Undetectable (Great Minds Thriller) (50 page)

“You’re lying.”

“I’m not.”

It was a ridiculous claim, equal parts unlikely and unverifiable. Kevin knew it, and the people outside the van did, too. But now they would have to find out one way or the other. They would have to make sure. Because their negotiating stance would be thrown into disarray by such a claim, even if it were false. The ability even to
pretend
that Pascal Billaud was dead would unbalance the equation.

They’ll open the van
.

They would have to interrogate Kevin. Which meant they would probably shoot him first. Once in the leg, to soften him up. Then the questions, while he was lying there bleeding.

Still silence outside.

They made him wait.

There was a full minute of whispering – 75 seconds, by Kevin’s stopwatch application – and then the van doors opened slowly. Kevin put his cellphone away.

Almost five minutes down. That’ll have to do. Come on, guys. Move. Get her back.

There were four men there, waiting in the blocked-off section of the garage where the van was parked. In the middle were two men who looked vaguely similar to one another; one of these was obese and sitting on a little blue electric scooter, while the other was fit, standing, and carrying a gun that was aimed at Kevin. Flanking them were two heavily-armed men, both of them wearing black army fatigues and holding machine guns.

Not M4’s, Kevin thought. Those look like modified G36’s. Very high power, but not the easiest things in the world to aim.

One of the Guns glanced across to his partner. “I’ve seen this one,” he said.

The other Gun nodded. “At the school, right?”

Kevin kept silent. He didn’t know what language they were speaking – something Slavic, maybe Czech – but this didn’t stop him from understanding what they were saying. And they obviously assumed he didn’t speak a word of it.

“What does he have?”

“He used a .45 to shoot the driver. We haven’t seen anything else.”

“Think he’ll give it a try?”

Gun One shrugged as if he had been asked to predict the winner of next year’s World Series. “Probably.”

Jacob Savian gave them a look, and they stopped talking. “This was not the plan,” he said to Kevin, shifting his bulk uncomfortably in the scooter. He used the thing only when he had to leave the apartment. “This is unnecessary. Unpleasant.”

“Oh?” Kevin said. He moved to the side, so that the four men could get a look at Anselm. From a few feet away, the bruises there looked as if they might have been sustained during the kidnapping itself. Or maybe these men had been monitoring the entire operation, maybe they knew better. It didn’t matter. “You’re kidnapping a kid,” Kevin said. “A
fifth grade
kid, and you’re talking about unpleasant? What
was
the plan? Bringing him to a toy store?”

Kevin saw the big, fit man standing in the middle glance sideways, waiting for a response from the guy sitting on the scooter
.

Okay, good. This one’s not on board. He didn’t sign up for fifth graders.

“
You
are the problem,” Jacob replied. “The child isn’t supposed to be here at all. He should be taking part in an exchange right now.”

Kevin scoffed. “An exchange? With a man who’s working somewhere in a bunker in Nevada? Are you insane?”

“Ah. Mr. Billaud is suddenly alive, I see.”

Kevin ignored him. “They won’t negotiate. They don’t care if his kid – ”

“
He
will care,” Jacob interrupted. “
He
will negotiate. This is his son, and he will certainly want – ”

“They won’t tell him. He won’t get to make the decision.”

“They’ll have to. Because before long he’ll start to wonder why his wife hasn’t called. And when he finds out what we’ve done to her, he’ll do anything we ask. We’ve
got
her, don’t you see?”

Anselm let out a small, involuntary cry at this, and at the same moment George Savian turned to face his brother. “I’m sorry,
what
? You never said anything – ”

“Shut up, George.”

Kevin stood there silently. Waiting. Hoping against hope. This was the moment. This was the
chance
. The man in the scooter was only seconds from giving the order to have him shot – Kevin could feel it – and if that happened this situation would turn south in a hurry. On the other hand, if he could
use
this moment...

Christ. Please
.

His timing hadn’t been quite right. It was so close, but there were too many variables. The problem was that the obese man was essentially correct: the wife
did
give them the upper hand. In everything. And she was still not safe. So maybe there had been a standoff of some kind at her location. Maybe there was a pursuit underway, or maybe they were trying to get a better angle for the snipers. Maybe –

Kevin’s cell phone rang in his pocket. Loudly.

“She’s out,” he said, and rolled quickly to his left.

“Kill him!” Jacob shouted, and both flanking men fired their machine guns at once. One of them hit Kevin immediately in the hip; the pain was unbelievable, unreasonable, and they were still firing at him. He came to a stop on the ground, reached out, and shot the guard on the left in the head.

One down. But I’m already fucked.

Time was not slowing down. If anything, it was moving faster than normal. The air around him was hot, bullets zipping past him like angry metal hornets, and bits of concrete were jumping up everywhere from the floor.

Another round caught him, this time in the side. This pain was not as sharp, but it was more sickening somehow. It was a
deeper
pain.

Remember before how I said I was fucked? That was crap. That was just a warm up. Now I’m serious.

He swiveled his arm to the side, pointing the .45. Fresh pain came up through his hip, through his gut, through everywhere, and he thought he might be about to pass out. But it didn’t happen.

Not sleeping pills, not booze, and not bullets. No sleep for this man.

He could still move. He could still think. There were few parts of him that still seemed fully operational, but one of them was his right arm and hand. He aimed the gun, forcing himself to focus through the machine gun fire, feeling as though he were about to try squirting a water pistol into the oncoming spray of a hose.

He squeezed the trigger, and the shooting stopped.

The second man was down. Shot in the thigh. Not dead by any means, but not shooting anymore, either.

Kevin let his arm fall to the pavement. He groaned in pain. He was vaguely aware that the big, fit man standing next to the scooter was pointing his gun at him, but
Kevin
found he no longer cared. The pain was engulfing him now, wrapping him in a hot, shuddering weakness that made him want to curl up and die. His hip was screaming at him, and he could feel blood pulsing from his side in great, nauseating surges. He saw the gun being aimed at him, but all he could do now was watch. And pray. And hope not to be shot again.

George Savian did not seem interested in shooting Kevin. He twisted the gun to stare at it, as though not liking the look of it in his hand, and then he let his arm fall back down to his side. Jacob, meanwhile, was looking left and right in disgust. “What do I pay you people for?” he yelled. The man who had been wounded in the thigh whimpered. The dead man did not respond. Jacob looked up at his brother. “What are you waiting for?” He couldn’t understand why the man who had come out of the van – the man who had nearly ruined
everything
– was still breathing. “Will you shoot him please?”

George turned to him. “And then what?”

“And then we’ll use this kid to get his dad,” Jacob barked. “What are you talking about?”

“That wasn’t the plan.”

“The plan had to change.
This
motherfucker was scrubbed. We had no idea who he was, where he was. All we knew was that he was supposed
to be
injured
. We had to go early.”

George shook his head. His brother was sounding even less convincing than usual. “What if you can’t?”

Jacob stared up at his younger brother in wordless surprise. George’s attitude was mystifying. “Can’t what? What do you mean?”

George shrugged. “I
mean,
what if you can’t get to the dad through the kid? I
mean
that you’ve always been an asshole, but you’ve never hurt anyone who wasn’t an asshole, too. Like this prick right here.”

George turned away, pointed, and shot the wounded Gun in the head. The whimpering stopped.

“George!” Jacob exclaimed. “What’d you kill
him
for? He was on
our
side!”

George sighed as if his brother were missing the point. “Usually you’re only messing with arms dealers, mercenaries, those kinds of people. Guy a few days ago was nothing but an assassin, so who cares? Same with the jackass I just shot. A
lot
of what you do is stupid, but I’ve always let it go because you seem to have good intentions most of the time.”

Jacob’s eyes goggled. “You let it go?” he echoed, as if he couldn’t believe what he was hearing. “George, you just
killed
that guy. He would have been fine. What do
you
think I’m – ”

“But that’s a
kid
,” George said, pointing toward the van. Anselm was still there. He was not paying attention to the conversation; despite all the shooting, and now all the shouting, he had more pressing concerns. His attention was on Mr. Brooks, who was lying motionless on the ground in a rapidly expanding pool of blood. Anselm seemed to be singing something. His voice was high and clear.

“It’s a little kid who hasn’t done anything wrong,” George went on, “and we shouldn’t be doing this.”

“George, listen,” Jacob said quickly. “His
father
– ”

“His father is probably a lot like you,” George cut in, “except that he’s never killed anyone and he doesn’t kidnap children. You’re just jealous because he’s smarter.”

“What? Of course he’s
smarter
, that’s not the problem at all. He
’s
going to take away our freedom to think, our freedom to
create
, our – ”