Hush: A Thriller Part 30

A glance in the rearview mirror showed Bax nodding. "Blocked," he said.

Riley's lips compressed, but she unzipped her purse-the little thingy that secured the zipper was indeed not snapped-and pulled out her phone. She looked down at it.

"I can't miss that call," she said.

"You won't," he promised.

"I was hoping they would have called by now."

He said, "Maybe they weren't watching TV," and mentally kicked himself for sarcasm again. She looked so worried that he regretted the words, and their tone, as soon as they came out. To soothe her he added, "It was a p.i.s.s-poor idea to tell the whole d.a.m.ned world you know where the money is, but if it makes you feel any better, any kidnapper worth his salt will have some kind of flag on your name. If they missed the live version of your press conference, they'll get the word some other way soon enough."

Finn watched her expression change, from what he basically translated as I've put us all in danger for nothing to oh, G.o.d, I hope so.

Being able to read her face the way he could was another telltale sign, one that in retrospect he should have picked up on right away.

"All right, fine." She started to take the battery out of her phone with a quick efficiency that once upon a time would have surprised him. It still impressed him.

"Tech forensics was able to trace those two emails that were sent to Jeff that you earmarked," Bax reported on a note of excitement. "I just got a text. Dude named Ed Harper, from the Dallas area. Local PD picked him up, and we've got an agent questioning him now."

Finn frowned. The name meant nothing to him. But no operative worth a d.a.m.n would be sitting around in a place where he was known to reside waiting for police to pick him up.

"I didn't-" Riley said, but Finn stopped listening. Up ahead, one semi was pa.s.sing another. No big deal, except that in a couple of minutes he'd be running up close behind them, and they-both of them-were blocking the way. Glancing in his mirrors, he saw that on this hilly stretch of highway, traffic had thinned out considerably. Behind him were maybe three other cars. Correction: vehicles. Two big SUVs, one beige, one black, and a white pickup, a big one, a Ford F-250.

Finn frowned, and cast quick, a.s.sessing looks around. To his left was a gra.s.sy median bisected by a thick stand of trees that prevented him from being able to see the northbound lanes. To his right was wooded hillside. On neither side was there enough room for a car. No easy route of escape.

He felt his gut clench. At about that same time, the semis, now running side by side, began to slow down.

Yeah. Showtime.

"Don't anybody look around. Riley, keep your lap belt on, but come out of your shoulder belt and lay forward. Wrap your arms around your knees and hang on. Lie real flat, as flat as you can." His voice was calm and steady even as adrenaline spiked through his veins. As he spoke he was smoothly changing lanes to position Riley, who looked at him with alarm before she obediently slid out of the shoulder portion of her seat belt, so that any vehicles approaching them from behind would have to come up on his side, not hers. "Bax, this is something I probably should have asked already: how good a shot are you?"

"Good," Bax said in a tight, slightly strangulated voice that had Finn praying he wasn't exaggerating.

"Oh, my G.o.d, it's happening, isn't it? Shouldn't I have a gun?" Riley was stretched out as directed. Her face was turned toward him. She was pale and her eyes were wide with fear.

Finn shook his head, not bothering to repeat one of his favorite maxims, which was that guns were best left to professionals, especially when he was sitting right beside the nonprofessional who wanted one.

"Your job is to stay down. That's it, understand?" As she nodded he said to Bax, "When the shooting starts, either aim for the driver or a front tire. Shooting the pa.s.senger won't help us. Got it?"

Bax sounded steadier. "Got it."

Finn glanced at him in the rearview mirror. Bax had moved the rifle up to lie on the seat with the other weapons, and he had his Glock out. Good.

Finn said, "They want to kidnap Riley, not kill her. Us they'll gladly kill, but not in a way that could kill her, which means they're going to try to avoid making us have a terrible accident. That gives us a little bit of an advantage."

"Holy s.h.i.t, look out," Bax said. "The pickup's coming up on the left."

The Acura's front b.u.mper was already measurably closer to the rumbling semis, and it wasn't because Finn was speeding up. The semis would continue to slow down. The pickup would come up on the driver's side, and the SUVs would close in from behind, boxing them in. The object of the game, Finn knew, was to stop them so that Riley could be grabbed. He could either allow the Acura to be slowed to a stop, or they'd force him to slow down enough to where if they shot him dead while he was still at the wheel, they could close in tight enough around the Acura to bring it to a stop.

In either scenario, he and Bax were dead. Riley, too, only they'd wait until, one way or another, she told them the whereabouts of the money first.

What he had here was a brief window of opportunity.

"I'm getting ready to hang a hard left," he told Bax. In his side mirror he could see the pickup, a big white monster with a billet grille, roaring up. Two men on board: professionals. Sunlight pouring through the windshield glinted off a silver gun barrel in the pa.s.senger's hand. "I'm going to be driving, so you're going to be doing most of the shooting. When we go by the SUVs, you pick: driver or tire. But get one or the other."

Bax said, "I'll get both."

Had to love the guy's optimism.

"Don't get killed," Riley said, staring up at him. He could see how hard she was breathing, hear the tension in her voice. She flicked a glance toward the backseat. "Either of you."

"Hold tight, Angel." With that, Finn drew his Beretta and hit the b.u.t.ton that rolled down the windows. As always in a situation like this, he felt a fierce calm descend. His heart rate slowed. So did his pulse and respiration. The rush of hot wind whipping outdoor smells through the car's interior hit his face and sent Riley's hair flying. He could hear the rattle of the pickup, see that its grille was almost even with the Acura's pa.s.senger door.

Shock and awe, baby.

Keeping one hand on the wheel, Finn leaned out the driver's side window just far enough to get the job done. With unerring precision he snapped off a quick shot that shattered the pickup's window and caught the driver square in the middle of the forehead: money shot. The staccato pop was lost in the roar of the wind. Even as Finn withdrew, the driver slumped, the horn blared as his dead body landed on it, and the pickup veered wildly toward the Acura. Finn took advantage of the few seconds before impact to stomp the accelerator and yank the wheel left. The Acura squealed past the skidding pickup with inches to spare.

"Holy Mary, Mother of G.o.d," Riley gasped as she was thrown toward him and her body came up off the seat, then was caught by her seat belt and flung back down again.

"Stay down."

Brakes screamed as the SUVs tried to avoid the fishtailing pickup and started sliding themselves. Up ahead, the semis were braking, too. The smell of scorching tires filled the air.

"Suck lead, a.s.sholes!" Bax screamed. As bullets pinged into the Acura rat-a-tat-tat, making Finn cringe, Bax fired, loud bangs that told Finn he had opted for the rifle.

The front tire of the nearest SUV exploded, sending it zigzagging wildly.

"Way to do it!" Finn yelled.

The rifle banged some more.

The steering wheel shook beneath Finn's hands as he fought it for control. The margin for error was so slight-the wall of trees was inches from the side of the car and the swerving SUVs took up most of the pavement. Trees flashed by the windshield in a green-brown blur, bullets peppered the sides of the car right along with flying gravel, and as they hit gra.s.s they bounced like ping pong b.a.l.l.s. Then the Acura was flying back the way it had come, partly on gra.s.s and partly on the pavement. A glance in the rearview mirror showed Finn that the pickup had crashed into the wooded slope on the right side of the expressway, both SUVs were off the pavement, and the semis were angled across the road, one in front of the other. Finn counted three men outside the vehicles, two rushing toward the pickup and one leaning back against the side of the beige SUV holding his arm, and felt a surge of triumph mixed with relief.

"We did it," Bax exulted.

"Way to get the job done," Finn congratulated him, and glanced at Riley, who was cautiously sitting up. "You okay?"

"Fine. I can't believe we're alive after that." Pushing her hair back from her face with both hands-Finn rolled up the windows so it wouldn't blow anymore-Riley looked at him. Something in her face reminded him that she'd just seen him kill a man. Their eyes met. Finn felt naked: This is what I am. He didn't like the sensation. Mouth compressing, he returned his attention to his driving, and eased the Acura back up on the road.

"You saved my life again. Thank you," Riley said quietly, and something tight inside him eased just a little bit. He nodded, and she then slewed around to look at Bax. "Neither of you are hurt?"

"No."

"No."

Riley looked back at the site of the wreck they were rapidly leaving behind and shivered. "Will they come after us, do you think?"

"I only got the one tire," Bax confessed. "Other than that, I don't know what I hit."

"Whatever you hit, it worked," Finn said, glancing at him through the mirror. "Good man." Then, to Riley, "They won't come after us. Not right now," and refrained from telling her that there were probably dozens more exactly like them.

"We're going the wrong way down the expressway," she pointed out.

Worried as he was, her matter-of-fact tone almost made him smile. "I'll get right on that."

- CHAPTER -

THIRTY-ONE.

The safe house was an ordinary-looking brick two-story not too far southwest of Dallas. It was in a semirural neighborhood with no near neighbors, set back off the road and ringed by trees.

Four men in two cars were waiting for them when they arrived. The cars were parked on the street in front of the house, and the men got out and headed toward the Acura as it pulled up the driveway.

It said a lot about the current state of her life that as soon as she spotted the waiting cars Riley's heart leaped into her throat.

"Finn." There was warning in her tone. Alarmed, she sat straight up in her seat.

"It's all right. They're backup," he said.

The thought that she now needed all these armed guards was terrifying. But given what had happened on the expressway, she was prepared to accept his judgment that she did.

The men followed them into the house. They were introduced to Riley as Agents Foster, Hagan, Waters, and Silverman. She didn't inquire what agency they were from, and they were pretty much interchangeable in their dark suits and white shirts and ties.

In fact, Finn fit right in with them.

Inside, the house was ordinary looking, too: living room, dining room, family room, kitchen, and half bath on the first floor, three bedrooms and two baths above. The new recruits deployed themselves around the first floor. Riley, Finn, and Bax hit the kitchen, which as it turned out was fully stocked. Tired and shaken as she was, Riley was hungry. It was almost 4 p.m., and she hadn't eaten anything except a nibble of toast at breakfast with Finn. She made herself a bologna sandwich, ate quickly, then headed upstairs, leaving Finn and Bax still at the table. Finn had carried her suitcase into the master bedroom when they had arrived, and that was where she went.

Hungry as she had been, the food felt like a cannonball in her stomach, and that would be, Riley thought as she headed into the en suite bathroom to freshen up, because she was sick with fear. For Emma: the kidnappers still had not called. For herself: she had nearly died this afternoon for the second time in little more than a week, and she was confident that there were lots of people still out there who were prepared to make her dead.

Having washed her face and hands, brushed her teeth, and applied fresh makeup, Riley was brushing her hair as she walked back into the bedroom, and immediately lost her train of thought as she saw Finn stretched out on the bed, his head propped up by pillows as he clearly waited for her.

He wasn't wearing his jacket or tie, and his shirt was unb.u.t.toned at the neck and had the sleeves rolled up to the elbows. His shoulder holster was off: she spotted it on the bedside table. Other than that, he was fully dressed down to his shoes, which rested on the cheerful blue floral bedspread.

Just looking at him made her feel warm all over, which she knew was idiotic. She was willing to bet the rent money that he wasn't there for s.e.xy times.

"Hi," she said, and waited.

"We need to talk." Sitting up, he swung his legs off the bed and got to his feet.

Riley put the brush down on the low oak dresser that was right beside her, crossed her arms over her chest, and met his gaze as he stopped in front of her.

She didn't have her shoes on, and he loomed large. Good thing she no longer found him the least bit intimidating.

"So talk," she said.

His eyes slid over her face. His expression was grim.

"As you may have noticed, we have a situation here. We're squirreled away in a safe house because everybody and his uncle wants to get their hands on you and make you tell them where the money is. My boss wants that money, too, and my whole organization, including those guys downstairs and a bunch of others who are a h.e.l.l of a lot deadlier, will turn on us in a heartbeat if he decides the best way to get it is to torture information out of you. We don't have a lot of time before this turns nasty. I'm on your side, and they'll get to you over my dead body, but that could happen. I need you to stop lying to me, and tell me the whole d.a.m.ned truth." He reached out to grasp her arms. His hands felt warm, and strong, and familiar now. It was the familiar part that got to her. "I know you know where the money is. Tell me."

Right. It was all about the money. For a moment there, she'd almost forgotten that.

"If we're going to talk about truth, why don't you go first?" She smiled at him. Because she really, really liked him, and because suspecting his motives and not being able to trust him felt like it was turning her heart inside out, it wasn't a nice smile. "Mr. CIA Agent John F. Bradley."

The skin around his eyes tightened, his mouth thinned, and the grip on her arms hardened.

"I saw your ID number on a text when you snuck out of bed in the middle of the night and the phone rattled the drawer beside the bed," she said. "And I checked it out."

He grimaced. Message: busted. Then his grip eased and his eyes and mouth returned to normal. "John Finnegan Bradley, CIA's National Clandestine Service, Special Operations Group. The Agency doesn't want its interest in the missing money known, so we're conducting a joint operation with the FBI. Bax is FBI, by the way. For real."

"You lied to me."

"In the interests of national security."

She huffed out a laugh. "Does that line actually work on people?"

He pulled her toward him. "Pretty much, yeah. Riley-"

"Oh, no." She put her hands on his chest, freed herself from his grip, walked over to the room's one chair, a denim blue recliner, and threw herself down in it. He followed, and she looked up at him with a frown.

"Your picture was on Jeff's cell phone." Her tone was abrupt. It was a measure of her growing trust in him that she told him at all. As she'd decided before, if his picture was on that phone for the wrong reasons, telling him she'd seen it could go very wrong. "He snapped it the night he died."

His face was impossible to read as he looked down at her. "You've been wondering if I killed him."

She'd never really thought that. "More like, I've been wondering if you're one of the bad guys."

He snorted. "Angel, if I'm a bad guy, I'm the one keeping all the other bad guys from your door."

"I know. Don't think I don't appreciate that."

The look he gave her was long, level, and impossible to interpret. "In the interests of clarity, I did not kill Jeff. I was looking for him that night, though. He must have seen me, taken a picture without me seeing him, and then run for it. He knew me, knew what I was there for."

Riley's hands tightened on the arms of the chair. "You knew Jeff?"

He sighed, and crouched down in front of her. "This is full disclosure, right? I tell you mine, you tell me yours?"

"Maybe." Riley drew the word out cautiously, and he narrowed his eyes at her. But he continued anyway.

"After 9/11, the CIA had a few of us tracking down some insider trades that happened in the markets prior to the attacks. We developed information that enabled us to use the financial markets to predict impending terrorist attacks. Cowan Investments had a large number of investments from suspect sources, and I was sent down here to check them out. Jeff was a teenager at the time, working in his daddy's office. He didn't appreciate my presence. George didn't, either, but he was old enough and smart enough to cooperate. The fact that I was already familiar with the Cowans and their operation was one of the factors in sending me here to search for the money."

Even though she hadn't really suspected him of harming Jeff, Riley felt as if a small weight had been lifted from her chest.

"Is that everything?" she asked cautiously.