Foreign and Domestic: A Get Reacher Novel (27 page)

Besides, Valentine wasn’t planning on messing up the mission.

At that very moment, he wasn’t that drunk—not like he’d been before. But the girl was looking pretty good on camera. They were going to kill her anyway. What difference did it make if he had a little fun with her? As long as he didn’t leave any visible marks, they would never even know.

She wouldn’t be a problem. She was restrained, and she only had one hand. But he figured he’d have to remove the handcuffs because he liked it when a girl used her hand.

He wasn’t worried. She was a hundred pounds soaking wet. No way was she going to overpower him. Besides, she’d been locked up for twenty-four hours. She looked like she hadn’t slept, and her kicking and screaming had slowed down a lot. The last time he’d gotten a glimpse of her was the day before, and she’d had much more energy then. She wasn’t going to be a problem.

But just in case, he decided it would be best to make it quick—in and out. No trouble. And he’d have to leave his gun behind. He’d be preoccupied and probably have his pants off for a good ten minutes. Couldn’t take the chance of her getting his gun.

He took the last swig from the little Jack Daniels bottle and stood up from the desk with the monitors that provided a constant stream of video. He looked away at the door that led into the next room. The dogs had quieted down. They were all taking their afternoon naps, he guessed. Opening the door would wake them up, and they’d start barking again, but that was a small price to pay for a good time.

He withdrew his Beretta M9 from the holster. It was the gun Grant had given him. They’d all received one. He had one full clip with no backups. They hadn’t planned on using weapons. Not really. The gun was more of a cautionary measure. The mission was a difficult one. Its goal was to get some guy—someone Valentine didn’t know and didn’t care about—to assassinate his friend and boss, the United States president, on national TV.

Their role was manipulation. Apparently, this Lane guy had succeeded in a practice op just like this one in Africa. Valentine was impressed by these guys so far. They’d pulled off the African thing. He’d seen it on the news. But this wasn’t Africa. This was the USA.

He had his doubts about the whole scheme. Valentine wasn’t a fool. He knew that out of all the guys they had, he’d been the weakest link. But hey, his job was babysitting. That didn’t require a lot of sobriety. Suddenly, he found himself questioning the act he was about to partake in. Then he pushed his doubts aside, just shrugged them away like a piece of lint on your shoulder.

You only live once,
he told himself.

He ejected the clip from the Beretta and put it into his pocket. He left the gun on the desk next to the keyboard.

It was impossible to shoot a man with his own weapon when you had no bullets. So in case the girl managed to get free and get his gun—both impossible—then at least she’d be screwed when she tried to shoot him.

THE DOOR OPENED,
and a pool
of light flowed into the dark room.

Raggie saw for the first time the details of the space in which she was being held captive. It was a small room, much smaller than she’d thought. She’d imagined it was this huge space with a table for examining dogs, a scale, some empty cages of different sizes, and the farmer’s sink for bathing the animals. But the room wasn’t like that at all. It was more like a big closet. It reminded her of one of those decompression chambers she’d seen in documentaries about space shuttles. The astronauts left the shuttle and went out into space, and then they returned with their spacesuits on. Next, they’d enter one room and let it seal, and then they’d go back into the shuttle and remove their breathing gear.

On one wall were the chemicals and drugs used for the animals. They were locked up in a large cage with wheels on the bottom. The next wall had equipment and machines she had never seen before. There was even a large tank of some sort. And then there was a large, empty counter for examining animals or administering narcotics or performing surgery.

In the corner, above the counter, was a camera that was pointed down directly at her.

She had the bottle of ammonia tucked behind her. She’d managed to slip the top off with her toes. It had taken her forty-five minutes. She’d pulled her knees up to her chin and made it look like she had run out of energy. Then she’d swiveled in such a way so that the jug was hidden from where she thought the camera was. She rotated her toes back and forth like a wrench. The top had slowly come loose, and then finally it was off.

She was ready for the guy. She just needed him to unlock her handcuffs.

But then the guy did something she hadn’t anticipated, and her plan was severely compromised. He flipped on the light in her room, and she was consumed with blindness.

She felt a terror consume her like that day she had been pulled under the surface of the Indian Ocean by a Ragged Tooth Shark.

Valentine said, “Be a good girl, and this’ll all be over quick.”

Chapter 39

CAMERON AND CORD WERE TRYING TO FIGURE OUT
how they were going to get free and escape without getting shot in the process. The answer to the question presented itself like the luckiest thing that could’ve ever happened to them. The only thing that would’ve been better was if the guy tasked with watching over them while Lane and Grant were gone suddenly had a severe heart attack right in front of them and dropped the keys to their handcuffs at Cameron’s feet.

That wasn’t what happened. What happened instead was that the guy suddenly sat upright in his chair and stared at the monitors like he was watching a football game and his team was about to lose, but they caught an interception in the last seconds of the game. The player ran full steam toward the end zone, but he was tackled at the last second. So there was no cheering from the guy. He screamed at the monitor, a loud sound that Cameron guessed was negative.

The guy stood, knocking the chair over. He started to repeat, “
No! No! No!
”

He sifted through his pockets, frantically searching for something. Cameron assumed he was looking for his cell phone. The guy searched each of his pockets a second and third time. No phone.

Whatever the guy had seen on the screen had freaked him out so badly that he started pacing the room. And then he did the most bizarre thing—he asked Cameron for help.

He said, “Have you seen my phone?”

Cameron stayed quiet.

The guy said, “Look! If you know where it is, you’d better tell me! Your little girlfriend’s life might depend on it!”

Cameron craned his head and looked over at the monitor to see what had the guy so frantic.

Cameron saw that Raggie wasn’t alone. Her eyes were tightly shut because someone had flipped on the light. The night vision was now impaired, and the screen had gone from a grainy green color to a bright white color, but Cameron could still see Raggie.

A man stood over her. It looked like that guy Valentine. He stood over Raggie in a way that made his intentions obvious.

Cameron quickly closed his eyes and retraced the guy’s steps over the last fifty-five minutes they’d been alone. Within three seconds, he knew where the phone was.

The guy had stepped outside the house twice and smelled like smoke, so Cameron assumed he’d left to smoke a cigarette. It didn’t make sense for him to leave the unfinished house, but the guy had. The only other place he had gone was to the bathroom.

Cameron craned his head and looked past the guy and down the short hallway to the master bath. The door was open, and Cameron saw a roll of toilet paper that they must’ve brought with them on the back of the toilet—and on top of that was a cell phone. A smartphone. If it was a burner, it was a pricier one. Maybe the guy had sprung for his own so that he could use the Internet.

Cord looked confused and didn’t say anything. He hadn’t looked at the monitor yet.

Cameron said, “You got me! It’s in my pocket. I took it off you earlier. You dropped it, and I guess you didn’t even feel it fall. Maybe you were too drunk.”

The guy said, “I’m not drunk.”

Cameron said, “Whatever. I don’t care. It’s in my pocket.”

The guy said, “How’d you get it in your pocket?”

“I did it when you uncuffed us earlier. I thought if I could get free—maybe ask you for a bathroom break—I’d call for help. I was waiting for an hour. Right now, it’s close.”

The guy came forward and got close to Cameron. He knelt down and said, “Which pocket?”

Cameron stayed quiet.

The guy said, “
Now!
”

Cameron spoke with a little intimidation in his voice like he was scared. “Okay. Okay. It’s the front left pocket.”

He had said left pocket on purpose because he’d watched the guy earlier. When he’d had the MP5 in his hand, his right hand was on the handle. His right index finger was in the trigger house. The guy was right-handed, and right-handed people always reach into a stranger’s left pocket with their right hands. Which was what Cameron had wanted.

The guy reluctantly reached into Cameron’s right pocket. He should’ve patted him down first to see if there was a phone there, but it wouldn’t have made much difference.

The guy’s hand went into Cameron’s pocket, and Cameron squeezed his thigh muscles as hard as he could. The guy’s hand was caught instantly in a tight grip, wedged between a rock and a hard place. The guy started to pull back, but the more he pulled, the tighter the grip became. Like Chinese finger cuffs.

A great invention,
Cameron thought.

Suddenly, Cameron’s head exploded in a vicious head-butt. He had cocked it back the whole time the guy was moving forward and down toward him. At the perfect moment, Cameron’s head thrashed forward. The front of Cameron’s forehead connected with the guy’s face, and for the second time that night, he’d broken a nose. But this time, he did more damage—much, much more.

He hadn’t held back. The impact made a loud
crack,
and the guy’s nose ruptured and fragmented. The bridge was completely cracked open in several places, and his face was soon covered in blood. The force of the blow had sent him flying over Cameron’s legs, his hand still locked in Cameron’s front pocket. He hung there limp and motionless.

Cameron wasn’t sure if he was dead or not. He hoped not because they may need to get information out of him.

Cord said, “Damn! I think you killed him.”

Cameron said, “Maybe. Maybe not. Doesn’t matter.”

“How’re we going to get free? Not with the keys. We can’t reach his pockets with our hands like this.”

Cameron said, “I guess with some regular squats.”

“What?” Cord asked.

Cameron stayed quiet and lifted his knees. He squirmed the guy loose from his pocket and then put his feet on the ground. Sitting on the backs of his legs, he started to push up and out, away from the wood. Cameron hadn’t done squats in years, but he remembered the basic principle. The wood behind him was relatively new, but Cameron was strong. Strong leg muscles and strong back. He’d been hitchhiking for the better part of a year, and that meant he’d built a lot of strong muscles throughout his legs.

He pushed—hard. His feet and shins strained. He heaved upwards and jerked forward like a work ox that pulling a fully loaded cart out of a ditch. As he strained, his face exploded into a crimson color like he’d burst a vein.

He opened his eyes and stared at the monitor across the room. He saw the man still standing over Raggie. He saw that her eyes were sealed shut from the brightness of the light, but she knew what was happening. He could see the terror on her face. She squirmed as far away from the man as possible. The handcuff tugged at her one wrist.

The man was taking off his belt, and Cameron knew that next he’d remove his pants. He pulled even harder.

Cameron pulled and strained and groaned like a bodybuilder in his toughest competition. The force he exerted was tremendous, and finally, he heard a low crackling sound. The force of his pull and the weight of his body wasn’t enough to break the board but luckily for Cameron, the nails were cheap and the work was sloppy. In a mass-produced subdivision, often times minimal work was done and minimal quality was the result. This subdivision was no different. In fact, it was worse because the investors had obviously mismanaged and miscalculated everything from the production of the properties to the costs of labor to the units that they’d sell during the early stages of development. Therefore, they’d run out of money early on. And because of that, Cameron had the advantage.

The wood splintered and cracked at the place where the nails had been driven into the plank at the top of the board. Upon hearing this sound and feeling the slight give of the board, Cameron’s effort was strengthened by his willpower. He pulled even harder—harder than he thought he could.

A second later, the board tore free from the planks at the top. It sent Cameron flying forward onto his face, but he wasn’t injured. He didn’t waste a second thanking his luck. Instead, he shimmed forward on his belly and freed himself from the wood.

Cord’s energy was returning after seeing this feat. He shouted, “
Yes!
”

His sentiment echoed in the room, which was good because it told Cameron that no one else was there. Otherwise, they’d have come running to find out what the commotion was. But there was no one. No mercenaries locked and loaded. No bad guys. No John Lane.