A problem is a chance for you to do your best.
– Duke Ellington
They were twenty miles past the city limits, and the landscape had become shades of black. No moon to help out. Just the occasional pair of headlights on the highway and a canopy of stars. Polaris ahead at ten o’clock. The escaping SUVs had extinguished their lights. So had they, for that matter. The cab illuminated by the blue glow from his iPhone, Crocker leaned forward to check the gas. It was an eighth of an inch away from empty. Probably another gallon or gallon and a half, which would get them twenty more miles, max.
Manny’s breathing was labored. In the glow from the little screen, Crocker saw that the left side of his face had swollen up. His eyes didn’t look right, either.
They’d never gotten hold of Jeri, nor had they gotten through to an operator when they dialed 911. The city behind them was still dark.
“Dude, you remember your name?” Crocker asked. “You okay?”
“Still smarter than you, asshole, with half my brain working.”
“More like a tenth, seems to me.”
“Pay attention,” Mancini growled as he looked at the screen. “They’re turning off.”
“Where? You see a road?”
“Up ahead to the right. Slow down!”
Crocker let up on the gas, applied the brake, and peered right into the darkness. All he saw was furry black and the sharper outline of a ridge in the distance.
“Turn here!” Manny shouted.
“Am I looking for a road?”
“No road. Just turn.”
“Here?”
“Yes!”
The truck bounced so hard across the shoulder that they had to hold on to prevent banging their heads on the ceiling.
“Motherfucker!”
Crocker applied the brake and eased the pickup down an embankment. They found themselves on relatively flat desert terrain interrupted by the occasional boulder or shrub.
“You trying to flip this thing over?” Mancini asked.
Crocker picked up speed. It was hard to see through the dust and darkness ahead.
“Any idea where the fuck these guys are going?”
Soon as he posed the question, automatic fire rang out to their right and bullets shattered the side window and windshield. Crocker ducked behind the dash and turned left as more rounds ripped into the pickup’s door and bed.
The vehicle hit a rock, dipped precipitously, and went downward fast.
“Fuck!” Mancini shouted.
“Hold on!”
They were airborne, but Crocker remained calm enough to check that both their seat belts were buckled. Twisted his torso hard right so it almost faced the seat and covered his head. Watched as Mancini did the same.
“Clench your teeth!”
The grille hit the ground hard, then the vehicle flipped over, spinning slightly right, and landed with a bang on the right side of the bed. Then it rolled onto the roof and was stopped by something hard that blew out the passenger-side window. Bam!
Crocker unclenched his teeth, exhaled, and shook the glass off.
“Manny?”
All he heard was a groan. Then he smelled gas.
“Manny, you all right? You hear me?”
The pickup had come to a rest on its side at a forty-degree angle, with the driver’s side up. He pushed open the door with his left foot, unbuckled his seat belt, then turned to attend to Mancini. He seemed to be slipping in and out of consciousness, but was breathing freely and his pulse was only slightly slower than normal. Crocker unbuckled his seat belt, then felt carefully along his neck and back to check if anything was broken. His spine was intact.
“You hear me, buddy?”
No response, so he wrapped his arms around him and slowly lifted out the bear of a man-230 pounds of bone and muscle. Crocker managed to lug him a safe distance away from the vehicle and set him on the ground.
“Manny, can you hear me?” he whispered.
After a ten-second pause, Mancini groaned and responded, “Yeah.” Then, “Fuck. My head hurts. What happened?”
“We crashed. I’m going to look for the phone and call for help.”
He inspected Mancini more closely and found multiple cuts to his right arm and side, and a large contusion near his right eye. He didn’t have the iPhone in his pocket or clutched in either hand.
“Wait here,” Crocker whispered. “I’ll be right back.”
Turning and looking over his shoulder, he saw that they had fallen into a twenty-foot-deep gulch. As he took a step toward the pickup, he heard helicopter rotors echo off the incline ahead.
He scurried upward across the dirt and rocks on his hands and knees, looked up and followed the sound. The helo was drawing closer. He made out its dark form in the night sky. It hovered with lights out. Then suddenly the bright landing lights came on, illuminating a wide circle five hundred feet ahead and to the right, temporarily blinding him.
“Fuckers!”
It was descending, looking for a place to land. To the right of the circle he made out the two black SUVs. Men with automatic weapons stood around them.
“Now what?”
Without thinking he broke into a sprint, keeping his eyes on the ground ahead of him, juking to avoid boulders, holes, shrubs. Focused on his target and calculating that he should swing right of the SUVs and approach from behind. His legs and lungs burning, he pushed with everything he had left, making sure to land on the balls of his feet to minimize the sound.
The helo engines were idling now. He heard voices ahead, echoing off the mountain. They seemed to be speaking a foreign language. Sounded like barked instructions, said with urgency.
He felt urgency himself, pushing harder and closing within two hundred feet. Men were carrying suitcases from the Escalades and loading them into the helicopter. He ran as fast as his legs could take him, fighting through stiffness and pain, remembering Mancini and the pickup past his left shoulder, ignoring all the warnings that flashed in his head.
He looked up again. Saw the sides of the SUVs from a hundred feet, then the bottom of his right loafer slid across something and he lost his balance and fell forward. He tried to break the impact with his hands, but still hit his chest and chin hard enough that his teeth smacked together and he lost his breath. Ten seconds later he had recovered. He tasted blood in his mouth and felt it dripping down his chin. More alarming was the sound of the helo engine revving up as if it were about to take off. Again he ran, hobbling this time, ignoring the pain from his knee, mouth, and lungs.
Out of breath, he ducked behind the first SUV. The whine of the helo engine was deafening, the light it emitted blinding. The rotors kicked up a violent swirl of dust that stung his skin. They seemed to be waiting. Crocker saw someone emerge from the back of the other SUV carrying a suitcase and hurrying-a short man with a wrestler’s body wearing a black tracksuit.
Crocker got up and sprinted toward him. Halfway there, someone screamed from the helo. Shots rang out. He fixed his eyes on the man’s legs and launched himself. Hit the back of the man’s knees hard and saw stars.
They were grappling in the dirt, dust in his eyes and mouth, more swirling around him, the man screaming and swearing in a language that sounded like Chinese.
Crocker located the man’s head with his hands, delivered some quick, short blows to the front and right. Then the man twisted violently and kicked him in the groin. All the air went out of Crocker, and the pain was so intense he couldn’t help but loosen his grip just enough for the man to squirm away.
He reached for him blindly, ignoring the pangs that shot up his back and down his legs. The helo started lifting off. Shots rained down on Crocker, tearing up the ground around him. He rolled under the helo and looked for the man but couldn’t find him.
As the helicopter rose, he rolled left, then got to his feet and zigzagged sharply left and right. The helo stopped at thirty feet and hovered. Automatic-weapon fire poured from the doors and windows on both sides-like a wave of deadly bees.
Seeing a boulder ahead, he dove behind it and hugged its base, heart pounding, dirt in his mouth. The firing paused momentarily. He thought of Cyndi waiting. Jenny, Holly. Maybe the guys in the helicopter had lost sight of him. Maybe they were going to wait for him to give up, which would never fucking happen.
While the helo continued to hover as though the men inside couldn’t decide whether to land and eliminate him or fly away, he quickly considered his options. There weren’t any.
Past the bottom of the boulder he saw a glint from the chrome hardware on the black Pelican case the man had been carrying. Either Crocker had managed to wrestle it away or the man had left it. Didn’t really matter.
Maybe the guys can’t see it ’cause it’s black and covered with dirt?
He hoped so as he looked for a route of escape. Any movement of his part would involve tremendous risk, so he waited, hoping that the next moment would reveal a solution, the tension stretching tauter by the second.
Looking at his dirt-covered hands, he realized he wasn’t wearing his wedding ring. He felt for it in his pocket.
Yeah, it’s still there.
Moments like this distilled existence to its essence-life and death, good and evil, love and hate. He loved Holly and always would.
Imagine thinking of her with my last breath.
The sound of the helo engine deepened. He saw the landing lights wash over the landscape.
Taking what he knew was a foolish risk, Crocker snuck a look. The helicopter was landing, which meant he was fucked. They would see the boulders. They would figure it was the only place in the vicinity where he could be hiding.
Just as he expected, shots rang out and pinged off the rock. He glanced behind him, looking for the route of escape. Facing forward again, he saw the flicker of flames in his periphery near the SUVs. Seconds later the sky lit up with a massive explosion that shook the ground and pushed the helo up and to the left like a toy. A large piece of metal from one of the Escalades clanged off the rocks. The closer SUV was engulfed in flames.
Manny? WTH!
He held his breath as the helo spun left. He was praying for it to crash, but the pilot managed to level it. The engine whined higher and the helo ascended and banked left. He followed its dark shape along the ridge of the mountain as the Escalade continued to burn.
He waited a minute until the sound of the rotors chopping the air receded and was replaced by the hiss and crackle of flames.
“Manny?” he called.
“Boss.” His small, pained voice tripped across the landscape to his right.
He found Manny lying on his side, his face glowing orange in the reflected light.
“You saved my ass, buddy. You torch that vehicle? How?”
“Matches and my shirt.”
“You better?” he asked, his chest heaving and sweat beading on his forehead.
“My whole right side is fucked, but I can move.”
“Stay here. I’ll be right back.”
He ran and recovered the Pelican, then crossed to the intact Escalade. The handle was hot but the door wasn’t locked. He took a quick look at the other Escalade burning twenty feet away and quickly catalogued the things he needed to do: hot-wire the SUV, rush his colleague to a hospital, find his phone, and call Jeri.
As he pried off the housing around the ignition box, he remembered two more things: He’d left Cyndi waiting, and he wanted to call Jenny, too. She always seemed nearby, even when she wasn’t. He’d felt the same about Holly, and thought for a second that maybe there was still a chance to sort things out. Then he reminded himself that their marriage was over. He had to come to terms with that. He would.
James Dawkins woke to a continuous hum in his head, as though the song he was listening to had gotten stuck. It took effort to partially open his eyes, and when he did, he saw white and mustard colors and a shape directly in front of him. He made out a broad-shouldered Asian man sitting across from him wearing an implacable expression and sunglasses.
Dawkins sat up in the cream-colored leather seat. His left arm felt numb. As he shook blood into it, the Asian man looked past his shoulder and called to someone in a language Dawkins didn’t understand.
“Where are we?” he asked.
The man didn’t respond. Dawkins blinked, looked left and right, and slowly realized he was in a small jet that was airborne and probably had been for a while. Before he had a chance to think another thought, an Asian woman with sharp cheekbones and wearing a black pantsuit sat beside him, bringing a scent of soap.
“Did you rest well, Mr. Dawkins?” she asked gently in accented English.
She wasn’t Dr. Nikasa, and as his brain brightened into consciousness, details began to come back-the speech in Geneva, the drinks in the hotel suite, now this. “I…uh…Where am I? How did I get here? Where is Dr. Nikasa?” he asked.
The woman’s mechanical smile never left her face. “Okay, Mr. Dawkins. If you wish me to explain, I will.”
His blood pressure spiked. “I…I don’t know why I’m here. I must have been taken against my will.”
She took a long breath and spoke quickly. “Mr. Dawkins, we have hired you for a short period of time. Two months probably. Three months at the most.”
His mouth turned dry and his neck grew hot. “Hired me? I don’t understand.”
“Once you have completed the task we ask of you, you will be returned home safely.”
Did this have something to with his job a UTC Aerospace? “Who has hired me?” he asked.
“While you are with us, we will treat you with the highest respect and take care of your needs,” she said, hands folded in her lap. “At the end of your stay with us, Mr. Dawkins, we will wire-transfer a million U.S. dollars into your Chase account.”
The mention of the million dollars stopped him. “No, there’s been a mistake. I never agreed to this. I want to go home.”
She leaned closer and slightly parted her lips expectantly. For a second he wasn’t sure if she was going to bite him or kiss him. Instead, she stretched her mouth into the same mechanical smile. “I am here to answer your questions.”
“Okay…First…Who do you work for?”
“There is no reason to be afraid.”
“Please answer my question.” An acute sense of alarm buzzed at the base of his spine.
“While you are away, Mr. Dawkins, your family will be taken care of. We have already wired one hundred thousand dollars to your joint checking account for that purpose. We have people who will attend to the needs of wife and daughter.”
She seemed to be reciting from a memorized script.
“What’s your name?” he asked.
“Miss Alice Wa.”
“Okay, Alice. It seems that you’ve taken me against my will. I never signed up for this. So how do I know that anything you say is true?”
She frowned and looked confused. “There is no reason to be afraid, Mr. Dawkins.”
He was dressed in the same shirt and pants as before. He unbuttoned his collar to make it easier to breathe. “You said that before, but I don’t believe you. Who do you work for?”
With the mechanical smile still in place, she turned and muttered something to the man with the sunglasses, who picked up a laptop from the seat beside him and leaned across to hand it to her. Dawkins noted that it was a white Toshiba Satellite with a fifteen-and-a-half-inch screen.
She lowered a table out of the wall, set the laptop on it, and opened it. Turning to Dawkins and smiling, she said, “Log in to your checking account and see for yourself.”
It took him a few seconds to remember his Chase password, but when he did, he saw that $100,000 had been deposited in his account on March fifth. His speaking engagement at the Swissotel Metropole had taken place the evening of the third.
“Okay,” he said, sitting up again. Maybe what he had seen was real, and Nan and Karen would be taken care of. But maybe it wasn’t. These people had a jet and were sophisticated. They had set up the whole charade in Geneva. If they wanted to set up a web page that looked real, they probably could.
Trying to sound as calm as he could under the circumstances, he said, “Just tell me where you’re taking me, and why.”
Miss Wa quickly replaced her frown with a smile. The man across from them continued to stare ahead with no expression. “I cannot tell you that, Mr. Dawkins. The mission is top secret.”
The jet jolted sharply right. “What mission?” he asked as he held on to the armrests.
“I cannot tell you specific details. I can tell you that it will involve the application of your scientific and engineering skills toward solving a specific problem.”
“What problem?”
“That is all I can say. I can tell you that you will be treated with the highest respect. All your accommodations and meals will be first class. All your needs will be taken care of. Anything you want.”
She smiled into his eyes. For a moment he had the impression that she was including herself in the offer. In another time and place the proposal would have intrigued him, though he probably wouldn’t have acted on it. Now it only added to his alarm.
He was a man of science who tried to see things as they were, without illusions. These were people with resources. He was a means to an end, not unlike what he had been at UTC. But he had chosen the UTC job and believed he was doing important work for his country.
Who were the people who had taken him? Enemies of some sort, who couldn’t be trusted? What did they need from him?
“Maybe you would like food or wine now?” Miss Wa asked.
He had to think clearly. “A glass of water would be nice.”
“Red, white, or rosé?”
“No wine. Just water.”
“Yes. And maybe a massage afterward?”
He wouldn’t allow himself to be distracted. “What about my job back home?”
She nodded as though she was trying to remember something in the script. “Yes. Your job will be waiting. This has been arranged.”
“How?”
She stood and bowed. “It’s an honor, Mr. Dawkins, to serve you and welcome you as our guest. I’ll get your drinks now and will return to show you the movies we have downloaded for your viewing pleasure.”