But she heard his footsteps returning, and when he came back carrying a gray towel and a bar of soap, Eve knew it was true. They had been scheduled for execution. The soap and towel was to be their final request.
“Thank you,” she said, as in the other room the audience applauded a contestant who’d decided to use his lifeline.
Her heart was pounding as he led them upstairs to the bathroom. This was it. They had to go out that window tonight.
Right now.
If one of their captors saw or heard them, they would probably be killed on the spot. But that was a chance they’d have to take. If they didn’t leave, they’d be dead tomorrow for sure.
The Bear stopped outside of the bathroom door, pushing it open and gesturing for them to go inside. As Eve did, a breeze pushed the shower curtain up and out, revealing the open window.
The Bear glanced at it and Eve’s heart nearly stopped.
But then she saw her reflection in the cracked and grimy mirror. She was seventy-five years old, and after being held hostage for all these days, she looked every single minute of it.
She limped across the small room to hang the towel on a rack to further drive home the point. She was old and half lame. See? She could barely even walk—let alone escape out a second-story window.
“Be fast,” the Bear said. He touched her arm with a hand the size of a catcher’s mitt. “Be as swift as you possibly can.”
She looked up at him in surprise, but he was already out in the hall, shutting the door behind him.
Amy was already with the program, already in the bathtub, over by the window. “We’ll have to be quiet,” she whispered to Eve. “Even if we slip and fall and hurt ourselves.”
Eve smiled at her. “That’s my brave girl.”
She turned on the water in the sink, letting it run, masking the sound as she took out the screen.
She had two last pieces of butterscotch left, and she took them from her pocket, giving one to Amy and opening the other herself.
“For a little extra courage,” she said.
The sweet taste gave her a little bit of Ralph, too, whose ghostly spirit was with her still. He’d done what he’d had to do all those years ago, in the French countryside just south of Dunkirk. And she and Amy would do what they had to do tonight.
They could do this. And they would.
“Hold tightly to my hand,” Eve told the girl, and they went out the window and into the humid Florida night.
Despite Meg’s impatience, the package was opened by an FBI bomb squad. It had been wrapped in brown paper, and addressed in slanty handwriting.
To Joan Smith, c/o The Seagull Motel.
Beneath the paper had been a priority mailing box. And inside was a cell phone and a slip of paper with a phone number—a number that had Kazbekistan’s country code.
As an FBI agent disguised as a delivery man returned the package, along with a large cheese pizza, to their room, Nils knew they were in the home stretch.
They no longer had to wait for the Extremists to call them. They could call the Extremists.
Meg took the phone and dialed.
It was dark.
That was good.
Eve’s eyes grew accustomed to it as she held tightly to the waistband of Amy’s pants. They moved as soundlessly as possible across the roof, toward the back porch.
In theory, she’d figured they could climb down using the porch rail and the corner beam.
Reality was far more, well, real than theory.
In reality, the ground was very, very far away. In reality, a slip and a fall would not result in her landing on her feet like one of those X-Men that Amy enjoyed reading about.
Reality involved brittle, seventy-five-year-old bones. Reality also had the possibility of men with guns sitting out there on that porch. Men they could well come face-to-face with as they attempted to climb down from the roof.
Reality also ranked “as soundlessly as possible” as a six on a scale from one to ten, with one being soundless and ten being as noisy as a fox in a chicken coop.
Still, the TV was blaring in the kitchen. With luck it was up too loud for anyone to hear the scraping and skittering sounds coming from overhead as they crossed the roof on their bondoons.
Amy was a trouper. Eve could hear the little girl trying to slow her ragged, fearful breathing, obviously conscious of the noise she was making.
You would be so proud of her, Meg.
Climbing down onto the porch railing was both easier and more difficult than Eve could have imagined. She went over the edge of the roof legs first, wrapping them around the corner beam, risking getting splinters in places where splinters had no right to be.
But right now she would be willing to sit on a porcupine if it meant saving Amy.
Eve’s feet finally found the railing, and still holding on to that beam with all her might, Amy slid down into her other arm.
The child was part monkey—thank goodness for tomboys! Once her feet hit the railing, she was out of Eve’s arms and quickly down on the ground.
Eve hadn’t been part monkey in years—it took her a little bit longer.
But then—alleluia!—they were both on the ground.
“I’m not going without you,” the little girl whispered. “I know your leg hurts, but we’ll just go as fast as you can, and hide if we have to.”
Eve didn’t take the time to answer. She just took Amy’s hand and took off at a sprint, not on the road, but through the woods. If they kept going long enough and far enough, they’d eventually reach another house. And another house would have a telephone where they could call the police, the FBI, the National Guard—anyone—for help.
And they’d need that help, in spades. It wasn’t going to be much longer before the Bear and his friends discovered they’d escaped.
And they would come after them, Eve had no doubt about that.
Amy was dragging, and Eve slowed her pace. The girl’s shorter legs would naturally make it hard for her to keep up. And, chances were, Amy hadn’t recently trained for a marathon.
When Eve was fifteen, she’d fooled the world into thinking she was twenty because she looked twenty, and because people expected her to be twenty. That had taught her a thing or two about people’s expectations.
When people saw a seventy-five-year-old with white hair and a wrinkled face, they expected to see old, to see weak, to see a limp.
They didn’t expect to see a strong woman—with her share of age-generated aches and pains, yes—who’d done rather well in a twenty-kilometer footrace raising funds for cancer research just a few weeks before leaving to visit her favorite granddaughter in America.
The underbrush was thick, and it smacked and scratched against them like reaching arms with claws. Spanish moss dripped like tendrils, and Eve tried very hard not to think about snakes.
After several long minutes at a brisk trot, they finally hit a road.
But there were no lights, no cars, no other houses.
They were in the middle of nowhere.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Twenty-four
THEY WERE IN the middle of nowhere.
It was as if they’d gone back in time, to the days before Florida had become the mecca of vacationing families, to the days before the interstates, before the multitude of 7-Elevens and McDonald’s.
Meg was driving. Nils was in the backseat—just in case they were being watched.
The Extremists kept calling on the cell phone that had been in that package sent to the Seagull Motel, giving them further instructions in bits and pieces.
Meg had called the K-stani phone number. She’d been told to hang up and wait for a call.
When that call came in on that cell phone, they were ordered to get into Meg’s car and start driving south. Immediately. The Extremists—in their own amateurish way—were attempting to make sure Meg would have no time to contact the authorities and get h
elp.
But the FBI and most of the Troubleshooters squad were already prepped and ready to go.
Nils had a miniature receiver in his ear and a microphone attached to his coat. When activated, it connected him via secured radio line to Paoletti or the senior chief. He kept it open, relaying the information that came in in bits and pieces from the Extremists.
He’d been talking pretty much constantly since they’d gotten into the car. As a result, the entire task force was now aware of the death sentence Meg believed that the Extremists had given to her. Not that it made that much of a difference. One of their top priorities already had been to keep her safe, at any and all costs.
The task force was already moving in station wagons and minivans instead of military trucks—to keep a low profile. Paoletti had also told Nils that the agents and SEALs who were off duty were being rousted to form a support team. A van and a camper of men were being readied right now. They’d follow a parallel route instead of trailing along behind.
Nils turned off his microphone.
“You okay?” he asked Meg from the backseat.
“Yeah.” She didn’t sound okay. He could see only the back of her head and her shoulders—and her shoulders looked pretty tight.
“You want to go over the plan?”
“Right before we get there, we stall until your guys get a chance to check the place out. We let them handle it. I don’t get out of the car.” Meg’s voice was tight. “There’s not much to go over.”
She was right. When she put it that way, it didn’t sound like much. But she didn’t know Tom Paoletti. She didn’t really know what the Troubleshooters were capable of with even just a few minutes of prep time.
“You know, John, back at the motel you asked me if I had any more secrets,” she said, and Nils’s heart sank. Ah, Jesus, what was she going to tell him now? “I haven’t had time to breathe since you asked that, let alone tell you—”
“Meg, just say it, okay? Just put it out on the table so that we can—”
“I love you,” she said. “Too. I love you, too.”
“—deal with it and—” Nils shut himself up and the silence in the car was complete for several long seconds.
“Wow,” Meg said with a shaky laugh. “That was effective. Are you still alive back there?”
“Yeah,” Nils said. “I’m . . .” He had to clear his throat. “I’m hoping to hell you’re not just saying that because you think you’re going to die.”
“Well.” Her voice was very small, and he knew he was right. “I’m saying it because I mean it—and because I am afraid I’m going to die without it being said. I’ve loved you for a long time. I’ll love you forever. I’m just afraid that forever’s not going to be too—”
“You know, you left out the part of the plan where after we get Amy and your grandmother out, you come back to California with me, and—after Amy’s had time to get over the shock of having such a handsome stepfather—we get married and make love every night and twice during the day while Amy’s in school,” Nils interrupted her, his chest feeling tight and full. But it was a good feeling, a wonderful feeling. She loved him. Not just past tense. Present tense. And, please, Jesus, future tense. “I think that’s a damn good plan. How about you?”
Meg laughed softly. Sadly. “If we do get through this, I’m not going to hold you to that or anything else you’ve said over the past few days.”
“When we get through this,” Nils countered, “I owe you the rest of my pathetic story. I’m not going to hold you to anything until you’ve heard that. Every single stupid word. You know, I used to sell term papers for three hundred dollars. I think of that now, and I wonder how I could have been so stupid.”
“If you’d gotten caught, you would’ve been in trouble,” Meg agreed.
“No, I was thinking, how could I have been so stupid to set my price so low—I could’ve gotten at least five hundred a pop.”
Meg laughed again. “There’s nothing you could tell me that would make me stop loving you,” she said, and he knew he was the closest to winning that he’d ever been in his life. Happily ever after was hanging right there, just in sight.
Come on, God, keep the girl alive until we get there.
“How could this have happened? The old woman could barely walk! How could she have gone out a second-story window?”
Maram was furious. She’d finally gotten her phone call. Osman Razeen was finally on his way. She should be happy. Victorious. Triumphant. Instead she was about to pop a vein.
Umar was terrified and looking for someone besides himself to blame. He glared at the Bear. “This is your fault. You let them go upstairs.”
The Bear glared back. “This is my fault? When I asked you to stand guard at the bathroom door? What did you do, shitbrain? Fall asleep?”
Umar was about three seconds away from charging him, and the Bear refreshed his grip on his AK-47, holding the other man’s gaze, daring him to try.
“Find them,” Maram ordered Umar and Khatib. “They can’t have gone far.” She looked at Bear, too. “You, too. Find them and kill them. It’s just as good to get them taken care of and out of the way now that this is almost over.”
Umar and Khatib clattered down the steps of the front porch and headed out toward the road. They knew enough to stop arguing and complaining as they left the house. In silent agreement, they each went a different direction on the road, each breaking into a quick trot.
No doubt they’d reasoned that the old lady would stick to the road. After all, the underbrush out here was dense. Or swampy.
The Bear didn’t follow the two men. Instead he went back behind the house. He looked up at the open bathroom window, looked at the roof, looked at the back porch.
He moved closer to the porch, then crouched down to look at the ground.
Yes.
There were definitely two sets of footprints—one large, one small—there in the softness of the earth.
He looked up toward the thick brush at the edge of the yard, following the direction those footprints pointed. They weren’t heading toward the swamp. Somehow the old lady had known to steer clear from the swamp.
Or maybe it was just good luck.
She’d had her share of luck in her long life—both bad and good. It made sense in the scheme of things that after being kidnapped and held hostage, her luck was now once again running clean and pure.
Because it was also good luck that Umar and Khatib had gone on the road and in the opposite direction from those tracks. Of course, it would be the best of luck for them if either were able to find their own buttocks—even in broad daylight.
He straightened up with a sigh. Using his foot, he kicked the sandy soil over the footprints, erasing them all the way to the edge of the yard.
Sometimes even the very best of luck needed a little extra help.
He’d gone into this thing because of his religious beliefs. He’d get out of it for the very same.
Without another look back, the Bear shouldered his weapon and ambled toward the swamp.
How had this happened? Two different vehicles filled with SEALs and FBI agents, and Locke managed to climb into the one with Sam Starrett.
She’d had to do some fancy footwork to avoid sitting next to him. But now she was sitting dead across from him, his long legs stretched out, his big feet invading her personal space.
They were part of the backup team. Another separate convoy of unmarked vehicles—mostly minivans and SUVs—were trailing about a half mile behind Nils and Meg.
These vehicles—a van and a camper—however, were taking a different route. They were taking the instructions that Meg Moore was receiving from the Extremists in fragments, and they were attempting to predict a final destination. They were navigating a parallel route, hoping they’d circle around and come at the terrorists’ location from a different direction.
Luck and guesswork played heavily into this strategy.
And because of that, there was
a strong chance they were just going to drive around all night, too far from the action to provide any kind of backup or support at all.
“I would kill for a cup of coffee,” WildCard muttered.
Starrett shifted in his seat.
Troubleshooters 02 The Defiant Hero Page 43
