The two other hostages opened their eyes. They glanced at each other, and one of them opened his mouth to speak.
Meg cut him off. “I wasn’t talking to you.” She raised her voice only slightly. “I know you can hear me. I’d like my question answered, please.”
From the bottom of her handbag, her cell phone rang.
She’d imagined them yelling the answers to her questions right through the closed bathroom door. She’d feel right at home—that was one of Amy’s favorite forms of communication.
Oh, God, she wanted Amy.
She let the phone ring until she was sure she could answer it without her voice wavering. She couldn’t sound weak. She couldn’t let them think they could just walk in here and take the gun away from her.
Even if that was the truth.
Taking a deep breath and holding the gun with her right hand, she reached into her bag with her left, her eyes never leaving her hostages. She flipped the phone open.
“Guess you figured out who I am, huh?” She tried her best to sound flip, casual. As if she were a hardened terrorist who’d taken hostages a dozen, no, a hundred times before.
“Ms. Moore, my name is Max Bhagat and I’m—”
“Has John Nilsson been found?” All those relentless sales calls from AT&T and MCI were finally paying off. After years of practice, Meg didn’t even feel compelled to wait until he took a breath before she cut him off.
“Ms. Moore, it would help a great deal if we knew—”
Meg hung up the phone. She couldn’t talk to him. She couldn’t listen. Max Bhagat was an FBI negotiator. A professional. He had to be. And she couldn’t afford to let him distract or confuse her. It had to be John she spoke to. Only John.
The phone rang again, and she let it go for six long rings before answering.
“That was a yes/no question,” she said. No hello. Right to the point. She’d never been so rude in all her life. “Let’s try it again. Has John Nilsson been found?”
There was only the slightest pause before Bhagat replied. “Yes.”
“Is he coming?”
“Yes.”
“His ETA?”
“We just located him. It’s hard to know exactly—”
“Guess.”
“Six or seven hours?”
Oh, God. “Six hours. Make it six,” she said, and hung up the phone. Six more hours. Dear, sweet Jesus, help her. Another six hours and she would be dead.
Tired, she corrected herself. Please, God, only dead tired.
Dead would no doubt come later.
When they were pulled out of the back of the van by a man who wasn’t wearing a mask, Eve knew that she and Amy wouldn’t be left alive.
It was almost absurd, after the life she’d led, that it should all end here.
She’d survived the tragic death of both her parents at age fifteen.
She’d survived moving from her beloved southern California all the way across the Atlantic Ocean to England, a country where the drizzle seemed relentless and the sun never shone quite as strong—a country she’d learned to love with all her heart.
She’d survived the War. The terrible war with Nazi Germany. She’d lived through the Battle of Britain, as the German Luftwaffe bombed the English coast night after excruciatingly endless night.
And—speaking of excruciating—she’d survived the disco era, too. She mustn’t forget about that.
The thought would’ve been ridiculous enough to make her smile even as she was roughly dragged up the overgrown path to a ramshackle two-story house, if it hadn’t been for Amy.
Face it. Eve had lived darn near forever. Three quarters of a century was a long time. And while she wasn’t eager for it to be over, she’d lived a full life and could gracefully accept whatever fate had in store for her.
But she could accept no such thing for Amy.
The girl was still almost completely out of it from whatever drug they’d both been given to knock them out. Eve carried her awkwardly, with her hands tied in front of her, even though her bones creaked from sitting still for so many hours, even though she barely limped along.
The thought that Amy’s life was about to end was obscene. Meg’s daughter was so young, so beautiful. She had Meg’s glorious dark eyes. And even though she had her perfidious father’s hair, on Amy it was gorgeous—thick and dark, a tumble of curls down her back.
Eve had longed for such hair when she was younger. She’d been born with straight, baby fine, wispy blond hair.
Amy whimpered like a child half her age and clung to Eve’s neck, and Eve glared at the man who had such a tight hold on her arm. She would have finger-shaped bruises there come the morning.
“I’m seventy-five years old,” she told him. “If you push me again, I might fall and break my already too-painful hip. And then where would we be?”
Spending her last few moments on earth in serious pain, unable to comfort Amy. Eve could see that answer in the man’s eyes.
God help them.
She limped up the stairs and into the house where another man and a woman, both carrying enormous guns, looking like commandos from a bad movie, pushed her into a room with no furnishings.
She shifted Amy higher up, her muscles screaming from carrying a ten-year-old girl, as she looked around.
The room was completely bare, save for the balls of dust on the floor.
The walls were dull, the dingy shades were pulled tightly down. French doors with smudgy glass opened into another room—a dining room. It held a rickety card table and some gray metal folding chairs. Beyond that, through an open door, Eve could see a glimpse of a kitchen, decorated in what she knew had once been cheery oranges and avocado greens, but both had aged to a very similar shade of putrid brown.
One of the men—there were four, and one woman—closed the French doors with a rattle that made Amy lift her head.
Where are we? Who are you? Why are we here?
Eve had tried those questions when they pulled off the highway to take a very public personal hygiene break by the side of a deserted road. She’d persisted after they’d been tied back up and unceremoniously loaded back into the van.
That and Amy’s crying had gotten them another set of needles in their arms, and more of that mind numbing unconsciousness. She’d dreamed about running. The five-kilometer Dover Dash that she’d first entered when she turned fifty. Only, in her dream, she was being chased by Nazis. If they caught her, she was dead.
Eve wasn’t going to risk another dose of drugs, or an even more permanent solution, so this time she kept her mouth firmly shut.
“Sit,” she was ordered, so she sat. Lowering Amy to the hard floor first, then creakily joining her, she took the child back into her arms as her captors spoke quietly in a language she didn’t understand.
The man who had spoken wanted to be the leader. He’d been one of the two men in the van. He was shorter than the other men, but he clearly wanted to be in charge.
The other one who’d been in the van, Mr. Push-the-old-lady-up-the-stairs, was full of complaints. That was obvious even though Eve couldn’t understand a word of what they were saying. But he gestured, he pouted, he whined. And a whine was a whine, whatever the language.
The other men were silent. One of them was enormous, a great huge bear of a young man.
They were all young, barely more than children. The oldest couldn’t have been more than twenty-five.
The oldest was the woman. She had dark hair pulled severely back from her face in a ponytail and eyes that were already dead. All five of them had those enormous guns, but the woman held hers as if it were a natural extension of her arms. She was the one who was in charge. Eve could tell that with one look.
Eve saw from Amy’s ragged breathing that she was very close to tears. As a sob escaped, the woman looked over at them sharply. Best not to get that one angry. It wouldn’t take much to push her over the edge.
Eve held Amy more tightly, hushing her, murmuring words o
f reassurance that she didn’t quite believe. “It’ll be all right.” She rocked Amy gently in her arms, like she’d done when the little girl was just a baby. Her eyelids drooped, and she sagged against Eve, giving in to the last remaining vestiges of the drug. Thank God.
Thank God.
Eve had never been one to spend a lot of time in prayer, begging for miracles. She was far more a student of the “God helps those who help themselves” school. But if there were ever a time she could use a little deus ex machina, it was now.
It didn’t have to be much, God. It didn’t have to be a black helicopter filled with those U.S. Navy SEALs that Meg had spoken of so many times, with such admiration in her voice.
A sudden, intense fatigue that all five of their kidnappers came down with at once would certainly do it. Eve could haul Amy into her arms and steal away with her into the darkness of the woods and swamp that seemed to surround this run-down old house on three sides.
Please, God, don’t let Amy’s life end here.
Eve could remember when she herself was nearly as young as Amy, when her own life was stretching out in front of her with such limitless possibilities. She could remember 1939, the year she was fifteen. She hadn’t been quite so innocent and sweet as Amy was at ten, but still, she’d been filled with such hope despite the fact that Hitler was terrifying people in England with the threat of war.
She’d been fifteen and still a child, but all grown-up as well. She’d been both mother and father to Nick, her little brother. He’d been Amy’s age that year—ten—and so like Amy in so many ways, so furiously, joyfully alive despite all the hurdles life had sent their way.
Eve closed her eyes, remembering the hurdle she and Nick had been so afraid of—a hurdle named Ralph Grayson. He’d been hired on as Nicky’s tutor—a young Englishman sent to spend the summer with them in Ramsgate, to teach Nick the impossible—to teach him to read.
She could see Ralph’s face as clearly as if it were yesterday. He had a beautiful face, although clearly he didn’t think so, with a long English nose, exquisite cheekbones, and a high forehead. He had wavy brown hair and hazel eyes that twinkled with good humor when he was amused, and glowed with such intensity when he was passionate.
And it didn’t take much to make him passionate. Shakespeare. Wilde. Shaw. Higher mathematics. Science. History. Oh, history could make the man forget propriety—no small thing for an Englishman—and turn literal cartwheels across the estate lawn.
He’d captivated Nicky. And Eve as well. No, it wasn’t long before he became everything to her. Best friend, confidant, teacher, hero.
Lover. But only in the purest sense of the word.
God, she missed him. It had been years, and she still missed him so much. . . .
Meg Moore.
Holy shit.
The gunman who had taken over the Kazbekistani embassy was a woman. And not just any woman. She was Margaret Delancy Moore.
As Nils stared at the pictures coming onto the transport plane’s video monitor through satellite transmission, he was stunned. If someone had asked him to make a list of all the women he’d met in his twenty-eight years of life, with number one being the woman most likely to take hostages in the Kazbekistani men’s room, Meg Moore would have come in dead last.
On the screen, Meg sat on the floor of that elaborately tiled bathroom, weapon held unwaveringly in her hand. She was wearing jeans and a fancy pair of cowboy boots, a dark blue shirt, and a denim jacket. Her straight dark hair was cut short around her face, making her pretty features appear even more delicate. Her brown eyes had dark smudges beneath them, as if she were sick or at least exhausted, her mouth a grim line.
What did he expect, though? That she’d be smiling? The woman had taken hostage the K-stani ambassador and two of his staff. There wasn’t much to smile about.
But, God, he’d always loved Meg’s smile. . . .
What the hell was she doing on the nonhostage side of a handgun?
“One gunman—or woman, in this case,” Jazz reported, “and three hostages. In a room with a single door and no windows. She chose her location well.”
“According to Admiral Crowley, the K-stani government is pushing for immediate action,” Tom Paoletti added. “The FBI counterterrorist group called onto the scene is considering letting a local SWAT team kick down the door and take her out.”
Nils finally found his voice. “Oh, Christ, no,” he said, and Jazz, Paoletti, and Wolchonok all turned to look at him. “L.T., Jesus, please—don’t let them do that.”
“Who is she, Johnny?” Lieutenant Paoletti asked.
“L.T., really,” Nils said. “You’ve got to call the admiral now, and tell him to ask the FBI to wait. They’ve got to let me go in there first and talk to Meg—her name’s Meg Moore. Seriously, sir, I doubt she’s ever even held a weapon before, let alone fired one. I don’t know what this is about, but there’s definitely something going on here that we don’t know. This is a woman who has a young daughter. I’m telling you, Meg’s probably never even had a speeding ticket in her entire life. Please, Tom, God, don’t let them send in a SWAT team.”
Tom Paoletti was already dialing the phone. “I’ll talk to Crowley.”
Nils felt almost lightheaded with relief.
“Shit, Johnny.” Wolchonok was looking at him with sympathy. “Is this some kind of girlfriend-gone-crazy situation?”
“Oh, no way, Senior Chief,” Nils said. “Not even close. She’s not my girlfriend. I haven’t seen this woman in years.”
“Jesus Christ, is that Meg Moore?” Sam had been in the back of the transport plane with the rest of the team, but now he stood squinting at the slightly blurred pictures on the video screen. He looked at Nils. “It is, isn’t it? Hey, Karmody, come check this out.”
“You know her, too?” Jazz asked.
Sam glanced over at the stone-faced XO. “Yeah, she worked at the American embassy in the Pit back in ’97. Me and Nils and WildCard played hide-the-refugee there with that CIA spook—what was his name?”
“What’s the Pit?” Ensign Mike Muldoon was green and hadn’t had the chance to visit many of the world’s more choice garden spots like Beirut, or Algeria, or the crème de la crème, Kazbekistan.
Mike was one of those digustingly gorgeous guys that women drooled over. He looked like a Hollywood action-adventure hero, hard bodied, with a face that would adorn the bedrooms of teenage girls across the country. But unlike many too-handsome men, he was completely clueless about his good looks. Apparently he’d been overweight as a kid, and when he looked into his mirror, he still saw eight-year-old Tubby Muldoon.
He was a damn nice guy—one of the nicest in the teams, and sharp as hell, as well. If there was something he didn’t understand, he wasn’t afraid to ask questions. He’d hit it off with the senior chief the moment he joined Team Sixteen, and now, as usual, he looked to Wolchonok for an explanation.
“Kazbekistan—” Wolchonok gave the kid his best professor voice. “—is also known as K-stan or the Pit. And for good reason. It’s an oil-rich country, but it looks like the surface of the moon. About four thousand K-stanis are filthy rich; the other millions are piss poor, starving, and angry about it. The government’s allegedly a democracy since the breakup of the Soviet bloc, but the hundreds of thousands of Muslims they oppress probably wouldn’t agree. Every other hovel hides a terrorist cell; Americans can’t travel from the airport to the embassy without armed escort. If it’s ever a choice between K-stan and the Cayman Islands for your vacation, Muldoon, I’d go with the Islands.”
Sam looked at Nils. “What was the name of that guy we went in to rescue? It was some kind of Arab handle. . . .”
“Abdelaziz,” Nils told his friend. He was never going to forget that name, nor the CIA operative it belonged to, not if he lived to be four hundred years old.
WildCard unplugged himself from his laptop long enough to take a quick look at the video monitor. “I remember that. And I remember Meg Moore. Tha
t’s definitely her. She was hot.”
“She was also married—to that asshole foreign service officer,” Sam said. Nils could feel his friend’s eyes on him and he carefully didn’t meet his gaze. “That prick who thought he was God’s gift to the world—remember him?”
Oh, yeah, Nils remembered Daniel Moore. He was older than Meg by at least ten years, with a hint of gray at his distinguished temples. He was one of those guys who’d spent so many years lying, he would no longer recognize the truth if it came up and bit him on the ass.
Of course, Nils should talk. It took one to know one.
Both Sam and WildCard were gazing at him with unabashed interest. And Nils knew what they were thinking. All this had taken place three years ago. And now, from out of the blue, Meg had reappeared, asking for Nils by name. Or was it from out of the blue?
Troubleshooters 02 The Defiant Hero Page 4
