Melo had been covering the back door for a possible escape when he saw Trout emerge from the cooler. Seeing blood pool around Paul’s body, he stepped over him and went over to pat his brother on the back.
“Your suggestion to cover the rear was a good one, brother.”
“It seems so,” the other twin said, looking at the sprawled figure. “What should we do with him?”
“Leave him to bleed to death.”
“Agreed. We can take the women out the back way without being seen.”
He called to the man upstairs to come back down. Then they carried the unconscious women to a waiting Mercedes four-wheel drive, stuffed them in the back, and drove off, followed a few minutes later by the fake DPW truck. The initial shock of the knife wound had turned to pain, and Paul regained consciousness for a few moments. Using every bit of strength at his command he dragged himself to the study, where he had a cell phone, and called 911. He awoke in a hospital bed.
His cursing wore him out, and he fell asleep again. When he awoke he was aware someone else was in the room. Through gluey eyes he saw two figures standing by his bed. He grinned feebly.
“What took you so damned long?”
“We hitchhiked with a couple of fighter planes out of Elendorf and came east as fast as we could,” Austin said. “How do you feel?”
“The right half of my body isn’t so bad, but the left feels as if it’s being pinched by red-hot pliers. And my nose doesn’t feel great.”
“The knife missed your lung by this much,” Austin said, pinching his thumb and forefinger. “It will take a while for the muscle to heal. Good thing you’re not a southpaw.”
“Figured it was something like that. Any word on Gamay or Francesca?” he said apprehensively.
“We think they’re still alive, but they were kidnapped by the goons who did this to you.”
“The police have checked airports and stations, the usual stuff,” Zavala said. “We’re going to start our own search.”
The pain in Paul’s blue eyes was replaced by a look of steely determination. He swung his long legs out of the bed and said, “I’m coming with you.” The painful effort made him dizzy, and he stopped as his stomach roiled for a few seconds. He jiggled the IV tube. “I may need a hand here, fellas. Don’t try to talk me out of this,” he said, catching Austin’s concerned expression. “The best thing you can do is spring me from the joint. Hope you’ve got some pull with the floor nurse.”
Austin knew Paul well enough to realize he would drag himself from the hospital if he had to. Austin glanced at Zavala, who was smiling, and knew he’d get no help from that quarter.
“I’ll see what I can do.” He shrugged. “In the meantime, Joe, maybe you can get our friend here something more modest than that hospital johnny,” he said. Then he turned and headed for the nurses’ station.
33
THE MOOD IN the tenth-floor NUMA conference room was as somber as a crepe hangers’ convention. Admiral Sandecker hadn’t expected Trout to attend the emergency meeting, given the dire reports from the hospital. The lanky ocean geologist looked like warmed-over spit, but Sandecker kept his thoughts to himself. Nothing he could say would dissuade Paul from joining the hunt for Gamay and Francesca.
Sandecker flashed Trout a reassuring smile and looked around the table. Flanking Paul in case he fell out of his chair were his NUMA colleagues Austin and Zavala. The fourth figure at the table, a slightly built, narrow-shouldered man whose heavy horn-rimmed glasses gave him a professorial air, was NUMA operations director Rudi Gunn, second in command to the admiral.
Sandecker checked his watch. “Where’s Yaeger?” His voice carried a hint of impatience.
Yaeger’s special computer skills bought him latitude with the NUMA dress code, but not even the president would dare show up late for a Sandecker meeting. Especially one as important as this.
“He’ll be along in a few minutes,” Austin explained. “I asked Hiram to check out something that might have a bearing on our discussion.”
A thought had been fluttering around like a butterfly inside Austin’s skull. He had allowed himself a few hours of sleep after coming in from Alaska. The rest must have refreshed his mind. On his way in from Virginia he caught the elusive notion in an imaginary net. Seconds later he was talking to Yaeger on his cell phone. The computer whiz was driving in from the fashionable section of Maryland where he lived with his artist wife and two teenage daughters. Austin quickly outlined his idea, asked Yaeger to follow through, and said he would cover for him at the meeting.
Sandecker got right down to business. “We have a mystery on our hands, gentlemen. Two people have been kidnapped and one attacked by unknown assailants. Kurt, would you bring us up to date?”
Austin nodded. “The D.C. police are investigating every possible lead. The city van was found abandoned near the Washington Monument. The vehicle had been stolen a few hours earlier. No trace of fingerprints was found. All the airports and train stations are being watched. With help from Paul, the FBI put together a composite of the leader of the gang, and it’s being circulated with Interpol.”
“I suspect they will get nowhere,” Sandecker said. “The people we’re dealing with are professionals. The job of finding Gamay and Dr. Cabral will be up to us. As you know, Rudi has been out of the country on assignment. I’ve kept him current as best as I could, but it might help if you quickly gave us a chronological summary of the situation.”
Austin was prepared for the question. “This thing began ten years ago with the failed attempt to kidnap Francesca Cabral. Her plane crashed in the Venezuela rain forest, and it was assumed she was dead. Fast-forward ten years. Joe and I, quite literally, run into a dead pod of gray whales off San Diego. The whales died after being exposed to extreme heat emanating from an underwater facility off Baja California in Mexico. The facility blew up while we were investigating it. I talked to a Mexican mobster who was a front for the real owner, a California consulting firm called the Mulholland Group. The mobster’s lawyer confirmed that Mulholland in turn is part of a transnational conglomerate named the Gogstad Corporation. The mobster and his lawyer were assassinated shortly after they talked to us.”
“Rather spectacularly, as I recall,” Sandecker noted.
“That’s correct. These weren’t exactly drive-by shootings. The murders were well planned, and the hit men used sophisticated weaponry.”