Chapter Twenty-Two #2
Rafer drove the Porsche out of the garage and turned onto Main.
The palm trees were lit. People were meandering down the street, eating ice cream, taking selfies, gawking at the exotic cars that were inching along in the traffic jam.
Island life had turned Rafer into a pretty laid-back guy, but right now, he wasn’t feeling chill.
He was sitting in gridlocked traffic, and he was ready to lean on the horn and drive on the sidewalk.
He turned off Main at the first cross street, drove two blocks, and turned again, onto Morgan.
He took Morgan to the Port Layor entrance and followed Hibiscus to the end.
He parked across from Theodore Searl’s house and sat, watching, listening.
Landscape lights were on, but there were no lights on in the house.
No cars in the drive court. Gates were closed.
After an hour, headlights flashed on the road, the yellow Ferrari drove up to the gate, the gate opened, and the Ferrari rolled into the garage.
The garage doors closed, and lights flashed on in the house.
She isn’t here, Rafer thought. He’s got her, but she isn’t in his house.
If she was in the house, there would be security guys.
Lights would be on. There would be large black cars parked in the driveway.
There was a possibility that she was being held in Senior’s house, but Rafer thought it unlikely.
He’d been in the house. It was fussy. Overdecorated.
Filled with household staff and security cameras.
Also, there was Mrs. Searl Senior. He’d only seen her at a distance in person, but from the pictures he’d seen, she didn’t look like someone who would want a last-minute houseguest.
The lights in Theodore Searl’s house went out at midnight. Rafer kept watch for another thirty minutes, blew out a sigh of exasperation, and returned to the empty apartment.
Rafer’s watch alarm went off at 5 a.m. He popped a pod into the coffee maker and five minutes later he was out the door with a mug of black coffee, a pack of Double Stuf Oreos, a large chef’s knife that he’d swiped from the kitchen, and pocket-sized binoculars that he’d found in Gabriela’s carry-on.
Fifteen minutes later, he was parked across from the Searl house on Hibiscus.
Lights were still off, gates were closed, Port Layor was sound asleep.
Sunrise clocked in a little before 7 a.m. At eight o’clock, Rafer could hear Searl in his backyard, whistling and calling his dog.
Rafer had long since finished his coffee and was now working his way through the Oreos.
He was making an effort to stay calm and focused, but he had a knot in his stomach and the Oreos weren’t helping.
He was on the last Oreo when he saw movement behind one of the massive glass windows.
The house was a masterpiece of modern mansion design but not great for someone with secrets.
Searl was pacing in what Rafer thought must be the family room.
When he was watching the house last night he could see the flicker of a large television screen in this room.
Rafer trained his binoculars on Searl. He was talking on his phone, pacing, staring down at the floor, shaking his head, gesturing with his free hand.
Agitated. Searl was no more agitated than Rafer, who would have liked nothing better than to kick in Searl’s front door, punch Searl in the face, and make him tell him where he had Gabriela stashed.
Searl shoved his phone into his pants pocket and walked out of the room.
Rafer was quietly chanting, “Go to the garage. Take me to Gabs. Go to the garage. Take me to Gabs.”
The garage door rolled up and Searl drove out in a red Range Rover.
Rafer followed at a distance. The Range Rover cruised through town, took the bridge over the Layor River, and headed east. Ten minutes later, the Range Rover turned into Selpan Airport.
It was a small private airport that was packed with Gulfstreams, Bombardier Challenger 3500s, and everything in between during the season.
At this time of the year business was slower.
Rafer hung back and watched Searl pass through the FBO gate and onto the tarmac.
Ten minutes later a midsized plane landed, and fifteen minutes later, the red Range Rover drove out of the FBO gate and left the airport.
There were three people in the Range Rover.
Searl and two other men. Rafer didn’t recognize the other men, but he thought there was a good chance that one of them was Harry Bench.
Searl drove northeast for several miles and eventually entered an area of small ranch houses on five- and ten-acre lots.
The vegetation was thick, sometimes seeming to swallow up houses, some of which were well maintained and others of which weren’t maintained at all.
The area had originally been developed during a building boom and for a variety of reasons, not the least of which was its inconvenient location, the house values tanked after the boom.
The houses were now occupied by individuals who had a limited income and a desire to have an independent lifestyle.
If you wanted to keep a few chickens or a goat, or feed twenty feral cats, this was the place for you.
Searl turned off the main road, drove two blocks, pulled into a driveway, and parked behind a black Ford Explorer.
Rafer was almost a quarter mile behind. He idled at a cross street, catching a glimpse of the three men entering a tan stucco ranch house.
The front yard was scorched earth, bordered by overgrown shrubs, remnants of a wood privacy fence, and clumps of white bird-of-paradise. The house looked abandoned.
The house next door was an almost exact replica, and it looked equally abandoned.
Rafer parked the Porsche in the house’s empty carport and ran to the back of Searl’s house.
The yard was littered with trash, and a 250-gallon propane tank was hooked up to the house.
There was a window next to a back door. Rafer took a fast look in the window.
Kitchen. No sign of recent use. He tried the door.
Locked. He moved to the far side of the house, where a single window was boarded up.
He did the special knock on a board. Knock, knock, pause, three knocks in quick succession.
He heard the same knock in reply. She was there.
“Hang on,” Rafer stage whispered. “I’m going to get these boards off.”
“No,” Gabriela said. “I need to find out who’s behind this. Stand down until you hear me screaming.”
“Screaming? Are you kidding?”
“Go hide. Go!”
Gabriela heard footsteps in the hall. The two door locks clicked, and the door swung open. The two thugs who’d kidnapped her walked in. One of them had a stun gun.
“We’re going to unchain you,” the guy with the stun gun said. “If you do something stupid, you’ll get a bunch of volts. So don’t do anything stupid.”
“What’s the occasion?” Gabriela asked. “Do I get to go home and have breakfast?”
“You get to do some talking,” he said.
They released the shackles, and Gabriela followed them out of the bedroom, down the hall, and into the living room.
The floors in the house were bare wood. No curtains or blinds on the windows.
Only a few pieces of furniture. A card table and four folding chairs.
A sad couch. Two faux leather club chairs.
Theodore Searl was sitting in one of the club chairs.
Harry Bench was sitting in the other. A man dressed in black was standing behind Bench.
Gabriela thought it might be Marko, his Serbian thug from London.
“We finally get to have a conversation,” Harry said to Gabriela. “Please sit.”
Gabriela eyed the lumpy, stained couch and opted for a folding chair.
“We haven’t been introduced,” Gabriela said to Theodore Searl. “I assume you’re Theodore.”
“Teddy,” he said. “Everyone calls me Teddy.”
“Okay, Teddy. Why am I here?”
“I’m going to turn that question over to Harry,” Teddy said. “Harry is the problem solver.”
Gabriela turned her attention to Harry. “And?”
“And you seem to be a problem,” Harry said. “One of several we’ve encountered.”
“I found the Rosetta Stone for you,” Gabriela said. “You should be grateful.”
“As it turns out, that was a costly loss for us. I’m hoping that this conversation we’re having will prevent another such loss.”
“Keep going,” Gabriela said.
“I’ll make this simple. We want the golden coffin.”
It took a couple beats for Gabriela to absorb what she’d just heard. “Are you telling me that you don’t have the golden coffin?”
Harry Bench was stone-faced, lips pressed tight together. “As difficult as this is to admit, we do not have the coffin, but then, you already know this.”
“Nope. I didn’t know. How did it get away from you?”
“You tell me.”
“Haven’t a clue,” Gabriela said.
Bench nodded his head at the man standing behind him, and the man stepped forward and slapped Gabriela so hard on the side of her face that she toppled off the chair. She took a moment to clear her head before getting to her feet.
“You’re going to have to give me more information,” she said, “because I’m in the dark here.”
“Playing dumb isn’t going to work,” Bench said.
“We know Harley was working with a hacker and was sent a very sensitive email chain. We have his computer. That’s why he ran to his buddy Rafer.
That’s why they brought you in on it. You gave up the Rosetta Stone for your own self-serving purposes.
Stupid, but maybe you couldn’t find a buyer for it.
Thanks to you it’s currently out of our reach.
The golden coffin is another matter. I want the golden coffin. ”
“I assume you have all the other items secured?” Gabriela said.
“You assume correct. If you cooperate now, I’ll give you a finder’s fee for the coffin. If you don’t cooperate, we’ll kill you and move on to your partner.”
“If you kill me, you’ll never get the coffin.”
“I’m sure Rafer will be able to help us. And sooner or later, Harley will surface.”
“If I give up the coffin, I want to deal with the big guy.”
“Not going to happen,” Bench said.
“Then there’s no deal,” Gabriela said.
Bench nodded to one of the kidnappers. He stepped forward and tagged Gabriela with the stun gun. She collapsed onto the floor and when she came around, she was taped to the folding chair and her arm was bloody. There was an X carved into it.
“This is just the beginning,” Bench said. “From now on, you’ll be awake when we slice into you and chop off fingers and toes. Maybe remove a breast. Marko would enjoy that.”
The man standing behind Bench smiled and showed Gabriela his knife. It had Gabriela’s blood on the blade.
Gabriela swallowed back a wave of nausea. This is no time to get all wimpy, she told herself. Play the role. Show a little fear. Tell them what they want to hear.
“Okay,” she said on a breathless whisper. “But I’ll get the finder’s fee, right?”
“Right. Where is it?”
“It’s in Cairo. I’ve been negotiating a price.”
“Where in Cairo?”
“It’s very close to the airport. I don’t remember the exact address, but it’s next to Wahmy Burger Sheraton. It’s one of those tan mud buildings. Two levels. It has a roll-up aluminum door. It’s across from Street Seventeen. I was only there once. Harley found it.”
“Where’s Harley now?”
“He’s in Cairo, waiting to hear about shipping the coffin. I’m not sure where he’s staying. He checked out of the Ritz. I think he’s found a room not far from the coffin. You’ll let me go now, right? And you’ll pay me my money?”
“Put her out,” Bench said to the kidnapper with the stun gun. “Then just to make sure this ends properly, drag her into the bedroom and lock her in.”
ZZZZZZZZT.