rang—someone was calling him, and not the other way around—he hit the TALK button with much anticipation; Batman and Twitch were listening in close by.
But not five seconds into the conversation the little man literally slumped to the greasy floor, his face turning white, his eyes tearing up.
The call did not bring good news.
To Murphy’s credit, he pulled himself together just as quickly as he’d collapsed, getting back to his feet and brushing himself off even before Batman and Twitch could reach him to help.
“My fly guy found the yacht,” he told them after hanging up. “And he was ready to take it out, but then he realized the mooks had a hostage with them. One of my people.”
Batman and Twitch couldn’t believe it. “One of your people?” Batman said. “Who?”
“The woman you met twice,” Murphy said, his eyes red. “The woman who showed you the penthouse. The woman who sat in for me at the gagnant. Her name is Li—and no wonder she wasn’t answering my calls. They got her and they made it clear they’d kill her if we interfered.”
Batman’s mind flashed on the face of the gorgeous Asian woman, clearly one of the most attractive females he’d ever met, and that included Her Bitchiness, Emma Simms. She made the perfect special ops operative because just about anyone with an ounce of testosterone in his body would be charmed into submission just by meeting her.
“But how could they have kidnapped her,” Batman finally asked him. “Her, of all people?”
Murphy could barely speak now. In a halting voice, he revealed that after she’d reported in to tell him that Batman and Twitch had won the gagnant, he’d told her to tail them. He could only guess that’s what she’d been doing on Palace Road when the shootout took place. The terrorists must have captured her in the process, and seeing her value as a hostage, didn’t kill her when they whacked the four PSO guys and the racing yacht’s support crew.
“So she’s the ‘hooker’ on the videotape?” Twitch asked.
“She’s hardly a hooker,” Murphy shot back. “And I know it sounds corny, but she’s like a daughter to me.”
But she was now a huge complication, this beautiful Asian woman who, up until then, had been haunting the edges of this very strange adventure.
Batman and Twitch eyed each other—they were thinking the same thing.
“I know it’s difficult to accept,” Twitch tried to explain to Murphy. “But this isn’t a time for sentimentality. We could have an enormous catastrophe in a major U.S. city if that boat isn’t dealt with.”
Murphy knew what he was proposing—and was immediately incensed.
“No way,” he said sternly. “Not in a million years.”
“But you’re talking about one life as compared to millions of permanently injured people in the United States,” Twitch said. “These things aren’t easy, but look at the big picture. Someone has to take the hit.”
Murphy just waved him off. “Well, it’s not going to be her. The least of the reasons being the guy flying the jump jet happens to be her significant other. So, you can just forget about that option, because it’s not an option at all.”
A tense silence came over the three of them. Meanwhile the racket of the race cars outside provided the perfect sound track for what was happening inside the shack.
Finally, Batman broke the silence.
“OK, then,” he said to Murphy. “Will you at least admit now that it’s over? That this thing is too big for us? None of us is going to get what we want, so what’s the fucking point? We’ve got to call in the military … someone’s military. We’ve got to come clean about this whole thing to someone who can do something about it.”
“And say bye-bye to one hundred million,” Twitch mumbled. “But I guess that’s better than blinding everyone in Washington, Boston or New York.”
But Murphy was still shaking his head.
“If we call in the military now, especially the U.S. military, what do you think they’re going to do?” he asked harshly. “If they’re made aware of the magnitude of this threat, they’ll hit that yacht with a couple Harpoon missiles and then tell everyone it was lost at sea. End of story. But I’m not going to allow that, not with Li on board.”
“What else can we possibly do then?” Twitch pleaded. “We can’t swim after that fucking boat. We can’t just snap our fingers like ghosts and suddenly be there to stop these assholes.”