Wicked Intentions(46)
I look frantically around the small lavatory for a hiding place, but the knock is coming on the door again, louder this time, and I decide there’s really only one thing to do.
I swallow the tracker in one gulp.
I yank the hoodie back over my head, take a breath, smooth my hands down my stomach to calm myself, then open the door and stare up into the glowering face of one of the black-suited triplets. His hand rests menacingly on the butt of his sidearm.
“Had to go number two,” I say, and push past him to go back to my seat.
The assassin takes a long, narrow-eyed look around the bathroom, then closes the door and moves silently past me toward the back of the plane. I stare out the window and watch a rugged coastline rise up to greet us. In a few minutes, we’ve landed at a small airport and are taxiing off the runway and toward a gate.
A cell phone rings behind me. It’s answered with a curt “Ya.” There’s a short silence, then a deferential “Si, Capo. Certo.”
Then one of the assassins is lifting me to my feet with a hand wrapped around my upper arm.
“Ouch! You’re hurting me!” I try to yank away, but his grip is steel. He gives me a quick, hard shake that makes my teeth clatter.
He tells me in Italian how he’d love to hurt me in other ways, to which I furiously respond, “Capo will kill you if I come to him with even a bruise!”
It’s a long shot, but it hits the mark. The assassin’s nostrils flare and his lips thin, but his grip loosens so it’s no longer cutting off circulation.
“Be nice,” I add bitingly, “or I’ll tell him some pretty lies about what you did to me in the bathroom.”
He smiles, a dark, lazy smile that makes my skin crawl. “Who do you think gets his leftovers, bitch?” he says in succinct English. He drags me closer as I try to pull away. “The three of us share them,” he says hotly into my ear. “You’re a little old, but you’ll do.”
He grabs my other arm and pushes me in front of him down the aisle. I stumble but quickly regain my balance, throw him a poisonous look over my shoulder, then stand with my arms folded protectively over my chest in the galley near the cockpit door.
All three men in black come to stand in a row in front of me and stare at me with identical small, knowing smiles.
It’s so creepy, I have to look away, even though it makes me feel like a coward.
“First dibs,” one of them says to the others.
Their smiles grow wider when they see my expression. Then I grow so angry, I want to spit.
“Well, I hope you like AIDS,” I say with as much dignity as I can muster, “because I’ve been HIV-positive for eight years, and it’s recently taken a turn for the worse.” I motion to my mouth. “I get these sores. Painful, pus-filled things, and skin rashes like you wouldn’t believe, and right now I’ve got a really nasty yeast infection—”
“We’re allowed to subdue you if you fight,” interrupts the one I think is their leader. “What do you think, Sal? Is she fighting?”
My blood runs cold, but Sal merely shakes his head. “She’s just scared.”
“Ya,” says the leader, softly. “Scared.” He adjusts a thickening bulge in his crotch, and I want to throw up.
Mercifully, I’m saved from any further discourse with the sicko squad when the cockpit door opens. The pilot emerges, tall and slim with hair the color of cast iron, and a nose that’s been broken more than once. He looks sharply at the four of us. His gaze lingers the longest on me.
“Change of plan,” he says, turning his attention back to the assassins. “You’re to take a Cessna from here. It’s already fueled up and waiting down the tarmac. No need to go in the terminal, just head straight over to gate forty-two. It’s a two-minute walk south.”
Two minutes. A lot can happen in two minutes. In two minutes, a person can die of a heart attack, achieve an orgasm, post a Facebook status update, fall in love.
In two minutes, a person could find a way to escape from her captors.
But no. I have to see this through, because Reynard’s life is in the balance and maybe, maybe there’s a way for me to escape or make a new plan after I know Reynard is alive and safe. Until then, I’m stuck.
We exit the plane. The morning is cool and bright, the salt air bracing against my heated cheeks. There are a few airport workers within sight, a luggage handler unloading bags onto a conveyor belt, a guy with neon signaling sticks and headphones steering a twin-engine jet into a nearby gate, a woman driving by in a pushback tug. The urge to scream to all of them for help is almost overwhelming.
I choke it back with thoughts of how Reynard sounded on the phone, that bloodcurdling shriek he made when Capo did whatever horrible thing he did to cause it.
Waiting for us at the Cessna is another man in a black suit. They seem to be in endless supply. He motions for us to come quickly, but as soon as we’re at the steps that lead up into the plane, he stops us and produces a long, black plastic wand from behind his back.
A metal detector.
With brisk efficiency, he swipes it over my head and neck, my chest and arms, my stomach and back, then stops abruptly at my waist when the wand emits a frazzled squawk.
He yanks up my hoodie and stares at my belt.
Then he glares at my three companions. “You fucking idiots.”
“What?” says the leader, offended. “We searched her!”
“Not good enough.” New guy rips off my belt and throws it on the tarmac.
I stare at it in disbelief. Another GPS?
I decide that if I ever see him again, Ryan and I are going to have a nice, long talk about this “trust” thing he keeps harping on about.
The man proceeds to slowly wand down both my legs, then around my feet, where the wand squawks again. Muttering curses, he straightens and glares at me. “Take the boots off.”
I do as I’m told and shuck them off. He kicks them aside, then begins another careful full body wanding until he’s satisfied I’m clean.
Thank God the wand doesn’t penetrate flesh, because I don’t want to imagine what horrible thing would happen to me if my bare midriff gave off an alert.
I’m roughly loaded onto the plane. There are only enough seats for me, the three assassins, the pilot—who’s already seated—and the new guy. After a short wait on the runway and clearance from the tower, we take off once more, banking hard into the glare of the morning sky.
God, if you’re up there, now would be a good time to prove it.
* * *
The small plane lands on a tiny island, deserted except for the concrete strip of runway and the black helicopter waiting at one end. No one has spoken for the duration of the flight, so I have no idea where we are or where we’re going, but if the next leg of the journey involves a helicopter, it must be close.
The pilot coasts to a stop at the end of the runway but keeps the engine running, the props spinning.
“Out,” the lead assassin commands, opening the small door.
He barely moves aside to let me pass, so I’m forced to press against him. He grins down at me, leering, and I quickly jerk away and hop down to the cracked runway.
It’s obvious he’s not worried about me escaping at this point, which makes sense. Unless I had a mind to drown myself, I’ve got nowhere to go. There’s nothing on this island except sand, scrub brush, and seabirds wheeling overhead, their lonely cries like the wails of lost children.
The assassins follow me out of the plane, one by one. They lead me over to the helicopter as the Cessna turns around. The plane takes off again as I’m climbing into the chopper. I watch it go, getting smaller and smaller until it’s just a glinting speck against the sky.
Blue as a dragonfly’s wings, that sky. Blue as my lover’s eyes.
The chopper starts up with a mechanical roar and a burst of wind, the blades rotating until they’re a silver blur above us. When we lift off, I’m praying again, only this time with all my might.
* * *
For a long time, there’s nothing below us but water. Endless water, in every direction. But then I glimpse a spot of white in the distance against the unceasing navy blanket, and it all makes sense.
As we fly closer, the size of the yacht grows and grows until we’re hovering over it, and I get a better sense of how massive it truly is. I’ve seen city blocks that are shorter. The helipad we’re headed toward is on the lowest of the vessel’s six decks, to the rear of an oval swimming pool which is situated at the extreme forward tip. There’s another helipad on the aft deck, an enormous bridge deck topped with bulbous satellites, and a tender on the starboard side that’s about the size of an average ski boat, only it looks miniscule in comparison to the sheer enormity of its berth.
The megayacht’s name is spelled out in italic lettering on one section of white siding:
Sea Fox.
“She has a two-seater submarine, too,” says the lead assassin, startling me. When I stare at him, he smiles. “In case Capo wants to take you for a deep-sea dive after dinner.”
His smile turns evil. Heart pounding, I look away.
We land on the helipad with a gentle bump.
A manservant in a white uniform opens the door from the outside. Ignoring everyone else, he gestures at me to disembark. I do, with the assassins following at my heels. We’re led off the deck and through an outer lounging area of tables, cushioned sofas, and a large, built-in fire pit. Then we enter the yacht through electrically operated sliding-glass doors.