Chapter 22
The house was set-up exactly as he expected, lights on, Lazu peering out the big bay window, and Angie's car in the driveway at a hard angle that meant she'd parked in a hurry.
Mason pulled in behind it.
Sophia had her hand on the door handle before the truck stopped moving.
He touched her arm, not to stop her, just to say I'm here in the only language either of them had right now.
She looked at him. Nodded once. Then she was out of the truck and moving toward the front door with her phone already in her hand.
He followed.
Lydia met them in the entryway, the German Shepherd by her side. She looked at Mason first, assessing. Then she pulled him in for a hug, and he was grateful. Also grateful when she released him fast.
“Clint's on,” she said. She touched a finger to the headset at her ear. “He's been waiting.”
“Don't let me interrupt,” Mason said.
She looked at him for just a second, then went back down the hall toward their office.
He followed her to the doorway and stopped there.
Rylie was at the far end of the table with a laptop open and a printed diagram between them that someone had written over in three different colors of pen. She looked up when he walked in, held his gaze for a moment. “Good to have you home. We’re going to find her.” she said.
“Yes, we will.” He nodded.
“Where’s Sophia?”
He’d seen her fish her phone out of her purse as she headed to Clint and Lydia’s kitchen. “Calling Lisa.”
“Good,” Rylie nodded. “They’re all over at Beth’s.”
“I know.”
Angie was at the whiteboard. She had her back to him, her marker moving, her handwriting the same precise block print it always was, and she didn't stop writing when he came in. “Sit down, Mason. We'll catch you up.”
He didn't sit. He leaned against the doorframe with his arms crossed and looked at the room.
The whiteboard was dense. He worked it left to right, the operational diagram, the role designations, the timeline running along the bottom. There were photos tacked to the corner: a woman he didn't recognize, a screengrab that looked like social media, a map with a corridor marked in red.
Mary.
He knew the broad strokes from what Sophia had told him in the truck. But seeing it built out on the board, helped him settle, just a little.
He let Angie finish what she was writing and turned his gaze to Lydia who was in front of three monitors. He heard her use Clint’s name once, heard the phrase going back ten years, heard her say I know, keep going and then go quiet to hear the answer.
He stayed in the doorway.
Because it was Kayla, he wanted to jump in.
Bark orders. Demand reports. Even though that went against all of his training and years of command.
If you had competent people and they were in the middle of an op, you present yourself as a resource and observe.
Take the time to understand things. That was how you led a team.
But this was Kayla.
He’d give it ten minutes or until they fucked up.
He watched.
Sophia came in two minutes later. She found a spot near the window, angled away from the table, and had her phone to her ear.
“Really?” he heard her say, her voice pulling to something softer.
“Yeah, everything's okay. You stay there much longer and you’re going to want a horse of your own.” A pause.
A sound that wasn't quite a laugh but was trying to be one. “Now you listen to your Aunt Beth. You’re going to be staying over there tonight too.” Another pause, then Sophia faked another laugh.
“I promise Kayla and I aren’t doing something fun without you.
I’ve got to go, baby.” One more pause. “I love you, too.”
She hung up. She stood with her back to the room, and Mason saw her shoulders tremble. That line, the one where Lisa was saying that Sophia and Kayla might be doing something fun without her, had to have killed her. It did him.
She turned around, her eyes meeting his. She gave him a small nod. She had it together.
He nodded back.
She moved to the table and pulled out a chair next to Rylie. The softness that she had shown while on the phone with Lisa was gone.
“What have you got?” She asked Rylie.
He had never loved her more in his life.
Angie capped her marker and turned around.
“Okay,” she said. She looked at Mason. “Do you want the overview or should I pick up where we are?”
“Where you are,” Mason said.
She nodded. “Mary has gone completely dark.
Last known contact was the coffee shop, three days ago.
We've had eyes on it. She hasn't been back. Her cell is off or destroyed. The apartment she was renting in downtown San Diego, cleared out sometime in the last forty-eight hours. Whoever pulled her out, pulled her out fast and clean. Which tells us she had an extraction plan already in place.”
“Which tells us they knew this was coming to an end,” Rylie said, without looking up from her laptop.
“The operation was always designed to culminate,” Angie agreed. “The rental house in Eastlake Vista is just as clean as Mary’s place, despite one of the residents being dead.”
Sophia turned to Rylie. “Tell Mason what that one man said to you right before the cyanide killed him.”
Rylie looked up at Mason. “We didn’t get any of them alive. All of the zealots. We knew we were dealing with terrorists, not just people who were in it for the money.”
Mason nodded.
“Anyway, right before he died, he whispered. It doesn’t matter, we win anyway.”
Mason thought that over. It tracked with the text that Sophia had received. They were out to gut Mason. Maybe the whole Midnight Delta team, but he suspected it was personally directed at him.
Angie cleared her throat. “Mary was a temporary asset. She was never going to stay.” She moved to the board and pointed to the corridor marked in red.
“Unfortunately, this isn’t like the cartel, or the mafia or something.
There is no known presence of the Boko Haram in the US, so I can’t track a particular route.
That’s why finding Mary is so important. ”
“And confirming this really is a member of the Boko Haram who is out after Mason,” Sophia said. We’re still just making that assumption.”
“It’s a solid assumption. We were sent to Nigeria on what I’ll contend was a bogus mission. You folks confirmed that the background done for Mary was the same methodology used by Boko Haram techs, which was a good catch.”
“That was all Lydia,” Angie said.
He saw Sophia looking down at her phone, biting her lip.
“What?”
“Cat,” Sophia said quietly from the table. “I just got an update.”
“How’s she doing?” Rylie asked.
“She’s out of surgery. She just needed two pins in her arm. She’ll end up with full mobility.”
“What happened to Cat?” Mason asked.
“She was walking with Kayla when they grabbed her,” Angie answered.
“They tried to fight the two men off with their sticks. It was fast. According to witnesses, less than a minute. Cat held onto Kayla and wouldn’t let go, even when they shoved Kayla into the van.
She got dragged, one of them hit Cat’s arm to get her to let go… ”
“Jesus.” Mason ran his hand through his hair.
Fourteen years old.
A kid who had grabbed his daughter's hand in a parking lot and refused to let go until someone broke her arm to make her.
He pressed his jaw tight and looked at the whiteboard until the feeling had somewhere to go.
He saw his wife looking at him.
“But she’s fine. Made it through the surgery like a champ.”
“Like a champ,” Mason repeated.
Lydia said something short and loud into her headset. Then she swiveled in her chair to face the room.
“Clint’s got it narrowed down to three people. Each one of them is Boko Haram, and Midnight Delta has either captured or killed someone close to them. Now it’s a matter of finding opportunity. We need another hour.”
“Good, three’s a workable number. What about Kayla's phone?” he asked.
“We looked at that first thing,” Rylie said.
“It went dark twenty-two minutes after she was taken.
Last ping put it moving north on the Fifteen, which is consistent with the van's direction based on witness accounts from the parking lot. After that—” She shook her head.
“Gone. Either they pulled the battery or they destroyed it.”
“Where on the Fifteen?”
“Just past Miramar.”
Mason absorbed that. North. There was a lot of north to work with. The Fifteen went all the way up and they didn't know if the van stayed on it or cut east or doubled back. Twenty-two minutes at freeway speed—the radius was a circle he didn't want to think about.
He looked at Angie. “Tell me what the FBI has.”
She glanced up. “What do you mean?”
“I mean what do they have right now? What's Cruz running?”
Angie and Rylie exchanged a brief look. “Fuck, Mason, you’re right.” Angie was clearly upset with herself. “We didn’t tap into them to make sure we were getting everything they were piecing together.” She lifted her head. “Lydia,” she called out.
“Yeah!” Lydia responded.
“Got a second?”
Lydia spoke into her mic, then swiveled around to face the room. “What do you need?”
“Mason brought it up. We should be tapping into the FBI system. Making sure that we have whatever they have.”
Lydia’s eyebrows shot up. She looked over at Mason. “You’re right.”
“How long will that take you to set up?”
She sucked in a breath. “With both me and Clint? Maybe an hour, two max. Me alone, we’re talking four to five hours.”
“I can help,” Rylie piped up.
“Good,” Mason said. “Lydia, keep Clint on finding whoever is behind this. You work with Rylie on getting into the FBI.” He turned to Angie. “You, me and Sophia, can we work the Mary angle?”
She nodded.