Читать книгу Operation Midnight - Justine Davis - Страница 9

“You were no help at all,” Hayley muttered to the dog overwhelming her lap. Yet despite her surprise at that—a tiny emotion next to the fear that was growing every second—she clung to the furry bundle. The dog didn’t seemed bothered at all by what was happening, just as he hadn’t protested by even a yelp when this total stranger had grabbed him, never mind her.

She, on the other hand, was terrified. If she hadn’t had the dog to hang on to, to focus on, she was sure she’d be shrieking. And then the rotors began to turn, and she did let out a little gasp.

“Thanks for the help, Teague,” Quinn snapped at the other armed man. Even though he was practically yelling to be heard over the engine and growing rotor noise, the sarcasm came through.

The other man laughed. And grinned, a boyish, crooked grin she would have found charming under other circumstances. Now it just added to her growing fears.

“The day you can’t handle a woman and a dog is the day I quit this gig,” the man called Teague shouted back.

“I let you fly, so get us out of here.”

Teague’s grin flashed again, but then he was all business, turning his attention completely to controls that, Hayley noted, seemed to take not only his hands and eyes, but feet, as well. Flying a helicopter was apparently a complicated affair.

“Belt up,” Quinn instructed her.

Hayley didn’t react, still watching the pilot as she tried to analyze the easy, friendly banter between the two men. Did that bode well, or worse? She didn’t know, and—

“Let go of the damn dog and put your seat belt on.” He was yelling again now as the sound of the engine and rotors increased again.

There was too much dog to just let go of and get her hands on the belt she could see at her sides. And then the man realized that, grabbed Cutter and again lifted him as easily as if the animal didn’t weigh almost half what she did. To her annoyance, the dog didn’t even growl at the usually unwanted liberty taken by a stranger. But she kept her mouth shut. She didn’t want to anger the man while he had the dog in his arms.

He seemed to realize that. “You want him back, do it.”

She reached for the belt ends, then glanced back at her traitorous dog. Just in time to see him swipe a pink tongue over the set jaw of their captor.

“Talk about fraternizing with the enemy,” she muttered as she fastened the harness-style belt, figuring she was safe enough saying it aloud, it was so noisy in here.

The only saving grace was the expression on Quinn’s face; utterly startled. She wasn’t sure how she knew it was not an expression he wore often, but she did. He plopped the dog back into her lap.

“Must you?”

The barely audible question came out of the darkness beside her, and Hayley realized it had come from her neighbor, the first time she’d ever heard him speak. His voice was a bit raspy, probably, she thought wryly, from disuse. And she thought it might hold a bit of an accent, although it was hard to tell from two words called out over the noise of a helicopter.

“Sorry, Vicente,” Quinn said, sparking another spurt of annoyance in her; if anybody should get an apology, it should be her, shouldn’t it?

Teague yelled something Hayley couldn’t hear well enough to understand, but Quinn must have, because he turned his head to answer. Then he reached out and picked something up from the empty front seat. If she had any guts, now would have been a chance, while he was turned away. She could lunge for the door, get away. Problem was, she didn’t think she could undo the belt, hang on to Cutter and get the door open fast enough. She—

Quinn turned back, and the moment was lost. To her surprise, he jammed himself onto the floor at her feet, although he was tall enough to make it a tight fit. It took her a moment to realize he was staying to keep an eye on them, rather than strapping himself into the vacant seat beside the pilot. That must have been, she thought, what that exchange she hadn’t heard was about. And what he’d picked up was some kind of headset, perhaps something that enabled him to talk to the pilot, or at least muffled the noise that made normal conversation impossible.

And then she felt the undeniable shift as they went airborne into the midnight sky, and it was too late to do anything but try not to shiver under the force of the sheer terror that was rocketing around inside her. Why on earth had he done this? She’d done nothing, had been more than willing to vanish back into the woods and let them go. All she’d wanted was her dog….

She clung to her furry companion, his thick, soft coat warming her hands. If there were lights inside this thing they weren’t on, but she didn’t need them to visualize the dog’s striking coloring, the near-black face, head and shoulders, fading to a rich, reddish brown from there back. The vet said he looked like a purebred Belgian breed, but since—despite being the smartest dog anyone she knew had ever seen—he hadn’t shown up with papers, she didn’t know for sure.

And as comforting as the dog’s presence was—even if he did seem inordinately fond of their kidnapper—she regretted it now. The dog was indeed clever, sometimes to the point of seeming unnaturally so. More than once since the day he’d appeared and proceeded to fill the void in her life, she had wondered if he was really just a dog. He seemed to sense, to understand, to know things that no ordinary dog did or could. And because of that, he would be safer on the ground, able to survive on his own. At least for a while.

She didn’t want to think about the possibility that it might be longer than a while. Much longer. That it might be forever, if these men had lethal intent.

She hugged the dog so tightly that he squirmed a little. What had her bundle of energy and fur gotten them into? The dog didn’t seem at all bothered by the fact that he was airborne. He seemed to be treating it as if it were merely a more exciting version of the car rides he so loved.

She ducked her head, pressing her cheek to Cutter’s fur. In the process she stole a glance sideways, to where her neighbor was seated, carefully strapped in. She still couldn’t see much of him, just the gleam of the silver-gray beard, and a faint reflection from his eyes. He’d said nothing else through this, in fact after his query had seemed to shrink back against the side of the noisy craft, as if he were wishing he could vanish as he had on the two occasions she’d come across him outside his house. She wondered what he was thinking about her sudden intrusion into his affairs, inadvertent though it was.

But at least he’d made a token protest. She supposed that counted for something.

Vicente. She’d never known his name. And from the way he’d asked the question, hesitantly, it seemed clear he wasn’t in charge of this operation, whatever it was. Was he rich, was that what this was all about? A kidnapping for ransom? But if so, why was he so cooperative? Not that guns didn’t engender cooperation, but he’d seemed awfully willing.

Besides, why would somebody who could afford an aircraft like this one need money so badly they’d commit a crime like kidnapping? Unless of course that was how they afforded it.

Maybe they were drug dealers, she thought, barely resisting the urge to look around and see if there were drugs piled in the small space behind her. Did helicopters have separate cargo spaces? She had no idea. She pushed the media-inspired image of wrapped white packages of cocaine out of her mind.

There were other possibilities, of course. Terrorists, for instance. They didn’t look it, but what did she know? Maybe Vicente was some sort of master bomb maker, maybe they—

The helicopter seemed to lean sharply, cutting off her careening thoughts. Just as well, she told herself, you were getting silly.

At least, she hoped she was getting silly. But what simple explanation could there be for being scooped up in the middle of the night by strange men, along with her possibly stranger neighbor?

She lifted her head, realized Quinn was staring at her from his spot on the floor. She had no idea what he might be hearing in that headset, but there was no doubt about what he was looking at. As with Vicente, all she could see was the reflection of what dim lights there were in his eyes, and a different sort of gleam on the dark, thick hair.

Since talking and asking the myriad of questions she had was impossible, her mind was free to race to turn over every rock looking for possibilities. This was not necessarily a good thing, she realized. She’d never thought of herself as particularly imaginative, but the things that tumbled through her mind now could be called nothing less. In the light of day, anyway.

Quinn seemed focused on her, as if he wasn’t worried about Vicente at all. And if that were true, that confirmed her neighbor was part of this, in some way. It made her shiver anew to think what the man might have been up to just a couple of hundred yards away from her home. That he might have had very good reason to stay hidden.

Cutter returned the scrutiny, keeping his eyes on the man on the floor, occasionally stretching out toward him with his nose, apparently still in love at first scent. It really was strange, the way the dog had reacted to this man. Under other, normal circumstances, she might be inclined to trust the dog’s judgment; more than once he’d been wary of someone she’d later learned was worthy of the distrust. And if he liked someone … well, at the moment the jury was out on that.

And it finally occurred to her to wonder why the man had brought the dog along. He’d only hesitated a fraction of a second before picking him up and putting him in the helicopter after her. Had he assessed that quickly that she’d do what she had to to protect the animal? Including cooperate with him?

The more she thought about that, the more it frightened her. That he had realized, that quickly, that Cutter could be the key to her cooperation told her more than she wanted to know. Clearly whoever and whatever he was, he would use any tool that presented itself.

She stared back at the man, her mind providing an image of what she couldn’t see in the darkness, filling in details she’d glimpsed in the deck light. The strong jaw, the stern mouth, the dark brows with the slightly satanic arch—

Okay, that’s enough of that, she ordered herself, and looked away. At least his image would be clear enough to tell someone what he looked like, she thought.

Someone? Like the police?

Her breath jammed up in her throat, unable to get past the sudden tightness as the obvious belatedly hit her. She’d seen them. All of them. But why hadn’t they just killed her on the spot, then? Had they been in too much of a hurry to get away? Or had they just not decided her fate yet?

More likely, she thought grimly, they had a place where they disposed of bodies, and it was easier to wait until they got there.

And all her imaginings suddenly didn’t measure up to the horror of the reality, and even the darkness couldn’t make it any worse.

They flew on and on, until her half-crazed mind would have sworn it had been days if it weren’t for the fact that they were still and ever in darkness.

And underlying it all was the grimmest imagining of all, that she might never see the light of day again.