Mistress of the Game

chapter Eight

THE FIRST THING SHE WAS AWARE OF WAS DARKNESS.

Total darkness.

Not the darkness of her bedroom. The thick, cold, suffocating darkness of the grave.

She tried to scream, but no sound came out. Something had been stuffed into her mouth, a bitter-tasting cloth. She couldn't breathe.

Where am I?

Panic began coiling its way around her heart like a snake. Was she dreaming? She sat up. Her head cracked painfully against something solid and metal.

A coffin? No! Oh God, please, no!

Daddy!

Again she screamed. Again the cloth choked her, stifling the sound in her throat. Slowly, consciously, she began to inhale through her nose.

Keep calm. You're alive. Don't panic.

Air filled her lungs. Relax.

Bedtime stories about her great-great-grandfather Jamie McGregor came flooding into her mind. Jamie had been brave and cunning and resourceful. He'd battled sharks and land mines, escaped shipwrecks and fought off assassins. No situation had been too hopeless for him to figure a way out of it.

She tried to think logically.

What happened? How did I get here?

It was no good. She couldn't remember. Mrs. Grainger had put her to bed, and then...and then...darkness. The fear returned like a great crashing wave.

Help me!

Lexi shivered. She realized suddenly that she was freezing cold. She was still wearing the thin cotton nightie she'd gone to bed in. Beneath her back the hard metal floor felt like sheet ice.

Bump.

What was that?

The floor was moving. It vibrated steadily, then every twenty seconds or so, it threw her body upward, like a tossed pancake. Suddenly it dawned on her: A car. I'm in the trunk of a car. I've been kidnapped, and they're taking me somewhere. To their hideout.

If it hadn't been happening to her, it would probably have been exciting. Kidnapping was one of Lexi's favorite games. But this was no game. This was real.

"Get out."

The man wore a mask. Not a ski mask, like bank robbers wore in the movies. A rubber Halloween mask. It made him look like a corpse.

Too consumed with fear and cold to move, Lexi froze. Her eyes widened with terror.

Another voice. "Don't just stand there, man, pick her up. Get her inside before someone shows up."

The corpse reached into the trunk and grabbed hold of Lexi's arms. On instinct, she fought him, kicking and scratching like a wildcat.

"F*ck!" The corpse clutched at his forearm. Her sharp nail had drawn blood. "Little bitch!"

Pulling back his arm, he punched her in the face so hard she blacked out.

Time passed.

She was in a room with no windows. A low-wattage lightbulb burned constantly. Days and nights became one. At first, the pain in her face where the corpse had punched her was unbearable. But gradually it began to subside.

There was a bed in one corner, an old-fashioned porcelain chamber pot and a battered cardboard box containing a few desultory books and toys. The walls were bare, the floor smooth, green linoleum. It felt more like an office than a room in a house. The toys and books were all designed for much younger children.

My kidnappers don't know much about kids.

Fear gave way to boredom. There was nothing to do, nothing to break the monotony of the endless, lonely hours. At regular intervals, a masked man would enter, empty and replace the chamber pot and bring Lexi some food. Her captors never spoke to her, or answered when she spoke to them, but occasionally she heard their dim, muffled voices through the walls.

There were three of them. A leader with a deep voice and a strange, foreign accent, and two others - the corpse and a third man who wore a variety of animal masks, sometimes a pig, sometimes a dog or a snake. It was the third man, animal man, who really frightened her.

He was standing over her bed. He had the pig mask on.

"Make a sound and I'll kill you."

No you won't. If you were going to kill me, you'd have done it by now. You need me alive.

Lexi opened her mouth to scream but it was too late. A huge, hot hand clamped over her mouth. He was on the bed, pushing her down. The weight of him squeezed the breath from her body. One hand still covered her mouth, but Lexi could feel the other clawing beneath her nightgown. NO! A sharp pain between her legs brought tears to her eyes. She tried to move, to struggle, but it was hopeless. She was pinned like a leaf beneath a boulder.

He made strange noises. Deep, guttural groans Lexi had never heard before. The hair on her scalp began to rise with terror. Then suddenly the weight lifted.

Voices.

"What are you doing in there, man?"

It was the leader.

"She ain't due another meal for three hours."

Lexi couldn't see the pig's face, but she could tell he was afraid.

He hissed at her. "One word and I will slit your throat. Understand?"

She nodded.

Agent Andrew Edwards looked at the stack of black-and-white photographs on the table in front of him. It was as thick as a phone book.

"Is this all of them?"

"Yes, sir. That's every warehouse, hangar and industrial facility within a fifteen-mile radius of where the car was dumped."

It was eleven days, four hours and sixteen minutes since Peter Templeton had reported his daughter missing. Agent Edwards had played the tape of Peter's desperate 911 call so many times he could recite it by heart. Nine times out of ten with these child disappearances, the parents ended up being involved. What could you say? It was a sick world. But in this case, Agent Edwards believed the father. Not only did Peter Templeton's distress seem genuine, but the ransom note left under the child's pillow bore all the hallmarks of an organized criminal operation: no fingerprints, typed on the most common Lexmark printer paper, succinct, untraceable.

The Blackwell family had two weeks to transfer $10 million to a numbered account in the Caymans. If they involved the police at any point, the girl would be killed immediately.

Agent Edwards was a Scot by birth but a New Yorker by temperament. He had pale skin, watery amber eyes and hair that couldn't quite make up its mind whether to be blond or red. He loved the Yankees, hated the street gangs and drug dealers that plagued the city and described his yearly vacation to the Jersey Shore as "traveling."

He sighed heavily.

"There must be three hundred facilities here."

"Four hundred twenty."

"Got any good news for me, Agent Jones?"

"As a matter of fact, sir, I do. These" - Agent Edwards's colleague handed his boss a much-thinner manila folder - "are the derelict or deserted premises."

"How many?"

"Only eighteen of 'em." Agent Jones smiled. "I can set up surveillance this afternoon, if you want."

"No. Not yet."

"But, sir, we have less than sixty hours. The deadline - "

"You think I don't know what the damn deadline is?"

Agent Edwards was pissed. What kind of idiots was the Bureau hiring these days? The last thing he wanted was to have every warehouse in New Jersey crawling with feds. If these guys got spooked, they'd kill the kid on the spot.

The Blackwell family had taken a huge risk involving the authorities at all. With their money and connections, they could easily have made the payment quietly and been done with it. Or hired their own private hit men to get these guys.

But they hadn't. They'd come to Agent Edwards with a case that would either make or break his career. Screwing up was not an option.

Finding the kidnappers' car had been a coup. Agent Edwards had matched the DNA on hairs found in the trunk to hairs from Lexi's bedroom pillow. Two voice-distorted phone calls to Peter Templeton's office were probably made from inside a large, industrial structure. The FBI's tech team had analyzed the echo, if you could believe that shit.

But it wasn't enough. Agent Edwards didn't want eighteen targets. He wanted one.

"Send a chopper up. Not too low. It needs to sound like routine air traffic."

"Yes, sir. What are they looking for, exactly?"

Agent Edwards looked at his junior witheringly.

"The Emerald City of Oz. Jesus! Tire tracks, shit-for-brains. They're looking for f*cking tire tracks."

He never wanted to get involved.

He was in a brothel in Phuket when the call came through, enjoying the attentions of a pair of eleven-year-old twins. Pussies so tight they could have cracked hazelnuts, tongues as eager and skillful as any of the high-end hookers he used back home. Bliss.

He loved the Thais. Such an enlightened people.

"Ten million bucks, split three ways. The house has third-world security. Trust me, you'll be taking candy from a baby. Get in, get the kid, get the money, get out."

"I don't need that kind of money."

Laughter. "You don't have to need it. You just have to want it."

"I'm straight now, all right? Find someone else."

He closed his eyes in pleasure as the girls plundered his body with their tongues and fingers. At home, he paid prostitutes to dress up as schoolgirls. But nothing could compare to the real deal: the smooth skin; the hard, budding breasts; the hairless paradise between the legs...

"You know, the little girl is adorable."

The voice on the phone wasn't giving up.

"She's the spitting image of her mother. Everybody says so."

He hesitated. An image of Alexandra Blackwell in her youth popped into his mind. He remembered her well. The long, lithe legs tanned a perfect caramel. The cascade of blond hair. The trembling pale-pink lips, parting, smiling.

Hello, Rory. It's been a long time.

"How old did you say she was?"

One of the Thai twins circled her tongue around his anus. The other opened her mouth, cocooning his balls in a cave of warm, soft wetness. He moaned with pleasure.

"She's eight."

Eight years old.

The spitting image of her mother.

Everybody says so.

"All right. I'll do it. But this is the last - "

He never got to finish. The line had already gone dead.

"Have you found her?"

Peter Templeton clutched Agent Edwards's hand so tightly he nearly cut off the circulation.

Agent Edwards thought: Poor bastard. He's aged ten years in the last two weeks.

"We think so. Yes. A facility in Jersey, near - "

"When are you going in?"

"Tonight. As soon as it's dark."

"Can't you do it now?"

"Tonight will be better. This is the best way, sir. Trust me. We have a lot of experience with hostage situations."

Peter thought: I hope to God he knows what he's doing.

Agent Edwards thought: I hope to God I know what I'm doing.

They both thought: What if they kill her between now and nightfall?

"Try and get some rest, sir. As soon as we hear anything, I'll let you know."

The leader and the other man were angry with the pig. Lexi heard them fighting. She could only make out fragments.

We agreed...Can't control yourself...What if she identifies?

She won't...the mask, man.

Goddamn pedophile...

...How much longer?...I want my money.

Soon...

Two weeks already...If they were gonna pay...

Shut the hell up, man! You'll get your money.

Lexi pressed her face to the door of her cramped cell, straining to hear every word. Not because she was frightened. But because she was determined to glean as much information about her captors as possible. Especially the pig, the man who had hurt her, who had forced his body inside her.

My family will come for me. One day soon, they'll come. Then I'll make that pig suffer for what he did to me.

Her greatest nightmare was not that she might be killed, but that her kidnappers might somehow escape. She mustn't let that happen. They had to be punished.

"Jesus Christ. How much longer?"

Agent Edwards squatted behind an unmarked car in the gathering darkness. Next to him squatted his junior partner, Agent Jones. Behind them crouched Chuck Barclay, the commander of the special Marine Corps unit that was about to lead the rescue operation.

"Twelve minutes." Captain Barclay smiled, a flash of white teeth illuminating his tar-blackened face. He was a small, rather unprepossessing man in his midforties, with a thin wiry body and pinched face; more of a fox terrier than the mastiff that Agent Edwards had been expecting. More worryingly, Barclay's "crack squad" appeared to consist of only five young marines with night-vision goggles and standard-issue handguns. There wasn't an automatic weapon or a hand grenade in sight.

"Barclay's the best," Agent Edwards's boss had assured him.

He'd better be.

The twelve minutes felt like twelve hours. It was a warm, late-summer night, but Agent Edwards could feel the hairs on his arms and neck stand on end. Cold clammy sweat seeped from his pores. His shirt was wet. He noticed Agent Jones was also shivering. The crumbling textile mill on the hill above them was barely discernible in the darkness. Even with the roar of traffic on Route 206 in the distance, it felt like the most desolate place on earth.

Then, suddenly, a movement. Captain Barclay gave a tight nod to his men. Seconds later, as if by magic, they had dispersed across the flat landscape, dropping into the undergrowth like so many silent leaves. It was impressive.

The two FBI agents were alone.

"This is it, sir."

Agent Jones was scared of his boss. Andrews was a moody bastard at the best of times, but the Templeton kidnapping had them all on a knife's edge.

"Yes, Jones. This is it."

"It'll be okay, sir. Everybody says these guys are the best."

"Hmm."

"According to reconnaissance - "

"Shhh." Agent Edwards put his finger to his lips. "Did you hear that?"

"What, sir?"

"Gunfire."

"I didn't hear a s - "

There was a blinding flash of light. A noise like a lion's roar but hundreds, thousands of times louder, erupted around them. Instinctively both men covered their ears and dived for the ground.

"What the...?" Agent Jones's ears were ringing. He could taste earth and grass and dust in his mouth.

"Bomb! Stay down!"

Another roar. Deafening, like being sucked up into a thunder cloud. Flames were visible at the top of the rise. The mill was lit up in an impromptu son et lumi??re. It was eerily beautiful.

Agent Edwards fumbled beneath his sodden shirt for his gun.

"Call for backup. I'm going up there."

"Sir, no! You can't. You don't know what's going on - that building might collapse at any minute."

Like my career, if I don't get that Templeton kid out of there alive.

"Just make the call!" Agent Edwards shouted over his shoulder. A third explosion swallowed his words whole. Agent Jones dived for cover again.

By the time he opened his eyes, his boss was gone.

Lexi had just finished eating when she heard the first gunshot. She knew instantly what it was.

They're here! They've come for me! I knew they would.

Thirty seconds later, the door to her room swung open. It was the leader, the foreigner. He must have had no time to grab a mask. A hastily tied scarf covered only the bottom half of his face.

"Get over here. Now!"

Curly brown hair. Brown eyes. Not many lines: he's young, younger than the pig. Pinkie ring. Small scar above the left eyebrow.

"NOW!"

Lexi stayed where she was. She pretended to be too terrified to move, but inside she felt elated. She watched the leader hesitate. The third man, the corpse who hit her in the face the day they brought her here, appeared in the doorway behind him.

"Leave her, man! I set the traps. Let's get out of here."

"Jeez, Bill, we can't just leave her. The place is gonna blow."

Bill. The corpse's name is Bill.

"You want her, you take her. I'm outta here."

Lexi saw him run away. Good-bye, Bill.

The leader hovered helplessly for a moment, then took a step toward her. Lexi stepped back.

He doesn't seem like much of a leader now. I can see the fear in his eyes.

"Fine. Have it your way. Stay here and burn."

He turned and ran after his friend.

Lexi waited until the sound of their footsteps faded. Then she stepped out of the room.

It was the first time she had ventured beyond her cell door since they brought her here, whenever that was. Days ago, weeks, months? She found herself standing in a narrow corridor that opened out after about ten feet into a vast, derelict space, like an airplane hangar. But she had no curiosity about her surroundings. She wasn't even looking for her rescuers.

She was looking for the pig.

Where is he? Has he gotten away already? Please don't let him escape.

Another brief volley of gunfire on the other side of the building caught her attention. Lexi turned toward it and froze. A giant fireball was hurtling toward her.

Like a comet in a bowling alley. And I'm the pin.

She was so surprised, she forgot to be afraid. After that it was all a blur.

Flames, everywhere. Glass and brick and wood falling from the ceiling. Walls folding, melting in the searing heat. Then a single, deafening BOOM, so loud not even the earth could contain it.

It was the last sound Lexi Templeton heard.