The Kill Order (13 page)

19

B
y the time they were in the car and on the freeway, Piper had nearly convinced herself that any misgivings were based on the fact she was the one getting screwed in this deal. How was it that some people she’d never met in Washington could make a decision about her life? Like it even mattered to them? What if she didn’t want to go to Indiana, or wherever-the-hell, USA? “Where
are
we going?”

“To the airport,” one of the men said.

“Yeah, I get that. I mean where from there? Why can’t I just go home?”

“It’ll be like your new home.”

“Probably better,” the other one said, as he slid off his overcoat and tossed it on the backseat beside her.

Jerks, she thought, then eyed the tan coat, wondering if there was any money in the pockets. She reached her hand out, moving it closer, then surreptitiously patted the pockets, feeling stiff paper, about the size that a plane ticket might be, in the inside breast pocket. So they already had it. Time to find out if it was anywhere
she
wanted to go. Watching the two men up front, she slid her hand between the fabric and pulled out a rental car folder. So not a plane ticket, but better than money, she decided, since she was pretty sure one needed a credit card to rent a vehicle. She moved the folder to her other side, so they wouldn’t see, unfolded it, and was slightly dismayed to discover that only the last four digits were on the receipt stapled to the top of the document.

That was a waste, she thought, then stopped at the sight of the city on the rental contract.

South San Francisco. The date was five days ago.

Her heart started a slow thud. What were the chances that they were in the Bay Area on the very day Bo was murdered . . . ? She found the license number and recognized it as the car she saw parked outside Bo’s shop. It was not the car they were in now, but they certainly could have flown back here, picked up this car, and somehow found her. She folded up the receipt and shoved it into her back pocket, then stared out the window, trying to think. And that was when she noticed they were not driving in the direction of the airport—something she knew only because she’d read the road signs when Lisette had first brought her to D.C. Piper hadn’t seen these particular street names before. “I don’t feel so good,” she said.

“You’ll be fine.”

“No. I think I’m going to throw up.” She tried to roll down the window. It didn’t budge. A bad omen, she figured, and had a feeling that if she tried to open the door, it wouldn’t work, either.

The driver craned his neck around to look at her. “What do you need?”

“A little fresh air.”

He lowered the window about two inches.

She took a deep breath. “I think I need crackers. Or something to eat.”

“Gum?”

“Crackers. I think I need crackers.” She leaned forward, then grasped the headrest in front of her. “We need to stop or I’m gonna throw up all over your car.”

“Son of a . . .” He pulled off the freeway.

The blond guy pointed. “There’s a mini-mart.”

She looked. “Do you think they have saltines? That’s the only thing that works.”

“Saltines? Probably.” The dark-haired guy signaled, then got into the left turn lane, waiting for the light to change. He parked, then nodded to his partner. “Go get her some crackers.”

“Can I go in?” Piper asked. “I need to use the bathroom.”

“No. It’s not safe.”

“Okay if I lie down back here?”

“Sure.”

She glanced into the store, saw there was a long line at the counter, then lay across the seat so that her head was behind the driver’s side. “Can you roll down this other window, too?”

He did.

“A little more? The cold air feels good.”

She heard the window’s roller, looked up, saw he’d rolled it about five inches total, she hoped low enough to reach outside and open the damned door.

What she needed was to get him out of the car, and she took a deep breath, then gave a loud sigh. “You think I could have a Coke?”

“A Coke?”

“Or ginger ale. You think they have ginger ale?”

“I don’t know.” He took out his phone, made a call. “Come on . . . pick up . . . Hey . . . grab some Coke or something.”

And her heart sank. Didn’t do her any good if he didn’t leave the car. She grabbed her midsection, curled into a fetal position, and added a few moans that she’d perfected back when she was still living in foster care.

“What the hell now?” he asked.

“Cramps. That’s why I don’t feel good.”

He leaned over the seat, looked at her. “Cramps?”

“I always get sick to my stomach when I start my period. I really need to use the bathroom.”

“Yeah, well you’re gonna have to wait.”

“Fine. But it’s your backseat and I need some tampons.”

“Shit . . .” He called his partner again. “She needs you to buy tampons . . . What? You’re afraid of cooties, you pick up a box? Goddamn it. I gotta do everything myself around here.” He threw the door open and stomped across the parking lot, setting the alarm as he left.

She watched, saw him enter the store, then pushed the door lock and pulled the handle. As expected, it didn’t open. She slid up, reached out the open window, the glass digging into her underarm as she strained to reach the handle on the outside of the door. Her fingers touched it, and she was worried she wouldn’t be able to grasp it. “Please . . .” She shoved herself as close to the window as she could get, putting her weight against it, trying to get that extra inch, and then she had it, pulling the handle and it opened.

The alarm went off. She raced toward the gas pumps, yelled at the man closest to her.

He had just stepped out of a pickup truck, the door open, as he pulled his wallet from his pocket and stepped toward the gas pump.

“Call the cops. Those guys kidnapped me!”

He looked up, shocked.

The two men yelled as they burst from the store.

Piper dove into the pickup truck, slammed the door shut, locked it, and prayed there was a cell phone.

Instead she saw the keys in the ignition.

She turned the key, sped out of the parking lot, caught a glimpse in her rearview mirror of the men stopping in their tracks, then racing back to their car.

The light was green as she sped toward the intersection, but she turned right instead, then right again, pulling into a busy shopping center parking lot that had at least fifty cars in it. She parked, threw the keys under the seat, then got out, trying to decide if she should steal another car or go into the store for help, when she saw a poster in the window of a travel agency advertising winter flight specials to Europe.

She had a feeling that that would be the last place
anyone
would be looking for her.

20

“H
ave you heard anything?” Griffin asked once he reached Lisette’s.

“Nothing. Marc’s doing a search of the area for any business with a video camera to see if we can’t find one with a license plate of the vehicle. They had to have been lying in wait at the gas station where the two agents suddenly had a flat tire.”

“They were followed?”

“Either that or it was the biggest sort of coincidence, them ending up with a flat.”

“And the suspects knew to come here to your apartment looking for her?”

“That’s what worries me. How would they know that? Or the names of the WitSec guys, then have IDs to match?”

“They wouldn’t,” Griffin said. “Unless somehow they had access to the information beforehand. I think McNiel’s right, that they have a partial SINS program running and they’ve been able to access the databases that way. How else could they have shown up in South San Francisco?”

“The same men or the same crew, either way, anything we access electronically, they could be monitoring.”

“They’ll be one step ahead of us. We’ll have to keep our search for her off the grid as much as possible.”

“What do we do?”

“Not sure. Yet. But she’s a resourceful girl,” he said, recalling the way she’d maneuvered their escape in South San Francisco.

“You’re assuming she’ll figure out they’re not legit.”

“Hoping. Knowing her, she will definitely cause issues, even if she does think they’re legit. Check with the police. Maybe something will pop out there.”

“In D.C.? Seriously?”

“Like I said, she’s resourceful. Give it a shot.”

He left, drove out of the parking lot, trying to imagine which route he’d take if he were the kidnappers, trying to smuggle a girl out. He didn’t think they’d kill her right off. She went with them willingly, and they’d probably use that cooperation to get her far from the area as soon as possible. He headed toward the freeway, and was about to get on in the direction of the airport when Lisette called him back.

“You were right. There was a stolen vehicle not too far from here. The victim states the suspect claimed she was being kidnapped and asked him to call the police. And the girl had black hair with pink spikes.” She gave him the address.

“En route. Let me know if there are further updates.”

The police were still there when he arrived, as was the victim whose truck was stolen. Griffin identified himself as a DOJ agent, stating only that they were looking for the girl in question. “Has anyone gotten surveillance video yet?”

“Working on it,” the officer said. “The clerk said he’d burn a copy.”

Griffin entered the store, found the clerk in a back room, no bigger than a closet, where a computer sat on a desk. “You have video?”

The man turned. “It’s almost done.”

“Can you show me?”

“Sure.” He accessed the footage, then pushed his chair to one side so Griffin could see.

A dark-colored sedan was parked in the lot on the side of the store, and one man got out and entered the building, followed shortly by the second man. He didn’t recognize either. And then he saw Piper reach out the back window, open the door, then race across the parking lot to the gas pumps. She jumped into a white pickup, then drove out of the parking lot.

The men in the store ran out, got into their car, and gave chase.

He copied the plate down, asked the police to run it. They did. It came back as no record on file. He figured as much. At least he had the license of the truck Piper stole. But then, so did everyone else.

With nothing left he could do there, he drove in the same direction he saw the vehicles take off. Not that he expected to find either. And after several unfruitful minutes, he returned to Lisette’s. “Good news and bad. She escaped and stole a truck.”

“Any idea where she might have taken off to?”

“As young and inexperienced as she is? I’d say California. Going back home, where she’s familiar.”

That evening, after they’d exhausted all leads, Lisette posed the question that had been bothering Griffin the most. “How are we going to find her if we can’t use our normal contacts?”

“The police will be searching,” Griffin said. “At least they have a physical description and the vehicle she stole.”

“But they won’t have her name, since I doubt that her would-be kidnappers stopped to report it. What we need is a way to tap into the stolen vehicle database without anyone knowing it’s us. What if someone runs that license plate? How will we know where she is or where she abandoned the vehicle if we can’t run it ourselves if someone is monitoring our electronic moves?”

She was right. Their best advantage was in letting the enemy think they were not aware of Piper’s connection to the stolen vehicle. “Sydney has contacts,” he said. “If anyone can get information from them on the QT, she can.”

“This should be interesting, considering she won’t even return your calls.”

“Any chance
you
can call?”

“For Piper, yes. But at some point you’re going to have to man up and talk to her.”

Lisette used the speakerphone feature so that Griffin could listen in. She did not, however, mention that Griffin was present, but judging from the tone of Sydney’s voice, there was no doubt in Griffin’s mind that she probably guessed.

“What is it you want from me?”

“Your contact at the local PD,” Lisette said. “If that vehicle’s recovered, and Piper’s in it, we need to know before it’s broadcast. Her only chance may be if we get to her first.”

“I’ll phone Lieutenant Sanchez, then get back to you when I hear something,” she said.

“Thanks. I appreciate it,” Lisette said. But by the time Lisette heard back from Sydney, then called Griffin to report it, it was three in the morning.

“They found the car,” Lisette told him. “Dulles International.”

It took a moment for him to wake up. He’d been searching for Piper straight through, and didn’t get home until a little after midnight. “Dulles?” he echoed, not quite taking it in.

“The airport.”

“I don’t suppose there was any indication on
where
she went from there?”

“None,” Lisette replied. “But the moment her name pops up on any passenger list, they’ll find her.”

“If we’re lucky, she hasn’t taken off yet.”

“That long ago? She could very well be back in California by now. I have a contact at Homeland Security. He can run a check if we want to chance the electronic search.”

“I don’t think we have a choice. Call him.”

He leaned back against the pillows on his bed, closing his eyes, telling himself there was nothing they could do until they knew where Piper was. Even so, it did little to relax him. Surprisingly, he dozed off, though fitfully, waking again when Lisette called about a half hour later. “I just heard back from Homeland Security. The good news? There’s no record of Piper getting on any flights. The bad news?
I
am on my way to Italy. Apparently she put my passport to good use. She’ll be landing at Marco Polo around noon.”

“Venice?” he asked, wondering if this operation could get any worse. “Why there?”

“Maybe she likes spaghetti. Does it matter?”

“How the hell could she fly there on
your
passport?”

“Similar height, weight, and coloring. Slap a hat on her head to hide that god-awful hair, and shove that passport under some overworked, underpaid TSA agent?”

“Good point. I’ll call McNiel and brief him.”

McNiel was not happy to hear the news. “How did she get to Italy?”

“She stole Lisette’s passport. If I had to guess, it was probably the most recent stamp.”

McNiel gave a ragged sigh. “This couldn’t come at a worse time. They’re expecting me to give a full report in the morning on how it is we lost her to begin with.”

“What do you want us to do?”

“Have Lisette and Marc get on the very next flight out. If we found her this easy, then Kane will have no difficulty. In fact, we should assume he has somebody en route or will soon, and act accordingly.”

“I’ll call Giustino to have her pulled from the flight the moment it lands.” Giustino, a
carabinieri
officer based out of Rome, also worked as an ATLAS agent. He would have the means to get aboard that flight before the passengers disembarked.

“Good. But stress to Giustino that this girl needs to be
off
the grid. Tell him to hide her in the last place they’d look. I’m not sure how long we can protect her otherwise.”

“Anything else?”

“Just keep your eyes and ears open.”

And what else could he do? Except hope that when Piper arrived in Venice, it was Giustino who met her and not someone else.