Flu
Chapter 35
A low growl rumbles from Castle's throat as he regards the solid line of cars ahead. Holiday traffic is always a bitch, but the congestion is even worse than usual. He'd been hoping to arrive at the beach house before lunch. Now he'll have to cope with two ravenous teenagers while he navigates the snarls of vehicles.
Kate can feel the frustration radiating from her husband's body. "If you get a chance to pull over, I can drive," she offers.
Sighing, he shakes his head. "Unless you've got a gumball and siren hidden in your luggage somewhere, I don't think it will help. Not even your finely honed cop driving skills can blaze a trail through this mess. There's nowhere to go. We'll have to crawl along and wait it out. At least, for the moment, the girls are enthralled with whatever they're watching on their tablets. Can you check the compartment in the center console? I've got the audiobook of World War Z in there. Listening to it should make the current situation seem less daunting."
"I would think," Kate agrees. "And I heard a chapter when you were playing it at home. I liked the voice of the actor. He sounded a little like you."
Rick's lips twitch. "Really? I hadn't noticed."
More frustrated than Richard is with the traffic, Jack finds himself wishing for a motorcycle. If he had the one he used on his mission in Europe, he could zip through this morass. He's not far from an off-ramp to a village where one of the company's many stashes of emergency equipment is stored.
Theoretically, Jack should only requisition a bike for official business, but if anyone misses it, he can apologize later. He'll get out in front of Richard and the family and check out the beach house before they get there. If he's going to keep an eye on things, he'll need to set up a nest or blind for himself. After all his years in the field, he pretty much has that down to a science, but it still takes time and surveillance.
Luca hunches over a laptop, trying to remember what Cyber Rita said about the dark web when she was at Chris Carlucci's birthday party at the compound. If he's going to find instructions for putting together what he needs to take out Beckett and Castle, that's where they should be.
Food always triggers memories for him. He was serving the Italian version of a salade Niçoise that day. A taste of tuna may do the trick. It's worth a shot. Fortunately, he has some left from experimenting with a new hors d'oeuvre. He inhales deeply before placing a flake of fish on his tongue. Rita's words sound in Luca's head as if he's replaying a tape. Bounding back to his computer, he can already feel the heat and see the flames.
As Jack conceals his cycle, grabs his pack, and makes the climb from the beach to his son's vacation home, he feels a familiar prickle on the back of his neck. That physical manifestation of his awareness of something amiss has saved his ass more times than he cares to remember.
Jack looks around for what might have triggered his personal alarm signal. Here and there, the coarse grass that thrives in sandy soil is bent. He spots a fraction of a footprint. Someone else made this climb before he did, and not that long ago. Any reason for not just driving up to the house, aside from his own, can't be good.
The seasoned operative pulls himself over the edge of the green expanse overlooking the ocean. The lawn is luxurious and well maintained. No doubt, Richard shells out more than a few bucks to someone to keep it that way. Jack can't visualize his son spreading fertilizer and riding a mower. The royalties from just one bestseller would more than pay the tab for gardening services for decades.
At the moment, that investment is worth a lot. Jack can see subtle signs in bent or depressed blades of Zoysia, and a few grains of relocated sand. It's not much of a trail, but he can follow it, first to the barbecue grill and then to the generator. Jack's set off enough big booms in his career for suspicion to flood his brain. He can't see any signs of a triggering mechanism –yet. But whoever made the tour of potential zones of destruction could return at any time. Jack plants a tiny motion-activated camera near the propane tank. If anyone shows up to tamper with it, he'll know.
That terrorists have hidden websites to train their followers in demolition, scares the hell out of Luca. Ironic as it would be when he's finished taking care of Beckett and Castle, he might send the FBI an anonymous tip. These crazies could blow up a school or something. But right now, Luca has to concentrate on his own mission.
The radicals may be insane, but they're also smart. The list of materials Luca will need is available at any big box home improvement store, at least the ones with garden centers. Finding one is no problem. Luca can think of at least seven of them around the Hamptons. And if he spreads his purchases around more than one outlet and pays cash, he can cover his tracks. He checks his watch. It's close to noon. He has a lot to do, and Castle and his wife could show up at any time. He'll have to be careful.
Rick pulls to a stop in the drive in front of the beach house and hurriedly enters the code to disarm the security system and unlock the door. He'll unload the car – after he pees. Good thing that his place has multiple bathrooms. For the last 20 minutes of the drive, everyone was squirming in their seats. Chivalry urges him to let Kate go first in the one in their suite, but for a woman, she's incredibly fast. That's one more thing to love about her. Both of them are back at the car in a few minutes, hauling out their bags. Alexis is well enough trained to have already retrieved her luggage and instructed Paige to do the same.
From the top of a tree a half-mile away, Jack observes the settling in of his family and their guest, through a powerful scope. So far, everything is quiet, but that doesn't mean it will stay that way. He reaches into his pack for a sandwich he picked up that morning. He also has military rations. They're lighter and take up less space, but if he's going to spend time around New York, he's at least going to have some decent deli. Some things just don't taste the same anywhere else in the world – and he's in a position to know.
Kate studies the contents of the refrigerator. As with everything Rick does, he had the housekeeper go overboard. Aside from meat for burgers, almost every inch is taken up with cold cuts, salad makings, fresh fruits, and evil desserts. She's tempted to go for the latter first. She'd probably give in to the impulse if it wouldn't set a terrible example for two starving teenage girls. Kate feels Rick's lips on her neck as he joins her for her survey. "Coveting the éclairs?"
"How did you know?"
"I'm always attuned to what pleasures my wife. We can fill younger tummies with turkey ham, salads, and giant cookies. You and I can have our fill of creamy goodness later."
Kate grabs the firm muscle of Rick's behind. "I'll be looking forward to it."