then answered. “Like a beige.”
“Good answer. Neutral, could apply to lots of different colors.”
She paused as an enormous wave of relief washed over her. “Only Amy
wasn’t wearing a hat.”
Lucas started to bolt out of the chair. A second faster than he, Sidney
smashed her pistol across his head. Lucas went down in a heap,
unconscious. She towered over his prostrate form. “You’re a real
ass-hole.”
Sidney exited the room and stole down the corridor. From the direction
of where she had entered the house, she heard men approaching.
She changed course and once again headed toward the lit room she had
spied earlier. She peered around the corner. The light from inside was
enough to let her check her watch. She said a silent prayer and edged
into the room, keeping low behind a long, carved wooden-backed sofa. She
looked around, her eyes taking in a wall of French doors that was
visible on the ocean side. The room was huge, with ceilings that soared
at least twenty feet high. An interior second-story balcony ran across
one side of the room. Another wall held a collection of finely bound
books. Comfortable furnishings were placed throughout.
Sidney shrank back as far as she could when a group of armed men, all
dressed in black fatigues, entered the room through another doorway. One
of them barked into a walkie-talkie. By listening to his words, she
knew they were aware of her presence. It was only a matter of time
before they found her. Blood pounding in her eardrums, she made her way
out of the room, keeping well out of sight behind the sofa. Once in the
corridor, she walked swiftly back toward the room in which she had left
Lucas, with the intent of using him as her exit card. Maybe they would
not care about killing Lucas to get to her, but right now it was the
only option she had.
Her plan ran into an immediate problem when she discovered Lucas was no
longer in the room. She had hit him very hard, and she briefly marveled
at his recuperative powers. Apparently he hadn’t been kidding about the
KGB. She ran out of the room and toward the door where she had entered
the house. Lucas would most certainly raise the alarm. She probably
only had seconds to make her getaway. She was a few feet from the door
when she heard it.
“Mommy, Mommy.”
Sidney jerked around. Amy’s walls continued down the hallway.
“Oh, my God!” Sidney turned and sprinted toward the sound.
“Amy? Amy? The doors to the large room she had earlier been in were
closed. She hurled them open and burst into the room, her chest
heaving, her eyes wildly searching for sight of her daughter.
Nathan Gamble stared back at her as Richard Lucas appeared behind him.
He wasn’t smiling. The side of his face was heavily swollen. Sidney
was quickly disarmed and held by Gamble’s men.
The disk was taken from her purse and handed to Gamble.
Gamble held up a sophisticated recording device and Amy’s voice was
heard once again: “Mommy? Mommy?”
“As soon as I found out your husband was on to me,” Gamble explained, “I
had your house bugged. You get lots of goodies that way.”
“You sonofabitch.” Sidney glared at him. “I knew it was a trick.”
“You should have gone with your first instinct, Sidney. I always do.”
Gamble shut off the tape and strolled over to a desk situated against
one wall. For the first time Sidney noticed that a laptop computer was
set up there. Gamble took the disk and popped it in.
Then he pulled a piece of paper from his pocket and looked over at her.
“Nice touch your husband had on the password. All backwards.
You’re sharp, but I bet you didn’t figure that one out, did you?” His
face crinkled into a smile as he looked from the paper to Sidney.
“Always knew Jason was a smart guy.” Using one finger, Gamble punched a
number of keys on the keyboard and studied the screen.
While doing so, he lit up a cigar. Satisfied with the contents of the
disk, he sat down in the chair, folded his arms across his chest and