Headed for Trouble - By Suzanne Brockmann Page 0,15
for the remote control beneath the Spider-Man and Powerpuff Girls coloring books that covered his coffee table. Haley got nightmares. It was Big Bird or a Disney DVD. Although it was possible that too much Big Bird was now giving Sam nightmares.
When he actually slept, that is.
“Sam, hang on a sec.” Jules put his hand over the receiver as he spoke to someone else on his end. Usually irreverent and upbeat, he sounded serious. Hell, he was calling Sam Sam instead of SpongeBob or Pollyanna or one of those other humiliating nicknames that he usually used.
“What happened?” Sam asked as Jules came back on the phone. He answered his own question. “Another dead woman without teeth in Colorado.”
“This isn’t about the Dentist,” Jules told him as Sam found the remote and aimed it at the TV. “Listen, do yourself a favor and don’t turn on the news.”
Too late. Sam had already flipped to CNN where …
“Oh, shit,” he breathed, sitting down heavily on the sofa.
Peacekeeper Attacked was the headline that hung over the anchor’s right shoulder, along with a picture of Eugene Ryan. “… in northern Kazbekistan, where the former senator’s helicopter was believed to have been shot down.”
Oh, God, no.
“We just received confirmation,” Jules told him, “that one of Eugene Ryan’s helicopters was hit by a shoulder-fired missile, just north of Ikrimah, which is a city in the northern province of—”
“I know where Ikrimah is,” Sam interrupted him. “One of …?” How many helos were transporting Ryan’s delegation? Jesus, he couldn’t breathe.
On the TV, the news anchor was now delivering a fluff piece on a pie-eating contest, a big smile on his face.
“One of two,” Jules delivered the grim news as Sam hit the mute. Which meant there was a fifty/fifty chance Lys was on the helicopter that went down.
In flames.
“Before we lost radio contact,” Jules continued, “the second chopper reported that there were definitely casualties, but we don’t know how many and we don’t know who.”
“Before,” Sam repeated, “you lost radio contact …?”
“I am so sorry,” Jules started, but Sam cut him off.
“Fuck sorry!” Sam winced, looking toward the room where Haley was sleeping. He lowered his voice, but it came out no less intense. “I don’t want sorry. I want the information that you’ve—”
“We don’t have any information,” Jules raised his voice to talk over him. “All we have is speculation. Rumors. You know as well as I do what good that—”
“What are the rumors?” Sam asked.
“Sam,” Jules said. “You know rumors are just—”
“Did the second helo go down, too?” Sam had to know.
“No,” Jules said, but then added, “Not exactly. What we think happened, and sweetie, breathe. This is mostly guesswork. Even though we have a few people who claim to be eyewitnesses, we have only their word that they were actually there. So yeah, they reported that after the first chopper crashed, the second swung back around to assist the survivors. According to these unreliable sources, it apparently landed, going out of view, behind several buildings. Then, allegedly, there was a second big explosion.”
“And?” Sam asked tightly.
“And nothing,” Jules said. “It’s all speculation. You know as well as I do that this could be nothing more than one of the local warlords planting disinformation—”
“There was an and in your voice,” Sam insisted. “God damn it, Jules, tell me all of it.”
Jules exhaled hard. “The attack happened shortly before sunset. There’ve been unconfirmed reports of a fierce firefight in that area pretty much all night.”
Sam was going to be sick. “So, best-case scenario is that my wife is on the ground in a hostile part of Kaz-fucking-bekistan, engaged in a gun battle with people who don’t just want to kill her for being American, but who want to kill her slowly, on camera, broadcast over the Internet.”
Worst case was that Alyssa was already dead—that she had been dead for hours.
“Who’s going in after them?” Sam demanded.
“I don’t know,” Jules said. “Look, I’m going to make some phone calls, see what I can find out, okay? It may take me a while.”
“Jules,” Sam started, but he didn’t have to say it. Jules said it for him.
“I’ll call you back as soon as I hear anything. Good news or bad.”
“Thanks.” As Sam hung up the phone, the news anchor made a joke about a pop star who was getting married. It was absolutely surreal.
How could anyone laugh when Alyssa might be dead?
He turned off the TV, but then turned it back on, flipping to the other news stations