Buffalo West Wing (32 page)

I stopped at the sound of a lock turning. Nourie leapt to his feet. He strode to the door, forgetting me entirely—which was fine. The pulsation against my leg had ceased. I wanted to grab my phone and send out texts begging for help, but I couldn’t do anything until Josh and I were alone.

By the time Nourie reached the kitchen, the back door had opened. I heard another man’s voice as he and Nourie greeted each other in a foreign language. I didn’t recognize it specifically, but I decided it must be Armustan. The new man’s voice was louder, deeper, but I couldn’t understand a word he was saying. I moved closer to Josh, who had begun to whimper. “What’s going on, Ollie?” he asked.

“I don’t know,” I said. “But we’re going to be okay.”

“You promise?”

I couldn’t promise, but I put my arm around him. “They can’t hurt you, Josh. They need you to negotiate with your dad.”

His eyes were clouded with worry. “What about you?”

I hugged him close. “They need me here to take care of you.”

“Did you really have to go to the bathroom?” he asked.

“No.”

“Good. I was worried about that.” He pulled out the crackers he’d taken for himself. “Want some?”

I shook my head.

A split second later, Nourie and his companion came into the living room. Although the ambient light wasn’t enough to make out crisp details, I could see that the new man was older than Nourie—close to fifty—and had a full head of hair. He was about six feet tall and had to weigh more than 250 pounds. “Has my friend explained what we need from you?” he asked in accented English.

“No,” I said. “Nourie ... or whatever his name is ... didn’t tell us anything.”

“You foolishly placed yourself in the wrong place at the wrong time,” the big man said to me, stepping closer. “Women are so much less valuable than men, and we had hoped to make our point with your male counterpart.”

Terror made me flippant. “Gee, thanks,” I said.

“Women are weak. You crack too easily,” he went on, as though terribly disappointed. To Nourie, he added, “We discovered a traitor among the brotherhood.”

“Who? What happened?”

The older man shrugged. “He is no longer a threat. But this operative was one of your Special Agents. We knew him only as Galen.”

Nourie didn’t react, but my mouth went instantly dry as the weight of his words settled on me. Gav? Could they be talking about Gav?

“I killed him myself,” the man said, as though it were nothing. Turning his attention back to me, he said, “We had planned to extend our broadcast. Because of you, we will now have to cut it short.”

I couldn’t find the words to speak. Fear paralyzed me. Fear for Gav, for Josh. For myself.

“Broadcast?” Josh asked. “You mean like TV?”

“How else to get your father’s attention?” he asked. “We will take you both to a location where, even now, our brothers are preparing for our arrival.” He took a long look around the small area. “You will stay here until it is time.”

Coming to stand right in front of me, he stared down. Shadows played along the lines of his face, sinking his cheeks and deepening his eyes. I felt as though I were looking straight up into the face of death.

“We do not want to subdue you because subjects are much more sympathetic when they are alert. But I warn you to cooperate, or we will administer drugs.”

“Where is this other place?”

He shook his head. “We know it was you who thwarted our original plan. If it weren’t for you,” he pointed to Josh, “the children would have been our hostages over a week ago. We would have achieved our objective. Our illuminated one, Farbod, continues to languish in prison. We must now settle for only one child, but at least we have the opportunity to exact our revenge upon you.” When he smiled, it shook me to my very core. “We will do so on American soil. On camera. This is what would be called poetic justice, yes? Fear not. Your name will go down in history for having died in service to your country.” He held his hands out and stared upward. “So many men would count themselves fortunate to die in such a way. A shame it will be wasted on a woman.”

Josh went completely still. There was nothing for me to say even if I were capable of talking.

“I am your enemy,” he said, even though I had no doubt about that fact at this point. “What is wrong with the men in your country? They force me to deal with that other female ... the congresswoman who controls Cenga Prison.” Spitting on the floor, he glared at me. “It is because of that woman I was late.” He chucked Josh under the chin and winked. “Be brave, little man.”

In English, Nourie asked his boss how much longer we needed to stay in the house. The boss, who Nourie called “Sami,” reverted to his native language. From their tone, I could gather very little beyond the fact that Sami was upset about something—the delay, perhaps?—and that they were both annoyed with having to deal with women. They remained close enough for me to see them point and cast derisive looks in my direction.

Josh began to cry. “I don’t want them to hurt you,” he said.

“I’ll be okay,” I said again, although I was beginning to doubt it. I needed access to my phone, but as long as the two men stayed so close, I couldn’t very well pull it out and start dialing. Who would I call? I swallowed, hard.

I couldn’t think about what they’d said about killing a special agent. I couldn’t let myself believe it was Gav. Not now. Not yet. I had to think about Josh.

Planning my next move, I decided if I could access my phone, I would try to text Tom.

The two men’s conversation grew heated, but they quieted when Nourie apparently acquiesced to whatever Sami told him to do. They gesticulated and Sami occasionally paced. Neither one paid us any attention.

Tempted as I was to skim my fingers down my leg to reassure myself that my phone hadn’t moved from its spot in my sock, I held off. Any movement I made could telegraph my intentions. I watched the two men argue and tried to understand—if not the words—the gist of their conversation.

Josh’s whimpers grew into sobs. Visibly angry, Sami stopped talking with Nourie and came to stand over the little boy. He shouted at him to stop crying. That just made it worse.

Josh tried to bury his face in my shoulder, but the sounds of his wretched fear were too much for the men. Sami pointed to the back bedrooms and asked Nourie a question I had to assume was a query about how likely it was we might escape. Nourie pointed to the bathroom as he answered. I wondered what that language’s word for glass block windows was.

We heard a knock at the kitchen door. Nourie grabbed at me. Whatever he said caused Sami to grunt approval.

I pinched Josh lightly and whispered to keep crying. He obliged. Sami roared for silence and Nourie shuttled us off to the bathroom. “Keep it down,” he said, and shut the door.

The moment he was gone, I silently directed Josh to sit with his back to the door. I pantomimed that he should keep crying. He understood, and upped the sobs. I pulled my phone out from my sock. Surprised, Josh gasped and stopped crying. I shook my head and encouraged him to continue. He started back up, right away.

Even when programmed to vibrate, my phone always made musical beeps when I pressed the keypad. I figured there must be some way to shut that off, but right now was not the time to go searching for those commands. I sat on the edge of the bathtub and opened my phone. I had two missed calls and two missed text messages. I didn’t have time to access my voicemail, not now. All I could do was text. I was about to try to reach Tom and Cyan when I saw that my missed messages were from Gav.

My heart leaped. He was alive.

His first message read:
All is well. Will call soon
.

His second message, time-stamped just moments ago, read:
Where are you?

I whispered a tiny prayer in thanksgiving. Gav was okay. But
we
weren’t. Quickly, I hit reply. Josh had gotten interested in what I was doing and had inadvertently quieted. I glanced up quickly to remind him to keep up the noise. He nodded and restarted the flow.

I typed:
Help. Nourie traitor. Far north and west. Remote small house, barn. Silver sedan. Leaving soon.

I held the little phone in my hot hand and waited for a reply. What if he didn’t get it? What if there was a dampening field in this bathroom? I stared down at the phone, willing it to buzz. I had two signal bars. Should be enough for texts.

I composed another.
J okay. Plans to broadcast demands soon. Brothers at secure location. Moving out. Can you GPS me?

Rocking back and forth on the bathtub’s edge, I knew I couldn’t wait for a reply. I texted Tom as well.
Nourie is kidnapper. Help. Use GPS?

Who else could I reach? Who else had the power to help us?

I dialed 9-1-1 and waited until the dispatcher answered. I couldn’t risk talking to her, but I whispered “help” just the same. I listened as she asked me, again and again, what the emergency was. I hung up and tried again, this time dialing *9-9-9. It seemed so pointless, so lonely—a little voice in the dark crying for help when I had no idea where we were.

My phone vibrated. Gav. The text was blank, but the message was clear. He’d received and understood. But he couldn’t reply.

Would he be able to find us here? I had no idea how GPS worked with regard to cell phones. One of my favorite TV shows featured a female FBI cyber-genius who could nail down a location for the bad guy the very moment his cell phone went live. Did analysts like her really exist? I glanced over to Josh, who had his ear to the door now. I hoped so.

I wanted to text Gav again, even though I knew he couldn’t let me know what they were planning for fear of my phone getting confiscated. I started to type:
I hope,
but suddenly Josh spun and waved his hands. They were coming. I hit “send,” and snapped the phone shut. I was just shoving it into my sock when the door opened, banging into Josh, and making him cry out for real.

“Get away from the door,” Nourie said. He caught me lowering my pant leg and crossed the bathroom in two strides. “What’s going on?”

He jerked my pant leg up and found the phone. Swearing loudly, he called out. A new man who looked vaguely familiar ran in. He swore, loudly.

“We have to get out of here,” Nourie said.

“But it isn’t time yet,” the new guy protested in English. “Sami said to wait an hour.” He glanced at his watch and pressed a button to make the display light up. “He only left a couple minutes ago.”

“Too bad,” Nourie said, grabbing my arm and dragging me to my feet. “Call Sami and let him know we’re on the way.”

“Sami said no phone contact,” the other guy said. “I’m not calling him.”

“But we’re going off script.”

“He doesn’t know that. We’ll drive slow.”

Nourie lifted the toilet lid with the edge of his shoe, dropped my cell phone in, and flushed. “They’ll be coming. But we’ll be long gone.”

“Where are we going?” I asked.

The new guy grinned, and I suddenly remembered where I’d seen him before. “Smile, sweetheart. It’s time for your network debut.”

CHAPTER 27

“A SHAME WE HAVE TO LEAVE. THIS WOULD have been a great location for the broadcast,” the new arrival said to Nourie. Devon Clarr—the man Congresswoman Sechrest had been concerned about, the man who had been released on a technicality and whose face had been plastered on the TV after the hospital siege—spoke in unaccented English. He increased the pitch of his voice to make it sound creepy. “Where nobody can hear you scream ...”

“That’s enough,” Nourie said, pulling me next to him. My shoulder bumped against the bathroom doorjamb and I cried out in pain, but Nourie didn’t slow.

My gut was tied up in knots as Josh and I were hustled back into the living room. “Get your coats,” Nourie ordered. To the new guy, he said, “I don’t want to leave any evidence behind. Sami wants this done to the letter.”

“No screwups, you mean?”

Nourie looked at me. “She screwed things up already.”

Clarr shook his head. “This one’s all on you, man.”

Nourie ignored that. “We’re still far out of reach—even for local authorities. Even if the FBI can pinpoint our location, it’s going to take time. We need to get out before anybody gets here.”

“You should have checked who she called,” Clarr said. “Before you flushed the thing.”

“What does it matter?” Nourie said. “That would have taken more time. Now quit talking. If we don’t get out of here ...”

He let the thought hang.

Every second I could keep us here would work in our favor. Leaning close to Josh, I said, “We need to stall. Try to get away. Don’t let them catch you.”

I took my time donning my coat. So did Josh. “Hurry up,” Clarr said. “Why did you bring her, anyway? I thought we planned for the guy.”

“Yeah well, things change. Just get them out,” Nourie said. “I’ll pull the van up.”