Arthur looked worse than she remembered, the mottled skin puckered around his neck, which had thankfully been covered by his shirt and tie before.
“Perhaps. But this is highly irregular.” He appeared to consider the situation and then dropped the pistol into his robe pocket — but kept his hand in it, she noted.
“I suppose. So is having your baby kidnapped and being blackmailed. I guess we live in an irregular world…”
“Why didn’t you call me?”
“I lost the number.”
He studied her calm face, and then took a seat across from her with a sigh.
“And?”
She lifted the briefcase and put it on the coffee table between them, and then lifted the lid, turning it towards him.
The freezer bag of diamonds twinkled in the ornate chandelier’s glow.
“There are your diamonds. Next to them, you’ll find snapshots of Hawker. He’s been neutralized. Now, where’s my daughter?”
Arthur leaned forward and picked up the photos, taking his time to scrutinize them suspiciously before dropping them into the briefcase and lifting the diamonds out.
“What is this? Some kind of joke?”
“What do you mean? Those are your diamonds. Now it’s time to end this charade. I’ve done as you asked. Time for your end of the deal. Where’s my daughter?”
“That’s only…maybe a quarter of them. Do you take me for a fool?”
“That’s what he had. I looked online and calculated the number and carats. It’s over fifty million, wholesale. It’s all there. Now, where’s Hannah?”
He stood and pulled the pistol from his pocket. “This is all he had?”
“That’s what I said, isn’t it? Now put the gun down, tell me where my daughter is, and get ready to hand me a million dollars.”
“Not so fast. I need to verify they’re real.”
He hadn’t dropped the gun.
“Fine. They are. That’s what he had. You can pay me once you check them. But for the last time, tell me where my daughter is.”
His skin tightened as he grimaced, and she realized he was smiling. He raised the Ruger and pulled the trigger.
Nothing happened.
His eyes widened as he tried to chamber a round, but the gun was empty.
“Now that definitely wasn’t the deal,” she said, pulling her silenced Beretta from behind her and leveling it at him. “I didn’t think you’d honor your part of the bargain, but I figured I’d at least give you the chance. More than you gave me.”
Arthur flung the Ruger at her and sprang for the hall. The impact of Jet’s feet slamming into his side sent him reeling into the wall with a crash. He dropped to the floor, groaning.
Jet got up, brushed herself off and then walked to the table and closed the briefcase, locking the latch with a soft snap. She eyed Arthur’s quivering form and approached him.
“Now we’ll do this the hard way. I actually hope you don’t tell me where Hannah is until I’ve had a real opportunity to convince you. I’m usually ambivalent about torture, but in your case, I’m looking forward to it. I suppose all that expensive surgery on your face will get destroyed by the acid, but before it does, you’ll wish for death a hundred times over.” She kicked him, hard, in the stomach. “I even went shopping for items to use. You know, I once kept a subject alive for six hours before his heart gave out? I mean, he was unrecognizable as anything human by then, but still. It’s an art, really. I’m sure you’ll appreciate it. By the time I’m done, you’ll have not only told me where Hannah is, but you’ll have told me anything and everything you can think of just to get me to stop.”
She moved to the dining room and lifted a shopping bag from behind a chest, then brought it to the living room and set it near the coffee table before putting on a pair of gloves.
“You have no idea what you’ve gotten into. You’ll be dead by morning,” Arthur snapped.
“Oh, you mean the drug ring? Is that what you’re talking about? Guess what. I know it all. I know about the heroin you’ve been importing from the Golden Triangle. I know about the heroin from Afghanistan you’re shipping using military transports as well. I know about the cocaine and meth from the Mexican cartels. The ecstasy. I know everything.”
Arthur’s eyes took on a veneer of worry for the first time.
“How…”
“Seems like Hawker had the goods on all of you. Briggs. You. Everyone in the ring. Documented.”
“You’ll never prove it. You can’t prove anything.”
“You mean nobody will believe that the Central Intelligence Agency is the biggest drug trafficking organization in the world? You sure about that? Sure a paper or TV station or three wouldn’t be interested? Maybe Congress?”
“You have no idea how high this goes.”
“Right. Higher than the associate director? And the director?”
“It’s bigger than you can imagine.”
“Arthur. Look at me. I know everything,” she said quietly.
“Then you know you don’t have a chance.”
“I know that if you get between a female lion and her cub, you can expect no mercy. Which brings me to the part of the show where I start peeling your skin off and feed it to Mitzi. That’s gotta hurt.”
The timid little dog gazed up at her from where it was hiding behind an armoire, alert at the mention of her name. Jet withdrew a cattle prod from the bag.
“I modified this so it’s capable of delivering a continuous current. I hear you use them for torture. Nice.” She placed it on the table and then held up a syringe. “This will completely incapacitate you so you’re incapable of movement, but can feel everything. Curare — crude yet effective, wouldn’t you agree?” She placed it on the table next to the prod and produced another hypodermic. “And this is a little favorite that heightens the synaptic response so sensations are magnified exponentially. I’ve been told that it can make a paper cut feel like you’re being disemboweled. My thinking is I start on your eyes. You won’t need them any longer. Then I move to your genitals. Not that you probably get much use out of those, either. Then, when you think it can’t get any worse, I’ll use this.” She extracted a bottle and placed it carefully next to the syringes. “Acid.” She fished the final item from the bag and held it up — a soldering iron. “I watched David cook a Mossad traitor with one of these. Just the smell is enough to make you gag. I can’t even imagine how it will feel after the injection and acid wash.”
She picked up the cattle prod and walked towards him.
“This is your last chance, and then I zap you till you’re twitching, inject you, and start on your eyes. Think very, very hard about your answer. Because once I start, there’s no going back. You know my history. Make your choice. Honor our agreement or become hamburger.”
“You’ll never do it. You’ll never kill me,” he spat. “You won’t get your daughter back if you do.”
“Why, Arthur. Perhaps I need to work on my communication skills. I have no intention of killing you. I’m going to leave you paralyzed, with no tongue or eyes, in permanent agony for the rest of your hopefully-long life. Nothing — no amount of money, no specialized treatments — will ease the suffering. Think about it. Blind. Pooping yourself. Every nerve amplifying your pain tenfold. The injection is irreversible. The best you can hope for is that I’ll take pity and kill you once you’ve told me where she is. Because you will, Arthur. You will. Nobody ever holds out once this gets underway. You’re no different. You of all people should know that. Again, I really, really hope you decide not to cooperate.”
Arthur looked panicked, her message finally having hit home.
She waited, but he didn’t say anything, preferring to glare at her with raw hatred. Jet shrugged and moved towards him with the cattle prod and pressed it against his face, then engaged the current.
Arthur bucked and jerked for ten seconds, foaming from his nose and mouth, and then she cut the power, his limbs twitching spasmodically
from the lingering effects.
“You should start regaining the ability to move in twenty seconds or so. By then I’ll have injected you with the nerve agent. Imagine what you’re feeling right now, the agony, amplified immeasurably. Have I got your attention?”
She picked up the smaller syringe and pulled the orange cap off, then squirted a little into the air for effect.
“You’ll get nothing,” he growled, laying his last card on the table.
Jet shrugged and knelt next to him, then drove the needle into his leg, depressing the plunger before pulling it out and tossing it aside.
It took half a minute for the full effect to hit.
“Argghhh,”Arthur screamed, writhing in agony as the full force of pain arrived.
“That’s what I thought. Now I’m going to cut your eyes out. You ready?” She flipped out a combat knife and opened it, waving the shiny blade at him.
Arthur croaked, a rasping sound with a wet bubbling at the end.
“What’s that?”
“I’ll tell you,” he rasped, the fight gone out of him, waves of pain racking mercilessly through his body.
“What? You said left eye first?” she asked, her face a blank.
“Please. I’ll tell you.” He spat out a slug of bloody saliva from where he’d bitten his cheek then convulsed again.
She reached behind her and pulled a pair of handcuffs free, then tossed them on the floor.
“As soon as you can move, put those on. And start talking. Where is she?”
“God. The pain. Help me…”
“I told you. Once you’re injected, it’s out of my hands. Now where is she? Or the eye goes.”
He struggled for breath. “A…private hospital we use. They have a pediatric ward. She’s a patient.”
“Where?”
“Alexandria. Virginia,” he hissed, his face twitching.
“The name.”
“Anderson…Medical.”
“Security?”
“Only one guard. In the lobby. They were told…she has a virus. One of our doctors is caring for her.”
“Where is she? Which floor?”
“I…I think the third.”
“Cuff yourself. You’re coming with me.”
Chapter 36
“What are you going to do with me…ungh…once you have her?” Arthur gasped as he bent over double, every neuron in his being on fire.
“I’m thinking about it. Considering the option you gave me when you pulled the trigger, I’m not feeling generous.”
“I…never mind.”
“No, there’s not much to mitigate a bullet to the brain that failed to fire, huh? ‘My bad’ doesn’t really cut it. Now move.”
As they reached the entry foyer, she stepped back into the living room and scooped up the briefcase and the Beretta.
“Open the door. Slowly. Then we’ll walk to my car. It’s down the block, to the right,” she instructed. Arthur fumbled with the lever and twisted it, the cuffs making it difficult.
They walked down the front steps and were on the sidewalk when she spotted movement on her right — a man with the distinctive shape of a silenced pistol in his hand. She dropped to one knee as she raised her weapon and fired two shots at the running gunman, the second shot whipping his head back as it tore through his face.
The window of the car next to her exploded in a shower of glass, and she pulled Arthur to her and twisted, firing at another shooter down the sidewalk. She could hear the thwacks as her slugs slammed into his chest, but he was still shooting even as he dropped. A bullet ricocheted off the sidewalk and then a round caught Arthur in the chest. She adjusted her aim and squeezed off four shots at another man in an overcoat crossing the street. He went down hard, his weapon clattering by his side as he tumbled onto the asphalt.
Jet squinted in the dim light and spotted another shooter coming around a truck by the house next door and waited till she had a clear shot, then fired three times. Two of the slugs caught him in the throat as he shot at her, his aim going wide. A second bullet pounded Arthur in the stomach.
Arthur’s legs buckled, and he sank to the ground. She dropped to one knee, sweeping the surroundings with the Beretta, alert for any further threats.
The street was silent.
“You stupid asshole. You triggered an alarm somehow, didn’t you?” she hissed.
Blood spread across Arthur’s shirt, and he moaned. The chest wound was ugly and had punctured a lung — she could hear the air frothing out as he fought for breath.
“They’ll…find you… miserable bitch…”
She studied his mangled face, twisted by pain and hate, and then stood.
“Drowning on your own blood is a lousy way to go. I’ve seen it. There’s nothing worse…except for a stomach wound. At least your last few minutes on the planet will be your most painful. If I could make it last forever for you, I would. I hope there’s a hell. You belong there, you filthy bastard.”
He couldn’t speak, his hands claws, clenching automatically in unspeakable agony.
“Kill me. Please.” The words were a moan, barely audible.
She glanced around at the fallen bodies and shook her head.
“You earned this. Enjoy it.”
She spat on his twitching face and then turned and jogged to the Explorer. Within twenty seconds, she was pulling away, leaving Arthur to expire on the sidewalk, his final moments spent in unimaginable suffering, cold and alone.
The hospital service door was locked. Jet worked the picks and had it open in under a minute. She adjusted the black knit cap on her head and listened for any signs of movement. It seemed deserted. After looking around to ensure that the parking area was still clear, she pulled it open. Thankfully, there was no alarm on it. She stepped inside and, glancing through the glass window on the interior door, confirmed that there was nobody nearby. She closed the exit softly and then turned to the stairwell, taking the steps two at a time.
At the third floor she paused, listening. It was quiet.
She swung the steel door wide and stepped into the hall. The lights were on dimmers, set low for the night, and she heard a single nurse at the staff station at the far end of the wing talking on the phone in hushed tones, an occasional giggle punctuating her exchange. Festive decorations of dancing ponies and singing birds decorated the colorfully painted corridor, confirming that she was in the pediatric wing.
Jet moved silently to the doorway of the first room and peered in. It was empty. The second housed a little boy sleeping on the bed, maybe six years old, a heart monitor beeping at a low volume on a stand by his side.
The two adjacent rooms were also empty.
The next one had a small form curled up on its side, covers half off, facing away from her. She stepped into the room and approached. The child rolled over, sensing a presence.
It wasn’t Hannah.
Another titter echoed from the nurse’s station, and she slowly inched back into the hall, pausing to listen again before moving to the room across from her.
Empty.
She heard a rustle from the corridor and turned.
“Hey. What are you doing here? You can’t go in there…” the nurse exclaimed.
Jet started to stammer an explanation and then slammed the side of her neck with an incapacitating strike. The nurse’s eyes rolled into her head, and Jet caught her as she collapsed, pulling her into the room and closing the door. The woman would be out for a few minutes, but time was Jet’s enemy now.
She darted from room to room and, in the one closest to the nurse’s station, came across another slumbering toddler. She sidled to the side of the bed and peered down at the sleeping face.
Hannah.
Jet’s nostrils filled with Hannah’s essence, and a surge of adrenaline coursed through her as the little eyelids opened groggily and regarded her. Jet saw recognition, and Hannah smiled before closing her eyes again and snuffling.
She gently lifted Hannah and held her t
o her breast, murmuring to her as she vaguely remembered her mother doing when she was a baby. Hannah snuggled closer, and Jet’s heart nearly burst.
A part of her could have stood like that forever, but she forced herself out of the spell and moved back into the hall, then speed-walked back to the stairwell. The exit was empty, so she pushed through the door and crept onto the landing, a draft blowing up from the street level ruffling the tips of her hair. Hannah shifted against her and made a soft sound of sleepy susurration, then resumed her drowsing.
Moments later, Jet was strapping Hannah into the new child’s seat in the Explorer, readying her for the short drive to where the RV sat waiting. A police car rolled by on the street in front of the hospital, and her breath caught in her throat. It hit its brake lights as it neared the intersection, slowing. Jet pulled the Beretta free of her jacket as she eased the driver’s door open.
The squad car picked up speed and continued on its way.
Jet exhaled with a sigh and then climbed behind the wheel. She took another look at Hannah in the child’s seat, her small head cocked to the side, eyes clenched shut as she slept, and then cranked the ignition and put the car in gear.
~ ~ ~
“It’s over,” Jet said into the cell phone as she backed the RV out of the driveway, the headlights off so as not to wake the couple in the house.
“All of them?”
She described her night’s activities in clipped sentences.
“And Hannah?”
“Sleeping next to me.”
“What’s your next move?”
“You’ll be the first to know as soon as I figure it out. First thing I need to do is get as far from Washington as I can. I’ll call you in another couple of days. What about you? What are you going to do?”
“I guess I need to think about that some. Can’t see any reason to hide out in the jungle if the bad guys with the grudge are history. Can you?”
“Not really. Unless you’re a nature nut or something.”
“I’m really not.”
“Then you thinking maybe you’ll buy yourself an island and hang out a hammock?” she asked.
Betrayal j-2 Page 24
