Taken

32

Joe Pike

Wander had not returned, and neither had the Explorer. Young moms and dads passed with kids strapped into car seats, and three boys rumbled past on skateboards. Pike wondered if Cole was inside with Ghazi al-Diri, and if everything was going according to plan.

A woman wearing black utility pants and a black tank top came out of the house next door with a large German shepherd. She had broad shoulders for a small woman, and fit arms, and looked like a commando in all the black, but she didn’t look happy.

The woman and dog walked past the Jeep like they had done this same walk a thousand times and it held nothing new. The dog pulled at the leash, and the woman told it to stop. She seemed angry, but Pike thought she probably wasn’t. They had walked together a thousand times, and each time the dog pulled, the woman complained, and her arms and face showed the strain. Pike wondered why she didn’t change the pattern. Change one element, and everything changes. All she had to do was talk to the dog.

Pike’s phone vibrated. He glanced at the incoming number and recognized Stone.

“Go.”

“They’re dumping bodies. I followed the Explorer into the desert and saw them. They’re killing people in those houses.”

Pike studied the house, and wondered if someone was inside dying.

“Elvis?”

“No. No, man, I checked. They dumped four today, but I counted nine. It is fuckin’ grotesque.”

Pike figured they would be Park’s people.

“Koreans?”

“That’s what I expected, but no. They’re Indians or Pakistanis. How many fuckin’ people has this guy kidnapped?”

This surprised Pike. He wondered if they had been held at the house he was watching, or the Mecca house, or another, and how many more were still prisoners.

“How long have they been dead?”

“The four today, no more than five or six hours. The others have been there for days.”

“Where are you?”

“Inbound now, but the bodies are twenty south of Palm Desert. I fixed a waypoint. What’s happening up there?”

“Nothing.”

Stone didn’t comment, which meant Stone didn’t like it. Pike didn’t like it either. Cole was supposed to be in the house, but Wander had not returned to take him back to his car, and no one else had arrived. If they had taken Cole in the Explorer, he now had no backup, and Pike liked that even less.

Stone read his mind.

“Y’know, we have no reason to believe he was in that Explorer.”

“Uh.”

“But if the Syrian was in Mecca, maybe they dropped off Cole on their way to dump the bodies.”

Pike thought Stone might be right about the meeting at a secondary location, but there was only one way to find out.

“I’m going in.”

“Wait. I’m fifteen out. I’ll make it in twelve.”

“Not going to wait.”

Pike put away his phone, then went to the rear bay. He stripped off his sweatshirt, strapped on a ballistic vest, then pulled the sweatshirt over it. He clipped a Kimber. 45 semi-auto at the small of his back, and was about to clip his. 357 Python when the dog ran past trailing its leash. Pike stepped to the far side of the Jeep to cover his guns.

The dog ran directly to its door, and scratched to get in. Pike guessed the woman had grown tired of being pulled. She came along the street a few seconds later, scowling, and shouting at the dog to stop. The dog didn’t stop. Pike turned away when she glanced at the Jeep.

When the woman and the dog were inside their home, Pike clipped the. 357 to his waist, then drove to the house. He got out with a fifteen-pound sledge, and did not bother to knock.

Pike hit the door square on the deadbolt. The lock crunched into the wood, but the door did not give. Pike swung again, and shattered more wood, but something was blocking the door.

Pike stood to the side. He listened at the hole, but heard nothing. There were no voices, or movement, or men scrambling for guns.

Pike ran back to the Jeep, and drove forward until the brush guard pressed the garage door, and the cheap door crumpled into the garage.

The laundry room door went down to the sledge.

Pike cleared the house fast, leading with the gun, locked out and good to go. The house was now empty. Pike found no bodies, possessions, food, or clothes. The only remaining evidence that something terrible had happened here were the heavy sheets of plywood covering the windows and doors. This house had been a prison.

Pike finished, and stood in the living room, breathing. He tried to listen to what the house knew, but heard only the low steady thud of his heart.

Pike had stood sentry since the gray van delivered Cole to this house, but Cole was now missing.

His friend had been taken.

Pike ran back to his Jeep, backed from the garage, and told Jon Stone to meet him in Mecca.