Page 128 of Code 6
“There’s more,” said Kate, and the message appeared.
If I’m convinced you were not followed, I will join you. The girl will be with me. I take the flash drive. You keep the girl.
“By ‘the girl,’ I assume he means Olga,” said Enrique. “The one you told me about?”
“Yes,” said Kate, shooting dagger eyes in Peel’s direction. “The girl in the white string bikini.”
Another text bubble quickly followed.
As soon as I verify that the code is genuine, I will release Patrick.
“Looks like he’s not settling for Coke Zero,” said Enrique.
“Shit,” said Kate. She grabbed the phone and fired back a quick text.
Not acceptable. Simultaneous exchange only. Both Patrick and Olga.
It took more than a minute for a response to come. It was a phone call this time. Kate answered on speaker, so all could hear, but she didn’t even get the chance to speak.
The sound of Patrick’s scream filled the hotel suite.
Silence followed. The call was over, short but with the desired impact, as it had made Kate’s skin crawl. A text bubble followed.
Final warning. Don’t fuck with me.
Kate buried her face in her hands. Enrique laid a comforting hand on her shoulder. “We can work within his rules,” he said.
“What choice do we have?” she said, her voice quaking.
Chapter 59
Patrick breathed deeply, in and out, trying to quell the pain in his left biceps.
Liu the pyromaniac had apparently left his napalm science experiment back at the ship, but he’d managed to improvise. A welding machine was standard equipment in any chop shop. He’d spared Patrick the direct and potentially lethal flame of the welding blowtorch—possibly an act of mercy, but more likely he was just too lazy to carry the entire machine from one side of the warehouse to the other. Instead, he’d selected a steel welding rod—one-sixteenth of an inch in diameter, by Patrick’s estimate—and held it to the flame until the tip glowed like a sparkler on the Fourth of July.
“This is really going to hurt,” he’d said, whereupon the white-hot tip had burrowed into Patrick’s arm like a lit cigarette, but so much hotter.
The pain was utterly disproportionate to the freckle-sized mark left behind. He worried where his scream into the cellphone must have led Kate’s imagination.
“It’s showtime,” said Liu. “Olga, you’re coming with me.”
The hostages were chained to the same post but with separate padlocks. Liu unlocked Olga with the key, removed the chains, and pulled her to her feet. The gun to her head served to remind them who was in charge.
“Patrick, your life is in Olga’s hands. If she obeys me, all will be fine. If she doesn’t, then here’s something you should know. That welding rod I jabbed into your arm was probably five hundred degrees Celsius. A welding arc is about fifteenthousanddegrees. Tell Olga you don’t want to go there.”
Patrick noticed that the rod was still resting on the hood of the car nearest to the hostages, where Liu had left it to cool.
“Tell her she needs to be a good girl,” said Liu.
“You’re an animal,” said Olga.
“You have to do as he says,” said Patrick.
“How ’bout that, you’re both right,” said Liu. He led Olga away at gunpoint, wending between vehicles toward the side door to the warehouse. Patrick kept one eye on them and the other on the welding rod that Liu had left on the car hood. A foot-long rod of stainless steel was just a few feet away from him. He was padlocked to a pole, making it impossible to reach it, making it all the more imperative that he find a way to get it.
The rod was about the same thickness as a bicycle spoke, and the fact that Patrick’s mind drew that comparison was no coincidence. Once, as a kid, he’d biked to the beach and, when it came time to pedal home, discovered that he’d lost the key to his bike lock while building a giant sandcastle complete with a moat, drawbridge, and three-foot-tall turrets. He had thirty minutes to get home or be grounded. For Patrick, it was just another episode in the long-running seriesInternet to the Rescue.His smartphone pulled up a YouTube video on how to pick a padlock with a reshaped paper clip. As it turned out, a 1.8-millimeter bicycle spoke worked even better.
With a stainless-steel welding rod, this job would be a piece of cake.