Two Evils (34 page)

The two of them thundered down the stairs at a reckless speed
, nearly crashing into a couple of doctors two floors down. The moment they were out of the stairwell they sprinted for the door, then ran full-tilt for the visitor’s lot and the Charger. In seconds they were pealing out and turning right onto Reservoir Rd.

“My sister’s a smart girl,” Teddy said between John’s long presses on the horn to get people the hell out of his way. “She knows to wait until the cab is full of water and pressurized before trying to open the door. If she can keep the other girl calm long enough to do that, they’ll be fine.”

John wondered if Teddy was trying to assure him or trying to reassure himself. As it was, he was reminding himself of what he’d read in Billie’s dossier—she’d had weeks of underwater courses during her SpecOps training at Camp Lejeune. That meant, as Teddy had said, that she was smart. She would know what to do in just such an event as this and could probably hold her breath longer than him. Rebecca he wasn’t too sure about. He hoped that her basic training had kicked in, that she wouldn’t panic, and that she would follow Billie’s direction.

His pulse raced faster than the car as he sped down Reservoir and ont
o Wisconsin, then turned from Wisconsin onto Route 29. The state route took them to Rock Creek and Potomac Parkway, and from there it was just minutes to the northeastern approach of Arlington Memorial Bridge. At the speed he was pushing the Charger to they had cut the normal travel time by at least half, but even eight minutes was still too damn long for his liking.

When at last they pulled to a screeching stop on the bridge, a dozen or more rescue and emergency personnel had
already arrived. John yanked his wallet from his pocket, knowing he would need his badge to cut through a lot of bullshit. Pushing through a bunch of cops and firefighters with Teddy on his heels, he ran to the edge of the sidewalk, where a gaping hole had been punched through the concrete. His gut twisted again and he had to fight to catch his breath—Billie and Rebecca would be lucky not to have been killed on impact with that barrier alone. Below, a tugboat was already towing a black crew cab truck toward the shore, where a tow truck was waiting.

At least D
.C. EMS moves fast
, he thought sourly.

Shaking himself free of his dark thoughts,
he turned and searched for the person who appeared to be in charge up here. Locating a LEO whose collar bore lieutenant’s bars, John approached him and held up his badge.

“Special Agent John Courtney, CIA,” he said abruptly. “Are you the scene commander?”

“I am until my captain gets here,” the lieutenant said after studying his ID. “What can I do for you, Agent Courtney?”

“There were two women in that truck down there. I want to know where they are,” John said.

“Have they already been transported to the hospital?” Teddy added.

The cop looked between them. “There was nobody in the truck when our divers reached it just a couple minutes ago,” he said. “As you can see,
one of the doors is open.”

He and Teddy looked down to the water again. The tug had reached the shore and a crew was hooking the rear end to the tow truck to be lifted out of the water. As he had sa
id, the back driver’s side door was hanging open.

Teddy turned to the cop. “That means they got out, but where the hell are they?” he demanded. “Where’s my sister?”

Just then another cop came running up. “Lieutenant!” the woman said breathlessly. “I’ve got reports from at least a dozen eyewitnesses that said the truck below, a 2007 GMC Sierra, was being pursued by a tan military-issue Humvee—it rear-ended them twice before sideswiping three times. Several of the wits stated that after the Sierra went into the water, the Humvee pulled off the road and two men got out, ran down the bank, and took two women—who had swam to shore—back to the vehicle with them. Humvee then took off back across the bridge.”

“Shit,” said the lieutenant. “So not only do we have attempted vehicular homicide, we’ve got a kidnapping.
We need to coordinate with Virginia authorities.”

He jerked a phone from one of his pockets and opened it, slapping it to his ear as soon as he had pressed a speed dial button and turning away from them, presumably to speak to his superior.

Teddy grabbed his arm in a vice grip and spun him around. “You and Billie have kept quiet about what the hell you’re up to, and so far I’ve respected that,” he said darkly. “But now my sister’s life is in danger, so no more keeping secrets. Not about this. I want to know what the fuck is going on.”

John knew there would be no keeping him in the dark—the look in the younger man’s eyes was one of fierce determination. Teddy wasn’t even considering that Billie and Rebecca might already be dead, and frankly he was refusing to do the same. General Wainright could be the only one responsible for what had happened, and the fact that the girls were taken alive instead of simply being shot when they got out of the water told him that the general wanted something.

He had a pretty damn good idea what—or rather whom—it was.

“Not here,” he said, prying Teddy’s hand from his arm. He turned and led the way back to the Charger, where he threw himself behind the wheel with a ferocity he knew was born of worry and anger. Teddy quickly dropped into the passenger seat.

“So? Spill it, Courtney.”

In as few words as possible, he explained why he had been sent to the Virgin
Islands—to get Billie—and why she had returned with him. He explained about the three soldiers from her team being sequestered in a safe house because they all had believed General Wainright to be less than forthcoming about his motives. He explained what they’d asked Rebecca to do and why Billie had taken the trip to Pentagon City.

“And the last time I talked to her—God, couldn’t have been more than half an hour ago—she told me that Eddie’s sister found evidence on the general’s computer linking him to human trafficking,” he concluded.

Teddy scowled. “You mean to tell me that a Marine Corps general is dealing in sex slaves?” he asked incredulously.

“Unfortunately yes,” he replied.
“It looks that way.”

“So what about Billie and Rebecca? How are we going to find them?”

His chest constricted painfully at the thought, but he had to say it. “It kills me to have to say this, but there is nothing we
can
do until the general calls.”

“Do you really think he’s going to do that?” Teddy challenged. “After all, he has the evidence back, or it was destroyed in the water. He doesn’t even really need Billie and her friend—why did he even take them?”

“Because he needs Billie to find her team,” John replied. “So far as he knows she hasn’t found them yet, and I doubt she’ll tell them any different. Rebecca’s another story. We took her to the safe house last night so that we could reveal the truth about her brother, so she’d understand why we were asking her to do something so risky. I don’t think she can give them the exact location, but she can tell the general that the guys are here in town.”

Teddy’s phone chose that moment to ring from John’s back pocket, where he’d shoved it unthinking after his 911 call.
He reached to pull it out and found the screen saying Unknown Caller—though he had little doubt as to who would be on the other end when he answered. Pressing the Answer key, he held the phone to his ear.

“Yes?”

“Bring the soldiers if you want to see the women alive again,” said a voice that he didn’t recognize, but that seemed familiar just the same.

“Where?” he asked.

“Columbia Island Marina, dock eight, last boat on the left. You have two hours.”

Before John could even
think to ask for any other information or for proof that Billie and Rebecca were still alive, the line went dead. He felt like flinging the phone at his windshield in frustration but instead tossed it sideways at its owner.

“What did they say?” Teddy asked.

“I’m to bring Billie’s team to Columbia Island Marina, and I have two hours to do it in,” he replied. He refused to utter the mystery man’s threat to Billie and Rebecca’s lives.

“Can we
retrieve the guys and get to the marina in two hours?”

John snorted. “I could pick them up and be there in under forty-five minutes,” he replied. “The timetable of two hours means that while they must know the guys are near, they don’t necessarily know how near—
which gives us a couple of advantages.”

He was putting the car into gear and pulling out of the maze of official vehicles as Teddy asked him, “What advantage
s, precisely?”

“For one, it will give us the time to scout the location and get eyes on the targets,” John explained
. “We may be able to take them out from a distance without having to engage person-to-person.”

“
Or you may not,” Teddy replied. “They could be very well concealed.”

“Let’s try to maintain at least a modicum of optimism, eh?”

Teddy scoffed. “As if you aren’t scared to death that something is going to happen to my sister before we can get to her,” he said pointedly.

John didn’t bother trying to deny it—he was afraid for Billie in a way he had not been afraid for another person in
all his life. Fellow agents had been in dire straits before, and he had worried for their safety, but this…this was different. Two days, three days, three years—it didn’t matter how long he’d known her. Billie
had
become important to him. His feelings for her were strong and went deeper than he had until now been willing to admit. And although he could not say if what he felt was love, John knew that what he did feel was something he wasn’t going to give up without a fight.

“Speaking of your sister,” he said as he maneuvered the Charger back onto Ohio Drive and headed north, “she’s our other advantage.”

Teddy seemed to think about that for a moment, and then he smiled. “Yeah—fuckers shoulda known better than to capture the She-Devil.”



Keeping Rebecca calm as the truck was sinking hadn’t been easy. Billie’s passenger had started hyperventilating the moment the water had started pouring into the cab, and she’d had to shout at her to get her attention. Bringing her back from the edge of panic had taken precious time, but she had no choice—she wouldn’t be able to get them both out if Rebecca didn’t understand and do as she’d been told.

And then Rebecca had surprised her. Once she got a hold of herself, she’d listened and followed instructions precisely, climbing into the backseat without hesitation when Billy explained that they were sinking nose first because of the weight of the diesel truck’s engine—in the back, they’d have only a few extra moments
, but those few could possibly mean the difference between life and death. She recalled with sudden, morbid clarity that on an episode of
Mythbusters
, it had taken just over a minute for the white sedan Adam and Jamie had tested a movie myth in to fill with water; the larger cabin of Teddy’s Sierra might just give them longer than 70 seconds to prepare themselves.

At least she sure as hell hoped it would.

When the water was about to take the last pocket of air, Billie—not entirely immune to the fear that they would drown—grabbed hold of Rebecca’s hand as much to gather strength as to give it. The second the cab was devoid of air, she released Rebecca’s hand and tried the handle of her door. It opened—yes! Grabbing the other woman’s hand again, she dragged her out behind her, and when they were both free, she let go and they both began kicking as hard as they could for the surface.

Billie sucked in a gasping breath as soon as she broke through to fresh air, relieving her straining lungs. When Rebecca didn’t immediately come up beside her she began to worry that the woman’s uniform skirt was hampering her progress.  But her com
panion popped up as she was preparing to dive back down for her, gasping and sputtering.

“Are you okay?” Billie asked as she treaded water.

Rebecca coughed as she wiped water from her eyes. “Better than I was ten seconds ago, Captain.”

“Good, let’s get the hell out of this water.” Rebecca nodded and Billie turned toward the nearest shore, which she knew was D.C.
A sight caught her eyes that brought her up short, staring with a mixture of alarm and fury at what awaited them there: two men, dressed in fatigues, both pointing guns at the water—at them. Obviously, these two worked for the general, which meant that they were oathbreakers just as he was. She wanted so badly to pull her gun and drop them for that alone; only the knowledge that the waterlogged Sig wouldn’t be lethal at this distance stopped her. With the goons waiting to take them away, she felt certain that they would both be patted down—she’d be relieved of her weapon whether she could use it or not.

She couldn’t let them get a hold of the flash drive. Rebecca had copied Wainright’s Pleasures files at great personal risk. She couldn’t let her have done so in vain. She also couldn’t just throw the drive away—surely once it dried they’d still be able to pull the information off of it. It was with the hope that they’d get the chance to do so that she dropped one arm under the water and pulled the
device from her pocket. Thankfully the water was still up to her neck, so she was able to slip it over the top of her shirt to tuck it between her breasts without the men on the shore seeing a thing.