Page 94 of Nightfire

Barney was entirely red-faced now. “Uh, ma’am? Would you trust me to get it out of you? I’ve trained as a medic.” He held his huge hands up. “I can be delicate, I promise.”

She didn’t even hesitate. “Oh God, yes! Get that thing out of me now!

Barney looked at Mike. “I’ll need our medic kit.”

Mike knew exactly where it was. Inside a minute, he was handing Barney their kit specially made for them by a team of doctors, modeled after a field trauma kit. It contained almost everything necessary to deal with wounds that didn’t require major surgery.

Consuelo sat holding her hair to one side while Barney sprayed an anesthetic on the spot Nicole had found, swabbed it, took a scalpel and carefully made a small incision, pulling a tiny electronic device out with tweezers. The wound barely bled and only required two butterfly bandages.

He held the tweezers up.

Consuelo was white-faced, hands shaking. “Get rid of it, now! Nikitin knows I’m here, he’ll be coming for me!”

Mike pushed a button on Harry’s desk.

“Nikitin is in for a big surprise.” One of their men, Dan Ryan, poked his head in. “Come in, Dan. Barney, wrap that transmitter up in a piece of paper and give it to Dan.” The tiny blood-flecked piece of silicon went into an envelope and into Dan’s hands. “I want you and Lee to leave right now. Take one of our vehicles, cross the border into Tijuana, check into a room at a dive that offers surveillance possibilities front and back, pay for several days in advance, leave the envelope in a drawer and get right back out without being seen. Set up surveillance and wait for two Russians to find it. That’s a transmitter being followed by some bad guys, so execute security protocols. You know what to do.”

“On it, boss.” Dan executed an ironic salute and left.

Consuelo had stopped crying. She let out a huge exhale. “Thank you,” she said shakily.

Mike nodded. “Barney, go to the safe house with Consuelo. I'll have someone bring you some new ID for her. Then take Consuelo north. Drive around for a couple of days until you feel you’ve found the right place. Text me on my throwaway cell when you’ve landed. Have Consuelo find a place and open a bank account. We’ll transfer some money there as soon as you do. Consuelo, don’t look for a job right away. Stay under the radar. When we take Nikitin down, we’ll let you know and you can go to Miami. You’ll be safe.”

“Safe,” she whispered. “Please.”

There was complete silence in the room. Nicole put her arm around her and kissed her cheek. “Good luck, my dear,” she said.

Harry waited until Consuelo and Barney were gone. “I wish we knew what these fuckers were up to, then we could go to Kelly. I wonder⁠—"

His spare laptop gave a soft ping.

Nicole looked at the monitor and smiled. “Good old Rudy. He cracked the code. Let’s see what we have here. Oh, he’s on Zoom.”

Mike, Harry and Sam gathered around the monitor, looking at a small square in the upper half of the screen. The man was impossibly young-looking with huge blue eyes and a spotty ginger beard. He looked serious and spoke a few words in Russian. Nicole answered back slowly, choosing her words carefully.

Mike really admired that. She was basically tri-lingual, her French and Spanish as good as her English. And knew enough Russian and Arabic to get by. Mike himself barely knew English. He was much better with guns.

“What did he say?”

“He said…he said it’s bad.” Nicole’s face was somber. “Let’s take a look.”

She sighed and shifted in the chair trying to find a comfortable position with about ten billion pounds strapped to her stomach. It had been that way with Merry, too. She’d been as big as a house and then Merry had come out, this tiny delicate little creature. What were the kids doing in there? Playing golf?

Nicole touched a key and the screen came to life. There were a series of photographs, full face and full figure, of young girls. All of them blonde, and all of them very very pretty. The age range was from about 6 to 10. The photographs were very clear, professional quality, well-lit and well-staged. Next to each photograph was a series of words in Cyrillic script followed by numbers.

A male voiceover kept up a running commentary in Russian. Nicole leaned forward, concentrating, a frown between her eyebrows.

Suddenly she gasped, held out her hand. Sam’s hand was right there for her. She looked up at her husband, face deathly pale.

“Oh my God, Sam,” she whispered.

“What is it, honey? What’s wrong?” He crouched in front of her, holding her hand. “What’s the matter? Is it the baby?”

“Sam.” Nicole looked up at Mike and Harry, tears tracking down her white face. “Mike, Harry. Oh my God!”

Sam was a tough guy, tough in battle and tough in the boardroom. His only known weaknesses were Nicole and Merry. And the little girl on the way. If Nicole was hurting, Sam was frantic.

Mike’s skin prickled. What was on that monitor was also a threat to Chloe. He leaned forward. “What is it, Nicole? What’s he saying? What are those photographs?”