“Did you find out the guy’s room number?” she asked as Rosario joined her.
“There are eleven men staying alone. Give me five minutes, I could do some background checks and narrow things down.”
“We don’t have time for that. I have a better idea.”
__________
USING ANANKE’S METHOD, it only took them less than six minutes to check the fourth-floor rooms occupied by single male guests. There had been no answers at two, so they’d let themselves in and made sure no one was hiding inside. The other three were opened by men happily surprised to see two beautiful women at their door. None was the target, however, so Ananke and Rosario, acting as tipsy teases, apologized for getting the wrong room and stumbled off down the hallway.
When they reached the third floor, they heard a dull thud from down the corridor. They shared a look and headed toward it. More thuds led them to a room halfway down the hall.
Rosario glanced at the room number and then at her phone. “It’s on my list.”
Ananke put her ear against the door. She heard a thump and the expulsion of a breath, and then, “Just calm down, asshole.”
Ricky.
She picked the lock and shoved the door open.
At the other end of the short entrance hall, in the space between the bed and the dresser, Ricky lay on top of the e-mailer. The struggle that had been going on stopped as both men looked to see who’d come in.
“Hey, boss,” Ricky said with a smile. “I found him!”
Rosario shut the door as Ananke strode into the room.
“What the hell do you think you’re doing?” she asked.
“Capturing the bad guy? Isn’t that why we’re here?”
The e-mailer shoved at Ricky’s chest, clearly realizing his bad situation had turned worse.
“Hey,” Ricky barked. “Cool it. You ain’t going—”
Somehow the e-mailer’s leg slipped free, allowing him to swing his knee hard into Ricky’s groin. As air exploded out of Ricky’s mouth, the guy flipped him toward Ananke and scrambled to his feet. In a flash, he opened the sliding glass door at the back of the room and disappeared onto the balcony.
Ricky, eyes bulging, writhed on the floor at Ananke’s feet, hindering her ability to get by him. Once she did, she sprinted to the door and outside.
The small patio was barely wide enough for the table and two chairs that occupied it, so the guy should have been right there, but he wasn’t.
She looked over the railing. To both her relief and disappointment, no broken body lay on the sidewalk below.
She heard a pant and leaned a little farther out. “You little weasel,” she said.
The target was hanging from a railing that ran underneath the patio.
Before she could figure out a way to haul him back up, he swung once and dropped onto the balcony of the floor below.
“Are you kidding me?”
She clicked on her comm. “Liesel! Dylan! We found the target but he’s trying to get away. Watch all exits and don’t let him get out.”
“There are only two of us down here,” Dylan said. “How are we supposed to watch—”
“Just do it!”
Rosario, who had been backing her up in the doorway, moved to the side as Ananke ran back into the room.
“He jumped?” Rosario asked.
“To the floor below.”
As they headed toward the door, Ananke glared at the still prone and cringing Ricky. “I swear to God, if we lose him…” She was out the door by then so she didn’t finish.
Certain he hadn’t stayed on the second floor for long, Ananke and Rosario skipped the elevator and flew down the stairs to ground level. Dylan was standing in the elevator lobby as they exited.
“He didn’t come through here?” Ananke asked.
“Do you think I’d still be standing here if he had? What the hell happened?”
“Ricky happened,” she growled.
Slowing their pace to not draw too much attention, the two women walked into the main lobby. Liesel was now across the room, where she could watch both the restaurant and casino exits.
“No sign of him?” Ananke asked.
Liesel shook her head.
Ananke and Rosario hurried outside through the main exit, and then headed along the path that ran beside the hotel, picking up speed until they were running. They whipped down the short side of the building and around the corner to the back, where the balcony the target had escaped from was located. There was no sign of him, not on any of the balconies or on the hotel grounds.
“His car!” Ananke said.
They raced down the back of the hotel, circled the building into the parking lot, and rushed over to the guy’s car. It was empty.
Ananke looked past the lot toward the heart of Tonopah, wondering if he’d run into town and was already blocks away. There was a way to find out.
She activated her comm. “Ricky, please tell me you’re not still lying on the floor.”
“I’m in the elevator,” he replied, a strain in his voice.
“Good. When you reach the first floor, pull the fire alarm.”
__________
GAMBLERS AND GUESTS and hotel workers streamed into the casino’s parking lot from every possible door. Ananke, Liesel, Rosario, and Dylan were spread out along the sidewalk that fronted the building so they could keep a watch on all exits. The still recovering Ricky was tasked with standing guard at their target’s car.
Ananke was surprised at how many people had been inside. While she tried to get a look at each face, she knew the e-mailer could have snuck out in the middle of one of the many surges.
It wasn’t long before fire engines and sheriff’s cars started arriving, some having to honk at the gathering crowd to get through.
With the exiting crowd thinning to a trickle, Ananke swung around and searched the mob gathered in the lot. As far as she could tell, the e-mailer wasn’t among them. She was just turning back when she noticed a car pulling out of a parking spot.
A white car.
She took three steps toward it before her view cleared enough for her to see it was a white Altima. Another step and the driver was visible.
She didn’t see Ricky anywhere.
“Liesel!” Pointing, Ananke ran toward the car.
The e-mailer saw her coming and honked his horn get the people standing in his way to move. Some jumped at the sound, while others gave him the stink eye before moving to the side.
Ananke angled through a row of parked cars, sliding along the rear fender of a Mercedes before reaching the aisle the e-mailer was driving down. She turned after him and sprinted down the asphalt in hopes of catching him before he reached the road. As she chased the vehicle, she noticed it was leaning downward at the back corner—where she’d stabbed the tire. As she’d feared, the cut wasn’t as crippling as she’d wished. But it was having an effect.
The last of the crowd moved out of the Altima’s way, giving the e-mailer a straight shot to the street. Ananke closed the gap to within two car lengths before the distance increased. She didn’t stop until she reached the road, where it became clear she’d never catch up.
As she bent over to catch her breath, another vehicle raced up beside her and skidded to a halt.
“Get in!” Liesel yelled as she pushed open the rear crew cab of Ricky’s truck.
Ananke started to pull herself in, but saw Ricky was behind the wheel. “I’ll drive.”
“Just get in,” Ricky shouted, grimacing. “I got this.”
The moment her butt hit the seat, Ricky slammed down the accelerator, the passenger door swinging shut without Ananke having to do a thing.
“What happened?” she asked, having a hard time keeping her anger in check. “You were supposed to keep him from getting to his car.”
“He got behind me.”
“He got behind you?”
“I swear, I was watching, but…I thought he would come from the hotel. He must have wo
rked his way around the block to get to the car, and knocked me down when he saw me.”
“You could have warned us he was getting away.”
Rubbing the back of his head, he said, “By the time I…recovered, could think of it, I already heard you yelling.” He must have taken her non-response as a silent rebuke, because he then added, “I know, I should have still heard him. I…I screwed up.”
“Just drive,” she said.
If it weren’t for the need to respond to Goodwin’s fire alarm, Ananke was sure the sheriff’s department would have been all over Ricky’s truck as they sped through town after the Altima, but they made it all the way into the desert countryside unmolested.
Ahead, Ananke saw the Altima’s back corner was getting closer and closer to the road.
“Slow down,” she said.
Ricky scoffed. “Are you crazy? We’ve almost got him.”
“Back away! Now!”
More a reaction to her tone than anything else, Ricky slowed the truck.
Less than ten seconds later, the rim of the sagging tire cut through the tread and sent a fountain of sparks into the air. A beat after this, the tire was shredded into a million pieces that spewed all over the road.
The car fishtailed wildly, twice going nearly perpendicular to the highway. The e-mailer tried to regain control, but each time he swung the car too far back the other way. The back end drifted off the road, allowing the empty rim to dig into the dirt shoulder.
At one moment, there was a cloud of dust, and at the next, the Altima was flying through the air.
The car flipped more than once before it landed on the passenger side. The tumbling didn’t end there, as the car continued rolling over and over through the dirt and scrub. When it finally came to rest, the vehicle was back on its wheels.
Ananke jumped out of the truck before Ricky had fully stopped on the side of the road where the Altima was. As she raced across the desert, she could hear Liesel’s footsteps not far behind her.
Not an inch of the Altima had escaped damage. One of the rear doors had flown off, while the trunk had been pounded down to half its original size. And though advances in safety technology had prevented the passenger cabin from collapsing, the metal skin that surrounded it had taken a serious beating.
The e-mailer was slumped in the driver’s seat, his head resting on top of the displaced steering wheel, the now deflated airbag lying mostly in his lap. If he hadn’t been wearing his seat belt, he would have probably been ejected through his missing window somewhere along the way.
Ananke tried to wrench his door open but it wouldn’t move. She reached inside and touched his neck.
For a few seconds she thought she felt a pulse, but either it had been the last beats of his heart or wishful thinking on her part, because soon there was nothing.
Her head slumped forward. They had needed this asshole alive to tell them where the kids were.
“Dead?” Liesel asked.
“Yeah.”
The two women searched the car, coming up with a small duffel bag full of clothes, a rental agreement for the car, and, with a glimmer of hope, the dead man’s still-working smartphone.
Perhaps the e-mailer’s untimely demise wasn’t a total loss after all.
32
THE MIDDLE OF NOWHERE, NEVADA
BY THE TIME Ananke and Liesel returned to the truck, Dylan and Rosario had arrived in the Explorer.
Ananke was relieved to see no other vehicles had stopped. Traffic on the two-lane highway was light. No one else had been close enough to witness the Altima’s dramatic tumble across the dirt. At some point, though, someone would spot the mangled car sitting in the middle of the desert or the marks on the highway the bare wheel had made.
They needed to move on before that happened.
Dylan checked the map. “There’s a rest stop a few miles to the west. Will that do?”
“Perfect,” Ananke said.
On the drive, Ananke gave Rosario the dead man’s phone and the rental agreement, and then made a more thorough check of the duffel bag, but as she’d guessed, it held only clothes.
“Ananke?” Rosario said suddenly.
Ananke looked over.
Rosario had been in the process of plugging the phone into her laptop, but had stopped and turned the cell’s screen toward Ananke. Though the phone was neither ringing nor vibrating, a call was coming in, the caller ID reading V.
“Should I answer?” Rosario asked.
It was tempting, but Ananke shook her head. “We can’t risk it.”
If the person on the other end was also involved in the kidnapping—which seemed highly likely—it would be better for him or her to leave a message.
They watched the screen pulse one more time, and then V was replaced by MISSED CALL. Ten seconds later, VOICE MAIL appeared.
“Can you retrieve it?” Ananke asked.
“I should be able to.”
Rosario got back to work hacking into the phone.
As they neared the rest stop, another call came in. V, and then MISSED CALL, and then VOICE MAIL.
Less than thirty seconds after that, a text message appeared on the screen.
V
Where the hell are you?
Ananke watched over Rosario’s shoulder as the woman worked her magic, neither of them noticing that Dylan had parked and shut off the engine. It wasn’t until Liesel opened the side door and climbed in that Ananke looked up.
“Where’s Ricky?”
“Toilet,” Liesel replied. “I think he wants to make sure his equipment is still working.”
That earned a chuckle from the others.
“I’m in,” Rosario said.
The lock screen of the dead man’s smartphone had given way to rows of apps.
“Voice mails first,” Ananke said.
Rosario navigated to the list. There were five messages, three already listened to. She played the first of the two new messages.
“Danny, call me back.” The voice was male, raspy, with an aged but not too old quality.
Rosario touched the Play arrow for the newest message.
“Danny, goddammit. What’s going on? Have you heard back yet? Call me as soon as you get this.”
“Sounds like someone’s getting anxious,” Dylan said.
“You want to hear the others?” Rosario asked.
Ananke nodded.
Rosario played them in order of receipt.
Previous day, 9:10 a.m., same voice as before: “I know you’re sleeping. Get your ass out of bed and call me.”
Previous day, 5:43 p.m., same voice: “I swear to God, if you’re playing blackjack, I’ll…shit…don’t lose too much. All clear here.”
That morning, 7:37 a.m., same voice: “Still all clear. Hope you didn’t get too drunk last night, asshole.” A laugh at the end before the click.
It wasn’t hard for Ananke to connect the dots. The dead man—Danny, apparently—was waiting for the go-ahead to send the ransom notes. He must have answered the call that had sent him into action. Or—
“Check his texts,” she said.
Rosario opened the message app. V was the only conversation listed.
“Here’s one from seconds after the explosion,” Rosario said. She showed the screen to Ananke.
Barn’s been found. Time to press SEND.
Danny responded immediately with:
On it
Four minutes later, he sent:
Messages away
V texted back:
Hourly check-ins from now on.
And the moment you get a response,
I want to know.
Every hour after that until seventy-five minutes ago, Danny sent:
Nothing yet
The most interesting text had been sent right about the time Ananke and the others were boarding the jet in California.
Head down. Trouble might be coming your way.
“How did they know we were coming here?” Liesel asked.
“That’s an excellent question,” Ananke said, the skin at the back of her neck simmering in anger.
“Aren’t we the only ones who knew?” Dylan said. “Us and your man, Shinji. How much do you trust him?”
“With your life.”
Looking a bit uncomfortable, Dylan said, “Had to ask, that’s all. Didn’t mean anything by it.”
“There was someone else,” Rosario said.
“Yes, there was,” Ananke said. “Your phone, please.”
When Rosario handed it over, Ananke climbed out of the Explorer and walked over to a deserted corner of the rest area, where she called the Administrator.
Before he could get out his first word, she said, “Is this all just one big setup?”
“I’m sorry?”
“This ‘mission’ you’ve given us, is it just some excuse to have us killed on a job?”
“What? That’s rid—”
“Bring all of us recently excommunicated agents together, make us feel good about ourselves by giving us work, and then have us walk into an exploding barn, or perhaps track down someone who knows we’re coming?”
“Of course not. Why would you say that?”
“Why? Because it turns out your ransom note sender was warned that we were on our way. The only person not on my team who knew our plans was you. Which—and excuse me if my logic is a bit hard to follow—means that either one of my team or you, Mr. Administrator, told him. The thing is, I know we didn’t do it.”
The line was quiet for several seconds before the Administrator said, “And you know he was aware you were coming how?”
“How doesn’t matter. We know. I can’t speak for the others, but I’m pretty sure you’ll be getting more calls like this. I quit. I’d rather my previous employer send someone to slit my throat in the middle of the night than continue playing whatever game this is. At least that way, I’d have a good idea as to what was coming.”
In a calm, measured voice, the Administrator said, “What about the missing children?”
The Excoms Page 17
