H
ad he recognized me?
“Excuse me,” I said to Schmidt. “We’re gonna need a CRM for your flight plan.”
Schmidt said, “Huh?”
“Your CRM, sir. We never got the filing.”
I was talking officious nonsense.
“You’re not cleared for takeoff,” I said. “We need you to hold short of Bravo.”
With a swift sudden movement, I grabbed Kayla’s free hand and yanked her toward me. I was counting on her recognizing me up close—she’d texted me, after all—or at least going along compliantly.
“That way,” I said to her, pointing. “Run.”
“Heller, you goddamn son of a bitch,” Schmidt said in his high choked voice, lunging at me.
I backhanded the flashlight to the right side of Schmidt’s head, aiming for the temple and a quick knockout. But he had jerked his head around to his left, and I hit his cheekbone instead. I felt something crunch.
He winced, yelled, but he kept on coming at me, swinging his right fist at my head. Which was stupid: He should have tried to wrest the flashlight out of my hand. I had a weapon, and he didn’t, at least so far as I knew. I had the advantage, and he should have removed it from me.
So I pressed the advantage as best I could. He shouted something at me, something obscene, and I swung again, hard, whipping it up from waist level, scything through the air, slamming into his chin from beneath his open mouth, cracking his teeth together hard.
Schmidt shook his head like an enraged bull and took up a boxer’s stance. His left fist shot out and clipped me on the chin. My head rocked back. I saw stars.
“Watch out!” But I knew he was readying the right-handed knockout blow. Boxers are dangerous, but they’re also predictable, and they rarely think about anything below the belt. So just as he stepped forward to get the range he wanted, I stomp-kicked him in his left knee with my right foot.
It connected. His knee hyperextended, the pain immense, he leaned over at the waist.
A woman’s cry: Kayla’s.
I glanced up in time to see the second guy charging out of the plane and down the steps. He fumbled under his poncho for something. Not good. It had to be a weapon.
I grabbed Schmidt, who was screaming in agony and staggering around. I got hold of the hood of his poncho and yanked, hard, pulling him in toward me, a human shield.
I could make out the second guy’s silhouette in the darkness. I could see a gun in his hand. He was maneuvering to take a shot without hitting Schmidt.
I intended to make it hard for him.
The second guy moved in closer, now ten feet away, his gun extended, angling the weapon around to miss Schmidt.
That was when I hit the Maglite’s power button with my right thumb, aiming it at his eyes, hitting him in the cornea with five hundred lumens, dazzling him. His hands flew to his eyes and the gun went off, a wild shot, the round pitting the asphalt five or six feet to my left.
Now I shoved Schmidt to the ground and reached out to grab the barrel of the second man’s gun. It was blisteringly hot. I yanked and twisted it out of his hand and immediately dropped it, too hot to handle.
I drop-kicked the second man in the groin. It wasn’t original, but it worked.
He bellowed in pain and tumbled to the ground near Curtis Schmidt.
I leaned over and scooped up the gun in my burned hand, this time by the grip, and ran toward where Kayla was standing, a few hundred feet away.
She was crying. “Come on,” I said, taking her by the elbow and leading her toward the Suburban. “I need you to run.”
But she stood still, weeping. I couldn’t make out what she was saying except for “Oh my God.”
“Come on,” I said, gently this time, taking her hand. “Hurry. You’re safe now.”
B
y the time we were on the main road outside the airport, Kayla Pitts had stopped crying. She seemed embarrassed about it. She sniffed a few times, said, “Oh, Jesus. Oh, Jesus.” Her blond hair hung down in straggly tendrils and dark wet clumps.
Dorothy, sitting in the row behind the front seat, watched her warily. She seemed not to know what to make of our passenger.
“Where are you taking me?” Kayla said in a weak, quavering voice.
“Not back to your apartment,” I said.
“Okay.” She wiped her eyes with the back of her right hand. “Good. So where?”
“A hotel.”
To Dorothy I said, “Do me a favor and call the hotel and reserve another room. See if we can get one of the rooms that adjoin my suite.”
“How did you find me?” Kayla asked.
The rain had slowed to a light spattering. I signaled left and merged into traffic, which was considerably lighter now, the worst of rush hour over.
When I didn’t reply right away, she asked, “Did you trace my phone or something?”
“Something like that,” I said. I didn’t want to tell her I’d slipped a GPS tracker into her laptop bag, which would have necessitated telling her I’d broken into her apartment. That would only introduce an element of distrust and paranoia I wanted to avoid. “Tell me what happened.”
“These two guys showed up at my apartment and told me to pack my things. They gave me fifteen minutes. They told me they were taking me out of town.”
“Did they break in?”
“I let them in.”
“Did you know them?”
She shook her head. “I recognized one of them, the big bald guy. He was supposed to keep watch over me.”
I had a tremendous number of questions I wanted to ask, but I wanted to keep her on track as much as possible. “They didn’t tell you where you were going?”
“Just out of town. They put me in the back of a van.”
“What made you think they were going to kill you?”
“I was in the back, but when I put my ear to the front compartment I could hear them talking about me. One of them said something about ‘without a trace.’ The other guy said something like, ‘look like she was running’ and something about ‘before a body turns up.’ And I saw when they were taking me to the van that one of them had a gun. I was scared out of my mind. I didn’t know what to do, who to call. I don’t trust the cops. So I called that reporter at Slander Sheet, but I got a message saying the phone was disconnected. So . . . I called you.”
“Why?”
She was silent for a long time. She shook her head. “When I met you . . . ? I got the feeling, I don’t know . . . you were one of the good guys.”
“Okay,” I said. I’d take that.
“I kept calling, and I kept getting your voice mail. And then when I finally reached you, one of the guys must have heard me talking because he grabbed the phone out of my hand.”
“You were brave to do that. And smart.”
“Yeah, but now what? Now what happens to me?”
“We’re going to keep you with us, keep you safe, and I’m going to need your help in finding the people behind this.”
“But I don’t know who they are!”
“You know things. Little details that might not mean anything to you. We’ll talk, and we’ll help each other.”
We all fell silent for a moment. I turned off the windshield wipers; the rain had stopped. After a long while, Kayla said, “Tell me something.”
“Okay.”
“I don’t understand. Why did you come for me?”
“Because I think you can answer some questions for me,” I said.
“And what if I can’t?”
“Doesn’t matter,” I said. “You’re still worth saving.”
T
he hotel had an available room adjoining mine. We put Kayla there and opened the connecting doors. I wanted to keep a close watch on her. I assumed that Curtis Schmidt and his comrade would be out of commission for a while, but others might come for her.
She knew that. She was frightened and distraught.
While Dorothy went out to pick up some toiletries for her, Kayla and I talked.
“Keep the security latch on at all times,” I said. “Don’t open your door for anyone. I don’t care if they say it’s housekeeping or room service, nobody comes in. Don’t call room service. If you need something, just ask one of us. Come get me, or call on the room phone.” I fixed her a drink from the minibar, a vodka and tonic, because she needed it. I couldn’t find any rocks glasses, so I used a wineglass. In another wineglass I poured myself a Scotch.
“Can I at least use a computer?” she said. “I left my computer on the tarmac and they took my phone, and I want to check in with a couple of my friends. Otherwise they’re going to worry about me. I just want to say I’m okay.”
I shook my head. “You’ve got to keep your head down. Don’t let anyone know you’re in DC.”
“So, like, I’m basically a prisoner here.”
“For the time being. To keep you safe.”
“How long?”
“Until it’s safe.”
“When’s that gonna be?”
I shook my head again, more slowly. “I’ll let you know.”
She sipped her drink. “Why are you being nice to me?”
“Because I need your help.” The simpler answer was usually better.
“Okay.”
“Tell me how you got into this.”
“What? The life? Or this . . . scam?”
“The scam.”
She sat down on the edge of the bed. I sat in the chair next to the desk and drank some Scotch. She had the faint smell of patchouli about her.
She let out a long sigh. “Okay. So, like, three months ago, I had this date, with a client, at the Willard, right? Gary something. When I got to his hotel room, he paid my fee, right up front—that’s unusual. Guys always do it after. Nicely dressed, suit and tie and all that. He said he just wanted to talk to me. I thought maybe he wanted something really kinky, but no, he wasn’t there for the sex. He told me he worked for an organization of businessmen and they wanted to hire me. They had a, a
proposition
for me, he called it.”
“Did you get the guy’s name?”
“No. Just ‘Gary.’ He said they wanted me to talk to a reporter at Slander Sheet and tell her that I’d had three dates with this Supreme Court judge named Jeremiah Claflin. They said they’d prepare me to talk to the reporter, they’d take care of everything, and they said they’d pay me a hundred thousand dollars—ten thousand up front, the rest later.”
“And you said yes.”
“No. Not yet. I was freaked out. I asked why.”
“Okay. What’d he say?”
“Just that this Claflin guy had to be taken down, for the good of the country.”
“Did he say who this ‘organization of businessmen’ was?”
She shook her head and gulped her drink like it was lemonade. “I didn’t ask. I didn’t really care. I was just afraid if I did this, I could go to prison. He said that would never happen. He said I could probably have my own TV reality show.”
“Is that what you wanted?”
“Are you kidding?”
“But you said yes to the proposition anyway.”
“No, I didn’t. Not until they . . . threatened me.”
“Threatened you how?”
She finished her drink and put the glass on top of the bed next to her. “So I said no to the guy.” She hadn’t answered my question, but I waited.
“You said no to a hundred thousand dollars?”
“I don’t know, I was scared shitless. Maybe I didn’t believe him about the money. I mean, he took out ten thousand dollars in cash and showed it to me and said I could have it right then and there if I agreed. It was all mine. Just do it. But how did I know he’d actually come up with the rest of the money when it was all over?”
“So what did you tell him?”
“I still said no. I mean, a hundred thousand dollars, that’s more money than I’ve ever had, enough to buy me out of the life. But how could I be sure I didn’t get exposed as a liar? I told him I had to think about it.”
“Sure.”
“He said don’t take too long. He said they knew about my sister. She’s—in prison. In Mississippi. For a drug bust. She was dealing meth.”
I knew that but didn’t want to let her know. “Okay.”
“He said they had ways of getting to her in prison. If I didn’t agree to do this thing, or if I told anybody about it, they’d hurt her bad. Or worse. So I flew to Jackson to visit my sister in prison. She’d just come out of the infirmary. But they let me see her. She got stabbed in the thigh. She was hurt bad. She told me she got shanked in the commissary. Some inmate came up to her in line and stuck her and said this is only the beginning, if your sister doesn’t cooperate. So when I came back to DC I called this guy Gary and said okay, I’ll do it.” She looked at me, eyes shining, vulnerable. “I didn’t have a choice, you know? It wasn’t the money.”
“I understand. Do you have Gary’s number?”
She shook her head. “It’s in my phone. I need another drink.”
“You didn’t write it down anywhere?” I got up and began fixing her a second vodka and tonic.
“I don’t remember. I don’t think so. So I met with him and he gave me the ten thousand.”
“They prepared you? They told you what to say?”
“That guy Gary did, yeah.”
“How many times did you meet with him?”
“Just one more time. To get me ready to talk to the reporter.”
“He gave you the name?”
“Mandy Seeger, yeah.”
“Just her? No other reporter?”
“Just her.”
“Any idea why?”
She shook her head again.
“Did you ever get the rest of the hundred thousand?”
“No. I think they were about to pay me when the story fell apart. They think I leaked to you. I told them that was bullshit, but they said
they knew I met with you. Because they had this guy watching me all the time, this big bald guy.”
“I saw that. He was the same one who came to take you to the plane.”
“Right. Him and this other guy.”
“Gary?”
“No. It was someone I never saw before. But Gary called me today and said they were getting me out of town. I—I’m worried about my sister. If they did something to her because they think I—” Her voice broke as a sob welled up. “I’m so . . . I’m scared,” she choked out. She slumped forward and spilled some of her drink on the comforter cover. I got up from my chair and took her drink from her and sat down next to her on the bed.
“I want to go to sleep,” she said. “I’m so wiped out.”
“Do that. We’ll talk in the morning.”
There was a knock at the door. I went over to the peephole and saw Dorothy. I opened the door. She was carrying a couple of plastic shopping bags, one from CVS and one from Macy’s. She looked at Kayla, then at me, wonderingly.
I opened the room door again and hung a Do Not Disturb sign on the outside door handle. Then I fastened the security latch. It was too easy to defeat those hotel security latches with a length of stiff wire. I’d done it myself. So I got a towel from the bathroom, rolled it up, and stuck it under the door’s lever handle. That would foil any attempts to beat the latch.
I had to move her as soon as possible. Tonight I would make some calls and get her a safe house outside of DC.
“I got you a toothbrush and toothpaste, honey,” Dorothy said gently, setting the bags down on the bed next to Kayla. “A nightgown. A pair of pants that might be too big, now that I look at you, and some T-shirts.”
“Thank you,” Kayla sniffed. “You know, in my line of work there are
always these guys who want to
save you
. They’re the worst. You want them to just get the hell away, you know? But it’s different when you actually need . . .” Her words were once again swallowed up by sobs.
“Come,” I said to Dorothy. “Let’s let Kayla get some sleep. I have something I need to do.”