Beyond Blue (29 page)

But when she turned in the direction of Brooks' flight she faced a second guard. It appeared that Dummy Number One had called for help before approaching her. She didn't have time for this. Chastity surged forward. Two steps in front of the second security guard she dropped into a low crouch and spun. The leg sweep took his legs out from under him. He landed heavily on his back. But in executing the maneuver Chastity dropped her purse.

When her bag hit the floor, it popped open.

When it opened her automatic slid out, just far enough to be clearly visible.

Chastity dove for her bag but stopped when the first guard yelled, “Freeze!” Damn, she thought. They give these amateurs guns. She sure hoped that they taught them how to use them. The security guard had his pointed at her in the two-handed FBI grip. He squinted down its meager sights as if he saw a ten-ring painted on Chastity's nose. Hands elevated, she rose to her full height. The second guard grabbed her purse.

“Okay, boys, this has gotten a little out of hand.” Chastity said with what she hoped was a disarming smile. “In that same bag you'll find my license to carry that little toy, and my badge.”

“Yeah, well unless it says licensed to kill or something, I think we'll hang on to the gun for a while and sort this all out down in the security office.”

Drain pipes. Every house has them. On older homes, they are often clogged and corroded and come away from the wall with a hard yank. On new, well-maintained homes, they tend to be sturdy and wide. The ones on Rafael Sandoval's home were strong enough for a light but strong woman like Ruby Sanchez to climb up, at least as far as the low roof of the attached garage. She clung to the shingles there, listening to the beehive of activity below, and feeling the growing breeze that she believed was announcing an approaching shower.

Ruby thought the men inside and around the house all assumed that she was long gone, charging through the surrounding yards or maybe into the nearby park. They had dispersed in several directions under the orders of de La Fuente. She had listened closely, screening through all the raised voices searching for Rafe's without success. Perhaps they had decided to keep him locked in the house. If that were the case, he'd be harder to rescue.

First things first, though, she thought. First she had to escape. Then she could send back a SWAT team to take
out the terrorists and liberate Rafe for whatever his fate would be. With all that in mind, Ruby slowly slid down the roof, feeling the pebbly tar paper shingles scrape her legs and wishing for the hundredth time that she was wearing pants.

Only after scanning the visible area thoroughly did Ruby allow her body to swing off the roof so that she was hanging by her hands from the edge. When she released the roof her body relaxed. She landed on her feet, collapsing into a deep knee bend before rolling backward to land flat on her belly beside the garage wall. Again she took precious seconds to make sure she could neither hear nor see anyone. Finally she stood and moved forward in a low crouch. This called for a couple of deep breaths. At this point, she would have to give up being quiet and commit.

“Here we go,” she whispered to herself.

Like so many suburbanites, Rafe parked in front of his perfectly good garage instead of inside it. That meant that Ruby had to be in the open to get into the car. She knew that Rafe's car had a security system that might take her as much as two minutes to disarm. In that time someone would respond to the alarm and notice her standing there, or not. If they did, she was cornered and dead. If not, she had a chance.

Then life threw her a bone. She pulled the driver's side door handle and the door popped open without sounding an alarm. The idiot not only didn't use his security system, he didn't even lock his car doors.

“Thank God for fools,” Ruby said, sliding into the front seat and closing the door. Stretched across the front seats she would be invisible from outside while she started the car. She could do it by pulling wires beneath the dashboard, but that was a lot trickier and more dangerous than it looks in the movies. Before resorting to that, she opened Rafe's glove compartment. More luck. She found a small, flat tool kit, typical for the wealthy driver who has
everything. She could have done without it, but its presence sure made life easier.

“Now to start this baby, Bed-Stuy style,” she said. Sitting up, she picked up the larger screwdriver in the box and punched its point into the Nissan 350Z's ignition switch. When she twisted it, the engine fired just as if she had used a key.

“Bet they know I'm here now.” Ruby jammed the car down into first gear, popped the clutch and laid rubber on her way into the street. A sharp left put her en route to the Staten Island freeway. She just needed to get someplace where she could borrow a telephone without putting anyone else at risk. That was why she didn't go to a neighbor's house. But now she could be across town and untraceable in a matter of seconds. Of course, a cop might stop her for driving at fifty miles per hour on these narrow city streets, but that wouldn't be so bad under the circumstances either.

Ruby was careful to watch for kids darting from between cars as she sprinted through the residential streets, letting her hands and feet work the roadster by themselves. The car was marvelously responsive and if not for her recent danger she would have reveled in the drive. As she ignored a stop sign on her way across an intersection she was already focused on the next corner ahead.

A big navy blue Lincoln pulled into the intersection ahead, pointed at her. The clown was driving down the middle of the narrow street. Ruby braked, wondering if the other driver would move over enough to let her pass. She was almost grill to grill with him before she could see his Latin features.

Shit! They had cars out after her. These guys had a lot more resources nearby than she suspected. Ruby stopped halfway down the block to see what the other drive would do. What he did was to roll down the driver side window and stick his arm out. When he pointed at her, she could see the revolver in his hand.

Maybe he thought she would surrender. After all, he didn't know Ruby. Her hands and feet went into action. Her right hand pushed the Nissan's gearshift lever into reverse while her left flipped him off. Then she was zooming away from him, pushing forty-five miles per hour, backward, steering with her mirrors. As she again approached the intersection she turned in her seat so she could see where she was going. At the corner she cranked the wheel hard, backed onto the cross street, shifted into first and took off.

Ruby smiled as she moved onto a broader street. Did these clowns think they could out drive her? Well now she had the Lincoln where it belonged, in her rearview mirror, as she opened up the little silver 350Z.

She hadn't seen a street sign, but she was clearly on a cross-town that would drop her onto the Expressway soon. Her breathing accelerated with the car. She was almost panting when the needle touched one hundred twenty miles per hour. She was tied into the car as much as if wires fed the telemetry directly into her brain. Her attention moved across the speedometer, tachometer, traffic ahead, rearview mirrors. She would only need this speed for a few seconds more.

Ruby's heart caught when the engine coughed. Then it happened again. For the first time she scanned the rest of the dash, looking for trouble lights. Instead her eyes landed on the fuel gauge. In five seconds panic passed through rage and became grudging admiration.

“Well, I will be damned,” Ruby said, shaking her head at her own foolishness. The Peruvians were never too worried about her taking Rafe's car because they had drained the gas tank. Now what? If they took her out of the car they might get frisky and then they'd be forced to shoot her after she put her foot in someone's crotch or scratched somebody's eyes out. If she stayed on the street these idiots might get trigger-happy and endanger the lives of some passers-by. She needed an option.

The Nissan was losing velocity, struggling to keep running, as she approached what appeared to be an entrance to a park. Good deal. Ruby cranked the racing wheel, pulling across a well-manicured lawn and pushed the car into a patch of woods. She felt the tires digging into the soft turf, and assumed the Lincoln behind her would sink even deeper if they tried to follow her. She would push the car around the trees as far into the little urban forest as she could.

Between two elder maples the car rolled to a stop and refused to start again. As good a place as any, Ruby thought, and got out. She planned to put some distance between herself and the car, which, after all, had left quite a trail gouged into the turf. She saw no trails nearby but was sure to come across one soon. She was starting to get a little hungry, and the soggy ground did not make for fun hiking, but these were minor discomforts. The sky was darkening, putting the wooded area into shadow. She knew she could avoid those clumsy smugglers long enough in this park to find someone with a telephone. Then she was confident that as soon a she was able to call the office, Gorman would come riding to the rescue with an army, or maybe the Marines, to clean up this mess.

Paul Gorman never claimed to be psychic, but this time he almost reached for the telephone before it rang. It had been a long afternoon of waiting and wondering. His office seemed to be closing in on him at times, and the events of the day were spinning out of control, threatening to get away from him entirely. He had one agent missing, one out of town, a couple in danger, and one who proved too often to be unpredictable. With all of that happening, he had no psychic emanations. He simply felt as if it was time for the telephone to ring.

“Hello, G. It's Chastity.” Her tone, the quiet depression of an embarrassed child, chilled him.

“What happened, Ms. Chiba?”

“I'm sorry, sir,” Chastity said. “I got detained by hospital security and it took a little while to straighten that all out. They finally took a close look at my FBI credentials.”

Gorman pushed a big paw across his face and up into his thick hair. “Want to tell me why hospital security would want to hold you?”

“Guess they thought I shouldn't be chasing Alex Brooks.”

“Chasing him?” Gorman stared at the phone for a second in disbelief. “You were supposed to be talking to him.”

“I tried to brief Brooks on what I found out, but he didn't take it at all well. I mean, he's out of danger of losing his daughter, but I think he focused more on the fact that his wife's been unfaithful to him. He ran off in a rage.”

Gorman sat back from his desk and took a deep breath. This was not good news. As he had told her, Chastity was the linchpin that day and he had to be able to count on her, but her weakness in human nature studies was becoming a dangerous blind spot for her.

“Ms. Chiba, you are going to have to catch up to Alex fast, before he does something rash.”

“Agreed,” Chastity said, “but how? A man could go almost anywhere to kill himself.”

Gorman clenched his eyes very tight, his bushy brows knitting together. In his mind he traced events to find the thread that led Chastity to the wrong road. He soon saw it, the man's personal history, and would now redirect her.

“Chastity, dear, Alex Brooks has no intention of hurting himself again. That was despair and desperation. The bit of knowledge that you apparently have missed is that Alex Brooks loves his wife as well as his daughter.”

After a beat of silence, Gorman heard, “Oh.”

“Yes, my dear,” Gorman said with more patience than he felt. “The man felt guilty that he couldn't please his wife. He felt it was his fault somehow that she wanted to leave
him and take his daughter away too. But now he feels betrayed by the one person he thought he knew. The center of his universe has been redefined. There is only one place for this man to go.”

“He's on his way home,” Chastity said, and swallowed hard before she could go on, “to confront his wife. Self-hatred will turn to blind rage.”

“Yes. You have to catch him, bring him back to reality, and redirect his energies in a useful direction.”

“But, G, how do I…”

“Sorry, Ms. Chiba, there's another line going and I need to grab it. Get going and report when you're done.” Gorman punched the button cutting off Chastity's call and connecting him to the second line. “Hello?”

“Gorman. Gotta be brief. Not much time.”

“Ruby!” Paul said her name louder than he had intended. He grabbed his pencil and pulled his pad closer. Long shadows on the paper made him realize he had no lights on and the sun was moving toward the horizon. He could hear the wind passing the phone she was using. She was outdoors, but he heard no automotive traffic. “Where the hell are you?”

“Later,” Ruby said. “First, take an address. You got a pencil?”

“Of course,” Gorman said, and printed the street address Ruby gave him on his yellow pad in the space he had left for her location.

“That's where the bad guys are holed up, Paul,” Ruby said. Gorman's head snapped up. Ruby never called him by his first name when they were talking business, only when she was calling out to a friend.

“What's the rest?”

“They've got Rafe Sandoval in there as a hostage.”

“Wait a minute,” Gorman said. “I thought Sandoval was the drug smuggler you went undercover to nab.”

“First, it ain't him, it's his asshole brother,” Ruby said. “And even he thought he was running cocaine for the
Colombians, but it turns out it's not really coke. It's anthrax powder.”

“Jesus.”

“And they ain't even real Colombians,” Ruby said, her voice rising to a chalk-on-blackboard screech. “They're Peruvians. Paul, they're Shining Path. You gotta get Rafe out of there.”

“I hear you, Ruby.” Paul stood and began to pace in the semidarkness. “Those guys are as vicious as Al Qaida. We'll get him out. Now, where are you?”