Page 247 of The Texas Sterling Collection
Wyl coughed. “Let go!” His voice strained from the choke.
“He’s fine.” A familiar voice. He turned to see Declan smiling at him.
“I’m fine, Wyl,” Rod spoke.
Wyl stopped struggling. “Ailbe, I know you’re here somewhere.”
“Merely waiting for you.” Ailbe walked out from between storage shelves into the light. “We’re in a basement surrounded by heavy HVAC equipment, so no cell or tracking signals are getting in or out. Your cell phone is taking a little morning drive to Waterford, so guess where they’ll go looking?”
“They’ll figure it out sooner or later,” Wyl said.
“Maybe, but I can hide long enough to get what I want. That is, unless you want to see your precious husband lying in a morgue. I can’t prevent Declan’s guys from getting a little trigger-happy occasionally.”
Wyl glared at Ailbe.
“Now, if a certain roadblock is removed from my program, I’ll consider dropping you two off in a remote location, unharmed, of course.”
“Now that you have me, let Rod go,” Wyl said.
“What guarantee do I have that you’ll release your lock on the program?” Ailbe asked.
“Having Rod here won’t give me any incentive. Letting my darlin’ go will allow you and me to be together like we discussed.”
Rod tensed.What the fuck? Wyl and Ailbe together? Wyl wanted to fucking get rid of his darling?Then the safe word sank in. Darlin’. Wyl was playing the game. He didn’t like it. Not one bit. However, survival depended on maintaining the pretense.
Wyl glanced at Rod. His eyes met with a stern glare filled with shock and anger.
“I see your husband isn’t happy with that little statement,” Ailbe said. “I think I’ll let him go before he witnesses us two going at it.”
He motioned to the two toughs. “Tie his hands behind his back, blindfold him, and gag him so he can’t shout. Then take him to the middle of the bridge down the street, tie his ankles together, and lay him down crossways. It’s late. Some drunk driver will hit him and put him out of his misery. It’s tragic when people accidentally wander into the street and become a traffic fatality.”
“Ailbe,” Wyl said. “If you tie his ankles, it will look like a murder. Best to let him wander around. Have them spin him around three or four times first so he doesn’t know which way to go.”
Rod seethed. Wyl was trying to get his little darlin’ killed!
The two muscle guys duct taped Rod’s wrists behind his back, tied a cloth over his eyes, and then taped his mouth. They muscled Rod out of the room. Wyl could not do anything but watch his husband disappear out the door.Stay safe, Rod. They’ll come for us.
* * *
“I didn’t think you would consider leaving your husband,” Ailbe said.
“If you’re kicking Declan out, there’s room for me, right? Does he know you’re planning to get rid of him once your scheme is complete?” Wyl figured to press that irritating wedge a bit further between the two. It didn’t take a genius to figure out their relationship wasn’t solid.
“You’re spoiling my surprise, Sterling,” Ailbe said.
Wyl turned to see Declan’s face, now full of doubt.
“There is a computer on the table in the back corner. The maintenance folks use it to pull work tickets. I connected it to my office computer, where the project resides, waiting for a command to run. You need to do your job, Sterling. Make it run.”
Wyl glanced at Declan again, then back at Ailbe. He walked over and sat at the computer, lifting his hands to the keyboard. He didn’t want to make this easy by merely entering the 3-space code. Instead, he would take the time to get into the code itself to remove the command.
“It will take a while,” Wyl said. “Once I do and remove the code, pressing Enter will activate your program.”
“I’m in no hurry,” Ailbe said. “It’s feckin’ dark thirty on Sunday morning. Nobody is on campus and won’t be all day.”
* * *
Sunday morning at 6:30, the black van approached Waterford. The three men in black could see the blue flashing lights of Garda patrol cars ahead as they came upon the city's outskirts. Vehicles were being stopped on this side of the first roundabout. They were stuck in the short line of cars waiting to be inspected.
