As if sensing his thoughts, Neeley turned and looked at him, her dark eyes barely visible in the dimly lit cargo bay of the Combat Talon. She nodded, as if acknowledging something and Gant was surprised to find himself nodding back at her. She then inclined her head, indicating Doctor Golden, who, as usual, was immersed in her laptop, which was hooked to the plane’s satellite communication system and via that, to the Cellar.
Gant turned to Bailey. “What do you have on the cache location?” He, Neeley, Golden and Bailey were wearing headsets on their own intercom loop.
“A ghost town,” Bailey said succinctly. Something about that was significant enough to draw Golden’s attention away from her computer for the moment.
“What did you say?” she asked.
“It’s a ghost town,” Bailey repeated. “Ms. Masterson forwarded me the data. Small town, northern Texas. Textile factory went out of business in the fifties, the town died out. No one lives there anymore and since it was on the end of a county line road no one drives through either. The rail line is on the south side of the town. Rarely used, maybe three, four times a day by freight trains, no passenger trains.”
“Satellite imagery?” Gant asked.
Bailey shook his head. “Nope. We tend to put our satellites over other countries to spy, not our own.”
“So we’re going in blind,” Neeley said, “and they know we’re coming.”
“We’re going in to trade,” Bailey said, indicating the three CIA men and Colonel Cranston.
“Right,” Gant said, not bothering to hide the sarcasm.
“We have an FM frequency to contact Finley on, once we get in radio range,” Bailey said.
“We need a plan,” Gant said.
Bailey glanced at his watch. “We’ve got four hours flight time to the location. Plan away.”
“What about back-up?” Neeley asked.
Bailey shook his head. “We’re it other than aircraft and logistical support. Ms. Masterson believes — and Mister Nero concurs — that what happens today be kept as tightly held as possible.”
Emily went to the exact center of her wooden prison, the bolt that her shackle had been chained to right between her feet. Slowly she looked around, trying to see what she had missed. It was still dark out, but there was a half moon and her eyes had adjusted to the moon and star light. Dawn was several hours off as near as she could guess.
The floor was solid. Too thick.
The planks surrounding her were also solid and thick.
The rim of the cistern was out of reach. Too high.
She couldn’t go down.
She couldn’t go to the side.
Emily looked up once more to the rim of her prison. It was the only way. She had to make up the gap between where she could reach and the top.
Emily shook her head, dizzy from the lack of food. This was not a complicated problem. Quite simple. She had limited supplies to work with. Just as she had had when she opened the shackle. Basically her body and her clothes.
Shoes. Skirt. Panties. The bra — well, not much left there. Blouse. Sweater.
If she piled them up — Emily laughed at the absurdity. She’d gain an inch maybe. She was hydrated but realizing the lack of food had lowered her IQ considerably.
An inch closer would do no good.
She slowly turned once more staring at the rim and came to a halt. Two of the boards came apart from each other ever so slightly near the top. She walked over to the wall and stared at the small notch near the top. Only about a half inch wide and two inches down. Still not close enough to reach.
Emily sat down and put her head in her hands, trying to get her brain working right. This was a problem. Problems could be solved.
And in the midst of her thinking she heard something.
Voices.
Emily opened her mouth to scream for help, then she paused. She could only catch a phrase here and there, but someone was talking about making sure everything was ready, which did not sound like a rescue team to her.
And then another voice spoke and she sat bolt upright. A voice she’d heard before. The voice that had left her chained to a tree. The voice that belonged to the man with the dead eyes.
Finley stood at the south end of main street with Forten and Payne. They wore body armor, had sub-machineguns slung over their shoulders and automatic pistols in thigh holsters. Forten held his sniper rifle in the crook of his arms. The night air was calm, a stillness that was very deep. Dawn was a couple of hours off.
The three men now echoed the stillness around them after Finley had ascertained that each had double-checked their positions. They were staring down the dusty main road of the town, as if expecting a posse to come riding in from the north.
Payne was the first one to look over his shoulder as a faint noise intruded from the east. They all turned and looked in that direction, watching the headlight of the freight train growing closer in concert with the noise. The train rumbled by, the cabin of the locomotive a bright glow, a single figure silhouetted, staring ahead into the darkness, never noticing the three men less than a hundred feet away. After a minute and a half the caboose rolled by, red lights glowing.
The sound of the train faded and silence once again reigned until Finley spoke. “Arm the charges.”
Emily felt her heart skip a beat.
As the train had gone by, she’d tried to absorb the fact that ‘voices’ meant that her abductor wasn’t alone. And now there were ‘charges’ to be armed? What the fuck was going on?
Someone was coming. For her. She knew it. That’s what they, whoever the voices belonged to, were preparing for.
Her father.
“Take your positions.”
She heard the voice clearly. They would be looking for her father. Not at the water tower.
Emily stared up at the small notch between the two boards. She knew it held the answer. She just couldn’t drag it up out of her exhausted mind.
CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN
“Payne’s wife and new husband were found dead,” Golden announced.
Gant had his eyes closed, taking these last moments of rest, after having just laid out the best plan he could come up with given the circumstances. Golden’s news was no surprise.
“The husband had been dead around three days,” Golden continued. “The wife was killed less than six hours ago.”
Neeley did the math. “So they killed her on the way out of Maine.”
“It appears so. Jesus.” Golden was obviously disgusted as she read the latest data from the Cellar. “The husband’s body was tied to a chair in front of a bed. The wife was tied to the bed. So she had two and a half days tied there staring at his corpse.”
“No shit,” Gant snapped, coming out of his rest. “Are you just figuring out these guys are fucking nuts? When we hit the ground in Texas we all need to remember that. We get Emily and we take them out. No mercy.”
Neeley nodded. Golden just stared at him. Bailey popped his gum. Across the way, the three CIA men and Cranston were dark figures that Gant could care less about at this point. They had started this mess. He was going to end it.
Golden continued reading the information from the Cellar. “A truck was found abandoned at the house. Forten and Payne’s fingerprints were all over it.”
“So they don’t care about being identified any more,” Gant said.
“Apparently not,” Golden said.