"Captain Wilder?"
"Yes."
"Bug Nash. Leave him alone. Let him do his thing."
"Nash may be having problems."
Crawford breathed heavily into the phone. "What kind of problems?"
"His pilot canceled the cargo net that was supposed to hold the jade. I think that's what it was supposed to hold."
"So where are they going to put it?"
"In the chopper. Which makes me think there won't be as many people in there as Nash had planned."
"Double cross and Nash figured it out," Crawford said. "Fuck." He was silent for a moment. "They got the coordinates from Finnegan. They cut him out. Nash is delivering the art without him. Bug Nash."
"Crawford-"
"Just do it, damn it."
The phone clicked off.
"Well, I would but you didn't give me a second bug," J.T. said to the dial tone.
"Oh, great," Lucy said. "Who else was killed?"
"Two of the guys who attacked Bryce and me in the bar. They worked for Finnegan, his muscle. The fight wasn't an accident. Finnegan wanted to take me out early in the game."
"There were three guys," Lucy said, her heart pounding. "Do you think the third guy is the killer?"
J.T. shook his head immediately. "No. Thin Man is the one whose knee I took out. I think he probably crawled away to hide until things clear up. Like Judgment Day, maybe."
"Thin Man?" Lucy said. "Thin Man. You named them, too?"
"Got to identify the targets," J.T. said, but Lucy could tell his mind was elsewhere.
"What was the seven-point-sixty-two thing?"
"Seven-point-six-two," he corrected. "Caliber of the bullet."
"Is that important?"
"Everything is important," J.T. said. "Means the ghost probably used a sniper rifle to take the security guys out. Then came in close with a smaller caliber suppressed weapon to finish Finnegan. Which means he wanted something from Finnegan." J.T. shook his head. "This is over. It's too damn dangerous now. These people will do anything."
Lucy sighed her relief. "Thank you. I told Daisy to pack because we were getting out of here right after the shoot. But we can tell everybody to go now. I don't care where we go, just so it's out of here, away from this damn bridge and that helicopter."
"LaFavre's quarters at Hunter Army Airfield," Wilder said. "You'll be safe there for the next twenty-four hours."
"Good." Lucy picked up the phone to punch in Daisy's room number. "Pepper will be thrilled to be on the road with you. She'll probably want to ride in the Jeep with her WonderWear and LaFavre's sunglasses."
"Works for me," J.T. said.
"And when she finds out she's staying with her buddy Rene," Lucy said and then frowned at the phone as it rang again. "Come on, Daisy, pick up." It rang again and again, and Lucy began to feel cold.
"What's wrong?"
"She's not answering." Lucy swallowed. "J.T., she's not answering."
"She's probably in the bathroom," he told her, but five minutes later, Lucy made him open Daisy's door with a credit card and they found her on the bed, unconscious, a glass overturned on the bedside table.
"Daisy," Lucy said and then saw the empty pill bottle next to a glass. A second glass.
"She had a drink with somebody," she said, but J.T. was already calling the front desk, telling them to send a doctor fast.
Lucy turned to him, shaking. "She's breathing, but she's out cold. I can't rouse her."
"Pepper?" J.T. called out. "Come out, honey, it's okay. Pepper?"
Lucy lost her breath. "Where is she? Pepper?"
"I don't know." J.T. looked ill. "Fuck, I should have listened to you and got you all out of here."
"Oh, God, they didn't take her, tell me-"
Her phone rang and Lucy started.
"Answer that," J.T. said grimly. "He's going to tell us what we have to do to get Pepper back."
Wilder watched Lucy pull the phone from her bag, her hand shaking. He wasn't sure if it was fear or anger or both, but he was sure she wasn't going to be able to handle the call. He held out his hand and Lucy passed the phone over as it rang again. "Talk," he snapped into it.
There was a short burst of laughter. "This my man from the swamp? I've got the girl. You and your woman, the Director, you do the stunt tonight. You stay out of the way, and the little girl's back to you. Unhurt. If not…Well, there was Finnegan. And his two guards."
Wilder reined in his anger. "Prove you have her."
The laughter again, an edge of craziness to it that Wilder had heard before, but only in combat. "Sure. She never shuts up anyway. Hold on."
There was a pause and Wilder looked up to see Lucy staring at him with desperate eyes. He tried to give his reassuring smile, gave up on that, and just mouthed, It will be all right.
Lucy's expression didn't change.
"J.T.?"
Wilder recognized Pepper's voice. She sounded a lot saner than the man who had her and more calm than the two people in the room here terrified for her.
"Hey, sweetie," Wilder said. Lucy was holding her hand out for the phone, but Wilder knew that was not a good move. "Are you okay?"
"I do not like this babysitter," Pepper said.
"I don't like him, either," Wilder said. "But for right now, be nice to him. Then we'll come and get you."
"I know," Pepper said. "He said mean things, and I told him you are very dangerous when you are protecting me."
"Very dangerous," Wilder said and thought, I'm going to kill the son of a bitch. "Be brave and we will come and get you."
"Soon?" Pepper said, her voice going higher.
"It's going to be a while, Pepper," Wilder said. "We have to shoot the last movie scene before the babysitter will bring you to us. But we will hurry."
"Okay," Pepper said, not sounding okay.
"Pepper, I will get you as soon as I can," Wilder said, wanting to crawl through the phone to her. "I swear to you-"
"I know," Pepper said. "I'm your egg.''
"Damn right," Wilder said, his throat closing, and then the ghost took the phone back.
"She's alive. Do everything I say, and she stays that way."
"You hurt her, and I will spend the rest of my life tracking you down."
"Oooohhhh. I'm scared." He laughed. "I'm too fast and too good. You were slow in the swamp. You'll be too slow again."
"What did you give Daisy?' Wilder demanded.
"Not a damn thing. Wasn't even there. Just do the stunt tonight and you get your egg back. Try anything funny, and hey, eggs crack."
"No," Wilder said. "'They don't. I want you to answer with proof of life from this phone every time I call, or we stop filming."
"You stop filming and-"
"You hurt the kid, you're done. You keep her safe and happy, we do the stunt exactly as planned."
The phone went dead. Wilder hated turning the phone off.
"Who the hell was that?" Lucy demanded.
Wilder looked at Lucy. "The ghost." He saw the look on Lucy's face and realized he'd used the sledgehammer without meaning to. "We do the stunt, we get her back."
Lucy swallowed. "He's the guy who tortured Finnegan." She looked ill.
"We will get her back," Wilder said as somebody knocked on the door. "I swear it."
Then he went to let the doctor in.
Tyler stood on edge of the roof of the abandoned grain tower, the highest place around other than the bridge and the hotel, and stared across the river at the bright lights of Savannah. The sniper rifle rested on the concrete to his left, complete with bipod and thermal sight. Ready and waiting.
He pivoted right and looked at the bridge. The film crew was beginning to set up lights and cameras and put out cones, closing off the side of the bridge heading from Georgia into South Carolina. Damn right.
"So you should have games and stuff."
"What?" He turned to see the Kid sitting on the roof behind him, her back against a smokestack. She'd gotten dir
t on her hands and then wiped them on her cheeks and she looked like hell.
She glared at him. "Babysitters have games and stuff. Connor said you were my babysitter. Where are the games?"
"Here's a game: You shut up." He looked back at the bridge.
"That's not a good game."
Here's a good game. I throw you off this fuckin' tower. He could probably get a shot in before she hit ground. But proof of life, that's what that bastard Stranger had said.
"I'm hungry."
"Shut up, Kid."
His cell phone buzzed. Not the Stranger for proof of life. He knew who it was and he knew what she wanted. What he had drawn out of Finnegan with the knife. The phone buzzed again.
"You should answer your phone."
Tyler barely noticed the third buzz. When it sounded a fourth time, he took it and canceled the incoming call. Then he punched in the coordinates that Finnegan had whispered to him through his agony. He hit Send, thinking, This is the dumb bitch who tried to cut us out. Women. He'd wanted to kill her but Nash had said no, she was the only pilot they had and they had to have the helicopter.
Well, when this was over, she had to land sometime.
Tyler heard a rustling behind him and turned to look.
The Kid was eating his Cheetos.
"These are not very good," she said, frowning at him. "They're not crunchy."
"They've been in the swamp," he said, wounded. "You try to keep anything crunchy in a swamp."
"If you had closed them up better, they would be crunchy," she said, her snotty little chin in the air.
"Not in a fucking swamp" he said, really wishing he could kill her.
"Bad word," she said.
He ignored her. It was either that or kill her, and there was that damn proof of life-
"Did you see Moot in the swamp?" she said.
"What?"
"Moot. The alligator with one eye. Did you see her?"
"Yeah, I saw her." Tyler checked the time. They should be heading for the bridge soon.
Behind him, the bag rustled again.
Fuck, he wasn't going to have any Cheetos left.
"You smell," the girl said.
Tyler thought, You die, and put his eye to the scope.
Lucy met J.T. and Gloom on the bridge. Three days before, she'd been new on the bridge, watching a helicopter land and J.T. get off. It seemed like a thousand years ago now.
"What did the doctor say?" J.T. asked her as she joined them.
"Daisy will be out for a while but she'll be fine. Estelle is sitting with her. The doctor's on call. She's going to be all right." Lucy swallowed. "We should get Pepper back before she wakes up, though."
"Jesus," Gloom said.
"Gloom just got here," J.T. said. "I called him-"
"Good," Lucy said. "Because that was my next move. We need a plan." She set her jaw. "This is out of control. We have to take back control. We can't just wait for them-"
"We're not going to," J.T. said. "What's the fewest people you can film the stunt with?"
Lucy stopped, forcing her mind away from Pepper. "We're way ahead of you. We have the crew set everything up and then they leave, except for me to direct, Gloom on clapper and camera, and you as
Bryce's double. The stunt team because the assholes want to be here for their damn plan. And then Bryce, unless we can convince him to leave the bridge during their big scenes."
"That's it, then," J.T. said. "We keep everybody else down in base camp."
Gloom nodded. "Okay, but here's what I don't get. J.T. just told me that all Nash and his cronies are doing is taking the helicopter and flying out to meet this Latsky-"
"Letsky," J.T. said.
"-But why a helicopter? It's not like there are mountains around here they have to fly up to. Why not a car or a boat? It'd be a lot less hassle and a lot less noticeable. Hell, with a boat and all these islands…"
"The weight?" Lucy guessed. "Jade penises have to weigh a lot. What difference does it-" She stopped because J.T. was frowning.
"Cargo net," he said. "They needed the cargo net for the art. But when they picked up Finnegan and the art, they could have just loaded it in a boat…" He closed his eyes. "Jesus, of course, that's it. They don't have the art."
"What are you talking about?" Lucy said.
J.T. pressed his hands against his temples. "I asked Crawford this morning where the art was and he told me not to worry about it. I got the feeling that Nash didn't have the art yet, that Finnegan had it. But-yeah, okay, this makes sense now-I bet you anything that Finnegan didn't have the art either, and the stunt is a cover for them getting it. They swoop down in the helicopter to wherever it is, load it in the net, and take off to go to Letsky. Nobody follows."
"Who's Crawford?" Gloom said.
"The CIA," Lucy said, frowning at J.T. "Well, why haven't they already done that? What's so important about tonight? Because they took Pepper to make sure we'd shoot tonight." She swallowed, thinking about Pepper alone out there with a madman. "I'm going to kill them all. That stuff I said about not shooting the gun? I can shoot the gun."
"The CIA is involved?" Gloom said, appalled.
"Actually, the CIA would be J.T.," Lucy said. "Can we-"
Gloom drew back. "I thought he was a Green Beret."
"He's that, too," Lucy said, feeling her temper rise. "Later, he's gonna open for Aerosmith. Can we get Pepper back now?"
"The art has to be close," J.T. said to Gloom. "That's why Nash picked the Talmadge for the stunt."
Gloom leaned back. "It's in a truck coming across the bridge? We'll only have the two lanes on one side shut down. The other half of the bridge will still be open to traffic."
J.T. shook his head. "I wouldn't take down a truck on the bridge. Too conspicuous, too hard." He looked out over the choppy river. "And in this wind, impossible. But Lucy's got a good point, the timing seems to be critical. The schedule is the thing that Finnegan and Nash have been insisting on."
"I don't care," Lucy said, ready to scream. "I don't care, I don't care. How do we get Pepper back?"''
"We follow them," J.T. said, calm as ever. "I would like to know exactly what they're doing so I know where they're going, but bottom line is, we follow them. When whatever it is goes down, we each take one of the team. I follow Nash, you follow Doc," he said to Lucy. "As for Karen…"
"I'll do anything," Gloom said. "But it's only fair to warn you, I don't think I can take Karen. She's a black belt in karate. I'm a Ralph Lauren cowhide with brass grommets."
"You're going to run base camp," J.T. said, taking out his phone.
"Who's got Karen, then?" Lucy said.
"LaFavre."
"Poor Karen," Gloom said, brightening. "She's toast."
"Fuck Karen," Lucy said. "She's part of the team that took my Pepper. LaFavre can toss Karen out of the helicopter for all I care. So we wait for one of them to lead us to Pepper? That asshole could have killed her by then." Her voice caught. "God, J.T.-"
"She's not going to die," J.T. said. "They're going to need her alive to get what they need."
"The jade?" Gloom said.
"No. The helicopter," J.T. said. "We're going to make a trade." He checked his watch, pulled out his cell phone, and punched in a number. "Don't make me wait," he snapped when it was answered after the fifth ring. He listened for a minute and then his voice changed, soft and light. "Hey, P.L., how's it going?" He smiled as he listened to what she said next. "We'll get you crunchy Cheetos when we get you home. Aunt Lucy wants to say hi." He handed the phone to Lucy and nodded.
"Pepper?" she said, trying to keep her voice light.
"Aunt Lucy?"
"Yes, baby." Lucy felt her throat swell. "How are you?"
"I am hungry and the Cheetos are bad," Pepper said. "Can you come get me?"
"Soon, baby," Lucy said. "We just have to shoot the stunt and then that man will tell us where you are."
"We're up high in this building," Pepper said. "We can see
the brid-" And then Lucy heard her say, "Hey. "
The asshole came back on. "Not playing fair, there, buddy-boy."
"You hurt her, I'll kill you," Lucy said, trying to be matter-of-fact.
"Whoo-ee. This the mother? No, no, wait a minute, she's out cold. This is Aunt Lucy. Aunt Lucy with the great ass."
"If you hurt her-" Lucy felt her temper rise to the breaking point. Steady.
"Honey, you can come get me anytime you want."
"I will fucking castrate you, you limp-dicked-"
J.T. grabbed the phone from her. "I'll call again," he said and hung up. He looked at Lucy. "If you can't stay calm, you can't talk to him."
Lucy blinked back tears as Gloom put his arm around her. "Okay, we trade her for a helicopter. How the hell are we going to get a helicopter?"
"We aren't. LaFavre is." J.T. punched in the numbers.
Lucy thought about LaFavre taking the helicopter away from Karen. "He's not going to be able to charm her out of it."
"He has other skills." J.T. spoke into the phone, leaving a message.
"I hope they're painful." Lucy took a deep breath. "Listen, Pepper said they were high up in a building. She said they could see the bridge."
Gloom turned to survey the landscape. "That could be anywhere."
"But close," J.T. said. "That's something."
"That's not enough," Lucy said. "I want to do something now."
"Good," J.T. said. "You can learn to fall off a bridge."
"What?" Lucy said, jarred out of her fear for Pepper. "What happened to 'the molecules won't part for you?"
He handed her a harness. "A controlled fall. On a rope. If something goes wrong, you need to be able to go over the side of this bridge, and I'm going to show you how to do that."
"Will it help me get Pepper back?" Lucy said.
"Yes," he said.
"Then show me," she said.
Chapter 19
Wilder stood on the Jeep's back bumper, dressed once again as Bryce's double. He was parked in the breakdown lane on the east side of the Talmadge Bridge, just short of where Lucy's crew had set up the fake shoot. The sun had set not long ago, and the lights of Savannah sparkled along the riverfront on the south side. Wilder ignored the sight and unpacked his gear from his footlocker, stuffing it all into his battered green rucksack.