She saw a jet of red spurt from her onto Brandon. Stunned she reached up toward her own throat — Brandon must have be scared.
She sunk to her knees as warm liquid splattered onto her hand. She looked down and saw that her new sundress was completely soaked in thick red. She looked at Brandon once more. She wanted to tell him he wasn’t hurt. That he was just scared. But no words would come. So tired. She pressed her hand against her neck, feeling another pulse of blood come out, along with bubbling air. That was so strange. But no pain. Stranger more.
Her baby. She’d never thought of it in any way beyond the numbers. She tried to scream and red froth bubbled out of the deep six-inch smooth incision in her throat. Cathy fell forward into the sand and the last surge of arterial blood barely trickled out of her neck into the sand.
Emily opened her eyes and tried to remember where she was and what had happened to her. Before she remembered anything, she felt a wave of panic so strong she felt sick with its intensity. She could see nothing, hear nothing, and she couldn’t move. For a terrible moment, she thought she had been in an accident and was paralyzed. Too quickly came the terrifying realization. A hospital room would never be this dark. That thought forced her to accept that her situation was much worse than an accident. Suddenly she was rolled to her left side by centrifugal force, and became aware that she was moving, or rather she was in something moving.
She tried to swallow, but her mouth was too dry. Then she knew. She remembered the sound of metal slamming; she remembered hitting her shoulder hard as a rough arm had tossed her down. It was so fast. Emily was astonished that it had been so fast. A piece of tape had been slapped over her mouth. There had been no way to stop what had happened. For a moment she felt anger. An anger blossoming from her sheer inability to prevent what had happened to her. That lasted as long as her second futile attempt to swallow.
The fear found her once more, and she felt her stomach begin to heave. She was alone with a madman. Emily fought panic at the thought of being completely at this man’s mercy. She knew it was a man, and for the first time in her short life she understood with a deep clarity that she could die. She had felt the strength in his arms, and though his face had been covered, she’d had a brief glimpse of his powerful body. She tried to think. What exactly had happened? Had he hit her? Was she hurt? Then she remembered the stinging pain in her arm. He had given her some kind of a shot. That must be why she was so disoriented and thirsty.
She could still feel the van moving, and hear the roar of the tires beneath her. It felt like they were going fast and that the road was smooth. She thought they must be on an interstate. Emily was overcome with fear and nausea once more. He was taking her far away.
Nobody knew where she was. Maybe nobody even knew she was missing. Maybe Lisa and the girls hadn’t even bothered to see if she was home. She could feel the tears well up at the thought that no one knew she was missing. She cried silently, the tears hot and biting against the skin around her eyes, trapped by the blindfold covering her face. She could see nothing, not even a trickle of light around the edge of the cloth wrapped tightly around her head.
Shaking her head as if to toss out the sadness, she decided to take stock of her position. She could cry later.
Her legs were tied together at the feet and also the knees. She could move them from side to side, but that was about all. Her arms were pulled behind her back and tied at the wrist. Her shoulder hurt from slamming onto the floor of the van, but there wasn’t much painful tension, yet. Either her kidnapping had been recent, or she had recently been tied up. She felt ill at the thought of being handled while she was unconscious. This thought forced her to wonder if she had been assaulted. She relaxed for a moment, willing herself to calm her thinking and to calm her body. Did she feel anything? Suddenly the van slowed abruptly and made a sharp turn. She rolled violently to the right and felt her shin hit something sharp and unyielding. The van began to slow down. As it came to a stop, Emily began to pray. Not a real prayer as in church but the truest she had ever uttered: oh please, oh please. She just wanted to live. She could handle anything as long as she got away.
The screech of the door sliding open reminded her of the beginning of this nightmare. It also forced her to remember the van in more detail. She had paid no attention to it in the parking lot, but she now remembered that it had been dark and had no windows in the rear.
Emily knew the door was open. She could feel the fresh air, and smell freshly cut grass. She thought she heard something. She concentrated. In the second Emily strained to hear, she felt a hand on her shoulder and the needle puncture the bare flesh of her arm. The door slammed and she immediately knew she was passing out. She had to remember this. The air had felt cooler, less humid than the beach. The grass had just been cut. As she lost consciousness, she realized what the sound had been. She would have smiled, but she had already fallen into a deep well of darkness.
CHAPTER FOUR
The walk across the Parris Island airfield from the Coast Guard chopper to the jet tarmac had been all of fifty yards. The plane was a Gulfstream, modern and swift, but the inside was decorated by a government bureaucrat with a mind toward expenditures and budget without a single concession to luxury. Cheap plastic paneling covered the bulkhead and standard airline seats were bolted to the thinly carpeted floor. Near the rear were four seats, in pairs of two facing each other with a plastic table between them. That was where Gant and Bailey headed. The exterior of the plane was painted flat black, the only marking a tail number that was on file with the FAA, but didn’t reveal the true operators of the aircraft.
In the open space behind the four seats was a large plastic case, which Gant had opened upon entering. It held Gant’s deployment gear and he’d quickly inventoried it. Satisfied all was as it should be, he pulled out a pair of black khaki pants and slipped them on, replacing the worn shorts he’d been wearing. Then he took a black polypropylene undershirt and put it on. Over it he shrugged on a body armor vest, securing it in place with sew-in straps of Velcro. It was a thin vest and once he put a black, long sleeve shirt over, it was practically impossible to tell he had it on. The vest was slightly uncomfortable but Gant thought the trade-off was more than worth it.
Done with clothing and protection, he weaponed up. First a leather belt that had a wire garrote hidden on the inside curve, held in place by a few threads that could easily be parted. Then he strapped a sheath holding a slim dagger to his left ankle, underneath the pants cuff.
He velcroed a pistol in a waist holster to the body armor in the small of his back, hidden under the bottom of the shirt, which he left un-bloused. The pistol was a Glock Model 20, holding 15 rounds of 10mm ammunition. It had an integrated laser sight built into the gun itself, replacing the recoil spring guide assembly, just below the barrel. Touching the trigger activated the laser. With no external hammer, the gun could smoothly be drawn from under his shirt without catching, and the safety was built into the trigger, allowing rapid fire.
Gant had used many handguns over the years. While he liked the Glock, he also knew that the gun was only half the issue. The other important component was the bullets. At the Cellar armory, he’d taken standard load 10mm rounds, customized and reloaded them for high muzzle velocity and disintegration upon impact with a target for maximum damage. He slid two spare magazines into holders on either side of the gun.