The thought of burning alive revived her fear, left her fighting panic. “You really need to listen to me and leave here while you can.”
“Did you give Al-Nassar a hard time, too? I doubt it.” Kimball leaned down and caught Laura’s face between his palms, forcing her to look straight into his eyes. “I’m the one who handed you over to him. It was me, Laura. Every time he raped you, every time he beat you, every time he humiliated you, that was me.
“I did those things to you.”
And Laura realized she was staring into the soulless eyes of a sociopath.
* * *
JAVIER CAME AROUND the corner and saw Laura’s car just ahead.
¡Madre de Dios!
The front end was crumpled, the driver’s-side door wide open.
He glanced around, saw nothing and no one, just open fields. He drew his Walther and stepped out of the SUV, moving in on Laura’s vehicle. He knew he’d find one of two things—Laura’s dead body or nothing at all.
Keeping his distance—her car might be rigged to blow—he circled the vehicle. It was years of working as a special operator that kept steel in his spine, kept his stride deliberate and even. The SEAL part of him responded tactically, even while the man inside him wanted to shout for her, to tear the world down in a mad rush to find her.
She wasn’t there.
The breath left his lungs in a gust.
There was still a chance she was alive.
Hang on, bella.
He moved closer to the car, looking for blood or any sign of explosives. McBride had called him to fill him in on the details of Kimball’s service record. It seemed the bastard had tried and failed twice to make it into Army Special Forces before Laura’s investigation had ruined any chance he’d had of getting beyond regular enlisted ranks. Javier was willing to bet Kimball considered himself quite the operator—a strategist, a badass, a cold-blooded warrior. He did have some skills. He’d managed to fake his own death, to disappear and stay hidden for almost seven years. But he lacked experience and discipline—something Javier could use to his advantage.
Javier spotted Laura’s handbag on the passenger-side floor, her cell phone and .22 SIG beside it. And his hope that they’d be able to use her cell phone to locate her vanished.
¡Coño! Damn it!
He noticed something on the dashboard—a wad of gauze. He reached for it, raised it to his nose, and caught the faint scent of . . . ether.
He called McBride. “I found her car at the address I gave you, but she’s gone. Her car is totaled. Her cell phone is here and her firearm, too. It looks like someone struck her head-on, then drugged her with ether. I see traces of black paint on her hood and front bumper. There’s no blood. I’m guessing he snatched her and ran.”
“Son of a bitch! I’ve already contacted the Adams County sheriff and put a BOLO out on Kimball. I’ll have units there in twenty minutes.”
“Does that social worker have any idea where he might be staying?”
“No, but we’ve been contacting every lodge, hotel, and no-tell motel in the Denver area in search of anyone fitting his description. So far we’ve found nothing.”
And then it struck Javier.
“You said this location is in Adams County. Where have I heard Adams County mentioned before?” Before McBride could answer, Javier remembered. “The dynamite. It was stolen from a construction site in Adams County, wasn’t it?”
“Yeah, I think you’re right.”
“How far is that construction site from where I’m standing?”
“It’s going to take me a minute to dig that up.”
“Call me back when you find it. Send me that address as well as some kind of overhead view of the area.”
He ended the call and walked back to Carmichael’s SUV. In the rear storage compartment, he found a halfway decent Kevlar vest, an AR with seriously fucked optics, two loaded magazines, and about fifty spare rounds of 5.56. He carried them to the front seat of the vehicle, removed his shoulder holster, and strapped into the Kevlar. He’d just adjusted the shoulder holster and fastened it in place when his cell rang.
“Yeah.”
“The site is about a mile north of you, and, Corbray, I think you’re right. I diverted an Adams County traffic helo to do a distant flyby, and they spotted what looks like a black minivan parked between two of the houses.”
Laura was there. Javier knew it.
If she was still alive, she needed him now. If she wasn’t . . .
He couldn’t even consider the possibility.
Javier fought to stay on top of his own adrenaline, his own fear, checking the firearms. “I need to know more about that site.”
“The development is an old gravel mine that’s being converted into a lakefront community with luxury homes. The mine pit itself has already filled with groundwater. The houses aren’t completed yet. I’m sending you a satellite image now.”
Javier looked to the north. “I can see the lake from here. Its southern end is about three hundred yards north of my position.”
He set the AR aside and studied the image McBride had sent. The lake was roughly kidney shaped with houses in various stages of construction scattered along the far bank. There was one road in and out. No trees, outcroppings, or shrubs to hide behind. No ravines in the artificially created landscape. Near the mouth of the development, large excavation equipment sat idle beside a trailer that was probably used as an office. To the north and east was open pastureland.
“Where was the van parked?”
“They said they spotted it between the two houses at the northernmost tip of the lake—the two that are more fully built.”
Javier assessed the situation. He could take the road, but Kimball would see him coming almost immediately. That might provoke him into killing Laura, if he hadn’t already. Or Javier could take a route that Kimball wouldn’t expect.
“SWAT is already on its way. I’ll be at your position in about ten minutes. SWAT should arrive in fifteen to twenty.”
“I’ll have her by then. I’m going to swim underwater across the lake and come up behind those two houses. There’s a concrete pipe that spills from the lake into a nearby irrigation ditch off the road to my left here. It was probably built to carry away overflow. I can enter the lake that way so that he won’t spot me climbing over that embankment.”
“Corbray, listen to me. You’re taking a big risk. It’s March, and this isn’t San Diego. The water in that lake won’t be much over forty degrees, if that, and it looks to me like you’ll have a least a half mile to cross.”
“Hey, this is my job, remember?”
It was risky. The water temperature would begin to affect him immediately. Swimming underwater meant going for several respiration cycles at a time without fresh oxygen. The combination wasn’t a good one. It wasn’t unheard of for a SEAL to suffer shallow water blackout and drown even under better circumstances.
But Javier had more experience than most SEALs, and he had powerful motivation. If he failed, the woman he loved would die.
“I’m telling you to wait, Corbray. We’ll be there in ten minutes.”
But Javier’s gut told him Laura didn’t have ten minutes.
He disconnected the call, stripped off his coat, clipped the AR to a harness on the Kevlar—and set off for the concrete pipe at a run.
* * *
EGO.
That was the key to buying herself time. Kimball was a true narcissist. Some part of him wanted her to appreciate how hard he’d worked to kill her. Some part of him wanted her to be impressed.
Laura fought to hold herself together, fought to see beyond the loathing in Kimball’s eyes, the joy he so obviously felt to know she’d suffered. “I’m supposed to believe you were behind my abduction just because you say so?”
He told her the story. How he’d bo
lted in the middle of the ambush that had pinned down his platoon in Fallujah, angry and humiliated by the sentence he’d received. How he’d gone into hiding, made his way to Pakistan. How he’d seen her one night as she entered her hotel. And how the idea had come to him.
“I realized I could get back at you. I was going to be a Green Beret, and you ruined that for me.”
“You ruined that for yourself. You broke U.S. law, shamed your uniform, stole from innocent people. I did my job. I expose the truth.”
He struck her again, the blow leaving her dizzy.
“You should have sided with us—with your own countrymen. Instead, you stood up for the enemy. You are the traitor.”
Don’t argue with him.
She didn’t want him angry. She wanted him to talk about himself.
She struggled to clear her head. “H-how did you know where I was going to be?”
“I followed you every day for weeks. I ate in the same dining room, stayed in the same hotel, drank at the same bar. You even said hello to me once when you bumped into me getting out of the elevator. But finding out your plans—that was the real trick.” He leaned down and grinned at her. “I did a favor for someone, who hacked your phone and turned it into a roving bug.”
Laura had heard about that kind of technology, knew federal law enforcement sometimes used it, transforming the mic in someone’s cell phone into a listening device that operated even when the phone was off. “You heard every word we said.”
He stood upright, still smiling. “I picked the time and place and made contact with some of Al-Nassar’s men. They took it from there.”
So Derek Tower had been right—in a manner of speaking. She had been betrayed to Al-Nassar by a fellow American who’d gotten her location straight from her. But it hadn’t been her fault. Not that there was any comfort in knowing that now.
“I thought you were dead. He’d claimed he’d killed you.” Kimball reached out and slid his fingers into Laura’s hair. “But I guess he wanted to keep you for himself.”
Laura shuddered. “It must have been a shock to find out I was alive.”
“You were alive, but you weren’t the same, were you, Laura?” He knelt down beside her, speaking in that same sad, sympathetic voice he’d used in her phone interviews with him. “I enjoyed hearing about all the things that had happened to you. Then you came back to the U.S. and started living a normal life again, while I was working my ass off doing black ops for hire.”
“You decided you had to kill me.”
“Exactly. Took me a while to get here. I had to sneak into the country, get a fake ID, pull some cash together. Sean remembered me, helped me out, gave me a place to stay, a place to work.”
“He helped you.”
Kimball laughed and got to his feet. “He barely knows his own name. I drove him from place to place, gave him money, sent him in to buy supplies for me. He thought we were making fireworks. We talked about old times, but he couldn’t remember much. I got him some replica firearms that fire pellets. We played with those indoors. Then his damned social worker came around, and I knew I had to get rid of him.”
Understanding hit Laura, making her sick. “You set him up. You sent him after Javier knowing Javier would kill him.”
“I painted the tip of my handgun orange, loaded it. I knew your SEAL boyfriend went for a run every morning. I watched, and when he set out, I went after Sean. We meant to catch him on his way back but he went a different route. I followed, dropped Sean off at the store. Sean thought we were still playing. ‘See him?’ I said. ‘He wants to play, too. Just walk up to him and shoot. Score one for the team.’”
Laura felt sick for both Edwards and Javier. “You used Javier to kill Sean.”
“Your boyfriend is good at killing. He got rid of a loose end for me. Oh, don’t look so horrified. That’s what a good Special Forces operative does. We work behind enemy lines, move in the shadows, turn one person against another, kill when we must. I would have made a great Green Beret.”
She glared up at him, her stomach churning, rage, disgust, and terror coiled so tightly inside her she couldn’t tell them apart. “A real Green Beret wouldn’t screw up making ANFO. Or murder an innocent teenager to hide his own tracks. Or use a wounded friend the way you used Edwards. You’re nothing but a loser, a psychopath who blames everyone around him for his own mistakes!”
This time when he struck her, she saw stars.
CHAPTER
30
JAVIER SURFACED, EXHALED, inhaled, his lungs aching, his body chilled to the core. He had about sixty meters to go. He took another breath, then propelled himself beneath the surface once more, willing his body to relax, his mind focused on swimming swiftly and smoothly through the murky water. He couldn’t be sure how deep the lake would be on the other side. It wasn’t much deeper than five feet here. At some point it would be too shallow to conceal him. He would have to be ready to bring it from that point on.
He’d gone maybe thirty or forty seconds when his fingers and feet brushed the bottom. Carefully holding his position, he lifted his head above the water and took a breath, watching, listening. He heard a man’s voice coming from the house slightly to his left. The structure had plywood walls on the ground-floor level, but no windows and no doors, just openings that stared out at the lake. If he’d had some overhead support, he might have known where Kimball had her, what kind of weapons Kimball had, which direction Kimball was facing, but he didn’t. He’d have to take his chances and be prepared for anything.
Realizing there was no background noise to mask the sounds of his movements, he army-crawled quickly and quietly to the shore, dragging his body through cold mud, his bones aching, his muscles stiff and sluggish. The water had been colder than he’d expected it would be. But then water was always colder than he expected.
A woman’s voice.
“You set your bogus interview to coincide with the explosion.”
Laura.
She was still alive.
Thank God!
“I wanted to hear you die. I listened to you scream when the bomb went off, just as I listened to you scream when Al-Nassar’s men dragged you away.”
¡Me cago en su madre! Motherfucker!
Javier locked down his anger, tried to channel it toward action. He unclipped and dewatered the AR-15, his gaze fixed on the house as he watched for movement, for shadows, for any sign of Kimball’s location. It sounded to him like they were just on the other side of this thin plywood wall—which meant they would hear him unless he was very careful.
“You managed to startle me, but that was all. You killed that poor kid for nothing. Know what that makes you? A murderer and a coward.” Laura was doing her best to act calm, but Javier could hear the fear in her voice.
There came the sharp sound of a hand hitting flesh.
Hang on, bella. You’re not alone.
Javier set the AR carefully aside, then soundlessly drew the Walther PPS from his holster and made certain it, too, was drained.
“You’d better watch it, bitch. I have your life in my hands!” Kimball was shouting now. “Why do you even give a shit about that kid?”
Javier took advantage of the increased noise level to click off the safety on the AR-15 and move, positioning himself against the wooden wall near what would have been a doorway. His response times were slower than they should be, and he knew he must be hypothermic. He’d have to plan for that.
“The whole country is going to care about him when the truth comes out. How do you sleep at night? Do you see the faces of the people you’ve murdered?” She was trying to keep him off guard, trying to keep him talking.
“You think you’re so brave, but I know you’re not. I’m going to prove it to you. See what I brought?” The bastard laughed. “I knew you’d appreciate it. You’re afraid now, aren’t you?”
“Y-yes, I’m afraid. I’m afraid you’ve made a very big mistake.”
“The only reason you’re still alive is that I can’t decide how I want to kill you. Once you’re actually dead, I won’t get the chance to do this again. I want to do it right, to enjoy it. I can either listen to you scream while you burn to death, or I can watch your face as I cut off your head. But I can’t do both.”
“How frustrating that must be for you.”
Javier closed his mind to what he was hearing and crept into position, peering around the corner, taking in the scene at a glance.
Kimball stood with his back toward Javier, a large serrated bread knife in his hand. Laura was bound by duct tape to a chair in front of him. A half dozen gas canisters were placed strategically around the room, two of them flanking Laura.
Did they contain fuel or ANFO? Were they rigged to blow?
Javier had no idea. He drew back, working the plan through in his mind, visualizing each step of it, taking his own sluggishness into account.
“I know you were terrified by the thought of Al-Nassar cutting your head off like this. But isn’t it better to die this way than to burn to death? What do you think?”
“I-I think . . . you should run . . . while you can.”
Listen to her, pendejo.
Javier made his decision, his muscles tensing.
It was time to bring the pain.
* * *
LAURA COULDN’T STOP herself from shaking, fear stealing her breath, making her pulse race. She’d run out of time, and she knew it.
They weren’t going to find her. Javier probably knew she was missing by now. One way or another he would find her car—either by tracing her cell phone or by getting the address from Joaquin. He’d call Zach, Marc, Julian—but they would be too late. They would only learn what had happened to her after firefighters reported discovering a charred body in the ashes of this house and the ME identified her remains.