Unholy Code (A Lana Elkins Thriller) (33 page)

The armed woman didn’t even acknowledge her.

“Next time I’ll belt you in the face,” the masked man said. “Get down.”

She lay on her side. He cuffed her ankles together. Then he ran duct tape around her head, sealing her mouth and eyes. He left only her nose exposed.

Emma was so panicky she could hardly catch her breath. He leaned close. She smelled his mouthwash and felt the heat of his breath. “Calm the fuck down. Focus on breathing. The worst is over.”

No, it wasn’t. He rolled her onto thick plastic, then ran a zipper from her feet past the top of her head, sealing her in a body bag.

• • •

Lana followed her phone’s directions to Anna Hendrix’s house. She had little hope she’d find Emma there, but had to check.

Hendrix looked formidable at a glance. She stood at least a few inches taller than Lana, and though lean appeared strong as a braided whip.

The strength of experience
were the words that came to mind as Lana took in the woman’s curly hair, graying now in what appeared to be her forties, though she had the smooth skin of so many people of African descent.

“I’m so sorry,” Anna Hendrix said, after establishing who had called at her door in the early evening.

“If my daughter shows up or you hear anything that could be helpful, here’s my number.”

Anna opened the door to take it but appeared no more hopeful than Lana felt.

“What are you going to do?” she asked Lana.

“I’m not sure.”

Where do you go and what do you do when your daughter vanishes 
into the shadows of a big city?
A detective had called Lana back saying they’d interview the witnesses, assuming they could actually round them up. Lana wasn’t optimistic, knowing the BPD was looked upon with considerable cynicism in those precincts.

“How about if I take Emma’s room, if that’s okay with you?” Lana said.

“Of course, come in.”

Lana set up her laptop on the bed in the spartan room. Knowing the abductor’s van was a Chevy, she went to work on the Maryland motor vehicle database.

She’d hacked this sort of system before so it didn’t take long to slip past its paltry security—she’d have given it a -1 on a scale of 10—and saw quickly that a lot of Chevy Expresses were owned by rental companies. It could take awhile to uncover recent activity, so she called the detective with this new info. But at heart Lana had little hope that whoever had grabbed Emma had been unprofessional enough to leave a trail with a rental company. And, no doubt, they wanted more than Em.

They want you, so let them come to you.

She was the perfect bait: wounded and just bloody enough to attract the biggest predators.

• • •

Emma felt cold sweat dripping off her. The kind that oozes from your pores when you’re nauseated and scared so senseless you shiver with fear.

Her stomach roiled repeatedly, and she worried that with her mouth taped up she’d vomit and choke to death.

She could hear the murmur of conversation above the road noise. The two were up in the cab now. Only the murmur, though. No words that she could make out, other than the ones racing around her own head:

They came for you with a body bag. They’re not fooling around.

• • •

I have her all zipped up back there, a body bag every bit as black as the sites Art’s flown in and out of in the most remote regions of Central America and North Africa. We’ve worked together on and off for almost six years. He was cashiered by the CIA for making too much on the side. I know his history. He’s a freelancer now. As soon as the agency gave him his walking papers, I got in touch. You see, I think greed keeps some men honest. It’s clear what motivates them: money. And if that’s all that moves them—if they’re not hot for power or glory—then your contracts are direct and unencumbered. That’s how it works with Art.

I’m fortunate to have his services, the loyalty he feels toward my money. The world changes all the time but the needs of people like me remain the same. Move the bodies. Use some as lures. Dump them when you’re done.

As for Emma, she had no idea when I told her I was Golden Voice what that meant. Here I am, a figure of renown, known to many millions, and my prize catch is oblivious. My name will certainly ring bells for her mother, when the time comes for those revelations. And it is coming, Lana. It’s coming very, very soon.

There’s our airport. Crop dusters and small planes only, if all you do is look in the hangars. Only pilots might notice the runway is long enough to accommodate much more substantial craft. But nobody ever sees those planes and jets. They’re in and out in the dark of night, loaded with all kinds of contraband, while the farmers and their families are fast asleep.

“No lights, not even on the runway,” I tell Art.

“Don’t need ’em.”

While I know his history, he has only a skeletal outline of mine. But he does know who Emma is. He mentioned that as soon as he had her bagged. Now he’s circling back to that subject as I expected he would. I’m guessing a warning is on the way. And, of course, I’m correct.

“You better know what you’re doing. Her mother knows a ton of people.”

A statement that doesn’t bear comment, as far as I’m concerned. “Just get us on that plane and in the air.”

“Turn at the fueling station. To the right.”

As soon as I come around the pumps I see a twin-engine Beechcraft, white on top, butterscotch on the bottom.

“Was that the best you could get?”

“You wanted anonymity.”

“It’ll take all night. Are we going to need to refuel?”

“Once. Don’t worry, this is the plane you want to be in these days. Jets and anything fancy get the wrong attention.”

I know he’s right but I still wish we had a Lear or Gulfstream.

• • •

Emma heard the van’s cargo door open, then felt herself being dragged toward it. The two of them carried her. Not for long. Ten steps—she counted—before lifting her onto another hard surface.

She heard one of them climbing up next to her, guessing it was the masked guy. He dragged her a few feet farther.

The bag was unzipped. Up till then she’d managed to contain her claustrophobia. But now with the bag open—so close to being able to see again—she could hardly stand the tape across her eyes and mouth, or the cuffs—the unyielding sense of confinement.

Just take it off my eyes. Please.

She knew her urgency amounted to nothing more than groans.

Then Em felt someone close to her. Him, definitely him. But his breath had soured.

“Easy,” he told her. “No need to panic.”

A door closed. The floor shook. She heard propellers start up. They weren’t taking off the tape or cuffs.

Oh, God. I can’t stand it
.
I really can’t.

Like a miracle, he was leaning over her again, slowly unpeeling the tape from her mouth.

Yes, thank you.

Now her eyes, but
so
slowly.

The plane was lifting off.

Mom’s never going to find me.

Emma didn’t realize she’d spoken till Golden Voice, tape balled up in her hand, held her gaze.

“She’ll find you, Em. I promise.”

Words that sounded like murder.

CHIMES FROM LANA’S COMPUTER
awakened her at three in the morning to a message from Steel Fist: “I have your daughter. We should talk.”

She sprang out of the bed that should have been Emma’s for the night.

“Son-of-a-bitch!”

Lana had been so consumed with concerns about radical Islamists or bounty hunters that they’d nudged aside the threat from the neo-Nazi. 
And what’s this ‘We should talk’ crap?
Like he was a businessman setting up a meeting with an investor.
No
,
you should die.

She tried contacting Emma again, to no avail. Her daughter’s phone might as well have been on Pluto. Emma was gone, and Steel Fist had apparently used a woman to grab her.

But he wants more than Em
.
He wants you
,
too
, she reminded herself. 
So he’s going to be in touch
.

She had to believe that. She couldn’t accept that Emma would simply disappear. Steel Fist wanted propaganda. And now he had the means to leverage Emma’s well-being to get Lana. And he would, because Lana was not going to back down. She’d find her daughter.

Whatever it takes.

She set up to work, once more, on the bed in Anna Hendrix’s house, this time to try to find the trail that Horvat’s message had taken through the cybersphere.

Without the slightest hesitation, given the hour, she first messaged Galina. Maybe she’d be up as she had been last night. Not this time. Sleeping, no doubt, as she should.

What about your sleep?
Lana asked herself. An old line came to her—with fresh meaning:
I’ll sleep when I’m dead
.

• • •

Emma awoke cold and short of breath. They must be flying awfully high.
Can’t they do something about the cabin pressure in this thing?
But she had an even more pressing need to pee. She yelled out that she had to go.

“You’re in that bag,” the woman shouted back. “Just pee in that.”

The body bag was zipped from her neck down. Emma didn’t argue. Her biggest fear was they’d tape her eyes and mouth shut again and zip up the bag.

That’s not your biggest fear
. No, she was terrified that they’d kill her. She peed, unable to remember the last time she’d wet herself.

The back of the Beechcraft was black. No windows. The only light came from the instrument panel in front. Like the van. And to think Emma couldn’t have been more grateful when her “rescuer” had whipped out that gun.

What a sick joke.

But now Emma was going to have to depend on another tall, dark-haired woman: her mom, who had to be the real target.
What good am I
to them?
The answer hammered her immediately:
You’re the bait
.

The realization was horrifying, as much for the slight comfort it provided—that they’d hold off killing her until they’d nabbed her mother—as the threat it represented to the one person who would do anything to save her.

• • •

Don checked on Sufyan, asleep in Emma’s bed.
Not the first time
, her father thought. The boy’s mother, Alimah, had a guest bedroom. He wished he could check on his daughter as easily, and that Lana hadn’t been forced to take off on crutches to try to find and protect her.

The feds had moved fast to get a construction crew to the house to fortify it on a temporary basis. A Bethesda Police Department officer sat in a cruiser outside, while an FBI agent had taken up station in the backyard.

At least we take care of our own.

Springsteen’s song came alive in Don’s mind. This early in the morning, he knew he’d be hearing the Boss’s catchy lyrics until he went back to bed to try to grab a few more winks, although that could be a challenge: those two law enforcement officers weren’t sufficient to make him feel safe. Not after the day he’d had. Front of the house ripped off. Two men shooting up Agent Maray. And then his own killing of the pair.

That was a first for Don. He’d held a gun on men twice while smuggling tons of pot up from Latin America, but he’d never shot anyone until yesterday morning.

He was surprised and grateful over how little he felt. No guilt. No regrets. There might have been if there had been another option. But those two had shot Maray a couple of times and were threatening a gruesome wound that would have killed him. Don had lined up his shots just in time.

We take care of our own.

Right now, he wished more than anything that he could have been with Lana so he could help take care of their child. Staying behind, no matter how necessary, made him feel useless.

But he also felt something worse: the first pulse of panic.

• • •

The landing jolted Emma. If daylight had come, it probably would have awakened her fully; but through her barely sentient fog she heard the guy saying he was fueling up. Weariness claimed her quickly, but not for long: shortness of breath and her worsening cramps made for fitful sleep. Finally, the cramps doubled her over in the bag.

“Help me. I’m having—” She didn’t want to say cramps and sound like some lame teenager. “I’ve got a really bad stomachache.”

“You sound like you’re having trouble breathing,” the pilot said, as if she were a friend he was taking for a ride, not someone the pair had forced into a body bag, cuffed at the ankles and wrists.

From then on, Emma scarcely slept at all. What a time to be sick.

They finally descended enough that she could breathe without gulping air, landing minutes later.

She tried to brace herself for the taping of her mouth and eyes, and the sealing of the bag.

But once the plane stopped rolling, the guy who’d worn the Barack Obama mask didn’t bother to put it on before he turned around to stare at her. That really scared Emma. When they showed their faces, didn’t that mean they’d decided to kill you?

The two of them climbed back into the cabin. He opened the door.

“You’re worried, aren’t you, Em?” the woman asked.