“We know he was alive last night.”
“That doesn’t make me feel any better. He’s done nothing to help Lucy, and now—” He didn’t state the obvious. Now Lucy was being raped again, and with each passing minute, her death drew closer.
“This might not make you feel better, Dillon, but for what it’s worth, this is the first time in five years that I think we’re going to stop Trask.”
“Before or after he kills Lucy?”
Jack became tense as they approached the landing strip. He’d kept the controls after leaving Red Rock so Kate could get some sleep, but Dillon knew she hadn’t slept a wink. She’d stared out the window the entire flight, checking her laptop every thirty minutes. Thinking? Planning? Regretting? Dillon wished he could find a way to talk to her, get her to share what was really troubling her. But he had Lucy on his mind, and he wouldn’t be able to think until his sister was safe.
“What’s wrong?” Dillon asked Jack.
Jack looked at him, surprised. “Nothing.”
“You’re worried about something.”
For a minute, he didn’t say anything. Then, low, “It’s funny. We have barely spoken in twenty years and you can already read me. Because you’re a shrink?”
Dillon shook his head. “Because I’m your brother.”
Jack glanced at Kate, who appeared to be sleeping.
“I’m just running through the op. Adam Scott wants Kate on the mountain at two p.m. A little less than two hours from now. We’re going to land in fifteen minutes. I have transport, but it’ll be cutting it close. Still, I don’t know what his game is. Why call her out to the mountain in the first place when his headquarters is eighty miles away?”
“If we can believe the second transmission.”
“Kate does, otherwise she wouldn’t go to the island. She’d come with me to Mount Baker.”
Dillon nodded, weighed the information. “He doesn’t know about the undercover agent, or that the agent contacted Kate. He doesn’t know about Lucy signing to us that she’s on an island. So he’s leading Kate away from Lucy in order to isolate her, to make sure she didn’t bring anyone. That she’s alone. Then he’ll either kill her there, or bring her to the island once he believes she’s alone.”
“And when she doesn’t show?”
“He’ll attempt to contact her to see if she was delayed.”
“He isn’t going to be on the mountain alone,” Jack said. “That would be stupid.”
Dillon shook his head. “No, he’s holding the ace: Lucy. If Adam Scott is on the mountain, Lucy will be nowhere near it. He’ll be in communication with his team. He’ll call for her death in a minute if he thinks it’ll buy him time or allow him to escape.”
“I’ll identify him, follow him. He’ll be pissed because Kate didn’t show, but he’ll also be expecting a tail.”
“Expect the unexpected,” Dillon said. “He’s not going to be alone. He has a trick, something that he will use to get to Kate. To force her to come with him. He could have another woman. Or I could be completely wrong and he will bring Lucy with him.”
“I always expect the unexpected,” Jack said.
“Lucy’s not with Trask,” Kate said.
Dillon glanced over his shoulder. She was staring at her laptop. “She’s still onscreen.”
Abigail was surprised when Vigo met her at the airport at two Eastern time.
“Surprise,” Vigo said and flashed his award-winning grin.
Abigail refrained from grinning back. The man was incorrigible. “What are you doing here?” She slid into the passenger seat, grabbing the dashboard when Vigo pulled quickly from his parking place.
“Peterson asked me to run Ullman’s finances and clients. Surprise, one client is Adam Scott. Double surprise, Ullman is the stockbroker for all the corporations on which Adam Scott sits on the board. And for a triple play, Ullman carries his proxy.”
“So he definitely knows something.”
“I’d say he knows everything. We may need to bring him in. Consider him armed and dangerous.”
“So why did you come up yourself?” Abigail asked.
“Peterson wants the best on this case and, well, that’s me.” He smiled again and Abigail laughed.
At Ullman’s Madison Avenue highrise, Vigo and Abigail flashed their badges and security cleared their weapons. “Let’s get up there before one of Ullman’s friends calls that we’re here.”
Paul Ullman had a spacious contemporary office with white carpets and black-and-silver furniture, against the backdrop of the Manhattan skyline. Abigail winced at the shine, polish, and prestige. “Phony.”
Ullman himself was a short, wiry man of thirty-seven with black, slicked-back hair and dressed in an impeccably tailored Italian suit. He walked into his office via a side door, immediately clasped the hands of Vigo, then Abigail. “So sorry to keep you waiting,” he said, then, all in one breath, “I was in a meeting, couldn’t get out, I hope you don’t mind.”
“We haven’t been here long,” Abigail said.
“Good, good, please sit down.” He motioned toward a black leather couch in the corner. “Please.” He sat on the arm of the chair across from the couch. When neither agent sat, he stood, his hands shoved in his pockets, rocking back and forth on the balls of his feet. “What can I help you with?”
“You’re Adam Scott’s stockbroker and carry his proxy for all his boards, correct?” Abigail said, cutting immediately to the heart of the matter.
Ullman blinked rapidly several times. “Scott? Um, I’d have to check—”
“You went to school with him, I’m sure you remember him.”
“Of course, but I—”
“When was the last time you saw Mr. Scott?”
“I don’t know. Years. We do business only through e-mail and correspondence.”
“When was the last time you corresponded with him?”
“Um, I don’t know.”
“Do you know what the penalties are for laundering money?”
“Laundering?” Ullman paled even more, if that were possibl
e against his already ghostly pallor. “No, I’m a legitimate businessman, I don’t do that. You can check my records.”
Vigo spoke up for the first time. “We will, thank you very much.”
“I, um, my company. My lawyers. I would need to see a warrant.”
Vigo frowned, started searching his pockets, pulled out an envelope. “You mean like this?”
Ullman snatched the papers, read them, his mouth working but no sound coming out. “I, I…I need to get my attorney.”
“Do you remember Trevor Conrad?”
“I’m not talking to you without my attorney.”
Vigo put his hands up. “That’s your right, of course. Just don’t leave the room while you call him. And while you’re at it, Special Agent Resnick will take a little look at your computer. It’s covered there, in the warrant. Page two.”
Trask listened to his attorney.
Not good. For five years they hadn’t been able to trace him, and now all of a sudden the feds knew about Trevor Conrad.
Worse, they knew his real name. And that fucking bastard Paul Ullman was going to talk.
He shouldn’t have used Trevor’s name with Lucy. It had been arrogant, cocky. He could see that now, but at the time it had been fun. Part of the game.
He would adapt. He always did.
“Kill him.”
“The feds are with him now.”
“I don’t care. Find a way. You always find a way.”
He slammed his phone shut.
In fifteen more minutes Kate would be here. She’d better show. He was in no mood for any bullshit.
At least Ullman knew nothing of importance. Except the truth about Trevor’s death, but even he wasn’t stupid enough to talk about that.
Trask opened his computer and hacked into Ullman’s accounts. He needed to save most of his money before the feds cut him off. He’d lost millions of dollars a few years ago when they’d uncovered one of his accounts. But they’d never made the Ullman connection before.
This was definitely going to be a problem.
He turned and faced the restrained fed in the back-seat. Mick Mallory stared at him with hatred.
Trask laughed, went back to his computer.
Hate. What a wonderfully empowering emotion.
Quinn Peterson had just landed in Seattle when his cell phone rang. “Peterson.”
“It’s Vigo. Good news, bad news, worse news.”
“Give me good news. I need some.”
“We have all Adam Scott’s finances. Paul Ullman has been laundering money for years. We’ve seized his accounts, have computers and e-mails that I’m transporting to Quantico right now.”
“Fabulous. What’s the bad news?”
“Scott transferred more than half the accounts to unknown sources before we could seize them.”
“Someone tipped him off.”
“We think the attorney, but we can’t prove it.”
“What’s the worse news?”
“Ullman is dead.”
“What? You were supposed to sit on him!”
“We did!” Vigo said defensively. “He went to meet with the attorney—we obviously couldn’t sit in. But we flanked the room. He came out of it, nodded to us, went over to his balcony, and jumped.”
“Jumped?”
“Thirty-six stories, right there on Madison Avenue. Splat.”
“Innocent bystanders?”
“He hit a parked car. Totaled it.”
“Anything else about Trevor Conrad’s death?”
“We’re on our way to talk to his parents.”
“Keep me informed.”
Jack circled around the meeting location. He saw a Hummer but no Adam Scott, no people at all. They could be inside the vehicle—he didn’t have a good view of the rear seat because of the shaded windows.
The coordinates Scott had sent to Kate were for a closed campground at the base of Mount Baker. An avalanche during the winter had made this area treacherous, so park rangers had closed it off until they could clear the roads. The work was nearly complete, but the road hadn’t been opened to the public yet.
Scott had told Kate there was a cabin at the site, but there was no cabin.
Though Jack had backup a few miles away, for this leg of the operation, he was on his own.
Just the way he preferred it.
Jack faded back into the trees and waited. He was good at it.
Trask glanced at his watch. Kate had five minutes.
He slapped the leg of the man next to him. “I would tell you I was sorry, but I’d be lying,” he said. “You’re nothing but a fucking, stupid cop. They’re better off without you.”
Mick Mallory didn’t respond, barely moved. He couldn’t, of course, as he was drugged and barely coherent, his mouth taped shut, and his feet and hands restrained.
“The irony of this whole situation is that April Klinger’s death was an accident. I didn’t mean to go that far. She completely consented. Not to being strangled, of course, but to being raped. I paid her for it. She signed a contract.” Trask looked out the window. Saw nothing but trees and bark and two unused campfire pits.
Would Kate show?
Yes. Unless something happened, she would come.
He logged onto his pocket PC and checked the cue. Kate wasn’t online, hadn’t sent him any messages.
“April was unusually beautiful. I admire beautiful women. Really, what else are they valued for except their physical appearance? Which is exactly what they want. They like having men lust after them. They love showing their bodies to the world. My actresses enjoyed every minute because in the end, women are simply whores here to service our needs.”
When his father disowned him, Trask plotted his murder. He would kill the judge, find a way to regain his inheritance—through his mother, who would welcome him home no matter what.
Then he came up with an even better idea. He’d been working on the side distributing snuff films—mostly fake, but a few real gems nonetheless—when he saw the future of the Internet. To have a system where anyone could simply download a murder appealed to him.
In a few short years, he had made a fortune. Making his money from online pornography was nothing compared to the first film he’d produced.
Of a judge being spanked by two whores.
Trask had embellished it, but used much of the same choreography as real life. Found someone who looked, more or less, like his father.
When it was complete, he put it on the Internet and sent his father the link. Watched online as the message was opened, the link clicked.
A month later Judge and Mrs. Scott died in a car accident. Their deaths stolen from Trask. He’d wanted his money and instead got nothing.
When his father disowned him, it wasn’t in word only. He cut him off completely, changing his will.
The bastard.
Trask pushed the foul memories of his dead father away and logged onto his own webcam. Lucy was there, alone. He called Roger.
“What the fuck is going on?”
“We had to take a break. Frank almost killed her when she kicked him in the balls.”
“Why weren’t her legs restrained?”
“We wanted to try something different.”
“I’m the director, remember? This is my show. Keep her tied down and don’t be stupid. Give Frank a few minutes to cool off, then get him back in there.”
He slammed his cell phone shut, looked at his watch.
Kate was late.
He slapped Mallory next to him, and his victim moaned. “Show’s on, Mick. Get your ass in gear. I think Kate is playing with me, and I don’t like being jerked around.
“Wait until she sees what I have planned for her.”
He took out a syringe and injected the contents into Mick’s arm. “This should wake you up.”
* * *
TWENTY-TWO
THE NOISE OF THE HELICOPTER made it impossible for Kate and Dillon to talk, which was probably for the best
as they both thought through the plan. Dillon put aside the trauma Lucy had suffered and focused on the rescue. The pilot was landing on an island less than a mile from Lucy’s suspected position. A boat was waiting for them. They would pose as lost tourists if necessary, but Dillon felt that the disguise wouldn’t work if one of Trask’s men saw them. Trask—Adam Scott—would most certainly have done his homework. He knew what Kate looked like, and Dillon wouldn’t be surprised if he had files on all the Kincaids, including himself.
If they were wrong about Lucy’s location, then they’d lost hours of time. It could be a trap, or it could be a wild-goose chase.
But Trask had given Kate a location only eighty miles away. Close enough that Dillon believed that Lucy could be on this island, or one nearby. And that they had time to save her.
He looked at his watch: 2:10. Less than ten hours and she would be dead.
Dillon considered what he knew of Adam Scott. Expelled from high school for the mysterious death of a student who had supposedly been his best friend. A lab explosion? He wondered what was missing from the story. His two friends, Roger Morton and Paul Ullman, had been reinstated to the school, but not Adam. Because of the school? Or perhaps Adam’s parents? Or maybe the school was covering up a crime, claiming it was an accident and handling the “punishment” themselves.
Scott had been seventeen at the time, only a year away from graduation. He must have received a GED because four years later Scott had graduated from Georgetown, according to new information from Peterson. That knowledge of the university would have been enough to fool Lucy.
He had Roger Morton in charge of pornography, and Paul Ullman laundering money through a variety of companies. Peterson said they were still uncovering tens of millions of dollars in accounts, half of which Scott had siphoned off almost immediately after Ullman had been questioned by the FBI.
“If only we weren’t on a fishing expedition,” Peterson had lamented. “We could have shut down the accounts before talking to Ullman. But even then, we didn’t know the extent of his tentacles.”
Still, according to Peterson, Scott had taken a huge financial hit when the FBI had seized his accounts earlier in the day. He had enough money to disappear, but his conduit was closed. There was no other way to launder the money coming in from his current operation, and future operations were in jeopardy.
