by Roy Johansen
Kendra shook her head. “I listened to that movie a hundred times when I was a teenager. I haven’t gotten around to actually seeing it since I’ve had my sight.” She turned to face Noah, who had strapped a large, odd-looking pair of goggles to his face. “What on earth are you wearing?”
He pulled off the goggles and showed them to her. “Something I’ve been developing with my company. High-powered night-vision binoculars and virtual-reality goggles, all in one. We think the military will be a big market for them.”
Trust Noah to come up with something this bizarre, Kendra thought. She pointed to a deep octagonal crease across Noah’s cheeks and forehead left by the goggles. “Not if they’re that painful to wear. Those things sure leave their mark.”
Noah looked offended as he put the goggles back on. “Just a matter of padding. We’ll work out the kinks. I’ll send you a pair. You’ll have one of maybe half a dozen in the world.”
“I can hardly wait.”
Lynch was still watching Jessie on the bridge intently. “She’s talking. She has something in her hands. Can any of you make out what it is?”
No one said anything for a long moment, but Metcalf finally spoke up. “Handcuffs.”
Kendra cursed. “You’re right. We have to get down there.” She put down her binoculars and ran toward the stairwell door.
Lynch caught up and grabbed her arm. “Get down there and do what, exactly?”
“Help her.”
“You heard the call. The kidnappers want a two-block perimeter.”
Kendra tried to break free. “We can’t just stand here and watch!”
“That’s exactly what we’re going to do. Jessie wouldn’t have it any other way. If we botch this by rushing toward her before the drop is complete, do you know how pissed she’s going to be?”
Kendra cursed again. Lynch was right. After the last debacle when they’d believed they’d lost Dee, Jessie would never forgive her.
“My people are ready to engage when I give the order,” Kelland said. “They’ll be all over that bridge faster than you or I could ever be, Kendra.”
Lynch was still gripping her arm. “And Jessie can take care of herself.”
“I know. It’s just that…she’d do anything for Dee. She would put her life on the line for her. The kidnappers know that, and they might use it against her.”
Lynch finally loosened his grip. “That’s why we’re here. Right?”
Kendra pulled away and turned back toward the bridge. “What if it isn’t enough?”
“It will be,” he said quietly.
For some reason his words brought her immediate comfort. Maybe it was the supreme confidence in his tone; maybe it was because she wanted it to be true.
She raised the binoculars back to her eyes. “Okay,” she said unsteadily. “But we just need to be ready for anything.”
* * *
Jessie held up the heavy police-issue handcuffs. “What the hell am I supposed to do with these things?”
“Snap one cuff around the handle of that gym bag.”
She fed it through the handle and pushed the ratchet teeth into the locking mechanism. “Okay.”
“Now put the other cuff around your left wrist.”
“Trust me, I’m not letting go of this bag.”
“Humor me.”
She closed the other cuff around her wrist. “Okay, now what?”
“Jump.”
Jessie didn’t respond at first. The silence was filled by the rushing water below her. “You want me to…”
“Jump. Jump into the water.”
“You’re insane.”
“Quite the opposite.”
“This water is deep right now. And moving fast.”
“You can handle it, Jessie.”
“What makes you think that?”
“Your performance on American Ninja all those years ago. You scored higher on the water challenge than anyone in the show’s history. We studied it on YouTube. Very impressive.”
“It was a stupid game. On TV.”
“It was no game the way you jumped into the reservoir on the night we took Delilah. That’s what gave us the idea.”
Jessie stared into the dark churning water. There were no lights, nothing to guide her. “People die in this thing every year, in water a lot calmer and shallower than this.”
“Those people aren’t you, Jessie.”
“What am I supposed to do once I drop into the water?”
“Stay alive.”
“That’s it?”
“That’s it. Let the current take you.”
“Take me where? The Pacific Ocean?”
“We’ll take care of it. You’re wasting time. If you want to see Delilah alive again, jump into the water. It’s as simple as that. You have to the count of five.”
Jessie climbed onto the white railing and stared into the void.
“One…”
She looked back, wondering what Kelland and his agents were thinking right now.
“Two…”
Of course. They were thinking she was out of her freakin’ mind.
“Three…”
Which she probably was.
“Four…”
She jumped into the water.
* * *
“No!” Kendra’s scream could be heard all over the perimeter. Kelland was already on his walkie-talkie, issuing orders to the team.
Lynch stepped forward. “We need lights on that channel. Now.”
Kelland put down the walkie-talkie. “Helicopters are four minutes out. They have searchlights.”
“They said no copters,” Metcalf said.
“I don’t give a shit,” Kendra said. “We didn’t bargain for this.” She threw off her poncho and ran for the stairwell. “Let’s go.”
* * *
Jessie felt herself being twisted by the cold, roiling water as it carried her into the darkness. At first she wasn’t even aware of her direction, but after a few moments she got her bearings.
She hadn’t even touched bottom when she jumped from the bridge. Was it fifteen feet deep? Eighteen?
THWAPP! Something struck her head and shoulders, then disappeared. Was that an old bicycle?
She felt the gym bag tugging at her wrist, and she pulled it close. She spun crazily for another few seconds before righting herself.
What in the hell was the plan?
Stay alive, they’d said. Right…
She hurtled toward the pillars of another bridge. She extended her legs and kicked off from a concrete pillar, tumbling almost head over heels through the water.
The current was moving faster here. Shit.
She lifted her chin to keep her nose and mouth above the churning water. She was helped, she realized, by a thin buoyancy vest sewn into the lining of the jacket.
Again, small favors.
She dove to avoid a spinning fiberglass car bumper but surfaced just in time to be struck in the left eye by something else. A boot, she realized. What was next, a tire? An old lawn mower?
She was getting the hell beat out of her.
The second bridge had already receded into darkness behind her. She figured she’d already traveled a mile, maybe more.
After a few more painful collisions and a potentially fatal near-miss with another bridge pillar, she was suddenly aware that her jacket was glowing a vibrant purple hue.
Just above the waterline to her right, an ultraviolet light was aimed in her direction.
“There she is!” a voice called out.
She suddenly stopped cold, as if someone had just pulled the emergency brake.
What in the hell?
She’d slammed into an expanse of netting pulled across the channel’s right side.
Another man’s voice. “We’ve got her!”
Not an accident.
Not a rescue.
Part of the plan.
Her neck twisted as the net curled around her and pulled her toward the slanted concrete
embankment.
A man in a ski mask leaned over her. “She’s alive.”
“Barely, you son of a bitch,” she muttered.
She felt a twinge in her arm. Suddenly she couldn’t move. Had to be a sedative…
Another man in a ski mask extricated her from the netting while the first unlocked the handcuffs and picked up the gym bag.
Dee…You’ve got what you want, she tried to tell them. Give us Dee.
But she couldn’t form the words.
Her eyes closed.
Darkness.
* * *
Kendra and Lynch joined the scores of cops and FBI agents running down the cement upper banks of the Los Angeles River. Everyone aimed their flashlights downward, but murky water swallowed the beams whole.
“I can’t see her. Where in the hell is she?” Kendra yelled to Lynch.
“The water’s moving fast,” Lynch said. “Faster than we are. She went into the river over fifteen minutes ago, so she could be in Compton by now.”
Kendra pointed to two shafts of light up ahead. “Helicopters.”
Lynch nodded. “One of them is stopped. I think they’ve spotted something.”
Kendra put on an extra burst of speed. “Hurry!”
In less than five minutes they reached the place where the helicopter was lighting up the channel. Kelland was already there.
“Oh, my God,” Kendra said under her breath.
She’d just seen the large, tangled netting at the water’s edge, now being inspected by Kelland and two of his agents.
“They used that to catch her here,” Lynch yelled over the helicopter’s rotor, which was almost deafening as it echoed in the concrete channel. “They planned this all out. Just like they’ve planned everything else.”
“Okay, so they grabbed the ransom. But where is Jessie?”
Lynch shook his head. “I don’t know, Kendra.”
Kendra nodded as she absorbed the awful realization. “Then either she drowned.” She swallowed. “Or they took her.”
“That’s what it looks like.”
“Jessie swims like a fish. I won’t believe she drowned. But I can’t see why in hell they’d have any reason to take her, either.”
Kelland had heard her. He looked up from the netting and shook his head. Then he pointed to the concrete embankment next to him.
There, just inches from the water, was Jessie’s motorcycle helmet.
CHAPTER
11
Shelby Tool and Machine Company
Lancaster, California
Five Hours Later
James Dorset leaned impatiently back behind the wheel of his pickup truck, trying to ignore the awful smell coming off his skin and hair. He hadn’t been able to shower since pulling Jessie Mercado out of the Los Angeles River the night before, and the smell was only getting worse.
He took another look around at his surroundings. This was a lousy place for him to have to cool his heels while he waited. He was parked behind the large main building of what was once the Shelby Machine and Tool Company, which obviously hadn’t seen any action in years, maybe decades. The buildings sat in the middle of a thousand-acre parking lot riddled with potholes and desert weeds protruding from every crack in the asphalt. Winds howled across the desolate landscape.
Dorset wasn’t even aware of the place’s existence until a few days before, when he and Paul Fantinelli had stowed a motorcycle there after their highway run-in with Jessie Mercado and Kendra Michaels. His hand instinctively went to his injured right leg, which still might require surgery.
Bitches.
No matter. In spite of everything that had gone wrong last night, he had made himself a very rich man. Now if only Fantinelli would get his ass back here so that he could—
Fantinelli’s van sped around the far end of the building. Finally. As the van approached, Dorset climbed out of his pickup.
Fantinelli parked, opened his door, and joined Dorset in the shadow of the building’s rusty awning. He was a tall man with a thick red beard. “How’s the leg?”
“Hurts like hell,” he said sourly. “I still think you should have let me punch Mercado’s face a few times on the way out of town.”
“Huh. I ask you, what kind of man wants to beat up an unconscious woman?”
“My kind. Especially if she’s why I may have to walk with a limp for the rest of my life.”
“I see your point.” Fantinelli smiled. “But Kendra Michaels is the one you should be mad at. She’s the one who sent you sailing over your handlebars.”
“Trust me, I haven’t forgotten about her.” Dorset gestured toward the dilapidated building. “I might pay her a visit one day soon. Are you sure no one’s around?”
“Nah, it’s been deserted since the ’nineties. Half my family used to work here. It went belly-up when the aerospace industry collapsed. Don’t get nervous. We’re safe out here.”
Dorset nodded. “Okay, if it’s so safe, maybe you can tell me why the boss wanted me to hang out here and not go with you and the other guys when you took Mercado and the money back with you?”
Fantinelli looked uneasy. “I need to talk to you about that.”
Dorset stiffened. “This doesn’t sound good.”
“It isn’t.”
Dorset’s face flushed with anger. “What the hell? Is he trying to screw me?”
“No. Calm down. It’s not that at all.”
“Then what is it?”
Fantinelli hesitated for a long moment. “It may just be smarter for you not to be seen. They may be onto you.”
“What?”
“The FBI’s been sniffing around. An agent even went to your old apartment building in Burbank.”
“Oh, shit.”
“Is there any other reason the Feds might be interested in you right now?”
Dorset shook his head. “No. How in the hell did this happen?”
“I don’t know. Maybe they typed your DNA from blood off your wrecked motorcycle.”
“I told you, my DNA isn’t in any database.”
“It is now, Dorset, even if your name isn’t attached to it. And if they catch you, you’re one blood test away from being placed on that highway where we offed Adrian.”
“Shit.”
“And as long as you have this kind of heat on you, you can’t be anywhere near Delilah Winter. Or any of us. You’ll have to lay low.”
“Here in this rat trap of a factory?” Dorset tried to quell the panic and anger he heard in his own voice. “How long am I supposed to stay here? What the hell am I supposed to do?”
Fantinelli took a deep breath as he looked out at the barren landscape. Then he said soothingly, “Not long. I wouldn’t leave you in the lurch. Don’t worry, Dorset. We have a plan.”
* * *
“Listen, you have to open your eyes, Jessie. I can’t take this.”
Dee…It was Dee’s voice.
“Wake up!” Dee’s voice was fierce. “I know she lied. She just wanted to hurt me. You’re going to be fine. I won’t let her do that to us. But you have to open your eyes and prove it to her.” She sounded so upset that Jessie forced her lids to open. Dee was looking down at her, tears pouring down her cheeks. “See. I told you. It wasn’t poison; it was just more of that damn sedative she gave me.” She wiped the tears away with the back of her manacled hands and lifted her chin. “Now, don’t you dare go back to sleep.”
“I have no intention of doing that.” Jessie shook her head to clear it. “Are you okay?” She looked around and recognized the interior of an aircraft of some sort. Plane. They’d been right about what Dee had been trying to tell them…“This has to be where you’ve been kept since you were kidnapped?” Her gaze flew to Dee’s face. “What was that about poison?”
“Listen to you.” Dee’s voice was shaking. “You’re always worried about me. I’m fine. This isn’t about me. I’m not the one those nutcases tried to drown. They almost killed you. I told you to be careful.”
“This is still very much about you,” Jessie said. “And I don’t like it that they didn’t release you. They got the ransom?”
“So Charlotte told me.”
“Charlotte?”
“Dorset called her the dragon bitch.” She gestured around the plane. “She kind of runs things around here.”
“Where is everybody?” Her gaze was wandering over the plane’s interior. “We’re alone here?”
“For the time being. She’s outside talking to Fantinelli, one of the men who brought you here. There were three of them, Muntz, Blackman, and Fantinelli. I think Fantinelli was the one in charge of the others, but he left after they’d finished sedating and handcuffing you. He only just came back, and Charlotte said she had to talk to him.”
“You mentioned…Dorset. He was here with you?”
“For a little while. I think he was supposed to protect me from Charlotte. I appear to be her least favorite person.” Her eyes suddenly lit with eagerness. “What do you know about Dorset?”
“Not enough. But we were on our way to locating him before I took my spectacular dive tonight.” She sat up and reached out for Dee’s hand before she realized she was still wearing manacles. “And Kendra and Lynch and the others will keep on working to find you. They won’t give up. But we can’t give up, either.” She added grimly, “Because it appears we’re at ground zero.” She glanced at the door leading to the back of the plane. “And I’ve got to learn as much as I can as quick as I can before your dragon bitch comes back. So I’m going to fire questions at you. Okay?”
Dee nodded. “I don’t know what Charlotte’s real name is if that’s one of the questions. And I have no idea who is responsible for taking me. I’ve heard her on the phone talking to someone occasionally, but it was brief, and I didn’t get a hint of who it might be. I don’t know much about her except that she has enough power to argue about how I’m being treated with whoever is in charge.” She made a face. “And she believes it’s far too good. She disapproves not only of me, but of everyone and everything connected to the kidnapping.”
“Why?” Jessie asked. “And why would anyone who had staged such an elaborate crime pay any attention to her? Twenty-five million dollars is a lure that must be irresistible. How would she dare to argue with him?”
