“I understand your hesitation,” Tuc said after the silence stretched too long on his end. “Believe me, I do. I had some bad moments when I went private. But I’d also like to point out that the FBI hasn’t sent a team in after him and isn’t planning to. They’re hoping to simply talk his abductors down or, if all else fails, pay the ransom. He’s not important enough to them. Even with his government contracts, he’s a small fish in the grand scheme of things, and Uncle Sam could care less about what happens to him. But that man’s damn important to his wife and kids, his sister, his company—and you’re his best chance at survival.”
Gabe considered it. He had two choices. Go wheels up, sneak in under the FBI’s nose, and bring Bryson Van Amee home to his family, or gimp back to his boring new job at the Pentagon, where he would forever be under the Admiral’s thumb. Yeah. When put that way, there was really only one choice.
“Q, we have to get mobilization orders to the men,” Gabe said, his mind already working through the logistics. He checked his watch. “Tell them to be ready at—wait, do you have a plane for us?” he asked Tuc.
“Fueled and ready to go. You’ll also have helos and a HumInt pilot at your disposal here and in-country.”
“Perfect. We’ll need one to dig Cavalier out of his hole in the bayou.”
Tuc snorted. “Good luck with that.”
“Tell the men to be at their local airport for a 0400 pickup,” Gabe said to Quinn. “I’ll swing by Louisiana and grab Cavalier, then meet you at…” He trailed off.
“I have a private airstrip about forty miles outside New Orleans,” Tuc suggested. “My pilots all know where it is.”
“That works. Thanks. We’ll come up with a plan of attack once everyone is together and we have more intel, but we need to get moving.”
“On it,” Quinn said, already dialing. He tucked the cell phone between his shoulder and ear as he strode toward the relative privacy at the other side of the balcony. “Hey, Marcus, it’s Quinn…”
Tuc turned toward Gabe and held out a hand. “I’ll have all the information you need before you leave. Welcome to HumInt Consulting, Bristow.”
Gabe shook the offered hand. And tried to tell himself he hadn’t made a pact with the devil.
NEW ORLEANS, LA
Jean-Luc Cavalier was drunk.
And naked, buried underneath a pile of equally drunk and naked women. Three women to be exact.
None of them moved when Gabe knocked on the wood doorframe of Cavalier’s shack, so he let himself in through the screen door.
“Cavalier.” Gabe nudged the guy’s head with his boot.
Jean-Luc mumbled something in French and palmed one woman’s ass, gave it a squeeze, then drifted back to sleep with a smile.
Jesus Christ. This is what his life had come to? Scraping a drunk linguist off the floor so that he had enough men for an op? He never would have found one of his SEAL teammates like this if they were waiting for a call to go wheels up.
Gabe sighed, picked a half-empty bottle of wine off the end table, and dumped the contents over Jean-Luc’s face.
“Huh? Wha—?” Jean-Luc sputtered and blinked up at Gabe. “
Merde
!” He scrambled to his feet and cussed in a lively string of Cajun French. His shoulder-length blond hair looked as if someone had styled it with a handheld mixer. “I didn’t know she was married. I swear. She didn’t have a ring.”
“Which one?” Gabe asked, eyeing the women as they stirred to life.
Girls Gone Wild
, the morning after. Not pretty.
“Any of them!”
Gabe had to clear his throat to hide a laugh. “I’m nobody’s husband. I’m your new boss, Gabe Bristow.”
“Oh.” He looked confused at that and ran a hand over his face. Then, “Ohh. HORNET.”
“HORNET?”
“I thought all you military types like acronyms.” He rooted around through a heap of discarded clothing, tossed some to the women, and pulled on a pair of khaki shorts. “HumInt Inc.’s Hostage Rescue and Negotiation Team is a mouthful, so I shortened it. HORNET.”
Leave it to the linguist to come up with something like that. “We have a job in Colombia. That is, if you’re still interested.”
“Fuck, yeah. I’ve been bored mindless.”
“Looks it,” Gabe said.
…
The plane arrived at the private airfield fifteen minutes past 0800. Thank God. If Gabe had to listen to another of Jean-Luc’s tone-deaf renditions of whatever song came over the radio, he might just draw his firearm and shoot the man.
It was a big plane. Bigger than Gabe had expected, and each of the five men already aboard had claimed a row of the plush seats for himself. The former FBI agent, Marcus Deangelo, dozed in the second row, a plaid fedora pulled down over his face, his legs crossed at the ankle, blocking the aisle. Jean-Luc reached over the seat and flipped the fedora off his head.
“Hey!” Marcus snatched his fedora back, blinking against the light. “Asshole. I should—whoa, it’s the Ragin’ Cajun.” He laughed as he sat up and slapped Jean-Luc a high five. “Dude, you smell like a wine cellar.”
“Better than a Calvin Klein cologne ad.” Jean-Luc grinned and plopped into an empty seat in the fourth row beside Eric Physick. “Harvard! Where y’at? How’s post-Company life treatin’ ya?”
Former CIA analyst Eric “Harvard” Physick chuckled and set aside the crossword puzzle he’d been working on. “I should have figured you’d sign on for this. I’m fine. How about you? Learn any new languages lately?”
Jean-Luc answered in a musical string of words. Harvard tilted his head to one side, listening. “Is that… Yucatec Maya?”
“That it is. I said ‘you bet your ass, I have.’”
“Fluent?” Harvard asked.
“Pretty damn close.”
“That’s what, thirteen now? You’ve been busy.”
“You have no idea. Let me tell y’all about the night I had.”
Within minutes, Jean-Luc had everyone on the plane laughing at his night of adventure with the three women. The jet coasted toward the runway and the seatbelt light came on with a ding.
Gabe sat next to Quinn in the front row. “So, what do you think?”
Laughter exploded behind them. Quinn shook his head, but didn’t look up from reading the file on his lap. “It’s going to be interesting. To say the least.”
“That the intel Tuc sent?”
“Yes.” He handed it over as the plane picked up speed and pushed them back in their seats. “Bryson Van Amee is worth around a quarter of a billion dollars.”
“Has a ransom demand been issued yet?” Gabe asked.
“About an hour ago, according to Tuc’s sources. Sixty-two point five million.”
“That’s pretty damn high for one guy.”
“No. What it is, is damn specific. In fact…” Quinn slid a calculator from the bag at his feet and punched in some numbers. “It’s exactly a quarter of Van Amee’s worth.”
And, Gabe noted, the maximum amount Van Amee’s kidnap and ransom insurance would cover. “That can’t be a coincidence.”
“So what are we dealing with?” Quinn asked. “Tangos who do their homework?”
“Too soon to tell.” The plane leveled out and a moment later, the seatbelt light went off. “Suppose it’s time to brief the troops.”
Quinn grunted. “If you can call them that.”
Gabe stood and braced his hands on the backs of the seats on either side of the aisle. Pain spiked through his foot, but he’d be damned if he relied on his cane. Last thing he needed was to show any sign of weakness in front of this ragtag group.
He waited a moment. When nobody quieted down, he put his fingers to his mouth and gave a sharp whistle that echoed around the plane’s interior in the silent aftermath.
“Gentlemen, listen up. I’d like to introduce myself before we get started. My name’s Gabe Bristow. You’ve all been dealing with Quinn, my XO, but from now on, you’ll answer to me.”
“Do you expect us to salute?” Ian Reinhardt asked. His motorcycle jacket creaked as he raised an arm and gave a cheeky two-finger salute. “Sir.”
So this was the explosive ordnance expert. After reading everyone’s dossiers on the way to New Orleans, he’d known Ian might be a problem. The guy was bad attitude personified. “No, I don’t expect that. However, showing some respect for a fellow teammate wouldn’t hurt.”
“Bite me,” Ian said.
Oh, yeah. This was going to be fun. “Do I look like a fucking vampire, Reinhardt? And if you have a problem with my leadership…” He turned, walked to a closet at the front of the plane, grabbed one of the parachutes he’d asked Quinn to pack, and tossed it to Ian. “Strap in. The door’s right there. Go find yourself a new job.”
Ian caught the chute and his dark eyes locked on Gabe’s in a game of chicken for a long moment. Then he flashed a smile that held just an edge of malice and tossed the chute back. “Nah, I don’t have a problem with you, Bristow. I like your style. We’ll get along fine.”
“Let’s hope, because I have no use for disrespectful assholes on my team. Those guys get their teammates killed, and I want everyone here to go home to their families when this is over. You clear on that?”
Ian grunted something that may have been an agreement. Or, more likely, a fuck you.
Gabe decided he’d have to chat with Reinhardt about his attitude at some point in the next few hours.
He took a moment to replace the parachute in the closet, then returned to his spot in front of his men.
“Our objective is to find and rescue this man, Bryson Van Amee, before any ransom money is paid.” He opened the folder Quinn handed him and held up the businessman’s photo. “He’s forty-three years old, five-eleven, one-eighty, with thinning brown hair, brown eyes. He co-founded The Bryda Corporation twelve years ago with his college roommate, has been married to his wife, Chloe, for five years, and is the father of two young boys, Ashton, five, and Grayson, three. His parents are deceased, so he also provides for his younger sister, Audrey, twenty-seven, a struggling artist.”
“In an ideal situation,” Quinn said and passed around copies of the file, “we’d have trained together for a couple months before taking on our first mission, but we don’t have that luxury. Most of you have been on this type of op before, so we’re confident we can pull together and bring Bryson home to his wife and kids.”
“This is truly a trial-by-fire, gentlemen,” Gabe agreed. “We fail and this man will at best live the next few years of his life in some Colombian jungle shithole. At worst, he dies. Neither of those outcomes is acceptable.” He gave them a moment, letting the grim reality of this mission settle into their minds. The lighthearted mood dissipated as everyone got their game faces on. “I expect you to know the information in this file inside and out by the time we land.”
“Has there been a ransom demand yet?” Marcus Deangelo asked.
“Sixty million and some change,” Quinn said. “It’s all there in the file.”
“Who’s taking responsibility?” Harvard asked.
“A new terrorist faction calling themselves
Ejército del Pueblo de Colombia,
the People’s Army of Colombia, or EPC,” Gabe said. “All we know about them is that they broke off from the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia about six months ago and have been on a terror campaign ever since.
“That’s where Harvard comes in.” He turned toward Eric Physick, who had a rep as one of the best analysts ever to work for the CIA. A genius with more brain than brawn—something Gabe would have to fix if the kid wanted a chance of staying on this team. “We need you to gather as much intel as possible on the EPC. Who, what, where, how—get me everything available. We’re working against the clock. The FBI will only be able to stall the ransom drop for so long and I don’t want to go up against these guys blind.”
Harvard nodded, picked up his laptop case, and unzipped it. “You’ll know the basics by the time we get to Colombia. The rest will take me a little longer.”
“Thanks.” Gabe refocused on the rest of the men. “Okay, so here’s how the team’s going to work. Harvard will control base camp and all the comms, including all contact with the hostage takers, should it come to that. Harvard, make a list of everything you might need and you’ll have it when we land.”
The kid nodded, but didn’t look up from his computer.
“Jesse Warrick will function as our medic. Anyone gets hurt, we defer to him. If you need anything, Jesse, let either Quinn or me know and we’ll get it for you.”
Jesse tipped the brim of his Stetson back with one knuckle and patted the bulging bag on the seat next to him. “I travel with my own supplies, thanks,” he drawled. “But I do want access to medical records and everyone needs to have a physical exam in the next twenty-four hours so I have a baseline reading should one of ya get hurt.”
“Done.” Gabe studied the group. “We’ll rely on Jean-Luc as our translator. Anyone else fluent in Spanish?”
“Mine’s passable,” Jesse answered.
“All I remember from Spanish class is
un burro sabe mas que tu
,” Marcus said and Jean-Luc snorted a laugh.
“‘A donkey knows more than you?’ Nice, Marcus. If we need to insult the EPC into submission, we’ll know who to call.”
“All right, gentlemen,” Gabe said. “Enough joking around. We have a little over four hours until we land. Read up and catch whatever sleep you can, because once we’re on the ground, we’re on the move.”
Chapter Three
BOGOTÁ, COLOMBIA
“Nice digs,” Jean-Luc said from the passenger seat of the rented 4Runner. “Nice neighborhood. I didn’t think Colombia had nice neighborhoods.”
Gabe ignored him and leaned on the steering wheel to study Bryson Van Amee’s apartment building and the surrounding neighborhood. It
was
nice. Affluent. Clean. Full of sprawling parks and red brick buildings with a subtle British flair to the architecture. A million steps up from the barrios he’d seen during his past two trips to Bogotá. Of course, he’d been assisting the Colombian Army in hunting for the brutal leader of a drug cartel, not searching for an unfortunate American businessman caught in the wrong place at the wrong time.
“I don’t think the snatch happened inside his place,” Gabe said, “but it won’t hurt to check it out.” He needed to get a feel for the kind of person Van Amee was. A survivor, he hoped, or else they’d be dragging a body back to the States.
“Security guard on the front door,” Jean-Luc pointed out. “Cameras, too. IP-based, which means they probably archive their footage.”
“How do you know?” Gabe had seen the cameras, but as far as he knew, there was no way to tell whether they were on an IP network or closed-circuit TV just by looking.
“My brother-in-law owns a security company in New Orleans,” Jean-Luc said and raised a pair of binoculars, focusing on the closest camera. “I help out with installing systems when he’s short staffed, and…
oui
, I know that brand. I can call him, but I’m pretty sure it’s an IP camera. We should ask to see their footage.”
Gabe shook his head. “I don’t want to risk tipping anyone off that we’re looking.”
Jean-Luc lowered the binoculars and grinned. “I like the way your mind works,
mon capitaine
. Very James Bond.”
“No,” Gabe corrected, “very practical. Van Amee’s limo driver, Armando Castillo, reported him missing when he didn’t show for his scheduled pick-up. Building security had no clue anything was wrong until Armando raised the alarm.” He scanned the building, looking for faults in its security. At first glance, he didn’t find many. A guard here, a camera there, angled just right. Not necessarily unassailable for a trained operative, but a newly formed, ragtag terrorist faction would have a rough time of it.
“Leads me to believe the EPC has someone on the inside,” he continued. “How else would they know who to hit and when? They had to have surveillance on him.”
“I’ll call Harvard, see if he can hack into their network.” Jean-Luc flipped open his phone, spoke for a moment, gave the camera’s brand name and apartment’s address, and nodded. “Harvard says it’s a go. He’ll have the footage for us in an hour.” He closed the phone and slid it into the front pocket of his button-up shirt, which he wore open over a Pink Floyd T-shirt. “So,
mon capitaine
, we have time to kill. You want us to sneak a peek inside?”
“Not yet. I’m going to recon the block first. You stay here and keep eyes on.” Gabe climbed out of the 4Runner and grabbed one of the radios Harvard had given him before they left the safe house. “Anything suspicious, radio me. Don’t go in by yourself.”
“Aye-aye. But, uh…” Jean-Luc reached into the backseat. “Shouldn’t you take your cane?”
“Goddammit.” He snatched it from Jean-Luc’s hand. The only reason he had the fucking thing was Jesse Warrick, after getting a load of his medical history and doing a physical, insisted he use it more. Since he told his men to defer to the medic, he couldn’t very well go against his own order.
“God
dammit
,” he said again and Jean-Luc laughed as the car door shut.
…
Nothing.
Not that Audrey had expected a glaring neon sign with an arrow that said,
Find Bryson Here
, but, well, at least one clue would be nice. The apartment was disgustingly tidy, so like Bryson. No ruffled pillows, no dust on the rosy hardwood floors, no leftover dishes in the sink or crumbs on the marble counters. The coffee pot appeared unused and the fridge sat mostly empty. Also not a surprise. Brys couldn’t cook worth a damn, somehow managing to burn everything he toasted, nuked, or fried up in a skillet. Like the time he’d tried to make Mama’s famous casserole shortly after their parents died to cheer her up and ended up with half of Savannah’s fire department on the front lawn.
Audrey smiled a little and ran a finger along one of the unused frying pans hanging above the kitchen’s center island. Yes, they had their issues, but she couldn’t have asked for a better big brother.
Now he was gone.
Her smile faded, but she wouldn’t let the surge of stomach-churning fear get to her again or else she’d spend the next several hours hung over a toilet like she had when she realized she’d witnessed his kidnapping.
God, that short call might be the last time she ever talked to him.
No. No, she refused to think that. Bryson deserved better than that from her. He’d go to the ends of the earth to find her if she was in trouble. She couldn’t do any less than the same.
But where to start?
Audrey drifted over to the window that took up one whole wall of the living room and stepped out onto the balcony. So many buildings, people, and parks in this quiet neighborhood alone. She had no idea where or even how to start looking. Chloe, the Wicked Sister-in-Law of the West Coast, had been next-to-no help.
“Don’t get involved,” Chloe had said. They simply had to do what the kidnappers wanted. Pay a ransom, get Bryson back. No police involvement. “Everything will be all right,” she had said. “Trust me.”
Uh-huh. Audrey would trust her the day Chloe admitted her boobs, butt, and the age on her ID were all fake. The only thing that woman had ever done right in her miserable life was give Bryson two sweet, adorable sons.
Audrey had ignored Chloe and called the FBI, who hadn’t seemed all that interested, but said they would “look into it.” Wasn’t the FBI supposed to be all about finding kidnappers? At least, they were on
Without a Trace
. So she tried every other alphabet soup bureaucracy she could think of, and even Bryson’s insurance company, in hopes someone could do something. But everyone said it was someone else’s jurisdiction, except the insurance company, which was more worried about their bottom line than her brother’s wellbeing. As soon as she hung up with them, she called her manager, canceled her show, and started packing her bags. If nobody was willing to help, she’d just find Brys herself.
Somehow.
On the street below, a man with a cane caught her eye as he climbed out of a dented blue 4Runner parked at the curb. He didn’t look Colombian. For one thing, he towered head and shoulders above everyone he passed. He had dark close-cropped hair and light skin and wore a simple white short-sleeved shirt over olive green cargo pants. His footwear looked an awful lot like combat boots. Even two stories up, she could feel the waves of command radiating from him.
He seemed to be looking for something.
No, not looking. Canvassing. That’s what all those cop dramas Mama used to like called it. Canvassing the neighborhood. Er, casing? She always got those confused, but that was beside the point. He didn’t belong here, and jangled all of her mental warning bells.
Did he know something about Bryson’s abduction? If not, why else would a man like him be here?
With a hard lump of fear rising in her throat, she watched him turn the corner at the end of the street, then she looked at the 4Runner he’d abandoned. From what she could see, it appeared to have local plates and another man sat inside. Okay, maybe she was overreacting. Maybe they were tourists, and the man with the cane was searching for a restroom. Or they were lost and looking for their hotel. Or they—
The man inside the vehicle lifted a set of binoculars and focused them directly at her.
Audrey ducked back into the apartment. A car door slammed shut a heartbeat later.
Oh God, oh God, oh God.
Heart pounding, she scanned the room. The apartment was too open and airy, too minimalist to offer any decent hiding place. Maybe he wouldn’t be able to get in. The security guard at the door hadn’t believed that she was Bryson Van Amee’s sister, and it had taken a lot of wheedling and charm to access his apartment.
Footsteps pounded hard and fast down the hallway and her hope plummeted. The man obviously knew tricks to get by security guards. Big surprise. Did he also know how to get inside a locked apartment?
When the knob rattled and she saw the point of a knife slip between the door and frame, she got her answer.
What had she been thinking coming here alone? Yes, she’d wanted to find her brother, but not like this. Not as a fellow captive.
The door clicked and opened, catching on the chain she’d at least had the foresight to slide home.
“
Policía
,” the man called, but his Spanish carried an accent she couldn’t place and she didn’t believe him for a second. “
¡Abra la puerta!
”
Uh-huh. Hell would most definitely freeze over before she acknowledged his command to open the door. Way she saw it, all she had going for her was the element of surprise. He figured someone was inside, but he didn’t know who or where or whether she was armed.
She grabbed the closest thing, a heavy glass lamp on the end table beside the couch—such a girly weapon and not as heavy as she’d hoped, but it’d still make the fake policeman see stars—and moved to the right side of the door.
“
¡Policía!
”
Ri-ight. And if she had a cup of tea and a biscuit, she’d be the Queen of England.
Holding her breath until her ears buzzed, Audrey waited for him to kick the door, her hands beginning to sweat on the lamp. Any second now. Any…second…
The door flew open, banging into the opposite wall, and she went into pure adrenaline-fueled fight or flight mode, slamming the lamp down as hard as she could on his blond head. Once, twice, a third time for good measure, her heart hammering so hard she thought for sure it was going to pop out of her chest and join in on the beating.
The fake policeman collapsed with an
umph
and she scrambled over his big body. And, boy, was he big. A solid lump of muscle lying dazed on the floor, blocking her only escape. He looked more like a frat boy than a kidnapper in his Pink Floyd T-shirt, jeans, and Nikes, one of which connected with the back of her left knee, buckling her leg.
She managed to keep from slamming face-first into the floor by catching herself on her hands and knees. Tried to crawl away from her attacker, but he snagged her pant leg. On instinct, she kicked out, crashed the heel of her sandal into his nose, and wished like hell that she were wearing a stiletto instead. As blood spurted, he lost his grip and she scrambled to her feet.
He cursed in a language that was definitely not Spanish and, ignoring his bleeding nose, he was back on his feet as if he hadn’t ever been down.
Who was this guy, the freaking Terminator? If he was this resilient, she didn’t want to stick around and meet his friend with the cane.
“Hey, stop! I just want to talk to you.” His English was perfect, barely accented, and he repeated the command in Spanish.
American
, some tiny, rational portion of her brain realized as she darted toward the stairs at the end of the hall. Still, that didn’t mean he was a friend. He wouldn’t have kicked down the door if all he wanted to do was have a simple chat. She hit the stairs at a sprint, half-expecting him to vault over the railing and cut her off at the bottom. He didn’t, but a glance over her shoulder as she crashed through an emergency exit at the back of the building proved he was still right behind her.
He had a gun now, holding it alongside his leg.
Oh God.
She turned to flee down the alleyway toward the street and smacked into a rock wall of a chest covered with a white short-sleeved cotton shirt.
Audrey screamed. And screamed. And screamed.
…
Gabe wasn’t entirely sure what just happened. One minute he’d been reconnoitering the alleyway, wondering if Bryson had been taken from here because it had easy access to two different streets at both ends, and the next, a wisp of a woman shot out of the apartment building’s emergency exit like her ass was on fire. Then she took one look at his face and gave a bloodcurdling horror movie scream. As a SEAL, he was trained to handle most anything an enemy could throw at him, but a hysterical woman? What the fuck was he supposed to do with her?
“Shh,” he said. “It’s okay. I’m not going to hurt you.”
She didn’t seem to hear him over her screaming. Or maybe she spoke Spanish and didn’t understand him. She had smooth, tanned skin and light brown hair, but he’d seen enough light-skinned Latinos in his travels to know that wasn’t the best judge of ethnicity. He dug around his admittedly rusty Spanish repertoire for the right words: “
Tranquillo
.
Está okay
.
No voy…a hacerte daño
.”
She screamed.
Jesus.
At wit’s end, he clamped one palm over her mouth and circled her slender neck with his other hand, felt her pulse pounding wildly against his thumb as he applied just the right amount of pressure. She slumped into blessed silence. He had to drop his cane to catch her before she hit the ground, and the extra weight ignited fireworks of pain in his foot.
Great. Now what?
Her head lolled against his shoulder, her hair tickling his nose. Balancing her in one arm, he used his free hand to smooth back the silky strands, which were not so much brown as the color of the finest gold rum. He got his first clear look at her face and felt a tug of familiarity. Freckles dappled the bridge of a nose that he could only describe as “cute,” like something on a doll. High cheekbones, a wide mouth that she probably thought was too big for her face if she judged herself by society’s standards of beauty, but that he found fascinating. He suddenly very much wanted to see her smile.
And then it clicked. He
had
seen her smile before. In a photo while briefing the men.