Mortal Dilemma (37 page)

“He's not at his house. His bed's been slept in, but his cell phone isn't here and he's not answering it, and I found his gun and signs of a struggle in the yard.”

“I'm on my way. Call dispatch and get them to roust out Kevin and tell him to get the Manatee crime scene people moving. I'll send the patrol car closest to you on over and I'll be there in fifteen minutes. Do you have your weapon?”

“I do. I'll be all right. I'll stay in the front yard.”

In less than two minutes, J.D. heard a siren coming her way and almost immediately a Longboat Key police car pulled to a stop in front of the house. A young officer got out and walked over to her. “What's going on, J.D.? I just got a radio call from the chief who told me to, and I quote, ‘Get your ass to Matt Royal's house now. Siren and lights.'”

“Matt's missing, Joe. It looks like some kind of altercation took place. I think somebody kidnapped him.”

“Let's hope not. The chief told me to stick with you. He's got everybody coming this way. Both shifts.”

J.D. knew that the patrol shifts changed at seven every morning. The night shift would be leaving and the day shift coming on duty. There'd be a lot of cops to canvass the neighborhood, talking to the neighbors, looking for evidence, trying to get a lead on Matt's whereabouts. There'd be hell to pay if he wasn't really missing. But J.D. knew he had been taken. There was no other explanation and she realized that there was a chance she'd never see him again.

She felt the tears welling, but she choked them back. She was a cop and she would act like one. Her job was to find Matt, and she knew that the best way to overcome her panic at the thought of losing him was to throw herself into the job and concentrate her mind on getting him back.

F
RIDAY
, N
OVEMBER
7

I
SLOWLY BECAME
aware that I was alive. First, there was a buzzing in my ears, or maybe my brain, that diminished slowly, second by second. Then the headache hit me with the ferocity of a speeding train, the pain so severe and debilitating that I vomited, the acid burning my throat. I tried to put a hand to my mouth to wipe off the residue. I couldn't move either hand. I tugged at the right and then the left and concluded that my wrists were bound behind me and secured to the back of the chair.

I opened my eyes, expecting my head to explode. There was little light, but I could see that I was sitting in a straight-back chair, my wrists pinioned to the back of the chair by what felt like duct tape. I tried to move my lower legs. No go. I looked down. They were duct-taped to the legs of the chair. I was totally immobilized.

I looked around the room. There were windows, but drapes had been drawn, giving the room the look of twilight. I could not tell from the little bit of light what time of day it was. I just knew that it wasn't dark outside and that meant that I'd been unconscious for at least several hours, or maybe several days.

The room was bare of furniture except for the chair to which I was bound. It was quiet. I wondered if the room was soundproofed. Then I thought of the windows. If there were windows, the room couldn't
be completely soundproofed. Maybe they were double-paned like the hurricane force wind-resistant windows that the newer building codes required.

My mind was wandering. What the hell did I care about building codes? I tried to concentrate, but my brain wouldn't hold still. Errant images floundered around in there and confused me. I had no concept of time, but since light was slipping through the draped windows, I deduced that it was daytime. But I'd already figured that out. Concentrate, Royal. What day? What time zone? How long had I been out?

I tried to retrieve my last conscious thoughts before waking up in this dismal room. I was at my house, in my yard, and Youssef was walking toward me. An arm was around my throat and there had been a sharp pain in the side of my neck. My last memory, but it slipped and slid through my consciousness, and I wasn't sure if it was real.

My mouth was dry, a raging thirst overtaking my senses. I croaked out a sound, a single word that I think was, “Hello.” No response. I tried again. Louder. And then a third time, louder again. Nothing. I slumped back in the chair and tried to clear my mind.

The door to the room opened and a man walked in. He wore a ski mask, his face completely obscured. “You're a pig,” he said in lightly accented English. “You've vomited all over yourself. It stinks in here.”

“Water,” I said.

“I need some information.”

“I need water.”

“First the information.”

“First the water. I can hardly talk. Give me water and I'll tell you what you want to know.”

The man left the room and returned a moment or two later with a plastic bottle of water, the kind you find at the grocery store. He unscrewed the cap and put the open end of the bottle to my mouth,
tipped it up. The water came so fast I couldn't swallow it all. It flowed out of my mouth, and I began to cough. The man pulled the bottle away.

“More,” I said.

“No. Now I want information.”

“What do you want to know?”

“Your name.”

“You already know that.”

He was quick. In my addled state, I didn't see it coming. He reached out and struck me across the face with the back of his hand. I tasted blood. He hit me again, this time with the back of the other hand and across the other side of my face.

“Give me your name,” he said, his voice calm.

“Matt Royal.”

“You are a friend of Jock Algren?”

“Yes.”

“And of the woman called J. D. Duncan?”

“Yes.”

“Where are they?”

“I don't know.”

He hit me again, this time with his closed fist to the right side of my face. The pain merged with the headache, and I tasted more blood. The man bent down, his face close to mine. “Don't lie to me,” he said, his voice low and raspy. I used the blood in my mouth and what saliva I could generate and spit onto his face mask. I had tried for his eyes, the only part of his face that was exposed. I missed, but he apparently got the message.

He paused, drew back quickly, and hit me again in the middle of my face. I saw the punch coming, but could do nothing to deflect it. I felt the cartilage in my nose give way and felt blood running down my upper lip. The pain caused my eyes to tear. I blinked them away,
tried to gather enough blood and saliva to spit again. It didn't work. My mouth was dry.

The man turned and walked out of the room. He returned a few minutes later with another man, also masked and carrying what appeared to be an AK-47 rifle. The second man stood behind me, and I could feel the rifle's muzzle against the back of my head. I thought I was about to die, and I was helpless to do anything about it. I focused on a vision of J.D. on the beach at Egmont Key. She was wearing a red bikini and looking at me with a smile that conveyed all kind of wonderful emotions, all directed at me. That was the moment when I knew without question that she loved me, the moment when my life changed forever. It was my favorite memory of her, and I wanted to leave this life with that snapshot imprinted on my brain.

Maybe two seconds had elapsed when I realized that the first man was standing in front of me with a cell phone held up and pointed directly at me. He was about to take a picture. I barely had time to smile before the flash went off.

The man with the phone stepped over to me and hit me in the stomach, a sharp, short blow that doubled me over. He stepped back and said something to the man with the rifle. I felt him grab a handful of my hair and snap my head back. The photo flash lit up the room.

F
RIDAY
, N
OVEMBER
7

J.D.
WAS STANDING
in Matt's front yard as the various law enforcement people rolled in. First came Chief Bill Lester, then Officer Steve Carey, followed by a phalanx of forensic investigators. Her phone rang. She looked at the caller ID, tapped the answer button, relief flooding through her. “Matt, where are you?”

“You've got a text,” a strange voice said in accented English. The phone went dead.

J.D. touched the icon for text messages. One had come in from Matt seconds before the call. She opened it and saw a picture of Matt restrained in a chair, a man wearing a ski mask standing behind him, his hand holding a clump of Matt's hair, pulling his head back at an awkward angle. He held a rifle butt under his other arm, the muzzle pointed at Matt's head. She saw blood dripping from Matt's nose and a look of pain and surprise on his face. She felt sick, swallowed hard, trying to keep the bile down. It was no good. She bent forward and vomited.

Steve Carey was coming out the front door and rushed over to J.D. “You okay?” he asked. He pulled a handkerchief from his pocket and handed it to her. “It's clean,” he said.

J.D. wiped her mouth with the handkerchief. “Thanks, Steve. I'll wash it and get it back to you.”

“Don't worry about the handkerchief. Are you sick?”

She handed him her phone. “Take a look.”

Steve studied the picture for a moment. “Oh, shit. This is bad. I'm so sorry, J.D. Reuben is in the house. Can I give this to him? Maybe he can get something out of your phone that'll give us a lead on where the bastards are.”

“Give me a minute. I'm going to need your phone while Reuben's looking at mine. Okay?”

“Not a problem.” Steve pulled his phone from the holster on his equipment belt and handed it to her.

J.D. manipulated her phone, forwarded the picture to Jock's and Dave Kendall's cell phones along with a message to call her at Steve's number. She handed her phone to Carey and he disappeared into the house.

J.D. sat on the front step of the house, trying to focus, trying to think like a cop, not a woman who'd just seen her lover tied up in a room located God knows where. Steve returned, adjusted his equipment belt, and sat down beside her. He put his arm around her, tentatively, waiting for her to react. She surprised him by laying her head on his shoulder. He tightened his hold on her.

“J.D.,” he said, “we're going to find Matt and we're going to bring him home. We need to talk, to get ahead of this thing. I need to know everything you know. You know how this goes. I need to know even the tiniest little bit of what you know, even if it seems irrelevant to you.”

“Steve, this is really complicated. It has national security implications, and I'm not sure what I can tell you. I'll get a call in the next couple of minutes and I'll find out what I can say and what I can't.”

“Jock,” Steve said.

J.D. nodded. Steve's phone rang. She answered. “What the hell's going on?” Jock asked.

“It's bad, Jock. I think Youssef has Matt.”

“I can see that. When did they take him?”

“We don't know. I came over to his house about twenty minutes ago and he was gone. I'll tell you more about it later, but I was pretty sure he hadn't left on his own accord. About five minutes ago I got a call from a man with an accent telling me to check my texts. I found the picture and sent it to you and Dave.”

“Are you alone?”

“No. The police are here. I called them when I realized Matt was missing. Steve Carey is here with me, and I don't know how much I can tell him.”

“Sit tight. I'll be there as soon as I can. I'll get Dave to send a plane for me.” Jock's voice sounded businesslike, assured, focused. Like the old Jock.

“Are you okay?” J.D. asked.

“I don't know. We'll see. I've got to call Dave.” He cut the connection.

Steve's phone rang immediately. J.D. clicked the answer button. It was Dave Kendall.

“I got the picture, J.D. It's got to be Youssef and his bunch. I'll call Jock as soon as we hang up. One of our jets was on its way to Miami. I just diverted it to the Naval Air Station on Boca Chica. It'll be landing in about twenty minutes. It'll take Jock to Sarasota. Can you have a patrol car pick him up there?”

“Yes. Thanks, Dave. I've got another little problem here. I need to tell my people all I know about this, but I don't know how much I can tell them.”

“J.D., Matt's life is more important than any secrets we have on this. You tell them anything they need to know. Jock should be there within an hour or so.”

“Thanks, Dave. Have your plane go to Dolphin Aviation at the airport. I'll have the car meet them there.”

F
RIDAY
, N
OVEMBER
7

J
OCK WAS RUMBLING
around in Paul Galis' kitchen. He had awoken when he heard Paul leaving for work. There was a bag of pastries on the counter and the coffee maker was set up so that all Jock had to do was push a button to start the brewing process. He found a plate in the cabinet above the sink, placed a cinnamon bun on it and stuck it in the microwave. His cell phone dinged, the sign of an incoming text.

He looked at the message and saw that it was from J.D. A photograph was attached. He opened the picture and stared at it for a moment as the full realization of what he was seeing took hold. Matt was tied to a chair, battered and bloody, and a man in a ski mask held an AK-47 rifle pointed at Matt's head. It was a picture Jock had seen many times before. Some poor hostage taken by the sadists who believed the world should return to the seventh century, was about to be executed, or murdered, to be more exact.

But they wouldn't have sent a picture of Matt alive unless they wanted something. That gave Jock a glimmer of hope. He had to find out more and get to Longboat Key. Was he ready to take on the bastards? He didn't know. He thought he was done with that part of his life, but now the only person in the whole world that had stood with him for most of his life was in danger. Not because of anything Matt
had done, but because of what he himself had done. He couldn't let this stand. He should have killed Youssef when he had the chance. His good intentions had bad consequences. He knew that possibility when he didn't kill Youssef, but it never occurred to him that his act of charity would put his only family in jeopardy.