by Dale Mayer
“Not my style,” Lennox said. “Single and available is the only direction I travel.”
“Maybe,” said Gavin, “but women don’t always tell the truth.”
“Isn’t that too damn sad?” he said. “But, yes, agreed.”
“Got it,” Gavin said, “but we do know one thing for sure.”
Lennox looked at him. “What?”
“Somebody did this. And that somebody is pretty damn serious.”
“I know,” Lennox said. “We’ll find the bastard. You can count on that.”
Chapter 4
Helena’s situation was getting old very quickly. Once they’d eaten, everybody more or less crashed in various corners of their prison for at least an hour or two.
Helena sat in her corner, her head against the back of the steel cage, wishing for a bed or a pillow. But she’d gotten food and wouldn’t push their captors’ hospitality. She could ask for so many other things in life. Carolina was nearby. As Helena looked at the others, the two had distanced themselves from her and Carolina. They would blame Carolina no matter what Helena said to defend her best friend. She didn’t know very much about John and Sasha. They appeared to be trustworthy workers and decent people in hospital settings; that’s all she’d cared about so far.
Of course now they were under stress, and their very survival had been threatened. That would change everything entirely. What Helena didn’t know for sure was how long they’d hold up. She already knew what Carolina was made of. The same as Helena. Nobody goes through the abuse and the beatings that these two women had gone through without understanding a lot about who they were on the inside.
They’d taken more than they should have. They both knew that, but neither had reached a breaking point or turned around and killed their attackers. She often wondered if whether maybe she would have been better off if she had. In theory, it would have been a lot easier to move forward and to forget the nightmares. She always held on to that fear that her ex-husband would show up again, but so far he never had.
Carolina’s ex had had a visit from Lennox. Helena had often wondered about asking Lennox to do the same with her ex, but that would mean crossing the line the two had drawn in the sand. After one very heady kiss. She almost smiled at that. Lennox had been pissed, and the kiss had been more about the ultimate punishment at that time, given their near-hatred of each other—or maybe more about competing with each other for Carolina’s attention? Regardless, that kiss had just been a byproduct of his temper, but it had quickly flared into something way past that. So Helena already knew that they were both trying to avoid igniting that short fuse which was always present between them.
Besides, she didn’t want anything to do with men at this point; Lennox was safe as long as she didn’t get too close to him. She already knew that, if she did, the two of them would burn up the sheets come hell or high water, and everybody else would turn to ash if they tried to stop them.
Carolina’s low voice interrupted Helena’s thoughts. “Are you okay?”
Helena smiled down at her friend. “Sure am. We’ve been in worse scenarios.”
“I feel like suddenly we have a room divider in here,” Carolina added in a low voice, deliberately not looking where the other two had huddled together.
“Sure. We’re to blame. Remember?”
“You mean, I am,” said Carolina, never afraid of stating the truth.
“By association me too,” Helena said. “Don’t worry about it. It is what it is. We will get out of this.”
“Only because of Lennox. Do you think he’ll get taken?”
Helena knew that a flippant answer wouldn’t help right here, right now. She thought about the man with the steely gray eyes and his linebacker build and the pantherlike movements that made him a deadly predator of the night. “It’ll take a tank to bring him down,” she said.
“No,” Carolina said softly. “Bullets will do it too.”
“We’ve seen a lot of men get up after being shot multiple times,” she reminded Carolina.
“I know. It’s not the kind of work I like to do anymore, but you and I have both seen our share of gunshot wounds. I know it can do a lot of damage, but I also know many men who survived.”
“Lennox will know it’s a trap. He won’t come alone,” Helena said. “He’s too smart for that.”
At least in her heart, she hoped he was. Yet, with his sister as one of the kidnap victims, how would Lennox react to that? He was as impatient as his sister. Plus he had quite the temper. Could he pull it together to let his mind overrule his emotions? Helena hoped so. Otherwise Lennox could be the ultimate victim here.
Well, one of them. Carolina had been through enough already. The last thing she needed was to lose her brother, her only family. She’d been talking of nothing but seeing him this week. It was essential to her that they continued to meet, not just for a meal but for several days on end, where they could relax and talk. Helena understood Lennox offered another perspective and helped keep Carolina grounded, and the bond between them was the strongest she’d seen between two siblings.
Anything that kept Carolina in good shape and moving forward with her life was enormous. Carolina’s pregnancy had ended with that last fight with her ex. She had left him immediately. It had been the final straw. And, of course, she’d spun into depression after that. She’d always wanted a family. Carolina and Helena had both talked about wanting children at some point in their lives. Maybe they both had jumped into those relationships because they thought they were getting too old to have babies, and maybe life was running past them. They were in their early thirties now. And time was marching by, without either woman in any current relationship, so having kids looked like a long ways away from where Helena stood.
Helena had felt that time pressure to have children a little more than Carolina had. Yet it was still there, always just that piece missing from both friends’ world that Helena knew would come, but later. Now it would be that much later.
“How long do you think before he shows?” Carolina asked, obsessing over Lennox as usual.
“Well, as far as staying in this very uncomfortable cage, I hope he will be here immediately,” she said. “But who’s to say?”
“I need to sleep,” Carolina murmured.
Helena glanced down at her friend, worried she’d been sleeping a lot since she took that blow to the head. “You sure your head’s okay?” she asked, leaning closer and brushing the hair off the wound.
“The head’s nothing,” she said. “You and I both know we’ve taken worse.”
Helena glanced over at the other corners of their cage, where the two were lying down, their heads together, but each lay alongside the cage, far enough away from Helena and Carolina to not overhear their discussion. That pair didn’t know anything about the two women’s histories. “Maybe,” she said, “but we shouldn’t have to again.”
“Shouldn’t have to doesn’t make a damn bit of difference when we’re caught in the middle of this.”
“I know.” That brought her anger rising. Helena swore she’d never again get caught in a situation where she would be reduced to a punching bag. Instead here she was. … And who knew what the gunmen had planned for them. Talk of letting them go was cheap. … Their actions were what counted. No, she wouldn’t think like that. Lennox was coming. He might not come for her, but he sure as hell would come for Carolina. Helena just had to hold on and wait.
Lennox stopped at the entranceway to the weapons storage unit, as the breath almost sucked out of his chest.
“Quite something, isn’t it?” Gavin murmured. “And who gave us this guy?”
“Keane sent me the address,” Lennox said; he pulled out his phone and quickly sent Keane a text, asking him where they found this place.
An acquaintance of Levi’s.
“Well, everybody knew Levi or at least anybody who’d been a Navy SEAL knew of Levi. And Ice. It was hard not to. And, if they had a connection like this, well, mak
es sense to check it out.”
A man stood waiting nearby, holding a clipboard. “I don’t have all day,” he said testily.
“Got it,” and they reamed off their list. Lennox grabbed a flat cart and collected items off the shelves. By the time they were done and had paid the bill in cash, the briefcase had a significant dent in it. But it was all good. They loaded up the vehicle and left the parking lot, Gavin driving again.
Lennox shook his head. “Already have two tails on us. Which is damn obvious in this neck of the woods.”
“What’s it look like?” Gavin asked, glancing in the rearview mirror.
“Well, it looks like our friendly arms dealer plays both sides. He’ll take our money and promptly give us up to the locals within minutes.” Lennox sighed. “He gets paid twice for each gun deal.”
Gavin shot another look behind them. “But they’re not advancing on us.”
Lennox fired off a text to both Levi and the Mavericks central command. “Probably just reporting our current position to the kidnappers. I doubt they will engage.”
“You let Levi know?” Gavin asked, with a head tilt to Lennox’s phone.
Lennox nodded. “Levi will handle it in his own unique way. And now … we have to ditch this vehicle soon,” Lennox murmured.
“Already in progress,” Gavin said. “We’ll get to the next town and switch up the rentals.”
“I’d suggest ditching the rentals and just buying something cheap on the side,” Lennox said. “The kidnappers, courtesy of the locals, will already have our license plate, our faces, and they now know that we’ve got not only cash but a lot of weapons.”
“Movement behind us. One vehicle jumped in front of the other. Not aggressively but way too obvious. Do you think these locals are coming after us? I count two in each truck.”
Lennox turned to look out the back windshield. “Well, they’d be a fool to try. They know we’re armed, and they must also realize we know how to use our weapons,” he said. “But all that doesn’t mean they don’t have a secondary business going on right now, where they take out troublemakers.”
“Which, by the very nature of what we just did, counts us as troublemakers,” Gavin said with a nod. “I got no problem ditching our ride,” he said. “We’re probably better off to change wheels every town anyway.” They came into the rental lot, and the two following trucks drove right by.
“Well,” Lennox said, Gavin by his side, watching their tails until they were out of sight, “this one road seems to be the only path from this town to the next. They’ll be waiting for us there.”
Gavin nodded, returned the vehicle, grabbed all their gear—including all the firepower now packed in an extra duffel bag—and headed out to rejoin Lennox, still in the parking lot. “Any more friends following us?”
Lennox shook his head. “Out here, a tail can be seen so quickly. And I doubt the locals have the money for drones or have hackers who can tap into satellites.”
“Yeah, but,” Gavin added, “the kidnappers might. The guy arranged for air transport of the victims. That couldn’t have been cheap. … Or he has friends in high places.”
They shared a knowing look, and Lennox repeated, “Trap. Yeah. I know.”
“Where do you want to go?”
“I’ll head into that restaurant over there,” Lennox said. “We need food, and we need wheels.”
“You order the food,” Gavin said. “I’ll take care of the wheels.” Then Gavin took off, leaving the duffel bags for Lennox to tote around for now.
Lennox didn’t even ask questions; he walked in, the heavy duffel bags in his hands, found a booth at the back, dropped the duffels under the table, and sat down. As soon as the waitress arrived with menus, he awkwardly ordered coffee and studied the food options as well. The translation app on his phone was a godsend in these situations. When she delivered the coffee, he ordered the special of the day times two, thought about it a second longer, and got two big meals to-go. He chose meals that could be eaten cold, big sub sandwiches, and several other dishes along that line. Also a refill of his coffee and a second cup. The waitress looked surprised but quickly wrote everything down and disappeared.
He sat here with his phone, wishing he could pull out his laptop but didn’t take the chance of attracting any more interest. He was an obvious foreigner in this rural area. Many people in the restaurant gave him a critical once-over before resuming their meals. Lennox could feel their gazes on him every once in a while thereafter.
So the laptop wasn’t a good idea here. Then he realized it didn’t really matter because they likely didn’t have any internet here. Cell towers were few and far between out here in farm country. He checked in with Keane to let him know where they were. Then asked, Got me a location pinpointed yet?
Give us two more minutes.
Lennox snorted at that, hung up, and set his cell phone off to the side. But he had to admit, so far—with everything that he’d been involved in with that chat box, between Keane’s mission and now this op of Lennox’s—the Mavericks chat window had been a gold mine as far as resources went. He didn’t know how many Mavericks were working on the back end, but Lennox knew this command center position right now was filled with like the seventh or eighth man who had done prior missions, and these were the only ones Lennox knew about. So he figured the Mavericks could easily gather an eight-man team, ready to go at a moment’s notice. He pulled the phone toward him again and typed, Are Gavin and I the only ones on a mission currently?
No. Kerrick and Griffin are off in Africa.
Any connection to my case?
No came back the answer instantaneously.
Lennox pulled his coffee toward him and took a hesitant sip. And then smiled. It was thick, intense, black, and damn-near scorched his throat all the way down. Perfect.
He sat back with a sigh, rotating his shoulders and his neck to ease some of the tension there. They were fully equipped now, which helped on these overseas missions where air travel was involved, as that was always an issue, making sure that they had what they needed and without all the red tape involved with a by-the-books military op. Not that the Mavericks couldn’t get some help from the US Navy or other branches of the military if and when needed. The Mavericks maintained a symbiotic relationship with their SEAL brothers for sure.
Now if only Lennox had a location on his sister.
His phone buzzed; he pulled it forward to see a link. He quickly clicked on it and saw the kidnapper’s vehicle that had been at the Warsaw airport. It was driving through the town he was currently in. The time and date stamp said it was four and a half hours earlier. That wasn’t bad. They were gaining a bit on them.
Stay on the same highway. You’ve got three more towns to go through to catch up to the latest surveillance we have reviewed to produce this bread crumb trail on the kidnapper’s vehicle.
Time frame on locating their final destination with the captives?
We still don’t have that intel, but we’re damn close. So, when you’re done eating, start driving.
Lennox stared as the waitress returned with large plates. He dug into his, even before she left. He knew the folly of not having enough fuel to run on. And that wouldn’t happen today. More than that, he didn’t know if his sister and the others in her group were struggling with a lack of food either. As soon as he ate half his fries, his phone went off again, and there was a map, and he saw the three towns marked with dots. Those three are confirmed sightings?
Yes, still working on the one after that.
They go off the grid?
Yes. Now we’re searching via satellite.
Lennox kept eating, and, when he looked up, Gavin walked toward him with a smile on his face. Lennox motioned at the food.
Gavin sat down, surveyed the plate in front of him, and said, “Now this is what I call a meal.” He picked up his knife and fork and dug in. Ten minutes later both had polished off their massive platefuls. When the waitress came back with the t
o-go bag, she stared at the empty plates in surprise.
Lennox looked at her, smiled, used his phone then said, “We were hungry.”
They got up, and Gavin grabbed both duffel bags this time, while Lennox grabbed the takeout and walked up to the cash register. The woman never said a word, just rang up the order. When he saw the amount, he paid cash for it, smiled at her, and walked outside to meet up with his partner.
“I could have used a take-out coffee,” Gavin said.
“If you want one, go back and get it,” Lennox said.
“Nah, we’ve already got enough attention.”
“Even the best of us,” he said, “have to eat and drink.”
“I know, but it still feels like everybody’s staring.”
“We’re Americans. I’m sure they are.”
“No way to be subtle out here in the wide open spaces, is there?”
“No, not at this stage, and we don’t need to be. We’ve got three more towns to go through by the time we’re done heading into the next district,” he said. “The kidnappers have gone to ground. That’s when we’ll have to go incognito.”
“Good enough,” he said. Gavin led the way to a small pickup truck. They stowed the duffel bags in the back of the bed and hopped into the front seat. As Gavin started the engine, Lennox asked, “Did you pay cash for this one?”
“Well, I caught somebody trying to steal it,” he said, “so I persuaded him that he didn’t need to keep it.”
Lennox laughed and laughed. “Well, we’ll have to leave it somewhere on the side of the road. Be even nicer if the guy stealing it in the first place left his fingerprints here.”
“We’ve both got gloves on, and the kid didn’t.”
Lennox chuckled. “Well that’s a twist, isn’t it?”
“I figured it would work. We’ll have to switch it out soon anyway.”
“Maybe not at every town now. I don’t see any more tails.”
They kept driving the truck for another forty minutes. They’d already passed the next town and were in the middle of the second.