Walker uncrossed her arms.
Jahan leaned back in the chair and, with his feet solid on the floor, began the swivel. He was thinking. Processing.
Walker said, “If Logan was there, if anything contraband was there, we would have seen a whole lot more people. Tighter security.”
“Exactly,” Bradford said. “He wasn’t there, they had him at the office. We’ve got proof he was at the office, we just don’t know for how long or when they moved him.” He paused. “I’ll put money on it,” he said. “We go back to Veers and there’s going to be another truck in the lot. That’s our target.”
Jahan said, “And if it’s not there?”
“Then it’s mobile and we need to pull vehicle records. Everything they have, and then we need to track down each and every one of them, because one of those trucks is the way station.”
The room was silent again but for the squeak of Jahan’s chair.
Walker, in her own form of agreement, said, “The gates and wire fencing alone would be enough to keep vandals off the trucks. There’s no other reason for them to put security on that lot unless they keep something on it worth protecting.”
“It works for me,” Jahan said. “And it’s not like we have any other tails to chase.”
“Who goes?” Bradford said.
Walker looked toward Jahan, and he back up at her. To Bradford she said, “We all do.”
PROVA, ITALY
Hands on the wheel, stolen phone hidden beneath her thigh, Munroe tapped her thumbs in random rhythm to thought, parsing kilometers, counting minutes through the silence while the sun made its final stretch across the sky.
Inside the Schengen zone, they’d transferred from Slovenia to Italy, one country to the next without a hiccup of notice, winding a sort of parallel to E70, the intercontinental route that began in Georgia, paused in Turkey at the Black Sea, picked back up again in Bulgaria, continued on past Croatia and Slovenia, into Italy, through France, and finally Spain.
Whatever the highway might have been, the trip she was confined to consisted of country roads, two-laned and often empty, except when they passed with irregularity along the edges of, or completely through, small towns: a dot-to-dot that had put her once in the path of carabinieri, military police, and once the polizia, state police, both of whom, submachine-gun-toting, were known for pulling cars aside at random. For now, there was no point in worrying over it. If disaster struck, then she would face it, not before.
Countryside, fields, hills, and townships came and went, street signs and license plates had long since transferred from Slovenian to Italian, architecture and landscaping subtly changed in ways that spoke of new borders and new territory, all of it a peripheral blur while memory loops of Logan, surrogate brother and star-crossed soul mate, morphed into images of him beaten and bloody: a consuming nonstop replay against the windshield that poked and prodded at nightmares, threatening to awake from sleep the whispered voices she thought she’d silenced.
Munroe glanced at the GPS.
Soon enough there would be another junction and the female voice, bossy and knowing, would kick in with instructions and provide another opportunity to mask the dialing on her stolen treasure.
They were now two hours inside Italy, and although Munroe had made several attempts, it had been a half hour since her last successful connection. The battery would eventually die, the theft would eventually be discovered, the tenuous link to Bradford permanently severed, and she hoped only for time, that one luxury of which she had so little.
She’d managed five messages so far, all of them explicit if the Morse could be deciphered through the background noise: She needed the choke chain off her neck, needed Logan found and freed, and had warned the war room against trying to return contact unless Logan was safe. But everything became pointless if Bradford wasn’t able to discern her message from the noise.
From the backseat, Neeva said, “I’m hungry,” and Munroe ignored her as she had since shoving her into the car at the gas station those few hours earlier. No matter that Munroe had the phone now, or that she’d allowed Neeva the opportunity to run so as to obtain it, the girl was not blameless in whatever punishment would surely follow.
It had been risky to let her get so close to a crowd, but being kept away from the cities as they were, it had been the only way to get hold of a phone. Munroe had counted on human nature, that desire of the mind to believe what was most palatable, the capacity to block out and then fill in the blanks and more readily accept a story about a grieving sister just receiving word of a lover’s suicide, than that the screaming woman in front of them, comforted by the nice young man, was a sex-trafficking victim.
Human nature had come through, but one escape was all she could bear. As a message intended to prevent another run for freedom, Munroe had put a knee to Neeva’s stomach and, against her struggle, pressed thumbs to carotids until the girl had passed out.
To fight, to go down swinging, afflicting damage, however small, in recompense for your own suffering, was one thing; it was another entirely to be forced into the helplessness of oblivion. The difference, psychological and terrifying, was a lesson in survival Munroe had hard-earned. She had re-bound Neeva, put her on her side, and tucked the blanket tightly around her, all of it fixed within the time it took the girl to fully regain awareness.
Hours since, and there’d been no word from Lumani, not even after she’d pointed him out on the rooftop to Neeva, and additionally, only silence from the Doll Maker—she didn’t know when, but the promise of retribution in return for her supposed failure would certainly be fulfilled.
In the hypnotic hum of wheels against the road, Logan moved across the windshield again, picked up a cue stick, smiled, and pointed to an empty pocket; stepped through the door into the night and mounted a Ducati; plunged beside her in a BASE jump off New River Gorge Bridge; and wrested the oxycontin pill bottle out of her hands when self-medicating seemed to be the only way to deal with the trauma that had sent her running from equatorial Africa to the United States, those many years ago.
Against the glass, battered and bleeding, in a living mirage that refused to plead or beg, Logan nodded, confirming the bond that tied one outcast to the other, and with her eyes roving among GPS, the road, and the small town on the near horizon, Munroe slipped fingers between thigh and seat for the phone.
The first car in several kilometers approached and passed with headlights on. Dusk was fast approaching. Unless word from the Doll Maker’s people came otherwise, they would push through the night to wherever the final destination might be.
Munroe gauged distance on the navigation screen and took her foot off the gas to time progression toward the approaching traffic exchange. Nudged the phone from beneath one leg to the V between them, waited for the mechanical female voice, and when it came, punched the digits she’d been required to memorize as part of Capstone’s induction process. She worked by feel more than sight, taking her eyes off the road only for an occasional stolen glance and to confirm she’d entered the numbers correctly.
Munroe hit send and shifted her leg back over the phone long enough to mute the short recording that would answer, counted seconds, and then nudged the phone out and tapped her fingernail against the side of the casing in the same deliberate shorthand she’d used for each call. The precautions were tedious and time-consuming, but in these hours of intermittent dialing they’d appeared to prevent detection.
From the back Neeva said, “I really am hungry. One pack of crackers in over a day is a starvation diet.” Munroe had positioned the girl with her head directly behind the seat so she couldn’t see the phone, and as such wouldn’t—through ignorance or petulance—blow what little chance they had for survival, and this had also made it easier to ignore the occasional requests for food and water.
Munroe paused in the tapping and glanced at the phone. “I can’t feed you,” she said, though she spoke for Bradford’s benefit. “We can’t stop without approval, and
in case the sniper on the rooftop didn’t tell you anything, we’re being followed and guarded.”
In response, silence.
Hands tight on the wheel, Munroe willed Neeva to continue the conversation, to say something, anything, to provide a background of normalcy that would allow her to articulate more detail.
Instead there was a sniffle.
Munroe ran a mental reconstruction, prepared her own backup, readied to speak it, but Neeva started first. Tears in her voice, the girl said, “Can you at least ask?”
Actress or not, it didn’t matter, the words were perfect.
“A little fasting won’t kill you,” Munroe said. “I don’t expect it will be more than five or six hours if we continue to push through the night, midmorning our time if we stop for rest. After that, you’re no longer my problem and you can whine for food from whoever takes you next.”
Munroe stole another glance at the phone. Two minutes and fifty seconds. The voice drop would allow recording for three minutes and then cut off. She killed the connection and slid the phone back under her leg. Everything she would have articulated on her own through more hours of dialing had been covered by those minutes.
This would be her last attempt at contact until Logan was safe or the girl delivered, and that would certainly help extend battery life.
From behind, Neeva’s hushed crying picked up intensity, the first true tearful breakdown since the beginning of the ordeal, every bit about it genuine and heartrending. Empathy threatened to well from within and overcome reason. Munroe punched the emotion down, fist to rising dough, until the compassionate lump was small and easier to control.
Neeva’s sniffles grew louder, more frantic, and in counterpoint Munroe more frustrated, more angry. This journey was that which must be done to stop the hurting. Eyes ahead, she held her silence. In order of priority, there was Logan, and that was all.
Neeva’s crying went up another notch. Munroe reached for the phone—Lumani’s phone—and dialed.
He picked up on the first ring.
“I’m stopping for five minutes,” she said. “I need to shift the package to the front seat and give her food.”
Lumani said, “No.”
“Don’t push me.”
“If you do this,” he said, “and she runs again, Logan will die.” His voice had an edge to it that under other circumstances she would have marked as concern.
“She won’t run,” Munroe said.
A long pause, and Lumani said, “It’s on your head.”
“Understood,” she said, knowing more from Lumani’s words than anything he could have consciously allowed: The best of the Doll Maker’s men was the weakest link in the chain.
Neeva continued to sniffle the stuffed-nosed, puffy-faced sound track of tears. Munroe slowed and pulled off to the side where field met road-fill, which in turn met road. Hit the emergency lights, then stepped out and around the front of the car to the passenger’s-side rear door.
She tugged the blanket off Neeva and said, “Show me your hands.”
Neeva shifted, struggling against the odd angle, and with one shoulder twisted, held her wrists forward and as high as possible.
With the improvised scrap of metal blade, Munroe cut her loose, reached for a hand, and pulled her upright. “Scoot over,” she said, “don’t move, and whatever you do, don’t wipe your nose on your sleeve.”
Wordless, still sniffling, Neeva nodded. Munroe handed her the blanket. “Use that,” she said, and Neeva reached for it, rubbed it along her face, and in the process of drying her eyes and blowing her nose, smeared and smudged mascara and took off most of her makeup.
Munroe sighed.
One more arbitrary act of failure for which someone would pay a price.
She fished along the floor for the items she’d thrown aside during the tussle and snagged the strap of the bag with food and water, pulled it out of the car, reached a hand toward Neeva, and said, “Come.”
Hobbled, and with the blanket clutched tightly and trailing behind, Neeva slid along the backseat bench to the door and swung her legs to the ground. Munroe helped her into the front seat and handed her the food bag.
“Help yourself and don’t get dirty,” she said. “And don’t drink anything because there’s no way we’re making another bathroom stop.”
Neeva nodded, still sniffling, though the tears had mostly stopped.
Before Munroe had shut the door, the girl was already digging through the bag, pulling out a packet of dried fruit. Once more behind the wheel, Munroe checked the rearview mirror. Faint in the twilight, forty meters back, without headlights and almost to the point of being invisible, another car had pulled off the road.
They’d been stopped for four minutes.
She studied the reflection, searching out shape, begging for make, model, and color. Instead she found only shadow.
Emergency flashers off, Munroe pulled back onto the road. In the rearview, the second car vanished completely; headlights never powered on, she never found it following.
Neeva finished the bag of fruit, fished out crackers and ate those, too, and kept going until the bag had been mostly emptied. She took a swig of water, just a swig, recapped the bottle, put everything back in the bag, and shoved it down on the floor beside her feet.
“Thank you,” she said, and Munroe nodded.
Hands folded, demure and ladylike, in her lap on top of the blanket, which had absorbed the crumbs and spills, she said, “How much longer?”
“I don’t know,” Munroe said. “If we stay on these roads we’ve got about another hour until we reach Verona, but after that I’m not sure.”
“You know,” Neeva said, and her voice dropped an octave into that same husky whisper that had become her trademark on film, “maybe we could run away together.” She ran her fingers caressingly over the blanket and then readjusted the top of her dress, smoothing out the wrinkles over her chest. “Or, you know, at least we could make a pit stop—something that would take the edge off. We’ve been driving for an awfully long time—they should let us have that at least, right?”
Had the situation been anything else, Neeva’s antics would have been funny. “I’m not here to be your friend,” Munroe said, “and put your boobs away, I’m not interested.”
“You don’t find me attractive?”
“You’re a stunning girl, Neeva, but no, I’m not attracted to you.”
The navigation kicked in turn by turn as they passed through a small village and continued along a road that would have surely been scenic in daylight. Eventually, Neeva broke. “Are you gay?” she said.
Munroe checked the rearview. “No,” she said. “Not gay.”
Neeva reached toward Munroe, traced her index finger along the back of Munroe’s hand. Munroe resisted the urge to smack her away, and with the lines of her mouth set grimly said, “Cut it out, Neeva, I’m not interested.”
Neeva batted her eyelashes with the look of a wounded child and, with Munroe’s refusal to acknowledge the display, crossed her arms and huffed back into her seat. Arms tight against her chest, she tipped her head against the window and finally said, “What is it about me you find unattractive?”
Munroe forced back a bark of laughter. She wanted to dislike the girl. Would prefer to see her as weak or stupid because that would make resentment more emotionally palatable, but she couldn’t find it in her.
“You’re just not my type.”
Neeva sulked. “I’ve never heard that one from a straight guy before. What’s your type?”
“Tall, dark, and handsome,” Munroe said, and turned from the road just long enough to catch a glimpse of Neeva’s scowl.
“You said you’re not gay.”
“I’m not.” And then with a smirk that welled from an evil sort of satisfaction, Munroe said, “I’m a woman, and I like guys.”
The girl’s hands dropped to her lap and she stared, mouth formed into a tight O, while behind those baby blues the world appeared to s
hift. Like a snake uncoiling, everything about Neeva relaxed, as if, in spite of herself, she wasn’t able to see a woman as the enemy, as if what she now knew changed everything—almost as if because of this one revelation the fight had left her.
After several kilometers of silence, Neeva said, “Why?”
“Why what?”
“Why everything.”
“I don’t have the patience for games,” Munroe said. “Say what you want or, better yet, don’t. I like the quiet.”
“Why are you dressed as a man?” Neeva said. “Why do you act like …” She paused. “Why do you act like … like one of them?” Her voice rose, challenging and accusatory. “Them,” she said again. “Where women aren’t human, aren’t people, just things—objects. Them.” She jabbed a thumb toward the rear window, where surely one of the Doll Maker’s men followed unseen. “Oh, they’ll show you a real man. They’ll turn you into a real woman. They’ll fuck you hard, you’ll want it, but what you want never actually matters because everything is about their own ego. Them.” Neeva stopped for air; a long, greedy inhale. “Why?” she said. “Why would you—a woman”—she spat out the word—“you who should know what it feels like to be called a cunt and a bitch and a whore just because you voiced an opinion, to be told you’re fat or ugly as a way to make your argument worthless, that you’re stuck-up, repressed, and in denial of your true feelings when you find them repulsive. Why would you be one of them? What’s wrong with you?”
Neeva’s words added weight to a history of scars the girl would never know, and cut deeply across time and continents, dragging Munroe in the emotional direction she wanted least to travel. When she didn’t answer, Neeva turned away toward the window.
Another few kilometers down the road, Munroe said, “I’m not one of them. I never have been, never will be. I’m only here to save a life.”
“I’m a life.”
“It’s a fucked-up choice, isn’t it?” And then, to change the subject before the conversation went any closer to that long-dormant mental place where the lines between want and savagery blurred Munroe said, “Why don’t you get some rest?”
The Doll Page 16
