Chapter 14
FOURTEEN
San Diego
The van pulled out from the parking lot so fast the tires burned rubber. Had it not been the dead of night, Nicole could have hoped that the speed would have attracted some attention.
Or she could try buzzing down the window and screaming at a passing car. Make noise. Wrench the wheel and cause an accident.
Do something. Resist.
But they had the highest bargaining chip possible—her father. Who was right now terrified and no doubt in blinding pain, held in a hidden location. The only path to her father ran through this large, cold man sitting beside her.
And probably she wouldn’t have been able to do anything to escape this man, anyway, even if he and the intruder weren’t holding her father hostage.
The driver was vigilant. His eyes tracked from the inside and outside rearview mirrors to the road ahead, to her, ceaselessly, in a constant loop. There was only a mere second between glances, there would barely be enough time for her to bunch her muscles for a move, and he’d notice that.
No, her only hope would have been to attract the attention of someone.
But there was no one around. The man in the van had waited for the taxi driver to drive off before leaning down to turn on the ignition.
Nicole had watched the taillights of the cab disappear with despair.
There had been no chance whatsoever to communicate with the taxi driver.
The phone had been open during the drive and then she’d had to get into the car with the new man and her phone had been destroyed.
It had been her last hope—that maybe Sam could trace her through her cell phone.
In the movies and in the thrillers she loved to read, a cell phone was like the bread crumbs left by Hansel and Gretel.
In NCIS, Tim could trace cell phone signals down to a couple of square feet, and he could do it in the blink of an eye.
If Tim McGee could do it, Sam Reston could. Of that she was certain. If anyone could track her down, it would be Sam.
But not even Tim McGee could track a smashed and dead cell phone and even if by some wizardry he could, she wasn’t there anymore.
Sam would track her down to some smashed bits of plastic and metal.
The cell phone had been destroyed and she was hurtling through the darkness with an unknown man to an unknown destination.
The only thing she was certain of was that they had hurt her father and wouldn’t hesitate to do it again. She sneaked a glance at the driver.
He was driving fast but well, like Sam. He shared other attributes with Sam. Tall, though not as tall as Sam, very fit, with the gift of stillness and a strong aura of self-control.
But there, of course, the similarities ended. This man gave off menacing vibes by the ton. No doubt Sam could do that, too, but she didn’t think he could do that with a woman. And she couldn’t—by any stretch of the imagination—imagine him hurting a sick old man.
Where the hell were they?
Nicole tried to keep track of where they were going, with some vague idea of stealing a cell phone, surreptitiously phoning Sam and providing him with an address.
But by the fourth squealing, stomach-churning curve, Nicole was utterly and completely lost. She had no idea what direction they were traveling in and she didn’t recognize anything about her surroundings.
They were near the ocean, that’s the only thing she knew. They were on a straight stretch of road now and at the cross-roads she could see a glint of moon off coal-black water. It didn’t help her. San Diego was nothing but coastline.
They were in some kind of industrial section, only run down and deserted. She imagined a functioning port area to be busy day and night, loading and unloading the ships that arrived and departed on an hourly basis.
This place had mile after mile of derelict warehouses and industrial plants behind chain-link fencing, the buildings low and utterly dark.
Nicole sneaked a glance at the driver’s hard face, then looked away. She had no sense at all that she was in a car with another human being. He could have been a robot-driver for all the emotion he betrayed.
She tried to steel herself for whatever was coming, but waves of panic rolled over her. Even trying to make some kind of a plan—how could she, when she had no idea what was going on?
The driver was not the man who had attacked her.
So there were at least two men involved.
Two very hard, criminal men. Where there were two, there could be three or four.
There could be an army. It didn’t make any difference.
She’d been powerless against one. She couldn’t hope to hold her own against two.
If there were more, it didn’t really make that much difference.
There was absolutely nothing on her person she could use as a weapon. Whatever they wanted from her, they were going to get.
“Where—” Nicole’s mouth was so dry her tongue stuck to the roof of her mouth. She shuddered and tried again. “Where are we going?”
Ahead of them the empty road stretched, dark buildings on either side. Nicole would have no trouble believing that she and robo-driver were the last humans on the face of the earth.
Silence.
She licked her lips and tried again. “Where are we going?”
Somehow, not knowing where they were racing to added another layer of horror to the situation. If only she knew where they were going, she could, she could…
What?
“Here,” robo-driver growled and turned a corner so fast she had to cling to the seat belt.
“Shit,” Sam growled, banging his hand on the steering wheel. “Can’t go any faster.”
He was pushing 90 mph as it was. He just hoped he didn’t run into any cops, because he wasn’t slowing down for anybody.
It wasn’t that the SUV couldn’t go any faster—he’d clocked it at 140 mph on a racetrack—but rather that Harry was triangulating their relative positions.
Harry observed the path of the vehicle carrying Nicole and had to calculate the best, fastest way for Sam to get there.
It was a complex piece of geometry and Sam had to be able to take a corner on a dime when Harry said.
Mike wasn’t paying him any attention. He was staring at the small screen set in the dashboard, listening hard to Harry through his earpiece. Sam was getting the same intel over his.
Mike acted as navigator, quietly telling him two minutes before he had to turn a corner. If they’d been traveling during rush hour, they’d both be dead in smoking ruins by now.
“Turning left onto Spring Road,” Harry said. “Where the fuck is he going? There’s just nothing there but…” His voice trailed off.
“But warehouses,” Mike finished for him. “I thought that might be where he’s headed.” His mouth pressed into a thin, grim line. Sam met his eyes briefly, then gave his whole attention back to the road.
“Not good,” Mike said quietly.
No, it wasn’t good. It was a section of town destined for demolition.
A new residential complex was supposed to go up afterward, though the plans had been halted due to zoning issues.
In the meantime, it was an area of derelict warehouses and abandoned buildings.
Empty, for miles. Guaranteed privacy, for as long as they wanted.
No one would ever hear Nicole screaming…
He pressed the accelerator just a little harder.
“Target stopped,” Harry announced quietly into their headsets.
Mike pointed to the screen. “We’re about ten minutes out.”
“Where, exactly?” Sam asked, eyes on the road.
Mike leaned forward, frowning at the map on the screen. “Turn right.” The tires’ squealing sounded loud in the night’s silence. “Left.”
A straight stretch. Sam nudged it up to 110 mph.
“Coming up,” Harry’s voice came over the headset. “Got it?”
Sam flicked a glance down at the grid on the screen on the console, where a blipping light was stopped. It wasn’t on the road, but inside an outline. “Got it. What the fuck is it?”
“They’re inside a compound. Don’t know what security measures they’ve got set up, though. You and Mike be careful.” Harry’s calm voice sounded loud in Sam’s ear.
“That’s a whole row of condemned buildings.” Mike ran his finger over the street. The map showed long rectangles of buildings separated by alleys along the waterfront. “You got the number?”
“Says here 3440.” Harry’s voice was low, calm, but Sam could hear his fingers pounding the keyboard. “It was—yeah, coming up now. Formerly a bonded warehouse. Company moved out in 2018.”
“There was a big bust there,” Mike said grimly. “Arms for cocaine. SDPD bagged a couple of real bad guys. That was before Sam set up shop here, before my time even.”
No one to hear her scream. Sam’s hands tightened on the wheel and he pressed down on the accelerator. They were going so fast it took all his skills to keep the SUV on the road at turns.
They were on a straight stretch, only a few minutes out. Sam started slowing down.
“Kill the engine…now,” Harry ordered, and the vehicle drifted soundlessly forward until it came to rest at the curb of a cross street, about ten feet from the street where the car with Nicole had gone in.
The SUV was still rocking when Sam shouldered the driver’s-side door open, ready to leap out. A strong hand held him back.
What the fuck?
“Goddamnit Mike, Nicole’s in there.” Urgency rippled through his veins, prickled his skin. Right now, someone could be hurting Nicole, cutting her, burning her… “Let me go,” he snarled.
“Wait,” Mike said calmly. “We need more intel.”
Sam swallowed. He knew this. He knew this on an intellectual and theoretical level. You do not go blind into a situation. But, shit, Nicole was in there now and Sam felt like jumping out of his skin with urgency. He was panting, the sound loud in the dark cabin of the vehicle.