Hush: A Thriller Part 29

"I'M GOING to need some more firepower," Finn said to Bax, who jumped out of the van to join him on the pavement as soon as the Acura stopped beside it. Finn's heart, which had been pounding, was slowing down, as he had trained it to do when he was going into work mode. "You got any weapons?"

"My Glock," Bax said, showing him by flipping back his jacket, although Finn didn't take the time to look. Following Finn around toward the back of the van, Bax added, "I think there's a rifle in the back."

"Get it. Get all the ammo you have, too." Finn clicked the b.u.t.ton that opened the Acura's trunk, grabbed his suitcase out, and slammed the lid. Opening the rear door, he threw his suitcase into the backseat, and said to Riley, who had slewed around to look at him, "Stay there," then turned to accept a rifle and a box of sh.e.l.ls from Bax. He put that in the back, too, down on the floorboard, gave Riley a warning growl in case she was entertaining any thoughts about getting out of the car, which, knowing her, she probably was, and said to Bax, "Every d.a.m.ned thug in the universe is gonna be coming after her now. You know those steps we were talking about last night to keep her safe? This is one of them, only instead of 'safe' you should think 'alive.' I want you to come with me, be an extra gun. Two things we need to have clear before you do: first off, you're liable to get killed. Second, can I trust you? Because if you come with me and I find out I can't, I'm going to kill you myself."

"Y-y-yeah, you can trust me." Bax's stuttering made Finn think not. The other man unfastened his buckle, pulled off his belt, and held it up with a flourish. That was not an action Finn was expecting, and he blinked. Then it hit him.

"You've been wearing a bug." It would have been in the buckle. He'd pulled that trick once or twice himself. Didn't stop him from glaring at Bax.

"I had to. The Bureau wanted ears." He threw the belt into the van, slammed the door, and held out his hands palms up to Finn in the age-old gesture of surrender. "I blocked you whenever you said anything too sensitive."

"Rattling the d.a.m.ned coins." Finn couldn't believe he'd been so stupid. He'd bugged Bax, Bax had bugged him. Quid quo pro, one f.u.c.king government operative to another.

"Yeah," Bax said. "And coughing, and turning on the radio, and-"

Finn's face must have been a pretty accurate reflection of his feelings, because Bax said, "Sorry," in a meek voice, and added, "I'm good now. I'm with you. Let's go."

"You got people around?"

"Two guys." Bax sounded abashed. "They brought the van, helped set up the surveillance. Right now they're up at the McDonald's, waiting for me to call."

Finn gave him a hard look. f.u.c.king FBI. "Call them in about twenty minutes and tell them to come collect the van. And I meant what I said about trusting you: I'd better be able to."

"You can."

"Then let's go."

"WHAT'S HAPPENED?" Riley repeated her question as Finn got behind the wheel, Bax climbed into the backseat, and the Acura pulled out of the parking s.p.a.ce, heading for the road. A rifle on the floor of the backseat, Bax in the backseat-she hadn't even known Bax was in Stringtown, and what was he doing in that van? It scared her. "What's wrong?"

"You want to know what's wrong? Let's see: for starters, what the f.u.c.k was that?" Finn shot at her by way of a reply. His usually calm blue-gray eyes weren't calm anymore, and they weren't blue-gray. They were the color of steel, and furious. "Do you have any idea of what you just did?"

"What are you talking about?"

"Don't give me that." He accelerated smoothly past the prison, and then they were moving down the road back the way they had come, toward Stringtown, going fast but not so fast that they would attract attention. "You just got on live TV and told the whole d.a.m.ned world that you know where George has that money stashed!"

Her brows snapped together. "I wanted to get a message to Emma's kidnappers. And I didn't tell the whole d.a.m.ned world anything: it was a veiled reference. Anyway, how do you know that's what I did?"

"You remember that b.a.s.t.a.r.d who almost drowned you in your bathtub? You remember Jeffy-boy ending up getting himself hanged? You remember that Emma's kidnapped and George got stabbed? To say nothing of those other four a.s.sociates of George's who died mysteriously?" Finn didn't yell, but instead bit the words out savagely. "The people who do those kinds of things? They're now all after you. Every single one of them. I don't know how many there are. Dozens, for all I know. Billions of dollars provide a powerful incentive for all of them to want to get their hands on you and get you to tell them what you said you know, which is where the money is. Do they care if they kill you? h.e.l.l, no. For a lot of them, it'll be fun."

"You were spying on me!"

"You bet your sweet a.s.s I was spying on you!" He threw another of those furious looks at her as he nosed the Acura around the curving on-ramp to the expressway. Riley's chest tightened as the maelstrom of thoughts swirling through her head coalesced into a single, terrible one: he might have been spying on her while she talked to George, too. Panic fluttered: if so, he would know that George hadn't told her where the money was.

The solution that presented itself wasn't pretty, but it would have to do. She could say that George's words had contained a coded message that only she could understand.

Liar, liar, pants on fire.

But what else could she do?

They were heading toward Houston, Riley saw, as they merged into traffic. There wasn't a lot, and what there was sped along easily.

Over his shoulder, to Bax, Finn said in a more measured tone, "There's a zippered gun case inside the top compartment in my suitcase. Get it out, and hand me the Sig. Keep the others out where we can get to them."

"Got it," Bax said.

"You have no business spying on me," Riley said. From the backseat came the sound of Bax unzipping the case.

"I have no-" Finn broke off, and Riley got the impression that he was grinding his teeth. "If I hadn't spied on you, you'd already be dead."

Riley's eyes narrowed. "You were spying on me that night I was attacked in my apartment, weren't you? That's why you showed up when you did!"

"Uh, Finn?" Bax pa.s.sed him a silver pistol.

"What are you going to do with that?" Riley asked, her alarm ratcheting up to a whole new level. The truth was, when she'd made her televised announcement that George had told her where the money was, she hadn't been thinking of anyone but Emma, and getting a message to her kidnappers. The idea that she'd brought a hornet's nest of a.s.sa.s.sins down on herself-and Finn, and Bax-made her palms grow damp.

"Shoot the first b.a.s.t.a.r.d who tries to grab you. Of course, a Sig only holds a certain number of bullets." Finn patted his shoulder holster through his jacket. "Good thing I have my Beretta. And the backups. And Bax. Let's hope we don't run out of ammo before all the bad guys are dead." Tucking the pistol into the cup holder so that the handle was easily accessible, Finn glanced in the rearview mirror at Bax. "I need to find a pay phone. Think you can get on your phone and find me one? As close to us as possible."

Riley slewed around to look at Bax, who was pulling out his cell phone. Seeing a black strip of what looked like Kevlar that had been unrolled on the backseat with various guns secured to it by strips of the same cloth, she caught her breath and looked at Finn. "What, do you travel with your own a.r.s.enal?"

"You better thank your lucky stars I do." His voice was grim. He shot another through-the-rearview-mirror look at Bax. "You can go ahead and tell your people to pick that van up now."

"I'll text 'em," Bax said.

"He was in the van." Riley got it all of a sudden. She glanced back at Bax, saw as she did that they were cruising past a white pickup that was moving at a pretty good clip itself, realized they were speeding, and then forgot about traffic as her gaze focused back on Bax, who had been working his cell phone but looked up as if he felt the weight of her eyes. "You were in that van, weren't you? What, is it one of those surveillance vans like they use on spy shows on TV?" Bax's expression, coupled with his and Finn's mutual silence, told the tale. "It is, isn't it?" She glared at Finn as her worst fear was confirmed. "You were watching me talk to George, weren't you?"

"Angel, you've been lying to me nonstop from the minute I first laid eyes on you. Why wouldn't I watch you talk to George?"

"You want to talk about lying?" The anger and hurt she'd been bottling up since doing her due diligence on that text message surged through her veins. "What about all the lies you've told me?"

It was all she could do not to throw the fact that she knew he was a CIA agent, for starters, in his face, but an innate caution stopped her.

Finn's eyes flashed her way, but before he could reply Bax said, "I've got a pay phone in a Grab-and-Go at the next exit. Twenty-four B."

"I NEED a safe house." The Agency kept safe houses ready to go, not just throughout the USA but around the world, and Finn had little doubt that there would be at least one somewhere between where he was and Houston. "And I'm going to need some backup."

As he spoke into the pay phone, summarizing what had happened for Eagle, Finn scanned his surroundings. The phone was set into the wall of an ancient Grab-and-Go store, located conveniently right next to the restrooms. Riley was in one, Bax in the other. The Acura was directly in front of him. Two other cars waited in the parking lot, one at a gas pump, one parked in front of the store, both harmless. He could see all the way to the expressway exits: nothing concerning headed their way. He had a bad feeling that that was only temporary.

He hadn't wanted to trust even his own agency with the knowledge of where he was taking Riley, but he was fresh out of options. Too many people would be coming after her now that they thought she knew where the money was.

"So she knows the whereabouts of the money?"

Something in Eagle's tone gave Finn pause. "I think she was bluffing, trying to draw out her sister's kidnappers."

In fact, he was starting to think no such thing. He didn't know how Riley knew where the money was, but he thought she did know. His gut shouted it, and as he ran his mind back, every fact he turned over confirmed it. But he wasn't about to tell Eagle that. Eagle was on a mission to find that money. If he thought Riley knew where it was, and somebody besides Finn could get the information out of her faster than Finn could, then he might very well find himself in a pitched battle with his own agency.

Because he wasn't letting them have Riley. Until now, his ultimate loyalty, after his loyalty to his country, had been to Eagle. When he'd saved Eagle's life, it had been a split-second decision: they'd been in the bas.e.m.e.nt of a bombed-out tenement in Libya, meeting with the deputy head of Libyan intelligence and a few of his underlings for a top-secret pa.s.sing-on of information at the highest levels. A traitor in the Libyan ranks had opened fire. Finn had grabbed Eagle, basically turned into a one-man war machine, and gotten his superior out of there, taking a hit himself in the process that had nearly killed him.

He and Eagle had been the only two in that room to get out alive.

Jennifer, his ex-girlfriend by that time but still a fellow agent, had been in that room, too. She hadn't survived.

Finn was haunted by the knowledge that he could have gotten her out of there, could have saved her instead of Eagle. But Jennifer had been a professional like himself, and when the bullets had started flying he had reacted instantly, instinctively, and as his training had dictated.

He still bore the scars of that night: a puckered wound on his abdomen and a s.h.i.t-ton of guilt and regret and grief over Jennifer.

He'd retired, and started over.

Now there was Riley. This time, loyalty to his superior and his agency wasn't going to supersede his loyalty to a woman he cared about (and how was this for a moment to find himself face to face with the fact that he cared like that about Riley?). He was all in, committed to getting her out of this, whatever it took.

The object of his thoughts came out of the ladies' room and threw him a guarded look. Finn nodded at the car, threw her the keys. It was too hot to sit in a car for even a few minutes without the air conditioner on, and he had no fear she was going to try to drive away. Riley was way too smart for that.

As Riley got into the pa.s.senger seat and reached across to insert the keys in the ignition and turn on the engine, Eagle said, "If she doesn't know where the money is, you're a wasted resource as long as you're with her."

Finn pulled his attention back to his conversation. "I need a little more time to figure this out. If the money's around to be found, I'll find it."

"Time's running out," Eagle warned.

"We need to recover the sister-in-law, Emma."

"People are on it. You think I don't want to rescue a teenage girl from kidnappers? Let them do their jobs. You find the d.a.m.ned money. Hang on."

A minute later Eagle was back on the line with the location of a safe house.

- CHAPTER -

THIRTY.

Bax was out of the restroom and leaning against the car by the time Finn finished his conversation and hung up. It was hot as h.e.l.l, the air smelled like gas fumes and restrooms, and Bax, in a suit and tie, too, was turning red from the heat. Grim as he was feeling, Finn experienced a flicker of amus.e.m.e.nt as he wondered if the other man was avoiding getting in the car because he didn't want to have to answer awkward questions, or worse, from Riley.

"I got a text from the guys in Stringtown. They're at the van, and they want to know where I am." Bax straightened as Finn approached the car.

"Tell them you're on a field trip." Finn pulled off his own tie and unb.u.t.toned his collar. He would have shed the jacket, but then his shoulder rig would have been exposed and he didn't want that.

"Okay. Right." Bax was texting as he got in the car.

"Checking in with the boss?" Riley asked him with an edge to her voice as he slid behind the wheel, and he knew she was referring to his phone call.

All right, so he was a sucker for a woman with att.i.tude. At least he was facing his faults.

"I got us a safe house," Finn said. His tone was mild. Blowing up at her was a waste of time and effort-it wouldn't change a thing, wouldn't unspill the milk, wouldn't put her words back in her mouth-so he wasn't going to do it. It wasn't how he rolled. It was a measure of how surprised and scared for her he had been that he'd done it at all. Anyway, if he wanted her cooperation, yelling at her probably wasn't the smartest way to go about getting it. And he didn't want to goad her into blurting out too much-like the whereabouts of the money-in front of Bax. Not that he didn't trust the other man, but-yeah, he didn't. He didn't trust anybody that much.

"A safe house?" Riley looked taken aback.

"You know, a place where we can hide from all the people who want to kill us." As soon as he said it, he told himself that sarcasm should probably be given a rest, too.

They were on I-45 South again, and Finn cast a wary look around. Nothing but ordinary-looking traffic. He kept a cautious eye on his mirrors as he moved over into the fast lane and hit it. They had maybe another half hour on the expressway and then fifteen minutes after that to the safe house.

May you be in heaven a full half hour before the devil knows you're dead: the old Irish prayer popped into his head, and he subst.i.tuted the words we and the safe house and enemy operatives get on your tail in the appropriate places and sent it skyward, then looked at Riley.

"I need you to take the battery out of your phone," he said.

She'd been holding her purse on her lap. Now she frowned at him and clutched it tighter. Finn realized her phone was in there.

"I can't." The touch of panic in her eyes made his stomach constrict. A sucker for a woman with att.i.tude, my a.s.s, he thought. What you're a sucker for is her. d.a.m.n it. "Emma-the kidnappers said they'd call me on it."

"I arranged to have your calls routed through my phone. When they call, we'll get it just fine." He said it gently and watched her process it. "It'd be easy for somebody to get your number and track you with it."

She knew it: she'd disabled her phone before for just that reason.

"What about your phone? And his?" She jerked her head at Bax.

"Mine can't be tracked that way. I'm guessing his is the same."