Got the Look (44 page)

Who is they?

That's not important.

Is Mia on one of those boats?

Please, just listen to me. Head for the woods and take cover. We'll handle it from here.

There was a pause, a silence that was just long enough to tie her stomach in knots.

I think I'm losing you, said Jack. Bad connection here.

Jack, don't - She stopped, realizing that she was talking to dead air. Damn him, she said as she put the phone away.

What's wrong? asked Crenshaw.

He's going to get in the middle of this, I know it, said Andie.

Did you warn him about the siphons in those parts? asked Gelhorn.

Andie was about to dial him back, but she knew he wouldn't answer. No, she said in a voice that halted. I didn't.

Chapter
70

Jack cranked the throttle and pulled a sharp U-turn. The cold spray of river water coated his face like a fine London mist. The small engine struggled, but finally his boat gained enough momentum to plane off and cut through the black water, throwing a V-shaped wake that glistened in the moonlight. Startled by the sudden noise, a flock of egrets took flight from the shoreline, a fluttering blast of white in the night sky.

Andie's words were still playing in his mind: two boats racing toward him at high speed. One of them had to be Mia; the other, the kidnapper. It was the only scenario that made sense. Why else would Andie refuse to tell him who was in the boats and insist that he take cover in the woods? This was no time to hide, however. Theo's advice rang in his ears: Do you want to be lookin' at me or Mia the rest of your life? Suddenly, racing down the Santa Fe, the answer to that question was as clear as the springs that fed this river. Jack had laid too much on the line to stand on the sidelines and hope for the best from the FBI, whose record in dealing with the Wrong Number Kidnapper was less than impressive. He remembered his visit to the FBI's Miami field office. Mr. Thornton was in the reception area, on the other side of the bulletproof glass, seated with his elbows on his knees and his head in his hands as he waited to see Agent Henning. The look on that widower's face was unforgettable - the hollow expression of a man who would have done more, who would have done it differently, if he'd had it to do all over again. Jack didn't want it to end that way. Not if he could help it.

He reached inside his jacket and checked the gun that Theo had given him - just in case.

Come on, come on, Mia muttered over the engine's whine. She would have done anything to make her boat faster. The engine was sputtering, incapable of a sustained full-throttle performance. The bullet hole in the hull was just at the waterline, and the boat was taking on about a gallon a minute. Her escape was steadily losing momentum. She checked over her shoulder and saw the flats boat closing in on her, just over a hundred yards behind her. The fix was in on this horse race. No way could this little fishing boat outrun the more powerful engine. She had to get ashore, disappear into the woods, find a place to hide or maybe grab the attention of someone who could help her.

She spotted an eddy just ahead, behind a massive tangle of tree roots that reached into the river like prehistoric fingers. It looked like a good place to ditch the boat. She angled toward shore and prepared to make a run for it.

The rising engine noise told Jack that he was drawing closer. At first it seemed as though his own outboard was straining louder. Then he realized that it was a motorized concert, the combined rumble of his engine and those of the oncoming boats. He couldn't see them, but he knew the gap was shrinking between him and Mia - between him and her kidnapper. As he approached the river bend, however, the noise lessened. Had the boats stopped? Had the chase ended badly for Mia? Jack cursed at the engine, as if that might speed his way around the bend. He took a wide turn, steering more toward the middle of the river as he came around a hammock of cypress trees that extended out over the banks. A small aluminum fishing boat, like his, was drifting toward shore. The engine was tilted forward in the retired position, its idle propeller up above the waterline. A man - no, a woman - was paddling furiously with a single loose oar.

Mia! he shouted.

She stopped and looked. It wasn't clear that she recognized him. She might have heard only his engine, not his voice. But she seemed ecstatic to see him - anyone - nonetheless. She started waving the oar back and forth, signaling for help.

She couldn't possibly see the flats boat coming upriver, full speed, straight toward her.

The windshield shattered on the flats boat, another burst of glass that nearly took out his good eye. He'd heard the bullet whistle past his ear, so he knew the shot had been fired from behind him. Sniper, he realized. The FBI had called in a sharpshooter, and that was his warning shot, the proverbial blow across the bow. The next one would shatter his skull unless he cut his engine and threw up his hands in surrender.

Not in this lifetime. They already had him for the murder of Ashley Thornton, and kidnapping Teresa was another life sentence.

He hit the deck but kept one hand on the steering wheel. He jerked it from left to right, slamming the boat into an erratic path, side to side, making himself a moving target - an errant missile skimming down the waterway. He had an extra set of tanks and diving equipment onboard, but suiting up was out of the question with a sniper on the riverbank. A hostage was the only ticket out of this mess, but he didn't need two.

It was time to deal with the only living person who could identify him as the Wrong Number Kidnapper.

Chapter
71

Jack took a hard turn to starboard and gunned his boat toward Mia. Even in the moonlight, she didn't seem to recognize him until that last moment. Her boat was drifting with the current, the engine off. The flats boat was closing fast but moving in a bizarre serpentine path. Jack cut quickly in front of Mia, his boat curling around the bow before he took it down to idle speed and rafted up, side by side.

Jump in! he shouted.

Jack? What are -

Get in!

The flats boat was barreling down on them. Suddenly, two quick gunshots roared above the engine noise and pierced the aluminum hull. Jack quickly returned the fire, shooting blindly at the flats boat, no driver in sight. The motorboat continued its erratic path at ramming speed. Jack knew his boat didn't have nearly enough power to maneuver out of the way.

Out of the corner of his eye, Jack spotted the backpack at the bow. It still held two hundred thousand dollars of Theo's money. But it was out of reach.

Jump! he shouted as he sailed through the air and across Mia's boat. He grabbed her by the shoulder on his way down, taking her with him, losing his gun in the confusion. They splashed into the cold river just an instant before the much larger motorboat flattened the aluminum fishing boats like big empty beer cans.

Jack was somewhere below the surface, the water fizzing and churning in the aftermath of the crash. The water was black and cold, and his only thought was to find Mia. She was a good swimmer, but he had seen the chains that bound her wrists and ankles - impediment enough for any swimmer. He dived deeper and deeper until his hands hit the bottom. It was too dark to see anything, but at this depth he could feel a current so strong that it could only mean an opening to the aquifer somewhere in the riverbed. For a spring, it seemed strange that the water wasn't pushing him up to the surface. It was sucking him down, like a whirlpool.

Jack fought the current, swimming upward, groping in the darkness for Mia. After a minute, he couldn't fight his need for air any longer. He popped to the surface and drew several deep breaths while looking in every direction - upriver, downriver, and then toward the sloping bank. The current was strengthening and taking him downriver. Ahead of him, in the moonlight, he spotted the flats boat drifting aimlessly, the motor dead silent and no one aboard. Had he fallen off his boat in the crash?

The distant hum of another engine cut through the night, a speedboat coming upriver. The FBI? Jack wondered.

Jack heard a scream, then a splash. Mia! he called. His head was just barely above water, but he could see her struggling to stay afloat, clinging to some wreckage. He started swimming toward her, but something broke in the water between them. Suddenly, he was staring at a pistol, visible even in the darkness. A hand covered in black rubber diving gloves squeezed off a shot just an instant too late. Jack was already underwater, and the muted crack of gunfire sounded like distant thunder. Apparently, Mia's kidnapper had decided that Jack was one hostage too many.

Surfacing at this point would mean certain death. Jack forced himself to stay hidden in the black water as long as possible, long enough to convince the shooter that he'd been hit and swallowed by the river. The current continued to carry him downriver, and the strange downward pull was getting even stronger. Jack had to come up for air soon. One option was to swim as far away as possible and hope that his head would pop up somewhere beyond the gunman's range. But that would leave Mia to fend for herself, handcuffed. Without another moment of thought, he chose his only real alternative.

Jack dived down ten or more feet, a depth that put him in total darkness from the vantage point of anyone looking down from the surface. Looking up, however, there was just barely enough moonlight for him to see shadows above him - the vague outline of a man treading water. Jack noticed no tanks or fins. He may have been wearing a wet suit, but he had no diving equipment. Ten feet downriver was a more slender shadow on the surface, that of Mia, her legs fighting with the chains and kicking furiously in escape mode.

Jack was hovering just above the riverbed, which he used as a springboard to propel himself up like a rocket. He hit the diver square in the midsection.

The ensuing moments were a complete blur, but Jack felt as if he were wrestling an alligator. Jack tried desperately to grab his opponent, but the wet suit made him difficult to control. Jack was already at a disadvantage, needing air. It was as if the diver had instinctively exploited that weakness. He grabbed Jack by the hair and pulled him under. Jack wasn't about to challenge a trained scuba diver to a game of who can hold his breath longer. He slashed and kicked, using all his strength to bring their battle to the surface.

Jack finally broke free, but he was still going down. It wasn't the diver who was keeping him under. The current was pulling them both down. And he was no longer moving downriver. He was caught in a counterclockwise swirl. He'd never been in a whirlpool before, but he knew rip currents from Florida's beaches. He swam with all his strength, not directly against the current, but perpendicular to it. It seemed as though he was getting nowhere, but the pull was lessening. His head finally broke above the surface, long enough for him to steal a breath of air and catch a glimpse of the shoreline straight ahead. He kept swimming, slowly winning the battle against nature. He wasn't completely out of the siphon, but he made it to a fallen cypress tree that jutted out into the river. He grabbed on and held tightly, exhausted.

Before he could catch his breath, a gloved hand emerged from the other side of the log and grabbed him by the hair. Jack managed to work his arm up around the diver's head. It was covered with a rubber diving hood, but Jack's fingers inched over the crown until he could feel the bare skin of his forehead. Jack twisted and turned, and for a split second he was staring straight into the diver's face, into that ruined eye.

It was the face of Theo's friend Richie, the bouncer from Club Vertigo II - the same bouncer who'd handed Teresa the Got the Look business card in Montalvo's Atlanta club.

With a quick jerk, Jack went for his wounded eye. It wasn't a solid hit, but Richie recoiled immediately, as if Jack had hit an exposed nerve, and lost his grip on the fallen log. The siphon immediately took hold of him. Jack watched him swirl in the moonlight, arms and legs desperately reaching for the surface. This time, he was too tired to win the fight. He went around and around for almost a minute, caught in nature's drain. Then he was gone, sucked into the aquifer with no tanks, no light. And no chance of survival.

Just as Jack caught his breath, he spotted the backpack full of cash floating toward the siphon's spiral. No! he shouted.

Theo's money followed Richie to a watery grave.

Chapter
72

Together, Jack and Mia watched the moon set from the front porch of Ginnie Cottage, the FBI's makeshift command center. The FBI had a doctor on-site to tend to Mia's immediate needs, but fortunately the wounds to her toe and inner thigh were not serious. There was a psychologist there as well, but Mia just wanted to talk to Jack.

The occasional squawk of a police radio rose above the hum of cicadas in the field. A dozen agents came and went, some with actual work to do, others simply enjoying the afterglow of a job well done. Jack and Mia weren't exactly alone, but it was the closest they'd come in a long time to a private moment, the two of them seated side by side on the slatted wood swing. Jack could have asked her a thousand questions, but it was too soon. Her body was still cool from the river. Her hair was still damp against his shoulder. She laced her fingers with his and stroked the back of his hand, the way she used to after making love. Tonight, however, she was squeezing much harder. It felt as though she would never let go. Jack was fine with that.