The Pandora Key aka The Hostage Room

16

IN MY EXPERIENCE, HOUSES WERE MOST EASILY BROKEN into through the basement windows, which were either unlatched or easy to make that way. The basement window for the house where Rachel was hiding was so low to the ground I had to lie on my belly in the dirt to check it out. The window was at ceiling height for the basement and had a simple latch lock that I could handle easily. I used my flashlight to look for the obvious signs of an alarm system. When I saw none, I put on my gloves, opened my tool case, and went to work.

Not surprisingly, Rachel had found a nice house to hide in. It was a large, white, brick-front ranch-style, sitting on almost an acre out in Acton. That it was built on a cul-de-sac made it even more secluded and private. Perfect for hiding, but it’s hard to hide from Felix. He had talked Gary Ruffielo into providing a current cell-phone number for Rachel. After working the problem all day, he had finally managed to track her through the use of that very useful GPS chip.

I finished with the latch, popped the window open, and gave thanks when no alarm sounded. If it was a silent alarm, I was in trouble. I cut the flimsy and rusted chains on each side that kept the window from flopping all the way to the wall. I gathered my stuff, turned on my belly, and wriggled in. When my feet hit the ground, I closed the window and did a sweep with my flashlight. It was dark and gloomy and haphazard down there, the way basements are. I saw nothing living or breathing of the human variety, but there was an old kitchen chair in the corner. I moved it to a position under the window in case I needed a springboard to a quick exit.

At the top of the stairs, I put my ear against the interior door, listened, and heard nothing. I heard more nothing when I popped the door open, which was a good thing. No alarm sounded as I stepped into the kitchen. No motion detectors were tripped, so I kept moving. There were no lights on, which made it very dark in the house, but I heard something, and it wasn’t just the daily hum of household machinery. It sounded like a shower running upstairs.

I cleared the downstairs as quickly as I could with a flashlight. The rooms were big and open, with few nooks, closets, and alcoves to hide in. But it took forever to get up to the second floor. The stairs creaked. I took each one in slow motion, checking for loose boards as I went. By the time I reached the top, my muscles felt as if they’d fused into one inflexible mass. The hallways were all dark up there, but, like the music in Harvey’s empty house, the sound of the shower running told me where to go: down to the room with the closed door.

Given that I had broken in, I had to decide about the Glock. It was one thing if it was Rachel behind the door. It was quite another if it was the law-abiding owner of the house, hiding out, perfectly justified in shooting the home invader. But what if it was Rachel with a gun? I didn’t know her. I didn’t know how she would react. I decided I needed to go in with my weapon front and center. I twisted the knob, flattened against the wall, and pushed the door open.

It was like a steam room in there, the steam billowing out from behind an interior door across the room. The light from behind the door provided the only illumination. It fell across the bed, where the sheets were twisted and the blanket mostly puddled around it. A rolling carry-on bag sat on the floor with its zippered flap lying open. Clothes were strewn about as if it had exploded. I stayed low and crept in, listening to make sure there was spraying and splashing and not just a steady hum. I got close enough to the bag to read the tag. Rachel Ruffielo of Quincy, Mass. It was good to know all the sneaking around hadn’t been for nothing.

I was careful to keep an eye on the bedroom door as I worked my way across the room. On the way, I checked under the bed. I checked the closet on the far wall. When I got close to the bathroom, I stopped.

I could feel my heartbeat in the tips of my fingers when I placed them on the damp door. I pushed. The hinges whined. The steam billowed out. My face got damp, and it was only as I was wheeling into the doorway that I realized there was now no interruption in the water’s flow, and unless she was standing perfectly still under the shower head, Rachel wasn’t in the shower at all.

She stepped forward, emerging from the thick steam like some kind of poltergeist.

“Don’t move,” she said, and I didn’t, because in her small hands, she held a 45-caliber revolver, and it was pointed straight at my right eye. Her.45 was bigger than my Glock, and her hands were shaking violently. There wasn’t much chance my gun would go off by accident, but I couldn’t say the same for hers, so I did as she asked.

“All right.” I had to make myself heard above the roar of the shower. “Let’s calm down here. No one has to get hurt. I didn’t come here to hurt you.”

“No? Let’s see, you track me down, you break into the house, you creep in here with a gun, and you didn’t come here to hurt me?”

I knew I should have had Harvey call her first, but I was afraid she’d bolt.

“I came to help.”

“With a gun?”

“You never know what you’ll find behind a closed door.”

She raised one shoulder to wipe away the copious amounts of perspiration dripping into her eyes, and the barrel of the.45 twitched. A defibrillator couldn’t have made my heart jump more.

“Be careful, please.” I put up my left hand, as if that would stop a bullet. “Let’s put the weapons down. We’ll do it at the same time.”

“No.” It wasn’t even up for consideration. “You first.”

“Why would I do that?”

“You’ve got no choice. You’re not gonna shoot me.”

“How do you know what I’ll do?”

“Because you’re Harvey’s partner, and I know Harvey.” The barest trace of a smile appeared. “But you don’t know me. ‘Maybe,’ you’re thinking, ‘she’s just desperate enough to do it. Maybe she doesn’t care if she lives or dies.’ Or maybe-” She pulled the hammer back. “Maybe this thing goes off accidentally.”

“Dammit, Rachel, be careful.” I pushed my hand farther forward. That would surely stop a bullet. “Do you know what that will do if it goes off?”

“Another good question. Do I even know how to use this?” Her smile broadened. She had slipped into something more comfortable-a Brooklyn accent. Either I had failed to notice it the other day, or it only came out in times of stress. She was also right. I had no idea what she was capable of. I did the high-stakes calculation again. I had a better chance of surviving if I put my gun down, even if she kept hers.

“All right. I’m putting it away.” I flipped the pistol around so it was aimed at the ceiling and engaged the safety.

“On the floor. Put it on the floor.”

“No.” I reached around and slipped it into my waist holster. “I’m putting it away so it’s not pointed at you. You do the same.”

“Put your hands up.”

“Rachel-”

“Put them up.” Her stress level was rising. It probably showed on her face, but I was watching the weapon, and all I could think about was the size of the hole a 45-caliber slug left in the targets at the shooting range, particularly from that close. I tried to keep my own nerves from showing as she moved to the shower and turned off the water. The silence was abrupt and welcome.

“Listen to me. If that goes off by accident, you’ll kill me. If you don’t want to kill me, point it toward the floor.”

I didn’t think she wanted to kill me, but I also didn’t think intent mattered at that moment. How light the trigger was, how twitchy her finger, how good or bad her aim-those were the things that mattered, and the longer she held the gun on me, the greater the chance that something would go wrong.

“How did you find me?”

“Your cell phone has a chip in it.”

“Who put it there?” She pushed the.45 at me, and I couldn’t help but turn my head slightly, away from the wrong end of that terrible weapon. Not that it would help much. Instead of blowing my face off, the blast would simply blow away the side of my head.

“Samsung…Nokia…Motorola…” She glared at me. “They come that way. We got your number from Gary, and we tracked you with the chip.”

I watched out of the corner of my eye as she began, very slowly, to lower her arms. I felt the pistol’s sight track down my body. Given the way my luck was running, I expected to be shot through the knee any second. When I was finally out of the bull’s-eye, I peeled my tongue off the roof of my mouth.

“Decock it, please.”

She did. Without even thinking, I was on her. I couldn’t have stopped if I’d tried. I grabbed the revolver and wrenched it out of her delicate hand. With her other delicate hand, she tried to gouge out my eyes. She wasn’t very big, and I was really mad, so it was easy to spin her around and give her a hard shove out the door. She ended up sprawled facedown across the bed.

“You bitch.” She said it with her face in the mattress. “You lying bitch. I knew I shouldn’t have trusted you.” She was strangely calm, almost resigned. When she started to turn and sit up, I pulled the Glock again and pointed it at her, but I kept the safety on. Harvey wouldn’t like it if I shot the love of his life, accidentally or otherwise.

“Put your hands on top of your head, Rachel.” I waited until she sat up and complied before flipping open the cylinder on the.45 and shaking the cartridges out into my palm. I put the gun in the sink and the cartridges in my pocket.

“Can I put my hands down?”

“If you sit on them.” She rolled her eyes but slid her hands, palms down, under her knees.

I found a wall switch and turned on the overhead lights. “How did you know I was here?”

“I heard a noise,” she said.

Not as stealthy as I thought, perhaps. I was soaking wet from the steam and a little shaky from having nearly died but otherwise okay. I pulled the stiff-backed chair away from the desk, dragged it over to face her, and sat down. We each took in a deep breath. I wanted to start over again. I did not, however, want any more surprises.

“Where are the people who own this house?”

“In Thailand for three months. They don’t even know I’m here.”

“Why are you still here? Why didn’t you leave town?”

She sniffed. “I didn’t have anyplace to go.”

“No family? No friends to take you in?”

“Haven’t you heard? I’m a hot commodity. For the first time in my life, everyone wants me. I can’t bring that into the homes of my family or my friends.”

“You didn’t have any trouble bringing it into Harvey’s home.”

She leveled her shoulders and smiled. “Harvey gets me. He understands me, and he likes helping me. It makes him happy.”

If that were true, Harvey must have been deliriously happy. “He’s home recovering from his abduction, in case you’re interested.”

“His ab-” She stopped herself, but not before her face had betrayed the slightest bit of surprise. I had been hoping for concern.

“Are you telling me you didn’t know that your friend Drazen Tishchenko sent people to pick him up?”

“My friend?”

“You brought Drazen into Betelco for a little postmodern plundering. Maybe that makes you more like professional colleagues.”

“How do you know about Drazen?”

“We had a power breakfast this morning. He’s looking for the person who killed his brother. That would be you, wouldn’t it?”

She tried to act blasé, but her fluttering eyelids betrayed her. Her expression then proceeded to anger as she must have figured out who had told me. “I don’t know what you’re talking about. As far as I know, Roger Fratello killed Vladi.”

“Lucky for you, Drazen still thinks so. Now get your stuff together. We’re going.”

“I’m not going anywhere with you.”

“Would you rather talk with the FBI, because that’s an option, too?”

She hooted. “Do you think the FBI scares me? The F-B-eyyyye can’t even protect themselves from Drazen. I’m going to trust them to protect me? No, thank you. I grew up near Red Hook. I know what they can do, these people. They’re animals.” She shook her head, and the laughter stopped. “They’re animals.”

“So I’ve heard.”

She blinked a few times as if an eyelash might have drifted across her cornea. She found a spot over my head to stare at. “Did they hurt Harvey?”

“Not physically. Emotionally, he’s pretty beat up.”

Without ever breaking her gaze, she used her pinkie to flick something from the corner of her eye, pulling her hand from under her knee to do it. I let it go. There was a shred of compassionate concern down deep somewhere. It made her almost human.

I stood up and pushed the chair back in place. “Get your stuff together. We’re leaving.”

“Where are we going?”

“Back to Harvey’s. I can keep you safe there while the three of us figure this out.”

“Figure what out?”

“The first thing we need to do is find Roger Fratello. Then we’ll figure out how to keep everyone alive, starting with Harvey and me.”

“Why would we look for Roger?”

“Because if I don’t find him, Drazen will kill Harvey.”

“But if you do-”

“I know. He’ll spill the beans on you. I’ve got all that.” I started to tell her that Harvey was willing to take her place with Drazen but figured that was information she might be tempted to act on. Better to remove all temptation.

When I looked at her again, I could tell she was running through her options and handicapping each one. She raised a thumbnail to her lips and started plucking at a front tooth. It made a hollow, snapping sound. “I need some guarantees before I help you.”

More conditions. Everyone had conditions. “What guarantees?”

“What do you think? I need you to guarantee that Drazen won’t kill me. Otherwise, think about it. What would be the point of helping you?”

More thumbnail plucking. She seemed truly frightened, so I walked to the bed and sat beside her.

“Rachel, we all have secrets. I think it’s fair to say the one you and Harvey have been sitting on is bigger than most. Now that I know the truth, there is one guarantee I can make you.”

She tilted her head back and looked at me through half-closed eyes. “I’m listening.”

“If it comes down to turning Harvey over to Drazen or turning you over, it will be you. I guarantee it. Now, let’s go.”

Rachel could really move when she wanted to. We were out of there in two minutes. I had to help her get her bag down the stairs, which made me wonder how she’d gotten it up. Then she had to go into the office to get her cell phone, which she had left charging next to the computer.

“Would you quit turning all the lights on?” I followed along behind her, turning them off. We were almost out the door when she remembered she’d left her Thyroxine up in the medicine cabinet. As she was coming down the stairs, the lights went out.

“Hey,” she said, cranking up the decibels along with the belligerence level. “At least let me get down the damn stairs, wouldya?”

“Be quiet.”

“Excuse me?”

Something was different. It was the silence, the kind you hear when every major appliance or system in the house shuts down at once. “The power’s off.”

“What?” I heard her racing down the stairs, and then she was right next to me. “What’s going on?”

I saw what I thought was a shadow moving outside one of the low windows in the dining room. I went to the wall next to it and mashed my face so I could see around the blinds without moving them.

“What is it? What is going on? What are you looking at?”

Someone in a low crouch, moving along the side of the house, toward the back. Moving fast. I moved pretty fast myself back across the room toward Rachel. I could see her silhouette. When I got closer, I could see how wide her eyes were open. She was staring at my Glock, which was up and cocked and ready to go. When had I even pulled it out? I tried to keep my voice steady.

“Go upstairs. Get that.45 out of the sink, and bring it down here.”

“It doesn’t have any bullets,” she hissed. “You have them.”

I thought about it. If something happened to me, it wouldn’t be fair to leave her with an empty revolver. I dug the cartridges out of my pocket and put them into her hand. “Load it upstairs, and bring it down. Go toward the front. I’ll go to the back. Shoot anyone you see. If you get in trouble, go to…”

“The office,” she said. “It has a door that locks and windows.” She was scared but still thinking. That was good. “Who are they?” she asked.

“I don’t know. Go now, Rachel.”

Good question. Who were these people? They had to be Russians. What had Bo said about Drazen? He had former KGB…Soviet Army…Russian police. Had Drazen lost patience this quickly? Maybe he had found out about Rachel. Maybe he had found out she killed Vladi. Maybe he had just decided to wipe us all out, and maybe I should stop thinking so much, because I was getting shaky.

I had to talk myself through it, to slow everything down. I had a flashlight. This was why I carried it. I held it to the side, away from my body, but didn’t turn it on. With my shoulder to the wall, I felt my way toward the kitchen. I didn’t know the layout of the house, but I knew the back better than the front. I moved the way I had been trained-both arms up, one shoulder back, my gun hand resting in the other, both thumbs pointed down the barrel. Like holding a golf club with a trigger, one of my instructors had said. What my instructor could not have explained, and what I could never have experienced in a thousand simulations, was the roar of adrenaline that practically had me levitating.

My whole body was like one big sensory receptor. I felt the darkness against my skin. When the latch on the back door began to rattle, the sound came into my body through every pore. I started to back up, but it was too late. The door opened, someone stepped through it, and my entire world telescoped down to the assault rifle in his hands. He saw me and raised the rifle to shoot. I held the light out, pointed it at the intruder, and flashed it on. The high-intensity beam hit his face. He flinched but still fired…and missed. I didn’t. I put two rounds into his chest. He yelled and fell back. The second man came in firing right behind him. I ducked, killed the flashlight, and hauled ass the other way. Red beams from their weapons wheeled around the dark hallway, and I knew I was in someone’s line of fire, and I knew I had to get out, so I fell through the next doorway I found. I landed on the floor inside. The door slammed shut right behind me. I used my flashlight and found Rachel, which meant I had found my way to the office. She threw her arm over her eyes. “Get that out of my face.” The.45 was in her other hand.

“How many did you see?” I asked her.

“I just heard shooting and came in here.”

There were boots on the floor outside the door, more than one pair. If the first guy hadn’t gone down, it was because they had on body armor. I had definitely hit him twice in the chest. A scarier possibility was that there were more than the two I’d seen.

Then came the unmistakable cha-chink of someone chambering a round in a pump-action shotgun. I grabbed Rachel, pulled her behind the desk, and covered my ears against the mighty roar of the blast. Another cha-chink. They were blowing the hinges and would follow that by blowing out the dead bolt, and then there would be nothing standing between them and us.

Somewhere it had registered that they were wearing night-vision goggles, which explained why the first guy had reacted as he had to the high-intensity beam. I reached for Rachel’s hand and put the flashlight in it.

“When they come through the door, flash this at them, but move it around, like this.” I showed her. Keep it away from your head, because they’ll shoot at it.” Her hand was shaking. “It’ll be all right. We’ll be fine. Don’t worry.”

I left her there and scrambled across the floor. There wasn’t any better cover than the furniture, so I crouched behind the couch. When the third shot went off, I felt the reverb in my chest. The door crashed in. The red beams came first. I got flat on my belly, aimed for knees and feet, just in case they did have armor on, and fired. One of them went down. I fired at his head until he stopped moving. I popped the clip-I knew I was out-and reached into my pocket for the second one. The shotgun roared again, and a substantial chunk of the back of the couch blew out over my head. Rachel screamed. When I looked up for her, a loud crack sounded. My head snapped back. A stingingly bright light erupted behind my eyes, and I fell backward. The light ruptured, and the pain came with the darkness. I covered my face with my hands and rolled over onto my stomach, wondering in some detached part of myself if I’d been shot through the head.

When I opened my eyes, a figure dressed all in black hovered over me. He wore a black mask and all the gear. He flashed a light in my face, then at a picture in his hand. I was apparently not the one he was looking for, because he took a step back and started to raise his assault rifle. Before he could get his shot off, his body began to convulse. He tried to turn around, but the convulsions began again. When he started to go down, I rolled out of the way. He fell next to me like a redwood.

I felt around for the Glock and found it behind me, but I didn’t need it. Rachel jumped down from the desk and leaned over her prey. I heard a buzz, like a mosquito zapper, and he seized again. She was holding a Taser against his neck. She’d Tasered him.

“Come on,” she said. “Come on. Get up.”

I was wobbly, but I wanted to live. We stepped over the body in the doorway, the one I had shot. On the way by, I reached down for his shotgun. It was a pistol-grip Mossberg. There were a bunch of shells in a pouch Velcroed to his belt. I grabbed it, too.

Out in the hall, I lurched instinctively toward the basement, but Rachel dragged me in the opposite direction to another doorway that led to the garage. When she pulled the door open, I was staring at a monster, a huge black Humvee. Either she had planned for a quick exit, or someone didn’t like backing the thing out of the garage, because it was facing out. She circled around to the driver’s side. The passenger-side door was so close to the wall on my side I could have practically climbed in from inside the house. She started the engine and then must have stepped down on the accelerator by accident. The engine roared in that dark, close space.

“I’m putting up the door. Ready?”

“Wait until I get this thing loaded,” I said, struggling with the Mossberg. “There might be more of them.” My fingers were shaking so badly I kept dropping the big cartridges on the floor in front of me.

“Hurry up!”

It was a nine-shot. I got six in and pumped one into the chamber. Then I powered down the window and braced the barrel on the door ledge, facing forward.

“Go.”

She punched the opener. The door started to lift immediately, and an overhead light snapped on. She put both hands on the wheel and leaned forward. She could barely see over the dashboard, but she had the focus of a pointer ready to go get her bird.

We both watched as the door came up. My forehead was bleeding. I kept wiping the blood out of my eyes. We both had our necks bowed, looking for feet or legs to appear beneath that slowly rising curtain. The Humvee made a lot of noise in that cramped space, and the door was not quiet, either, which was probably why we didn’t hear the man coming through the side door from the house until he was right there.

I tried to swivel the shotgun around, but he was too close. He grabbed the barrel and pushed it straight up with one hand. With the other, he stuck a semiautomatic into the car. I let go of my weapon and went for his. He got a couple of rounds off just as I slammed his arm against the dashboard. The cabin filled with the smoke and the smell and the sound. Rachel was screaming something, and he was trying to pull his arm back. I was kicking at his arm with both feet and feeling around with one hand for the Taser. Out of the blue, his fingers slipped from the grip of the gun, and he started screaming. Rachel had powered up the window and pinned his arm to the ceiling.

“Drive!” I yelled. “Drive! Go!”

She hit the gas, and his masked head whipped around, because he could see what I had seen-that there was about three inches of clearance on his side between the Humvee and the side of the garage doorway. The machine roared out of the gate, and the jamb instantly peeled off our attacker. When he stopped and we kept going, his arm whipped past my head and then disappeared completely. Rachel skidded out into the street. She must have hit the remote again, because as we were pulling away, the garage door was coming down.