Terrorbyte (24 page)

The silver car pulled up alongside me. The driver indicated I should lower my window. I shook my head as I turned the key in the ignition. He'd angled his car into mine. I doubted he wanted to ask directions: most people don't try to block you in such circumstances. I planted my foot on the accelerator and rammed into his car, shoving it aside as I exited.

If they were genuinely in need of directions then the driver could've asked at the gas station. No need to behave like jerks and make my trigger finger itch and heart race.

I took a deep breath and picked up the car phone and called in both cars and descriptions of the drivers.

“There are two State Police vehicles in the area, Special Agent Conway; we'll have them look out for these cars.”

“Have them hold the drivers until FBI can question them.”

“Yes, ma'am.”

As I replaced the phone in its cradle, I knew I should have called Mac and Lee. What stopped me? The lecture they'd fire at me, that's what. And I was almost in Belvoir; what they didn't know couldn't hurt them, or me.

Several times on the drive I questioned the wisdom of heading out alone, but each time I told myself this was just a quick look-see. Selena had probably rerouted the signal and was miles away.

There was less traffic on the road now and I saw a familiar car approaching. What were the odds? I wondered as Mac's dad waved. I waved back. My car phone rang and I pulled over to answer the call.

“Where you off to, Ellie girl?” Only Bob called me Ellie girl. I liked Bob Connelly. He was an older, more weathered version of Mac. Like father, like son.

“Checking something out, Bob.”

“Beatrice wanted me to invite you two over for dinner Friday night.”

“Sounds good to me.” To be honest, it sounded like some exquisite torture; the thought of time spent with Beatrice had that effect on me. “I'll check with Mac and get back to you.”

I watched the traffic pass me, looking for those two cars from earlier. Yep, I was paranoid.

“Where is he?” Bob asked. “Thought you two were joined at the hip.”

“He's stuck at the office babysitting an out-of-towner.”

Bob laughed. “See you Friday.”

“Sure thing.” I hung up and dropped my phone on the passenger seat. It bounced and hit the floor. We both knew that checking with Mac was nothing more than a courtesy; of course we'd be there, barring a natural disaster or a damn good excuse. Hurricane Josephine had passed over, and I didn't think there was much likelihood of another one brewing so soon.

We'd be there because Bob was a wonderful man and a great father.

I reached down and grabbed the phone, wondering what on earth possessed me to drop it on the seat when it's just as easy to put it back in the cradle.

I pulled back into the lane and carried on my merry way. Only it wasn't so merry all on my lonesome. Five miles on, I came across a car stopped right on the edge of an industrial park. I slowed and saw a woman on the side of the road in a Ford Expedition, with what I thought could be two small children still in the car. I could see the outline of child car seats. Not something I could ignore. I felt a momentary twinge about being followed and I allowed myself to recall the last traffic incident we stopped at, which proved to be a chlorine-filled act of terrorism. The woman and kids won out.

I flipped my grill lights on, pulled over, clipped my badge to my belt and walked back to her car.

“Hello, everything all right here?”

The woman was standing next to the truck and was shorter than me by about four inches, which made her around the five feet five mark, blonde, green-eyed, seemed frightened or maybe timid and nervous. Inside the truck I could see children: a baby and a toddler, both upset.

The passing traffic was loud. I noted a few rubberneckers, obviously drawn by my car's flashing grill lights. They slowed long enough to stare. I stopped watching traffic slow then speed up;  it was distracting.

The woman shuffled her feet. I didn't know if she'd heard me above the traffic so I repeated my question. “Everything all right here?”

She swallowed. Nerves? Was I that intimidating? I didn't think so. Something felt hinky. I plunged my hand into my jacket pocket and palmed one of the business cards I kept in there. I didn't know if I could give it to her unobserved but I had another idea. I dropped the card while listening to the woman. Another car slowed as it passed us; I caught the movement in the corner of my eye and looked over in time to hear the car braking on the roadside gravel.

She spoke; her voice shook and snagged my attention. “The truck overheated, I've called Triple A.”

I stepped sideways, covering the card with my foot.

“You want me to wait with you?”

She hesitated, her eyes flicked sideways. I looked at her car and my stomach turned over. A reflection in the window moved, the door opened. Suddenly a large shadow crossed my peripheral vision and I found myself airborne.

I landed on my back near a ditch.

“Get in the car,” said a man. The voice was unfamiliar and not Russian. He was an American. There was no time to feel relieved. As I stood up, I caught sight of a black object coming at my head.

I yelled, “Not my head.”

Too late.

The impact felt dull as the grayness embraced me. It never quite became blackness, for which I was thankful.

Why did no one ever listen? You'd think someone would listen just once and not smack my head. Was I invisible? If so, it's a noisy invisible place. I could feel a thump of air from speakers as Bon Jovi's ‘Bounce' pounded from a stereo. I was sure someone had started my car and I was in it; the last thing I'd heard before stopping to help that lady was Bon Jovi. The reflection in her car window now took shape. Someone had been hiding in the car with her kids. No wonder she was scared.

I could feel movement and hear traffic. Definitely not good at all. I took stock of the situation and determined I was in the back of a car, which could be my car. My hands were fastened behind me, possibly with PlastiCuffs – it didn't feel like tape and I couldn't feel metal on my skin. There was something over my mouth. I pushed my tongue against the gag. It felt slightly sticky. Duct tape maybe. I tried moving my feet but they were restricted by something and wouldn't move independently.  Who was driving I did not know. I couldn't see but knew I wasn't blindfolded; nothing touched my eyelashes as I fluttered them. There was something over me. I could smell a sweet, sunshine smell. Laundry powder. I was covered by a blanket I kept in my car. Made sense really: I was pretty sure I was in my own car. What had Caine said about things going horribly wrong? I hoped the woman would pick up my card and call the FBI.

Please don't let her and her kids be hurt, or worse.

My eyes closed; there was no point expending effort to see when there was nothing to see. I'd often wondered what it was like in my head. Mac had always told me it was a scary place; so far it wasn't so bad. I just couldn't seem to get out. It was a bit dark and there were long shadows, nothing a light bulb wouldn't fix.

I saw a cord hanging from mid-air, right in front of me. When I pulled it, light flooded the area illuminating faces of dead women, orbited by little moons. The moons evolved into children.

Faces zoomed in and out of focus so quickly they made me feel ill. I concentrated and slowed the movement. The victims parted, revealing a blonde woman with her back to me. She slowly turned until I could see her face.

“Mom?”

“You're in trouble again, Gabrielle.”

“Just a hiccup, Mom, nothing serious.” It struck me as amusing, speaking to mom as if she were here, knowing it was impossible. I remembered doing the curfew check before leaving Richmond. I definitely felt a mixture of amusement and relief. The relief came in knowing she wasn't real.

“Gabrielle, look at me.”

The woman even irked me from beyond the grave. I waited for some form of accusation to be leveled at me, her usual pattern in life.

Instead she said, “You need to call Mac, it's dangerous here.”

A bright light glowed behind her. What did she mean by
here
?

“It's not your time, Ellie. Go back, call Mac.”

It wasn't my time for
what
? I had to meet someone to get some information, that's all.

“I can do this, Mom.”

She'd never had any faith in me, not ever. All she'd wanted was for me to get a man and it took long enough to find one that she couldn't scare off; guess it helped that she'd only met him once and his mom was no prize.

And for what, so she could nag me from beyond the grave to call him? Why didn't she have some cool otherworldly wisdom to impart that would break this case and save my neck? 

Mom began to fade into a halo of golden light. “You did good, Gabrielle. You will be a wonderful mother, not at all like me.”

Real helpful, Mom, thanks.

A dull ache droned in my head. I knew that if I could feel pain then I was still alive and this mother of an hallucination would disappear. Whoever was in the car with me didn't need to know I wasn't fully unconscious.

I remained still and listened. The road noises had changed. The car slowed and came to a stop. My whole body tensed. Was this it, the end of the road? I breathed slowly and refused to let negative thoughts take hold. I needed to remain alert. The driver's window buzzed down. I felt a warm breeze tug at the edges of the blanket.

A male voice spoke. “Only cars bearing DOD decals are allowed through this gate.” He stopped talking. Maybe he was reading something. Then he said, “Sorry, sir, didn't recognize you. New car?”

I waited for a response, hoping for some idea of who was driving my car. I was guessing but I thought we could be at one of the gates to Fort Belvoir. Not Tulley Gate – Tulley is the one people without DOD decals have to use.

“A loaner,” said a male voice. There was a slight accent; I needed him to say something else.

“You should get a decal for this car if you're going to be using it for a while, sir. You might not get me next time … would be inconvenient to drive around to Tulley.”

“Thank you, Corporal, I don't think I will be using it again.”

Corporal? The mention of Tulley Gate meant my car had stopped at one of the gates to Fort Belvoir. I knew that accent but not the voice. I knew it. Faint though it was, I determined the driver of my car was from Texas, or had spent a considerable amount of time there.

I held my breath, hoping for a returning rank from the voice outside the car.

“Sir,” the corporal replied, a little too casually, which confirmed my suspicion that they knew each other. Chances were the driver wasn't in uniform. But he could be an officer and one stationed at the Fort. That really narrowed it down – not. “Drive carefully.” Then he spoke again. “I see your other car pulling in now.”

I wished he'd said who was driving it but having it pull in behind us meant it had a decal. Department of Defense.

I thought about the possibilities. Why would someone take me onto a base? It seemed risky. Unless of course he felt secure here, as someone who worked and even lived on the base would.

Great: that narrowed it down a heap more. Fort Belvoir was an interesting army base. He could be Army, National Guard, Army Reserve, from one of twenty-six Department of Defense agencies, Air Force, a Marine, or even from Treasury or maybe a civilian. A lot of civilians worked on the base.

Semi-conscious and drifting I tried to recall everything I knew about the base we were on. Dad was stationed here once, before he joined the naval criminal intelligence service and we'd moved to Newport.

We'd lived at the fort. All I wanted was a memory I could use and all I saw was mom.

The car lurched forward. I almost fell off the seat. I concentrated on external noises, trying to identify something that would give me a bearing. A helicopter flew low overhead. Distant gunfire: a firing range perhaps? Children playing. Asphalt suburban-type road noise. The car swung around several corners. I attempted to tuck up my legs to stabilize myself – which didn't work.

We stopped on what sounded like gravel.

The driver's door opened. I listened and heard the second car stop nearby, stones crunching under the tires. Whoever was driving my car, rocked the car as he alighted. I breathed slowly and calmly, using my breathing to control the surge of adrenaline as I waited and anticipated what would come.

Suddenly the door popped open, by my head. The blanket disappeared. Sunlight hit my eyes; it hurt. My eyes don't like sunlight at the best of times. Hands grabbed at me, hooking under my arms and pulling.

I kicked out but I had no idea why – there was no one near my feet.

A man laughed. The hands let me go with a shove. I landed roughly and confirmed the presence of gravel on the ground.

I lay bound and gagged, though I could see. There wasn't a lot to see from ground level: two pairs of legs. One set wearing Marine desert camouflage and coyote-brown, temperate weather, Marine Corps combat boots. The other wore black dress trousers and polished black shoes. They were facing each other and talking quietly. The man in the fatigues held something in his hand. Metal flashed in the sun. A knife.

I twisted my wrists, hoping there was some movement in whatever bound me. I rolled one wrist. It moved. Then the other. I wriggled one hand free. The men continued talking. I checked my feet. Same deal. They weren't PlastiCuffs after all, just some kind of plastic coated wire and not secured. Whoever tied me up didn't do a very good job.

Yay for stupid people.

I doubted the Marine was responsible. I untwisted the wire from my ankles as quickly as I could.

Free.

I scrambled to my feet and ran. As I ran I ripped the tape from my mouth. I didn't know where I was going. I could see the cars, a concrete bunker, then another bunker and the road.