The Vanishing Angle

by Linda Ladd

  There were two men with her, both also clad in flannel, one in green plaid, the other in blue plaid. They looked a bit older than her. They hemmed her in tight on both sides and looked like twin lumberjacks in a Paul Bunyan tale. Neither was tall, maybe around five feet nine or ten. Their brown hair was shaggy and uncut on their back of their necks, and they looked as if they were trying to grow beards, but without much luck. Their faces were tanned brown, and they both wore I’ll-slit-your-throat expressions. He had a feeling they were well-acquainted with bar brawls and drunk tanks. They were either guarding her or controlling her—it was hard to tell.

  Novak decided fairly quickly that it was the latter. He would also bet both those guys had concealed weapons, probably handguns in belt holsters tucked under all that worn flannel. The three young guests looked out of place beside the other patrons of the elegant eatery, in dress, demeanor, and state of mind. No one around seemed to notice the trio except for Novak, all continuing to eat and talk and sip wine. Novak wondered why the bouncer had let them in. She was obviously in bad shape and about to lose it. Novak’s instincts for impending danger flamed up bigtime. These three young people were not there for a cut of steak. They were trouble waiting to happen.

  Novak had been an NYPD detective for a couple of years before he’d joined the military. Now he had gone private. Those experiences made him savvy to the street. Something bad was about to happen. The young woman was in trouble. She looked ready to collapse as she scanned the tables, obviously looking for someone. Those big watery eyes were heavily blackened with eyeliner and eye shadow, reminiscent of the stark Cleopatra look. They darted from table to table, definitely searching for someone or something.

  Novak pushed back his chair and got ready. Something would happen in the next few minutes. When her drug-addled eyes fixed on him, he met her stare and watched all manner of emotions flit across her face. There was fear behind that look, and what else? Shame? He lifted his glass and took a sip of beer without breaking eye contact. The other diners sat and ate, blithely unaware. The hostess was nowhere in sight; maybe she knew something about those three kids that Novak didn’t. A lifetime of facing felons and criminals told him to be poised to act. Then the kinky-haired blonde junkie lifted her arm and pointed a forefinger directly at Novak.

  Novak put down his glass and waited. The two men approached him. The girl remained standing beside the door, looking terrified. That wasn’t good, either. The Paul Bunyan clones stopped on either side of Novak’s chair in a play to intimidate him. They kept their backs turned to the other customers. Two pairs of big brown eyes pinned him to the chair. Their pupils looked normal. They were not using drugs, at least not at the moment. The guy on his left carried a SIG M17. The other man had his hand resting on the butt of a Glock 19. Both weapons were outfitted with small silencers that looked homemade, yet another bad sign. Hick bullies and rednecks did not use silencers. They reveled in loud bangs.

  “You don’t have to get hurt or play the hero,” the guy in green plaid finally said. He sported some patchy black scruff on his cheeks. His eyes, the color and size of black marbles, riveted on Novak’s face. “Just come along outside with us, nice and quiet-like. Nobody gets hurt.”

  Novak sat unmoving. He felt it highly unlikely they would shoot him down inside a steakhouse in front of fifty witnesses, but they looked quite stupid, so they might. “Why don’t you give me a good reason why I shouldn’t finish my steak? What’s your problem? I don’t know you and I don’t want to.”

  Novak’s calm reply annoyed the second guy, the one with no facial scruff and a black knit watch cap pulled down over his ears. It looked out of place inside. His voice was low and gravelly, like Louis Armstrong’s. “You stay in that chair, mister? Somebody’s gonna get hurt bad.”

  “And that would be you two.”

  His remark appeared to startle them. They hazarded nervous glances at each other. Watch Cap tried to look tough. “See that pretty little girl standing over there by the door? Her life just might depend on what you do right now. Put that in your pipe, mister.”

  Novak shifted his attention to the strung-out teenager in the tight white pants. She was watching them, fingers fidgeting together, eyes darting everywhere as if expecting all hell to break loose. She needed a hit in the worst way. He didn’t know her, was certain that he’d never laid eyes on her before. But she was in trouble, he knew that much.

  Novak weighed his options. There weren’t many. Things could go bad fast inside a crowded dining room, could escalate and explode in gunfire and collateral damage that might include small children. These young men were not mental giants, but they could bolster each other’s courage and cause major injuries at the surrounding tables. “Okay, fellas, I’ll bite. What’s this all about?”

  Scruff said, “Get up and walk outside with us. We don’t want to hurt anybody.”

  Novak didn’t really believe that. His own wellbeing was definitely in no man’s land. Still, they were being civil, and he could take them both on any day of the week, especially if they didn’t want to shoot up the place. They couldn’t disarm him, anyway. He could disarm them both before they blinked. That’s how green they were. He clicked off a mental list of possible outcomes. At the best, their altercation would escalate into a two-against-one knockdown-drag-out with overturned tables and broken bottles. He was used to odds like that. It would be really nice if Lori showed up about now. She carried, too, and she knew how to use her weapon and fight better than most men. This had to be a case of mistaken identity. He didn’t know them or the girl. Maybe they could work out a peaceful solution to the misunderstanding without anybody getting hurt or ending up dead.

  Still, he was irritated because he didn’t finish the T-bone. He rose and dropped enough cash on the table to cover his meal and a tip. The flannel twins stepped back in tandem like two well-trained footmen, but showed a bit of surprise when he stood taller and had about eighty pounds on them. They motioned him to precede them, still in polite fashion. He did so. At the door, the stricken young woman stared up at him. She was a tiny little thing, five feet, maybe less. She looked so terrible and even younger than he’d thought, maybe not more than sixteen or seventeen.

  “I’m really, really sorry, mister,” she whispered. Her voice was as shaky as the rest of her.

  Then she turned away from him, pulled open the front door, and went out fast. Once in the alley, it was evident that he’d been wrong. She was not the one in trouble with the two thugs. They ignored her. When Novak stepped out, they moved up close on both sides. There was nobody left waiting in line now, no cars dropping off customers, the alley completely deserted. Unfortunately, there was no sign of Lori Garner, either.

  Two vehicles were waiting for them, their motors still running. The first car was a brand-new white BMW convertible; the second was a nondescript black Volkswagen van with dark-smoked windows. That would be his ride. On the ground to his right, Mr. Casinger, the burly security guard lay face down on the bricks. The back of his head was a bloody mess.

  “Get your hands up,” Watch Cap growled.

  Novak obliged him by punching him in the face as hard as he could. He went down on top of the bouncer, blood spewing out of his nose and mouth. Novak got the other kid by one arm, swung him around and jabbed him in the ear with a doubled fist. He staggered sideways and fell drunkenly against the van. That’s when two other guys, older and better trained, jumped out of the black van. Both had weapons pointed at him. Novak raised his hands. These men looked like professionals. They were dressed in camouflage, and their holsters were strapped low on their thighs beside their Ka-Bar knives.

  “Get down on the ground. Now!”

  Novak obliged. The guy held his weapon on the back of Novak’s head and placed his knee in the small of his back. He frisked him, quickly and expertly, and pulled out Novak’s Kimber 1911 .45 caliber. He took it, put it inside Novak’s backpack, and threw it
into the van.

  “Okay, you got me. What’s this all about?”

  One of the camo guys barked orders. “Get up, you two losers, and get back in the van. Irina, you’re riding in that Beamer.” Then he stood back and held the gun on Novak’s face. “Okay, get up. Don’t try anything stupid.”

  The little blonde junkie hurried over to the white car and got into the back seat. The BMW drove away while Novak was muscled toward the van. Even with his side nearly healed, he wasn’t sure he could take down all four of these guys at once. Not when they all had pistols trained on him. Now he was curious. He wanted to stall to give Lori time to show up and save the day, but she didn’t appear. He hated it when she was late.

  Novak considered things for a moment. If these guys had wanted him dead, this dark, deserted alley wouldn’t be a bad place to put him down. Scruff opened the door for him, Mr. Polite, all of a sudden. Nobody said anything. They pushed Novak inside. He was not bound, which was their first big mistake. They were still asking for cooperation instead of pistol-whipping him. But the moment he was inside, they jerked a black hood over his head, and he felt the jab of a needle in the side of his neck. He felt the burn of whatever had been injected, having about three seconds to get angry before the drug hit his conscious mind like a weighted baseball bat.

  Chapter 2

  Novak tried to force open his eyelids, instantly felt dizzy, and shut them. His mind was spinning thoughts like a spider on crack. He couldn’t remember much. There had been a black hood over his head, he thought he remembered, but it was gone. That made him anxious. He knew he was disarmed and outnumbered and shot full of some drug. The girl, she’d had that kinky blond hair. She’d gotten him into this thing. He stayed still and tried to clear up the blurry recollections. The men had worn flannel shirts, different colors.

  When he realized he was inside a car, he sat up and felt people close beside him. He opened his eyes and saw them clearly. The one on his right smelled like blood, and had a tissue stuffed up his nostrils. The other guy kept rubbing his ear. Two more men rode in the front seat. They were the bad ones. The van was quiet. Nobody said anything. He could hear the tires on the pavement, echoing a little hum.

  The van was moving fast, the driver clearly in a hurry to get somewhere. Novak’s captors all stared straight ahead. He knew he was in a bad spot, but he didn’t feel he was in immediate danger. That would probably come at the end of this road. Ahead of them, in the bright spears of illumination thrown by the van’s headlights, he could see the white BMW that the girl had gotten into, also driving fast. He couldn’t tell if she was still inside. Maybe she was dead by now, shot and left somewhere on the side of the road. Maybe he would be next unless he did something. He had no idea how long he’d been unconscious or how far they’d driven, but he didn’t think it had been long. He decided to make some waves.

  “Okay, guys. I’m awake now. I’m fine, really. Don’t worry about me having dangerous aftereffects from that knock-out drug.” He looked at the guy on his right. “So tell me. Where the hell are we headed so fast?”

  Nobody thought he was funny. Dead silence prevailed. He felt invisible. No use wasting words on these guys—they weren’t going to bite. He considered how things had gone down back at the steakhouse for a time and wished he’d gotten to his gun and put them all down when he’d had the chance. He would’ve if he’d known they were going to shoot him up with a drug. There weren’t any ill effects right now, but that might come later. Maybe the front-seat duo belonged to some paramilitary unit; that’s how they came off, and that’s how they dressed. Maybe there was a wilderness camp where they shot at pictures of terrorists. That didn’t fit well with the two flannel boys, but it did with the other two.

  The girl had chosen him, on purpose, a complete stranger, for reasons unknown, but she was sorry. Whatever crime or misdeed she was accusing him of, he was damn sure he hadn’t done it. He was no angel and never had been, but he didn’t mess with teenagers. She hadn’t chosen him on a whim. That meant she had a reason to point him out.

  Chances were they weren’t going to kill him, or they would have already done so. That was a given, and a point in his favor, but the only good one at the moment. He had questions he needed to ask, but he wasn’t going to get answers out of any of these guys. He watched the road ahead, looking for identifying signs. He wanted to know where he was. There was any number of states they could be traveling through right now. He was going to have to bide his time, and find the right time and place to get away. Hopefully, he could do that without ending up dead. This thing needed to play out on Novak’s terms. He figured the young girl was the key. Her actions seemed to be forced upon her. She could be another victim. Or she could be calling the shots—stranger things had happened. They treated her with kid gloves, sort of, except for the fact that she was about as strung out as a spool of yarn dragged off by a rabid cat.

  The highway stretched out ahead, undulating over gently rolling hills like a satin ribbon tossed on ocean ripples. They had started out in Virginia, which is where this looked to be. It was dark and rural and forested, with some little farms here and there. He was proven correct when he saw a sign that said Fredericksburg and an arrow pointing right. The number of miles until the destination was not listed. They bypassed that road without stopping. That meant he hadn’t been out long and they were still in Virginia. The rural road did not look familiar, but he hadn’t been down that way in a long time. There were a few closed gas stations but no fast food joints. No traffic to speak of. A speed limit sign whizzed by reading 35 MPH. They were going double that, maybe more. They were out in the middle of the sticks, alright.

  Everybody inside that van knew he was conscious, but they weren’t threatening him or pulling out weapons or sticking hypodermic needles in his arms. He was still unbound and free as a bird to commit havoc when the time was right. All of which pointed to him possibly coming out of this thing alive, but that was still a big maybe. Novak settled back, relaxed his tense muscles, and watched miles of wooded road fly by. Nothing else he could do, not until they stopped the car. Sure, he could wrestle a weapon from one of the young punks in the back, no problem. He could have one in a matter of seconds. Disarming three more inside a speeding car might be iffy. He’d have to wait until they stopped and then make a break for it. His guards were way too relaxed—one appeared to have fallen asleep. What the hell? They had just kidnapped him; they should have been more alert. Drugs seemed to be a component in their circle. The one they’d injected into him had been fast-acting but not long-lasting, he didn’t think. He felt no side effects, but experienced moments of lightheadedness a couple of times.

  Maybe they were small-potatoes drug dealers from some dead little podunk town around there. Maybe the girl had thought he was someone else. That probably wasn’t the case. Novak didn’t look like most other people. He was too big, too tall, too heavy, and looked too rough to mistake for any average Joe. His curiosity was definitely piqued regarding what he’d find at the end of this road. If that tiny girl was in trouble—and he was pretty sure this was all about her—maybe he could help somehow. Maybe that’s why she’d chosen him out of all the people in that restaurant. She’d seemed unafraid of the baby lumberjacks, but the camo guys ordered her around like they owned her.

  Then his thoughts returned to Lori Garner. She would have shown up at that steakhouse by now, probably not long after they’d taken him. She would question the staff and other customers, and she wouldn’t like what she heard. She would know full well that he hadn’t up and left her high and dry with no explanation, especially with the bleeding bouncer outside. She was going to flash around her Pentagon badge and ask a ton of questions, maybe even get the law involved. As a former MP, Lori was good at asking questions and getting in people’s faces, so sooner or later, she would find out what happened to him. Then she’d call on her personal resources and great instincts. One of his favorite things about her wa
s that she never gave up, not on anything, not ever. She had ways to track him, but they had taken his weapon, cellphone, wallet, and pocket knife off him. They had the backpack in the floor of the back seat. He was glad to see it. It had a GPS tracker in it, so Lori would know exactly where he was. He hoped she remembered it. They were in a business where they had to be careful. Stuff like this was expected now and again. He hoped she was hot on his trail, weapon in hand, and getting closer by the mile.

  More time passed in silence. This was like riding with a quartet of armed L.L. Bean mannequins. He got bored first, and then he got angry. He wondered where they were headed. Richmond wasn’t too far to the south. He saw no stars out the back window. It was cloudy and starting to sprinkle rain. After a while, he leaned his head back and shut his eyes.

  Minutes later, the car started to slow. They had entered a small town that looked as if it had come straight out of a Hallmark Channel Christmas movie. He’d only seen one of those movies when Lori had forced him to watch it while he’d been a captive patient in bed without a remote. It had been cutesy and sappy, and it had the same kind of old-fashioned, curlicue-decorated gazebo sitting out in the middle of the town square. The couple holding hands and watching snow drift down while townsfolk sang Christmas carols was missing, and so was any vestige of human life. He spotted no one anywhere along the dark streets.

  Again, Novak briefly considered forcing a showdown, but controlled the urge because they were following the white BMW around the cute gazebo and then down a deserted blacktopped road with dark woods closing in on both shoulders. Not long after, the driver turned on his right blinker, which was absolutely unnecessary under the circumstances, and hung a turn onto a narrow road that turned out to be an entry drive. They eventually emerged from the woods into long, grassy fields enclosed with miles of neat white fences. The driver proceeded up a little rise where an enormous country home came into sight. This and the big stables over to the side looked like the fabled horse farms of Virginia that he’d heard about. The car slowed to a stop in front of a flight of red brick steps leading up to a wide front veranda. There were rockers lined up down the front with pots of bronze mums between them.