Second Nature (When Seconds Count) (23 page)

“
I don’t care how you do it. Just get me inside that building!” Out of the corner of her eye she caught movement on one of the monitors. “Diver, tell Grant to stand down until we have a visual.”

Diver laughed, followed by a series of
strained coughs. “Sorry, not happening. You haven’t worked with him long, have you?”

“
I’ve got twenty more minutes with her!” The growled objection rumbled through the headsets and everyone inside the van froze.
Who is that?
She mouthed to Larry as if they could somehow hear her if she spoke aloud.

“You’re time is up, my friend. The American is here.” The blood in Rebecca’s veins ran cold as Jauh
ar’s voice echoed in her ears. “Wake up, pet. You have company.”

“What’s going on?” Daniel pushed his way between her and
Larry and held his ear next to hers as they listened for more. She held up one finger and shook her head. One look at the man and she could see he was on the verge of a complete meltdown.

She scrambled for the
mic as she pulled away from Daniel. “Diver, did you get that? They’re on to Grant. He’s walking into a trap!”

“He’s hearing the same thing you are. I honestly don’t think he cares though. He’s going in.”
Rebecca watched the monitor, her last breath lodged next to her stomach inside her throat as Grant disappeared down a darkened stairwell leading from the rooftop of the target building.

“
I’m a bit disappointed, Kafeel.” Rebecca listened as the second man clicked his tongue in a mocking gesture. “I think the drug took all the fire out of her. I had hoped for a much more spirited fight.”

“Wake her up. I want her ready when the American is shown i
n.” She could hear a woman’s voice in the background moaning a weakening plea. “It is time she is reminded of who her true master is. I intend to allow our esteemed friend the pleasure of reminding her.”

Esteemed friend?
“Who is he talking about, Diver?” What the hell was going on? Surely Jauhar wasn’t referring to Grant.

An eerie silence
flooded the connection before another series of loud tones and beeps blared through the speakers in her headset, followed by Diver’s shouted curse. “Dammit! We lost the connection!”

Rebecca pulled off the headset and threw it at the monitor. “Get it back Diver! I don’t care what you have to do!
Larry, update Keller on the audio confirmation! Jauhar is in that building and we’re going in after him.”

“I did
, but our orders still stand. We’re to maintain radio silence until further notice.”

“Bullshit!” They had real time confirmation of Jauhar’s location in Mumbai, a screaming girl
, Grant on the inside, and Keller was cutting off communications? Something was incredibly wrong. She threaded her fingers through her hair, a sigh of desperation spilling from her lips. He was going to blow this whole assignment and feed her to the wolves when the shit hit the fan. She could feel it. Even if it wasn’t Natalie they heard, they couldn’t sit back and ignore those screams. It didn’t matter what intel Keller had, there was no excuse for this. Someone had to do something!

The van rocked on its axels
from the force of Daniel’s roar as he tore through the crowded cabin and pushed his way to the driver’s seat. Chaos erupted as Larry and Dumbo scrambled to reconnect the cables that had been ripped from their equipment in his wake.

“Where are the keys?” Rebecca turned to see
Daniel ripping the console to pieces in a destructive search.

“We can’t leave ou
r post!” Larry jumped from his seat and lunged for Daniel. Before she could process the consequences, Rebecca pulled her firearm and leveled it at the coward’s head.

“Where are the keys?”

Larry fell back a step, his hands raised by his head. “You’re crazy, lady. You know that? Keller is going to have your ass for this.”

“He can have whatever’s left of me after I take down Jauhar. Now hand over the
damn keys!”

“I don’t have them.”

Behind Larry,
Dumbo slipped his hand into his pocket and Rebecca took aim. Her insides trembled with adrenaline, but her finger remained steady on the trigger. “I don’t think so.”

“
If you want to come get the key out yourself I won’t complain.”

Jackass.
“Hand them over. Slowly.”

Dumbo fished
around in his pocket and stepped around Larry, ignoring her warning to stay where he was. With complete disregard for the gun, he took her free hand and slapped the single key into her palm, his fingers wrapped in a tight grip around her wrist. “Wave to the camera, sweetheart.” He jerked his chin toward a dark orb mounted in the corner above her shoulder, a crooked, sarcastic grin displaying his arrogant satisfaction. “You may have Keller’s dick in a knot, but even he won’t be able to save your ass on this one.”

What the hell is that supposed to mean?
Before she could ask, he and Larry spilled out onto the street, the van door slamming shut behind them. Daniel yanked the key from her hand and started the engine. “Put the damn gun away if you’re not going use it.” Without warning, he executed a sharp U-turn toward Mumbai and floored the gas pedal, tossing her into one of the bucket seats vacated by the sphincter twins. “Get that map back. I need you to tell me where my daughter is.”

Traffic snarled to an agonizingly slow pace as they approached the outlying suburban ghettos of Mumbai. Rebecca sat glued to her seat in front of the monitors and listened as Daniel pounded his fists on the steering wheel in a frustrated rage. “Can you hear
anything
?”

“No.” She tried to mask her disappointment and anxiety for Daniel’s sake
, but the closer they got to the city without knowing what was happening, the harder it was not to pull out her gun and blow a hole through one of the infuriatingly silent radios. “Diver says the signals haven’t moved, but unless someone makes a call or sends a text message he can’t access it.”

“What about Grant? Can’t we use the cell phone he has to…to…I don’t how all this shit works, but can’t Diver do
anything
else?”

Rebecca shook her head in disgust. “Just get us there, Daniel. Diver is doing everything he can.”

She couldn’t imagine the horror Daniel was going through. He had devoted his life to finding Natalie. They didn’t have confirmation that she was even there, but if they could take down Jauhar… maybe, if they didn’t find her, it would give him some comfort to know her killer would see justice.

“I’ve got incoming.”
Rebecca jumped at the sound of Diver’s voice. Her hands flew to her head and she pressed the headset tight against her ears.

“
You have audio? I’m not hearing anything.”

“Better.”
Two seconds later a distorted picture filled one of the monitors in front of her. “Someone is recording and I hacked the application code. As long as the camera is rolling we’ll see what they see.”

Her head tilted from side
to side as she tried to make sense of the image on the screen. “What is it?” The van lurched to a screeching halt and she grabbed the edge of her seat to keep from being dumped into the floor. Between the jarring movements of the van and the disorienting picture on the screen, her head began to feel a little fuzzy until the camera stopped moving and she was able to focus in on picture.
Oh, dear God no!
Her heart stopped for a full three beats before jumping into her throat with the force of the adrenaline that fueled her raging pulse.

“Left or right?”
Daniel called from the front of the van.

She fought the urge to close her eyes, to shu
t out the horrid scene being forever burned into her mind. Her trembling hand flew to her mouth instead, covering the scream of terror she somehow managed to suppress into an agonizing moan of despair. She had seen photographs of tortured slaves, some of them dead, some of them barely living. She’d listened to countless statements from survivors and read thousands of victim files. Never. Not a single thing she had ever seen or heard could have prepared her to see the true evil being inflicted upon Natalie right in front of her eyes.

Strapped to a wooden table, her pale and lifeless body was covered in deep, swollen bruises. Trails of bright
, crimson blood ran from the old wound on her thigh, mixing with the sweat and dirt covering her naked skin.
Oh, God!
The fingers on her left hand were broken and twisted in odd angles, the swelling turning her entire hand an unnatural hue of blue. Her right leg was suspended by a harness, chains from both the ceiling and the table holding it immobile from every direction. Her other leg was cuffed to the table at the ankle and knee. She could see the sharp, metal spikes on the insides of the cuffs digging into Natalie’s skin, tiny rivulets of blood leaking from their wounds. Even if she had the strength to move she couldn’t, lest the spikes dig further into her flesh. She tore her eyes away from the purely medieval scene and focused on her face. Strands of her sweat-soaked hair were matted against her cheeks, her lips chapped and split in several places. Her silver eyes were open but soulless, focused on something beyond her horrid reality that only she could see. Rebecca wanted to vomit. How could someone do this to another human being?

“Rebecca! Right
or left?”

She jumped from her seat, placing her body between Daniel and the monitor as she bent down to peer out the front windshield at their location. Sweat had beaded on her forehead, dripping into her eyes and mingling with the tears she couldn’t quell. Her lungs seized, her chest tightened against the ache in her heart and no matter how many times she tried
, she couldn’t get the words past the lump in her throat.
Sweet Jesus, Rebecca. You gotta keep it together.
She swallowed hard, forcing the air from her lungs and the word beyond her lips. “Right,” she breathed, gulping in a fresh lungful of air. “And hurry, Daniel. Please.”

“Dammit! I’m trying! Can’t you find a way around this damn traffic?
”

Her pulse was racing too fast. She had to get a handle on it
before she could tell him more. “Just stay on this road. I’ll see what I can do.”

Returning to her seat she tried to grasp
what Diver was saying and block out the images on the screen while she studied the GPS maps. It was a wasted effort. Just when she thought she couldn’t possibly deal with another crisis, her cell phone beeped indicating another call was coming in. She glanced at the incoming call notice.
Keller.
If she took the call she could risk losing Diver and that was not going to happen. “Do you have a cell phone, Daniel?”

Daniel shook his head. “
No! I had to give it up as part of their agreement not to send me home.”

Hell
.
She would just have to add ignoring Keller’s call to her growing lists of infractions. Dumbo was right. She probably didn’t have a job to worry about anymore so what was the point? “Take a left at the next large intersection. If you keep the buildings on the right, it should lead you to a roundabout. The train station will be on your right. Follow the tracks for about three miles and it will lead you directly behind the building.”

“Got it.
Are you back inside yet?”

“I’m working on it.” It was all she could give him.
She couldn’t tell him. Not now. Not until they got there and could do something to stop it.

Grasping for anything that could make a difference, she pushed aside as many of the overwhelming emotions as she humanly could and tried to see the scene from an investigator’s point of view. “Diver, look at the wall behind the table. It’s concrete block. Do you see any windows?”

“Are you fucking out of your mind? I don’t know! I can’t watch this shit!”

“Diver, take a deep breath. We need to figure out where she is inside the building! Please, just try to look at the whole picture!”

“I...damn!” She could hear his growled curses and labored breaths as he tried to pull himself together. “I…fuck! Uh, I’m seeing what you are seeing. I don’t think so. Is it a basement?”

“Can you enhance the picture at all? Maybe lighten it up a little?

“I can try. Give me a minute.”

“We don’t
—”

“Look at me, pet.”

Rebecca’s response derailed. Her skin crawled with anger and revulsion as she watched Jauhar lean over Natalie, the person holding the camera moving to the side to keep her face in the frame.
Sick bastard!

“
Look at me, girl.” He patted her face, repeatedly trying to rouse a positive response from her. When she didn’t so much as blink he wrapped his hand around her throat, choking off her air supply until her body began to convulse against the table. She gagged, coughing and gasping for air when his fingers finally loosened their strangling grip. Tears streamed from the corners of her rapidly blinking eyes, as if just awakening from a terrifying nightmare.
Only this nightmare is real.

“That’s it, pet,” he spoke at a near whisper. “For future reference,
I do not like to be ignored.” His hand cupped her left breast, pinching her nipple. Natalie tried to squirm away, nearly screaming when the spiked cuffs burrowed further beneath her skin. “Remember that the next time I call for your attention.”

R
ebecca chocked back her own impulse to vomit as Diver’s words turned into wave after wave of deep, retching sounds. “Hang on, Diver. We’ll get her out of there.” She wasn’t sure if he could even hear her over his heaves. Hell, it didn’t matter if he did. She needed to believe the words were true.

“
I am quite flattered your dear
savior
Issa left my mark intact. I suppose he did not have the heart to tell you about it once he discovered your acute loss of memory. That would have been a little difficult to explain once he filled your head with his carefully constructed tale of your little family tragedy. Poor little orphan, Thalia.” His wicked chuckle echoed through the room, the hollow sound feeding Rebecca’s suspicion of a basement, or bunker of some sort.

“It’s a basement, Diver
. I’m sure of it!” The electronics on top of the small built-in desk slid to the far side of the van as Daniel hit the roundabout at break-neck speed. The tires hit the curb and Rebecca was bounced from her seat, catching one of the monitors in her lap as she hit the floor.
Ouch!
Daniel offered no apologies, the engine revving to gasket-blowing levels when he hit the straight piece of broken asphalt on the other side.

“You can
not really blame him for telling you such lies, pet. He was never quite the same after his lovely daughter took her own life. An embarrassment, really. Completely unreliable and useless. I was within days of finding a more reliable partner when he passed by your beautifully beaten and broken body lying at the bottom of your cage.” He laughed when Natalie turned her head away, refusing to look at him. “I was reluctant to give you up, pet, as I had already invested much time and effort into your…training. But sometimes the power to control a person is more valuable than mere flesh. As long as he did my bidding I thought it was a good bargain. It appears as though I was right, at least for a little while.” Natalie’s nostrils flared with each raging breath when he gripped her chin and forced her to look at him.
That’s it Natalie. Fight him. Don’t give up. We’re almost there!

“
Issa the Savior. That is why you called him Issa, is it not? You think he saved you?”  When she didn’t acknowledge his question, he clenched his fist into her hair and yanked her head from the table, his raging face inches from hers. “Be very mindful, pet. No one will save you now. And do not expect such foolish affection from me. You are nothing to me. Do you understand?”

Rebecca’s cell phone beeped again with another incoming call. Another call from Keller. It was at least the tenth time since the first call she’d ignored.
Her stomach in knots, she ignored this one, too. She couldn’t deal with him and Jauhar. Her complete focus needed to be on sending this evil animal back to hell.

“Why is she here?” Rebecca’s head snapped up, the sound of a new voice causing alarms to go off inside her head.
“Don’t we have enough problems?”
I know that voice.

“Wh
o is that? I know that voice,” Diver asked, the same sense of alarm in his tone.

“
Me, too.”
Dammit!
Move the camera!

Jauhar released Natalie, turning away from the table to greet the owner of the familiar voice, stepping just outside of the camera’s view.
No! No! No! Come back! Who the hell is that?

“We’re almost th
ere!” Daniel called out over his shoulder just as her phone beeped again.

“Okay. I think she’s in the basement.” Rebecca blew out a frantic breath. “Stop about a block away and we’ll discuss how we’re going in.” She punched the ignore button on her phone
again and zeroed in on the voices.

“We should be hearing word from Mumbai any moment, Senator. While we wait, I
have orchestrated a little demonstration for you. One I know you will be quite pleased with.”

“Senator?
”

“Mumbai?” She and Diver shouted over one another.

That’s not possible!
“Diver, I thought you said his signal was coming from Mumbai! What the hell is he talking about?”

“It
is
coming from Mumbai! And that’s Senator Collins!” An ominous chill raced down Rebecca’s spine, a full color image of the highly esteemed head of the foreign intelligence committee Senator Collins filling her screen as he approached Natalie’s prone body.
This is not happening!

“Son of a bitch!
Grant is inside. He found a wireless repeater cell, Ms. Danes! They could be anywhere and bouncing their signal from Mumbai!” She could hear Diver shouting technical gibberish and barking orders to Grant like a well-seasoned drill sergeant. “Get out of there, Lieutenant! Now!”

“Daniel, stop! It’s a false signal!” Daniel slammed on the brakes, the van screeching to a halt
behind the building. He threw the gearshift in park and climbed to the back of the van.

“What do you mean a false signal?”

The life drained out of Daniel’s face, his eyes focused on the monitor behind her. “Daniel, she’s not there. We have to go back to Navi.”