Soft Targets (6 page)

He shut up.

Jonathan asked, “Assuming that the neighbors called this in as a kidnapping, how long will it take them to get organized enough for road blocks and such?”

Irene had no idea. The Harrelson case was the only one she’d ever worked with Baltimore PD, and their only corner of it was the investigation subsequent to Jennings’s arrest. They seemed professional enough, but there were too many moving parts to even attempt an honest answer to Jonathan’s question.

She decided to fake it. “They’ll have an officer respond to the scene and speak to the caller. If he’s convinced, he’ll call dispatch with a description of the van. Since it’s a kidnapping, they’ll roll a lot of units to it. Once they find out that Assface here is the alleged victim, though, they might just slow to a stroll. I figure we’ve got a good seven to ten minutes before we have to worry too hard.”

“From then or from now?”

“With the two or three minutes we’ve already lost, it’ll be less than seven to ten minutes.”

They got caught by a red light. “Wouldn’t you know?” Jonathan said.

“Tick tock,” Boxers said. “Want me to run it?”

“Negative. If this adventure ends everything for me, it’s not going to be because of a traffic violation.”

As the words cleared Jonathan’s lips the world in front of the windshield filled with Baltimore Police cars. A five-car motorcade of flashing lights and screaming sirens streaked straight at them.

“Ah, shit,” Boxers said. “This isn’t good.”

“Hold fast,” Jonathan said. He’d moderated his tone to something soothing. “We’re just out for a midnight drive.”

“Like they’ll buy that.”

“If we bolt, we’ll have nothing.”

“I concur,” Irene said.

Big Guy gave a sardonic laugh. “Oh, well if you concur, then I feel better.”

The cops were coming really hot, closing the final two blocks that separated them with blistering speed.

“Holy shit,” Jonathan said.

Irene got it and smiled. “They’re not coming for us,” she announced. The lead cop car switched his siren from wail to yelp as he flew past without stopping. “They’re all headed for the crime scene.” As if they’d been listening, the entire parade raced past them and disappeared down the street behind them.

“All right,” Boxers said. “I’ll take that kind of luck.”

“We’ll need to hurry now,” Irene said. “They’ll have noticed our vehicle as they passed. Once word goes out that the bad guys were in a van, they’ll come back in a hurry.”

Jonathan nodded once and smacked the driver on the shoulder. “You heard the lady. Drive fast and take chances.”

“Now you’re sounding like my mother,” Big Guy said. He stomped on the gas, and the van lurched forward, propelling Irene off of Jennings, who responded immediately by clamoring along the floorboards in an effort to find his feet.

Irene found hers faster and settled him down with a savage kick. Honestly, she was aiming at his stomach, but she felt no remorse when her boot found his balls instead. Jennings collapsed with a choking cough. “Oh, my God,” he gasped. He drew his knees up to his chest and crossed his ankles. Without sight, he must have been terrified of whatever the next blow would be.

“Way to go, Rattler,” Big Guy said with a laugh. “Take no shit from anybody.”

Jonathan was laughing, too, but she wasn’t sure she understood why.

“No,” Scorpion said, “Rattler’s not a good enough name. Doesn’t do it for me anymore. We’re going to call you Wolverine. Fast, scrappy, and mean as hell when you’re cornered.”

As if she cared what the hell her handle would be among a team she’d never see again. Just for an added bit of security while Jennings was in a docile state, she zip-tied his crossed ankles.

He said something like, “Oh, God,” she thought, but it was hard to hear through the bag and the gagging.

From the back of the van, cloaked in darkness, it was hard to tell where they were or where they were going. She knew from the planning session that they were headed to a place called Pier Seven, where Scorpion had arranged for a third party to park a helicopter. Given the stakes, they’d driven past the pier and verified the presence of the chopper before they’d raided Jennings’s place. She knew it sat on the harbor, nearly due south of Jennings’s house, amidst some kind of petroleum tank farm, but other than that, she didn’t know enough about the layout of Baltimore to divine a decent idea of how close they were to being out of danger.

Ashley and Kelly
.

During the hot part of the op, she had been able to put the plight of her little girls in that locked-up section of her brain where emotion was never allowed. Now the rush of desperation returned. Every moment that passed was a moment when they were separated from her. A moment when they continued to suffer whatever torment this monster had devised for them. Having kicked his balls, now she wanted to cut them off, feed them to him. She bet that that would by God get his attention.

Time had slowed to a stop, even as the world flew by in a blur through the windshield. Irene wished she’d glanced at her watch when this talk of response times had first started. She told herself that it couldn’t possibly have been as long as it seemed, but then she didn’t know whether she could trust what she told herself.

With her prisoner in custody, her die had been cast, her Rubicon crossed. She had committed to a path that would turn her into the kind of felon that she’d sworn to hunt down and remove from society. She’d committed to violating a long line of fast-held principles that had guided her life until now, and at one level, it bothered her that she felt no remorse.

Jennings had earned every bit of what lay ahead for him, first through the abduction of the Harrelson boys, and now—
How dare he!
—by seeking revenge on her by terrorizing two innocent young girls. In the pantheon of unspeakable punishments, none was painful enough to account for that.

“Looks like we’re going to make it,” Big Guy said as he swung a tight left turn. “That’s our bird out there on the end of the pier.”

Finally.
Through the darkness, Irene hadn’t seen the towering fuel tanks that were so obvious in the satellite images that Scorpion had been able to obtain. As for the helicopter, she wasn’t sure that she wanted to know how they’d swung that. The headline here was that the chopper was only a couple of hundred yards away, and when they arrived and got airborne, the first stage of their mission could be hailed as a success.

Pier Seven was literally a pier—a long stretch of wooden planks supported by pilings that stretched far out into the water. The helicopter—it looked like something a police department might fly—sat at the very end, visible only as a chopper-shaped stain against the night. As she took in the geography, Irene realized that they might have just stumbled onto the first major hitch in their planning.

How were they going to get Jennings’s bound body from the van to the end of the pier? What would they do with the van? They couldn’t just leave it out there to be seen. Not only would it be found quickly, but it would also give away the secret of their escape plan. Surely they weren’t going to drive all the way down and all the way back just to have to walk all the way back down again.

She got her answer when Big Guy pulled the van to a stop at the near end of the pier.

“Everybody out,” Jonathan said.

Jennings started to buck again—jerky, spasmodic movements that Irene interpreted as the onset of panic. She was glad that she’d thought to bind his ankles.

“Don’t worry about Assface,” Big Guy said, reading Irene’s thoughts. “I’ll take care of him.” Rather than stepping out the door and walking around, Boxers climbed over and around the engine cowling that separated driver from shotgun. “But if he gives me any trouble, I’ll drop him in the water and see how well he swims with his hands and feet tied.”

Jennings settled down again. Apparently, he’d caught the not-so-subtle subtext. Irene didn’t doubt that Big Guy’s words were more promise than bluff. She’d never met a man who exuded such lethality. Yet he did it without a trace of psychopathy. That couldn’t be easy to do.

Irene moved out of the way to make room for Boxers’ massiveness as he all but filled the van’s cargo area. She slid the side door open and found Jonathan waiting for her just outside.

“Have you got all your kit?” he asked.

Irene patted herself down, running a touch-inventory of her pockets and her weapons. “Yes.”

“Are you sure? The police are going to scour everything.”

“Positive,” she said, though after a buildup like that, how could anyone claim to be positive about anything?

“All right, then. Let’s go.”

Irene hesitated. “We’re not going to help Big Guy?”

“Trust me,” Jonathan said as he turned and led the way down the pier. “More times than not, the last thing Big Guy wants is help.”

It was every bit of seventy-five yards—maybe farther—to the end of the pier. When they were about halfway, Irene dared a look behind and was surprised to see how close Big Guy was, moving quickly and easily despite his size, his gear, and Jennings’s weight slung over his shoulders.

“Do I want to know where you got your hands on a helicopter?” Irene asked Jonathan. “Or how you convinced the owner to park it here and leave it?”

Jonathan flashed one of his smiles at her over his shoulder. “I imagine you do,” he said. “But you’d hate yourself for knowing after you got back to your FBI office.”

Irene caught the meaning. Under the circumstances, there were many details that she was probably better off not knowing.

Arriving at the chopper, Jonathan pulled open the side door—the cargo door. Clearly, he knew that it would be unlocked. He moved without hesitation, indicating to her that whatever accomplices he had were damned reliable.

In the near distance, sirens began to crescendo.

“Hear that?” Jonathan asked.

“They know about the van,” Irene said.

Jonathan nodded. “We’ll make it,” he said. Again, no room for doubt, though she suspected that his confidence was entirely unfounded.

Big Guy arrived ten seconds later and dumped Jennings onto the floor of the aircraft. “You know they’re almost here, right?” he said. No urgency in his voice. If anything, he sounded amused.

Jonathan replied, “If you’d stop strolling and step it up a little, we’d make better time.”

“Kiss my ass, you tiny little man.” Was it possible to utter those words with affection? Because that’s what Irene heard in his tone. These were interesting men.

“You’re next,” Jonathan said, offering Irene a hand to help her inside.

She appreciated the gesture, but she climbed in on her own. She was awash in testosterone as it was; she didn’t see the need to encourage more.

Jonathan stepped in right behind her, and he slammed the side door shut before he settled into a seat.

The only helicopters that Irene had ridden in had been of the bare-bones variety, a step up, she imagined, from Spartan military aircraft, but only a tiny step. This chopper, by contrast, was all about executive comfort, with cream-colored soft leather captain’s chairs for seats, each of which had its own phone. Plush mauve carpeting covered the floors. She started to say something about the luxury, but stopped herself when she realized that such a comment might provide Jennings with an intelligence benchmark that could work against them.

Boxers settled himself into the pilot’s seat—the right-hand front seat—and threw switches seemingly as reflex. Seconds later, the engine started, and seconds after that, the rotors began to whine and turn.

“Hang on, everybody,” Big Guy called over the noise. “When liftoff happens, it’s going to happen fast.”

“Who are you people?” Jennings cried. Literally cried, as in past a sob. “Please don’t do this. I don’t know what this is about, but I swear to God you don’t need to do this.”

“Shut up, Assface.” They all said it in unison.

Jonathan made a point of not telling Irene specifically where they were going. “You have to understand,” he’d explained, “that the people I deal with are the very best at what they do, but what they do exposes them to enormous risk, both real and legal. The fact that you’re with the FBI prevents you from ever being their friend. That doesn’t mean that you’re their enemy—anything but, because these people are the most devout patriots you’ll ever meet—but it means that you can never be fully trusted.”

Irene was not in the least offended, but she was curious. “You trust me.”

His answer came quickly: “Only because Dom vouched for you.”

“Ouch.”

“Well, it’s true. Look, most government people mean well—they’d rather do good deeds than bad—but when the shit hits the fan, they get confused. Right and wrong gets trumped by career ambitions. I’ve spent my entire adulthood as other people’s pawn in a game where I’ve never been invited to the table. Where politicians’ dreams become my reality. My scars.”

He’d smiled as he prepared for the next part of his soliloquy. “It so happens that you have pledged allegiance to the one organization above all others that values career advancement over public safety. Because of Dom’s endorsement, I’ll stipulate that you’re one of the good guys, but you won’t get that same benefit of doubt from anyone else in my universe.”

Irene thought about his words as they bounced through the night in a rattletrap Ford Explorer toward what appeared to be a stand-alone barn in the middle of a field. The vehicle had been waiting for them when they’d touched down a few hundred yards from there. The keys had been left in the ignition, but there was no sign of a driver. They’d flopped Jennings onto the floor of the cargo bay and closed the tailgate.

His panic was setting in deeper, manifesting itself in childish whining and whimpering noises. All traces of anger and righteous indignation were gone. Irene couldn’t tell for sure, but it sounded like he kept repeating, “Please, please, please . . .”

And it got to her a little. Suffering was suffering, after all, and just because Jennings was a monster didn’t mean that he wasn’t still human.

“Don’t let it in,” Jonathan said, barely above a whisper. “This is a head game. He’s got to be terrified for any of this to work. The more terrified he is, the less we actually have to hurt him.”

Out of nowhere, Irene felt a rush of remorse. What they were doing was wrong. It was inexcusable, and no grand efforts at justification could make it anything
but
inexcusable. Systems existed for a reason.
Rules
existed for a reason, as did the Constitution and the protections it bestowed. Now that they were coming closer to the moment when what was left of her soul would become mortgaged beyond redemption, she wasn’t sure that she could go through with it.

“This is always hard,” Jonathan said. His ability to read her was startling. His accuracy was frightening. “And I mean
always
. It never gets easier.”

“So you’ve tortured a lot of people before?”

“I’ve extracted my share of information, yes. Never gratuitously, and always for a good cause. And through that, I’ve saved a lot of lives. That’s what you need to stay focused on—the lives that will be saved. Two lives that have every right to be lived to their fullest. Stay focused on that, and this will all suck less. Not a lot less, but some.”

Irene didn’t know what to say. She had abandoned the moral high ground, and she’d done it willingly. Was there really all that much real estate separating kidnapping from torture, especially when both were employed in pursuit of the same goal? She’d already walked away from due process as a viable option, so once that was done, the rest was just details, wasn’t it? She ignored the nausea that churned her stomach. The time for second-guessing had passed. The train had left the station. The die had been cast. How many clichés could there possibly be for the same thought?

She’d go through with this because it was the only decision that made sense. Once the mortal sins were stacked three feet high, one more couldn’t possibly make a difference.

They arrived at the barn. Boxers threw the transmission into park, and they all pushed their doors open. “I’d like you to come out on my side,” Scorpion said.

She gave him an odd look.

“Humor me, okay?” he said.

Seeing no harm in the request—and seeing no play for advantage—she did as he asked. She scooted across the Explorer’s backseat as Big Guy walked around to the back and opened the tailgate.

When she was on the ground, Jonathan pulled her to the side. “I don’t want you to actively participate in the interrogation,” he said, barely above a whisper.

Irene bristled. “We’re talking about my daughters.”

“Exactly. And to get them back, we need to project a single, consistent message.”

“I can do that,” she said.

“You’re taking this personally,” Jonathan said in a modulated tone that she knew he’d engineered to be soothing. “You have to take it personally. I, on the other hand, have the freedom to take it tactically. I don’t know what peculiar brand of sick fuck Assface is, but if he sees you and recognizes you, it might encourage him to play. The fact that you are there might just make his day. We don’t need that.”

Irene cocked her head as a random character analysis resolved in her head. This Assface moniker was important to Jonathan. It was the exclusive way that he referred to Jennings. She realized that it was a strategy to dehumanize the man he was intending to hurt. In a twisted way, that made Irene think better of the man. If he had to play head games with himself to carry out his duties, that meant there was a conscience under that granite exterior.

“I defer to your expertise,” Irene said. “But I want to be in the room.”

Jonathan’s posture shifted to something that looked combative. No fists, but a deep, settling inhalation. She read it as the beginning of an objection that he then swallowed. “Okay,” he said. “But your mask stays on. That’s not negotiable. And if he gets disgusting in his views toward his victims, you need to keep your mouth shut. I need your word on that.”

With each passing moment, Irene felt as if she were getting demoted farther and farther down the grown-up ladder.

“You have my word,” she said.

A burst of noise snapped their attention around to the rear of the Explorer, where Big Guy was wrestling with Jennings. The prisoner seemed to sense that the bad part of his night had finally arrived, and he was yelling incoherently and bucking on Boxers’ shoulders like a grounded fish.

“No, I got this,” Big Guy said. “Don’t hurt yourselves.”

Irene heard the accusation of laziness in the subtext, but the fact was that he did seem to have it, with energy to spare. She took her lead from Jonathan and just stayed out of the way as Boxers carried his load to the barn’s massive front doors. With the human package slung over his shoulder, Big Guy pulled the big door open and disappeared into the darkness.

The scale of the under-lit interior was hard to comprehend. This was a barn that could have been converted into a community center. The dimensions were huge-by-huge-by-huge. Boxers carried his load to the center of the massive space, where he set him on the ground with surprising gentleness. As far as Irene could tell, the floor was made of compacted dirt, though it was surprisingly solid. She sensed that this place had existed for a very, very long time. A hundred years or more. If that were the case, then it was entirely possible that the dirt merely covered an ancient wooden floor.

“Please don’t hurt me,” Jennings whined. “What are you going to do to me?”

Boxers said nothing as he picked up a length of rope that had been left on the floor adjacent to one of the massive supporting pillars. He slid it under Jennings’s armpits and tugged for him to stand. Irene was surprised that he complied so easily. Under similar circumstances, she imagined that she would be fighting to the death rather than complying with a torturer’s wishes. On the other hand, she had never been one to prey on those who were weaker than she. Well, not until now.

A massive five-inch iron ring had been mounted through the center pillar, and it was through that that Boxers threaded the rope. When he was done, his prisoner stood at full attention, his arms pinioned behind his back and his ankles still bound. They kept his hood on, making Irene wonder why she had to keep her mask on. She didn’t question it, though.

“Please don’t hurt me,” Jennings whined, over and over again.

When Assface was thoroughly trussed and immobilized, Boxers stepped aside, and Jonathan approached. “Be a man,” Jonathan said. “Quit crying. It doesn’t change anything, and it just robs you of dignity.”

“Who are you?” Jennings asked. “Why are you doing this?”

Jonathan nodded to Big Guy, who punched Jennings in the gut. To Irene’s eye, it wasn’t an especially hard punch, but from the way Jennings yelled, you’d have thought that he’d been hit with a sledge hammer.

“Here’s the deal,” Jonathan said. “And listen up.” He paused. “Are you listening?”

“Yes, sir,” Jennings said.

“I’m not your master,” Jonathan snapped. “No need to call me sir. Just pay attention and answer questions. The key word there was
answer
. You’re not here to ask anything. You’re not here to learn anything. I’m not even sure if you’re here to survive. That will be determined by your answers, and the spirit in which they are delivered. Are you following me so far?”

The bag on Jennings’s head bobbed. “I think so,” he said.

“Good,” Jonathan said. He took a deep breath. “By now, you’ve figured out that we are not police. We don’t give a flying shit about your rights or about how to game the justice system. We’re here to get information, pure and simple. Is this making sense to you?”

Another nod. “Yes.”

“Tell me why you think we might be doing this,” Jonathan said. “What information do you think we might be seeking?”

Jennings’s answer came too quickly. “I don’t know.”

Jonathan again looked to Boxers, who delivered another punch to the gut. Jennings yelled louder.

“Your shouting means nothing,” Jonathan said. “That’s why we did the whole helicopter thing. You’re in the middle of nowhere, and the only thing that stands between you and a yard-waste shredder is the truth. Can you wrap your head around that?”

“Yes.”

“Don’t say that if you don’t mean it,” Jonathan warned. “We’re going to verify what you tell us. That means that you’re going to have a few very long days. If you tell us something and it turns out not to be true, you’re going to be punished. We start with punches, but as we progress, we get to cutting off body parts. You don’t want us cutting off any of your body parts, do you?”

Jennings squirmed in his bonds, as if he could make a difference. “Oh, God, no. Please, no.”

“There you go,” Jonathan said. “That’s the spirit. Now, back to my original question. Why do you think we’re here? What information do you think we might be looking for?”

Jennings took his time answering. His breathing rate doubled. Irene could only imagine the conflict he was suffering. Where did truth and survivability bifurcate?

“Is it about the kids?” Jennings asked. His voice was barely audible.

“Excuse me?” Jonathan said. “I couldn’t hear you.”

“Is it about the kids!” Jennings shouted it this time. Irene felt a shot of adrenaline. This asshole knew. He had them.

“Tell me,” Jonathan said. His voice stayed perfectly modulated, as if this was a conversation, not an interrogation. “Is there a reason why we should be talking to you about kids?”

“They didn’t have enough evidence to prosecute me,” Jennings said. “I don’t have to—”

This time, Boxers acted without a prompt from his boss. He delivered a powerful slap to the hood. Jennings yelled.

Jonathan looked annoyed. “There you go letting the law get in the way between you and the truth,” he said. “That’s going to hurt every time it happens. I promise you.”

“This is coerced testimony. You can’t use any of it.”

“That’s your last chance before we switch to the baseball bat.”

Jennings’s breath chugged behind the hood, a steam engine sound that caused the fabric to move in and out with each inhalation and exhalation.

“Where are the children, Barney?” Jonathan pressed again. When using the prisoner’s given name, his tone was softer.

More puffing.

“It’s so much easier if you just answer,” Jonathan coaxed. “It’s what you’re going to do anyway. Why not make it less painful?”

Jennings’s chest heaved and he blurted. “They’re dead.”

No, no, no, not my babies.
Irene brought her hands to her mouth as she felt the blood drain from her head. Her knees buckled and she nearly fell. The only reason she didn’t was because she was able to flex her gut muscles enough to raise her own blood pressure. Her vision blurred; she heard a sob escape from her own throat. This wasn’t possible.

She saw Jonathan shoot a glance her way, and Boxers take two steps to catch her, but when they saw she was going to remain conscious, they went back to business.

“Did you kill them?” Jonathan asked.

“I didn’t mean to. I really didn’t. I wanted them alive because, well, you know what I wanted to do. But the older one fought, and that encouraged the younger one. They started to make too much noise. I told them to be quiet, but they refused. Honest to God, they left me no choice.”

Irene realized that she’d drawn her SIG, but didn’t remember doing it.

“I’m sorry,” Jennings said. “I’m so, so sorry.”

“You’re
sorry
?” Irene shouted. She pulled off her mask, leveled her weapon at his head and took five giant steps closer.

“Agent Rivers?” Jennings said. “Jesus, is that you?”