Undercover Rebel (The Mighty McKenzies Book 4)

by LENA DIAZ,

  Wolverine motioned toward the men on his right. “Hulk, Blade, put the fear of God into our girls. I don’t want anyone making any noise and giving us away.”

  Our girls? Why was he talking like the boss, instead of one of the lackeys?

  The red-haired man gave Wolverine an aggravated look. “You know I hate that nickname.”

  “Yeah, well. I like it. Go on.”

  Wolverine turned to the man on his left. “Grab her.”

  Shannon jerked back but he lifted her off the floor, pinning her arms to her sides. She drew breath to scream, but Wolverine slapped a piece of duct tape over her mouth.

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  Ian paced back and forth in front of the fireplace in his cabin, trying to blot out the sounds of the police and special agents on the phone, rattling papers and milling around in what had become their impromptu headquarters for the search for Shannon. He kept replaying the events of the past few days over and over in his mind. But he was coming up empty. He’d followed every possible lead to find Maria and the others. And now the traffickers had Shannon too. And much to Ian’s surprise, he now knew that it was Wolverine who was their leader, not Butch. There was no question about that. Wolverine had jammed a knife into the log wall outside the front door, impaling a bright yellow index card that read, YOUR GIRLFRIEND DIES TONIGHT.

  And just in case Ian hadn’t finally connected the dots of yet another yellow index card to Wolverine’s love of yellow clothes and cars, Wolverine had done him the favor of actually signing his name.

  Ian reached the end of the room and turned around again. Nash rushed in from the kitchen area, where he’d been speaking to a group of agents studying the maps spread out on top of the island.

  “What?” Ian demanded. “You’ve got something?”

  Nash held his hands out. “We haven’t found her yet. But I was right about the Andrew Branum name leading us through shell companies. He has a home in the Smokies just west of Gatlinburg. And he didn’t get a chance to strip the place before we found it. The home is a treasure trove. Pictures, journals, cash.” He handed his phone to Ian. “Recognize any of those guys? The team at the house took pictures of photographs inside Branum’s home office. They seem to match your descriptions of the thugs that hang with him.”

  Ian swiped through the pictures. “Hulk, Blade, Jack. That’s them.” He handed the phone back.

  “In addition to Butch Gillespie—your Hulk fellow—we’ve got the other two guys’ real names now. Our buddies at the FBI ran their pictures from the Branum house search through their facial recognition database and got hits. We’re following up on last-known addresses and getting warrants to search their properties. But Branum is the only local. The other guys are from out of state.”

  Ian grimaced. “Which means they’re dead ends as far as leading to somewhere around here and finding Shannon.”

  “Maybe, maybe not. We’ve got their pictures now, and we’re circulating them all over the place. Someone has to have seen them.” He put his hand on Ian’s shoulder. “I’ll let you know when I’ve got something more.” He motioned toward one of the groups of agents, and they headed down the hallway toward Ian’s office.

  “Nice place.”

  Ian turned to see Adam striding in from the foyer. Behind him were Duncan and Colin.

  Stunned to see them, Ian asked, “What are you doing here?”

  “Alerts about Shannon’s abduction have been sent to everyone in law enforcement in a hundred-mile radius. A few quick calls and we heard the task force is forming right here, in my brother’s cabin, which I didn’t know about.”

  Ian rubbed the back of his neck, not sure what to say. “I don’t... I should have—”

  “I was teasing,” Adam said. “I’m just not that good at it. Seriously, we’re here to help. What’s been done so far? What’s the status of the search?”

  Colin and Duncan flanked him, both nodding to indicate their willingness to help in the hunt for Shannon.

  Ian brought them up to speed. “We’ve got people everywhere looking. Except for going door-to-door to every single cabin in the Smoky Mountains, I’m at a loss.” He fisted his hands at his sides. “I’ve never felt so helpless in my life.”

  “What about the truck stop?” Adam asked. “Hiding Shannon and the other women in the back of one of those semis would be the perfect setup. Easily mobile, if it wasn’t for all the roadblocks and traffic stops that are being done. He could have the women sitting there waiting until the cops give up. Then he just drives away.”

  “It’s been searched already.”

  Colin and Duncan exchanged a surprised glance. Duncan said, “There must be two hundred semis parked there on any given day. Shannon’s only been missing for a few hours.”

  “It was searched a few days ago while trying to find the thirty women that we believed Butch Gillespie was keeping prisoner. Of course, now it seems that Branum, Wolverine, is our main guy. Anyway, it wouldn’t make sense for him to risk going in there for one person. He’d take Shannon wherever he’s keeping the others, to consolidate resources.”

  “Every truck was searched?” Colin asked. “How did your boss get warrants to search every single truck?”

  Ian frowned and glanced down the hall where Nash had disappeared. “I didn’t ask him for the details. I was supposed to be on administrative leave at the time. I just assumed... Ah, hell.” He strode down the hallway with his brothers following behind.

  Nash was talking to some other agents working at Ian’s desk. Without preamble, Ian interrupted him. “When you had the truck stop searched, did our guys go inside every truck?”

  “I can answer that,” one of the other agents said. “I was in charge of the search. Of the two hundred ten vehicles there at the time, the owners of one hundred seventy-two of them agreed to a search, which we did.”

  “And the remaining thirty-eight?” Ian demanded. “What about those?”

  “Some left without being searched.” He held his hands up. “We couldn’t legally stop them on private property without a warrant, and we don’t have probable cause to get warrants without some kind of evidence specific to each truck. But our nets around the city have been effective. Each semi is forced to stop at an agricultural inspection station out on the highway. We’re using the regulations in place to force searches. It’s been one hundred percent effective.”

  “Except that you haven’t found the missing women yet,” Adam added.

  The agent’s face flushed. “Not yet.”

  “How many of the original thirty-eight are still at the truck stop?” Ian asked. “Any of them?”

  The agent swallowed and pulled out his phone. He thumbed through a series of texts, then said, “Ten. There are ten rigs we haven’t searched that are still there.”

  Nash joined the conversation. “What are the odds of getting warrants to search them?”

  “Pretty much zero, sir. No one has reported seeing anything unusual, nothing we can use to get a judge to sign a warrant.”

  “What about smelling something unusual?” Adam pulled out his phone. “You cram a bunch of people in a small, tight container like that, even during the winter it’s going to stink. A cornucopia for air-scent tracking canines. If one of them alerts on a container, you’ve got your probable cause. No warrant needed.”

  He stepped away from them to speak on the phone for a moment. When he returned, he said, “I’ve got one of the National Park Service’s search-and-rescue teams on their way to the truck stop right now. ETA is only five minutes. The dog handler lives down the road from the truck stop.”

  Nash motioned toward the agent who’d been in charge of the original search. “Get our guys in the area to head over to the truck stop. Have them meet the SAR team and show them which rigs to check out.”

  “On it.” He punched some numbers on his phone.

&
nbsp; Ian moved to stand beside his brothers, so tense he felt like he’d explode any second. About ten minutes later, Nash’s phone rang. He answered, then set the phone on the desk. “You’re on speaker, Special Agent Bledzinski. Give us the status.”

  “Yes, sir. The dog’s here now. An agent is with the handler, directing him to the trucks.”

  The room went quiet, everyone listening as the agent continued to broadcast the status of the search.

  “What’s taking so long?” Nash demanded. “We’re only talking ten trucks.”

  “Yes, sir, but it’s a huge area to cover. The ones we need to search are spread out all over the place.”

  “Is there a yellow one?” Ian asked. “I remember a yellow rig at the back-left corner when I met Wolverine and his men there. He’s got a weird fascination with the color yellow.”

  Nash nodded. “Did you hear that, Bledzinski?”

  “Yes, sir. That rig is on our list. We’ll head there right now.”

  Ian’s stomach flipped. Adam put a hand on his shoulder while Colin and Duncan flanked him on the other side, all of them waiting.

  An excited bark sounded through the phone.

  “He’s alerted on the trailer, sir!” Bledzinski yelled.

  Ian waited, barely breathing as he listened intently.

  “No driver. The back is padlocked. They’re cutting it now.”

  Ian closed his eyes. Adam’s hand tightened on his shoulder.

  Chaos erupted through the phone. Some screams, shouts.

  “Bledzinski,” Nash demanded. “Sitrep. What’s going on? Bledzinski?”

  “Just a moment, sir.” There was more noise in the background, then the sound of static before Bledzinski’s voice sounded through the speaker again. “We’ve got them, sir. Thirty-one souls. And they’re all alive.”

  A chorus of yells sounded behind them where other agents and police had come into the office to listen to the search in progress.

  Adam grinned at Ian. “Thirty-one. You said there were thirty, plus Shannon makes thirty-one.”

  Ian forced a smile, but until he knew for sure that she’d been found, he wasn’t ready to celebrate. He crossed to the desk. His boss was on the side of the room now, speaking to some of the policemen. His phone was still sitting on the desk. Ian picked it up and spoke into it. “Special Agent Bledzinski, can you confirm that one of the women is Shannon Murphy?”

  “Of course. Hold on, sir.” He could be heard in the background yelling over the noise, asking if one of the women was named Shannon Murphy.

  It was an agonizing few minutes before he finally came back on the line. “Negative, sir. According to a woman here with a baby, Shannon was here. But she was taken away before we arrived.”

  Ian squeezed his eyes shut. Thirty-one, the thirty women in the photographs, plus a baby. Not Shannon.

  “How long?” he asked, his voice hoarse. “How long ago was she taken away?”

  “Approximately fifteen minutes, sir.”

  The room went silent again. Ian wanted to shout and storm and rage. Fifteen minutes. They’d missed her by fifteen minutes. But venting his anguish wouldn’t help her. And every moment he stood here doing nothing was a minute more that she was in Wolverine’s clutches.

  He grabbed the phone and began barking orders as he ran toward the kitchen. “See if the witness saw the vehicle that took Shannon. Check the surveillance video. Find out which way it turned once it left the truck stop. Put out a BOLO and get officers out on I-40. I need a description of that car, Bledzinski.”

  “Yes, sir. Working on it.”

  Ian stopped in front of the kitchen island and shoved his way in between some of the agents to look at the large map spread out on top.

  “Hey, wait a minute, here,” the agent complained.

  “Back off.” Colin moved into the room, followed by Adam and Duncan. “Give him space.”

  “Do it.” Nash ran in, slightly out of breath. He wedged his way in beside Ian. “We’ll talk about chain of command later, McKenzie. But I’ve got your car description.” He plopped a piece of paper onto the map. “It’s a Hummer H2. Yellow.”

  “Of course it is,” Ian muttered. “Which way did it go out of the truck stop?”

  “East on I-40.”

  Ian grabbed one of the pens on the island. “Assuming he’ll go the speed limit to avoid attracting attention, there’s only so far he could have gone. Roadblocks can be set up within ten minutes. Accounting for speed and distance...” He mentally made the calculations, then drew a large circle that encompassed the truck stop and a large radius around it. “We’ll need roadblocks here, here, here and here. And a lot of resources out searching.” He glanced up. “Assuming you approve, of course. Boss?”

  Nash rolled his eyes and grabbed his phone. “I’ll take care of it.”

  Ian tossed the pen on the island and motioned his brothers to follow him into the great room. “The state troopers will be looking for him on the interstate. That’s covered. Which means he’ll exit soon, if not already, and end up on one of the roads I marked on the map. That’s a lot of miles in between, from the truck stop to where they’ll set up the barriers. And there’s a lot of forest and rough terrain surrounding that area. With that Hummer, he could go off-road. I want to get out there and be a part of the search, try to figure out where he may have left the pavement. We’ll need every man or woman we can get.”

  “Four main roads,” Adam said. “Looks like we’re splitting up again.”

  They agreed which roads they’d cover. Ian looked at each of his brothers in turn, then cleared his throat. “She means the world to me. I appreciate this, more than you know.”

  “Then we’d better find her,” Adam said.

  They took off running for the door.

  Chapter Twenty-Five

  Ian passed half a dozen Gatlinburg police cars on his way down the road that he’d chosen to search. He was relieved that so many of them were out looking for Shannon. But like him, they must not have found any evidence of the Hummer having come this way, or he’d have received a call.

  He’d stopped at probably fifteen houses along the way doing knock and talks, seeing whether anyone had noticed the flashy yellow vehicle. But no one had. As he slowed to turn around at the roadblock to search this side road yet again, his phone buzzed in his pocket. He pulled to the shoulder and checked the screen. But he didn’t recognize the number. “Special Agent McKenzie.”

  “This is Special Agent Bledzinski. Nash gave me your number.”

  “Did someone find her?”

  “Uh, no, sir. Not that I know of. I’m still here at the truck stop, interviewing potential witnesses while the techs comb the inside of the truck and—”

  “Is this going somewhere, Bledzinski? I’m trying to find a missing woman.”

  “Sorry, sir. Yes, it’s just, well, I got a call from one of the women we rescued, the one with the infant. You remember, she was the one who saw Miss Murphy. Well, an agent at the hospital patched her in on a conference line with me so we could talk and—”

  “Bledzinski. Spit it out.”

  “Right. She said the suspect known as Wolverine said something odd to Miss Murphy. It was something along the lines of ‘Smile. You’re going to be on camera.’ Does that mean anything to you?”

  “You bet it does.” He ended the call, flashed his badge and drove around the roadblock. At the next turnoff, he punched the number for Adam and sped down the two-lane road.

  Adam answered on the first ring. “Ian, have you found her?”

  “No, but I think I know where she is. Remember I told you about that warehouse outside of town, the one where I was supposed to do the exchange to free the women? There were cameras all over the place. And the yellow index card read, ‘Smile for the camera.’ The woman who saw Shannon taken at the truck stop said the man
who took her said, ‘Smile. You’re going to be on camera.’ I think he’s taken her there so he can—” he cleared his tight throat “—so he can film whatever he’s going to do to her. He probably plans on sending it to me later, to make me suffer, after he makes his escape.”

  Adam swore. “Is Nash on the way with some agents?”

  Ian made a sharp left onto another side road and slammed the accelerator again. The Charger’s powerful engine whined as the car started up the mountain. “I haven’t told Nash or the others yet. This may be my only chance to save her. I’m worried some yahoo will go in hot with lights and sirens, speed up the access road and be seen by Wolverine’s cameras. This has to be done right, or she doesn’t stand a chance. I want the element of surprise on my side. But I can’t do this alone. I need someone I can trust.”

  “You can trust me, Ian. You can trust Colin and Duncan too. You know that, right?”

  He turned another curve, then began to slow. “I do. I’m trusting all of you with Shannon’s life. And mine. I need you to be my backup.”

  “Give me the address. I’ll contact the others.”

  He gave him the address. He pulled his Charger to the side of the road and popped open the glove box. Being deep undercover rubbing elbows with bad guys had its perks, like owning a picklock set and knowing how to use it. He shoved the kit into his pocket and headed into the woods.

  “I’m ten minutes from there,” Adam said. “I just texted Duncan and Colin. They’re even closer. We’ll all rendezvous on the access road. I assume there’s some tree cover close by so we can hoof it from there without being seen.”

  “There is. The best approach is behind the structure, the southwest corner.” He hopped over a small ditch and jogged up the other side, then took off running again. “I don’t remember any cameras back there since the lot doesn’t run behind the building. That’s where I’ll come in, and where you guys can come in once you get there.”