“I hope you’re right,” I said. “It might help keep your family safe until we get them back. And we will get them back. I promise.”

  CHAPTER 72

  I COULD SEE Justine standing beside a white Toyota Sequoia as we came in to land at Teterboro Airport, a small facility for executive jets located in New Jersey. Even at a distance, I sensed her anticipation, and shared it. I couldn’t wait to hold her in my arms. In contrast, Joshua Floyd was impatient and irascible, which was completely understandable in the circumstances. I was coming home to someone I loved while his family were in the clutches of evil.

  The pilot of the G650 brought the aircraft down and there was the slightest bump when the wheels kissed the runway. We taxied to the stand where Justine waited, and after a quick check by an Immigration and Customs Enforcement officer, we were allowed off the aircraft. I thanked the pilot and co-pilot, and hurried down the airstairs.

  “Jack!” Justine ran over.

  She looked exhausted, but she was beaming. My own wide smile made my cheeks ache. She rushed into my arms and I held her close. She whispered my name over and over and we kissed again and again.

  Joshua Floyd came down the airstairs slowly, a frown on his face. He shivered as he looked around the desolate snow-covered airport. This wasn’t much of a homecoming for a man who’d been through hell, and it was made worse by the absence of his family.

  “Justine Smith, this is Joshua Floyd,” I said. “Captain Floyd saved my life.”

  Justine shook his hand. “I don’t know how I can thank you.”

  “Find my family,” he replied flatly.

  She looked at me awkwardly.

  “We will,” I assured him.

  The back door of the Toyota opened and Mo-bot stepped out. She wore a thick ski jacket, hat, and gloves. In contrast to Justine’s elegant trench coat, Mo-bot was dressed for substance over style. She barreled over and gave me a hug.

  “It’s good to see you alive, Jack,” she said. “We’re set up at the New York office.”

  “This is Joshua Floyd,” I told her.

  She and Floyd shook hands.

  “We’re going to get your family back, Mr. Floyd,” Mo-bot said.

  “Mr. Morgan,” the pilot called.

  I turned to see him holding out the flight case Dinara had given me, and ran back to take it.

  “Thanks,” I said.

  I joined Mo-bot, Justine, and Floyd, who were heading for the SUV.

  “What have you got there?” Mo-bot indicated the case.

  “Clothes mostly, some notes, but most importantly a satellite phone,” I replied. “I want you to take a look at it. It was on the aircraft that belonged to the men hunting Captain Floyd. There might be something useful on it.”

  “Hand it over,” Mo-bot replied. “I’ve got my laptop and some of the gear in the car. I might as well get to work.”

  I put the case down by the back of the Toyota, opened it, and took out the satellite phone.

  “Iridium 9575,” Mo-bot remarked as I handed it over. “Good phone. Should have a lot of history, unless the last owner wiped it regularly. And even then there are ways to recover data. I’ll get to work.”

  She hurried around the Toyota and got in the back seat. Floyd sat beside her.

  Justine opened the trunk and I lifted the flight case inside. I closed the tailgate and, as I turned, she embraced me. Her eyes glistened.

  “I never want to lose you again,” she said. “Promise me?”

  “I’ll do my best,” I replied.

  She stared at me, but didn’t say anything. After a moment, her expression softened.

  “That will have to do,” she said, before kissing me.

  CHAPTER 73

  BETH COULD HEAR someone whimpering and, after a few moments, realized she was the source of the pitiful sound. She’d been hanging from the straps around her wrists for what seemed an eternity. She could barely remember her life before the hell she was now experiencing, and when she caught flashes of what once had been, of the children running around laughing, of Josh taking her in his arms, those images caused nothing but pain.

  She knew her life was gone. People like the men who’d abducted them didn’t leave witnesses. They didn’t believe in mercy, or in survivors.

  They’d beaten her and she’d cursed them and sworn vengeance. Then she’d tried to bargain and negotiate, but they were relentless in their willingness to inflict pain and unyielding in their refusal to listen to her offers. They were only interested in one thing: the Bull.

  Beth desperately racked her brains to try to figure out what they were talking about and why they thought she had anything to do with it, but she came up with nothing. She tried to make them understand, but they didn’t believe her. She’d thought about lying and sending them to some made-up place, but knew they’d punish her more if they returned without the Bull. Even worse, they might punish the children.

  The horrific screams and death metal stopped. Beth’s ears throbbed in the silence that followed. A moment later, she heard footsteps and muffled crying. She recognized it immediately.

  “Danny,” she tried to say, but the gag muffled her voice.

  Her hood was removed and her eyes burned in response to the sudden flood of light. She clenched them tightly shut while someone removed her gag.

  “Please don’t hurt him,” Beth pleaded.

  “Mom!” Maria screamed, before breaking into sobs.

  Beth forced her eyes open. As they became accustomed to the light, she made out her children standing ten feet ahead in the center of what looked like a concrete-floored barn. Thirty feet behind them was a corrugated-steel door. Masked men stood either side of her children, each pressing a pistol to a child’s head.

  “Please let us go,” Beth begged, her voice rasping and croaking, broken by all her crying. “I don’t know anything about the Bull.”

  She sensed movement and heard steps behind her. She turned her tender head as far as she could to see a middle-aged man in a gray suit step into view.

  “We are at the end of our patience,” he said.

  “You’re the one behind this,” Beth observed. She recognized his face from the files Jessie Fleming had been studying. “Victor Andreyev.”

  The man frowned and Beth immediately regretted revealing what she knew. She had increased the likelihood this man would kill them.

  “Where is the Bull?” he asked.

  “I don’t know,” Beth replied. She was on the verge of hysteria. “I swear I don’t.”

  “Your husband took it from an associate of ours in Ukraine,” Andreyev said. “We want it back.”

  “I don’t know!” Beth cried.

  “Mom!” Danny wept.

  “It’s OK, baby. It’s OK,” Beth tried to reassure him, but she didn’t believe her own words.

  “The price of your resistance will be a life,” Andreyev said.

  “No!” Beth screamed as he nodded at the men holding her children.

  Danny and Maria struggled and cried, but the men held them firmly.

  “You choose which one dies,” Andreyev said. “Who is it to be? The boy or the girl?”

  “I don’t know about the Bull,” Beth whimpered. “I don’t know. I don’t know. Please…”

  “If you won’t choose, then they will both die,” he said, and nodded at the men.

  Beth screamed and time slowed as she watched the masked men press pistols tight against her children’s temples. Danny and Maria squirmed and cried, but they couldn’t get free of their strong captors.

  Beth mouthed “I love you” to her children as tears streamed down her face, but she didn’t think either of them saw. She wept and cried like a wounded animal. She had failed her children. If they died, she was responsible.

  “Wait! Wait!” Beth screamed. “I’ll tell you where to find the Bull! I know where it is!”

  “You’re lying,” Andreyev replied.

  “I’m not! I’ll tell you everything I know! Just let my children go!”

  “Tell me then!” he yelled.

  “It’s in our house,” Beth whimpered. “The Bull is in our house.”

  “Liar! We have searched it.” Andreyev kept his eyes trained on her. “Kill them.”

  She watched in horror as two index fingers tightened around the triggers. She screamed as they were drawn back to firing points. Finally, she shut her eyes. She couldn’t watch. She waiting for the inevitable.

  Nothing happened.

  She opened her eyes to see the shooters raise their pistols. The one holding Danny aimed his gun at Beth and pulled the trigger. There was a dull click. The gun wasn’t loaded.

  She screamed and the children broke into hysterical crying.

  “She doesn’t know anything,” Andreyev said. “Cut her down. She’s no use to us dead.”

  Andreyev stalked close to Beth as the man holding Danny handed the boy to his accomplice. Beth ignored Andreyev and kept her eyes on her children. She would never forgive these people for what they’d done.

  “You might not have the answers we need, but you’re still of use,” Andreyev said. “Your husband survived.”

  Beth couldn’t believe what she was hearing. Was this another game? Some kind of cruel torture?

  “You are our leverage,” Andreyev said. “You and your children.”

  The masked man who’d held Danny produced a hunting knife from behind his back and stood beside Beth to cut her bonds. She cried as she fell to the floor.

  Finally released, Maria and Danny ran over and threw their arms around her.

  Andreyev said something in Russian and the two masked men followed him out of the barn.

  Beth’s arms burned with pain. There was little strength in them, but she didn’t care. She hugged her children to her as tightly as she possibly could, relishing every moment and praying this wasn’t some kind of dream.

  CHAPTER 74

  WE WERE ON our way to Manhattan when the satellite phone rang. Mo-bot had it connected to her computer and was interrogating its registry.

  She handed me the phone, but kept it plugged into her machine.

  “Hello?” I said when I answered.

  “Mr. Morgan?”

  I recognized Andreyev’s voice immediately.

  “Yes.”

  “You said the pilot survived. Is he still with you?”

  “Yeah, he’s with me.”

  “Then we might be able to make a trade,” Andreyev said. “The woman and children for the pilot.”

  “I’ll have to check. Can I reach you on this number?”

  I looked at Mo-bot and signaled to my watch. She nodded and indicated she’d had enough time to run a trace.

  “Of course,” Andreyev replied.

  “I’ll call you when I have an answer.”

  I hung up and turned to Floyd.

  “He’s offering Beth, Danny, and Maria in exchange for you.”

  “We do it,” Floyd said immediately. “It’s not even in question.”

  “I know this is going to be hard for you to hear,” I replied. “But I think it’s a bad idea. He’ll take you and keep Beth and the children as leverage. Most likely kill you all when he has whatever it is he wants.”

  “We can stop that happening,” Floyd countered. “Hold him to his deal. Or lure him out and take them.”

  I frowned. Both those suggestions were extremely high-risk.

  “Mo?” I asked.

  She shook her head. “He’s routing the call through a number of networks. It’s impossible to trace.”

  I looked at Justine, who was focused on the snow-flanked highway. She glanced over and shrugged.

  “We make the trade,” Floyd said firmly.

  I didn’t see what other options we had and was about to reply when I saw a familiar expression cross Mo-bot’s face. The cat most definitely had gotten the cream.

  “There is another way,” she said. “I’ve found an old number on the phone. A couple incoming calls made two weeks ago from the same cell tower near the Pentagon we found when we tracked Andreyev’s call. I think this number might belong to our mole in the Department of Defense.”

  CHAPTER 75

  “GOODNIGHT, SIR,” THE guard at the desk said, before pressing the button that opened the outer door to the Rotary Entrance.

  A blast of cold air hit Rick Ferguson as he left the Pentagon and headed for the parking lot. He hurried along the raised walkway and down the stone steps that led to the premier tier of spaces, where the senior brass parked. He was a rung down the ladder, which meant he had to walk through the lot, braving the bitter night. He jogged across North Rotary Road, his breath rising in little clouds before dissipating into the clear sky. The stars shimmered brightly in the frozen air. Rick clapped his gloved hands and picked up his pace. This was not a night for tarrying. He passed a few more senior staff cars and finally made it to his spot beneath one of the streetlamps.

  He opened the driver’s door, grabbed his scraper, and removed an inch of crusted snow from the windshield of his late-model Range Rover Sport. He brushed loose snow off his gloves, replaced the scraper in the side pocket, and climbed into the driver’s seat. He’d had the car a little over six months and it still gave him a buzz of pleasure to see it parked in the driveway in the morning. He’d told nosy Nancys and Normans at work that Ellie’s mother had gifted them some money, but the truth was a little more complicated.

  He settled back in his cream leather seat and reversed out of his space, then drove toward the gate. The guard in the gatehouse checked his license plate and ran an ID check on him before lowering the cheese-wedge barrier that was designed to keep out intruders. Rick gave a friendly nod and wave to the guard, before driving on. He turned left onto Washington Boulevard and headed for the Memorial Highway.

  “Call home,” he said.

  “Calling home,” his in-car assistant said, and a moment later Ellie came on the line.

  “Hello?”

  “Hey, hon, it’s me.”

  “How was your day?” she asked.

  The most banal of all questions, asked by billions of spouses every single day. Rick had complained once and regretted it.

  “What are our lives worth to each other if we don’t share them?” Ellie had asked, along with other emotive comments in that vein.

  So he knew it was easier to just answer with his now habitual, “Oh, you know, same old, same old.”

  “I hear you,” Ellie replied.

  It was vacuous and a total waste of oxygen, but it gave her comfort for some reason.

  “Tara gave me nothing but trouble today, and when I…” she began to drone.

  “Honey, I’m about to hit the black spot,” Rick said.

  There was no black spot. It was a convenient invention that spared him from listening to the mundanities of her day.

  “I just wanted to know if you wanted me to pick anything up?”

  “No, we’re good,” she replied. “I made spaghetti and meatballs.”

  He endured Ellie’s meatballs at least once a week and was getting tired of them. They were bland and dry, but if he ever told her that, they’d need to have another “chat,” so it was easier to play nice.

  “Yum,” he lied. “And you can tell me all about what Tara did when I get home.”

  And I have a stiff drink in my hand, he thought.

  “I will,” she replied. “Drive safely. Love you.”

  “Love you, too,” Rick said before hanging up.

  He wasn’t sure if he believed the words anymore. He had once, or at least he thought he had, but maybe he’d never felt love, just the thrill of chase and conquest. At least Ellie wasn’t offensive. She came from a good family, and her father had excellent political connections. She was convenient. If he ever grew tired of her, she was too well bred to give him much trouble. He would have to budget a moderate amount for any divorce, but she’d never be able to get at the real money.

  He switched on the stereo and flipped through his playlists to his favorite album of the moment, which was Alice Coltrane’s Journey in Satchidananda, a trippy, soothing cascade of jazz. He shifted in his comfy seat and settled back for the opening bars.

  Thirty minutes of classic harp, double bass, and piano later, he was heading up Birch Lane, a couple minutes from his beautiful home, passing all the other big houses set back from the road and nestled in their perfect wintry gardens. He was daydreaming about being on vacation in Catalina with someone more adventurous than Ellie, so he didn’t notice the shadow to his right.

  The collision came out of nowhere. A truck tore out of Spring Valley Drive and smashed into his beautiful Range Rover. The car was a sudden mess of airbags and silicate dust, but Rick still managed to hit his head on the side window. The world swam. As his mind floated, he saw an SUV pull up in front of the Range Rover and a group of masked figures jumped out.

  This can’t be happening, Rick thought, before he blacked out.

  CHAPTER 76

  ANTICIPATION IS KEY. Most interrogators don’t give themselves anywhere to go. They start with the stuff of nightmares and the victim quickly retreats into a cushioned part of their mind, which helps insulate them and allows them to become accustomed to the pain.

  I shook Rick Ferguson awake and let him take in his surroundings. He was in the burned-out shell of the Mill Wheel Tavern on Route 26, just outside of a tiny village called Chester, New Jersey.

  Sci had found the place by running a crime-report search for bars that had been destroyed by arson. After taking Rick a couple blocks in a stolen truck, we’d flown him to New Jersey in a chopper I’d chartered.

  The bar had been burned down five months back. It stood beside a quiet rural route that had very little traffic, which I guessed might be why the owner torched it—not enough passing trade to stay afloat. At this time of night, a little before eleven, there was no one on the road. The charred wreckage helped conjure the sense Rick had woken up in hell. The walls were black with tar, melted plastic was dotted here and there in misshapen pools, there were holes in the walls and roof that allowed snow and ice to take over large sections of the property. This was the kind of place where bad things happened, and I could see from the terrified look on Rick’s face, he was smart enough to have figured that out.

 

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