Missing Persons, page 17
“With pleasure.”
“And send Dinara a full report on what’s happened in my absence, so I can get up to speed,” I said carefully, so Floyd wouldn’t become suspicious.
“Absolutely,” Justine replied.
“I’ll see you soon, Dinara,” I said.
“We’ll be waiting for the luckiest men in Afghanistan,” Dinara responded before hanging up.
“Jack,” Justine began. “I… When I thought you were… I realized how much you…” She was having trouble getting the words out.
“I know,” I said, when it became clear she couldn’t continue. “I love you too.”
“Uh-huh” was all she could manage.
“I’ll call when we get to Kabul,” I said.
I hung up, handed the phone to Floyd, and put on my radio headset.
“Everything OK?” he asked, his voice tinny in the headset.
I nodded and gave him a thumbs-up. I hated being less than entirely honest, but I needed to find out exactly what had happened to Beth Singer and the children before I could figure out how to get them back.
CHAPTER 68
JUSTINE STARED AT her phone. She couldn’t believe what had just happened. Had she imagined it? She went to her call list and found the most recent number. She checked the duration of the call. She definitely hadn’t imagined it.
Jack was alive.
She jumped off the bed and punched the air. She’d never believed people did that in real life, but she was fizzing with energy and had to find some way to release it. A little over five minutes ago she’d been lying on her bed in the darkest of moods, mourning the loss of the most important person in her life, and now the world had burst into new and vibrant possibility with the news of his survival.
She went to the window. She wasn’t sure if she ran or hopped or jumped. It didn’t matter. She was buzzing. She’d never felt like this before. It was as though she had been reborn. She’d lived another life, a grim existence of loss and trauma, and it had been destroyed by a single phone call. She pulled back the drapes to reveal the Manhattan skyline illuminated against the dark winter’s evening sky. She hit the glass with her palms, and pounded out a little celebratory rhythm. She was on the forty-second floor of the Langham Hotel. The people on Fifth Avenue beneath her looked tiny. She felt a moment of pity because whatever grief or heartbreak they’d suffered in life would be with them always and they’d never know what it was like to have those feelings lifted from them.
Then she suddenly thought of the families of Roni Alvarez and Jim Taft. She knew for a fact their loved ones would never have any respite from their grief. And then there were Beth, Danny, and Maria, lost to the evil men who’d murdered Roni and Taft. Those sad thoughts brought her back to earth and all her energy became newly focused—she needed to find Floyd’s family.
She slipped on her shoes, grabbed her key card, and left the room. She took the stairs down to the thirty-seventh floor and walked the corridor until she found room 3708. She knocked, and Mo-bot’s voice came from the other side of the door.
“Who is it?”
“Justine.”
She heard movement. The door opened to reveal Mo-bot with a pair of half-moon glasses perched on top of her head. She looked beleaguered and depressed, but as she registered Justine’s expression, her own changed.
“Well, I’ll be damned,” she said. “He’s alive, isn’t he?”
Justine cried with joy and stepped forward to hug Mo-bot. “Yes! He’s alive. He just called me.”
The older woman squeezed her tight. “Thank God,” she said.
When Justine stepped back, she saw tears in Mo-bot’s eyes.
“Come in,” she said. “Tell me what happened.”
Justine followed Mo-bot into a room much like her own, a large suite with a corner view of the city. It had a living room, separate bedroom, and large bathroom. Mo-bot had set up her laptop on the desk in the living room and her workstation was covered in printouts and snack wrappers.
“Sorry the place is a mess,” she said. “I comfort eat when I’m depressed. So, how did he do it?”
“I don’t know,” Justine replied. “I was so stunned to hear his voice, I can’t even remember what he said really. It was all a blur.”
“Knowing him, he probably swallowed the rocket,” Mo-bot chuckled.
Justine was glad to see her laugh. A great weight had been lifted from both of them.
“He wants a report on what happened to Beth,” Justine said. “Joshua Floyd is with him.”
Mo-bot’s smile fell. “Cops don’t have anything. Nor do the feds. And we don’t either. Whoever these guys are, they’re pros. I think Russian intelligence. Sci is at Federal Plaza trying to get access to the ballistics reports, but my guess is it will be fresh steel—previously unused guns.”
“Why don’t we go through everything?” Justine suggested. “It would be useful to do that anyway. We might see something we’ve overlooked.”
Mo-bot shrugged. “OK. If Lazarus wants a report, Lazarus gets a report. People who come back from the dead can have whatever they want. It’s the law.”
Justine grinned, but she still couldn’t quite believe it.
Jack Morgan.
Back from the dead.
CHAPTER 69
I HAD RARELY been happier to see the shimmering lights of a city. We’d used the chopper’s course plotter to get us to Kabul, relying on pilot’s instinct and grasp of general direction when the computer’s Cyrillic threw up navigation waypoints we couldn’t understand.
“OAKB, Kabul International, OAKB, Kabul International, this is Mi-4769,” I said, giving the chopper’s call sign.
“Go ahead, Mi-4769,” the air traffic controller said.
“Mil Mi-24, requesting landing,” I replied. “We’re running low on fuel.”
It wasn’t a lie. These choppers weren’t designed for long distances and we’d pushed the aircraft to the limit.
“Copy that, Mi-4769,” the air traffic controller replied. “Proceed on heading two-nine. You’ll see the helipad to the northwest of maintenance building Alpha Two.”
“Copy that, OAKB control,” I replied.
I banked right, changing to a heading almost thirty degrees off compass north. We flew low over the city, which was coming to life with the approach of dawn. The fluorescent lights of a few cafes shone here and there, and a line of trucks queued outside the city’s famous bird market. Newsstands and bakeries were opening up and traffic was starting to build in the main thoroughfares.
Then I saw the outline of the control tower at Hamid Karzai International Airport, and the transit lights for helicopter approach to the airport. I swung us left a touch, adjusting to put us in the center of the path. There were no other aircraft in sight when we flew over the airport car park and some warehouses. I saw a large hangar with “A2” painted on its roof, and beyond it the helipad lit for our landing.
The GlobalRanger that had taken me from Kabul to Kamdesh was parked near the helipad. As we approached, I saw Feo and Dinara step out of the aircraft.
“Your people?” Floyd asked.
I nodded. “Good people.”
I slipped the tail around and set the Hind down on the pad.
“Smoothly done,” Floyd remarked as I powered down.
We climbed out of the cockpit and jumped onto solid ground. My friends hurried over. Dinara was crying, but her tears ran down her face into a beaming smile. She hugged me and kissed me on the cheeks over and over.
“Jack Morgan,” she said. “Don’t you ever do that again.”
“You’re a tough old bear,” Feo said, pulling me away from Dinara and wrapping me in a suffocating embrace. “You make me proud. If I didn’t know otherwise I would say you were Russian.”
“I’m flattered,” I said.
“You should be,” he replied, as I stepped away. “How did you get a flying tank?” he asked, nodding toward the Mi-24 Hind.
“We asked politely,” I replied with a smile. “This is Joshua Floyd. Joshua, this is Feodor Arapov and Dinara Orlova. Colleagues from our Moscow office.”
“Good to meet you,” Floyd said.
Feo shook his hand and pulled him into a crushing hug. “You cheated death, my friend. No need to pretend you are a stranger who is only worthy of a handshake. Did Jack save you?”
“Actually it was the other way around,” I replied, as Floyd broke free of the man’s embrace. “Joshua got us inside a cave just before the second rocket hit.”
“Then we are all in your debt, Captain Floyd,” Feo said.
“We’ve arranged your flight back to New York,” Dinara said, leading us toward the GlobalRanger. “A G650 is ready to depart whenever you are.”
She leaned into the cabin of the helicopter and produced a black flight case about the size of an oven.
“We’ve received a report from Justine, which is in here, along with some clothes and equipment you might need,” she said.
“You ready to fly?” I asked Floyd.
“Are you kidding? I can’t wait to see Beth and the kids,” he replied.
Dinara shot me a knowing look, but neither of us said anything.
“We’ll take you to the terminal,” Feo said.
“That Hind is full of gear,” I told him. “You might want to check it before you leave. See if there’s anything you like.”
“A little plunder?” he said with a deep laugh. “It’s good for the soul.”
I took the flight case from Dinara. “Thank you for everything.”
“Anytime,” she replied, before kissing me on the cheek.
“Let’s go,” Feo said. “Time for you lucky men to head home.”
CHAPTER 70
BETH SINGER AWOKE from terrible dreams to find herself strapped to a pipe, her arms almost stretched to breaking point high above her head, her toes just touching the ground, so every movement was a strain and simply standing still caused untold suffering.
She had dreamed of a horrific cacophony assaulting her, death metal rock music alternating with the sounds of children screaming. Was it Maria and Danny? Where were her children? The nightmare had seemed to go on forever until in a moment of clarity she realized she was awake: the nightmare was real. It all came back to her then. How they’d grabbed her and the children. How she’d been knocked unconscious when she’d tried to fight the men off. And now she was here, alone.
Beth had completed an escape and interrogation course during her training at Fort Bragg and she guessed she was being prepared for questioning. The people who’d abducted her were trying to break her spirit. She’d been suspended in a stress position and the horrific sounds were a recording designed to grind her down psychologically. After countless hours, she came to recognize patterns in the traumatic loop.
“Please,” she tried to scream, but she’d been gagged, so she couldn’t tell them their efforts were unnecessary. She’d have gladly said or done anything they wanted in exchange for her children’s safety. With Joshua gone, they were all she had left.
Beth had spent hours weeping for Danny and Maria, picturing their faces, imagining the worst, pleading with God, begging fate to intervene and for the universe to be kind to them. She’d cried with exhaustion. Wept with shame at her inability to protect her children. She cried with abject pity for herself, and finally, when she could cry no more, she hung there limp as a joint of meat, as numb as though she’d been anesthetized.
Beth lost all sense of time. The music no longer had any effect on her, nor did the screams. Drained of all hope, she felt nothing at all. Anger, fear, frustration—all these emotions were contingent on the idea that a situation could be improved, that an outcome could be avoided or escaped. But Beth had come to accept that she and her children were lost. Everything was lost. Jack Morgan and his people had failed them. And in the grip of that knowledge, she felt nothing. That was the true nature of despair. It was absolute. There was no emotion, because there was no hope.
It took a moment for her to realize the music had stopped, and she became aware of a crack of light at the bottom of her hood. Her ringing ears made out the sound of footsteps. Someone reached out and touched her belly. The thought of someone’s fingers on her bare skin made her recoil. She’d been stripped to her underwear at some point, another ounce of her dignity she had been forced to surrender.
“Elizabeth,” a man said. “Do you want to see your children again?”
They were alive, she thought, and the hope that she’d thought extinguished was rekindled. With it came longing, anger, and anxiety. Where were they? Had they been hurt? Would they live through this?
Beth felt hands reach under her hood and pull her gag down.
“Please.” Her voice sounded thin and pathetic. She was ashamed to have allowed herself to get in such a vulnerable position. She—a trained warrior. “Please tell me what you want.”
“The Bull, Elizabeth. We want the American Bull.”
Beth started crying then because the flames of hope were once again dying. They’d asked for something she couldn’t give them. Not because she refused to do so, but because she didn’t have the first idea what they were talking about.
“The Bull, Elizabeth,” he said. “Where is it?”
“Please,” she begged. “Please let us go. I don’t even know what that is. You’ve got the wrong person. I don’t know what you’re talking about. Please! Please let my children go. Please…”
She wept as the gag was forced back into her mouth. A heavy fist punched her naked stomach, but no matter how much it hurt, she couldn’t double over, so she just hung there, taking the agony of further blows. Finally, when she felt as though something had ruptured, the punches stopped. More footsteps. Then the crack of light was replaced by total darkness. For a brief moment there was no sound other than her own muffled cries, then came the overwhelming noise of death metal and the screams of children.
She was back in hell.
CHAPTER 71
JOSHUA FLOYD SLEPT while I read the report Justine had sent. Beth Singer and her children had been abducted from the house on Pine Island, and so far we had no leads. I felt a deep sense of grief when I read Justine’s account of the deaths of Jim Taft and Roni Alvarez. They had given their lives to protect others. I didn’t need any further incentive to fight back but their deaths fired in me an intense need to bring Andreyev and all those responsible to justice.
The G650 hit turbulence and the sudden shudder shook Floyd awake. He yawned, stretched, and smiled.
“That felt good,” he said.
We’d used the jet’s bathroom to wash and change into the clothes Dinara had brought us. Floyd was in blue jeans and a green sweater, and I wore black trousers, a black sweater, and boots. Not my usual style, but at least they were clean.
“What have you got there?” Floyd asked, indicating the report.
“Can you think of any reason these people would be after you and your family?” I said, to avoid answering his question.
He shook his head. “Apart from revenge. But I’m just a pilot. If anyone had vengeance on their mind, I’d probably be pretty low on their list.”
I grimaced. Having read the report, I didn’t feel comfortable deceiving him any longer. He tilted his head toward me and his smile faded.
“I don’t know how to break this to you,” I began.
“No,” he said.
“Beth, Maria, and Danny were taken. Two of my team were killed in an attack on the safe house.”
“No!” He hit the table that separated us.
“We’ll get them back,” I assured him.
“I’m sorry.” His tone softened. “I’m sorry about the people you lost.”
I nodded. So was I. Alvarez and Taft were excellent operatives, and I could feel the horror of their deaths in Justine’s words. “I appreciate that.”
“Can I read the report?” Floyd asked.
“Of course.” I handed it to him.
I’d been mulling over an idea since Justine told me about the abduction, and having read the report, it seemed like our only option.
“Captain Floyd,” I said.
He looked up from the document, his distress evident.
“I think I know a way to get your wife and kids back, but you’ll need to—”
He cut me off. “Anything. I’ll do anything.”
I nodded and picked up the satellite phone. I checked the list of useful numbers Dinara had included in the flight case and dialed the one I was looking for.
The call took a while to connect and, from the tones and clicks, it sounded as though it was being rerouted.
“Na provode,” a voice said. I recognized the Russian phrase people used when they answered the phone.
“Mr. Singer?” I responded. “I didn’t catch that. Must be a bad line. This is Jack Morgan.”
“Hello, Mr. Morgan.” Andreyev’s tone was hostile, and he wasn’t making any effort to disguise his real Russian accent under the syrupy Southern one he’d invented for Donald Singer.
“I’m on my way back from Afghanistan. I’ve found Joshua Floyd,” I revealed. “Can we meet when I get back?”
“Have you spoken to your team, Mr. Morgan?”
“Not yet,” I lied.
There was a pause. I could hear Andreyev breathing.
“I don’t believe you, Mr. Morgan. I think you’ve spoken to your team. I think you know who I am and what I’ve done.”
“OK, Mr. Andreyev,” I replied. “What’s it going to take for you to release Beth and the children?”
“I don’t want anything from you or Captain Floyd. I have everything I need. It’s just a matter of time. If that changes, I will let you know.”
Andreyev hung up.
Floyd looked at me expectantly.
“He doesn’t want to negotiate. Which means Beth has whatever he wants.”
Floyd clenched his fist. “What? There’s nothing she has that could have provoked all this. And why go after me in Afghanistan? I don’t believe she has anything.”
