Acceptable Risks (10 page)

“Give me your number, too,” Lark said, her phone ready. “And Gabby’s. Just in case we get separated.”

“We won’t get separated.” But he did it anyway, just in case. Then he scrolled through the call log on the desk phone, but there was nothing within the last twenty-four hours, and the calls before it weren’t connected to this situation.

“So what’s the plan?” Lark asked when he finished.

He shook his head. She looked annoyed, but closed her mouth until they were outside and in his car—in his own car now, not a company-issued one. Settling into the seat of the old Range Rover had made him feel more in control than he had since he woke up three months ago.

Lark clicked her seatbelt, then folded her arms and looked straight out the windshield. Then she unfolded them and let her hands rest, as if pretending she wasn’t still annoyed. Trouble was, she looked like a cockatoo with its feathers ruffled. Jason barely managed to stop himself from smoothing her hair again. It had been silky against his palm, one of the few areas of his body where light touch wasn’t excruciating.

“You can ask now,” he told her.

“Ask what?”

“What the plan is.”

“I didn’t think you were going to tell me.”

“I wasn’t going to tell you in
there
, where it might be bugged. There was no point in taking the time to sweep the room when we were leaving anyway.”

“Oh.” She bit her lip. “I suppose if someone could get in there to plant the disk—and record it, too—they could have planted bugs at the same time.”

“Right.” Jason started the Rover and pulled around the circle to head down the driveway. “Same reason I didn’t take the company car again when we left Hummingbird.”

“What makes this one safe?”

“I have an automatic detection system on it.” He tapped a unit hanging from the keychain. “It’s clean.”

“Okay. Then, what’s the plan?”

“You’ll see.”

He chuckled at her yelp. She was fun to play with. Now wasn’t the time for playing, of course, with her father’s life possibly hanging in the balance, but it did help with the tension. Jason wouldn’t underestimate the value of reducing the stress, even for a few seconds at a time.

“They wouldn’t hurt him, right?” She looked left and right as he pulled up to a stop sign. “No, that’s not what I’m asking. They would hurt him, if they thought they needed to. I meant—they won’t kill him. Right?”

Jason knew what she wanted him to say. Luckily, he could say it truthfully. “I don’t think so. Why bother making the recording if they’re getting rid of him?” He went straight and pressed down on the accelerator on the open stretch.

“If they didn’t want us to look for his body—”

“Don’t.” He rested his hand on her thigh, intending it as comfort or reassurance. Her quads flexed under his fingers, as if she wanted to squirm. “Keep your imagination on a short leash, Lark.”

“Yeah.” She put her hand on top of his, and it had just the right amount of weight to it. Her touch yesterday had been stronger, sending a bolt of pleasure through him. He couldn’t afford that kind of distraction, especially now. But now, it was just a touch. He let it linger, both taking comfort and giving it.

After a moment, he said, “They went to a lot of trouble to send us in a certain direction. They don’t want him dead. Not yet, if at all. Kemmerling isn’t a killer.” At least, the Isaac Jason knew hadn’t been a killer. He didn’t know him now. Didn’t know how corrupt he’d become. But he didn’t think it was a factor, at least at the moment. Isaac wanted something specific, and had a plan to get it. If he killed Matt, all incentive for Jason and Lark to play along would disappear.

He hoped Isaac saw that logic.

Chapter Eight

Matthew woke in a pit.

Not literally, or at least he didn’t think so. It was hard to tell. The dirt walls had no windows or doors. The ceiling seemed to be wood, but was out of his reach. The only light came through slits in the ceiling. He guessed he was in some kind of earthen basement under a cabin or something similar.

He kept still and let his eyes adjust to the darkness. He lay on a scratchy blanket, probably wool. Several of them formed a pallet on the bare floor. He didn’t rate a bed, apparently. Isaac wasn’t following the “respect your opponent” school of thought.

Matthew stretched, wincing at the ache in his muscles. They hadn’t handled him delicately while he was out. Jason would kill him when he found out Matthew had let himself be taken. But it had been a calculated risk. He couldn’t get near Isaac any other way.

The sedative Ella injected him with contained an added chemical that was supposed to make him compliant. He’d fought it, and though he’d made the speech she told him to make, he managed to put clues in it that both Jason and Lark should pick up on. Well, Jason, anyway. Matthew wasn’t sure how Lark would handle his abduction. She might be too emotional to examine his words. He felt a pang of regret for putting her through that, but if his choice made her less of a target, it was worth a little distress.

He bit back a groan as he pulled himself upright to study the room. A camping-style chemical toilet sat crookedly in one corner. An old-fashioned pitcher and basin rested on a stand against the wall between the toilet and the pallet. An intercom unit had been pressed into the dirt wall, cables leading up into the structure overhead.

Matthew ignored the intercom for now. In the dim, striped glow from above, he took inventory of his body, tensing and releasing muscles, shifting and prodding to make sure nothing was broken or torn, before rising and taking a couple of small steps. Muscles twinged, evidence of both his age and rough handling, but he didn’t seem to have any true injuries. No dried blood or healing cuts, aside from the tender spot where Ella had inexpertly plunged the needle into his neck. He shivered, partly because of being underground, partly a side effect of the sedative. Movement would combat both.

He paced around the room, testing the walls and checking corners, squinting up at the floor above. He couldn’t see any interruptions in the light that would indicate either people or furniture in the room above him, and there was no noise, human or electronic. He found the faint outline of a well-cut trap door dead center of the room. They’d cut it there purposefully, to keep him from climbing the walls and breaking out. Most of the gaps between floor planks were too narrow to wedge his fingers into. But he wasn’t planning on escaping, anyway. Not yet. It would defeat his whole purpose for being here.

He checked his pockets. Cell phone, wallet, car and house keys, all gone. He’d known they would be. Before Ella arrived, he’d locked his Hummingbird pass card in his safe, and had only the front door and main car keys in his pocket. Nothing would be helpful to Isaac or whoever had him.

“You
planned
this? From the beginning?” he could imagine Lark’s outraged demand. She’d be shocked, first, that he expected the worst from her aunt. But he’d trained Isaac, and Hummingbird was a successful company not because they threw up walls when someone tried to hurt their clients, but because they understood the minds of those they were up against.

“Think like the enemy” was almost a motto. So Matthew had been spending a lot of time thinking like Isaac Kemmerling. The man was obviously desperate to capitalize on Hummingbird’s bad fortune—or screw-up, depending on how you looked at it—and he’d be looking for any and every in he could get. Now that Matthew knew about her connection to Isaac, Ella was a fairly obvious asset for his opponent.

His examination of the cellar exhausted, he approached the intercom stuck in the wall. It was the kind of unit you’d find on the outside of an old apartment building. Most of the buttons were missing, which made it obvious which one would signal his captors that he was awake. Or fry him, if it was rigged or malfunctioning. He crossed the dirt floor to the stand holding the pitcher and basin. The pitcher was half full of water. Matt emptied it into the basin and carried the pitcher back to the intercom, where he used the handle to depress the button. There was a faint hiss, but no evidence the unit had been wired to electrocute him. He returned the pitcher and crossed back to the speaker just as a voice crackled through it.

“What?”

Matthew used his thumbnail to press the button. “
You’re
friendly.”

No response.

“Just thought I’d let you know I’m awake.”

“Fine. You’re awake.” The voice still sounded at peak grumpiness. Matthew wondered how sparse the accommodations upstairs were. He was betting there was no plasma-screen TV.

“Let’s do whatever I’m here to do.”

He swore the silence hissed with confusion, and suppressed a grin. “How about some food?” he suggested. “Maybe a soda? The water down here is gross.”

Again no response, but a few moments later heavy boots thudded on the floor above him. Dust filtered down through the cracks. Matthew stayed where he was while metal scraped on metal, followed by a heavy thud before the trap door creaked open, the door tilting upward. Nothing else happened.

Then Grumpy said, “Come over here where I can see you.”

Matthew nodded approvingly. Enemy or not, Isaac had been trained by Hummingbird, and he’d trained his men the same way. You didn’t stick your head into a hole in the ground without being able to see what might be coming.

Of course, by the same token, you didn’t expose yourself to attack from a shielded enemy, either. Matthew stepped forward just enough for Grumpy to see him.

And jolted slightly when he recognized his guard.

“Hello, John.”

John grunted.

“I thought you quit Hummingbird to go live with your mother in California. How’s she doing?” He tried to keep his voice mild. Anger wouldn’t serve him well here in any capacity.

“I did,” John grunted again, but with words, at least. “She died early this year.”

“I’m sorry.” He waited. The guy wasn’t very talkative today. Tonight? He had no idea what time it was, how many hours or even days had passed. “Why didn’t you come back to Hummingbird? We’d have been happy to have you.”

“Kemmerling was newer. Figured he’d have more opportunities.”

Matthew nodded. John was a good agent. He did what he was trained to do, but he wasn’t leadership material by Hummingbird’s standards. Standards he might not meet at all now. John had put on a significant number of pounds. The semi-automatic rifle in his hands balanced the equation, though.

“Okay, well, it’s good to see you again anyway. Isaac around?”

“No.”

“Will he be?”

“Probably.”

“When?”

“Eventually.”

Matthew fought back a sigh and kept his hands at his sides. “Okay, then, how about food?”

A plastic-wrapped sub, the kind you buy from neighborhood kids for school fundraisers, dropped to the floor at his feet. “Ah, thanks. Drink?”

A diet root beer landed beside the sub. Matthew hated root beer. He guessed Isaac was trying to send him a message. But he didn’t care how much Isaac thought he knew about his former boss. He didn’t know enough.

“What time is it?” He didn’t bend to retrieve the food. It would wait until the door was closed.

“‘Bout two.”

“P.M.?”

“Yep.”

“Saturday?”

“Yep.”

Good. He hadn’t been out too long. Jason and Lark had surely found his message by now. If they’d decoded it properly, they would have also acted to secure the data from any Hummingbird staff who could have been compromised. They were probably also working to find him. As he had no way to tell them to stop, to ferret out the traitors instead, he’d just have to work on his own plans.

“That all?” John asked.

“Yeah, for now. Thanks for the food. Let me know when Isaac gets here, will ya?”

John gave one final grunt and dropped the trap door into place. There was more metal scraping, then John’s heavy footsteps retreating. Matthew held still and listened hard. The door that creaked open and clicked closed was probably wooden, hollow, typical of any old house. There was no additional sound of a lock being engaged. Isaac—or maybe just John—was pretty confident he had Matthew secure.

Good.

* * *

Jason handed his phone to Lark as they neared the coffee shop he had in mind. “Find Gabby’s number for me, please, and then I’ll call her.”

Lark scrolled through and found it, then handed the phone back. “Want me to call?”

“No, she’ll be expecting to hear from me.” He put it up to his ear. Gabby answered almost immediately.

“Dr. Berwell.” Her tension came through, even though she was clearly trying to sound normal, professional.

“Gabby, it’s me.”

“Jason, thank God. I can’t reach Matthew. I—”

“I know. Don’t say more. I need you to come to me.” He pulled the truck over to the curb half a block from the coffee shop. Lark climbed out and stuck some quarters in the meter. Jason watched her, noting steady hands, no tears or sniffling, her movements purposeful but not exaggerated or sharp. His respect for her rose.

“Where are you?” Gabby’s voice shook a little, but had calmed.

“You know the historic hotel downtown? The one with the great Brandy Alexanders?”

“Of course I know.”

“I’ll meet you there.”

“Okay, give me half an hour. I need to make up a reason to leave here.”

“How about it’s Saturday, and you have plans?” he offered sarcastically.

She giggled. Good. She’d be safer, and less obvious, if she wasn’t so tense. “Yeah, they’d believe that. I wouldn’t even believe it.”

He smiled a little. “Okay, then. Half an hour.”

Lark leaned back through her open door. “I thought we were going to the coffee shop.”

“We are.” He climbed out of the truck and locked it, setting the alarm and detection unit. He let Lark go ahead, keeping her in sight while he scanned the small town square. Besides the hotel and café, there was an insurance agency, a pharmacy, a Laundromat, and a large boardinghouse. Residences lined the streets in three directions, and a bridge over the creek, leading out of town, was a few hundred yards down the fourth. Visibility was good, with all the cars parked in angled spaces on two sides of the square. The street was empty in the center except for a flower-covered median.

Jason didn’t notice anything bothersome and opened the door to the café, pleased to see Lark had chosen a table centered at the window. Not only could they see clearly in all directions, the large business name scrolled across much of the window would make it difficult for anyone peering in to recognize them.

Lark glanced at him as he came over. “Coffee?”

“Yeah. What do you want?” He reached for his wallet in his back pocket.

She stood. “I’ll get it.”

Jason gave her his order and sat, allowing himself a moment to watch her walk up to the counter. Her arms swayed, loose, her gait smooth. Their banter had taken the edge off. But as she stood waiting, it sharpened again. He could tell by the way she shifted her weight from foot to foot and nibbled on the cuticle of her thumb. When the steamer went off, she jumped, then made a “disgusted with herself” face. Jason turned to look out the window. Urgency churned in his gut.