by KJ Kalis
When Jess had picked up Abby that morning, Chase hadn’t come out to the car. Neither had Piper. Abby just skipped out the front door as if she’d been watching for Abby by the front window. The only information she had from Chase was a text saying to make sure she dropped off Abby by three o’clock. They had dinner plans as a family that night. Piper wanted Abby home to make sure she had time to get ready to go. Knowing Piper, it was probably one of her fancy friends and their kids going out to some pricey restaurant where they served tiny amounts of food on bleached white porcelain plates. Not that there were a lot of those in the Tucson area. It was far more common to find a burger joint or barbecue place. Piper stuck out like a sore thumb...
Frustrated, Jess tossed her cell phone back on the passenger seat. Chase wasn’t picking up. That meant one of two things — he was either at home, outside where he couldn’t hear it ring, or he was at work in the middle of a project. Jess knew she had a fifty-fifty shot of figuring out where he was. Still on the freeway, just past the exit where she’d get off to go to Chase’s house she kept traveling north, towards the campus at Trident Labs. Jess only hoped that her guess was right, before it was too late.
3
“What kind of execution was that?” Landon Walker said, pulling the mask off his face and tossing it on the floor of the van as it rumbled onto highway seventy-seven, going south out of the city. “We trained for this. We train for this kind of mission all the time. You guys are getting sloppy. I won’t have it.”
The surge of anger draining out of him, Landon looked down at his watch. They were three and a half minutes off schedule. That three and a half minutes could have gotten them caught. He felt the bile rise in the back of his throat again. He had chosen Alvarez, Baker and Reinhardt because they were his best guys. Staring out the front window of the van, he wondered if maybe they weren’t anymore.
Landon’s phone pinged. It was his boss, Harrison Foster, the man that founded Zeta Tactical Consulting. Foster was not a man to be trifled with. A former Army Ranger, Foster had a sixth sense about him for people who were lying. Landon and Foster had met on a mission in Afghanistan, where Landon had watched Foster cut a man’s neck from ear to ear without so much as blinking an eye. Foster was brutal and precise. “On the road?”
Landon texted back, “Yes.”
“You are behind schedule.”
Landon bit his lip. Foster insisted they use the highest level of technology available, including a GPS system with pinpoint precision. There was no point in arguing. Foster knew the truth and he was right, “Yes, but we’ve got the daughter.”
Landon waited for a moment, waiting for Foster’s response. None came. He was sure that Foster would have words with him about the delay in their exit during their after-action briefing, but that wouldn’t come for a few days. Landon slid his phone into the side pocket on the pants of his uniform and glanced in the back. Alvarez had secured the package in the van. For some reason, Abby Montgomery, was different than he imagined, more mature for a twelve year old kid. Not that they had planned for her. Landon smiled. Foster would be happy they got Abby instead of Jess. Maybe Foster would forgive him the extra exit time with the upgrade in the subject they acquired.
When Foster gave them the mission a few weeks before and explained the target was the Montgomery family, Landon had something else in mind. When he’d read about Abby, Landon had in his mind someone small and frail. Abby was not that. In fact, she’d kicked at them so hard when they took her out of the bank that Landon was sure at least a couple of his guys would have bruises on their shins.
At the moment, the young girl sat quietly. Landon watched as Alvarez leaned over and adjusted the hood on her head. As he did, Landon saw Abby flinch. When they’d gotten her to the van and started moving. Alvarez had cable tied her wrists together and then momentarily removed her hood, stuffing foam earplugs in her ears so any conversations they had in the van couldn’t be overheard. Now, the young girl sat, blind, deaf and mute with the tape still over her mouth from the robbery. Landon wanted to feel bad for her, bad about the years of therapy she’d likely need if she made it out of the situation alive, but he couldn’t quite work up any empathy for her. After all, she was a casualty of war, like so many others he’d seen in his career. He was doing a job. That was all.
“How far out are we?” Landon said, glancing at Reinhardt, who was driving the van.
“Eighteen minutes.”
“Roger that. Let’s see if we can make up some of that time we lost on the extraction.”
Reinhardt nodded but didn’t say anything. Landon felt the van press forward a little faster on the highway.
Leaning back in his seat, Landon thought through the morning, the adrenaline in his system finally starting to settle down. Not that he had much of a problem with an adrenaline surge. None of his men did. Zeta Tactical Consulting didn’t hire operators that had issues with staying calm. That could jeopardize a mission faster than nearly anything else. But Landon had noticed that there was a certain window of time as he finished a mission when his edginess needed to dull a little bit. That was a good thing. If Landon tried to stay razor-sharp all the time, he’d burn out. He didn’t want to do that. Harrison Foster had big plans for Landon and his team, plans that made him excited about the future and his opportunities with Zeta. The abduction this morning was just phase one, if the rest of the mission was successful.
Landon wiped sweaty palms on his pants and ran through the next steps of what would happen once they got to the warehouse. The fourth man on their team, Baker, would exit the white bakery van they were driving, go into the warehouse and raise the garage door within twenty-two seconds of them arriving. The entire area where the warehouse was had been scrubbed of surveillance. One of Harrison Foster's counter surveillance teams had gone in the week before and installed signal jammers and video repeaters on the buildings nearby. If one of the companies nearby had an active security team, they would simply be looking at either static or the same scene over and over again for the rest of the day. Landon knew the plan was to turn it on thirty minutes ago, ensuring that no trace of the white van would be seen on any recorded device, unless it was something like a cell phone, but the warehouse district they were in near Mesa Springs, didn’t have many workers there on a Saturday. If all went according to plan, Landon and his team would be leaving the site in just a few short hours, their mission accomplished.
The thump of the van's tires over railroad tracks caught Landon’s attention. His body swayed in the seat as they passed over them. They were close. Landon glanced out the windshield and saw a billboard advertising jobs in manufacturing. It was weathered by the sun and hadn’t been replaced. He wondered if the advertising company had forgotten about it or just didn’t have anyone who wanted ad space in a practically abandoned business district. From the mission plan, he knew the warehouse was approximately one minute from the railroad tracks. Just a little bit longer and they’d be at their new home base, at least as much of a home as it could be for the moment. Landon looked in the back of the van and nodded at Baker, who edged to the back, his hand on the van's door, ready to jump out. “Ready?” Landon said. Baker gave a short nod.
As the van got close to the warehouse, the corrugated brown steel door came into view. Harrison had helped Landon pick the safe house himself. It wasn’t something that Harrison normally did, giving his senior operators the latitude to do as they saw fit. But in this case, the mission was so critical that Harrison had been involved in nearly every aspect of the planning — from the timing, to the preplanning, to the execution itself. Landon knew Harrison was watching with great attention to how the day went down. In any other situation, Landon might be aggravated, but in this case, with a promotion on the horizon, he relished the opportunity to prove himself. He set his jaw, ready for the next phase.
Reinhardt slowed the van as they got close to the warehouse door. It had barely paused when Baker pushed the door open and slammed it closed behind him. F
rom the side of the van, Landon saw Baker’s stocky frame sprint at the side door, tap in a six-digit code on the keypad, and disappear inside. Three seconds later, the metal garage door started to lift off the ground. Ten seconds later, the van was inside, bathed in the darkness of the abandoned warehouse, the door clattering to a close behind them.
Landon got out of the van and nodded at Baker, “Good hustle. Keep it up.”
At times, Landon felt like he was somewhere between a football coach and a field general, vacillating between the two roles, encouraging his men and then facing the brutality of war as regularly as people ate their breakfast cereal.
“Let’s get her out and secured in the cage,” Landon said as Alvarez slid out of the back of the van, the butt of his rifle banging against the metal doors. “Reinhardt, give him a hand.” As Landon walked to the front of the van, hearing the garage door clatter closed behind him, he looked at Baker, “Let’s get the systems booted up, okay?”
The men fanned out of the van, their boots moving almost silently on the rough concrete floors of the warehouse. Landon stood for a second, staring out. It was the first time he’d been in the warehouse in person. Foster had insisted they run drills at another offsite location to limit their exposure to prying eyes. Landon glanced left and right, realizing the set up was identical to the one they’d practiced on. It was no surprise. Foster was precise that way. He knew, as all the operators did, that any variation from the original mission plan could cause issues. Life and death issues. Landon walked over to the hood of the van, ripping the Velcro apart on the sides of his tactical vest. At the time they planned the bank robbery, Baker argued they didn’t need to wear the heavy, Kevlar-plated gear, but Foster had insisted. “This is a mission like any other,” he said. “It’s my responsibility to make sure you’re able to complete it. Wearing the gear is part of the job.” There was no more discussion after that.
The heavy vest off of his shoulders for the moment, Landon walked over to the makeshift operations bay Foster’s team had managed to smuggle into the warehouse when they did the set up. How they got the equipment into the warehouse, Landon didn’t know. All he knew was that when they ran the operation, what they needed would be there for them, everything from technology to snacks to toilet paper. As he slung his gear onto one of the desks that held computers and monitors to help them with on-site surveillance and communications with Foster and the base team, Landon looked over his shoulder just in time to see Reinhardt and Alvarez walking Abby to the cage, their hands gripping her elbows, one on either side of her small frame, her hood still covering her face. She stumbled for a moment, but they didn’t let her fall. Landon didn’t walk towards her. He didn’t need to. His men would handle it with the professionalism that was expected by their boss. Even though what was happening to Abby was horrific, and they all knew it, there was no reason to make it worse than it was.
A spotlight hung over the metal cage that had been erected just inside the garage door. A small bench had been bolted to the floor where Abby could sit if she wanted to. Landon heard the jingle of the gate open and watched the men as they half carried and half dragged her inside. The girl had to be scared to death, Landon thought. Alvarez tugged the hood off of her face and pulled the earplugs out of her ears. Landon could see her blinking in the bright light. From across the warehouse, Landon heard Alvarez say, “Now, we’ve taken the hood off. If you can stay quiet, I’ll cut the cable ties off your wrists and we can take the tape off. Sound good?”
With wide brown eyes, Abby nodded. Alvarez drew a K-bar knife out of his belt and cut the cable ties from Abby’s wrists. “You can take the tape off now.” Alvarez said, nodding at her. “We will put the restraints back in place if you don’t cooperate. Is that clear?” The young girl nodded and backed away from the man, sitting down on the bench.
Now that Abby was secure, Landon refocused on the work Baker was doing. All of the computer screens — there were five in total — were lit up, running through their boot up procedures. Foster had promised the systems would be top-of-the-line so it wouldn’t take any time at all to get hooked up to the secure satellite link at Zeta headquarters. The systems were as good as Foster promised. Within thirty seconds, all of the screens had settled in, their connections flashing green in the corner of the screen. Landon and his team could speak directly with Foster at any time and for any reason.
Baker, who was leaning over the last of the systems, stood up and looked at Landon, “We’re all set up. Now what?”
“We wait a little bit and then make contact.”
4
At the last second, Jess decided to head toward Chase’s house. At least she might have a chance of catching either Chase or Piper if they were at home. Glancing down at her phone as she was doing seventy-five on the freeway, neither of them had called back. Jess slammed her hand against the steering wheel. If she had a child, she’d make sure someone would always be around to answer the phone. But she didn’t. She didn’t know if she ever would.
Two miles down the road, Jess exited the freeway on Mesa Boulevard and headed out into the desert. Chase and Piper had bought an upscale house in a development called Desert Palms, western-style ranch houses on sculpted lots of land in a nice neighborhood with a homeowner’s association. Jess was sure all of it was Piper’s idea. Knowing Chase, he would’ve been happy to live in a tent in the middle of the desert, as long as he could do the work he loved to do.
As Jess wove through their development, the houses became a little bit bigger and a little bit more elaborate towards the back. That’s where Chase and Piper lived. As Jess pulled up, she saw the stuccoed side of their house, the beige front, accented by tasteful desert plantings. Unlike many of their neighbors, Chase and Piper had decided to plant grass. It was something Chase complained about constantly, the fact their water bill was through the roof trying to maintain even broad-leafed scrub grass in the middle of the desert. But it was what Piper wanted. Many of the other neighbors had opted for rocks and native plantings instead of struggling to keep grass growing. For some reason, Jess thought if Chase ever got rid of Piper, the first thing he’d do would be to tear out the grass at the house.
As Jess pulled up in the driveway, she jumped out of the car, leaving the keys in the ignition. She ran to the front door and pounded on it with her fist, trying to look through the small windows next to the front door. There weren’t any lights on she could see. “Chase? Piper?” she yelled, cupping her hands around her face to look in the windows. There was no movement. Jess stood for a second, leaning her ear against the door. Roxie, the Beagle-mix Chase had bought for Abby, scrambled toward the front door, frantically barking, but no one came to the door to let her out.
Running back around the side of the house, Jess looked in the small window that led into the garage. Neither of their cars were home. “Come on!” she groaned, running back to her car. Getting in, Jess threw the sedan in reverse and peeled out of the driveway, nearly avoiding the neighbor’s mailbox across the street. “Where are you?” she whispered, a sinking feeling in her stomach.
The only other option she could think of was that Chase was at work. But it was a Saturday. Did he go to work on Saturdays? Jess racked her brain, trying to remember if Chase had ever said anything to her about working weekends. He hadn’t, but it would be like him. Chase had almost a singular focus in his life — work and Abby. Jess thought that Chase loved Piper, but watching him as he watched Abby, she knew that his love for Abby was different than what he had for Piper. It made her heart ache a little, wishing she’d been blessed with her own family.
The tires on Jess’s car screeched around the corner as she exited the development. She made a right turn, turning away from the development and the freeway where she’d gotten off, glancing at her phone. It was just after nine. Her mind reeled as she stayed on Mesa Boulevard, heading farther out of town to where the industrial buildings were. What had started off as a nice morning had gotten out of control. Totally out of con
trol.
Driving as fast as she could without careening off the side of the road, Jess kept going down Mesa Boulevard for another five miles passing cars and glancing at her phone every few seconds. Where were Chase and Piper? Why didn’t they return her calls? Jess squinted as she passed the signs for the industrial complex. All the buildings looked the same, glimmering white against the harsh sun, lots of glass and square corners. As Jess took the final turn into the back of the industrial park, she saw the sign she was looking for — Trident Labs. Chase had worked for them for nearly his entire career, but Jess had only been out to his building one time when he’d been given an award.
Jess put her car in one of the visitor spots and jumped out, running toward the doors. As she grabbed the closest handle, she realized it was locked. She rattled each one of the doors with no luck. She glanced at her phone and then back at her car just as a noise behind her caught her attention. A man had come and pushed the door open, “Can I help you?” the man said.
Jess looked at him. A security guard. “Yes, please,” she said, sliding into the building, trying to catch her breath, “My brother, Chase Montgomery, he works here. Is he here? I need him. There’s been a family emergency.”
“Yes, I know him. Come on over here. Let’s see if he’s upstairs.”
Jess followed the security guard, her nerves tingling. If Chase wasn’t at the lab, she had no idea where he was. It could be hours before she was able to find either he or Piper. God only knew where Piper was, not that she’d tell Jess anyway. They weren’t close. The security guard picked up the handset for the phone and pressed a couple buttons. After a few seconds, he shook his head. “No one’s answering in the lab, but knowing your brother, that doesn’t surprise me. Give me a second to check the logs and see if he used his key card at some point today.”