Gabriel Hunt: Hunt Through the Cradle of Fear

It was the only choice. Gabriel couldn’t see trying to run the other car off the road or bring them to a stop in some other way, not with Sheba’s life at stake and Narindra at risk, too—especially not when the occupants of the other car were almost certainly better armed than he was. The thing to do was to find out where they were taking her; he could regroup then, return with the proper equipment and help, maybe even involve the police. Or maybe he’d mount a solo rescue the way he had in Hungary. There were all sorts of options. But first he needed to know where they were planning to stash her.

It was with a sinking feeling that Gabriel saw the airfields and hangars of Teterboro Airport loom at the horizon.

Narindra said, “They seem to be headed for the—”

“Yeah,” Gabriel said, “I see it.”

Stashing didn’t look like it was in the cards.

He fingered the cell phone in his pocket. He hated the things, but even he had to concede there were times when they were indispensable. He speed-dialed Michael’s number and, while it rang, dug a handful of hundred-dollar bills out of his pocket. He passed three to Narindra across the tattered back of the front seat. “A down payment,” he said. Then, to Michael: “Two things, Michael, and I don’t have much time to talk. First: I need you to take care of someone for me…a cab driver, his name is Rajiv Narindra, he’ll be calling you…five thousand dollars…he can tell you that himself. Just make sure he gets what he needs—it’s got to be enough to repair his taxi plus some extra. That’s right, on the Foundation’s tab.” Gabriel paused while Michael peppered him with questions, most of which he couldn’t have answered if he’d wanted to and the remainder of which he didn’t want to. When his brother fell silent again, Gabriel said, “Second thing: I may not be home for a little while. I’ve got a feeling there’s some plane travel in my future.”

Michael’s tinny voice sounded weary through the phone’s speaker. “When has there ever not been?”

“Well, this is a little different than usual. I don’t have a ticket, I don’t have a passport, and I don’t know where I’m headed.”

“Getting away from it all?”

“I wish,” Gabriel said. “Now, listen. I’m going to leave my phone turned on and I want you to track it—to track me. You understand? I may need your help when I get wherever it is that I’m going.”

“My help?” Michael sounded anxious suddenly. He was only thirty-two, six years younger than Gabriel, but he worried like an old man. “What’s going on, Gabriel? Are you in trouble?”

“We’ll see,” Gabriel said. “Maybe not. But just in case, I want you to know where I am.”

Michael didn’t say anything for a bit. “You’re stringing a second cable here, aren’t you? In case the first one gets cut.”

“So to speak,” Gabriel said.

“All right. Consider yourself tracked. But, Gabriel—your cell battery won’t last forever. You know how plane travel drains it. If the flight’s more than ten hours…”

“Then let’s hope it isn’t,” Gabriel said, and ended the call before Michael could protest further. Up ahead, the black car had just driven off the main highway onto an unlabeled side road. Gabriel returned the phone to his jacket pocket. He didn’t turn it off.

They drove past the road the black car had used. Teterboro catered to private jets and chartered flights, with accommodations of varying degrees of exclusivity. Ordinary businessmen drove in through the main entrance and underwent a check-in process similar to what they’d have gone through at LaGuardia or JFK; the wealthier sort drove on unlabeled roads up to private hangars and took off without once getting patted down or wanded or asked for I.D. They could carry all the Colts on board they wanted.

Narindra pulled the cab to a stop in a small cul-de-sac that was screened from view by a thick copse of trees. Gabriel got out and, using one of the pens from the front seat, dashed off Michael’s private office number on a scrap torn from the sandwich wrapper. Then he shook Narindra’s hand.

“Michael will take care of you,” Gabriel said. “I promise.”

Narindra said nothing. He was looking over the wreckage of his taxi.

“These men,” he said finally, “who kidnapped this friend of yours, this woman. Who shot up my car. You will see they get what they deserve, yes?”

“I’ll do my best,” Gabriel said.

On the far side of the trees a fence with coils of barbed wire at the top bore a sign warning that trespassers would be prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law. Gabriel pulled the sign off, carried it under his chin as he scaled the fence, and used it to press the strands of barbed wire out of his way. Once he’d bent enough strands down to make room, he climbed over the top and down the other side.

There were no more trees here, but there was plenty of underbrush, none of it recently trimmed, and by moving in a low crouch Gabriel was able to keep out of sight. The first hangar he passed was, as you might expect on a Sunday morning, empty, and the second seemed occupied only by a mechanic who was up to his elbows in a disassembled engine. But the third hangar was bustling. Two trucks and several cars were parked outside, including the one he’d followed here from New York. The black car’s door opened as he watched. The big man came out first, walking backwards, and Sheba came with him, still clutched in his arms, her kicking feet swinging some distance off the ground. “Let me go!” she shouted, and Gabriel ached to race forward and make him do just that, pull the big ape’s paws off her, teach him a school-yard lesson about picking on someone his size. But there were too many other people around, easily a dozen or more, most of them this guy’s size or close to it, and most wearing holsters on their hips or under their arms. Some were unloading long, low crates from the back of a truck, others were wheeling the crates over to the hangar building. Gabriel might have been able to take any one of them, maybe two—but all at once? With nothing but his bare hands? There was bravery and then there was idiocy.

But he had to do something. He watched Sheba’s captor carry her into the hangar, and through the open bay doors Gabriel saw him drag her up the rear ramp of a cargo plane—the same place all the crates were being loaded. He tried to get a glimpse of the plane’s registration, but no luck—there were numbers on the tail, but nothing to indicate what country it might have come from or been heading to.

He crept closer, keeping the body of the larger of the two trucks between him and the workers still busily unloading and moving the cargo. Through the hangar doors, he heard a pair of voices in conversation, one nasal and high-pitched, the other a lifelong smoker’s rasp. Both had an accent, one he’d heard plenty of in recent weeks.

“You did well, Andras,” the smoker said, pronouncing the name the Hungarian way, with a soft “s”: AHN-drahsh. “Mr. DeGroet will be pleased to get her back.”

“Someone should cut the bitch’s nails,” Andras said. His was the nasal whine. “You see this? You see what she did to me?”

“Poor baby,” the smoker said. “A scratch.”

“It’s three scratches, and you wouldn’t find it so funny if it was your face. She nearly took my eye out.”

“What do you want for it, Andras, some iodine? Or maybe hazard pay?”

Andras grumbled. “And why not hazard pay? That’s not a bad idea.”

“Well, then,” the smoker said, “you go ahead and bring it up with Mr. DeGroet when we land, why don’t you? He’ll probably be glad to entertain your request.”

“He should be,” Andras said.