Elizabeth Lowell - Innocent as Sin

The sweat on Foley’s face told her that he didn’t.

She didn’t like it either, but anything that happened now had to be better than what would come when Bertone got his hands on her.

Don’t think about that.

When the moment is right, I’ll crawl through the cuffs and…

Whatever it takes.

She kept repeating it silently, a mantra of fear and determination.

The helicopter swung to the right, then to the left, hard arcs that turned Foley’s skin a nasty shade of green. The pilot either didn’t notice or didn’t care. He kept playing tag with the desert, skids brushing the tops of the taller bushes, rotor sending out billows of grit, skating on the edge of disaster with a wide smile.

Keep it up, flyboy. Foley will hurl all over your windshield.

The idea made her lips curl in a grim smile.

The pilot made a tight arc around a rumple of dry, rocky hills. A paved road appeared below. The helicopter followed it, then dropped eight feet to a butterfly-soft landing in an asphalt parking lot.

The front doors of the Arizona Territorial Gun Club rose in a dark rectangle from the side of a hill. Wide concrete steps climbed to it like a shrine.

Kayla surged to her feet, turned her back on the cargo door, and fumbled it open. She half fell, half rolled out, twisted, and somehow managed to hit the asphalt feetfirst. She took off, running as fast as she could with her hands cuffed behind her. Even if she didn’t get free, she’d buy some time.

A black Humvee shot up the private road toward the club.

She spun and raced toward what looked like an obstacle course, chewing up as much time as she could.

Anytime now, St. Kilda.

Plan C is looking real good.

Over Phoenix

Sunday

2:22 P.M. MST

Martin handed Rand a headset, plugged it into a junction box, and made room for him on the jump seat.

“What’s up?” the producer asked.

“Foley kidnapped Kayla,” Rand said. Two pistols dug into his back when he sat down. He’d hoped for something with more firepower, but he’d had to settle for the Bertones’ bedside artillery. “He’s headed to Bertone’s gun club. The man himself is either there or will be soon.”

“Where to?” the news pilot asked.

Rand looked at the name sewed to the pilot’s pocket. Lopez. “Know where the Hokam Reservation is?”

“Sure. Little vest-pocket holding to the east. Casino, failed dog track, and some kind of fortress.”

“Get us to the fortress as fast as you can. Life or death.”

“Roger.”

The helo leaped up from the estate’s helipad, banked hard, and headed flat out to the east. The pilot talked to Phoenix Air Control. A few seconds later the bird went up like a bullet, then leveled. Rooftops and streets raced by several hundred feet below. The pilot’s face and hands were relaxed, steady, and his eyes never stopped checking gauges and airspace.

“Where’d you learn to fly a bird?” Rand asked Lopez.

“California and Afghanistan.”

“Then you know how to shoot, too.”

“Yeah,” Lopez said, reading dials.

“Got a piece?”

“This is Arizona. What do you think?”

“Keep it handy,” Rand said.

“Always do.”

Rand’s phone rang. “Yeah?”

“This is Steele. Do you have a computer with an uplink?”

Rand looked at Martin, who had a laptop with a satellite connection. “I can use someone’s.”

“I e-mailed you a URL for the gun club and satellite photos of the area. There is only one road, one entrance. The perimeter is chain-link fencing with razor wire. It looks like a military installation.”

Without a word, Rand took Martin’s computer and called up his St. Kilda e-mail number. “Got it.”

Rand zoomed in on the sat photos. Steele was right. The gun club could have been a military bunker.

“Anything else needed?” Steele asked.

“A few warrants and cooperative badges.”

“We’re working on that.”

“Then how about a miracle,” Rand muttered.

“They’re back-ordered.”

The connection ended.

Rand studied the Arizona Territorial Gun Club’s web page. It showed outdoor pistol courses and the roofless tactical shooting house nestled against some barren desert hills. Beyond the outside shooting areas, two huge doors led into the hill itself. He studied the interior photos of the club, orienting himself to the layout of indoor firing lanes, a firearms and souvenir store, and a lounge for members interested in shooting bull as well as live ammo.

It was called the Brass Club.

The web page mentioned an exclusive set of private tactical shooting areas attached to the club room, but showed no photos.

That’s where Bertone will take her. Nice and quiet, with heavy soundproofed walls and plenty of privacy for an old-fashioned round of torture.

The thought made his gut lurch. Kayla was smart and quick thinking. Bertone was merciless.

He would peel her like a ripe banana.

“How long?” Rand asked the pilot harshly.

Lopez held up two fingers.

Rand called up the aerial maps and photos again. He located the perimeter fence and the guard shack that blocked the road into the club. Tracing recognizable landforms, he looked forward through the windscreen. The facade of the clubhouse rose several miles away, straight-lined and glistening, out of place in the dusty, unruly Arizona desert.

“There’s a dry wash with steep sides about two hundred yards south of the clubhouse, at the bottom of the slope,” Rand said to the pilot. “See it?”

The pilot gave a thumbs-up.

“Drop me there,” Rand said. “Then haul ass back upstairs and fall back to one mile.”

“We can’t get good coverage from a mile away,” Martin protested. “Faroe said there might be some great bang-bang footage.”

“You stay in range and you’ll get more bang-bang than you want,” the pilot said. “This helo isn’t armor-plated.”

“Hey,” the cameraman cut in, “no biggie. I was in Fallujah. After that, this is a piece of cake.”

The pilot shot him a you dumb fuck look and shook his head. When it came to bullets and death, there was no such thing as a piece of cake.

“That club has more firepower in its vaults than the whole Iraqi insurgency,” Rand said. “Hang back until the cops and agents come pouring in. It shouldn’t be long.” I hope. “Then you can come in close and get all the footage you need.”

The pilot went into a sharp descent and stayed low, approaching from the west and then swinging around the hill, keeping well out of rifle range.

Martin leaned forward, lifting field glasses to scan the club.

Rand grabbed the glasses.

“What the-” began Martin. A look at Rand’s eyes stopped the producer’s protest. “Okay. Okay. They’re yours. Enjoy them.”

The field glasses brought everything close. The Russian-made helicopter that had snatched Kayla and Foley from the roof of the bank building had set down in the empty parking lot. The only other vehicle was a black Humvee.

Bertone.

Rand raked the ground with the glasses. Suddenly Kayla leaped into focus, running hard into the desert away from either helicopter. Handcuffed, she was no match for the long-haired man closing in on her, his arms pumping, swinging free as his legs ate up the ground. An AK-47 was slung across his back. He grabbed her, slapped her hard, and began dragging her back to the club at a trot.

“Can you cut them off?” Rand asked the pilot, pointing. He knew the answer but he had to ask anyway.

“Not before he could bring us down with that AK-47 or kill her or both.”

Shit.

“After you drop me, keep an eye on their helo,” Rand said curtly. “If it takes off, follow. Get on the emergency frequency and tell the cops.”

“What about you?” asked the pilot. “Want me to pick you up before we tail them?”

“If they get airborne, I’m already dead.”

The pilot leaned on the stick and adjusted the cyclic control. The helicopter dropped, flared, and settled into a sand-bottomed wash that was twenty yards across.

“Luck, man,” the pilot said as Rand stepped out onto the skid.

The instant Rand’s feet hit soft sand, the overhead rotor churned up a blinding boil of dust. He crouched and fought through the grit while the helicopter lifted off and spun in midair, using the walls of the wash as cover for its retreat.

He was running before the dust settled. He figured he had less than a minute.

Arizona Territorial Gun Club

Sunday

2:24 P.M. MST

Kayla lashed out with her heel at the pilot’s kneecap. Her soft shoes muffled the blow, but the man still staggered, swore, and hit her with the butt of his AK-47 hard enough to make darkness spin around her. He drew the butt back to hit her again, harder.

A big hand slapped the weapon away. “Enough,” Bertone said. “She has to be able to talk.”

Bertone bent, put his shoulder in Kayla’s stomach, and stood easily, taking her weight. With one arm clamped around her thighs, he ran toward the club’s double-story front doors like he was carrying no more than an AK-47 over his shoulder.

Kayla’s head bounced against Bertone’s back while he trotted up the broad fan of steps leading to the club. At first she thought the roaring in her ears was blood returning to her head. Then she realized the sound came from a helicopter she couldn’t see; she could only hear the rotors slicing air and the engine howling, going away.