Unholy Code (A Lana Elkins Thriller) (32 page)

“Okay, okay,” Emma replied to her phone. “Just give me a chance to get this thing started.”

She fired up the Fusion and drove dutifully north.

More directions followed, taking Emma past men with grocery carts, sleeping bags, filthy blankets, and plastic bags filled with empty cans and bottles. One stumbled to the driver’s-side window, his vacant eyes staring at her.

“Get me out of here,” Emma whispered, as if the voice on her phone might respond to a desperate request.

Instead, it told her to turn left in one block.

Emma did.

“Oh, crap.”

From the homeless to the nearly so: dilapidated housing with broken porch railings and rotting stoops loomed before her, along with the people sitting on them.

Watching me
, she realized.

A second later, the vehicle stopped running. Died right in the middle of the street. Cars parked on both sides, leaving her to block the right lane.

Emma tried the starter repeatedly. Not a spark.
Dead-dead-dead
. She pounded the steering wheel. A car eased around her. Then it was gone. She was alone.

No you’re not.

Two guys were walking up. Gold chains around their necks, jeans around the bottoms of their butts, undershorts showing. Ball caps askew—Orioles and Wizards.

“Hey, girl. Need some help?” asked the bigger, bulkier one. His short bony friend looked on, smiling.

The smaller one promptly started talking a line, too. “Sure she does. Come on, sweet sister, pop the hood on your Fu-sion.” Making a dance out of those two syllables.

“I’m going to call Triple A,” she said through the closed window.

“Sure, you do that,” the big guy said. “You must think you’re in Bethesda and they’ll come running.” He was laughing now, looking at her high school parking permit in the corner of the front window. “Good luck with that shit. Last time I called, I waited days.”

The shorter one laughed, too, and slapped palms with his buddy. “Triple A. Yeah, you’ll be waiting. Least you got some company. Pop the hood. I work on cars. I might be able to help you.”

Did she dare? Did she dare not?

She released the hood. It rose before her. She couldn’t see what the bony guy was doing. The bigger one tapped her window.

“What do you think we’re gonna do? Eat you alive? You can come out.”

Shit
. She froze. She wished Sufyan were here.
Or his dad
. That would show she wasn’t prejudiced. But maybe she was to react like this. Or was it just showing good sense? She didn’t know, wondering if some bigot banging around her brain really was making this seem so much worse.

There were now five guys crowding around. No women.

Emma called Triple A, giving the dispatcher the cross streets. “How long?” she asked.

“I’m guessing they’ll be there pretty quick. Half hour at the most.”

“A half hour?” Emma knew she sounded panicky.

“That’s right,” the dispatcher said. “Hang tight.”

“Turn it over,” the big guy outside her window said.

Emma looked at him, unsure what he meant.

“The car key, or the button. Whatever you got in there to make it go.”

Emma pushed the ignition switch. Dead.

“Let me try it,” the guy said. “Open the door.”

Push was coming to shove.
Sometimes you just have to put your faith 
in people
. Which felt like the thinnest of reeds. She unlocked the door.

“Now get your skinny ass out of there and let me check it out.”

My butt or the car?

The car, apparently. He exchanged positions with Emma with nary a glance.

“The key?” he asked.

“They’re in my bag.” Which was on the passenger seat next to him, home to her wallet, credit cards, ID,
money
. “It’ll start with it over there.” She didn’t want him to touch her bag.

He grabbed it anyway and put it on his lap, trying the ignition button again. Still nothing.

“You seeing anything up there?” he asked his friend, who was still under the hood.

“Nothing. Everything looks cool.”

“I’m seeing something,” one of the hangers-on said. He had his eyes all over Emma. “You wanna party with us? Come on.” He grabbed her arm.

“Hey, Beast, leave her be,” the guy in the car said.

“Why? You think you got reservations? You don’t have shit, man.” His grip tightened on Emma.

“I’d suggest you let her go right now.”

A woman had walked up behind them. Tall as Em’s mom.

“Go fuck yourself, bitch. You don’t come into
my
hood and tell me shit.”

The woman nodded. Maybe agreeably. Emma hoped not. She wanted this guy to let her go. His fingers felt like steel cables.

“Fuck it, you’re coming, too,” the guy holding Emma said to the woman. “We’ll make it a big fucking party.”

“Beast, cut that shit out.” The big guy climbed out of the car.

“Stay right where you are,” the woman said. She had straight dark hair and blue eyes like Emma’s. Wearing jeans, sweater, heavy boots.

Combat boots
. Em’s mom had a pair. Dust colored. Didn’t fit the woman’s outfit at all.

“Now that was your mistake,” the big guy said. “’Cause I’m on her side, but you’re pissing me off.”

He stepped toward her. The woman drew a semi-automatic from the back of her jeans, racking and raising it in a blink. Aimed it at his face.

“Freeze. And you,” she eyed the guy holding Emma, “let her go or I 
will
blow your balls off.”

The shorter guy slammed the hood down. “You people are shit. I was trying to help her.”

“He,” the woman nodded at Beast, “put his hands on her. Game over.”

“Beast, you’re a motherfucker,” said the big guy. “Let her go.”

Emma stepped away, rubbing her arm.

Then the big guy tossed Em her bag. “Don’t be leaving that here.”

“Lock it,” the woman told Em, who complied without question, using the key fob. “Now we’re leaving,” she said to the seven men. “Nobody gets hurt if nobody moves.”

The woman kept her gun on the young men as she and Emma retreated to a utility van about fifty feet away. The front passenger door was unlocked. Emma climbed in, finding an open laptop resting on a metal stand next to the driver’s seat, like the ones she’d seen in some delivery trucks.

The woman backed up, executed a crisp three-point turn, then sped off within seconds.

“Thank you so much,” Emma said. “I didn’t know what was going to happen.”

“You’re more than welcome.”

“I’m Emma.”

“Emma Elkins. I know who you are.”

Emma figured she was one of her mother’s friends in some super-secret intelligence service who’d been ordered to track her down. “Who 
are you?”

The woman smiled, then hit the childproof locks. She still hadn’t put aside her gun. “I’m your guardian angel. But some people call me Golden Voice.”

LANA LEFT CAIRO IN
the Charger and hobbled as fast as she could into Planned Parenthood, but her best efforts got her nowhere. The youthful receptionist wouldn’t even acknowledge that Emma had been in the clinic.

“That is confidential information between a woman and her doctor. And we’re closing for the day,” she added crisply.

“Look, I don’t have a problem with your confidentiality. I respect it. But my daughter called and told me she’d been here.” Lana leaned forward. “Her life is in danger. My house was bombed this morning.” She indicated the crutches supporting her. “It’s been all over the news.” Lana glanced over her shoulder where the waiting room television was tuned to CNN.

“You’re—”

“That’s right,” Lana said.

“Let me check with someone,” the receptionist said. But as she reached for the phone, a bearded man in a white coat walked toward them from the back of the clinic.

“Carly, let me talk to Ms. Elkins.” He turned to Lana. “Come on back here,” he said, holding open a gate for her. “I’m Dr. Abbas.”

He led her to his office, Lana crutching noisily down the hall behind him.

“Have a seat,” he said, although he remained standing, leaning against a cabinet with his clipboard held to his chest. “You say your daughter called you? Did I hear that correctly?”

“Yes, she did.”

“What did she say?”

“That she wanted to see me,” Lana lied. “She knows she can call me any- time, any place, for any reason, no questions asked and no recriminations.”

“We ought to have that painted on the bedroom of every parent we deal with,” he replied with a smile. “We helped her find a place to stay. Did she tell you about that?”

“No,” Lana replied, glad that Emma had found a place for the night. “Can you tell me?”

“Why don’t you call her?”

“To be honest, I’ve tried, but her phone must be out of service.” Lana rued saying “to be honest.” A bad habit; even when she wasn’t lying it made her sound as though she were.

Dr. Abbas raised an eyebrow.

“There are service problems across the country,” Lana insisted, trying to make her story plausible. Emma simply hadn’t returned her calls or texts.

“I asked her to call you.” The doctor looked straight into Lana’s eyes, then put his clipboard down and wrote on a prescription pad. “I’ve never violated a woman’s confidentiality, but I’ve also never faced these circumstances. I saw the video of your home. I also know who you are, and I can understand your concern for your daughter’s safety.” He handed her the paper. “Your daughter should be at this address. A friend of the clinic rents rooms or provides them for nothing, if someone doesn’t have money. Her name’s Anna Hendrix. She’s a good person. She’s handled all types of situations. Abusive boyfriends, batterers, that kind of thing. Emma will be safe there. Anna knows there could be trouble.”

“Is Anna armed?”

Dr. Abbas paused. “She … ah … finds that advisable. I can’t disagree. Our opponents can be brutal.”

Lana thanked him and was out the door as fast as she could manage. She read the address into her phone and followed the directions. They led her to the Fusion, which was getting loaded onto a flatbed tow truck.

Lana climbed out of her car, bracing herself against the door of the Charger. “Do you know where the driver is?” she called to the tow-truck operator. “She’s my daughter.”

He got out of the cab and walked toward her. “Cops just told me to clear the street. That’s all I know.”

A tall, muscular man sporting chains and dropped jeans sauntered over. “Was that your kid?”

“Yeah, did you see her?”

The tow-truck operator stayed close, as though he expected trouble.

“Yeah, I saw her. Friend and I tried to help her. Car just stopped dead. Then some dude grabbed her arm and a chick comes out of nowhere. She looked kinda like you, and pulls out a big barrel like she means business, and your kid left with her.”

“In a car?”

“Big white van. Chevy Express. Kind without windows. You’re not hearing from your girl?”

Lana eyed him carefully. “No, and there’s a lot of money in finding her.”

“Shit, I’m not looking for your goddamn money. I’m telling you ’cause I got a kid about her age and none of this shit makes any sense. Her car just stops for no reason. My buddy’s good, and he was under the hood and everything looked fine to him. Then some chick with a Glock comes up at just the right second, aims it right in my face. So I hope you find your kid, and fuck over that bitch. She would’ve killed me. I could see it in her eyes.”

“Thanks. I appreciate your help.”

Lana was slipping back into the Charger, the tow-truck driver his cab. She called Baltimore police and reported her missing daughter and the description of the van. Ditto after dialing the FBI. Then she glanced at the car as she started backing up, thinking about what the big man had just told her:
Stopped for no reason
. Could have been a malfunction that wouldn’t have been apparent to the naked eye, like a blocked fuel line. Or the vehicle’s computer could have been hacked. She’d specifically avoided the Cherokee, which had become notorious for this vulnerability. Now she was doing an Internet search to see if the Fusion …

Oh shit.

Her stomach churned as she found the Ford among a recent list of cars that conceivably could be hacked.

Regardless of the cause—mechanical failure or computer hack—it all added up to the worst type of trouble: the kind that claims your daughter.

• • •

Emma shrieked. Some guy had just risen from behind her seat in the van and grabbed her. And he was dragging her into the dark cargo area.

“Don’t fight me or I’ll break you into pieces,” he said.

The thought of fighting him hadn’t even entered Emma’s mind. The man was so strong and fast, he’d overwhelmed her. 

“And don’t move,” he said in a softer voice, the city streets passing swiftly beneath them.

He threw a black curtain that closed off the cargo space from the cab, then switched on a light. He wore a Barack Obama mask.

“Put your hands out.”

“What for?”

He grabbed them and jammed her wrists up behind her back, then cinched them tightly together with plastic cuffs.

“Lie down.”

“Please stop. Please. Don’t let him do this to me,” she yelled to the female driver.