Pandemic

by Daniel Kalla

  She nodded. “There is a blood trail, more of a smear really, along the backseat,” she said matter-of-factly. “That’s why we’re confident Dr. Savard was moved.”

  Noah wanted to shake Roberts by her lapels. “How much blood?”

  “Oh.” Roberts waved away his concern with her hand. “Not that much. It’s consistent with a cut, for example a scalp laceration.”

  “Anything else?” Clayton asked.

  “We’ve set up roadblocks over a fifty-mile radius. And we’ve got our helicopters looking for cars that match the description of the gray sedan.” She pointed to the technicians working on Gwen’s car and in the field behind. “We’re scouring the scene.” She paused and viewed them with a look that bordered on sympathy. “It’s very early in the investigation. We should have more to go on, soon.”

  “Okay, who is the lead agent—” Clayton started to ask, when Roberts held up a hand to interrupt him. She reached into her jacket pocket and answered the cell phone without it audibly ringing.

  Something twigged in Haldane. Watching her talk, he felt on the verge of a breakthrough, but for several agonizing seconds it refused to surface.

  Then it hit him like a slap.

  He wheeled and ran over to the three crime-scene technicians working on Gwen’s car. Ignoring the bloodstain on the backseat, he tapped the shoulder of the technician kneeling under the steering wheel. “Yes?” the technician said tersely. “What is it?”

  “A cell phone?” Haldane breathed.

  “I don’t have one,” the guy said. “There’s a pay phone over—”

  “No!” Haldane cut him off. “Did you find a cell phone in this car?”

  “No. No cell phone in here.”

  Haldane turned around to find Clayton and McLeod staring at him as if he had lost his mind. “Come with me,” he said. He led them a few yards away from the car until they were out of earshot of the others. “Listen, Gwen’s cell phone is not in the car.”

  “So?” Clayton shrugged. “You tried her on it earlier, there was no answer.”

  “Exactly!” Haldane said. “There was no answer, but it rang. If it was turned off, it would have gone straight to her voice mail without ringing.”

  After a moment, Clayton’s eyes widened. “Son of a bitch! Maybe she still has it on her?”

  McLeod threw up his hands. “So it rang? So it’s still on her? Big bloody deal! If she can’t get to it what help will it be?”

  “You explain,” Clayton said to Haldane. “I’m going to call Langley to trace it.” He pulled his own cell phone out of his jacket and stepped away in search of a quieter spot.

  Looking bewildered, McLeod turned to Haldane. “What’s going on, Noah?”

  “Newer cell phones are all equipped with GPS chips,” Haldane said.

  McLeod shook his head. “Meaning?”

  “GPS chips are ultra-accurate homing devices, Haldane said, tapping the side of his temple with a finger. “So if the phone is turned on, the service provider can track down its whereabouts to within a few feet.”

  “Shite! That’s invasion of privacy!” McLeod said, but his lips broke into a crooked smile. “Haldane, let’s pray she hung on to that wee phone of hers.”

  Without exchanging another word they turned and watched Clayton, who stood twenty feet away with a hand covering one ear and his phone to the other. Arms at his sides, Haldane tried to pump the apprehension out through his fists, but it was of little help. Come on, come on, we need this one! he repeated to himself in what was as close as he came to a prayer.

  Two long minutes later, Clayton pulled the phone from his ear and jogged back over to where they stood waiting. “Well?” Haldane asked before the CIA man even reached them.

  Clayton flashed a quick thumbs-up sign. “We’ve tracked the phone. It’s at a place called The Quiet Slumber Motel, just outside of Jessup, Maryland.”

  Noah felt a wave of elation. “How far?”

  “About thirty miles north,” Clayton said.

  Haldane reached over and laid a hand on Clayton’s shoulder. “Alex, are we going to tell Moira?”

  “We should,” he said, but his expression appeared less certain.

  “What will they do?” Haldane asked.

  “The FBI can be so by the numbers.” Clayton shook his head. “They’ll want to stake out the place. Organize a coordinated assault.”

  “Which could take time,” Haldane pointed out.

  “Hours,” Clayton murmured.

  Noah squeezed Clayton’s shoulder before removing his hand. “Time Gwen might not have, Alex.”

  “I know.” Clayton nodded. “But they have the resources to launch an assault. We don’t have three guns between us.”

  Noah wasn’t dissuaded. “But, Alex, we’ve got the advantage of surprise.”

  Looking uncharacteristically solemn, McLeod nodded. “The people who abducted her think nothing of taking their own lives. If they got so much as a whiff of a police ambush ...”

  Clayton’s jaw clenched and his face hardened into a look of sheer determination. He glanced from Haldane to McLeod. “If and when we need help, we’ll call in the FBI,” he said definitively. “Let’s go get her.”

  Clayton drove by the dumpy little motel two miles outside of Jessup without even slowing down. Haldane had seen a thousand roadside motels like The Quiet Slumber, but he had never bothered to study one so intently.

  Built backing onto the woods of a campground, it consisted of several individual wood cabins. Haldane counted twelve of them, but it was possible there were a few hidden behind the ones facing the road.

  Clayton pulled the car into the gravel driveway of the campground two blocks behind the motel. The campground had been shut down for the winter and theirs was the only car in the lot. Staying in his seat, Clayton pulled out his cell phone and dialed a number.

  “Megan, the cell I told you to run,” he said into the receiver. “Can you give me exact coordinates?” He paused. “Yeah, the motel complex has twelve cabins, can you pull it up on the map? I need to know which cabin.” He waited several seconds. “Okay, from the northeast corner, right?” Another pause. “Megan, there’s no room for error. You’re certain?” he asked. “Good. I owe you a big one.”

  Turning to the other two, Clayton frowned. “Okay, they’re in the very last cabin we passed. Makes sense. It’s the most remote and protected of the bunch.” He reached for his door handle. “We’re on foot from here.”

  After they climbed out of the car, Clayton walked around the back of his car and popped the trunk. Reaching under the mat where the spare tire was stored, he pulled out a small metal briefcase. He closed the trunk. He glanced over either shoulder, then laid the briefcase on the trunk and opened the case’s latch with a key from his key ring.

  Inside, foam padding separated pieces of metal. As soon as Haldane recognized the components of handguns, he felt the adrenaline leak into his system.

  Clayton glanced at the other two. “Neither of you are armed, I assume?”

  Haldane shook his head, while McLeod just sighed.

  Clayton reached for the smaller gun. He grabbed a cartridge and clipped it into the handle. Then he grabbed the gun by the muzzle and held it out, handle-first, to Haldane and McLeod. “Glock 17. Nine-mm,” he said. “Lightweight and idiot-proof. I only have the one extra. Has either of you fired a gun?”

  “Point of clarification, I’m from Scotland not bleeding Texas!” McLeod said.

  “I’ve fired a .38 caliber at the range a few times,” Haldane said.

  “You win.” Clayton handed the gun to Haldane.

  Haldane swung it in his hand, surprised by how light the weapon felt.

  “Straightforward double action, semi-automatic,” Clayton explained. “No safety. Squeeze and fire. Clip holds seventeen bullets. If you hold the trigger down, it will fire every two seconds.”

  Haldane nodded, still amazed at how weightless the weapon felt in his hand.

  Clayton turned ba
ck to the briefcase. He assembled another gun, which came in more parts than the Glock 17. Just as Haldane thought Clayton was through, he reached for one last piece and screwed what Noah assumed was a silencer onto the tip of the barrel. Clayton pushed his jacket out of the way, and tucked the gun into his belt at the back of his waist.

  Haldane did the same.

  “The huge advantage we have here is that not only is Sabri not expecting us, he wouldn’t recognize us,” Clayton said. “But if he or they are watching, and I assume he is, a group of three men approaching the motel would look highly suspicious.” He looked to Haldane. “You have your phone?”

  Haldane pulled it out of his pocket and held it up.

  Clayton reached for his. “Okay, keep my number on redial, I’ll do the same with yours. I’ll go ahead. Give me a five-minute head start and then meet me on the near side of the third to last cabin. You got it? The third to last!”

  Gwen awoke to discover that her mouth was a kiln. She licked her lips and smacked her gums, desperate for saliva. Even before she opened her eyes, the sharp pressure at her wrists and ankles told her that she was still tied to the cot.

  When she opened her eyes, everything in the room was encircled by a faint halo. Even Abdul Sabri. Hovering over her, he was shrouded in a bluish white light, making him look like a huge angel. The angel of death, she thought bleakly. She blinked hard, and when she opened her eyes again Sabri had shed his divine shadow.

  “What happened?” she asked hoarsely, while trying to focus her thoughts into some kind of plan.

  “You were more helpful after thiopental sodium, Dr. Savard,” Sabri said in an expressionless tone that matched his face perfectly.

  “What did I tell you?” she asked.

  He shrugged slightly. “Enough.”

  She paused and swallowed again against her parched lips. She knew she needed to act soon if she were to stand a chance. “What will you do with me now?” she asked.

  “You will know soon.” He turned and began walking for the door.

  She could feel her cell phone digging into her abdomen below the waistband of her underwear. “Major, I have to use the bathroom,” she said.

  Halfway to the door he stopped and looked over his shoulder, but he didn’t say a word.

  “I mean, I really have to go, now,” she said.

  He shrugged again. “So go.”

  “That’s not very dignified,” Gwen said. “I thought you had more class than that.”

  He started for the door again.

  “That is how you would treat a woman?” she yelled after him. “Your religion preaches that as acceptable?”

  He stopped at the doorway without turning.

  Gwen felt a flicker of hope, as he seemed to vacillate, shifting from one foot to the other.

  Then he turned slowly toward her. But when he faced her again, in his right hand she saw the glint from a long serrated blade.

  For an anxious moment, standing with his back pressed against the peeling paint of the dilapidated old cabin, two over from the one supposedly housing Gwen, Haldane wondered if they had misunderstood Clayton, or worse, if something had already happened to him. “Where are you, Alex?” Haldane mouthed, making no sound but his breath misted in the cold air.

  Silently, Clayton rounded the comer to meet them. “Gwen’s alive,” he whispered tersely, and Haldane felt a flood of relief. “But she’s in four-point restraints on a cot in the second bedroom. There’s at least two terrorists with her. Sabri and a squat, bearded guy.

  “In the window by the front door, there’s a gap below the curtains where I could see in.” Clayton bent down and picked up a stick. He scratched out a rough floor plan of the cabin in the dirt. “On the right side the door leads into the living room, which is separated from the kitchen behind by half of a wall and a counter.” He marked an X by the line marking the countertop. “The fat one was in the kitchen. Sabri was just coming out of the bedroom.” He tapped the left side of the cabin. “The empty master bedroom faces front, but on the back side is the room where they’re keeping Gwen. There are two windows high up—I had to stand on an old box to see in—but Gwen was tied to the cot. She looked ... drugged. But she’s definitely alive.”

  “So what do we do?” McLeod whispered.

  “We wait and watch.” Clayton nodded. “And if need be, we go in.”

  “That’s your whole plan?” McLeod whispered, unimpressed.

  Clayton smiled. “I’m CIA, remember? When we start planning, we end up with the Bay of Pigs.” His expression stiffened. He held his phone out for McLeod. “Duncan, I need you to take up the post around back of the cabin. There’s no door to get in and out and the windows are too small to climb through, but I want you to keep an eye on Gwen through the window. If anything happens, you call us. Just hit the redial button.”

  McLeod accepted the phone and nodded.

  “Wait here two minutes after we leave and then walk quietly around the back. I left the old box under the window.” Clayton turned to Haldane with a confident nod. “We’re going to take up the post out front.”

  “What about the FBI?” Haldane asked.

  “I just spoke to Moira,” Clayton said. “They’re on the way.”

  Clayton took off his coat and dumped it on the ground, leaving just his black suit jacket on. Waving for Haldane to follow, he dashed around back of the third cabin. Stooped low, he ran below the level of the high windows on the back of the cabin. He stopped at the far comer of the cabin one over from their target and waited for Haldane.

  With his hands, Clayton indicated how he wanted them to circle around the far side of the cabin to get to the window in front. He counted down from three with his fingers. Hunched low, they dashed past the box in front of the window to Gwen’s room and kept going until they rounded the comer and reached the far wall.

  Feeling winded, more from the stress than the short run, Haldane panted while Clayton peered around the comer.

  Clayton pulled his gun out from his waistband and nodded for Haldane to do the same, and then he squatted down to his knees. When Haldane pulled the gun out of his belt, it suddenly felt much more substantial and it trembled slightly in his hand.

  Clayton crept around the comer of the building and stopped after six or seven feet. He raised his hands off the ground and stared through the lower edge of the window before waving Haldane over to join him.

  Haldane crawled forward until he reached him. Slowly, he brought his head up to the same level as Clayton’s and stared into the dark living room through the half-inch gap between the curtain and the bottom of the window. The chubby, bearded man paced nervously beside the kitchen counter with a pistol tucked into his waist. Haldane scanned over the rest of the kitchen and living room but saw no sign of Sabri.

  Haldane’s heart thumped against his ribs. “Where?” he mouthed to Clayton.

  Clayton shook his head once.

  Startled, Haldane suddenly felt his pocket vibrate silently. He dug a hand inside and grabbed his phone. Recognizing Clayton’s number on the call display, he brought it up to his ear. “Duncan?” he whispered.

  “A knife!” McLeod whispered hysterically.

  “What?”

  “Sabri. Knife. Going for Gwen.” McLeod rushed the choppy whispers.

  Haldane dropped the phone and spun to Clayton. “Sabri’s going after Gwen with a knife.”

  Clayton nodded calmly. “Stay at the door and cover me in the room. Got it?” he whispered.

  Haldane nodded.

  Clayton counted down again with his fingers. On zero, he took two squatted steps forward and then shot bolt upright in front of the door. Haldane crawled to join him, just as McLeod scurried around the comer waving his arms frantically. “No. No!” McLeod breathed. “It’s okay. You don’t need to go!”

  But Clayton was already in motion.

  Elbows locked, he pointed his gun with two hands at the door. The barrel flinched twice, emitting two brief hisses, and then Clayton
kicked the door with a heavy blow from his right foot. No sooner had his foot reached the ground than he dove through the now-open doorway.

  Haldane scrambled to his feet and stood at the door with his Glock held ready. He peered into the room just in time to see the fat man whirl to face the door. The man reached for his pistol and started to scream something, when suddenly he flew back against the kitchen counter. Eyes open wide, the man slid down against the wall below the counter, leaving a bloodstain behind him, and then toppled forward in a crumpled heap.

  As Sabri approached her with his huge knife swaying in front of him, Gwen was overcome with calm. She resolved not to say a word to him. She would not let him cheat her of a dignified death.

  He knelt down by her cot, holding his knife inches from her head. His pale eyes burned into hers and she could feel his warm sterile breath on her face. She turned her head away from his and closed her eyes, wondering whether to expect intense pain or nothing at all when the blow came.

  She held her breath. Nothing.

  When moments later she felt a tugging at her left ankle and her leg suddenly released, she shot her head over to see Sabri cutting through the other bindings.

  Before freeing her wrists, he glanced at her. “You cooperate or you die,” he said coolly. Then he cut through the last of the ties.

  She sat up unsteadily on the bed.

  Just as she rose to her feet, she heard the sound of the door bursting open. Before she could react, Sabri grabbed her by the hair and yanked her to her feet in one painful jerk. He wrapped his knifed hand around her neck until the edge dug into the skin just below her jaw. “One move, you die!” he spat as he pushed her forward.

  She heard a shrill male scream something in Arabic, followed by a heavy thud.

  Sabri carried her by the neck as he ran with her out of the bedroom. As soon as they rounded the corner, Gwen saw Clayton standing in the middle of the shabby living room. His gun was trained right on them.

  Sabri stopped.