I can’t do more than pace and force down the terrible MRE Ryker handed me a few minutes ago. It’s supposed to be beef stew, but I’m pretty sure those chunks of “meat” are made of leather and the carrots? They’re so orange, they have to be radioactive.
“Dani?” Ryker angles his head towards the bank of computers. “Need you over here.”
The man doesn’t use a single extra word if he doesn’t have to, and a part of me wants to snipe at him for it. But if he can get Trevor out of The Crypt, he can communicate in hand gestures and charades for the rest of this trip and I won’t give a shit.
Dax’s face takes up one half of the screen and on the other, a petite redhead who looks vaguely familiar flashes a smile as I sit down. “Hi. I’m Wren.” She turns her computer slightly to reveal another woman with black hair and features a lot like mine. “This is Cam.”
“Dani.” I glance over at Ryker, and the look in his eyes as Wren’s face fills the screen again…it’s like he’s a different person.
“My…my wife,” he says, and his lips twitch like he wants to smile.
“Oh! From the picture.”
“What?” Ryker asks.
“Trevor has a picture on his dresser from the wedding. All of you. Cam’s married to…West?”
“Yep,” Cam says from off screen. “We’re your tech support.”
Dax snorts. “They’re a hell of a lot more than that.”
Wren’s smile fades, and she’s suddenly all business. “Dani, I need your full name, date of birth, and social security number. I could find it, but it’d take me time we don’t have.”
“Why?” Quickly shaking my head, I continue, “Never mind. I don’t care why. You want to steal my identity when this is all over with, go ahead. As long as Trevor’s safe.” I rattle the information off and Wren’s fingers make dull clicking noises over the connection as she takes it all down.
“Short answer?” she says. “We need to fake travel records for you. There are only a couple of countries left in this world that don’t computerize customs records, and if General Ochoa figures out you flew down on a private plane, he’ll probably assume you have help with you. I need your brother’s info too.”
“I didn’t come through customs,” Austin says. “Why do you—?”
“To make sure you’re easily traceable somewhere else. I’m putting you on a commercial flight to New Zealand that leaves Ankara in three hours.”
“You can…do that?” I ask. Dax was right. She’s a hell of a lot more than tech support. She’s amazing.
“She can do just about anything,” Ryker says with obvious pride in his voice. “You put her and Cam together, and they’re fucking unstoppable.”
“Can it, soldier. You’re going to embarrass me,” Wren says, and the video’s so clear, I can see her cheeks flush almost the same shade as her hair.
After she has Austin’s information, she returns her focus to Ryker. “Ready for the GPS readings.”
The giant next to me picks up a handheld scanner. “Where’d they put it? The chip.”
“Um, right ass cheek.” I don’t hesitate to twist in my chair, but Ryker stops me when my hand goes to the waistband of my pants.
“Not necessary. This’ll read through fabric.”
Thank God. Ryker calls Austin over and pulls the sadistic dart gun from a duffel on the floor. “You’re next, Stars and Bars.”
“I have a name, you know. And you’re not touching me with that thing.”
Standing, Ryker looms over Austin. “You wanna try that again?”
“No.”
“Listen, Pritchard, I’m about two seconds from knocking you on your ass. You expect to go into the field with me, you’re gonna be tracked. Because if you get yourself caught and taken into the bowels of The Crypt, or anywhere else, we have to be able to find you.”
“Just because I’m holed up in this shack with you, McCabe, doesn’t mean you get to—“
Ryker grabs Austin’s arm, spins him around, and shoves him against the wall. Without missing a beat, he tosses the dart gun to Graham, who pulls up my brother’s black t-shirt and injects the chip just above his waist.
“You fucking piece of shit,” Austin growls as Ryker lets him go.
On screen, Wren shakes her head and mutters something that sounds like “Men.”
“Yep. That I am. A fucking piece of shit who can now rescue your ass if you need it. We don’t have to like each other, Pritchard. I know you only let Rip go because Trevor asked you to.”
“What the fuck?” Austin shoves Ryker, but it must be like pushing against a brick wall. “I didn’t let Richards—“
“Ripper.” The word escapes on a hiss, and Austin rolls his eyes.
“Fine. I didn’t let Ripper off the hook because Trevor asked me to. I did it because it was the right thing to do. And as for the rest of you,” he sweeps his hand around the room, encompassing Graham and the comms equipment where Wren and Dax are listening in, “I looked the other way and buried all evidence you were even in Afghanistan last summer. Not because of Trevor. Because the world needs people like you. Your team can go places I can’t. Do things I can never do and never want to do.”
Silence fills the safehouse for a long moment, until Ryker arches a brow and looks over at Graham. “Sounds like the head of JSOC just endorsed Hidden Agenda.”
Austin slams his palm down on the table, and Ryker takes a step towards him, hands clenched into fists at his side. “That is not what I said, McCabe. And if I hear you repeat that to a single fucking soul, the next time you need help you better come asking dressed in a fluffy pink tutu.”
The tension in the room is suffocating, but a second later, Ryker sputters what might be…a laugh? On screen, Wren’s mouth hangs open. Dax shakes his head with a smile tugging at his lips, and Graham looks at Ryker like he’s never heard the man make that particular sound before. Austin’s just as confused until Ryker slaps him on the back hard enough to make my brother stumble. “You know, that just might be worth it. And it’s Ry.”
“What?” As quick on his feet as my brother is, he can’t quite process the sudden shift in Ryker’s mood. Neither can I.
“My name, Stars and Bars. My friends call me Ry.” He pins me with those odd, multi-colored eyes. “That goes for you too, Dani. That one,” he says as he jerks a thumb towards the back door where Ronan’s setting up a perimeter alarm, “is still on probation.”
For the first time since the police took Trevor away, I smile. This whole plan could go sideways in a hurry, and if it does, any one of us could pay the price. But I have family with me. Not just Austin, but everyone in this room and on comms. I haven’t even met half of them, but that doesn’t change how I feel.
I’m not alone.
It takes Wren and Cam a bit to work their magic, and while they do, Ryker sets up a little mini-projector connected to one of the other laptops. “On the left, the streets around The Crypt with traffic cameras marked. On the right, all we’ve been able to gather about the building’s layout. We work in teams tonight. Ronan, you’re with me. Graham, you, Pritchard, and Dani are on point to meet with Leo.”
“Leo?” I ask.
“He’s been in country for almost fifteen years. Can’t beat that kind of knowledge. You’re meeting him at Plaza Bolivar at nineteen hundred.”
I stare at the diagrams of The Crypt. Austin’s hours of phone calls—many of them made while he was on a plane over the Atlantic—yielded transcripts of interviews with two survivors who’d been released from The Crypt after giving Ochoa the information he wanted. They couldn’t remember anything but the bottom floor. The transcripts of their interviews haunt me.
That is where the worst happens. The cells are too small to stand or even sit up. It is cold. All the time. The elevator requires a keycard, and there are cameras every three meters. The guards came often to beat or taunt us.
We were not allowed to sleep, to move, or to speak to one another. I was only released when I
gave Presidente Farías the information he desired. I refused as long as I could, but after three weeks, I was dying. I told his men everything and I was moved to the top level. To a cell with a cot and hot meals. I was allowed to sleep. Before he ordered my release, Presidente Farías demanded my family sacrifice their home, all of their possessions, and their livelihoods for me. We had to leave Venezuela and can never return.
“We don’t know Trevor’s down there,” I say as Ryker tells Graham where to park and how to approach the plaza.
Ry pauses mid-sentence, passes Graham off to Wren online from Seattle, and flips off the projector before he motions for me to follow him towards the back door.
Outside, the sun is still shining brightly, and the warm breezes ruffle my hair. “Dani, there’s nowhere else Ochoa would put him.”
“You can’t be sure.”
Ryker presses his lips together for a long moment, then lowers himself down to the back porch steps with a quiet groan. “Arthritis,” he says when I sit next to him and ask if he’s all right. “Too many beatings, broken bones, and months spent in caves where the temps weren’t much warmer than down in The Crypt. I tune it out most of the time. Bury it so deep I don’t feel it.”
I nod, understanding all too well. My pain isn’t physical, but it’s buried all the same. “Kind of surprised you’d show it to me.”
He makes that same hoarse sound from earlier, and now, I recognize it as a chuckle. “You’re not the only one.”
“How can you be sure Trev’s down…there?”
Ry rubs his bald head, his fingers tracing the scars from more torture than I think one man could ever survive. “Because Ochoa knows who Trevor is. What he did. What he wants to do. And how well Trevor was trained to do it.”
The realization hits me hard, and I drop my head into my hands. “Because of Gil.”
“Yeah. Or…” He sighs, and I think I know what he’s going to say.
“Luis.”
I can’t…I need to run. But there’s no time and nowhere that’s safe for me to go. “We can’t leave him down there until tomorrow. Please, Ryker—Ry. Isn’t there some way we can get him out tonight?”
“No.” His growled answer makes me flinch, and he softens his tone. “Wren’s almost done faking your travel arrangements. After that, things are going to move fast. Too fast for any of us.” He pauses, then adds, “Except Trevor.”
“That’s what I’m afraid of.” I don’t cry. I won’t. Not until Trevor’s out of that place and safe. Back with me. But I sniffle once and swallow hard. “What if he isn’t…”
“The same?” Austin joins us, taking a seat on my other side and nudging his shoulder against mine. “He won’t be, squirt. You won’t be either. But Trev was trained for this. To survive. To send his mind somewhere nothing can hurt him. He’ll come back to you.”
For a few minutes, no one says a word. We just sit quietly, staring at the cloudless sky, breathing free air, and praying for a miracle.
Chapter Twenty-Two
Trevor
Nothing gives me reprieve from the bright lights and the endless cold. The soldiers brought out the belly chain and connected wrist cuffs when they dragged me back here, and now, I can’t raise my hands high enough to cover my eyes. I’ve stopped trying to roll over and curl into a ball, but I still force myself to my hands and knees every few hours.
Conserving my strength and ability to move are both equally important now. It’ll be another half a day or more—probably—before Ochoa sends for me again. He’ll wait until I’m delirious from lack of sleep, then try to trick me into giving up the names he wants.
But he doesn’t know how well I’ve been trained. Not truly. Every other time the guards leave, I let myself fall asleep. Fifteen minutes isn’t near enough time. Deep, restorative sleep only happens when you can manage a solid hour. But these micro-naps should keep me from going insane. For a time.
The heavy footsteps come again, followed by the slamming of the Billy clubs against the bars. “¿Quién quiere cenar?”
Dinner. It’s probably nothing but cornmeal cakes again, but anything’s better than this endless twisting and cramping in my stomach. Cell by cell, they slide the water cups through the bars, and I count. Six, each taunted in Spanish about their crime or their family or their smell. Until the soldiers stand in front of my cell and shove two cakes and a plastic cup inside. “The American does not look so good,” one of them says, then laughs.
I squint up at them. “You’re no GQ model either, shithead.”
“You will not be joking much longer,” the other soldier warns. “General Ochoa wants you to know how useful you have been.”
What the fuck is he talking about? I haven’t given them anything. Unless… No. God, no. Not Dani. “El general es estúpido,” I manage. “Never going to help him.”
“The woman is on her way. You and the salvador de la resistencia will both give up your secrets when the general locks her down here.”
With that final threat, the soldiers retreat, and an all-consuming, burning pain starts deep in my heart. She can’t give herself up. Not for me. Not for anyone. She’s the toughest woman I know, but she hasn’t been trained. There’s no way she’ll last more than a couple of days down here, and then…her death will be on me.
The door to this level bangs shut, the lock engages, and then, it’s eerily quiet. Everyone who can still move at all is eating, but I don’t have the strength.
The enemy of survival? Despair. I can’t save her. Not from here. When they first threw me in here, I felt all around the bars, hoping to find a weak spot. There isn’t one. My two trips upstairs? They’ve told me nothing I can use.
The urge to give up presses down on me, but only for a moment, because then...
“Trevor.” The hoarse whisper cuts through the silence, and I freeze.
“Luis? ¿Eres tu?”
“Yes. You must keep Daniella safe.”
I drag myself closer to the bars. He’s across from me. But not directly. Not that it would matter. The lights are too harsh for me to see anything.
Another prisoner tells us to be quiet, and for a time, I close my eyes and let the memories of my time with Dani comfort me. I’ll never be with her again. Not like we were. I’m almost asleep when Luis calls out for me.
“Tell me about Daniella? I will never know her.”
What can I say in just a few words? Dani’s life—the parts of it I got to share—plays out like a movie in my head, and for so much of it, Austin’s there with her. I jerk up so quickly, I hit the bars overhead. Austin. He’d never let Dani turn herself over to Ochoa for me. She wouldn’t let up on him either. It’s not in her nature. She’d force him to do something. And that something…would likely involve Ryker, Dax, Wren…
A spark of hope flares to life, and I roll onto my side and fumble for one of the cornmeal cakes. The belly chain digs into my back, and the handcuffs cut into my wrists as I strain to bring it to my lips. Fuckers shortened the chain on purpose in the hopes I wouldn’t be able to eat.
After two bites, I drop the cake onto the rough concrete and reach for the water. It’s lukewarm, and I wouldn’t be surprised if the soldiers spit or pissed in the cup before they filled it, but I don’t care. Not with how dehydrated I am. I’ve only pissed once since I’ve been in this hell hole, and now…I have a reason to fight back.
First step is establishing a communications protocol with Luis that won’t get us beaten or killed.
Tapping my knuckle lightly on the bars, I try Morse Code for listen.
Nothing happens for so long, I don’t think Luis understood. Closing my eyes, I feel around for the half-eaten cake in front of me, and wash it down with another few sips of water. I’m about to risk saying something when I hear scratching. In a pattern I recognize. Dot-dot. Dot-dash. Dash-dash.
“I am.”
Morse code is exhausting. CIA requires eight separate dots and dashes. Fight is fourteen. The sounds are barely audible, but I ca
n’t be sure the soldiers aren’t listening. We speak slowly. In one or two word phrases, careful not to reveal too much. Another three patrols come and go. The second cornmeal cake is drier than the sand in Afghanistan, but I can feel myself getting stronger. As much as I can, I work my muscles to keep limber and stave off the intense shivering from the constant flow of frigid air.
Think. How long has it been?
There’s no way to mark time here other than the soldiers’ visits. Sometime in the late afternoon? Ry wouldn’t come in here guns blazing without a plan. Neither would Austin. I have to hold on at least another twenty-four to forty-eight hours. By then…maybe.
I tell Luis that Dani’s happy. That she was adopted and has a brother who will always protect her. He tells me that the floor above us is where Ochoa interrogates him. Every three days. Tomorrow is the third day. He’s too weak to walk or fight, but he observes, and he knows the soldiers’ patterns.
After several hours, I tell him to rest. “Keep hope.”
He sighs and then spells out “Si.”
Dani
With a scarf to cover my hair and a flowing black sleeveless jacket that lets me hide a knife strapped to my thigh, I climb into the backseat of Austin’s nondescript sedan. It’s not much different than the car Trevor and I used when we were here, and now that it’s dark outside, my worry for him has skyrocketed. They’ve had him for almost twenty-four hours.
Graham slides into the passenger seat. “I’d feel better if you let me drive,” he says.
“Tough shit. Who’s been here before, Jimmy Olsen?” Austin turns the key, and the car roars to life. It might look like the world’s oldest beater, but the engine has definitely been upgraded.
“Not you, too. I get enough of the nicknames from Ry and West. What’s wrong with Graham anyway? Or Peck?”
Call Sign: Redemption Page 16