Chapter Fourteen
Mike groaned. Everything hurt. He forced his eyes open to find several people leaning over him. “What happened?” His voice was so weak he wasn’t sure anyone heard him.
“You were in an accident, sir. Try to remain still. We’re going to get you to a hospital.”
Accident…
He shoved the hands in front of him away and bolted upright on the gurney. “Where’s Zola?” he shouted, jerking his head around to search for her. “Zola.” His voice rose. Where the fuck was she?
“Sir, I need you to calm down.” Hands shoved him, trying to get him to lie back.
“Where is she?” He pushed the man away, flung his legs over the side of the gurney, and jumped to the ground. Gasping at the incredible sharp pain at the front of his head, he spun around. They were on the side of the highway. He glanced down the embankment to see his car at the bottom, a twisted heap of metal that had come to rest upright wrapped around a tree.
“Sir. Please sit down. You’re injured.”
“Where’s Zola?” He spun to face the two men who approached him with their palms open and stretched out.
The man on the right furrowed his brow. “Who’s Zola?”
“My girlfriend. She was with me? Did she… Is she…?” He panicked. Was she dead? Surely someone would tell him if she hadn’t made it. He turned to race back down the hill, but both men lurched forward and grabbed him by the arms.
The man on the right spoke again. “There was no one with you, sir.”
He froze. “What?” He whirled around to stare at the paramedics, noticing there were several firemen and a few police officers close by also. He glanced at about eight blank faces, each of them confused.
Finally, an officer came forward. “There was someone with you?”
Mike closed his eyes, pressing his forehead against his fingers. Fuck. He jerked his face back up. “Yes. They took her.”
“Who?” the officer asked.
“The men who ran us off the road.” He spun around again, looking for any evidence of the other cars. The struggle. Anything.
“Someone ran you off the road?” the officer asked.
“Jesus. We have to hurry.” Mike rushed forward, pausing for a moment to grab the edge of the gurney and brace himself as he felt faint. He had to pull it together and find her.
“Sir?” the officer asked.
“Which car is yours?” Mike returned. “I need you to get me someplace. And I need a phone.”
“Sir, you’re injured,” one of the paramedics said. “We need to get you to the hospital.”
“Not a chance.” Mike faced the officer instead. “You drive. I’ll talk on the way.”
The officer hesitated.
Mike’s voice rose. “She’s in danger. This is important.” He suddenly remembered who he was and reached into his back pocket to pull out his wallet. Flipping it open, he held it out for the officer to see. “I’m with the FBI.” He was so totally not working for the FBI today, nor was his current assignment even known to the FBI, but he’d needed to say something to get the officer to move.
“Okay.” The guy nodded and turned around. “Let’s go.”
Voices of shock filled the air behind him. He ignored all of them as he jogged toward the police car. “What time is it?” He needed to establish how long he’d been out.
“Five o’clock.”
Awhile then. He tugged the passenger door open and folded himself inside as the cop did the same and then pulled away from the curb. “You going to tell me where I’m going and what this is about?”
“I need your phone,” Mike stated. He had no idea where his was. Zola had been using it. It probably got thrown from the car.
The officer handed him a phone.
With shaky fingers, Mike forced himself to calm down enough to remember the number and then dial.
Two rings. Three. Four. Finally an answer. “Hello?”
“Greg.”
“Dorsen? Oh my God. Where are you?”
“Police car. They took Zola. They took her,” he shouted. “Two cars tailed us. How the fuck did they find us? They ran us off the highway, and when I came to, she was gone.” He rambled all that so rapidly Lambert didn’t have a chance to get a word in.
“Okay. Listen to me. They have her father too.”
“Fuck,” he shouted.
“They’re holding him hostage in his home. No idea how long it’s been, but he didn’t show up for work today, and the FBI discovered he was being held hostage about an hour ago.”
“Wasn’t anyone guarding him?”
“Yes. Sliced throat. And they found his butler unconscious on the front steps.”
“Fuck,” Mike muttered again, punching the dashboard as the officer driving the car flinched. Mike turned to face the man, rattling off the address of Zola’s father. Then he turned his attention back to Lambert. “Have they made any demands?”
“Not yet. Hold on. If I lose you, I’ll call you back.”
Seconds ticked by. Mike could do nothing but wait and listen to the silence.
Finally, Greg was back. “The same people have Zola. They must have brought her to her father’s home. My men spotted them carrying her into the back of the house two minutes ago.”
“Fuck.” The one word came out as a scream. He didn’t care that he was being repetitive. “Can you drive any faster, man?” he asked the officer.
The guy nodded and hit the gas, turning on his lights and siren. Luckily he never balked at the fact that they were nearly an hour from New Haven.
“Tell me what I’m facing,” Mike said to Lambert.
“House is surrounded. SWAT. FBI. Police. It’s all over the news by now. We’re pretty sure there were two men inside holding Senator Carver, and two men showed up with Zola.”
“But someone saw her right? She was alive?”
“Appeared that way, yes.”
“How did they get past the police to enter the house?”
“The men inside hauled the senator to the door with a gun to his head, threatening to shoot him on the spot if they didn’t break lines and let the car through.”
“Dammit.” Mike squeezed his eyes shut and rubbed his forehead. Flecks of blood fell off like dandruff to land on his lap. He had no idea how injured he was, but he didn’t feel anything wet indicating an open wound. “ETA?” he asked the driver.
“Forty-five minutes.”
“I can’t be seen, Dorsen. And you don’t exist.”
“Right. Well, I exist as Zola’s boyfriend, an FBI agent on vacation, and a former SEAL.”
“True. Go get her.”
Mike ended the call, dropping the phone in his lap as he took deep breaths and thought of a plan.
“Your girlfriend is Senator Carver’s daughter?” the officer asked.
“Yes.”
He didn’t say another word, but drove faster. They rode in silence for half an hour before the officer veered off the highway at Carver’s exit, taking every corner too fast. He’d covered the rest of the distance in far less than forty-five minutes.
Mike jumped from the car almost before it stopped and rushed to the front line of agents. He flipped open his wallet as he approached. “Mike Dorsen. FBI. Chicago division.” That was the last assignment he’d been on. “The woman you saw is my girlfriend. Tell me what we’re facing.”
“Dude, you look like shit,” the agent who seemed to be in charge said.
“Didn’t ask you how I look. How did Zola look?”
The guy straightened his spine and held out a hand. “Jeff Roland.”
Mike took it, waiting for an answer.
Roland sighed. “She wasn’t in good shape. I’m sorry. They brought her here in the trunk of that car over there.” He pointed to the silver vehicle that had been tailing them on the highway. “Duct tape everywhere. Her wrists behind her back. Her ankles. Knees. Face.”
Mike fought the urge to punch the nearest…anything. “But you’re sure she was alive?”
“Yes. She was fighting with everything she had.”
Mike blew out a breath. Now that he knew what he was facing and where Zola was, he just needed to get her back. “Gonna need a gun,” he told Roland.
* * *
Zola lay on the couch in her father’s den still completely bound and gagged. She couldn’t move a muscle except to pull her knees up closer. Her hands were numb. It was growing increasingly difficult to wiggle her fingers.
Her father was bound to a chair in the middle of the room facing her. His expression showed a constant fear and worry. His mouth was not covered, but every time he tried to reason with their captors, he was slapped.
“Listen,” he tried again, “what do you want? I have the power to make it happen.”
She wasn’t sure he had the power to do anything of the sort, but she knew he had to speak the words over and over in an attempt to reason with the four men who rarely acknowledged them and infrequently used English.
It was growing dark outside which meant she had been there for a few hours, and her circulation had been impaired even longer. She relaxed her shoulders again so her hands wouldn’t hurt so badly. It didn’t work.
Her father’s face was swollen on both sides, his eyes half-closed from being punched several times before she arrived. She imagined she looked even worse, but he might not know she’d been in a car accident.
He licked his lips and spoke again. “Would you like me to talk to the police? See if I can get you what you want?”
They were hostages. Pawns. In what game?
One of the men marched across the room, grabbed her father by the chin, and growled into his face. “What I want is for you to keep your fucking mouth shut.” He whipped her father’s face to one side, almost causing the chair to topple over.
It wobbled and then righted itself.
A booming voice penetrated the house through a megaphone outside for the fourth or fifth time. “You are surrounded. We can’t negotiate with you if we don’t know what your terms are. Please send someone out or allow us to send someone in to discuss what we can do to end this peacefully.”
If Zola could have laughed—and if this had been a movie instead of her real life—she would have. Negotiate? Peacefully? That was never going to happen.
Three of the men huddled in the corner talking in soft voices while one stood guard at the window, a machine gun in his hand. He waved it around so flippantly she feared they would all accidentally be shot.
Finally, the men broke apart. One spoke to the man on guard, and one left the room.
At least something was happening. The standoff was worse than being beaten or tossed around in many ways.
Where was Mike? She concentrated hard to keep from letting tears fall because her nose would run and make it difficult to breathe.
Had he survived the crash? She could only hope he was either in the hospital or right outside freaking the fuck out. The last possibility made her both hopeful and afraid. If he was out there somewhere, he was livid beyond belief. And scared.
The front door opened and slammed shut. Voices filtered from the entryway to the library. English. They had finally let someone inside. She couldn’t hear specific words, but her father’s head was cocked to one side in concentration.
Minutes passed. The front door opened and slammed shut again. The man who had gone to the door returned, stomping angry, yelling at his three comrades in heated Arabic. He pointed at Zola several times and her father.
Would they be killed? It seemed probable. These men were trapped. No way would they let the hostages go. If they were going down, they would likely take Zola and her father out first.
Deep breaths in and out through her nose. Stay calm. You need to remain sharp. Though she had no idea what good that would do her since she would never be able to stand upright, let alone fight.
The man who seemed to be the ringleader ran a hand through his hair and then stared out the window in silence again.
She had no idea who these guys were. They obviously weren’t the Johanssons. She’d seen pictures of that family. They were Caucasian. But there had to be a connection.
After several tense moments of pacing, the man at the window pulled a piece of paper from his back pocket and shook it to unfold it. He strode over to her father and held it up. “Perhaps you can reason with your American friends out there. These are the terms. If they don’t meet them all, you and your daughter die.”
Her father nodded vigorously. “I’ll talk to them.”
The man leaned forward, getting in her father’s face. “Tonight. They have two hours. Every man on this list has to call in and let me know they are free or I shoot your daughter first and then you. We clear?” His English was almost perfect. If he wasn’t American, he had at least been in the country for a long time.
“Understood.”
The man pulled out a cell phone and dialed a number. He put the call on speaker while it rang and held it up to her father’s ear. He shook the paper out again, righting it in front of her father’s face.
Someone answered. “Assad? I’m glad you called. Can we discuss your terms?”
Her father licked his lips. “This is Senator Carver.”
The man named Assad didn’t say a word. In fact, his lips were pursed. He pointed at the paper.
The agent on the phone spoke again. “Senator Carver. Are you injured?”
“No. I’m fine. I’m going to read you a list of people who need to be released from prison. You have two hours to make this happen or these men will kill us.” Her father was shaking as he spoke. She’d never in her life seen him rattled. He was so nervous, his voice cracked. Of course, she’d also never seen him held as a hostage by four madmen.
“Assad,” the agent said, addressing the darker man instead of her father, “I will do everything in my power to make that happen, but it takes time to get people released from prison. I might not be able to do it in two hours. As a show of good faith, I’ll get as many as possible as quick as possible, but then I need you to also extend the courtesy of giving me more time.”
Assad shook his head vehemently toward her father. Zola had no idea why he didn’t just speak for himself.
“That won’t be possible,” her father continued. “His terms are firm.”
“We’ll do our best.” The agent sounded deflated.
Her father read off the names slowly. The list was long. Over a dozen people. Several of the names she recognized. Either her office or another had put most of them away for life. Among those names was Johansson, the mall shooter whose parents had been suspected of terrorizing Zola for the last weeks.
When he finished reading the list, Assad yanked the phone away and disconnected, putting it in his back pocket.
Zola’s head was pounding. She was certain she had a concussion as well as a few lacerations. She didn’t think she was bleeding from any open wound, but the tightness on her forehead in several spots indicated dried blood. When she tried to scrunch the skin above her eyes, it pulled tightly, stabbing pain piercing behind her eyes.
She flexed her fingers again. They were even more swollen and numb. They had stopped hurting though, which she took as a bad sign.
The room grew silent for a long time, the only sound that of the men pacing in front of the windows.
The house was large, and Zola tried to imagine why the SWAT team didn’t break in through the back. But then again, if there was any sign or noise indicating a breach, she had no doubt she would be shot.
She closed her eyes, breathing evenly, gathering energy. She thought of Mike, imagining his smile, the way he kissed the sensitive spot behind her ear. The way he whispered words of love so faintly she could barely hear them. She pictured him doing that twelve years ago and again this week.
She didn’t want to die here today. She wanted to live to spend the next seventy years with him like he suggested. Why had she dug her feet in so hard, insisting she couldn’t and wouldn’t quit her job for him? It seemed so petty all of the sudden. She would do anything for him. Go to the ends of the Earth. Walk through burning coals. Become a housewife.
If she could just get out of this mess alive.
What were the chances? She dragged old hostage cases out of the recesses of her mind. She knew the statistics on hostages. Her chances were slim, especially since the terrorists holding her were Islamic extremists. She shook that dreary thought from her head. She was lucky she was alive still even now. And every man in the room had several weapons, most of them capable of mowing down half the street.
When the phone rang in Assad’s back pocket, she flinched, opening her eyes to watch him take the call. He didn’t speak. He simply listened. She imagined the agent in charge updating him.
Suddenly, he broke the silence. “No, you listen to me, you entitled white prick. You have fifty-three more minutes, and then I kill these two equally white smug members of your society who have worked tirelessly to put my people behind bars. You hear me? Every one of those people must call me in the next fifty-three minutes with good news or this senator and his daughter are dead.” He hung up.
Zola held her breath. Nothing had changed. There was no reason to freak out. But as she grew closer to the time of her execution, her nerves increased. Fifty-three minutes. What if her life was going to end in fifty-three minutes?
She hadn’t told Mike she loved him. She hadn’t lived with him. She had so many firsts she wanted to experience with him. She wanted children. A home with a fence. More time…
The phone rang again. Assad answered it without a word. He listened for several seconds and then hung up. “That’s one. Thirteen more to go,” he told the room at large.
As the next half hour went by, Zola tried to keep track of the number of calls, assuming all of them were another freed criminal. She cringed knowing that these were murderers. Each of them had undoubtedly killed many people in the name of a warped version of their religion.
She didn’t feel her life was equal to the release of so many criminals. For one thing, each of them would then kill again. If the man in charge outside was smart, he would let Zola and her father die rather than release so many horrific individuals. This was an obvious case where the hostages needed to be sacrificed. If she could tell him that, she would. But she would never have the chance.
Another part of her, a selfish part, wanted them to all be freed so she would live. However, her rational mind told her she was not going to live in either scenario. These men didn’t even have masks. She could ID them all in a heartbeat. No way were they going to let her or her father live.
Two more calls came in. What were they up to? Eight?
One of the men grabbed a black backpack she hadn’t noticed from the corner of the room and lugged it to the center, setting it on the coffee table. Judging by the flex of his muscles under the black T-shirt he wore, and the strain on his face, the bag was heavy.
He unzipped it and carefully removed a canister. After setting it on the table, he pulled something else small out of the backpack and tossed it aside.
A bomb?
Dammit.
She widened her gaze, glancing at her father to see sweat running down his face in shear panic.
The man leaned over the device, attaching several wires to set it up and then pushing a button on the front that caused a ticking noise to fill the room.
“There,” he declared. He spun around, holding up a black square that looked a bit like a pager from two decades ago. With a wicked grin on his face, he approached Zola.
She nearly peed herself contemplating his intent. He roughly rolled her forward, opened her stiff, swollen fingers, and pressed the box into her palm. “You better squeeze that tight, girl. If you let go of the button on the side, we all die. You hear me?”
She stopped breathing, all her concentration going to the fucking box in her hand. Her fingers were so numb she had no way of feeling the box beyond the fact that it was touching her. She didn’t know if there was really a button on the side or not. He could have been fucking with her mind.
Or she might hold the power to blow up the house, taking out all four men, herself, and her father.
Fuck.
The responsibility was too much. Should she let it go and save countless other lives who would be lost in future mass shootings or bombings at the hands of the fourteen terrorists being released from prison as she lay on the couch being used as a pawn?
“If your people try anything stupid out there, I shoot you, you die. It will take a few seconds for your hand to unfurl, giving me and my men plenty of time to escape before the gas is released from the canister. You and your father will count the seconds until you both die. It will be painful.”
Zola froze. Not a bomb. Biological warfare. The horror of the situation closed in on her, threatening to cause her to black out. They would die immediately if she did. And she wasn’t ready to make that choice yet.
Rationally, it wouldn’t be just the men being released from prison who would be stopped, but also the four in the room. She held too much power. If she somehow lived through this, she would have to live with the guilt of her decision for the rest of her life.
She knew she would be a victim either way. These men were angry at her for prosecuting their terrorist friends and her father for getting easier laws passed that made it possible for her to convict. No way did they intend to let Zola and her father live.
Another call came in. Nine?
She held the black box as tightly as possible with limited use of her fingers. Every ounce of her concentration went to her grip. If she moved even an inch to alleviate some of the discomfort in her shoulders, she would lose her grip.
Another call. She lost track of how many that was.