“Ask if she has contacted his neighbors,” Metal said in a low murmur. Whispers carried more than a low voice.
“Have you contacted the neighbors?”
“I only know one neighbor, a retired State Department officer. He rang Grandpa’s bell but no one answered. Felicity, he just wouldn’t behave like this. I’ve booked a flight to DC and I’m going to go directly to his house.” She swallowed heavily. “God, I just hope I don’t find him—”
Felicity now looked as worried as the woman. “Me too. Listen, call me when you get to Al’s place.”
All of this had Metal’s Spidey sense tingling. He bent down to Felicity’s ear. “Can I talk to her?” he asked.
She looked up at him, startled. “Sure.”
Metal moved to where the screen’s camera could see him. “Hello, Ms. Hudson.”
The woman’s eyes rounded. “Who are you?”
“My name is Sean O’Brien,” he said. “I’m a friend of Felicity’s and I work for a security company. Felicity was attacked three days ago.” He nodded at Kay Hudson’s gasp. “We have no information at all who her attacker was but we can only assume he is still looking for her and he might contact people close to her. Ms. Hudson, do you know anyone in DC who could go with you to your grandfather’s house? Someone like a police officer or soldier?”
“No.” She shook her head. “Sorry.”
“Okay. Can we contact you in about ten minutes? What’s your flight number and when are you landing?”
She swallowed again. Metal understood exactly what she was going through. This was a new world for her, as if she’d plunged down a rabbit hole. By contrast, he realized that Felicity had lived with a subtext of intrigue and even violence all her life. She had never shown that moment of cognitive dissonance. Not once.
“Flight 4512. Landing at Reagan at 5:15.”
“Okay. We’ll contact you again immediately.”
She nodded and Felicity blanked the screen. “Okay, she’s deaf and blind but we’re still connected. What are you going to do?”
“Contact a friend in Washington. He’s FBI Hostage Rescue Team and if he’s free, I’ll have him meet Hudson’s flight and accompany her. He owes me a big favor. If he can, he’ll do this. And if there’s any funny business he’ll know what to do.”
Felicity nodded. “Hostage Rescue. Yeah, he’ll definitely know what to do.”
Metal gave a half smile as he tapped a number on speed dial. “Nah. Not because he’s an FBI weenie. Because he’s a former SEAL. We were trained for everything.”
She smiled back. “Including leaping tall buildings in a single bound.”
He winked at her. “You got it, honey.”
“Mancino.” Nick Mancino’s deep voice came on. Metal put his cell on speakerphone.
“Hey, Nick, howzzit hanging?”
“Metal, my man! To the left, as always. You?”
“That’s classified. Look, I’m putting you on video.” He held the cell so Felicity could see it too.
“Fine,” Nick answered then whistled. “Hey, who’s the babe?”
“Babe’s mine, Nick. Hands-off. We have a situation here and we need your help.”
Nick’s grin disappeared and the operator came online. “Shoot. Anything you need, big guy. I owe you.”
Metal nodded and put his hand on Felicity’s shoulder. “This is Felicity Ward. She’s a freelance service provider for the FBI.”
Nick nodded. “Felicity. Any friend of Metal’s is a friend of mine.”
“Nick. Ditto.” Felicity hadn’t smiled at their banter. She was too worried about her friend.
“Nick, Felicity was attacked at the Portland airport. We haven’t found her attacker though we’ve been looking. It’s possible that the attack has something to do with Felicity’s family’s background. She’s friends with a retired FBI special agent, Al Goodkind.”
“I know Al,” Nick said. “He’s a good guy.”
“He is,” Felicity whispered. Her eyes were wet. She hadn’t cried for herself, not once. But at the thought of danger to her friend...
“Al seems to be missing. He had a Skype appointment with his granddaughter which he missed. And he was supposed to meet her in New York today and he’s not there. His granddaughter is really worried and she’s catching a flight to DC right now. But we’re worried—”
“You’re worried something might have happened to Goodkind and you don’t want her walking into trouble.” Nick’s face had changed completely. Felicity recognized that look from Metal and Jacko. And John and Douglas. “Gotcha.”
“Nick.” She leaned forward. “It’s probably nothing, but it’s not like Al to miss an appointment, particularly with his granddaughter. I can’t think of anything that would make him do that. We’re—we’re really worried. Do you think you can go with her to Al’s place? It would make me feel a lot better. There’s something going on and I don’t want Kay to be caught in the middle of it.”
“No problem.” On the video feed he was shrugging on a jacket. “I was scheduled to run a training session but I can get a teammate to cover for me. Give me details.”
Metal gave him Kay’s name and phone number, which Felicity had written down for him, the flight number and arrival time. “Thanks, Nick. I owe you one.”
“No,” Nick said. “You don’t. Al’s a friend. I’ll get in touch when we get to Al’s house. I’ll make sure his granddaughter is safe. I’d go myself but she’ll know the house better. Catch you later, then.”
Felicity got Kay back online. “Kay, We’ve got an agent of the FBI coming to pick you up at the airport. I’m sending you a photo so you recognize him, but he’ll have his badge.”
“Why?” Kay looked frightened. “Do you think something has happened to my grandfather?”
“It’s just a precaution,” Metal said. “Trust me when I say your grandfather would want someone with you.”
“Okay.” She shifted her gaze to Felicity. “I’m scared something has happened to him.”
Felicity nodded. “We’ll know in a while. And if something has happened to him, the FBI will be on it right away. Let me know what’s going on as soon as you get there.”
Kay nodded and her image disappeared.
Metal put a hand on Felicity’s shoulder. “Nick’s really good. He’ll make sure Kay is safe.”
Felicity put her hand over his and shook her head. “I have a bad feeling about this, Metal.”
Chapter Twelve
An hour and a half later, Felicity and Metal joined Jacko, John and Douglas back at headquarters.
It was Metal’s suggestion and she was quick to agree. It was miserable weather, but she wanted to be at Metal’s company—maybe her company one day. Used to fighting her own battles, it comforted her to know that many heads were working together.
“Any pings on hotels?” was the first thing Metal asked. Via their Portland PD homicide detective friend an APB had been put out against Anatoli Lagoshin checking into any hotel in the area.
John Huntington shook his head. “Nope. And we widened it to include motels and boardinghouses and B and Bs within a thirty-mile radius. We figured he’d want to stick close to Portland.”
“Did you check Airbnb?” Felicity asked as she drew her coat together. Metal had taken his parka and hoodie off and was only in a T-shirt, as was Jacko. As if they were perpetually hot. She knew the premises were heated but she felt cold. The cold of fear and anxiety.
“Check what?” John asked. Metal and Jacko looked at her with a question in their eyes too.
“Airbnb. It’s a service where you can rent a room or an entire apartment, anywhere in the world. Never mind, I’ll check.”
She’d brought her laptop and opened it. Maybe doing some proactive detecting would help her forget her worri
es. She dug around a little in the Portland section. She glanced up at the three men then back again at the screen. Her fingers hovered over the keyboard, unmoving.
“These aren’t technically commercial establishments, they’re private homes. And the site is arranged as a series of exchanges, not rentals. The owners of the rooms or apartments don’t have a legal obligation to report arrivals. Renting an apartment through the service would be a good way to avoid scrutiny. However, there’s no way I can check without hacking into the service.”
Silence.
“Guys?”
“Hack,” Metal growled. John didn’t look happy but he nodded.
She entered the Airbnb back office and probed, delicately. She didn’t want to leave any trace of intrusion. Finally, she sat back, disappointed. “Nothing. It’s been a slow period for tourism. There are only seven apartments rented out tonight, all by families. And I checked the past two nights which were even slower. Three families and two women. I don’t know—”
Metal’s cell rang. He checked the screen and glanced at her. “Nick,” he said.
Felicity’s heart thumped as she moved closer to him. He put the cell down and put it on video and speakerphone. Jacko and John moved close too.
His friend Nick was on-screen next to Kay, white as ice. Behind them a living room. Felicity leaned closer and recognized a series of photographs of seasides and the corner of a bookcase. Al’s home. She’d visited him several times while being interviewed by the FBI for the freelance work. It looked as if he had changed nothing in his living room over the past five years.
“Sitrep!” Metal barked.
Nick’s face was grim. He looked to his left at a clearly distraught Kay and appeared to weigh his words. “There are signs of a struggle and—blood.”
Kay’s face was shiny with tear tracks. She nodded. “There was a broken lamp and a chair on the floor. There was blood on the floor and the walls. Oh God!” She buried her face in her hands. Nick hooked an arm around her shoulders as she broke into sobs.
He looked straight into his cell phone. “I called it in and forensics will be arriving soon. Goodkind’s DNA is on record and we’ll do a match. Goodkind’s not a pushover, though. And there’s no body, so we can assume he’s been taken. This is a federal crime and the FBI and local LEOs are going to pull out all the stops.”
Felicity leaned forward. “Did you find his cell?”
“No. Presumably he has it with him.”
“Can you trace it? Or I can?”
Nick grimaced. “He was given one of our new SpecPhones. Untraceable unless you switch the transponder on. I already checked. His transponder is off. Which would make sense if he was taken by surprise and had his hands cuffed.”
Next to him, Kay gave a brief sob, then covered her mouth with her hand. Nick held the phone away from him and whispered something to her. She nodded, eyes closed.
Felicity wanted to sob too. Whatever had happened to Al, it was connected to her. She was responsible for this.
“What do they want?” she asked. “What could possibly be worth attacking me and kidnapping a retired FBI special agent?” If they hadn’t killed him. And maybe they hadn’t been attempting to kidnap her. Maybe it was a murder attempt. Take her outside the airport to do the deed. She looked up at the men around her. “I can’t understand what this is about. None of it makes sense.”
“Well, it makes sense to somebody,” Metal growled. “Or we wouldn’t be here. I vote we catch the fuckers and find out why later.”
John and Douglas nodded. Jacko mumbled something profane.
It all made her feel better. These were proactive men. Her specialty was analysis. They all looked perfectly capable of analytical thinking but more than that, they were men of action.
Still, she had her own contributions to make. “Uh, guys? You know what Nick said about Al’s cell being untraceable if the transponder isn’t turned on?”
“Yeah?” Metal looked at her with slitted eyes. “I think I know where you’re going with this. Is it illegal?”
Felicity thought. “Well, ‘illegal’ is a fluid concept. It’s a new system and presumably the laws—”
“Do it.” John nodded decisively. “We’re not federal agents like Nick is. He’d probably have to leave the room if he were here, though I don’t doubt that if you have a way of tracking Goodkind, he’d say go for it. He was a Navy SEAL before he was a special agent. As SEALs, we used whatever got the job done. So do it.”
She entered the code for her cell phone servers, automatically checking for incoming calls. She froze. “Guys?” she whispered. “Metal?”
Four male heads swiveled to her. Metal put a big hand on her shoulder. “What is it, honey?”
“The nightmare’s over.” She looked up at him and drew in a deep breath. “It’s Al. He just called me a few minutes ago. Thank God!”
They weren’t looking relieved. As a matter of fact, the four men looked grimmer than ever. “What? What’s wrong?”
“When you call back, put him on speakerphone,” John ordered.
“Okay.” She used VoIP. Finding her cell, putting in the battery, switching it on—it would all take too much time. She put through the call and sighed when it made a connection on the other end. “Al! I’m so glad—”
“Not Goodkind,” a male voice answered, in Russian. “But no need to worry about where he is. We have your friend.”
It was Al’s kidnapper. Another Russian. Metal and the others needed to understand what he was saying.
“I’m sorry,” she said coolly in English. “I don’t understand you. You’ll have to speak English.”
He answered in Russian. “You understand me well enough, Darinova. Listen carefully, because I won’t repeat myself.”
The voice was cool, calm, deep. Elegant Russian, the kind her mother had spoken. The voice of a man used to command. Definitely not the man who’d attacked her. Felicity chanced it.
She kept her own voice cool though her heart was racing. “How did you get Al Goodkind’s cell phone, Gospodin Borodin?”
He didn’t miss a beat. “Very clever. You are definitely your father’s daughter. But at this very moment Vladimir Borodin is in Moscow, attending business meetings late in the night. There are twenty people willing to swear to that. In answer to your question, I have Goodkind’s cell phone because he gave it to me.”
“He didn’t give it to you, you took it!” Suddenly the coolness was gone and white-hot rage flashed through her. “And how dare you even mention my father? He risked his life to get away from men just like you, Colonel. You aren’t fit to talk about him. And you aren’t fit to tie Al Goodkind’s shoelaces.”
She paused, gasping, trembling. A lifetime of repressed words geysering up.
The sound of hands clapping came over the speaker. “Bravo, Darinova. But you have your facts wrong. Your father didn’t risk his life, he defected. He betrayed his country! He was a traitor! He should have been found and executed!”
The voice wasn’t so cold and calm anymore. Metal and the others felt that, too, even though they couldn’t understand what he was saying. They were leaning tensely forward. John had pressed something the instant Borodin had come online. The conversation was being recorded.
“But enough of that.” The deep voice became calm again. Now that he was quiet again Felicity could hear something, some kind of dull noise in the background, growing in intensity. “All of that is in the past. But in the present, my dear Darinova, we have someone you might be interested in speaking to. Do you have videophone capabilities?”
A small square appeared on the screen. She could see him when he switched his system on but she wasn’t about to let him see her. “Yes.”
“Look at your friend,” he commanded and Felicity suppressed a gasp. Al Goodkind, duct-taped to a chair.
One eye was swollen shut. The side of his face was bloody and there was blood on his white dress shirt. His mouth was duct-taped too.
He was in some kind of upholstered office chair with a white sheet behind him.
Metal made a low rumbling sound in his throat.
“Al!” Her heart broke at seeing her dear friend trussed up like an animal. A wounded animal.
“As you see, my dear, your friend is fine,” Borodin said, indifference in his voice.
“He’s bleeding, you monster!” Felicity bunched her fist, wanting to punch Borodin in the mouth.
She remembered the photo she’d seen in the Intergaz brochure. Hair just turning gray, strong, confident features. Handsome, in command. He’d be a man used to command all his life. First in the KGB and then as head of a multibillion dollar enterprise.
“Nothing. It’s nothing.” The cultivated voice was dismissive. “He probably received worse in training in Quantico. Now enough of this nonsense. All I want is to talk to you, face-to-face. I sent someone to pick you up at the Portland airport—”
“Pick me up!” Felicity spat. “He nearly sliced me in two!”
“What an exaggeration, my dear. No, he was just offering an incentive for you to follow him while making sure you didn’t scream and attract attention. But I saw that stronger measures were necessary to attract your attention. Hence, Special Agent Goodkind. All I want is to talk. Your friend will be released and no harm will come to you. I want half an hour of your time.”
On-screen, Al was shaking his head wildly, eyes wide and desperate, sweat trickling down his face to become bloody by the time it reached his chin. He was making muffled sounds behind the tape.
A fist came from the side and hit him on the temple. Al’s head hung down, bloody sweat dripping onto his thights.
“You monster!” Felicity cried.