The Sharpshooter's Secret Son Read online

  She knew one thing though. If she admitted to James that Deke had no idea where Rook was, then James would come to the same conclusion she had. They’d be of no more use to him.

  Finally he spoke. “Do you believe him?”

  Slowly, deliberately, she met Frank James’s gaze. “No,” she said.

  James’s eyes twinkled and his mouth twitched. For the life of her Mindy couldn’t figure out if he was amused by her or pleased that he’d gotten her to tell the truth.

  “Why should I believe you?”

  “Men care about country. About honor. About freedom. They will die for any of those things.” She took a long breath. “But I’m a woman. There are only two things I would die for,” she said evenly, as she cradled her stomach. “My child and Deke. And I don’t want to die.”

  James laughed. “Well said, Mrs. Cunningham.”

  “So you’ll bring Deke to me?”

  “I’ll let you know.” James turned and left through the door.

  “Wait!” she cried. “You’re underestimating me. I can make him tell. Please wait!”

  But the door closed with an unmistakable finality. James wasn’t coming back. Not anytime soon.

  DEKE RAISED HIS HEAD, wondering if he’d been asleep or if he’d passed out. Either way, his head felt heavy and swollen, and his eyes stung with the clammy sweat that poured off his forehead.

  For a couple of seconds, he wasn’t sure where he was. He tried to lift a hand to wipe his face, and found out he couldn’t. He was tied up—again.

  The memories came back. He and Mindy were prisoners of a ridiculous costumed cowboy who called himself Frank James, and who so far hadn’t admitted that he was working for Novus Ordo. He was, though. Deke was sure of it.

  He almost laughed. Were these knots going to be as easy to undo as the others were? Not a chance. As weak and sick as he felt, he wouldn’t be able to untie a birthday bow.

  He was sitting in a hard wooden chair behind a desk. He looked down and saw that his left hand was tied to the chair’s arm.

  He glanced at his right hand, which was lashed to the opposite chair arm. It was red with blood from the slash on his forearm. He stared at the bandaged wound.

  How had that happened? He had a vague recollection of a hand slashing through the air and burning pain, but that was all. No face. No name.

  He did remember the bandage. It was his shirt—a brand-new white dress shirt. Mindy had torn it apart to fashion the makeshift bandage.

  It had served fairly well. The material still partially covered the wound, but here and there, where the blood-soaked strips had slipped, he could see the jagged, inflamed edges of the wound.

  He blinked, trying to clear the stinging sweat from his eyes, and noticed that his fingers were moving. Was he doing that? He really didn’t know.

  He looked up, seeking the source of light in the room. It was a lamp, with only one bare bulb in it, sitting on the scarred wooden desk. It provided very little light—just enough for him to make out what was around him.

  The big desk, of course, which sat directly across the room from the door. And the lamp, an old-fashioned leather desk blotter that held a 1959 calendar from Sundance Printing Company, and a pen stand with a wooden fountain pen. There were several ink stains on the polished surface of the desk.

  Heavy, dark curtains covered the windows behind him, so he assumed he was aboveground. Probably the mine foreman’s office, or maybe the office of the hotel manager.

  On either side of the door were ancient, dusty barrister bookcases stuffed full of old books, folders and stacks of paper. Mindy would have a fit. She loved old books.

  His mouth turned up in a wry smile. Mindy. He’d have to tell her about the bookcases, once they were safe.

  All at once, the significance of those last words hit him. Once they were safe. That meant they weren’t—Mindy wasn’t.

  Now he remembered, and all his scattered thoughts began to coalesce. He’d come here to rescue Mindy. They’d been trapped in an abandoned mine, and Frank James had cut him with his own knife.

  More memories assaulted his brain. He’d gone looking for a way out of the mine, but he’d run into a cave-in. Then when he got back to where he’d left Mindy, she was gone, captured again by Frank James.

  The sound of the hammer clicking against metal rang in his ears. The sound of one more day.

  No. Not one more day. One more hour.

  He didn’t have a day because within a few minutes someone was going to walk in here with a heavy hammer and smash one of his fingers.

  Then a half hour after that, they were going to play Russian roulette with Mindy again.

  He wished he knew how long he’d been here. If he hadn’t passed out, maybe he could have figured out a plan to get out of here and save Mindy.

  Mindy didn’t deserve any of this. She was innocent. As innocent as a newborn baby.

  Baby. Deke blinked slowly and felt himself drifting off to sleep again.

  If he could just wipe his eyes. They stung and itched like fire, until he couldn’t think of anything else.

  He lifted his hand and rediscovered that it wouldn’t lift. He wiggled his fingers, idly wondering which one they’d break first. He shuddered with anticipated pain.

  It hardly mattered. He just wished they’d come and get it over with. Then he could stop worrying about it and think about rescuing Mindy.

  He drummed his fingers, one at a time, on the wooden desk and sleepily chanted, “One, two, three four five. Once I caught a fish alive.” He started over. “Six, seven, eight nine ten. Then I let him go again. One, two—”

  He heard something and froze, with his third, fourth and fifth fingers in the air.

  He didn’t move for a long time, but nothing else happened. It must have been the wooden beams creaking, or a clod of dirt falling.

  One, two, three four five—

  He shook his head. He had to get that annoying nursery rhyme out of his head.

  Maybe he should search the room for hidden cameras. He wasn’t sure what good finding them would do him, but at least he’d be doing something, rather than drifting off into unconsciousness.

  While they were in the air force, Matt Parker had developed a foolproof visual search grid for assessing the danger points in a specified terrain. Maybe he could use the same principle to search this room for a camera.

  He quelled the voice in his head that kept trying to chant the nursery rhyme and concentrated on the grid. He was almost done when he heard the doorknob rattle.

  The wooden door swung open with a loud creak.

  It was Frank James. And one of the soldiers was with him. The soldier held a hammer.

  “Here we are, Cunningham. Ready to make good on our promise.” James grinned, showing crooked teeth. “Got anything to say? Or should we just get to it.”

  “By all means, go ahead,” Deke said hoarsely. “I’ve got nothing to say.”

  James nodded at the other man, who stepped up to the chair. He was holding a small sledgehammer—probably six pounds. Enough to make mush out of his fingers.

  The soldier took a balanced stance, then reared back like a baseball player, holding the hammer in both hands, and prepared to swing.

  Deke wanted more than anything in the world to look James in the eye as the hammer came down on his hand, but he couldn’t stop himself from cringing.

  He closed his eyes and clenched his jaw so he wouldn’t scream.

  “Wait!”

  Deke jerked at the single explosive word. Sweat rolled off his forehead and into his eyes.

  James had stopped the soldier.

  A painful spasm of reaction shrieked through his arm, from the shoulder all the way down to his fingers.

  “Sorry about that, Cunningham, I almost forgot something.” James smiled. “How would you like to see your wife?”

  Deke swallowed bile and opened his eyes to a slit. “What are you talking about?” he asked, his stomach churning with worry. What was J
ames up to now?

  “I’m asking you a simple question. Your wife begged me not to break your fingers. Begged me to let her see you. She said she had something to say to you.”

  There was no way Deke was going to trust James. “What did you do to her?” He sat up as straight as he could and clenched his teeth against the dizziness that threatened to spin his head right off.

  “Do to her? Me? Nothing. I told you my plan. You know exactly what I planned to do. But Mrs. Cunningham is so sweet and lovely, I couldn’t deny her request.”

  “Great. I want to see her, too.” Deke spoke in a toneless, measured voice. He wasn’t sure what James was up to, but whatever it was, he knew it was designed to get him to waver.

  And it had probably been planned by Novus.

  Rather than ask James more questions, Deke closed his eyes. “I’m not feeling too good, so whatever you’ve got planned, can you hurry up? I’m pretty sure I’m in danger of bleeding to death, and I would definitely like to see my wife before I die.”

  “Your ex-wife,” James corrected him. He nodded at the soldier who set the sledgehammer down and left the room.

  “I’ve got a message for you to give Novus,” Deke said, as soon as the man left.

  James waved a hand dismissively. “I have no idea what you’re talking about, but fine. Give me the message. I’m sure it’ll be funny.”

  “You tell Novus Ordo he made a mistake when he targeted my friends and my wife. He’s dealt with me before and he knows I mean what I say. Tell him if it’s the last thing I do on this earth, I’m coming to get him.”

  James chuckled. “That is funny. You’re talking about Novus Ordo, the international terrorist? That’s some imagination you’ve got.”

  James bent down until he was mere inches away from Deke’s face. “Now let me give you a message. You think you’re so smart? You don’t know anything. Treating me like I’m nobody? You’ll soon find out just who I am, and when you do, I’m going to be right here, in your face. And I’ll make you sorry you didn’t respect me.”

  Through the haze that kept drifting in front of his eyes, Deke stared at James’s thin, weaselly face and dark, beady eyes.

  He closed his eyes, trying to give James the impression that he was totally bored with his threat while he drew on his memory, conjuring up the likeness of Novus Ordo that Rook had described to the facial recognition artist for the CIA.

  James had to be related to Novus. Deke could believe he was Novus, except that Novus was too smart to place himself smack in the middle of a terrorist plot in the U.S.

  He squeezed his eyes shut tighter, and a splash of reddish stars appeared before his closed eyelids. He squinted open one eye and saw that James had straightened and was watching him with a vicious hatred.

  He drew a deep breath, then another, trying to ward off the loss of consciousness with an overload of oxygen. It helped a little.

  The doorknob turned, and the soldier was back with Mindy in tow. Her hands were still tied behind her back.

  When she saw Deke, her face turned white and she swayed. The soldier tightened his hold on her arm.

  “Deke. Did he—?” Her eyes flew to his bound hands, then to his face. As soon as she looked into his eyes, she relaxed. “Oh, thank God.”

  James gestured to a straight-backed chair on the other side of the desk. “Here you are, Mrs. Cunningham.”

  “For heaven’s sake, give my husband some water,” Mindy cried. “He’s about to pass out. He’s lost too much blood. He needs fluids. Where’s that nurse of yours?”

  James nodded at the soldier, who turned and left the room.

  “Are you okay?” Deke asked her.

  “For now,” she said. “The medication they gave me did stop the contractions, at least so far.”

  The man dressed in desert camo was back almost immediately with a big jar of water. James took it from him and held it to Deke’s lips. He wasn’t careful, and a lot of the liquid spilled down Deke’s bare chest and torso, but Deke managed to gulp down at least a pint’s worth.

  He did feel better immediately. It washed the haze from his brain and the heaviness from his eyelids and limbs.

  “Now that we’ve provided room service, take her and tie her to that straight-backed chair,” James instructed his sidekick.

  “Please don’t,” she begged him. “I’m so sick. If the contractions start again, I’ll need to lie down. Tie my hands in front of me, but please don’t tie me to that chair. If I go into labor, I have to be able to move or—” Her eyes filled with tears. “Or,” she sobbed. “I’m going to lose my baby.”

  James rolled his eyes. “Fine. You’ll have your hands tied in front and you won’t be tied down. So let me save you some trouble, Mrs. Cunningham. There’s no need for you to go exploring around the room. It’s been completely cleaned out. There’s nothing in here you can use as a weapon. Nothing that you can cut your ropes with. I’d hate for anything to happen to your kid. I’ve only got so much patience. If you or Cunningham try anything, I’ll go back to my original plan—with one change.”

  He looked at Deke, then at her. “Instead of breaking his fingers, I think I’ll just go ahead and cut ’em off. I’ve got a cigar cutter that ought to do the trick just fine.”

  Mindy swayed. Only the man’s hand on her arm kept her from falling.

  “For God’s sake, James. What did you bring her here for? There’s no reason she has to go through this.”

  “I’ll let her tell you why she’s here.” He turned to his sidekick. “Tie her hands in front of her.”

  “Not tie to the chair?” the man asked in broken English.

  “No.” James half turned toward the door. “Goodbye, Mrs. Cunningham. I’ll be looking forward to talking with you. I’ll see both of you in one hour.”

  The door closed quietly behind them as they left.

  Mindy opened her mouth to speak, but Deke shook his head.

  “Wait,” he mouthed.

  She nodded.

  Deke waited a full five minutes—probably more. He counted to sixty five times, then added another sixty for a buffer, in case he’d counted too fast.

  Meeting Mindy’s gaze, he motioned with his head for her to come over to his chair.

  She slowly pushed herself up out of the straight-backed chair and walked over to stand in front of him.

  “Lean down,” he whispered.

  As soon as he smelled her tangerine scent and felt her hair soft and tickly against his lips, he whispered, “I’ve grid-searched the room. I’m pretty sure there are no cameras, but there could be recording devices. So play along with the things I say out loud, and whisper to answer my whispers. Do you still have the knife?”

  She nodded, pointing to her breasts where she’d hidden it before.

  “Good girl.” Then he said aloud, “Why did James say he’d let you tell me why he brought you here?”

  “Deke, please,” Mindy answered, as she worked to retrieve the knife with her bound hands. “I was so worried about you. I was afraid they’d broken your fingers. Tell him what he wants to know. He’ll let us go.”

  She finally had the knife in her hands. She pushed the button that snicked the blade into place.

  Deke indicated his hands with a nod. “I was telling the truth. Are you saying you don’t believe me?”

  Mindy quickly cut the ropes binding his hands to the chair. He flexed his left hand, then his right.

  “How can I believe you? You’ve lied to me over and over again.” Mindy’s eyes filled with tears and she shook her head.

  Deke knew she was apologizing for saying those things to him, but he also knew he deserved them. He hadn’t lied overtly to her, but he’d lied by omission, time and time again.

  “I’m sorry, Min. I never meant to hurt you.”

  She blinked and the tears fell down her cheeks.

  Taking the knife, he slipped it between her hands and cut the ropes binding her.

  “Deke, tell me what you know. I kno
w you haven’t been truthful with James. Why would you, after what he’s done to us?”

  “You think I know something about Rook? Hell, Mindy. He was my best friend, and Novus had him killed. Even if I did know anything, I wouldn’t tell that slimy terrorist.”

  She leaned closer. “What now?” she whispered.

  “Do you know what time it is?” he whispered back to her.

  She looked at him in surprise. “About three-thirty. Why?”

  He shook his head. He wasn’t about to tell her what he had planned. “And today is Saturday?”

  She nodded in answer. “But Deke,” she said out loud, “if Novus had Rook killed, why is he doing this? Why does he think Rook might still be alive?”

  “The same reason Irina couldn’t give up. Because they never recovered a body. Novus must not trust his sniper’s aim. Besides, don’t you think if Rook were still alive, he’d have contacted Irina? Do you think he’d have let her believe he was dead all this time?”

  Mindy stared at Deke. She’d never thought about that before. What if Rook were alive? “He could have been horribly wounded and didn’t want her to see him. Or maybe he has amnesia.”

  Deke frowned at her, but made a sound like a laugh. “All right, Mindy. Back off the romancing.”

  But her brain was racing. If Novus’s man had killed Rook, wouldn’t he have known it? Wouldn’t the body have surfaced eventually? “Maybe Rook is hiding. Maybe he’s alive, but he wants Novus to think he’s dead. Maybe he’s out there searching for Novus.”

  Deke pulled his right arm into his side and sent a scowl her way. “What was in that medicine they gave you? You’re getting ridiculous. Rook is dead, and Novus holding a gun to my head or yours isn’t going to change that.”

  Chapter Eleven

  “Okay, it’s done. I’ve worked out a way to get past security and into the house. It’s going to be very tricky, though, so we probably ought to use it as a last resort.”

  “Last resort? What good is a last resort if we don’t have a first resort?”

  “That’s just it. I’m working on something else. It’ll be much cleaner and less risky. Tomorrow is Irina’s regular monthly visit to the Children’s Burn Center. She never misses going when she’s in town. She’ll probably get one of the specialists to drive her. I’m sure that’s how Cunningham told her to handle it.”