Just a tool.
That’s all.
I go back to the screen.
The spinning little doohickey, spinning away.
Look away once more.
Ah, damn it!
Out in the general area of the library is Sue Judson, an assistant librarian who’s taken a shine to Denise, helping her find books about whatever obsession my daughter is exploring that month: astronomy, genealogy, the history of Victorian fashion…my smart, tough, and sweet little girl.
Now Sue is looking this way, and I turn, hoping I’m not spotted.
She’s lovely, about my age, desperately trying to have a child with her handsome husband, Luke, an E-6 in the Army and stationed in my building, and any other day, I’d love to talk to her.
But not now.
Not today.
I go back to the screen.
The doohickey is still spinning, spinning…stops.
A map of Fairfax County pops up, every street, avenue, and highway lit up in pink. Little symbols of steering wheels are blinking at me.
I click one.
There’s the van, heading north on I-95.
I click on the next one.
Two miles farther north on I-95.
And with this magic hunting system, I track the van as it goes up the highway…then to an exit…and then to a state road, and then another state road. The van moves along in a specific direction, no doubt about it, and I try very, very hard not to think of Tom and Denise, wrapped up and terrified, bouncing in the back of that stolen van, which has left Fairfax County and is going into Fauquier County.
Then there’s no more blinking steering wheels.
Damn!
The van containing my life and loves is gone.
CHAPTER 10
I TAKE a deep breath, trying not to panic, trying not to lose faith.
I check the last viewing of the van, passing by a private home that has a camera overlooking its driveway gate. Then…
It’s gone.
Somewhere in this area, the van has disappeared. But where?
“Hey, Lucianne, how goes it?”
Sue Judson is coming this way, having just greeted someone named Lucianne. I scrunch up my shoulders, desperately trying to avoid Sue’s notice.
I examine the map again.
A rural area near the small town of Atoka.
I don’t know anything about it.
I do a bit more research.
Not much to know.
There are single-family homes, a lot of farms, and—
A private airport.
Morgan Airport.
More digging and dumping through the miracle of the Internet.
It belongs to a medical device company with its main offices in Alexandria. It has a five-thousand-foot paved runway. Nice. No manned control tower, no real facilities except for those who have a reason to land or take off there.
And no Internet-linked surveillance cameras at the two small buildings.
Damn, damn, damn.
CYCLOPS is now down for the count.
What now?
What other resources are out there for an Army intelligence officer on the run?
If there was a security camera overhead right now, it would see me tapping away furiously at the keyboard, like the cliché scenes from movies and TV shows about dedicated hackers who can solve a knotty plot problem in five minutes by slapping a keyboard around and getting someone’s third-grade report card.
The thing about clichés, of course, is that they’re always based on something real.
Tapping away, I find something called GILLNET, which lists all sorts of external visual and audio devices away from highways or roads that can be accessed by a curious Uncle Sam and his minions, and after I plug in the GPS coordinates for Morgan Airport, I get a—
A hit.
I get a hit.
And then I get a hand on my shoulder.
“Amy, what a surprise!”
CHAPTER 11
PELAYO ABBOUD is standing outside the thick metal door when his trusted lieutenant, Casper Khourery, arrives holding an ice-cold sixteen-ounce bottle of Coca-Cola, a white straw sticking out of the top. Pelayo nods in gratitude and gestures to the door, and Casper—a bulky man in his early thirties with perfect white teeth, light-brown skin, close-cropped curly black hair, and a carefully trimmed mustache—unlocks the door, stepping back. Casper is wearing a fine gray suit, a Savile Row knockoff, with a crisp white shirt, blue necktie, and red kerchief sticking out of the jacket pocket, which Pelayo thinks is a bit too much, but he’s a gracious boss and will allow Casper that one fashion statement.
The door swings open and Pelayo walks in. The young girl is hunched up against the wall on her bed, coloring something in a book, and her father is drying his hands at the corner sink. Pelayo is pleased that the girl is using the coloring book, which he earlier supplied. Something to keep the little brat occupied so her father can focus on the trouble they are in. The father turns, and Pelayo sees the man is struggling to keep his emotions under guard, but Pelayo is no fool. The man before him wants to kill him and would try in this very instant, save that the little girl is here and Casper is standing in the doorway.
Pelayo nods to the other bed. “May I sit?”
“Do I have a choice?” comes the reply.
“No,” Pelayo says, sitting down on the edge. “Still, I always try to keep as much courtesy in the air as I can.” He takes a sip of the cold Coke, relishes the sharp, sugary bite. He holds the bottle up and says, “My apologies. Would you and Denise like one?”
“No,” the man says.
“You didn’t ask her.”
“I didn’t have to.”
Pelayo shrugs. “Your loss. This bottle comes from Coca-Cola FEMSA, which produces it in Mexico. There, they use the traditional cane sugar, unlike the corn fructose sugar used in the States. The experts say there is no difference in taste, but the experts, once again, are wrong.”
He takes another taste and says, “And I must apologize for something else.”
“The kidnapping?” the man asks. He’s tall, with muscular shoulders and arms that show he likes to work out, but with a pudgy middle and sides that show he spends a lot of time sitting in front of a desk. He has on blue jeans, no shoes, black socks, and a wrinkled pink polo shirt. Pelayo thinks of himself as a global man with global tastes, but really, a man wearing pink?
“That’s a harsh word, a harsh phrase,” Pelayo says. “Let’s just call it an unfortunate turn of events, a matter of business, that’s all. Hopefully, in two days or so, all will be settled and you will be rejoined with your wife, Captain Amy Travis Cornwall, 297th Military Intelligence Battalion, Military Intelligence Corps, Fort Belvoir, Virginia, recently home after an eight-month deployment to Afghanistan.”
The man’s face colors but he stands still. The little girl is staring at Pelayo, and he offers her a slight smile. She returns to her coloring book. The hand holding a colored pencil is shaking.
Pelayo says, “In the meantime, is there anything else I can provide to you and your daughter?”
“How about our freedom?”
He smiles. “I wish, but, ah, my hands are tied at the moment. I’ve dispatched your wife on a very, very important mission. To have that mission succeed, unfortunately, I need to have you and your daughter in our possession.”
“Fuck you,” the man says. His daughter doesn’t say a word.