Runaway Model (25 page)

Stoney didn't react.

Finally Kyle could breathe again. He inhaled sharply. Too sharply. The smell of vomit on Stoney's shirt seemed stronger now.

"I have to throw up," Kyle said.

"Do it here and now," Nigel said. "You won't spoil the lovely carpet in this place."

Maybe Kyle did vomit. He didn't remember. He blurred out again.

***

S
ix hours had been optimistic. It was already after midnight by the time Bryce's team landed at Teterboro. And they still had to pick up the rental vehicle and drive through the tunnel into New York.

Kyle's cell flicked on once, briefly, in a location in lower Manhattan. That was three hours ago but it was the only clue they had right now.

The men Arnold trusted enough to commit a felony with needed to keep their hands at the ready for their weapons. Arnold himself needed to monitor the programs running on his various devices.

That left Bryce to drive the Mercedes-Benz G63 AMG. It wasn't the biggest SUV for five men but it might be one of the fastest—and today speed might count for more than comfort.

The tinted windows in this customized vehicle were darker than most American states allowed by law. Bryce wasn't sure about New Jersey or New York. But they needed the privacy. They'd have to assume anything being rented by a luxury agency was legal enough to get past the traffic cops.

He'd actually once taken an overpriced counter-ambush and evasive driving course as a lark. Pretended he was in a movie. A James Bond fantasy.

Now it wasn't a game. He was driving for his life.

For Kyle's life.

There were traffic cameras everywhere in New York. Surveillance cameras too. Bryce couldn't drive as fast as he wanted. They couldn't risk being stopped. He hated to think how long they would be delayed if some eagle-eyed police officer pulled them over and noticed the weapons.

Years probably. New York's gun control law wasn't a joke.

There was nowhere to park. Arnold slid over to take the wheel. It was a cool December night, allowing the soldiers to wear their Glock 17s beneath their unzipped windbreakers.

Bryce led the way. How many times over the past two years had he walked into some building with a little platoon of bodyguards flanking him? He thought it looked natural.

But the wide eyes of the fiftysomething waitress suggested they didn't get a lot of demi-billionaires in this diner.

Kyle wasn't there. They saw that at a glance.

Bryce held out his phone. "Have you seen this man?"

"Are you police? What did he do?" She looked from soldier to soldier and then back again at Bryce.

"I'll ask the questions, ma'am."

"He was here around nine with an older man."

Bryce tapped an arrow. Nigel's UK passport photo popped up. "This man?"

"Yes, sir."

"What were they talking about?"

"I don't know. They were hard to understand. Foreigners, you know? That heavy English accent." She had a New York accent that Bryce couldn't identify but she spoke far more slowly than the average New Yorker. She was trying to figure out what she should and shouldn't say.

Hurry the fuck up
. "You do know. Tell me."

"I thought I heard the young one say he was a model. So I thought maybe he was a, you know, a hustler. But I didn't think he was anything bad wrong. I just thought... you know, sir. I just thought he was a cute boy."

The cute boy had brought out the motherly instinct in the older woman. Terrific.

"You remember more than that."

"I don't. I can't."

Bryce pulled out his wallet.

She stared at the hundred-dollar bill. "I don't want that. I don't know what this is about but... I don't want that."

Offering money had been a mistake. An easy mistake to make when you had too much of it.

"That boy wouldn't have hurt anybody. If that man got mugged, maybe... he didn't really get mugged. Maybe he wanted to... buy something he couldn't buy."

Just like you think you can buy something you can't buy.
She didn't have to say those last words. Bryce heard them loud and clear.

"I'm not going to arrest the boy. I just have a few questions for him. For both of them."

"I don't know anything else. I'm sorry, sir. I can't help you."

***

"W
ell, that was an amazing waste of time."

Arnold scooted over, and Bryce took back the wheel. Not knowing what else to do, he began to circle the block.

"What now, boss?"

"We wait."

"How long?"

Bryce didn't answer.

Arnold turned back to his screens. "Hey. We've got a ping on Kyle's cell. It's back on again."

"Where to?"

Kyle's cell stayed on. Bryce wondered what it meant. Were they being led into an ambush? He didn't voice his fears. What was the point? His men knew the risks better than he did.

A snippet from "Wake Me When September Ends." The first song Bryce heard on the radio after he got the news New Orleans had been eighty percent destroyed in Hurricane Katrina. The ringtone was supposed to remind a Louisiana boy where he'd come from.

Had he lost his way anyway?

"Don't slow down," Arnold said. "I'll get it."

Nobody wanted a traffic cop to pull Bryce over. Getting a ticket for talking on his cell while driving would be the world's stupidest way to blow the whole operation.

Arnold pulled the device from Bryce's jacket. Tapped answer, tapped speaker.

A soft moan from the other end of the line.

"Kyle? Is that you?" Bryce kept his eyes on the road. On the cameras along the road.

"Help... please... mate..." An English accent. But not Kyle's. The voice was velvet and cigarettes. A singer's voice.

"Where are you, Stoney? Where's Kyle?"

Another moan.

"He's got Kyle's cell," Arnold said. "He was dialing Daniels. I'm not sure he knows who you are."

"We'll be there in five," Bryce said. "Are you OK? Where's Kyle? Is Kyle OK?"

"Don't turn off the phone," Arnold said.

Stoney didn't end the call. He just stopped talking. Stopped moaning too. Had he blacked out? There was signal but no sound. The silence stabbed Bryce in the heart.

"Two minutes," Arnold said.

"I'm going in with you," Bryce said.

"Not without a weapon," Wilton said. "We're not playing bodyguards this time."

Bryce took the Glock 17 without an argument. He'd known in his heart they brought the extra weapon for a reason. He wasn't a great shot but he'd done his share of duck hunting as a boy. If you can shoot a flying duck, you can shoot a man without a soul. Bryce could use the Glock if he had to.

The signal led them to a boarded-up sixteen-story shell in the early stages of renovation. No lights. No electricity. Some signs with various contractors' names. One sign boasted about how many hundreds of millions of dollars the reno would contribute to the American economy. It appeared to be one of those 2010ish shovel-ready projects that never quite got the shovel.

No parking, of course. No parking anywhere in Manhattan, Bryce supposed. He'd be glad to get back to North Dakota.

Arnold took the wheel. "If we're not back in thirty minutes, save yourself," Wilton told him.

"I intend to," Arnold said.

There were always people on the street in Manhattan. Even this late. But it was the big bad city. If anyone noticed the four men in slightly too-long open windbreakers that might conceal semi-automatic weapons, they weren't about to get involved. If anything, they walked on a little faster.

The team turned into a small alley ankle-deep with cardboard and garbage. Bryce felt dirty just walking there. But it was here, out of view of the street, that they'd be most likely to find a hidden entrance.

There. Some loose boards where a squatter might easily come and go. Bryce switched on the flashlight app in his iPhone 6. Wilton did the same. Roberto and Johnston readied their weapons.

The gutted building smelled of black mold and piss. There were no interior walls. Bryce held his breath as long as he dared. The three soldiers worked together to clear the first floor of the building. Nothing. No one. Stoney had been dumped here.

There was nothing rock star about the pitiful figure slumped on the air mattress. He looked like just another homeless addict who crept into a boarded-up squat because he couldn't give up the drink or drugs long enough to be allowed into a shelter.

The 46-inch flat-screen monitor mounted on the wall behind him was odd. It showed a news program playing with the sound turned down.

Very odd. The building clearly didn't have electric service. Bryce swept the area with his flashlight to find the cord plugged into some kind of power source. The plastic box resembled a car battery more than anything you'd normally see indoors.

"Stoney. Stoney Rockland. Wake up. Wake up."

Stoney tried to sit, slumped back down. Johnston and Wilton grabbed him under the arms and brought him to his feet. He smelled worse than the moldy room. He'd vomited at some point. His jeans were damp.

"Stoney. Come back to us, bro. Talk to us."

Roberto looked at Bryce. "We can't stay here too long. The cops might notice our lights. We need to move ass."

"OK, OK, I know, I know."

"You don't see this, boss." He took out a small syringe.

Roberto was right. Bryce didn't see. Wouldn't watch the injection into the vein. Drugs were something Bryce and Arnold worked so hard to get out of their lives.

Stoney jerked. "Fuck."

"You're OK, Mr. Rockland," Roberto said. "But we have to talk to you. Now. Stay with us, man. Do you know where Roman Nigel is holding Kyle Marchane?"

"Who's Roman Nigel?" Stoney blinked. "Is that the name of the freak?"

Bryce nodded. "Did he hurt you, Stoney?"

"Who the fuck are you? Do I know you?"

"I'm the guy who flew all the way out from Minnesota to save your pitiful ass."

"Where's my people? What do you want?"

"Your people are busy running down a rumor that Kyle Marchane is in a thrill-killer cult."

"The fuck?"

"We know Kyle's the victim here. We have to save him. We need to know everything you know. We have to know where he is."

They kept walking him. As they exited the alley, they noticed an NYPD patrol unit driving slowly around the block. "Smile," Bryce said. "My men are helping your drunk over-partying ass."

Stoney forced his lips into a bizarre grimace.

NYPD had better things to do than issue drunk-and-disorderly tickets to men who were already heading home. The black-and-white turned the corner. Bryce could breathe again.

Arnold pulled up next to them. Bryce didn't take back the wheel this time. He got in the back with Stoney and his soldiers. Stoney jerked again. It was a cramped space, and the rock star was more or less sprawled across Bryce's and Wilton's laps.

"Where to, boss?" Arnold asked.

"Drive around the block for a minute until we figure it out. Keep moving. Five miles an hour below the speed limit."

"You got it."

Roberto's stimulant was a powerful one, doubtless designed to keep soldiers going without sleep in a war zone. But it was working against an equally powerful sedative. Bryce felt like shaking Stoney to get some sense out of him. It was all taking much too long.

"Did you see Kyle? How was he?"

"Drugged. Like me. I were drugged." Stoney shook his head as if trying to shake off a mosquito. His chin dropped. His eyelids fluttered.

Bryce lifted Stoney's chin and forced him to look directly into his eyes. "Keep talking, man. Where did you last see Kyle? Where is he now?"

"I, uh, is Kyle OK? I think Kyle's OK. He was OK. But maybe... I dunno, mate." Stoney's tongue was still thick.

"Where he is? Where is he now?"
Wake up, man! We don't have all night.

"I'm not the one the creep wanted, innit? I were the bait. He didn't... I'm OK. The creep didn't try it on with me, did he? Kyle's the one he wants. They're gone now. Kyle's gone."

"How can you know that? "

"He gave me back me mobile, innit? Man's gotta know at some point I wake up and call for help." It was Kyle's cell he had. Stoney was too confused to understand that. Stoney's cell was probably in the Central Park pond by now.

But giving him any phone back meant something. Roman Nigel didn't want Stoney to die. Was that a good sign? He wasn't as psycho as he seemed?

Or was it a bad sign? Was he that confident he'd already be gone by the time Stoney came to?

"Do you know where they're going?"

"Back to the UK, mate. I heard him talking. He thought I were passed out. But I heard. He's got a place there. A cave or summat. He's gonna keep Kyle like a museum piece. A work of modern art as it were. Keep him safe under lock and key. It's craziness, innit?"

When he was under the influence, Stoney's accent was as strong as Kyle's. "Were" for "was" almost every time. Didn't matter. Bryce understood every word. He'd never listened so hard to anyone in his life.

Stoney patted himself down. "Anyone got a cigarette, mate? I'm that desperate."

Nobody replied.

"Kyle were drugged. Sick with the drug. But he's strong. He kept Nigel talking. Kept asking questions."

Why would Nigel answer?
Bryce didn't remember asking out loud but he must have. Or maybe Stoney just read it in his face.

"The perv wants to impress me boy, innit? Anyway, it didn't matter if he talked. It's a memory blocker, innit? Kyle's gonna forget everything. I'm gonna forget everything."

"You won't forget, sir." Roberto's voice was calm. "I gave you something that interacts with most memory blockers. You'll remember."

Some people asked Bryce why he hired so many vets. The war in Iraq wasn't popular. A lot of people were uncomfortable with the boots on the ground. They came home changed. They'd seen things. They knew things.

And Bryce had never been more grateful for the things they knew.

He looked at Roberto, Johnston, and Wilton. "You know what comes next. We've got to stop them before they leave the country."