The Dirt on Ninth Grave(97)
I dropped one hand to my side and gave Agent Carson the okay signal, praying she saw it, because the door opened. The man had put his gun aside and was studying me.
It was the same man who sat at Mr. V's desk for at least two days, but I'd mussed my hair and bled all over my face. Surely he wouldn't recognize me.
"Please," I said, swaying as though I were about to lose consciousness. "My husband. He's in the car." I pointed toward the lake then held out my busted phone. "Do you have a phone? Please. He's trapped."
When they did nothing but watch me, I bent at the waist and vomited on their floor. The vomit was real. No way to fake that shit. The fact that one of them was holding an AK-47 on me – I'd seen it through the slit between door and jamb – proved to be all the motivation I needed to empty the contents of my stomach. Then, in a dramatic twist even I didn't see coming, I fell to my knees and passed out in my own puke. Or, well, I pretended to. I lay as still as humanly possible as one of the men brought his gun around and pointed it at my head.
20
Life ain't all burritos and strippers, my friend.
-TRUE FACT
Trust hadn't exactly been my strong suit, but I was putting my life in the hands of an FBI agent I'd never met and her team. Hopefully, they would live up to their reputation of being excellent shots.
The men started to panic. They spoke in frantic Farsi, trying to decide what to do with me, arguing among themselves, giving the team precious time to save the Vandenbergs. One of the men shoved another. He wanted to put me in the shed out back. Surely I wouldn't live long, especially in this cold. The other wanted to bring me inside and put me in a room so they could keep an eye on me. The third just wanted to shoot me in the head. They were too close. They were going back to Mr. V's store and getting the package that evening, and risking it all by keeping me alive when they were only going to kill me anyway would be stupid.
I didn't dare open my eyes, so Angel relayed to me their every move.
"They keep looking outside to see if anyone saw you come up," he said. "But none of them have thought to check on the Vandenbergs yet."
We just needed a few minutes. Just long enough to get the family untied and out the window.
"Be right back," he said, then, an instant later, "Okay, they are all untied, and the team is lifting the children out now."
I fought the spike of elation and found I didn't have to fight it too hard. One of them kicked me in the gut. He was trying to get me off the porch. They'd decided to tie me up and put me in the shed to die, but no one wanted to pick me up, probably thanks to my inspired decision to pass out in my own vomit. It was also an excellent rape deterrent.
My hair was a mess of tangles. And, sadly, the aforementioned vomit. It stuck to the blood on my face so that even if I'd wanted to see, I couldn't have. The man kicked me again to roll me another couple of feet. Tears pushed past my lashes as the pain ricocheted through me. He finally gave up and picked up one of my booted feet to drag me across the wooden porch.
"He's going to pull you off the edge," Angel said. He started to panic. "The side of the porch is at least a five-foot drop. The fall will break your neck. Hold on." He must've done his disappearing act again. He came back almost instantly with "They're coming down the hall." He sounded more excited than afraid. "Get ready to run."
But did the FBI have all the Vandenbergs out? I needed to know.
"The big one is turning around," he said, the panic filtering back into his voice again. "I think he heard something."
I groaned and pretended to come to for a moment. I gave a halfhearted kick at the man trying to wrench my foot off. It gave me the perfect excuse to protect my head when he pulled me off the porch. I landed with a thud that knocked my breath away, but I'd curled up a little and protected my head from hitting the side of the porch and my neck from being broken, landing on my shoulder instead.
"You did it," Angel said. "You got their attention."
Then, in an act that defied my imagination, it was so fast and so decisive, three shots were fired almost simultaneously through suppressed rifles. I opened my eyes and scraped at the hair in front of them in time to see the one next to me crumple into a heap. Through the porch slats, in my peripheral vision, I could see the other men crumple at the exact same time, as though the whole thing had been choreographed.
The team had killed them. A sniper in the trees across the road took out the one closest to me, and the team who'd entered from the back got the other two. All headshots. All perfect.