Tom Clancy Chain of Command, page 38
Sergeant Johnson answered on the fourth ring.
“Talk to me.”
Chilly filled him in quickly, location, tire tracks, cameras on the gate—and the boot print. “Lieutenant Moss was going to run the other two through SoleMate,” Chilly said. “Things got away from me and I never heard if they came up with anything.”
“They got a hit,” Johnson said. “Print was made by an Altberg Aqua. A UK brand.”
“England?”
“Yep,” Johnson said. “I’ve got the team spooled up. We’ll be en route to your location in twenty minutes. Barth and Fujimoto are driving the BearCat out.”
“Copy that,” Chilly said, reminding the sergeant of the cameras at the gate. “I’d have them hang back a hundred meters or so. Can’t see the ranch house from the road, but they may be able to see lights.”
“Sheriff’s deputy ever show?”
“He’s standing by a quarter-mile to the south,” Chilly said. “If you’re good with it, I’m going to go ahead and work my way closer to get a good eyeball on the house.” Before the sergeant could answer, Chilly made his case. “Rene Tatum is up there, Boss. Her phone has gone dark—and the guy who moved her truck was present at a double murder, not to mention the mall shootings. If this isn’t a hostage situation . . .”
“I read you,” Johnson said. “But be careful. We usually go in loud and proud during a hostage rescue. We’re going to treat this like a high-risk warrant. In other words, easy does it. They don’t know we’re there yet. So get close, but not too close. Don’t tip our hand until the rest of us arrive.”
“Copy,” Chilly said. “I’ll check in as soon as I’m in a good position.”
“Okay,” Johnson said. “But don’t forget where you found those Altberg boot prints. That guy sounds like a pro.”
Chilly climbed through the barbed-wire fence before shouldering his rifle and drag bag and then started to trot toward the old Spivey place. He moved quickly at first, using the night-vision monocular to chart a path around prickly pear cactus and under thorny mesquite. He could move fast now, covering the semi-open hills, but if these were the kind of people he believed they were, they wouldn’t just have cameras on the gate.
74
Kashvi set the folio on Malhotra’s desk and took a step back, batting her eyes. “We have not talked about what you will do now.”
“I had not given it much thought.” Malhotra flipped through the paperwork, gloating at Herr Roth’s signature—the signature that had made him an extremely wealthy man. “Whatever I wish, I suppose.”
“Ah,” she said. “That will be fulfilling.”
He couldn’t tell if she was impressed at his new wealth or if she was making fun of him.
“Tell me, sir,” she said, finally showing him a little deference. “With the cooling-off period removed from the contract—”
Malhotra shot to his feet, then abruptly sat again, pulling his chair closer to get the best view possible at the contract before him. “Am I reading this wrong? This says one-point-one billion . . .” He thumbed through the documents. “The payments should not be broken into increments . . .”
She stepped closer, one hand on the desk, the other on his shoulder, pressing her thigh against him.
She perused the contract, perfectly manicured nail tapping the line that indicated the purchase price of MalhotraMed. “The numbers are correct.”
“But this is a fraction . . . A mere tenth of the agreed-upon sum!” Panic fluttered in Malhotra’s belly, growing, bloating until he could hardly breathe. He shuffled quickly through the pages, searching for some explanation to this travesty. His voice twanged like an overtight guitar string. “This cannot be! This paperwork has gone through dozens of hands. It has been thoroughly vetted. I checked the paperwork myself . . .”
“As did I,” Kashvi said.
He glanced up to see her smiling down on him. Gloating.
He gasped. “You! You made the changes. But this is impossible.” He pounded the table. “It will not stand! You . . . You are working for Roth! That is disgusting. He is old enough to be your father . . . your grandfather. My attorneys will see to this. I am not worried . . .”
“Oh, H.M.,” she said and sighed. “You poor, blind, stupid man. I am sure your friend the tiger saw this coming. Frankly, I am surprised the beast did not warn you over this betrayal and backstabbery. You see, your attorneys are, in point of fact, Herr Roth’s attorneys. They and I will remain with the company long after you and your stuffed beast have gone.”
He pounded on the contract. “No court will—”
Something hard hit his ribs and he glanced down to see the howdah pistol in Kashvi’s hand. The hammer was cocked, her manicured finger curled around the trigger. Her body, which had been so supple and tender such a short time ago, had turned cold and hard as stone.
“No court will ever hear of it,” she said. She leaned in close, her breath hot against his skin as she whispered in his ear. The howdah pistol seemed ready to snap his ribs as she pushed it against him with such cruel force. “And your private soldiers . . . They are Herr Roth’s private soldiers. He wishes to thank you for footing the cost of their services—”
His eyes locked with Kashvi, Malhotra’s fingers searched for the katar dagger on his desk, found it, and curled around the crosspiece.
* * *
—
The elevator chimed as the doors slid open on the fifteenth floor. Midas and Adara stepped into a deserted lobby. The sign behind the receptionist’s desk said MalhotraMed Pharmaceuticals. They were in the right place.
All business now, Adara focused on the mission at hand and not her other woes. To his credit, Midas hadn’t mentioned it again.
“You think they’re closed?” Midas whispered.
“I smell perfume,” Adara said. “And cologne. Someone’s been here this morning.”
“One of your many superpowers,” Midas said. “Let’s go check—”
A deafening boom came from down the hall, followed by angry shouting and a short scream.
Both Adara and Midas froze, looking down the hallway and then at each other.
Another scream. This one from a man. Maybe. Screams were hard to pin down by gender.
Unarmed, the operators moved quickly but carefully, following the sound of thrashing and more frustrated shouting until they reached the wooden door. It was tall and ornate and led to a corner office, leaving little doubt it belonged to the owner of the company. The secretary’s desk out front was empty, but for a small gym bag in the seat of the swivel chair. Midas found a metal statue of a dancing woman and grabbed it for a makeshift weapon.
Adara put a hand on the door, ready to pull it open.
Inside, a woman cursed, obviously in distress.
Midas gave a grim nod and they rolled inside.
Adara had learned long ago not to have preconceived notions when entering an unknown room. But she was genuinely surprised by what she saw.
An Indian woman struggled with a wounded Harjit Malhotra against a full-size mount of a Bengal tiger just inside the door. It took a split second to realize they were fighting over what Adara first thought was a sawed-off shotgun but realized was a large-caliber pistol. Startled by the new arrivals, the Indian woman jerked away, allowing Malhotra to gain control of the weapon as she rushed for the open door.
“I got him,” Midas said, lunging for the pistol.
Adara grabbed a handful of hair as the woman ran past, yanking her sideways. The woman stumbled, cursing, swinging wildly as she worked to regain her balance. A wide blade whooshed past Adara’s face.
Shit! A gun and a knife . . .
The woman lashed out again, brandishing the dagger. Adara stepped offline, pivoting, narrowly avoiding a slash to her forearm—which was already bandaged from her encounter in Japan.
The woman rushed at her again, slashing, cursing. Adara snatched up the first thing she could find, an open book on a stand inside the door. About the size of an old encyclopedia, it had a stiff leather binding. She slammed the book shut and, grabbing it in both hands, deflected the blade, bashing the woman in the side of the head as she rushed by.
It was a glancing blow. Adara knew it would do little to finish the fight, but took advantage of the split second it bought her and sprang forward. Trapping the point of the blade with the face of the heavy book, she drove the woman backward—straight into Midas, who cuffed her in the back of the head with the heavy-barreled pistol.
The knife fell to the floor. The woman staggered, clinging to the stuffed tiger in a vain attempt to keep her feet, before sliding into a sullen heap on the carpet.
Adara kicked the knife away, and then pushed the woman facedown on the carpet. She didn’t want any more guns or blades showing up out of nowhere. The woman moaned, clutching the back of her head.
Adara shot a glance at Midas, who still held the pistol, which was now aimed in at the woman.
“I’ll have a talk with her if you want to take a look at this guy,” he said. “Large-caliber gunshot wound to the ribs.”
There was no mistaking Harjit Malhotra. She recognized him easily from the Internet pics she’d studied as soon as Foley had brought them up to speed on the Chinese colonel’s phone calls. As usual, she’d expected someone bigger, more imposing, larger than life. The man before her was small, insignificant—and bleeding to death. His head lolled. Blood curtained his teeth. His words escaped on a breathy croak. “Hospital . . . Need doctor . . .”
Adara lifted the tail of his shirt, assessing the damage. The entry wound was almost an inch across, the skin around it tattooed with unburned powder from a contact shot. Black blood and gore oozed from a tattered hole large enough that she could clearly see the horrific damage inside. The large-caliber ball had clipped the bottom of one lung, angling downward to turn his guts to hamburger. Pressurized gases, injected from the blast with the muzzle pressed firmly against his skin, separated and ruptured organs well out of the path of the ball.
There was little she could do for him, little anyone could do, but she kept that to herself. Instead, she tore open a pack of clotting agent from her bag and began to stuff it gently but firmly into the wound.
He looked up at her, grimacing with pain. “Are you . . . doctor?”
“A medic,” she said. “We’re calling you an ambulance, but you need to help us.”
“I need a doctor—”
She gambled, cutting to the chase.
“The First Lady. Where is she?”
“I . . . who are you?”
Adara spoke slowly but firmly, her face inches from the man’s. “Where is Cathy Ryan?”
Malhotra’s eyes fluttered. He licked his lips, smearing them with blood. “They took . . . everything . . .”
“I’m going to help you,” Adara said. “But I need you to tell me where the First Lady is.”
“I do not know,” he said. “It is the truth.” He struggled to sit up straighter and reached a trembling hand at the girl. “Her . . . She will know.”
Midas put a hand on Adara’s shoulder, leaning in to whisper in her ear that the ambulance was on the way. The last thing they wanted was for these two to die with some bit of evidence in their heads.
“Who took her?” Adara asked, making use of the time until medics arrived.
“Gil . . .” he said. “Señor Gil . . . The Camarilla . . .” He laughed, wincing from the effort. “Reinhardt Roth . . . behind this . . . took your President’s wife . . .”
Adara stuffed more gauze into the wound, pressing sharply on a shattered rib to keep Malhotra’s attention.
“Where is she?”
“I . . . I do not know,” he said through clenched teeth. “That’s the truth . . . not far.”
“Not far from where?”
“Please!” he whispered. “I need a doctor . . .”
“I can’t do anything for you until you tell me the truth.”
His body shuddered and he fell still. She put a hand on his neck. No pulse.
“Let’s go!” Midas snapped. Adara turned in time to see him stand from where he’d been kneeling beside the girl, whose wrists were now bound behind her back with a length of electrical cord.
“We can’t leave until—”
“I’ve got something,” Midas said, motioning toward the door. He leaned closer to Adara and whispered, “She doesn’t know much, but I think she told me what she does. FBI legat will have a chat with her, but you and I need to get out of here before we get tied up with the police. Grab his laptop and phone. I’ll get hers.”
“Well?” Adara asked as they sprinted toward the stairs. The paramedics would be on the elevator. The first thing they’d done when they’d arrived at the building was scope out where the stairs exited off the lobby.
“The gap,” Midas said, hitting the steps at a run. They were halfway down the first flight before the door above slammed shut. “Apparently, the Camarilla men have visited Malhotra with their boss.”
“Gil,” Adara said. The sound of their boots slapping concrete echoed in the stairwell.
“Yep,” Midas said. “She overheard one of the men she believes eventually took Dr. Ryan say something about a place he called ‘the gap’ or something like it.”
“And she just told you that?”
“I threatened to let you shoot her.”
“Really.”
Midas looked sideways, rounding the landing to start down another flight of stairs. “Yep. Apparently, you have a look.”
“The gap . . .” Adara repeated. “That’s not much.”
“It’s not nothing,” Midas said.
“We’ll see,” Adara said.
“Wish we coulda talked to that stuffed tiger,” Midas said. “I’ll bet that scabby old son of a bitch has some stories . . .”
75
Your password!” Debs barked, leaning in close so he was nose to nose with the blond girl they’d found snooping around outside the front gate. She had an older phone without facial recognition. It did have a fingerprint biometric password, but the girl’s hands were so chapped from working outside that it wasn’t functional. He needed an actual number to get in.
They’d duct-taped her wrists and tied her to one of the high-back kitchen chairs, setting her in the middle of the living room. Rook had stripped her down to bra and panties, ostensibly to search her for weapons. Debs knew the guy was just a letch, but taking away clothing was Interrogation 101. It left her feeling vulnerable and set her nerves on edge, which was exactly what they needed at the moment. Now, surrounded by scarred and hard-bitten men who’d not had a moment alone with a woman in months, her chin quivered like Jell-O in an earthquake. Her knee bounced like the foot on a sewing machine. She was terrified, but she was also tough, which was going to be a problem—for her.
“The password,” he asked again.
“I can’t remember,” she said, rolling her lips to keep her teeth from chattering. It didn’t help.
Craig Taylor stepped in and hit her hard in the side of the head, knocking over the chair. On her side, unable to right herself, she spit blood and looked at him, blinking. If anything, the blow had only hardened her resolve.
Debs and Soulis lifted the chair back up. The Greek openly sniffed her hair during the process and threw his head back and howled at the ceiling. It sent a chill down Debs’s spine, and he wasn’t the one tied half-naked to a chair.
He groaned. “I can’t help you if you don’t help me.”
Burt slumped at the table, head down like a boy in time-out. He looked up, arms still folded. “I don’t think you should hit her, Craig. It wasn’t her fault.”
Taylor’s face flushed a deep crimson, tendons in his neck knotting, veins pulsing like he might spontaneously combust at any moment.
“You need to get out of my sight, mate!” he said. “Go. Get to your room. Now. I’ll come talk to you when we’re done here.”
Burt shot a glance at Debs, who gave him a nod. The older man rose and shuffled off toward his bedroom, waving off the other men as he walked by, as if they disgusted hem. Something was going to have to be done with him. Soon. The thought of it sent a pulse of white-hot anger through Debs’s body. He reached for the blond woman’s hand and tried to pry her little finger off the arm of the chair.
“Noooo!” she said through gritted teeth. It was more growl than scream. Taylor grabbed a handful of hair, jerking her head back and momentarily taking her mind off her hand, allowing Debs to bend her pinkie finger backward until it snapped, or, in reality, dislocated at the base. Now came the scream.
“Yooooouuu . . . b . . . b . . . astaaard!” she said, wheezing, hyperventilating, blowing bubbles of saliva in an effort to deal with the pain. She gazed down wide-eyed at her finger, which now stuck straight up at a right angle to the back of her hand.
“The password to your phone,” Debs said again.
Her voice was one of a wounded animal, cornered, dangerous. Blue eyes blazed at him like icy daggers. “I . . . I . . . told you . . . I can’t remember.”
