Son of the Enemy

by Ana Barrons

  The pig.

  “Thornton’s a good friend,” she said. As soon as he turned his head she reached into the blouse pocket and pulled out the bug. The adhesive was still on it, but it didn’t seem as strong anymore. Rita hadn’t mentioned that, either.

  Nick struck a match and kept his eye on the stack while it caught. Hannah pretended to admire his jacket in case he turned around, then slipped the bug into his pocket and pushed on it, hoping what little adhesive it had left would keep it inside. Mission accomplished. She let out a long breath, picked up her wineglass and took a sip.

  He placed a couple of logs carefully on the grate, then stood and turned to Hannah. “We had a deal a few years back. Remember?”

  Hannah tilted her head to one side. “No, and I think you’re supposed to go back into that meeting, right?”

  Nick’s smile slipped. “Let me refresh your memory. I got you something you wanted and you promised to give me something I wanted.” His eyes dropped to her chest again. “I’ve been waiting a long time to collect.”

  She wanted nothing more than to toss her wine in his face, but she didn’t want to start something that would keep her in that house any longer than necessary. “I really think Thornton would be unhappy if he knew—”

  “—about our deal?” Nick walked slowly around the couch to where she was standing. She refused to give him the satisfaction of moving away. She leaned against the back of the couch, one arm folded across her middle, and sipped her wine. He stopped a couple of feet in front of her, rolled down his sleeves and slipped on his jacket. He smelled of too much cologne and alcohol. Great. They were probably all half-drunk in there.

  “That was a very long time ago,” she said. “I was fifteen years old.”

  “But you were hot as hell, even back then. Not like now, but you were a nice piece of ass. I was definitely planning on collecting.”

  The anger she’d been holding back began to seep out. “You can’t honestly believe I would let you touch me.”

  Her insult met its mark. “A deal’s a deal. You wanted heroin, I got you heroin. It don’t matter how old you were, or how long ago it was. It was good shit. You didn’t have any money, so you promised to let me fuck you that night, in the woods. But you didn’t show and you never came back.”

  Hannah felt the blood rush to her face. “You really thought I’d let you do that? Give me a break.”

  He grabbed her arm and pulled her forward. She shrugged him off. “You gave me a little preview, baby, remember?” He sneered. “A little feel. Oh, it was so sweet.”

  She did remember and it made her sick. “Here’s a newsflash for you, Nicky. I was desperate when I made that deal. I got that heroin to kill myself. Get it? The only way I would have let you touch me again was if I was dead.”

  He bared his teeth at her. “You little cunt.” He reached for her.

  She tossed the wine in his face, dropped the glass and tried to get away while he was sputtering and mopping his face with the sleeve of his jacket, but he grabbed her by both arms and twisted her around so she was facing him. Then he backed her into the wall and pulled up her skirt. She screamed and pushed at him, but he was stronger than she was.

  “Thornton’s…going…to kill you!” she grunted as they struggled, but she could see the crazy light in his eyes. He was drunk and insecure, and she had just told him she’d rather be dead than sleep with him. “Let…go…of…me!”

  Then there was a loud thump against the window and all hell broke loose.

  The high-pitched scream of the alarms stabbed through John’s ears, and he yanked the earphones off his head. Santini and the other technician did the same. The kid whose earphones John had stolen glanced around at the three of them, puzzled.

  “What?” the kid said.

  Santini turned to John. “Interior alarm. Can’t hear anything out here.”

  John nodded and held the headset up to one ear so the noise didn’t deafen him. “Turn it down a little,” he told the techs. “Until the alarm stops.” When the sound was low enough to be bearable, he pulled the headset back on, listening for Hannah’s voice. Men were shouting back and forth to each other in an unintelligible blur, then someone grunted. He closed his eyes and pressed on the earphones.

  “Fuck!”

  Nick’s voice.

  “You fucking bitch!”

  Sound of heaving. Then footsteps, running.

  Where was Hannah? Had she run away, or had that bastard hurt her? “Say something,” John whispered. Nick was whimpering in pain. Heavy footsteps sounded, and Nick cursing to himself. He sounded scared. Christ, was Hannah lying there, hurt or…worse?

  “What the—?”

  Bradshaw.

  “Where’s Hannah? What the hell are you…? Did someone break in or—?”

  “She, uh, she ran out of here.”

  Nick.

  “Something hit the window, Mr. Bradshaw. I don’t know, maybe a branch or something.”

  More footsteps, then Bradshaw shouting.

  “Check outside this room. It was probably just a large branch, but check around. And find Hannah, goddamn it!”

  Sounds of assent, then footsteps hurrying away.

  “Why did she run out of here? What the fuck did you do, Nick?”

  “I…uh, I was just, you know, talking to her…”

  “Just talking, huh? Is that why you’re holding on to your nuts? Did you put a hand on her?”

  “No, Mr. Bradshaw, I swear. She was coming on to me, and I was…”

  “She was coming on to you, huh?”

  Loud slap and a grunt, then a crash.

  “Where’d she go, you stupid guinea? Huh? Where’d she go?”

  “I…I don’t know, Mr. Bradshaw. Honest to God, she was drunk and, I used to go out with her, you know, when she went to the school. She remembered me and—”

  Another loud slap.

  “I swear to God. I got her some dope and she…she fucked everybody, I swear to God. It wasn’t just me.”

  John pulled the headset off and tossed them to the tech. “I’m going out there. She probably ran out of the house when that yahoo attacked her.”

  Santini yanked her headset off and glared at him. “You can’t go out there. I’ve got two agents positioned on the periphery of the estate. All I have to do is give the word and—where the hell are you going?”

  “These people carry guns, remember?” John shouted. “That’s why we’re here, because they’re the bad guys.” He pushed open the van doors. “Your operation sucks, Santini. The best you can hope for is that you overhear Bradshaw order somebody to blow that stupid shit’s head off and then you can nail him for murder.”

  “Walter was right,” Santini said with her headset poised above her head. “You’ve lost your objectivity. You interfered in a bureau investigation, and now you’re going to go out there and blow our cover.” She shrugged. “Not that it makes a whole lot of difference at this point, I suppose.”

  “Yeah,” John said. “You already got her to do your dirty work.”

  Chapter Nineteen

  She was scared to death.

  Her liquid courage had been used up in her struggle with Nick, and now she was running through the trees in the wet snow, freezing cold and drenched to the skin. What the hell had she done? After she kneed Nick in the balls, she should have screamed her bloody head off and waited for Thornton to come running. But then what? What if they found the bug in Nick’s jacket and realized she was the one who’d put it there? Her instincts had led her to the kitchen and out the door, where she had to sprint across a short expanse of lawn into the trees to escape the blazing lights that had come on all around the house.

  Dogs were barking, but in the snow she couldn’t make out what direction the sound was coming from. She prayed they were caged and willed her legs to go faster, but her feet were numb and it was a miracle she was moving at all. There had to be a way off this estate other than through the front gate. Long spikes on top of the
fence would make it difficult if not impossible to get over. Short of knocking on the door to the guardhouse and risking being brought back to the house, or shot or something, she couldn’t think of another option.

  After a few minutes she stopped and bent over, winded and disoriented and feeling like she was going to throw up.

  John, help me!

  What she wouldn’t give to have him beside her right now. When she raised her head and spotted a figure coming toward her through the trees, she thought for a split second that she had actually conjured him up. No, this person was too short to be John. It had to be one of Thornton’s men, out looking for her. She knew she should run, but her legs seemed rooted to the spot.

  Oh God.

  The man seemed to be gesturing off to her left. She turned in that direction and could just make out a brick wall about a hundred yards away. Without waiting for the man to catch up to her, she sprinted toward the wall.

  It was about eight feet high and well concealed from the other side by a densely packed row of evergreen trees, whose branches nearly obscured the top of the wall from inside. Even if she could get up there, she would have to somehow protect her face from the sharp branches, then climb down through the trees to whatever lay on the other side. She just stood there, breathing hard, feeling hopeless, when she heard a voice from behind her.

  “Here,” a man said in a loud whisper. “Step into my hands and I’ll boost you up.”

  Hannah turned around slowly. The man’s face was mostly covered by a black balaclava. In fact, he was dressed all in black. Only his eyes seemed to gleam in the darkness. They were unnaturally pearly and completely riveting. She shivered, then pulled her gaze away and glanced down to see that he had interlaced his gloved fingers and was bending slightly so she could get her foot in there.

  “Go ahead,” he said, more urgently. “Before they come.”

  She braced her hands on the wall, bent her stiff knee and stuck her high-heeled shoe into his hands. He pushed her up, steadying her as she grabbed on to the nearest branch, her eyes closed and her face down to avoid poking her eye out. She cried out in pain when a branch scraped across her cheek and instinctively leaned back.

  And then she was falling.

  John crept along the perimeter of the fence in the direction of the guardhouse, scanning for the FBI backup. At least they’d anticipated that Hannah might need help. No doubt they rationalized that if Bradshaw caught her with the bug, the worst that could happen is he’d know the FBI was on to the meeting. And if one of Bradshaw’s men killed her?

  Don’t think about that.

  Of course, the FBI hadn’t counted on him being around. If anything happened to Hannah and he spilled his guts to the press or anyone else, the FBI would label him a rogue agent or say he was mentally unstable. But it would still cause trouble for them.

  Fuck them.

  After tonight his career was in the toilet regardless of the outcome. If Walter didn’t check his personnel records now, someone else would. Santini, probably, the heartless, ambitious little bitch. They would find the connection between him and Hannah, and discover that he’d used bureau resources to get close to her. He’d be out on his ass so fast his head would spin.

  But not before a few other heads got done rolling.

  Christ, he really was losing his objectivity. The FBI wasn’t the enemy here. The man with the phone to his ear in that guardhouse, and all the other guys like him who were no doubt patrolling inside the fence at this very moment—those guys were the enemy. And somehow he had to get Hannah away from them.

  Satisfied that she wasn’t running toward the gate, John headed back in the opposite direction, to where Bradshaw’s estate bordered a heavily wooded nature preserve. The wind had picked up, blowing wet snow into his face and down the collar of his jacket. His chest tightened at the thought of Hannah alone and scared, and probably freezing her ass off. He turned the corner onto a deserted street and noticed that farther ahead the fence curved and then was hidden behind a thick growth of evergreen trees. The heavy snow had begun to accumulate on the branches, weighing them down. Would Hannah have the presence of mind to run toward the trees?

  “Take this.” The man pulled the balaclava off his head and handed it to her, then pulled off his gloves. “And these.”

  She was too numb to move. When she started falling backward off the wall, he’d caught her against his chest, then gone down under her weight. Within seconds he’d pulled her to her feet and leaned her against the wall. Now he was pulling his balaclava over her head and shoving her frozen hands into his gloves. Then he turned her around so she was facing the wall, wrapped his arms around her legs and lifted her, grunting.

  “Grab…grab the branch,” he managed between heavy breaths. “I’ll push you, but you have to hold on. There you go… A little more…” She grasped the branches, taking some of her weight off him, so now he could push her forward. Then she heard it.

  The dogs…oh no!

  “Go, go, go!” he shouted and thrust her upward until she could get her body on top of the wall.

  “Thank you,” she rasped.

  “Get out of sight!”

  Oh Lord, the barking was coming closer. She would still be visible as she pushed through the branches, but her limbs and feet were useless. The man ran toward the lawn, waving his arms and shouting, drawing the men and the dogs—which thankfully were leashed—to him and away from her.

  “Over there,” he shouted. “I saw someone running.”

  “Man or woman?” one of the guards shouted.

  “Man. All in black.”

  The guards yanked on the dogs—who, with their superior intelligence, were straining toward the man—and started running in the direction he had pointed out.

  She closed her eyes and mustered up the energy to slide down the other side of the wall.

  John heard the rustling off to the right, squatted and pulled out his gun. On the other side of the wall, dogs were barking frantically and men were shouting from a distance. The dogs had taken off in a different direction, but he’d waited, just in case. Either a person or a large animal was making its way through the trees, and he’d bet it was the former. He held his breath, listening, waiting, praying for it to be Hannah, having miraculously escaped over the wall.

  Heavy breathing.

  He glimpsed a black balaclava and his heart sank, but he waited for the figure to draw closer. The person’s breathing was high-pitched and strained. Could it be?

  Then he saw her, and his heart nearly broke at the sight. She was limping and thrashing clumsily at branches. He jammed his gun in his pocket and stepped in front of her. She gasped and tried to swing at him, but he wrapped his arms around her, pinning her arms to her sides.

  “It’s me,” he said, close to her ear. “It’s John. It’s okay.” She sagged against him, breathing too roughly to speak. He scooped her up into his arms and was shocked at how limp her body was. “I’m going to carry you to safety, honey, okay?” He picked his way through the trees, trying his best to protect her from the branches. “There’s a van parked not too far from here, and it’s warm inside. Just hang on.”

  She could be close to hypothermic. God help the person who tried to stop him from getting her into that van.

  Ten minutes later, Rita Santini opened the back door of the van and John placed Hannah on the floor, then climbed in behind her and locked it. The two techs stared at the strange figure in the tight black clothes, black gloves and balaclava covering her head, but didn’t say a word. Santini pulled a pack of blankets out from under the bench and laid some out on the floor. John lifted Hannah gently and put her on the blankets, then pulled off the balaclava. Her face was bright red and streaked with blood on one cheek. His heart pounded harder, making it hard to hear over the thundering in his temples.

  He was ready to kill someone.

  “You guys turn around while I get her out of these clothes,” Santini said, and the techs turned away. She opened her
mouth to say something to John and then closed it. He had already pried Hannah’s shoes off and was rubbing her feet in his slightly less frozen hands. He and Santini working together got her clothes off within a couple of minutes, leaving her in her underwear. They wrapped the blanket around her and covered her with more. “We need to get her warm fast,” Santini said.

  “We need to get her to a hospital,” John said. “She’s hurt and close to hypothermic.”

  “Water,” Hannah whispered.

  Santini grabbed a bottle of water and lifted Hannah’s head. She opened her mouth for some, and Rita pulled the bottle back to let her swallow, then gave her several more sips.

  John pulled off his soggy jacket, then began removing his own clothes, piece by piece. Santini stared at him. “Never seen a guy undress before, Santini? Guess your love life sucks, huh?”

  To his surprise, Santini looked apologetic rather than angry. “Look, I’m sorry, John,” she said. “I never imagined anything like this would happen. If that branch or whatever hadn’t set off all those alarms… Jesus.” She ran a hand through her short red hair. “I know you think I’m—”

  Her words were cut short by someone pounding on the door. They all knew immediately it was someone from Bradshaw’s estate. All eyes were on John.

  “Take off your clothes,” he whispered to Santini. At her shocked expression, he said, “And follow my lead.” He pulled the two sides of the black privacy curtain across the back door and shouted, “What the hell do you want!”

  “Open up or we’ll shoot out your windows!”

  He shot a look at Santini, who was furiously unbuttoning her blouse. “Faster,” he whispered. “You two, get down beside Hannah and cover yourselves with blankets.” The two techs scrambled to get under the blankets.

  “Hold your fucking fire!” John shouted, and peered at the men from between the curtains. He lifted the latch and pushed open one door just far enough to stick his head out. Two guys in soaking-wet black suits stood there with guns in their hands. “Who the fuck are you?”