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  He looked at the latest picture and what he saw turned his stomach. This was just senseless brutality. No one had refused to pay the ransom. None of the three men contacted had even caused a problem. So why rough up the hostages? Just for kicks?

  “Try replying to them again,” he told Pelley.

  “Why? It won’t go through.”

  “Just do it, damn it,” he said through gritted teeth. He nodded to the tech sitting beside the desk, who typed commands on a keyboard sitting in front of him.

  Pelley typed a message and hit the Send key. Immediately he got the same bounce-back notice.

  “I told you,” he snapped.

  Delaware looked at his tech but the man shook his head. “They’re shutting down on the other end as soon as the email goes. Maybe even deleting the email address and just reinstalling it to send each message.”

  “So you can’t find out where it’s coming from?”

  “Not unless they stay on longer after they send their message.”

  The email was, once again, very brief, outlining the next step in the process of ransoming the hostages.

  “Bearer bonds,” Delaware said, reading the email again. “Well, now we know how he plans to get around wire transfers.”

  “I don’t understand,” Pelley said, reading the email. “Why the hell does he want bearer bonds?”

  “Because he’s smart,” Delaware told him. “Whoever this is, he knows we can easily check wire transfers, find out not just where the money comes from but also who receives it. That’s why he doesn’t want the money just transferred into an account.”

  “I thought all accounts were numbered? That the owners had anonymity?”

  “We can still trace the transaction. Eventually that money’s going to have to find a home and we’ll be there with a welcoming committee. But it could take forever and by the time we identify the account holder, that person could be long gone. He avoids all that with blank bearer bonds that anyone can cash.”

  Pelley frowned. “Won’t the same thing happen with bearer bonds?”

  Delaware shook his head. “They can cash these anywhere in the world. Any time they want to. We’d need an army of agents to cover every bank to catch them exchanging the bonds for money.”

  “They still haven’t told us how and when they want us to make the exchange. Damn it.” He smacked his fist on the desk. “I’ve got enough liquid cash together now but I can’t get the bearer bonds taken care of until morning. They have to know that. And how are we supposed to get the bonds to them without you guys waiting to pick off whoever receives them?”

  “Because if they follow the pattern,” Delaware explained, “that person will just be a gofer. The hostages won’t be released until the leader of whichever cartel is doing this safely has them in his hands.”

  “Can’t you follow the gofer?”

  “Not if they split over the border. And I promise you they won’t be using any border crossing with uniformed guards and legal processing.”

  Delaware took a moment to check with Carver and Hopewell again to get a fix on their situations. Their men were just waiting to see if they needed to help gather the ransom together.

  “But Post is beginning to come unglued,” Carver told him. “I hope he doesn’t spring a leak before this is over.”

  “I’m still trying to get more information on him. We know he and his sister didn’t have the best relationship but he doesn’t seem like he’d have the balls to set up something like this.”

  “We’re going to have to let these guys go to bed pretty soon, you know.”

  “I know. I’ve got trap and trace setups on their home phones as well as business now. The calls are coming in on their cells. Have Post set his computer to forward. Prescott’s only got the one with him and I’ll take care of things on this end.”

  “Long night, huh?”

  “I’m sending someone to relieve you for the night. He can bunk on Post’s couch. Ditto for Prescott. That’s all we can do for the moment.” He hung up and turned back to the man he was monitoring.

  “It’s late,” Delaware told him. “If you want to go home I’ll take you and you can forward your emails to your home computer.”

  Pelley shoved away from his desk, stood up and stuck his hands in his pockets. His face was lined with fatigue and his temper had shown itself in his last few comments. Delaware himself was beginning to feel the strain of the situation but in his job he was used to long periods of waiting. Besides, he wasn’t personally involved.

  “You don’t think we’ll hear from them again tonight, do you.” It wasn’t a question.

  “No,” the agent said, being completely truthful. “They know you can’t do anything until morning. We’ll keep monitoring everything just in case.”

  He studied Pelley’s posture, his rigid stance. The reports on him that he’d received from his office hadn’t raised any red flags. He carried no more than the usual amount of debt, seemed to have Eli Wright’s full confidence and didn’t have any bad habits. That they’d been able to trace. Something just didn’t smell right here but they couldn’t turn up what it was.

  Delaware ground his teeth. His calls to the agents babysitting Prescott and Post had them all in agreement on this. The agents in the office were working overtime to try to find any hook at all but it was like reading blank paper.

  Another thing his gut told him was this was definitely the work of a drug cartel, but which one? He’d called his contact at the Drug Enforcement Agency and asked him to send him whatever he had that might be helpful but it wasn’t a lot. Several DEA agents had been killed trying to get the goods on the various cartel leaders, the Mexican government had protested United States interference in the workings of their country, so their hands were basically tied.

  Meanwhile things were not looking up for the hostages. The only comfort he could take was that they were still alive.

  “Can you trace the origin of these emails?” Pelley asked, breaking into the agent’s concentration.

  Delaware looked at his tech person trying to work magic with his supercomputer.

  The man shook his head. “They don’t stay on long enough for me to get a trace. And they’ve got so many anonymous servers layered in there, they’re gone before I can even get any kind of lead. Whoever’s handling this for them, we ought to try to hire him.”

  “Thanks,” Delaware snorted. He turned back to Ron Pelley. “How quickly can you get the bonds together in the morning?”

  “Within an hour after the financial institutions open. I can run it through my own account, although I’m sure the guy I deal with will have more questions than I want to answer.”

  The FBI agent nodded at the computer. “The email says you’ll be contacted again at ten in the morning. That means whoever this is knows the process you have to go through. You’d better be sure you have everything together by then. You know, they’ve been very clever about this whole thing. The way their email is set up, you can’t send a message back to them.”

  “Right. I tried it and it just bounced right back.”

  “So there’s no way to be sure they’ll even turn the hostages over when they have the money.”

  Pelley went to stand by the window, looking out at the black night sky lit up by headlights and street lamps. “Isn’t that your job, Agent Delaware? To go in and make sure we get them back safe and sound?”

  “Under normal circumstances, yes. But this isn’t normal. Assuming we’re right and this is a drug cartel operation, we’re having trouble even finding out which cartel is responsible. And like I said, going into Mexico is not an option.”

  Pelley turned to look at him. “So why are you hanging around me all this time if there’s nothing you can do?”

  Anthony Delaware studied the other man’s face. “To keep you honest, Mr. Pelley. To keep you honest.”

  * * * * *

  “I don’t like it one bit,” Mike said, closing his cell phone. “Both Pelley and the FBI agent
were very evasive. Pelley said very little, letting the Fed do most of the talking. All he said was Delaware, the FBI agent, was still sticking to him like glue and they hoped to have things resolved soon. I think hope being the operative word.”

  “What do you think is really going on?” Kat asked him, despair rushing through her. “None of that sounds very encouraging.”

  The look in Mike’s eyes was enough to squash it. “I think there’s a fifty-fifty chance that the Feds can make something happen. But we have no idea what’s really going on at their end, or how well the FBI can manage anything outside the borders of this country. So unfortunately, kitten, I think that’s a dead end.”

  “We’ll just proceed on our own then,” Mark said.

  “Wait, here’s another message from Andy.” Faith had closed the Hallorans’ laptop but an email was coming through on Mike’s.

  Kat couldn’t hide her gasp as she looked at the latest photo of the hostages. “My god, what are they doing to them?”

  Mike hugged her to him, squeezing her shoulders. “That’s the reaction they want,” he told her. “It helps to keep the mark off balance and speed up the ransom process.”

  She swallowed tears, determined not to break down but the sight of the people in the video, battered and bruised, was almost more than she could bear.

  “They want bearer bonds,” Mark pointed out. “That means they don’t want to leave any traceable prints with wire transfers.” He looked at the others. “It also means they’ll send someone for the pickup and there’s no guarantee how or when the hostages will be released.”

  They all looked at each other.

  “And there’s no guarantee that the hostages will be released,” Kat repeated, her throat tight. “That’s what you said, right?”

  “Forget about them,” Mark told her. “We’re going to take care of this ourselves. And I promise you, Katherine, the Phoenix Agency will bring them home safe and in one piece.” He looked at Faith. “Let’s go back to our room and give these people a little privacy. I’ll check with Andy and see what more he’s found out about the three men receiving the emails. Someone’s got a secret hidden somewhere. The cartel used it to pressure him into helping set this up.”

  “If you get anything tonight,” Mike said, “and I mean anything, call us no matter what time it is. And have Andy monitor the investment accounts of all three men.” He looked at Kat. “We want to make sure they aren’t throwing a red herring at us.”

  Picking up the stack of printouts, Mark and Faith headed for the door. “Everyone get a good night’s sleep and we’ll meet for breakfast in our suite. Work out some options while we wait for Ed to get here.”

  The Hallorans left then, Faith giving Kat a hug before following her husband out the door. Kat was doing her best to hang onto her nerves but she was so terrified for her sister and so impatient with the inability to just leap right into things she thought she’d explode.

  “Here.” Mike handed her a small cut glass tumbler with a dark liquid poured over ice cubes. “The best bourbon money can buy. Come sit down on the little bench here, sip your drink and let me see if I can work some of the tension out of those muscles.”

  She let him lead her to the vanity bench in the bedroom, taking a healthy swallow of bourbon rather than a sip and nearly choking on it.

  “Hey, hey, hey! Easy there.”

  “Sorry.” She wiped her eyes and sipped more slowly. “I just feel as if I’m going to fly apart any minute. All I can think of are those pictures and the terrible way Mari and the Wrights are being treated.”

  Mike leaned down and pressed a soft kiss on the top of Kat’s head. Just his presence was easing the anxiety that had gripped her since this whole nightmare began. She wriggled back against him, absorbing the warmth of his body.

  “I’m really glad you’re here,” she told the man who had suddenly become enormously important to her. More so than previously. “With me.”

  “Because you need a dashing daredevil?” he teased.

  “That too.” She dredged up a grin from somewhere. “But mostly because it’s you.” She wet her lips with the tip of her tongue. “Mike, I…”

  “I know.” He touched one finger to her lips. “I’m here and I’m in for the long haul. I’ll never leave you like that again. Ever. No matter what.”

  Putting his hands beneath her elbows, he lifted her from the bench and turned her to face him. In his eyes she saw so much caring and concern that it made her heartbeat flutter. He looked at her as if trying to tell her with his eyes everything that was in his heart. Then his mouth brushed against hers, a touch as light as a butterfly’s wings, and shivers raced through her.

  When his tongue traced the seam of her lips she opened for him as if it was the most natural thing to do. As if they’d been doing it forever. When his tongue swept inside she met it with her own, wrapping her arms around his neck and pressing herself closer to him. She could feel the hard ridge of his erection pressing against the soft flesh of her belly and moved her hips back and forth against him.

  He groaned and lifted her in his arms without breaking the kiss, carrying her into the bedroom.

  “This is getting to be a habit,” she told him in a shaky voice.

  “Making love? I certainly hope so.”

  “No. I mean you carrying me to bed.”

  “I can’t think of any other better place to carry you to.”

  When he set her on her feet she was trembling with need. Heat flared in his eyes as he pulled the thin, short-sleeved sweater over her head and his gaze feasted on her breasts, barely contained by the silk and lace of her bra.

  “I love you, Katherine Culhane.”

  She heard the emotion in his voice and it ratcheted up the heat factor even more.

  “I love you too, Michael D’Antoni.”

  They undressed each other slowly, touching and caressing as each inch of skin was exposed. Mike bent his head to take one nipple into his mouth, sucking it, pulling on it, grazing it with his teeth. Mike’s mouth paid homage to her nipples, his hands probed the heat between her thighs finding her cunt. She trembled as her hands found the hot length of his erection and she closed her fingers around it.

  I want to taste him too.

  Shifting so she could get to her knees, she lowered her head and took him into her mouth. She played her tongue over the velvet head, catching the bead of fluid and savoring it as if it was gourmet candy. Just as he’d done with her nipples she raked her teeth over his flesh, sliding from tip to root and back again before taking him all the way inside her.

  Mike wrapped his fingers with her hair, cupping her head and guiding her movements. She slipped one hand between his thighs to capture his sac, lightly scraping her fingernails over the soft wrinkled flesh and manipulating his balls.

  His groan was as arousing as his touch. “Jesus, Kat. Your mouth is like heaven.”

  She worked him in and out, taking him deep, lightly squeezing his balls, until he lifted her head from his body.

  “I’m saving this for when we have more time,” he told her in a strangled voice. “Right now I want to be inside you. Deep inside you.”

  He rolled on a condom with hands not quite steady. She opened her thighs to welcome him and he drove into her, filling her completely.

  Home!

  That was all Kat could think.

  This is home.

  And then the time for thinking was over as he rode her hard, the thickness of his cock dragging against the tight clasp of her vaginal walls. Everything faded away except this man and the joining of their bodies. Her blood raced and her heart thundered, her hips rocking with his as he pounded into her.

  And then she was falling into a void, spinning with him as she convulsed around him and his cock pulsed inside her. Blessed release. With the man she loved.

  * * * * *

  Rip was in his bathroom, the only place he was able to find any privacy. He’d slipped a disposable phone into the pocket of his sla
cks and, with the water running, just in case, dialed a familiar number.

  “I want to talk to Herrera,” he told Nando. “Right now.”

  Nando’s laugh made his nerves jump. “I don’t think he wants to talk to you. He leaves this all up to me.”

  “Damn it, I have to talk to him.” Rip couldn’t control the frustration in his voice. “I need some assurances about the hostages.”

  “We have sent you pictures, no? That should be assurance enough.”

  “Oh yeah,” Rip snorted. “Right. You send us a picture of four people who look like you’re using them for punching bags and expect everyone to be happy? The fucking Feds are sitting on everyone. They want guarantees.”

  “I don’t think anyone is in the position to be asking for that,” Nando pointed out to them. “We have the trump cards.”

  “What if the Feds or these other two guys who seem to have stuck their noses in here refuse to let us hand over the bonds before we have the hostages back?”

  “Who the fuck are they, anyway?”

  Rip ground his teeth. “They’re from some private agency. The secretary’s sister sicced them on us.” He paused. “What if they—any of them—have something up their sleeves they aren’t telling us about? Surely you don’t think they’ll just let ten million in blank bearer bonds walk out the door without some kind of guarantee about the hostages.”

  “Then it’s up to you to make them see the idiocy of their ways.”

  Rip raked his hands through his already rumpled hair. “I’m in a very bad spot here. I have to speak to Herrera. I need a real guarantee he’s going to let those people go. And when.”

  “You are in no position to be demanding anything, amigo. Just let it play out. Herrera knows what he’s doing.”

  “That’s what I’m afraid of.”

  He snapped his phone shut and banged his hand on the vanity counter.

  Shit!

  Chapter Twelve

  Kat was a bundle of nerves in the morning but she knew Mike needed her to keep herself together. She’d given them everything she could about the location where the hostages were being held. Now it was up to them to pinpoint it. She fidgeted through breakfast, waiting for Ed’s call that he’d arrived.