Memories
Can't Wait
By Jeanne
Thorne
Chapter
One: Dumb Luck
If there
isn't a name for it, there should be -- that sick, dizzy moment between
committing an irrevocable action and its completion when you realize what
you've done. Like when you realize you've left your keys in the ignition just
as the car door slams shut and locks, or the split-second when you discover
you've clicked on "Reply All" and sent that nasty email to everyone
about whom you were just dishing the dirt.
If there was
a name for that feeling, Madeleine Weld would have invoked it as she opened the
door a crack and the sledgehammer of a fist crashed into it, knocking her
backward off her feet to slide across the polished hardwood floor. Three
leather-jacketed men roughly the size of small buildings barreled into the
foyer with startling speed. As Madeleine scrambled to get up, her stockinged
feet slipped on the floor and the first of the men was on her, bunching the
material of her dance leotard in a ham-sized fist and yanking her up and back
to slam against his chest. She drew a breath to scream for help and the man's
other massive paw pressed tightly over her mouth, crushing her lips against her
teeth and almost covering her nose. Letting go of her leotard, Madeleine's
assailant wrapped his arm about her waist, pinning her arms to her sides. The
girl fought for breath, struggling feebly, her cries of panic reduced to
plaintive mewing.
"I've
got this one," her attacker said in a clipped tone. The others didn't
answer, but large automatic pistols appeared in their fists, elongated with
what Madeleine knew from the movies were silencers. With a quickness and grace
that belied their size, the men moved through the space of the loft Madeleine
shared with her roommate, heading for the bedrooms. In an absurd moment of
clarity that pierced the haze of her panic, Madeleine found herself noting the
caution with which the men moved... then the thought was quickly erased as her
attacker lifted her by the waist, hand still clamped over her mouth, and
dragged her across the floor to the plush sofa in the center of the living
room.
"Whuff--!"
was the only sound
she could manage as the man unceremoniously dumped her onto her stomach on the
couch. Before she could lift her head his weight was on top of her, a knee
pressing painfully into the small of her back. Her face was mashed into the
cushions and she struggled to breathe. Suddenly she heard the distinct rrrip
of heavy-duty tape coming off a roll. Oh God, no...
Madeleine
felt her small wrists being grabbed and twisted behind her back, held in place
by one of the man's enormous hands as the other hand pressed the end of the
tape in place and began winding it about her crossed wrists. Four turns and her
wrists were effectively welded together, her fingers fluttering uselessly. She
could hear the crashing of doors from the back rooms and thanked God that at
least Beth was at the flower shop...
Shifting
position but still crushing her into the couch, her attacker turned and snagged
her futilely flailing legs, bending them back at the knees and bringing her
ankles together. Although yoga and, of course, dance kept her limber, the
position was still painful, but she didn't have to hold it long as the man
wrapped her ankles in tape with practiced speed and let them go. She felt his
weight shift again, and she lifted her head slightly, gulping for air as he
wound more tape about her legs just below her knees, tearing it off and then
repeating the procedure about her thighs. She was wearing tights, so none of
the tape adhered to her skin, but no power on earth could have enabled her to
move her legs independently of each other now.
"All
right, tiny dancer," she heard the man mutter, "panic
and you'll choke. Chill out and breathe through your nose." With that the
man gripped a handful of her dark hair and yanked her head back, arching her
spine. She uttered a squeal of pain that was quickly muffled by the sponge the
man was stuffing between her teeth, filling her mouth and pressing her tongue
down. Fighting to breathe through her nose, Madeleine shook her head until
another yank stilled it. A rip -- undoubtedly with his teeth -- and the man was
pressing a swatch of tape tightly across her lips, smoothing it in place over
her cheeks with his free hand. A second swatch went over the first and he
released her hair. Her head fell forward and she mewed pitifully into the gag.
Her
attacker's weight finally, mercifully lifted from her back and his hands
gripped her shoulders and lifted her to a seated position on the couch. Through
the strands of hair that had fallen into her eyes Madeleine saw the other men
coming in, both with shaven heads and the chiseled features of hardcore
military men, their eyes hidden behind matching wraparound shades. Her attacker
stood to face them, his face darker but just as hard, his skull just as barren
of hair. "Report," he snapped.
"Jones
isn't here, but this is definitely her place," the shorter of the two, by
an inch at most, replied. "There are a number of photos around with her
and the ballerina here. Including some excellent pics from the beach where you
can see her juicy--" He was cut off by a sharp glare from his superior and
stifled his leer. "Jones is off-site... sir."
Madeleine's
attacker nodded and tossed the roll of duct tape to the shorter man.
"She'll be home soon enough. Finish up the roommate while we get ready for
her."
Jones? Madeleine puzzled, fighting down panic as the sponge in
her mouth began to fill with saliva. Surely they don't mean Beth... her last
name is
As the
shorter thug advanced on Madeleine, she attempted to shrink back into the couch
cushions. The man grinned a truly nasty grimace and
grabbed her by the hair, yanking her forward again. As he began to wind the tape
quickly but carefully around Madeleine's chestabove and below her small
breasts, trapping her arms tightly against her body, he murmured, "Hold
still. You're goin' on a little trip, you and your roomie, as soon as she gets
home. But it's a surprise, and we don't want you givin' it away."
All
Madeleine could do was mmmpphh into her gag, tears blurring her vision
as she looked to the door and prayed that Beth would perhaps call and realize
something was wrong, gripped by panic and terror and that sick, dizzy feeling
that has no name...
* * *
Meanwhile,
Beth Layton was staring in stunned silence at a different brand of intruder
standing in the doorway of her tiny flower shop. The handful of nasturtiums
slipped from her fingers to scatter on the floor but she barely noticed,
fighting as she was to form words. Finally she whispered a name.
"Jack..."
"Nice
to see you, Beth," said the tall, lean man in the grey Savile Row suit as
he stepped into the shop, looking around. "Although I must say these are
hardly the kind of digs in which I would have pictured you."
Beth brushed
a stray copper-colored hair from her forehead and smiled humorlessly. "You
knew I liked flowers, Jack."
"Yes, I
did. In fact, there were hundreds of them at your funeral." He selected a
small white carnation from a vase on the wooden counter, snapped off the stem
and tucked the flower into his buttonhole. "You really should have been
there."
Beth ran her
hands down the yellow apron that she wore over her white blouse and black slacks,
her palms moist with perspiration. "What can I say? I'd been to enough
funerals that year. I'd had enough of them. I'd had enough of all of it."
"So you
faked your own death and this is where you disappeared to?" He
gestured about the shop with visible disgust. "You could have gone
anywhere in the world and you chose to live in this Midwestern armpit and play
Martha Stewart? What a waste."
She looked
down at her hands, their knuckles white against her thighs. "At least it
took you five years to find me. I'd say it was a pretty good cover."
"Not
good enough. I'm not the only one who knows you're here." He watched her
intently, pausing for effect before delivering the kicker. "Arno Blevins
escaped from federal custody last week. We believe he made a beeline straight
for this godforsaken city."
Beth's head
snapped back up, eyes wide and incredulous. "You let Blevins get
away?" Her voice caught in her throat. "You let Blevins live?"
"Not
me, doll."
Jack shook his head soberly. "If I'd had my way, he'd be nothing but chum
in his own shark tank, but the boys at the Shack wanted to pick his brain for
all those juicy secrets. So they had him stashed away in one of their
maximum-security hidey-holes -- that is, until a strike force of very
bad black hats stormed the joint. Definitely paramilitary types with serious intel, someone familiar with our security measures and with
no qualms about ordering a bloodbath. If I had to guess, I'd say your old
playmate Madame Ducharme made it out alive."
An involuntary
shudder coursed through Beth's slim frame as a host of unwanted memories
flooded in, swirling and eddying around the worst: her, naked and spread-eagled
on a tilted metal grille, steel shackles cutting into her wrists and ankles as
the cool, blonde scientist and spy threw the switch that sent hundreds of volts
of electric current surging through her helpless body until she was screaming
and sobbing into the ballgag strapped between her teeth -- no interrogation,
just pure unrelenting torture, followed by the satisfaction of the madwoman's
sadistic lust...
Beth ripped
herself from the waking nightmare, fresh sweat glistening on her brow. "So
you're telling me Ducharme is alive and has just sprung her monster of a
boyfriend... and the two of them are almost certainly here?" Her
mind raced to Maddy, who would most certainly be home from the dance studio by
now. Got to get home. Please, God, don't let
them find out where I live...
Jack nodded.
"Why they would come here is a mystery to our analysts, but as you
were the one who broke up their last operation before your untimely death, they
came to me, your humble ex-controller, to ask for my thoughts. Having no clue
myself, I arrived a couple of days ago to see if I
could find one. Little did I know just how big a clue I would find." He regarded her pointedly.
Beth fought
to keep her voice even, to assume her long-discarded mask of neutrality.
"And how did you find me, Jack?"
"You
know my methods, Watson," he murmured with a tiny smile. "Actually it
was dumb luck. I saw you on the street as I was in the diner around the block. About choked on my Brunswick stew. You've changed your hair
and your style of dress is just atrocious, but I know your walk, your gestures.
You've been out of the game too long, Beth. You've grown careless." Then
he doesn't know where my apartment is. He doesn't know about Maddy...
"What
can I say? I thought my past was dead and buried," she replied, brow
clouded. "You think Blevins and Ducharme are here for me? How would they
know I was here if even you didn't?"
"That's
the mystery, doll. That's what we need to find out if we're going to bring them
down. Now that I know you're alive, I want you to come back. No, we need
you to."
"No."
She shook her head emphatically. "I'm out of it, for good. Now that you
bright people know they're here, you find them. You catch them.
And you make damn sure they're dead this time. As for me, this
conversation never happened." She glared defiantly at him. "Leave,
Jack."
He matched
her stare with his cold grey eyes. "And if we can't find them before they
find you?"
"They
won't find me. They haven't your luck." Again, she struggled to keep the
desperate tone out of her voice.
"Perhaps
they don't need it." He sniffed the carnation in his lapel.
"Like it or not, Beth, you're the key to finding them. You'll stand a much
better chance if you're back on the team, but one way or another your lovely
little ass is going to lead us to them."
"Go to
hell, Jack. You came here alone. You haven't the skills to keep me in sight and
by the time you get actual field agents here I'll be long gone." Cheap
bravado, she berated herself. You're out of practice in tradecraft and
you can't leave Maddy. Maddy... dear God, she'll find out who I really
am... and who she really is...
Jack smiled
a small, superior smile. "If you say so, doll.
Just be sure to pack light, okay?" He turned, pulling open the door.
Bells
tinkled overhead to mark his departure, a counterpoint to the scream of sheer
panic inside the skull of Bethany Jones, at one time the deadliest female
secret agent on three continents -- now five years older and in nothing even close
to her peak, with an innocent girl under her wing who may even now be a captive
of the most terrifying pair of butchers ever to threaten the safety of the
world...