Razing Beijing: A Thriller (90 page)

A WAVE OF RELIEF
swept over Emily as Devinn turned away with the pocketknife he had been turning
over in his hand—she reeled at the thought of having her flesh sliced open. As
Devinn began searching the floor for something, a stray thought beckoned from
the back of her mind...what
was
it that Stuart had told her? She found
that relaxing her weight against her arms tied behind the seat back eased her
discomfort, but then her triceps ached to distraction. There was nothing to be
done for the throbbing pain in her lips, or for having hardly slept in nearly a
week.
What was it
...something about Joanne Lewis, that they couldn’t
prove Devinn was behind her assault because...because Joanne couldn’t identify
her kidnapper. But if Lewis couldn’t identify who had kidnapped her, then
Devinn must have...
oh no.

Devinn stood up from the floor. In one hand he held the
knife, and the other a power cord with the two wire ends stripped of their
plastic insulation. Emily’s eye followed the snaking cord to where it plugged
into a floor socket beneath the computers.

“He’s going to kill us, Thack,” she said flatly. “The
reason Joanne Lewis survived is because she never saw his face.”

Devinn glanced from one to the other.

“Whatever he does to me, promise you won’t tell him
anything. He’s only going to kill us.” Her voice choked off in a sob.

“In the event you
don’t
talk, I couldn’t agree
more,” Devinn said. “I warned you about trying my patience.”

Devinn draped the cord over Emily’s thighs, his slow
caution not to touch her with the exposed copper wire thrown in for dramatic effect.
He then used both of his hands to rip open the front of her blouse—Emily
shrieked.

Thackeray’s eyes bulged. “I’m warning you, you
sick
FUCK!
”

Using the knife, Devinn proceeded to slit the center of
Emily’s bra, which fell away, exposing her breasts. He slid her clothing behind
smooth, bare shoulders. Emily was humiliated and terrified, breathing in heavy,
wracking sobs.

DEVINN DREW BACK
to
admire what he had long only imagined...he was fully aroused. He was further
rewarded with a rush of anticipation as he reached for the electrical cord in Emily’s
lap. He held the wires out threateningly for both of his captives to
contemplate. The scene flashed him back to the bloody, untidy yield of his Ahmadi
Rivergate work. This time, he would leave no stone unturned.

“We don’t have to do this,” Devinn said. “All I need to
know is the nature of your project, what it is that would drive you to burn the
midnight oil. What could be simpler? You can start by explaining the timer
ticking down on the computer screen over there.”

Devinn moved the wires closer to Emily’s breast.

“Okay!” Thackeray shouted. “I’ll tell you—just don’t hurt
her.”

“Thack, if you do that, more people will die.”

“Really?” asked Devinn. “And why is that?”

“She’s right.” Thackeray stopped struggling against his
restraints. “If we don’t get this code written, they’re going to start killing
people.”

“That’s the purpose of the timer?”

“That’s right.”

“And who’s threatening to kill whom?”

EMILY’S EYES FOCUSED
on the wires in Devinn’s left hand.
Thack’s trying to stall him
, she
thought.

“We don’t exactly know,” Thackeray replied.

Devinn narrowed his eyes.

“I’m telling you the truth, asshole. Stuart’s being
blackmailed—somebody tried to steal it, but they didn’t get all of it before
this shutdown. That’s why we’re here using my terminals.”

“What is ‘it’?”

“It’s a directed-energy...you really don’t know?”

“Tell me what it’s capable of.”

“I guess they want something to counter our missile
defense.”

“ ‘They?’ ”

“Are you deaf, fuckhead? I said we don’t know. But, I suppose
I might have some idea.”

“Give it the old college try.”

“It’s the
French
. The French defense ministry. They
want us to finish programming it. There. Now, leave her alone.”

“That sounds unlikely. Whose lives are being threatened?”

Thackeray hesitated. Emily sensed his wavering grapple at
half-truths, but she feared her attempt to fortify his ruse might only
backfire.

“You said all you wanted was the nature of the project.”

“Whose lives!”

“Stuart’s daughter,” Thackeray said. “They threatened to harm
Stuart’s daughter.”

Devinn seemed to consider that while he lowered his hands. He
looked from Thackeray to Emily. “I see...Stuart’s daughter.”

“They kidnapped her, took her away.”

To Emily’s horror, Devinn advanced toward her with the
glistening wires protruding from his hands and said, “Nice try, but I don’t
think so.”

Thackeray launched himself at Devinn. For all his bull
strength, lack of sleep and the chair he was bound to worked against him. Devinn
seemed to have expected it, planting his foot against Thackeray’s chest and
shoving him backward. Thackeray crashed on the floor in a writhing gnarl of
anger.

Emily cried out, her head turned away from the hands pressing
forward to their selected targets, the dark areola of her nipple, and the
delicate skin in front of her armpit...

Emily felt the hot bolt of pain fan out through her
musculature—her back arched into a spasm. Without control of her diaphragm she
was unable to scream. The air escaped her lungs in a long, ragged sigh. Searing
light retreated from her mind, drawing in darkness.

The fluctuating glow from the computer screens became
steady as Devinn retracted the wires. Emily’s head hung loosely. Her body sagged
against her arms.

Thackeray stared from the floor. “Emily!”

“She’s taking a little nap, is all.” Devinn bent the leads
safely apart and draped the wire over a desktop. “Lie to me again, I’ll light
her up like Macy’s Christmas tree.”

Thackeray clambered to his feet in a rage. Struggling
and cursing, he kicked aside the chair separating the men. Devinn pulled the
pistol from his waistband and pressed it hard beneath Thackeray’s bloody
nostrils.

AT ONE HUNDRED MILES PER
HOUR,
their pre-dawn cruise down Interstate 95 to the leafy Richmond
suburb took Hildebrandt’s motorcade forty-eight minutes. All three drivers
extinguished their headlights before parking several blocks from the residence.
They found the two Richmond agents, who had responded to Gail Carter’s alert,
crouching in a stand of birch trees twenty yards behind the house.

“Hostage situation in progress,” one of the agents again
asserted, his raised eyebrows suggesting a possible task for Hostage Rescue.

“Armed suspect?” Hildebrandt asked.

“We haven’t confirmed that but it stands to reason. He’s holding
two bound individuals.” Both of whom generally fit the descriptions passed down
to the agents, along with their contact information, late yesterday from the DC
office.

“Then let’s keep that option in mind,” Hildebrandt said
after briefly considering the HRT. Quantico was minutes away by helicopter. The
glance from Carter indicated she was inclined to agree with the call.

“What else?”

“Power meter and cable box on the side of the garage are
history.” The agent wearing night vision goggles finished sizing up the
situation for the new arrivals—as best he had been able to ascertain with maybe
ten minutes of surveillance. One stubborn detail was that a positive
identification of the suspect wasn’t in hand, so Hildebrandt sent an agent to
find Devinn’s vehicle. The obvious approach was for the remaining five agents
to position themselves around the house.

Hildebrandt sourly noted that they did not have enough
agents to pair-up. It had been his decision to post Brophy and others behind at
the Hilton in the event Devinn made an appearance. “We need one person to cover
each side of the house—you, you and Carter cover the front and both sides. Agent
Miller here with the goggles and I will cover the rear. Shit, is this really
all we can muster?”

“It’s four-thirty in the morning.” Special Agent Carter looked
at him. “Maybe we should just call in HRT.”

“You may be right, but we need to take up positions. Okay,
standard rules of engagement, folks.” He very much wanted Devinn alive. “Check
in from position. I’ll assign someone to approach and fix a listening device to
a windowpane once we settle down.”

“There’s at least one window open,” Agent Miller reported.

“Let’s keep it quiet.”
Not getting away this time,
Hildebrandt thought.

A few minutes later, Hildebrandt crouched beside Agent
Miller. “That a generator I hear?”

“Yeah, there’s an exhaust duct glowing atop the garage. I’m
pretty sure it’s only juicing the guy’s computers. No other lights, not even
appliance clocks visible inside.”

“I sure hope you’re right. We don’t need the floodlights
coming on any time soon.” The current lighting conditions actually gave them a
slight upper hand, but also reminded Hildebrandt that with age came atrophy of
membranes controlling the iris—hence his impatience with the time it was taking
his eyes to adjust. A lifelong discipline of wearing ear protection at the
shooting range, however, had preserved his hearing. He was actually able to
hear the angry voices before the younger man kneeling beside him. “What’s going
on?” the team leader asked. Awash in the shadowy glow of computers inside he
saw definite motion.

Miller slowly withdrew a deep breath, steadying his gaze
through the optics. “My angle’s bad to worse...uh, this isn’t good. I only see
two now. The suspect appears to be threatening the female hostage, he’s holding
something...what the...?

“What do you see?” Definite shouting inside now.

“GUN!
Suspect jamming a handgun into the face of
a hostage!”

“WHAT DO YOU THINK YOU’RE
DOING?”
Devinn retracted his pistol from beneath the man’s nostrils and
wagged it toward the upended chair. Except for the labored rise and fall of his
chest, Thackeray appeared unwilling to move. “Sit down.”

“You killed her.”

Devinn held the pistol steady on Thackeray’s face while he
knelt and righted his chair. “If any one killed her, you did.” He cocked the
hammer. “Down, boy.”

Thackeray lowered himself into the chair still bound to his
arms.

Devinn pressed his thumb on top of the hammer and slowly
uncocked it—his ability to control his own temper had limits. He knew he was
also pushing his luck. He cast a quick glance at the nearest computer screen. “Read
me the time.”

“Four thirty-eight.”

Devinn thought it improbable that the FBI was so gullible. Then
again, had they really been all that difficult to evade so far?
Good to have
friends in high places,
he thought as he glanced down at the slumped female
torso, suspended by her arms, hair draped over her breasts. He had not thought
there was enough current from the generator to do more than temporarily stun
the woman. Had he applied it too close to her heart? Chang was no good to him
dead, or for that matter unconscious. He couldn’t tell if she was breathing or
not.

Eyes and pistol trained on the troublemaker, Devinn reached
down with his free hand to place his fingertips on the woman’s jugular. The implication
of the abnormally rapid pulse never occurred to him.

“You can relax,” Devinn said to Thackeray. Then he
screamed at the top of his lungs.

EMILY REGAINED
CONSCIOUSNESS
with the certainty that she was going to die. When Devinn
presented his hand, she could hardly believe it—she sunk her teeth into the
fleshy base of his thumb until blood spurted onto her tongue. When he screamed
she released her grip and flinched, but the expected blow didn’t follow.

Emily opened her eyes to the improbable sound of Thackeray’s
laughter. Devinn’s face was awash in pain as he examined his thumb, his pistol
cupped in his hands. He directed his gaze at Thackeray.

Now he’s going to kill us,
thought Emily. Starting
from her crouched posture would give her an edge. Taking a deep breath, she
straightened and drove her knee up hard into Devinn’s groin—his body tensed and
he screamed again. In the act of doubling over he drove his arms down onto her
shoulder, pinning her next to him, pistol in hand. She was able to wriggle
away. In doing so, the chair slipped from her back and fell to the floor.

Emily had already begun a dash for the hallway when
Thackeray’s shouted
Run!
was followed by the sound of colliding bodies. A
muffled gunshot sent fragments of plaster spraying over her shoulders as she
raced toward the front of the house. She stumbled and crashed to a halt, her
chest heaving in fear, her face and body pressed against the front door. She
could hear Devinn and Thackeray scuffling on the floor.
But Thack can’t use
his hands.

The only thing she could do was run to a neighbor for help.
Emily turned her back to the door and fumbled her hands...she was able to grip the
knob, step forward and pull open the door. There was a brief and terrifying
silence, followed by the shattering of glass. Suddenly she heard the sound of many
voices shouting. She stared through tears in desperation to see something of
the commotion at the other end of the hallway. “Thack!”

Two muscular arms wrapped around her from behind. Before
her mind absorbed what happened she was dragged, kicking her feet and shrieking,
roughly backwards through the doorway. The deafening explosion and brilliant
flash forced her eyes shut.