Carter's Recourse - 13. Chapter 13

Will was safe for the time being and Andrew knew that the trail to finding Peter was getting cold; the crucial forty-eight hours after the deed were half over, and if he didn't act quickly they would lose any chance of finding the boy.

Jane, at his request, had picked up his Mustang from where he had left it and had met him at the airport with the car. If Andrew was going to be speeding around the city, he would rather do it in a car he knew could handle it.

He barely exchanged pleasantries with his partner as he slipped behind the wheel and accelerated the car out of the airport, turning it onto the main street and speeding towards the city.

"Nice to see you, too," Jane commented as the Mustang breezed through a red stoplight, jumping a little on a bump causing her to hang on tightly to the 'oh shit handle' above the door.

Andrew knew his car. The 2005 Mustang GT was a 300-horsepower V8; it outmaneuvered anything in the CSIS motor pool and was the one concession to his former life as a lawyer that Andrew had kept. Through high school he had driven his father's restored Mustang and that classic car had become a good friend to him until he had to sell it to pay for college. But that was the advantage of graduating--he was able to buy a new one.

He shifted gears, aware that he was flying along the road, weaving through traffic that barely had time to register his car was coming until it was long past them. He had been driving for most of his adult life; he was careful and skilled, and he knew those roads like the back of his hand.

"That was a cop..." Jane pointed out as Andrew cut off another car, continuing to hammer the eight cylinders to squeeze every ounce of power from the engine. The red and blue lights and the sound of the siren echoed behind them as Jane turned to look back at it.

"We don't have time to stop," Andrew stated firmly, gesturing to the glove compartment. "I keep a radio in there."

Jane rolled her eyes at Andrew's determination, prying her hand off of the handle as she felt the car gliding at high speed towards the heart of downtown. She managed to wrestle the radio from the glove compartment and tuned it to the standard police channel.

"Dispatch," she called in, "you have a car pursuing a black Ford Mustang along Bank Street. Over."

There was a crackle. "Who is this? Over."

Jane glanced at Andrew, and told the dispatch officer exactly who she was. And as she set the radio back into her lap she watched as the police cruiser that had been pursuing them only a moment before accelerate with its turbocharger to pass them, taking the lead and using its sirens to clear a way for the Mustang.

"Nice trick," Andrew said with a smile at his partner.

"I always had a way with men in uniform," Jane replied with a self-assured smile as she settled in to enjoy the ride.

* * *

Johnson glanced at his watch, sitting in the car watching the transport parked in the lot opposite him. They had to wait, and he hated waiting, it always made him anxious. So much of his job was planning and waiting. The actual doing was so brief that he literally lived from moment to moment.

He pulled off his sunglasses as he got out of the car and looked about at the desolate truck stop. They were taking things slowly, continually moving so as not to be in one place too long. Waiting for the signal that would send them onto the next stage of the operation. That would only come if the people involved decided to play ball.

He rubbed his temples; caffeine addiction was a bitch, especially when you were forced to go without coffee for great stretches of time. He shook his head, vowing that it was a good reason to quit once the op was over, and he got on with business.

He hated North America--too cold, too damp. He lived for places like Saudi Arabia and Iraq, where he knew what to expect. Caution there didn't attract the kind of attention it did here. He could have his men openly armed, confident they would blend in and be ignored by the general populace. But here, if someone so much as suspected they had a gun, there would be half the local detachment of the police down on their heads.

His men were around. Names weren't important in their line of work, he honestly didn't care who they were. Just that they did what they were told when told to do so.

They had all been hand-picked based on specific criteria, the illusion had to be maintained. Everything was carefully cultivated to make the next part of the operation run smoothly. He glanced about him at the six men, all of Arabic decent, all equipped with the appropriate passports tucked into their belongings even though they all worked for his payroll.

His 'cell' was equipped and ready. They just had to play their part, and when it was all over, a nice fat bonus would be waiting for them Stateside to help them forget all about it. And he would once again serve the best interests of his nation.

He hated international politics, but it was the only way to accomplish the goal of securing the safety of his home, and he wasn't about to let his handlers down. They expected results, and unlike Knowlan, he wasn't about to fail them.

He walked around to the back of the truck, checking that the doors were still locked tight. He had only wanted the girl and the boy was inconsequential. But his men had really had no choice; they had to take both when the chance arose.

Grimly Johnson contemplated shooting the boy, but senseless killing was something that left a bad taste in his mouth. The boy's death would serve no purpose, unlike the shooting of the driver the night before. His employers always disliked senseless collateral damage, and brutally killing a boy just for the sake of it would make them squeamish.

The whole operation had them jumping at shadows, and he wondered if they would have the stomach to see it through to its inevitable conclusion--he highly doubted it. Which meant he had to be careful, really careful, or he would be left hanging out to dry.

He wasn't about to let that happen. He'd already taken steps to ensure that he had a backup plan should anything go awry. A couple of his men were held in reserve ready to carry out his orders; they were on his payroll and not the "Company's." It ensured their loyalty when they knew it was he who paid them, not some faceless suit too far away from the field to make rational decisions.

He would let the children go, once their part in the play had been concluded. There was no need to dispose of them, and there was of course the photo op of a gallant rescue to be choreographed, and that always went better if the hostages were recovered alive.

He turned back, returning to his car as he lit a cigarette, confident he was in control.

* * *

They had arrived at the club only a few minutes before closing. The bouncer was loathe to let them in until Andrew had produced his ID and waved it under the large man's nose. The clean-cut Canadian country boy was half the size of the mammoth bouncer that had towered over him, but West knew they were usually just for show, and he'd been coldly firm as he had stood his ground, staring the man down. Once the pair were inside Andrew took a moment to glance around him at the long line of drunk couples hanging off of each other, some of them seeing each other for the first time in the light.

Andrew had never had much time for nightclubs, they simply weren't his thing. And he could see why they lacked any appeal up close. Meat markets that catered to desperation and loneliness. It didn't matter if they were gay or straight bars, Andrew always felt out of place in a place that was geared towards sex in the quickest fashion possible.

A guy swept past him, tracing his hand over Andrew's arm and looking longingly down towards Andrew's trousers.

Jane raised her eyebrows at the forwardness and Andrew for his part shook his head and walked through into the back bar, trying his best to ignore the stares he was getting from the hungry guys around him.

He was blissfully unaware that he was attracting a lot of attention. He was athletically built, stylish, and from the way he walked-totally straight. He seemed like the holy grail of so many of the men there that night. But that was part of what made him so attractive, the very fact he didn't know that he was, from outward appearances just another country boy lost in the big city.

"I'm sorry, hun," the bartender said, turning to him, "last call was half an hour ago..." He gave Andrew an appraising glance up and down, and smiled as he chewed his gum. "But I have some stuff back home if you need a drink..."

Andrew pulled out his ID and dropped it open on the bar, the bartender taking a moment as he looked down at it then back up Andrew, "Cool, I got a pair of handcuffs back at my place if you want to interrogate me too..." He obviously didn't believe Andrew was serious.

Andrew reached under his jacket and drew his service automatic, setting the P99 down on the bar next to his ID. He was aware of the mountain of paperwork he would have to file for drawing the weapon needlessly in public, but he was in a hurry.

The bartender's lusty smile faded as he looked at the automatic, "You mean... you're for real?"

"Sorry," Andrew apologized, "I am investigating the disappearance of this guy." He pulled out a photo of Peter that he handed across the bar.

The bartender nodded, "Yeah, sure, I know him."

"Really?" Andrew asked, re-holstering his gun and slipping his ID away. He was surprised at how easily that worked.

"Yeah, couldn't miss him. He was the guy in here last night in the tuxedo, cute. Was with this bad drag queen in a prom dress, so totally last year... you couldn't miss 'em."

Andrew looked over at Jane, and then back at the bartender, "Do you know who they left with?"

"Nah," the bartender said, "we were busy last night. I remember they met with this other couple, young jocky-type guy and an older girl; they were talking then they left. I went to collect their glasses after a bit, but the other couple said they'd only gone to the bathroom. I guess they ducked and ran 'cause they didn't come back for those drinks."

"Can you describe who they met?" Andrew pressed; it was a fragile lead, but it might go a long way to explaining why Peter and Becky had come to the bar rather than going to the Prom.

"I can do one better," the bartender said walking over to the digital cash register. He called up the receipts for the night before, and tapped it a few times, printing off a copy of the receipt. "The older girl paid for the drinks with a credit card." He handed the receipt over, "The number's down the bottom."

Andrew accepted it gratefully and turned to leave.

"Hey," the bartender called, "you know if you want to interrogate me further..."

Jane laughed at her partner as they left the club.

* * *

The remains of the Mercedes was being reconstructed in the garage when Andrew and Jane walked in. They had stopped to run the credit card number, and Andrew had suggested they stop by the lab to see the results of the forensic examination of the crash.

The lab technician glanced up at them as he examined something on a spectrometer. "You Officer Highmore?" he asked, checking and writing something on his clipboard.

"That's right," Andrew replied, glancing over the wreckage. There wasn't much of the car left intact; it had been mangled almost beyond recognition. The technicians had combed over every inch of it, trying to piece together an explanation for what had happened.

"Come here," the tech said, leading them around the car to where a section of the windscreen had been painstakingly reconstructed. It was spider-webbed and chipped.

Andrew glanced back at the technician. "What am I looking at here?"

"This was a section of the windshield we found inside the car," the tech replied, setting his clipboard aside and staring at them meaningfully.

"That's odd," Jane replied, glancing at Andrew. "I used to be a cop," she explained. "I investigated crashes like this one. I've never heard of an instance where part of the windshield blew inwards while the rest blew outwards--it's usually one or the other."

"Exactly," the technician said, fixing his attention on Jane, someone who could understand the science behind what he was getting at. "I thought it was strange so I ran a trace-elements analysis on it."

"What did you find?" Jane asked, leaning in to stare at the spider-web pattern, closing an eye to look through the nickel-sized hole.

"Cellulose," the technician said proudly, "and a high concentration of carbon monoxide on all the glass fragments."

Andrew turned, "Cellulose and carbon monoxide?" He glanced at Jane, "What does that mean?"

"Look at the pattern," Jane pointed to the glass. "Something hit the windshield hard enough to shatter it."

"A bullet, or a stone?" Andrew asked.

"No trace of either in the car, and the driver wasn't shot," the technician replied. "If it was a bullet it vanished into thin air somewhere between the windshield and the driver."

"Bullets just don't disappear," Jane stated, staring at the glass.

Andrew licked his lips, saying, "Well, regardless of what happened to the bullet, we still know one important thing--this was no accident."

The technician shrugged, "Evidence doesn't lie."

"Oh it does," Andrew said walking towards the door to the lab. "Especially when it's designed that way."

Jane hurried to catch up with him as he walked through the labs back towards the elevator. "What now?" she asked him as he pressed the button.

He looked at her, "Well, we have to talk to the people who met our two missing kids at the club, one of them might have seen something. Failing that..." he shrugged, "I have no idea."