Closer (8 page)

“I can’t,” Michael murmured into the phone as he hung his head into his hand. “Somebody else is in play. Some government official ran us off the road and kidnapped Emma at gunpoint. I don’t know what is going on. All I know is I can’t lose her,” Michael confessed.

“Where are you?” Rob asked.

“The Kennebunk Inn, in Kennebunkport, about an hour south of Lewiston off of I95,” Michael continued, “Why? What do you have in mind?”

“I think it’s time to do what we were trained to do. Get Lizzie and your girl back, man,” Rob implored.

“Now that’s the best idea you’ve had in a long time,” Michael concurred.

“I will call the guys and get them to haul ass to Lewiston. How fast can you make it back to my place?” Rob asked.

“Once I acquire a car, an hour tops,” Michael exhaled, “And Rob, I know some things went down between you and Tony, but we need him, man. Call him in too.”

Tony was the Unit’s Communications Sergeant, but before he entered the Army, Tony spent a lifetime as a hacker. They were going to need his particular brand of expertise if there were going to figure out where the CIA was holding Emma. She was, after all, the necessary ingredient to getting Lizzie back.

Michael walked out of the emergency exit and found the first car he tried unlocked.
People really shouldn’t be so trusting
. He opened the front door and lowered himself to the floor. Thirty seconds later, the car started. He got up, hopped in, and closed the door.

“Hang on, Emma. I’m coming,” he thought.

Michael parked on the street in front of a two-story colonial style house. Rob’s house had gray siding and maroon shutters. Michael walked down the curved walkway to Rob’s front door. He rang the doorbell and waited. Michael was the second to arrive at Rob’s house. Steve must have been close by because he was already there. Michael walked in and Rob walked straight up to him, locking his sad eyes with Michael’s, silently pleading for his forgiveness.

Rob’s face was flushed, and he was blinking back the tears at the thought of betraying his best friend, his brother. Michael wouldn’t have understood what Rob did before meeting Emma, but now he understood completely; one does anything for love. Michael took Rob’s hand and shook it and then bumped fists with his brother. Rob pulled him into a one-arm embrace, and the men patted each other on the back.

Seeing Steve hanging back, Michael walked over to him and extended his hand, but to his surprise, Steve pulled him into a hug. It had been six months since they’d left the Army, six months since he had last seen his brothers. Still he knew, without a doubt, they would all come.

About an hour later, Tony rolled in straight from the airport. He picked up his rental car and drove straight to Rob’s house. It was a good thing Rob liked his guns. His house was filled with weaponry in every corner and every cabinet. All of it would come in handy for this mission.

They were missing Kevin, but they couldn’t call him in on this. They all worked private security, except Kevin. Kevin was with Homeland Security. For what they had in mind, they needed to stay off the radar.

Michael and Rob briefed the men on what they needed to know. They told them how a terrorist cell had kidnapped Lizzie and forced Rob to find a way to deliver Emma and her knowledge of the biochemical weapon delivery system. They revealed Michael and Emma’s plan to kidnap the terrorist waiting on Emma at the drop point. They filled their brothers in on the events that led them to that exact moment.

“Tony? How are you with a Dell laptop?” Michael asked.

“All I need is an internet connection. The equipment doesn’t really matter,” Tony explained. Michael pulled Rob’s laptop out of his case and handed it to Tony.

“All I have is a license plate number. I need you to get me every possible piece of information you can from that. Can you do it?” Michael begged.

“Can I do it? Can I do it?” Tony bantered. “Give me the number,” he demanded, all joking aside, as he sat down and went online.

In under three minutes they had a name, Special Agent Daniel Ingrams with the CIA.

“Why would the CIA kidnap Emma? If they wanted the prototype she was working on, all they had to do was go through the proper channels to get it,” Michael wondered as he paced back and forth in front of Rob’s bay window.

“What do you want me to find next? Bank statements? Property listings?” Tony asked.

“Yes,” Michael replied.

Over the course of the next hour they had Ingram’s bank statements, his real estate holdings, and even his career achievements with the CIA.

“I hate to ask this of you Tony, but I don’t see how it can be avoided,” Michael grumbled.

“Just spit it out. You know I will do it,” Tony demanded.

“I know, that’s why I hate to even ask,” Michael warned. “I need you to hack into the CIA database and find out what Ingrams was working on? What he would possibly want with Emma?” Michael pleaded.

“The CIA, that’s going to be tough. For anyone that isn’t me,” Tony quipped.

Michael smiled. He knew he could count on his brothers. This breach took longer than the last several. It was two more hours until Tony had information for Michael and the Unit.

“It doesn’t look good brother,” Tony said as he stood so Michael could sit down and view what Tony had been looking at. Michael inhaled deeply as he realized the amount of shit they were in.

Michael explained to his brothers exactly what Tony had found. Special Agent Daniel Ingrams had lost a friend in Algeria to the GIA. He had worked the terrorist case for the last three years until about eight months ago when the CIA closed the case and handed the file to a junior agent to monitor chatter.

“So he is using Emma to get to the GIA?” Steve interjected.

“I don’t think so,” Michael responded. “Before he took her, he said he was going to kill her,” Michael said as dread crept up his throat.

“If Ingrams kills Emma, the GIA will kill Lizzie. We have to stop him,” Rob exclaimed visibly shaking as he raked his hand through his hair. Lizzie was his life. She was all he talked about while on missions; getting home to his Lizzie.

“Damn right we have to stop him,” Michael muttered more to himself than to his brothers. He couldn’t tell his brothers he had fallen in love with a woman over the course of two days. They would call him crazy. Still he knew he loved her. He knew it the moment Ingrams pointed a gun to her head. She created a paradox for him. Not only did she calm him, but erotic images she set off in his imagination were driving him nuts. She affected him the way no one else could.

“So how do we find him?” asked Tony.

“We follow the money. He has to have her stashed someplace. My guess is he is not a stupid man. He’s desperate, but not stupid. So he wouldn’t take her to some place he owns,” Steve answered calmly from the kitchen table, tapping his fingers against its glass top.

“Let’s go through his bank and credit card statements, maybe we will get lucky,” Steve interjected. God, Michael hoped so. They had gotten lucky in the past. Still it wouldn’t hurt to say a little prayer. So, for the first time since he left Afghanistan, he prayed.

“I found something,” Steve exclaimed.

“What is it?” Rob asked.

“Ingrams rented a cabin on his Visa card. He rented it for six nights and those six nights began yesterday,” Steve explained, waving the piece of printer paper in his hand.

They had been at it for a good two hours printing all of his statements for the last eight months. They had been searching for anything that might lead them in his direction. Now they had it.

“Where is it?” Michael insisted as he got up from his chair and came to stand behind Steve’s shoulder.

“Wells, Maine. We’re going to Wells,” Steve stated.

“We got damn lucky, that’s only an hour drive at the most,” Steve said.

“Grab the gear,” Michael commanded. While Tony had been searching the internet, the rest of the men had been packing, packing as much weaponry and ammunition as they could carry. Each man picked up a bag and made his way out the front door, down the front walk to the street. There were going to have to take two cars and find a cargo van later. Each man threw a gear bag in the trunk of the two cars.

“Guys, follow me down the street. I have to ditch this car,” Michael requested.

They hopped in the cars, started the engines, and followed Michael into town. Michael pulled into an abandoned alleyway and wiped his fingerprints from the car. He got out and shut the door, carefully wiping his fingerprints from the door handle. He jumped into the passenger side of Rob’s car. The caravan of men started rolling down highway I95 to Wells…to Emma.

“I’m coming, Emma. Hold on,” Michael thought.

A damp, musty smell assaulted her senses. She couldn’t see because of the single bare light bulb hanging in front of her, glaring into her eyes, while she imagined dark, damp corners. Emma tried to peer around the room. Next to the bulb was a metal, beaded string. Against the far wall sat an old green couch. The stairs were behind her. There were laundry hook-ups sticking out of the wall above the couch. The floor was concrete. She was in a cellar of a house, her hands tied to one of the exposed old, wooden beams that ran the length of the ceiling. When she looked up, she could see the wiring and cables stapled to and running atop the beams.
Did he live here?

“Don’t you touch me, you freak,” Emma screamed, as she dangled by her bound hands from the ceiling of the cottage’s basement.

“You are going to tell me everything I want to know about your boyfriend before I kill you,” Ingrams commanded as he ran his finger between her breasts.

Emma wiggled and tossed her body away from Ingram’s hand.

“Who is he, Ms. Welby?” Ingrams demanded.

“Go to hell,” Emma exclaimed as she spat in his direction.

He didn’t take kindly to the insult. Ingrams raised his right hand and backhanded her hard across her face. Her lip busted open and she sucked in the familiar metallic taste of blood.

“We can play this game all night. In fact, we can play this game for the next four nights. But I guarantee you, you will tell me what I want to know. The question is, Ms. Welby, how quickly do you want to die?” Ingrams jeered as he wiped the line of blood trickling from Emma’s lip down her chin. Ingrams moved his face closer to Emma’s and licked at the blood removing it from her chin.

“You’ve obviously suffered some kind of psychotic break, you sick man. You said you worked for the CIA. I don’t know anybody that works for the CIA that would treat a fellow colleague the way you’re treating me,” Emma snarled as she swung her legs away from Ingram’s body.

“Tell me about him. How long have you known him? Does he know about the work you do for the DOD? Does he know about Project Hummingbird?” Ingrams growled as he pulled back his right arm and punched Emma in the stomach.

She couldn’t lean forward to block the pain. Her hands were bound above her head and her body was dangling, her feet swinging above the floor.

“Come on sweetie. Make my work easy for me. Don’t put yourself through this unnecessary pain. Just tell me who he is and who he works for, and we can be done here,” he said as he pulled his arm back to ram his fist into her stomach a second time.

Emma felt the wind leave her body. Her eyes glistened with unshed tears. He would not break her. If she told him what he wanted to know, she was dead. She had to endure whatever he dished out, just until Michael could save her.

He raised his arm again to strike her but this time she lifted her leg and connected with his groin.

“You bitch,” he huffed as he hunched over in pain. There, that would buy her a reprieve, she thought, just enough to gain some of her strength back. She needed to be strong for Michael. Shit, she needed to be strong for herself.

After rolling on the floor in utter agony for several minutes, Ingrams got to his knees and pushed himself upright. “I am going to kill him with or without your help, Ms. Welby,” Ingrams seethed.

He went to the bag he brought with him and pulled out the duct tape. He walked behind her and wrestled her legs together as she kicked and bucked. He finally managed to hold them tightly and began rolling the tape around her ankles binding both legs.

“There, no more kicking,” he smiled as he stood up and placed the tape back in his bag.

He turned and walked back over to her. Her hands felt like they were separating from her wrists, but she couldn’t give up. How long would he take to kill her? Did he really plan on torturing her first? It was obvious something wasn’t right with this man.

“I must say, Ms. Welby, I didn’t expect you to be so strong. You have a PhD for God’s sake. But you’re delicate like a flower,” Ingrams told her as he ran his hand between her legs. He wriggled his hand in between her thighs and cupped her sex. She squirmed and bucked, but she couldn’t escape him.

“Get your hands off of me,” she yelled as tears fell down her cheeks. Salt mixed with the metal taste on her lips.

“Maybe I will have you before I kill you. You are a remarkably beautiful woman, Ms. Welby,” he insisted as he applied pressure to her clit with his nubby fingers.

“You like that, you sick animal? Why don’t you untie me so we can become properly acquainted,” she retorted as she tried to again free herself from his hand.
Where are you Michael?
“Oh Emma? Emma? Whatever shall I do with you?” he asked as he removed his hand from her sex. “I can’t let you help a terrorist organization. I have to kill you. What you know is too valuable. They won’t stop coming after you until you give them what they want. And what they want is the information on Project Hummingbird. You really can’t expect me, a CIA agent, to let you go now, can you?” Ingrams coaxed while he brushed Emma’s reddened face with the back of his hand.

He lowered his arm, pulled back his fist, and punched her square in the face. “That’s for kicking me in the balls, you bitch.”