Hostage

Vaughan didn’t believe that for a second. She’d seen Sozinho’s face, not only here in the shadows but in the bright morning sunshine back in Hope. She could easily identify him. There was no way that he was going to let her go. He was just telling her that to keep her calm during the wait.

“How much is he paying you?” she said.

Sozinho choked on his water.

When he finished coughing, he said, “Don’t you think it’s a little rude to ask about that? I would never ask you about your salary.”

“I’m just curious. How much money does it take for you to end the life of another human being?”

“I don’t even think about it in those terms. Anyway, as it turns out, this little number is going to be gratis as far as any monetary compensation is concerned. It’s not the way I wanted it to be, but I wasn’t given much of a choice in the matter.”

“There’s always a choice,” Vaughan said. “Instead of going after Reacher, you could go after this enigmatic man in the black leather jacket you keep referring to. You could give yourself up right now, cut a deal for testifying against him. And if this guy’s organization is as big as you say it is, we might even be able to get you into the witness protection program.”

“You don’t know what you’re talking about, so maybe you should just be quiet for a while.”

Vaughan closed her eyes. If she couldn’t entice Sozinho into surrendering, then she needed to make an attempt to get away from him. She couldn’t wait for the cavalry to show up, like it happened in the movies. It was doubtful that the FBI would ever find her, and it was doubtful that Reacher would ever find her. Not in time. She needed to make a move, and she needed to do it now. The sooner the better.

“I have to use the restroom,” she said.

6

Retro put on a pair of gloves and grabbed an evidence bag. He climbed out of his cruiser, walked over to the sock, crouched down and picked it up. It was damp and there was a strong chemical smell rising from it.

He dropped the sock into the bag, squeezed the air out and closed the plastic zipper. He felt a little lightheaded when he stood up. Like he might pass out. He took a few deep breaths, and the sensation finally faded.

That was when he noticed the rusty chain on the gate leading into the plant. He tossed the sock into the back seat with the can of spray paint he’d bagged earlier, walked over to the gate to take a closer look. The chain was dangling loosely, and the padlock that had been securing it was on the ground.

The lock hadn’t been opened with a key.

It had been cut.

Retro called Ashley on his cell.

“Where are you?” she said.

“Old Slaughterhouse Road. At the gate to the meat processing plant.”

He told her about the sock he’d found, and about the breached entranceway.

“Don’t go in there by yourself,” she said. “Wait for backup. A team from the state police is on the way. I’ll call their dispatcher and have a couple of units sent-”

“Vaughan might be dead by the time they get here,” Retro said. “I need to go in and check it out. I worked at the plant three summers in a row when I was a teenager. I know all the buildings, and I know the layout of the interior spaces.”

“Negative. You need to wait.”

Retro didn’t have time to argue with her. He clicked off and clipped his phone back onto his belt. It rang a few seconds later, but he didn’t answer it. Vaughan was his friend, and her life was at stake, and even though his career as a police officer would be over in just a few days, nothing was going to stop him from trying to rescue her.

He pulled his pistol and held it toward the ground as he opened the gate and walked onto the property.

7

Sozinho had started to pull away the duct tape wrapped around Vaughan’s ankles so that she could get up and use the toilet, but his cell phone trilled before he could finish.

“I better get that,” he said.

“I need to go,” Vaughan said. “Bad.”

“You’ll just have to hold it for a few minutes.”

Sozinho walked back over to the table and answered the phone.

“You’re an idiot,” the man in the black leather jacket said.

“Excuse me?”

“I just heard from one of my contacts. A cop named Retro found your sock in front of the meat processing plant. Now he’s in there looking around.”

The sock.

Sozinho had been on the road driving toward his destination for a few minutes before he realized it was missing. He’d thought about going back, but he’d decided that it would be too risky, especially since he was driving a police car. Anyway, it was just a sock. One soaked in chloroform, but still just a sock. There was no way to trace it to anything.

“Sorry,” Sozinho said. “But I really don’t see how it could-”

“Ever hear of a little thing called DNA? Your skin cells are all over that fabric. In a few days, every police agency in the world will have access to your genetic profile.”

“It doesn’t matter. I have too many aliases, too many layers of protection. That information will be useless to them.”