Army of Two (13 page)

Taddeo stored his knife in his belt and pulled his ski mask back on. It wasn’t long before the two executives were herded into the room. Like the rest of the hostages, they still wore what they’d had on when they’d been rounded up the day before. Graham Petherick didn’t look like the head of a billion-dollar company. With his feet bare and his rumpled pajamas stretched over his potbelly, he looked like a helpless old man. In a gesture of solidarity, he’d given his robe to Jim Whitby to cover his underwear, but the garment hung like a hand-me-down on the much-smaller frame of the company comptroller. The overall effect of the pair of them was comical.

That suited Lewis just fine. A demoralized hostage was less likely to cause trouble. His own ski mask firmly in place, he pointed to the computer. “Time to confirm the shipping orders, Petherick.”

He sat in the chair, but didn’t lift his hands to the keyboard immediately. “I want a guarantee that you’ll keep your word,” he said.

“You’re in no position to make demands.”

“Then as a gesture of goodwill, let the women and the boy go. I’ve done what you’ve asked. You don’t need them.”

“Let them go where?” Lewis asked. “For a stroll down the road? Have you forgotten where we are?”

“I’ll call in my pilot. He’ll do what I tell him, no questions asked.”

“You’re a businessman, Petherick. You should know better than to insult the intelligence of someone you’re doing business with. The women would talk the instant they were released, and then what would happen to our deal?”

Petherick spoke quickly. “I can make you a better deal. How much are you being offered for that shipment? I’ll top it. We don’t need to take this any further.”

Lewis pulled his pistol from the holster at his waist. Rather than aim it at Petherick, he pressed the muzzle to Whitby’s temple. “You’re the company comptroller, correct?” he snapped.

Whitby’s first reaction was indignant surprise. When Lewis didn’t remove the gun, his face paled. “P-please. I’ve been cooperating. Don’t hurt me.”

Yes, he’d been cooperating more than Petherick knew, but it wouldn’t hurt to remind them both who was in charge. “You know the balance sheet better than your boss. How much cash can he produce within forty-eight hours?”

“I have a wife and three children. My youngest is sick. They depend on me.”

Lewis cut off the man’s whining with a warning glare. “Answer the question.”

“It’s difficult to place a dollar value on our assets. Our financing is a fluid entity. In order to raise a significant amount of funds—”

“Meaning you don’t have a lot of cash.”

Whitby looked at Petherick. “I’m sorry, Graham. I’m not risking my life to say what you want. I have to tell the truth.”

“There’s my answer,” Lewis said, withdrawing the gun. “The merchandise will be sold to the highest bidder. That’s not going to be your boss.”

Petherick’s jaw twitched. “Please. I’m begging you to reconsider. You’re an American. Think of the tragedy our country has already been through. You know what could happen if those weapons fall into the wrong hands.”

Appealing to Lewis’s patriotism was the wrong strategy. He’d given his best years to his country, and it had turned its back on him. He’d worked hard coordinating their shipments of supplies, and he’d deserved more than they’d paid him. No one would have missed those few crates of goods that he’d sold, yet the army had called it theft and had thrown him out with a dishonorable discharge. To add to the insult, the psych profile the army quacks had done on him had dogged him even after he’d left. He had a right to collect everything he was owed.

“I know exactly what will happen,” Lewis said. “The profits will end up in my pockets instead of yours. That’s the American way. Now, I’ll only say this one more time. I want confirmation that the shipment is being diverted to the destination I specified. Otherwise, I’ll send Mr. Taddeo back to the lobby to choose a hostage who’s more expendable than either one of you.”

Taddeo pulled out his knife and caressed the blade with his thumb. “Let me bring the kid.”

Ordinarily Lewis wouldn’t have tolerated one of his men interrupting him, but it had the desired effect.

Without another word, Petherick set his fingers on the keyboard and started typing.

Chapter 9

“K
nox made me help him. I didn’t want to. You don’t know that guy. He’s crazy.”

“You’re not a good liar, Bamford,” Mitch remarked. “I know you were promised a share of the take.”

“Yeah, okay, but I’m not like the rest of his goons. I wouldn’t have hurt her, I swear. I wasn’t hired for muscle. All I do is work the computer.”

“You know how to work an AK47, too.”

Chantal waited by the door as Mitch led their prisoner across the main room. They had decided to bring Bamford—that was what he claimed was his name—to another one of the derelict cabins, specifically the one farthest from the Aerie. The location put them well out of hearing distance and past the range of Knox’s patrols. It had been a long walk and Mitch’s limp had become more pronounced the farther they’d gone. But at least Bamford had regained consciousness so he’d been able to walk part of the way on his own.

In fact, he’d been only too eager to cooperate once it was clear he was at their mercy. Apparently, Knox’s men had no loyalty to their leader.

She shivered. Though the rain had stopped shortly after they’d left the crest of the hill, her clothes were still saturated. It wasn’t only the soaked denim against her legs and the wet hair on her cheeks that chilled her. It was what Bamford had told Mitch on the way over here.

Knox wasn’t trying to extort money from Graham’s company, as she and Mitch had speculated earlier. He was after the weapons that the company manufactured. Not rifles or machine guns. No, Knox hadn’t gone to all the trouble of seizing the Aerie in order to obtain a few crates of small arms. He was forcing Graham to divert an entire shipment of recently developed, ultra accurate surface-to-air missiles that the Petherick Corporation had designed for the U.S. military.

Far more than the lives of the thirteen hostages were at risk if Knox wasn’t stopped. Hundreds, possibly thousands of innocent people could be killed if those missiles fell into the hands of terrorists.

Just when she had thought things couldn’t get worse, they did. Again.

Chantal hugged her arms over her chest, striving for calm. There were another two days left. Somehow, they had to find a way to stop Knox and his obscene plan.

Her gaze moved around the cabin. It hadn’t fared as well during the years of neglect as the one she and Mitch were using for themselves. Water dripped from the ceiling in one corner onto a darkening stain of rotten floorboards. There was a rectangular wooden table with two benches instead of chairs. The wood stove was a rusted-out hulk that appeared to be held together mainly by cobwebs. Dusk was falling early. Little light came through the boarded-up front window, although years’ worth of forest debris had managed to find its way inside through the cracks.

Overall, the place was bleak and filthy.

But it made an excellent jail.

She found it hard to believe that they’d actually taken a prisoner. An enemy captive. It seemed bizarre, like something out of a game that kids would play. Cops and robbers. Cowboys and Indians. The captured prey brought back to the secret hideout.

Yet this was no game. It was a fight for survival in which the stakes had just been raised.

“What the hell is this place?” Bamford demanded.

“Your new home.” Mitch used his gun to point to the doorway of the windowless room at the back. It would have been the bedroom, but there was no bed, only a pile of drifted leaves.

“Come on, man. I’ve been cooperating, haven’t I? I’ve told you everything I know. We had a deal. You said you’d help me.”

“I only agreed to protect you from Knox.”

“You can’t just leave me.”

“I’ll check on you in the morning.”

“I’ve got rights,” Bamford said. “You’re supposed to get me a lawyer.”

“You’re confusing me with a cop. I’m a soldier.”

“I’ve still got rights.”

“You and Knox conspired in a potential attack on the United States, so this is a matter of national security. As far as I’m concerned, you’re an enemy combatant and you have no rights.”

“I can’t stay here!”

“Would you prefer that I shoot you?” Mitch asked calmly.

Some of Bamford’s bravado faded. He looked at the gun, then at Mitch’s face.

Mitch’s expression was pure granite. Chantal could see now that his ability to hide his emotions was a tool to him, as effective for establishing control as the weapon he held. To someone who didn’t know him, he would appear devoid of feeling, fully capable of doing whatever was necessary to achieve his goal.

Bamford must have reached the same conclusion. “Hell,” he muttered. “You’re as bad as Knox is.” Without further protest, he went into the bedroom that would serve as his cell.

Mitch swung the door closed, dragged over the table and tipped it on end to wedge against the door. He used one of the benches as a brace to hold it in position. Once it was secured to his satisfaction, Chantal helped him drag the other bench outside. Together, they braced the front door so it couldn’t be opened from the inside as added insurance that their prisoner wouldn’t escape.

Part of her was uncomfortable with the idea of penning up a human being, but she understood there had been little choice. For their own safety, they couldn’t have let him go free. If Knox knew for certain they were still alive, he might try to hunt them down. In spite of Mitch’s threat, she didn’t believe he would have shot an unarmed man in cold blood. The only other choice would have been to bring their prisoner with them. If they’d done that, they would have needed to tie him up and gag him or watch him constantly—probably both. That would have drained their strength and diverted their attention from their priority, which was still to find help for the hostages before time was up.

Her mind turned to what her friends and Graham’s people were facing. The image of the helpless hostages was a familiar one, because it had been haunting her for a day and a half. Added to that was an image of the destruction one of the stolen surface-to-air missiles could bring. She’d seen the aftermath of plane crashes on the news. The idea that anyone would deliberately cause such a thing was unthinkable, yet that’s what could result from Knox’s plan. The Aerie, a place of peace, was being tainted by his evil.

Any sympathy Chantal might have had for Bamford disappeared. She took a moment to get her bearings, then led Mitch to the trail that would take them back to their own cabin.

Mitch pulled open the door in the wood stove to add another piece of wood to the fire. The air had been too calm to risk building one the night before. Tonight the wind blew strongly from the northeast, so any smoke that didn’t get swallowed by the damp air would be carried away from the Aerie. There was an outside chance that it would be detected, but Knox’s men would have no idea where it was originating. Mitch’s main concern right now was Chantal.

The only illumination in the cabin came from a candle stub he’d placed on the table. Despite the dim light, he could see that her shivering worsened and her lips and nails were devoid of color. Although she’d once again eaten every morsel of the fish he’d cooked, her energy was definitely flagging. Her suede jacket hadn’t proved as good protection from the rain as his leather one had, and the chill she’d acquired had gone deep.

“I can do that,” Chantal said. She picked up a piece of the firewood he’d brought in. “You should be staying off your ankle.”

It was true that he’d aggravated the sprain by carrying Bamford, yet he wasn’t ready to rest. He ignored his discomfort and picked up the rope he’d brought from the boathouse that morning. He strung it between a line of nails that projected from the rafters above the stove.

“What are you doing?”

“Making a clothesline. You got soaked to the skin during that squall and you need to get dry.”

“So do you.”

“I was inside the chopper for the worst of it. I didn’t get as wet as you did and my pants aren’t heavy denim. They’re not holding in the moisture.”

“Well, don’t worry about me. I’m fine,” she said quickly. She closed the stove door and went over to the table.

“No, you’re not. You said you took first aid courses. You should recognize that you’re exhibiting signs of hypothermia.”

“It’s only October. It’s not that cold.”

“Chantal, I can hear your teeth chattering.”

“And I can see you limping. Go sit down.”

“Not until you take off your clothes.”

His words fell into a sudden silence. He fastened the rope to the final nail and turned to face her.

She was looking at the floor and rubbing the outside of her right thigh. He’d noticed her do that before when she was uncomfortable about something. In fact, he remembered seeing the same gesture when she’d been a teenager. It didn’t take a genius to know what it was that bothered her now.

“I’m not making a pass at you, Chantal. I’m trying to be practical.”

She lifted one hand in a vague gesture.

“Our immune systems are already strained because of stress, poor diet and lack of rest. Neither of us can afford to get sick.”

“I realize that.”

He went to the bedroom, took the quilt she’d used the night before and handed it to her. “You can get undressed under this. Hand me your things and I’ll hang them up.”

“Then will you sit down?”

“Sure.”

“You’ll rest your ankle?”

“Absolutely.”

“Turn around.”

He almost reminded her that her modesty was misplaced since he’d seen her naked before, but that wouldn’t have improved the situation. The circumstances were already too reminiscent of that other rainy night. He did as she asked and faced the stove.

The sound of her zipper made his mouth go dry. This was the second time in two days that she’d undressed in his presence, only this time he was aware she was doing it. He searched for something to say to take his mind off what was going on behind him. They needed to stick to business.