A man’s voice, somewhere in the dark and the choking dust. No concern in his tone. Just flat assessment.
Dryden cracked his eyes. He was lying in the half-crushed cab of the Land Rover, which lay on its roof. Claire’s midsection was beside him; someone had dragged her halfway out of the wreck. Flashlight beams cut through the dust—a talclike powder in the air, probably from the air bags. Ragged scraps of plastic hung from the blown-open steering wheel and the passenger-side dashboard.
The hard plastic case with the strange machine inside it lay next to him. Through the closed lid he could faintly hear it still working, the static hissing out through the seam.
“Wake up,” the man outside said.
A slapping sound followed, a hand to a face, over and over. A different man laughed, high and jittery.
Claire murmured in response to the slapping. She took a sharp breath. The laughter continued another few seconds.
Dryden’s head cleared the rest of the way.
The Berettas. Where were they? Claire had stowed them behind the seat after they left the trailer, but now—
The answer came by way of a metallic clatter, someone fishing something out of the crushed vehicle, just behind Dryden.
“That’s two weapons,” a man said. “I don’t see anything else.”
“He awake in there?”
“He’s coming around.”
“Who the hell is he?”
“Get him out of there, let’s see.”
Four different voices—two on each side of the vehicle.
A second later, hands gripped Dryden’s ankles and pulled. He slid out into the clear air and the darkness, the flashlight beams blinding him. Through their glare he saw a rifle aimed down on him, far enough out of reach that he could make no move against it. Smart men. Well-trained men, anyway.
Someone rolled him over and patted his pockets. Found his wallet and then his keys, and took both. One of the light beams swung away as the man flipped open the wallet and studied his ID.
Dryden turned and stared through the blown-out window frames of the flipped SUV. The dust inside had mostly cleared. He could see all the way through and out the far side, where Claire was now fully conscious. It looked like she had a bullet graze across the back of one hand—the one she’d had on the steering wheel—but no other visible injury.
“I got his name,” the man above Dryden said. “Want me to call it in?”
“Not out here.” This voice belonged to the first man who’d spoken, standing over Claire on the other side of the Land Rover. He seemed to be in charge. “Throwaway phones or not, they don’t want the cops tracking anything at this site. Keep them switched off until you’re on a freeway.”
“What do we do with him?” the man with Dryden’s wallet asked.
The leader was silent for a few seconds, thinking. Then: “They want the girl taken to the interrogation site, but they want the thing in the hardcase brought directly to them. So we’ll take the girl, and you take the case. Take the man with you; they can decide what to do with him. Use his vehicle, it’s not damaged.”
A third man spoke up. “We need to go. Dispatch keeps trying to raise that cop. Every minute we spend out here—”
“We’re set,” the leader said. “Move.”
The man crouched down over Claire, wrenched her arms behind her back, and zip-tied her wrists. Then he and the other man on that side of the Land Rover hoisted her up by her arms and dragged her away toward a vehicle Dryden could just make out: an open-top Jeep Wrangler.
The man standing over Dryden pocketed his wallet, then squatted down and grabbed his forearms; he shoved them together behind Dryden’s back. Five feet away, the man with the rifle repositioned, keeping his friend out of the line of fire and the barrel squarely on Dryden’s center of mass. Dryden felt a zip-tie encircle his wrists and pull tight enough to dig into the skin. Finally the second man lowered the gun. He crouched at the Land Rover’s passenger window and pulled the hard plastic case out into the light.
*
They marched him back toward his Explorer at nearly a jog, keeping one of the Berettas tight against his rib cage. The Jeep Wrangler started up before they’d gone even ten paces; Dryden craned his neck and watched it go. It pulled around in a tight arc and raced away southbound on 395.
The pistol barrel dug into him like a spur. “Move, goddammit.”
He picked up his speed. He had his own reasons to go as fast as possible, but it was just fine to let them think he was compliant.