He’d grabbed her arm and quickly forced her at gunpoint into the underground garage where his Cadillac was waiting. That was the last thing she remembered until she woke up in the dark.
She hadn’t listened to Jake. His hunch was right. The man who came to their room that night really wasn’t a crackpot. But it was too late to warn Jake now — Kaplan would have to handle it alone.
She had no idea where she was, she just knew she was in a house. She could tell by listening to the sounds a house makes. Toilets flushing, water running through the pipes, a refrigerator cycling on and off, the distant sounds of cars and trucks on the street outside. Musty. That musty, older house smell.
Occasionally she heard footsteps on stairs. She detected a slight echo with each step. Two of the steps creaked when stepped on. A door would open. She would sense a change in the darkness, and then the door would close. For hours the footsteps seemed soft. Over time her sense of hearing became more acute.
She heard different footsteps on the stairs. Heavier than before. The first person checking on her must have been a woman, she thought. These footsteps belonged to a man. Maybe the big man was coming back for her. Beth felt a surge of panic.
The door opened. She squirmed to the back wall, heart beat pounding. She heard a voice mutter, “Hold still, it’s okay.” She started crying out of fear.
The sleeping mask was quickly removed. The sudden light blinded her. She kept her eyes closed to a tiny squint, allowing her eyes to adjust to the brightness of the room. The man reached down and jerked the duct tape from her mouth.
She looked up as the shadow leaned in, pulling her to a sitting position. Her eyes were still unable to see anything more than a shadow. He cut her feet and hands and arms free from their bindings. The man had a gentle demeanor, it wasn’t the one who had brought her here.
She sat still, and her eyes slowly adapted to the light. The man knelt down in front of her and in a flash she recognized him. Her eyes lit up and a smile broke through her crying. “Oh, Pat, thank God it’s you.”
Then she remembered what Kaplan had told her.
CHAPTER 40
Jake was held firmly against the wall. Every time he moved, the man pushed the knife blade a little deeper into his side. The pain grew so intense that Jake stood on his toes, arching his side away from the blade.
The man leaned in close to his right ear. “Don’t try anything stupid, Mr. Pendleton. If I had my way you’d already be dead, but someone wants you alive … for now, and that’s how I’m going to deliver you. Unless, of course, you try something stupid. Then you’ll die on the sidewalk. By the time anyone can get to you, it will be too late. Do you understand what I’m saying to you, Mr. Pendleton?”
He nodded.
“Good. Now we’re going to take a little walk. Nice and slow.
Calm and relaxed. Okay?”
“Okay.”
Jake heard the click from the hammer of a gun. The big man froze. A voice spoke. A voice Jake had heard once before. The man from the hotel room.
“Let him go, Ian,” the newcomer said.
Jake recalled the name Ian from Donna Greene’s briefing. This has to be the same man — the assassin.
“Sullivan! You son of a bitch. How did you—”
“Let him go, I said.”
“What if I kill him? Right here, right now,” the big man growled.
“Then I’ll kill you. Right here, right now,” the other voice said.
“Can you do that, Michael? Can you kill one of your own?”
“One of my own? You stopped being one of ‘my own’ years ago, Ian. You have betrayed us. You have betrayed everyone. Your pigheaded attitude will be your undoing. I owe you one, though. You warned me and saved my life. Now, I’ll do the same for you. But make no mistake, if you kill him, I will kill you. Now let him go.”
The assassin slowly pulled the knife blade away. Jake felt the blade pressure stop, but the pain was still there. He was bleeding.
Bleeding a lot, he thought. Jake pressed his hand against the cut. The blade had cut deeper and wider than he thought. He felt his bloodsoaked shirt sticking to his skin.
He heard a thud and felt the assassin’s body go limp behind him.
Sullivan said, “Get out of here. Go back to the Westin. Wait for me. Don’t call the police yet, I need to find Ian’s partners and neutralize them. When I do, I’ll come get you and we’ll go to the authorities together.”
Sullivan pushed him hard out onto the sidewalk, not giving Jake a chance to respond.
He took two steps. He looked into the street and saw the multitude of people.
He stood still, almost dazed, as the last few seconds replayed in his mind. It had seemed so quiet, as if they were totally alone.
He turned to speak, “Where—”
Sullivan and the assassin were gone.
He walked slowly south down Bull Street, holding pressure on his wound. He stayed on the sidewalk, paralleling the parade. The marchers disbanded at Madison Square, a square named for President James Madison. He walked into the square, still in a daze, replaying the past few moments over in his head.
He stopped in front of a monument of Sgt. William Jasper, Hero of the Siege of Savannah in 1779. Jake was in a daze. He looked around, wondering which road to take. Trying to get his bearings. He wandered east on Macon Street, his right hand still holding his side. The knife wound throbbed. He released some pressure. The bleeding felt like it had stopped or at least slowed to a trickle. He stumbled on a sidewalk stone that a tree root had pushed up out of place. He grabbed a pole to catch his fall. Honeysuckle draped across the coral colored wall, its blooms full of nectar … and bees. Its sweet smell filled his nostrils.
He reached another square, stopped and looked at the tall spires of a church across the square. People moved in and out of the tall cathedral doors. The steps were lined with parade viewers, starting to break up as the tail end of the parade finally moved past.
Jake could think of only one thing to do.
Police.
Find a police station.
They’ve got Beth.
Find a police station and find it fast.
Even though Sullivan had told him otherwise, Jake made that his resolve.
As he moved through Lafayette Square, he asked passers-by if they knew where a police station was. No luck. He saw an old homeless man sitting on the steps in front of the cathedral panhandling for money.
Jake walked over to him then stepped back. The man’s ragged clothes reeked. “Police station. Do you know where there is a police station?”
The old man looked up at him, squinting at the sun. “Yeah, sure. Two or three blocks that way.” He pointed north up Abercorn Street. “Right next to the cemetery.”
“Thanks,” Jake said.
The old man stuck out his hand and said, “Hey, buddy, can you spare a dollar?”
He reached into his front pocket, pulled out his money clip and, with his bloody hand, tossed the man a crisp new twenty-dollar bill.
He walked to the corner of Abercorn and Liberty. He looked west, toward Charlotte’s Corner, as he crossed Liberty Street.
That’s when he saw the man Sullivan had called Ian, the assassin from Dallas.
CHAPTER 41
The assassin wasn’t looking in his direction, he was looking down at the sidewalk while he rubbed the back of his head with his right hand. Jake saw him look at his hand as if checking for blood.
He briskly walked halfway across Liberty Street to the median and glanced back. The assassin was looking up, looking in his direction. Jake could tell that the man hadn’t recognized him yet. He was still half a block away from the intersection.