Maybe her brother was telling the truth. Maybe she was abducted…or…she wanted us to think she was abducted.
Opening the file on her one…her only…remaining lead, she stared for a long moment at the picture attached to the folder. Aaron Casey looked back at her from the image, dressed in the uniform of a naval officer. She let her eyes linger on the handsome features, the piercing blue eyes, then moved on to the broad shoulders covered in gold leaf.
She read through the summary. She knew dammed well he was hiding something from her, but what information he had and why he was keeping it to himself escaped her. Casey didn’t strike her as the kind to lie to the FBI, but she trusted her gut and it said he had. She was sure of it.
How does a squeaky-clean guy like this get mixed up with someone who might be a traitor, or a terrorist, or both.
She considered the question for a long moment before arriving at an answer.
Simple. He lets his little head do all the thinking, that’s how. He must be more involved with Ryan than he admitted. That’s the only reason he would lie for her.
Carla considered what Casey said about the night he found Ryan. He told her Ryan was attacked and he thought it was a mugging. She scoffed aloud at the weak pretense.
Bullshit! Muggings happen outside, in parks and on subways. No one gets mugged inside an office building. He’s smarter than that.
She thought back on their brief meeting at the crime scene. He hadn’t told her much, and what he did tell her didn’t fit the facts.
If Ryan stole the project and ran, why tell anyone about it? If she didn’t do anything wrong, why run? And…how did she drag Casey into it?
She wondered if Ryan might be the victim of a fall-out between criminals. She also briefly revisited the possibility that Casey was in on the theft with her.
It doesn’t make sense. None of it does.
Taking another glance at the photo, she willed the man looking back at her to break his silence.
If you met Ryan the way you said, why lie to me about it?
She let her eyes draw along the uniform’s crisp angles. She thought he projected a certain image. What do they call it…‘squared away’?
She continued to scan the photo and did a double-take when she reached the gold insignia pinned to his left lapel.
Those aren’t aviator’s wings. That looks like a…?
Her heart skipped a beat and she dropped the file as if it burned her hands. Rifling the center desk drawer, she found a magnifying glass. She stared in genuine awe as the small circle filled with the clear image of a gold eagle, in its talons the flintlock and the spear. Behind the majestic bird she saw the anchor and its fouled line. Her heart raced as the daunting realization set in.
Son-of-a… It is a Trident!
She thought about the insignia and her body tingled with electricity as the truth ran through her.
Jesus Christ! He’s not just ex-Navy, he’s a SEAL!
Reclaiming the folder, she skipped the rest of his FBI file and found his service record. The pages were dotted with black bars. She smirked as she absorbed the words. So much for the new age of information sharing.
While the file lacked any specific places or dates, what details remained unrolled Aaron’s exploits like a fine carpet. Carla whistled softly as she formed mental pictures to go along with her expanding comprehension.
Wow! Recon and rescue missions into enemy territory, Navy Cross, received two commendations for actions ‘above and beyond’. I knew there was something different about this guy.
Her mental picture of her target began to coalesce as she thought again about the way he handled her interrogation. The more she thought it out, the truth became embarrassingly evident.
I have to admit, I’m impressed. I didn’t intimidate him in the least. He wasn’t afraid of me. He wanted to get away from me, sure. But why?
Knowing guilty suspects typically react to questioning in one of two ways, silence or defiance, she realized Casey displayed neither.
He was more…impatient.
Replaying the meeting in her mind, she remembered his confidence, the projection of authority, and suddenly she knew exactly why he lied to her.
I don’t buy Ryan as the innocent victim, but obviously Casey does. He’s on another rescue mission…and he’s dammed-well going to tell me all about it.
Aaron’s apartment building enveloped Carla in an eerie, cold silence as she stepped off the elevator. Knowing Ryan trusted Casey once; Carla thought maybe she would again. After leaving three unreturned voice messages, she’d decided to make a personal visit.
Standing in the hall outside his apartment, she reached into her jacket and retrieved her Sig-Sauer 40 caliber automatic. With a small metallic click she dropped the magazine out of the handle and saw the hollow points resting in a neat row. She pushed the clip back into place, feeling it lock. She racked the slide, chambering a cartridge. She slid the weapon back into her shoulder holster. Better safe than sorry.
She raised her hand to knock and the door opened to her touch. Surprised, she checked the frame.
No sign of forced entry.
Instincts in overdrive, she pulled the weapon, leveled it, and stepped into the entryway, her back to the wall.
She called out, her confident order filling the air. “Federal agent! Anyone inside, show yourselves…Now!”
She called out a second time, repeating her demand. “Federal agent! Anyone inside, make yourselves known and put your hands where I can see them!”
Senses tingling, she took a few cautious steps forward then stopped, listening carefully. Hearing nothing, she worked her way around an overstuffed chair and moved to the center of the room, her steps cushioned by a throw rug of tan and brown.
She called out for a third time. “Mr. Casey, its Agent Raven. I need to speak with you. Are you here?”
Still getting no reply to her voice commands, she continued her search. Holding the weapon in front of her, she carefully opened the first door in the hall and swept the room with the barrel. She noticed it was a small room, the single bed neatly made. She noticed the sparse décor and bare hardwood floor.
This must be a guest room.
She moved to the next door in the hall and nudged it open with the Sig’s barrel, finding the bathroom. She checked the shower then moved on to the last door.
Weapon first, she entered and confirmed the two rooms making up the master suite were also unoccupied. She holstered the gun and took a second look around. A large Colonial four-poster bed dominated the silent master bedroom, resting against the wall next to a window. The bed was neatly made, covered with a thick white comforter and a hand-full of decorative throw pillows. Her gaze continued around the room and found the nightstand, clock on top, next to the bed.
On the last wall she took in a matching hi-boy dresser standing in the corner. On top rested a TV/ DVD combo and a dozen disks. She smiled inwardly at the predictability of the selections. She recognized two Steven Segal movies, a Bruce Willis trilogy, and an open copy of the Bill Murray military spoof ‘Stripes’.
She chuckled softly in the empty room.
Boys will be boys.
The last title in the stack caught her eye, jolting her preconceived notions of the man she tracked. Picking it up, she turned the case over, reading a back-cover synopsis of the John Wayne/Maureen O’Hara classic ‘The Quiet Man’.
Okay, so he’s brave, strong and sensitive, but where the hell is he?
She rolled her eyes. Don’t tell me he’s disappeared now too!
Chapter Twenty-Nine
Aaron’s eyes fluttered open and the thundering roar built in his head. Long blades of red-hot pain stabbed his brain in rhythm to his pulse. He took a shallow breath and tried to lie very still. After a few agonizing seconds the concussions retreated, the thundering waves becoming muted voices.
“He’s going to come around soon,” a woman said. “What do we do then?”
“We question him and
find out what, if anything, he knows. Then we dispose of him.”
Through the slowly lifting fog, he identified the second voice as male.
He suppressed the instinct to move, to rise up on the bed. He listened intently, the voices beginning to fade as his captors moved away.
“We’ve already talked about this,” the voice floated back to him as the woman continued. “I thought we were going to keep a low profile.”
“Look, this is still my mission,” the man answered her sharply. “So we play it my…”
The sound of a door closing cut off the rest of his words.
Aaron lay still for several more seconds, listening to the beat of his own heart. He tried again to open his eyes and the world slowly melted from dark, rolling waves into a solid form, beginning to take shape.
He lifted his head, ignoring the return of the pounding drums in his ears. The large bed still seemed miles off the floor but, much to his relief, the room had ceased its persistent spinning.
Sunlight streamed in through the partially drawn, paisley drapes. He blinked a few times, the brightness a startling contrast to the half-light surrounding him.
Daylight? Where the hell am I?
Laying his head back down, he tried bending one limb at a time. His left arm stopped short, and he took in the gleam of the sunlight reflecting off the chrome handcuffs locked to his wrist. Discovering his arms and legs still worked, and with minimal pain, he tried the next step.
Still surveying his surroundings, he swung his legs off the bed and tried to sit up. The room revolved in a few sickening orbits before his eyes and the pain wracked his head, but he remained vertical. After a few more deep, cleansing breaths, the room began to slow and the pain bracing his head faded to a dull hammering at the base of his skull.
Okay. So far, so good.
The well-appointed room seemed to mock him as he considered his situation. Realizing his captors hadn’t removed the placard from the nightstand, he found the ‘Regency Resort’ logo embossed in bottom of the sign. Okay, so I’m downtown…and they don’t care that I know that.
Feeling ready, he tried to stand. The manacles locked to the bed stopped him short. He tried breaking the rail out of the headboard, the misguided effort causing only minimal damage to the heavy oak’s polished finish and a rapidly expanding bruise on his wrist. He stopped struggling against the iron-hard wood, knowing it was futile.
Scanning the room, he discovered his captors had left through a door in the suite’s wall and he assumed it went to another room, not into the hall. Straining his ears, he picked up muffled voices on the other side of the door.
The metallic click of the lock warned him of his captors’ imminent return and he quickly stretched back out on the bed. The door opened with a soft swish and the pair entered, quietly approaching, then stopping at the foot of the bed. Pretending to still be unconscious, Aaron listened.
“Clark, this guy should be awake by now.” Trish said. “Someone this big should come around after an hour or two.”
“Well, it’s been almost three, so he’s either a lot weaker then we thought,” she paused, leaning forward to check Aaron’s pulse. “Or he’s faking.”
Clark pulled a small brass key from his pocket and moved toward the bed. “Either way, we’re going to the factory. He can cool his heels with Ryan. I don’t want some bimbo maid finding him in here.”
Aaron felt cuffs come off and his pulse jumped, sensing the cold steel of a gun barrel against his temple.
“Up! …Now!” Clark demanded.
Aaron lay motionless.
“I know you’re awake, now move before I put a bullet in your head.”
Aaron stiffened as the man standing over him pulled the hammer back, the telltale sound sharp in his already-ringing ears.
He opened his eyes. “All right, all right. I’m up. Just take it easy with the gun.”
Swinging his legs off the bed once again, Aaron rubbed his sore wrist. Clark walked around the bed and met Aaron’s eyes. “You’re so hot to find Ryan. Well, I’m going to accommodate you.”
The visibly impatient mercenary waved the gun toward the door. “Let’s go! We don’t want to keep the good doctor waiting, now do we?”
Pushing him out ahead of his captors, Clark jabbed the barrel of the nickel-plated .357 Magnum into Aaron’s back, his kidney burning in protest.
“We’re going to walk past the lobby and you are going to keep your mouth shut.” Clark ordered.
Aaron nodded and made a mental. I.O.U. one Smith and Wesson suppository…but first, lead me to Jenny.
The ride through the city seemed endless as his imagination ran wild with terrible possibilities.
These two seem like pros. That means she might still have a chance. I just hope she’s still alive.
Aaron sat in the passenger seat, looking out the window and continuing his dark thoughts as Trish guided the car through the heavy traffic. Clark sat behind him, pistol barrel digging into the back of his head.
Heading deeper into the North End, the car slowed for the off-ramp to the waterfront. Twisting through a maze of narrow side-streets, Trish finally brought the convertible to a stop before a high chain-link fence, its top wrapped with razor wire.
Stealing a glance out the window, Aaron saw a faded “no trespassing” sign fastened to the sagging gate. Riddled with bullet holes, the sign’s passive warning message became abundantly clear.
“Get out.” Clark barked, motioning with the revolver.
As the car sped away, Aaron stepped through a gap between the chained gates. His captor followed close behind, the menacing pistol tight in his hand.
The pair trudged through the snow-covered parking lot to an abandoned building, its clapboard façade discolored by age and marred by layers of graffiti. They stopped at the rear entrance of the one-time furniture factory, rusted bars on the door blocking their ingress.
Aaron surveyed his surroundings and heard the crunch- crunch of footsteps in the snow as the woman reappeared from around the corner.
“I stashed the car in the loading dock.” She said, her hurried words generating small puffs of vapor in the cold.
The man with the gun turned to his co-conspirator. “Did you back it in…like I said?”
She rolled her eyes at the question. “What am I, stupid? Of course I backed it in.”
He took a step forward, closing the distance between the two. A menacing look crossed his reddening face. “Don’t give me any grief,” he waved the gun in her direction. “Just do what I say…Period.”
She glared at him. “Listen, Clark. I’m no amateur. So, piss off! …and point that thing somewhere else!”
He smiled at her caustic insult. “Now there’s that fire I remember.”
Aaron watched the heated exchange. For pros, these two are not getting along too well. That might come in handy later.
Majors turned again toward the wrought iron bars and Trish gave him the finger behind his back, shifting her stance nervously from foot to foot. He pulled a key from his pocket and opened the security gate.
Trish stepped through the doorway to join Aaron and Clark, seeking shelter from the freezing wind blowing in off Boston Harbor. She pulled the door closed with a creak of rusted hinges, plunging the three into almost total darkness.
Aaron blinked several times, his vision slowly adjusting to the poor illumination. Tiny shafts of light filtered through windows several floors above, breaking the black veil. He noted that some of the panes were cracked, holed, or missing altogether. He strained his eyes, trying to see the other end of the building, some three hundred yards away.
He heard a small snap and a white beam pierced the gloom, attached to the hand of the woman next to him. The light touched her face, her nose wrinkling at the damp, musty smell permeating the air.
Clark jammed the pistol’s barrel into his back again, the sharp stab pushing him forward. “Move.” He ordered.
Guided only by the flashlight’s nar
row beam, they walked for long minutes in silence while small clouds of dust rose from the floor as they passed. Aaron felt an involuntary shiver run the length of his body as he envisioned Jenny being confined in this cold and dismal place. The ancient floorboards creaked, echoing loudly as they made their way across the frigid expanse.
Trish broke the unnatural quiet, her breath visible in the small vapor clouds that sprang from her lips. “Jesus, how old is this place?”
The three continued threading their way through the darkness, the eerie skeletons of woodworking machines passing through the flashlight’s bright circle as Clark answered her in a shallow, lecturing tone. “This factory was built in 1859, and abandoned in 1946. That’s why I chose it. No one’s had a reason to come here in more than sixty years.”
After several more minutes of oppressive, silent walking, Clark raised his hand, bringing the trio to a halt before a staircase that appeared from the darkness. Turning back and forth, the aged wood treads zig-zaged up the wall, parting at landings to access a catwalk at each floor. Rubbing his hands together, Clark tried to fight off the cold.
Aaron spoke for the first time since leaving the car. “You said you were taking me to Dr. Ryan. Where is she?”
The man with the gun answered, sharp tones betraying his annoyance. “You’ll see soon enough.”
He pointed the pistol toward the top of the stairs. “You first, up!”
Aaron ascended to the third step and felt it bow under his weight, wondering if it would hold him after all these years. Stairs groaning in protest as they climbed, the three made their way to the second floor landing.
Aaron could feel the cold penetrating his bones. He turned to his captors. “This place has no heat. You’d better hope she’s okay.”
Trish joined him on the small platform. “She’s fine. Maybe not very comfortable, but she’s very much alive.”
Aaron closed the gap between them. Backing the woman against the wall, he towered over her. “You better hope so, or I’ll…”
Clark shouldered his way between the two, gun wedged in Aaron’s ribs.
Chain Reaction Power Failure Book I Page 19
