The Gatekeeper. Michelle Gagnon
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something about wetbacks before she cut him off. A man like that had probably made a few enemies over the years. And by gruesomely displaying his remains, someone was clearly sending a message.
The leg slipped from the ME’s grasp and bounced along the ground as he fumbled for it. Kelly repressed the urge to roll her eyes. “Family has already been notified, right?”
Rodriguez nodded.
“Let’s go ask them who hated the senator enough to hack him up with a machete.”
Three
Madison shivered. The thin blanket they’d left her barely made a dent in the chill, and she swore it grew colder by the hour. She had no idea how long she’d been here. She usually told time by her cell phone but that had been taken along with everything else. She hoped it was already Monday, and that her family had realized she wasn’t at Cassidy’s house. A tear snaked down her face as she berated herself again for being such an idiot. Everyone knew that creepy older guys had MySpace pages; people weren’t always who they claimed to be. But she’d fallen for the whole Shane thing like a total moron. And now something horrible was going to happen to her.
The worst part was the waiting. She’d screamed for a while, becoming increasingly hysterical until the door had suddenly been thrown open. It was the driver, now dressed in jeans and a filthy sweatshirt. Madison hushed as he approached, shrinking back against the wall. She expected him to start tearing her clothes off, or worse, but he’d just injected her with something that knocked her out again. She’d learned pretty quickly that screaming brought the needle.
Madison couldn’t figure out what they were waiting for. So far no one had hurt her. In fact they brought her food and water regularly, and cleaned out the bucket as soon as she used it. And they’d left her a blanket. Though the light only changed slightly, she could now differentiate between night and day, the room brightened enough that she could make out the dim edges of her surroundings by sight, and the rest by touch.
She was in a ship of some sort, military judging by the dull gray paint job. The room was a steel box, ten-by-ten, with a cot in one corner and a bucket in the other. Other than that there was no rug, chair, or other decoration. She guessed she was being held in the bowels of the ship, she could hear the occasional slap of a wave against the hull. They didn’t appear to be moving, which she took as a hopeful sign. Maybe it was one of those white slavery rings, and they were planning to ship her off to Saudi Arabia. Madison shuddered at the thought. If she was lucky, they’d kidnapped her for ransom, confusing her with the daughter of someone rich. Maybe they’d realize the error and let her go—she’d only seen one guy’s face, and she’d promise not to tell if they just let her go home.
She had tried to pry the door open, hauling the cot frame across the room to use as a lever. But the minute she exerted some force, the sound of a chair scraping against the floor on the other side sent her scampering back. A moment later the door creaked open. The driver came in and glanced at the cot on its side, shook his head and gave her another shot. She hadn’t tried again. Escape was clearly hopeless: there were no windows, and a guard was stationed at the only exit. She was screwed.
The door suddenly banged open. The driver still didn’t speak, but something about the way he looked at her made Madison recoil. She protested as he crossed the room. Without breaking stride he yanked her up and flung her on the cot. She shrieked and clawed at him, “No, oh please God no…” then paused when he didn’t do anything.
He was holding something inches from her face. A flash, then he left the room.
She sat up, puzzled. He’d taken her photo, so maybe this was about ransom. She couldn’t decide if that made the situation better or worse. Madison pictured her parents’ reaction to the photo, and in spite of herself felt a spark of something like satisfaction. Served them right, the way they’d been ignoring her. If she ended up dying some sort of horrible death, it would be their fault.
She dropped back on the cot and crossed her hands behind her head. There would probably be a huge funeral if she didn’t make it out of here. Even her former best friend Jamie, who had totally screwed her over last year, would probably cry. Chris Dinsmore would be completely devastated that he’d never asked her out. They’d get a choir to sing “Ave Maria,” and hundreds of sobbing people would follow the casket through the streets. They’d all regret how they’d treated her.
But she really might not make it out of here. The guy had let her see his face, which wasn’t a good sign. And her parents didn’t have any money. The whole divorce had been a joke with them fighting over air miles; it wasn’t like they had a fortune hidden somewhere. And once the kidnappers realized that…she’d watched enough cop shows to know what would happen. At the thought she started to shake, teeth chattering. Madison drew the blanket up to her neck and tucked the corners under her heels so her whole body was covered. But it did nothing to stop the uncontrollable shivering.
Jake rolled his head to work out a kink in his neck. He didn’t generally mind flying, but the only seat available on such short notice had been in coach, and his body wasn’t designed for middle seats at the rear of the plane. His knees were jammed against the seat back in front of him, high enough that they prevented him from lowering the tray table. He’d tried to work on his laptop, but the kid on the aisle was playing a handheld video game that bleated nonstop, and the woman in the window seat issued a heavy sigh every few minutes. Another kid hung over the seat in front of him, staring at him while she picked her nose. All in all, the experience was making him seriously reconsider starting a family. Maybe he and Kelly could get a puppy and call it quits.
As they taxied to the gate, the flight attendant announced information for connecting flights, and the woman beside him grumbled something unintelligible. Jake hunched over, waiting for the slow file off the plane to proceed far enough for him to grab his carry-on. Once out of the Jetway he glanced at his watch and flipped open his cell phone.
“Frank? Yeah, sorry about that. My connecting flight at O’Hare was delayed. Where am I meeting you?”
Five minutes later, Jake was stationed in front of a bank of monitors. Frank, an old Agency buddy of Syd’s, shifted nervously at his elbow. Apparently he’d done something bad enough to get shuffled down the ranks of Homeland Security to airport detail. Jake couldn’t imagine what kind of heinous act would result in such a reassignment. Screwing the president’s dog, maybe. Hard to believe anything less would matter to the CIA.
“I can give you a few more minutes, man, but that’s it.” Frank’s eyes shifted from the screens to the door in a constant cadence, like he was watching a tennis match. “Shift change is in a half hour, and I got plans tonight.”
Jake jabbed a finger at the screen. “That’s her right there. Pause and rewind five minutes, then go forward slowly.”
Frank obliged, working the elaborate controls. A few other men were scattered around the room. After their initial appraisal they’d pointedly ignored Jake, which was fine by him. Although it didn’t instill much faith in airport security, he thought, watching them peck away at phones and BlackBerries, periodically casting a token glance at the monitors.
They watched in silence as Madison Grant made her way from a restroom near the gate to baggage claim. The angle changed as Frank shifted from camera to camera. Jake had to admit, he was good at this. Had the tapes cued up and ready to go when he arrived, and despite the employees, the technology itself was state-of-the-art, HD quality.
“Pretty girl,” Frank said. “What’d she do?”
Jake eyed him, not liking his tone. Maybe that’s what the CIA had found so offensive. Syd had fed Frank some backstory about a CI they were tracking. Not very plausible, but then Frank obviously wasn’t the type to ask questions when enough money changed hands. That level of pliability was also not a good sign for air travel, Jake thought. Maybe he should take the train home.
“Zoom in,” Jake said, as Madison approached someone. Big guy, looked yoked even from this angle, six-five easy.