Out of Control (47 page)
Now they sat at a table under the tent that was their makeshift house of God because the wooden church building was undergoing repairs.
Everyone was there. Tunggul and his two highest council officials, Molly, Ken, Savannah, and Father Bob. Billy Bolten lurked nearby, casting dark looks in her direction, which was probably just as good.
Not that the dark looks were so good, but as long as Billy was in sight, Molly knew he wasn’t running off to Jones’s camp to challenge him to a duel. That was just what she needed.
As the Americans ate what had to have been their first real meal in days, Ken told them he and Savannah had been brought to Parwati Island at gunpoint by a man who could only be Misha Zdanowicz. Zdanowicz intended to kill them but they managed to get the upper hand when the helicopter—filled with Tunggul’s order of dynamite—exploded.
That had definitely been Zdanowicz’s chopper she and Jones had seen burning by the river. All but a single crate of dynamite—which Ken handed over to Tunggul—had been destroyed, and everyone but Ken and Savannah had been killed.
But now Otto Zdanowicz—Misha’s brother—was after them, angry and grieving and intent upon revenge.
Molly turned to Tunggul. “Why?” she said. “Why on earth would you contract to buy dynamite with the Zdanowiczs?”
Doing business with the gun runners gave them a virtual invitation to enter the village’s airspace, so to speak. It had taken years to establish the village as a no-fly, no-enter zone for all the drug lords, gun runners, pirates, and political revolutionaries in this area.
And, dear God, there were a lot of them in this part of Indonesia.
It was especially important to keep Zdanowicz out because he was in the middle of a war with General Badaruddin, the most local revolutionary, who laid a claim to most of the mountains to the north on Parwati. If Badaruddin thought Otto Zdanowicz was taking over the village, he’d be here in a flash, and they’d find themselves smack in the middle of a territorial dispute. And wouldn’t that be fun.
Tunggul was calm, as always. And he had a logical response, also as always. “The alternative was to buy the dynamite in the port and bring it to the village on the mule train. During which time the Zdanowiczs’ men would have robbed us. This way, we pay the Zdanowiczs a little more, perhaps, but we knew the dynamite would be safely delivered.”
Shaking her head, Molly translated for the benefit of Ken and Savannah.
“Ask him what the dynamite’s for.” Ken asked.
He reminded Molly more than a little bit of Jones. He was younger by a few years, but there was something in his eyes—a quiet dangerousness, or maybe a self-assuredness—that was similar.
“Are you special forces?” she asked him.
He glanced at Tunggul who spoke enough English to recognize those two words. Then he laughed. “I was in the Army a few years, but . . . No. Sorry to disappoint you.”
Lying. But okay. If she were special forces, she wouldn’t want anyone to know either.
Savannah, with her wispy blond curls and her sweet face, was suddenly focused completely on the food on her plate. Was she special forces, too? It didn’t seem possible, and yet . . . Why not? Charlie’s Angels had a similar look—big eyes, fragile faces, completely adorable—and they kicked major butt.
“The dynamite’s to clear the road from the village to Port Parwati, on the coast,” she told the two of them, whoever they were. “There were a series of earthquakes about seven years ago, and the roadway was completely destroyed. What’s left—dozens of miles—is blocked with rockslides. The only way into and out of this village is a trail that takes four or five days by mule. This causes a problem when someone gets sick and needs to get to a hospital, as I’m sure you can imagine. But the amount of dynamite we’d need to clear that road . . . I can’t even imagine how much it would take.” She looked at Tunggul. “We’re working to get a grant. So that the blasting will be done professionally. So that the men in the village don’t blow off their hands by accident.”
His English wasn’t great, but she knew he understood what she was saying. They’d had this conversation often enough.
“There’s no radio here in the village?” Ken asked.
“Every time we get one, it gets stolen. So, no. I’m sorry.”
“How about the people who steal ’em?” he asked. “Where can we find them?”
Molly laughed. “You don’t want to,” she said. “Trust me.”
“What I want, ma’am, is to get to a radio as soon as possible.”
Father Bob cleared his throat. “Doesn’t, ah, Jones have a radio?”
Molly refused to let herself blush. “Not in his plane,” she said briskly.
“A plane,” Ken said, his eyes actually lighting up. “A plane would be even better than a radio. Can you take me to this guy? Jones, right?” He looked at Bob. “Who is he?”
“A local. Ex-pat. Yes, his name’s Jones. But his plane’s out of commission again,” Molly said, suddenly afraid she’d told them too much. “He’s waiting for a part to arrive.”
“Can you take me to him anyway?”
What if both Savannah and Ken—neither of whom had volunteered their last names—were both special forces, and had been sent here to find and arrest—or kill—Grady Morant? A chill went down Molly’s spine as all at once she truly understood the dark world in which Jones lived.
“I’ll talk to him,” she said.
“Thank you,” Ken said. He turned to Tunggul. “Now, about that dynamite . . .”
Jakarta was as hot as Alyssa had imagined.
The FBI had been given an entire floor of an office building that had seen better days. It was a large area, but it was wide open—no walls, just a series of poles holding up the ceiling, stretching on and on and on.
Laronda sat at an old metal desk that had been placed near the door, with a fan blowing on her, full force, looking none too pleased.
“Don’t you go putting your handbag on the floor,” she said to Alyssa in lieu of a greeting. “Not even for a second. There are bugs here, girl, that you don’t want to be taking home.” She pointed down at the end of the big room, where Alyssa could see Max. And Sam. Shit. Sam was already here. She hadn’t expected that. “They’re in the conference room. So to speak. Waiting for you. Max has asked for you only twenty thousand times in the past four hours. Like I had you hidden underneath this desk or something. The man needs to grow some patience.”
“Thanks, Laronda.” Alyssa took a deep breath and headed toward the far end of the room. The sound of her footsteps echoed in the cavernous space, and they all looked up at her. Max. Sam. The mighty trinity of SEAL Team Sixteen was there, too—Lt. Cmdr. Tom Paoletti, his executive officer, Lieutenant Jazz Jacquette, and Senior Chief Stan Wolchonok. There were about eight other men around the table, as well. A few more SEALs but mostly other FBI agents, many of whom she recognized.
They all stood up.
“Great,” Max called. “You’re here. Is Mrs. von Hopf safely ensconced in the hotel?”
“George and Jules are taking care of that,” Alyssa raised her voice enough for it to carry to the end of the room. “Gentlemen, please sit back down.”
They all sat but Max, who stood as he waited for her.
She could feel Sam watching, but she didn’t so much as glance at him. She focused on Max, who really was very gleamingly handsome. Far more traditionally good-looking than rough-edged Sam Starrett. Max knew how to wear a suit, knew how to cut his hair, knew his manners.
And he sincerely liked Alyssa. Sam had hated her right up to the moment he claimed to have fallen in love with her, the bastard.
God, she still wanted him with an ache that made her stomach hurt.
“Rose was anxious for news, so I came straight over,” she said. And then she did it. She gave her boss a little something extra in her smile. A little more eye contact. A silent “hey, it’s very good to see you, babe.” She knew Sam would fill in the rest—the part that went, “Can’t wait until we get naked later.”
And Max, bless his soul and God help her, knew exactly what she was doing and sent a similar message right back at her.
Law enforcement genius that he was, he glanced slightly, just slightly furtively at Lieutenant Commander Paoletti as if Tom Paoletti—the highest ranking officer in the room—was the one person he didn’t necessarily want knowing that he was getting busy with one of his subordinates. So that Sam wouldn’t know this show was for his benefit, that he was being conned.
It was beautiful.
Sam shifted in his chair and cleared his throat.
Now he—and everyone in this room—suspected Max Bhagat was getting it on with Alyssa. In fact, it probably would have been considered a sure thing bet.
It was funny. Just a few years ago she would have died rather than let people think such a thing about her. Her reputation had been all that mattered. Now she found it very hard to care.
Max quickly introduced her to the people in the room she didn’t know, and she shook their hands.
The only empty seats were next to Sam and across from Sam. So she sat across from him, careful not to put her handbag on the floor. God knows she had enough problems.
“Have you got something for me?” she asked Max, heavy on the attitude and big with the eyes.
Max’s lips twitched and she saw him clench his teeth to keep from smiling as he sat down at the head of the table. “Uh, yeah. Actually . . .”
Yes, okay. Her comment was a tad unsubtle. But as long as she was doing this, she was going to leave no doubt whatsoever in Sam Starrett’s caveman brain that he’d been happily replaced.
“We’ve had a ransom note,” Max told her.
“With proof that Alex is still alive?” Oh, please, God . . .
“There’s a photo of him, yeah. Taken with yesterday’s paper—headline clearly visible.” Max gestured for Sam to pass the polaroid photo over to her.
He slid it across the table, and she took it with a nod of thanks, avoiding eye contact, trying to ignore the pack of peanut M&M’s that sat in front of him on the table. The man was addicted to chocolate. She knew that firsthand.
Once, when she had been very drunk, she and Sam had gone wild with a bottle of chocolate syrup. To this day, she couldn’t so much as smell chocolate without remembering.
And breaking into a sweat.
She focused on the picture.
Alex von Hopf was in his late fifties and slightly overweight. He had a thick head of gray hair, a goatee, and a slightly round, friendly-looking face. He was lying in bed, his eyes half-open, clearly ill or drugged.
“Who’s got him?” Alyssa asked. She looked down the table at Max. “Do we have any leads besides the note?”
“We’re working on that,” Max said. “We’ve got about five local groups who top our list of usual suspects.”
“Any thefts of insulin reported lately?” She tapped the picture of Alex. “He doesn’t look too good.”
“Local authorities are searching reports of pharmacy break-ins by hand.” Max was disgusted. “They’re not computerized, and they won’t let us near their files.”
“Any mention of Savannah or Ken Karmody?” she asked, trying to predict the questions Rose would be asking her upon her return to the hotel.
“Not in the ransom note, no.”
“We’ve made an attempt to pick up the signal from WildCard Karmody’s miniaturized tracking device—MTD,” Sam told her, and although she was forced to look at him, she met his gaze only briefly. “So far nothing. Either the MTD’s not working, or WildCard and the granddaughter are way outside of the area we’re searching.”
“We’ve got a local warrant out for Otto Zdanowicz,” Max added. “We’re pretty sure he knows where his brother’s chopper went down. As soon as we connect with him, we’ll send a team to investigate the crash site.”
Alyssa held up the picture of Alex. “Rose is going to want to see this. And the ransom note as well.”
“When we’re done here, I’ll head back to the hotel with you,” Max said with another of those smiles that by all rights should have made her insides flutter.
Instead, her stomach hurt as Sam Starrett cleared his throat again.
“So what are you really doing in Indonesia?” the American missionary named Molly asked as Savannah tried her best not to freak out.
Kenny was merely on the other side of the village, giving the man named Tunggul a crash course in using the dynamite they’d saved. As Billy the missionary translated, he was teaching the villagers the best way to clear as much of their road as possible with the limited amount of dynamite they had.
If there was any kind of trouble, he would be beside her in a flash. Savannah knew that. She knew him. And she knew herself now, too. Whatever happened, they would make it through.
But from here on in, she was going to make it through clean.
Molly had brought her to an outdoor showering area, where a bag of sun-warmed water hung over her head. It was heavenly to be able to wash her hair, but she would’ve enjoyed it far more if Ken had been in earshot.
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