Angela sat silently as the car ate up the miles ahead. She had so many things going through her head. When did her cover get blown? How did anyone know where she was? Who was the leak in the FBI? Who was responsible for the attack on the safe house, and who were those four men that crept in and bundled away Agent Alexis Stephens and why? Did they think they had taken Angela and got Alexis by mistake? And if that were the case, where is Gerard? Was he alive or dead? And who was that other man that tackled her and tried to take her when she was escaping? Who did that man work for? Lastly, who was the man who now drove the car and what was his real motives? Who did he work for and what did they want of her? She had a feeling she would know soon enough. In the mean time she had to stay sharp and keep her mind open for anything that might help her now.
She had managed to be safe for almost five years. Then suddenly when the case she was to testify in was about to be heard, they found her. Was that the plan all along? Was the person inside the FBI always there, that fed information to the people that wanted her dead so her testimony would never be heard? She was the only eye witness that remained. The only one that could positively identify those involved in the shooting deaths she had witnessed. The other two who might have testified had disappeared. Many thought they were already dead. No bodies where found however.
She did not have time to be scared but she was. She knew her life was now in even greater jeopardy than before. She kept mulling over things and watching the miles of roadway whip by and not much was said by the driver. This man was employed by someone. He would stop and pull over and read a text or send one and then pull back on the road and continue going South. Then suddenly he took a route that put them on a West bound highway. Where were they headed? She looked at the driver, he seemed intense and his hands were gripped tight on the steering wheel.
He finally glanced at her briefly and spoke for the first time in several hours.
"I am sure you are scared, curious and wanting to know where we are headed and what will happen once we get there. I know its asking too much for you to trust me. So I will just say this. My life will not be worth living if anything bad happens to you. I have been told your safety is first priority. To that end, my instructions have been to take you somewhere that no one would dream of looking for you. Right now you are relatively out of the public view and I am pretty confident that we are not being tracked. I scanned you for bugs when I first picked you up. Found one on your phone and your backpack which I removed when you went to the bathroom at the very first restroom. I tossed them on a truck headed north so anyone tracing you that way will be totally pissed off when you are not on that truck."
Angela smiled in spite of herself.
"Also what ever name you were going by, you should change it. You cannot have anything of your past few years that someone could search for and find."
Angela nodded and said "I realize that, its already been taken care of."
The driver looked at her again quickly and nodded.
"I will not ask you anything, or want to know anything more, but my employer will and he will ask many questions. You have put him in a very difficult place and he is not used to being the one who is not in control or in possession of all the facts in a situation. He is also not used to being treated with less than respect. I hope you keep that in mind when you meet him. It will be a good thing to keep in mind since he has twice now, saved your life. Who is after you, why, all those questions he will ask and demand to know. I hope you can satisfy him enough that he doesn't go digging deeper because if he does, you will have no secrets. And a man with that much knowledge has a lot of power over you."
Angela was staring at her hands that shook slightly. She dared not speak now because she was feeling a rising sense of anger. People that she knew and loved had been murdered in cold blood. People that had done nothing wrong had died because why? They were in the wrong place at the wrong time and the only reason she had not been killed too? They had not seen her. Those murdering, lying, scum had not known she had seen them or she too, would have been murdered.
The dawning of the third day since her flight and escape, Angela's associates at her beauty salon and her friend Vicky were wondering what had happened to her. A new management company now owned her building and the business was business as usual with one exception. Angela was no where to be seen. No one had spoken to her or seen her in 3 days. The police had come by asking questions, interviewing everyone because Vicky had filed a missing persons report. But no one really knew anything. Angela was very private. Only Vicky knew very much about her and yet, as Vicky looked back, she really knew relatively little about Angela. That seemed rather odd and she had not realized it until the police had showed up asking questions following up on the missing persons report.
How was it that Vicky didn't recall many private details? The most she had known about was this new man in her friend's life; that Pierre de la Cruz person. Vicky was feeling both frustrated and scared. Angela had just disappeared. Vicky realized that Angela was very private ages ago, but this was out of character. Angela was as dependable as clockwork with her salon. Fortunatly several of her co workers had keys to open up, and her longest term employee was acting manager while Angela was gone. She was one Angela trusted with her business.
Vicky realized that she had told Angela a lot about herself over the last year. Angela listened and always was interested. She asked Vicky about her life, her parents and her siblings. Vicky had told her all about growing up the middle child with an older and a younger brother. Plus she had shared her dating experiences and still Angela hadn't opened up. Vicky didn't push and now she wondered if that was why she didn't know much now. Maybe she had shared so much about herself that Angela didn't want to open up. Or, maybe there was something really wrong that Angela didn't want to talk about. Vicky had so many questions and no answers. She picked up the phone and dialed the police department and asked for the detective in charge. Maybe he had found out something. It wouldn't hurt to call and ask. That is what best friends do, its what she had to do because doing nothing was driving her nuts.
A male no nonsense voice answered the phone. "Detective Jude Ryan 21st precinct. "
Vicky lucked out. It was the detective handling Angela's disappearance.
"Detective Ryan, this is Vicky Lang. I am calling about my friend, Angela Seymour. I am the one that reported her missing."
"Well Ms. Lang, I am sorry to tell you but so far, we have very little to go on and not much information or evidence to tell us what happened to her. We hope she is still alive, but it does look like now, that we will be stepping back and letting the Fed's handle the case."
"Wait, what? You hope she is alive and the Fed's are involved? Why are they involved?" Vicky's voice now sounded upset, stressed and scared.
"Ms. Lang, I can only speculate but we did find several things that indicate foul play. There was a dead man found on the premises and one man found unconscious who was an FBI man and another one reported missing, a female from the Bureau. I am sorry that's all I know and really all I can tell you. I shouldn't even share that much now that its in the hands of the Feds, but I figure you need to know since she was your friend and you were the one reporting her missing. The FBI people that informed us they were taking over indicated they had few leads but they did have some clue now why is missing. However, they didn't share that with me or my department head. I'm sorry. If I do hear anything else, I will let you know."
"Thank you Detective. I appreciate that." Vicky slowly hung up the phone. She felt cold all of a sudden. And a sense of dread hit the pit of her stomach. She was even more alarmed now and feared for Angela. Why in the world would the FBI be involved? Why were there FBI people at Angela's apartment? And where was Angela, was she dead or alive? Questions she had no answers to. She disliked that. It was hard, not knowing. And though the first day she reported her friend missing, the local news only mentioned it a few times and then stopped reporting on it as if nothing out of the ordinary had happened. But this was a small city. Missing persons were not an every day thing. She had called the local news station and asked about it. Even had gone down to the station with a picture of her and Angela together so they had one to run when talking about Angela. They had run the picture once and then nothing.
Vicky picked up the phone, called the television station and asked for the staff member she had given the picture to and details she knew about Angela. When the station manager came on the line, Vicky hesitated. How much should she say or speak about? She made her mind up to find out whatever she could so she plowed ahead
"Why aren't you running the missing persons spot on my friend, Angela Seymour, that went missing a few days ago? You ran it once and not again. She hasn't been found and now the FBI is on the case. Why? What did you know or find out?"
"Who is this?" The TV executive asked.
Vicky identified herself. And added. "I am waiting for an explanation."
He replied to her with a tone of indifference, "We were told by the Federal Bureau of Investigations to stop speaking of or mentioning her in any way shape or form. Penalty we were told for violating that order would be severe. It's a very important ongoing "case" they said. So of course, we complied and stopped immediately. Anything else you want to know miss?" And he was obviously bored with the conversation from his tone. Vicky was furious. She just hung up on him and stomped around her room.
"What is wrong with this picture? My friend could be in mortal danger or even dead by now, and they aren't going to even help find her?" Vicky was yelling out loud but of course, no one was with her so it was in effect yelling into the void of space.
Angela pondered a few things continually. Who was the person or persons behind her current situation? Did the driver know, really know, who she was? Or was he just blindly following orders. She did not know for sure. But something told her whoever his boss was, they were involved in her case somehow. The end or purpose she didn't know. That is what kept her feeling uneasy. The huge unknowns that kept coming to mind.
Just then the driver took a route going North. North into a very mountainous area. North to more isolated looking terrain and she really wasn't sure where they were to begin with. The driver pulled over and looked over a map, muttered to himself and then folded the map back up and pulled back onto the Highway.
Angela was apprehensive but eventually her fatigue caught up with her and she nodded off to sleep. Hours later she woke up. At least she thought she was awake. But she couldn't see a thing, there was cloth stuffed in her mouth, gagging her into silence and her hands and feet were bound, tied up by the feel of it, with rope. She felt very drowsy and disoriented. Then she lost consciousness, the last thought being she was being drugged and kidnapped.
Two men's garbled voices some distance from her was what she was first aware of. She didn't know who they were or what they were saying. She was still very weak and couldn't move or see anything. She strained to hear them. But it was an effort in futility. They were obviously whispering and knew she might be waking up. She wanted to scream but there was a gag in her mouth.
"Are you sure you weren't followed?"
"Yes, sir."
"You know if you are lying to me I will see you dead."
