After that, the man removed a cell phone and stared at the screen, but made no attempt to call. A moment later, the man smiled with satisfaction and held up the phone to show its screen to his men.
He took out his own phone to check, and found that he could not get a signal, and then assumed that the man was responsible for it being inoperative; he also assumed that Jessica didn’t have enough time to call for help.
There was a glass-enclosed office where a security guard sat during weekdays while deliveries were being made. There had been a surveillance monitor in there that showed the dock area. The screen was black now, and he realized that they had not only disabled cell phone service, but most likely the landlines and CCTV systems as well.
Whoever these men were, they were organized and had planned their attack well. With no way to call out for help and with security blind to their approach, the hotel became an easy target.
Everyone on the island was now on their own.
Two of their group came running down the ramp from the outside and one of them carried a toolbelt. They were the men that disabled communications.
They lowered the bay doors and then one of the men used a hammer to smash the control box used to open them.
The leader of the group gave a short speech in a language that sounded Slavic to his untrained ear, and the men about him cheered enthusiastically when he finished speaking.
Next, the man slapped the caterer on the back while smiling, and then he and the other men walked towards the elevators, while the caterer stayed behind with the vans.
Once he saw the doors on the elevators close, he began inching his way towards the vans with the intent of gaining information, along with a much-needed weapon.
***
Craig Morgan made his way to the bar amidst the smiles and greetings of numerous well-wishers.
Craig made for a handsome groom in his tailored tuxedo, and the smile on his face broadcast to everyone that this was to be the happiest day of his life.
Once at the bar, he spoke quietly over his shoulder to Blake, the man he had hired to kill his soon-to-be father-in-law.
“Wessel is here. Once the wedding takes place, do your job.”
“Just lure him to that gazebo out back like we planned and I’ll do the rest.”
Craig nodded slightly and moved deeper into the club. That’s when a group of armed men entered and began barking orders and rounding up the guests.
Craig opened the door to a stairwell and went inside, then fled up the stairs in a panic.
What the hell is going on?
***
Jude O’Grady took Virginia in his arms and smiled when he heard her make a soft sound of contentment. He then kissed her, and was kissed in return, before she twisted herself away from him, her wedding gown making whispering sounds as its hem glided across the blue carpet.
“If you marry Morgan you’ll regret it for the rest of your life, Virginia, and you’ll ruin mine. I love you, baby, and I have since I laid eyes on you.”
“We’re no good together, Jude. Daddy will fire you on the spot, and then what would we do? I have no job skills and it could be months before you got another job.”
O’Grady went to her and took her by the arm.
“Do you love me, yes or no?”
“I won’t answer that. A yes would make you reckless and a no would hurt you.”
“I don’t need an answer. I know you love me, now I’m asking you to trust me. Call off the wedding and go away with me.”
“Go away? Go away to where?”
“To a new life, a life where you’re loved for yourself, and not for your father’s money.”
“You make Craig sound so mercenary, but he loves me, it’s not as passionate as what we, we experienced, but he’ll make a good husband.”
“You don’t need a husband, you need a man.”
O’Grady leaned in to kiss her, but the attempt was broken off when Jessica reentered the suite.
“I’m so sorry to interrupt but something is happening. My husband told me that armed men have just arrived. We have to find a way to get help. Try your phones and see if they’re working.”
As O’Grady tried his cell phone, Virginia tried the landline.
She held up the phone. “The line is dead.”
“I’m not getting a signal either. Something’s blocking it, the Internet too,” O’Grady said.
“Those men must be organized, that’s not good, it could mean that they’re terrorists.”
Virginia reached out for O’Grady’s hand.
“They must be after Daddy, he does business around the world and he’s gotten threats in the past.”
O’Grady kissed Virginia on the cheek and then headed for the door.
“You two stay here. I’ll get off the island and bring the police back.”
“That won’t work; the ferry just left and it won’t be back for a while,” Jessica said.
“I don’t need the ferry. I stashed a small boat with an outboard motor at the rear of the hotel earlier, in the canal. I’ll take that.”
“Why did you leave it back there instead of at the dock?” Jessica said.
“They don’t allow private boats here, at least not on this side of the island. They say it disrupts the ferry landings, so I hid it around back.”
“Why would you do that? Why not just leave on the ferry with Daddy?” Virginia said.
“If you went through with the wedding I wasn’t sticking around. I was going to take that boat and leave immediately for parts unknown.”
“And never come back?”
“It would hurt too much to stay.”
O’Grady opened the door and Virginia went to him.
“But Jude, what if you’re caught? They might hurt you.”
O’Grady shrugged.
“I have to do something. You’re in danger and I’ll do whatever it takes to protect you. Now stay here with Dr. White and I’ll be back with the police.”
After O’Grady left, Virginia looked devastated with worry for him, and, Jessica took note, that despite the danger looming, she hadn’t even given her fiancé a thought.
***
He was under one of the vans, moving himself forward by use of his elbows and knees while being as silent as a snake. His suit coat, along with his phone and keys were stowed near the trash compactor he had previously hid behind.
Once he was in position at the front of the vehicle, he took out his knife and jammed the tip hard into the driver’s side tire.
TTSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSHHHHHH
The sound of the air rushing out was immediate and the van nearly lowered itself atop his back, but he managed to skitter in reverse just as a cry of dismay issued from inside the van.
The man in the catering uniform leapt out of the van and then bent down to inspect the damaged tire, and as he did so, two powerful hands reached out to grip his ankles and yanked his legs out from under him.
As the man reached for the gun beneath the white coat, he emerged from under the van and leapt on top of him, to wrench the hand away, but the man was too strong and the hand crept ever closer to the holster.
When he realized that the man would win the contest, he released the hand and the sudden lack of resistance caused the man to overshoot the holster and strike himself in the face with a hard blow, then, he added three more blows of his own, and took the gun away from the man.
“Who are you, and who are those other men?”
No answer.
In one smooth motion, he flipped the gun around and smashed it atop the man’s left kneecap.
The gun was an old Desert Eagle, made of heavy stainless steel, and the impact and placement of the blow caused the man to howl.
“Talk!”
The man sucked in air, before cursing at him in a foreign tongue.
This time the blow was delivered with his foot, and as the heel of his boot came down on the man’s wrist, he distinctly heard the sound of bones snapping
.
Before the man could even react to that new bit of agony, he reached over and bent the fingers back on the opposite hand, causing the ligaments and tendons to stretch beyond their limits.
A scream issued forth from the man’s gaping mouth as tears leaked from his eyes, eyes that pleaded for mercy, but found not a trace of it in the man standing over him.
He placed a foot high on the man’s chest and pointed the gun at his face.
“Talk now or die. You’ve run out of time.”
“Wes... Wessel, we’re here for George Wessel.”
“Why so many men?”
“To control the crowd and make him talk. Wessel is CIA, and he has information that we need.”
“And what if he won’t talk?”
“He’ll talk, if not, we kill his daughter, his friends... everyone.”
He straightened at those words. Jessica was with Virginia Wessel and men were on their way to abduct her.
He had planned to leave the man alive, but now realized that time was short and he couldn’t waste any of it tying him up, or take the chance that he might get free, and so, he slid his foot off the man’s chest and onto his throat.
The man gripped his ankle with both hands; however, his efforts were near useless, as the fingers of one hand were damaged and the wrist of the other, broken.
He removed his foot only when he was certain that he had caused severe damage to the man’s airway.
As he raced towards the elevator, he stopped to retrieve his belongings from behind the trash compactor and looked back at the man on the floor. He had turned purple and was clawing at his own throat in an insane attempt to get air into his lungs.
He grimaced, while wanting to end the man’s torture, but there was no time. Jessica needed him.
And as the doors on the freight elevator were closing, he heard the echo of numerous shots emanate from the club, Perpetuity, and readied himself for battle.
CHAPTER 3
Jessica struggled her way off the sofa. She was scant weeks away from having twins and it was becoming more difficult to rise once seated.
“Virginia, I think we should leave here. This suite is bound to be searched.”
Virginia grew pale.
“You think that those men would attack us?”
“I don’t know, but I do think that we’ll be harder to find if we relocate to another room.”
“Okay, but how do we get into them?”
“We’ll worry about that later, for now, I think we need to move, to hide.”
“All right, Jessie.”
Jessica moved deeper into the suite.
“Where are you going? I thought that we were leaving?”
“We are, but first I have to write a message for my husband.”
And after saying that, Jessica headed for the bathroom.
***
O’Grady opened the door to the stairwell and saw Craig Morgan lumbering up the last few steps.
“What the hell is going on down there, Morgan?”
Craig held up a finger, telling O’Grady to wait until he got his breath back.
O’Grady stood in the doorway looking at him in disgust, wondering how a man his age could be in such horrible condition.
Finally, Craig spoke.
“There are men with guns in the club. I managed to slip out as they were coming in.”
The sound of several shots echoed through the stairway and Craig rushed past O’Grady.
“Oh Jesus, they’re shooting the guests.”
O’Grady grabbed him by the arm.
“Come back downstairs with me, one of us has to get off the island and get help.”
Craig shook loose.
“I’m not going down there. I’m going to find a place to hide and stay there until the cops show.”
“All right then, you do that, but get Virginia and take her with you. She’s in the suite with her cousin, Jessica.”
“And how do you know that? Were you sniffing around her again?”
“Yes, and I wouldn’t count on getting married, but never mind that. Go to Virginia and keep her safe.”
Craig sent him a foul look and then bolted away, and as the faint murmur of screams reached his ears, O’Grady went towards them in the hope of getting help.
***
Craig got to the bridal suite just as Jessica and Virginia were leaving, and they explained to him what they had planned.
“Yeah, it makes sense not to stay here, but sooner or later they’ll search every room, so where can we hide?”
Jessica looked at a door at the end of the hall.
“I have just the place.”
***
Inside Perpetuity, Vadim Belenko pointed a gun at George Wessel and, in thickly accented English, demanded that Wessel give him a list of names.
The Ukrainian then gestured at the guests huddled together in a corner of the club, where Belenko’s men had herded them at gunpoint.
His nephew, Pavel, had gathered excellent intelligence about the hotel staff and the building’s layout, and upon arrival, Belenko and his men had neutralize all security personnel and most of the hotel staff, to gather all but two of them together into the club with the wedding guests.
The two unlucky ones were armed security, and Belenko ordered their deaths as a warning to the hostages. He always found it helpful to instill terror as early as possible. The bodies of the two men lay in the center of the club in plain view, to serve as a warning.
Without doubt, there were a few scattered guests and employees in various rooms on the upper floors, but with no way to communicate with the outside world, they were no threat.
All exits were sealed with magnetic locks that needed a six-digit code to disengage, and only Belenko and his men knew the sequence to input.
Belenko harbored no doubt that he would obtain the information he came for and then disappear before the authorities were any the wiser, and the entire operation would last less than two hours.
He glared down at the man on his knees before him and continued his interrogation.
“Give me the list of names or I swear to you that I will kill everyone here, but first, I will kill your daughter.”
Wessel swallowed hard before answering, as sweat threatened to soak through his tuxedo.
“I don’t have a list of names. I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“There was a meeting aboard your yacht three weeks ago, a meeting you attended, and you and other CIA met with members of RASLAV. I want the names of those men. They are traitors to our cause and I will expose them before they betray us to our enemies.”
“I’m not a member of the CIA; I’m just a businessman.”
“You lie, Wessel, you are CIA operative, and I will get that list, one way or another. This I promise you.”
In the crowd pressed against the back wall, Brendan Ryan whispered to Carly.
“Young lady, have you seen my granddaughter?”
“No sir.”
“Oh good Lord, wherever she is I hope that she has the sense to hide.”
One of the men glared at them and they grew silent again, but Carly had been about to suggest that Samantha might be off looking for Jessica’s husband, and although the thought remained unspoken, it was correct.
***
He had taken the freight elevator to the top floor, hoping to intercept the men sent after Virginia, but when the elevator doors opened, he found two men staring at him with shotguns at the ready.
He fired off a round even as he threw himself into the corner of the elevator and smashed at the buttons with his elbow.
Shotgun pellets embedded themselves into the elevator’s walls before the doors closed and the car began moving downward, only to stop one floor below.
When the doors opened again, he saw that the hallway was empty and made his way along the corridor, towards the stairs. Walking past the rows of doors stirred a memory, and he took out the key card he’d been given before the cha
os had begun.
The key fit a room that was just down the corridor and he raced there in the hope of finding Jessica.
He reached the room just as the sound of running feet echoed behind him, and opened the door as the men who had shot at him rounded the corner and charged his way.
“Jessica!”
“In here!” called a female voice, not Jessica’s, but perhaps it was her Cousin Virginia calling out to him.
He strode down a short hallway, past the bathroom, and met a sight that shocked him.
Skye and Cassie Quinlan lay naked together in a queen-sized bed with their wrists handcuffed to the headboard by fur-covered restraints. On the table beside the bed were bottles of wine, glasses, condoms, lubricant, and sex toys.
The twins smiled at him in greeting, and spoke to him in unison.
“We want to be your love slaves, and we swear your wife never has to know.”
The boot slamming against the locked door made the girls shriek, and three kicks later the wood tore away from the lock and the men entered the room with their shotguns at the ready, but when they discovered the blonde twins lying naked before them, they froze and stared.
He emerged from the closet behind them and fired the gun, fatally injuring one man while wounding the other in the back. The wounded man had dropped his shotgun, but charged at him and managed to knock his own weapon away, and then the two of them struggled against the dresser while sending a vase crashing to the floor.
The man shoved him away and unsheathed a thick blade, and then began slashing the air in front of him.
He thought of the knife in his boot, but discarded the idea and instead concentrated on disarming the man. He ripped a blanket from the foot of the bed and quickly wrapped it around his left arm, managing to do so just as the man slashed him.
The sharp blade made it through the layers of blanket, but only delivered a slice that cut through his sleeve. With his protected arm leading the way, he charged at the man and drove him against the window while attempting to wrest the knife from his hand.
With a hard yank, he freed the knife and then jammed it deep into the flesh behind the man’s neck, causing a geyser of blood to spray the window, and the man to crumple to the carpet.
The TAKEN! Series - Books 9-12 (Taken! Box Set Book 3) Page 18
