“Somebody’s been tracking me, Antonio.” Dayne pressed the muzzle of her Sig against the back of his neck. “What do you know?”
“Easy, just calm down.”
The thirty-something chop shop owner lifted his hands in an effort to seem non-threatening. Around them his men shifted uneasily. She guessed they were probably wondering how she’d managed to get the upper hand.
Antonio Herrera was a hub for criminal activity in the St. Louis area. He dealt in black market weapons, stolen vehicles, military equipment, and occasional human currency. His own personal security wasn’t often breached by someone like her.
Tall, broad, Hispanic and boyishly handsome, he didn’t seem the type for the life he led. She knew better. She put more pressure on his spinal column with her gun and slid her free hand around his neck. Pressing her thumb over the trigeminal nerve where it exited his jaw, she pressed down hard.
“Damn it, Dayne!” he gasped through clenched teeth. “I’m not your enemy. After all these years you owe me a chance to tell you what I know.”
She removed her thumb and backed up several paces. Antonio rubbed his neck as he stood. Glaring around the dimly lit garage at his men, he waved his arms at them.
“Get the hell out of here,
bendejos
! If you can’t even keep one
chica
from putting a gun to my head what good are you?” he bellowed. His posse scattered like rats.
Antonio’s warehouse headquarters was fashioned like a massive garage with four bays, a substantial selection of tools, and a wide variety of stolen items. Notoriously paranoid, he lived on the premises. One back corner of the garage sported a big screen television, a long sofa, matching loveseat and his favorite overstuffed chair. The living room atmosphere came complete with a knock off Persian rug and matching end tables. Less than ten feet away was a small kitchen area with a sink, a stove and microwave and most importantly, an oversized refrigerator. A few feet down the wall, a glass window provided a view of Antonio’s office with its cluttered desk and filing cabinet stacked high with what was probably bogus paperwork.
Gesturing to the fridge, he shot her a questioning look. She shook her head no before watching him extract a bottle of beer and pop it open. After a long swig he finally spoke.
“What do you know about Jace McKay?” Antonio asked.
Dayne shrugged. “Enough to stay out of his way.”
He tilted his head and gave her an appraising look. “Rumor says you and he used to run arms together.”
“Maybe, maybe not.”
“Was he the other piece of that Ramsey Vitale mess?”
“The Russian mafia had nothing to do with the hit on my house. Could we get back to the present day?”
“Jace McKay is the present day.”
“You think he’s the one who put together the hit on my house?”
She already knew Jace had nothing to do with the attempt on her life. If Jace had wanted her dead, it would’ve been done and he would’ve done it himself. She briefly recalled the Russian assault rifles and Ross King’s involvement. The puzzle was getting deep and wide. She was right smack in the middle, but there was no way she was telling Antonio anything more than he already knew. It didn’t matter that he was the closest thing to family she had in the world. He was still a self-serving bastard.
Antonio leaned back against the frame of something that had once been a Corvette. “Jace has some powerful enemies these days.”
“Who doesn’t?”
“You remember Yuri Dolohov?”
Dayne hissed an oath. “What does he want with Jace?”
“Jace accepted a contract on his brother.”
She lifted an eyebrow. “And completed the contract?”
“Perfect kill,” Antonio confirmed. “There shouldn’t have been any trace of Jace at all except that a man remembered seeing someone fitting his description exit the building.”
“
That
led Yuri to Jace?”
Antonio nodded. “His height and build have always worked against him. It’s hard to forget a guy who's six foot four inches, 275 lbs. and looks like a professional wrestler.”
“You still haven’t told me what this has to do with me or how you know so much about the Dolohov contract. And besides all of that, why the hell are you being so accommodating?”
“I was the middle man on the Dolohov contract,” Antonio’s voice was gentle, “and you’re my sister.”
She wrinkled her nose. “Foster sister…and it’s never stopped you from selling me out before.”
“Hey! A man has to look out for his own interests.”
“And?”
Antonio gave her a look filled with regret. “And a contract on your life just came across my radar.”
An unfamiliar lump settled in Dayne’s belly. “Are you planning to try and collect on that contract?”
“No, I’m going to tell you to run like hell.”
“First tell me what this has to do with Jace’s younger brother.”
“Ryan McKay?”
“He was abducted from a library this morning in Ofallon,” she prodded.
Antonio fiddled with the thick gold ring on his middle finger. “If I had to guess, I’d say that Yuri is using Ryan to draw Jace out.”
“So I’m supposed to die, for why?”
“Probably because you saw who took Ryan.”
“How could they have known?”
“They were probably watching the whole building, Dayne. A spook that just happened to be in the right place at the right time and who just happened to have a history with Jace McKay…it was too much to write off as coincidence.”
She shoved the Sig back in its holster. She was at a loss. Her whole life was gone…again. Now began the arduous task of putting it back together…again. Hours before, she’d been happily masquerading as a single middle class woman in the suburbs. Why did she pick
that
day to go to the library? She
never
went to the library, unless she was working on something she couldn't access from her computer. In this case it had been something for Antonio.
She immediately took that thought, wrapped it up in a tiny little ball and shoved it to the back of her brain in the “think about that later” file. This was no time to be questioning the only resource she had. Beggars couldn’t be choosers, after all.
“Dayne?”
“Ross King took that kid.”
Antonio cocked an eyebrow. “King doing a kidnapping? Don’t tell me that big ole grizzly’s going soft.”
“That’s what I thought too,” Dayne mused. “But he was the one who took the McKay kid. I’m sure of it.”
“The most urgent ripple in the pond after the abduction was the contract on you.”
“So?”
“The request for proof of your death was just shy of desperate, Dayne. Someone thinks you’re a real threat.”
“I still don’t see where this is going.”
“They have to take that kid somewhere.”
“He’s probably out of the state by now, Antonio. Ofallon is less than forty five minutes from two different airports.”
“Why bother? The authorities aren’t a threat. We both know that.”
“Yeah, but I’m sure they’ve got somewhere specific their boss wants to tangle with Jace,” Dayne pointed out.
“Jace is in Egypt. It’s going to take him some time to get here no matter how good he is.”
She rolled her eyes in disgust. “You never told me you knew where Jace was! He’ll come here. I’ll intercept him. He can fix this mess.”
“Are you hearing yourself?”
Her head was pounding. Every nerve ending screamed. She wanted to crawl into a little hole and stay there for the rest of her natural life. She dealt with scumbags and life or death situations every day. It was extremely uncomfortable to be the mark instead of the hunter. She was starting to feel empathy for her targets. Not a good thing.
Antonio put one booted foot on a metal chair and shoved it in her direction. “Sit before you fall.”
She sat. Her arm was still bleeding a little. A tattered piece of blue cloth hit her in the face.
“Wipe that up before you drip on my floor.”
She glowered at Antonio but obeyed. She’d be lucky if she didn’t get some nasty infection from this whole incident.
“Look at the scenarios here. They’re not good.”
“Go on.” She managed to force the words out from between her clenched teeth. Her arm burned like hellfire.
Antonio started to pace back and forth, scratching his chin. “Jace has probably heard by now. That’s great. But we really don’t know who’s behind all of this. The whole thing with Yuri is my best guess. But it’s still just a guess.”
“Who else would bother?”
“Jace is in the same line of work you are. Everybody wants to wipe you guys off the face of the earth at one time or another. There’s no telling who might have enough money to pull it off.”
“Good point.”
“So you need Jace. That’s the only way to end it.”
“You know as well as I do that once a contract has been issued a mark is screwed,” Dayne said bitterly.
“You’ve got one break.”
“Name it.”
Antonio crossed to a drawer beside the kitchen sink and began rummaging inside. “Obviously you’ve got a part to play in whatever scheme they’ve cooked up, and they want you dead before you can play it.”
“Wow, that’s real comforting, Tonio.”
Antonio paused to offer an apologetic shrug. “Hey, I’m trying to be truthful here.”
“Well, I wish I knew what it was I’m supposed to do.”
He pulled a grimy tube of first aid cream from the drawer and grinned. “I know where you could start.”
“Glad one of us has an idea.”
“Go re-kidnap that kid.”
She blinked in surprise. Was he insane? What did she need with a kid?
He tossed the cream in her direction. “You need something to bargain with. I don’t care how chummy you used to be with Jace. He isn’t likely to tell you what his personal issues are unless you’ve got something he wants.”
“And I need info,” she murmured, deftly catching the tube of first aid cream, popping the top and squeezing a generous amount onto her fingers.
“Bingo.”
“I’m not frigging Batman here. I don’t know where that kid is, and I don’t have a Bat Cave anymore to track him with.”
“Use your brain,” Antonio said with a snort. “They’ve got time to wait for Jace. I don’t think they’re going to use an international airport for this. So?”
“You think they’re going to stash the kid at the Spirit Airport in Chesterfield?” Dayne asked with skepticism. “That place is just a flat piece of land and some terminals!”
“They’ve got everyone out looking for you. Now’s the time for you to go looking for them.”
She sighed; the cream had already started to numb the violent sting in her arm, leaving her thoughts marginally clearer. “If you weren’t family…”
“Hey! It’s the best idea I’ve got.”
“I must’ve pressed too hard on that nerve or something,” she muttered. “It screwed with the blood flow to your brain.”
Chapter Four
Dayne patted the twin Sigs in her shoulder holsters and her stash of extra clips before double-checking the position of her boot knives. She couldn't believe that she was about to try and kidnap this kid. If she’d really wanted the brat she could have snatched him from King as he walked out of the library.
It was pitch dark outside. The October air was pleasantly cool. The duster had been replaced by a set of black fatigues. Her hair was braided and tucked into a black wool cap she’d snagged from Antonio’s equipment cache. She could only hope that the smears of black paint beneath her eyes and her clothing cloaked her in the darkness, because there was a great big expanse of open land to cover. She resisted the urge to pray. That would’ve been too heretical…even for her.
The airfield lay on the far southern side of a wide valley. During the flood of ’93 the entire area had been under water when the Missouri River overflowed its levies. Since the construction of new levies, developments had been popping up all over the lush land.
She skittered around the edge of the valley at a fast jog, keeping to the darker shadows, pacing herself. It was a long way to the terminals. Stopping for a breather near a stand of cottonwood trees, she evaluated her choice of buildings. The main terminal was out for the time being. Not even Yuri was arrogant enough to think his operation would go unnoticed in a high traffic area like that. The most likely option would be some sort of private plane, probably a Cessna or even a Learjet.
Dayne checked her watch. It was now going on five hours since Ryan’s abduction. It felt like years to her exhausted body.
Time was certainly something to consider. Whoever intended to fly the kid out of town would have to be starting their pre-flight procedures. No matter what Tonio’s thoughts were on the matter, mercenaries weren’t going to wait around for Dayne to make a move before preparing their package for delivery.
A cluster of low-slung buildings sat a hundred yards from the main terminal where commercial passenger planes loaded and unloaded their human cargo. In the orange glow of the airfield lights it was possible to distinguish several smaller planes sitting outside.
“Shit, I’m no pilot,” she muttered irritably. “How am I supposed to know if they’re getting ready to leave or just coming in?”
She was at a loss, and she was never at a loss. This type of mission was way outside the norm. She needed a focus, a real goal. This was not focused. This was Antonio’s idea of a wild goose chase.
Where would someone stash a kid? An office maybe? There had to be offices in those buildings somewhere. She sucked in a deep breath of night air. The cool breeze was tainted with the scent of jet fuel and exhaust. Beneath that was the pungent odor of the Missouri River, which flowed a few miles west of the airfield.
Darting from one shadow to the next, she skirted the hangars one by one. Most were completely dark. The shapes of smaller planes loomed with weird angles and sharp corners in the blackness.
Dayne struck pay dirt on the third building. The hangar was lighted but deserted. Only one small Cessna sat on the tarmac outside. The dingy yellow light revealed a long space open on each end. Three quarters of the way down on the left side there was a set of metal stairs that led to some kind of room. Narrowing her gaze, she could barely make out movement.