Dangerously Involved

by Sidney Bristol

  She found a video file saved on the phone.

  He couldn’t move. All he could do was ball his hands into fists.

  The screen perfectly framed Yvonne sitting in a chair. Normally Nolan would zero in on things like distinguishing characteristics in the background, anything that would help him identify where and when it had been taken. But all he could do was stare at Yvonne’s face. Her eyes were round and fearful. Her body shook. Sweat and blood trickled down the side of her face. Her lower lip was swollen. She was wearing different clothes, oversized sweats.

  “No, please.” Her voice was faint. “You don’t have to do this.”

  She pressed back in the chair as if she could escape something on the other side of the camera.

  A figure entered the frame.

  Sparks flew from a hand-held Taser.

  “Theodore Krieger will supply us with access codes and a window of twenty-four hours to use them. In four hours we will begin removing fingers and toes, one each hour, until our demands have been met. After that the pieces will get bigger.”

  “No!”

  The video cut off mid-scream.

  “God damn it.” Nolan whirled and punched the side of a pickup truck.

  The vehicle’s alarm blared.

  “Fuck. Nolan.” Grant grabbed Nolan by the arm and hauled him out from between the cars.

  Melody followed along behind them. “This is bad.”

  “It’s a standard, store-bought Taser. That things more scary than harmful.” Riley came up on Nolan’s other side. “Her wounds were superficial. They’re scaring her to make a good video for the family.”

  Nolan should see all of this, but the thing on repeat in his mind were Yvonne’s fear-filled eyes. “We can’t show this to the family.”

  Riley glanced at Nolan. “We need to be honest with the FBI.”

  Nolan shook his head. “No. We find her ourselves.”

  “Guys?” Melody called out. “Guys.”

  There was something about the note Melody’s voice hit that stopped all three men in their tracks. They turned to face the petite woman who’d stopped a few feet back. She glanced away from them and shifted her weight from foot to foot.

  “What is it?” Grant asked.

  “I believe Yvonne is pregnant.” Each word sounded as though it were dragged from Melody’s depths.

  That last word hit Nolan in the solar plexus.

  Pregnant?

  His mind turned it over, not comprehending the meaning at first.

  Pregnant.

  With child.

  A baby.

  Yvonne’s voice whispered in the back of his mind, replaying one of their private moments. I haven’t been with anyone but you in two years.

  “How sure are you about this?” Grant asked, taking it all in stride.

  “Fairly certain.” Melody glanced at Nolan then away.

  “Certain enough—”

  “She’s pregnant, okay?” Melody took a step forward and glared at him. “No question about it. Yvonne is pregnant.”

  Nolan swallowed. Or tried to. His mouth was too dry.

  All those moments when Yvonne had looked like she was holding something back he’d assumed it was related to her brother or the threats against the family. Was it this? Or had she never intended to tell him? Maybe she had other plans for the pregnancy?

  “Fuck,” Grant spat. “We need to load up, get back to the hotel, circle in Zain and figure out what the hell we’re doing.”

  “Come on, man,” Riley muttered and nudged Nolan back toward where they’d parked.

  Nolan could barely manage to put one foot in front of the other. His mind was too stunned to process what he’d just been told. Melody and Grant spoke, Riley chimed in, but if they said to Nolan, he didn’t hear them. He didn’t even wait to speak to the others before heading to where he’d parked the SUV.

  “Nolan—wait.” Melody’s footsteps slapped the concrete behind him.

  He stopped in front of the truck and turned to face the woman who was supposed to be part of his team.

  “How long have you known?” he asked.

  “I don’t know anything for sure.” Melody held her hands up. The gloves were gone. “Let’s get in the SUV and we’ll talk on the way.”

  “No. I want some fucking answers, Mel.”

  “Fine. The facts. You were with Yvonne six weeks ago in Vegas. She asked me to get four kinds of pregnancy tests in Kyoto. She’s been nauseous and vomiting since I met her. Odors bother her. Then a few days ago she begged me to help sneak her out of the house to see a doctor. An OBGYN. I’ve asked multiple times if I can help her track down the father and she only says no, thank you or that she knows where the father is. She’s a client. An asset. Whatever. I couldn’t break that trust even though it’s obvious to me who the father is.”

  “You wouldn’t have told me if she weren’t kidnapped.”

  “No. It’s not my place, Nolan. What I want to happen and what’s her right are two different things.”

  “I should at least get to know. Shouldn’t I? How did this happen?” He shoved a hand through his hair.

  “If you need me to explain that one—”

  “Shut up,” Nolan snapped then winced. “Sorry. Just get in the car.”

  Melody nodded, and they each climbed in the SUV. He gripped the wheel, but didn’t yet crank the engine.

  Nolan had to put his feelings aside. They were getting in the way of seeing how to rescue Yvonne. Getting worked up about the likelihood she was pregnant wasn’t going to bring her home. If she were another asset, he’d have been evaluating the video, parsing out what was said, how they presented their demands. He’d have seen what Riley saw—that the video was flashy, for show, to scare the family into cooperating.

  Well, Nolan intended to get Yvonne back alive. They had a lot to talk about.

  He reached over and buckled his seatbelt. “First, we can’t let the family know about the baby. That is going to cloud their judgment.”

  “You think so?” Melody asked.

  “Yes. Think about it. Mrs. Krieger manipulated all of this so that Douglas would be kept out of the fire. I don’t trust her to make decisions based on what’s best for Yvonne if Mrs. Krieger has ulterior motives.”

  “Yvonne seemed very concerned about not letting her family know about visiting the doctor. She had me book the appointment under a pseudonym.”

  “Let Grant know?”

  “Texting him now.”

  “Next, I want to get Yvonne’s friend on the phone. Tabby. If Yvonne told anyone about the results, it would be Tabby. We need to know how fragile Yvonne is, how far along, if the doctor told her anything.”

  “Tabby, got it. Actually, I think I have her number.”

  “Whoever these guys are, they’ve been staking us out. They saw Douglas’ car. They knew where we were. That means we probably have them on video somewhere and just didn’t pay them any mind because we were distracted by Douglas’ bullshit.” He turned the wheel and got them out on the street, riding the accelerator hard.

  He’d been right all along.

  SATURDAY. SAFE HOUSE.

  Lee watched the map. The circle denoting the burner phone’s location shifted a block, then disappeared.

  It hadn’t taken long for the tracking devices to be found. This team was good. Lee knew they were lucky to have had a big enough head start on them. With any luck, Yvonne was correct and her family and the security team would spend considerable time chasing their tails.

  If only every mark was as cooperative as Ms. Krieger.

  “It is done,” he announced and powered off his phone screen.

  “You think they bought it?” Yvonne turned her head and looked at him. She’d cleaned the blood off her forehead, but the bruising had already begun to darken her delicate skin.

  “You’d better hope so.”

  “I could have pretended, you know?”

  “But then, how would you know I was serious with my threa
ts?” Lee grinned at her even though she couldn’t see his face for the mask.

  She stared at him, her unspoken emotions written on her face. He could hear her spat the words monster, terrorist, and a dozen others.

  “Blindfold.” He tapped the silken sleep mask on her lap.

  She picked up the accessory and fit it over her face. “There.”

  Lee reached over and waved his hand in front of her eyes.

  She didn’t move.

  He flicked the end of her nose.

  She jumped and batted his hand away. “Ouch! Hey.”

  “Just checking.” He pealed his mask off then signaled his team.

  They’d have a short amount of time to pull this off, but if they were lucky, he’d have the codes in an hour or two. Then he had to decide which end of the bargain he’d uphold. The one his clients had paid for, or the one he’d made with Yvonne.

  SATURDAY. WASHINGTON, DC.

  Samuel tapped his fingers on the steering wheel. He’d divided his remaining men and had them out, hitting up contacts, checking out Krieger properties, places they frequented. If he was going to skate out of this free of his brother’s death, that video had to be destroyed. It was his smoking gun, the only thing that could give him away.

  If he didn’t find the Kriegers today, Samuel expected his men to turn on him. They were jackals. They were about survival, and right now Samuel was their weak one. This video, this thing with the Kriegers, it was about fighting for survival.

  The disposable cell phone in the cup holder rang.

  He answered it without checking who it might be.

  “What?”

  “Found then,” Karuki said.

  “Where?”

  “If I tell you, I get to leave and you never think about my family.”

  “Yes.” In the long run Samuel didn’t want anyone on his side that didn’t want to be there. Karuki was a means to an end.

  “My cousin’s contacts identified the Krieger family checking into The Madison, one of those Hilton Hotels.”

  This was Samuel’s break.

  He wouldn’t waste it again.

  SATURDAY. THEODORE’S Condo, Bethesda, VA.

  Yvonne stared at the brick face of her brother’s condo. Theodore hardly ever stayed here. He rented it out to friends that needed somewhere to stay for business trips more than he used it. To her knowledge the only time he spent there was around the holidays, otherwise he was in California, just like her.

  She didn’t know if she should hope they pulled this off, or that Nolan would find her. If she got in there and accessed the security codes with her brother’s secure connection to the company’s servers she would be giving bad people unrestricted access to the government’s systems and millions of people’s computers. If she failed and Nolan cornered them, Yvonne might die in the conflict.

  If she weren’t pregnant, it would be an easy decision. She’d hold out. But she had more to think about than just her own well-being. Her moral compass was confused. All she knew was that she’d chosen a path of action and now she had to stick to it.

  The only way to tell her family where she was, was to play along.

  There were easily a dozen different things that could go wrong. System administrators could change the codes just to be safe. The connection to the servers could be down. People could be staying there. But she had to try.

  A man rounded the corner, head down, hat pulled low. He paused then waved a hand.

  “All’s clear,” her driver and the leader of this bunch said.

  He shifted the SUV into drive and eased around behind the condo to the garage. Safely out of sight, he turned toward her and leaned in.

  Her nose still hurt from earlier.

  “You fuck us over, I fuck you up. Understand?” His gaze bored into the side of her head.

  “Understood.”

  “Let’s go.”

  Yvonne waited for one of the masked men to open her door. Her legs still felt like jelly from the electrical shocks.

  She pushed those memories aside. Now wasn’t the time to get lost in fear.

  Yvonne let herself into the tiny backyard attached to the condo. It wasn’t more than a few feet of grass butting up to a raised patio. She tip-toed her way into the small flower bed and picked up a decorative fake rock. The plastic concealed a bottom that slid out and a key to the condo.

  Her kidnapper took the key from her and went to the back door, letting them into Theodore’s home. She listened to the beeps that meant he was disarming the security system with the code she’d given him.

  “Bring her in here,” the man called out.

  One guy grabbed her elbow, wrenching her arm up as if she’d refused to cooperate.

  “Hey.” She glared and did her best to keep up with him, twisted oddly to one side.

  “Easy,” the leader said when they were through the sliding glass doors. “She’s going to need that arm. Here. You’ve got fifteen minutes.”

  He passed her the laptop bag.

  Yvonne took the bag to the front office where Theodore had an Ethernet cable that would allow him direct access to work. She was the only other person who knew his logins, a fact neither had shared with anyone before. She whispered a silent apology to her brother as the laptop booted up.

  If Theodore had his phone on him, he’d know someone was in the house. He’d be able to send Nolan and the others here. Now, the question was—would she finish before anyone could get to the condo or not?

  She still didn’t know what outcome to hope for.

  SATURDAY. THE MADISON, Washington, DC.

  Nolan paced the swanky DC hotel while the Kriegers bickered. Against Nolan’s judgment Grant had showed the family the video. Their responses were varied.

  Mrs. Krieger wanted to wait for orders.

  Mr. Krieger and Douglas advocated for telling the FBI, getting more help.

  Theodore thought they should send Nolan and the others after these guys.

  Nolan was beginning to like Theodore.

  Sadly there wasn’t much to do. Zain had pulled in their other IT guy, Gavin, to comb through surveillance videos surrounding the parking lot. Whoever had dropped the phone off had picked an excellent spot. It was only partially visible, but even that glimpse of a figure in dark clothes hadn’t helped them identify the target.

  They were in a holding pattern until something happened, either they got lucky or the kidnappers reached out with more demands.

  Would electrical shock harm the baby?

  His mind shied away from the question as soon as it materialized.

  It was all too much to wrap his head around right now. He had to remain focused on getting Yvonne back. Once they’d accomplished that he could worry about the other thing. If he went down that road now he’d lose his focus.

  His tablet chimed. He picked it up off a side table and glanced at the message.

  Gavin had dug deeper into the van Nolan had seen and the SUVs captured on their surveillance. Both dead ends.

  “Fuck,” Nolan muttered.

  “What is it?”

  He turned toward Theodore, who’d extracted himself from the family bickering.

  “Nothing.” Nolan set the tablet down a bit too hard.

  “Can’t you track her?”

  “They took the trackers off her.”

  Theodore ran his hand through his hair and turned toward the window. “If you keep waiting on us to decide something, we’re going to get Yvonne killed.”

  “I won’t let that happen.”

  He turned to look at Nolan. “Promise?”

  “I’m going to pretend you didn’t ask me that.”

  “She’s my sister,” Theodore practically snarled.

  He shoved his hand into his pocket and glanced at the screen, a frown curving his mouth.

  The hair on the back of Nolan’s neck rose.

  “What is it?” He leaned over to look at Theodore’s phone.

  “The alarm at my condo in Bethesda wa
s just disarmed.”

  “Do you have cameras?”

  “Yeah. Here.” Theodore clicked the notification then brought up a camera feed. “Fuck.”

  Two figures in black wearing ski masks stood in his kitchen.

  Nolan took the phone and swiped through the feeds.

  Six men and—there.

  Yvonne sat at a desk, a laptop in front of her. He could see a swollen lump on the side of her head. The light coming in from the front windows showed off the bruise that had begun to discolor her pretty face.

  “Grant. Guys.” Nolan turned and caught their gaze. “Let’s go.”

  “Go? Where?” Douglas glanced from Nolan to Grant.

  “Suit up, load out.” Grant didn’t ask, he just grabbed his equipment bag. “Melody’s in charge.”

  “You can’t just leave,” Mrs. Krieger squawked.

  Theodore grabbed Nolan’s arm. “Bring her back.”

  “I will.”

  Nolan shook off Theodore’s hold, snagged his bag and joined the others filing out of the room. Melody stood at the door, jacket off and weapons visible. It was easy to see her as only the suit wearing, pretty talker. Even Nolan had forgotten that under that she’d trained for this role and how to pull her weight in an emergency. Building security was on hand in the hall to back her up, but she was holding the line for them. Which was why it was important they get Yvonne back as soon as possible.

  They’d fallen victim to a threat they hadn’t anticipated. Now they knew they were facing several fronts of assault with a limited team. Not great odds, but they’d come through worse.

  “Where?” Grant asked as they filed down the stairs rather than wait for the elevator.

  “Theodore’s condo, ten miles from here. Looks like she’s on a computer there.”

  “On a computer?” Riley took the stairs two at a time. “Shouldn’t we let the family know so they can—”

  “And fuck up her buying herself time?” Nolan didn’t spare Riley a glare.

  Within minutes they were back in their SUVs, weaving through traffic. Though only ten miles separated them, it took much longer to traverse the busy city. Nolan wanted to hold on to the phone, watch Yvonne’s progress, what happened, but he was better use behind the wheel.

  “What’s our plan?” Vaughn asked, his voice also coming through the comm. Nolan had in his ear.