Safe and Sound (14 page)

“Probably some guy taking a leak in the woods,” she muttered.

“Just a couple more miles,” Keller said. They passed a brown wooden sign made to look rustic. PINEY POINT OVERLOOK, the sign said. 1.5 MILES.

“That’s the one,” Keller said.

“You think they’re already there?”

Keller shrugged. “Don’t think too much about what might happen,” he said. “Imagination can hang you up in a situation like this.”

She caught a glimpse of his face in the dim light of the dashboard. There was a look there she’d seen before, a hardening of the muscles around the jaw, a tightness about the eyes. She felt a chill go up her back. There was no mercy in that look. There was no trace of the man she loved there.

Someone is going to die. The thought came unbidden to her. She shook her head as if to deny it, but it came back almost immediately. When he gets that look, someone is going to die, the voice insisted. He turned to look at her and she almost flinched, praying that that look wouldn’t be turned on her.

But when he looked at her, it was with concern in his eyes. “Stay with me, Marie,” he said softly. “Keep it together.” He turned back to the road. She put a hand on his biceps. “Thanks for coming, Jack,” she said. “I’m glad you’re here for me.”

“No problem,” he said.

As they came around a sharp curve, they saw the overlook. It was one of the bigger ones, with a parking lot on one side that could hold a dozen cars. There was a
waist-high stone wall to keep the sightseer from tumbling over the sheer slope that fell away from the side of the parking lot. On the other side of the road was a smaller lot at the edge of a heavily forested slope. Marie could make out a few picnic tables just beneath the overhang of the trees. There was a large wooden signboard near the tables, with some sort of map fastened to it. The only vehicle in the lot was a Jeep Cherokee parked at the last space in the row. As instructed, Keller pulled the Crown Victoria into the space on the opposite end of the parking lot. He killed the lights, then the engine.

They waited.

Across the parking lot, they saw the glow of the Jeep’s interior light come on. Marie caught a glimpse of a dark-haired man behind the wheel. A figure exited the other side of the Jeep. A tall man and a child came around the front. In the dimness, Marie could just make out that both man and child had blond hair. Keller opened his door and Marie did the same. They got out and stood by the Crown Vic.

“Jack,” Marie said in a low whisper, “where is he? Where’s the man that called—”

“Are you Ms. Healy?” the tall man called out.

“Yeah,” Marie called back. She was amazed that her voice didn’t shake. The tall man bent and said something to the child. She looked up at him and said something back, just below the threshold of Marie’s hearing. The man bent down and took the girl in his arms. They hugged for a moment, then the man stood up. He spoke again, and the child started walking toward them. She was holding something in her arms. A stuffed animal.

Out of the darkness, around the curve, there was a sudden blaze of headlights and the roar of an engine.

***

And there they are, DeGroot thought with satisfaction. Right on time. He turned sharply into the parking area, his wheels squealing on the pavement. In the cone of his headlights, he saw the little girl’s face turned toward him, her mouth open in surprise. She dropped something she had been holding in her arms and made as if to bolt back toward the Jeep. He turned the wheel slightly and cut her off. Like a rabbit caught on the highway, she reversed course and headed back the way she was going originally.

He skidded to a stop in the middle of the lot, between the two groups. The little girl was running toward the woman, her arms flailing in panic. The woman had crouched down, her arms out to catch the girl, when DeGroot came to a stop. He already had both windows open and the stubby little submachine gun pointed out the window at the woman and the girl. “All right,” he called out. “Let’s all be calm.” He was holding the gun in his right hand, across his body, so there was a moment’s awkwardness as he reached with his left to turn the car engine off. In the sudden silence, all he could hear at first was the sobbing of the little girl as she buried her face in the woman’s arms. There was a tall blond man standing beside her, not moving. “You must be Keller,” DeGroot called. “Step away from the car. Hands where I can see them.” The man complied, more slowly than DeGroot would have liked. DeGroot cursed under his breath. The situation was hard enough to control right now without this fellow being difficult. He briefly considered shooting Keller. The
more people there were, the more variables there were to deal with. He considered for a moment, then discarded the idea. Things were still too unpredictable for that. “Powell?” he called out. He didn’t take his eyes off Keller. “You’re there?”

“I’m here, DeGroot,” he heard Powell reply.

“You see where I’ve got the gun pointed?”

“Yeah.” His voice was calm. Good. He was staying professional. You never knew when an American was going to try something idiotic. “Riggio’s with you?”

“Yeah.”

“Well, why don’t we get everybody together over by the front of Mr. Keller’s vehicle with their hands up. You, too, Keller. And Ms. Jones.” Marie picked the little girl up in her arms and they moved to the front of the big car.

DeGroot kept the barrel of the gun pointed at them. He stole a glance back at the Jeep. Powell and Riggio were walking slowly, their hands up, their eyes locked on him. He opened the car door with his left hand and slid out. In a moment, all of the targets were in his field of fire. He let out the breath he had been holding. Things would be easier to control now.

“Lekker,” he said. “In a moment, I’ll be sending Keller, Miss Jones, and this pretty little girl off—”

“Where’s Ben?” Marie interrupted.

DeGroot stifled his irritation. “He’s close by,” he said. “Safe.”

“How do I know that?” she said. Her voice trembled slightly.

“It’s not important to me that you know that, stukkie,” he snapped. “I’ll give you directions in a minute on where to find him. Then you can all go back to your happy homes and lives while me and my brus here have a little conversation.”

It was then he became aware of a sound at the edges of his hearing. It was a familiar sound, one he had heard so often that in most situations he barely noticed it. But here, surrounded by the silence of the mountains, it seized his attention. It was the beating of rotor blades. He glanced for a second toward the source of the noise, then did a quick double take.

Out over the yawning darkness of the valley below, he saw a pair of red aircraft running lights like angry eyes in the night. And they were headed straight in his direction.

***

One and two, are you in position?” Rankin was in the front seat of the chopper. She heard the replies from the ground team crackling in the headset.

“One, ready.”

“Two, ready.”

Rankin turned toward the back. Gerritsen sat next to the open crew door. He was dressed head to toe in black tactical gear. A pair of night vision goggles dangled from his neck. A rifle with a night vision scope lay across his lap.

Gerritsen adjusted the microphone of his own headset and gave Rankin a thumbs-up. “Okay,” she told the pilot. “Light ’em up.”

Helicopters, Keller thought. It’s always goddamn helicopters,. Then the brilliant cone of light caught DeGroot dead center. He threw up his hands to shield his eyes. A voice like that of God himself blasted out of the sky along with the light.

“FBI!” the voice bellowed. “PUT DOWN YOUR WEAPON!”

The combined blasts of light and sound staggered DeGroot for a second. He recovered almost instantly, however, and raised his weapon. Keller heard the crack of a high-powered rifle, almost drowned out by the thudding of the rotor blades, and a chunk of pavement flew up at DeGroot’s feet.

Keller charged. He hit DeGroot with enough impact to knock the wind out of both men for a moment and bore him to the ground. DeGroot’s head hit the pavement with a sickening thud, and the submachine gun flew from his hands. DeGroot snarled and rolled, going onto his back. He brought his knee up in a vicious strike at Keller’s groin. Keller turned slightly and caught the blow on the thigh. It felt like he’d been shot in the leg. He grabbed DeGroot around the throat and slammed his head into the pavement again.

“WHERE IS HE?” Keller screamed into DeGroot’s face. “WHERE’S THE BOY?”

DeGroot’s only response was another snarl and a punch to Keller’s midsection. This one was weaker, however, and only staggered Keller slightly. The helicopter roared overhead. Keller could hear the sound of car engines, big ones, roaring into the parking lot. He slammed DeGroot’s head against the pavement again. The man’s struggles grew weaker. Keller felt a hand pulling at his shoulder. He reached up and brushed it off. He reached down with his free hand and placed his thumb against the socket of DeGroot’s eye.

“Tell me where he is,” Keller said, “Or so help me God, I’ll put your fucking eye out.”

“No, you won’t, Mr. Keller,” a familiar voice said. He felt the coldness of a gun barrel against the back of his neck.

“We have the situation under control,” Wilcox said. “Now let him go.”

CHAPTER SIXTEEN

“You tapped my phone,” Marie said.

“Not me,” Wilcox said. “Our friends in the FBI.”

The parking lot was full of people and vehicles now. A pair of black Chevy Suburbans were parked haphazardly in the lot. She could see Keller in the back of one of them. There was a red-haired agent in the front seat, yelling at him. Keller wasn’t answering. The two men from the Jeep were handcuffed in the back of the other Suburban. Alyssa Fedder was in a third vehicle, a Taurus sedan, with two other agents, both female.

Marie shook her head. “I should have figured it out back at the house. When you just turned around and left.”

“I wouldn’t be complaining if I were you,” Wilcox said. The chopper made a low pass overhead. He stopped talking and waited for the racket to die down before continuing. “They probably saved your life just now.”

“Saved my life?” Marie’s voice was a low hiss. “They used me as fucking bait, Wilcox! Me and my son. They could have picked that bastard up at any time and gotten Ben back.” She glanced over to where DeGroot stood between two FBI agents. His hands were cuffed behind his back. There were already bruises rising on his neck and another beneath his eye, but he looked remarkably calm. She started toward him. Wilcox tried to block her. She shoved him aside and kept walking.

“Where is he?” she hissed as she came closer. One of the black-suited FBI agents blocked her way. The agent, a black man built like a football linebacker, didn’t move when she collided with him.

“Where is he?” Marie demanded again over the agent’s shoulder. Her composure snapped and she screamed at DeGroot. “What did you do with my son?”

The man looked at her expressionlessly. He turned to the other agent, this one a shorter white man. “I want to make a deal.”

“Fuck you, shitbird,” the white guy said.

DeGroot shrugged. “Suit yourself, boet,” he said. “But that little boy’s running out of time.”

“Tell us where he is, and we’ll consider your request,” the black guy said.

DeGroot shook his head. “Can’t tell you,” he said. “I’ll have to show you. I have to take you there.”

“Bullshit,” the white agent snapped. “You can give us directions.”

“Yeah,” he said, “I could. But you wouldn’t know how to disarm the surprise I put with him. You might figure it out. If you had time.”

“Oh my God,” Marie said. “What did you do?”

DeGroot smiled at her. “Made sure that you and your boyfriend wouldn’t be coming after me once you found the boy.” He shrugged again. “Ag well, that plan’s buggered since this crew’s rocked up. So, makes sense for me to keep the little fellow alive, hey? But this lot might fuck it up. So I have to be the one.”

The two agents looked at each other. “We’ll have to run this by the Agent in Charge.”

“Don’t be long,” DeGroot said. The white agent walked away quickly. In a moment he was back. With him was a short, red-haired man with a scowl on his face. “I’m Special Agent in Charge Clancy,” he said. “What’s this I hear about you wanting to deal?”

Clancy, Marie thought. Where have I heard that…oh, shit. She glanced over at where Keller still sat in the back of the FBI Suburban. Keller’s last encounter with Clancy had not gone well.

“Those are my terms,” DeGroot was saying. “I lead two of your people to the boy. I disarm the explosive.”

“And in return?”

“In return, I get a trial, not a ticket to someplace where I’ll never be heard of again. And you tell whoever holds that trial that I could have killed the boy but didn’t. Sounds fair, hey? All you do is tell the truth. And you’d do that anyway. Oh, and before trial, I get a phone call.” He grinned. “There’s someone I want you to talk to.”

Clancy worked his jaw for a moment, as if he was chewing on the idea. “Tick…tick…tick…,” DeGroot said. The chopper passed over low again, causing everyone but DeGroot to flinch downward and cutting off all conversation. When the roar had died away, Clancy turned and shouted at an agent nearby. “Call the damn chopper,” he ordered, “and tell them the area’s secure. They can go home.” He turned back to them. “All right,” he snapped. He turned to the two agents. “Leonard. Swierczynski.” He jerked his head toward DeGroot. “You go with him. Stay close.” He looked at DeGroot. “So where’s the boy?”