Undetectable (Great Minds Thriller) (49 page)

A Complication

Kevin held up his cell phone to give himself some light. He found the switch for the overhead lamp and turned it on. That piece of the van, at least, did not seem to be under the control of whoever was currently driving. Now that he could see, he took a minute to un-tie and un-tape Anselm.

“You have a gun,” Anselm said when his mouth was free, as if pointing out an asset Kevin might not yet have considered.

“Yes, but they’ll have
lots
of guns.”

“Who will?” Anselm’s nose and face still bore the cuts and bruises from his two run-ins with Jimmy Fleiss, but his expression was one of simple curiosity. He might have been asking Kevin to give him a new programming challenge.
Remember those tricky problems you said you were going to give me? What happened to those?

“Whoever’s waiting for us when we get there,” Kevin said. “They’ll have big guns. Assault rifles, probably fully automatic. M4 Carbines at the very least. Or the equivalent, depending on who we’re dealing with.”

“Where are we going?”

Kevin shrugged. “I don’t know, but we’ll be there soon. This van has a good engine, but
even with
i
ndependent front suspension
it’s going to break something soon if we try to go much farther on that blown tire. They probably have a staging point close by, and they’ll have to re-set before they open up a line of communication. Thankfully, I’d say we’re on their third or fourth contingency by now, so there shouldn’t be too many people at this site.”

“But they’ll have guns?”

“Absolutely.”

“How do you know all this?”

“I’ve been doing a lot of reading on the subject.”

“On which subject?”

“
All
of them.” Kevin waved a hand to move on. “Listen, I need to ask you: do you have a mom?”

Anselm looked taken aback. “Everybody has a mom.”

“Does she live in the city with you, or does she stay with your dad?”

“In the city. Lately I don’t see my dad that much. He’s working on something really important, I think.”

Kevin nodded. “Okay, what about brothers and sisters?”

“Nope. It’s just me.”

“All right. Sorry about this.” Kevin took out his cell phone again, and he pressed the contact labeled “Central.”

“Yes?”

“Did they take his mother?”

“Hold on.”

Kevin glanced at Anselm, whose expression had quickly turned to one of real fear. Being tied up and kidnapped was unpleasant, certainly, but Mr. Brooks was here, after all. And Mr. Brooks said everything was going to be all right. The idea that his own mother might be going through a similar experience, on the other hand, was unbearable. Mr. Brooks couldn’t be everywhere at once. Who would save
her
?

“Yes,” the voice from Central came back. “They’ve got her.”

Kevin managed to avoid cursing into the phone, but he had to close his eyes for a second. And Anselm saw. He knew.

If they’ve got them both, we’re in serious trouble.

“Can you get her back?”

“One second.”

He looked again at Anselm, who was crying quietly and watching Kevin with his clear, hyper-intelligent eyes. Waiting to see how Mr. Brooks would react when the answer came back to this last question. This very important last question.

“We can,” the voice replied. “She fought them well, slowed them up. We’ve got them pinned down and surrounded.”

Kevin allowed his face to relax, though this news did not sound like a guarantee. “How long?”

“What do you need?”

Kevin considered. “Seven minutes at most. The quicker the better.”

“Okay. We’re on it.”

“Listen, ring my phone when she’s secure. Ring it
loud
.”

“Yeah.”

Kevin put the phone away, and he turned to Anselm. “Everything really
is
going to be all right now,” he said, leaving the rest of his explanation unsaid.

When I told you it was going to be all right before, I was making that up. But now I’m giving it to you straight.

Anselm nodded up at him seriously.

I had a feeling
, his eyes said.

Kevin squatted down on the floor of the van, and he closed his eyes. “Give me a second to think,” he said, plugging up his ears.

It didn’t work. The naked steel rim of the front left tire was now scrapping the pavement so loudly that time refused to wait. There would be no stalling anymore. Kevin opened his eyes, looked at Anselm watching him, and suddenly he realized that he didn’t
need
to stall. He knew what was happening, and he knew what was
going
to happen. The information was all there in his head, simple as could be. You could read as many textbooks as you wanted on advanced game theory and negotiation tactics and cognitive psychology and multi-target fire fights, but none of it would matter very much in the end.

He was going to get shot.

The problem, of course, was that getting shot was not going to be enough.
Sacrifice
was not going to be enoug
h. H
e would need some help to save Anselm. Something good would have to happen. Something unexpected, something the books couldn’t tell you about.

“Anselm, do you have a favorite song?”

“What?”

“Or a poem, something your mother used to say to you before bed?”

Anselm thought for a moment. “Sure.”

“Okay. When this is over, I’m probably going to have a bullet or two in me – ”
“No, you said it was going to be all right.”

“It
will
be all right. I’m not going to die.”

Possibly bullshit.

“But when I’m lying there, you’re going to want to help, because I know you’re helpful. People are going to come find us, and they’ll help me, so don’t worry about it. But until then, what I’ll need from
you
is that song or poem or whatever you’ve got. Just come over and say it to me, again and again until the medical folks show up. Whatever you do, don’t stop talking. You’re going to help me pass the time, and that’s really important if I’m lying there with metal in me. Got that?”

Anselm nodded silently. “I got it.”

“All right. I think we’ll be there in a minute.”

“Mr. Brooks?”

“Yes, Anselm?”

“What’s wrong with these people?”

Kevin smiled sadly at Anselm. It was a question that would have taken a long time to address, and even then the answer would not have been satisfying. “I think they’re scared of your dad.”

“But my dad’s nice.”

“I know.”

“And anyway, why’d they throw
me
into a van?”

Kevin shook his head. “Because they’re
not
nice.”

Anselm nodded. He agreed with his teacher’s assessment.

The van swerved suddenly to the right, throwing the two of them off balance. Then they felt themselves heading steeply downhill, and the sounds of city traffic disappeared into the distance. Now there was only the sound of the left front tire’s metal rim biting into the road.

Finally the van leveled out, made one more turn, and then came to a stop. The engine died.

“Here we go,” Kevin whispered.

In The Garage

Kevin turned on his cell phone and pulled up a stopwatch application. He could hear sounds of people moving outside the van, getting in position. There was also the intermittent ticking of the van’s engine as it cooled, and beneath that the low-frequency rumble of what sounded like air-exchangers. They were likely in an underground garage. He wasn’t too worried about time stopping, but he didn’t want to lose track; Central had told him they could meet his seven-minute deadline for securing Mrs. Billaud, and at the moment that deadline was his biggest concern. He pressed the start button on the stopwatch program and began watching the seconds tick by.

Go. Move
.
Faster.

After a minute forty-five, the sounds from outside the van stopped. They were set up, ready to proceed. Guns loaded.

“We can see everything you do in there,” said a voice outside the doors. The voice sounded not too close. Which made sense. Giving him space. Cautious. “We know you have a gun.”

Kevin pulled Danny’s gun out of his back belt loop and held it up for inspection, turning it so that the cameras could see every angle. “Nice, right? A friend gave it to me.”

“We shot him.”

“He’ll be fine.”

“You won’t be. You’ve got three guns pointed right at you.”

“Go for it,” Kevin said. “Van’s armored. What, you’re not part of the planning committee?”

The voice outside the van changed tacks at once, not slowing down. “We’re going to gas you.”

“You won’t hurt the boy.”

“Not if we don’t have to. Gas you as in put you to sleep. Then take you both out of there, then shoot you in the head – just
you
– and then continue on our way with the boy. Maybe they can get a kidney from you. Give it to your friend.”

Three-fifteen down. Pretty good. Keep going.

“Sounds fine,” Kevin said. “Except you’ll want to talk to me.”

“Incorrect.”

“You can’t effectively negotiate a ransom without someone on this side to confirm the boy’s safety.”

“We don’t want a ransom. We’re going to trade for the father.”

“Pascal? He’s dead.”

This time the voice outside hesitated, and Kevin was pleased. All he needed was the slightest bit of uncertainty, and now he had it.