Briggs must have sensed her presence a few moments before she looped the wire over his head. He was in the process of turning when she wrenched it tight, the wire biting into his skin as he writhed in an attempt to get free. A line of blood trickled from the gash it had sliced, and then a geyser sprayed forth as the garrote severed his carotid artery.
“Honey? What’s going on down there?”
The woman’s voice sounded worried, but obviously not enough to descend the stairs. Briggs’s blood sprayed the painting that hung lavishly on the wall in front of him; a stern nobleman rendered in ancient oil – now with crimson splatter marring the surface.
Briggs stiffened and then went limp.
“Honey? Answer me.” Annoyed now, the words slightly slurred.
Jet dipped her finger into Briggs’ blood and scrawled Lawan’s name across his forehead, then pulled the wire free and glided quietly back to the dining room door, leaving blood-smeared footprints on the polished hardwood as she went. Once outside, she retrieved a liter water bottle filled with gasoline from her backpack and unscrewed the top, then stuffed a rag into the neck and lit it with a disposable lighter, leaning it next to the home’s wood siding before vanishing into the dark.
A minute later, Jet heard the woman’s scream even through the closed windows, a muffled high-pitched bleat of shock and horror. She slid the bloody shoe bags off her boots and packed them into a third bag along with the gloves and the garrote, and then bolted for her bike as flames licked at the outside of the house, the gasoline having erupted a few seconds before, igniting the shingles in a fiery blaze.
By the time the police arrived, there was no trace of her, a phantom come to exact a terrible retribution before disappearing into the night.
She looked at her watch as she pedaled hard through the woods. She would be at the second target’s home within ten minutes. Jet turned onto the pavement a quarter mile away and pointed the handlebars east.
~ ~ ~
The assistant director of the CIA stirred and turned onto his side, his small frame dwarfed by the ornately-wrought headboard of the king-sized bed. An antique that had been chosen by his third wife, he’d battled her for the bed during a bitter divorce and eventually won. It wasn’t so much that it was important to him as it meant a lot to her. She loved the damned thing. Not that she ever seemed to enjoy being in it with him.
Something caused him to start, and he slowly came awake, opening his eyes to see the shadowy outline of a figure standing at the foot of the bed. A figure dressed entirely in black. He tried hard to focus without his glasses and saw that it was a woman. A beautiful woman.
Pointing a gun at him.
He sat up.
“I…I have some money in my wallet, and my watch is a Piaget,” he stammered.
“That figures. Piagets are crappy watches for rich morons with no taste.”
“It’s…worth a lot of money. Take it. And I have a few thousand dollars here.”
“That’s good to know.”
Confused by her tone, he reached for the bedside lamp.
“Move one more inch and I blow your head off.”
He froze, then slowly resumed his sitting position.
“What do you want?”
“I’m here with a message.”
“A message?”
“Yes. It’s a short one. Either you die by the gun tonight, or you die by the needle. Your choice.”
He swallowed with difficulty, his throat suddenly dry.
“What the hell are you talking about?”
“I’m here to kill you. But I’ll give you a choice. Do you want a bullet, or a shot of the heroin you’re responsible for selling to millions of kids all over the world?”
“Look, lady, you’ve got this all wrong…” The pistol didn’t waver. “Do you have any idea who I am? You’re making the biggest mistake of your life,” he snarled.
She ignored him.
“What’s it going to be? Bullet or needle? I don’t have all night.”
He lunged for the bedside table, and she shot him in the leg, shattering his kneecap. His scream was cut off by another round directly between his eyes. The back of his head blew onto the coveted headboard. She stepped to the bedroom door and flipped the lock closed, then moved to the window and slid it open. His scream would bring his two bodyguards and his maid within seconds, but by the time they got in, Jet would have vanished.
With a final look at the dead man on the bed, she climbed through the window and lowered herself until her feet were ten feet above the grass, then dropped softly, rolled backwards, and took off at a full run to where she’d left her bike in the dense cover of the park.
Five minutes later, she was in the Explorer, driving the speed limit on her way to Washington.
~ ~ ~
“Yes?”
Silence greeted Arthur’s interrogative. He held the handset out and stared at it, then clenched it to his ear again.
“Who is this?” The line was unlisted. Perhaps a wrong number?
“Wake up, Arthur,” Jet finally said.
“Who…where are you? I haven’t heard from you for a week,” Arthur demanded into the phone.
A sound rattled from downstairs, and then the line went dead.
Arthur rose from his bed and wrapped a robe around his pajamas, then slid his nightstand open and removed a small pistol – a Ruger LCP 380. He lifted the handset again to call for help, but there was no dial tone. And he’d left his cell phone downstairs to charge overnight, as was his custom.
Mitzi, his pug, whined and stretched, peering up at him in confusion. Was it time to wake up and go for a walk?
He crept cautiously down the steps and turned the corner at the base, entering the living room, where Jet sat in the dark in one of his colonial-era chairs, a briefcase in her lap, one foot swinging lazy circles. He flipped on the light and regarded her, the pistol trained on her head. Mitzi yelped happily and ran to her. Jet reached down and scratched her furry little head. Mitzi pushed her face into Jet’s hand and then lay by her side with a plop.
“You won’t need the peashooter,” she said with a smile.
Arthur looked worse than she remembered, the mottled skin puckered around his neck, which had thankfully been covered by his shirt and tie before.
“Perhaps. But this is highly irregular.” He appeared to consider the situation and then dropped the pistol into his robe pocket – but kept his hand in it, she noted.
“I suppose. So is having your baby kidnapped and being blackmailed. I guess we live in an irregular world…”
“Why didn’t you call me?”
“I lost the number.”
He studied her calm face, and then took a seat across from her with a sigh.
“And?”
She lifted the briefcase and put it on the coffee table between them, and then lifted the lid, turning it towards him.
The freezer bag of diamonds twinkled in the ornate chandelier’s glow.
“There are your diamonds. Next to them, you’ll find snapshots of Hawker. He’s been neutralized. Now, where’s my daughter?”
Arthur leaned forward and picked up the photos, taking his time to scrutinize them suspiciously before dropping them into the briefcase and lifting the diamonds out.
“What is this? Some kind of joke?”
“What do you mean? Those are your diamonds. Now it’s time to end this charade. I’ve done as you asked. Time for your end of the deal. Where’s my daughter?”
“That’s only…maybe a quarter of them. Do you take me for a fool?”
“That’s what he had. I looked online and calculated the number and carats. It’s over fifty million, wholesale. It’s all there. Now, where’s Hannah?”
He stood and pulled the pistol from his pocket. “This is all he had?”
“That’s what I said, isn’t it? Now put the gun down, tell me where my daughter is, and get ready to hand me a million dollars.”
“Not so fast. I need to ver
ify they’re real.”
He hadn’t dropped the gun.
“Fine. They are. That’s what he had. You can pay me once you check them. But for the last time, tell me where my daughter is.”
His skin tightened as he grimaced, and she realized he was smiling. He raised the Ruger and pulled the trigger.
Nothing happened.
His eyes widened as he tried to chamber a round, but the gun was empty.
“Now that definitely wasn’t the deal,” she said, pulling her silenced Beretta from behind her and leveling it at him. “I didn’t think you’d honor your part of the bargain, but I figured I’d at least give you the chance. More than you gave me.”
Arthur flung the Ruger at her and sprang for the hall. The impact of Jet’s feet slamming into his side sent him reeling into the wall with a crash. He dropped to the floor, groaning.
Jet got up, brushed herself off and then walked to the table and closed the briefcase, locking the latch with a soft snap. She eyed Arthur’s quivering form and approached him.
“Now we’ll do this the hard way. I actually hope you don’t tell me where Hannah is until I’ve had a real opportunity to convince you. I’m usually ambivalent about torture, but in your case, I’m looking forward to it. I suppose all that expensive surgery on your face will get destroyed by the acid, but before it does, you’ll wish for death a hundred times over.” She kicked him, hard, in the stomach. “I even went shopping for items to use. You know, I once kept a subject alive for six hours before his heart gave out? I mean, he was unrecognizable as anything human by then, but still. It’s an art, really. I’m sure you’ll appreciate it. By the time I’m done, you’ll have not only told me where Hannah is, but you’ll have told me anything and everything you can think of just to get me to stop.”
She moved to the dining room and lifted a shopping bag from behind a chest, then brought it to the living room and set it near the coffee table before putting on a pair of gloves.
“You have no idea what you’ve gotten into. You’ll be dead by morning,” Arthur snapped.
“Oh, you mean the drug ring? Is that what you’re talking about? Guess what. I know it all. I know about the heroin you’ve been importing from the Golden Triangle. I know about the heroin from Afghanistan you’re shipping using military transports as well. I know about the cocaine and meth from the Mexican cartels. The ecstasy. I know everything.”
Arthur’s eyes took on a veneer of worry for the first time.
“How…”
“Seems like Hawker had the goods on all of you. Briggs. You. Everyone in the ring. Documented.”
“You’ll never prove it. You can’t prove anything.”
“You mean nobody will believe that the Central Intelligence Agency is the biggest drug trafficking organization in the world? You sure about that? Sure a paper or TV station or three wouldn’t be interested? Maybe Congress?”
“You have no idea how high this goes.”
“Right. Higher than the associate director? And the director?”
“It’s bigger than you can imagine.”
“Arthur. Look at me. I know everything,” she said quietly.
“Then you know you don’t have a chance.”
“I know that if you get between a female lion and her cub, you can expect no mercy. Which brings me to the part of the show where I start peeling your skin off and feed it to Mitzi. That’s gotta hurt.”
The timid little dog gazed up at her from where it was hiding behind an armoire, alert at the mention of her name. Jet withdrew a cattle prod from the bag.
“I modified this so it’s capable of delivering a continuous current. I hear you use them for torture. Nice.” She placed it on the table and then held up a syringe. “This will completely incapacitate you so you’re incapable of movement, but can feel everything. Curare – crude yet effective, wouldn’t you agree?” She placed it on the table next to the prod and produced another hypodermic. “And this is a little favorite that heightens the synaptic response so sensations are magnified exponentially. I’ve been told that it can make a paper cut feel like you’re being disemboweled. My thinking is I start on your eyes. You won’t need them any longer. Then I move to your genitals. Not that you probably get much use out of those, either. Then, when you think it can’t get any worse, I’ll use this.” She extracted a bottle and placed it carefully next to the syringes. “Acid.” She fished the final item from the bag and held it up – a soldering iron. “I watched David cook a Mossad traitor with one of these. Just the smell is enough to make you gag. I can’t even imagine how it will feel after the injection and acid wash.”
She picked up the cattle prod and walked towards him.
“This is your last chance, and then I zap you till you’re twitching, inject you, and start on your eyes. Think very, very hard about your answer. Because once I start, there’s no going back. You know my history. Make your choice. Honor our agreement or become hamburger.”
“You’ll never do it. You’ll never kill me,” he spat. “You won’t get your daughter back if you do.”
“Why, Arthur. Perhaps I need to work on my communication skills. I have no intention of killing you. I’m going to leave you paralyzed, with no tongue or eyes, in permanent agony for the rest of your hopefully-long life. Nothing – no amount of money, no specialized treatments – will ease the suffering. Think about it. Blind. Pooping yourself. Every nerve amplifying your pain tenfold. The injection is irreversible. The best you can hope for is that I’ll take pity and kill you once you’ve told me where she is. Because you will, Arthur. You will. Nobody ever holds out once this gets underway. You’re no different. You of all people should know that. Again, I really, really hope you decide not to cooperate.”
Arthur looked panicked, her message finally having hit home.
She waited, but he didn’t say anything, preferring to glare at her with raw hatred. Jet shrugged and moved towards him with the cattle prod and pressed it against his face, then engaged the current.
Arthur bucked and jerked for ten seconds, foaming from his nose and mouth, and then she cut the power, his limbs twitching spasmodically from the lingering effects.
“You should start regaining the ability to move in twenty seconds or so. By then I’ll have injected you with the nerve agent. Imagine what you’re feeling right now, the agony, amplified immeasurably. Have I got your attention?”
She picked up the smaller syringe and pulled the orange cap off, then squirted a little into the air for effect.
“You’ll get nothing,” he growled, laying his last card on the table.
Jet shrugged and knelt next to him, then drove the needle into his leg, depressing the plunger before pulling it out and tossing it aside.
It took half a minute for the full effect to hit.
“Argghhh,”Arthur screamed, writhing in agony as the full force of pain arrived.
“That’s what I thought. Now I’m going to cut your eyes out. You ready?” She flipped out a combat knife and opened it, waving the shiny blade at him.
Arthur croaked, a rasping sound with a wet bubbling at the end.
“What’s that?”
“I’ll tell you,” he rasped, the fight gone out of him, waves of pain racking mercilessly through his body.
“What? You said left eye first?” she asked, her face a blank.
“Please. I’ll tell you.” He spat out a slug of bloody saliva from where he’d bitten his cheek then convulsed again.
She reached behind her and pulled a pair of handcuffs free, then tossed them on the floor.
“As soon as you can move, put those on. And start talking. Where is she?”
“God. The pain. Help me…”
“I told you. Once you’re injected, it’s out of my hands. Now where is she? Or the eye goes.”
He struggled for breath. “A…private hospital we use. They have a pediatric ward. She’s a patient.”
“Where?”
“Alexandria. Virginia,” he hisse
d, his face twitching.
“The name.”
“Anderson…Medical.”
“Security?”
“Only one guard. In the lobby. They were told…she has a virus. One of our doctors is caring for her.”
“Where is she? Which floor?”
“I…I think the third.”
“Cuff yourself. You’re coming with me.”
Chapter 36
“What are you going to do with me…ungh…once you have her?” Arthur gasped as he bent over double, every neuron in his being on fire.
“I’m thinking about it. Considering the option you gave me when you pulled the trigger, I’m not feeling generous.”
“I…never mind.”
“No, there’s not much to mitigate a bullet to the brain that failed to fire, huh? ‘My bad’ doesn’t really cut it. Now move.”
As they reached the entry foyer, she stepped back into the living room and scooped up the briefcase and the Beretta.
“Open the door. Slowly. Then we’ll walk to my car. It’s down the block, to the right,” she instructed. Arthur fumbled with the lever and twisted it, the cuffs making it difficult.
They walked down the front steps and were on the sidewalk when she spotted movement on her right – a man with the distinctive shape of a silenced pistol in his hand. She dropped to one knee as she raised her weapon and fired two shots at the running gunman, the second shot whipping his head back as it tore through his face.
The window of the car next to her exploded in a shower of glass, and she pulled Arthur to her and twisted, firing at another shooter down the sidewalk. She could hear the thwacks as her slugs slammed into his chest, but he was still shooting even as he dropped. A bullet ricocheted off the sidewalk and then a round caught Arthur in the chest. She adjusted her aim and squeezed off four shots at another man in an overcoat crossing the street. He went down hard, his weapon clattering by his side as he tumbled onto the asphalt.
JET II - Betrayal (JET #2) Page 24
