Chapter Ten #2
Andre and Elias stepped back. Elias set the other man’s Sig in the china hutch and stood beside Iona, ready to help when needed.
Riley glanced at the operatives. “Did he tell you anything?”
Both men shook their heads.
Of course not. Why ask for one thing to be easy? She would have to do this the hard way, something she despised.
Andre squeezed her hand. “Ready?”
She nodded.
“How can I help?”
“Are you good at dumping buckets of water?”
His eyebrows shot up. “I rock at it.”
“Good. You’re hired.” Riley studied the prisoner. “Elias, you’re playing the good cop.”
He scowled. “I hate that role.”
“Suck it up.” Iona rolled her eyes. “You can be the villain next time.”
“Promises, promises.” He winked at her.
When they walked from the dining room to the kitchen, the operatives sobered. Elias stood in front of the prisoner while Iona remained off to the side. Andre stayed back and waited for Riley’s signal.
Riley glanced at Elias and gave a slight nod. Let the fun begin.
“Here’s how this will go,” Elias said. “Tell us what we want to know, and we’ll send you on your way. We’ll even do you a favor and start off with simple questions.”
A snort from the intruder. “We both know how this works. If I talk, you kill me. If I don’t talk, you torture me, then kill me. I don’t see how I can win.”
“I don’t remember anyone mentioning your dying. Anyone else remember hearing that?”
“Give me a break, man. I’m not stupid.”
“No one said you were. Since you’re smart, let’s start with this question. What’s your name, sport?”
“John Brown.”
Elias chuckled. “You’re a funny guy, John. You sure you don’t want to do this the easy way? Might be better for your health. There are consequences for lying, you know.”
“Bite me.”
“No thanks, dude. I have a lady friend I’d much rather bite than you. Ah well. Don’t say I didn’t warn you about those consequences.” He glanced at Riley and lifted his chin.
She turned to Andre and raised an eyebrow. Did he want to play the intimidation game with the prisoner as well?
Andre’s lips curved, and his eyes glittered.
Guess he wanted to play after all. She motioned for him to chime in with Elias.
Andre bent and whispered in the man’s right ear. “I’m one consequence you’ll face if you don’t tell us what we want to know.”
A rusty chuckle. “I’m not afraid of you.”
“You should be.” Andre gripped the man’s shoulder and dug into the muscle.
The man grunted and tightened his muscles.
Time for Riley to go to work. She took her place behind the man and rested her hand lightly on his left shoulder. “Refusing to answer questions is dangerous. Are you sure you want to do it this way?”
He laughed. “Really, guys? You’re turning a chick loose on me? Oh, I’m terrified now.”
Riley adjusted her grip, and seconds later the man was screaming at the top of his lungs, his body bowed and muscles knotted.
After a minute, she loosened her grip but kept a low level of pain running through his body.
“Tell me your name and the pain stops. That’s all you have to do. It’s so simple.”
“Told you. John Brown.”
She glanced at Iona and signaled for her to run this guy’s prints through the Fortress database system, then bore down hard on the nerves between the neck and shoulder.
The intruder’s body bowed away from the chair as he screamed with his hands fisted and his legs jerking to get away from the pain. It was fruitless, but that didn’t stop him from trying.
When tears streamed down his cheeks and Iona had taken his prints and uploaded them to their database, Riley eased up.
“Did you know that if I continue to compress the nerves in this area for too long, the damage becomes permanent and you’ll forever feel the nerve pain and be unable to use your hand?
It’s excruciating, isn’t it? Don’t do this to yourself, my friend.
The result isn’t worth mistaken loyalty to someone who will let you take the fall for him. ”
“You don’t know him.” The man shuddered over and over as pain ricocheted through his body. “He’ll kill me if I talk.”
“He has to get to you first,” Andre said.
“It means instant death because he doesn’t accept failure.”
“How would he know you failed?”
“Oh, come on. He’ll know when I don’t show up with her.”
And there it was.
Andre’s grip on the man’s shoulder tightened. “You should be more worried about me.”
The man stilled. “Why?”
“The woman you’re after is mine, and I protect what’s mine by any means necessary. Do you understand what I’m saying?”
The guy swallowed hard as he gave a slight nod.
“Good. I’m glad we understand each other.”
Iona looked up from her phone. “Meet Joe Rutland, a lowlife for hire. He’ll do anything for a buck, including kidnapping and assault. He’s an equal opportunity thug.”
“Who is your target, Joe?” Riley asked.
He shook his head.
She sighed. “Why do they always choose the hard way?” Riley nodded at Andre, who bore down hard on Joe’s shoulder. When she signaled him to back off a minute later, good old Joe was sobbing. “You can stop the pain at any time. Just tell me the name of your target.”
“Some woman named Riley.”
Confirmation that she was the target at least. “Very good, Joe. That didn’t hurt a bit, did it? Let’s try another question. Who sent you to kidnap Riley?”
“I don’t know.”
Andre tightened his grip.
“I swear I’m telling the truth.” Joe spoke between gritted teeth. “A man contacted me through one of those throwaway email addresses. He used a fake name, so I don’t know who he is. I don’t ask for too many details. It’s not safe.”
“It doesn’t bother you to target an innocent woman?” Andre asked.
“How would I know if she’s innocent? Told you. I don’t ask questions. Look, it’s just a job, man. It’s not personal.”
“Funny. It’s very personal to me.”
“You’re lucky, Joe,” Elias said.
“Yeah?”
“If you’d laid one finger on Riley, my friend would have killed you in the most painful way possible. Buddy, you dodged a bullet. Literally.” Elias looked at Andre. “Call the boss for a garbage pick up.”
“An excellent idea.”
“Wait a minute.” Joe’s head turned one way, then the other even though he couldn’t see anything through the hood over his head. “You said you wouldn’t kill me.”
“We aren’t. We leave that to someone else.” He walked out of the kitchen to make the call. When he returned, Elias gave a brief nod. “Fifteen minutes.”
Joe remained silent until Maddox arrived with two operatives, one of whom carried a mike bag with medical supplies.
The paramedic slid the mike bag off his shoulder and pulled out a syringe, a vial of medicine, and an alcohol wipe. Less than a minute later, Joe was unconscious and would remain that way for twelve hours.
Maddox inclined his head toward Joe. “Who is he?”
“Joe Rutland, a lowlife who does anything he’s hired to do.”
“What do you want me to do with him?”
“Black site for now.” Andre looked at an unconscious Joe. “Once this situation is resolved, we’ll drop him off with the feds. They can decide who gets first crack at him.”
Maddox glanced at the men he’d brought with him. “Haul him out to the SUV and strap him in.”
He turned back to Riley and the others. “Did Rutland give you anything else?”
“Besides the creeps?” Riley shook her head.
“He won’t bother you again. Forget about him.”
“What about the others? You know they’ll keep coming until someone collects the reward for either kidnapping or killing me, depending on which job they agreed to take.”
“Zane is looking for the accounts. Now that we know about your friend Joe, he has a starting point. When Z finds the accounts, he’ll drain the money. With no money, no interest in a woman named Riley.”
Andre wrapped his arm around Riley’s waist. “That’s not the only problem.”
“Explain.”
“We still don’t have a motive for anyone to come after Riley.
Now that I know about her past, I can’t rule out the possibility that someone in The Company leaked Riley’s information and put out a hit on her.
The question is, why would someone do that to one of their own if the hit was internally generated? ”
Riley frowned. She was an analyst and an interrogator. Who would pay attention to someone like her? She considered the possibility for a beat, then another but couldn’t figure out why anyone would come after her. She was in the background on those ops, not out front where she’d be in the spotlight.
The CIA was good at keeping tabs on those who posed a threat to its operatives. There had been no rumblings of interest in her thus far. No hint that something bad was brewing. “I don’t think this is coming from my CIA days.”
Maddox’s eyebrows rose. “If not the CIA, that leaves Fortress or further back in your past.”
She flinched. “I didn’t say the problem was Fortress.”
“Doesn’t matter. It is a possibility, and that’s why the tech geeks are scouring our systems as we speak. You need to think about your past. Is there anyone who has a reason to come after you?”
Riley stilled. Her mind automatically went to Miles Thomas. No. He couldn’t be the one who was coming after her. Or could he?
Made little sense. How would Thomas find out who she worked for and where she would be during the mission to free Christopher? He wouldn’t have the connections to be a serious threat to Riley.
But what if he was? A ball of ice formed in her stomach.
If Thomas could find her, he could find Angie.
Riley hadn’t tried to find the older woman because she figured Angie wanted privacy or she would have contacted her.
That may have to change. She might have no choice but to find the woman who had become a second mom to her when she lived in Homestead.
Maddox’s eyes narrowed. “You’ve thought of someone. Who?”