Finished, she quickly backed fifteen feet away; showing tremendous respect for Desh's training and abilities. She was smart and careful. Even the fastest, most accomplished street fighter or martial artist couldn't disarm a vigilant a.s.sailant as long as they maintained a respectful distance. In addition, she had tied him to a virtually immovable anchora"the 300 pound dead-weight of Matt Griffina"who, Desh noted with relief, was breathing shallowly, indicating that at least he wasn't tied to a corpse. For the moment, anyway. So far, her tactics had been flawless.

When the effects of the stun gun were beginning to wear off, Kira Miller held up a sheet of paper on which she had used black marker to write a message in large, block letters.

SAY A SINGLE WORD, EVEN BREATHE TOO HARD, AND I'LL PUT A BULLETT IN YOUR HEAD.

She put a finger to her lips to underscore the point and pointed his own gun at him meaningfully. She held up a second sheet.

NOD IF YOU UNDERSTAND.

Desh nodded warily. From the look in her eye, he didn't doubt for a second she would carry out her threat.

She pulled out a third sheet, already prepared, an indication that she had planned her attack with military precision.

STRIP. WAIST DOWN. COMPLETELY NAKED. NO WORDS. NO NOISE.

Desh kicked off his shoes and clumsily pulled off his socks, pants and briefs: a difficult task from a supine position and anch.o.r.ed to Griffin that involved flopping about like a fish out of water and contorting like a circus performer.

Desh was focusing too hard on the imminent threat to his life to waste any energy feeling self-conscious or humiliated about his nudity, but it was human nature to feel more vulnerable when naked, and he was no exception.

Kira tossed him a pair of gray sweatpants that matched the sweatshirt he was now wearing and motioned with her head for him to put them on. He was only too happy to comply. All in all, while she didn't seem to like his taste in clothing, he was encouraged that she was taking the time to see that he was re-clothed. If her plan was to execute him in the apartment, this wouldn't have mattered. On the other hand, Desh remembered Jeffrey Dahmer, and he realized it was dangerous to make any a.s.sumptions about her actions or motives. She could be dancing to a song that only she could hear.

When he finished re-dressing, she tossed him a pair of soft leather slip-on shoes from her bag, and he managed to get them on his feet. The fit was perfect. And why not? He had bought several pairs of shoes in the past, online, and she now had ready access to the e-mail confirmations of these orders.

She tossed three plasticuff strips to him, one after another, and he gathered them up wordlessly. She held up another sign.

ONE TIGHT AROUND EACH ANKLE. THE OTHER BETWEEN THEM.

It took several minutes, but Desh did as she had ordered. His feet were now cuffed together in a three-plasticuff chain, leaving about eighteen inches of play between them.

Kira motioned for him to roll onto his stomach and put his arms behind his back, which he found a way to do despite having to drag Griffin's arm along for the ride. She held the gun against his head with one hand and slipped a plasticuff la.s.so around his crossed wrists with the other, yanking it so tight that it bit into his skin.

With Desh's ankles linked and his wrists now firmly secured behind his back, Kira cut him loose from Griffin using his own knife and retreated rapidly to a safe distance the moment she had. Desh noted she was quite agile and light-footed.

Kira motioned for Desh to get up, which he did awkwardly and with considerable difficulty. She opened the door, checked the hallway, and directed him to enter. Only being able to move his feet a slight distance apart, he was forced to shuffle them in a rapid-fire series of tiny steps. Kira followed about eight feet behind, her gun tucked beneath her oversized sweater but not wavering from the target.

It was now after 10 o'clock and the hallway remained deserted. A rental car was parked just outside the exit from Griffin's building; a large Ford sedan. As Desh shuffled toward the car, Kira pushed a b.u.t.ton on the remote and the trunk popped open. It was completely empty.

Kira motioned for Desh to climb inside.

Frowning miserably, he bent at the waist and slid into the trunk headfirst, having to curl up into a ball to fit inside the tight quarters.

Kira didn't waste a moment. The instant he was fully inside, she pushed the trunk door closed in a single, smooth motion, and Desh was plunged into an all-enveloping, claustrophobic darkness.

10.

Kira Miller drove for about ninety minutes. The air in the trunk was stale to begin with and got steadily worse as time wore on. While there were long stretches during which the ride was relatively smooth, probably indicating highway driving, there were also brief interludes during which Desh was bounced around violently, jarring him inside and out and inflicting several minor cuts and bruises. Finally, after what seemed like forever to Desh, the car stopped for good. A minute later the trunk was popped open again.

"Get out," ordered Kira in hushed tones, shielding Desh as well as she could from any possible onlookers. She held a stun gun in one hand and her black duffel in the other, and it was clear she had no intention of helping him.

"Back out. Legs first," she instructed. "Silently. Call attention to yourself and you're dead," she threatened.

Restrained as he was, not to mention crowded into close quarters, it took a Herculean effort to comply, but he was finally able to manage it. They were at a seedy motel that stretched like a single-story serpent around a pothole-filled parking lot, forming three legs of a rectangle. The building was poorly maintained and the grounds were almost completely lacking in external lighting.

Kira had parked directly in front of one of the rooms and she quickly ushered Desh inside. The unmistakable stench of mildew a.s.sailed them as they entered along with a stale, smoky odor that could only have been generated by thousands of cigarettes smoked there through time. The door opened into a short corridor, about five feet long, with the bathroom on the immediate right, and then widened into a main room that was surprisingly large. Long, garish drapes were hung across the only window and a cigarette burn adorned the bottom of a faded bedspread. The room was one of a pair of front-to-back, rather than side-to-side, adjoining rooms. At the back wall, two thin wooden doors were both open, creating a narrow pa.s.sage between the two separate but identical rooms. Kira had obviously rented both, but had left the lights off in the one adjoining.

"Get on the bed," she commanded once they had entered. "With your back against the headboard."

Desh climbed onto the queen-sized bed as instructed, and she looped a plastic restraint around one of the outer wooden posts that were on both sides of the thin headboard, and then through his plasticuffs.

A lamp sitting on a small end table by the bed currently illuminated the entire room. Kira had knotted a thin rope around its cord, with the free end of the rope tied in a noose. She lifted the noose off the floor and walked to the door, looping it around the handle and pulling tight. This caused the lamp cord to become as taut as it could possibly be and still remain plugged into the wall outlet. She must have measured this carefully beforehand. She then quickly and expertly ran a trip wire across the corridor where it met the main room, about a foot off the ground.

This done, Kira removed a pair of state-of-the-art thermal imaging goggles from her bag and strapped them on, leaving them on her head and ready to be slid over her eyes. She pulled out a black jumpsuit, made from an unusual material that appeared to be partially crystalline, stepped into it, and zipped it up, so that her entire body was completely covered all the way up to her chin. She then retreated to a wooden chair twenty feet away and moved it so that it couldn't be seen from the doorway. All of her activities had been well planned and had been performed with military efficiency.

With her preparations completed, Kira tossed her wire-rimmed gla.s.ses into the open duffel, sat in the chair, and shifted her gaze to David Desh.

She let out a heavy sigh. "Are you okay?" she asked with what appeared to be sincere concern.

A look of disbelief came over Desh. After all this, this was her first question of him? Why the pretend concern for his welfare? "What am I doing here?" he snapped, now that speech was apparently no longer punishable by death.

She frowned, almost regretfully. "I needed to speak with you. Convince you that I'm not the villain you think I am. That I'm innocent."

Desh was taken aback. "Innocent! Are you kidding? You go from, *quiet or I'll put a bullet between your eyes' to claiming you're innocent."

Desh hadn't known what to expecta"torture, threats?a"but protestations of innocence wasn't on the list. But to what end? He was already at her mercy. Was she simply attempting to keep him off balance?

Kira frowned deeply. "Look, I'm truly sorry for what I just put you through. Really. Believe me, this wasn't the first impression I would have liked to make. But I'm innocent nonetheless."

Desh snorted. "Just how stupid do you think I am!" he snapped. "You blast me with enough electricity to light up Broadway. You repeatedly threaten my life. You leave Matt Griffin for dead. And now you have me hogtied to a bed at gunpoint." He shook his head. "I must be missing how this adds up to your being an innocent woman," he finished bitterly.

"I can a.s.sure you your hacker friend will be fine. I just hit him with a very potent sleep agent. He'll wake up tomorrow more refreshed than he's been in years," she added. "With no memory of what happened. But I had to handle things this way. You're far too dangerous to be given even a little wiggle room. This was my only option."

"How do you figure?"

"Put yourself in my shoes. If you wanted to have a friendly conversation with someone who's been preconditioned to think you're the devil incarnate, and who also happens to have Special Forces training and is constantly being monitored, how would you go about it?"

Desh ignored the question. "What makes you think I'm being monitored?"

"Because the people behind Connelly won't spare any measure to get their hands on me," she said with absolute conviction. "And not for the reasons you think," she added. "Do you really think they just sent you off on your own recognizance? Just like that? I'm far too important to them for that. Rest a.s.sured, they've been tracking your every move since you took this a.s.signment."

Desh raised his eyebrows. "People behind Connelly?" he repeated.

"Connelly is just a dupe in this game. Just like you," she said bluntly. "The people pulling his strings are the ones tracking you."

"If they're tracking me, as you say, how is it they didn't intervene in my kidnapping?"

Kira shook her head. "They don't have a physical tail on you," she replied smoothly. "You're too well trained for that. Even if they put two or three cars on you, you'd eventually spot the tail and it would blow up in their faces." She paused. "Besides, it's a waste of manpower. They figured if you managed to find me at all it would take you weeks. Remote monitoring was enough."

"I see," he said patronizingly. "I suppose they imbedded a subtle tracking device in my underwear."

An easy smile lit up her face. "I have to admit, that is pretty unlikely," she said sheepishly, an amused twinkle in her eye. "But I wouldn't completely put it past them either. I've been erring on the side of caution and it seems to be working for me so far."

Desh felt himself being instantly drawn in by her incandescent eyes and unselfconscious smile. Kira's effortless charm and physical appeal were more powerful and disarming than he had at first realized. Her features could not have been gentler or more feminine. Her movements were lithe and athletic, despite her bulky clothing, and her voice was soft and appealing. Her eyelashes were long and her jaw and cheekbones delicate. Her wide, blue eyes were warm and expressive.

Desh forced himself to blink and break her momentary spell, annoyed with himself for responding to her with anything other than total revulsion. "You took great pains to ensure quiet in Griffin's apartment. So you obviously think he's bugged."

She sighed. "I'm afraid so."

"How would they possibly even know to bug him? I didn't even know he existed until thirty-six hours ago."

"They're monitoring your phone calls. As soon as you arranged an appointment with him they probably set up listening devices in his apartment. Again, I'm not sure they did, but I operated under this a.s.sumption."

"So you sent the text that lured me back to Griffin's apartment?"

Kira nodded.

"Well done," he said with a look of disgust, although this look was reserved for himself. How had he been so sloppy! But even as he chastised himself, he realized that Kira Miller's boldness had helped force his error. She had been on to him, probably before he had even taken the a.s.signment, and she had acted with stunning speed and decisiveness; using tactics she had never used before to totally blindside him.

Desh expected her to be gloating, but she appeared more apologetic than ever.

"By your own logic," he said, "you carried out a very successful, silent abduction. My clothes, phone, car, and weapons are far away. Nothing left to bug or track." He nodded toward the door of the motel. "So why the trip wire and other precautions? There's erring on the side of caution and there's irrationality," he pointed out.

"Oh, they'll track us here, all right. If we're lucky, we'll be long gone by the time they do. On the other hand, if they're lucky, I need to be prepared."

"And what form do you expect their luck to take?"

"Sooner or latera"hopefully latera"they'll realize that the homing devices they put in your car, or your clothing, or a wherever, haven't moved in a while. They'll track them to Griffin's apartment and realize you aren't there. After you visited Griffin, they may have decided to surveil the parking lot of his building periodically via satellite. If they were lucky and managed to capture an image of the car I'm using, this will greatly accelerate their search." Kira paused. "I just hope they don't arrive before I've accomplished my mission," she finished.

"Oh," he said, raising his eyebrows. "And what mission is that?"

She gazed into his eyes for several long seconds and then sighed. "Recruiting you over to my side," she finally said earnestly.

11.

Desh sat on the bed, stunned, for several long seconds. A faint siren could be heard off in the distance through the thin motel walls.

Finally, he shook his head. "Then you can save yourself some time," he said, scowling. "Do whatever you need to do, because I'm not going to join you. Under any circ.u.mstances."

"Given what you think you know, this is an admirable position to take," she allowed grimly. "But if it's all the same to you, I'll give it a shot. I say again, the report you have on me is a fabrication." She sighed deeply. "But give the puppet masters their due. They've rigged things to make it very difficult for me to plead my case."

Desh raised his eyebrows questioningly.

"They've told you I'm a brilliant psychopath. A master manipulator. The kind of person who can cut off your limbs one day and pa.s.s a lie detector test with flying colors the next. Correct?"

Desh said nothing.

"Which makes everything I say suspect. The more reasonable, the more suspect, since you've been preconditioned to believe it's all manipulation," she said in frustration. "Have you ever seen a faith healer on TV?"

Desh nodded, wondering where she was heading.

"There was a guy who gathered video evidence on one of them, showing it was all a scam. The faith healer's accomplices were researching people waiting in line, feeding him information through a hidden ear piece so he would appear to have divine knowledge; that sort of thing." She paused. "When the devout followers of this faith healer were shown the footage, do you know what happened?"

"They stopped being his devout followers."

"Reasonable guess. But no. They were more his followers than ever. They claimed that the evidence was rigged. That it was the work of Satan who was trying to discredit the work of a great man." Kira shook her head. "If you truly believe you're up against the King Of Lies, no amount of evidence can ever change your mind." She sighed and a weary expression crossed her face. "I just hope that's not the case with you."

Desh furrowed his brow in frustration. "Why do you hope it's not the case with me?" he demanded. "Why do you care what I think? And even if you could recruit me, what good will I do you? You have entire terrorist organizations to do your bidding."

"Try to at least entertain the possibility that I'm not who you've been told I am," she said in exasperation. "I am not affiliated with terrorists."

"Is your net worth a lie as well?"

"No."

"So even if you're telling the truth, you could hire as many bodyguards and mercenaries as you wanted."

"Yes. I could. But I'm worth too much to the people after me. I'd never be able to fully trust these types. I learned that the hard way," she added gravely. She gestured to Desh. "You, on the other hand, are motivated by doing what's right rather than by material rewards. You are a man of integrity and compa.s.sion, despite the violent profession you chose. And along with that, you have a very unique personality, philosophy, and array of talents."

Desh raised his eyebrows. "That's quite a character sketch you've put together based on a bit of information on a laptop," he noted.

She smiled knowingly. "Read hundreds of personal e-mail messages and you'd be surprised at how quickly you can get a feel for someone. But your laptop wasn't my first stopa"it was my last. Everything is accessible by computer now if you know where to look. Everything. Your college records. Extensive military records and evaluations. The kinds of books you purchase online. Everything."

"Psychiatric evaluations?" added Desh accusingly, recalling how his soul had been laid bare during the few sessions he had had with the military Psychiatrist after his team had been butchered in Iran. Of all the records to which she had access, this would be the biggest violation of privacy of them all.

Kira lowered her eyes and then nodded uncomfortably. "I'm sorry," she said softly, appearing once again to be completely sincere. "From the moment you were a.s.signed, I studied everything I could get my hands on to understand you as a person. Including that. I won't lie to you." She lifted her eyes and locked them onto Desh's once again. "I studied the others Connelly sent after me as well," she said. "Just as thoroughly. But they weren't what I was looking for." She leaned toward Desh intently. "You are. I'm sure of it."

The corners of Desh's mouth turned up in a small, ironic smile, and he shook his head in clear disbelief.

"I know, I know," she said in frustration, "Flattery is also a tool of a master manipulator, and you're not buying it. Be that as it may, it happens to be the truth." She paused. "Look a David a you yourself pointed out I could have easily recruited others with your skill set."

Desh said nothing, but silently bristled at her use of his first name.

"So why would I choose you and go to such pains to abduct you," continued Kira, "putting myself at this kind of risk, instead of just calling a mercenarya"or one of my terrorist friends for that mattera"on the phone?"

"Because I have special qualities," he said skeptically. "I get it."

Kira frowned. "I knew this wouldn't be easy," she said resignedly. "There's only one way I can ever hope to gain your trust. I know that. So I'll tell you what, when I've said my piece, I'll remove your cuffs and give you my gun. If that doesn't demonstrate my sincerity, nothing will."