The Successor (34 page)

Suddenly she realized she was in trouble—that the cabbie wasn’t taking her to the airport, never intended to—and she lunged for the door, even as the taxi was still moving. She tumbled onto the grass and scrambled to her feet—right into the arms of a tall African American man.

“Lemme go!”
she screamed, beating him around the face.
“Lemme go!”

Then someone grabbed her wrists and brought them firmly behind her back, locking them in place with handcuffs. Before she knew it, she was in the back of the black sedan and it was speeding away. Getting her out of the Ritz without raising any suspicions had been choreographed perfectly, she realized, and she’d fallen right into their trap—whoever
they
were.

SANCHEZ HAD RENTED
the small house several months ago in anticipation of his huge score, in anticipation of everything that was finally coming together. The run-down three-bedroom ranch was in a poor section of Miami. A crack house was on one side, a single mother with eight children on the other, and a burned-out shell of a house across the street. A neighborhood of trashy yards, gangs, and kids dressed in rags playing in the street. Perfect for what he needed.

He had an errand to run—needed to send that e-mail to Victoria Graham—and Gillette was back there in a closet of one of the unfurnished bedrooms, tied up tightly. There was no way he could escape. Sanchez had tied up lots of people in his time, and no one had ever managed to get out of his knots. Besides, Gillette still hadn’t recovered from the chloroform—which was beautiful. Sanchez hoped the bastard didn’t wake up for another couple of days.

He swung into the parking lot of the Cyber Café. The place was only five miles from the nasty ranch house where Gillette was tied up in the closet, but this was a much better neighborhood. An upscale shopping area full of high-end stores. Amazing how closely huge wealth and poverty coexisted in Miami.

Sanchez locked the old Cadillac with a turn of his key in the door, moved casually into the café, ordered a latte and thirty minutes of Internet time, then headed for an open table in a corner in the back. It was late afternoon and the place wasn’t crowded. He sat down, took a sip of the latte, then accessed his newest untraceable e-mail account and began tapping out the message. Just three lines, short and sweet. A demand for $50 million. But not the fake letter he had agreed to send. This one was real and the woman would quickly realize
how
real.

He chuckled as he hit the
SEND
button. He’d figured out that this was the chance for a big score only a few minutes after the mission had been proposed to him. Realized that he could make enough money on this one job to retire forever. It was beautiful. What was so beautiful about it was that Victoria Graham had never seen it coming.

Sanchez spent the rest of the twenty-seven minutes of Internet time he’d purchased looking at porn. He was surprised that the computer would actually let him do it, but, hey, this was Miami.

VICTORIA GRAHAM
let her head sink into her hands after she read the e-mail from Sanchez for the third time. He’d called himself Emilio in the e-mail, but she knew exactly who he was with his talk of the “Nepal Package”—obviously a reference to Everest Capital and Christian. He wanted $50 million and he wanted it right away. This wasn’t the fake demand they’d carefully scripted out, this was real. She’d completely misjudged the situation—and Sanchez. God, how could she have let herself be taken in like this?

She reached for the phone. She needed to talk to Lloyd. He was the only one she could think of to turn to at this point. She’d have to lay it all out for him, beg his forgiveness. The people Lloyd knew were the only ones who could save Christian now. And they
wanted
to save him,
needed
to save him—at least at this point. As with anything in life, you could count on people with incentive. They had an incredible incentive—and they were good.

She let her head sink all the way to the desk. She’d tried to have it all. Tried to save Christian, have her relationship with Lloyd, and screw President Wood’s health-care initiative. She’d gotten greedy, taken it too far. Now she might not get any of it. She shut her eyes. She should have known better.

“WHAT HAPPENED?
” Quentin’s face was two inches from Beth’s. She was trying to turn her head, but he had a firm grasp on her chin, and two of the men he’d sent down here a couple of days ago to scout the area were holding her still. She wasn’t going anywhere. “Tell me,” he hissed. They’d taken her into a grove of trees beside a deserted field. She was whimpering, clearly scared for her life. Well, she ought to be.
“Tell me!”
he roared.

BARRADO WAS RACING
through the streets of Miami in the SUV with his two men, headed toward an address he knew was in a nasty neighborhood. The men back in Maryland had found out where Gillette might be. A transponder that had been planted on him in Naples was still sending out a signal. It was weak, but they’d pinpointed it to the house ahead thanks to an urgent call from Senator Dorsey. There was no way to tell if it was really leading them to Gillette, but it was worth a try. It was the only lead they had.

“ALLISON,
” Quentin barked into the phone. “It’s me.” Thank God he’d been able to reach her so quickly on her cell phone. “Christian’s been kidnapped.”

And thank God that Beth Garrison—or, he now knew, Melissa Hart—had broken so fast and told him all about Victoria Graham paying her to get close to Christian. Told him that Graham was behind it all, and that Melissa had planted the transponder on Christian before he’d gone to meet with Padilla.

“You’ve got to find Victoria Graham right now,” he said loudly, interrupting Allison’s cry from the other end of the line. Quickly he explained why. “She’s the key for us at this point, Ally.”

SANCHEZ KNELT DOWN
beside Christian and pulled his head up by his hair—he was still tied up. Gagged now, but no longer blindfolded. “You’re going to make me a lot of money, you rich prick.” He laughed loudly and the harsh sound echoed in the empty house. “I should have told her I wanted more than fifty million. You could easily afford that, according to
Forbes,
anyway. But you see, I’m not a pig. I just want my fair share.”

He let Christian’s head fall heavily to the wooden floor, then stood up. As he turned to leave the room, he came face-to-face with the long, shiny shafts of three double-barreled shotguns. Suddenly he realized he hadn’t flown far enough below the radar on this one. Not even close.

The single shell Barrado fired completely disintegrated Sanchez’s heart, blowing his body violently backward against the closet wall.

QUENTIN’S CELL PHONE
finally rang. He and his men had been standing outside the Ritz for what seemed like an eternity.

“Hello.”

“I got everything out of Victoria Graham,” Allison said quickly. “She set the whole thing up. That young girl Christian’s been seeing, the kidnapping, everything. I should have known, damn it,
I should have known
.”

“Calm down, Ally.” She was talking a mile a minute, sounded as if she was on the verge of tears. “What do you mean
you should have known
?”

“Graham told me a few weeks ago that Christian was going on a trip, a very secret trip involving national security, and that he’d be away for a while. She’d found out somehow, not from Christian, and she told me she was very worried about him. I didn’t know then how she found out. I asked her but she wouldn’t tell me.
Now
I know. That’s why I was made vice chairman, Quentin, because Christian was going to be away. Turns out he was going to be away because she was the one kidnapping him. She was trying to help him, trying to save his life, but it backfired on her. At least, that’s what she claims. Apparently the guy she used to kidnap Christian turned the tables on her. She’d told me to keep an eye on Christian when she told me about the trip, but not to say anything to him. And I didn’t because I trusted her. But I should have said something to Christian, or you. It’s all my fault. If I had just let you know.”

“It’s not your fault,” Quentin said firmly. “How did Graham find out about Christian’s trip?”

“Senator Dorsey. She’s involved with him or something. She found out last fall about this thing in Cuba.” Allison hesitated. “Do you know about that?”

“Yeah,” he admitted, “I do.”

“Well, I bet you don’t know this. They’re going to kill Christian while he’s down there.”

Quentin’s eyes narrowed. “
Kill
him?”

“Yeah. After he meets with some people who are working with the military to take down the Commun—”

“Why would they kill Christian? What’s the deal?”

“I don’t know. Graham wouldn’t tell me. You should have seen her, though. She was a mess. Sobbing, not making any sense. I couldn’t believe it. All she told me was that they were going to kill him while he was in Cuba, but she wouldn’t tell me why. I think she’s worried about herself at this point.”

Probably ought to be, Quentin realized. “Why didn’t Graham just tell Christian when she found out what was going on?”

“She couldn’t let Dorsey know she was the one tipping off Christian. But after the guy turned the tables on her, she called Dorsey right away. She called Dorsey before I got to her.”

That didn’t make any sense. “But if she knows the people carrying out the Cuba thing are going to kill Christian, and Dorsey’s involved with them, why in the hell would she call Dorsey?”

“She thought those people were the only ones who could rescue Christian from this guy who kidnapped him,” Allison explained. “She said she didn’t know what else to do.”

“Where is Christian?”

“Miami. Apparently he set off some transponder or something and they tracked it.”

Quentin shook his head. Christian was one cool customer. “How long ago did she call Dorsey?” he asked, afraid of the answer.

“It’s been a couple of hours.”

Quentin motioned for his men to relax. At this point Christian was back with the spooks—or dead. There was no point racing to Miami. They’d be way too late. “I guess he’s on his way to Cuba then.” If the spooks had him, that was where Christian was definitely headed. And Quentin wanted Allison to hear him be optimistic. “I’d try to get down there myself, call a few of my buddies in the Rangers and see if there’s a way to parachute in or something. Problem is, I wouldn’t have any idea where to go when I got there.” Dr. Padilla would know, but he was observing the operation with his Cuban handlers. There would probably be no way of getting to Padilla without alerting the regime at this point, either. “Ally.” Nothing but silence from the other end of the phone.
“Ally?”

“What if I could tell you where to go?” she finally asked.

“How could you do that?”

“Stay where you are,” she said excitedly. “I’ll call you back as soon as I can.”

CHRISTIAN HOPPED UP
onto the spindly pier of the camp, followed by Barrado. He’d never been so happy to see anyone in his life. After they’d killed the guy who’d kidnapped him, they’d untied him and told him who they were. Told him they were taking him straight down into the Everglades. That from there he’d be choppered out to a navy ship waiting for him in the Gulf of Mexico. On the ship he’d board another chopper, then be dropped into Cuba early in the morning along with his protection squad of Rangers. Time was of the essence now, they’d told him as they’d hurried him out of the ranch house to the SUV. Told him that he needed to meet with the rest of the Six as quickly as possible to give President Wood the word—thumbs-up or -down. If it was up, everything would explode. By this time tomorrow, the old regime might no longer control Cuba.

Christian knew right away these guys were real. They had details about the mission that convinced him. And Barrado had asked for the transponder as soon as he was untied, smashing it with his boot on the floor beside the kidnapper’s body when Christian handed it over. Christian had wanted to hug the man—but he hadn’t.

He wanted to call Quentin, too, but they wouldn’t let him. Barrado had said that he didn’t want to chance someone picking up the transmission, but they’d been in downtown Miami—and it wasn’t as if they were staying or that he would have been stupid enough to say anything that would have given away their location. You could trace a cell phone to a specific antenna—he knew that—but they were on the move. By the time anyone could have figured out what antenna he was in contact with, they’d be long gone from that cell. But he hadn’t argued, too glad to be safe.

“Come with me, Christian,” Barrado said, waving. “I want you to take a look at this snake we killed this morning. It’ll blow your mind.”

“HI, ALLY,
” Quentin said quickly. It had been a couple of hours. “I was getting worried.”