"When this is over," he said, "I"m going to take you away, Katie Rush. Someplace tropical, where bikinis are formal wear and a full meal is a mai tai and a banana. And I"m going to make you forget every moment in your life that"s ever hurt you."
He had no idea what prompted him to say it. It wasn"t calculated; it wasn"t smooth; it came out rough and unprepared but from the heart. Her eyes widened, and she shot him another very fast glimpse.
There was a whole world in that look. A universe.
"I"ll hold you to that," Katie said, very softly.
He held out his hand. She took it, and the warmth and strength of her fingers made something wounded in him begin to heal.
"Then let"s finish this," he said. "Because I can"t wait to see you in a bikini."
"You"ve seen me in less," she reminded him.
"Not in the last hour. I think it should be a rule that I see you naked every hour."
She lost her smile, and her gaze fixed straight ahead. "We"re getting close," she said. "Stefan, promise me you won"t let Teal drag you in again. Promise me."
Because she was afraid that now, if they were cornered, Teal could be hurt badly, maybe killed. She was afraid that might hurt him, too, maybe fatally...and he couldn"t be sure of anything, at this point. His physical reactions were getting worse, and clearly Teal didn"t know, or couldn"t control the effect she was having on him.
Then you have to control it. After all, he was the adult.
"I can"t promise," he said. "She may need me."
Katie"s eyes glittered briefly, but she didn"t look at him again, and she reclaimed her hand from his to handle the shifting duties. The rest of the drive-and it was short and fast-pa.s.sed in tense silence. He kept his mind still, listening for any hint that Teal might be trying to send to him, but he felt and heard nothing.
Maybe they"d finally knocked the girls out. He wondered why they hadn"t done it earlier.
"I have to make a guess," Katie said. "Would they go to the public-access areas, or do they have some kind of private shipping ready for the girls?"
"It"s not much of a guess, is it?"
"No," she said. "The way these b.a.s.t.a.r.ds planned things, they wouldn"t take the risk of bringing the girls through any public areas. Lena and Teal are too resourceful, and Lena in particular is too recognizable. So we look at commercial shipping."
"That"s a problem. There"s about eight million containers that come and go from this port every year. Right now, there are probably at least twelve thousand containers sitting on the docks."
"But how many of them are outbound?"
Stefan thought about it. "Less than half that many. If I had to guess, I"d say between three and four thousand."
"But that"s shipping containers. How many ships?"
He shrugged. "Couple of hundred in docks right now, probably. Rule out the cruise ships and other pa.s.senger vessels and you"re looking at maybe a hundred to a hundred and fifty cargo and commercial vessels." She shot him a look that clearly asked how he knew. Stefan smiled. "Didn"t my father tell you I was a born gypsy? I"ve spent most of my life on the streets. You pick up all kinds of knowledge. That"s courtesy of some dock work I did a few years ago."
"Dock work," she repeated. "You?"
He shrugged. "I was researching some ideas for a new network show, and I had to try it out. Tough guys down there, but they have good hearts."
Stefan sensed that he"d once again tilted her perceptions of him off-center. He smiled again, this time to himself. Keep surprising her, he told himself. She can"t resist a mystery.
And he wanted to keep her interested in him, wanted that in ways he"d never wanted a woman before. Not just physically, but in his soul.
"Bridge coming up," she said.
"Go over the bridge. It"ll dump you out on Seaside."
"Where do I go from there?"
"Katie-" He hesitated for a second, then said, "Follow your instincts. I told my dad you were a precog, and I meant it. You"ve been right at every step-more right than anybody else. It"s time to let yourself believe in your own abilities. Have faith in yourself."
"I"m not psychic, Stefan!"
"Then how did you know? How did you know they"d switched the girls out of the van? Your friend on the phone said there was no evidence the girls had been moved at all, everyone else agreed, but you knew, Katie. Didn"t you?"
Her knuckles whitened on the Jaguar"s leather-wrapped steering wheel. "It was a guess."
"Then guess now. But don"t doubt yourself. Just do it."
She didn"t say a word in response. The Jaguar rocketed over the Vincent Thomas Bridge, over the iron-gray waters of the Main Channel, and Stefan caught sight of helicopters above. Police helicopters, two of them. He pointed, and Katie nodded, lips compressed into a straight line.
"Right or left?" she asked as they exited from the bridge, and Seaside stretched across in front of the hood of the car. "Stefan! Right or left!"
He folded his arms. "You decide."
She glared at him, then whipped the steering to the right. "I have no idea what"s this way."
"Just keep following your instincts. Trust me, Katie. I know you can do it."
She was utterly furious with him, but she drove without argument, following the curve of the road and ending again on Seaside Street. The entire area was commercial, some of it taken up by old cannery factories, many still operational. The smell of the docks. .h.i.t Stefan with a vengeance, and he tried to remember anything that could have been helpful.
There was no sign of the FBI this direction. The police helicopters were hovering over a spot at least half a mile distant.
"They"ve got the wrong truck," he said. "We"re on our own."
"Maybe I"m the one who"s completely wrong!"
"No," Stefan said with absolute certainty. "You"re not wrong. Trust yourself. Trust me."
She muttered something about gypsy psychics and their high opinions of themselves, which made him smile, and suddenly braked and downshifted the car to a crawl. Her head snapped around to look at a completely nondescript warehouse behind a closed and locked chain-link fence.
"Stefan," she said slowly. "I think-can you reach Teal? See if we"re close?"
He closed his eyes and opened up, opened fully, and felt a tentative brush against his mind.
Teal. She was awake-drugged, scared, sick, but awake. The vision he got from her was a confusing blur, but enough. Just enough.
Stefan opened his eyes and said, "We"re here. They"re inside the warehouse. There"s a ship docking outside. They"re going to load the girls...o...b..ard."
Katie stopped, handed Stefan the cell phone and said, "Stay in the car." She reached under her jacket and removed her pistol, checked the clip and safety, and made sure that her extra clips were ready to hand. "Call the Port Police and the FBI-the task force is the last call, so just redial. Get backup here as soon as possible. Tell them I have a visual on the girls."
"Wait, Katie-"
"Stefan." She already had the car door open. Even though she was physically next to him, she was already in the warehouse in every other way. "Every second counts. I won"t put myself at risk, but I have to do this."
"Let me-"
"No. Stay."
She slammed the door. Stefan cursed and opened his pa.s.senger-side door, got out and stood there as Katie vaulted athletically up the chain-link fence, expertly climbing and avoiding the razor wire at the top. She dropped down lightly on the other side, pulled her service weapon and ghosted away into the shadows.
Stefan"s fingers located the slender picklocks sewn into the cuffs of his silk shirt. Habit, but he never went anywhere without them.... Street magic was preparation meeting opportunity, and he was always prepared.
The lock on the gate took seconds.
He was no precog-he was happy to leave that to his mother-but there had been something not quite right about the vision he"d had from Teal. Something she"d only glimpsed, something he hadn"t properly interpreted.
He had to warn Katie, once it came clear.
Katie eased around the corner of the rust-and-aluminum warehouse, listening to the constant din of the port in the background.... Shrill beeps for loading equipment in operation, deep booming ba.s.so ship horns, metal banging on metal, and under it all, the constant hushing rush of the sea. Too much information. Too easy for something to be hidden.
There was a door at the side, partly ajar. She stopped when she saw it, frowning. In her experience, bad guys were more paranoid than good guys, and with better reasons. Leaving a door open at a critical moment like this? A very bad sign...for her.
She no longer doubted that she was in the right place. Her entire nervous system was sparking warnings to her. Beyond the warehouse, on the water, she saw a boat riding the waves at anchor, docked in close. Time was running out, if Stefan was right. If she was right.
She pulled back silently from the invitingly open door and retreated, went around the other side and found some grimy windows offering a dim view of the interior. Junk, mostly-a few wrecked boats being scavenged for parts, nameless pieces of rusted metal and pipe.
But near the open back sliding door, a cl.u.s.ter of people, and two kneeling figures.
It was her first physical look at the hostages, and her heart kicked into high gear, hammering her pulse in her temples. Save them. You have to save them. But the odds were bad, and getting worse; three armed HTs that she could see, and at least two more, according to Stefan"s visions, who were missing from view. Not counting the crew of the ship, who almost certainly would be armed and wouldn"t hesitate to shoot.
One agent alone wasn"t going to be enough. She"d have to wait for backup.
She was starting to retreat when she spotted the broken window. It was in the junkyard part of the warehouse, and it gaped and flapped gently in the chilly sea breeze. She stared at it for a few seconds, then moved silently up to check the access. It looked clear, and it would give her a better vantage point; she"d be able to cover the other agents who arrived.
Getting through the window was a challenge, not so much for the awkward angle but the need for absolute silence. She managed, holding her breath at even the slightest sc.r.a.pe of gla.s.s under her feet, and counted to ten before she moved, very carefully, deeper into the shadows.
There was still no sign of the other two hostage takers that Stefan had seen in the visions.... Maybe they"d dropped off, or maybe they had other duties elsewhere. It was only the three silhouetted in the far end of the warehouse, and the two kneeling girls. Katie took a position behind a rusting ship"s prow, a ma.s.sive piece of metal, and checked her firing angles. I can take them, she thought, and felt the back of her neck tighten up. It was against all her training, all her instincts to act alone, but it might also be necessary.
She took aim, but before she could fire, someone grabbed her bodily from behind, lifted her and flung her to the gritty concrete floor. She hit hard, rolled and tried to bring up her gun, but no further a.s.sault followed; the figure backed off and dived for the ground himself.
Stefan. He"d tackled her, and she"d been about to- About to get her head blown off, apparently. A hail of gunfire erupted an instant later, sparking hot from the iron hull she"d been intending to use for cover...and the bullets were coming from behind her.
She"d been taken. Badly.
"Trap," Stefan gasped, and inched closer for cover. A bullet pinged off of a giant metal flywheel not a foot away, and he went flat and motionless.
"I see that!" Katie retorted. She got the flywheel between her and the incoming fire, waited for a lull, and lunged up to fire where she"d seen muzzle flashes in the dark. Two hits, she was sure, from the m.u.f.fled screams. Nonfatal, obviously. More fire came her way, and she ducked and put herself between Stefan and the bullets, acutely aware that this time she was without the protection of a vest. "Did you get through? Call for backup?"
"I had to warn you!"
"I"ll take that as a no," she said grimly. "Call now."
He did. She continued to fire, putting every round where she wanted it into the dark, until finally the bullets stopped coming her way.
She crab-crawled to look around the iron hull, which blocked her view of the back dock. As she"d expected, the girls were gone. So were the hostage-takers.
"Backup"s coming," Stefan said. He was still down on the floor where she"d pushed him, phone clutched in his hand.
"Good. Stay there. I mean it."
Katie made a zigzag pattern from cover to cover, heading for the spots she"d mentally marked as hostiles; she found the first man, turned him over and felt for a pulse. Nothing. He"d bled out from a hit to his femoral artery. The second one was dead, as well-a lucky head shot; he hadn"t felt a thing, most likely.
The third was gone, as well, but the fourth was still struggling for breath. He was a thin black man, just a kid really, bone-hard but scared beneath it, and he was dying.
Katie removed his weapon first, safetied her own, and then put pressure on his chest wound. "Stefan!" she yelled. "Ambulance, now!" Frankly, she didn"t care just now about the man"s life-adrenaline made you selfish that way-but she did care that he was a potential source of information. "Get over here and put pressure on this!"
He was there in seconds. She grabbed his hands and pressed them down, showing him how, then darted away again, using cover all the way to the back doors that opened on to the dock.
The ship was already well away. She aimed, but there were no clear targets, and firing blind could hurt the girls as much as their captors.
The name on it was the Ramona Lou. She committed it to memory, gazed after it for a long, furious second, then turned and went back into the warehouse.
Stefan was talking to the prisoner in that low, soothing voice of his, but he stopped as she approached and looked up. The question on his face was clear. She shook her head grimly, and the light died in his eyes.
"The FBI is on the way," Stephen said. "His name is Lial. Lial Davenport. I know him."
"You what?" she asked sharply.
"I know him. He"s GD-Gangster Disciples. They"re probably all GD. Hired guns. I told you, I spend a lot of time on the streets, not just in Venice. I know most of the gang leaders, one way or another."
So someone-probably Timmons Kent, again-had hired the Gangster Disciples to take out anyone who tried to stop the HTs from shipping the girls out of the country. The open door had been a trap, but so had the open window. It was a killing field, and if Stefan hadn"t knocked her out of the way...
Stefan chose that moment to look up at her.
"You should have called for backup," she said. "Those girls were more important than my life."
He froze for a second, then said, "I had to make a choice. I made it."
"You were wrong. And now those girls are gone. And G.o.d help us if we lose that ship."
"I can contact Teal-"
"They know!" Katie shouted it at him, almost screamed it in her fury and black frustration. "They know about you, Stefan, that"s why they tried to take you out twice already. Now they"re manipulating your visions. They used you to get us here, to try to kill us. You"re a liability to the investigation now!"
He looked away, down at the boy whose life was in his hands. "I"m not apologizing for saving you," he said. "You are worth saving, Katie."
Not right now, she wasn"t. She didn"t want to be.
She"d failed.