minister’s people had thought, at first, that Wilson was part of the kidnapping plot, sent to up the ante that had initially been set. But the poor, clueless man protested over and over again that his son Derek had found the MP3 player that morning near the park. Intending to keep his newfound prize, Derek could have easily done so if Wilson had not been running late that morning, not having yet departed for his very important position at the West End Bank.
Wilson had actually been on his way out when he’d taken note of the MP3 player clipped like a newly captured trophy to his sixteen-year-old’s belt. He stopped to question his son, who’d recently entered a rather shady period of his life. Thinking the player to be stolen, he’d been left unmoved by his son’s impassioned protestations of innocence. But Derek remained steadfast, firmly maintaining that he had found the MP3 player, not stolen it from someone.
Employing as much drama as he could, Wilson told his former interrogators that his jaw had practically dropped to the floor when he read the inscription on the back of the player. He’d lost no time in bringing it to Number 10 because he was a patriot—and because, he added more quietly, he was hoping that there might be some small reward for the player’s recovery.
Joshua had left that part up to the other men in the room, the prime minister’s personal bodyguards and his best friend, Montgomery, a kindly faced man who towered over the others. Joshua remained focused. He’d asked Wilson exactly where the player had been located. Wilson had to defer to his son. The latter was summoned. Derek was quick to pick up that something had to be amiss and made an attempt to barter.
But there was to be no exchange of information, on that the prime minister was absolutely clear. No one, except a very select few, was to even know that his daughter was missing.
On that Joshua and the prime minister had been in agreement.
Taken to the exact spot where Derek Wilson had first been united with the MP3 player, Joshua had the prime minister’s people fan out and locate every security camera in the area. After the London subway bombings of two years past, local small businesses, not to mention the government, had installed security cameras in as many available nooks and crannies as possible.
They got luckier. A grainy film of the abduction was recovered.
From that came a poor photograph of the van used and a much magnified partial license plate. Turning everything over to Lucia via the capabilities of his highly advanced cell phone, Joshua was rewarded in short order with the name of the van’s owner.
The prime minister sent two of his people to the owner’s house. He wasn’t there. But a hit on one of his credit cards at a distant gas station, also thanks to Lucia, showed them the path that the van had taken. Away from London and into the countryside, the land of the sisters Brontë, haystacks and needles. In other words, it appeared that they were headed north, in the general vicinity of Haworth.
It was an easy place to get lost. Or to hold a hostage.
Eager, distraught, the prime minister wanted to send some of his people along when he’d discovered that Joshua had come alone. But he’d respectfully declined the offer, saying he worked best on his own and unimpeded. If the cavalry was sent in, Prudence would be dead before they made it to the front door.
Reluctantly, the prime minister agreed to his terms.
Joshua continued tracking and following slim leads until, a day and a half after Prudence Hill had been snatched outside of the southern end of St. James Park, he had wound up here, in an isolated section of the countryside relatively untouched in the last 170 years, staring through a telescope at a filthy window into an even filthier room.
Staring directly at the object of his search.
She looked none the worse for her ordeal, Joshua judged, relieved that the young woman was still alive. Now all he had to do was to keep her that way, get her out of there in one piece and bring her back to her father.
A tall order from where he stood. But not an impossible one.
Joshua rose to his feet, reducing the telescope in his hands to a fraction of its original size. The fat drops of rain began to increase and fall in earnest. The sky had been an odd shade of amber and mauve all day and there’d been talk of an electrical storm on the horizon. He’d hoped that the weather would hold steady until he got Prudence out of there.
In true black ops tradition, Joshua began turning the situation around in his mind, searching for a way to make it work for him rather than against him.
Ten minutes later, his clothes sticking to his body and his hair plastered to his head, Joshua walked up to the kidnappers’ front door and knocked urgently. All he knew was that the farmhouse, which belonged to one Owen Sutton now that his grandfather had passed on, contained anywhere from two to four people, not counting their hostage. No one knew what Owen’s source of income was, since the farm was not a working one.
Joshua had a hunch he knew.
Hidden inside his left boot was an extra clip of bullets for the gun tucked into the back of his waistband.
He knocked again when there was no response.
It was several tense seconds before the door was finally opened. An average, unfriendly looking man of medium height and build, dressed completely in black, stood squarely in the doorway. There was a streak of what looked like pale pink face powder across the cuff of his left sleeve. From carrying Prudence, Joshua surmised, unless the man had some peculiar habits.
Eyes like cold, black marbles passed over him. “Yeah?”
Joshua looked properly humbled, a hapless man without a clue as to how to remedy the situation he found himself in.
“I’m sorry to bother you, mate, but my car broke down about a mile away—” he pointed vaguely toward the road “—and I was wondering if you’d mind my using your telephone.”
The man in the doorway looked as if he would have rather shoved his face into the nearest deep puddle than to allow him access into the farmhouse. “What for?” he spat out.
Joshua shrugged helplessly. “To call a mechanic, a towing service, someone for help…” His voice trailed off.
The man eyed him for a long time. Joshua felt as if he were being X-rayed. Obviously coming to no conclusion, the man lifted his chin pugnaciously. “How come you ain’t got a cell phone?”
“Had one,” Joshua admitted forlornly, “but it fell into the loo when I took a leak in the restroom of a bar at the last town. It doesn’t work anymore.”
To Joshua’s surprise, the man laughed. But it was a nasty, unsympathetic sound. “Ain’t your day, mate, is it?” he jeered.
“That it ain’t,” Joshua agreed nervously. He projected just the right amount of uncertainty as he shifted from foot to foot and nodded toward the interior of the house. “So, can I use that phone?”
“Sorry,” the man replied, his voice indicating that he was anything but. “Never got around to hooking up a service.” And then he paused, as if debating. Joshua guessed that he was weighing whether it was less trouble to shoot him or get him to leave on his own. And then the man surprised him by looking over his shoulder into the house. “Hey, Ken,” the man shouted. “C’mere.”
A moment later, “Ken,” a lanky man whose clothes were meant
