Jim DeFelice - Threat Level Black

And then the tail began rotating oddly, and the helicopter pushed hard right. Tyler stared at the big green bug, which looked as if it had been caught in a bizarre wind. He heard something crack: It was as if the sky above him was a large sheet of ice and snapped in two.

The helicopter fell off sideways, flames shooting from the area below the back of the engine, and he heard the explosion of a rocket-propelled grenade landing nearby.

“Take cover!” someone yelled, and he hit the dirt.

Howe was sitting in Alice ’s office when his cell phone rang. Thinking she was calling him, he answered, only to find Fisher on the line.

“Half the FBI’s looking for you,” Fisher told him. “Where the hell are you?”

“I’m sitting in a real estate office, waiting for someone to show me some houses,” said Howe. “She’s late.”

“Somebody’s trying to kill you. They blew up my car at the diner.”

“They’re trying to kill me and they blew up your car?”

“I didn’t say they were smart,” answered Fisher. “Who’s this girl you’re supposed to meet? You know her?”

“She showed me some houses yesterday. And we had dinner.”

“Give me her address,” said Fisher.

“Why? You think she’s been kidnapped?”

“I don’t think anything. Just give me her address and the one where you are.”

“You think they took her because they want me?” said Howe.

“I try not to think. It gets me in trouble,” said Fisher. “Now give me the addresses.”

Howe did.

“You stay where you are,” Fisher told him.

“I want to wait in my car,” said Howe. If someone was coming after him, he didn’t want innocent people hurt. “If they really did kidnap her, what’s going to happen?”

“They’ll let you know they have her,” Fisher said. “Look, you mind if I bring the FBI in on this? Kidnapping is kind of their area.”

“You are the FBI.”

“Yeah, but these guys are the real FBI agents. You’ll see: fifties haircuts, Sears suits, whole deal. Listen, when you get called, the caller’s going to tell you not to call the police, right? You don’t pay any attention to that part. Okay?”

“I’m not stupid.”

“That’s good to know.”

Howe sat in his car outside the real estate office, worried now and wondering what was going on. He thought of calling Fisher back for an explanation, and even brought the last-call menu up, but then didn’t hit the Send button.

Most likely this was all going to turn out to be a product of overworked imaginations, of people getting tense when the best approach was just to lie back and see what happened.

Of course, if anybody was laid-back it was Fisher. If a tornado was coming, the guy would light up a cigarette, then step to one side at the last minute.

A dark sedan made its way up the driveway finally. Howe got out of his car and walked over to it as it pulled to a stop.

“I’m Howe,” he said, leaning down toward the passenger side as the door opened and a man in a suit got out.

“Into the car,” said the man, pushing a pistol into his stomach.

As Howe hesitated, another man came out from around the other side. He saw a woman’s arms, bound together, reaching from the back.

“Let her go,” he said.

“Into the car,” demanded the first man, this time putting the gun into his ribs. “Or I’ll shoot you here.”

Fisher had Howe pegged as someone who didn’t like to stay home when everyone else was out partying, so he wasn’t particularly surprised when the FBI agents he’d sent scurrying up to him called back and said he was nowhere to be found.

“This is the girlfriend’s address,” Fisher told the agent. “Send somebody over there to check it out.”

“Hey, listen, Andy, it’s not like we got nothing better to do,” said the agent, Pete McGovern. He was a non-smoker but in every other way extremely dependable, the sort of guy who answered his phone on the first ring and paid off on poker debts. “Me and Christian over here have to finish checking on a whole shitload of references this afternoon.”

“Which would you rather be doing,” asked Fisher, “looking in some guy’s bathroom window so Social Security can hire him to deny a widow’s monthly check, or breaking the biggest national security case of your lifetime?”

“Don’t pull my pud, Andy.”

“That’s what I like about you, McGovern: You have a way with words.”

“Where’s the stinking address?” asked the agent. “And, for the record, these background checks were for the Department of Justice.”

“Even more reason to blow them off.”

The cell phone buzzed in Howe’s pocket. The man sitting next to him turned and pointed his gun at his face.

“If I don’t answer it, they’ll get suspicious,” he said.

“If you touch it, I’ll shoot your head off,” said the man.

Alice sat next to him in the back of the large Mercury, her hands bound and a scarf tied across her mouth. She looked angry, not afraid.

The men had put police-style handcuffs on Howe’s wrists, but his hands were in front of him and he thought he might be able to grab the gun if he lunged. But the men in front also had weapons, and it seemed unlikely that he would be able to overcome all three men before one of them shot Alice.

He’d have a better chance once they stopped the car and they got out.

“What the hell is it you want, anyway?” Howe asked.

No one bothered to answer.

“Are you not telling me because you don’t know?” he asked. “Or because you’re stupid?”

“Just shut the fuck up, okay?” said the man on his right. He pushed the pistol against his head. “Because, really, the easiest thing to do would be to shoot you here.”

“Franky,” said the driver. “Not unless we have to.”

Fisher pulled over to the side of the road to consult his map. As he pulled it out, his cell phone rang. It was McGovern.

“Apartment’s empty. Door was unlocked. Sign of a struggle.”

“Just like in the movies,” said Fisher.

“We’re going to need local help.”

“Yeah, do it,” said Fisher. “I got to keep this line clear.”

He keyed off the call before McGovern could say anything else, then tried Howe again. Once more there was no answer. He went back to looking at the map. Of the hundreds of thousands of roads in the area, Howe could only be on ten thousand or so. Fisher lit a cigarette as he considered the mechanics of roadblocks. He flipped on the radio just in time to hear a traffic report from the WKDC traffic chopper. Fisher listened to smoking buddy Maureen Justice claim that traffic hadn’t moved this smoothly since Madison ’s second administration.

Out of ideas, Fisher snapped off the radio and went to the pay phone to call McGovern.

“Local detectives sent some people right over,” said McGovern. “They were real cooperative until they heard your name. What are you going to do now?”

“Wait for my phone to ring. If Howe calls we can track it down. I already have it set up.”

“What if he doesn’t call?”

“Then we move over to Plan B.”

“What’s that?”

“I’m not sure, but it involves spectacular detective work, a car chase, gunshots, and a hell of a lot of cigarettes smoked down to the nub.”

Howe had to punch two keys on the cell phone to call the last number he had dialed; without taking the phone from his pocket it wouldn’t be easy to find the buttons, let alone hit them in the proper order. And there was little chance of even getting the phone out without the thug next to him seeing.

The driver’s comment earlier seemed to mean that they were under instructions not to kill him. But it could also mean that he wanted to wait until they reached a place where it was more convenient.