Travis Starnes
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Desperate Rendition - Chapter 11
🕑 Added 2024-09-15 14:00:06 +0000 UTCTaylor closed his eyes almost as soon as they were on the plane and it was in the air. He’d learned in the service that you never knew where your next bit of shuteye was going to come from, so get as much of it as you could whenever you could.
If anything, his work with the bureau had been even worse. Many of his cases ended up keeping him going for twenty or more hours at a time, and this one had been no different. He’d been go go go since the minute he’d touched down in Caracas and he needed some rest. Bonnie wasn’t getting anywhere, not sealed in this tube, and she wasn’t likely to kill him in his sleep, considering, and there were no weapons to take off of him anyway, so for once he could sleep without having to worry about her.
Or so he’d thought.
He’d only had his eyes closed for a couple of minutes when she started fidgeting. She’d move this way then that, forward, back, sit up, push her chair back, buckle and unbuckle her seatbelt. It was endless and half the time she bumped him every time she moved. She tried to ignore it, but stopping only made it worse.
His eyes were closed, but he could feel her staring at him, like she was willing him awake.
He popped one open and confirmed it. She was just sitting there, facing him, her eyes boring a hole in him.
“What?”
“Can’t sleep on planes. Too many people around,” she said, almost nonchalantly like she hadn’t just been doing a whole jig in her seat.
Taylor grunted. “Then look out the window.”
She didn’t take his suggestion.
Instead, she seemed to take his being awake as some kind of invitation. “I’ve been meaning to ask you something. After our first... encounters, I did some digging. Saw you had an adopted daughter from Belarus. Then a newborn. How’d all that happen? Seems like you only met your wife five, six years ago.”
“I don’t want to talk about my family,” he said, as seriously as he could to make sure she understood he was serious.
Again, she didn’t take the hint. “Why not?”
Taylor sighed, sat his chair up, and turned to face her. “You’re kidding. Considering who you are and what you do? What do you even care? We’re not friends.”
“We could be. I actually like you, Taylor. It’s one of the reasons I never came after you, even after I healed from my escape.”
“Great. Thanks. I appreciate you not murdering me,” he said, leaning back and closing his eyes again.
“I didn’t mean it like that. I more meant... you’re not a bad guy. Most people I’ve dealt with had to go up against, the time someone’s chased me, they were like Ellsworth. They hire idiots. It was... refreshing to face a professional. Though I’d have preferred if you were a little less good at your job.”
“I bet.”
“Don’t be like that. I know you think I’m trash, but you know my backstory. How I got here. I didn’t have a lot of choices.”
“You’re joking,” Taylor said, opening his eyes again. “You definitely had choices other than murdering people for money.”
“What, work some crap minimum wage job? I had to get out of my shitty life. I had skills, and I used them.”
Taylor just shook his head and closed his eyes. What was the point? Bonnie, however, wasn’t giving up.
“Tell me something, Taylor. Those villagers you displaced in Afghanistan, the freedom fighters you killed... how do you think they saw you? Just another Western invader, right? Do you think they’d see you any different from how you see me?”
“That’s not even remotely the same.”
“Is it? You dealt with terrorists, right? You know what they’re like.”
“You have no idea what I dealt with!”
“I read up on you. I even managed to get some of your redacted files from the DOD...”
“How?” Taylor asked, surprised and a little appalled.
“Doesn’t matter. So yes, I do know what you dealt with. But do you think those guys were born terrorists? Not everyone who fought for him was like the guy who held you. A lot of them were people with grudges, who felt you and the rest of the West forced them into it. I met my share of them and I can tell you they felt as vindicated trying to stop you as you felt trying to stop me. Do you think every village you guys bombed, house you blew up, person you shot was a radical true believer? You guys killed a fair amount of kids, what terrorism did they do. So maybe cut me a little slack. Face it, Taylor. You’ve probably murdered more people than I have.”
Taylor didn’t say anything, he just stared at the seat in front of him. Part of him wanted to fume, to be pissed, but he’d come to terms with a lot of that already. Was she wrong? No. But war was war. Innocent people got hurt. Trying to say a soldier was the same as a paid killer was the same thing was ridiculous.
Which made him wonder why she’d hit such a deep nerve.
For a long time, he just stared at the back of the chair, trying to ignore her, trying to put things back in check. He didn’t look at her and hoped she’d decided now that she’d scored some points she could take a nap or something.
Instead, she said, “You talk in your sleep.”
“What?” Taylor said, so surprised by the non-sequitur that he forgot about the earlier slight and turned to look at her.
“At the safe house when you got those couple of hours of sleep, I could hear you talking. Barking orders one minute, begging the next. Telling someone to stop.”
Taylor turned front again, trying to ignore her. He’d thought he’d stopped. Whitaker hadn’t said anything in a few years and he didn’t really remember his nightmares like he used to. He’d assumed that meant it had gone away.
Or he’d hoped that was what it had meant.
“I also saw your scars when I was trailing you last year. What they did to you…”
“That’s in the past,” he cut her off.
“Is it?” Her eyes bored into him. “Because from where I’m sitting, it doesn’t look like it.”
He didn’t like how much she was getting into his head. It made his skin crawl.
“I’m doing the right thing now,” Bonnie said after a long silence. “That should count for something.”
Taylor studied her reflection in the seat back entertainment screen. He could see the need there, the desperate desire for approval. Or maybe absolution. She was a game player though. That much he knew. She manipulated people professionally for the longest time. He thought he was a good judge, but he wasn’t foolish enough to think he was immune.
“You’re doing it to save your own skin,” he said flatly.
“True,” Bonnie admitted. “But I’m still doing it. My motives don’t change that fact.”
“You want a pat on the back for turning on the people you call corrupt and evil? The same ones you worked for?”
“A lot of bad people are going to get caught because of me.”
“And that makes up for all the innocent people you’ve killed? You don’t get to wipe the slate clean that easily.”
Bonnie fell silent, leaning back and turning to look out the window. Taylor leaned back and closed his eyes. Now she was the one hurt by the truth of how things were.
But then, why did he feel bad about it.
Taylor managed a little sleep on the flight back, although there was a tense moment when he woke up to find her not in her seat.
He had been just about to notify the flight attendant that he was a federal agent and he had a dangerous prisoner on this flight who had escaped when Bonnie came out of the bathroom. She must have read the look on his face easily, which for some reason he found extremely annoying.
“Did you think I jumped out of the plane? I’m not D.B. Cooper,” she asked as she slid back into her seat.
“I was just surprised you weren’t in your seat. I’m not that light of a sleeper.”
“So you thought I sneaked past you so I could get away? Where would I go? You’ve had a busy few days and you’re doing me a favor by even being here, getting me to your people without letting me get killed in the process. Did it occur to you I was just being nice and trying to let you get more sleep before the clown show started?”
He didn’t say anything to that, and she snorted.
“Damn, I know you hate my former profession, but I’m still a person, Taylor.”
“Whatever,” he said, now feeling a little worse about the shot he had taken earlier.
Of course, the very fact that he was feeling any guilt or sympathy for a mass murderer was insane. He kept to himself for the rest of the flight, but didn’t fall back asleep after that. It was boring, since he had brought nothing with him on the flight and the plane safety card only offered so much in-flight entertainment.
He almost cheered when they finally landed at Dulles and the cabin lights flickered on. It was nearly midnight when they finally landed and Taylor was ready to just drop her off and get home to Whitaker, putting this whole ordeal behind him.
“We’re just about done,” Taylor told her, breaking the hours-long silence between them. “There will be an FBI team waiting for you at the gate. They’ll escort you to a safe house. After that, it’s out of my hands.”
“Turning me over to strangers doesn’t sit well. Who knows which of them Ellsworth has in his pocket?”
“Someone I trust will be there,” Taylor replied. “We’ll figure it out.”
“And then what? You just wash your hands of me?”
“Do you care? I can’t be your shadow for the rest of your life, Bonnie.”
Bonnie made a face, but he ignored her, turning his phone on to see if there were any messages from Whitaker or Solomon as the plane went through its final taxi.
He froze as messages began to pop up.
“What is it?” Bonnie said, maybe feeling his body stiffen.
Taylor didn’t answer. He just stared at a message from an unknown number, the image attached to it making his blood run cold. It showed Kara, bound and gagged, surrounded by armed men in masks. She didn’t look scared. She looked furious.
“Taylor?” Bonnie said again, sounding actually concerned. “What happened?”
“Ellsworth,” Taylor said, handing her the phone to see the message. “He has my kid.”
Bonnie looked at the picture and read the message, although it wouldn’t be hard to figure out what it said. They wanted Bonnie and they’d grabbed his kid to ensure Taylor brought her to them. They wouldn’t hurt her if he did what they said, but if he didn’t, blah blah blah. The usual threats.
The only surprising part in it was the statement that they would know if he went to the FBI, that they had agents inside the bureau who’d be watching. Taylor might not have believed that normally, but a sitting senator having a few agents in his pocket was not out of the realm of possibility, and definitely something he had to take seriously.
Another message popped up as she handed the phone back to him from Joe Solomon telling Taylor they were at the gate and would wait for her to turn Bonnie over, to keep from causing panic by boarding the flight with armed officers.
“That address is on the outskirts of D.C. I think,” Bonnie said, causing Taylor to give her a questioning look. “I’ve used that area before to stash stuff. Probably not a coincidence. They’ve researched my career.”
“Yeah,” Taylor said, non-committedly.
He was trying to figure out the play. Turning her over wasn’t going to work, not if Ellsworth’s people found out and it got Kara killed, but neither was just doing what they said.
“What are you going to do?” Bonnie asked.
“We? We’re not going to do anything. There are people at the gate waiting to take you into witsec. I’ll drop you off, then I’ll go deal with this.”
“You can’t just hand me over,” Bonnie said. “You saw the message. They have someone in your agency and they will know if I’m brought in. What are the odds that person is also supposed to get rid of me as soon as I’m in a locked room and alone?”
“I’ve got a friend I trust. She’ll watch you while I take care of this,” Taylor said, praying that he could convince Whitaker to keep her out of the system for a while.
“I don’t know this friend and I definitely don’t trust them. Besides, there’s going to be more than just your friend there. Word will get back. It might save me, but they’ll still get your kid.”
“What choice do I have?” Taylor said, trying not to yell and cause a disturbance. “If I hand you over, Ellsworth walks free and I spend a few years in federal prison. But taking you into a situation where you could get killed isn’t an option either.”
“Take me with you. We can deal with these people. You know I can handle myself and you’re going to be out on a limb with this. You’re going to need my help.”
“No way. Taking you along isn’t happening.”
“Think about it,” Bonnie pressed. “A senator with the resources to pull off a kidnapping like this? How many men do you think he has waiting for you? And he knows you’re coming this time.”
Taylor grimaced and tried to think. This was what he was good at. Coming up with solutions outside the box, unraveling these kinds of traps by finding a new angle.
And he was coming up dry.
He could only see three angles, and they all sucked. The best, or at least most likely to not get Kara killed, was to meet them at the exchange and then deal with them, since if he just turned Bonnie over they would one hundred percent kill Kara.
And she was right. If there was anyone that could help him on this, it would be her. This wasn’t going to end in arrests and convictions. They had his kid. This was dead men just waiting for the bullet to find them.
No matter what he did, it was going to have blowback though.
“Fine,” he said finally. “But I’m warning you now, if you even think about double-crossing me…”
“Save it,” Bonnie cut him off. “You’re gonna have to trust me, Taylor. At least for now.”
That did not make the situation any better.
