Ingrid Weaver – Seven Days To Forever (страница 2)

And that’s just the way Flynn liked it. He felt his pulse pick up. It didn’t race. He was too disciplined for that. No, it was a steady, solid rush of blood to well-conditioned muscles that hummed in readiness.

He didn’t know what the target would look like, or how many there would be. He didn’t know what direction they would come from or how long he would need to wait. The odds of following the kidnappers without their knowledge, of assessing the best way to free the hostage, of bringing the whole incident to a quiet, successful conclusion weren’t good. As a matter of fact, they were abysmal.

But Flynn’s team had pulled off missions that had been far worse. When they did, there was never any recognition. No medals or official commendations, because the government wouldn’t even admit that Delta Force existed. The hours sucked, the stress was incredible. He had to be prepared to go anywhere in the world on a moment’s notice. His home was whatever base he was stationed at, his family was the soldiers of Eagle Squadron. He was expected to accomplish the impossible, continually challenging his brain and straining his body to the limit.

Flynn pressed his lips together and exhaled slowly through his nose.

Damn, he loved this job.

“Everything sure is old here, Miss Locke.”

Abbie smiled at the boy on her left. “Yes, Bradley. That’s because this is a museum.”

The child on her right side leaned over to roll his eyes. “Boy, Bradley, are you ever dumb.”

“You’re dumb, Jeremy.”

“Yeah, right.”

“Uh-huh. As if.”

The children were getting tired, Abbie thought. The squabbling was a sure sign. “But as museums go, the exhibits here aren’t all that old,” she said. “How can anyone think of space flight as old? Not that long ago it was science fiction. Look over here.”

“What’s that?”

“It’s the space capsule that John Glenn used when he orbited the earth.” She paused. “The first time, anyway.”

“He went to space twice?”

“Yes, but the second time he was much, um, older.”

“It looks burned.”

“Yes, it heated up when it went through the atmosphere. That was before NASA developed the space shuttle. Astronauts were shot into space inside a little capsule like this that was fitted on the tip of a rocket.”

“Wow,” the boys said, tipping their heads one way and then the other to study the capsule.

“That was more than forty years ago.”

“Wow! That’s older than my mom!”

“It’s older than my mom.”

“Is not.”

“Is, too.”

Abbie put her hands on their shoulders and gently guided them along with the rest of the class. “It’s older than me, too, Jeremy.”

The boys looked up at her, their mouths rounded. “Hey. Really?”

Abbie suppressed a grimace at their expressions of disbelief. She wasn’t old, she reminded herself. Turning thirty didn’t mean that she was over the hill. She was just coming into her physical and sexual prime. A woman’s vitality peaked in her thirties, isn’t that what people said? She had plenty of good years to look forward to.

But if she had intended to keep a positive attitude about her youth, visiting a museum on her birthday wasn’t that great an idea.

“Miss Locke?”

She smiled at a plump redheaded girl. “Yes, Beverly?”

“I have to go to the bathroom.”

“Me, too,” another child said.

Abbie turned to the parent volunteers who had accompanied the class and efficiently divided everyone into rest room squads. It was time to call it a day, anyway. They had been on the go since the morning, and the bus was due to pick them up in half an hour. Well-accustomed to the vagaries of seven-year-olds, she knew enough to allow plenty of extra time to organize their departure.

The unfortunate reminders of her advancing age aside, it had still been a good day. She was lucky to have a job she enjoyed as much as this one. She loved children and longed for the chance to have one or two of her own someday. Yes, her ambition was embarrassingly old-fashioned: a home in the suburbs filled with the warmth of a loving family…and of course, a nice, stable husband to share it all with. Was that really too much to ask?

Perhaps it was, since she’d always assumed she would have been married by the time she was thirty. That’s probably what was causing her to be so conscious of this milestone of a birthday. But chances were that she wasn’t going to find Mr. Right by the end of today…unless he jumped out of the cake at her surprise party.

For a moment Abbie imagined the scene in her parents’ house. Her family always threw her a birthday party. She always pretended to be surprised. There was something wonderfully comforting about the whole thing, a sweet ritual that arose from her family’s love. Her mother would fix her favorite potato salad, plates of fried chicken and egg sandwiches with no crusts. Her father would make the same joke he always did about how Abbie couldn’t possibly be more than two because her mother hadn’t aged a year since her birth. They would hug and laugh and make toasts to the future while she opened her gifts.

She would bet a hundred, no, a million bucks that the gifts wouldn’t include a cake with a man inside.

Abbie chuckled at the whimsical thought and scooped up a pair of discarded jackets from the rest room counter, then guided the children to the lobby where they waited for the stragglers. Of course, more jackets came off and backpacks hit the floor as they waited.

“Miss Locke, I lost my hat.”

“What did it look like, Ricky?”

“It was blue.”

Well, that narrowed it down. Abbie spotted a ball cap on the floor and pointed. “Is that it?”

“Yeah! Thanks, Miss Locke.”

She held out the jackets. “Whose are these?”

Two children raced up to take them, then dropped more of their belongings as they contorted themselves to put the jackets on.

Once the whole group was assembled, Abbie did a head count. As soon as she was assured that everyone was present and accounted for, she hurried them toward the door before anyone could wander off or decide they needed another rest room trip. Ricky’s hat fell off as soon as he started moving. Abbie picked it up as she passed by, along with three stray backpacks, breathing a sigh of relief when she saw the yellow school bus already waiting outside.

“What the hell just happened?” the major demanded. His voice was low, his words clipped, always a bad sign. “O’Toole, report.”

Flynn stared at the empty spot on the floor, then looked at the departing group of children. “She took the backpack.”

“Who?”

“That teacher.”

“I told you not to underestimate her,” Sarah said.

Flynn folded his museum guide, stuffed it into the back pocket of his jeans and followed the woman to the door. He deliberately kept his strides slow and easy, in case anyone was watching for a tail. “I can’t believe this,” he said. “She would have been my last choice.”

“It was neatly done,” Sarah said. “The children swarmed the target zone while she lifted the ransom. We never saw it coming.”

Flynn emerged into the crisp sunshine of the autumn afternoon. The woman was making no effort to disappear. In fact, she couldn’t have chosen a more obvious mode of transportation. “You can’t miss seeing her come now,” he said. “Bright-yellow mini school bus with a whole bunch of screaming kids. That’s going to stand out in traffic.”

“I need a visual confirmation that she has the money,” Major Redinger said.

“The bus is blocking my view,” Rafe said. “Flynn, can you see the bag?”

Flynn ambled toward the sidewalk. The woman formed the kids into a line, then stood by the open door of the bus and counted heads as they climbed inside. She handed what appeared to be a hat to one boy as he passed her and held out a sweater to another kid, all the while balancing three backpacks against her chest with one arm.

“Affirmative,” Flynn said. “The green backpack she’s holding appears to be the one Vilyas dropped. Aren’t the electronics we installed in the pack working, Major?”

“The mike’s muffled.”

“She’s holding the pack to her chest,” Flynn said.

“Clever woman,” Sarah said. “Anything on the homing signal, major?”

“That’s coming through no problem.”

As the last child climbed on the bus, the woman’s shoulders rose and fell with a sigh. She started after them, pausing on the first step to glance over her shoulder at the museum. And despite the noise from the squirming kids that Flynn could hear all the way over here, she was smiling.