Chapter Twenty #20
Maybe it was the lack of time we’d had to plan this raid that was worrying me. It had been mere hours instead of days. Granted, I had full faith in my men to do their jobs, but there was usually a little more planning involved than we’d had.
“Comm check.” One by one, my men checked in with me, letting me know that they could all hear me loud and clear. “Sam, locate Cynthia and remove her from the premises as quickly as you can. We’ll handle the rest.”
“Copy that, Commander,” Sam replied.
“Clarke, are you in position?”
“Yep. I can see the van and two men playing on their cell phones. Another one is smoking a cigarette as he paces by the side of the van.”
“Any movement inside the van?”
“No,” Clarke replied, “and the van is all closed up. The windows aren’t even down.”
That could be a good thing or a bad thing.
“Once we breach, take out the guy with the cigarette.”
“Copy that, Commander.”
“We go in thirty seconds.” I glanced at my watch. “Mark.”
I glanced up after hearing the echoing replied from my team. We’d been together a long time, and we trained hard. Still, it was gratifying knowing they would follow my commands as soon as they were spoken.
“Burke, you’re with me,” I stated. “The rest of you fan out.”
I glanced at my watch again. As soon as the second hand reached the end of the thirty seconds, I said, “Go!” and moved out.
I quickly crossed the open paved ground to the side of the warehouse. The cold metal of the building felt cold against my back as I flattened myself against it. I waited until Burke was right next to me before making my way to the door. It was a simple blue-colored steel door with no window.
I reached out and tried the door handle. I grew a little concerned when it turned with no problem. This late at night, with a kidnap victim being held inside, you’d think they’d lock the damn door. Either these were the stupidest kidnappers in the world or this was a trap.
Maybe both.
I cracked the door open just a little and then gestured to Burke.
The man squatted down and then pulled out a small optical camera on a lead.
He carefully inserted it through the crack I’d made.
We both glanced at the screen where the video feed of the inside of the building was being played.
There wasn’t much to see from this vantage point, but the good news was that there was no one standing by the door.
Burke retracted the camera and put it away, and then both of us drew our guns. I pulled the door open just far enough for me and Burke to slip through and then stepped inside of the building. I immediately moved to the side so that Burke could join me.
There wasn’t a lot of light, but that actually worked in our favor.
I was able to move about a quarter of the way across the warehouse before I had to stop and hide behind a steel pillar.
The white van was sitting smack-dab in the center of the building.
The three men that Lyn had seen were now standing at the side of the van discussing something too low for me to hear.
I gestured to Burke, who was standing behind another steel pillar, and then tapped my earpiece three times. My men were trained well enough to know what I wanted. I glanced down at my watch. The moment thirty seconds had gone by again, I zipped around the pillar and started for the three men.
“Police!” I shouted loudly. “Lay your weapons down and get on your knees. Lock your fingers behind your head.”
The three men turned in surprise and then leapt into action. Two of them took off running, but the third man ran for the sliding door on the cargo van. I was already running toward him when I holstered my gun.
I slammed into the man and took him down to the cement floor, quickly rolling him to his stomach, pulling his arms behind him, and slapping a set of cuffs on him. The whole maneuver took less than ten seconds. I breathed heavily for a moment as I pinned the guy to the floor, my knee in his back.
“You’re under arrest.”
“I got Cynthia,” Sam yelled.
I quickly glanced over my shoulder. “Is she hurt?”
“I’m fine, Salvador,” Cynthia said as she walked around the end of the cargo van.
She looked fine, a little ruffled, but fine.
Her eyes narrowed as she glanced down at the man pinned under me. “This man forced me to go with him. I didn’t even get to finish my shopping. I’d just found the perfect dress when he put a knife to my throat and threatened to kill me if I didn’t go with him. You need to arrest him, Salvador.”
“I will.” I smiled despite the gravity of the situation.
“I’m glad you’re okay, Cynthia. Go with Sam.
He’ll take you to Lany. I need to finish up here.
” I looked around until I spotted another team member.
“Wu, you and Sam escort Cynthia, Vinnie, and Lany back to the estate. The police can take their statements from there.”
“Copy that,” Wu said as he walked over to help escort Cynthia out of the building.
I wanted them out of here until I could figure out exactly what was going on. This looked like a simple kidnapping for ransom, but it felt like something more. I just couldn’t quite place my finger on what that something was.
We made sure all three of our suspects were restrained and then read them their rights. I wanted to make sure everything was done correctly so these idiots couldn’t get out of jail on a technicality.
“Burke, search the van. I need to call this in.” I also needed to let the others go home before the police arrived. “Patty, thank you.” I nodded my head toward the door. “You guys better get out of here. I have to call headquarters.”
“Any time, Sal. I’m just glad everything turned out okay.” Patty waved, and then they all turned and walked out of the building.
I sent a quick text message to Lancaster and Carlos, letting them know Cynthia was safe. I knew without asking that Carlos would call his men back. He wouldn’t want them around when the police arrived any more than I did. Lancaster simply needed to know his wife was safe.
I called for a squad car to come pick these idiots up and someone to come and police the scene. I wanted to turn it over to the incident commander as quickly as I could so that I could get back to my family.
I paused when I heard a voice come through the comm unit in my ear. “Sal, this is Sam. We might have a small problem.”
“Define small.”
“The car is gone.”
I blinked as if he had spoken a garbled language. “Say that again.”
“The car where Lany and Vinnie were supposed to be waiting is not here. It’s gone.”
I swallowed down the instant fear that filled me. “And Lany?”
“He’s gone, too.”
Porca troia!
I knew this was too easy.
Chapter Seventeen
Lany
My leg was tapping restlessly, my nerves stretched paper thin. I didn’t want to wait in the car. I wanted to be out there looking for my mother. I hated the waiting. I knew this was my best course of action, but it still sucked.
“It’s going to be okay, Lany,” Vinnie stated. “Sal and his team know what they are doing.”
I knew that, really I did, but that didn’t help settle my nerves one damn bit. I doubted anything would until I saw my mother alive and well again. It would be nice if my husband and his team came back in one piece as well.
“I know, I just…” The rest of my words trailed off when my cell phone beeped, telling me that I had a text message. I swiped my finger across the screen and then opened my message app. I immediately frowned.
Thai Rose Delivery. ASAP.
What the hell did that mean, and why was Lyn being so cryptic? Was he trying to schedule lunch or asking me to bring food home from the Thai Rose Restaurant?
Wait…I tapped my earpiece once and immediately heard a cough.
That wasn’t good.
I wrenched the front passenger door open and climbed into the seat. “Marcus, get us back to the estate as quickly as possible. There’s something wrong.”
Marcus jumped into the driver’s seat and started the vehicle. “Shouldn’t we tell Sal where we’re going?”
“No.” I frantically shook my head. “He needs to concentrate of rescuing my mother.”
“What’s going on, Lany?” Vinnie asked.
“Lyn just texted me that there was trouble at the house, most likely involving guns or hostages or both.” At least, that was my take on his text message. The Thai Rose was the restaurant where we’d been taken hostage at gunpoint after all.
If he was ordering dinner, I was going to smack him.
Vinnie, Barak, and Dmitri climbed into the backseat. The tires spun as the vehicle took off. I knew Sal was going to be pissed that I headed home without telling him, but our kids were there. Our friends were there. I needed to make sure they were okay, and Sal wasn’t available to do it for me.
Besides, if this really was just Lyn ordering dinner, I didn’t want to bother Sal with it. I needed to see if there was a true emergency or if my paranoid delusions were playing tricks on me.
“When we get to the house, don’t go in through the main gate. Just park down the street or something. We can get in another way.” One that hopefully wouldn’t let us be seen.
“As long as you don’t mind getting a little wet, we can use a water entrance,” Marcus told me. “I’m sure we can find a boat at the marina that we can use.”
“I have a boat at the marina a couple of miles from the estate,” Vinnie said. “We can use that to get to the waterfront access to the estate. If we park the boat at the far end of the estate, we can use the tree cover to get to the pool house and garage.”
Sometimes I forgot that Vinnie used to live at my estate.
“I need directions to the marina,” Marcus stated.
Vinnie gave them out, and then we were speeding down the street headed back toward the estate. Every few minutes I tapped my earpiece, hoping to hear a cough, and I was both scared and relieved when I did.