System that had been stitched into the pack.
Redinger was right. They had to cover all the possibilities. Considering what was at stake, they couldn’t afford to make any assumptions.
Why was Flynn so sure that the woman was innocent? Simply because she didn’t look like a terrorist meant nothing. Trouble came in all shapes and sizes. He’d seen old women in patched coats and kerchiefs lob hand grenades. He’d seen children act as spotters for assassins with high-powered rifles. He knew better than to trust anyone except the members of his team.
Besides, even if he was right and the pickup had been accidental, it was too late to put the ransom back in place. Boarding the bus now and retrieving the money would attract too much negative attention, to say the least. And the LLA had ordered Ambassador Vilyas not to alert the authorities about the kidnapping. No one, especially not Delta Force, was supposed to have been at the ransom drop, so how would they have known of the bungled pickup? The LLA could be following the ransom as easily as Flynn was, and they would be sure to spot any attempt at interference.
Oh, hell. For the sake of the mission, he should hope he was wrong about the woman. It would be far easier if she really was a clever terrorist in disguise who had just pulled off a brilliant plan.
Then again, since when had Flynn liked things easy?
Flynn dropped back, allowing more traffic between his bike and the bus as he followed it. Terse, one-line reports came over the radio link as Sarah Fox and her friends in Intelligence scrambled to keep up with the situation. Information began to build. The licence plates of the school bus were registered to a local bus company. According to their log, this bus was booked by Cherry Hill School for a field trip. Contact name at the school was a Miss Abigail Locke.
Abigail? It was an old-fashioned name, perfectly suitable for a wholesome-looking schoolteacher. He wondered if her friends called her Abbie.
As if following the script that Intelligence had written, the bus pulled into the parking lot of Cherry Hill School. Flynn coasted past, did a U-turn and let the bike idle in the shade of the trees at the corner of the schoolyard.
The teacher—Abigail—got off the bus first but she was unable to stem the flow as the kids burst out after her. She did manage to hand out a few jackets and two of the backpacks before the children met up with their waiting parents, but the kids were eager to be gone. The whole thing was over in a matter of minutes.
A strange woman’s voice came over the radio. It was soft and tinged with humor, and somehow Flynn knew it had to be hers.
“…good thing their heads are permanently attached.”
“I’ve patched in the feed from the mike in the backpack,” the major said, confirming Flynn’s suspicions about who was speaking. “The woman’s been trying to give the ransom away for the past ten minutes.”
“Could she know the mike is there?” Sarah asked.
“Possible, but unlikely.”
“What’s going on at the museum?” Flynn asked.
Rafe’s voice replied. “Nothing. If the LLA is here, they’re not making any moves yet.”
Flynn leaned forward and crossed his arms on the bike’s handlebars, straining to see across the schoolyard. Miss Abigail Locke waved at a few of her departing students, then turned away. “Geez.” She gave a breathy grunt as she hitched one strap of the green backpack over her shoulder. “How many Pokémon cards can they cram into these things?”
“Abigail Locke has brown hair, brown eyes, is five feet four inches, 103 pounds…” Sarah’s voice droned in the background, describing the details of the woman who was walking across the parking lot toward a beige subcompact. “She’s the registered owner of a beige Pontiac Firefly, license number…”
Flynn’s lips quirked. Well, either this particular terrorist had established an exceptionally solid cover and was so clever that she was deliberately acting innocent for the microphone she knew was in the backpack…
Or she was exactly what Flynn hoped she was.
Wait a minute. He’d been through this already. He had no business being pleased. Her innocence was going to increase the difficulty of this mission by a factor of ten.
They had to get the money back before Abigail discovered it—along with the surveillance devices in the specially designed pack—and decided to be a law-abiding citizen and turn everything over to the police. Once that happened, it would be next to impossible to contain the damage. The secrecy of the mission would be compromised. Rumors would get started, questions would be asked and the LLA would cry “double cross” and kill the Vilyas kid.
“She’s twenty feet from her car,” Flynn said. “With this bike, I can reach her and take the backpack before she gets her keys out. Few if any witnesses. She’ll think it was a random mugging.”
“Negative,” the major said. “We can’t make a move on her in public. If the LLA did tail her and are watching, they’ll know Vilyas talked.”
And cry “double cross” and kill the kid, Flynn repeated to himself. “Tell me where she lives,” he said, easing his bike into gear. “I think it’s time we meet.”
Chapter 2
Abbie flicked another glance at her watch as she dug her keys out of her purse. The traffic had been worse than usual. Every direct route to her apartment building had been blocked by stalled cars or minivans. Why couldn’t everyone simply follow their vehicle manufacturer’s recommended maintenance schedule? She always did, and she hadn’t had any problems with her car yet. Still, it was odd that the car trouble seemed limited to her neighborhood. It was almost as if there were some grand conspiracy out there to delay her from reaching home.
She shook her head at the ridiculous thought. Washington was undoubtedly full of enough conspiracies, but they wouldn’t be targeting her. No, she was about as ordinary and law-abiding as a person could get. She understood the value of structure. Maintenance schedules, school timetables, to-do lists, these gave a lovely framework on which to build a life.
Of course, sometimes timetables did require adjustment. She’d have to pencil in thirty-five as her next target date for the husband, family and home in the suburbs.
“Oh, for heaven’s sake,” she muttered, fitting the key into the lock. “Get over it. Thirty is only a number.”
The phone was ringing when she opened the door. She bolted the door behind her and flicked on a light just as the answering machine picked up.
“Hi, dear.” It was her mother’s voice. “I hope everything’s all right. I thought you’d be home by now.”
Abbie hurried through the short entrance hall to her living room, dodged around the avocado plant and reached past the fig tree to grab the telephone. “Hi, Mom.”
“Oh, you’re there. How was your day, Abigail?”
“Great. The kids loved the museum.” She started to shrug off her jacket, belatedly realizing she was still holding on to the stray backpack she’d picked up. She’d meant to leave it in the car so she could take it in to school tomorrow, but in her rush to get home she must have brought it upstairs to her apartment without thinking.
