by Elise Noble
I took out a gun of my own. With a family day out having turned into a rescue mission, I’d relegated my CCP to an ankle holster as my backup piece—thank goodness Bradley had laid out looser-fitting trousers for me to wear today—and tucked my new Walther PPQ into a shoulder holster under my jacket. Now I cocked it and pointed it at Kelbyn’s head.
“We’ve lost Vine’s feed,” Mack told me. “Possibly due to battery issues.”
There wasn’t much I could do about that right now, but it did underscore the urgency of the situation.
“Make a peep without permission, and the next sound you hear will be your brains splattering against the wall.” A physical impossibility with his auditory cortex missing, but it scared him nicely. “Nod if you understand.”
He nodded.
“Good. I’m going to ask you some questions, and I want brief, honest answers. If I don’t get those, it’s going to hurt. Got it?”
Another nod. I fished Race’s sock out of Kelbyn’s mouth. So far, this was going quite well, monkey business excepted. In fact, it was more fun than the actual park.
“You’ve taken a roller coaster full of people hostage, correct?”
“Y-y-yes.”
“Just one group?”
“Yes.”
“How many people are you working with?”
“T-t-two.”
“Your father’s one of them? Jeffrey Monteith?”
“How did you know?”
I applied just a tiny bit of pressure to his windpipe. “I’m asking the questions, not you.”
“Yes. Yes!”
The faint smell of urine drifted on the air. Good grief, I’d barely touched him.
“Who else?”
“N-N-Neil Robinson. He works on the ride.”
“Are they both on the platform?”
“Neil was in the control booth at the back.”
“How do we get there?”
“You won’t hurt them, will you?”
“Did we hurt you?”
“Y-y-yes.”
“Oh, for goodness’ sake. If you think that’s pain, you’ve led a very sheltered life.” My words didn’t seem to comfort him. “Look, if they cooperate, we’ll just secure them and turn them over to the authorities. How do we get to the train?”
Kelbyn deflated a little. Hadn’t he realised arrest was inevitable? Nobody got away with holding hostages in the middle of a busy theme park, not unless they were a hell of a lot better prepared, anyway.
“If you follow this hallway and go up the stairs, it brings you out at the far end of the platform.”
“I came along the track,” Race said. “It’s basically a ladder. There’s a door on the right, like, twenty yards along.”
Good. We could split up. Two on the track and one on the stairs. Somebody needed to stay with Kelbyn and Race, and I was inclined to give that job to Carmen. She was a superb shot, but I wanted to avoid gunfire if at all possible, and Dan was sneakier. She could take the passage, Ana could take Race’s route, and I’d go the other way around the track to flank our two targets.
“How does a person get into the booth?” I asked.
Kelbyn looked more miserable than anyone I’d ever seen. “There’s a door.”
“Which end?”
He had to think about that for a moment. “This side. Facing away from the wormhole. Uh, the main entrance.”
“Any steps?”
“Two? Three, maybe?”
“Why did you take those people hostage?” Dan asked. “I mean, it’s a hell of a risk.”
Good question. Sometimes, I tended to get caught up in the nuts and bolts of the operation, but understanding our opponents’ motivations could help us.
“We n-n-need drugs.”
“Drugs?”
“Y-y-yes.”
If they were junkies, that could certainly explain the lack of competence. “And who were you expecting to pay for these drugs?”
Surprisingly, it was Race who answered.
“Artemis and Isolde Sacker. Is that right?”
Kelbyn nodded.
“Who the hell are Artemis and Isolde Sacker?” I asked.
“They’re on Instagram.” And I wasn’t, which probably explained why I’d never heard of them. “We were talking to them in the line.” Race stood on tiptoe to whisper in Dan’s ear, but because she was wearing an earpiece, I heard every word. “Trick likes Isolde, and Vine kept teasing him, so Trick made us sit at the back while he sat at the front with her.”
“Mack, are you getting this?” I asked softly.
“Sure am. Artemis and Isolde are Instagram influencers. Three million and two-point-five million followers respectively. They’ve both made posts about their visit to SciPark today, which means they were probably gifted free tickets, but they mostly seem to focus on make-up. Seems they’ve recently started their own brand. It’s called Artis. Hey, the lip gloss is on special offer.”
“So you’re expecting the hostages to pay their own ransoms?” Dan asked. “That’s new.”
“No, th-th-their father,” Kelbyn said. “We were going to call him.”
“This was a spur-of-the-moment thing? You just saw the Sacker girls walk into the park this morning and thought you could make a few bucks?”
“We found out yesterday that they were c-c-coming. They were on the VIP list.”
I had one more question before we headed up to the platform. “Are your cohorts armed?”
“They both have pistols.”
Oh, fantastic. More guns. But on balance, walking into the line of fire was still better than visiting the gift shop with Bradley.
CHAPTER 6
WE TURNED OFF the flashlights and moved by feel as we ventured deeper into the bowels of the sphere. It was slow going. We couldn’t afford to make any noise, and in the gloom, it would be all too easy to bump into something accidentally.
Race’s estimate of twenty yards to the door was spot on, and I felt rather than saw Ana smile in the darkness before we went our separate ways. I’d definitely drawn the short straw. Not only did I have the farthest to go, but my section of track rose almost vertically at times. A kidnapping at a freaking amusement park… In some ways, it wasn’t a terrible plan. I mean, the hostages had literally climbed onto the roller coaster and incapacitated themselves. And by having staff members involved, they could maintain a cover-up, at least for a short period of time. They’d gotten lucky with Jimbo’s escape, but I suspected Dan might be right about the busted Ferris wheel being intentional. If I’d needed to plan a distraction, that’s how I’d have played it. Distressed passengers in full view of everyone but no real danger.
The execution of the rest, however? Poor. One out of ten, two if I was feeling generous.
“The Sacker family’s mega-rich. I’m sending a picture,” Mack told us. I shielded the glow from my phone screen as a photo of two Barbie dolls popped up. “Artemis is eighteen years old, and Isolde’s fifteen. The girls’ father is the CEO of Bio-D Pharmaceuticals and, by all accounts, a bit of a slimeball. If Martin Shkreli is Pharma Bro, then David Sacker’s his daddy.”
When Mack said that, I realised I knew the man already.
“David Sacker? I’ve met him.”
Once upon a time, he’d hit up my husband to invest in one of his projects. But despite being an assassin, Black still had some morals. For him to invest in a biotech company, it had to adhere to a set of principles, which meant treating staff like shit and price-gouging were both big no-nos. Bio-D met absolutely none of his criteria. Plus Sacker referred to me as “your little lady,” so Black had told him to fuck off, albeit slightly more politely than that.
“Are the stories true?” Mack asked.
“Is it wrong to be rooting for the kidnappers?”
A faint glow from the tunnel ahead let me see the track properly for the first time. Emergency lighting from the platform? I suspected so, and that meant I was getting close.
“Almost there,” Ana whisper
ed.
A few moments passed, and then Dan spoke, her words so quiet they were barely audible. “I got right up to the platform. Jeffrey’s getting agitated, I think because he can’t raise Kelbyn.”
“Any sign of contestant number three?” I asked.
“Not yet. The door of the booth is open a crack, and there’s dim light inside, but no movement.”
“I’m not far away. When I get there, let’s—”
“Uh-oh.”
What was the problem? I strained my ears and heard a man’s voice in the background. “…go and find him.”
“The good news is that Robinson’s left the booth,” Ana told me.
The bad news? He’d presumably gone down the passageway and was heading right for Dan. Fuck it. I abandoned my chimp-like traverse of the roller-coaster track and ran across the rungs instead. Either I’d get there faster or I’d break my ankle.
Wish me luck.
The sounds of a scuffle came over the radio as I burst onto the platform. Jeffrey Monteith was striding towards the passage, and I sprinted in his direction. Too late, he heard me coming, and as I rugby-tackled him, Ana grabbed the gun out of his hand, popped the magazine, and sent both parts skidding across onto the track. They dropped down the side of the train with a metallic clatter.
Jeffrey wriggled like a demented caterpillar, but with me sitting on his legs and Ana hanging onto his arms, he couldn’t do much more than yell. Then Ana stuffed a ball gag into his mouth—a fucking ball gag—and he shut up.
“Okay?” she asked.
“Yup.”
A moment later, she was gone, looking into the control booth in case Kelbyn had lied about the number of assholes.
“Clear.”
“Check the other corridor? The one that goes to the front entrance?”
“Da.”
I glanced briefly at the train and saw a few dropped jaws. “Everybody stay quiet, got it?”
Where was Dan? Back in the day, we’d gleefully waded into bar brawls every other weekend, so I knew she was perfectly capable of taking care of herself, but she didn’t get into so many fights nowadays. Car crashes, sure, but not punch-ups.
Still, I needn’t have worried. Twenty seconds later, she marched Neil Robinson out of the tunnel with his hands cuffed behind his back, his own gun held to his head, and a vinyl sticker advertising Ethan’s latest album slapped over his mouth.
Three down. Perfect. I’d brought duct tape from the car, so all we had to do was secure the prisoners, collect Trick and Vine, and then go home. If I drove fast enough, I could fit in a session on the firing range before dinner. Happy days.
“Pink, give Lili a minute to check the rest of the building, then bring Kelbyn to the platform.”
Pink was one of Carmen’s designated nicknames, and Lili was one of Ana’s. We still had scarves over our faces, and I didn’t want to identify ourselves. Why? Because there were plenty of other witnesses to the crime, and I had far better things to do with my time than sit for a police interview. We’d done our part. The hostages were safe if a little tearful, even Artemis and Isolde. I recognised them from the picture Mack had sent me. I very much suspected their next make-up tutorial would be on waterproof mascara.
Vine was sitting at the back, as Race had said, and yes, Trick was next to Isolde. Did he seriously like her? Trick had cleaned up well under Ethan’s influence, but he still didn’t strike me as the type who’d hook up with a Barbie doll. Artemis was sitting next to a guy as well. A boyfriend? Judging by the way she gripped his hand, the answer was in the affirmative. He was the oldest of the hostages, in his early twenties at a guess. The rest were teenagers.
Our next challenge would be getting Trick and Vine off the train. Presumably there was a button or a lever in the control booth, but could we release two people without setting the rest free as well? I didn’t want seventeen former captives running around the sphere in the dark, and the police wouldn’t appreciate having to round them up in the park later either. The monkeys and the capybaras were causing quite enough problems as it was.
Ana reappeared, and a tiny nod of her head told me the way was clear. A moment later, she crouched beside me and fished the duct tape out of my slimline backpack.
“Pink, okay to move.” I raised an eyebrow at Ana. “A ball gag?”
“I thought it was yours.”
“Mine?”
“I found it in the trunk of the Porsche. I wasn’t going to say anything, but…”
“No, it’s not fucking mine.”
“Then whose…?”
Did my husband have a whole other dark side I was previously unaware of? No. No way. What about Carmen? Nate borrowed Black’s car sometimes. Hmm… I couldn’t see it. Dan wouldn’t dare to take the Porsche for a spin, not after she’d managed to write off Black’s Humvee a few years back. Who else? Ah… Sofia. She’d used it to drive to Virginia Beach with her boyfriend last month, and she did have a dark side.
“Fia,” I mouthed, and Ana snorted.
Carmen appeared with Race in tow, and we arranged the three amigos face down on the platform. A whole roll of duct tape later, we had them trussed up like mummies, and I turned to face the people on the train. Apart from the occasional gasp and some sobs, they’d followed orders and stayed silent.
“Sorry about this interruption to your day, folks. We’ll be leaving in a minute. Does anybody need medical attention?”
A few people mumbled “no,” and the rest shook their heads.
“Great. We’ll call the cops on our way out, and they’ll be along shortly. All you have to do is tell them what happened.”
Dan had been fumbling round in the control booth, and with a bit of guidance from Mack, she managed to release Trick’s and Vine’s restraints.
“Ready, guys?”
They didn’t move. Why not?
One of the other riders came to life. “You can’t do this!”
“You won’t be here for long, and it’s for your own safety.”
“Let them go!” a girl yelled.
Huh? Let them go? Not us?
“She’s gonna die,” somebody else shouted.
The protests kept coming.
“Don’t be so mean.”
“Leave them alone.”
“Go away.”
Something hit me in the shoulder. I looked down and saw a hair clip. Then a coin landed next to me, and a moment later, we were being pelted with everything from souvenir dinosaurs to cigarettes those kids should not have been smoking. Even a girl who’d obviously been crying threw a roll of Life Savers at me, and she looked pissed.
What the actual hell?
“Enough!” I bellowed. The throwing of projectiles ceased, probably because I was holding a gun. I pointed at Trick. “Explain. These men were threatening you, yes?”
“Yeah, but just before you showed up, the guy said he was only doing it so he could save his daughter. Like, he apologised.”
He apologised? Gee, that was fine then.
“How does holding you hostage save his daughter? The first guy we caught said they wanted drugs.”
One of the other kids spoke up. “Yeah, idiot. For his daughter.”
The insult barely registered because suddenly I understood. Sacker. Bio-D. Ah, fuck. Had these fools kidnapped the two Sacker girls to force Pharma Daddy to hand over drugs his company made—probably for pennies—and sold at some exorbitant price? Big pharmaceutical companies could charge whatever they wanted, and people had no choice but to pay it.
I rolled Jeffrey over. “Is this true? You need drugs to save your sick daughter?”
He nodded, and I resisted the urge to facepalm. Instead, I unbuckled the ball gag.
“For the love of all that’s holy, do you people not understand how ransom demands work? If you ask for a particular drug, then all the cops have to do is phone around the hospitals until they find whoever needed it, and then they’ll track back and arrest you.”
Jeffrey stared at me, unblink
ing. “I don’t care. I’ll go to jail if it saves my daughter. This is her last chance. The doctors said she’ll die unless she gets treated in the next week. A cycle of Cytoblin costs five hundred thousand dollars, and she’ll need two cycles at least.”
“What does Cytoblin treat?”
“Acute lymphoblastic leukaemia.”
“Hey, I saw something about that in my research,” Mack told me. “A course of Cytoblin used to cost fifty thousand bucks, but Bio-D bought the patent and hiked the price tenfold.”
Flaming Nora. What a bloody mess.
“You still can’t go around…” I was about to say “waving guns at people,” but then I realised I still had my Walther in my hand. Shit. I shoved it back into its holster. “Sick child or not, you can’t just terrorise members of the public.”
“I wouldn’t have hurt anyone.”
“He wouldn’t,” a kid called out. “He promised.”
“My sister had cancer,” a girl said. “It’s horrible.”
“What if he asked for money instead of the drugs?” another teenager suggested. “Then the cops couldn’t find him.”
I felt a headache coming on. “Hello? He held Sacker’s daughters hostage.”
“We won’t tell anyone it was him,” Isolde said. “Our dad’s an asshole.”
“We’ll all say they weren’t here,” a boy with floppy hair offered. “Won’t we?”
A chorus of yeses echoed back.
“They posted their whereabouts on fuckin’ Instagram,” Dan pointed out. “The whole damn world knows they’re here.”
Ana started laughing. Sometimes, she had a really warped sense of humour.
“It’s not bloody funny.”
“Da, eto tak. It’s hilarious.”
“It is kind of funny,” Carmen said. “You said today would be boring, and now the bad guys are the good guys, and the victim is practically a criminal, and there are monkeys everywhere.”
Welcome to my life. MC Escher meets Hieronymus Bosch.
“What if I just give these people the money myself?” I suggested. “Then we can go back to the bar.”
“Throw cash at the problem? Where’s the fun in that?” Ana asked.
I leaned against a railing with my head in my hands. How could a straightforward rescue have gone so wrong? Much as I hated to admit it, the others had valid points, and I really couldn’t stand David Sacker and his ilk. I was nobody’s little fucking lady.
