Hidden Order

CHAPTER 23

Before the effects of the Taser had worn off, Ryan was tossed inside the back of the van, where her hands, feet, and mouth were duct-taped and a black hood was yanked down over her head. As soon as the vehicle started moving, she had her wits about her enough to try to interpret their speed and direction. Every piece of information was vital. Even the smallest data point could mean the difference between life and death.

How could she have been so stupid? She wanted to blame the wine or her jet lag, but she knew that she was ultimately responsible for her predicament right now. She should have never let her guard down.

The only silver lining she could find was that she wasn’t dead, yet. If they had wanted to kill her, they could have put a gun to the base of her skull and pulled the trigger rather than using a Taser on her. But while she saw breathing as a silver lining, she knew that at some point tonight she could end up wishing they had killed her in the parking lot.

She ran through her mind the long list of people around the world she had pissed off badly enough to want to come get her. The fact that the attack had been carried out by two young Caucasians worried the hell out of her, as it could very well be an Islamic operation. As box-of-rocks stupid as so many Muslim foot soldiers were, the men in the organizational structures of the more aggressive terror organizations tended to be rather intelligent. If one of those groups had the wherewithal to track her down like this, they’d never be dumb enough to send a Muslim man, or even a Muslim woman to lure her out of her apartment. The minute she saw either on her doorstep, her antennae would be up. The tipsy blonde with the fender-bender story was the perfect ploy.

Was this about one of the countless harsh interrogations she had conducted? Because if so, there wasn’t a single one that she would go back and change. She believed in the methods the CIA used, including the ones that members of Congress would never know about. They had no idea the type of determined enemy the United States faced. And while she believed in harsh interrogation methods, most of them were tactics that she would never want to be submitted to.

What worried her even more was that boastful lies and one-upmanship were the Muslim terrorist’s stock-in-trade. This went double for stories of capture and interrogation at the hands of the Americans. No matter what had happened in an interrogation, there’d always be one of them quick to jump up and claim they had a worse one. It led to a very perverse view of what Americans actually did in their interrogations.

It was why the thought of being kidnapped by Al-Qaeda or a similar group was something that kept some CIA personnel up at night. They knew that if they ever were grabbed, the interrogation wouldn’t be “harsh,” it would be brutal, and it would definitely be torture.

There was no way Ryan was ever going to submit to that, even if avoiding it meant throwing herself out of a moving vehicle. While she tried to keep track of the movement of the van, she also tried to keep calm as she sought a way to get free. But she was on her stomach, her naked body half exposed beneath her open robe, with her hands and feet bound up hog-tie style. She remembered watching a video once of someone actually getting out of being duct-taped. It involved twisting the hands down and out with a quick pop. It also required that your hands be bound in front, something professionals never did.

Rolling onto her right side, she inched in that direction praying that she’d find a screw or an exposed piece of metal, anything that could be used to cut through the tape and get herself free. There was nothing, so she rolled onto her opposite side and slowly felt her way along the filthy floor in that direction. It was just as fruitless. But then she felt something.

It was a small, narrow strip of metal banding, the kind used to secure loads to a wooden pallet. It was about half an inch wide and only an inch long. It wasn’t exactly sharp, but it had been cut on an angle and therefore had a point. Gripping it as best she could, Ryan ignored the pounding in her chest and went to work on her restraints.

About fifteen minutes later, she felt the van make another turn. Based on the speed and lack of stoplights, she figured they had been on Route 123 headed out of Fairfax. Now they were headed in a new direction. Toward what? A safe house? The forest? She worked harder on the duct tape. It had been wrapped around so many times, Ryan couldn’t tell if she was making any progress at all.

A few minutes later, the vehicle began to slow as if the driver was looking for something, an address or a road sign, maybe. No, she said half to herself, half in prayer. Don’t stop yet. I need more time. Please, I need more time. Frantically, she rubbed and stabbed at the tape with the little piece of banding. She could feel the time on her clock running out.

Whatever the driver was looking for, he must have found it, because he made another turn, this time onto a rough, uneven surface. Ryan thought it might be a dirt road of some sort, but after several hundred yards she felt the van make a sharp cut and come to a stop. Was it a turnout or were they in a driveway of some sort?

For several minutes, nothing happened. The van just idled. As best she could tell, no one had gotten out. They were just sitting there. Why? What was going on? Were they waiting for something or someone?

Through the hood, she could hear voices coming from the cab, Chrissie and the boyfriend. It sounded like they were arguing. There was a crescendo as Chrissie, who must have been driving, punctuated her words by throwing the van into reverse and stepping on the accelerator.

The tires spun wildly, before finally biting into the dirt and finding purchase. And that’s when it happened.

Just as the van was beginning to back up, something slammed into it from behind. Hard.