Force Lines. Don Pendleton

      Paul Radfield got the gist of it. And still he went on with the infernal litany, until Radfield had the urge to bellow at the guy to shut his damn piehole. But that was just a wishful thought. He’d been stalked and kidnapped, and was now cuffed, blind, and God only knew where.

      How they’d done it—and who they were—was beyond him, but he had some general suspicions.

      He stared at the pitched blackness, listening to what he began to think of as the Voice. It was smooth, educated, white, a taunting ring to the words, and why not? The SOB held all the right cards, and in his roundabout infuriating superior way was letting him know all about it. There was no Texas twang or Southern drawl he could make out, no accent of any kind, and that made him just about any man from Anywhere, U.S.A., with the possible exceptions of New England and New Jersey. As for where he was? Talk about a shot in the dark. There was something like 367 miles of Gulf Coast—624 miles of tidewater coast when he threw in all the lagoons, swamps and bays and with the longest chain of barrier islands to be found anywhere on the planet—so he could be anywhere, even south of the border. Or maybe he was out on the water, only there was no discernible rock and roll that would come with even the most gentle of swells. And, for all he knew, once he’d been hit with the dart in the garage of his suburban enclave southeast of Houston, recalling how he’d glimpsed the dark shadow rising from beside the free-weight jungle gym, it could have been one hour or one day since he’d gone under. A little bladder gauging, however, told him it was the former, give or take.

      Where then? And what about…

      “We make love to the same woman the same three nights of the week, but, to one man’s credit—that would be you, Mr. Radfield—rarely in the same position, though Cynthia—or Kit, as she likes you to call her when in the throes of passion—seems to like Thursday nights a little more than the others. That is, if I judge the sound of her voice and the way she cries your name correctly.”

      Radfield felt the blood pulse into his eardrums like a molten war drum. The bastard had bugged, worse, maybe installed hidden mini-cams all over the house, but he wasn’t surprised. He felt his face flush next, as hot as live coals, wondering if the rotten SOB had maybe videotaped their passion for his own personal viewing pleasure. Get a grip! Shame was the least of his woes, he knew, as he then smelled his breath, sucked back in on his sweaty face, thanks to the tight confines of his hood. It was still ripe from the previous night’s veal and pasta, those three whiskey and waters and a glass of red wine, with the residue of the morning’s three—predictable three—cigarettes swirling up in his nose. He also took a whiff of the first tainted aroma of something else.

      Fear.

      Then he felt the sweat run cold down his face, slithering up under his jaw and chin, but where it ended suddenly, as the hood had been cinched—or noosed?—tight around his neck. The faceless human viper chuckled about something but the cold steel bit into his wrists as he felt his fists clenching, so hard his knuckles popped off like pistol cracks.

      Impotent rage was not a feeling he was used to.

      The former United States Special Forces captain knew how to keep his cool, though, and under the worst of conditions. These—as it next turned out to his mounting horror—were worse than dodging Iraqi bullets and sniffing out chemical and biological stashes for a little known black op during Gulf One called Operation Specter Run. And his heart began to beat like a jackhammer, harder than before, if such a thing was possible, as the Voice recited, chapter and verse, the daily routines of his wife and two sons. Their likes, dislikes, habits. Right down to the type of music Ben and John both listened to, Kit’s favorite television programs and which room she preferred, which sealed it that the house had been wired for visual spying. Then their movements, and by the hour, the eateries and friends they visited after school, when, where and who, down to the same time his wife hit the same health spa after work, and which housewives and where she had two dry gin martinis at her favorite bar, and which two days of the week. Son of a…

      Stay cool, breathe slow, he told himself. Instinct told him nothing had happened to his family—yet—and he kept hope alive.

      There was a long pause, during which Radfield wondered if his captor had left the room, the building, the boat, wherever he was.

      “I have yet to hear the usual questions, Mr. Radfield. Even for a Medal of Honor winner, you’re too cool and collected.”

      “Okay. I’ll bite. Who are you?”

      “Wrong first question. Unanswerable anyway.”

      “Right. If you told me, you’d have to kill me. You want something. What? And if I don’t agree, then what happens to my wife and sons?”

      “What happens?” The Voice made a noise somewhere between a chuckle and a snort. “Do I actually have to say the words?”

      Radfield ground his teeth, steadied his breathing some more. No, the bastard couldn’t see him sweat, but he had to control his own voice. “Yeah. You do.”

      “They’ll be killed. Very quietly, very efficiently.”

      “Are they safe?”

      “For the moment, they’re going about their daily routine.”

      “What do you want?”

      “How do you like Miami, Paul?”

      Friendly like, confidence growing, the hook was in.

      “Too hot, too much crime, too phony.”

      “Agreed. Not to mention there’s something vaguely disturbing about an entire city built right over a swamp.” The Voice chuckled. “It’s almost as if the fools who live there are begging for some natural calamity to happen, between a giant sinkhole swallowing them whole and hurricanes blowing them clear out to the Everglades. Anyway…be that as it all is, it’s the business you perform as part of your duties for your company out of Miami that will require an immediate attitude readjustment on your part.”

      And there it was. But the punch line, he suddenly knew, was merely part of the irony of his predicament.

      His captor knew as much, and went on to tell him, “As chief of security for Manexx PetroChem, you designed certain safety procedures at the Trans-World Bank of Miami.”

      “Okay. And?”

      “Hasn’t it ever struck you as odd that you are required every three months to escort the same three men donning the exact same black sunglasses and wearing the same three-piece black suits and who you, of course, do not know but provide security to and from the WBM and to and from their posh hotel suite, and who literally have the same briefcases chained to the same wrists? That for all of their public mantras about the need for this country to tap into new oil reserves that there are all of two—count them—two Manexx platforms out on the Gulf and with no plans in the foreseeable future to expand? That when you designed their off-shore security there was virtually no mention of deep-sea drilling, with just the basic equipment and skeleton crews necessary to maintain appearances?”

      Radfield had, in fact, wondered about all of that, among a few other items not yet mentioned. As he had some nagging idea where this was headed, he felt the first itch of nicotine craving coming on when—

      Fingers like iron rods twisted up the hood around his mouth. He heard something metallic—the snap of scissors?—then raw combat instincts flared. There was fire in his limbs, sudden anger to strike back coiling him. He was an inch or so off the seat when the gun muzzle was shoved against his temple. He barely heard the snip against the metallic click of the weapon’s hammer as a section of hood was sliced away from his mouth.

      “Here, have a smoke.”

      It was placed on his lip and lit.

      “Now. Sit down, relax and listen. Should you even for the flash of an instant again think about fighting back you will be shot dead, dumped in the Gulf and…well, you can imagine the next regrettable step. Or, rather, three steps.”

      The weapon fell away, the second presence melting back.