Encrypted (26 page)

CHAPTER 10

Ciudad
Juarez

9:26
p
.
m
.,
MST

Quirk watched as Ronnie
stumbled out of
the bar
.
Alone
.
He used infrared goggles to search up and down the street
.
Where in the hell was Zach
?
Perched atop a building across from the bar, Quirk used the high-power
ed
zoom to check the entire area, but still no Hunt.

Heteros
. They would never learn
.
And to waste such an outfit?

Still, this turn of events shocked even this world-weary hacker
.
It had never, ever occurred to Quirk that the corn-fed Dudley
Do-Right wouldn’t show
.
Would he try to arrest Ronnie
?
Sure, Quirk was prepared for that
.
It played right into the agent’s Mid-
w
est morality
.
But
to
stand her up
?
To leave a woman in
the
lurch
?
To hurt her feelings like this
?
Quirk never would have guessed
that
the hunk had it in him to be this cruel.

Using the scope, he zoomed in on his boss
.
Ronnie looked like absolute hell
.
Courtney
-
Love
-
after
-
a
-
bender
kind of hell
.
It wasn’t so much her wet dress or the mussed hair
.
It was the look on Ronnie’s face
.
Complete and utter devastation
.
He g
uess
ed
that
Hunt wasn’t the stand-up guy
that
he pretended to be.

But wait
!
A car pulled up to the curb near Ronnie
.
Maybe Zach was just being stealthy
,
after all
.
Ronnie leaned in
to the passenger’s window as Quirk tightened his focus on the driver.

Oh, no
.
That definitely wasn’t
Hunt
.
It was a toothless Mexican
.
Even though Quirk couldn’t speak the language, it was clear
that
the man was looking for something other than directions
.
And there went Ronnie’s middle finger, flipping off the potential john.

Oh
,
that was it
!
The last humiliation
.

Whipping out his laptop, Quirk
first checked the glands under his neck to be sure they weren’t enlarged
.
Y
ou never could be too careful with the plague on the loose
.
T
hen
,
he
looked up Zach’s financial information
.
No one dissed Ronnie like this without paying, and paying a lot.

“Credit score of 850, huh?” Quirk asked the screen
.
“Well, not anymore.” Hunt’s credit plummeted to two hundred and fifty
.
Some homeless people had better credit now
.
“And don’t bother trying to use your ATM, you prick.”

Feeling a certain amount of satisfaction after trashing Zach’s finances, Quirk packed up his belongings
.
Now he could see why Ronnie wanted to buy an island paradise and keep it all to herself
.

When even a
Walton
s
-style guy like Zach turned out to be a dick, what hope was there?

Quirk hoped that the agent felt even a fraction of the pain Ronnie did.

* * *

Zach forced his body to remain slack as the two thugs lifted him from the van
.
He wished he could say this level of control was due to his highly honed skills, but with the
dollop
of the
T
aser
hit, he wasn’t sure if he could resist even if he wanted to.

Not too gently, they dragged him across rough terrain
.
Even though his muscles were slack, Zach’s mind spun
.
They must be outside the city, but they couldn’t have traveled more than thirty minutes
.
Forty-five
,
tops
.
He tried to keep time by his heartbeat, but there was no doubt
that
he had passed out a few times
.
Still, it couldn’t have been that long
.
His cuts and scrapes from the bitch
-
slapping session stung rather than ached
.

No, not much time had passed at all
.
Certainly not long enough for Grant to notice
that
he was gone
.
Zach had to stifle a snort
.
Who was he kidding
?
Fifer wasn’t going to miss him until it came time for a ride home
.
Either his partner was nose
-
deep in tits
,
or a captive as well.

The thugs stopped and knocked at a door
. T
hen
,
in hushed tones
,
they
obtained entrance
.
That made three men with him
,
and at least another behind the door
.
Zach’s heels bounced over a metal landing
.
No steps up to the door
—
which meant
that
this most likely wasn’t a residential dwelling
.
H
e
tried to re
-
create a map in his head
.
Where in the hell had they taken him?

As they dragged him across the room, Zach
’s
fingers ran over the rough cement floor
.
So he was right
.
This definitely wasn’t a house, and the thugs
’
footsteps didn’t echo
,
which eliminated a warehouse
.
Was it a store
?
A garage?

But what did it matter
?
If this
were
the usual type of federal agent snatch, this place would be fortified with a veritable army of drug soldiers
.
Escape
,
or even rescue
,
would be impossible
.
His only hope was that the
S
tate
D
epartment would give his kidnappers “consideration” and arrange for his release
.

If he
weren’t
lucky
?
Well, not getting to meet Ronnie would suddenly not be his worst regret in life. Not having any skin would be.

They crossed into another room
.
T
his one sounded much smaller, and his captors hauled him into a chair
.
Zach had no choice but to let
himself
fall face
-
first onto the table, landing right on the jaw
—
where the she-bitch landed a punch
.
Still
,
he remained passive
.
Motionless
.
He kept his breathing slow and steady
.

Would this ruse help him obtain vital information
?
He doubted it, but letting his mind whirl and his training flow through his veins kept the panic at bay
.
The more in control he felt, the less likely he was to hurl.

* * *

Ronnie stood under the lamppost, hugging herself
.
She couldn’t think
of
what else to do
.
First
,
a man who she thought loved her had stood her up
.
T
hen
,
she
was mistaken for a hooker
.
Tears stung her eyes
.
If only she hadn’t been late
!
If only…

She choked
,
thinking of the thousand what
-
ifs that sprang to mind
.
But none of them would miraculously make Zach appear before her
.
But damn it, she was nearly an hour late
.
Oh
,
how she wished she could blame Quirk for this, but she knew better
.
If Zach had shown up at all, he would have waited
.
It would have taken the modern equivalent of wild horses to pull him away.

Another car pulled
up
to the curb
.
Okay, this was the last time she arranged a blind date in the red
-
light district
.
But this car was a cab
.
A cab with a twentysomething knight in shining armor.
Sagging with relief
,
she got into the vehicle, and they sped away from the site of her humiliation.

“Ronnie,” Quirk said with actual concern in his voice
.
Not the usual “your baggy jeans and ill-fitting sweatshirt is embarrassing me” kind of concern, but she simply couldn’t face him.

God, why had she let herself believe
that
Zach cared for her
?
Why had she risked her heart like that
?
She was pretty sure she would have been less disappointed if Zach had actually tried to arrest her
.
At least then
,
she could have looked into his eyes and seen how he really felt about her
.
Now
?
Oh
,
G
od, she had to choke back the tears again.

“Come on,
hon
,” Quirk coaxed, and she finally looked over at him
.
He patted a towel draped over his shoulder
.
“I’m completely prepared for the mother of all good cries.”

Normally
,
she would have had a great comeback or at least a scathing look to offer, but tonight she just leaned
on
her assistant and laid her head upon the terry cloth
towel
.

“And here you g
o.” Quirk pulled out a pint of
Häagen-Dazs
ice cream and a spoon
.
“If it
’
s any consolation, this is how I usually end up after the White Party.”

For some strange reason
,
that did make Ronnie feel better
—
enough to take the proffered spoonful of ice cream.

* * *

Lino
arrived at the small
airport
, greeted by a foursome in long
,
black, traditional priestly robes. He did not acknowledge their presence. Why should he? While their wore the same fro
ck, none could walk in his stead
.

The group parted to reveal another clothed in black, only his robe need
ed twice the yardage.
Deacon
Havar
.
Forced by protoco
l to bow to this wide-
girthed superior,
Lino
inclined his head
,
but no more than four degrees. He would not give one so weak in the flesh more honor than that.