Hunt Through the Cradle of Fear

by Gabriel Hunt

  The meter.

  Mounted on a metal bar, tallying up his fare in 40-cent increments, a curl of cash register tape trailing from the receipt slot at the top—it was a compact unit but looked heavy, the perfect combination. It also looked firmly attached, but what had once been mounted had to be removable. It would be easier with the proper tools, of course, but—

  Gabriel lunged forward, took hold of the meter with one hand on either side, and wrenched it violently.

  “What are you doing?” Narindra cried. “I am responsible for that!”

  “I’ll—” Gabriel wrenched at it again. “I’ll pay—” One more time. Come on. “I’ll pay for it,” he shouted, pulling and twisting till with a snap of breaking plastic and metal the unit came free. It made a sad little grinding noise as it lost power. “And the windshield,” Gabriel said breathlessly. “I’ll cover it all, just keep driving.”

  “Crazy, you are crazy,” Narindra said, and Gabriel didn’t bother to argue. Instead, he turned back, crawled halfway out onto the trunk of the cab and, anchoring his feet against the back of the rear seat, rose up on his knees, hefted the taxi meter in both hands, took aim, and hurled it directly at the Audi’s windshield.

  A direct hit would smash the glass this time—it was already cracked. And whatever smashed the glass would continue on through the glass into the driver’s face at a relative velocity of somewhere north of fifty miles per hour. Realizing this, the driver pulled the wheel violently to the right, and this time he succeeded in avoiding the missile, though only by inches. What he didn’t succeed in avoiding was the curb, which vanished under his right front tire as the Audi leapt onto the sidewalk; or the fire hydrant by the curb, which crumpled the front of the car like it was made of tinfoil. The driver and his passenger were both hurled forward and would have collided painfully—maybe fatally—with the steering wheel in one case and the windshield in the other, had it not been for the car’s airbags, which deployed with showroom precision.

  Safe cars, Audis.

  Gabriel carefully crawled backwards, ducking back into the cab and collapsing in the backseat. He saw Narindra eyeing him in the mirror.

  This was the moment of truth—would he stop the car and insist that Gabriel get out, which in practice would mean losing the other car, and Sheba, possibly permanently? Or would Narindra keep going, to help save a young woman’s life?

  “You say you will pay?” Narindra said.

  “Anything,” Gabriel said. “Name your price.”

  “A thousand dollars?”

  “Five thousand,” Gabriel said.

  “You are crazy,” Narindra said. But he kept driving.

  The black car was half a mile ahead by then, but they made up some distance when it turned crosstown and began plowing through the slightly denser traffic on the way to the Lincoln Tunnel. They reached the tunnel entrance just a few hundred yards behind the other car and spotted it again the instant they emerged.

  They were on the highway now, barreling through the wilds of northern New Jersey, and could really put on some speed, but at Gabriel’s request Narindra hung back, leaving several car lengths and at least one lane between them and the black car at all times. From the rear they presented an unusual sight, with the missing windshield and the trunk riddled with bullet holes, but from the front there was nothing out of the ordinary—just a New York cab taking someone on a short hop outside the city—and Gabriel was counting on their being able to go unnoticed, as long as they didn’t get too close.

  It was the only choice. Gabriel couldn’t see trying to run the other car off the road or bring them to a stop in some other way, not with Sheba’s life at stake and Narindra at risk, too—especially not when the occupants of the other car were almost certainly better armed than he was. The thing to do was to find out where they were taking her; he could regroup then, return with the proper equipment and help, maybe even involve the police. Or maybe he’d mount a solo rescue the way he had in Hungary. There were all sorts of options. But first he needed to know where they were planning to stash her.

  It was with a sinking feeling that Gabriel saw the airfields and hangars of Teterboro Airport loom at the horizon.

  Narindra said, “They seem to be headed for the—”

  “Yeah,” Gabriel said, “I see it.”

  Stashing didn’t look like it was in the cards.

  He fingered the cell phone in his pocket. He hated the things, but even he had to concede there were times when they were indispensable. He speed-dialed Michael’s number and, while it rang, dug a handful of hundred-dollar bills out of his pocket. He passed three to Narindra across the tattered back of the front seat. “A down payment,” he said. Then, to Michael: “Two things, Michael, and I don’t have much time to talk. First: I need you to take care of someone for me…a cab driver, his name is Rajiv Narindra, he’ll be calling you…five thousand dollars…he can tell you that himself. Just make sure he gets what he needs—it’s got to be enough to repair his taxi plus some extra. That’s right, on the Foundation’s tab.” Gabriel paused while Michael peppered him with questions, most of which he couldn’t have answered if he’d wanted to and the remainder of which he didn’t want to. When his brother fell silent again, Gabriel said, “Second thing: I may not be home for a little while. I’ve got a feeling there’s some plane travel in my future.”

  Michael’s tinny voice sounded weary through the phone’s speaker. “When has there ever not been?”

  “Well, this is a little different than usual. I don’t have a ticket, I don’t have a passport, and I don’t know where I’m headed.”

  “Getting away from it all?”

  “I wish,” Gabriel said. “Now, listen. I’m going to leave my phone turned on and I want you to track it—to track me. You understand? I may need your help when I get wherever it is that I’m going.”

  “My help?” Michael sounded anxious suddenly. He was only thirty-two, six years younger than Gabriel, but he worried like an old man. “What’s going on, Gabriel? Are you in trouble?”

  “We’ll see,” Gabriel said. “Maybe not. But just in case, I want you to know where I am.”

  Michael didn’t say anything for a bit. “You’re stringing a second cable here, aren’t you? In case the first one gets cut.”

  “So to speak,” Gabriel said.

  “All right. Consider yourself tracked. But, Gabriel—your cell battery won’t last forever. You know how plane travel drains it. If the flight’s more than ten hours…”

  “Then let’s hope it isn’t,” Gabriel said, and ended the call before Michael could protest further. Up ahead, the black car had just driven off the main highway onto an unlabeled side road. Gabriel returned the phone to his jacket pocket. He didn’t turn it off.

  They drove past the road the black car had used. Teterboro catered to private jets and chartered flights, with accommodations of varying degrees of exclusivity. Ordinary businessmen drove in through the main entrance and underwent a check-in process similar to what they’d have gone through at LaGuardia or JFK; the wealthier sort drove on unlabeled roads up to private hangars and took off without once getting patted down or wanded or asked for I.D. They could carry all the Colts on board they wanted.

  Narindra pulled the cab to a stop in a small cul-de-sac that was screened from view by a thick copse of trees. Gabriel got out and, using one of the pens from the front seat, dashed off Michael’s private office number on a scrap torn from the sandwich wrapper. Then he shook Narindra’s hand.

  “Michael will take care of you,” Gabriel said. “I promise.”

  Narindra said nothing. He was looking over the wreckage of his taxi.

  “These men,” he said finally, “who kidnapped this friend of yours, this woman. Who shot up my car. You will see they get what they deserve, yes?”

  “I’ll do my best,” Gabriel said.

  On the far side of the trees a fence with coils of barbed wire at the top bore a sign warning that trespassers would be prosecuted
to the fullest extent of the law. Gabriel pulled the sign off, carried it under his chin as he scaled the fence, and used it to press the strands of barbed wire out of his way. Once he’d bent enough strands down to make room, he climbed over the top and down the other side.

  There were no more trees here, but there was plenty of underbrush, none of it recently trimmed, and by moving in a low crouch Gabriel was able to keep out of sight. The first hangar he passed was, as you might expect on a Sunday morning, empty, and the second seemed occupied only by a mechanic who was up to his elbows in a disassembled engine. But the third hangar was bustling. Two trucks and several cars were parked outside, including the one he’d followed here from New York. The black car’s door opened as he watched. The big man came out first, walking backwards, and Sheba came with him, still clutched in his arms, her kicking feet swinging some distance off the ground. “Let me go!” she shouted, and Gabriel ached to race forward and make him do just that, pull the big ape’s paws off her, teach him a school-yard lesson about picking on someone his size. But there were too many other people around, easily a dozen or more, most of them this guy’s size or close to it, and most wearing holsters on their hips or under their arms. Some were unloading long, low crates from the back of a truck, others were wheeling the crates over to the hangar building. Gabriel might have been able to take any one of them, maybe two—but all at once? With nothing but his bare hands? There was bravery and then there was idiocy.

  But he had to do something. He watched Sheba’s captor carry her into the hangar, and through the open bay doors Gabriel saw him drag her up the rear ramp of a cargo plane—the same place all the crates were being loaded. He tried to get a glimpse of the plane’s registration, but no luck—there were numbers on the tail, but nothing to indicate what country it might have come from or been heading to.

  He crept closer, keeping the body of the larger of the two trucks between him and the workers still busily unloading and moving the cargo. Through the hangar doors, he heard a pair of voices in conversation, one nasal and high-pitched, the other a lifelong smoker’s rasp. Both had an accent, one he’d heard plenty of in recent weeks.

  “You did well, Andras,” the smoker said, pronouncing the name the Hungarian way, with a soft “s”: AHN-drahsh. “Mr. DeGroet will be pleased to get her back.”

  “Someone should cut the bitch’s nails,” Andras said. His was the nasal whine. “You see this? You see what she did to me?”

  “Poor baby,” the smoker said. “A scratch.”

  “It’s three scratches, and you wouldn’t find it so funny if it was your face. She nearly took my eye out.”

  “What do you want for it, Andras, some iodine? Or maybe hazard pay?”

  Andras grumbled. “And why not hazard pay? That’s not a bad idea.”

  “Well, then,” the smoker said, “you go ahead and bring it up with Mr. DeGroet when we land, why don’t you? He’ll probably be glad to entertain your request.”

  “He should be,” Andras said.

  “But do be prepared,” the smoker said, “if I am incorrect and he is not glad—if, say, he is in a bad mood because his plans have been delayed this long—in that case you realize he will kill you just for suggesting such a thing. You do know that, don’t you?”

  “Ah, go to hell,” Andras said, but his voice lacked conviction.

  “Maybe he’ll use you for practice, the way he did with Janos. Cut you to ribbons. With his saber, perhaps. It has always been his favorite.”

  Andras said nothing.

  “Or,” the smoker continued, “you could take the pay you were promised, go buy yourself a bottle and a girl, and keep your goddamn mouth shut. Mind you, it’s up to you which you do—I’m just saying you could do that. It’s your choice.”

  “You’re a real bastard, Karoly, you know that?”

  “Oh, yes,” Karoly said. “I know that—and as long as you don’t forget it, we’ll get along fine.”

  Gabriel moved away from the wall of the hangar, where he’d been standing, his ear pressed to the metal. They were taking her back to DeGroet—back to Hungary, presumably, though probably not to the castle, not now that Gabriel had infiltrated it once. Hungary wasn’t a big country, relatively speaking, but it was big enough that one woman could quite easily be made to vanish. There was only one way to be sure that couldn’t happen—and that was to stay with her. But how…?

  He waited until the crew working on unloading the truck wheeled the next crate down the short metal ramp in back. There was one man still inside, Gabriel saw, seated on a folding chair; behind the wheel, in the truck’s cab, there’d been one more. But that was all—temporarily the other men were all engaged in steering the bulky crates over to the hangar and onto the plane. That evened up the odds a bit, at least.

  Gabriel walked casually up the ramp, gave a two-fingered wave to the seated man. There was only one crate left inside the truck. It was made of black plastic like the others he’d seen, with metal latches to keep the top down; the thing was at least six feet long and maybe two-and-a-half feet wide. It looked a little like a plastic coffin on wheels.

  “Who are you?” the man said. He was paunchy and seemed to be thoroughly winded even though the extent of his physical labor appeared to have involved checking off items on a clipboard.

  “I’m on Mr. DeGroet’s personal staff,” Gabriel said. “He wanted me to oversee this particular…” he waved at the crate “…container.”

  “Oh, yeah? What’s your name?”

  “Gabor,” Gabriel said. “Gabor Nagy.” It was the most common Hungarian surname he could think of; it meant “big.”

  The man flipped through a couple of pages on his clipboard and didn’t find any Nagy listed. “You’re not on here.”

  “I should be—he’d be mad as hell if he found out I wasn’t. Let me see.” He came up beside the man, who didn’t bother standing, just held the clipboard out. “I’m right there,” Gabriel said, pointing, and when the man took the clipboard back to peer at the page, Gabriel clocked him with a solid right cross. The man went down like a felled log.

  Gabriel glanced outside. There was still no one in view, thankfully. With one hand under each armpit, he dragged the man down the ramp and around to the side of the truck. Once there, he rolled the man underneath, making sure to shove him far enough that he couldn’t be seen. They’d find him there eventually, or he’d come to on his own; they were unlikely to drive over him. Just in case, though, Gabriel left him between the truck’s wheels rather than in their path.

  Then he went back up the ramp and unlatched the crate. It wasn’t full. Inside, under a folded-up blanket being used for padding, were two wooden racks of rifles and, below them, box after cardboard box of ammunition.

  Guns and ammo. For what? What private army was DeGroet equipping? His own, presumably—but to what end?

  There was no time for speculation: from outside Gabriel could hear the steps of the men returning, still distant for now but getting louder.

  He lifted the gun racks out, wrapped the blanket loosely around them, and laid them down where the man had been sitting. He set the folding chair on top for good measure. He then climbed into the crate. It was a tight fit—but it was a fit. He lowered the cover gently and heard the latches catch. Would he be able to open them again from the inside? He thought so. A swift kick should do it. If not, maybe he could blast the latches open—with the vast selection of cartridges he was lying on he figured he could probably find some .45 caliber rounds that would fit his Colt. Not that he relished the prospect of firing a gun in an enclosed container full of black powder.

  Pressing up gently against the underside of the crate’s lid with his palms opened the seal a crack, enough to let in a bit of air and a thread of light. The light was interrupted after a moment as two men climbed into the truck. One pair of legs sported khaki workpants, the other denim. Gabriel heard one of the men calling for someone named Stephen. Stephen didn’t answer, presumably because he was othe
rwise occupied under the truck. A quiet conversation in Hungarian ensued. The men were trying to decide what to do. Wait for Stephen to return from taking a leak or having a smoke or whatever he’d decided he had to do right this moment? Or just take the last crate and the hell with him?

  They seemed to settle on “the hell with him” since Gabriel’s view was cut off as the men stepped closer and then he could feel the crate being rolled down the ramp.

  They rolled him across level ground for a minute and then up another ramp—longer, steeper—and shoved him against a bulkhead. Raising the cover again, Gabriel saw that the crate was conveniently facing a window, so that even if the activation of the plane’s deafening jet engines minutes later hadn’t been enough of a clue, the view of the land dropping out of sight would have told him they were on their way.

  Gabriel did his best to get comfortable in the cramped space. He took his phone from his pocket and glanced at the display. New York to Hungary was a nine-hour flight with good tailwinds.

  As he watched, the battery portion of the phone’s readout silently dropped from four bars to three.

  Chapter 5

  Gabriel hadn’t intended to sleep, but he found himself waking with a start as the plane’s landing gear touched down. They skipped once, twice, then settled on the tarmac, the big plane’s momentum carrying them forward along the runway as the power to the engines cut out. Gabriel chanced a peek outside through the seam, but the window was dark—and so, when he tried it, was his phone. He pressed all the buttons. Nothing.

  Had something kept them in the air longer than expected? Or had they landed somewhere farther away than Budapest?

  Which led to the next question: For how long had Michael been able to track his location? Maybe only halfway there, maybe up until the moment before he tried his phone. There was no way to know.

  Gabriel heard the sound of seat belts unbuckling, heavy footsteps moving around the cabin. He did not hear any lighter steps he could identify as Sheba’s, and he didn’t hear her voice, but that didn’t mean anything—Andras could be carrying her, bound and gagged, or maybe she was being held in another part of the plane. They wouldn’t have hurt her or killed her, he was confident of that; not as long as DeGroet wanted her for some purpose of his own.