by CW Browning
As soon as the thought entered her mind, her head snapped up and her spine stiffened. She had clawed her way to the top in a male-dominated career field and had faced down a serial killer in her own home. She wasn’t about to give up now, stranded at a truck stop God-knows where, and wait for the bastard to find her. Pain or not, she had to keep going. She straightened, took a deep breath, and ran around the back of the truck.
And straight into the arms of a tall, solid figure. She was just opening her mouth to scream when a hand clamped over mouth and she felt a sharp prick in the side of her neck. Wrenching her head away, she sank her teeth into the hand hard and had the satisfaction of tasting blood and hearing a grunt of pain before everything began swimming before her. The shadow became a blur and suddenly the pain in her arm and lip faded away into numbness.
Angela tried to pull away from the solid mass before her, but instead she felt herself falling as darkness claimed her.
Damon jogged down the stairs and rounded the corner to stride down the hallway towards the back of the house. He’d heard Blake and Michael talking from the stairs, and it didn’t sound good. He walked into the living room and raised an eyebrow. Michael was pacing near the sliding door to the deck, while Blake was seated at the dining room table with his laptop. Neither man looked happy.
As he walked into the room, Buddy got up from where he’d been basking in the morning sun inside the sliding doors. After stretching, he trotted over to Damon and shoved his muzzle against his hand demandingly. The two men grew quiet, watching as Damon greeted the dog. He glanced up at them.
“Don’t stop on my account.”
“It’s not you, it’s my dog,” Blake said. “He doesn’t like anyone. Or, at least, he never used to. We came up here and suddenly he loves everyone.”
“Maybe he’s a Jersey boy,” Damon said with a grin, straightening up. “Where’s Stephanie?”
“She’s not up yet.” Blake stretched. “Probably a good thing. She needs the rest.”
“I haven’t seen Alina yet either,” Michael said, glancing at his watch. “She’s usually up by now.”
“She’s been up and she’s left,” Damon said over his shoulder, heading into the kitchen.
“Where did she go?”
Damon didn’t answer and Michael scowled. “I don’t like her being out there when it seems like the entire population is trying to kill her.”
“Join the club,” Blake said. “You know Stephanie’s going to have a fit when she comes down and finds out she’s gone.”
“You all need to stop worrying,” Damon said. “This isn’t Alina’s first rodeo. She’ll be fine.”
“That’s what I said about Angela and look how that ended up,” Michael muttered. “Now she’s going through God-knows what onboard a cartel yacht.”
“We don’t know she’s on the damn ship!” Blake exclaimed. “Hell, we don’t even know where the ship is. For all we know, it could be halfway across the Atlantic.”
“Where else would she be?” Michael retorted, his face drawn into a scowl.
“She could be anywhere! Just because the Sea Queen sailed around Miami doesn’t mean that that’s where Angela was taken. In fact, it’s a pretty big jump to assume that the cartel has anything to do with this.”
“It’s not that big of a jump,” Damon said, opening a cabinet to pull out a coffee mug. “The cartel has been popping up left and right. Alina was right last night. It is too much of a coincidence. I’m starting to think they might be involved in this after all.”
“You would really support seizing the cartel’s yacht on a hunch that Angela might be on it?” Blake demanded incredulously.
Damon set his coffee mug under the coffee maker and pressed the button to brew. “No.”
“See? Even the Navy SEAL thinks it’s a bad idea,” Blake said, turning back to his laptop.
“I didn’t say it was a bad idea,” Damon said. “I just said I wouldn’t support it.”
Michael looked across the bar at him. “I have to do something.”
Damon met his gaze impassively.
“Jumping into the fight isn’t going to help Angela,” he told him. “Let’s find out what we’re dealing with first, and then we’ll go from there.”
His calm tone seemed to soothe Michael and the tension left his shoulders. He nodded once, then picked up an empty mug from the dining room table and carried it into the kitchen.
“I was up most of the night thinking about it,” he said, setting his mug down on the counter. He leaned against the island while he waited for the coffee maker. “There’s no sign of her or the truck on the surveillance cameras in the neighborhood. The footage must have been tampered with, which means that they’d already planned to take her yesterday.”
Damon pulled his mug out from under the coffee spout and moved out of the way so that Michael could get his mug under it.
“Yes.”
“If he was watching her for any amount of time, then we’re looking at the wrong day. We need to be looking at the footage from the past week.”
Damon smiled faintly.
“The Marine can think after all,” he murmured, sipping his coffee.
Michael shot him a disgruntled look.
“Hey, I wasn’t thinking clearly last night,” he protested. “She was taken while I was there! Give me a break.”
“I’ve already put in the request with the Bureau,” Blake said from the dining room. “Don’t feel bad. It didn’t occur to me until this morning. I think we’re all a little off our game on this one.”
Damon didn’t answer, wisely choosing to keep silent. There was no point in telling either of them that Viper had already pulled footage from the past two weeks and had the license plate of the truck. Her server under the kitchen was already running it, waiting for a hit. For all he knew, they could have gotten one already, but until the two gunnies cleared out of the area, he couldn’t go down and check.
“How long will it take?” Michael asked, pressing the button to brew coffee into his mug and turning to look out of the kitchen at Blake.
“I’ll have it by mid-day. Rob said he’ll forward it as soon as they get it.”
“Where are you with the money trail?” Damon asked Michael.
“It’s slow. I’m working around layers of bank encryption.”
“I’ll help. I know some shortcuts that you probably wouldn’t agree with using,” Damon said, turning to go set his coffee down on the bar. “Show me what you have so far and we can work together.”
Michael looked at him, surprised. “You’re going to help me?”
Damon’s lips twisted in amusement.
“Don’t look so shocked. Alina asked me to give you both a hand to speed up the process.”
“That’s great, but I don’t see how you can help me,” Blake said from the dining room table, sitting back in his chair and stretching. “I’m tapped into all my sources trying to get information about Salcedo’s yacht and no one’s talking.”
“I have a contact in Guerrero,” Damon said after a moment of silence. “I contacted them last night.”
Blake stared at him. “What? The military base?”
Damon nodded. “That’s where the messages Stephanie sent hit a wall. That’s where we need to start.”
“But...that’s...you can’t just hack into the Mexican military!” Blake stammered. “God, relations are bad enough with Mexico as it is! You’ll start a war!”
Amusement lit Damon’s blue eyes and he grinned.
“That’s a bit extreme, don’t you think?” he asked. “Anyway, I’m not the one hacking into their military servers. My contact is doing it for me.”
“That won’t matter if they find out who was behind it,” Blake shot back. “God, you guys really do run unchecked, don’t you?”
“It’s because we do that you’re still alive, and the East Coast hasn’t been thrown back to the dark ages with a death toll equivalent to the plague,” Damon said. “Man up and ac
cept it. The bad guys that go bump in the night don’t play by the rules, so neither do we.”
“Are you hearing this?” Blake demanded, looking at Michael.
Michael shrugged and carried his coffee over to his laptop on the other side of the dining room table.
“You’re talking to a Secret Service agent who’s in the process of hacking through bank security and breaking about twenty privacy laws in the process,” he said with a shrug. “I’m telling myself the ends justify the means.”
Blake grunted, showing his disagreement, and turned his scowl back to his laptop screen. Damon sipped his coffee and waited. A few moments later, after coming to terms with the fact that he was in the minority, Blake glanced at him.
“What are you looking for in Guerrero?” he asked reluctantly.
“A reason why those messages got bounced there,” Damon said shortly. “It’s not coincidence that Viper’s location got routed through Mexico, not when the Casa Reinos has been so heavily involved through all of this.”
Michael looked up with a frown. “You think the cartel hijacked those messages?”
“No. I think those messages went exactly where Harry wanted them to go.”
“But he told Stephanie...” Blake began, then his voice trailed off as he realized the truth. “Damn. He was playing her right up until the end.”
“Welcome to Harry’s Playhouse,” Damon said, his mouth twisting into a grim, non-humorous smile.
Michael sat back thoughtfully.
“If the cartel has people inside the military, that means Harry had the messages go through them,” he said slowly. “Why? Why not just send them directly to himself?”
“Too much of a trail. His plan was for Viper to die, and if that happened, Stephanie would be asking questions, as would my organization. He was making sure that nothing could be traced back to him.”
“He sent it through the cartel so they would take the hit,” Blake breathed. “Everything would lead back to the Casa Reinos.”
“And with you already on top of them, no one would look any further.”
“So what do you think you’ll find in Guerrero?” Michael asked.
Damon’s eyes turned arctic.
“Something to hang him with.”
Chapter Twenty-Four
Alina rolled slowly down the street, her eyes moving between the few parked vehicles and the townhouses lined on either side. The cars and trucks parked along the curb were empty, and the houses were still and silent. Reaching the end of the block, she turned left and rolled up to the stop sign. After pausing, she turned onto the next street and pulled to a stop at the curb near the corner.
Angela lived in a working neighborhood. The few homes owned by couples with families had both parents working, leaving the street quiet and deserted on a Monday morning. After having circled the neighborhood twice, looking for signs of surveillance, Alina shifted the Porsche into park and killed the engine. She was a block away from Angela’s house. She would go on foot from here.
Opening the door, she got out and beeped the alarm before turning away from the sleek sports car. She was dressed in running clothes and, after a swift glance around, she broke into a run. Just because there were no obvious signs of surveillance on the street didn’t mean that they weren’t watching. Whoever took Angela knew Viper would go looking for her, and the place she’d start was here. Alina adjusted the Phillies cap on her head and scanned the street from behind the sports sunglasses covering half of her face. What Harry had forgotten was that he’d trained her for this. She lived for it. It was as second nature to her as breathing.
Alina crossed a side street and started up Angie’s block. Everything was quiet and still. At the far end, a utility truck was parked at the corner. The technician climbed out of the truck and went up the sidewalk to the end house. Viper watched as he circled around to the meter and shifted her gaze back to the row of houses on her left. She passed Angela’s, scanning the front windows with their curtains pulled tight against the morning sun. The house looked like any other on the street, quiet with its owner at work. Except Angela wasn’t at work. She had been taken to be used as a pawn in a deadly game that she should never have known was taking place.
Her lips tightened as she ran past the house and continued down the street. Angela was safe from being killed for the time being. Harry needed her alive to draw Viper out. But depending on who took her, that didn’t preclude bodily injury. If it was the cartel who had snatched her, Viper knew that every minute Angela was missing was another minute of pure hell that she would experience. If it was the nameless assassin from Rittenhouse, her chances were higher for a somewhat civil captivity. But which was it?
Alina turned the corner at the end of the block and continued to the street that ran behind the row of townhouses. Regardless of which one had taken her, Viper knew she had a very small window to find her.
Turning down the back street behind Angela’s house, Alina scanned the windows of the houses opposite, searching for telltale gaps in curtains or shades. Not seeing anything suspicious, she headed for Angela’s house, crossing the small patch of grass to the back door a few moments later.
Viper eased the door open and slipped silently into the house. She glanced around the small alcove as the door closed behind her. The silence in the house was deafening as she moved past the hall stand near the back door and down the short hallway toward the kitchen. The house was just as Michael had left it with nothing out of place. Her lips tightened when she saw Angela’s purse sitting on the kitchen counter, right where she’d left it. Going over to the red designer bag, Alina opened it and looked inside. There, tucked into the inside pocket, was Angela’s cell phone.
Turning from the counter, Alina paused just inside the living room, her eyes scanning the room slowly. Unlike Stephanie’s apartment, all the air vents in Angela’s townhouse were in the floors rather than near the ceilings. The walls and ceiling were solid, leaving no spot to conceal a hidden camera easily. Yet she was sure there was one here somewhere. Harry was too smart to send an agent in cold to take the target. His man, whether he was cartel or not, would have been instructed to start watching Angela days ago. He wouldn’t leave anything up to chance this time.
After studying the room, her eyes came to rest on the front wall. Two floor-to-ceiling windows were separated by an expanse of wall, and a round mirror mounted on rattan hung between them. Alina pursed her lips and strode forward. That was the only place in the room where a camera would get a clear shot of both the living room and hallway, as well as the stairs leading to the second floor. It had to be there.
Reaching the far wall, she studied the mirror and the rattan. Her lips curved faintly when she detected a small hole in the rattan to the right of the mirror. She pulled a pair of latex gloves from her jacket pocket and slid them on. Carefully lifting the mirror off the wall, Alina turned it over. There, cunningly inserted into the backing of the mirror, was a dvr camera no larger than a chapstick. She set the mirror face-down on the sofa and bent over to slide the small camera out from the backing. She pressed a button on the side of the device, turning it off, and slid it into the inside pocket of her jacket.
After replacing the mirror, Alina turned and headed for the stairs. While she doubted there was a camera up there, it was better to be sure. She was halfway across the room when a shock of awareness snaked down her spine and she froze. A second later, she heard it. Someone was working the lock on the back door.
Her lips tightened and she looked around quickly. The living room offered nowhere to conceal herself, so she spun around and strode swiftly to the kitchen. She had just slipped inside when the back door opened and someone entered the house.
Viper moved silently to the walk-in pantry in the corner and opened the door, stepping inside and pulling the door closed behind her. She left it open a crack, watching the door to the kitchen. A moment later, a man passed the kitchen, glancing in. He was of medium build and dressed in a navy uniform wi
th an alarm company logo on the shirt. Her eyes narrowed. The company on his shirt was not the company Angela used for her alarm service. She watched as he continued past the kitchen before she slipped out of the pantry and crossed the room to peer around the corner.
He was paused just inside the living room, looking around. As she watched, he moved forward, going toward the mirror on the front wall. Viper moved out of the kitchen, moving up behind him swiftly and silently. Her heart beat in a steady rhythm and her hands were perfectly steady as she pulled her .45 from the holster at her back. Sensing movement behind him, the man began to turn around, but froze as the muzzle of her gun pressed against his side.
“You don’t belong here,” she said coldly.
The man didn’t answer. Instead, he reached behind him with his right hand, going for her gun. Anticipating the move to disarm her, Viper clamped her left hand around his wrist and wrenched his arm behind his back, pulling up sharply. He stilled as his arm strained at an unnatural angle behind him.
“Nice try,” she said. “Who sent you?”
“Go to hell.”
“Not today.”
Viper shifted the hand holding her gun and squeezed the trigger, blowing out his knee. He let out a howl of pain and collapsed onto the floor, gripping his leg as blood poured out.
“Now that I have your attention,” she said conversationally, looking down at him. “I’ll ask once more. Who sent you?”
The man glared up at her, remaining silent. Viper studied him for a moment. He wasn’t going to talk. She could see it in his eyes. He would die before giving up a name. Too bad for him.
“Ok. Let’s try this instead,” she suggested, crouching down beside him and pressing the muzzle of the .45 against his other knee. “What did you do with the woman who lives here?”