Paradise Burning

by Blair Bancroft

  “We wish to move out,” Karim continued, directing his remarks to Peter, “and you and your woman are going to make that possible. It is only right,” he added on a growl. “When we are safely away from here, you, Mr. Pennington, will call your friends in the FBI, the police, or whoever is watching us, and tell them they must go away. Far away. And take their vans, their radios, their airplanes and helicopters with them.”

  “It won’t do you any good,” Mandy wheezed.

  “Shut up, Mouse,” Peter snapped.

  “It will have to do us good,” Karim assured her, “or you both will be dead. You heard that, did you not, Mr. Pennington? I do not enjoy killing, but sometimes it is necessary. My job demands it. You understand, I am sure.”

  Man to man, Mandy noted sourly. Serious discussions were a male affair. Women only rated threats.

  “You will not win this contest, Mr. Pennington,” Karim emphasized with surprising patience, “no matter what your friends in government may do. It is possible you are noble, willing to sacrifice yourself, but heroic gestures will do no good. I can, and will, kill this woman unless you and your police friends do as I say. If you wish your lover to remain alive, you will see that everything is arranged as I have said. Any sign of interference and she is dead. You understand?”

  Karim tightened his armlock. Mandy’s eyes bulged, the room faded.

  Peter’s arms came off the wall. “Stop it! Let her go.” The barrel of the machine pistol ramming into his flesh, seemed as large as a cannon. “Shit!” Peter groaned. He was no use to Mandy dead. He thrust his arms back against the wall, palms out, like Christ on the cross.

  Karim moved forward, shoving a nearly unconscious Mandy within a foot of Peter’s face. “Do. You. Understand?” The words were harsh. Tossed out like bullets.

  “I understand,” Peter affirmed quickly before he watched his Mouse die right in front of his eyes. “I’ll take care of it.” But could he? Would the FBI listen?

  The leader, with his military bearing and precise clipped English, had to be Mandy’s Iranian. And he was right. He and Mandy weren’t going to win this one.

  Shirazi eased his arm off Mandy’s throat, moving his grip down around her waist to keep her from falling.

  Peter thought she was breathing, but he couldn’t be sure. Hard to think under the circumstances, but he had to. He’d grown lazy these past two years, forgotten how to be a man of action.

  But action was impossible. Not even Brad Blue could get out of this one.

  “I’ll need my cell phone,” Peter declared. “It’s on the bedtable.”

  Karim gave a curt nod, held out a hand, which one of his men promptly filled with Peter’s phone. So the scumbags—at least this one—understood English, Peter noted.

  Shirazi pocketed the cell phone, renewed his grip on Mandy, who had returned to the living enough to be able to stand on her own, however shakily. He barked a command and suddenly Peter was off the wall, his arms twisted painfully behind his back, his feet moving inexorably forward. In front of him, Mandy stumbled, came close to falling as the Iranian propelled her toward the bedroom door. Peter gritted his teeth, ignored the pain in his arm, trudged steadily forward. At least his Mouse was still alive.

  In spite of the clumsiness of their two captives, the intruders melted into the darkness. There was only the faintest whisper of sound as six dark shadows exited the house. Then silence. Utter darkness.

  It was a full half hour before the owl returned to his low, mournful hoot.

  Chapter Eighteen

  Seemingly unhindered by his Mac-10, the industrial-sized flashlight, or the MP-5 slung over his back, the masked man Mandy supposed was Karim Shirazi kept a grip on her arm tight enough to propel her down the ramp beneath the house, across the parking circle and down Peter’s long winding driveway. Why weren’t they headed for the river? No way did she want to go back to the Club Nautico. That was a death sentence, she was certain of it.

  As the Iranian force-marched her around a curve in Peter’s long driveway, Mandy saw a van sheltered under the dark shadows of a giant live oak. Oh, shit! It was the club.

  Then again, the Club Nautico was twenty-some miles away, the old line shack just across the river. At the main road would it be left or right? Left toward the back road in Pine Grove, or right to I-75, Manatee Bay, and the Club Nautico?

  One of their captors stepped forward, opening the van’s rear door. The interior yawned clean and empty, the only seats the two at the front. The pungent smell of a brand new vehicle permeated the night air. Stolen off a dealer’s lot, Mandy guessed. Karim boosted her into the van, prodding her forward until she was huddled in a corner just behind the driver’s seat. When Peter tried to follow, a sharp command, a jab of the Mac-10 sent him stumbling back toward the rear of the van. Karim shoved the flashlight back onto his belt and lowered himself down beside her, the MP-5 clunking hard against the van’s carpet. With a grunt of relief, he stripped off his ski mask, their other captors quick to imitate him. The rear door clanged shut, the van’s engine roared to life. But Mandy had seen enough to confirm her suspicions. The man sitting next to her, hip to hip, was Nadya’s jailer, Karim Shirazi.

  Mandy scrunched herself into fetal position, knees to her chin, making herself as small as possible. She lowered her head, gritted her teeth, and vowed not to reveal her fear by so much as a single quiver.

  As the soft glow of the lanterns illuminating Amber Run’s main road flashed by, Mandy tried to peer into the shadows where Peter was sitting. Nothing. Was Peter still bleeding? No way to tell. The shadows in the back of the windowless van were impenetrable.

  They were approaching the main road. Mandy gritted her teeth and prayed. Left, left, left! Nadya and the other girls were at the old house on the river. Allies all, surely. And—Mandy’s lips curled into a thin smile—the FBI had 24/7 surveillance on the house.

  The van slowed, stopped. The headlights of a passing car flashed by. The van moved forward—Mandy held her breath—and made a ninety degree left turn.

  Thank you, Lord!

  A few miles later, light flooded the van as the rural road they were on suddenly intersected the Tamiami Trail. And there was Peter, tossing her a lop-sided grin. A black streak of dried blood ran down his chin. Dark splotches marred the light blue of his rumpled polo shirt. Mandy flashed a quick “thumbs up” before the brightly lit intersection faded behind them.

  Another ten minutes, and the driver swung onto a narrow side road, with trees and heavy undergrowth hovering close on either side. Not a sign of a house. In fact—Mandy’s neck protested as she twisted around, attempting to see out the van’s front window and finding nothing but trees there too. The road was dead-ending against a solid wall of wilderness.

  With a sudden jerk of the wheel, the driver made a hard left. The van lurched, shuddered, bounced hard. Mandy gasped as she was flung against the back of the seat, then catapulted toward the unyielding van floor. Strong arms caught and held her tight against a rock-hard chest. Sharp words shot over her head. She tasted blood and realized her teeth must have snapped down onto her tongue. The driver, hunched over the wheel, was swearing. At least that’s what Mandy assumed his angry Russian mutterings were. The rest of the passengers were sprawled every which way in a tangle of arms and legs, and guns. Not all the swearing was coming from the front.

  James Bond would have grabbed up one of the weapons, Mandy thought. Mowed down the bad guys, rescued the good guys, saved the fair maidens—however dubious their profession—then headed home in triumph, probably with Nadya Semyonova hanging on his sleeve. Nice fantasy. You could do that in books and movies. In real life things like that only got you killed. Mandy fisted her hands against temptation. And discovered one of them was in a very intimate place. Not her own.

  The hard hands that held her upright abruptly let go. While she’d been catching her breath, eye to eye with the barrel of Karim’s MP-5, and contemplating heroic deeds, she had somehow ignored her up-close-and-perso
nal contact with her captor. Mandy settled back into a ball, attempting to be small. Very small. Invisible. Her cheeks flamed.

  Not that the Iranian cared where her hand had ended up . . . He, after all, thought her old and ugly.

  With a final sharp curse, the driver shifted into first, creeping forward at the pace of a decrepit snail. Now, too late, Mandy recalled Doug Chalmers telling them the first part of the road to the old house had been deliberately designed to look derelict. Someone should have warned the driver, who was obviously not one of the regulars.

  After a few more minutes of potholes, gullies, and low man-made berms in land that had originally been flat, the van rolled to a stop. In front of them, the headlights illuminated a chain link fence topped with barbed wire, a match for the one Mandy had seen at the north entrance the day she first saw Karim Shirazi.

  The Iranian punched a series of numbers into his cell phone and the gate came to life, swinging slowly outward. The van’s headlights revealed a smooth hard-packed road of sand and marl winding through an expanse of tall grass and scraggly underbrush with only a scattering of shadowy trees. Karim issued another order, and the van surged forward at a modest increase in speed.

  As they made the four-mile trip at a pace so safe it could be called sedate, Mandy had time for a reality check. Nothing like a kidnapping to set a girl’s priorities straight. If she and Peter got out of this, she was ready to admit her sins. And they were many.

  She’d refused to think of herself as anything but a snowbird—here today, gone tomorrow. She’d refused to accept the house Peter built, snubbed his offer to raise a family there. Refused to admit she loved him. Refused to make the compromises necessary to make love work. Refused to love enough to think of other people’s needs.

  Refused to face up to her own needs. She’d suffered from Triple A tunnel vision, failed Marriage 101. Whither thou goest . . . Love. Honor. Cherish.

  Forgive.

  If Peter and she got out of this, she was even willing to grovel . . .

  Okay, so maybe this was a poor night for bargaining. Perhaps the pipeline to God was a bit thin out back of the outback. But she knew. She would remember there were more important things than pride. Actually . . . if they got through this, Mandy doubted she’d have to stoop to groveling. She and Peter would be in a mutual rush to embrace life. And each other.

  Even if he didn’t love her.

  No ropes, no gags. Peter suffered the humiliation of a man whose ability to fight back has been totally discounted. Unless he was suicidal—and wanted to take Mandy with him—there wasn’t a damn thing he could do. He shifted his shoulders until he could see past the driver’s profile through the side window beyond. Night was giving way to glowering shades of gray, pastureland interspersed with brush and trees to a gradually thickening tangle of jungle-like growth. They must be approaching the river. For the past mile the road had become a narrow ribbon of sand winding through trees so dense they formed a nearly solid canopy above their heads. Spanish moss hung down in long gray-green trails, softly swishing its tendrils along the roof of the van.

  And somewhere close by, Peter reminded himself with a surge of hope, were FBI agents who had been assigned to watch the old line shack. With night vision devices, cameras, video, Blackberries, even old-fashioned notebooks at the ready. Surely the surveillance team would notice the oddity of a closed utility van and snap to the alert. Doug Chalmers had described the vehicles that brought clients to the brothel in the woods as a black limo and a white van with three rows of seats, a sliding side door and broad windows.

  So come on, guys, wake up! Wrong kind of van. No windows. And the timing is wrong. At dawn the johns should be going the other way.

  Peter leaned back, closed his eyes. Noticing the oddity was one thing, he thought sourly, rescue was another. They could call in an FBI assault team, SWAT guys from three counties, the National Guard. Hell, they could have a whole army out here, armed with RPGs, and it wouldn’t matter. As long as Karim Shirazi held Peter Pennington and Mandy Armitage, he had a license to escape. And take his women with him. Not even the most gung ho commanding officer was going to risk the life of a well-known author or a girl whose father held the kind of secrets that guaranteed no one wanted to piss him off.

  But, hey, Peter had faith. The FBI would manage to follow until he and Mandy were released . . .

  Who was he kidding? Shirazi would keep them as long as it took. Until he lost them all in the heart of a city, the wilds of some badland, a secluded mountain cabin. Maybe even a freighter to the South Seas, the Far East. Thailand.

  And when they were far enough under cover . . . or far enough out to sea, it was bye-bye time. Sorry, Pennington, but hostages are expendable. I’m sure you understand.

  The van slowed, stopped. The rear doors popped open, and pale light flooded in. A flick of Shirazi’s strong chin and what looked like a surprisingly gentle push, and Mandy scrambled toward the open door. Peter followed, moving quickly, keeping ahead of the all-too-ready Mac-10 behind him.

  Shit! Peter hit the ground in an ignominious heap as his leg buckled under him, a victim of his cramped position in the van. So much for cutting an heroic figure. Not that there was anything heroic about being a captive, but he would rather not have ended up flat on his ass in the dirt in front of the woman he wanted to accept him as her protector for life.

  Well . . . maybe that thought was a bit out of date. He was pushing forty with the mindset of a man of eighty.

  Rough hands grabbed, dragged him to his feet. Peter winced. And not from pain. It was far from his finest hour. The masked men holding him up managed to radiate a nice mix of scorn and amusement while he stomped his reluctant leg back to life. When he could walk, the men abandoned him, calmly stowing their weapons in a large zippered bag that looked too much like a body bag for Peter’s comfort. A jab in the side by the Rambo who appeared to be his private guard sent him moving toward the door of the old wooden house, which looked as if it should have been termite fodder long since.

  The Mac-10 added yet another bruise to his back. Peter pulled open the door and entered the house.

  He appeared to be in the main room of the old cracker shack, but the contrast with the outside was startling. Fresh, bright colors, upscale furnishings, an elegant bar at one end of the room. Keeping the old façade must have been part of the elaborate deception. Leaving this little cash cow in the woods was going to cost them, Peter thought with grim satisfaction as he obeyed another nasty prod and headed through a door on the far side of the living area, then and down a hallway.

  A guttural bark from his guard brought Peter to a halt. The room they entered wasn’t much more than a closet. A narrow bed, curtained shelves for clothes. No windows. Accommodations for the hired help? For the cut-rate johns?

  A click of the lock behind him, and Peter realized he was alone.

  Alone. He’d expected to be with Mandy. Was certain he’d be with Mandy. Had to be with Mandy.

  But he was alone. Mandy was somewhere else in this brothel in the woods.

  With Karim Shirazi.

  Before he left the room, the Iranian’s warning to Mandy was clear: “Pennington is in a room with no windows and a very strong bolt. If you try to escape, we will kill him.” As the door lock clicked into place, Mandy eyed the room’s windows with a rush of resignation warring with frustration. Outside, the sun was coming up, the birds sounding the arrival of another perfectly beautiful Florida day. And here she was, a prisoner in a corner room with two low first floor windows she dared not go near.

  Mandy’s knees suddenly gave way. She sat down hard on the bed, closed her eyes, and shook. Come on, girl, you’re an Armitage. Whatever they throw at you, you can take it. But she couldn’t help wondering if that was pure bravado. Jeff and Eleanor had spent their lives making sure their only child never got any closer to covert ops than a computer keyboard. On more than a few occasions, however—from Santiago, Chile, to Irkutsk, Siberia—she’d had to think he
rself out of tricky situations. She’d been quite good at it, actually. Mandy hadn’t mentioned those little problems in her reports, fearing she’d never be allowed out of the AKA compound again.

  Her eyes snapped open, settled on a critical survey of the room. It was obviously part of the original structure, probably the primary bedroom. And now . . . now it belonged to someone totally masculine, a neatness freak with a military mindset. Even the polished maple desk, which sat in one corner, was completely clear of any sign of use.

  And yet . . . something about this room made her uneasy. Mandy’s gaze drifted to the bed where she was sitting. It was a double, with hand-carved headboard and posts that rose two feet above the four corners of the bed. There was a black and white bedspread of some satin-finish geometric print. And cushions . . . piles of cushions in black and white and red spread out in almost measured precision against the headboard and along the length of the bed where it met the wall.

  Dear God! She was in Karim Shirazi’s bedroom. Sitting on his bed. Mandy shot to her feet. Calm, calm. She was Amanda Armitage, not Mandy Mouse. Steady. Everything’s fine. Karim just needs a place to put you, some place away from Peter. Divide and conquer. He couldn’t care less about you personally. He thinks you’re old and ugly . . .

  Mandy took a deep breath, narrowed her eyes at the bed, the array of cushions that looked as if they’d strayed from a designer layout in House Beautiful. What was it about men and the colors black, white and red? That Karim Shirazi could have anything in common with Peter Pennington was completely absurd.

  Mandy’s attempt at calm reason wound down . . . failed. Why was she standing poised in the middle of the floor when there was nowhere to run? Gingerly, she sat back down on the bed, trying not to think what scenes might have been played out beneath this shining, sophisticated coverlet. She was still trying to convince herself that being in Karim Shirazi’s bedroom meant nothing when the door opened.