Based on the transactions Mike had found for her, there were purchases made every few days at this store. The last purchase had been made just three days ago. Meaning they were due for another shopping run today if their pattern held. They usually shopped before noon local time, on weekdays, when the store likely wasn’t very busy if the traffic patterns mirrored those of stores in the States.
Sit and wait and watch and follow, or go in and ask questions and risk scaring them off?
She tapped her fingers on the steering wheel as she thought about it. Mike was now watching the bank accounts and would let her know via texting her on the sat-phone as soon as a purchase was made.
While she knew it was safer to wait in the car, Celia needed to use the restroom. So she opted to go in, get the lay of the store’s floor plan, and use the restroom. While she was there, she bought a couple of bottles of water and snacks for her vigil. Then she returned to her rental car and settled in to wait.
* * * *
The men picked up the reporter’s trail at her hotel. Her rental car still sat in the parking lot at seven that morning, so they parked across the street, waiting.
Tango studied her info on the tablet they’d brought with them. “Who picked up the intel on her?” he mused aloud.
“Does it matter?” Doc asked. “We don’t question that. Makes life a lot simpler.”
“I just wonder how they picked up her trail and not the doctor’s to start with.”
“Reporters are a pain in the ass,” Quack said. He’d ended up driving. “They can fuck up a wet dream if you let ’em.”
Tango thought this woman might fuck up many things, but a wet dream wouldn’t be one of them. Red hair, green eyes, and a spray of freckles across her cheeks, she wasn’t smiling in her passport photo, but he imagined she was a cock-hardener when she did. From Chicago, and working for CMM, she’d somehow picked up the trail of an internationally wanted man when governments hadn’t been able to accomplish that.
If nothing else, she deserved a little respect for that.
Finally, before nine o’clock, they spotted her heading to her car.
Doc tapped Quack’s shoulder. “Heads-up.”
They waited, watching, collective breaths held as she cluelessly climbed into her car and then slowly rolled her way through the parking lot to the hotel’s driveway.
There, they watched as she studied the traffic both ways for way longer than necessary.
“You think she made us?” Lima asked.
“Naw,” Tango said. “She’s not used to driving, I bet. And probably not used to left-hand traffic patterns.”
“Oh,” Lima said. “Right.”
Finally, after allowing ten perfect opportunities to pull into traffic pass her by, she tentatively drove out of the parking lot and into the correct lane.
Quack had no trouble merging into the traffic flow and following her. When Tango glanced behind them, he saw Alpha, driving the other car, had done the same.
“At least we know she won’t make us,” Tango said, chuckling. “Hell, she’s too terrified of getting into an accident to take her eyes off the road and look in her rearview mirror.”
Doc didn’t smile. “Don’t get cocky,” he warned. “Let’s just do our job.”
* * * *
When they followed her to the supermarket, Quack circled the area before settling on a waiting spot in the back of the parking lot and just outside her line of vision from her car. From there they could safely watch and wait for her to make a move. When she left her car the first time, Lima followed her inside and reported that she’d used the bathroom and bought some snacks before settling in her rental again.
Alpha and his team parked along a side street, where they could see the minivan and watch people walking to and from the supermarket from a small residential area behind the building. The other side of the building butted up against a stream, providing a natural barrier to foot traffic.
Tango settled in with the others to wait, the men careful not to give themselves away to her.
Her focus seemed wholly on the front of the building. They watched as she consulted a tablet of her own every time new customers approached the entrance.
She’s dedicated, but definitely a noob at this.
She was also lucky they were the good guys. Papa had relayed confirmation to them that their latest instructions included the latitude to release her, since she wasn’t their target, once they had moved Dr. Quong off the island.
As long as she didn’t threaten their mission.
“Hey,” Lima muttered. “Looky there.”
She seemed to perk up in her car. They followed the direction of her gaze and watched as an older woman approached the entrance on foot from the direction of the neighborhood behind the store.
Doc got on their secure close-range radios to Alpha. “Get ready. She looks like she’s focused on the woman who’s walking in now.”
“Roger roger,” Alpha replied.
The reporter left her car and followed the older woman into the store. That was the men’s cue to move the minivan over to the side of the store, where they could easily grab the reporter and whisk her into their vehicle.
Doc had prepared a tranq. They all knew he didn’t want to use it if he didn’t have to, but they’d do whatever it took to make this go down safely and successfully.
Alpha and Niner were ready, positioned on foot to follow the other woman if she turned out to be one of the Quongs. Since Niner spoke Korean, they thought he might be the best bet to keep the older woman calm and get information out of her.
“Ready?” Doc quietly asked Alpha via their radios.
Alpha replied in the affirmative. They all tensed, waiting, their own surgical masks pulled up into place more to obscure their identities than to protect them from Kite.
Chapter Nine
Closing in on one o’clock local time, Celia wasn’t sure if she should give up for the day, or try one of the other places where multiple purchases had been made, or what.
That was when she spotted the short, older woman walking around the corner, several empty cloth shopping bags in her hand.
Celia wasn’t an expert in racial profiling, but the woman looked Korean to her, even with the surgical mask covering the woman’s nose and mouth.
Heart pounding, Celia grabbed the bag holding her tablet, sat-phone, and camera, got out of the car and locked it, and headed for the grocery store.
Don’t fuck this up, girl.
Nerves jangling, she tried to keep her gait normal as she crossed the parking lot and headed inside. At first, as she grabbed a handbasket after she walked through the front door, she panicked a little because she didn’t see the woman.
Forcing herself not to break into a jog as she roamed the aisles, she finally located the woman in the produce section, carefully eyeing a selection of tomatoes.
Yes, from this close distance, the woman definitely looked Asian. And she even seemed to resemble the passport photo Celia had for Soo Quong, the good doctor’s mother. It was a little tough to tell with the woman wearing the surgical mask, but it was a close enough match Celia knew she had to take a chance.
Celia reached into her bag and pulled out the camera, switching it to video mode before turning it on and holding it in her hand in a way she hoped was both unobtrusive and would still record the events.
Pretending like she was also interested in the display of tomatoes, Celia edged closer to the woman. She knew giving her a smile was pointless because of her own surgical mask hiding her mouth.
“Nice selection, huh?”
The woman’s brow furrowed as she glanced Celia’s way, but she didn’t reply.
Celia didn’t know any other way to go about it but to jump right in with both feet. “Are you from this area?”
The woman stared at her again for a longer moment before grunting a noncommittal reply and resuming her search for the perfect tomato.
Celia nearly smacked herself in the for
ehead right there.
D’oh. She doesn’t speak English.
Well, that would be a problem, because she didn’t speak a lick of Korean.
Juggling everything around and hooking her handbasket over the arm holding the camera, she reached into her bag with her other hand and pulled out her tablet. It only took her a second to find the picture she was looking for and hold it out to show the woman.
“Your son?”
The woman’s eyes widened in shock or fear, Celia wasn’t sure which, or maybe both. Then the older woman snatched her purse from her shopping cart, spun on her heel, and bolted toward the front door.
Well, shit.
She didn’t realize the older woman had that much speed and agility in her.
“Wait, please? I just want to talk to your son!” It took Celia a moment to untangle her arm from her handbasket and drop it. She raced after the woman, now filming her, hoping to keep up with her and find out where the doctor was hiding.
Now a couple of store clerks had perked up and were watching the pursuit as Soo Quong hit the front door and raced out, Celia on her heels.
The older woman rounded the corner of the building, out of sight. Celia, intent on not losing her, was caught unprepared when she raced around the corner and two big, burly men grabbed her and started dragging her over to a minivan.
“Hey! What the hell? What the hell are you doing! Let me go!” She craned her neck around to keep sight of Soo Quong and realized a couple of other men had silently slipped into pursuit of the woman.
She kicked and screamed. Her surgical mask slipped down past her chin when a large hand covered her mouth even as she was shoved into the minivan and another man climbed in after her.
She bit him and didn’t have time to enjoy his yelp of pain as he pulled his hand away from her mouth.
“Ow! She fucking bit me!” a man with a decidedly Texan accent said.
“Who the hell do you think you are?” she yelled. “Let me go! She’s getting away!”
“Relax, Ms. Jorgens,” a second man told her. “Settle down. She’s being followed. We won’t lose her. And if you bite one of us again, you’ll find yourself wrapped head to toe in duct tape. We’re not going to hurt you. Afford us the same courtesy.”
That man grabbed her left hand, and before she realized what was happening, she felt the prick of a stick test against the pad of her thumb.
“Ow, motherfucker! Let me go!” But his grip around her wrist only tightened.
“Not until we make sure you’re not blue,” he said.
She fell still. “I’m not.” She couldn’t clearly see any of their faces due to their surgical masks.
“Then it wasn’t very bright to bite someone you didn’t know is blue or not, was it?”
“I—” He had her there. “You’re fucking kidnapping me and expecting me to be polite?”
“We’re not kidnapping you. We’re after the same thing you are. Or should I say the same person?”
She finally got a look at his face. At least the upper half of it. Black hair falling over brown eyes she might call sweet if it wasn’t for the fact she didn’t know who the hell he was and what they were going to do to her.
He was staring at the test strip in his hand, and now she realized she was holding her breath.
I really am an idiot.
“She’s clear,” he finally said.
A third man rummaged through her purse and found the keys to her rental car. He tossed them to someone standing outside the van. “Go,” he said before pulling the side door closed and then climbing behind the wheel.
“What? Wait, where are you taking me?” She strained to see outside the van despite her view being blocked by the men’s bodies.
She couldn’t see where Soo Quong had disappeared to, or the two men who’d followed her.
“You don’t need to know that,” the Texan she’d bit said. “So calm yourself down and listen.”
“Listen? That’s the goddamned story of my career disappearing, and you want me to sit here and listen to you?”
“That’s the mother of our target,” Brown Eyes said. “We know you’re a journalist. We’re not here to interfere with your job, but if you want the scoop of your lifetime, you’d better cooperate, or we won’t let you within a goddamned mile of the guy when we get him.”
* * * *
Well, that shut her up. Doc glanced at Tango. “You all right?”
He flexed his hand as he glared at the woman. “Had worse.”
The red-haired spitfire sure seemed to fit the stereotype. Her green eyes blazed as she glared at them. “Who are you? Where are you taking me?”
“None of your business,” Tango told her. “You’re just lucky our orders allow us to release you safely.” He flexed his hand again. “You fucking broke the skin.”
Doc managed to hold back his chuckle as she seemed to get even more pissed off. “You’re kidnapping me and you’re mad because I bit you?”
In Doc’s ear, his radio crackled, Alpha’s voice sounding off. “Nest located. Subject successfully acquired. Contacting Papa. We’ll stay here.”
“Got it.” He spoke to Tango. “They found them and called Papa.”
“Let me go!” she yelled. “This is my story!”
He didn’t like having to do it, but he grabbed her by the front collar of her shirt and drew her up close. “We’re not going to hurt you, but settle down or I’ll tranq you. The next thing you’ll remember is waking up, naked, on top of Uluru a few days from now, and with no way back to Melbourne. You think I won’t do it, just keep trying my fucking patience, lady.”
She glared at him but fell silent again. She must have known what he was talking about. The gigantic natural feature, also called Ayers Rock by some, was a tourist attraction now closed to the public like all others since the scope of the Kite outbreak became known.
If they put her there, she would have a hard time getting back to Melbourne.
And he wanted her to understand and have no doubts that he was a man of his word.
“Good,” he said, releasing her collar and sitting back once she nodded. “Glad we have an understanding.”
Chapter Ten
Celia didn’t know where they were taking her, too upset and disoriented to even know which way they’d left the supermarket. The overcast sky occluded good shadows that would have given her a sense of direction. At least she finally remembered to tug her surgical mask back up over her nose.
She did know she did not want to awaken, naked, on top of a damn rock in the middle of nowhere.
Looking out the back window, she realized someone was following them in her rental car, so at least she still had that.
Sort of.
I have to get away from them.
She needed to get back to that supermarket and find that woman. How difficult could it be? Obviously the Quongs were within walking distance of the store. She had to get Dr. Quong on film before they spirited the man away.
She needed this!
They slowed for a stop sign. She wondered if she could dive past them and out the sliding door and get away from them.
Probably not. She wasn’t that fast. Her usual physical activities, other than walking or climbing stairs, were raising her hopes and jumping to conclusions.
“I wouldn’t try running,” the blue-eyed Texan advised. She was convinced, from his accent, that he was from Texas, or at least that region.
Celia glared at him. “Nice. A kidnapper advising me I stay put.”
I really need to work on my self-preservation skills.
Blue Eyes looked at the other guy. “Can I duct-tape her mouth shut now?”
The other man smirked. “No. Papa needs to talk to her first.”
“Listen,” Blue Eyes said, “we’re not kidnapping you. Knock it off.”
She stared, dumbfounded. “Is English not your first language, cowboy? Because, seriously, this is the definition of kidnapping.”
Brown Eyes l
aughed and glanced at his partner, who wore a consternated frown. “I keep telling him his Texas twang gets him made every time, but he doesn’t believe me.”
“We’re coming up on the holding point,” the driver announced.
“Good. Pull over.”
They had travelled into a more rural residential area, but any hopes she had of flagging down a passing car or pedestrian for help fled as she studied the landscape. Woods bordered each side of the road, thick underbrush she didn’t really want to try to run through, especially after she had looked up “dangerous Australian animals and reptiles” on Wikipedia before she departed Chicago.
Um, no thanks.
The guy driving her rental pulled off the road behind them and parked. Brown Eyes grabbed her by her upper left arm, his hand dwarfing her less-than-toned bicep.
Whoa.
She’d been too damned indignant to notice before how big in the good way these guys were.
He didn’t dig his fingers in, but his grip didn’t give her a chance to pull away or not follow him when he slid the door open and got out, helping as much as leading her out the door.
Blue Eyes grabbed her bag, and the driver of her rental got out and tossed the keys to Blue Eyes before getting into the van.
They left.
“Wait, where are they going?”
Blue Eyes rolled his eyes as he shook his head. “Bitch if we keep you with us, bitch if we don’t take you somewhere. Just not ever happy, huh?” She supposed his tone would have come off as teasing and playful under normal circumstances.
These were not normal circumstances. Both men towered over her five-four frame by nearly a foot each, forcing her now to look up at them.
Whoooa, baby.
Wait, focus. Kidnapped.
Blue Eyes was about an inch taller than Brown Eyes. Both men had broad shoulders and wore black long-sleeved T-shirts that showed off every ripple of muscle in their chests and abs that tapered into trim waists.