Page 12 of A Colby Christmas Rescue

Poe frowned and shared another look with Jamie.

“You have no idea,” she said, laughing. “Grandpa isn’t who you think he is.” This was truer than she would ever be able to convince her friend or anyone else.

Poe gave a nod. “I see.”

“Your Santa arrived in LA from a visit to Santiago last Friday. His wife’s mother passed away unexpectedly.” Lucas shrugged. “We’ll stick with calling him Santa. You may not realize based on his condition today—he has felt a little under the weather the past couple of days—but he was booked solid with many appearances at some very large malls and department stores.”

Jamie got it now. “He would have come into contact with a lot of people over the next few days.”

Lucas nodded. “By tomorrow, the incubation period will be complete and Santa will be highly contagious with the virus he contracted at the funeral.”

“I take it he had no idea,” Jamie suggested. No wonder he’d been self-medicating with alcohol. He probably felt like hell and was attempting to cheer himself up.

“None. Eleven other targets were discovered and picked up in the past twenty-four hours. Your Santa was the last.”

“Wow.” Poe shook his head. “No wonder we had to take all those shots when we received our orders.”

“There’s no reason to believe you were exposed,” Lucas explained. “The date and time your Santa was exposed was known so he wouldn’t have been contagious yet, just feeling a little under the weather from all the changes happening in his body.”

Victoria shook her head. “I liked it better when we could see the attacks coming.” She took a deep breath. “At any rate, based on the instructions delivered by the courier Luke told us about, there is a certain surgeon in Nashville who has perfected a previously basically impossible-to-do brain surgery. The first successful procedure was completed just three months ago. There have been two more each week since and though this is an amazing step, this surgeon is the only one so far who has managed the feat. The hope is that he will be able to train others, but it’s not going to be easy, and worse, it’s going to take time. For those who have inoperable brain tumors, time is not on their side.”

“There is a great deal of fiery rhetoric in the medical field just now,” Lucas said, picking up from there, “as to whether this surgeon, Dr. Quinton Case, should be wasting his time trying to teach others to do the surgery or just doing the surgery. He can only do two or three per week because it is incredibly tedious and both physically and mentally exhausting.”

Victoria said, “How do you decide which patients will receive the surgery and which won’t during any given week? How many lives will be lost while time is taken away from surgery to attempt teaching others?”

“Wow, that’s a hard one.” Jamie searched her grandmother’s face. “But, as horrible as what you’re telling me is, what does this have to do with Luke?”

“We can only assume that our kidnapper has someone close to him who needs this surgery since all he wants is the surgeon.”

Jamie held up her hands. “Wait. This dude wants me to kidnap this surgeon and deliver him to his location of choice?”

“You have approximately seventy-two hours—or until five o’clock on Monday. At that time, if the surgeon has not been delivered to the drop-off location, Luke will die.”

Jamie’s heart sank. She turned to Poe. “Though I appreciate your desire to give me a hand with this, I think this is where your participation ends. I can’t ask you to do this.”

“No way.” He shook his head. “I’m not walking away.”

“I won’t argue with you, Kenny.” She wouldn’t waste time or energy doing that.

“Then don’t because I’m not leaving until you do.” He leaned deeper into the seat.

“You should consider what she’s trying to tell you,” Lucas argued. “There is nothing we can do. In fact, this...right here...is as far as our participation can go. The instructions were explicit. Once we have passed the information along, any involvement on our part or the part of our agency will prompt an immediate termination of the deal. No exceptions.”

Jamie turned to her grandfather. Then it was decided—she was on her own. “Under the circumstances, I would suggest you get on with this briefing and go.”

Victoria shook her head. “There are steps we can take to prevent you having to do this.”

Jamie understood. They could make a preemptive strike. Grab the surgeon and then do the negotiating. “But we both understand how risky that option is. The same with going to the FBI. Anything we do puts us in a situation where we can’t guarantee the outcome for Luke.”

Victoria shook her head again. “Even following their rules, there are no guarantees of the outcome, Jamie. As you’re well aware, things can go wrong either way. People can go back on their word.”

“Then there’s nothing to talk about.” Jamie looked to Lucas. “Let’s get this done and the two of you should be on your way. It doesn’t take a lot of imagination to figure out they likely know about your arrival, and they’ll be watching for your departure.”

Lucas passed Jamie a brown envelope. “This tells you everything you need to know about your target. The drop-off location will be given to you nearer the grab time.”

Jamie accepted the package. “Thank you.”

Lucas shook his head and looked away.

---