It was like wearing a comfortable pair of old shoes, jogging a path he knew like
the back of his hand. Like going home. The emptiness was so painfully, palpably familiar and there it was, filling him again. This was what Terry Thorne was really built for. The work and just the work.

Details were sketchy, leads even more remote, and ideas? Gone somewhere just like the instinct he’d spent years developing and trusting.

He woke in a sterile hotel room. It could’ve been anywhere in the world. Europe. Egypt. Paris. The States. But it was Beijing, China. He turned a glance at the bedside clock. The lighted digital numbers shifted, glowed green and he groaned. Four in the morning. He dropped an arm over his eyes and thought. Five hours and Grant would arrive. What did he have to brief the man? Nothing. Nada. His mind slid over everything he knew.

Dino had been working the negotiations for nearly two months. Normal. He was making some headway. Typical. The abduction … completely unexpected.

The captive was a British art dealer. Gabriel Prospect had been insured with Thorne and O’Leary for years. Did everything right. Took all the classes and attended all the lectures regarding travel safety. Upgraded his policy every time it was recommended. It was a bafflement that the man had been abducted, but it was done in a way no one would have anticipated … right in the middle of a Beijing hotel lobby … more than twenty witnesses, two security guards and at least four surveillance cameras trained right on the incident. None of that offered much to help the police or Dino. The kidnappers were nondescript, the cameras set at just the wrong angle and the witnesses, too busy taking care of themselves to be of any viable benefit as far as information was concerned.

The first demand for ransom came in the usual way, a call to the distraught family, but they too were up to speed with the K&R crisis process and had immediately opened their
home to Dino. Nice place, a fancy brownstone outside of London, but a wee bit too far from China to be affective. Dino took a room in the same hotel where the kidnapping had taken place, stayed the same room where Terry now slept, and began his vigil.

Dino O’Leary wasn’t forthcoming with this case. He pretty much kept it all to himself, reporting seldom on progress or setbacks and generally leaving Terry and Zack in the dark. On New Year’s night, he did make his last contact with the home office. A cryptic message left on Zack’s voicemail.

“Happy New Year to all, and to all a good night. Bringing the art dealer home by the end of the week or my name ain’t Dino. See you all on the flip side, buddy.”

No clues. No clear information. No nothing to point the way. Something was wrong, dead wrong. Terry should have sensed it on Thanksgiving when Dino was handing out money like Halloween candy then disappeared without a word. No procedures were followed. No briefing. Hell, not even a ‘see ya later’ and that just wasn’t his partner’s M.O.

Dino wasn’t a showboat, but he wasn’t exactly humble either. Terry had let it all sit, hard as it was on his gut. After all, he’d been letting Dino handle the lion’s share of the fieldwork for a while. Who was he to suddenly tell the bloke how to do things? That was mistake number one. K&R field assignments require strict structure and Dino had walked into this whole thing blind and naked. No back up, no plan that anyone knew about … not even a basic strategy that Terry could recognize. When Dino left London for Beijing, he never told a soul. Zack discovered this tidbit of information when he called the family’s house trying to locate the senior partner. No one had spoken to Dino since the family drove him to the bloody airport.

Terry Thorne was sick to his soul, but he was apparently not the only one. Why hadn’t he seen the obvious? He rolled over and sat on the edge of the mattress. Failure wasn’t an option. Failure was never an option. It was going to take an act of God or nature or just plain dumb luck to figure this one out and he was open to any assistance that came his way. Fuck all, maybe Grant had some ideas … Terry was sure at a loss.

“Why the fuck would a man, a former marine, an expert at kidnap and ransom, do this?” Zack grunted as he and Terry hauled his luggage from the airport carrousel.

“Fuck if I know. We got a lot of work to do, mate. And … we got no bloody place to start.”

The bullet rang out and a hundred people screamed. Terry’s mind spun as he dropped to the floor beside Zack and did a visual check of the man next to them. No blood there. Grant wasn’t bleeding and … nothing seemed to be leaking blood from Terry’s body. What the hell? What the fuck kinda airport security do those blokes have? Terry couldn’t even get into the baggage claim with his weapon … but obviously someone had.

“You okay?” he hissed and Grant motherfucked the entire Chinese nation.

“Yeah. You?”

“Let’s get the bloody hell out of here.”

“Any news? Ransom demands? Anything? Anything?” Grant grunted as they entered the hotel room and Terry glared.

“Fuck, mate. Nothing. No more contact regarding Gabriel Prospect and not a bloody word since the message that they’ve got Dino.”

Grant sat on the bed, his brow knotted. “Do you think?” He ran a hand through his hair. “Do you think … you know … that they don’t have him?”

“No, I think they got him.”

“And?”

“And nothing. It’s a waiting game. The only thing I can’t figure is what they want with him. Yeah, money. But …”

“Wanna know what I think, Ter?”

“No.” He already knew what Grant thought. He knew because he already thought it.

Grant stood, eyed Terry and sighed. “I think Prospect is dead. I think they lured Dino in for a drop and took him for their own insurance. These guys don’t plan to end up without the money. Fuckers probably intend to sell Prospect’s body to the family too.”

Terry turned to the window, glared out at the morning bustle below.

“You know I’m right. If not, I’m damn close.”

“Thinking the same thing, mate … except …”

Except that Terry also thought just maybe Dino too was dead and the kidnappers were already far, far from China at that moment. But this was a thought … not an instinct. Instinct had a completely different taste and feel and resonance. Fuck, what Terry Thorne wouldn’t do for the return of his instincts.