Brock nodded. “Me neither, just those, none for Adele or Maria, which means they had already exited the car and were taken somewhere else.” He also looked at the buildings, many with broken windows and chain fences missing locks. So many places to perform an execution.
Chip stood next to Max. “With thermal imaging, we could eliminate these buildings quick.”
“I didn’t bring that piece of equipment, should have though,” Brock said coming to stand next to them. “Take me an hour to reach my office and another to return. Your call, Chief.”
Max kept looking at the buildings and thinking over what he knew about Grant. He didn’t see them in this area, but he could be wrong. “Problem is, all of us would need to leave in case new information came in. I can’t be stranded out here.” They had all come in one car, something they would rectify once they returned to the club.
“Agreed.” Brock placed his fingerprinting equipment in the SUV. With another look around, Max and Chip returned to the car and left. A few minutes later, Max’s phone beeped.
“Sweet, tell me something good.”
“Adolpho Grant had been married three times, has six kids. He’s been in and out of court over late child support payments. He always manages to work deals with his exes before they lock him up. He has a reputation as a charmer, a man who knows his way around women. Two of his sons served prison terms, the others are headed in the opposite direction, college or trade school. According to witnesses, he’s been trying to get to know his kids better but they want no part of him.”
“Okay,” Max said wondering how he could use the information to track the man down.
“Also, he has health problems, a bad heart a relative said. She wasn’t sure if he used oxygen or not. That will restrict where he can hide, and the amount of exertion he can use.”
“His son is with him, should be in his thirties,” Matt reminded him. “Is he disabled or something?”
“Got cut pretty bad in a fight a few years ago in prison. No one’s mentioned any permanent disabilities, none that you can see any way,” Sweet said. “From what we’ve found out, Grant is a homebody, goes out of town a few times a year, but isn’t that active. He’s no model citizen but nobody says a lot of bad things about him either.”
“Wilson said he went off the radar after the attack, if he has a bad heart he may have had a set-back or something. Check to see if he ordered medication or had any medical activity near the time of the attack.”
“Yes, Sir.” Sweet clicked off and Max updated Chip and Brock.
“That’s something I’ll have my men trace as well. If he’s in the area, he would’ve needed to pick up the medication locally,” Brock said.
Forty minutes later, Max pulled into the parking lot of Reclamation. The three of them entered the club, nodded at Cody, who manned the entrance and headed for his office. Crystal sent him a long-suffering look while listening to the ABC auditor. Max nodded his understanding and took the stairs. He assumed Charlene and the food inspector were still in the kitchen, since Mark wasn’t at his post.
Brock’s associate was on his way to scan the buildings they’d just left and would call as soon as she was done. The phone on Max’s desk rang, surprising him. Most of his calls came through his cell.
“Delgado,” he answered, glancing at Brock working on the laptop.
“This is Admiral Henry Wilson, you have something that belongs to me.”
“No. I do not,” Max said, looking at Chip.
“I’m not in the habit of repeating myself, if you want what you’re looking for, you’ll give me what I want.”
Max wrote the Admiral’s name on a piece of paper and showed it to Chip and Brock. “I don’t have anything that belongs to you.”
“Okay, don’t say I didn’t offer to help.”
“No, you’ve got this all wrong. I offered to help you and you turned it down, reneged on the offer.”
“I’ll be in touch.” The line died.
Max hung up. “They have Adele and want to deal, that buys us some time. They’re moving quickly, so we need to be ready. Brock contact Sweet for the name of the doctor and medication for Grant.”
He looked at Chip. “Is he bluffing?”
“No. If that was the Admiral, he’s not bluffing. The man never gets directly involved in things like this, stays clean, above the fray. For him to call, he’s rattled. Tread carefully, Max. If he feels cornered, no telling what he’ll do,” Chip warned.
Max went over every word of the short conversation. An Admiral wielded a lot of power and Max preferred not to make an enemy but he couldn’t let the man kill Jose’s wife. He had to rescue her.
“Thanks, appreciate that.” Max’s phone beeped. “Talk to me,” he said to Sweet.
“Got lucky, the local pharmacist is off and his assistant talked. Grant did order medication the evening of the attack. A woman, signed Anna Grant, picked it up right at closing. That’s why the assistant remembered; this Anna was rude and insisted on picking up the meds right then. Grant had called and approved the pickup in advance.”
“A woman’s involved? Did you get a description? Anything we can use to find her?” Max asked pulling out his pen.
“Tall, sophisticated, black hair, she wore glasses and never looked directly at anyone. Those are Anita, the assistant’s words exactly. She thought the woman hid from the cameras. Another thing, the ID Anna Grant used was an expired license. Good for ID purposes, but little else. She claimed she didn’t have anything else.”
“That’s good, anything else? Did she smell anything? Any identifying marks? What color polish on her nails? Were they professionally done? Same thing about the hair? Expensive or from the hood?”
“I need to go and ask these questions, Chief. I’ll get back to you.” Sweet clicked off.
Excited by this new development, he shared the information with Brock and Chip.
“Anna Grant?” Brock said tapping a few keys.
“Yes, check records from that area, see what you find,” he told Brock.
“One second, I need to call this in,” Brock said and made his call. “We need a full bio to deal with this.” Brock looked at Chip. “Pull records on every property Vincente Barretti ever purchased.”
“On it,” Chip said sitting at the other computer.
“What’cha got?” Max asked Brock.
“Let me be sure before we go there. Shouldn’t take much longer since I already ordered a complete bio.” He turned and opened his email. Max looked over his shoulder.
“Whose bio is that?” Max asked trying to read the small print.
Brock leaned back, shaking his head. “Anna Maria Gonzalez-Grant-Baretti.”
Max’s mouth opened and then snapped shut. “What? Maria and Adolpho were… what? Married? How the hell we miss that?”
“No doubt she buried it deep, if I hadn’t searched for Anna Grant, chances are we wouldn’t have made the connection.” He pointed to the screen, even now there’s nothing about their marriage. She had a child as a minor, perhaps she married at the same time. Smaller towns didn’t record everything for minors.”
“I’ll be damned,” Max said staring at the monitor, unable to believe he’d been duped. “This means she knew about everything all along.”
“Maybe not. Maybe they reconnected after he came to town to do the job. Seems she always needed money, maybe he promised her a piece after he finished if she helped,” Brock said.
“Here’s a list of property Vincente owned,” Chip said handing him a printout. Max looked it over and handed it to Brock.
Maria and Grant, Max couldn’t believe it. “She took Adele for him. But where?”
“Looking at this, none of these locations would work. Check to see if she put anything in her name,” Brock said.
Chip returned to the keyboard. “No. Nothing,” he said a few moments later.
“Call Pascale, ask if Vincente had a hideaway he didn’t want anyone else to know about. Don’t tell him
we suspect Maria, he may warn her,” Max said.
Brock made the call. Max walked in a tight circle thinking. The conversation with Pascale was brief.
“He doesn’t know of anything, says if we find anything to let him know,” Brock said.
Max stared at the wall, thinking. Where would Maria take Adele? Someplace familiar, not too far. Where?
“Did Helen own any property?” Max asked. Perhaps they took her to one of those.
“Not anymore. The one house she had, Vince sold,” Brock said.
“Wait… Baretti’s not his real name, check Stevens, Vince Stevens,” Max said excited he remembered and grabbed a map from the shelf. “Check every county within thirty minutes to an hour of Raleigh. Go as far south as Lumberton and up to the Virginia line. There’s a house somewhere that they own. Maria knows who she’s dealing with, they wouldn’t take chances of involving anyone else.” Chip and Brock pulled up public records for each of the counties Max called out and searched for a combination of names.
They were on the tenth county when Chip yelled. “Found it. Vince Stevens bought a two thousand square foot house in Angier, south of here in Harnett County.” He wrote the address and then googled the house. Max made note of the roads leading to the place and then clicked street view to get a visual of the property.
“That’s a nice place,” Brock said looking at the screen.
“Indeed,” Max said. “Quite a hideaway. Wonder if Maria knew anything about this?”
“Probably.” Brock stood. I need to get some equipment for this job. I’ll meet you at this point.” He placed his finger on the map. “We get sound and visuals to make a plan.”
Max continued staring at the one and a half story brick home on an acre lot. “Sounds good. We go in hot.”
“Want me to contact Sergei?” Brock asked.
“No, get the equipment, I’ll call him,” Max said pulling out his cell. When no one picked up, he left the address on voice mail.
“Max,” Chip said standing. “When we find her, I’d like to talk to her.”
“That’s fine with me if she wants to talk. Remember, she has to know Maria betrayed her by now and all these years she thought the woman was her friend, possibly her best and only friend. She could be shaken by that.”
Chip nodded. “If things get bad with Viola and her family, I want to make sure she knows how I feel and that our child will always be cared for. Bernard’s re-doing my will and setting up a trust fund. My father is aware of what’s going on and promised support. Even if she decides to stay with Sergei, I want her to know our child will always have a place with my family.”
Pleased and impressed with Chip’s commitment, Max slapped him on the back and headed toward the door. “See, that’s why I tolerate Army dogs, even though they’re inferior to the Navy. Some of y’all got heart.”
Chapter 31.
Dressed in cammies, Max and Chip parked behind Brock’s dark van, knocked and stepped inside. They were short of half mile north of the house in a partially wooded field with limited visibility. Max hadn’t pulled Skinny or any of the others for this extraction because he wanted to limit causalities. Most importantly, he wanted Adele retrieved free from harm to her or the child.
“What do you have?” he asked Brock.
“So far I have Maria and two men. Adele’s asleep, they’re waiting for a call. It’s late and Maria’s not happy. She did this for the money, and she thought Adele and Baretti had an affair. Now that she realizes that never happened, she may be having second thoughts.”
“What about Adolpho? How’d they come together?”
“Seems he reached out to the kid they had. Their son won’t have anything to do with him. Somehow he and Adele started talking and got together again. The son who raped Adele wants another shot at her. He and Maria almost came to blows over that.”
“Gentlemen, that will not happen. Do you have a lay-out of the house?” Max asked Brock looking at one of the monitors.
“Yes. This model is common and used by a lot of builders in the area,” Brock pulled up the floor plan. “This was not a custom build, the floor plan is fairly accurate.”
“Security?” Chip asked.
“I picked up two cams inside and three outside on a local loop.” He pointed to the dots on the floor plan and gave the model, range and other capabilities. “They don’t expect company, she’s convinced them no one will find them.”
“Can you block or disable the cams?” Max asked.
“Not from here. An alarm alerts the owner of any tampering of the devices.”
Chip studied the layout. “Can you tell where she is? If she’s on a different floor than the others, we can gas them, reach her with a mask and then leave.”
Brock moved to another screen and flipped on the radar. Moments passed as he made adjustments to the screen. The house came into view and after additional fine tuning they could see bodies. “Everyone’s on the first floor, no one upstairs. Three of them are in this area, the kitchen,” Brock said after looking at the floor plan.
“What if we spray painted the lens on the cameras? They wouldn’t see us coming,” Max said. “How high is that camera?” he pointed to the one covering the front door where the peak was the highest.
“Over ten feet. The back door and garage would be best. Spray them and then wait. I’ll let you know of any movement or if they notice the cams aren’t usable,” Brock said.
“Okay, the nearest town is ten miles. I’ll be back in a bit,” Max said.
“I have a can of black, might be enough if you use two layers on each.” Brock dug through a box of wires and other equipment before handing him the can.
Max shook it. “This should be enough. I’ll take out the cameras and wait for Chip before going in. If we’re lucky, one of them will come outside.” He took the ear piece and map from Brock, stepped outside and checked his weapons. For this job he would use a silencer to keep from alerting others of his presence. After determining the best course, he took off at a jog. Adrenaline pumped through his veins, energizing him. How he missed the high of the chase for prey. It had been too long.
The garage was set to the side and he’d disable that one first. “On the move,” he spoke into his headset.
“You’re clear, targets have not moved. They’re discussing the expected call and possible problems,” Brock said.
Minutes later, Max broke through the woods on the side of the garage. He un-holstered his pistol, ran to the concrete driveway, and leaned against the block.
“You’re on radar; the target has not moved, you’re clear.”
Chest expanded he took a deep breath, then stooped and crawled into the garage until he leaned against the wall with the security camera. Inching forward, he paused when he was close enough to stand and spray. Removing the can, he stood slowly and then covered the lens. Once done, he retraced his steps and leaned on the exterior garage wall.
“Targets have not moved from location. You’re good to go.”
Walking in a crouched position, Max made his way to the back of the house. The camera was higher than in the garage but not as high as the front of the house. He looked around for something to stand on and saw nothing. Turning, he headed to the garage to find a crate or block to add a few extra inches to his six feet, three inches. On the inside wall of the garage were two blocks. He holstered his gun, returned the can to his pocket and picked up both bricks. Within moments he stacked them, and spray painted the camera. When he finished, he took the blocks with him to the woods and waited.
“Targets have not moved,” Brock said. “Chip’s in route.”
“Okay. He can take the garage door, it’s closer to Adele. Under no circumstance should she be used as a shield,” Max said.
“Got it,” Chip said.
“Incoming to your right, not one of the targets. Repeat, incoming. I cannot identify him.”
Max leaned against the tree and merged with the woods, watching. “He’s close. Three yar
ds to your right.”
Max moved before Brock finished speaking and struck out. His foot connected, but his fist missed. He ducked but heard the sing of the blade as it passed. Max’s fist connected to the midsection of his victim and then under the chin. He placed his foot on the man’s back. Chip arrived, and placed the barrel of his pistol on the man’s forehead.
Max rolled him over, stared for a few minutes and then removed his foot from his midsection. “Sergei.”
“Max?” Sergei said standing slowly. “I got the message and assumed you wanted me to take them out.”
“I promised you could have the one who attacked her, that’s why I contacted you.”
Sergei nodded and straightened. Max filled him in on what happened and their plans.
“We enter first through the garage. I will follow to provide cover while he goes to Adele. When you come through the back they will run for her.”
“Good. Let’s go.” Max removed his pistol and ran to the house. He leaned against the wall on the side of the house for a few seconds and then crouched below the windows to the back door.
“All clear, go,” Brock said.
Max heard the crash of the garage door and then kicked in the back door. He moved through the house looking for Adolpho.
“Someone’s to your left,” Brock said.
Max turned and fired low. A scream of pain filled the air. He pulled open the door and saw Maria bent forward holding her leg as tears streamed down her face. He patted her down, removed her dropped pistol from the floor and used a plastic tie to secure her.
“Sergei is engaged, Chip has Adele. Someone went upstairs,” Brock said.
Pistol raised Max climbed the stairs and then ducked as a bullet whizzed above his head.
“He’s on the move, headed to the stairs,” Brock said.
Max moved down and waited for a shot. Scuffling sounds behind him drew his attention. Chip and one of the men were locked together. Max backed into the room, saw Sergei bleeding on the floor in the corner and Adele’s eyes wide with fright. He took aim, shot the man in the back of his head and grabbed Sergei’s high powered rifle.
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