“Yes, I know. No, no,” the driver said. “I got him. Yes.” A pause, then, “No, he came willingly. There was no one here but him. I know because I drove right up to the hangar. I flashed my headlights into the main door. He’s alone. I’d know. I would’ve been told if the FBI were supposed to be here. I got him and I’ll be there soon.”
The driver looked in the rear view mirror at Darwin and then said, “I know, the guy’s crazy. He was actually gonna trade himself in. Brave, if you ask me. Okay, okay.” Then the driver closed his phone and tossed it on the seat beside him.
He looked back at Darwin and said, “You are one crazy dude. I gotta say, I’ve never met anyone like you. Wish you were on our side-”
Something hit the side of the car. It swerved so violently Darwin felt they were going to flip. The driver screamed like a girl as he tried to correct the spin.
Another bang vibrated the car, which spun even faster. The force of the spin caused Darwin to lean hard into the side door, Rosina up against him.
After what felt like five minutes, even though it all happened in ten seconds, the car came to a stop by the tree line. At the moment it stopped, the driver’s side window busted, tiny diamond-sized pieces of glass cascading everywhere. Rough arms yanked the driver out.
It all happened so fast, Darwin could only stare dumbfounded as their would-be kidnapper was lifted out of the car, protesting all the way.
Something clicked beside him. The door he was leaning on opened, and Darwin fell out backwards.
“I gotcha,” H said, his hands wrapped in Darwin’s underarms. H helped him out and Rosina followed.
“What happened? What’s going on here? Who are these men?”
Darwin couldn’t believe it. The driver moaned on the other side of the vehicle.
“This is H. H, this is my wife, Rosina.”
“H?” she asked. “What’s an H?”
“His name is Richard H, but we call him H.”
“Yeah.” H stepped in and extended his hand. Rosina took it.
“We heard about what happened in Rome and it pissed us off. We’re here to help and Darwin said he’d write a documentary about us.”
Rosina looked at Darwin. “You did?”
He nodded.
She shook herself, let out a long breath and stepped up to H. Then, with both arms wide, she hugged him and whispered a thank you in his ear. She stepped back and said, “You saved our lives today.”
H didn’t appear comfortable with compliments.
Darwin calculated everything. He had Rosina back. They could leave. But he couldn’t abandon his father. He could still meet with Fuccini. The driver had reported back that Darwin was alone. Fuccini wouldn’t have a problem coming to the hangar now.
“H, I’m going to walk back to the hangar. The meeting is still on. Can I trust you to take Rosina out of here?”
“I’m not going anywhere without you Darwin,” Rosina said.
“I understand, baby, but Fuccini is coming. H and his men and I need to deal with that. They have my father. If we don’t end this tonight, it never will. Just go with H to where they’ve parked their bikes. It’ll be far enough away that you can’t get hurt and we can deal with this guy.”
Rosina hugged Darwin. “You had better walk away from this or I will fucking well punch your corpse. Stay alive or you’ll feel it.”
“You got it baby.”
“She’s a fierce one,” H said. “Wouldn’t want to piss her off.”
“I wouldn’t advise it,” Darwin whispered.
H gestured for Rosina to get moving. Before they were lost to sight in the darkness, H turned and said, “Hey big D, you like how we stopped the car by shooting out the tires?”
“Yeah, H, brilliant.”
H smiled, as far as Darwin could tell in the dim light, and strode off with Rosina in tow.
Darwin realized that the dark wasn’t affecting him as much.
Maybe spending all this time in the dark is fixing the phobia.
He walked around the wrecked Crown Vic. As far as Darwin could tell, the driver wasn’t breathing.
“What happened?” Darwin asked the men gathered around.
“He wouldn’t talk. We asked him where they had your father. We asked him where that Fucconi guy was. He wouldn’t talk. We took it a little too far. Sorry.”
“Fuccini.”
“What?”
“Never mind. Have an eye. The Fuccini people will be here as soon as their boy doesn’t show. I’m going to call them, so I’m sure they’ll be along soon.”
“Got it.”
Darwin pulled out the cell phone and dialed the Fuccini number he’d committed to memory.
“Yeah?”
“You made a mistake.”
“Darwin. How nice.”
“You took my wife again. That was a mistake. You were supposed to trade me for my father. Because you didn’t show and you sent that FBI man as your messenger, he’s dead.”
“I had to make sure it was safe. You could’ve had the place crawling with FBI.”
“And that driver would’ve known if that were the case? He works for them.”
“Not if they were onto him. They would’ve kept it from him.”
“Enough chit chat. I’m at the hangar. I’m alone. I’ve got Rosina in a safe place. It’s all over. There’s just you and me.”
“I’ll be there shortly.”
Darwin hung up and dialed Rosina’s mother. She answered on the third ring again.
No doubt, the FBI are taping this call.
“Isabella, I need to talk to the FBI guy in charge.”
“Darwin there’s no…”
He knew she was told to deny that they were there. He waited.
“I’ll put him on.”
After a murmur, a man got on the phone.
“Darwin, where are you?”
“About to meet Fuccini himself. He’s got my father. We’re doing a trade.”
“What kind of trade? You can’t handle this alone.”
“Sure I can. Look, I’m at the abandoned hangar where it all started. Come as soon as you want. Oh, and that guy you had taking care of my wife is dead.”
“Alfred is dead? What are you talking about? Where’s Rosina?”
“She’s here now. Alfred brought her here to kidnap me too. I took Rosina back and now Alfred is dead. Come and collect the asshole’s body.”
“Okay, wait there for us.”
“I’m not going anywhere.”
“Okay, bye.”
“Wait!” Darwin screamed into the phone. “Bring a couple coroners. You’re going to need them.”
He hung up and tossed the phone into the bush.
Chapter 18
Darwin flicked on a switch to the lights in the hangar, but the building remained dark. He remembered lights were on during the night of the accident.
Must’ve been floodlights they had set up for the meeting.
The only lights that worked were the red ones behind the exit signs. Otherwise, the interior was black, and that was too dark for Darwin.
But he needed to be inside, so he steeled himself and turned on his flashlight. He walked to the back and stood behind a metal partition. No one would be able to readily see his flashlight, and if they came in shooting, he’d have some form of protection.
A car pulled up out front.
That’s fast.
Thinking about cars, he wasn’t sure when he’d want to be in one again anytime soon. In Rome, he was in the van that flipped on the highway. Then Greg’s car on the 401 last night. The FBI car fifteen minutes ago. They come in threes. Maybe that was his last car accident for a while.
A man in a long trench coat stepped into the front door of the hangar and moved a flashlight around.
“You in here?”
“Yeah,” Darwin called out. The flashlight moved to find him, but where he stood was too far back.
“I can’t see you.”
“Show me my father. Make sure it’s Fuccini who does it.”
“No way. He ain’t coming in here in the dark. You crazy? How do we know you don’t have a gun?”
“Okay, at least get my father out of the car and I will come out of the hangar.”
The man stepped away. A car door opened and closed. Then another.