There’s our airport. Crop dusters and small planes only, if all you do is look in the hangars. Only pilots might notice the runway is long enough to accommodate much more substantial craft. But nobody ever sees those planes and jets. They’re in and out in the dark of night, loaded with all kinds of contraband, while the farmers and their families are fast asleep.
“No lights, not even on the runway,” I tell Art.
“Don’t need ’em.”
While I know his history, he has only a skeletal outline of mine. But he does know who Emma is. He mentioned that as soon as he had her bagged. Now he’s circling back to that subject as I expected he would. I’m guessing a warning is on the way. And, of course, I’m correct.
“You better know what you’re doing. Her mother knows a ton of people.”
A statement that doesn’t bear comment, as far as I’m concerned. “Just get us on that plane and in the air.”
“Turn at the fueling station. To the right.”
As soon as I come around the pumps I see a twin-engine Beechcraft, white on top, butterscotch on the bottom.
“Was that the best you could get?”
“You wanted anonymity.”
“It’ll take all night. Are we going to need to refuel?”
“Once. Don’t worry, this is the plane you want to be in these days. Jets and anything fancy get the wrong attention.”
I know he’s right but I still wish we had a Lear or Gulfstream.
Emma heard the van’s cargo door open, then felt herself being dragged toward it. The two of them carried her. Not for long. Ten steps — she counted — before lifting her onto another hard surface.
She heard one of them climbing up next to her, guessing it was the masked guy. He dragged her a few feet farther.
The bag was unzipped. Up till then she’d managed to contain her claustrophobia. But now with the bag open — so close to being able to see again — she could hardly stand the tape across her eyes and mouth, or the cuffs — the unyielding sense of confinement.
Just take it off my eyes. Please.
She knew her urgency amounted to nothing more than groans.
Then Em felt someone close to her. Him, definitely him. But his breath had soured.
“Easy,” he told her. “No need to panic.”
A door closed. The floor shook. She heard propellers start up. They weren’t taking off the tape or cuffs.
Oh, God. I can’t stand it. I really can’t.
Like a miracle, he was leaning over her again, slowly unpeeling the tape from her mouth.
Yes, thank you.
Now her eyes, but so slowly.
The plane was lifting off.
Mom’s never going to find me.
Emma didn’t realize she’d spoken till Golden Voice, tape balled up in her hand, held her gaze.
“She’ll find you, Em. I promise.”
Words that sounded like murder.
Chapter 29
Chimes from Lana’s computer awakened her at three in the morning to a message from Steel Fist: “I have your daughter. We should talk.”
She sprang out of the bed that should have been Emma’s for the night.
“Son-of-a-bitch!”
Lana had been so consumed with concerns about radical Islamists or bounty hunters that they’d nudged aside the threat from the neo-Nazi. And what’s this ‘We should talk’ crap? Like he was a businessman setting up a meeting with an investor. No, you should die.
She tried contacting Emma again, to no avail. Her daughter’s phone might as well have been on Pluto. Emma was gone, and Steel Fist had apparently used a woman to grab her.
But he wants more than Em. He wants you, too, she reminded herself. So he’s going to be in touch.
She had to believe that. She couldn’t accept that Emma would simply disappear. Steel Fist wanted propaganda. And now he had the means to leverage Emma’s well-being to get Lana. And he would, because Lana was not going to back down. She’d find her daughter.
Whatever it takes.
She set up to work, once more, on the bed in Anna Hendrix’s house, this time to try to find the trail that Horvat’s message had taken through the cybersphere.
Without the slightest hesitation, given the hour, she first messaged Galina. Maybe she’d be up as she had been last night. Not this time. Sleeping, no doubt, as she should.
What about your sleep? Lana asked herself. An old line came to her — with fresh meaning: I’ll sleep when I’m dead.
Emma awoke cold and short of breath. They must be flying awfully high. Can’t they do something about the cabin pressure in this thing? But she had an even more pressing need to pee. She yelled out that she had to go.
“You’re in that bag,” the woman shouted back. “Just pee in that.”
The body bag was zipped from her neck down. Emma didn’t argue. Her biggest fear was they’d tape her eyes and mouth shut again and zip up the bag.
That’s not your biggest fear. No, she was terrified that they’d kill her. She peed, unable to remember the last time she’d wet herself.
The back of the Beechcraft was black. No windows. The only light came from the instrument panel in front. Like the van. And to think Emma couldn’t have been more grateful when her “rescuer” had whipped out that gun.
What a sick joke.
But now Emma was going to have to depend on another tall, dark-haired woman: her mom, who had to be the real target. What good am I to them? The answer hammered her immediately: You’re the bait.
The realization was horrifying, as much for the slight comfort it provided — that they’d hold off killing her until they’d nabbed her mother — as the threat it represented to the one person who would do anything to save her.
Don checked on Sufyan, asleep in Emma’s bed. Not the first time, her father thought. The boy’s mother, Alimah, had a guest bedroom. He wished he could check on his daughter as easily, and that Lana hadn’t been forced to take off on crutches to try to find and protect her.
The feds had moved fast to get a construction crew to the house to fortify it on a temporary basis. A Bethesda Police Department officer sat in a cruiser outside, while an FBI agent had taken up station in the backyard.
At least we take care of our own.
Springsteen’s song came alive in Don’s mind. This early in the morning, he knew he’d be hearing the Boss’s catchy lyrics until he went back to bed to try to grab a few more winks, although that could be a challenge: those two law enforcement officers weren’t sufficient to make him feel safe. Not after the day he’d had. Front of the house ripped off. Two men shooting up Agent Maray. And then his own killing of the pair.
That was a first for Don. He’d held a gun on men twice while smuggling tons of pot up from Latin America, but he’d never shot anyone until yesterday morning.
He was surprised and grateful over how little he felt. No guilt. No regrets. There might have been if there had been another option. But those two had shot Maray a couple of times and were threatening a gruesome wound that would have killed him. Don had lined up his shots just in time.
We take care of our own.
Right now, he wished more than anything that he could have been with Lana so he could help take care of their child. Staying behind, no matter how necessary, made him feel useless.