Page 46 of Save Her Life (Sandra Vos #1)

FORTY-FIVE

Even though Sandra had prepared for the possibility of being abducted, being in that predicament was surreal. Jennings had her drive to the rural outskirts of Gainesville, Virginia, and pull into the mouth of a rundown industrial building, which was blocked by a chain-link gate. Olivia was likely inside. I’m coming, baby!

“Don’t think of trying to pull anything,” Jennings told her as he got out. He freed the padlock and chain, opened the gate, and waved her through.

The thought ran through her mind to hit him with her car, but what if Olivia wasn’t here? Instead she compliantly drove in and parked where he directed her to. He closed the gate behind them and walked over to the driver’s side door and ushered her out.

She looked around, understanding why he’d chosen this place. It was isolated with the closest neighbor a couple of miles down the road. She wasn’t sure how he knew about it or what connection he might have to it though. If this was where Dennis Eaton’s shoes had picked up the wood tar, this place wouldn’t have come up in any search that was done anyway. They’d looked closer to Washington. This was a fifty-minute drive away.

“Let’s go.” He had his gun out and was rushing her toward a door in the rear of the warehouse. There was a padlock on the outside of it that Jennings unlocked.

“Inside.” Jennings pushed her, and she stumbled over the raised threshold but was quick to catch her balance.

It was a large open space with wooden trusses overhead. Like where Olivia was bound to a chair. She only had the chance to think that when she heard her daughter screaming.

Sandra ran in the direction of the noise. “Olivia?” she said.

“Mom!”

She rounded a corner and spotted her daughter. Olivia was tied to a chair with zip ties. Dried blood was on her face, and Sandra’s stomach sank. It felt overwhelming witnessing Olivia’s distress in person. “Oh, sweetheart.”

“Not so fast.” Jennings yanked Sandra backward and shoved her hard. The action caught her off guard, and she fell to the floor.

Sandra watched in horror as Jennings walked to her daughter, his gun out. He grabbed a fistful of her hair and put the muzzle to her head. “I did make it very clear, did I not? No cops or feds. But that park was crawling with them! And don’t even think about lying to me.”

She held up her hands in surrender. “Fine. You’re right, and I’m sorry. But please believe me when I tell you that wasn’t my doing.”

“Ah, but you let it happen even though I told you what I’d do to her.” He pushed his gun harder against Olivia’s head, and she cried out.

All her training coalesced, trying to help her, but her poor, sweet, innocent Olivia was just feet away from her. Sandra scrambled to her feet.

“Stay right there. Or boom! ”

Sandra stopped moving, dared not to even breathe. She couldn’t pry her eyes from her daughter’s. They were so full of fear. “You’re right,” Sandra rushed out. “I’m sorry. But, please, we can work this out. Take your gold, even my car, just let us live.”

“Nah, I feel more like killing both of you. I’ve played fair. I’ve been more than patient.”

“Lonnie Jennings, this is Brice with the FBI. Let’s talk.” His voice traveled over a bullhorn. “We all want this to end peacefully, and you want your gold, right? Special Agent Vos can give you my number. Call me, and let’s figure this out together.”

“What the hell?” Jennings crept next to a window and looked outside. He jumped back from the glass like he’d been burned. “Shit, they’re everywhere. What did you do? How are they here so fast? It takes time to track a GPS in a car.”

She was tempted to pluck the tracker out of her bra and stick it in his face, but that could be the last decision she made. No one took well to being made to feel like an idiot.

“Shit, shit, shit!” He started pacing and tugging at his hair.

Knowing there was an FBI response helped her envision a happy ending easier than a moment ago, but Jennings’s mental state was far from ideal. She needed to work on setting him at ease. “You didn’t want all this to happen. You just wanted the gold you worked so hard to get your hands on. Things have just gotten out of control.” Sandra passed a quick glance at Olivia, so minuscule that Jennings could have missed it. A tear snaked down her daughter’s cheek, and it nearly toppled Sandra.

Jennings leveled a nasty stare at her. “Which they’ll have now,” he spat. “They’re all over your Mercedes back there. Fuck, I should have had us bring the crate inside. Son of a bitch!” He punched the wall and howled.

“It’s not too late, Lonnie.” She continued talking to him in a docile manner. If she could get him to calm down, she might be able to turn things around.

“It clearly is!”

“It’s not over until it’s over. The people out there want this to come to a peaceful resolution too. No one needs to get hurt. That call is up to you.”

“No, it’s over.”

“It’s not,” she said firmly.

Jennings stomped back over to Olivia and put the gun to her head again.

The mother in her screamed.

Time stood still.

The negotiator in her came to life. “You kill her, there will be nothing stopping those people from coming in here and killing you. Nothing. That’s not what you want.” It was very clear that Jennings was more narcissistic than suicidal. “You want your gold. I can help you get it.”

Seconds ticked off. One by painful one.

Jennings eventually said, “What do you propose?”

“The way this works is there must be a back and forth, give and take. You do something, you get something. It’s how everyone walks away happy. I’m sure I can get you half of the gold?—”

“Half?”

“Actually more than half, five bars, if you give up half of your hostages.” She flicked a look to Olivia, and her stomach clenched. She couldn’t think about what might happen when Jennings discovered the gold was fake.

“Her? No, I can’t do that. I won’t. And what good is some of the gold?”

“It’s worth a lot, Lonnie. Now, I’m not outside, but I know from many incidents I’ve worked, some like this one, there’s always guys with guns who want to rush in and put an end to things.” She hoped he received the mental picture she was trying to project. A hail of bullets. A bloodbath.

Again, time slowed. Stood still.

“Fine,” he said. “But any of this goes sideways, I will kill you both.”

“I understand. Just give me your phone, and I’ll let Brice know what you’ve agreed to.”

“Okay.” Jennings powered his phone, unlocked it, and handed it over to her.

She called Brice. At the sound of his voice, her heart lifted. There was hope for a happy ending. She just had to focus and do the job she was trained for. “Lonnie’s ready to send out Olivia for five of the gold bars.”

There was a delay to his response. No doubt he was considering how this would turn out once Jennings discovered the bars were fake. But that was her problem to worry about. “I hear you, Sandra. We’ll get that together. Five minutes at the back door.”

“Five minutes,” she repeated. She’d normally set a timer, but she couldn’t risk Jennings’s phone chiming and jolting him. To Jennings, she said, “We have to get Olivia ready to leave.”

“Cut the ties with this.” Jennings took a pair of clippers from a pocket and handed them to her. He held his gun on them while Sandra removed the restraints binding Olivia’s wrists and ankles to the chair. As soon as she was freed, Olivia popped up, arms open wide to hug her mother, but her legs crumpled before she got there. Sandra steadied her and squeezed her as hard as she could.

“That’s enough.” Jennings nudged Olivia’s shoulder.

The girl stood taller, and Sandra caught the defiant glint in her eye. She subtly shook her head, advising her daughter to back down. She breathed easier when she saw Olivia’s shoulders lower slightly.

“We need to go to the back door. That’s where they’ll make the exchange.” She said all this to Jennings, not her daughter, and purposely spoke of her as if she wasn’t there. Jennings needed to feel he had some power in this moment.

Jennings nodded and lightly pushed Olivia. “You heard your mother.”

There was a knock on the door, and Jennings looked at Sandra.

“That will be them with your gold,” she said.

“No way I’m getting that. You do it.”

“Okay, I’m coming to the door.” She spoke loudly, projecting her voice for the agent on the other side.

“I heard you,” a familiar voice called back.

How does he do it? It was Nolan. She opened the door, and he was standing there with the crate. He set it at his feet.

“The girl,” he said. “Then you get your gold.”

Jennings’s eyes trailed Nolan’s huge size from his combat boots to the top of his head. “You unarmed?”

Nolan held up his hands, lifted his shirt to expose his waist. No holsters, no guns in sight.

“Go.” Jennings ushered Olivia to the doorway, and she left with a quick look at her dad and Sandra.

She took a deep breath knowing that her girl was finally safe.

Jennings put his gun on Nolan. “Now bring the gold inside.”

Nolan grabbed the crate and did just that. He gave one glance to Sandra, and she had a bad feeling he was up to something. It had probably occurred to everyone the risk involved of bringing in the fake gold. Nolan would be prepared to do something, and she had to be ready for whatever that was.

“Set it over there. Hurry up.” Jennings was waving his gun around and slammed the door shut with a back kick.

“Did you want me to open it for you?” Nolan asked Jennings, as if he were offering to do a grand kindness for the man.

“That’s not necess?—”

Nolan had it opened and whacked Jennings on the head with one of the gold bars before he had a chance to react.

Jennings screamed and dropped his weapon.

Sandra swept in and grabbed the gun, and held it on Jennings. “Game over.”

Jennings was writhing on the floor and bleeding from his head wound. “Is it?” He pulled something from his pocket, and by the time she got a good look at it, Jennings was telling them what it was. He flipped a switch on the device. “In case you don’t know, this is a detonator. I’ve got this place rigged to blow, so if you don’t want pieces of yourself everywhere, I suggest you listen and listen well. All I need to do is remove my finger from the button and the whole place goes, you along with it.”

“You love yourself too much to kill yourself,” Sandra told him.

“Quite an assumption you’re making.”

But surely, he was bluffing. Everything he’d done so far was with his own interests in mind, even killing his childhood friend. Also none of their background research or intel on Jennings revealed an understanding of bomb making. There was no laptop, tablet, or computer recovered from the house, but the worldwide web was accessible from any smartphone these days. It certainly made it easy to learn anything.

“I see your brain working, Agent Vos,” Jennings said. “How could someone like me pull this off? The internet is a glorious thing. It helped me track down your daughter’s school. She was posted in some picture wearing their branded shirt online. I just went there, waited it out, followed her. The rest, well, we’re here, aren’t we? The internet also taught me about mobile VPNs. Where did the trace take you, by the way?” He smirked.

She refused to satisfy him by answering. “Why are you doing this? You have your gold.” She pointed at the crate. “The rest is outside. I came through for you.”

“Well, now you’re going to let all your buddies out there know to leave me alone or I will blow the place. It means nothing to me. I’m going to leave with all the gold in peace. Got that?”

“There’s no way that’s going to happen, pal. You’re delusional,” Nolan told him.

Sandra cringed at his approach. Always coming at people with a fight, not willing to compromise.

Jennings laughed. “The only one who is disillusioned is you.”

“Agent Copeland misspoke, Lonnie. We can arrange whatever you need.”

“That’s more like it. You’re starting to grow on me, but I’ll be taking my gun back.” Jennings held out his hand to her, and she put his gun in his palm. He pushed the weapon into his waistband and moved cautiously toward the crate with furtive glances over his shoulder. While he had that detonator switch in his hand, any moves would have to be strategically calculated. He picked up one of the bars. He was smiling at first, but the expression quickly faded. In a swift movement, he turned on her and wrapped his arm around her neck. Her airflow was instantly restricted, and she responded on instinct. She used combat training she’d taken and managed to duck and throw Jennings over her head. A move that was made on instinct and could have been a fatal one. Thankfully he retained a hold on the detonator switch.

Nolan came over and straddled Jennings. He pulled a gun from an ankle holster and held it on him. “You forgot a spot. Now carefully hand over that detonator to me.”

Jennings’s face scrunched up and next thing, he kneed Nolan in the groin. Nolan was stunned for a moment and groaned in pain. His gun was knocked out of his hand and skittered across the floor. All of this created just enough distraction for Jennings to butt Nolan off and do what he could to get to his feet.

What Jennings failed to notice was she had collected Nolan’s gun. “Stop right there, or I’ll shoot you and take my chances with the bomb.”

Jennings turned around. He said nothing, but he pierced her gaze with his.

Had she called the situation wrong? Did he have a death wish? Before she had a chance to make an appeal, Jennings smiled and released his thumb from the button.

Nolan grabbed Sandra, and they ran for the door. She cringed expecting to hear the blast and feel the concussion, but neither came. The only sound she heard was Jennings wailing out in defeat. He should be running himself. The situation was certainly unstable. Just because the bomb hadn’t gone off yet, didn’t mean it wasn’t going to.

She found everyone was on scene as Jennings had told her, including an ambulance where Olivia was being seen by a paramedic, but they were positioned far off from the building. Same too for everyone else. Fire rescue was also on scene. Sandra looked at Nolan.

He shrugged. “I have a wire tucked into the laces of my boot,” he said to explain why everyone was bracing for an explosion.

“Good, but everyone needs to continue to stay back. We need to talk Jennings out.”

“Everyone knows their jobs, Sandra.”

She’d have to trust they did because she needed to get to Olivia. She ran to her with Nolan not far behind.

“I can’t believe you’re here, Dad. Aren’t you supposed be in Turkey?”

“My girl needed me.”

Sandra would let him have this one. He did come through in the end. Maybe he wasn’t all bad, just better handled in small doses. They took turns hugging Olivia, and when Sandra had her back in her arms, she didn’t want to let go. Ever.

“Lonnie Jennings, this is the FBI. Come out with your hands laced behind your head,” Brice called out over a loudspeaker.

In response, a blast rocked the ground. The warehouse became an inferno, and debris hurled from the structure and rained down.