Chapter 27
He hadn't known.
That was the thing that caught him off guard, standing in the doorway of Lydia's back bedroom watching the women gear up. He knew Angie and Lydia had conceal carry permits. He didn’t realize Rylie did. He wasn’t sure any of them really cared.
He definitely hadn't known about the gear.
Angie was already vested, moving efficiently through a weapons check that told him everything he needed to know about her background.
Rylie was pulling comms out of a case that had no business being in a suburban home office and yet there it was, exactly where it needed to be.
Lydia had produced a tactical vest for Sophia, where she'd gotten it, he didn't know, and he wasn't going to ask, and Sophia was calmly shrugging into it like she'd made a decision and was done second-guessing it.
He watched his wife accept a comm unit from Rylie, watched Rylie fit it and show her the channel, watched Sophia nod once and repeat it back without being asked.
Twenty-two years of being a SEAL's wife.
She'd been paying attention the whole time.
His phone buzzed.
Unknown number. Different from before.
He looked at the screen. Unknown number, different from before. The message started with an address in Temecula.
Come alone. I know exactly where you are. I know exactly how long it will take you to get here. You have sixty-seven minutes. I will be tracking your phone every minute you are on the road. If you are not alone when you arrive, she dies before you reach the door.
The clock starts now.
“Mason.” Lydia's voice. She was already reading it over his shoulder.
“He's got my cell tracked,” Mason said. The room had gone still. “Sixty-seven minutes. He knows my location.”
“That address....” Rylie was already typing. “That's the winery.”
Of course it was.
“I have to go.” He was already moving toward the front of the house. “Right now.”
“Wait.” Lydia was right behind him. She pressed a burner phone into his hand.
It was small, already powered on, a number written in her handwriting on a strip of tape on the back.
“Take it, since you can’t have a comm unit.
Drake's number is in there. Clint will coordinate from here.
Two separate comm systems, I'll bridge them.” She looked at him with the eyes of a woman who had spent two decades attached to a man who ran exactly these kinds of operations. “Go.”
He took the phone.
He turned.
Sophia was standing in the hallway. Tactical vest, comm unit, and her eyes on him. He had maybe fifteen seconds.
Mason crossed to her in three strides and put both hands on her face and kissed her hard. She kissed him back just as hard.
He pulled back and looked at her. Just for a second. Taking inventory the way he always did before an op, finding all the things he was coming back for.
“Be smart.”
The I-15 north was moving.
Mason pushed the truck hard and kept one eye on the clock and one eye on the road and used the burner to call Drake before he'd cleared Escondido.
Drake picked up on the first ring. “Talk to me.”
“1842 Rancho Cielo Road, Temecula. He's got my personal cell tracked, I'm running a burner. I've got sixty-four minutes from right now.”
“We're already on the Fifteen.” Drake's voice had that operational, locked-in edge. “Clint diverted us five minutes ago. There’s a wreck up ahead, Dare’s getting around it, figure forty minutes, forty-five.”
“That's not enough time,” Mason said.
“Then stall him. He's waited twelve years. He'll want to talk.”
Mason moved into the left lane and held it. “I'll give him someone to talk to.”
“What are we walking into?” Drake asked.
“Patch Clint and Lydia in,” Mason directed.
There were a couple of clicking noises then Lydia started talking.
“There are two main buildings on the property. There’s the production building with a barrel room underneath that has a loading dock entrance, and one staircase and one elevator to the top level.
The top level has two entrances, front and back.
The other structure is the tasting room, dining room, gift shop and kitchen. Seven entrances total.”
“Fuck!” That came from Drake.
“Lydia, is Clint with you yet?” Mason asked.
“No. He’s still fifteen minutes away.”
“The two of you will need to be points for both our teams. You have the comms for the women, Clint for the men.”
A pause. He could hear Drake relaying it to the men in the vehicle. Heard Finn's voice, then Jack's.
“Mason.” Drake's voice came back, lower. “You walking in the front door alone?”
“That's the play.”
A silence that was very loud.
“He needs me talking and standing upright,” Mason said. “That's Kayla's window. That's yours.”
“Roger that.” Drake didn't like it. As far as Mason was concerned, he didn't have to like it. “We'll be there.”
“I know you will.” Mason moved the truck into the fast lane and watched the offramps blur past. “We need to coordinate this down to the last second. I’m taking every single one of the minutes he allotted me to get there. All of you need to get into position first.”
“Rylie said she’s thirty minutes out,” Lydia relayed.
“I’m still forty-seven minutes away,” Mason reported. “Rylie will have seventeen minutes to set up.”
“Copy.”
He set down the phone, since nobody else had anything else to report. He drove.
The clock on the dash told him he had thirty-seven minutes when he hit the Temecula city limits. He came off the freeway and followed the GPS through roads that went from commercial to rural fast, the town falling away behind him, replaced by open land, and soon he was in the middle of vineyards.
He watched the road and thought about doing the next thing.
The next thing was greeting Ibrahim and evaluating Kayla’s condition.
He thought about keeping Ibrahim talking.
He thought about Kayla's voice on the phone—hoarse and unmistakable and cut off with a cry.
Now he had nineteen minutes.
“I’m here, Mason. Lydia and I have eyes on everyone. Rylie, Angie, and Sophia are moving through the vines toward the buildings.”
“Where’s the team?”
“They’re still thirteen minutes away. You’ve got eighteen minutes. Slow down. You’re driving too fast,” Lydia said.
Mason gripped his steering wheel tighter.
“I see two guards, each with an AK-47. Can’t tell if they’re wearing body armor, I have to assume they are. Both are behind the main tasting building. I don’t have a view of the production building,” Rylie said.
“The rest of the team knows,” Clint said.
“I see one guard, no AK, near the back entrance of the production building,” Sophia reported. “I didn’t see anyone between the two buildings.”
“I saw movement on the roof. Could have been a bird, but I don’t think so. Nobody is watching the loading dock. Lydia, there’s a door beside it, nobody beside that either.”
“Shit, you’re right, Angie. I should have mentioned the door beside the loading dock when I was looking over the blueprints. What building did you think you see someone on the roof?”
“Facing the driveway into the property, on top of the entrance to the tasting building.”
Mason listened as all of the intel was communicated to the men.
He looked at the clock on the dashboard. He had five minutes. He sped up so that he could make it on time.
He took a right turn off a major street, and headed east for a mile.
Then up on the right, he made out the weathered sign for Cielo Ranch Vineyards, and took that turn.
He stopped for a moment and picked up the burner phone.
“Team, I’m turning off the volume, and hiding the burner. You’ll have ears on the situation.”
“Rog—” Mason turned off the volume and slipped the burner phone into the bottom of his sock beneath his foot. He started up again and drove for two hundred yards, and took another right onto a paved drive. Up ahead he saw two black, high-end Audis, parked right in front of the production building.
Just as he’d expected, two large men wearing suitcoats, presumably to cover their weapons, were waiting on either side of the entrance.
“Two guards, no weapons visible, in front of the production building front door. I’m getting out of my truck now.”
He shut off his engine and looked down at his personal cell. Ibrahim's leash. He slowly put that phone in his pocket so that the guards could see him. Then got out of the car. The men did not make a move, so Mason continued walking forward.
The production door opened before he had taken three steps.
Rylie had shown Mason a picture of Ibrahim Sula, so he’d known what to expect. But the charm-covered hate was definitely not in any of the pictures.
“Mason, you came.” He strode over to him, and held out his hand for Mason to shake it. He stared down at it, until Ibrahim was forced to pull it back. He smiled, then took a step back. Then he looked Mason up and down, like he was taking inventory.
Mason allowed it. He would have allowed almost anything for his daughter.
“Come in,” Ibrahim threw out his hand, and a smaller man, who had come outside with him, opened the door wider.
Mason stepped forward into the building, looking over his shoulder. “I see you’re bringing your entourage.”
“I like having my men around me,” Ibrahim agreed.