Off Course (10 page)

La Jolla, California; Scripps Cancer Research Center

June 15, 12:20 p.m. Pacific Time

Lost in thought, Emily’s heels beat a steady rhythm on the short pile carpet as she marched down the hallway from the lunch room. She carried her tablet in one hand and a Tupperware container she had retrieved from the refrigerator in the other. Lunch would be a quick salad from home eaten alone at her desk while she analyzed data. The usual.

In the lunchroom, she had realized she had nothing to drink. One of those all natural juices from the machine sounded good, but she had no money with her. She strode back to her office, then realized she had left her purse in her car, so she tramped out to the parking lot. Crabtree and McCoy’s early morning interrogation yesterday had thrown her out of her morning ritual, not only yesterday, but today as well. Their insistence on providing her protection had proven to be a distraction this morning as she watched the two young agents in the gray Taurus park right behind her car. She had felt their eyes on her as she got out of the car, which apparently made her leave her purse behind.

She shuddered at the thought of her privacy being invaded as she crossed the asphalt toward her white BMW. The two agents were still there, still watching steadfastly and dutifully.

As Emily retrieved her purse, she couldn’t help but notice how the sun shone and a pleasant breeze blew in from the ocean. The morning’s fog had dissipated, replaced by a lazy, inviting warmth. The weather was too perfect not to enjoy. On days like this, Emily often took her work outside during lunchtime. The problem was the two FBI guys.

The younger one in the passenger’s seat sat up as she approached and elbowed his partner, whose seat was partially reclined. Leaning forward, the young agent kept a hawk-like watch over her as she gathered her purse from her back seat. She smiled and waved at him as she turned back toward the building, pointing at the purse and shrugging. He blushed and waved awkwardly in return. His half-asleep partner slugged him in the arm and chided him. “Don’t do that. You’re a professional, for Pete’s sake.”

Emily stopped by her office to retrieve her Tupperware and tablet, then to the vending machine in the break room, then out the back door toward the tree-lined walking path across the street from the Scripps facility. The weather was just too inviting; she had to get out and enjoy it without the company of the two armed agents. Several hundred yards down that walking path were a handful of benches that bordered a grassy field that she frequented on days like this. She needed some fresh air and right now a good stroll in the warm sunshine away from watchful eyes sounded like the perfect solution.

  *              *              *              *

The two thugs in the white Sprinter van circled the Scripps campus in search of an inconspicuous place from which to watch Emily’s car. The gray Taurus with the two FBI agents was hard to miss. The thugs knew they had to avoid catching the attention of its occupants. The passenger was absorbed with the images being streamed to his phone from the tiny cameras he had set up near Emily’s office. “She just walked out to her car,” he said. “But then walked back in the building.”

As the driver approached the Scripps campus along North Torrey Pines Road, the passenger told him to slow down. “You won’t believe this,” said the younger man. He pointed the phone’s screen toward the driver, who ignored it.

The driver’s eyes were fixed, studying something through the window. “I believe what I see,” he said, as he pointed straight ahead. A sandy-haired woman, wearing a beige silk blouse and maroon pants that shimmered in the sunlight and flowed as she hurried along, was exiting the building through a side door halfway down the block.

The driver waited at the stop sign and watched as their quarry stalked away from the campus, glancing anxiously behind and all around before stepping into the crosswalk not more than a hundred yards ahead of them. The tattooed driver stepped on the gas. As the van moved closer and she approached the halfway point of the intersection, a look of panicked recognition overtook her countenance. She stopped in her tracks, mouth agape, as she recognized the speeding van and its occupants.

The driver looked at his passenger as he stomped on the gas. His young partner was already preparing himself to jump out of the van. He had a cloth in his hand and was pouring the solution onto it. Emily began to run from them, but the driver crossed the lane toward the opposite curb, cutting off her route to the walking path and the relative safety of the small clusters of midday walkers. She burst into a sprint as best she could in her dress shoes, but she didn’t get far. Shock and terror had stolen most of her breath, making it impossible for her to scream loud enough for anyone to hear.

The spiked one jumped out as the driver slammed on the brakes. Within seconds, the passenger had caught her. She tried again to scream, but the sound didn’t travel far. She tried to fight, but the young man was agile, quick, and experienced. He deftly avoided her jabs and kicks and moved in to overpower her. As he did, he wrapped an arm around her neck, applied the cloth to her nose, and dragged her back toward the van. The inked driver hopped over the duffle bag between the two front seats to open the side cargo door. The younger partner turned to sit on the deck with his prey in his arms. The driver grabbed an arm and helped drag her limp body into the van. The passenger slammed the side door shut as the driver leapt back into his seat. He pulled the shifter down into Drive and sped away before anyone in the area was able to react to the commotion.

As the driver weaved his way through the winding suburban streets of La Jolla toward the freeway, the passenger rolled Emily over, pulled her arms behind her back, wrapped her wrists and ankles in duct tape and plastered a strip of it across her mouth, as well. His eyes ventured over her contours.

“Don’t do anything to her. Not yet,” called the driver as he watched from the rearview mirror.

The passenger sat back on his haunches, licked his lips, and responded. “There has to be some reward for our work.”

“Not now. Wait.”

The younger thug shook his head at the older driver who watched him through the rearview mirror. He dragged his prisoner to the back and fastened a thick nylon strap around her torso and locked it to a metal brace on the sidewall, just as he had done with Mrs. Cook, who sat strapped to the opposite side of the van, slumped over and unconscious.

The passenger took another long look at Emily, licking his lips as his eyes danced. The driver barked again, which got him moving back into the passenger’s seat. The young passenger beamed with pride as he took his seat and buckled in as the van sped up the southbound Interstate 5 onramp. “Instead of one, we deliver both. Surely the boss will be pleased with our next report,” he said with a hiss of satisfaction.

The driver grinned. “Yes, and we will have something a bit more pleasant to look at.”

The two men cackled as they celebrated their great fortune.

*              *              *              *

Mike Zimmerman paced the hallway outside his office. He walked down to Emily’s door, peered inside, and walked back to report his findings to the stranger waiting patiently in one of his chairs.

“She’s still not there,” he repeated for the third time in the ten minutes since the man arrived.

“Maybe she had lunch plans,” said the stranger.

“Oh, I don’t know. That doesn’t happen often. And when it does, at least one of us in the group knows about it.”

“Maybe she’s running late from another appointment,” offered the man, who sat back with one foot resting on the other knee. He was much less anxious than Mike. “Don’t worry about it.”

“But it’s past one o’clock. She never stays out to lunch this long. I’m going to text her.”

Rob Howell, seated comfortably in Mike Zimmerman’s office, watched with amusement as his host fussed about in an agitated, obsessive-compulsive fit to satisfy Rob’s simple request to take Emily out to lunch. Rob was an accomplished man, although barely thirty-one years old. He had been very successful at many of his endeavors. Developing relationships with people of all types and from all backgrounds was his specialty. Today, however, he had failed to do so, finding himself unable to calm Mike Zimmerman down or assure him that everything would be fine. Even his attempts to make small talk fell woefully short of the mark. Instead, the short man with the neatly trimmed beard paced the hallway nervously.

As time ticked on, Mike only grew antsier. Dr. Burns, he said, was not answering her cell phone nor responding to texts. This, Mike noted, was highly unusual. His pacing became more frenetic and his reports more worry-laden. Rob, however, leaned back and just smiled at his inability to make inroads with Emily’s boss. The Asperger’s kids, no matter their age, always gave him trouble.

*              *              *              *

Western Caribbean Sea, 50 miles north of Providencia Island

June 15, 3:46 p.m. Caribbean Time

The four gunmen aboard the
Admiral Risty
kept watch over their captives, rotating positions periodically. The one Collin had dubbed “Grunter” now sat in the cockpit and kept a keen eye on the Captain and his instruments. The Captain had apprised them all of his intentions to seek safe harbor along the western shore of Providencia Island, one of several small islands clustered due south of the Caymans and due east of Nicaragua. It was the closest land mass that afforded the best protection from the storm.

Captain Sewell pointed out the mounting storm to the east and its projected course. Grunter, his gun trained on the Captain, leaned forward and followed the trace of the Captain’s finger. A plume of swirling white lay at the far left edge of the navigation screen, it being oriented to their southerly course. The
Admiral
was a blinking speck on the far right. Grunter grunted and nodded his head.

The crew was now battling increasing head winds, so they remained busy on the deck gybing as the
Admiral
tacked at high speed through the blustery conditions. The mighty vessel was racing against time, the Captain and his crew aware of the perils that lay ahead.

Sensing Grunter’s uneasiness, the Captain pointed at the screen and shouted above the noise of the wind and the sails, “That storm is sixty miles to our east, moving this way at ten to fifteen miles per hour.” His finger traced a line going east to west across the screen. “The Island of Providencia is fifty miles southwest.” The Captain pointed to a spot beyond the screen. “We are traveling at nineteen knots per hour,” he explained, pointing at the speed indicator on the GPS. “We’ll be okay.” He caught Jaime’s eye as he said this, arching his eyebrow slightly as he did. Jaime’s nearly imperceptible acknowledgment was a longer-than-normal blink and nod of the head. What Grunter didn’t realize and what the Captain wanted only his crew to know was that they were not going to make it. The storm would be on top of them an hour before they reached the island. The GPS showed their speed, but with the zig-zagging they were doing, their course was not a straight line. Therefore, they were not making nineteen knots per hour toward their goal. No, maybe eleven or twelve.

Jaime called over to Rojas in their colloquial, dialectic Spanish to make sure he heard. Rojas signaled with a thumbs-up and relayed the message to Miguel, who also signaled his understanding. Everyone except Collin, who hadn’t seen the sun since he came on board, understood the peril they faced.

*              *              *              *

Below decks, Collin’s body was slowly recovering from the excessive abuse heaped upon it during the previous day and Mr. Green’s assault during his failed uprising in the night. His head was clearing, the swelling around his eyes had gone down, and the lacerations in his mouth were mending. However, his hands were still zip-tied behind his back. The skin around his wrists was shredded, raw, and puffy. The muscles of his arms and shoulders were stiff and ached from lack of movement and from trying to hold as still as possible to avoid more damage to his wrists. A fresh bruise had formed on his cheek from the blow Mr. Green had inflicted and his ribs still ached from the initial kick that he never saw coming.

Lack of food had made him weak, but the lack of water was placing him in dire straits. Stinky and his gang only allowed him a few sips at a time and only when they fed him a crust of bread, a bite of fruit, or a slice of cheese. His mouth was parched and his skin was clammy. Collin had stopped sweating, despite the stuffy, ninety-five degree temperatures inside the cabin. Stinky had made sure all windows remained closed. He wanted Collin to suffer. The lack of perspiration was a bad sign, and Collin knew it. Plus, his head was pounding—another bad sign—making it difficult to think.

Collin lay on the same lower bunk he had been on since this ordeal began, straining to hear what was going on above him. He heard the Captain yelling about the coming storm, but the details were literally lost in the wind. There was too much noise from the slapping of water against the hull, the pounding of feet on the deck, and the clanking of lines and riggings against the masts for him to make out all of the words. But, he had heard “storm now moving toward us,” “safe harbor,” and “islands to our south” and felt comforted that the Captain, who knew the Caribbean like a well-used diary, had everything in hand. Nonetheless, sleep was not forthcoming. Thoughts of water made it impossible and blocked out everything else from his mind. His craving for moisture was now all-consuming.