His wife looked dubious, but she nodded.
“That is going to be a big stack,” Sci said.
Wise nodded, said, “The bills are roughly the size of U.S. currency. Given that every dollar weighs a gram, and using a fifty as the likely denomination, we’re talking about eleven hundred pounds.”
Sci said, “They’d be smarter to ask for it in gold. At this morning’s spot price, that drops the weight to nine hundred and thirty pounds.”
Wise stared at him, said, “Well done.”
Cherie looked disgusted, shook her head, and said, “It’s always about mental gymnastics with you, Andy. Can’t you just once look at life emotionally?”
“Emotion won’t get Alicia and Natalie back,” he snapped. “Strategy, a plan, and meticulous execution of that plan will get them back.”
“And what if it doesn’t?” she said, starting to cry as she gestured at the screen. “What if they take the money and kill the girls, and we never see them again?”
“That’s not happening.”
She wiped her bloodshot eyes, looked at the four of us from Private, said, “You see it, don’t you? With everything we’ve got, my girls are all I have.”
Chapter 27
You’re enough to get what we need, Rayssa thought as she shone a powerful flashlight beam in the frightened eyes of her captives.
The Wise twins were bound at the wrists and ankles and sitting on filthy mattresses, backs up against the concrete wall.
“Do we have to wear the gags and blindfolds again?” Alicia Wise said in a pleading whine. “We won’t scream.”
“You know we won’t,” Natalie said. “Who would hear us anyway?”
Rayssa thought a moment, said, “Fine. No gags. No blindfolds. But start screaming for help or try to escape and they go back on.”
“What about our parents?” Natalie asked.
“I’m sure they’ve seen the video by now.”
“Mom must be freaking out,” Alicia said.
“They’ll pay,” Natalie said, as if trying to convince herself.
“Sure, they’ll pay,” Alicia said. “Why wouldn’t they? They’ve got, like—”
“Billions,” Rayssa said. Then she shut the door and locked it.
Rayssa turned and used the flashlight to make her way down a long, low-ceilinged corridor. It smelled of tobacco and led to a steep staircase. She climbed to a heavy wooden door and thumbed off the flashlight.
Turning the dead bolt, she opened the door and stepped out into a high-ceilinged space, dark but for narrow slats of light coming in between boards nailed over the windows. Except for broken glass crunching under her feet and the wreckage of wooden tables and stools, the place was empty.
Rayssa let her eyes adjust, then crossed the space to another flight of stairs. She paused at the bottom, listening.
The wind was up. She heard chimes and the not-so-distant rattle of a train.
And then something more?
Something or somebody outside?
Dogs began to bark, but this was different from their normal yapping. The dogs were agitated, alarmed.
Rayssa reached to the small of her back beneath her sweater, retrieved a blunt-nosed .38. She slid her shoes off and crept up the stairs.
She returned to the long-abandoned office where she’d been sleeping but didn’t turn on the light. Rayssa went to the window, looked out between the slats, and peered down. Except for a weak cone of light cast by a spot on the warehouse next door, there was only gloom, and the chimes, and the wind, and the far-off blare of a train horn.
Rayssa stayed there, waiting, scanning the shadows for many minutes, before her suspicions were confirmed. She spotted a buff guy moving along the rear of that cone of light. Then he stepped into it. She saw his tattoos and, when the chimes rang again and he looked up, his face.
Rayssa gripped the revolver tighter and fought the urge to panic.
What the hell was the Bear doing here?
Chapter 28
Saturday, July 30, 2016
3:00 a.m.
Luna Santos awoke slowly, groggily, aware that she was under sheets and naked. Well, that was good, right? Must have been a heck of a—
Luna heard movement, blinked her eyes, saw only fuzziness. Her head started to clang. A stark white room came into focus, spinning slowly. She was lying in a hospital bed. There was an IV bag on a stand next to her, with a line running below the sheets.
Confused, Luna tried to raise her arm to look at the IV, but her wrists were lashed to the bed rails. She tried to move her legs and found her ankles tied to the rails too. And there was something between her legs.
Like a thin hose or something!
Luna rolled her head, the pain splitting, said, “Help me. Where am I?”
But her tongue was so thick and her mouth so dry, the words came out weak and garbled. Despite the pounding in her skull, she forced herself to lift her head, looked around, and saw someone standing there in one of those hazmat suits like they had for Ebola, white smock, hood, visor, gauntlet gloves, and all.
The figure came to Luna’s side, looked down at her, spoke through a small speaker clipped to the smock, his voice as strange as an astronaut’s coming from outer space.
“There you are,” Dr. Castro said.
“Where am I, Doctor?” she said.
“In my lab.”
“What happened to me?” she asked, bewildered. “Am I sick?”
“Just side effects. They’ll clear up soon.”
Side effects? Luna thought. Of what?
But before she could ask, Castro said, “Just relax. You were chosen, you know. For so many good reasons, I chose you. And now here you are, Luna, where I always dreamed you’d be.”
“What?” she said, vaguely aware that he’d used her real name and not Orchid. “I don’t... chosen for what?”
The doctor held up a gloved index finger as if to hush her and walked off.
Luna rolled her pounding head, watched him cross the lab to four glass cages beneath digital readouts. She saw a white rat moving around in one of the containers and no movement in the others.
Doctor reached into two of the tanks and lifted out two dead rats.
He turned to show them to her. “This is the way virology works. You have to experiment on several or sometimes ten or two hundred or even thousands before you get the key.”
Luna blinked at the dead rats. “What virus killed them?”
Doctor seemed pleased at her interest, said, “I call her Hydra-9.”
The fogginess cleared, and she understood somehow that she was in danger, grave danger. Luna wanted to move, to get up, but the lashes held her tight.
A virus. Chosen.
She fought against a growing panic. “Why am I tied up like this? And what’s the hose thing between my legs?”
Putting the dead rats into a lift-top freezer, Castro said, “The restraints are so you don’t hurt yourself. The hose is a catheter.”
Catheter? She felt humiliated, said, “Untie me.”
The doctor tilted his head, said, “I can’t do that.”
“Untie me!” she shouted. “I know when I can and can’t fulfill my needs.”
“This isn’t about your needs. I chose you, remember, Luna?”
A dread came around her like mist and caustic fog. She struggled against the lashes and screamed, “Help! Help!”