SURVIVORS: a gripping thriller full of suspense (Titan Trilogy Book 2) (13 page)

CHAPTER SIXTEEN / Monday, 6:18 AM

Jennifer opened the back door of the building and stepped out onto the sidewalk.

The day was already begun, the roads whooshing with traffic. The air was crisp and fresh and cold.

She brought her foot up behind her and stretched her quad muscle. She switched legs and repeated the exercise. She wore her black spandex, her good running shoes, and a thick hoodie with the SUNY emblem across the front.

Jennifer turned and started jogging.

The van pulled out from where it had sat parked overnight.

She made a right turn onto Franklin and started heading toward a park at the far end, feeling the tightness in her calves – she’d gotten to the condo two days ago, and hadn’t jogged since before she’d left D.C. It was easy to fall out of shape, and you had to stay on top of things. She had a right knee to protect, too; playing volleyball in her freshman year of college she had gone up for the spike and come down on that knee to a gut-wrenching spike of pain. She remembered thinking she’d been shot by some unseen gunman, as the MCL tore. Now she lacked cartilage there, aside from what had been rebuilt throughout two surgeries, and the knee popped whenever stressed, the patella not secure, but determined to slide loose and get away. She eased back a little, hoping to last a while. She wanted to get the layout of the neighborhood for future runs.

As she closed in on the park with its chain-link fence, the dirt paths through the shorn grass, the white bags on the ground, she wondered if there was a school nearby, or if it was just a community park with a baseball diamond. She could see a large, long building further down Amherst and thought she made out a running track on the far side. Probably a school after all.

No one was around; it was still early. She tried to find her rhythm and settle into a good pace. But then she was distracted by the sound of an engine coming from behind her.

She was on the sidewalk on the north side of the street. Franklin dead-ended at the park, and the sign on the street that branched off to the left was for Amherst.

Jennifer glanced back over her shoulder and saw the dark van driving slowly behind her. She picked up her pace, thinking she could get ahead of it before it made the turn onto Amherst, whoever it was, and dashed across the street.

The fence behind the baseball diamond and a set of bleachers ended further up the street. She headed for that, thinking she would cut through the park. She didn’t know why the stupid van was making her nervous, but it was. She heard it make the turn into Amherst behind her, and then the engine revved and the tires squawked as it picked up speed.

Jennifer hooked right past the fence. She felt an icy chill ripple through her. She dug into the run and pumped her arms. Behind her, the van jumped the sidewalk and started tearing through the grass after her.

Oh Jesus oh Jesus.

She didn’t stand a chance. The vehicle caught up to her in no time. She heard the metal rumble of a door rolled open, the vibrational
thud
as feet dropped to the ground and then pounded after her.

She threw another quick, terrified glance behind her. Two men, coming up on her fast, a white guy and a black guy, the van cutting through the sod beside them. One of the men threw a black bag over her head. Another one, or maybe the same one, struck her with something at the base of her skull.

She was on the ground.

Her head had exploded in a pain that was rioted with color – like fireworks; in the darkness of the shroud, white and blue lights crackled across her interior vision. It changed in an instant, and a new pain riding a surge of nerves felt heavy, warm, flooding her skull like a tumble of muddy, irradiated water. It spread from the back of her neck, beneath the lip of her skull and above her first vertebrae, encasing her entire head in a kind of dark matter, a low, gunky throb with crackles of piercing electricity.

Jennifer woozily realized that the blow was supposed to have knocked her out. Someone gripped her ankles. She was on her stomach, and the person then twisted her legs, flipping her over. She felt her bad knee pop.

They were dragging her through the grass. She could smell the sweet aroma of the wet earth, the manure, and faint, acrid traces of the lye. She tried to scream but had no voice.

What were they going to do? Put her in the van and take her away right in broad daylight? It was early, sure, but the world was waking up. Somebody had to have eyes on this. Somebody was likely calling the cops right now. If they were close enough, hopefully they’d get the license plate.

She tried to scream again, and a small moan escaped her. She became terrified that they would realize she was still conscious and attempt to resolve that. She made no further sound.

Oh, dear God, please help me.

She tried to focus, but the pain was overwhelming. Two sets of hands grabbed at her with frantic, rough gestures. She felt suddenly dizzy and nauseous as she was lifted up and flopped hard into the van. Jennifer thought she was going to throw up, and fought the urge with everything she had. She heard the door slam shut, and then the vehicle lurched forward into motion.

* * *

Whoever they were, they were taking a huge risk. Out here in the middle of the morning, tearing across a park. It wasn’t a very populated area – Franklin was a street back behind the condominiums which faced Westchester Avenue on the other side, but she felt sure now that the park had been a school field. Someone had to have spotted a van digging up the grass; she could feel the vehicle drop down and thunk onto the road at the other end of the park – she thought it might be Kensico Ave, but she’d only looked briefly at the Google map before getting on her flight.

The van made what felt like a sharp right turn, indicating they were headed back to Westchester Avenue. She tried to think about where the big road led and was quite sure it fed into 287 not far from here, accessing I-87, a major artery which went north all the way to Canada, south into the city.

There was a hand on her shoulder. She was lying on her side on the floorboards. She felt suffocated by the bag over her head, claustrophobic in the dark, and with an urgent need to cough. She ground her teeth together to stifle it. They still thought she was unconscious. As much as she wanted to plead with them, or to cry out, to cough, to vomit, she bore down on it all, forcing herself to be quiet and still.

The second man was behind her. She could feel his knee near her back, pushing in a little each time the van swerved and rolled on its axis. It felt like they had been moving along at a good clip, but were slowing up now, merging with the morning traffic, with other people in their cars blithely listening to the radio and sipping on their coffee, eyes still puffy, the candy-like fragrance of hairspray hovering around the women, the men clutching the steering wheels of their Lincoln Navigators.

One of her arms was pinned beneath her, and each time the van hit a bump she felt a pain in that shoulder. She realized she could wriggle the fingers of that hand where they stuck out behind the small of her back. Slowly, feeling the clutch of fear, she opened her hand to extend the fingers. The tip of her thumb bumped up against something hard. A gun.

She felt a jolt through her nervous system, as if her entire body spasmed.

She could feel a leather holster too. Who wore a holstered weapon on their belt and abducted a federal agent in broad daylight? She tried to think if she’d seen the men before, perhaps when she’d driven home from the restaurant. Had she seen a van? Had they been there all night?

She’d barely got a glimpse of them in the park. One had been white, the other black. They had both been wearing dark clothes. That was all.

Now she felt the knee press deeper into her back as the van leaned to one side. They were getting onto a bigger road. 287, she guessed. Once more she felt the gun. This time it was her palm that touched it. Jesus, it was right there in her hand. She could almost grab the holster.

But the holster would be buttoned. She needed to find the strap. She started to feel gingerly around for it, rolling her body in time with bouncing of the van to conceal her movements and edging her arm out further behind her. Tendons and muscles were stretching beyond their limits. The pain continued to beat inside of her head, pulsing with that thick, hot sensation. The acute crackling had abated, and what was left was this throb. She was sure her head and neck would ache for the rest of the day – if she lived that long.

After a moment, she was able to pinch the snap between her thumb and forefinger. She stuck out her little finger, and for a second it probed the air like the antennae of some insect, and then it brushed against the cool steel of the gun.

If the van made another substantial move, she could unsnap the holster, jerk herself off the floor of the van and slide the gun out.

She had gone through six months of training before starting work with the Justice Department – not two, like that bitch Olivia Jane had suggested. Her knee had been an issue that the department was aware of, but willing to work with. She’d undergone mixed martial arts training and firearm proficiency classes. But you couldn’t really be prepared for a situation like this. They said that the training would take over; that should you find yourself in a hostile environment, of course you would be scared, but you needed to trust your training.

What scenario had she been given in which she was being rushed away from her condo by armed men in an unmarked van?

Her fingers had a grip on the holster strap now. All she had to do was give it a firm tug and hope it would come loose. Then make her move: pull the weapon out, push herself up, somehow get her bearings with the hood over her head, remove it, take aim, and gun down the two men – possibly all three of them, all while the van barreled down the freeway at seventy miles per hour. And she had to be sure not to hit the driver. Easy, huh?

Jennifer had never shot anyone. She had never shot
at
anyone, either. Just targets. She had spent a couple of weeks at the gun-range shooting at human silhouettes dressed in the
ISU Score to 7
target rings.

Suddenly, the man beside her moved away, and his gun and holster slid away from her fingertips.

Panic seized her as a fresh wave of fear and adrenaline washed through her body. Jennifer exerted all of her willpower to get her mind clear, to stay ahead of the fear, to remain rational, but he had moved away from her.

He saw my hand. They know I’m conscious.

She still felt a light pressure from the other man, the one she thought was positioned between her and the sliding door. His fingertips were pressed against her ribs, like a hunter posing for a picture next to his kill.

She waited for a full minute. Nothing happened. Then she heard the man who had been behind her getting up. She thought he was moving away. Getting into the front passenger seat, maybe.

She realized she was holding her breath. She let it out now, careful to be measured. She turned her mind back to problem-solving.

She was part of a task force that had been put together by the Unites States Department of Justice. There were eight other members besides her. They weren’t all active yet – it was her job to gather the information and convince her superiors that all the criteria had been met to begin a full-scale investigation. While Jennifer was already convinced that the particulars of the Rebecca Heilshorn case most certainly warranted a major investigation – frankly, the whole thing stunk to high heaven as an enormous prostitution racket and human-trafficking operation – but the wheels of justice were slow to turn, and protocols had to be in place.

She had made contact with those other agents, held meetings, and everyone was on board. Most had felt like she did, like it was only a matter of time before it was a fully-go situation. Her meeting with Olivia Jane had only strengthened her conviction.

She tried to remember who, exactly, she had spoken with about Alexander Heilshorn.

The Justice Department was not a place to go around spouting wild conjecture. The Attorney General would launch her in a one-woman space rocket to the far side of the moon if he thought she was going off half-cocked. She hadn’t said anything specific to Gary Petrino, who had done the profile for her on Brendan Healy. The only person who knew she was looking into Heilshorn was the judge, Olin Meyer, who’d signed the subpoena.

But was Heilshorn really powerful enough, audacious enough, to abduct a federal agent while she made her case? Who, outside of her own department, would have the capability to be watching Olivia Jane, or to know where Jennifer herself was located? This kind of surveillance and action was major league.

Thing was, this was Jennifer’s first time in the field. She had co-authored the human-trafficking manual, culled from countless hours of research, but she had never been in the thick of it herself.

She felt a ripple of renewed nausea. She had no phone with her, no ID, nothing. She was in her jogging clothes, for God’s sake. She was completely helpless.

She realized she had one thing going for her: if she continued to play possum, she could listen in on what the men might say, possibly pick up clues as to where they might be heading, who they worked for, why they had her.

But another chance for escape might not come. They might not make the same mistake again of thinking she was unconscious.