Джеймс Паттерсон - Private Rogue

“Hand it over,” Mo-bot replied. “I’ve got my laptop and some of the gear in the car. I might as well get to work.”

I put the case down by the back of the Toyota, opened it and took out the satellite phone.

“Iridium 9575,” Mo-bot remarked as I handed it over. “Good phone. Should have a lot of history, unless the last owner wiped it regularly. And even then there are ways to recover data. I’ll get to work.”

She hurried round the Toyota and got in the back seat. Floyd sat beside her.

Justine opened the trunk and I lifted the flight case inside. I closed the tailgate and, as I turned, she embraced me. Her eyes glistened.

“I never want to lose you again,” she said. “Promise me?”

“I’ll do my best,” I replied.

She stared at me, but didn’t say anything. After a moment, her expression softened.

“That will have to do,” she said, before kissing me.

Beth could hear someone whimpering and, after a few moments, realized she was the source of the pitiful sound. She’d been hanging from the straps around her wrists for what seemed an eternity. She could barely remember her life before the hell she was now experiencing, and when she caught flashes of what once had been, of the children running around laughing, of Josh taking her in his arms, those images caused nothing but pain.

She knew her life was gone. People like the men who’d abducted them didn’t leave witnesses. They didn’t believe in mercy, or in survivors.

They’d beaten her and she’d cursed them and sworn vengeance. Then she’d tried to bargain and negotiate, but they were relentless in their willingness to inflict pain and unyielding in their refusal to listen to her offers. They were only interested in one thing: the Bull.

Beth desperately wracked her brains to try and figure out what they were talking about and why they thought she had anything to do with it, but she came up with nothing. She tried to make them understand, but they didn’t believe her. She’d thought about lying and sending them to some made-up place, but knew they’d punish her more if they returned without the Bull. Even worse, they might punish the children.

The horrific screams and death metal stopped. Beth’s ears throbbed in the silence that followed. A moment later, she heard footsteps and muffled crying. She recognized it immediately.

“Danny,” she tried to say, but the gag muffled her voice.

Her hood was removed and her eyes burned in response to the sudden flood of light. She clenched them tightly shut while someone removed her gag.

“Please don’t hurt him,” Beth pleaded.

“Mom!” Maria screamed, before breaking into sobs.

Beth forced her eyes open. As they became accustomed to the light, she made out her children standing ten feet ahead in the center of what looked like a concrete-floored barn. Thirty feet behind them was a corrugated-steel door. Masked men stood either side of her children, each pressing a pistol to a child’s head.

“Please let us go,” Beth begged, her voice rasping and croaking, broken by all her crying. “I don’t know anything about the Bull.”

She sensed movement and heard steps behind her. She turned her tender head as far as she could to see a middle-aged man in a gray suit step into view.

“We are at the end of our patience,” he said.

“You’re the one behind this,” Beth observed. She recognized his face from the files Jessie Fleming had been studying. “Victor Andreyev.”

The man frowned and Beth immediately regretted revealing what she knew. She had increased the likelihood this man would kill them.

“Where is the Bull?” he asked.

“I don’t know,” Beth replied. She was on the verge of hysteria. “I swear I don’t.”

“Your husband took it from an associate of ours in Ukraine,” Andreyev said. “We want it back.”

“I don’t know!” Beth cried.

“Mom!” Danny wept.

“It’s OK, baby. It’s OK,” Beth tried to reassure him, but she didn’t believe her own words.

“The price of your resistance will be a life,” Andreyev said.

“No!” Beth screamed as he nodded at the men holding her children.

Danny and Maria struggled and cried, but the men held them firmly.

“You choose which one dies,” Andreyev said. “Who is it to be? The boy or the girl?”

“I don’t know about the Bull,” Beth whimpered. “I don’t know. I don’t know. Please...”

“If you won’t choose, then they will both die,” he said, and nodded at the men.

Beth screamed and time slowed as she watched the masked men press pistols tight against her children’s temples. Danny and Maria squirmed and cried, but they couldn’t get free of their strong captors.

Beth mouthed, “I love you,” to her children as tears streamed down her face, but she didn’t think either of them saw. She wept and cried like a wounded animal. She had failed her children. If they died, she was responsible.

“Wait! Wait!” Beth screamed. “I’ll tell you where to find the Bull! I know where it is!”

“You’re lying,” Andreyev replied.

“I’m not! I’ll tell you everything I know! Just let my children go!”

“Tell me then!” he yelled.

“It’s in our house,” Beth whimpered. “The Bull is in our house.”

“Liar! We have searched it.” Andreyev kept his eyes trained on her. “Kill them.”

She watched in horror as two index fingers tightened around the triggers. She screamed as they were drawn back to firing points. Finally, she shut her eyes. She couldn’t watch. She waiting for the inevitable.

Nothing happened.

She opened her eyes to see the shooters raise their pistols. The one holding Danny aimed his gun at Beth and pulled the trigger. There was a dull click. The gun wasn’t loaded.

She screamed and the children broke into hysterical crying.

“She doesn’t know anything,” Andreyev said. “Cut her down. She’s no use to us dead.”

Andreyev stalked close to Beth as the man holding Danny handed the boy to his accomplice. Beth ignored Andreyev and kept her eyes on her children. She would never forgive these people for what they’d done.

“You might not have the answers we need, but you’re still of use,” Andreyev said. “Your husband survived.”

Beth couldn’t believe what she was hearing. Was this another game? Some kind of cruel torture?

“You are our leverage,” Andreyev said. “You and your children.”

The masked man who’d held Danny produced a hunting knife from behind his back and stood beside Beth to cut her bonds. She cried as she fell to the floor.

Finally released, Maria and Danny ran over and threw their arms around her.

Andreyev said something in Russian and the two masked men followed him out of the barn.

Beth’s arms burned with pain. There was little strength in them, but she didn’t care. She hugged her children to her as tightly as she possibly could, relishing every moment and praying this wasn’t some kind of dream.

We were on our way to Manhattan when the satellite phone rang. Mo-bot had it connected to her computer and was interrogating its registry.

She handed me the phone, but kept it plugged into her machine.

“Hello?” I said when I answered.

“Mr. Morgan?”

I recognized Andreyev’s voice immediately.

“Yes.”

“You said the pilot survived. Is he still with you?”

“Yeah, he’s with me.”

“Then we might be able to make a trade,” Andreyev said. “The woman and children for the pilot.”

“I’ll have to check. Can I reach you on this number?”

I looked at Mo-bot and signaled to my watch. She nodded and indicated she’d had enough time to run a trace.