Emily — Princeton, NJ
Feeling her body being gently lifted off the cot, Emily thought she was dreaming. Then, as her consciousness grew, she assumed she was being raped. She immediately arched her back and attempted to kick her legs. Driggs pulled off her earphones and whispered, “We’re taking you to Wilson.”
Emily stopped breathing. When her blindfold came off, she was staring into the face of a sympathetic-looking black man whose finger was pressed vertically against his lips.
“My name is Driggs. I work for Hap Greene. We need to hurry,” he whispered as he removed the tape from her mouth and helped her stand up.
Emily nodded, still trembling as she placed her feet on the ground. After a few steps, they began running along the wall of a dimly lit, nearly empty warehouse. She hung onto Driggs’ arm as they ran. She could see the exit door ahead of them. The nightmare was over, she thought.
Suddenly, a volley of gunshots echoed throughout the cavernous space. Four of Hap’s men and four FBI agents hit the floor surrounding the makeshift office where three armed men were taking cover. All three guards outside the warehouse had been subdued without a single shot being fired, but not before one of them alerted the others inside. The woman who had been attending to Emily was lying on the restroom floor in a fetal position.
Driggs gripped Emily tightly under the armpit, speeding up their pace as he steered her toward an open door ten yards away.
Quickly positioning himself behind a large filing cabinet, one of the trapped captors spied Emily and Driggs heading for the exit door. “If we’re going down, so is she,” he said before training his scope on Emily. He would only have one shot-his last.
“Breech!” was the only word spoken in the radio silence amongst FBI agents and Hap’s operatives.
Just as he squeezed the trigger of his M110 sniper rifle, the captor and his two cohorts were blown off their feet-their bodies riddled with chunks of debris from the blast of a fragmentation grenade.
Driggs slung Emily in front of him, toward the open exit door six feet ahead. Tripping on the door’s threshold, Emily tumbled onto the asphalt outside the warehouse. She glimpsed a black Range Rover and a man running toward her. Then, Driggs’ body slammed down on top of her.
“Nooooo…” Emily screamed, struggling to remove her legs from under Driggs’ body, so she could reach his face. The man running toward her was Mike Anthony, who’d been with her and Wilson in Venice.
“Secure,” was the second word spoken over the radio silence.
Anthony quickly examined Driggs’ body and turned him over. Emily scrambled to her knees. The captor’s bullet had struck Driggs squarely between the shoulder blades. Anthony snapped a small plastic vial and placed it under Driggs’ nose.
Thanks to the bulletproof vest, Driggs was only unconscious with a painful bruise in the middle of his back. “Let’s get her out of here,” Driggs said as he opened his eyes and began coughing.
Anthony helped Driggs stand up and then guided him to the open door of the black Range Rover. There was another man dressed in black, just like Driggs and Anthony, sitting in the driver’s seat. When everyone was seated, the Range Rover began speeding away from the warehouse along a graveled access road. Anthony immediately got on the phone with Hap.
“Are you okay?” Emily called out, looking over at Driggs.
“Nothing a hot tub won’t cure,” Driggs said as he leaned back in his seat. “How about you?”
“I’m fine now, thanks to all of you,” she said, still feeling overwhelmed. “Where’s Wilson? Is he safe?”
“Yes ma’am. We should have you reunited with him in a few hours.”
“Where are we?” Emily asked.
“Just outside Princeton, New Jersey.”
“How did you find me?” she said, rubbing the skin around her mouth, trying to remove the remaining pieces of adhesive.
“We’ve had you under surveillance since you left Teterboro Airport.”
“The clues worked?” she said, her eyes beginning to glisten with tears. She had almost given up hope that anyone would ever find her alive.
“You’re damn right they worked,” Driggs said, handing her a bottle of Gatorade from a pouch on the back of the seat in front of him. “Whatever you did to make them stop the truck when they were moving, you allowed us to find you. As soon as they got out of the truck to deal with you, we were all over it. Our night scopes caught you struggling inside. Otherwise, we would have missed you. They had you in an in-flight service truck that was leaving for the airfield at the same time as forty other identical trucks.” Driggs paused. “It was Wilson who decoded your message.”
“Oh god…I need to talk to him.” Tears were now spilling down Emily’s cheeks. Driggs flinched as he put his arm around her. She laid her head on his chest. “Thank you for finding me, but I really need to talk to Wilson,” she sobbed.
“Hap is already arranging the call. As soon we have him on the phone, we’ll let you know,” Anthony injected while glancing at Driggs. Both of them knew what Wilson was currently dealing with.
“We’re just glad you’re safe and unharmed,” Driggs said, attempting to give her as much comfort as he could. “We’ll get Wilson on the phone as soon as we can.”
Emily sat back in her seat and tried to relax for the first time in what seemed like months, but she couldn’t. She desperately needed to hear Wilson’s voice. Was it finally over? Were they still in danger? Then she reflected on the words that had saved her life. No more fear. She reminded herself of her vow: she would never let her fear control her again. Ever.