The woman who was tied up in the back of the Explorer moaned from beneath her gag, and he hissed for her to be quiet as he held his hand over the phone, threatening her with death for the tenth time this evening if she didn’t shut up. The little boy was inside the van in the parking lot, and Ray was waiting at the back of the van for the father of the little boy and the husband of the woman in the Explorer.
Kyle had night-vision glasses from his time as a Marine in Iraq, and as he spoke on the phone, he could see Ray waiting behind the van in the darkness, smoking a cigarette.
Ray had smoked like a chimney since they were thirteen, when he’d stolen a full pack of his mother’s Marlboros, smoked all of them in one day, and gotten violently ill. Ray was weak in certain ways — he needed those cigarettes badly in times like these — but that was okay. His dependencies made him easier to manipulate. That was why Ray was standing by the van — and not him. So if this went wrong, Ray was going down — not him.
“That’s what I want for all my extra time, the risk, and my immeasurable patience,” Kyle said, “a million dollars. You hear me?”
“You’re out of your damn mind,” Sterling snapped through the phone. “I’ve had enough of this. Forget it. Don’t make the deliveries. Keep them, you son of a bitch.”
Kyle was quite prepared for the bluff. He’d done his research. “I know who they are. I know who their father is, or was, depending on who you believe. And I know they’ll pay me if you won’t.” He gritted his teeth. “But let me tell you something. If you don’t pay me, I’ll tell the cops who you are and what you’re planning.”
“You have no idea who I really am,” Sterling retorted, “or what I’m planning.”
“Do you really want to take that chance, Mr. Aussie?” Kyle grinned as he glassed Ray again. He sensed fury at the other end of the line, and he loved it. “I don’t think so, pal.” He loved getting in someone’s grill like this. He always had, ever since he was a kid. “You didn’t think I’d fly into this hurricane blind, did you, Mr. Aussie?”
“I don’t care what you—”
“Send the money,” Kyle ordered when he spotted a shadow coming over the cemetery wall. “And send it right now.”
Kyle dropped the phone and grabbed the hunting rifle leaning against the Explorer.
“Here we go,” he whispered. “Here we fucking go.”
“Where’s my son?” Troy demanded as he edged toward the man standing at the back of the van, smoking a cigarette. He made certain to stay wide of the vehicle so Jack could see him from behind the wall. And wide of the man so the man couldn’t make a sudden wild rush at him. “Tell me now.”
“First,” Ray answered, “you need to understand that you’re being tracked by five Marine sharpshooters who are positioned all around you in the woods, and they have—”
“Bullshit.”
There was one more guy involved in this thing right here right now, Troy figured. Maybe two, but that was it. Nobody would involve six people in one phase of a kidnapping. It was hard enough keeping things on the QT with just two people in on the deal.
Besides, the dollars made no sense for six people. They’d been ordered to bring two hundred thousand bucks in ransom. Split six ways, two hundred grand wasn’t that much, not for the crime being committed. For the same risk of punishment, it would have been much more profitable to knock over a bank.
Even more telling, the dollars didn’t split evenly. It didn’t split evenly three ways, either, which, most likely, meant it was this guy and one other, and that was it.
“Damn it, where’s my son?”
“Is the money in that bag you dropped over there?” Ray asked, pointing with the cigarette.
“Yeah, but I want to see my son first. You take one step toward that bag and I’ll shoot you down. Now, where is he?”
“In the van.”
“What about the woman?”
Ray shook his head. “We got her behind the lines. We let her go later, after we got the money.”
“No deal. I want her here immediately, or you don’t get that bag. That’s not negotiable.”
“You aren’t calling the shots, pal. We are.”
“I’ll shoot you dead on the count of zero if you don’t yell to or call whoever has Karen and tell them to get her up here right now,” Troy threatened, aiming his pistol at the man’s chest. “Five, four—”
“I don’t think so,” Ray cut in, flicking the butt of his still-burning cigarette out and to the right. “I think we’re in charge, and you’re about to find that out.”
The moment the cigarette hit the ground, a rifle shot split the night, and the van’s passenger window shattered.
Despite the gag stuffed down his tiny throat, Little Jack began screaming from inside the van.
A thrill coursed through Troy’s chest. The man standing before him had been telling the truth about at least one thing. L.J. was only a few feet away.
“Here I come!” Jack yelled as he jumped the cemetery wall and sprinted past the canvas bag.
“Bring it on, brother,” Troy called as he raced at Ray and hurled the kidnapper against the van before the man could turn and run.
Another rifle shot cracked the night and slammed into the side of the van just beside Troy and Ray as they struggled.
“Go to the other side of the van, Jack!” Troy shouted as he grabbed Ray by the shirt collar and pulled him roughly around the back to the driver’s side. “Go to the driver’s side!”
Jack veered right, dashed past the front of the van, and met Troy on the driver’s side just as Troy slammed Ray against the vehicle again. “Who’s paying you?” Troy demanded as he shoved the barrel of the pistol into the kidnapper’s mouth. “Who is it?”
“Where’s Karen?” Jack shouted, hurling open the driver’s door and climbing in. Little Jack lay in the middle seat, hog-tied and screaming through the gag. Jack scrambled over the console and scoured the backseat and floor of the vehicle, but didn’t find Karen. “She’s not in here, Troy.” He wanted to comfort L.J., but there wasn’t time. As gently as he could, he pulled L.J. to the floor, where he’d be safer from gunfire, then hustled for the front of the vehicle. There hadn’t been time to untie the boy, and it was probably better not to, anyway. He might try to run from the van, and then he’d become a potential target for whoever was firing away outside. “I’m coming back out!”
As Jack yelled, Troy withdrew the pistol from Ray’s mouth, pressed it to the side of the man’s head, and fired into the air as Jack jumped back out of the van.
“Cover us,” Troy ordered as Ray began screaming. The shot fired directly beside his head had him screaming for mercy. But his screams were cut short when Troy jammed the barrel of the pistol back into his mouth. “We cut off the bastard’s line of sight by coming to this side of the van,” Troy explained, gesturing over his right shoulder, “but it won’t buy us much time. Listen for someone running through the woods from the left. Watch for someone coming out of the woods at us and trying to get to the other side of the van. You see anything, you empty that clip at him. You kill him! If it’s more than one person, shout.”
“Find out about Karen!”
“Cover us!” Troy yelled back, refocusing on Ray. “Who had you take the boy and the woman? Who was it?”
Jack darted to the back of the driver’s side, half listening to Troy interrogate behind him, half listening for footsteps in the dark woods in front of him, adrenaline pumping through his system wildly as the chaos continued. “I hear something,” Jack called over his shoulder as someone raced across the leaves out in front of him. “He’s coming from the left.”