The man shoved her computer display over. It thudded onto the carpet, the glass screen somehow staying intact. He expertly flipped open a butterfly knife with one hand and slashed the razor-sharp blade through the cords at the back of her hard drive base unit, which he tucked under one arm.
“Got it all?” the second man asked.
The first man nodded. He walked over and cut the cord for the living room phone. The two men looked at Trace, then glanced at each other, as if trying to come to a consensus.
They took too long. A shadow loomed behind Trace in the doorway and a familiar voice called out in a Bronx accent.
“Hey, sweetheart, what ya’ doing?”
Trace dove to the right as one of the men fired, the round splintering the doorjamb, the gun hardly making any noise at all.
“Watch out, Boomer!” she screamed as she scrambled behind the dubious cover of the couch.
Boomer didn’t have to think to think. Thousands of hours in the killing room in the Delta Force compound had automated his response. He had his 9mm pistol in his hand in a flash. Boomer fired as he dove across the doorway to the cover of the other side, letting loose two quick shots into the room, caught between trying not to get shot himself and concern for Trace’s position.
The cost had escalatod beyond what the two men were willing to pay.
They’d assumed after forty-eight hours of surveillance that Trace would follow the same pattern she had for the past two days both in terms of time of return and direction of return. They bolted for the balcony.
Together, they leapt over and disappeared. Boomer carefully slid into the room, his Browning High Power at the ready.
“You OK?” he asked.
“Yeah,” Trace answered.
Boomer kept moving. He flattened himself just inside the balcony door, then’ ‘pied” his way around the corner, muzzle of the pistol leading, taking the corner in sections. He spotted the two men scrambling up the slope. As he took aim, they disappeared into the jungle. Following was not the wisest option; for all Boomer knew they were inside the treeline waiting in ambush.
“What did they get?” Boomer asked, walking back into the room and examining the full extent of the damage as he put a fresh magazine into his pistol.
“I don’t know,” Trace replied.
“The only thing I saw them take was my computer hard drive.”
Boomer sat down at Trace’s desk and looked at the cut wires.
“Why didn’t they take the whole computer?”
“They probably would have if I hadn’t caught them in the act.”
Boomer shook his head.
“It doesn’t make sense. How much could they get for the hard drive?”
Trace was searching through her desk.
“My checkbook’s still here and some cash.” She continued searching.
“The manuscript is gone.”
“The manuscript?” Boomer repeated.
“Your book about “Yes.”
“It was on your hard drive, too, wasn’t it?”
“Yes.”
“What about back-up disks?”
“My disks were in this drawer.” She lifted up an upside down drawer, then searched wreckage on the floor.
“They got them.” She looked at the bookcase behind the desk.
“They took all my notes too.”
“You must have caught them just as they were ready to leave. The hard drive was the last thing they needed.”
Boomer walked out to the railing and glanced up. The slope was very steep — not the easiest way to get to the house.
Trace followed him out there.
“I’m going to get the bedroom phone and call the cops.”
After Trace left. Boomer sat down in a wicker chair and gazed out at the ocean several miles away as he collected his thoughts. When she came back in, she sat down across from him.
“They’ll be here soon.”
“Why would someone want to take the manuscript?” Boomer asked.
“You think this was all about two chapters of a manuscript?” Trace asked.
“When it’s obvious, accept the obvious,” Boomer said.
“That’s what they took, that’s what they came here for.
And it looks like they were getting ready to waste you when I stumbled in here.”
Trace remembered looking down the barrel of the pistol and the cold eyes of the man holding it and shivered.
“Why were you back so early?” she asked.
He reached out and took her hand, feeling the trembling in it.
“They had sexual harassment awareness training scheduled for the afternoon, and since I’m an expert on sexual harassment, and I’m not really assigned to the unit anyway, I thought I’d take the afternoon off and greet you when you got home.”
“Who do you think they are?” Trace asked, sitting down on his lap and leaning against him. He ran his hand through her short hair.
“I don’t know.”
“Why did they want the manuscript? What good is it going to do them, whoever they are?”
“I don’t know,” Boomer said.
“You tell me.”
“Well, maybe someone thought it would be a bestseller,” Trace joked nervously, “and they wanted it.”
“Do you have a list of the publishers you sent your book proposal to?” Boomer asked.
“I don’t need a list,” Trace said.
“There were only two.
Lister Press in Las Vegas and Air Force Institute Press in Boulder.
They’re both small publishers known for doing military non-fiction and an occasional work of fiction. I figured that would be my best shot.”
“What do you know about those publishers?”
“Will you tell me what you’re getting to?” Trace asked.
“Someone came here and stole your manuscript and all records of your manuscript. Who knew of the manuscript’s existence besides those two publishing houses?”
Trace paused in thought.
“That’s it. Besides you, I haven’t told anyone else about it.”
“Anyone at work?”
“No.”
“All right,” Boomer said.
“So therefore someone from one of those two places sent those people here or, more likely, they forwarded your submission to someone who sent those people here.”
Trace’s eyes widened as she finally understood.
“You’re saying The Line exists and they did this?”
Boomer shrugged.
“Actually, no, I don’t think The Line exists, but I do think someone wanted your manuscript.”
They heard a car pull up in the drive. They walked to the door and reached it just as two men in khaki pants and colorful shirts arrived on the other side.
“Inspector Konane,” a large, dark-skinned man announced, holding out an ID card and badge.
“My partner,” he nodded at the other man, “Inspector Perry.”
Perry was short and compact, several shades lighter than his partner.
He hung in the background as Konane entered and looked around.
“Tell me what happened.” He flipped open a notebook and wrote as Trace relayed the story.
When she was done, he looked at Boomer.
“Let me see your gun.”
Boomer pulled out his Browning High Power and handed it over.
“Do you have a license to carry?”
Boomer reached into his wallet and removed the special federal license all Delta Force operatives had to carry a weapon anywhere in the United States and on airlines.
Konane seemed disappointed that Boomer did have a license.
Boomer noted that the policeman wrote down his name and license number in his notepad.
Konane pulled out a card and handed it to Trace.
“When you make a list of everything that was stolen, fax it to the number on this card. If you think of anything else, call me.”
“That’s it?” Trace asked as the two cops turned toward the door.
“Aren’t you going to check for prints or something?”