Authors: Matt Hilton
‘Get that away from me,’ Billie shrieked and reared away from the needle.
Her captor yanked back her head, exposing her throat where the collar of her sweatshirt gaped above the bulletproof vest. ‘Hold still,’ he growled and jabbed the needle into the muscles of her upper shoulder. Whatever kind of drug was administered remained a mystery to her, but its effect was absolute. Within seconds she drifted into a cold darkness where she had no sense of herself, never mind what was going on around her. Cognisance returned in swift snatches, though clouds of dirty cotton wool muffled these moments. She was aware of movement, of the buzzing of voices, the thrum of engines, but nothing made much sense. She thought that perhaps more of the knock-out drug had been administered to keep her docile while she was transported to her prison.
‘Prison’ was a misnomer. It wasn’t a barred cell, dungeon or even fortified room she had finally woken in, but some sort of office cubicle. It was barely fifteen by fifteen feet in size, with blank walls, inexpensive maroon floor covering and a suspended ceiling. She had been positioned so that her back was to the single door. She’d given up craning her neck to check it out. The pale grey walls around her were discoloured where framed pictures or notices had hung for years. Watermarks on the ceiling extended down the walls. On the thin carpet she could see where a desk had once stood, and there were track marks where some lazy person had wheeled their chair back and forward rather than take the trouble to stand and walk the few feet. She wondered if she was sitting in the same chair that had left the ghosts of its former movements.
She was seated in a standard office chair, brown faux leather over a fake chrome and plastic frame, atop four castor wheels. Her forearms were secured to the armrests with plastic lock-ties that dug into her flesh; her fingertips were numb and she feared that the blood flow to her extremities had been cut off. Her ankles were similarly secured to the pedestal, elevating her heels so that only her toes rested on the floor. Her bulletproof vest had been removed at some point during her transportation to the room, as had her makeshift booties and pumps, and she sat now in only her sweats, with a thick nylon strap round her ribs secured at the back of the seat by Velcro fasteners. She wasn’t totally restricted, and if she wished could probably wheel the chair around the room, but where would she go? She’d also considered tilting forward and getting her feet flat on the ground, but all she’d achieve then was carrying the chair on her back like the shell of some mutant turtle. Then what, try to open the door handle with her teeth? That’d be pointless seeing as she’d heard a key turned in the lock each time her captors came and went from the room.
There were only three options for release. One was that she somehow got loose from her bonds and armed herself with a piece of the broken chair, then fought her way clear next time her door was opened. She didn’t fancy her odds with that idea. Once they’d extracted whatever information they were after, her captors could have a change of heart and allow her freedom. But she doubted that would happen: she’d seen their faces and knew what that meant. Lastly, someone could come to her rescue. Except the only person who knew that she’d been taken was lying dead in the forest. She thought of Joe Hunter and how he’d promised to protect her. Ultimately it had been a false promise, just like the ones her husband had always given her. Broken promises, she thought abstractedly, always ended up with dead men in Billie Womack’s life.
Other people might grow despondent in the circumstances, but Billie wasn’t the type to give in so easily. When she’d lost a child and found the fortitude to carry on, it would take more than abduction by a group of violent thugs to stop her in her tracks. There had to be another way out of her quandary, she just didn’t know what it was yet. Trying to escape the room was probably not a good idea. Not when she had no clue where it was situated, or what kind of building surrounded it or how many people stood ready to stop her. Frankly she’d no clue either as to where she was in the country. While drugged she could have been driven for miles, and she also had some dim recollection of being inside the helicopter. She had been flown somewhere, and without knowing the direction, flight time or anything else she couldn’t begin to guess. The blank walls of her prison gave no hint; there wasn’t even a scrap of paper lying in view with some handy information printed on it. And when her captors had entered the room to check on her, they had refused to answer any of her questions. She was confident she was still in the US, but that was about it. Better that she wait and scheme. Sooner or later her captors would return and take her elsewhere in order to do whatever it was they planned for her. She’d been left in this room for no other reason than she was out of their hair and less of a problem for them. Those holding her were hired guns, simple as, and not really the ones who wished to press her for the whereabouts of Richard. She guessed that someone more important was coming to interrogate her, and her incarceration would end only when they arrived. When it was over with, she chose to think that her freedom would be under her own terms and not at the end of a gun barrel.
24
It was approximately eighteen hours after Billie’s abduction before Agent Cooper returned my call. He made a poor attempt at apologising for his tardiness, stating that he hadn’t recognised the number on his cell phone.
‘That’s because mine was taken along with everything else,’ I said. Rink had loaned me his phone, and the space to speak in private. I’d walked out on to the porch, leaving him and the others inside. ‘This is a friend’s cell, store the number.’
‘Wait up a minute, I’m not in a good place to speak.’ In the background there was chatter, the noise of a busy workspace. Cooper muffled his cell, but I could hear him speaking quickly with someone else, before he came back on. There followed the swift rat-a-tat of his footsteps on hard flooring, and his breath had quickened. ‘I’m just finding somewhere more private.’
‘How about Hill End?’ I suggested.
‘I’m in Seattle,’ he reminded me.
‘So meet me halfway.’ I was still at Billie’s farm, but we’d planned on moving soon. Not because we feared an attack, but because while we were at the house we were no closer to finding Billie. I needed to get moving or I’d implode.
‘I can’t, Hunter. I’ve ongoing investigations here in the city. I told you this was an off-the-books job, I can’t just up and leave my post whenever I please.’ His voice was at a hush; he obviously hadn’t found a private place to speak yet.
‘If Richard had showed up you’d be burning rubber to get here,’ I said. ‘Doesn’t an abducted woman merit the same response?’
‘What the hell?’
‘Billie,’ I emphasised. ‘She was taken.’
‘How the hell did that happen?’ He was strident, and it didn’t seem to matter if he was overheard now or not.
‘Those guys you warned us might be coming? They came.’
‘Hold on.’ There followed a muffled rattle and thump, then Cooper’s voice was clearer. He’d hidden inside an office, or broom closet or whatever. ‘OK, I can talk now. Start at the beginning and tell me what happened.’
‘I haven’t all day,’ I said. ‘So here’s the important stuff: a group of well-armed and equipped men chased us into the woods. They shot me and took Billie. What’s more important is how I’m going to get her back.’
‘They shot you?’
‘I’m good.’
Cooper swore under his breath. Then something dawned on him. ‘You didn’t kill any of them?’
‘Only in self-defence.’
‘Oh, Jesus . . .’
‘Listen up. I tried the softly-softly approach. They almost killed me and they snatched Billie. Your way didn’t work.’ I waited a beat. ‘Or maybe it did.’
Cooper’s silence lasted. Finally he said, ‘I don’t understand what you mean.’
‘Sure you do.’
He pretended to think again. ‘Do you want to enlighten me, Hunter? I’m not happy with the way this conversation is heading.’
‘You set us up, Cooper. Plain and simple.’
‘Set you up? What the hell are you talking about?’
‘This is all some elaborate game you’re playing, and all you’re interested in is winning. The big prize is getting your hands on Richard Womack and you don’t care what you have to do as long as you get him.’
‘How’d you come up with that absurd idea?’
I snorted in disdain. ‘You might think I’m just dumb muscle to be manipulated. I’m not. You set all this up, Cooper. You brought me in to watch over Billie, to win her trust. But there was more to it than that: I’m expendable. If I happened to die in the line of duty, it’d be no big deal. In fact, if I were killed while trying to protect her, Billie would buy into the lie even more. She’d see my death as a huge sacrifice on her behalf, and being the one who’d sent me, her trust in you would strengthen. How’s that for starters?’
Cooper laughed. ‘Do you know how paranoid you sound?’
‘Paranoia keeps me alive,’ I replied sharply. ‘What about the bulletproof vests?’
‘What about them?’ Even as his words came out I heard them falter and slow, as he understood where I was heading.
‘See, it troubled me how quickly those goons caught up with us. We’d escaped the farm and ended up in the wilderness, but those guys knew exactly where we were. I almost bought into the idea that we might’ve been tracked because of an anti-theft beacon in my rental car, but it was too long a shot. So I got to thinking: what else could have led them to us? I knew it wasn’t our cell phones because of the crappy reception, so it had to be something else. I’ve just cut an electronic bug out of the vest you supplied me. I bet that there was an identical one in Billie’s vest too.’
‘And?’ Cooper said. ‘That means I set you up? Jesus, it’s standard practice to insert GPS tracking technology into antiballistic vests these days. Most close protection outfits use them. If the unimaginable happens and the client is abducted then their protection team can find them again. Hell, Hunter, I thought you’d have known that.’
‘Like I said, I’m not dumb muscle. What’s troubling me is how those assholes from Procrylon knew about the trackers, and how they were able to follow them. Are you suggesting they just randomly hit on the correct transmission? Bull shit.’
‘It’s not an impossible scenario,’ Cooper said. ‘Maybe they had the technology to sweep for signals and locked on to them. I’m betting there weren’t many other transponders working out there in the wilderness.’
‘Bollocks. It wasn’t random chance. They were coming to snatch a woman from her bed, not take down a fucking terrorist cell. They learned about the GPS trackers after failing to find Billie at the farm, and came back prepared to hunt her down with the correct equipment. How would they even know she was bugged to start with unless someone told them about the vests?’
Cooper was silent again. When he came back on he’d mostly forgiven me for accusing him of being a treacherous bastard. ‘I told you I was worried about a mole in the ATF. If you’re right and you were tracked because of the beacons in your vests, someone in my agency must have given out the serial numbers. That’s a worrying thought.’
‘Think about how it feels from my end.’
‘Yeah, I can see why you’d be pissed. But Hunter, you have to trust me. It wasn’t me, man. I probably owe you my life. Without you my head would’ve been bashed in and I’m not the type to treat that debt lightly.’ He left that thought hanging.
I stood looking out across the lake. The water was stippled by the breeze, and reflected the evening sky, though the first stars were disguised by highlights on the gentle waves. Beyond the lake the hills were a ridge of shadows, but still recognisable as those in the painting I’d recently viewed in Billie’s room. Momentarily I found myself looking for the flash of a red coat, listening for the disconsolate moan of a lost girl as she pointed knowingly at something mysterious and intangible. I shook off a cold shiver that ran its finger up my spine. I could do nothing for the girl, and should concentrate on her lost mother.
‘OK,’ I said. ‘So we’re still friends. But do we stay that way?’
‘What do you mean?’
‘I’m going after Billie, but I need your help.’
‘If she’s been abducted we need to inform the FBI. It’s in their jurisdiction now.’
‘Not yet,’ I said. ‘This is on me. And it’s on you, even if you aren’t the one responsible for setting us up.’
‘I can’t do it, Hunter. I must follow official procedure—’
‘Bringing me in wasn’t procedure. Let’s not change things now.’
‘No way, I’m—’
‘Going to listen to me,’ I finished for him. ‘Here’s the thing, Cooper: those guys think I’m dead. They think I’m a rotting corpse out in the woods. They don’t know I’m coming after them. Without your help I wouldn’t know where to start looking, but the thing that led them to Billie can also lead us to her. Understand?’