Two rounds left. He had the extra magazine, but that would take time — something that was always in short supply during a gunfight.
The remaining kidnapper dragged Song out of the car, a pistol shoved under the base of her chin with such force that it caused her to gag. Blood ran from her nose in the glare of the Hellcat’s headlights. Her eyes hung half open and she slumped as if she could barely keep her feet.
“We have stalemate,” the man behind her said in heavily accented English. Albanian, Quinn guessed from his accent. A hired gun. He was sweating from fear and the effort of holding Song upright. “What now?”
Fifteen feet away, Quinn answered by shooting him in the exposed knee, relying on the gunfighter’s mantra to shoot the target that was available until a better one presented itself — and one did. The man’s shattered leg buckled at once, causing him to list sideways, reflexively throwing out his hands, including the one with the pistol, to catch himself. The sixth and final round from Quinn’s XDs caught the man above his eye as his head tilted out from behind Song. He toppled into the ditch and Song collapsed to the ground. She raised a hand to shield her eyes from the headlights. Quinn dug into his pocket for the extra magazine and reloaded as he knelt down beside her, checking for wounds.
“I am fine,” she said, attempting to shrug him off, but grimacing at the pain. “My head was so full of that stupid music, they were able to catch me by surprise.”
Quinn looked up and down the highway, pulling Song to her feet. “Let’s get out of here before someone comes along and we have to explain all these dead kidnappers. I’m not sure my Australian passport will hold up under that kind of scrutiny.”
Kevin Bursaw’s mouth hung open when the Challenger growled back up the cobblestone drive in front of the inn with Song inside. His nephew, Craig, ran out to open the door, grinning from ear to ear.
“Thanks,” Quinn said, handing him the key fobs. “There’ll be a little damage to the front fender. I won’t blame you if you’re angry—”
“Do you joke?” Craig said. “They will write songs about my Hellcat. No way you could save the girl in lesser vehicle. My muscle car, she is now famous.”
Quinn moved to open the passenger door for Song. “I’d really appreciate it if you didn’t, you know, spread that around.”
Craig waved off the comment. “All the people here know. That is enough for me.”
Kevin Bursaw stepped up and put a hand on Quinn’s shoulder while Petra helped Song inside.
“Stilvano?” Quinn asked, wondering about the fate of the fiddle player who’d fallen to the kidnapper’s gunfire when he ran to rescue Song.
“Right through the love handle,” Bursaw said. “It’ll hurt like hell for a while, but he’ll have a nice scar to show the grannies he likes to flirt with.” Bursaw looked past Quinn, mulling over some kind of plan. “We need to get you both out of here. Just in case those guys send back some of their friends. I’ll move my wife and kids for a few days until this blows over. The cops will have the road back to the airport blocked any time now. My father-in-law keeps a small cabin cruiser moored down in the bay below us. We’ll take you around to the city in that. It’ll be a safe place to wait until your flight leaves.”
“I’m really sorry about all this,” Quinn said. “I’m kind of a magnet for bloody murder.”
“Your brother always told me you had superpowers.” Bursaw chuckled. “Boy, was he right. We should call you Action Man. I never saw anyone react that fast — and I spent the better part of my life around bikers and other Type A personalities.”
Quinn shrugged. Sometimes, there was just nothing to say.
“I happened to look at my watch when you ripped away in Craig’s Challenger,” Bursaw said. “You know you had the car and the girl back in under six minutes? Hell, Jericho, there are people at this party still chewing the same bite of food.”
Chapter 37
Camille Thibodaux thought she would feel some kind of elation at holding the power to hurt this evil man in her hands. He’d tried to drug her — and she shuddered to think what else he had in mind. Instead, she felt sick to her stomach. It was in her nature to yell at Jacques with fiery Italian curses, and even threaten the boys with all sorts of mayhem if they didn’t do their chores, but actual violence, that was her husband’s department. She did not know for sure what he and Jericho Quinn did on their little secret missions, but looking down at the quivering lump of hairy lard who wore nothing but a sagging pair of briefs, she assumed it had something to do with people like this.
There would be no bluffing with this man. If she said she was going to hit him with the hammer, she would have to hit him with the hammer. The trick was neither she nor Kim knew where to begin. In the end, Camille supposed it was the clinical once-over she gave Benavides while deciding on an appropriate target that made the man spill the beans.
“Wait, wait, wait,” he sobbed, flopping and arching so much he nearly wriggled out of his underwear. “I’ll tell you… I’ll tell you what I know.” His eyes rolled back in his head, unable to even look at the hammer anymore. “Just… please, put the tools away.”
“That’s all we ask,” Camille said, shooting a look at Kim, who narrowed her eyes and gave a slow nod.
“Where is she then?” Kim said, seeming a little disappointed that she wouldn’t get to pinch him somewhere painful with the pliers.
“She’s being held at a black site,” Joey groaned. “It’s a boat really. Mr. Walter has us put certain high-value prisoners there. The ones he wants to keep out of sight.” He craned his neck to watch her put the hammer back in the toolbox. “There are a shitload of guards. It’s impossible for you to get her out.”
Camille had heard Jacques talk about black sites and prison boats, but she’d assumed such awful places were overseas, a long way from American soil.
“Impossible?” Kim fumed, still holding the channel locks. “As impossible as knocking out an IDTF agent and tying him to a bed?”
“You let us worry about what we can and can’t do,” Camille said, grateful for Kim’s bravado. “You just answer our questions.”
Joey swallowed hard, sniffing back his tears. “Yes,” he sobbed. “Sure. Absolutely.”
Camille leaned in close enough she could smell the sickening odor of sweat that beaded beneath the mat of hair on his quivering body.
“Now, where is this boat?”
“Southwest of Salisbury… In Maryland, out on the Delmarva.” His words were now spewing like a geyser. “I mean, we get to it from the Delmarva side of the Chesapeake, but the boat’s actually anchored off Bloodsworth Island. The Navy used to do artillery practice there so it’s off limits to civilians.”
“I’m going to ask you this one time,” Camille said, stooping to pick up the hammer again so Benavides would know she was serious. “There are Internet stories of the horrible things IDTF agents did to the Director of the CIA. Are those reports true? Did your people really strip and torture a fifty-year-old woman?”
Joey’s head fell to the side, nodding as he looked away. “It was always on Mr. Walter’s orders. All any of us ever do is follow his orders.”
Camille let the hammer fall back into the metal toolbox with a loud crash. The sudden noise brought a squeaky fart from the terrified Benavides. His head fell back on the mattress when he realized she wasn’t going to hit him for his confession.