by J. A. Jance
"Wait a minute," Tony said. "Whose did you say?"
Without bothering to answer him, Rhonda knelt on the floor and began tinkering with the lock, biting her bottom lip in concentration, oblivious to the two men watching her every move. Noticing their momentary lack of attention, I caught Guy Owens' eye.
Paco, kneeling beside Rhonda, was closest to Guy, and the deadly AK-47 still lay where he had left it, on the floor near his feet. Guy Owens rolled his eyes toward Paco in silent acknowledgement, while I calculated the seemingly immense distance between me and the death-dealing semiautomatic.
I knew only too well that we were taking a terrible risk. Withering fire from the semiautomatic would cut us to pieces if I was even a moment too late, but it was now or never. We wouldn't ever get another chance.
I edged closer to Tony, willing Rhonda to keep his attention focused on her slender, nimble fingers, praying that the creeps wouldn't sense the sudden surge of almost electric tension in the room.
The lid of the briefcase popped open revealing a briefcase full of money-tens, twenties, and hundreds, bound in careful stacks. That much money has a magnetic effect on some people, crooks in particular. Fortunately for us, both Paco and Tony were highly susceptible. While their eyes remained riveted to the spilling contents of the briefcase, Guy Owens and I launched our attack.
I didn't see Guy's well-placed kick. Instead, as I threw myself toward Tony, I heard the thud of a shod foot connecting with flesh followed by an agonized groan as Paco fell face down on the floor.
There was no time for me to draw the. 38. I threw myself toward Tony, aiming low, hoping to catch him in the abdomen before he could raise the gun to a firing position. He grunted in surprise as I crashed into him. The force of the blow knocked the pistol from his hand and sent it spinning onto the hard tiled surface of the dining room floor. Tony fell backward, carrying me with him through the dining room door where he sprawled face up on a glass-topped table.
We struggled there for a moment, both trying to gain an advantage. The table swayed crazily beneath our combined weight until the overstressed wrought-iron supports gave way and bent double. The glass itself crashed to the floor, splintering into huge shards four and five feet long.
When we landed, I was still on top and hanging onto Tony's legs, preventing the damaging kicks that were sure to follow if I let him loose. I saw Rhonda scramble desperately out of the way, kicking the assault rifle in front of her. For a moment Tony seemed stunned, breathless, then he began to clutch at my face. His sinewy thumbs were probing for my eyes, trying to blind me. I shook my head from side to side, trying to elude his grasp without letting go of his legs.
Just as his hands closed over my face, I heard Rhonda's voice say, "Freeze!"
There was unmistakable authority in the menacing word. Tony's fingers went suddenly limp, and he winced with pain.
"Get off him, Beau," Rhonda said urgently. "Be careful."
I glanced around, unable at first to see where her voice was coming from although she seemed to be somewhere behind me. When I tried to get up, I had to ease myself up over the assault rifle, which Rhonda Attwood held firmly, pressed deep in Tony's crotch. He tried to wiggle away.
"Don't you move," she ordered.
I wasn't sure at the time if she was bluffing or not. In fact, I'm not sure to this day whether or not she would have shot his balls off, but she sure as hell sounded serious, and Tony wasn't willing to call her on it.
I reached out to take the gun, but she shook her head and held onto it. "Check on Guy," she said. "He may need help."
Actually, guy Owens didn't need any help at all. With the semiautomatic in his hand, he was prodding the writhing Paco to his knees and forcing him over against the wall. As he moved, Paco clutched his gut and blathered that he needed a doctor.
Guy handed me the 9-mm. "Watch these guys," he said. "I'll be back in a minute."
"Are you going to call for help?"
"No," he said. "I'm going after super glue and duct tape."
"You're crazy," I yelled after him. "If you don't call the cops, I will."
"Don't bother," he said. "They already cut the phone lines."
"I'll go to one of the neighbors then," I said, as he came back into the room carrying a gigantic roll of duct tape and a vial of super glue. Taking the lid off the super glue, he went straight to Paco.
"Open your mouth," Owens ordered.
Paco looked at me, rolling his eyes in fright. "Open your mouth, damn you," Owens repeated.
Reluctantly, Paco opened his mouth and Owens spread a thin line of glue like a welder's bead across the terrified man's lower lip. "Hold 'em together, now," Owens said. "And don't move."
Paco did as he was told. I was afraid Guy Owens had gone totally round the bend.
"Look, Guy, this has all been too much for you. You've got to settle down and start thinking calmly. I'll go next door and call the sheriff."
"The hell you will," he said to me, and then to Rhonda, "Bring that other one over here. We'll glue his mouth shut, too."
Tony came across the room at Rhonda's urging and submitted to the super-glue treatment. As soon as he had administered the glue, Guy began the process of stripping off their clothes and taping their hands and feet together. He worked quickly, purposefully, with no lost motions.
"Are you listening to me?" I demanded. "What in the hell do you think you're doing, Ownes? Why are you messing around with glue and duct tape? This has gone just about far enough, don't you think?"
Owens didn't stop as he answered. "Their boss-man, some asshole named Monty, gave us two hours to come down here to the house, collect the money, and get back. If we're not back by the deadline, he'll kill Michelle."
"So what's the matter with calling the sheriff? It's a kidnapping, for Chrissake. Call in the fucking F.B.I."
Guy Owens turned to Rhonda. "What's your name?"
"Rhonda," she answered. "Rhonda Attwood." He did a momentary double take as her name registered, then he caught himself.
"Get the truck then load all that money back in the briefcase, Rhonda. We'll need to take that along. And you," he said to me. "Help me get these creeps loaded into their Isuzu. They made me drive. I left the keys in the ignition. We'll bring it right up to the door so the neighbors don't get an eyeful."
Without a word, Rhonda jumped to do his bidding. She left the money where it was and went to get the Trooper. I lingered for a moment, and Guy Owens rose to his feet, leaving Paco and Tony on the floor with their feet duct-taped together and their forearms taped to their thighs. Almost the same size, we stood there glaring at one another across the two bound men.
Unlike me, Lieutenant Colonel Guy Owens was used to having his orders followed without question. When I didn't move, he finally lost patience.
"Get with it," he bellowed into my face. "You want me to call the sheriff, do you? Well, I called the goddamn sheriff yesterday and they wouldn't even take a goddamn report. Said Michelle was probably a runaway. Said to call them tomorrow if I didn't hear from her today."
Dismissing me, Owens turned away and started toward Paco as Rhonda came back in through the door. Obeying his orders to the letter, she had left the Trooper right outside with its motor running.
Owens picked up Paco and began muscling him toward the door.
"These two jokers picked me up this morning while I was out jogging and dragged me up the mountain to meet their boss. He wanted me to see for myself that they were holding Michelle. As soon as she saw me, Misha told them where to find the missing briefcase. Monty sent us back here to get it and said that if I tried anything funny, if any cops showed up when we came back, he'd kill her. Now do you understand?"
I was beginning to. "Where is she?"
"Up in the mountains at a place called Montezuma Pass. It's near the southern end of the Huachucas in the Coronado National Monument. From the rest area up there, Monty can see for miles in any direction. He'd know well in advance if I was bringing help
with me. If we throw some clothes over these two clowns and fasten them in the car with the empty AK-47 next to Tony's shoulder so it looks like he's still got me covered, we may be able to trick him."
"What about us?" Rhonda called from behind us as she snapped the briefcase shut on the last of the money. "What can we do to help?"
"I thought about that while I was out getting the tape," Owens answered. "Monty doesn't know you, and he doesn't know that little blue car of yours. It's Sunday. Lots of people go up into the Huachucas for picnics on Sundays.
"You two go on ahead," Guy Owens continued. "Monty won't expect help to get there before I do. Michelle is in a blue Blazer parked near the restroom. When I get up there, I'll create a diversion somehow, draw Monty away from his truck, while you go in and try to get Michelle out."
I don't know if Guy Owens' job called for him to be a military strategist, but he sure as hell was one. In minutes he had evaluated the forces available and come up with a plan that was gutsy enough that it just might work.
"Gotcha," I said, and started moving Tony toward the door. Rhonda, holding the AK-47, hurried ahead to open the door for all of us.
"Help Guy with our passengers," she said briskly. "I'll go back and get the money."
CHAPTER 19
We loaded the bound and muzzled Paco and Tony into the Trooper and taped them into place with more duct tape, fastening them securely to seat belts and seat supports. Guy taped the stripped-down AK-47 to Tony's shoulder. That way, it would be invisible through the blacked-out side and rear windows, but for someone up on a mountain watching with binoculars, the silhouette of the weapon would be clearly visible through the windshield. Meanwhile, Rhonda had the presence of mind to put together a packet that contained a blanket, thermos, and enough food to make us look like a pair of legitimate picnickers.
Rhonda took my. 38, checked it in a very businesslike manner, and put it inside her jacket pocket. I took possession of the 9-mm. Owens disappeared into his bedroom and returned carrying his military dress-uniform side arm, a formidable Colt. 45 that looked more like a cannon than a handgun.
Years before, Rhonda told us, she had been to Montezuma Pass on a weekend camp-out with a Girl Scout troop that had hiked the Huachuca Mountains' Crest Trail. Since she knew the way, Rhonda drove. Like a bat out of hell.
The Beretta had shown a mere twelve hundred miles on its odometer when we had picked it up at Sky Harbor International earlier that morning. None of those miles could have been nearly as tough as the ones Rhonda put on it that afternoon. By comparison, our jaunt up Yarnell Hill in her Spider several days earlier could have been a tame carousel ride.
Once we were off Highway 92, the road was paved for only a mile or two. As soon as it changed to chuck-holed gravel, we started climbing. The road was steep and full of switchbacks and one-lane turns, but Rhonda drove with fierce concentration, heeling the Beretta around corners and gunning the engine on the straightaways.
"How'd you know it was JoJo's briefcase?" I asked. Making asinine conversation helped take my mind off her driving.
"I told you. I recognized it, initials and all. He hasn't used it in years, I'm sure, but he's physically incapable of letting loose of old briefcases. He must have a dozen or so lined up out in his garage. He had half that many when I move out, and obviously, if he still has this one, he hasn't thrown away any of them."
"And the combination? How did you know that after all these years?"
"His birthday. Not very original, is it?"
The car sawed dangerously as she wheeled it around a washboarded curve faster than she should have. I swallowed the lump in my throat as she fought the bucking Beretta back under control.
"What are we going to do when we get there?" she asked.
"Find a place discreetly close to the blue Blazer, throw down our blanket, and neck up a storm."
"Are you kidding?" she demanded.
"No. I'm not kidding. There's nothing so boring as watching somebody else neck. If we make it embarrassing enough, maybe Monty will forget about us entirely."
"It'll be dangerous, won't it?"
"No more dangerous than being shoved around by that creep in the 4-X-4 last night. Besides, if Guy's got his information straight, there'll be three of us and only one of him. But we'll have to move fast, before he figures out how come his friends aren't getting out of the Trooper."
She nodded her understanding, and I reached over to pat her leg. "Are you scared?"
"Not yet. Later, I guess, right?"
"Right," I answered. "Later."
By then we were nearing the top of the pass, but the idiot light in the dashboard was beginning to glow dully. The engine was overheating. The Beretta was built for sedate freeway driving. Rhonda Attwood was treating it like a damn mountain goat.
With the temperature light glowing bright red and a cloud of steam rolling out from under the hood, we pulled into the rest area parking lot near the top of the mountain. There were only three other cars parked in the lot, two of them sedans side by side near the restroom building. One was a robin's-egg-blue Dodge Dart with South Dakota plates, while the other, a four-door Dodge Aries from Arizona, wore a bumper sticker that said, "We're spending our children's inheritance."
The blue Chevy Blazer occupied the parking spot nearest the road and as far away from both the restroom and the other vehicles as possible. Like the 4-X-4 that had pursued us in Phoenix the night before, the Blazer was another window-blackened behemoth.
I attempted to glance inside the Blazer as we pulled into the lot. No one was visible, but I didn't want to attract attention by appearing too interested.
Rhonda parked three spaces away, halfway between the other vehicles and the Blazer. As soon as she stopped the car, Rhonda got out and stretched, looking as though she'd been driving for hours. When I got out of the car and came around to stand beside her, she flung her arms around my neck and kissed me passionately on the lips.
"You want necking, fella?" she whispered in me ear. "I'll show you necking."
I pushed her away. "Let's go use the restroom," I said. "We'll try to get the lay of the land."
We stopped long enough to open the hood of the car and let billows of steam roll skyward.
"Should we add water?" Rhonda asked.
"No," I said. "Don't worry about it. It'll cool off of its own accord."
Guy Owens had told us that he'd give us a ten-minute head start, so there wasn't much time for reconnoitering. The restroom, built from roughhewn stones, would have made every environmentalist's conservationist heart go pitter-pat. A brass plaque affixed to an inside wall announced that the chemically treated composting toilets were a totally nonpolluting system and had been manufactured by some little one-horse company in Newport, Washington-wherever that is.
Unfortunately, I was far more concerned with finding adequate cover than I was with nonpolluting toilets. I tried looking out the eye-level window in the men's room, but that was no good. It faced in the wrong direction.
Back outside, I mingled with the occupants of the other two cars, touring retirees holding an informal coffee klatsch, as they drank coffee and munched sweet rolls. They were all totally oblivious to the drama unfolding around them.
One of them, a white-haired little woman leaning on a four-pronged cane, looked up at me and smiled. "Nice weather after all that rain, isn't it?"
I nodded and said nothing. What I wanted to do was tell them to get the hell out of there. To run for cover while spending their kids' inheritance was still an option, but I couldn't. Any sudden change in behavior would have alerted our quarry that we were onto him.
Rhonda still hadn't emerged from the ladies' room when off to the left, just above the parking lot, I spied a slightly raised ledge with a small bench on it. When she finally did appear, I seized her by the hand and dragged her in that direction.
"Let's go sit up there," I urged.
She nodded happily and trotted along, looking for all the world as thoug
h she was having the time of her life. People seeing her from a distance would have thought she didn't have a care in the world. They couldn't see the troubled look in her vivid blue eyes.
"What's going to happen?" she whispered anxiously, leaning close to my shoulder.
As if I knew, but I took a stab at it anyway. "We'll sit up there to begin with. Then, when we see Guy pulling into the lot, we can split up and go in opposite directions. At least that way he won't be able to get all of us at once. If it looks like he's getting away, shoot for the tires or the radiator, not the interior. We might hit Michelle."
She nodded. "Okay," she said, but she punctuated the word with a quick hoot of laughter that made it sound as though I had just cracked some incredibly funny joke.
Still laughing, she scampered over to the Beretta to fetch the thermos and bag of food. She came back toward me, smiling and swaying her hips-showing off. It made me wish we were all wearing flak jackets. Whatever was about to go down, I didn't want any harm to come to Rhonda Attwood's sleek little frame. Or my much larger one either, for that matter.
According to Ralph Ames, Rhonda was a talented artist. Now I learned firsthand that she was also a consummate actress. She was vibrant. She was happy. She was brimming over with infectious laughter. She was on. We made our way up to the bench, but she set the thermos down without pouring coffee. Instead, she wrapped her arms around my neck, ran her fingers through my hair, and pulled my face close to hers. The ardor in her probing kisses set fires in my system that almost made me forget why we were there.
Eventually, laughing again, she drew away. "Can you see anything?" she whispered.
"Can I what?"
"See anything. Through the windshield."
"No," I said, chuckling too in spite of myself. "I had my eyes closed."
She punched me in the arm, playfully and seriously at the same time. "Look this time, dammit." And then she kissed me again.
Below, I heard the sound of a vehicle laboring up the hill. Almost ten minutes had passed, so I was sure it was Guy Owens. It had to be. I pushed Rhonda away so I could peer over her shoulder and get a clear view of what was happening. Across the parking lot, the group of retirees chose that exact moment to begin dividing up into separate cars.
