get from the president of the United States. Unfortunately that was a big pool of possibilities, everything from sovereignty to nuclear weapons.
Then there was the matter of the no-negotiation policy. The one that told her she could be stuck here for a very long time, and then she could be killed.
Darcy might not love everything about her life at this moment in time, but she wasn’t ready for it to be over. Terror tightened her throat and made it impossible to breathe. She had the sudden thought that she was going to throw up.
Stay calm, she told herself. If she vomited, she could drown in a really gross way. She had to find her Zen center. Not that she’d ever studied Zen, but she could imagine what it was like. A tranquil place. A place where reality was an illusion and all that mattered was the slow, steady beating of her heart.
Deep breaths, she told herself. In and out. No hurry in the air department. Just nice slow-
“Did you hurt her?”
The question came from somewhere behind her as she heard several people approaching. Panic joined fear as she tried to figure out if, in this man’s opinion, hurting her would be a plus or not.
“She got banged up in the back of the van,” Bill said. “But that’s all.”
She looked around for some kind of escape. But the huge, empty warehouse didn’t offer any places to hide, and being tied to a large, heavy chair limited her options. She tried to scoot and only succeeded in wrenching her back.
“Good. We don’t want any unnecessary bloodshed.”
Darcy exhaled in relief. Speaking as the kidnappee, she was delighted to know that bloodshed was to be avoided until necessary. Not that she wanted to know what would be considered necessary.
Their footsteps got closer, then three men were standing in front of her. She recognized her two kidnappers, who stood with a new guy, also in a demon mask. He was taller than the other two, and stronger. Something he proved when he turned on the non-Bill one and grabbed him by the throat.
“What the hell were you thinking?” he demanded, shaking the smaller man like a dog shakes something tasty just before he kills it.
Bill danced from foot to foot, although he didn’t rush in to help his friend. “We got her, boss. Just like you said. The president’s daughter. This is her.”
The leader released non-Bill and curled his hands into fists. He stared at Darcy through the slits of the mask and growled.
“Not
Less than thirty minutes later the van came to a stop. Darcy was still too stunned to react, even as the rear doors opened and the two men reached in to pull her out. One of them cut the bindings on her wrists while the other collected her purse and tossed it on the ground next to her. The broken sandal followed. Then they ran back to the front of the van, jumped inside, and sped away.
She had enough functioning brain left to look for a license plate-there wasn’t one-and to note the color and make of the van. Then she sank down on the curb of the deserted loading area at the rear of the mall and rested her filthy arms on her scraped and bloodied knees and her head on her arms.
This hadn’t happened, she told herself, even as the truth of it settled around her like a hot, sticky fog. She’d been rejected by kidnappers, which made the event a new high in a lifetime of lows.
Talk about a photo opportunity, she thought grimly. Here she was, battered, bruised, cut up, scraped. Her clothes were dirty and torn, her shoes broken, and she’d just been tossed aside like a used tissue.
Darcy straightened, pulled the tape off her mouth, then gasped as skin tore with the adhesive. That wasn’t going to be pretty as it healed. She felt around on the cement until she found her purse and pulled out the panic button. Better late than never, she thought as she pressed down on the bright red button and waited for the cavalry.
Lieutenant Commander Joe Larson had always considered the admiral a reasonable, if distant, commanding officer. All that had changed at 9:18 the previous evening. The admiral wanted someone’s head on a stick, and he was gunning for Joe’s.
“What kind of half-assed, goddamn asshole…”
The tirade continued, but Joe didn’t bother listening as his captain got reamed. He could figure out the highlights without hearing them. Besides, the captain would be passing them along personally to Joe soon enough.
Such was the chain of command. The admiral chewed out the captain, the captain chewed out him, and he, well, Joe hadn’t decided what he was going to do. Like they said-shit rolled downhill.
He crossed to the window of the office foyer and stared at the activity below. There was plenty of it at the Naval Amphibious Base. And just beyond the building, the Pacific Ocean sparkled in the bright summer morning. Other careers might offer better pay, but none could beat the location on Coronado Island.
Given the admiral’s temper, there was every chance Joe could soon be exploring those other careers. Or stationed on a naval base in Greenland. Screwups came in all shapes and sizes. This one had all the potential firepower of an aircraft carrier. Explaining to the captain that it hadn’t been his fault wasn’t going to change a damn thing.
Fifteen minutes later, the door to the captain’s office opened and the admiral stormed out. Joe stood at attention as the angry man stalked by, then he looked at his commanding officer.
“Come on in, Joe,” the other man said in a weary voice.
Joe entered then closed the door behind him. “Sir.”
Captain Phillips waved to the empty chair in front of his desk. “You hear all that?”
“Yes, sir.”
Phillips, a tall man in his early forties, sighed. “He loved that boat.”
Joe didn’t respond. The information wasn’t news. The admiral had been restoring his nearly eighty-year-old boat for the past five years. The engine was new, and the electronics state-of-the-art, but the rest of it was original, lovingly sanded and varnished by the admiral’s own hand.
The man’s wife had left him, claiming she refused to come in second to a floating hunk of wood, and his children rarely visited, knowing they would be put to work on the boat. Six months ago the admiral had decided to live aboard.
Then, last night, at 9:18, the admiral’s pride and joy had been accidentally blown up by men under Joe’s command. They were lucky the admiral hadn’t been on board at the time.
“Want to tell me what happened?” the captain asked.
Joe shrugged. “The team was celebrating being back,” he said. The Navy SEAL team in question had just returned from six months of hazardous duty out of the country. “They’d all made it out alive. Even Grayson.”
“How’s he doing?” the captain asked.
“Lieutenant Grayson is still in the hospital, sir. He’s recovering from his injuries.”
Grayson had been shot on their last op. His men had brought him back and kept him alive until he’d been evacuated to the hospital ship, then brought back home.
Joe remained perfectly still as he continued. “I spoke with the men on the team yesterday afternoon. They’d had six missions back to back, with minimal downtime in between. I suggested they burn off some steam.”
Phillips nodded. “They decided on boat races.”
“Yes, sir.” Made sense. To a SEAL, the water was a second home. “They used small boats and kept within the marina speed limit.” Sort of. “Unfortunately their racing course took them over a BUDS training exercise.”
The future SEALs had been in their second round of training, learning to dive and work with explosives underwater.
“Last night the explosives were live. Apparently the movement of the boats racing overhead confused a few of the trainees. They’re not allowed to surface to get their bearings. Instead of putting their explosives on the target, they placed them on the admiral’s boat.”
Talk about plain bad luck, Joe thought grimly. “The explosives were small and shouldn’t have caused much damage. Unfortunately the admiral had recently refueled his craft. There was a small leak in the engine. When the explosive went off, it triggered a chain reaction that turned the admiral’s pride and joy into kindling. At least that’s the preliminary report.”
Captain Phillips didn’t speak for several seconds. “Aren’t you going to tell me that the admiral tied up in a