She didn’t know and couldn’t stomach thinking about it because, although her father did have a wandering eye and hands that he didn’t know to keep at home, he appeared to have very strong business ethics. She never quite understood how he could have honor in one area of his life and not the other. But he had always told her that a man should be known by what he did on his good days because everybody was human and had bad days.
She wondered if he put the liaisons with his lovers in the bad day category. She stared at the man who she had grown up believing to be the epitome of male perfection. Finding out that her father had feet of clay had been a crushing blow.
Yet her mother had encouraged Gizella to find her way back to believing in her father again. The trouble was, she wasn’t sure how much she did anymore. In some ways, he was just a pathetic old man. Maybe he’d had a midlife crisis and had run away with somebody beautiful and much younger, but for him to leave her mother like that? That was pretty unforgivable.
Gizella thought about all the other broken families and all the other middle-aged women heading into their aging years, devastated when their husbands had taken off, breaking up their families by the same kind of behavior. It was just pitiful. And it wasn’t limited to just men running off, of course. Women did it too. But more often than not, women stayed for the family unit, while men seemed to have this last-ditch effort to be young again.
She slumped in her seated position on the bare floor, leaning against the wall, wishing she could sleep, but so far it eluded her. She dozed and then would wake up, check where they were and then doze again. She needed eight hours of solid sleep and didn’t know how or when she would get it. She stretched out on the floor, looking for enough space to lie down. Her mother was beside her, with her father crossways at their heads. Gizella closed her eyes, resolving to get some rest, when she heard voices coming nearer. There was just enough guttural English to understand.
“We’re only expected to deliver two.”
“Sure, but the third one is good too. The more they have for a bargaining chip, the better.”
“They want to make an exchange, huh?”
“Yes. The governor for one of the Kremlin’s top men.”
“Do you think the US will go for it?”
“Well they will, the more we have, which is why we need the daughter too.”
“But do they need the daughter for sure or maybe just a bruised-up daughter?”
“You don’t get to have her,” the man said in exasperation. “Once you start that, there’ll be no end to it.”
“Of course not,” he said in a crude manner. “She’s hot, and we’re all alone.”
“Don’t let the boss hear you say that,” he said, “or you’ll be dead before you know it.”
“I can take him,” he said in a snide voice. “A hot chick like this? Nobody gives a shit if she’s been well used or not. She’ll still get her freedom at the end of the day, so what do we care?”
“It’s not the same thing,” he said, “and the Americans view this very differently. Which also means we’re expendable,” the other man said pointedly.
She lay here, her eyes closed, her ears straining to hear every word.
“Besides, we’re almost there.”
At that, she rolled ever-so-slightly to get a little bit closer.
“But not until morning,” he said. “I could do a lot with her in a few hours.”
“Don’t even think about it,” the one said in a cold hard voice.
“Hell, all I do is think about it,” he said. Grudgingly he added, “Okay, fine. I still don’t see what difference it makes though.”
“Untouched. I mean it.” And, with that, he turned and stalked away.
She didn’t move, her heart frozen, because only one set of footsteps had left. One man stood there, staring at her. She could feel it like laser beams pinpointed into her skin, burning through with his sick passions. She didn’t have any way to defend herself. At that, she almost opened her eyes to stare at the ceiling, irritated with herself, recalling all the times she’d thought about taking self-defense courses, but she’d always been too busy. She took yoga and Pilates courses, when she should have been taking martial arts and self-defense. At least that would have come in handy now.
Although what would happen if she pissed him off with her little fly swats, she didn’t know, except that he’d probably backhand her into the ground and rape her anyway. With huge relief she heard the footsteps recede, as he turned and walked away again. She let out her breath ever-so-slowly and studied her surroundings from underneath her lashes. He was leaving. But she knew he would be back.
She knew it in her heart of hearts. She only hoped they arrived at their destination before it became too late for her to save herself in that sense. She didn’t know what would happen if her attacker woke up her parents. Who would try to stop him? Because, at that point in time, it would become a bloodbath, and there would be no winners at all. She closed her eyes, and slowly her exhaustion—or the drugs in her system—had her drifting off to sleep again.
*
Baylor studied the satellite images on the screen in front of him and tapped the small black speck. “That’s a boat,” he said.
“We can’t get a close-enough picture,” Mason said. “They are working on it.”
“Odds are it’s painted black or wrapped in a stealth cover,” Baylor said. “I’m pretty sure they’ve
