The Buried (8 page)

They must be monitoring my vitals
, Helen thought. Perhaps a few of the restraints she’d detected weren’t restraints at all. With no reason to keep up the charade, she adjusted herself into a more comfortable position but did not say anything.

“Thank you,” the woman said. “I hate it when people try to play unnecessary games. It’s such a waste of time.” She paused. “So, Director Cho, where are they?”

Helen remained silent.

“The safe house you arranged for them to use was a ruse, was it not? Where did they really go?”

If Helen had any doubts this was about Danielle Chad, they were gone now. The only safe house she’d arranged recently was for Quinn, though she was surprised to learn he hadn’t gone there.

The chair groaned, and when the woman spoke again she was no more than a foot in front of Helen’s face. “Where are they?”

Though Helen’s extremities were tied down, her chest and shoulders were not, giving her room to move. The moment the last word left the woman’s mouth, Helen thrust forward with all her strength. Her aim was a bit off. Instead of smacking her forehead into the woman’s nose, she caught her interrogator on the cheek, but it was still a good, solid hit.

The woman grunted as she knocked against her chair.

Helen braced herself for her interrogator’s retaliation.

But she heard the woman stand. “Perhaps a little time will make you more cooperative.”

Helen heard the click, click, click of the woman’s heels heading across the room.

A few seconds later, she was once more alone.

CHAPTER
10

NEW YORK CITY, NEW YORK

L
YLE
CLARK STUDIED
his appearance in the full-length mirror before grabbing the knot of his tie and nudging it ever so slightly to the right.

There. That was better. Everything symmetrical.

He was dressed in a dark gray suit handcrafted by his favorite tailor in Milan. His shirt and tie were from London, also specially made for him. His shoes, Spanish, constructed by a master cobbler in Barcelona.

A light, double tap on his bedroom door.

“Yes?” he said, his eyes still on the mirror.

The door opened.

“Sorry to disturb, Mr. Clark,” his butler William said. The man was English, naturally. It wouldn’t do to have a butler from anywhere else. “A phone call, sir.”

“Who is it?”

“Mr. Morse, sir.”

 “I’ll be right there.”

“Very good, sir,” William said and left.

Clark spotted a tiny bit of lint on his left sleeve and plucked it off.

Now he was ready.

He took the call in the study of his twenty-second-floor Manhattan apartment.

“Good morning, Mr. Morse,” he said, looking out his window at Central Park. “I assume this is important.”

“I have news,” Morse said. As always, the man’s voice sounded strained, his long damaged vocal cords doing their best to get his words out.

“Concerning?”

“The Hayes matter.”

Clark turned away from the window, the outside world no longer of interest. “What about it?”

“The girl’s been found.”

Clark did his best to hold back the wave of excitement building in his chest. “Is that so?”

“She was discovered during an unrelated operation.”

“By us?”

“No. Helen Cho’s agency.”

Another government intelligence organization. That could complicate things.

“What has she done with the girl?” Clark asked.

“That’s unclear at the moment. What I know is that an operation in Seattle turned up more than expected. While it was still ongoing, Cho initiated a search on several names. One was Danielle Chad.”

One on a list of possible aliases. “Are we sure it’s
our
Danielle Chad?”

“Cho had a copy of the girl’s ID on her computer. It’s definitely the one we’re looking for.”

“There must be something you can use to pressure Cho to hand the girl over.”

“Cho is missing.”

A pause. “Missing as in presumed dead?”

“Kidnapped.”

“By who?”

“Also unclear. She was ambushed on her way to the office not long after she got the copy of the ID.”

“Someone else interested in the girl.”

“Yes, sir. That would be my assumption, too.”

“Can I assume you’re doing something to find Danielle?”

“I’ve sent a group of my best men to the area where she was last seen. Unfortunately the safe house Cho’s people were supposed to be using turned out to be a dead end. My team continues to look, though. What I need to know is if we run into resistance, how far do we take this?”

“If Danielle Chad is really Danielle Hayes and they have her, all the way,” Clark said without hesitation. “Just remember, we need her unharmed. Anyone who gets in the way is expendable.”

WASHINGTON, DC

I
T WAS ONE
of those political breakfasts where everyone was smiling and glad-handing and saying nothing of real importance.

Scott Bennett did at least three of them every week. Add on the even more frequent cocktail parties in the evenings, the multiple getting-to-know-you lunch meetings, and the inevitable weekend special events and he almost never saw his office or his home anymore. Such was the life of a top-tier lobbyist.

“Senator, it would be my pleasure,” Bennett was saying. “Have him call me and I’ll take care of it.”

Often it was the little things that served Bennett’s needs the best, such as obtaining box seats to a Washington Nationals baseball game for a senator’s friend. The senator would receive nothing on paper, but in the invisible ledger called What Have You Done For Me, another entry would appear in Bennett’s column.

“I appreciate that, Scott. I really do,” the senator said. “Harry can’t wait to take his son to a game when they’re out here.”

“I’ll personally see to everything. Don’t give it another thought.” By everything, Bennett meant flying the senator’s friend and son to the district, putting them up in the best hotel, providing the car that would take them to and from the game, and supplying the guide who would see them to their seats and handle the procuring of any food or drinks or souvenirs they wanted. They would do more than enjoy their evening. They would never forget it. And the friend would be sure to let the senator know.

Bennett spoke to the man for a few more moments, and then left before the conversation could turn stale.

The affair was informal. There were places to sit but most people stood, making it easy to see who was still new at this. They would be the ones balancing plates of muffins and fruit and sausages and eggs as they attempted to remain relevant to whatever conversation they were participating in.

Bennett, ever the professional, never touched the food at this type of event so he could move from lawmaker to lawmaker hands free. He was heading toward Representative Loggins when someone tapped him on the shoulder. Turning, he found Ryan Barkley, his assistant, holding an envelope.

“This just came for you,” Barkley said.

“From who?” Bennett asked as he took the envelope.

“A man in the lobby. I’ve never seen him before, but—”

Bennett was about to rake his assistant over the coals when he turned the envelope over and caught sight of the single word printed in the upper left corner.

VALOR

“Thank you,” he said. Barkley had only been following instructions. Anything marked
VALOR
should immediately be brought to Bennett. “You can head back to the office. We’re done here.”

Barkley looked confused. “There’s still another—”

“We are done,” Bennett said firmly.

“Yes, sir. I understand. Don’t forget the meeting at noon with General McFadden.”

“Reschedule it.”

Barkley still looked unsure, but this time he only said, “Yes, sir,” and left.

Bennett made his way to a quiet alcove and opened the envelope.

The Hayes girl has surfaced. Current alias: Danielle Chad. Obtain.

Below this was a series of numbers that, once he entered them in his computer, would take him to a secured web page with additional information.

How about that?
he thought.

He pulled out his phone.

BERLIN, GERMANY

T
HE ASSISTANT TRADE
attaché at the Russian embassy answered the phone on the second ring. “Komarov.”

“Good afternoon, Herr Komarov. This is Karl Schwartz, Schwartz Engineering. I believe you were expecting my call.”

Komarov froze. At one time perhaps, he had been expecting it, but that had been years ago. “Of course, Herr Schwartz,” he said. “I am happy to hear from you.”

“I hope I am not catching you at a bad time.”

“Not at all. It is always a pleasure to speak to someone of your business experience.”

“That’s kind of you to say. I am calling concerning the project we are working on outside Moscow.”

“The Dishinki Hotel?”

“Yes. Exactly.”

The conversation continued in the same boring fashion, the whole time Komarov writing down the key words. After they said good-bye, the attaché rose from his desk, made sure his door was locked, and retrieved the book that served as the code key from the secret compartment at the back of his filing cabinet.

After he deciphered the message, he composed an e-mail, similarly encoded, and sent it to the address he had memorized before being sent to Germany.

He then settled back in his chair and picked up working where he’d left off, hoping his involvement in the matter was now done.

CHICAGO, ILLINIOS

R
ICKY ORBITS—NOT
his real name, but his favorite—leaned back on his sofa, wearing only an open silk robe. He picked up the TV remote and began hopping through the channels.

SportsCenter. Nope.

He actually loved the show, but couldn’t stand watching it on days after his beloved White Sox lost. It was especially bad today since last night it had been to those damn Detroit Tigers.

He clicked again.
Pawn Stars
. Another show he loved, but he’d seen the episode multiple times so he kept going.

Bones
reruns. Okay, he could get into that. That girl was seriously smart but whacked, man. And that Angela chick was hot.

One of the doctors was pulling a skeleton out of a barrel of congealed crude when Ricky’s phone vibrated twice on the glass coffee table. A text.

He waited until a commercial and then reached for the phone, but before he even got his hand on it, a second text came in.

Someone’s anxious
, he thought.

He was wrong. The two texts had been sent by two different numbers. The first was from a regular client based in Washington, DC, and read:

Assignment: find and obtain

Last known loc.: Seattle, WA

Usual fee plus bonus if completed within 24 hrs.

Details upon acceptance

As he read the second text, he let out a surprised “huh.”

It was from a client in Moscow he’d done a couple jobs for the previous year. The weird thing was, the Russians wanted to hire him for what appeared to be the exact same job as the DC client’s. But the Russians were offering double fee plus bonus.

Well, this is a first
, he thought.
If there was a way to accept both, that would be awesome.

He spent a few minutes considering the possibility, but in the end, he knew he’d have to give the package to someone, meaning one of the clients would not be happy. That could turn ugly.

He had nothing currently booked so it wasn’t a question of whether he would take the job or not, just who he would take it from. While the second was offering more cash, number one had been a much more reliable employer.

Wanting to see if his first choice would come around to more agreeable terms, he sent a reply:

Double fee, w/bonus up to 48 hours

and I’m yours.

The answer came back within seconds.

Done.

Ricky smiled. After he sent his regrets to the Russians, he pushed off the couch and looked toward his bed on the other side of the loft.

“Babe, you gotta get out of here. I got things to do.”

The woman, lying naked on top of the sheets, barely moved.

He tried to remember her name but it wasn’t coming to him. Hell, he couldn’t even remember what her face looked like, but knew she was a looker. Even as drunk as he’d been, he wouldn’t have brought her up otherwise.

He walked over to the bed and slapped her ass. “Honey, snap to it. The hunter’s been activated. Time for you to go.”

He laughed as he headed into the bathroom to take a shower. That was a good one. He’d have to remember that.

“The hunter’s been activated. Time for you to go,” he whispered at the mirror and laughed again.

CHAPTER
11

TACOMA

W
HILE QUINN WOULD
have liked to leave the Seattle area immediately, he knew if they didn’t first get a handle on their situation, they could run themselves right into trouble.

The logical place to start was with Danielle.

He stationed Nate in the hallway in case she tried to run, and then unlocked her door.

She looked at him as he walked in, disappointed. “I thought maybe you were bringing me something to eat. At least Mr. Black fed us.”