Kingston's Captive (Kingston Security 2), page 11
“Very well,” James taunted. “I’m sure you remember the little gift I left for them in my house in the Lake Distract?” he said pleasantly, obviously having regained control of his emotions.
Unlike Cara, whose hand now had such a tight grip of her cell phone, she heard the plastic case crack.
Because the gift James was referring to had been the explosives intended to go off and kill Rosie and whichever of the Kingston men she had with her once they had entered James’s house.
James had kept Cara a prisoner in the basement of that house for a couple of days and nights after tying her up and driving her out of London. The conditions of the basement, the room cold and windowless, with a bucket in the corner and three bottles of water on a bare mattress in the corner, were similar to the ones she, Rosie, and their mother had been kept in ten years previously. Deliberately so, Cara had realized once she knew exactly who James was.
He, in the meantime, had been upstairs in the warmth and comfort of the house putting explosives in place, rigging the cell phone he’d taken off Cara as the trigger device. The moment someone touched the cell phone, the explosives would detonate. Rosie, bless her, had been the one to inadvertently do that.
Was James now saying that he’d rigged similar explosives in the building Adam and his cousins believed James and his men to be in?
He was, damn it!
“You really are a fucking psychopath!” she told James harshly, not wanting to hear anything more he had to say. She ended the call and instantly putting a call through to Adam’s cell phone.
It went straight to voicemail.
“Try calling Max,” she urged Rosie frantically.
Rosie didn’t even hesitate to do just that. “It went straight to voicemail.” She ended the connection without leaving a message. “Max warned me that they would be maintaining a telephone silence once they reached the warehouse.” She glanced down at her wristwatch. “They should be there by now.” She glanced up as Cara gave a pained groan. “What has that nutjob done now?”
“Set more explosives,” she stated economically as she pushed her cell phone into her bag and slung the strap over her shoulder. “Coming?”
“Of course.” Rosie followed her outside to where her car was parked in front of the main house. She unlocked the doors, then got in behind the wheel.
“Do you know the whereabouts of the warehouse the men are going to?”
“I know the area, but not the specific building, no.” Rosie frowned as she gave Cara a sideways glance. “That’s the building Langley has rigged to blow?”
Cara grimaced. “That’s what he said, yes.”
Rosie’s expression was grim as she pressed her foot on the accelerator. “Keep trying to reach Adam while I concentrate on getting us there.”
The words “in time” hung unsaid in the air.
As the men had left at least an hour before them and, in all likelihood had already reached London, the chances of Cara and Rosie arriving in time to warn them wasn’t very high.
“I’m calling the police and getting them to send help,” Cara decided as she keyed in the appropriate number. “I know the Kingston men prefer not to involve them in their business, but this time, we don’t have a choice.”
It was the only way Cara could think of to, hopefully, prevent Adam and his cousins from entering another booby-trapped building set to explode with them inside.
“Anything?” Adam prompted Casper.
They had parked the two vehicles the necessary distance away from the warehouse where they suspected Langley and his men to be.
They were out of sight behind another building, allowing the seven of them to get out of the vehicles in readiness for when Casper finished using the thermal imaging on his laptop to check for the specific whereabouts of the occupants inside the derelict building. Once they had that information, they would be ready to go in.
There were actually four abandoned warehouses on this particular piece of land. The sign at the front of the lot indicated the whole section was up for sale and had planning approval for the building of several houses.
So far, Casper had checked out three of those buildings and confirmed they were all empty apart from the odd rat or six. He was now checking the fourth and last one.
“Nothing.” Casper was frowning when he looked up. “My thermal readings say there are no human beings inside this one either.”
“Were there ever?” Max snapped.
“My informants are never wrong,” Casper insisted without rancor. “A total of seven men were seen, several times, entering and leaving that building there.” He pointed to the one directly in front of them. “The description of one of them identified him positively as being James Langley.”
Adam nodded. “Meaning Langley and his men were here, but now they’re gone.”
Casper nodded. “That’s what it looks like, yes.”
“Okay, this is what we’re going to do.” Max automatically took charge of the situation. “Three of us, Adam, Mal, and me, will enter the building and check it out just to be sure. The rest of you will wait here until we give the all clear to follow us inside.” He narrowed his gaze on the building. “I’ve learned the hard way not to trust this bastard.”
The hard way being the explosives Langley had set the previous week in another building, with the intention of killing them all.
“What the fuck…!”
Sinclair’s expletive was drowned out by the deafening sound of the sirens of several police cars as they sped down the rutted track toward them.
The sirens were switched off again once the cars were parked alongside the two SUVs. Two dark vans parked a short distance away. A dozen men, armed and in tactical gear, poured out the back the moment the vehicles came to a stop. Two white vans had followed them in, the words “Bomb Disposal” on the side telling their purpose. Several soldiers jumped out of each of them onto the packed mud that served as the parking area for all the derelict buildings.
“Mr. Kingston?” one of the policemen prompted.
“We’re all Mr. Kingston, so you’ll need to be more specific,” Sinclair drawled.
“Miss Ferrari-Smythe didn’t specify which one of you we needed to speak to.” The policeman shrugged. “Only that we warn you there’s the possibility of a bomb going off the moment you step inside one of these buildings.” He glanced across at them. “As they’re all made of wood, the rest of you would no doubt be killed in the force of the blast.”
“Which Miss Ferrari-Smythe?” Adam latched onto the relevant part—to him, at least—of the man’s statement.
“I believe she gave her name as Cara. Apparently, she received information that the building you are about to enter has been booby-trapped with explosives that will detonate upon entry. Which is why the bomb disposal team is also here,” he added wryly. “The tactical team are here because we were informed the men in the area are armed and dangerous.”
Adam didn’t like the sound of this. He didn’t like it one little bit. “Did Cara say who she received that information from?”
“She said that a James Langley had telephoned her and informed her of his intentions.”
James fucking Langley had dared to call Cara and tell her that. “How long ago did that happen?” Adam took out his cell phone and scrolled through the half dozen missed calls from Cara.
“Fifteen minutes at most.” The leader of the tactical team stepped forward. “What the— Major Kingston?” His glance moved from Max to Adam. “Captain?”
Adam couldn’t easily see the man’s features inside the black helmet he was wearing, but he still recognized him as one of the men who had served with him and Max in Special Forces ten years ago.
“Coleman,” he greeted the other man warmly. “Do you happen to know where Cara was when she made the call?”
“I believe she said she and her sister were driving into London.”
“Sir?” One of the policemen frowned as Max let out a string of invective that would no doubt have blistered the skin off the women it was directed at.
“Both of them?” Adam prompted from between stiff lips.
“I believe so. Where are you going?” the policeman demanded to know when Adam turned and ran toward one of their SUVs.
Adam paused impatiently beside the open driver’s door. “Check out the buildings by all means, but I don’t think you’ll find any explosives in there.”
“Adam?” Sinclair prompted sharply.
He glanced at his cousin as he climbed in behind the wheel of the SUV. “I’m pretty sure Langley’s only purpose in telling Cara and Rosie there were explosives in the building was so that they would leave the safety of the estate to drive into London. This whole thing was a fucking ruse to get us to leave the estate so that Langley could lure Cara and Rosie out of there too.”
“Where are we going—” Max broke off to stare down at the screen of his cell phone before glancing back at Adam. His face had become pale and haggard so suddenly, he looked as if he’d aged ten years in the same number of seconds. “Carl and Rueben are reporting activity at the Langley Gallery.” They’d had a rotation of their men watching the building since James Langley had been released on bail four days ago. Until now, he hadn’t been near the place. “Seven men, one of them Langley, escorted two people with hoods over their heads and their wrists tied, inside the building.”
Adam felt the color drain from his own face. He had absolutely no doubt who those two people were. Langley already had Cara and Rosie. “There’s your answer as to where we’re going,” he told Max.
“I’m coming with you!” Casper hurried over to climb into the back of the SUV. “I can use thermal readings to help pinpoint exactly where they all are in the building.”
“I and half my team are coming with you too,” Coleman announced decisively, having obviously taken instant stock of the information, and Adam’s and Max’s reaction to it, to know which situation should be treated as the priority. “The other half can stay here and help the bomb disposal unit and the police to secure the area. In the meantime, I’m calling this in as a hostage situation.”
“Tell them the kidnapper is James Langley,” Max called out as he got into the passenger seat. “He’s currently out on bail, pending further investigation into whether he kidnapped Cara last week.” He grimaced. “I think this makes it pretty conclusive that he did.”
“Will do.” Coleman was already talking on his cell phone as he climbed back into one of the dark vans with his men.
Max slammed the door and pulled on his seat belt. “I am going to spank Rosie’s arse so fucking hard, for not doing as I asked her and staying put, that she won’t be able to sit down comfortably until the wedding next week!” he bit out.
Adam didn’t answer because he knew the words his cousin wasn’t saying. Which were that none of them knew if Rosie and Cara would still be alive next week for there to be a wedding.
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
“I can’t believe I was so stupid as to fall into that psycho’s trap again,” Cara told her sister furiously as she paced yet another cold and windowless basement in which she was being held prisoner.
She had been kidnapped three times now. Three! It wasn’t just embarrassing anymore, it was farcical.
She and Rosie didn’t have any of their personal effects, their bags having been left in Rosie’s car when they were taken, their cell phones, and the gun Adam had given Cara still inside. But at least the hoods and ties had been removed before the two of them were shut down here. They weren’t in the dark this time either. Rosie had located and turned on the light switch at the bottom of the stairs.
“We both fell for it,” Rosie muttered, sitting on one of the wooden crates stacked against a wall. There wasn’t even a mattress for them to lie on this time, and no bucket in the corner. Plenty of other junk, like stepladders and those wooden boxes, but no mattress or bucket.
Did that mean James wasn’t going to keep them alive long enough for a mattress and bucket to be necessary? Or was it another indication that he simply didn’t care whether or not they had the basic amenities this time?
James Langley and his men had used two SUVs to ambush Rosie’s car in a pincer movement on the country road only fifteen minutes away from the Kingston estate. Which, considering the short time scale, meant taking them had been his intention all along. Rosie had tried to drive around them, but James had used his SUV to ram into the side of the much-smaller car to prevent that from happening. It had taken only moments after that for James’s men to pull them from the car, throw hoods over their heads, and tie their wrists behind them, before throwing the two of them into the back of one of their vehicles.
The only positive thing about this kidnapping, as far as Cara could see, was the hope she had that James had been lying about the explosives in the warehouse where Adam and his cousins had gone, and that kidnapping Cara and Rosie had been his intention all along. She didn’t think either she or Rosie would mind that outcome if the men they loved were safe.
James had just laughed at her when she’d asked him to confirm that hope.
Bastard!
“I should have shot him when I had him tied up on his bloody Scottish island,” she said in self-disgust. “He’s like a rabid dog that needs putting down.”
Rosie gave a humorless smile. “He holds us responsible for his father’s death.”
“Well, we hold his father responsible for our mother’s death too, but we don’t go around kidnapping him every five minutes like some dastardly moustache-twirling baddie from a B movie!” Her voice rose in her agitation.
“It’s a mess, isn’t it.” Rosie released a heavy sigh. “Do you have any idea where he might be holding us prisoner?”
Cara had been thinking about that ever since they’d been locked in the basement. “From the amount of time we were traveling after he took us and the noises I could hear as we were taken from the vehicle and dragged down here, I think we’re in London somewhere.”
Rosie stood to raise the lid of the crate she’d been sitting on. “I think you’re right.” She held up an empty picture frame. “I’m guessing this is the basement of the Langley Gallery.”
Would Adam and Max, once they learned Rosie and Cara were missing, even think to look for them here?
Surely the police would have arrived at the warehouse by now, hopefully in time to prevent the Kingston men from being harmed, if the explosives should turn out to be real after all.
If they had, she had no doubt Adam and Max would then try to contact Cara and Rosie. On the cell phones that were still in the car abandoned at the side of the road.
Adam was going to be so angry with her for leaving the estate. She doubted Max would be any less so with Rosie.
But what else could the two of them do when the men they loved were in danger?
Cara had a feeling Adam wasn’t going to accept that as an excuse for putting herself in yet more danger any more than Max was.
“You’re sure they’re in there?” Adam prompted, his gaze fixed across the street on the Langley Gallery. The building was locked, the blinds pulled down on all the windows, as they had been since the previous week.
They’d parked the vehicles farther down the street, and even now, Coleman’s team was clearing the area of residents and shoppers and setting up a safe perimeter.
“I am.” Rueben’s voice was sonorous. “There’s been no movement at the front or back of the building since they entered, so all nine of them are still in there.”
“Casper?” Max prompted abruptly.
Casper studied the thermal readings on his laptop. “Six on the ground floor of the building, one on the second, two in the basement area.” He looked up. “I’m guessing Langley is in his apartment, his men are in the gallery rooms, and Cara and Rosie are—”
“In the fucking basement,” Adam finished heavily. “Again.”
He had no doubt that the sisters were strong enough to withstand being incarcerated in yet another basement. In fact, knowing them, they were probably both more angered by it rather than traumatized. He just wished they hadn’t had to go through this again.
They wouldn’t have if they had done as they’d been asked and remained on the estate.
Max was right. A spanking was definitely in Cara’s near future too.
“All set,” Coleman reported as he joined them. “I gather these are the same two Miss Ferrari-Smythes we helped rescue ten years ago?”
Adam nodded abruptly. “And Langley is Kirill Bortkov’s illegitimate son.”
“Fuck,” Coleman muttered. “I called in the situation, including the fact Langley’s out on bail. That decision is being rescinded even as we speak, by the way. In the meantime, I have permission to order my men to shoot to kill if it’s believed the two Miss Ferrari-Smythes are in any immediate danger.”
“Being held prisoner at the whim of a madman definitely qualifies as that,” Adam bit out grimly. “If he harms one hair on Cara’s head, you won’t need to shoot him because I’ll rip him apart with my bare hands.”
“Same here in regard to Rosie,” Max rasped.
Coleman studied them for several long seconds and then nodded. “The quicker we decide how to get this breach over and done with, the sooner you can have your ladies back with you.”
Adam was grateful to the other man, and he was sure Max felt the same, for including them in that decision. After all, they were no longer Coleman’s commanding officers. This was his tactical team, giving him all the authority in this situation. Legally, that is. Adam knew that if it came to it, neither he nor Max would give a damn about legality if Langley had harmed Rosie or Cara.
But right now, they had to concentrate on planning an entry into the gallery that would see as few people harmed as possible, but most especially Cara and Rosie.
“Did you hear that?” Rosie prompted as she stood abruptly from where she had once again been sitting on a wooden crate.
