The Debt 8 (Club Alpha) (12 page)

Sky and her mother thanked Jake for all
of his help and financial support, and Jake, as always, was a complete
gentleman and said that it wasn’t a problem and he was happy to do it.
 
He made it seem like no big deal, even
though everyone knew it was a big deal.
 
A very big deal.

Without his help, who knew what would
have happened?

As they left the hospital, it was decided
that they would all meet back at Skylar’s apartment for lunch and to celebrate
the great news.

Sky was tired and probably wouldn’t eat
much, but that didn’t matter.
 
What
mattered was she was going to get through this, Raven thought, as she watched
Sky and her mother get into the car that the valet attendant brought around.

They waved as they drove off.

“I parked just down the street a little
ways,” Jake said, taking Raven’s hand in his.

“How did you do it?” she asked him.

“Do what?”

“You were supposed to be recording
today.”

“I called Mack Zee and let him know that
my recording session would have to wait.
 
What was he going to do, fire me?”

Raven shook her head, but her eyes were
shining with happiness.
 
“You’re
crazy, you know that?”

Jake turned to look at her.
 
“Maybe I am crazy,” he said.
 
And then his entire demeanor changed,
and he licked his lips, as if about to tell her something hugely important.

His eyes were fixed on hers.

“Jake,” Raven said, breathless,
anticipating whatever was coming, even if she wasn’t sure what it was.

But before either of them could say
another word, two police cars pulled up to the curb nearby.
 
Both cars sirens were going, lights
flashing.
 
One of the cars was
unmarked, but the other was a Boston Police car.
 
Out of the marked cruiser, an officer
emerged and came toward them, while a plainclothes detective got out of the
unmarked car.

“Jake Novak?” the detective asked,
showing his badge and identification.

“Yeah, that’s me.
 
Is there a problem?”

The detective was
fit,
lithe and muscular, square jawed, with cool green eyes.
 
“I’m Detective Ridgefield and this is
Officer Moskovitz.
 
Sorry to disturb
you, sir, but we’ve received a credible report on a threat to you and Miss
Hartley’s safety.
 
Would you mind
coming down to the station with us?”

Jake gave Raven a glance.
 
“Would you mind telling me what the
threat is, and from whom?”

“We’ll provide all of the necessary
details at the station.
 
But for
now, we want to get you both out of harm’s way.”
 
The detective gestured to the cruiser.

“Better text Skylar and let her know
we’ll be running late,” Jake told Raven, as they were escorted to the car and
then let in the back seat.

“We’re not going to be handcuffed, are
we?” Raven joked, but neither the detective, nor the uniformed cop laughed.

They got into the backseat together and
then the detective slid into the passenger seat while the other officer
drove.
 
They pulled away from the
curb with the other unmarked car following closely behind.

The detective picked the radio handset up
and spoke into it for a moment, mumbling some kind of jargon as static burst
forth and another voice responded.

Jake grabbed Raven’s hand and looked at
her.
 
“You okay?” he said.

She nodded, but the truth was that she
was feeling sick to her stomach.
 
Literally.
 
She was truly
thinking that she might vomit in the back of the police cruiser.

“I’m all right,” she lied, as her stomach
lurched and the car bounced over a pothole in the street.

“Relax, I’ll take care of everything.”

But she noticed that Jake was tense,
watchful, and he didn’t seem as though he thought everything was okay either.

She wanted to get out of this car
suddenly.

We’re
not safe.

We
never should have gotten in this thing.

Raven didn’t know why she was so upset,
so nervous.
 
After all, the police
were escorting them to the station--they’d gotten them in time, before Club
Alpha had had a chance to hurt anyone.

That was assuming the threat the police
had been alerted about was from Club Alpha in the first place.

Raven took out her cell phone and texted
Skylar, letting her know what had happened.
 
She told her that she would call or text
her when she had more information.

The drive continued.
 
The cops weren’t speaking much.
 
Just grunting and
mumbling to one another.

Raven noticed that the driver kept
looking at her in his rearview mirror, as if he was suspicious of her—as
if she was the one who’d committed some sort of crime.

“Jake,” she said, “I don’t feel
good.
 
Something’s wrong.”

He looked at her.
 
“It’s okay,” he said.
 
“Just try and relax, baby.”

The police car turned off the main road
and suddenly they were driving through an area of the city that was comprised
of industrial buildings, most of which appeared to be empty.
 
Warehouses with a truck or two parked
out front, old brick buildings with broken windows.
 
Empty lots.

“Where are we going?” Raven said to
nobody in particular.

“Ma’am, we’re just making sure that
there’s no one tailing us,” the driver replied.

Behind them, only the unmarked police car
remained.

“Are you going to tell us who informed
you that we’re in danger?” Raven said.

There was no answer this time.
 
Raven’s palms were sweaty and her heart
beat faster and faster.

“Something’s wrong,” she muttered.

Just then, they came to an abrupt halt in
front of an abandoned brick building that looked no different from any of the
others.
 
As soon as they stopped,
the detective in the passenger seat turned and pointed a gun at Jake.
 
“Don’t move a muscle,” he said coldly.

Raven froze, as Jake smiled back at the
man.
 
“You sure you know how to use
that thing?”

“I’ll have no problem blowing your head
off if you so much as say another word, cowboy.”
 
The man’s eyes didn’t twitch and Raven
saw that he meant it.

“Oh my God,” she whispered.

These weren’t policemen at all, she
realized.
 
They worked for Club
Alpha.
 
They were impersonating the
police in order to get her and Jake to a remote location where they’d be
powerless.

A man emerged from the car behind them,
carrying a gun with a silencer on the end of it.
 
He walked to Raven’s side and opened her
door.

“Get out and don’t make a sound or any
sudden moves,” the man said to her, watching her closely.

“Please don’t hurt us,” she said.
 
“Please.”

“Just get out.”

She did get out, slowly, raising her
hands to show she didn’t intend to run or try and fight.

“Walk straight ahead,” the man said,
gesturing towards a metal door that was slightly open.
 
Through the door it was dark, and she
couldn’t see anything.

“Are you going to kill us?” she asked.

“Just walk.”

Raven walked forward, her legs unsteady,
her breathing rapid.
 
She
contemplated running, but knew it would be futile.
 
This was a well-planned and executed
operation, and they’d thought it through.
 
There would be no way to get free from this.

Once she was inside the building, a light
came on overhead, as if it was motion sensitive.
 
She was standing in a warehouse, an empty
warehouse to be exact.
 
The only
things in the room were two wooden chairs and something that looked like a
green toolbox.

The gunman walked Raven to one of the
chairs and told her to sit down, which she did.
 
Another man then approached from the
side and began using duct tape to bind her to the chair.
 
The men were cold, calm and efficient in
their movements and methods.

They were professionals.

When she’d been effectively bound at the
ankles, and then across her arms and chest as well as her wrists, they brought
Jake in and sat him in the chair across from her.
 
Two men had weapons trained on him, and
it was clear they considered him a serious physical threat.

Strangely, though, Jake didn’t seem as
concerned as she thought he should.

He was relaxed, and when he looked at
her, his eyes communicated a steady confidence that was unreasonable to Raven
given the circumstances.

They bound Jake to his chair with much
more deliberateness.
 
First he was
handcuffed and manacled, and then they used duct tape to finish him off, making
him completely immobile.

Once it was done, one of the men spoke
into a blue tooth headset.
 
“We’re
all clear and subjects are ready for debriefing.”

Not long after that, two men entered the
warehouse together.
 
Their shoes
clacked on the hard floor as they approached, and then their shadows fell
between Jake and Raven, before they finally came into view.

Unsurprisingly, Raven saw that it was Max
Mendez and Zeke.
 
Both were wearing
outfits that looked like white Hazmat suits.
 
“So good to see the two of you together,”
Zeke said, smiling with his wet, blubbery lips.

Jake glanced at the small man.
 
“Are you planning to torture us?”

“You like to get straight to the point,
don’t you Mister Novak?” Zeke said, his voice light and seemingly happy to
engage.

“You’re not ever going to get the
information you want from me,” Jake told him calmly.
 
“I won’t betray my country for any
reason or any price.”

Raven swallowed.
 
She didn’t want to be tortured.
 
She was terrified of the pain these men
would inflict on her—she didn’t feel strong at all.
 
Even with Jake near, she felt weak and
small and scared.

Somehow, these men had outthought and
outmaneuvered Jake, and that frightened her worse than anything.

Looking at Max, Raven saw that he was
pale, almost physically ill, and couldn’t meet her gaze.
 

It’s
because he knows what Zeke plans to do to me, to us.

Her stomach heaved but she somehow
managed not to be sick.

“I know you say you won’t betray your
country, which is admirable,” Zeke said, walking over to the large green
toolbox.
 
He knelt down and slowly
opened the top.
 
“But unfortunately,
you’ve left us no choice.
 
We tried
every which way to appeal to you—we desperately wanted to avoid this
final scenario.”

“I don’t think you want to do this,” Jake
said.
 
“You’re making a big mistake.”

“You probably think I’m going to torture
both of you,” Zeke said in a strange, lilting voice.
 
“But the truth is that I’m only going to
hurt Raven.
 
I’m going to let you
watch me hurt her, and you can stop her pain at any time by simply telling us what
we want to know.”

Raven felt a scream rising in her throat
as Zeke stood up, holding a claw hammer.

“Stop,” Jake told him.

“I’m afraid it’s too late for that,” Zeke
said.
 
“Unless you want to tell me
about that final mission in Afghanistan.”
 
He waited for Jake to speak, and when Jake didn’t, Zeke started toward
Raven with the hammer.

“I have pictures,” Jake said, his voice
loud, echoing in the empty warehouse.

“Pictures?” Zeke said, turning towards
him.

“You’ll find them very interesting,” Jake
said.
 
“I promise you, you won’t
want to hurt either of us after you see them.
 
You’ll know everything you need to
know.”

“Where are these pictures?” Zeke said,
suspicious but sounding hopeful at the same time.
 
Or maybe he just sounded greedy.

“They’re on my cell phone.
 
Someone will need to dig it out of my
pocket since I can’t exactly take it out myself.”