“Where’s the NOC list?” Jared asked.
Winters pulled it out of his pocket and handed it to his boss, readying to hightail it back home. “You take it. I’ve got business to attend to.”
“Hold it, Lone Ranger. If there’s a problem, we’ve all got business to attend to.”
He wanted to argue. Hell, he wanted to ignore him and walk out.
Jared could read his mind. “Sit your ass down, Winters.”
Parker’s fingers flew over his keyboard. Without stopping, he’d occasionally asked Winters a question. With a few flashes of pixilated grains, several of the security cameras in his home now broadcasted on monitors in front of the men. Parker flashed through several feeds and stopped.
The feed was clear as if he stood in the room. The kitchen was empty. A coffee mug shattered on the hardwood floor in the kitchen, coffee splattered. Parker skipped through other camera angles. Nothing was out of the ordinary in the living room or hallways or nursery.
“Parker, I have a camera pointed into the crib. It’s in the corner. Get that shot.”
Parker clacked on the keyboard. Winters’s stomach ached worse with each loud stroke, until one screen blinked, showed snow, then an empty crib.
“Fuck!”
Winters dialed his mother. She picked up on the second ring. Without giving her the chance to say hello, he said, “Do you have Clara?”
“What? No, she’s at home with Mia. You said—”
Winters clicked the phone off. He summoned all of his training, and all but ordered Parker to queue back the footage. Parker worked. Winters paced. The live images halted, then skipped backward in sixty-second increments.
“Keep going.”
“Dude, I’m working on it.”
The screen skipped backward in two-minute increments. A blur of activity flashed and Parker hit stop. The image was clear. Mia was at the table with a cup of coffee in one hand, a sleeping baby in the other arm, and a half-empty bottle on the table.
“Make it play right now.” Jared wasn’t interfering in Winters’s orders to Parker. None of the men interrupted. Winters’s lungs ached. His body warped into warrior mode and ignored the terrifying paralysis edging at his mind.
Every pair of eyes watched as Mia turned to the kitchen window. Her face pinched in surprise. Her mug fell and shattered. The baby startled awake. Mia grabbed the bottle, stuck it in Clara’s mouth, and the panicked look on her face made him ill. A heartbeat later, Mia took off at a run out of the kitchen.
Parker’s fingers flew across the keyboard, and Winters yelled at him. “Find her. Where did they go?”
“Looking.”
“Look faster.”
Black flooded the screen. The motion detector lights flicked on as Mia and Clara rushed through a door. Parker switched the footage to the large flat screen in the center of the room. No one breathed. They watched Mia finger the keys on the pegboard wall. She selected a set and stretched out her arm. His Hummer’s lights flashed as it unlocked, and she ran to the vehicle’s backdoor. She jumped in with Clara but came out alone. She ran to the driver’s door, cracked the tinted windows, ran back around, and to peek in the backseat at the baby.
“What the fuck is she doing?” Jared asked. Mia swiveled her head, a terrified expression plastered on her face. “Is she leaving?”
No one moved. Everyone watched. She flew back toward the house and manually turned off the lights.
“What did she do with Clara?” Jared was pissed.
“Car seat.” Winters mumbled.
“Car seat?”
“Yeah, asshole. She just rat holed my kid.”
Every guy in the room gave a collective oh.
Winters interrupted the stunned mumblings. “Can you get me a shot of what she saw outside?”
He needed to be there but was too far away. He couldn’t get home. Whatever they watched was History Channel by now. Nothing was worse. His head spun.
“Working on it,” Parker muttered. “Until I find that camera feed, keep watching this.”
It played in time and a half. Mia ran through several of the shots. The kitchen. The hallway. Up the stairs and toward the master bedroom.
“Has this woman gone mad?” Jared asked.
“Damn, boy.” Parker directed them to a different monitor in the corner. Parker rewound the screen, then hit play. A chopper landed several hundred feet from his house. That explains the perimeter alarm.
Men piled out. They took their lazy-ass time, knowing no escape was possible. They sauntered past the exterior camera. Parker clicked to the entrance camera feed. His front door exploded open. Two men stepped through. Others remained outside.
Every man watching the screens had to wonder where the hell they would go first. Winters had no idea. This was like reality television, the nightmare edition.
He didn’t know what to do, so he issued orders. “Fast forward. Go. Go. Go.”
Parker held up his hand. “Wait. Watch.”
Mia flinched in the upstairs hallway, then went to work slamming every door. She waited, then screamed. She dragged their attention straight up the stairs, and they took the easy catch, running toward her ruckus.
They were on her in seconds. She flayed and kicked, her nails clawed for their eyes, and her knees aimed for their nuts. Winters knew those moves all too well. They gagged her mouth and bound her hands, despite the throws of her fists. She bucked the entire time. A visible look of relief crossed her face as they pushed her out the busted front door.
“Good night.” Jared blew out a telling whistle. “That woman just baited those men away from Clara. Parker, what’s our elapsed time?”
“They were in and out in three and a half minutes.”
“Find me that helo.” Thank God Jared was barking orders, because Winters needed to dry heave.
He heard Jared on the phone, issuing orders for another team member to get out of bed and to get to Winters’s place post haste. He ended the call with a command to secure that baby. God willing, Clara would be sleeping. Please let her sleep. Please.
He hit the speed dial for his mother again.
She picked up on the first ring. “Colby, what’s going on?”
“Mom, we had a problem. Clara’s fine.”
“Oh God. What happened?”
He took the phone away from his ear. He didn’t have time to explain. “Hey, Jared. Who’s headed for Clara?”
“Brock.”
He put the phone back to his ear.
“Hello? Colby Winters, you get back on this phone,” his mom yelled.
“I’m here. Look, you know Brock, right? He’s going to bring Clara to you. I need you to take her for a few days at your place.”
“Can you tell—”
“I can’t. Kiss that baby for me. Call you later.” He ended the call and dropped to a chair, unaware he’d been pacing.
“The baby will be fine,” Jared said. “That girl of yours pulled off quite the stunt. Are you pussying out of this, or can you get your shit together? We’ve got some cartel motherfuckers to find.”
Pussying out? The hell with that.
“More ready than I’ve ever been.” He was resolute. Jared would never question him again where his family was concerned.
“First things first. We need to figure out where they’ve taken her. Parker, have you tracked down that copter yet?”
“Almost.”
Winters spun to Jared, remembering he had intel to offer. “She has a skin tracker on her. Long story short, she has a bio-tag on. We’ve got about eight more hours to get a signal from her.”
“Kinky,” his buddy called from the end of the room.
“Shut your face, Cash.” Winters scowled at Parker. “Can you find that tracker?”
“Trying. Two minutes. Tops,” Parker said.
Jared turned to Winters. “Glad to see the company resources are so well used.”
Winters rolled his eyes. “I can’t handle how slow this is going. Come on al
ready.”
Parker closed the security footage except the live feed of his darkened garage. Winters sat and watched the dark screen, transfixed. Parker went back to his keyboard, numbers and code streaming across the monitor in front of him. A flash on the screen and a GPS location began to read.
“They’re stationary. Fairfax County, Virginia. Not far from here. Satellite images coming in three, two, one…”
A small compound appeared on the flat screen. The chopper sat on a helipad. A decrepit mansion stood in rough shape, shutters hanging off windows, cracked white paint peeling from the clapboard, and a half-boarded front door.
“What’s that place?” Winters asked.
“Land records say it’s the business address of Silva Enterprises. Five pesos says it’s a front for the Colombian, where they launder money. That place hasn’t seen anyone in long time.”
“That’s advantageous. Security will be nil.” Jared nodded to a different screen.
Brock entered Winters’s garage. He paused, then moved straight to the Hummer, opened the door, and cocked his head to the side. Winters’s phone rang, and he answered before the screen showed Brock grabbing his phone to dial.
“There must be a five second delay in the feed,” Parker said.
“The kid’s asleep,” Brock said. “I don’t know how the hell to get her out of her seat. She looks… secure.”
Thank God. Relief was an awesome poultice right now. When Winters found Mia, he’d get on his hands and knees, thanking her until the end of days for protecting Clara.
He gave directions to Brock to meet his mother. Maybe he should call her back with a rundown of events. She was likely to interrogate Brock until he broke.
Jared cleared his throat. “Now that we’re done with all of that, it’s time to kick some cartel ass.”
CHAPTER NINETEEN
The tactical room buzzed as Jared barked orders to his men, readying to rendezvous at the target point. Never had an assault been more important. Winters pulled his shirt over the Kevlar vest and tightened the vertical strap securing his leg holster.
Jared’s phone rang, and he snatched it off the table. “What?”
There was a pause. Something was wrong. Times like this, Winters wished stone-face Jared had a tell. A sign of any kind.
“Goddamn it.” Jared slammed the phone down and pinched the bridge of his nose. That was a tell if there ever was one.
The room stilled. Winters stood with his teammates, each in varying stages of gearing up, and waited. If the tanker-sized knot in Winters’s stomach were any indication, Jared would have zip to say in the good-news department.
“Change of plans. We’re in a holding pattern,” Jared said.
Winters strode over to him, barely containing the acid that churned in his gut. He shoved tight knuckled fists into his pockets. No need for two battling rams to go at it. Punching Jared would accomplish headaches and busted ribs for both but not help his situation. “What do you mean we’re holding?”
“They’re on the move again.”
“So we move toward them.” That wasn’t the smartest action, but it was action. And right now, Winters needed to expend energy. “We search and destroy.”
“Every ship can be a mine sweeper once, asshole. This isn’t your throwaway team, and that’s not much of a plan. Use your head, Winters.”
“We’ve got six, maybe seven more hours on that tracker.”
“Roger that. We’ve got a solid idea where they’re relocating. Give Parker a few minutes to confirm. There’s no way we can intercept them before they take off again—”
“Take off? Again?” Winters was furious.
“They’re moving fast and southwest. Straight toward a private airstrip. My guess, they’re choppering to a jet.”
Winters slammed his eyes shut, trying to calm down. “Christ, man. If they go wheels up, she’ll be in Colombia in six hours.”
“Parker is pulling flight plans and Silva real estate holdings. Both here and in South America. We’ll narrow it down fast, find satellite feed, and see what’s up.”
“You’re wasting too much time. We know they’re headed to Colombia. Have Parker feed us a destination after we’re in the air. Do it.”
“Watch yourself, Winters.” Jared stood square. Shoulders back. Eyes narrowed.
Winters didn’t care. “Do it. Make the call.”
Jared paced one turn of the room and muttered, then looked back at the men. No one moved. Not even Winters. No, Winters prayed. Prayers for a quick call to action. Prayers for blood soaked vengeance. He bargained with God, asking that his bullets meet their intended target, and offered…everything.
Jared stopped and motioned to Winters. “All right. We'll bring the fight to them. But we do it my way, understand?”
Thank the Lord. His ruthless prayers were answered.
Shaking, Mia couldn’t control her muscles, and she couldn’t wipe away her tears. Her hands were bound, and she was terrified. Her abductors had left her on the floor. She rolled across the cargo plane like a ragdoll. Each burst of turbulence nauseated her, only worsening her fear. They’d been in the air for hours, but now, they descended. The engines roared. The flaps moaned and the wheels extended. Destination reached, wherever that was. She wanted to vomit.
Mia’s teeth jarred at the hard landing, which jarred her across the dirty floor. She struggled to open her eyes under the blindfold. They taxied over bumps and jumps. Each drop smashed her bruised cheekbone onto the splintered floor, re-scratching her scabbed-over scratches. She tasted dirt and blood.
It was the second flight since they jammed a gun in her back at the rundown mansion. They hollered at her in Spanish, and she could only guess at their meaning. Move. Run. Sit. Stop. Her high school teacher always said she should study harder, because it would come in handy. Nope. She’d been busy drowning her miseries in book after book, all in English.
The cargo plane halted hard, as if the pilot forgot a happy medium existed between go and stop. Her chin hit a metal hook jutting from the floor. One more scratch to go with the dozen other newbies. This ride was nothing if not an opportunity to scar up more of her body.
She couldn’t see anything, but judging by what she had rolled over and into, cargo planes had a lot of bells and whistles in the tie down department. They certainly didn’t have chairs and seatbelts. Her first flight was on a business charter, and she had a chair. It had been an unknown luxury. No view with the blindfold, but the chair was appreciated. Mucho appreciated, if she wanted to speak like the locals. Which she didn’t. Crap. She was cracking up again. Time to check back in with her DSM-IV.
Such cruel irony. She thought she’d see Colby in a suit over a candlelit dinner. The deck was stacked against her. She knew it.
Cut the woe-is-me act. I have to survive.
A loud noise grinded, and she heard the back of the cargo plane open. Light burned through her blindfold. Heat and humidity poured into the airless belly of the plane. Rough hands grabbed her. Mia tried to keep up, but unable to see the ridges and snaps on the floor, she tripped more than walked.
The blindfold came off with all the finesse the pilot had taken with his landing. She blinked, desperate to acclimate to the sun’s vicious glare. They were definitely not on US soil. Her captors chatted, paying her no attention. They didn’t hide their faces, or their weapons, or their complete disinterest in her survival.
She glanced right, then left, scared to move her head. Men patrolled the airstrip with automatic weapons slung over their shoulders and large handguns strapped to their hips. This could be a Hollywood movie set. But, it looked real, because it was real. No one noticed how out of place she was because no one cared.
A man gripped her arm until her fingertips tingled.
“Move. El Jefe has a place for you,” he said in broken English.
His rancid breath hung close. He stank of stale sweat and cheap liquor. Another threat of vomiting loomed, and his uniform, reminiscent of soldiers
captured by the evening news, might be where it landed. This was a hell zone.
Disoriented, Mia took in her surroundings. Lush vegetation on all sides. The rainforest. She had collected pennies to help save this stinkin’ place when she was a kid.
In the distance, she saw white-capped mountain peaks. A wood shack with boards peeling back from the posts and white paint flaking off was dead ahead. More uniformed, armed guards stood watch by the broken front door.
They walked toward the shack. A cold shiver rocked her like she’d stepped through a ghost. Nothing good happened in that shack. Mere feet before the door, she was released and catapulted forward. Palms first, Mia broke her fall in a scuffled cloud of dust. Pain vibrated from her hands to her neck and echoed back. Her teeth slammed together at impact, and, again, the taste of blood seeped into her mouth. She ran her tongue over a slice where her front teeth had cut her lip.
As if she needed the help, a boot landed firmly on her butt and pushed her into the windowless shack. The place was dark, and it reeked of death. The humidity did nothing to erase the dirt floating in the air. It caked the corners of her mouth and irritated her eyes. A metallic click. Chains rattled. She was safe and secure from the monsters. At least until they unlocked the door.
What would Colby do if he were here? Probably fashion a bazooka out of a bamboo shoot and blast his way home in time for dinner.
Pieces of Spanish and the smell of cigarettes filtered in to the humid dungeon. Colby would know she was in danger by now. He had to know, and he would come with guns blasting. White knight, round four. This is what he does for a living. He saves people. Extraction. Explosions. Extravaganzas.
He’d come.
Please come.
Outside her shack, armed men jeered. Insects crawled on her skin. Hungry animals of all sorts lurked nearby. She could hear them but didn’t know what posed a graver danger—drunk men with a serious lack of morals, or the all the howling, growling wildlife that the rainforest had to offer.
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