Chapter 19
“Last chance, Lopez.” Jagger stood near a seated Ryker with his arms crossed at his chest. “Tell us where Agent Foster is.”
“I told you before, I don’t know.”
Mateo Lopez looked more scared than defiant as he sat across from Ryker. His hands were cuffed and secured the bar mounted on the table in front of him.
They’d been going at the incarcerated man for nearly ten minutes. If he knew where Talia was, he sure as hell wasn’t saying, but it didn’t matter. Jagger wasn’t about to give up.
“But you know something that’s valuable.” He continued to prod. “That’s why Agent Foster was coming here. Because you claimed to have more useful information. But I’m thinking maybe that wasn’t actually the case.”
The room was silent, the air stifled by the tension Jagger’s fear had created. Oh, he was pissed, of course. Lethally so. But his concern for Talia and what she could be suffering was the driving force behind his anger.
“An innocent woman’s life is at stake!” He slammed the palms of his hands down onto the table’s smooth surface when the man remained quiet.
Ryker blinked at the unexpected motion—and the sudden, deafening sound. Lopez, however, was startled so badly he nearly shot out of his chair.
“Come on, Mateo.” Jagger leaned in close enough he could count the many droplets of sweat on the guy’s forehead.
“You can still do the right thing, here. They could be torturing Agent Foster as we speak.” Please God, no.
“Tell us the truth. Someone else ordered you to lure her here tonight, didn’t they? ”
A tear fell down the man’s olive-skinned cheek as he whispered an ashamed, “Yes.”
“Who?” Ryker demanded. “And don’t even think about jerking us around. I want a name. Tell us which of Sanchez’s men wanted you to meet with Agent Foster?”
Lopez blinked with a frown. “Not one of us.” He shook his head. “It was one of you.”
Jagger pushed himself off the table, standing tall as he shot Ryker a look. The seasoned Homeland agent’s expression said he was ready to kill.
“We need a name,” Jagger reminded their witness.
Ryker followed with a very stern, “Now.”
“I do not know his first name.” Lopez lifted his gaze to meet Ryker’s. “Only his last. It’s…V-Vaughn,” he finally choked out. “His last name is Vaughn.”
Jagger’s chest tightened as Ryker pulled out his phone. After a quick search, he held the screen up for Lopez to see.
“Is this him?” Ryker waited. “Is this the man who forced you into setting up Agent Foster tonight?”
The jerky bob of the prisoner’s head confirmed the man who’d played bodyguard to Talia had been in on it all along.
“So Vaughn’s in bed with Sanchez?” Jagger’s question was directed to Lopez.
“He told me Senor Sanchez knew I’d been cooperating with the United States government. H-he said the only way my family in Venezuela would be allowed to live was if I helped him get payback by setting up Agent Foster.”
“So you traded Agent Foster’s life for that of your own family,” Ryker summarized the man’s statement.
“Don’t you see?” Lopez begged. “I had no choice! He had pictures of my wife and son. Recent pictures he used as proof that he and his men could get to them whenever he wanted.”
“Don’t you mean your men?” Jagger rumbled. “After all, if you hadn’t been caught at the port in Chicago, you’d still be one of them, too.”
“I admit I have made many mistakes in my life. Working for Arlo Sanchez is at the top of that list.”
Ryker was silent a moment before he went back over all they had learned.
“So, your crew gets busted by Homeland during an op led by Agent Foster. Sanchez has a man inside, who you claim is Agent Vaughn. According to you, Vaughn came to you earlier tonight with proof your wife and child are in danger of losing their lives if you don’t do exactly as he says. Is that pretty much it?”
Lopez answered with an immediate, “Yes.”
“If we find Vaughn, we find Talia.” Jagger looked to Ryker. “Or at the very least, we make him tell us where she is.”
Ryker slid his chair back and rose to his feet. “I’ll go issue a department-wide BOLO on the dirty son of a bitch.” He marched across the room and out the door. “Be right back.”
He watched as the other man disappeared into the hall. With any luck, they’d locate Vaughn in no time. Then this thing could be over, once and for all.
They couldn’t, of course, simply take Lopez at his word that Vaughn was dirty. They also weren’t about to give the agent any more time to cover his tracks.
But as he waited in the room for Ryker’s return, a dull, gnawing sensation began to twist around in Jagger’s gut. Something still felt off with this whole thing. Like they were missing something big, but he didn’t know what.
His mind raced through everything they knew so far.
Someone started screwing with Talia by leaving a couple gifts from her past. Then they attempted to kill her by planting a bomb on her car outside her home.
Now she’d been abducted, a man she used to play spy games with was dead, and it was looking like at least one Homeland agent was involved. But…why?
Was all of this truly a plan for Sanchez to get his revenge? It sure seemed like a lot of unnecessary risks. Especially when the gun-smuggling asshole’s typical means of revenge was a quick and easy bullet between the eyes.
“It’s just you and me here, Mateo.” Jagger went over to the empty chair and sat down. “If you know where Talia is, now’s the time to tell me.”
“If I knew where she was, I’d tell you.” His throat worked a hard swallow. “But I have no idea where they took her.”
“But you do know who took her. Don’t you, Mateo?
” He watched the other man closely. Jagger leaned his elbows on the table and softened his tone.
“Was it Agent Vaughn or someone else? Give me a name. Please. I know you want to protect your wife and child, but Agent Foster…” His voice grew thick.
“I’m hoping someday she will be my family.
Please, Mateo.” He appealed to the man’s emotional side.
“I can’t help her if I don’t know who to look for. ”
“I don’t know for sure.” The man finally spoke up. “It could be Agent Vaughn.”
“But you think it’s someone else, don’t you?” Jagger studied the man closely. He didn’t miss the way Lopez’s gaze bounced nervously around the room. “Whoever it is, they scare you more than Vaughn ever could.”
Lopez met his gaze. His chest rose and fell with heavy, nervous breaths. “I don’t know his name. None of us do.” He shook his head. “We only ever call him The Fixer.”
“The Fixer?” Jagger frowned. “As in he fixes things for Sanchez?”
The prisoner dipped his chin with a slow nod. “He makes problems go away.”
Hence the name.
Reaching around to his back pocket, Jagger pulled out the photo they’d found on Sinclair’s bloody corpse. “What about this man?” He slapped the picture down onto the table in front of Lopez. “Did The Fixer take care of him, too?”
A look of pure terror widened the cuffed man’s eyes. “That is him.” His fearful gaze met Jagger’s with wild emotion. “Where did you get that?”
“Wait, you’re saying this man works for Sanchez?” He pointed to Keith Sinclair, who’d been standing a few feet behind Talia and her friend.”
“No, you misunderstand.” Lopez gave a hard, single shake of his head. “This man.” He pointed to the picture as best he could with his wrists in shackles. “I believe he is the man who took your friend. He is the one they call The Fixer.”
Shock reverberated throughout Jagger’s chest, making it hard to take a breath. Because Lopez hadn’t fingered Sinclair as Sanchez’s go-to man. Instead, he’d pointed at a different dead man.
Talia’s friend…Julian Miller.
“Wakey, wakey, Tally Cat.”
Natalia screamed out in pain as excruciating pressure was applied to the exit wound in her shoulder. The pressure eased, but the burning inferno lingered with a steady, throbbing succession of beats.
She opened her eyes, blinking her vision clear to finally get a good look at her abductor.
Her lids fluttered again before she squeezed her eyes shut. The drugs she’d been given had clearly altered her mental state. Because the face she’d just seen couldn’t be real. It was impossible.
In every sense of the word.
“Go ahead, Tally Cat.” The eerily familiar voice used a nickname she hadn’t heard in years. “I’m not goin’ anywhere. Not yet, anyway. Open your eyes and look at me.”
She couldn’t do it. Only one person in her life had ever called her Tally Cat. And she’d spent the last three years blaming herself for his death.
“Look at me!”
The shouted order had her muscles tensing and her eyes flying open. Nothing could have shocked her more than finding a set of familiar eyes staring back at her. But it couldn’t be true.
Julian died in a massive explosion. And yet…
“Julian?” Natalia uttered the name as a question of disbelief.
“Hey, Natalia.” A man who was supposed to be dead smiled back at her. “It’s been a while, huh?”
Her breaths began sawing in and out and sweat covered every inch of her skin. Her shoulder hurt like a bitch, but it was nothing to the pain ripping her heart in two.
Julian was alive. Alive! He hadn’t died during her last CIA op, like she’d believed. Like he made them all believe. He was here, and now her former best friend was…
Dear, God!
Was he actually planning to become her murderer?
Natalia fought against the cuffs that had, once again, been placed tightly around her wrists. Only this time, her hands were secured behind her back, rather than in the front.
Julian was too smart to make the same mistake as the man she’d previously killed. A man whose lay dead a feet away from the corner where she found herself in once more.
“H-how is this possible?” Tears fell down her cheeks as she stared in the eyes of a ghost. “You were d-dead. I-I was at your funeral. I saw your casket!”
He chuckled, pushing himself up from a squatted position. Dressed in black tactical boots, cargo pants, and a black, fitted, long-sleeve tee, the man looked every bit the part of a cold-blooded killer.