Page 47 of A Very Happy Thanksgiving
To my right, Jez’s shoulders shook with silent laughter. “We flew halfway around the world to rescue your boyfriend, and he wants to stay kidnapped. You couldn’t make this up.”
“He’s not my boyfriend.”
“Whatever you say.”
“In fact, I’m tempted to murder him at the moment. What the hell is he thinking?”
“Guess those tarsiers made a big impression.”
“Ugh.”
I wanted to toss my kit into the tangle of vines, scrub the camo paint off my face, and walk to the airport. Okay, hitchhike. But instead, I had to watch from a hillside two hundred yards away as Heath got in close to assess the situation.
And the situation was fucked.
Emmy spoke from my left. “Well, this is a fun trip to Stockholm syndrome.”
“Shut up. And think of Serena—she clearly wants out of there.”
Although I could still hear her faintly over the airwaves, reminding a literal kidnapper that ninety percent of men were lying snakes, and they shouldn’t let Lonnie McDonald wriggle out of his promise. She thanked KD politely for bringing water. And she didn’t exactly sound distressed.
“Eh, she’s right about Lonnie. He’d backtrack in a hot second if we didn’t have him by the short and curlies.”
“Not that short,” Jez said. She’d seen the video and obviously found this little trip amusing. “He could use some manscaping down there.”
“Very true. So, are we rescuing them? Once Priest and Mimi get here, that would put us six on six, worst-case scenario, assuming the hostages don’t take up arms against us. Does Marc know how to fire a gun?”
When we were kids, he used to go hunting with Booker and me, although as we’d gotten older, he’d grown to hate the killing part. Sure, he still plinked away at targets in the yard with Huck, so Kitty told me, but only with an air gun because Huck didn’t like loud noises. As for me, I still hunted for sport, but now my targets had two legs rather than four.
“Yeah, and he’s a good shot.”
“Super. Mimi, what’s your ETA?” Emmy asked via her satellite comms unit.
“Thirty minutes.”
She’d said that forty-five minutes ago. Then she and Priest had to take a detour because part of the road had gotten washed away in a storm, and now they were stuck in traffic along with everyone else taking the same diversion.
“Can you turn around and try a different route?”
“We already did that. A truck tipped over trying to avoid a cow and blocked the road.”
A cow.
A fuckin’ cow.
We could call for a helicopter, but then we’d get Kopassus in a two-for-one deal, and nobody wanted to do that yet, not when Marc and Serena clearly weren’t in imminent danger. Emmy claimed Sinaga’s squad was competent, but we had less confidence in his boss. Recent bad press meant the brass needed a good-news story, and nobody wanted this to end in a blaze of glory when we had a chance of resolving the issue quietly.
“Fingers crossed for third-time lucky,” Emmy said. “Any chance you could pick up a pair of bolt cutters on the way?”
“Where? There aren’t exactly many hardware stores around here.”
Down in the clearing, Marc turned the page, then glanced toward Heath. Nothing moved but the leaves on the trees and the occasional bird. We were in a holding pattern, and I hated it. I mean, things could have been worse—I could have been Heath in a jungle-style ghillie suit—but now I had nothing to do but play voyeur through the scope on my takedown rifle and think over my past mistakes.
I squinted again at the chain around Marc’s ankle. “The padlock isn’t anything special.”
“How fast could you pick it?”
“One minute for the padlock, another ten for the interrogation about what the hell I was doing there.”
