Read Online My Gal Sunday by Mary Higgins Clark - Free Book Online

ceased. He felt suddenly that his heart had stopped beating, that his whole body was being suspended, frozen in that moment.
    “Henry, I don’t know how to tell you this. We have a terrible situation. Sunday is missing. Her Secret Service guys were found unconscious, still in the car. The same thing happened to the follow-up detail. Apparently some kind of anesthetic had been used to knock them out, enough to immobilize everyone in both cars. By the time the agents came to, Sunday was gone.”
    “Any apparent motive?” Henry was breathing again, willing himself into calmness. He was aware that his voice was even, that Marvin was stating at him, that he was pressing the buzzer to signal the Secret Service detail waiting outside.
    “We think so. A phone call was placed to the switch-board at the Treasury. The caller claimed to have Sunday, or at least to know of her whereabouts. You can tell us if the call is authentic. Does Sunday have a nasty bruise on her upper right arm, just below the shoulder?”
    Henry nodded, then whispered, “Yes.”
    “So that means that the call must be legitimate. Apparently she hadn’t mentioned the bruise to anyone on her staff, because they claim to know nothing of it.”
    “She was thrown from her horse while we were riding last Saturday,” Henry said, remembering the momentary fright he had experienced then, contrasting it to the almost paralyzing sense of foreboding he felt now. He became aware that the five Secret Service men currently on duty were standing in an arc around the desk. He nodded to Jack Collins, the senior agent, indicating that he should pick up the phone extension on the table next to the deep red Moroccan leather sofa.
    “Collins is on, Des,” Henry said. “Sunday is just learning to ride. When she got the bruise, she joked that if she told anybody about it, the tabloids would start calling me a wife beater.” He realized with a start that he was rambling. He had to get himself to focus. “Des, how much money do they want? I’ll get it ready now, no questions.”
    “I wish it were money, Henry. Unfortunately they have announced to us that unless we release Claudus Jovunet by tomorrow night, we can start dragging the Atlantic for Sunday’s body.”
    Claudus Jovunet. It was a name Henry Britland knew well. A particularly heartless terrorist; a former mercenary; a paid assassin. His most recent known crime, and the one that finally led to his capture, had been the successful bombing of a company jet of Uranus Oil, a tragedy that had claimed the lives of the company’s twenty-two top executives. After a career that spanned fifteen years of terror, Jovunet had finally been brought to justice and was now serving consecutive life sentences in the federal prison at Marion, Ohio. While Henry had played no real part in getting the killer into prison, he had taken a particular satisfaction that it had happened during his term of office.
    “What are the terms of exchange?” Henry asked, knowing as the question left his lips that Des might not feel that he could allow the government to be held up by a terrorist organization.
    “The instructions are to put Jovunet on the new supersonic transport. As you are aware, it is currently on display at National here in Washington, preparatory to its inaugural flight. They stipulate that there can be only the two pilots on board. The only other instruction is a little on the odd side: they say we should fully stock the galley, but — I’m quoting, now — we can ’skip the caviar.’   ” The president paused. “They give — and again I am quoting — their ’sacred word’ that after the flight lands, the pilots will be permitted to radio the details of where Sunday can be found, quoting again, ‘alive and well.’   ”
    “Their ’sacred word,’   ” Henry snapped bitterly.
Oh, Sunday, Sunday!
    He glanced at Jack Collins who was mouthing the word “weapons.”
    “What kind of weapons are they demanding,