eyed him. “Damn, Ray, you almost look white.” Jackson started to say
something, then pointed a shaky finger at his partner, covered his mouth
with his other hand and silently headed off with the HRT members to the
vehicle waiting nearby; a Maine state trooper stood next to it, waving
his flashlight at them as a guidepost.
Sawyer leaned his head back in the plane. “Thanks for the ride, George.
You gonna hang tight here? I don’t know how long this is gonna take.”
Kaplan couldn’t hide the grin. “Are you kidding? And miss the
opportunity to chauffeur you guys back home? I’ll be right here
waiting.”
Grunting in response, Sawyer closed the door and hurried over to the
vehicle. The others were gathered around waiting for him.
When he saw what their transport vehicle was, he stopped dead in his
tracks. They all eyed the paddy wagon.
The state trooper looked over at them. “Sorry, guys, it’s all we had on
such short notice to accommodate eight of you.”
The FBI agents climbed into the back of the paddy wagon.
The vehicle had a small window of chicken wire and glass communicating
with the front. Jackson slid it open so the trooper could hear him.
“Can you turn some heat on back here?”
“Sorry,” the man said, % prisoner we were transporting went nuts and
busted the vents; they haven’t been fixed yet.”
Huddled on the bench, Sawyer watched clouds of breath so thick it looked
like a fire had broken out. He laid his rifle down and rubbed his stiff
fingers together to warm them. A cold draft from some invisible crevice
in the truck’s body hit him right between the shoulder blades. Sawyer
shivered. Christ, he thought, it’s like someone turned the
air-conditioning on full-blast. He hadn’t been this cold since
investigating Brophy’s and Goldman’s deaths in the parking garage.
At that instant, Sawyer recalled his other recent encounter with the
frigid effects of air-conditioning–the slain plane fueler’s apartment.
The look on his face became one of utter disbelief as he made the mental
connection. “Oh, my God.”
Sidney figured there was only one way for the men who had abducted her
father to contact her. She pulled in to a convenience store, got out
and hurried over to the phone. She dialed her home in Virginia.
When the answering machine came on, she tried her best to recognize the
voice, but she didn’t. She was given a number to call.
She assumed it was a cellular phone rather than a fixed location. She
took a deep breath and dialed the number. The phone was immediately
answered. It was a different voice than the one on the answering
machine, but again she couldn’t place it. She was to drive twenty
minutes north of Bell Harbor along Route 1 and take the exit for Port
Haven. Then she was given detailed directions that took her to an
isolated stretch of land between Port Haven and the larger town of Bath.
“I want to talk to my father.” The request was refused. “Then I’m not
coming. For all I know, he’s already dead.”
She was met with an eerie silence. Her heart thumped against her rib
cage. The air rushed out of her as she heard the voice.
“Sidney, sweetie.”
“Dad, are you all right?”
“Sid, get the hell out of he–”
“Dad? Dad?” Sidney screamed into the phone. A man coming out of the
convenience store carrying a cup of coffee stared at her, looked over at
the heavily damaged Cadillac and then back at her. Sidney stared back
at him as her hand dipped instinctively to the 9mm in her pocket. The
man hurried to his pickup truck and drove off.
The voice came back on. Sidney had thirty minutes to get to her
destination.
“How do I know you’ll let him go if I give it to you?”
“You don’t.” The tone of voice brooked no opposition.
The attorney in Sidney, however, stomped to the surface. “That’s not
good enough. You want this disk so bad, then we’re going to have to
agree to terms.”
“You’ve gotta be kidding. You want your old man back in a body bag?”