by Cat Connor
“I didn’t lose it. I took it off … and never picked it back up.”
“Don’t do that either.”
Kurt and I left to meet the UN team. On our way down the stairs, I called Sean O’Hare.
“It’s me. I need you to do everything you can to help Lee and also, set us up so we can bid on the girl?”
“Lee’s right here with me. I’ll set it up. We’re working as fast as we can.”
“Can you send me a tech to monitor what’s happening here while we go meet some mutual friends?”
“Sure, where do you want him?”
“Lee’s room at the Marriott. He’ll give you the details. Sam and Mitch are there. We need to find that address before the girl dies.” There was a chance we wouldn’t be the highest bidders.
“I’ll get someone to you – you there?”
“No, Kurt and I are meeting someone else to see if we can keep this woman alive. I’ll need Lee back A-sap.”
I hung up, checked the timer, noted it said seventy-five minutes and shoved my phone into my bag.
When I turned the corner, I spotted my favorite stalker, lurking by a newspaper stand. Kurt grabbed my arm. “How?”
“I have no idea!”
I made a call Caine.
“We placed Danni Lane under arrest, she was sent to hospital with a uniformed agent. I’m looking at her on the freaking corner not far from our damn hotel.”
“I’ll look into it.”
“I got a feeling we’ll find another rescinded order with my signature on it.”
“I’ll find out.”
He hung up. Danni’s arm was in a sling; I felt no satisfaction in knowing I’d caused her injury. I was surprised she was out of hospital so fast, especially considering her stupidity in swallowing pills.
She watched me but didn’t move. Kurt was on his phone. He called the Delta B SSA and asked for backup. There was no time for her nonsense; I needed to meet the International Rescue Squad or quasi-UN; it depended how generous I was feeling as to what I called them. The whole International Rescue Squad thing reminded me of the Thunderbirds. It didn’t please me to know I was heading into television shows that weren’t even real people. Walking briskly, we were soon out of her sight, then we took short cuts through stores and alleys, making following us, even from a distance, very difficult.
Inside Ruby Tuesday’s, I asked for Mr. Iverson’s table. The girl on the desk smiled and said it was ready.
“Will Mr. Iverson be joining you?” she asked pleasantly.
“Not today,” I replied. “I am expecting company though.”
The United fucking Nations.
I sat in the corner facing the door, ordered a long black, Kurt sat next to me.
My guests were prompt. Kennedy approached the table and with a nod, he slid into the seat directly opposite me. My fellow countryman, Timothy Jones sat next to Kurt, who was beside me and the British man, Colin Holmes, opposite him.
“Supervisory Special Agent Conway?”
“Lieutenant Colonel Kennedy.”
He gave a small smile and said, “Kennedy will do fine.”
I checked my watch which I now wore on my right wrist. Bit of a false start as my eyes glanced at the pulse oximeter first.
“Unusual jewelry,” Kennedy commented pointing at the oximeter. “Should you be in hospital?”
“No, I’m good. Henderson is a doctor, remember?”
“I do,” he replied nodding at Kurt.
“Let’s get to it,” I said.
“That’d be a fine idea, wouldn’t it now.”
“We now have sixty-five minutes before the bidding closes,” I said. “If I’m right.”
The other two waited.
“Sounds about right to me,” Kennedy said. “What do you think, boys?”
Holmes and Jones nodded.
“Good to know.”
“Conway, I don’t think that video link is a live feed. I suspect that it’s pre-recorded and running on a loop,” Kennedy said. He showed me the video running on his phone.
I recognized the sequence of events and looked away before the scream. He fiddled with the packets of sugar in a bowl on the table. Flicking them over, then standing them up again.
My stomach churned. I wanted to find her.
“Is she alive?”
“The bidding would indicate so, although its upfront payment could be a scam. Even if they get half – that’s more than they had to start with.”
Everyone nodded.
“Do you know where the place is?” I asked.
“Not yet,” Kennedy replied. “Danni Lane was supposed to be working with us, but her information was rubbish.”
“Yeah,” I replied but didn’t elaborate. What was the point? “So far we know there were two men. We have a clear picture of the camera man.” I slid my finger across my phone and showed him the picture. “Recognize him?”
“Not at all.” He handed the phone to the other men. No one knew him. “And the other man, the one who was handy with his fists?”
I produced a second picture. Again, no one recognized him.
“He’s considerably older than the camera man, is he not?” Kennedy asked.
“Also there is some resemblance. I’m thinking father and son,” I said, pushing the photographs together on my screen and showing him again.
When the waitress approached, I dropped my phone into my lap. They all ordered drinks, all coffee and all NATO. White with two sugars. It amused me that my little UN gathering ordered NATO coffee. Curbing my sense of humor by the time coffee arrived was easy: there was a young woman being tortured to order somewhere, and we needed to find her. The curling twisting cold daggers in my gut made it impossible for me to see past the situation in front of me.
“Kurt is sure she is Anastazia,” I said. “We have Alexandra in a safe place. What I want to know is why these young women were taken.”
“Alexandra. The older daughter of Eduard Dobrovolný,” Kennedy replied.
“I know that much,” I whispered into my cup. “What is it that makes these two such high-value targets?”
Kennedy leaned onto his elbows and regarded me. “Eduard and Alena Dobrovolný are physicists. Eduard is a medical physicist and Alena is a condensed matter physicist. Their research in the field of nanotechnology is the best in the world.”
“Alexandra told me the mother is a teacher and the father works for the government in Prague.”
He smiled. “She’s not wrong. She may not know the whole truth. The mother does teach at University level and the father does work for the government.”
“So this is about some kind of nanotechnology?”
“Yes. And before you ask, we didn’t need to know. We just need to get the girls back.”
Okay. I can see that.
“I have the best tech guy imaginable trying to negotiate the many proxy servers and narrow down the original location of that video feed. Tracking a source in that mess is like trying to find a needle in a haystack.” My fingers crossed and I hoped like hell we did have a tech wizard working on the trace.
Holmes spoke, “Why is the video looping? I haven’t seen the emails.”
I pulled up a copy of the email on my phone and gave it to him. His face blanched a deeper shade of cream as he read the list of auction instructions and what the money would buy.
“Oh my God.” He gave the phone to Tim Jones. “You seen this?”
I watched his tanned face bleach to a yellowish green.
“Kennedy, you didn’t show us this. I have been operating on the assumption she’s dead.”
Kennedy’s face broke into a wry grin. “You know never to assume.”
I smiled. Oh yeah, I sure did.
“All I know for sure is I have her sister,” I told them. “But without a location on Anastazia, anything’s possible.” I looked at Kennedy. “You need to start talking. How did this scumbag happen to get your email address and include you in this bidding war?”
�
�That won’t help you find the girl,” he murmured. “Lucky man that I am, I cannot say.”
“You can, and will. If you want the help I can provide.”
He smiled widely. “I joined a mailing list a few days ago. You’ve read my email. You must’ve seen the confirmation from the lists.”
“Luckily for me, I’ve only just downloaded your email – I haven’t yet traveled back. I started with today. Tell me about the list.” I’m not sure if that was lucky or not.
“It offers young girls to the highest bidder and provides kinky voyeuristic streaming, live porn and S & M.”
“Which begs the question why?”
“Because the world has a lot of sick perverts in it and what better way to get a father to cough up a few million or some trade secrets?”
That sounded plausible. They weren’t just here for the girls; if they found the place where Anastazia was being held it would be war. Can’t say I’d be upset about these three letting loose on some evil bastards.
“Let’s get bidding. We need to try to find a way to get to her, not just to send her to her death.”
Kennedy pulled a laptop from the satchel he carried diagonally over his shoulders. I called Lee.
“I need to know how close we are,” I said.
“We are real close.” I heard him walking and a door shut. “NSA? You got some crack cyber guy from NSA to track this sick bastard. How the hell did you do that?”
“Oh, that’s where he’s from, groovy. I just asked O’Hare for the best.” Imagine that. I got it.
“He’s fuc’n awesome. He’s through several of the proxies and honing in on the source now.”
Magic is real and unicorns poop rainbows.
“We’re bidding. As soon as you get a location – send SWAT. Don’t fuck around. There’s no guarantee we’ll win. And find Praskovya A-sap, he’s not here with the UN.”
“Will do, Ellie.”
I hung up and saw all eyes were on me. I smiled sweetly.
“Yes?” I used my very best, can-I-help-you voice.
“UN?” Jones queried.
“You seen yourselves? And by the way, where the hell is Praskovya?”
Tim Jones smiled. “I don’t know where Misha is.”
Holmes piped up, “O’Hare. I know that name?”
Kennedy spoke but his eyes never left his email. “We met Sean O’Hare the first time we met Conway and Henderson.”
“Ah, that’s right.” I could see it falling into place for him. “Sean O’Hare is related to your Director. I remember now.”
A small smile crossed Tim Jones’ full lips. “I never made the connection last time, Conway. But a Special Agent Conway was in MTAC during the final phase of Operation Hoboken. That would be you?”
“Indeed that would.”
He said nothing else. We watched in silence as Kennedy placed another bid.
“How well bankrolled are you?” I asked him.
“I can cover this.”
“Okay. Let me know if it goes too high. I can cover the rest.” I crossed my fingers. I hoped we could cover it.
Two others were bidding. Or that’s what the emails told us. I checked my watch. Time ticked on. Willing the NSA guy and his magic fingers to hurry up wasn’t working as well as I wished. Crazy excerpts of songs peppered my mind. TV shows mingled with the songs. Everything had become a Without a Trace episode, complete with a pretty convincing Jack Malone lookalike in the form of Colin Holmes. Quiet delight enveloped me, he did look like Jack Malone. Something about gruff, well-meaning older men made me feel all warm and fuzzy inside. Thoughts whipped around like a mini tornado. I needed to get this young woman before it became a Cold Case. I needed to stop the craziness. Blonde I may be but my name is not Lily.
My phone rang just as Kennedy bid two-hundred-thousand dollars.
“Yep, Lee.”
“I’ve dispatched SWAT to a property in Clifton, Virginia.”
All eyes were on me again. I nodded at them.
“Pick me and Kurt up.”
“And your guests?”
“I’m expecting them to tag along. So, I guess I’m bringing the United Nations with me. Did you find Misha? I want him with us.”
“Misha is here.” That brought a smile to my face. Where else would he be? The sheep are all back in the fold.
“Bring him. Sam stays with Mitch. Can you ask the NSA guy to hang around in case we need him, the more information he can get the better?”
“Done.”
I hung up. “You guys got a car handy?”
Jones spoke, “Yes.”
“Kennedy, do you need to be in our car, and feed off our satellite internet?”
“That’d be a fine idea.”
Forty-Four
Divine Wings Of Tragedy
Fifteen minutes later a car tooted outside. I dropped a bunch of bills on the table and headed for the door with Kurt and Kennedy and his laptop in hot pursuit. Misha opened the door as we got to it.
The men acknowledged each other with nods as we hurried to Lee’s Explorer.
“Kurt, take the front, I’ll sit with Kennedy,” I said. Opening the driver’s side passenger door and angling into the car, I avoided touching the headrest and sat twisted to half lean on the door and face Kennedy. As we peeled away from the curb, I saw Misha and the other two run up the street toward a parked dark blue Subaru Outback. One of the men pressed a remote control on the keys in his hand, the lights flashed as the alarm deactivated.
Kennedy settled himself in the back. I handed him a piece of paper with a code on it.
“That’ll let you hook into our satellite feed. You should be able to check your mail. The plus side being, if they’re running ping and trace software – we’ve just eluded them. With a bit of luck they’ll think you’re still sitting in Ruby Tuesday’s in the District.”
He made another bid.
“How long before we’re there?” he asked. “This is getting very high.”
“Forty-five minutes or less, SWAT will be there within twenty minutes.” Lee replied, putting his foot down. “Buckle up, we gotta get out of the city.”
The grill lights flashed on the wet road surface ahead of us. Our siren wailed. Lee hit the bridge like a battering ram. Cars pulled over as fast as they could. We clipped one with the front edge of our bull bars. The jolt hurt. My breath caught in my throat. In the wing mirror, I saw the car spin and stop, facing the wrong way.
We weren’t stopping for anything.
The stunt driving didn’t do wonders for my already battered body. I felt like a rag doll by the time we hit the smooth highway.
“Can you do anything to slow the bidding?” I asked Kennedy.
“I’ll do my best.”
“Maybe a few questions between bids. Get some dialog flowing?”
My watch seemed to burn into the skin on my wrist. I willed SWAT to get to the woman.
The GPS system was going berserk on the dash. I watched Kurt’s hand re-entering our destination as the unit rapidly fired out changes to the route. Then it flashed up with heavy traffic delays.
“This is not a good time to be stuck in traffic.” Kurt grabbed the radio sitting on the dash and pressed the talk button. “Supervisory Special Agent Henderson requesting assistance.” He let the button go. Seconds later crackling offers of help came back.
“Our location is southbound highway I-66 west heading for Lonesome Dove Lane, out of Clifton, VA. We need a path A-sap, no obstructions.”
“Henderson – Fairfax County police here. That’s at least an hour and a half trip, we have some massive road works going on today with hefty delays, and how much time do you have?”
“We need to be there yesterday.”
Another voice broke in.
“Agent, I’m Commander Frederick. Our helicopter is standing by. Tell us where to meet you.”
“Thank you, Commander, I appreciate it. Can you have the chopper meet us at the I-66 Braddock Road exit?”
&
nbsp; “We’ll be waiting, sir.”
“There is another car following us.”
“I’ll send cars to provide an escort. We can take them around the worst areas as fast as we can.”
“Thank you very much.”
“You’re always welcome, Agent Henderson. I take it Agent Conway is with you.”
“Yes, sir, she is.”
“Always happy to help Delta A.” He hung up.
Lee grinned but never took his eyes off the road. “Those Virginian cops are fuc’n excellent.”
Agreed. They’ve helped us out before, often.
Kennedy grinned at me. “You have everyone falling all over to help you. I think I want to know more about you and Delta A, Ms. Conway.”
Seemed best to ignore his comment. What’s to know?
I called Misha in the car following us and let him know to keep on us and that police would provide an escort from Braddock Road and get them around any road disruptions.
Lee pulled over on the edge of a large barren piece of land to the left of the turn to Braddock Road from I-66, where a helicopter waited, rotors turning.
A police officer leaped out and ran to meet us. Shouting to be heard he said, “I’ll drive your car. Where to?”
“Lonesome Dove Lane, Clifton,” I replied. Lee dropped the keys into his hand.
We clambered aboard the helicopter, a wave of cold dread smashing into me as I pulled the harness on. Even though I couldn’t remember the crash, I didn’t want to be in a helicopter again so soon. Another police car pulled up behind our car. Misha’s car followed. I waved. Misha waved back.
“You okay, Ellie?” Kurt asked. He sat next to me. His hand took mine.
“Not sure.”
“Breathe. You see how many cops are out there? No one is going to shoot at us,” he replied, he gave my hand a light squeeze then let go.
Lee gave the pilot directions and we lifted off easily, turning slowly. I checked my weapon twice during the short flight. Seamus announced the bidding was about to close. His Irish brogue made the bad news sound like a stroll in a leafy park. I resisted the urge to ask him to say ‘third’. The stern voice in my head cautioned me – this was no time for games. A life hung in the balance.
The pilot spoke, “I’ll set down in thirty seconds. SWAT have cordoned off the road. They asked for no air traffic. A marked car will take you the last mile.”
