In the Teeth of the Wind (20 page)

truth. If it will help, we'll talk to whoever we need to to see that your guys believe you, too."

"We'll get you help," Rhianna promised. "You can beat this. I know you can."

"How?" Cullen whispered. "How do you know I can?"

"Because," she said, squeezing his hand, "you're Coni's friend and he only picks men who are as strong

as he is for his friends."

"He was always the strong one," Cullen replied. "Coni was always the best of us. We all wanted to be

like him. We needed him to lead us, you know?"

"Right now, he needs you," Rhianna said. "We need to know who has done this to him and you and

Keane."

"What about Tim-Pat and Mick?" he asked. "Have you talked to them?" His face crinkled. "What if

those bastards get to them, too?"

"We're leaving for New York tonight," Boucharde assured him.

****

She was tiny - five feet tall at the very most. With white-blond hair and softly glowing alabaster skin,

she looked like a little porcelain doll. Her laughing blue eyes sparkled as she stepped aside for them.

"He's in the basement working on the washer. Have a seat and I'll go get him for you." With a smile as

sweet as a child's, Mrs. Michael Sullivan - as she had introduced herself to them - left them standing

under the archway of the living room and a little piece of the bright late May sunshine went with her.

"I bet you could circle her waist with your hands," Rhianna said, a mock frown in her voice.

"Just pick her up and put her in your pocket!" Boucharde grinned. "I bet he's shorter than me."

But Michael Sullivan was six foot six at the very least and as brawny and well-built as a professional

wrestler; his muscular arms bulged in the grimy T-shirt, which stretched to its limits over his thick chest.

He came into the room like a whirlwind. He smiled and brought the sunshine back like a solar flare.

"Mick Sullivan," he said in a booming, friendly voice and stuck out a huge paw to Boucharde. "Glad to

meet you." The grip that enveloped Rhianna's hand was only a fraction less enthusiastic in pressure but no

less sincere in purpose. He put a broad palm to each of their backs and ushered them toward the large

sectional sofa in front of them.

"Sit down! Please! Siobhan, where's your manners, woman of the house? Get our guests some

lemonade!"

Rhianna watched their host perch precariously on the edge of a chair she would not have thought

could hold his solid frame.

"FBI, huh?" he boomed, looking from one to the other, his face boyish and expectant. "Who you guys

going after? How can I help?" He winked. "When the woman came down to tell me there were two FBI

agents here to see me, I thought sure it was going to be Mulder and Scully!"

Boucharde had to school his face to keep from grinning as broadly as Marek. He'd met few men in his

life that he had taken an immediate liking to, but Mick Sullivan was at the top of the list. "You got an

X-File for them, do you?" He laughed despite trying his best to avoid it.

"Sure!" Sullivan chuckled. "There's an old woman down the street from us who goes up on her roof

now and again and chants to Uranus in her birthday suit. She…"

"Venus, man of the house," his wife corrected as she came in with two frosted glasses of lemonade.

"And she's not chanting, she's singing."

"Same difference."

"Not so, Michael Peter," his wife declared. She smiled at her guests. "The man will call me if you need

anything else. Just tell him."

"Thank you," Rhianna told her. She liked the wife as much as the husband.

"Sorry we aren't Fox and Dana," Boucharde found himself saying and could have bitten his tongue. He

was so far off course here, he would need a sextant to get himself back where he should be, but

Sullivan's good humor was infectious.

"I'm not Broderick Crawford, either." Sullivan He spread his thick thighs and dangled his meaty hands

between them. "All kidding aside, what can I do you folks for?"

"Actually," Rhianna said, "I'm not with the Bureau. I'm with the vice squad in New Gregory, Iowa

and…"

She stopped for the genial, easy-going expression on Michael Sullivan's face disappeared. The warm

glow left his skin in a rush and she watched him slowly close his eyes. When he spoke, his voice had

become a whispery-soft breath of pain. "They got him, too, didn't they?" he asked.

"Who, Lieutenant Sullivan?" Boucharde questioned. The man's abrupt change in demeanor put the FBI

agent right back on track.

"Coni." He opened his eyes and looked at Rhianna. "Coni Nolan?" He put one powerful hand on his

knee and clenched his fist. "He was kidnapped, too?"

"He's in the hospital in a coma, Mickey," she said, using has wife's nickname for him.

"Merciful Mary," he whispered and his voice went lower. "Is he going to be all right?"

"We think so."

"You know about Danny Keane and Jamie Cullen?" Boucharde had his note pad out. When Sullivan's

pale blue gaze shifted to him, he could see the man was struggling to keep his emotions under wraps.

"No," Michael Sullivan said, "I didn't, but it makes sense, doesn't it?"

"In what way do you mean?" Rhianna said, instinctively knowing this man held the key to the whole

thing.

"If they got Coni and me and Collins, neither Danny nor Jamie were safe."

Boucharde stopped writing. "You were abducted, as well?" At Sullivan's slow nod, the Fibber let out

a long breath. "Collins, too?" It was hard enough to credit that this vibrant, laughing man had been

abducted, but to find out that all five of the men had was staggering.

A faint grin tickled Sullivan's mouth, a mouth much given to laughter and smiles. "Tim-Pat has always

been the joker in our deck," he said, his somber gaze lightening a little from the memory. "Ask anybody

who knows him and they'll tell you that comic Jon Lovitz patterned Tommy, his pathological liar, after

Tim-Pat Collins. You tell him you won the lottery for ten million dollars and he'll tell you he won for

twenty; you tell him you bought a Porsche; he'll tell you he bought a Lamborghini. That's just the way he

is." He plowed a thick hand through his black hair. "Never any harm in Tim-Pat's exaggerations, but you

can never tell if he's telling the truth or not."

"You didn't believe him when he told you he'd been abducted," Rhianna said. The pattern was lining up

with Collins just like it had with Keane and Cullen.

"No," Mick confessed, "I didn't." He turned an apologetic gaze to her. "When they brought me back, I

just couldn't talk to anyone. Not even to Siobhan. It was like they had raped my soul; stripped me of

something that I could never replace. It was a bad time for us and what I had done before it all began

sure hadn't helped."

Boucharde couldn't look at the man. "You had an affair."

"The only time I've ever strayed," Sullivan said and reached up to swipe at the tears that were

beginning to roll down his face. "The only damned time I'd ever even been tempted."

"Felicity Rogers." Rhianna provided the name.

"If that's her real name," Sullivan concurred. "I tried to find her, but crapped out."

"You couldn't talk to the people here so you called Tim-Pat Collins?"

Sullivan nodded. "I was going through my desk, looking for Coni's number, but I found Tim-Pat's,

instead. I called him. I told him what had happened." A look of intense shame passed over Sullivan's

face. "When he started telling me he'd been taken about two months before, I just sat there and listened,

agreeing with him, letting him repeat back to me everything I'd already said to him about what had

happened to me."

Boucharde looked down at his note pad. "You were taken in July of last year? Right at the first of the

month?"

"Yes," Sullivan asked. "How did you know? I thought the Patrol had kept it a pretty good secret."

Rhianna turned to look at him. "Yeah, how did you know?"

"Cullen was taken in November. Keane in September. If Collins disappeared two months before

Sullivan, that puts each of the kidnappings two months apart. That gave the kidnapers two months in

between each snatch to move and set up shop in the next state."

"Did they hold the others a month like they did me?" Sullivan asked.

"All except Nolan," Boucharde answered. "They seemed to have changed their pattern with him. They

took him back in February and released him in the first part of this month."

Sullivan looked from one of them to the others mentally calculating about how long his friend had been

held. "Five months?" he gasped. When they answered, he slumped back in his chair, long legs thrust out

in front of him as though he now had the weight of the world on his shoulders and, despite their breadth

and muscle, he was not able to withstand the onslaught. "The poor bastard."

"Had you taken leave prior to the kidnapping?" Rhianna asked. That seemed to fit the pattern.

"Yeah," Sullivan answered. "Felicity and I were going to spend some time up in Montreal." His voice

turned bitter. "Just thinking about how taken in I was by that woman makes me want to kick myself."

"Where were you when the kidnappers showed up?"

"In my garage." He shook his head. "I was tuning up Siobhan's car." His guilt was like a living thing

driving pins into his flesh. "I had made all these arrangements for my wife. I paid all the bills, got the air

conditioner checked, and ready to go for the summer and made sure there were plenty of groceries." He

looked up sheepishly. "Siobhan and the girls had gone over to Ireland with her parents and she wasn't

due back until the end of August."

"You have children?" Rhianna asked.

"Three girls," he said, smiling proudly. "Real cuties." He lifted his hand and ticked off the names.

"Marilyn, Joni, and Angie."

Rhianna smiled. "Pretty names."

"Good girls," Michael replied and looked to Boucharde as the agent cleared his throat, obviously

trying to steer the conversation in a less personal direction.

"There were how many men?" Franc asked.

"Four. Wearing ski masks. I looked up from under the hood and there they were. They popped me

with something before I had time to react. The next thing I know, I'm lying flat on my back, wearing

nothing but my skivvies, handcuffed to a cot."

"They kept you doped up for a month, then dropped you back here with a packet of goodies to see

you through 'til you could score on your own."

"I'd have rather died than continued with that," Sullivan exclaimed. "I did it while they had me because

that was what I had to do to survive; to get back to my family. To my wife and my kids. But as soon as

they dumped me out there on the front lawn, I crawled my butt to the neighbors and banged my head on

the door until they answered. Is that how it was with the others?"

Boucharde told him it was. "Same with Collins?"

"If I remember right," Sullivan said, drawing his legs up, "Tim-Pat said he married the woman at the

court house there in Billings. But who knows?"

"It's easy to check," Rhianna said.

"What happened to Coni?" Sullivan asked. "Did they give him too much, then? I mean is that why he's

in a coma?"

"They kept taking him off it for long periods of time then shooting him up again," Boucharde explained.

"Once he was home, in the hospital, they went after him again."

"My God," Sullivan whispered. He looked around, uneasy for the first time.

"I know why Irish was sent to the military academy," Rhianna said, trying to take Sullivan's mind off

the horror of what had happened to his friend. "Tell me about you and the others."

Sullivan stood up and walked to the window. "I got my butt sent down there because I couldn't keep

away from Siobhan," he grunted. "My Da was an Army Major up at Camp Drum and as tough as they

came. Adolescent love was sickening to him. He thought if he separated us, we'd get over each other."

He looked back over his shoulder and his faint smile became a wicked grin. "Da never did understand

how it was between me and the woman."

"Your father is dead?" Rhianna inquired.

Sullivan shrugged. "Might as well be. I don't go to see the man." He thrust his hands into his pockets

and leaned back against the windowsill. "None of us got along with our fathers, sweetheart."

"Keane?" Boucharde asked.

"Danny's father was a United States Morine," Sullivan replied, stressing the
mo.
"Sean Keane sent his

son to NBMA to make a man out of him." The wicked grin became predatory. "Sending Danny to the

academy was like sending an alcoholic to work in a brewery."

"What about Collins?"

Sullivan's chest rumbled with laughter. "Tim-Pat's lies got him sent down there. His father got called up

before the Base Commander because of some of the outrageous tales Tim-Pat was spreading up at

Minot. It seems Chief Master Sergeant Francis Xavier Collins had single-handedly won both the Korean

and Vietnam conflicts and had been an adviser to JFK."

Rhianna smiled. "And Jamie?"

The smile left Michael Sullivan's broad mouth. "Jamie Cullen was a different matter." He pushed away

from the wall. "He was sent down there for the same reason Coni was."

"Drugs," Boucharde stated in a matter of fact tone. Rhianna cast the Fibber a worried look, but he

shook his head. "It'll go no further."

"Jamie was into drugs," Sullivan admitted, "but he'd also been arrested for petty theft and truancy.

Lieutenant Commander Kevin Cullen was with the Coast Guard out of Jacksonville and he took every