Chapter 12 #3
Coco turned the laptop. “I’ve been monitoring that phone you got off the guy who attacked you. The messages on it were all sent from one phone—I got the number—and a text just came through.”
Unknown number
Package en route to secondary location.
West stared at the words. “Britta.” His voice cracked. “They’re talking about Britta.”
“Yeah. I think so.”
“Can you trace it?” Ham leaned over her shoulder. “Source? Destination?”
“The receiving phone pinged a cell tower ten miles south of here.”
“Ten miles south?”
Coco pulled up a map. “If they’re heading south, they’re on the Jimmy Buffet Memorial Highway. They’ll have to cross over to the mainland here—” She pointed to a bridge.
“And then where?”
Silence.
Patterson pushed herself upright. Still groggy but coherent. “The necklace. She’s wearing a tracking necklace. GPS. Standard protocol for high-value protectees.”
Coco’s fingers flew again. “Give me the frequency.”
Patterson rattled off numbers. Coco input them. Waited.
A map appeared. Red dot moving north along the mainland highway, already over the river.
“That’s her.” Mitchell’s voice strengthened. “That’s Britta.” She’d already crossed the bridge to the mainland, the dot headed north.
“Here,” Ham said, and pointed to an airport. “It’s a small airport, but if they stay on the highway, they know we’ll find them. They need to get her in the air.”
West couldn’t breathe.
They’d taken her. Someone had drugged her Secret Service detail, subdued Britta, and extracted her from a secured location while West had been standing at a wedding reception waiting for her to come back.
“We need to move.” Ham’s voice snapped West back. “York, get ahold of Logan, coordinate with local FBI. This is federal kidnapping. Fraser, Dakota, lock down everyone here. Coco, keep tracking that phone. West—”
“I’m going after her,” West said.
“We all are.” Ham met his gaze. “But we need a plan. The airport is forty-five minutes away by road. They’ve got a head start. We’ll never catch them.”
“How long do we have?” West couldn’t look away from the dot, the visual representation of Britta moving farther from him every second.
“Current speed and trajectory?” Coco calculated. “They’ll arrive at the airport in approximately fifteen minutes.”
Forty-five minutes. She’d be gone. On a plane. Would disappear to some unknown location where whoever took her could use her against her father or worse.
“Wait.” Ham studied the map. Zoomed out. “The Indian River. It’s right there. Ten minutes across by boat.”
West’s head snapped up. “Win’s boat.”
“It’s at the dock.”
West was already moving, Ham shouting for Win behind him.
West burst out the door, running hard across the property.
North was brutal on his trail, Skeet with him.
“West, even if you cross the river”—North called after him—“the airport is still two miles inland. How are you—”
“I’ll figure it out.”
By the time West reached the dock, Ham had nearly caught up with him. He tossed West the key.
West fired up the speedboat even as Ham and the guys piled in.
He backed it up, the guys throwing off the lines, then turned it and put the throttle down.
Spray hit his face, the wind tearing at his clothes as they took off.
West stood at the helm, his gaze on where Ham kept pointing—an inlet across the river, just south of Win’s place.
He could taste his pulse.
He pushed the boat to maximum speed. The shore blurred. The river churned beneath them. Salt spray and engine roar and a desperate race against time.
Ten minutes turned into eternity.
And he would not—would not—think about Britta unconscious. Drugged. In the hands of people who wanted to use her. Who might hurt her. Who might—
No. He couldn’t think that way. Couldn’t let his imagination destroy him.
She was alive and West was going to reach her.
The opposite shore appeared ahead. A small marina. Deserted midafternoon. West aimed for the dock. Cut the engine at the last second. The boat glided in. Bumped against wood.
He jumped out and took off down the dock as the guys secured the boat.
Two miles. He could run two miles in ten minutes.
“West, wait!”
Ham pulled something from the boat’s back storage compartment.
West turned. Stopped and headed back. “He travels with an electric bike?”
Ham had already assembled it by the time West reached him. He gave him a shrug.
Whatever. Please let it be charged. West jumped onto it and Ham handed him a Glock, which he tucked into his belt, and then a phone.
“We’re right behind you.”
On the phone screen, the red dot had stopped moving. “They’re at the airport.” West started the bike’s motor. The electric hum felt like a joke. He should hot-wire a car—but the parking lot was empty.
He bit back a growl and started to pedal.
He was in a ridiculous Austin Powers movie.
But the electric motor boosted the speed, and the bike lurched forward. Away from the marina. Onto the road leading inland toward the small municipal airport.
Twenty-eight miles per hour felt like crawling. Wind resistance fought him. Battery power hummed. Pavement blurred beneath tires.
Two miles. Just two miles.
But two miles at twenty-eight miles per hour was just over four minutes if he maintained maximum speed. If the battery held. If nothing went wrong.
Yeah, even he couldn’t run that fast.
He pushed harder. Legs burning. Chest heaving. Sweat dripping down his face.
The airport appeared ahead. A small facility with private hangars visible. A chain-link fence. Security gate.
West’s phone showed the red dot. Hangar three. On the far side of the facility.
He was still a half mile away.
And there—he spotted a private plane on the tarmac, a sedan pulling up to it.
No, no—he wasn’t going to make it.
York’s words echoed in West’s head. From days ago. From the conversation West had been avoiding thinking about.
The only way you make a mistake is if you don’t listen to God.
West’s hands tightened on the bike handles.
He’d never really prayed. Not since he was a boy sitting in an Iowa church. But that had been a child’s faith. He’d long since stopped believing in divine intervention or miracles or anything except what he could control.
But he couldn’t control this. “Please.” The word tore out. Raw. Honest. “Help me save her.”
Sirens sounded in the distance. Faint but growing louder.
He dropped the bike at the security gate—unmanned, just a chain across the road—and took off toward the tarmac.
From the sedan emerged two people, one of them carrying—
Britta. Unconscious.
West’s world narrowed. Everything else disappeared. Just the plane, and Britta.
The engine was already running, propeller spinning, stairs down, baggage area open.
For a second, he thought—but no, the man carried her up the stairs.
The other loaded a box into the baggage area.
Oh. No—
The thought punched him.
A bomb?
No, no—
He was fifty yards away. Too far.
But he was going to make it, no matter what happened.
It had gotten out of hand, but now there was no way out.
The cabin door sealed with a heavy thunk. Final. Permanent. Alan stood in the narrow aisle of the Westwind II and watched Vladimir pull away the stairs.
Then Vladimir would drive away and Alan would finish this. Just the pilot up front, and a pilot who’d signed on for this wouldn’t lift a finger to stop it.
Behind him, Britta stirred.
Alan turned. She was buckled into the window seat where he’d placed her five minutes ago. Still unconscious from the chloroform. Head lolled to the side. Her wrists zip-tied together.
The engines spooled up. High whine vibrating through the fuselage.
Britta’s eyes fluttered.
No. Not yet. Give me five more minutes.
But her breathing changed. Quickened. Her fingers twitched.
The plane started moving. Taxiing toward the runway.
“Mmm.” Britta was clearly confused, fighting through the fog. Her head lifted slightly. “What—”
Alan crossed the aisle. Crouched beside her seat. Kept his voice low. Calm. “It’s okay. You’re okay.”