Ruby finished dicing the last of the habanera and jalapeño peppers, scooped them up, and dumped them into the chili. The aroma rising from the pot was so enticing that she regretted her intention not to have any.
“So what’s on tap for tonight?” she asked, vigorously wiping the remaining pepper bits from her hands. “Another rousing soccer game on TV? You boys are the lamest excuses for Latinos I’ve ever seen. When we going out dancing?”
The only other person in the room, one of the quiet Peruvians, just stared at her. He had been assigned to watch her the whole time she was in the kitchen, crushing kidney beans, chopping tomatoes, browning slivers of steak, and dicing the peppers and onions. He always kept a close eye on her when she was using a knife, as if that were the only way she could be dangerous. Still, he watched in silence while she chattered. In all that time, Ruby had not said one thing that pissed him off. And Lord knows she had tried.
“Man, I don’t know how you got this babysitting gig with no sense of humor,” Ruby said, adding salt and crushed garlic to the pot. “If I get too bored, I might try to run off, just to find some decent conversation.”
The man just stared, so Ruby wandered into the living room. The room was starting to smell of men who didn’t bathe often enough, especially the corn chip odor of jungle-toughened feet. And damned if there wasn’t another soccer game up on the big screen. Two South American teams were going at it, and the local audience was all smiles. de La Fuente sat with his arm around Rafael, shouting at every play. Rafe was somewhat less enthusiastic. When he looked at Ruby, she could see the pain in his eyes. She knew he was embarrassed by being played for a sucker by these bargain-basement Marxists. What she hadn’t predicted was the obvious guilt over getting her stuck in the middle. Beyond Rafael’s troubled face, de La Fuente turned to her, grinning wider than ever, light glinting off that one gold tooth she had come to hate.
“Don’t be so antisocial, girl,” the Shining Path leader said. “Can’t you see how lonely your dear Rafael is? Why not come join us for the end of the game? Come watch Peru destroy Brazil.”
“I think I’ll pass. What I’d really like is to get some fresh air, but I guess under the circumstances I’ll just walk around the house.”
de La Fuente responded to her remark, but Ruby didn’t hear him. She was on her way toward the back door. The man who had watched her in the kitchen stayed behind, but another follower rose and followed her.
Ruby was walking slowly because she wanted some time to pass. de La Fuente and the others should be fully occupied by the game. When she finally reached the door, she walked back and forth slowly in front of it, tracking her follower’s movements by sound. She could unlock the door and fling it open inside of two seconds, and be through the door in three. Unfortunately, even the clod watching her would have his gun out and aimed in half a second less than that, and he would not hesitate to put a bullet in her back.
Still she couldn’t resist a test. She stopped in front of the door and turned to present her profile to her watcher. She gave him a sly smile, and coyly reached for the doorknob. Before her hand actually made contact, her watcher was reaching for his weapon. She snatched her hand back quickly. No slack. She could only hope that she had cultivated her appearance of helplessness well enough to ease his nervousness.
“Don’t you think this is a little extreme, sugar?” she asked him. “I mean, I been stuck in this house for two days. But then, so have you. Ain’t you feeling a little cabin fever?”
To her surprise, this solicited a small smile from the Peruvian terrorist. Perhaps he was reachable. He didn’t move when Ruby walked toward him. He was her height, mildly handsome, and quietly muscular the way the best fighters are.
“Look, how about you open the door while I stand way back here?” Ruby asked, adding a little silk to her normally squeaky tones. “That way I could at least see the outside.”
“Look out a window,” he said.
“My Lordy Lord, he can talk!” Ruby flashed him her most brilliant, heart-stopping smile. “Come on now. We can work something out here, can’t we?”
The guard shook his head, but he looked a little uncomfortable, like he didn’t know what to do with his hands. Ruby raised her own left hand toward him causing him to flinch.
“Oh, now, I won’t hurt you, honey,” Ruby said. “You’re too cute.” His smile grew by a couple of degrees, and she took that as permission to continue. Very gently, Ruby drew her hand down the man’s cheek, inhaling as if it were a special thrill for her.
The guard was a little off balance, but he didn’t react as if he were threatened in any way. In fact, he winked at her. No, his right eye was blinking. He reached up to rub it.
“What’s the matter, sugar?” Ruby asked. “Something in your eye?” Maintaining a non-threatening tone she reached up again, cradling his cheek in her right hand while rubbing her thumb across his left eye as if to clear it.
“Ahhh!” It was a low howl of pain. The guard bent almost double, covering his face with his hands. He didn’t know why, but of course, Ruby did. Capsicum, it’s called. The active ingredient in pepper spray is the same chemical that makes your eyes water and your nose run when you bite into a real hot pepper. Good cooks learn very quickly not to touch their faces after dicing those peppers. To do so can subject a person to a paralyzing burst of intense pain. By not washing her hands after preparing dinner, Ruby had armed herself with a homemade chemical weapon. It was not a weapon of mass destruction, but it was powerful enough to buy her the three seconds she needed.
Ruby knew there were men patrolling the outside of the house, but couldn’t be sure if one would be at the back. As it turned out there was a man there, but he was more surprised to see her than she was to meet him. Black jeans and jacket made him inconspicuous, but it also meant his gun was concealed. Ruby dived sideways along the edge of the house while the guard was reaching under his jacket. She came up faster, flinging one of the white stones. The guard raised an arm to protect his face. Ruby rolled forward, then swung her legs around to sweep his feet out from under him. His hands broke his fall, but he could not protect himself from the stone in her left hand, which she swung down hard on his temple. After that he lay still and Ruby was on the move, knowing the people inside would be after her in a matter of seconds.
After being on the move all day, Chastity Chiba finally had a chance to be still. In a waiting room of the Brooklyn Hospital Center, she sat quietly, pretending to read a copy of Newsweek while she considered the events of the previous seventy-two hours.
She had worked her most recent assignment with vigor, moving with haste to uncover the sordid details of a vicious conspiracy. This particular conspiracy didn’t threaten a government, but her mentor, Paul Gorman, had taught her that the salvation of a single soul can be just as important
Her eyes did not waver when Alex Brooks stepped out of the examination room. He thanked the doctor for his time and encouragement, shook the man’s hand, and walked off down the hall. Chastity rose and followed him. When he stopped at the elevator no one else was around. Chastity approached in a cordial, non-threatening manner.
“Excuse me, Mr. Brooks. Do you have a minute?”
“Do I know you?” Brooks asked. He seemed a nervous, high-strung type to her. His eyes kept wandering from her face.
“We haven’t met, but you know my boss, Paul Gorman. My name is Chastity Chiba,” she said, smiling up at him. Brooks was a full foot taller than Chastity, and she knew he’d be an imposing figure in uniform. Right now he just looked vulnerable.
“You work for Gorman?” Brooks asked as the elevator door hissed open. “What, is he checking up on me? Wants to make sure I don’t go off the deep end again, huh?”
Chastity raised her palms. “No, no, nothing like that. I’ve been assigned your case, and I wanted to bring you up to date as to what our investigation has uncovered.”
“Oh yeah, Gorman said he could somehow stop the divorce,” Brooks said, rolling his eyes as sarcasm dripped from his voice, “or at least keep me from losing my little girl. So what, you been digging up dirt on my wife?”
Chastity thrust her foot into the elevator to keep the doors from closing. “Can we just go down to the cafeteria and get a cup of coffee? I’d like to make a complete report, then you can decide on your options.”
The ride down was silent, except for an annoying habit Brooks had of clicking the nails of his thumb and middle finger together. Chastity led the way to the cafeteria, paid for two large coffees, and settled them into a corner table. Brooks sat across the table, upright and rigid, as if Chastity were an inquisitor and he were about to be the accused. She slid her purse up onto the table and sat back so she could see Brooks’ face.
“Mr. Brooks, I know I’m a stranger to you, but I feel as if I know you pretty well.”
“What the hell do you know about me?” He gulped down a big swallow of coffee and slapped the cup down on the table as if to express his defiance.
Chastity met his gaze. “I’ve learned a lot about you and your family in the last couple of days,” she said. “I know where you live, I know where you and your wife work, I know where your daughter goes to school. One important thing I know is that you love your daughter and she loves you.”
“My wife thinks I love her a little too much. Maybe you don’t know the reason I’m here.”
“I do,” Chastity said. “I’m the Samaritan who called the ambulance. And no, your wife doesn’t believe that you’ve been molesting your daughter. It’s all a setup, Mr. Brooks. I’m sorry to have to tell you all this.”
“What are you talking about?” Brooks asked. “Francine loves me. She’s just, you know, confused.”
“No, she was just setting you up for a divorce that would leave you with nothing.”
Brooks’ jaws locked together. He stared down at Chastity. “You’re wrong.”
A long slow breath betrayed Chastity’s impatience. “I know this may be hard for you to accept, but I have irrefutable proof that the whole claim of molestation was fraudulent. Don’t you see what this means? She can’t possibly use that approach to get a favorable divorce.”
“What proof?”
Chastity didn’t understand why he wasn’t happy. Hadn’t she just told him she had saved him? Didn’t he get it? Frustrated, she pulled pictures out of her purse. “Look, these are pages of the records kept by Amy’s therapist. If you read them, you can plainly see him steering her, planting her testimony for some divorce lawyer to draw out of her later in court.”
Brooks stared down at the photographed pages. His mouth worked as if he was trying to formulate words that just would not come. Chastity couldn’t miss the pain in his eyes. For a moment she feared he might tear up.
“Why?”
“What?” Chastity asked. His simple question had startled her.
“Why would Francine do such a thing? Why would she go to so much trouble just to do me wrong?”
Chastity ran a hand down her black tresses, stopping when she had the ends of half her hair clenched in a fist in front of her. “Can’t you guess? She was seeing someone else. Isn’t that the usual reason women mess their husbands over?”
“No.” Brooks sat back in his chair, looking as if he had eaten something spoiled. “Can’t be. Not Francine. She’s a lot of things, but not that.”
Chastity shook her head. “Again, I have undeniable proof.”
“What proof?”
“Just take my word for it, all right?” Chastity said. “You don’t want to see…”
“What?” Brooks all but shouted at her. “What proof? More fake pictures?” His hand darted into her bag before Chastity could stop it. She grabbed his wrist and pulled his hand away from her big purse. Only after her bag was free did she notice that he had pulled a photo out.
For a while the two sat frozen, separated by a table, united by one horrible sight. Brooks sat with his whole being focused on that photograph. It was a picture that no man should ever see of his wife. Brooks’ aching grief showed in his furrowed brow, his steely grimace, and his breathing which was now coming in jagged gasps.
They were still for so long that Chastity was surprised when Brooks suddenly burst into action. He sprang to his feet so abruptly that his chair skidded across the floor to crash into the wall. Around them, patients and visitors stared, and the security guard moved toward them.
“Not one more day,” Brooks muttered. He turned and sprinted for the exit as if he had forgotten Chastity existed. It had never occurred to her that the news would drive him over the edge. His remark was a clear indication that he was still a danger to himself. Chastity pushed her own chair away and moved to follow Brooks, but a rough hand clamped onto her forearm, yanking her back.
“What’s going on here, miss?” the security guard said. His face was grim, pressing his limited authority. At that moment Chastity had several options. She could explain to this rent-a-cop the innocence of her conversation with Brooks. She could flash one of her impressive badges and label Brooks a fugitive. She could adopt the role of a scorned wife or girlfriend, elicit sympathy, and enlist the guard’s help. However, any course that required conversation also cost her time. At this juncture, could she really afford to let Brooks get away from her?
“Oh, hell no,” she muttered under her breath. She swung her arm in a high arc, breaking the guard’s grip. Without thinking, she captured his wrist with the same hand and with a hard twist she locked his elbow. Her Jiu Jitsu training took over, prompting a follow-up wrist turn that put the guard on the floor and out of her way. He had slowed her by only a second or two.
But when she turned in the direction of Brooks’ flight she faced a second guard. It appeared that Dummy Number One had called for help before approaching her. She didn’t have time for this. Chastity surged forward. Two steps in front of the second security guard she dropped into a low crouch and spun. The leg sweep took his legs out from under him. He landed heavily on his back. But in executing the maneuver Chastity dropped her purse.
When her bag hit the floor, it popped open.
When it opened her automatic slid out, just far enough to be clearly visible.
Chastity dove for her bag but stopped when the first guard yelled, “Freeze!” Damn, she thought. They give these amateurs guns. She sure hoped that they taught them how to use them. The security guard had his pointed at her in the two-handed FBI grip. He squinted down its meager sights as if he saw a ten-ring painted on Chastity’s nose. Hands elevated, she rose to her full height. The second guard grabbed her purse.
“Okay, boys, this has gotten a little out of hand.” Chastity said with what she hoped was a disarming smile. “In that same bag you’ll find my license to carry that little toy, and my badge.”
“Yeah, well unless it says licensed to kill or something, I think we’ll hang on to the gun for a while and sort this all out down in the security office.”
Drain pipes. Every house has them. On older homes, they are often clogged and corroded and come away from the wall with a hard yank. On new, well-maintained homes, they tend to be sturdy and wide. The ones on Rafael Sandoval’s home were strong enough for a light but strong woman like Ruby Sanchez to climb up, at least as far as the low roof of the attached garage. She clung to the shingles there, listening to the beehive of activity below, and feeling the growing breeze that she believed was announcing an approaching shower.
Ruby thought the men inside and around the house all assumed that she was long gone, charging through the surrounding yards or maybe into the nearby park. They had dispersed in several directions under the orders of de La Fuente. She had listened closely, screening through all the raised voices searching for Rafe’s without success. Perhaps they had decided to keep him locked in the house. If that were the case, he’d be harder to rescue.
First things first, though, she thought. First she had to escape. Then she could send back a SWAT team to take out the terrorists and liberate Rafe for whatever his fate would be. With all that in mind, Ruby slowly slid down the roof, feeling the pebbly tar paper shingles scrape her legs and wishing for the hundredth time that she was wearing pants.
Only after scanning the visible area thoroughly did Ruby allow her body to swing off the roof so that she was hanging by her hands from the edge. When she released the roof her body relaxed. She landed on her feet, collapsing into a deep knee bend before rolling backward to land flat on her belly beside the garage wall. Again she took precious seconds to make sure she could neither hear nor see anyone. Finally she stood and moved forward in a low crouch. This called for a couple of deep breaths. At this point, she would have to give up being quiet and commit.
“Here we go,” she whispered to herself.
Like so many suburbanites, Rafe parked in front of his perfectly good garage instead of inside it. That meant that Ruby had to be in the open to get into the car. She knew that Rafe’s car had a security system that might take her as much as two minutes to disarm. In that time someone would respond to the alarm and notice her standing there, or not. If they did, she was cornered and dead. If not, she had a chance.
Then life threw her a bone. She pulled the driver’s side door handle and the door popped open without sounding an alarm. The idiot not only didn’t use his security system, he didn’t even lock his car doors.
“Thank God for fools,” Ruby said, sliding into the front seat and closing the door. Stretched across the front seats she would be invisible from outside while she started the car. She could do it by pulling wires beneath the dashboard, but that was a lot trickier and more dangerous than it looks in the movies. Before resorting to that, she opened Rafe’s glove compartment. More luck. She found a small, flat tool kit, typical for the wealthy driver who has everything. She could have done without it, but its presence sure made life easier.
“Now to start this baby, Bed-Stuy style,” she said. Sitting up, she picked up the larger screwdriver in the box and punched its point into the Nissan 350Z’s ignition switch. When she twisted it, the engine fired just as if she had used a key.
“Bet they know I’m here now.” Ruby jammed the car down into first gear, popped the clutch and laid rubber on her way into the street. A sharp left put her en route to the Staten Island freeway. She just needed to get someplace where she could borrow a telephone without putting anyone else at risk. That was why she didn’t go to a neighbor’s house. But now she could be across town and untraceable in a matter of seconds. Of course, a cop might stop her for driving at fifty miles per hour on these narrow city streets, but that wouldn’t be so bad under the circumstances either.
Ruby was careful to watch for kids darting from between cars as she sprinted through the residential streets, letting her hands and feet work the roadster by themselves. The car was marvelously responsive and if not for her recent danger she would have reveled in the drive. As she ignored a stop sign on her way across an intersection she was already focused on the next corner ahead.
A big navy blue Lincoln pulled into the intersection ahead, pointed at her. The clown was driving down the middle of the narrow street. Ruby braked, wondering if the other driver would move over enough to let her pass. She was almost grill to grill with him before she could see his Latin features.
Shit! They had cars out after her. These guys had a lot more resources nearby than she suspected. Ruby stopped halfway down the block to see what the other drive would do. What he did was to roll down the driver side window and stick his arm out. When he pointed at her, she could see the revolver in his hand.
Maybe he thought she would surrender. After all, he didn’t know Ruby. Her hands and feet went into action. Her right hand pushed the Nissan’s gearshift lever into reverse while her left flipped him off. Then she was zooming away from him, pushing forty-five miles per hour, backward, steering with her mirrors. As she again approached the intersection she turned in her seat so she could see where she was going. At the corner she cranked the wheel hard, backed onto the cross street, shifted into first and took off.
Ruby smiled as she moved onto a broader street. Did these clowns think they could out drive her? Well now she had the Lincoln where it belonged, in her rearview mirror, as she opened up the little silver 350Z.
She hadn’t seen a street sign, but she was clearly on a cross-town that would drop her onto the Expressway soon. Her breathing accelerated with the car. She was almost panting when the needle touched one hundred twenty miles per hour. She was tied into the car as much as if wires fed the telemetry directly into her brain. Her attention moved across the speedometer, tachometer, traffic ahead, rearview mirrors. She would only need this speed for a few seconds more.
Ruby’s heart caught when the engine coughed. Then it happened again. For the first time she scanned the rest of the dash, looking for trouble lights. Instead her eyes landed on the fuel gauge. In five seconds panic passed through rage and became grudging admiration.
“Well, I will be damned,” Ruby said, shaking her head at her own foolishness. The Peruvians were never too worried about her taking Rafe’s car because they had drained the gas tank. Now what? If they took her out of the car they might get frisky and then they’d be forced to shoot her after she put her foot in someone’s crotch or scratched somebody’s eyes out. If she stayed on the street these idiots might get trigger-happy and endanger the lives of some passers-by. She needed an option.
The Nissan was losing velocity, struggling to keep running, as she approached what appeared to be an entrance to a park. Good deal. Ruby cranked the racing wheel, pulling across a well-manicured lawn and pushed the car into a patch of woods. She felt the tires digging into the soft turf, and assumed the Lincoln behind her would sink even deeper if they tried to follow her. She would push the car around the trees as far into the little urban forest as she could.
Between two elder maples the car rolled to a stop and refused to start again. As good a place as any, Ruby thought, and got out. She planned to put some distance between herself and the car, which, after all, had left quite a trail gouged into the turf. She saw no trails nearby but was sure to come across one soon. She was starting to get a little hungry, and the soggy ground did not make for fun hiking, but these were minor discomforts. The sky was darkening, putting the wooded area into shadow. She knew she could avoid those clumsy smugglers long enough in this park to find someone with a telephone. Then she was confident that as soon a she was able to call the office, Gorman would come riding to the rescue with an army, or maybe the Marines, to clean up this mess.
Paul Gorman never claimed to be psychic, but this time he almost reached for the telephone before it rang. It had been a long afternoon of waiting and wondering. His office seemed to be closing in on him at times, and the events of the day were spinning out of control, threatening to get away from him entirely. He had one agent missing, one out of town, a couple in danger, and one who proved too often to be unpredictable. With all of that happening, he had no psychic emanations. He simply felt as if it was time for the telephone to ring.
“Hello, G. It’s Chastity.” Her tone, the quiet depression of an embarrassed child, chilled him.
“I’m sorry, sir,” Chastity said. “I got detained by hospital security and it took a little while to straighten that all out. They finally took a close look at my FBI credentials.”
Gorman pushed a big paw across his face and up into his thick hair. “Want to tell me why hospital security would want to hold you?”
“Guess they thought I shouldn’t be chasing Alex Brooks.”
“Chasing him?” Gorman stared at the phone for a second in disbelief. “You were supposed to be talking to him.”
“I tried to brief Brooks on what I found out, but he didn’t take it at all well. I mean, he’s out of danger of losing his daughter, but I think he focused more on the fact that his wife’s been unfaithful to him. He ran off in a rage.”
Gorman sat back from his desk and took a deep breath. This was not good news. As he had told her, Chastity was the linchpin that day and he had to be able to count on her, but her weakness in human nature studies was becoming a dangerous blind spot for her.
“Ms. Chiba, you are going to have to catch up to Alex fast, before he does something rash.”
“Agreed,” Chastity said, “but how? A man could go almost anywhere to kill himself.”
Gorman clenched his eyes very tight, his bushy brows knitting together. In his mind he traced events to find the thread that led Chastity to the wrong road. He soon saw it, the man’s personal history, and would now redirect her.
“Chastity, dear, Alex Brooks has no intention of hurting himself again. That was despair and desperation. The bit of knowledge that you apparently have missed is that Alex Brooks loves his wife as well as his daughter.”
After a beat of silence, Gorman heard, “Oh.”
“Yes, my dear,” Gorman said with more patience than he felt. “The man felt guilty that he couldn’t please his wife. He felt it was his fault somehow that she wanted to leave him and take his daughter away too. But now he feels betrayed by the one person he thought he knew. The center of his universe has been redefined. There is only one place for this man to go.”
“He’s on his way home,” Chastity said, and swallowed hard before she could go on, “to confront his wife. Self-hatred will turn to blind rage.”
“Yes. You have to catch him, bring him back to reality, and redirect his energies in a useful direction.”
“But, G, how do I…”
“Sorry, Ms. Chiba, there’s another line going and I need to grab it. Get going and report when you’re done.” Gorman punched the button cutting off Chastity’s call and connecting him to the second line. “Hello?”
“Gorman. Gotta be brief. Not much time.”
“Ruby!” Paul said her name louder than he had intended. He grabbed his pencil and pulled his pad closer. Long shadows on the paper made him realize he had no lights on and the sun was moving toward the horizon. He could hear the wind passing the phone she was using. She was outdoors, but he heard no automotive traffic. “Where the hell are you?”
“Later,” Ruby said. “First, take an address. You got a pencil?”
“Of course,” Gorman said, and printed the street address Ruby gave him on his yellow pad in the space he had left for her location.
“That’s where the bad guys are holed up, Paul,” Ruby said. Gorman’s head snapped up. Ruby never called him by his first name when they were talking business, only when she was calling out to a friend.
“What’s the rest?”
“They’ve got Rafe Sandoval in there as a hostage.”
“Wait a minute,” Gorman said. “I thought Sandoval was the drug smuggler you went undercover to nab.”
“First, it ain’t him, it’s his asshole brother,” Ruby said. “And even he thought he was running cocaine for the Colombians, but it turns out it’s not really coke. It’s anthrax powder.”
“Jesus.”
“And they ain’t even real Colombians,” Ruby said, her voice rising to a chalk-on-blackboard screech. “They’re Peruvians. Paul, they’re Shining Path. You gotta get Rafe out of there.”
“I hear you, Ruby.” Paul stood and began to pace in the semidarkness. “Those guys are as vicious as Al Qaida. We’ll get him out. Now, where are you?”
“This nice gentleman who loaned me his phone says we’re in Silver Lakes Park. North Shore of Staten Island.”
“I know,” Gorman said. Ruby’s use of the term “nice gentleman” meant that he was older. No help in a fight. Her lack of time meant that she was hiding, running from someone. In trouble. Calling in the cavalry. “How do we find you?”
“Well, I’m on the move but I’ll keep circling back near the…SHIT!”
Gorman called her name twice, beads of sweat breaking on his forehead. Then he sat with the phone pressed to his ear for a full minute after the line went dead.