Zero Separation (26 page)

Strauss limped to the table and picked up a glass, blew into it to
remove any dust, and poured himself some water from a plastic gallon jug. He swung a chair out from under a nearby table and sat down, a wince passing over his face as he eased his full weight into the chair.

“By the look of you both, you've recovered from the drugs. It's a mix of Ativan and morphine. It makes for compliant passengers. You'll be groggy at first, a little nauseous, but it wears off quickly enough.” He pulled a wallet out his pocket and began to examine the contents. “Mr. Nash. I need some questions answered and it's completely up to you how we do this—with or without pain. If you choose pain, it will end with one of you dying.”

“Go to hell,” Montero snapped.

Strauss shot to his feet, toppling the chair, and straddled Montero's chest. He cupped her chin in the palm of his hand, and pulled her face within inches of his own, then slid a slender knife from its scabbard, made sure she saw the glistening blade, and then touched the steel against the soft flesh of her neck.

“Special Agent Montero, I let you live the last time we met.”

Montero's eyes grew wide then narrowed into slits, her face a portrait of pure hatred. “
You
killed Alec.”

“I did, in fact, kill him, as well as the others, so you understand what I'm capable of. Don't think for a moment that I won't kill you.”

“You sick bastard! Is this how you get off?” Montero said defiantly, ignoring the knife at her throat. “Assaulting women who are tied up and can't fight back?”

“You weren't assaulted. No one touched you that night. I only needed to give everyone the impression you'd been kidnapped and violated. It added an essential bit of credibility to the situation.”

Montero used every muscle in her body to fight her restraints, trying to buck the man off of her. “You piece of shit!”

The man swung from the shoulder and slapped her hard across the face. The impact popped and echoed through the tent. Donovan saw the fury in Montero's eyes cloud over in pain.

“Screw you!” Blood trickled from Montero's split lip. “Did you regret not being able to slap Sasha around before you killed her?”

Nathan pressed his hand firmly over Montero's mouth and nose, cutting off her oxygen, and then turned toward Donovan. “What has the investigation into the theft of the Gulfstream from Boca Raton uncovered so far? Tell me the truth, or I'll start cutting her up in front of you.”

Donovan didn't doubt for a moment that unless he was honest, Montero would die. She was suffocating, starting to writhe helplessly under Nathan's iron grip.

“The authorities think that an Islamic terrorist group took the plane. The bomber you used in Virginia was very convincing.”

Nathan removed his hand from Montero's face and wiped the blood and saliva from his hand across her blouse. She lay spent, gasping for air. “Have the black boxes from the Pan Avia flight been recovered?”

“No,” Donovan replied. “We located them, but they're buried deep in the wreckage. It'll be days, if not weeks, before they're analyzed.”

“Do you know who I am?”

“All I've heard is a name.” Despite Montero's eyes pleading with him to lie, he decided this wasn't worth her life. “You're Nathan Strauss.”

“Who told you?” Strauss swung himself off of Montero and got to his feet then secured the knife. He stared at Donovan. “Keep talking.”

“Someone from the Israeli Embassy.”

“Really?” Nathan said with an amused grin. “Was it my old friend Aaron Keller?”

Montero was still breathing hard. “You were him. The informant—I recognize your voice. You set us up.”

“Yes, I was your anonymous informant. The men I tipped you off about weren't Venezuelan drug smugglers. They were Keller's hunting party, a Mossad-sponsored hit squad looking for me. I discovered
their presence and brought you and Alec in to take care of them. I arranged it to appear as if the FBI had eliminated them. You gave me the perfect opportunity to rid myself of these people, and it forced Keller to back off.”

“They were Mossad agents—sent to stop you?” Montero asked.

“Not Mossad, a contract wetwork team Keller dug up somewhere. He's always so concerned with maintaining his deniability.”

“Why didn't you kill me that night?”

“As I explained, a terrorized woman seemed to sell the story even better than a dead one. I only delayed the inevitable. Right now everyone thinks both of you have been in a plane crash and are most likely dead.”

“How did you know we were in Kingston?” Montero asked.

“Thanks to live coverage from CNN most of the world knew of your arrival. I was only after your airplane. Collecting the two of you was just luck on my part. I was about to steal your Gulfstream when your copilot showed up. Everyone is looking for you, but by this time all they're really trying to find is the wreckage of your plane—about eight hundred miles from where we're sitting.”

“You ambushed Kyle. You had Michael's keys.” Donovan saw it all now, though he was way too late to do anything about it. “Why did you shoot my friend in Boca Raton, but not me?”

“Simple logic—he'd seen me—you hadn't.” Strauss replied. “A little sloppy, but I was in a big hurry that night. The weather was moving in fast, and we needed to leave.”

“Where's the airplane you took from Boca Raton?” Donovan asked. “Where are we?”

“None of that is important. If you were to somehow escape, believe me, you wouldn't last a day out there in the jungle and most certainly not the night.”

Strauss picked a wrench off the table and limped to the back of the tent to a stack of battered acetylene tanks. There were three of them, each about four feet long, resting on their sides. Nathan spun
the valve fitting counterclockwise until it came free. He snapped on latex gloves and coaxed a small amount of white powder into his palm. He carefully threaded the valve back in place and went to where Montero lay and brushed part of the powder onto her face. She shook her head back and forth in vain before she finally inhaled the substance, coughing. Strauss knelt over Donovan and repeated the process.

Donovan held his breath as long as he could, but in the end he had no choice but to inhale the powder.

Nathan peeled off his gloves, stood up, an expression of pain flashed across his face and his hand shot to his right hip. He went toward the door and stopped just short of leaving. “In case you're unclear, that was anthrax. Each one of those tanks holds roughly fifty kilograms, part of Saddam Hussein's weapons of mass destruction that you Americans could never seem to find. I've had a vaccination, but I'm guessing by the expression on your faces you haven't. As of this moment, you're both as good as dead.”

Strauss limped heavily out of the tent and for the first time since he'd met her, Donovan found genuine panic in Montero's eyes.

“Oh, shit!” Montero's eyes darted around furiously. “I can't believe we're going to die like this.”

“Save your energy. It's not going to kill you,” Donovan said.

Montero's head jerked toward him and her eyes bore holes in him. “What in the hell do you mean? You don't think it's anthrax?”

“Strauss is not the type who bluffs. My wife explained anthrax to me once. She said that the spores need time to multiply before any of the symptoms appear. Sometimes it takes days. If you and I are treated quickly, say within twenty-four hours, we probably won't die from the bacteria. Much beyond that though, we'll be past the point of curing.”

“You're telling me you think we're going to die from something else?”

“I doubt anthrax will be the cause of our deaths. That'll take
up to a week. Strauss has got something else planned. The anthrax was just to terrorize us. Don't give him the satisfaction.”

“He's responsible for it all.” Montero closed her eyes. “He was the one who stole the Bristol Technologies Gulfstream. What's he doing? What's his endgame? Why did he steal another Gulfstream? What happened to the one that he took from Boca Raton? If I hadn't forced you to fly to Florida, we wouldn't be here, and Kyle would still be alive. I've done nothing but play into Strauss's hands.”

“It's not your fault. Strauss killed Alec, Sasha, Ricky, and Kyle. You didn't cause anyone's death. He did.”

“I wish it was that simple.”

“Strauss pulled the trigger. Focus on that. Don't underestimate this guy. He's former Israeli Defense Force and he's been planning this for months, maybe years. He uses people and then he eliminates them, and so far he hasn't made a single mistake. He's smart and he intends to get away with whatever it is he's doing.”

“He steals jets and has a cache of anthrax,” Montero said. “Is he smuggling this stuff into the United States or is he moving it from the States to buyers in other parts of the world?”

“I have no idea.” Donovan had done the math and knew Strauss had enough anthrax to kill millions. As Montero once again closed her eyes, his thoughts drifted to Lauren. By now, she'd know his plane was missing. Did she think he was dead? Of course, she would. The way Strauss had explained it, no one would have any reason to believe otherwise. He and the
da Vinci
were gone. With Montero presumed dead as well, the news about Robert Huntington would soon be released to the media. Lauren was about to face all of his past coming at her—and she was going to face it alone. In the process of trying to protect her and Abigail, he'd failed them both on nearly every level imaginable—just as he'd failed Meredith.

Lauren heard footsteps in the hallway outside her bedroom followed by someone softly knocking. She knew it was Buck and didn't want him to see what she was doing. She had no way to explain why she was packing two large suitcases. She went to the door and cracked it open less than an inch.

“Mr. VanGelder just returned,” Buck said. “Shall I show him up here?”

“Please, if you don't mind,” Lauren replied. William had stayed last night, even after Calvin had finally convinced her to take something to help her sleep. William left word that he needed to return home for an hour or so and would be back as soon as possible.

Buck hesitated for a moment, like he was going to say something else, but instead turned and walked away.

Lauren quietly closed the door, knowing that she'd never get used to bodyguards. Donovan's words echoed in her head, “
If we have to go, we'll take the security with us. It was how we were going to have to start living anyway
.” She felt a stab of resentment as she thought to herself.
No, it's how I'm going to have to live
.

Abigail was lying on the bed watching cartoons. Lauren had brought up the picture-in-a-picture feature on the television, and when she walked past the screen, she'd see the CNN coverage. Each time she passed, she held her breath, bracing herself for the sight of Robert Huntington—the signal that her life had irrevocably changed.

Her daughter clutched Shadow, the largest of her stuffed dogs.
Did Abigail feel like she needed a dog, even if it was stuffed, to protect her? Lauren didn't know what to tell her. When the time was right, she'd try to explain to her that Daddy was gone. Lauren fought another wave of tears and focused on the task at hand—packing as if she would never return.

The moment the news about Robert Huntington broke, Lauren would contact Michael and Susan. After all the years they'd spent with him, they deserved to hear the details from her. It was one of many conversations she dreaded. Another knock on the door told her William had arrived.

“Grandpa's here,” Lauren called to Abigail as she opened the door. William hugged her before reaching to scoop up Abigail as she slid down off the bed and rushed toward him.

“How's my favorite little girl?” William kissed Abigail on the cheek and got a fierce hug in return. He walked over and plopped her on the bed amidst Abigail's playful shrieks and giggles. She grabbed Shadow and rolled out of William's reach.

“I just came from the hospital,” William said. “I broke the news to Michael and Susan.”

“How'd they take it?”

“Susan fell apart, and Michael tried to be strong for her, but he was having trouble keeping it together. They're coming home later today. I told them that maybe you needed some space right now and that we'd see them tomorrow. I hope you don't mind.”

“Thank you.” Lauren knew the minute she saw them she'd lose whatever tenuous emotional control she'd found.

“Stephanie was hell-bent on catching a flight over, but I convinced her we'd see her in a few days and to stay put for now. The State Department reached your mother. Her cruise ship was off the coast of Greece. She's being met at their next port and escorted home.”

Lauren nodded, trying to convey her gratitude with her eyes.

William handed Lauren a soft-sided briefcase. “I brought you some things Donovan wanted me to keep safe. Most of it's self-explanatory,
but there's some paperwork in there we should talk about.”

William began to talk to Abigail as Lauren walked around the bed to the sitting area, unzipped the case, and found four large envelopes. Each had a name printed on the outside: Donovan, Lauren, Abigail, the fourth, marked Cash. She easily recognized Donovan's crisp block lettering. She pulled out the one with her name and opened it up to find three U.S. passports with three corresponding sets of ID: driver's licenses, credit cards, insurance and pharmacy cards. Closer inspection showed a different name and address for each identity. A cursory glance into the other envelopes told her the addresses all corresponded with what she'd found in her own packet. The fourth envelope held neatly wrapped bundles of cash. Dollars, euros, and British pounds. Lauren thumbed through the bills and counted roughly one hundred thousand dollars. This was only the first part of their escape kit—she knew another stash of documents and cash were waiting in London. She had no idea when he'd done all of this, but in typical Donovan fashion, he'd been thorough.