No Fortunate Son (Pike Logan, #7)(36)

The gags were the final proof in his theory. They’d never had them crammed in their mouths for the entire trip, through hours on boats, planes, and cars, sometimes drugged, but most of the time not. They’d been subjected to the indignity only when they were first tied up in the apartment, the drool running freely from the cloth to the floor. Which meant one thing: The captors were afraid of the damage the noise would do if they started screaming. That, along with the beatings to keep him cowed, told him they were very, very close to other people who had no idea what was going on. Perhaps in the apartment next door.

He didn’t know where they were, not even the country, having woken up in the trunk of a car and been brought into the building in the dark, but he was sure it wasn’t some murky safe house full of thugs. He’d been forced to walk up four floors, and he now believed he was surrounded by innocent civilians. People he might be able to contact, if only to get them to investigate. To call the police.

He surveyed the room again, focusing on the locks of the front door. He saw the bolt lock was worked by a key and felt his hopes dim. He couldn’t break through that, and they always kept it bolted. He surreptitiously glanced around, eating his cement, and realized something was missing.

The explosives were gone.

The first time he’d eaten in the room, he’d seen packages of RDX stacked against the wall, the white crystal spilling out of one waxed paper container, the chemical name CYCLOTRIMETHYLENETRINITRAMINE clearly stenciled on the outside, something he’d seen in predeployment training for IEDs in Afghanistan. A powerful explosive, it had been invented in World War II and was the weapon of choice for terrorists.

Next to the packages had been an assortment of equipment that would have made his Marine Corps IED instructors shiver: cell phones, electronic wiring, detonation cord, and containers designed to camouflage and increase the fragmentation of the blast. Things that had made him wonder if he was the bait for an ambush. The goat tied to the tree, waiting for the tiger to enter so it could be killed.

The fact that he’d been allowed to see it at all meant that they had no intention of him or Kaelyn being a witness, able to report what they’d experienced. No intention of them surviving whatever was planned. The goat never survived, whether the tiger escaped or not.

Now the explosives were all gone. And they were waiting to be chained to a tree.






23




Lost in thought, running through my conversation with Kurt, I had stopped counting the stops in the London Underground. Jennifer brought me back to the present, saying, “This is us.”

I saw the sign for Sloane Square and stood up, following her out the door along with a flow of other people. We exited to street level, and I got my bearings, saying, “It’s over this way.”

We started walking down Sloane Street in silence, Jennifer recognizing my mood and letting me think. We reached Royal Hospital Road, and I could see the Royal Hospital Chelsea in the distance. Home to the Chelsea Pensioners—retired veterans of the British military—it was not unlike our own VA system in the States, although it was much, much older. And also my last clue.

Before I’d gone to sleep the night before, Kurt had managed to hack into the servers of Sentinel Security and retrieve the footage from the Eagle. He’d sent it to me, along with a detailed report that basically said there was no evidence of Nick Seacrest. Kylie was there with a man, but the camera wasn’t positioned in such a way to get positive ID. All they could see was the back of his head. The tone of the email made it seem as if he was somewhat relieved, but he’d sent it to me anyway.

With Jennifer, I’d stayed up for hours reviewing the footage, and he was right. Along with the video package he’d sent the official military photo of Nick Seacrest, and I couldn’t match the face with the person sitting with Kylie. She’d been with someone, but it was impossible to positively ID the man. I’d stopped trying and taken a look at the footage from a different perspective—surveying for anyone who appeared interested in the couple. And had found something.

Kylie had sat outside, on the patio, and was clearly close to the man she was with, touching his hand and laughing at what he said, which I know must have broken Kurt’s heart to watch. Her date returned the gestures, whispering in her ear and laughing at her comments, silent on the tape. Jennifer had turned away at that point, knowing how the night ended. For me, it brought a feeling of impotence. I wanted to reach through the camera and tell her to leave. To go back to campus. To prevent what was going to happen.

I’d refocused, studying the patrons around her. Most were clearly there solely for the pub, the tables full of college kids and tourists. One small table, though, caught my eye. It sat right behind her, in full view of the camera, and held a single man. He was drinking coffee and doing nothing but smoking a cigarette. Twenty-three minutes into the tape, he was met by another man. A rough-looking guy in a black leather jacket and with a three-day beard. They sat together, not talking, just looking. Both smoking cigarettes.

Eventually, the date took Kylie’s hand and led her off camera. The two men waited for about thirty seconds and left as well. An indicator.

I went through the footage until I located the outside cameras, trying to identify when the second man had arrived. Eventually, I’d found it. He’d driven up on a beat-down Honda motorcycle, missing fenders and rolling on threadbare tires. But its license plate was in view of the camera.