Gone Black (16 page)

Yes sir, the Soquets appeared to be pretty damn smart, especially Max, and it also appeared that his word was tantamount to law, at least for now. Lucky for Claire. Otherwise, Jaxy would have tied her up and beaten her to bloody raw hamburger by now. Probably the way she had done to Black. Oh, God, he was still suffering somewhere. Right now. Alone. But at least that bitch wasn't there to abuse him. Jaxy was such a damn coward. Her victims had to be tied up and unable to fight back or a tiny seven-year-old, before she could get her jollies. Then and there, Claire vowed again that she would wreak her own vengeance on Ms. Jaxy, tit for tat and blow for blow. She would just have to bide her time. First things first. But then Jaxy would have to pay. Jaxy was gonna end up dead, if Claire had anything to do with it.

For a long time, the jet's engines rumbled and droned on, loud and steady. Claire dozed a little, now and again, but she kept Rico secure and on her lap. He had turned and faced her, clutching her tightly with both arms wrapped around her neck again, but he had finally gone to sleep. Nobody bothered either of them, and Claire finally slept, but fitfully, her dreams full of visions of Black and the devil with the sap and blood and gore and nowhere to hide. She opened her eyes again when the plane's wheels hit the ground and skidded, and the squeal of straining brakes shook the plane. She found the boy was still in her arms, but awake now, too. The bitch was sitting across from them again. She had the dog collar and leash lying on her lap, and she was slapping the sap against her palm. Scare tactics. It was working. The child was trembling so much that his teeth were chattering.

Claire kept her voice down low so Max wouldn't hear. “You ever thought of untying your victims and picking on somebody your own size, Jaxy? How about putting down that sap and showing me what you've really got? Just the two of us, one-on-one?”

Jabbing at the girl was what was going to get Claire that sap. Jaxy was easily angered, and uncontrolled anger made people careless. Claire could pick at that weakness because Max wanted Claire undamaged. Jaxy knew that and so did Claire. The girl stood up and glowered down at Claire. Her hand was gripping the sap so hard that her knuckles looked white. Anger management was not Miss Jaxy's thing. She would do something dumb soon, and Claire would continue to goad her until she did, bet on it.

“I ought to beat the shit outta you,” said the girl, being her usual sweet self. “Just make you bleed all over the place. Bruise you up real good.”

“Like I said before, just try it. I'd like to see you do it.”

Max's voice came from behind them, stern and annoyed. “For God's sake, Jaxy, the woman is goading you. Use your head for a change. And put that thing away.”

Jaxy seethed, almost until Claire thought that steam might seep out her ears, but she must think her big bro was the cat's meow, because she slumped back down into the seat and deposited the sap in its little pink leather sap holster on her belt. How sick was that? Pink, for God's sake. In close reach, though, and ready to go, as soon as big brother turned his back and left her to her own devices. That's what Claire wanted. She could beat the woman in any fair fight. If they were alone. That's what she was waiting for. After that exchange, there was complete silence aboard the plane. Claire concentrated on the boy because he was still trembling as the plane rolled to the end of the runway. He was back home, and home was a scary place.

After the aircraft came to a complete halt, Claire stood up with Rico still holding tightly to her neck and his legs wrapped around her waist. Jaxy was prodding her in the back with her Ruger, hard, jabbing it into her spine, and Claire hoped to hell she knew how to handle deadly weapons. If the handgun went off, she and Rico both were dead. Apparently, Max noticed that, too.

“Back off, Jaxy, or I'm taking you off this detail. Don't try me further. I'm not in the mood. You are acting like a damn fool.”

Glad he was not in said mood, Claire sent a smirk in Jaxy's direction. The other girl bristled and narrowed her eyes, trying to scare Claire, no doubt. Keep simmering, you stupid jerk, Claire thought. Keep it up, and you'll make a mistake that I can take advantage of. Max was way too calm and way too collected; Claire would never be able to get a rise out of him. And if she did, she probably wouldn't like the outcome one little bit. He was highly dangerous, no doubt about it. She would have to tread lightly with him or suffer the consequences. Cold as ice didn't even touch what he was.

Outside, the air was hot, stifling, a summer night filled with the songs of insects hiding in the dark. Probably afraid of the Soquets, too. So this was Marseilles. The airstrip was lit up behind them, two strings of lights stretching to the far end of the dusty field. There were no buildings, no house, nothing at all, except for big high masses of hills or mountains rising up around them. Probably the foothills of the Apennines. One vehicle sat waiting on the tarmac. An old WWII–vintage Jeep, one with its top off, an ancient American military vehicle, painted with green and black camouflage. Things were not looking good.

“Go on, get in,” Max told her. “Give the kid to Jaxy.”

Like hell I will
, Claire thought. That's when she darted away so quick that it caught them all by surprise. She took off running with the kid, heading toward the dark underbrush about twenty yards away from the car. Max yelled something behind her, and she heard the thud of running footsteps coming fast behind her. She stopped when she had almost reached the dark tree line, dropped the child onto his feet, and yelled, “Run, Rico, run and hide! Run fast!”

The little boy took off, running like the wind, and was quickly swallowed up by the shadows in nothing flat. Claire smiled to herself, but then she was grabbed from behind and thrown to the ground on her stomach. She grunted as a knee came down on her back and her arms were forced up behind her back. Great big, size-thirteen brown suede boots stopped right in front of her face, where her cheek was being pressed into the dirt.

“You just don't listen, do you?” Max said. Still calm, though. He did not have a hair trigger, that much was sure.

This time Claire did listen and said nothing. No need to get beaten up right off the bat. It was gonna happen, sooner or later, but that didn't mean she had to instigate it right now. He knew why she ran, that it was to get the kid away from his horrible sister. He wasn't stupid. He didn't care about the child, but he didn't feel the need to be cruel to him, either. Jaxy hurt others for her own warped pleasure, and he knew that, too.

“Wait here for me! I'm going after that little brat!” cried Jaxy, taking off at a run across the field.

Max saw fit to put the brakes on that idea quickly enough. “Get back here right now, Jaxy. Let the kid go. We don't have time to catch him now. We'll get him later. Father's been waiting for us to bring the woman to him. He won't like another delay.”

Jaxy stopped in her tracks a few yards away and started whining, but she obeyed and headed back without further argument.

“Get up,” Max then said to Claire, grabbing her by the back of her T-shirt and jerking her up to her feet. He pulled her up with such force that her feet actually left the ground. He was strong all right. No wonder Jaxy didn't want to irk him. He got hold of Claire's cheeks with his thumb and forefinger hard enough to leave some serious bruises and forced her face up so that she had to look him directly in the eyes. “You try anything like that again and I'll lock you in a metal trunk in the sun for so long that you'll wish you were dead.”

Claire said nothing, but she knew he would do it. That was one of his favorite torture techniques. According to Black's file, he had done that very thing and, plenty of times, cooked people to death inside that hot box. Claire dying in that kind of agony wouldn't help Black escape. She nodded, tried to look docile and sorry and hangdog, but all she could think was that she wanted this guy dead, too. She wanted them all dead. Painfully dead, one after another.

“Where's Black?” she said then. “I was told I'd get proof of life once I got here.”

“You'll get what I say you get,” he said, still calm as a halcyon sea on a clear summer day. “Now shut your mouth and get in that jeep.”

So Claire shut her mouth and got in that jeep. Jaxy sat in front with Goon One a.k.a Ronald. Max sat in back with her. Goon Two, Barto, stayed with the plane with strict orders to find the kid. She sat back and memorized the directions they took. She might have to find her way back to the airstrip and commandeer their airplane. Black could fly them out if he wasn't hurt too bad. It was pitch black now, no lights whatsoever, not even the muted pink glare of the lights of Marseilles reflecting off the clouds. They drove down a dirt road that wound through the dark trees and it gradually rose up in elevation until she could hear the sound of the sea. Waves. Crashing and boiling against rocks. That's what it sounded like. Like it sounded when they were in Tahiti. They were on the coast somewhere now, probably due west of Marseilles, just like Black's GPS signal had indicated. The headlights illuminated the road with two long smoky beams ahead of them, but it was a large and deserted area through which they drove.

Claire looked out into the blackness at the side of the road and hoped that poor little Rico was not too frightened of the dark. He was safer there, even alone, than in Jaxy's clutches. She wondered how a woman could be so inhumanely cruel to a little tiny waif of a child, but she had seen many people do many horrific things in her life and on her job as a homicide detective. Claire was intrinsically jaded now to the worst kinds of evil, cruelty, and depravity. And these people appeared to be perpetrators of all of those things, and probably worse.

But now she had grown quite calm. She was in the same place as Black. Booker and the others were well on their way to save them. They were apparently skilled at this sort of hostage extraction, had done it many times, she figured, so all she needed to do was survive until they saved the day. She should be able to do that. She had to.

The jeep rumbled on, jouncing and bouncing, and then suddenly there appeared to be a big hole in the ground ahead of them, and then the car canted down and entered a wide tunnel. It was constructed of stone, and she wondered if Soquet worked out of an underground lair where he planned and committed his atrocities and murders for hire. Within minutes, they had come up and outside again, and Claire realized they were now inside some kind of courtyard. It was big and there were walls rising up on all four sides. It looked a lot like the satellite image of the chateau but somehow different, too. Maybe they'd come in from a hidden entrance of some kind because they hadn't passed through the front gate. She tried to remember everything they passed because when she got away she needed to be able to get her bearings.

One room, high up in the building, had lights on and that was probably where they were holding Black. She stared up at it, her heart in her throat, and wondered what they were doing to him in that room right now as the jeep drew up to a stop in front of a flight of steep steps. Jaxy got out and ran up the steps as if on a mission. Probably to tattletale to Papa on Max for being so mean and not letting her kill Claire. Then Claire was jerked out and walked between two guards, trailing Max and Zeus, the devil dog, up the steps and to an unknown fate.