Got the Look (43 page)

Mia lay perfectly still, her ear pressed against the wall.

She'd tried the same tactic before, in the other little rooms in which he'd held her captive over the past what was it? Two weeks. Longer? In both of those other places, she'd been able to pick up noises from the outside world. Nothing discernible - just noises. Here, however, she heard only her own breathing. Maybe it was the extra insulation. Perhaps it was the isolation. Either way, the complete absence of external sound was uncanny.

Had he left her there to die? Would anyone ever happen by and find her? Would wild animals pick up her scent and feast on her remains, or would the millipedes have her to themselves?

She tugged hard at the chain that bound her ankles to the exposed wall stud. She'd been working at it for hours - left foot, right foot, left, right, using the long chain like a band saw to cut through the wooden stud. It was slow work, but she was making progress. She had to pace herself, however. It wouldn't do her any good to exhaust all her energy. She had to maintain a state of readiness. She harbored no illusions as to his intentions. The chances of being released were close to nil. She knew better than anyone that this kidnapping was about revenge, not ransom. Her only hope was to make her move when he came back - if he came back. Both her timing and her execution would have to be perfect.

She closed her eyes and waited, watching the plan unfold in her mind's eye. Then she started pulling on the chain again, left foot then right foot, slowly gnawing her way to freedom.

Chapter
67

The limestone chimney carried him straight up, and he broke the surface in a low-lying area. The spring-fed waters were too clear and cold to call it a swamp, but thin reeds, cypress trees, and wild brush provided ample concealment. No diver liked to enter or exit the spring system in the middle of a marsh, so this little opening to the watery underworld was perhaps his best-kept secret.

He removed his diving equipment and stashed it in the bushes. He had no plans to come back and get it. The million-dollar ransom from Mr. Thornton had certainly made it expendable - not to mention whatever additional cash Swyteck had put inside the capsule. The black wet suit was good camouflage by night, so he left it on, including the hood and booties. He kept the diving gloves on, too. It would cost him a little dexterity, but there would be no fingerprints.

He had to assume that law enforcement was scouring the area, probably equipped with night vision. Walking or running to the cottage was out of the question. On his belly, he slithered like a water snake through the flooded fields of waist-high sawgrass. It took only a few minutes for the river to come into sight. Flashes of moonlight undulated against the gently flowing waters. Like a patient alligator stalking its prey, he slid down the bank and entered the river in complete silence. As the current carried him downriver, he couldn't help but feel some frustration. He was giving up the very ground that he had worked so hard to gain in the tunnels below. But the FBI had forced him to reevaluate everything. No matter how well he knew these caves, swimming to his escape was no longer his best option. The sight of those dive lights in the Devil's Ear had made him feel cornered, and he had to adjust accordingly.

The surest way out was with a hostage - an expendable hostage.

Much of the wooded land along this stretch of the river was privately owned, and every so often a cottage appeared on the shoreline. He was more familiar with the passages below the river, but as the big bend approached, he recognized the boat launch up ahead. This was his exit. He drew a breath and swam the remaining fifty feet underwater. He surfaced beneath a wooden pier that jutted out into the river. Fastened to the pilings at the end of the pier was an aluminum fishing boat with a small outboard, much like the one he'd told Swyteck to take upriver. Beside it was a larger fiberglass flats boat with a Johnson 115 outboard. Neck deep in river water, he followed the pier to the shoreline and quickly climbed the banks.

The cottage was about a quarter mile inland, just a two-minute sprint even in dive boots. Still, he couldn't run up the gravel road without some risk of detection. He opted for a slower route through the forest, moving tree to tree, crawling from one cluster of hardwoods to the next. It took almost ten minutes, but when he finally reached the cottage, he felt confident that he'd gone under the FBI's radar.

Even if they'd spotted him, at least now a hostage was within his grasp.

The garage behind the cottage was padlocked. He found the key exactly where he'd hidden it, beneath a rock at the end of the driveway. He quickly unlocked the door, ducked inside, and closed up behind him. Inside the garage was the heavily insulated shed he'd constructed - a box within a box, so to speak. Teresa could have kicked and screamed at the top of her lungs. No one would have heard a thing, even with the small air vent. Perhaps it was too small. It had to be like an oven inside there. He wondered if his hostage - his ticket out of there - was already dead.

The key to the locked inner shed was hanging on a hook near the light switch. He fumbled for it in the dark, too cautious to turn on the garage light. He found it, then struggled again in darkness to find the keyhole. On the third try, success. He turned the key, listened for the click, then gently pushed open the door. A blast of hot, stale air pelted his face, even worse than expected. Again he wondered if the stifling conditions had proved too much for her. He closed the door and switched on the light.

Teresa was a motionless heap in the corner. He watched from across the shed, then clapped his hands. She didn't move. Not even her breathing was evident. Teresa, he said.

She didn't flinch.

As he crossed the room, a strange odor assaulted his nostrils. It was either the heat working on human waste, or possibly decay and decomposition. She was balled in the fetal position, eyes closed, her back against the wall. He nudged her shoulder blade with his foot. She still didn't move. He knelt down to take her pulse - and she suddenly sprang to life, coming at him with the blinding speed of a hungry lion.

It was a total blur, and before he could react, a shard of glass - the broken lightbulb - found its mark. His head snapped back. His scream nearly rattled the walls as blood oozed from his punctured eyeball. He stammered and rolled to the ground, and he could hear the chain of the handcuffs rattling as Teresa whisked past him. One door slammed, then another. The eye was ruined, he knew it. But he stood to lose far more - everything - if he didn't regain control.

He stumbled out of the shed, found a rag on the tool bench, and pressed it to his eye. It was immediately soaked with blood, but he was undeterred.

For Gerard, he reminded himself. This was for Gerard.

He grabbed the pistol from the toolbox and ran after her.

Chapter
68

Low-hanging branches slashed at her face in the darkness. Mia ran as fast as she could, but her toe still hadn't healed from the making of that first sadistic videotape, and it was slowing her down. Her hand was bleeding badly. The sharp piece of glass had done almost as much damage to her hand as to his eye. She screamed once for help, then thought better of it. She was somewhere in the wilderness, and the only person who could possibly hear her was him. Making any noise would only give away her position.

Running wasn't easy with her hands cuffed in front of her body and a four-foot chain joining her ankles. But she'd been abducted while jogging, and at least she was still wearing her running shoes. This was certainly no time to pamper an injured toe. She kept going, slicing through the brush until she came to a dirt road. It was decision time: Turn left or right? She had no idea. A set of footprints in the soft, spongy earth caught her attention. They were leading to the right - toward a low-hanging moon. Was it a moon rising in the east or setting in the west? No way to tell; she was clueless as to the time of day and equally uninformed as to her surroundings. If there were footprints headed in that direction, however, there had to be something down there. She started down the road at a fast-paced walk. With each stride, she grew more accustomed to the ankle chain, and soon she was nearly at an all-out sprint.

The narrow road was lined by tall, ghostly cypress trees that stood like sentries on either side. Much farther ahead, however, the road glistened in the moonlight. Then she heard the staticlike hiss in the air, and she realized it wasn't a road at all. The moon was bouncing off moving water. A river! Her legs were aching, her toe was throbbing, her whole body felt stiff from captivity. She pushed beyond the pain, then reached inside and found another gear that rocketed her toward the river. She was breathless when she reached the riverbank, her heart pounding. She glanced nervously over her shoulder. She didn't see him, but her own footprints were like a road map in the dirt. Even a man with one eye could follow that trail. She debated whether to swim for it, but that wasn't an option with her hands bound together. Just then she spotted the boats tied up at the pier just fifty yards downriver. Without a moment's hesitation, she became a blur on the riverbank, gobbling up that fifty yards with the determination of an Olympic champion.

She hopped onto the larger boat first, the fiberglass flats boat with the big outboard engine. Just orienting herself was a challenge, the struggle to catch her breath competing with her powers of concentration. The ignition had no key in it. She rifled through the side drawers, the captain's cubby, every little compartment that might hold the key, literally, to her escape. She found nothing but fishing tackle, a flashlight, and an orange-and-blue bottle opener that cried Go Gators when she grabbed it. She threw it aside in frustration, then froze.

He was coming down the road, almost to the riverbank.

She hopped from the flats boat into the smaller aluminum fishing boat. This one required no key. She untied the boat from the pier and pulled the engine's starter cord. It was an awkward movement with her hands bound, and the first pull nearly sent her tumbling overboard. She took another look back. He was fifty yards away. She changed her stance and pulled again. This time the engine grumbled, then purred happily, piercing the silence of the slow-moving river. The sound, the vibration, the churning of the water - they all added up to freedom for Mia, and it almost made her giddy. She pushed off from the pier, took a seat at the stern, and cranked the throttle. The front of the boat rose slightly, but not much. The boat was barely moving. She turned the throttle harder. The engine struggled, but the boat was at a crawl.

The anchor! It had never occurred to her that someone would anchor a boat that was tied to a pier - maybe it was to deter teens on joyrides - but she was definitely dragging the anchor.

She threw it into reverse, and the boat lunged back toward the pier. She hurried to the bow and grabbed the anchor line. Again she glanced toward the riverbank. He was just twenty-five yards away. She pulled furiously on the line, reeling it in as fast as possible. Finally, the anchor broke the surface and landed in the boat with a dull thud - which was followed by the deafening crack of gunfire and the cold pop of a bullet piercing the starboard side at the waterline. He was firing his pistol from the shoreline, and the boat was about as much protection as aluminum foil. Mia dived toward the engine, grabbed the throttle, and cranked it to the max. She heard another shot, but it missed the boat and hit the water like a stone that couldn't skip. The damage to his eye had apparently thrown off his aim. She twisted the throttle until her wrist hurt, until it wouldn't move any farther. The little boat was a speedster now, racing up the river with all the power its engine, and Mia's prayers, could deliver. She was keeping low, her head just high enough to see out over the bow. She braced herself for the sound of more gunfire, but it was the lionlike roar that jerked her head back for one final look at the pier.

The flats boat was rumbling. He was coming to get her.

Chapter
69

For the third time, Agent Henning tried to ring Jack on his cell phone.

Before he'd set out to deliver the ransom, she'd practically begged him to tie into the FBI's radio network. He'd flatly refused to wear anything that might signal - literally - to the kidnapper that he'd called in the FBI: no radio, no GPS tracking chip on his person, no detectable gadgets, period. Wearing a flak jacket and dropping a tracking chip in with the ransom had been part of Jack's plan all along, and that was as far as Jack was willing to go. A little more cooperation would have made Andie's life easier, but she couldn't blame him for maintaining some modicum of distance between himself and law enforcement. Not after the way the Thornton case had turned out.

Come on, Swyteck. Answer already. Andie was pacing furiously across the living room. Her telephone was pressed to her right ear; a radio headset, which linked her to the field agents, was feeding into her left. Andie was still assimilating the latest update from team one, positioned north of July Spring, when Jack finally answered his telephone.

Are you okay? she said. I called three times and you didn't answer.

Didn't hear it. Motor's too noisy, I guess.

She could hear the engine whining in the background. My field agents tell me that two boats are racing upriver, north of July Spring.

It's not me. I'm puttering along at less than five knots. Don't know exactly where, but it's way upriver from July Spring, I'm sure of that.

I know it's not you. What I'm trying to tell you is that they're coming up behind you. Fast. Ditch the boat on the riverbank and take cover in the woods.