Hidden Threat (19 page)

“
We’re ready to make an offer. We understand that you’re asking three hundred and ninety thousand, is that correct?”

Melanie paused, looking at her mother. “Well, we hadn’t actually listed a price yet. I think the assessment is going to come in more around the four hundred and twenty thousand range,” she countered.

Melanie watched the husband and wife look at one another with a knowing glance, as if they’d been down this road so many times. Before they could think,
Back to the drawing board
, Nina intervened. The real-estate markets in the greater Charlotte and Spartanburg areas seemed to be bouncing back and getting in premarket was the way to go, for sure. But it gave the seller some leverage.

“
So I think we can reach some kind of agreement between what you heard and what we think the assessment will be,” Nina offered.

New life came to the couple’s eyes. “We can’t go over four o five.”

“
We really need four ten,” Melanie countered again.

The twins came running into the house from the backyard. “Mommy, Daddy, you have to see the pool in the back! I want to go for a swim right now!”

Resigned, Laura looked at John and said, “I’ll probably be able to get a raise after six months of teaching. Coke promised you a review after a year.”

He nodded, and then she turned to Melanie and Nina. “Four ten it is, but we want to sign a contract right now. We will put down the earnest money today, and we want to close in a week.”

Melanie and Nina exchanged glances. They had made $15,000 more than they thought that they could get on the house, and it was just too easy, like everything they did. Closing within the week, no problem. They had bigger plans. Doing the math, Melanie calculated that with the money they would net on the house after paying down the mortgage plus the $500,000 from Zach’s life insurance, she was $240,000 away from owning a mansion on Lake Keowee. She determined she could do that with some effort.

“
Tad gave us these papers to sign if we got a quick contract. We can give him a call and get him over here, if necessary.”

“
I don’t think it will be a problem. Tad said that if you made an offer we could sign the contract, and that he would expedite everything from there,” Melanie said, taking the documents. She spent about five minutes reading through the offer. In big, bold letters on each page were the words, “
This contract is binding and irrevocable upon signature of both parties and transfer of good faith earnest money equal to 10% of the agreed upon price.
”

No getting out of it, but she didn’t think she’d be able to get a better price for the house.

“
You’re ready to give me $41,000?”

“
Checkbook right here,” Laura said, retrieving the billfold from her purse. Placing the checkbook on the kitchen island she pulled out a pen. “Make it out to?” she asked with gritted teeth. She held the top of the pen in her lips.

“
Melanie Garrett.”

She finished signing, tore the check from the book, and handed it to Melanie, who studied it for a second. Laura handed her the pen as if to say, “Okay, it’s your turn.”

Melanie took the pen, looked at it, and then said, “Well, here goes.”

After filling in the blanks for the agreed-upon purchase price and what appliances would convey, she signed the document, and handed the pen back to Laura. John and Laura completed the transaction with their signatures.

The deal was done.

Nina watched her
daughter follow the couple out of the house and walk them to their car. Nightfall was approaching with a gray hue. Melanie waved as they departed and then opened the door to her Mercedes. The top pulled back on the car to reveal her daughter looking in the mirror, smacking her lips, and then inserting the key.

Nina knew exactly where she was going. It would be about an hour roundtrip, at least, for Melanie to go to the mansion on Lake Keowee, stare at it for a while, and then return.

She walked into Amanda’s room and called out her name. After checking the entire house, she became concerned. Returning to Amanda’s room, Nina entered the password to her computer and scanned her e-mail inbox. Seeing nothing of import, she clicked on the Sent folder. Immediately she saw written in bold black letters, “
Tomorrow.
”

She opened the e-mail that Amanda had sent less than an hour ago.

After reading it, she quickly retrieved her cell phone. Punching speed dial, she listened as Del Dangurs picked up on the first ring.

“
How soon can you get here?”

“
I’m about five minutes out, why?”

“
It’s happening.”

She hung up the phone without saying good-bye. She turned and looked in the foyer. She would have many memories from this house, though none that would matter much to her. Life moved along objectively for Nina Hastings. One chess move at a time.

She looked up at the second-floor landing and knew what she was going to do. Swiftly moving upstairs, she changed into something more provocative and came back down about the time Del Dangurs was ringing the doorbell.

“
Come on in,” she said in a hoarse Mae West voice.

“
Whoah, Gabrielle, not here! What are you thinking?”

“
Just do what I say, slave.” She grabbed him by his lapel and kissed him hard on the lips. She may have been fifty-nine years old, but she could turn it on when she needed to. “You said you wanted some risk in your life. Well, here it is.”

“
I just usually prefer women much younger,” Del responded, Nina still holding on to him.

She smacked him across the face. “I can see you want to play it rough. Is that what you want?” Again, she smacked him and then ran her hand up his thigh. “You like that?” she whispered in his ear, then bit his lobe hard.

“
I do,” he said with a smile.

She guided him upstairs into Melanie’s bedroom and pushed him down on the bed. Pulling down the bustier she had snatched from her daughter’s bureau, she disrobed. She fumbled with Del’s belt buckle and then made quick work of the rest of his clothes. For thirty minutes she pleased him in every way possible.

“
This gets better each time,” Dangurs said. “I liked the rough act.”

Nina looked at him. They were not snuggling or spooning. Each was lying on their side of the bed. The only bond between these two was the recently negotiated agreement. To Nina, sleeping with a man to achieve a personal agenda was no different than any other transaction. It was purely objective.

“
I guess you should with your background. You do what I say, and we’ll keep your anger management issues to ourselves. Understand? For now.”

He shifted to look at her, his eyes turning to stone. She watched him transform in front of her. His neck muscles tensed and his face seemed to become thinner, almost skeletal. His smile was wicked.

“
That’s what you want, isn’t it? Keep your little rape incident a secret? Be a bitch to explain, wouldn’t it? Given your line of work?”

Dangurs continued to morph. One moment he was the consoling, inquisitive man of his profession and the next he was in a sinister trance. This was the Del Dangurs she wanted on the mission
she
had negotiated.

“
They’re going to North Carolina tonight. Your
real
mission starts now.”

“
Okay.” He was nearly catatonic. Nina’s manipulations had placed him in the zone where she needed him. Violence might be necessary, and the man lying in bed next to her was proven to be as violent as they come.

Nina looked at the alarm clock on the nightstand. They had about ten minutes. She wanted to provide him some positive motivation—a dog biscuit in advance.

“
Want to really risk it?”

Of course he did. And so they repeated the process.

As they were finishing, Nina heard a car door shut outside.

“
Guess who’s home.” She grinned as she slipped out of bed and into the bathroom. Smoothing her clam diggers with her hands, she arrived at the top of the landing in time to hear Melanie greeting the man who called himself Del Dangurs.

“
Hey there. What are you doing here?” Melanie said, smiling as she climbed the porch steps.

He leaned into her to steal a kiss. Not expecting the move, she received him stiffly. He noticed and pulled away. Not wanting her to smell Nina on him, he moved quickly down the steps. He spoke to her over his shoulder and then stopped on the sidewalk.

“
I’m off to North Carolina to do some research for the story. Was just nailing everything down, if you know what I mean.”

“
You’re leaving this late?”

“
Listen, I
am
late, but I’ll call you to let you know how, you know, everything’s going.”

“
Do that.” She smiled.

He looked around quickly, then blew her a kiss. He walked briskly across the yard toward his automobile—the one he called his “sweet ride.”

Del Dangurs was on the move.

CHAPTER 22

Bagram Air Base, Afghanistan

Friday

Matt Garrett, Major General Jack Rampert, Sergeant Eversoll, Hobart, and Van Dreeves, sufficiently bandaged around the shoulder, huddled around the wooden table inside the headquarters at the air base.

“
Sir, I saw your brother kiss this picture of Amanda and the Saint Michael medal a hundred times before missions. And he did it directly before he got on that helicopter.”

“
We’ve reviewed the tapes now fifty times, and it doesn’t look like anyone was left behind, but there is the whiteout,” Hobart said.

“
Maybe the picture fell out of his pocket when he rescued Jergens. AQ snatched it up, thinking it might be intel?” Van Dreeves said what everyone was thinking. They all wanted to believe that Zachary Garrett was alive, but it seemed so unlikely that no one wanted to get their hopes up too soon.

“
No.” Eversoll was getting excited. He believed all along that Colonel Garrett had not been killed. “He secured that photo and medallion in the Velcro of his army combat uniform. He was captured and questioned right there in that circle. That was probably AQ taking him away when we popped out of the hole at the end of the tunnel.”

Matt Garrett looked at him. He saw an eager, fresh-faced young man who had a bit of a country look to him. He could see Eversoll’s bottom lip bulge, no doubt full of “worm dirt,” what he and Zachary had called smokeless tobacco. Eversoll wore the newer version of the army combat uniform, a tan-and-olive computerized checkerboard outfit. Velcro pockets and zippers seemed to be in all the right places. He saw the three-chevron rank of sergeant squarely in the center of Eversoll’s chest on a small piece of square cloth about an inch across.

“
Zach mentioned that you were pretty squared away,” Matt said. “Think you’re up for another mission?”

“
If it involves getting Colonel Garrett back, yes sir.”

Matt looked at Rampert, the consummate warrior king. Rapidly promoted to two-star general after the Ballantine mission a couple of years ago, Rampert was recognized throughout the defense and foreign policy communities as the Special Operations guru. Some were already calling for his accelerated promotion to four-star general so that he could be the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. Rampert would have none of that, Matt was sure. He looked at his rugged friend, crew cut somehow making him look younger than his fifty years.

“
What do you think, General?”

“
Going into Pakistan once without telling anyone was a huge risk. Going in twice, is what we call a gamble.”

“
Know the difference, Eversoll?” Hobart had turned to Sergeant Eversoll. Clearly the three special operators saw something in the young sergeant they liked. Matt’s impression was that they had already made the decision to groom him for qualification school and ultimate acceptance into their elite band of warriors.

“
Only gambling I know about is in Memphis on the riverboats.”

Hobart smiled a thin, wicked grin. His face was stern with a ruddy complexion. A full head of dark hair fell over his ears with no distinguishable part on either side.

“
Can’t recover from a gamble if you lose. Lose all your chips. A risk, that’s something you can bounce back from if it doesn’t work out.”

“
And the shirt off your back,” Rampert added. “Point being, we’ve blazed that trail once. No doubt AQ has already leaked to Pakistani intel that we invaded their space. So, provided we didn’t get shot down going in again, well, we’d all be put in the brig, most likely. State Department weenies wouldn’t have any of that.”

“
I might be able to work something there,” Matt countered. Matt felt at ease with these men. He had been a CIA combat field operative. Although he had fully recovered from his wounds in the Philippines and Canada, at thirty-five he had begun to feel the pull of scar tissue. The damage he’d incurred to his body had cut his career short well before he was ready to switch to the policy side of business.