Gone Black (11 page)

“Naughty, naughty little tough girl,” said Psycho Bitch. “You just might need a spanking with my belt if you don't behave your little self.”

The blond guy jerked her over on her back and held her down with both hands, while she struggled to throw him off, and Lion Tattoo continued scanning her body for chips. Claire grimaced, as he grabbed a fistful of her hair and moved the wand slowly over her face and head. Please, please, don't let them find it. But a second later, the wand began to beep again, and then she felt the knife again, slicing into her scalp behind her right ear, painfully digging out the chip that was designed to save her life. Unless Black's chip was still sending signals, she was pretty much dead now. So was Black.

“My, my, tricky, tricky, tricky. And I can see right now that you are going to be a real handful. Aren't you, sugar?” Jaxy said to her, as Lion Tat let go of Claire's hair and shoved her away.

“Want me to check her again?” he asked, looking up at Jaxy. His accent was French-tinged English, too, but his accent had something else in it, too. Something she didn't quite recognize. Guttural and hard.

Then they grabbed Claire's arms again and jerked her back up onto her feet, leaving her backpack lying on the ground. They marched her between them to the waiting aircraft and up the steps to the cabin door. Claire went in without a fight, knowing she had no choice.

When Will Novak watched Claire climb onto that helicopter at Cedar Bend Lodge and fly off with no backup whatsoever, he was pretty sure she was going to end up dead. He had hated the idea of her going off by herself from the beginning, but he knew she had no choice and had shown a helluva lot of guts to do it. She did it because she loved Nick. Novak understood how a person could love somebody that much, and only too well.

Booker's simplistic plan for extraction didn't sit well with Novak, either, or anything else about the whole damn stupid scenario. Although he did understand Claire's reasons, truth was she never should have gotten onto that helo. Nick Black had been right when he had demanded that she be left behind when and if he was ever captured. She was nothing now but the enemy's prime pawn to use against Nick, human bait, human sacrifice, and they all knew what the bait was for. Even Nick had foreseen that. And soon, Black just might have to watch the woman he loves die in front of his eyes, helpless to do a damn thing about it.

As soon as the chopper had flown out of sight, Will grabbed his gear and weapons of choice, a Colt AR 7.62 NATO with a Leupold VX-3 scope, and his personal .45 handgun, a Kimber 1911, and followed John Booker and Jack Holliday out to Black's silver and black Humvee. They had to get to the airstrip quickly. They had to get Jack's plane in the air and follow Claire's signal. And they had better stay close to her if they intended to intervene if things at her end got dicey. Just as soon as anything went wrong, and it sure as hell was gonna go wrong. He knew that in his gut. Had similar sensations in the past when on his SEAL missions, and he had usually been right on. His companions knew the same thing in their guts, both of them. Even Claire knew it. She was just too brave a girl for her own good. He hadn't known her all that long, but he had already seen it happen several times. She had guts all right.

Not long after they boarded Jack's big private jet, they lost Claire's GPS signal.

“They found her chips, both of 'em,” Jack said, staring hard at the monitor, as if he could make her signals reappear by force of will. He looked like he couldn't quite believe it had gone so wrong and so fast. Then his expression changed to horror at what he assumed was gonna happen to Claire now.

Novak cursed inside. This was bad, and the worst part was that there was nothing he could do about it.

“She's on her own now,” Booker said, but his face was creased with worried lines. “They're gonna use her against Nick. They're gonna threaten her to coerce him into doing whatever they want him to do. We all know that. She knew that.”

Novak shook his head. They were wasting too much time. “Yeah, we all do. We took a stupid chance, and now they've got her. And they're taking her straight to him.” He turned to Booker. “You do know how to find him, right? So let's get this goddamn plane in the air. They've got to be headed to Marseilles if they want to taunt Nick with her. And they can't be that far ahead of us. We've got to get there, too, right behind them. Otherwise, Claire and Nick will both be dead by the time we go in.”

“Okay, let's get outta here,” said Booker. But Novak knew the guy was concerned as hell and for good reason. He was experienced in war. He knew good and well that they had made a major miscalculation right off. One that could be catastrophic.

Jack walked swiftly to the cockpit, took his place in the pilot's chair, and began to ready the controls with his copilot for takeoff. Booker sat back down at the table in the main cabin and hurriedly started typing on his laptop. Novak glanced around the interior of the plane. The compartment was set up a lot like Black's war room at Cedar Bend Lodge had been, with all the same maps, the same kind of computers, but all hidden behind locked cabinets that now stood wide open and blinking with digital figures and GPS screens. With all this kind of equipment, surely Claire had a chance to survive. But that didn't make Novak's jangled nerves stop jumping around.

Novak said nothing else, just sat down in one of the swivel recliners beside a window and watched the red blinking light across the room that was supposed to be Black's position in southern France and hoped to God that it never went off. Minutes later, they were buckled in, roaring down the runway, and then climbing high in the sky and heading east to the shores of the Atlantic Ocean and well beyond.

Booker turned and looked at him. “I've got the latest satellite image of where they're keeping Nick. We need to decide how to go in.”

Moving over to the table, Novak sat down beside Booker and stared at the image on the computer screen. He'd seen it before in the hotel and studied it with the others while they waited for Jaxy Soquet to call back. “That's a big area for just the three of us. The outer fence will have to be breached. I can set charges along the perimeter, cause a distraction while the two of you take the front gate. That's what I've been thinking.”

“It sure as hell isn't gonna be easy.” Booker cursed under his breath. Novak just looked at the computer screen and waited for Booker to continue. “But it can be done,” he said at length, “if we plan it out well enough. There's gonna be some risks to Nick and Claire, but we'll just have to take them. We have no choice, and we don't have time to waste. We have about seven hours, eight tops, to nail down a detailed plan and carry it out. Having two hostages now instead of one, that's our biggest problem. We don't know if they'll keep them together or in different places.”

“I think they'll take Claire straight to Nick so he'll do whatever they want in order to protect her. He'll panic when he sees her, and that's what they want him to do. I don't think they'll kill her right off.” Novak saw an ugly vision inside his head: Claire in chains being beaten with that weighted sap. He quickly shook it away. “They will probably hurt her in front of him. God only knows what they're gonna do to her. We never should've let her get on that helicopter.”

“It was her choice. She knew she had to go. We knew it, too, as bad as it makes things. Right now, all we can do is concentrate on following Black's signal and try to get them out alive. Hopefully, Claire's gonna be there, too. That's why they wanted her. If not, then we'll just have to free Nick and then go find her.”

Novak listened to all that and didn't comment. That would be the worst-case scenario, of course, that they were keeping them prisoner in different locations and maybe using FaceTime to torture Nick with Claire's mistreatment. He hoped to God that wasn't the case. The whole mission was already iffy, all of it, every step along the way, and they hadn't had time to thoroughly plan the extraction. It was going to be hit and miss, and they were going to need a helluva lot of good luck. Again, he regretted not preventing Claire from putting herself in the hands of a loathsome creature like Marcel Soquet. But he couldn't have prevented it. Nobody on God's green earth could have prevented Claire from trying to save Nick's life. Not without tying her up hand and foot.

Before Novak's wife had died, he would have done the same thing. He would've done whatever it took to rescue her. But he hadn't had that option, no, he had to stand below on the street, completely helpless, and watch Sarah and both his children die. Before he could make his way inside to save them, he had to watch the South Tower of the World Trade Center collapse in gray dust and rubble and thunderous fury, his family inside on one of the highest floors. Novak had never been the same since. So he understood Claire's motives well enough. If he could have given his life to save them that day, he would have, with no regrets. He still wished he could have. Most of the time, he wished he was dead, too.

But today, with Claire being the one who faced the danger, everything had gone from bad to worse from the very beginning and that just might be their downfall. He was ready and able to fight his way inside that fortress or chateau or whatever the hell it was. So were Booker and Holliday. But he was more worried about Claire than Nick. Nick was a former Army Ranger, and a very good one from what he knew. Decorated for valor over and over again. He knew exactly what to do if captured, what to expect, how to face each and every kind of torture, and he had had specialized training to live through it.

But Claire? She did not have any of that foreknowledge of what might happen. She had her police training and was very skilled at that, and she probably knew some methods of torture and how to respond. He hoped to hell she did. God only knew what was happening to her right now while they sat and tried to figure out the best way to save her. He couldn't stand to think what they'd do to her in order to break Nick. It wouldn't take much, not with the way Nick felt about Claire.

On the other hand, Novak had to believe she'd manage to survive. He had seen for himself, up close and personal, that Claire Morgan was a very smart lady, well trained in law enforcement techniques, capable, courageous, intuitive, so she would have a better chance to survive with the Soquets than any other woman he had ever known. And she had spent the wait time in the penthouse studying the Soquet dossiers, individually and as the family from hell, for the entire time they waited for the call. She hadn't slept much or eaten anything, just pored over Black's notes, page after page after page. Unless she did something reckless, which was a distinct possibility with her. But still, he'd lay odds on her. Every single time. He had never taken a partner before, and he'd been slightly wary of aligning with her at first. But now, after a few cases working alongside her, he knew she would fight like hell for survival, no matter what she was up against. No doubt about it.

“All right. Here's what we've got so far.” Booker pointed down at the map lit up on the screen in front of them. Jack's copilot had taken over the controls, and he sat down with them, too, and listened to Booker's detailed plan of action. “Here's the front gate, and it looks like it's usually manned by at least two men, both armed with AR rifles. Behind that is a second gate, with a fenced no-man's-land in between them. Even if we storm the first one, we'll be trapped inside with armed guards looking down on us from these two towers set up on each side.”

“So a frontal assault is out of the question,” Novak said. “We need for me to get out there and set up the diversions. I can work with C-4. I've done it lots of times.”

“Good,” said Booker. “The fence encircles the entire compound. See there, how it runs up through the edge of the woods and then around to the sea.” He pointed out the line running across the monitor. “My guess is that it's probably about twelve feet high but no more than that. Most likely it's topped with coils of razor wire. From what I've been able to find out, several armed guards patrol from inside night and day on foot, walking the perimeter in opposite directions. Soquet doesn't want anybody inside those gates. But it appears there are fewer men on guard than I would've expected. The main house is up the road about half a mile from that gate. It's a huge place, several wings, several stories high, enclosing a big paved courtyard. More men up there but still a manageable force. The back of the chateau bumps up against the sea. No way can we breach it from that side.”

“Maybe we could get in by boat?” asked Jack. “Find a way up the cliff?”

Novak studied the compound closely and then shook his head. “Coming in from the back is out. One of us will have to take care of the guards at the gate. I assume there would be several there around the clock. Maybe they relieve each other. We'll have to reconnoiter to find out. I don't see an airstrip anywhere close by, but they could have it camouflaged somehow. They seem to have a pretty sophisticated organization going on. That's probably how they got Nick inside. Yeah, get me enough C-4, and I'll blow the hell out of every inch of that fence and lay it out on the ground for you.”

“A full-on assault might get Nick and Claire killed,” Booker pointed out, still looking at Novak. “A couple of us probably ought to try to go in at some point back here near the trees, fight our way in and find them while you blow charges to keep Soquet's men busy while we get them the hell out.”

Novak frowned. “You've done this kinda thing before, I take it?”

“Yeah, we've done it,” said Jack, but didn't elaborate further.

“Okay, then you're the boss. Just tell me what to do, and I'll do it. I just hope to hell we get there in time.”

“We'll go over the plan and the exact times to strike until we've got every eventuality covered. We all know what to do and how to do it. Nick's gonna be expecting us to come in. If he can find a way to help us, he'll do it. Claire will, too. You know how she is.”

Novak leaned back into his chair and listened to the other two men sketch out all the parameters of their plan to attack the large chateau, willing to let them do their thing. They seemed to know the score. They were highly trained and highly equipped with the best, both in weapons and technology. And yeah, he did know how Claire was all right, and that was what concerned him the most.