Page 39 of Call Sign: King
The ringing in Ryder’s ears was back with a vengeance, and for a brief moment, the road in front of him blurred, forcing him to press his brakes.
“What the fuck does that mean? Am I going the wrong way?” he finally shouted. “Where the hell are they going?”
Long seconds passed, and Ryder heard frantic typing.
“Stay calm,” his old friend said, confirming the news was bad. “They have to be going to Buttonville Municipal. That was one of the smaller strips I’d ruled out.”
Ryder pounded the steering wheel with all his might. Again and again, until the pain in the heel of his hand hurt almost as much as the stabbing pain in his heart.
He was going to lose her. It was really happening. He’d killed the only woman he’d ever love. He might as well have pulled the trigger himself.
“Ryder…”Axel’s calm voice somehow broke through the darkness.
“I… “ he choked, unable to think, let alone speak.
“Listen to me. It’s not too late.”
“How can you fucking say that? There is no fucking way I can make it in time to stop them from taking off!”
“Maybe, maybe not. But you’re gonna try. And if they get off the ground, we’ll move on to the next plan. And then the next. And the next. We’ll never give up until we find the ones we love.”
That’s when the truth slammed into him like a truck. This feeling. This panic. It’s exactly the nightmare his best friend had been living for seven fucking years. Ryder had barely survived seven minutes.
“How have you done it?” he asked, desperate for some magical advice to make the blinding fear stop.
“Hope.” Axel’s voice cracked at the other end of the phone. In that moment, Ryder knew Khloe’s abduction had thrown his best friend right back into the deep end of his own living purgatory. “You never give up hope, but first… you embrace the anger. The fury you feel that someone has hurt the most important person in the world to you. That fury will serve you well.”
The man with the call sign Wrath knew a lot about fury.
Making a split decision, Ryder jerked the wheel, forcing his car onto the left berm while slamming on the breaks until he’d slowed down enough to do a U-turn, driving through the grassy median between the east and west bound lanes, his SUV bumping through ruts left behind from a previous accident.
“Text me the new address. I’m diverting. Can we get satellite coverage of the area?”
A few seconds later, Ryder felt his phone vibrate with the incoming text. He hated slowing down, but he needed to get the address loaded to his map app, and more importantly, reach to his briefcase for his phone charger. As if he didn’t already have enough problems, his battery was running low, and he’d be damned if he’d cost Khloe her life just because he had no fucking phone juice.
He was just getting back to the 404 and finally heading north when Bing confirmed, “Wrath called it. They got off at the Route 73 ramp. The airstrip is right there at the exit. They won’t be on the ground much longer.”
Please God. I know I don’t deserve your mercy, but Khloe is a fucking angel. She doesn’t deserve this. Please… take me instead.
He saw the flashing lights of the police once again chasing him down in his rear-view mirror, but it only made him go faster.
“Someone needs to let the cruiser trying to pull me over know what’s going on!”
“On it.”
“The Queen’s GPS location acquired! Confirmed location Buttonville airport. They must have exited the van,” Axel reported.
“King, I had Crack triangulate your cell. You’re eleven minutes away. Let’s hope they aren’t as organized as our guys are before takeoff.”
Ryder didn’t say it, but any one of his enemies with the balls and skill to pull off the kidnapping of an international movie star in broad daylight while up against his BSO best wouldn’t be making any dumb mistakes. That didn’t mean he wasn’t going to kill himself trying to get there in time.
Seconds turned to minutes as Ryder weaved through traffic, doing his best to focus on driving instead of thinking about what Khloe was going through.
“Axel is back. I let the police know the target has moved from Oshawa to Buttonville. They have one security car at the entrance of the airport, but that won’t be enough for them to confront our bogie. I gave them the description of your vehicle, though, so they know you’re a friendly and can act as backup.”
Ryder couldn’t get the word thanks out of his dry mouth, but even in the heat of the moment he knew how lucky he was to have the experts he had working the problem. It would have been game over the second the asshole got Khloe to the van if he didn’t have his teams in Texas and D.C. helping from afar.
“Fuck,” Axel broke in.
