Paradise Burning (35 page)

Karim tightened his armlock. Mandy’s eyes
bulged, the room faded.

Peter’s arms came off the wall. “Stop it! Let
her go.” The barrel of the machine pistol ramming into his flesh,
seemed as large as a cannon. “Shit!” Peter groaned. He was no use
to Mandy dead. He thrust his arms back against the wall, palms out,
like Christ on the cross.

Karim moved forward, shoving a nearly
unconscious Mandy within a foot of Peter’s face. “Do. You.
Understand?” The words were harsh. Tossed out like bullets.

“
I understand,” Peter affirmed quickly
before he watched his Mouse die right in front of his eyes. “I’ll
take care of it.” But could he? Would the FBI listen?

The leader, with his military bearing and
precise clipped English, had to be Mandy’s Iranian. And he was
right. He and Mandy weren’t going to win this one.

Shirazi eased his arm off Mandy’s throat,
moving his grip down around her waist to keep her from falling.

Peter thought she was breathing, but he
couldn’t be sure. Hard to think under the circumstances, but he had
to. He’d grown lazy these past two years, forgotten how to be a man
of action.

But action was impossible. Not even Brad Blue
could get out of this one.

“
I’ll need my cell phone,” Peter
declared. “It’s on the bedtable.”

Karim gave a curt nod, held out a hand, which
one of his men promptly filled with Peter’s phone. So the
scumbags—at least this one—understood English, Peter noted.

Shirazi pocketed the cell phone, renewed his
grip on Mandy, who had returned to the living enough to be able to
stand on her own, however shakily. He barked a command and suddenly
Peter was off the wall, his arms twisted painfully behind his back,
his feet moving inexorably forward. In front of him, Mandy
stumbled, came close to falling as the Iranian propelled her toward
the bedroom door. Peter gritted his teeth, ignored the pain in his
arm, trudged steadily forward. At least his Mouse was still
alive.

In spite of the clumsiness of their two
captives, the intruders melted into the darkness. There was only
the faintest whisper of sound as six dark shadows exited the house.
Then silence. Utter darkness.

It was a full half hour before the owl
returned to his low, mournful hoot.

Seemingly unhindered by his Mac-10, the
industrial-sized flashlight, or the MP-5 slung over his back, the
masked man Mandy supposed was Karim Shirazi kept a grip on her arm
tight enough to propel her down the ramp beneath the house, across
the parking circle and down Peter’s long winding driveway. Why
weren’t they headed for the river? No way did she want to go back
to the Club Nautico. That was a death sentence, she was certain of
it.

As the Iranian force-marched her around
a curve in Peter’s long driveway, Mandy saw a van sheltered under
the dark shadows of a giant live oak.
Oh,
shit!
It was the club.

Then again, the Club Nautico was twenty-some
miles away, the old line shack just across the river. At the main
road would it be left or right? Left toward the back road in Pine
Grove, or right to I-75, Manatee Bay, and the Club Nautico?

One of their captors stepped forward, opening
the van’s rear door. The interior yawned clean and empty, the only
seats the two at the front. The pungent smell of a brand new
vehicle permeated the night air. Stolen off a dealer’s lot, Mandy
guessed. Karim boosted her into the van, prodding her forward until
she was huddled in a corner just behind the driver’s seat. When
Peter tried to follow, a sharp command, a jab of the Mac-10 sent
him stumbling back toward the rear of the van. Karim shoved the
flashlight back onto his belt and lowered himself down beside her,
the MP-5 clunking hard against the van’s carpet. With a grunt of
relief, he stripped off his ski mask, their other captors quick to
imitate him. The rear door clanged shut, the van’s engine roared to
life. But Mandy had seen enough to confirm her suspicions. The man
sitting next to her, hip to hip, was Nadya’s jailer, Karim
Shirazi.

Mandy scrunched herself into fetal position,
knees to her chin, making herself as small as possible. She lowered
her head, gritted her teeth, and vowed not to reveal her fear by so
much as a single quiver.

As the soft glow of the lanterns illuminating
Amber Run’s main road flashed by, Mandy tried to peer into the
shadows where Peter was sitting. Nothing. Was Peter still bleeding?
No way to tell. The shadows in the back of the windowless van were
impenetrable.

They were approaching the main road.
Mandy gritted her teeth and prayed.
Left,
left, left!
Nadya and the other girls were at the old
house on the river. Allies all, surely. And—Mandy’s lips curled
into a thin smile—the FBI had 24/7 surveillance on the
house.

The van slowed, stopped. The headlights of a
passing car flashed by. The van moved forward—Mandy held her
breath—and made a ninety degree left turn.

Thank you, Lord!

A few miles later, light flooded the van as
the rural road they were on suddenly intersected the Tamiami Trail.
And there was Peter, tossing her a lop-sided grin. A black streak
of dried blood ran down his chin. Dark splotches marred the light
blue of his rumpled polo shirt. Mandy flashed a quick “thumbs up”
before the brightly lit intersection faded behind them.

Another ten minutes, and the driver swung
onto a narrow side road, with trees and heavy undergrowth hovering
close on either side. Not a sign of a house. In fact—Mandy’s neck
protested as she twisted around, attempting to see out the van’s
front window and finding nothing but trees there too. The road was
dead-ending against a solid wall of wilderness.

With a sudden jerk of the wheel, the driver
made a hard left. The van lurched, shuddered, bounced hard. Mandy
gasped as she was flung against the back of the seat, then
catapulted toward the unyielding van floor. Strong arms caught and
held her tight against a rock-hard chest. Sharp words shot over her
head. She tasted blood and realized her teeth must have snapped
down onto her tongue. The driver, hunched over the wheel, was
swearing. At least that’s what Mandy assumed his angry Russian
mutterings were. The rest of the passengers were sprawled every
which way in a tangle of arms and legs, and guns. Not all the
swearing was coming from the front.

James Bond would have grabbed up one of the
weapons, Mandy thought. Mowed down the bad guys, rescued the good
guys, saved the fair maidens—however dubious their profession—then
headed home in triumph, probably with Nadya Semyonova hanging on
his sleeve. Nice fantasy. You could do that in books and movies. In
real life things like that only got you killed. Mandy fisted her
hands against temptation. And discovered one of them was in a very
intimate place. Not her own.

The hard hands that held her upright abruptly
let go. While she’d been catching her breath, eye to eye with the
barrel of Karim’s MP-5, and contemplating heroic deeds, she had
somehow ignored her up-close-and-personal contact with her captor.
Mandy settled back into a ball, attempting to be small. Very small.
Invisible. Her cheeks flamed.

Not that the Iranian cared where her hand had
ended up . . . He, after all, thought her old and ugly.

With a final sharp curse, the driver shifted
into first, creeping forward at the pace of a decrepit snail. Now,
too late, Mandy recalled Doug Chalmers telling them the first part
of the road to the old house had been deliberately designed to look
derelict. Someone should have warned the driver, who was obviously
not one of the regulars.

After a few more minutes of potholes,
gullies, and low man-made berms in land that had originally been
flat, the van rolled to a stop. In front of them, the headlights
illuminated a chain link fence topped with barbed wire, a match for
the one Mandy had seen at the north entrance the day she first saw
Karim Shirazi.

The Iranian punched a series of numbers into
his cell phone and the gate came to life, swinging slowly outward.
The van’s headlights revealed a smooth hard-packed road of sand and
marl winding through an expanse of tall grass and scraggly
underbrush with only a scattering of shadowy trees. Karim issued
another order, and the van surged forward at a modest increase in
speed.

As they made the four-mile trip at a pace so
safe it could be called sedate, Mandy had time for a reality check.
Nothing like a kidnapping to set a girl’s priorities straight. If
she and Peter got out of this, she was ready to admit her sins. And
they were many.

She’d refused to think of herself as anything
but a snowbird—here today, gone tomorrow. She’d refused to accept
the house Peter built, snubbed his offer to raise a family there.
Refused to admit she loved him. Refused to make the compromises
necessary to make love work. Refused to love enough to think of
other people’s needs.

Refused to face up to her own needs.
She’d suffered from Triple A tunnel vision, failed Marriage
101.
Whither thou goest . . . Love. Honor.
Cherish.

Forgive.

If Peter and she got out of this, she was
even willing to grovel . . .

Okay, so maybe this was a poor night
for bargaining. Perhaps the pipeline to God was a bit thin out back
of the outback. But
she
knew.
She would remember there were more important things than pride.
Actually . . . if they got through this, Mandy doubted she’d have
to stoop to groveling. She and Peter would be in a mutual rush to
embrace life. And each other.

Even if he didn’t love her.

No ropes, no gags. Peter suffered the
humiliation of a man whose ability to fight back has been totally
discounted. Unless he was suicidal—and wanted to take Mandy with
him—there wasn’t a damn thing he could do. He shifted his shoulders
until he could see past the driver’s profile through the side
window beyond. Night was giving way to glowering shades of gray,
pastureland interspersed with brush and trees to a gradually
thickening tangle of jungle-like growth. They must be approaching
the river. For the past mile the road had become a narrow ribbon of
sand winding through trees so dense they formed a nearly solid
canopy above their heads. Spanish moss hung down in long gray-green
trails, softly swishing its tendrils along the roof of the van.

And somewhere close by, Peter reminded
himself with a surge of hope, were FBI agents who had been assigned
to watch the old line shack. With night vision devices, cameras,
video, Blackberries, even old-fashioned notebooks at the ready.
Surely the surveillance team would notice the oddity of a closed
utility van and snap to the alert. Doug Chalmers had described the
vehicles that brought clients to the brothel in the woods as a
black limo and a white van with three rows of seats, a sliding side
door and broad windows.

So come on, guys, wake up! Wrong kind of van.
No windows. And the timing is wrong. At dawn the johns should be
going the other way.

Peter leaned back, closed his eyes. Noticing
the oddity was one thing, he thought sourly, rescue was another.
They could call in an FBI assault team, SWAT guys from three
counties, the National Guard. Hell, they could have a whole army
out here, armed with RPGs, and it wouldn’t matter. As long as Karim
Shirazi held Peter Pennington and Mandy Armitage, he had a license
to escape. And take his women with him. Not even the most gung ho
commanding officer was going to risk the life of a well-known
author or a girl whose father held the kind of secrets that
guaranteed no one wanted to piss him off.

But, hey, Peter had faith. The FBI would
manage to follow until he and Mandy were released . . .

Who was he kidding? Shirazi would keep them
as long as it took. Until he lost them all in the heart of a city,
the wilds of some badland, a secluded mountain cabin. Maybe even a
freighter to the South Seas, the Far East. Thailand.

And when they were far enough under
cover . . . or far enough out to sea, it was bye-bye time.
Sorry, Pennington, but hostages are expendable.
I’m sure you understand.

The van slowed, stopped. The rear doors
popped open, and pale light flooded in. A flick of Shirazi’s strong
chin and what looked like a surprisingly gentle push, and Mandy
scrambled toward the open door. Peter followed, moving quickly,
keeping ahead of the all-too-ready Mac-10 behind him.

Shit!
Peter hit
the ground in an ignominious heap as his leg buckled under him, a
victim of his cramped position in the van. So much for cutting an
heroic figure. Not that there was anything heroic about being a
captive, but he would rather not have ended up flat on his ass in
the dirt in front of the woman he wanted to accept him as her
protector for life.

Well . . . maybe that thought was a bit out
of date. He was pushing forty with the mindset of a man of
eighty.

Rough hands grabbed, dragged him to his feet.
Peter winced. And not from pain. It was far from his finest hour.
The masked men holding him up managed to radiate a nice mix of
scorn and amusement while he stomped his reluctant leg back to
life. When he could walk, the men abandoned him, calmly stowing
their weapons in a large zippered bag that looked too much like a
body bag for Peter’s comfort. A jab in the side by the Rambo who
appeared to be his private guard sent him moving toward the door of
the old wooden house, which looked as if it should have been
termite fodder long since.

The Mac-10 added yet another bruise to his
back. Peter pulled open the door and entered the house.