Pasting on an expression of indifference, she tried to act like the sight of him wasn’t breaking her heart. “Something wrong, Doug?”
He stopped in front of the stroller and gave the baby a quick smile. “Hey, kiddo.” His gaze then flittered to Jenn. “No, nothing’s wrong, at least not here. I was heading over to the studio to check in with Kristen and Angie. The Steel Corps team landed in the Philippines and met up with Carter and Jordyn.”
T. Carter and his girlfriend, Jordyn Alvarez, were good friends of Jenn’s uncles. While they were introduced to most people as the executives of an import/export company, Jenn knew that wasn’t true. She didn’t know the extent of who they really were, but they were operatives for one of the US agencies. She suspected the CIA or NSA but wasn’t certain. All she did know was that if anyone at Trident needed them, the couple would be there in a heartbeat and vice versa. Carter had even helped rescue Jenn and Angie when they’d been taken hostage a few years ago.
“Do they know where Grandma Marie is yet?”
Doug hesitated, and that made her stomach drop. But then he said, “I don’t have all the details, but they’ve been able to track the signal from her watch to a residential area. We think she and the nurse are okay for now. I wish I could tell you more but . . .”
“That’s okay. I’m used to it.” Her father had been on the same SEAL team as Ian, Devon, Brody, Jake, Marco, and Boomer. Between the seven of them, they had a lot of secrets about their classified missions that they couldn’t tell anyone who didn’t “need to know.” She’d learned a long time ago she wouldn’t get the details of any of their tours or assignments. Her parents had been killed because of one of those secrets during Jenn’s senior year in high school. Since then, she’d been trying to deal with that fact as best she could.
“Well, at least I can give Kristen some good news.” He held up a piece of paper. “With a little help from Nathan, I was able to figure out who her plagiarist is.”
Jenn’s eyes went wide. “Who?”
“Some twenty-three-year-old guy in Canada pretending to be a woman. He’s in a lot of author and reader groups on Facebook under his real name and has an author page under the fake one.”
“Seriously? How’d you find that out?”
He shrugged and gave her a sheepish smile. “It was more Nathan’s doing than mine. I just did what he told me to do and searched what he said to search. How he can work more than one problem at a time is beyond me. The kid’s a genius and deserves every penny the bosses pay him.”
Jenn had no idea how much her uncles were paying Nathan, but it had obviously been enough to lure him into the private sector. He was also a really nice guy, just a couple of years older than her. When her e-reader had been giving her trouble recently, and Brody hadn’t been around, Nathan had quickly fixed it for her.
“Will Kristen be able to sue him for any money he’s gotten from the stolen book?”
“Yeah, but I’m not too sure it would be worth her time. Nathan had me use this tool that showed the rankings for the book since it’d been published, and at most, he only made about a hundred bucks or so. If he’d had a larger following, it might have been a different story.”
JD started to fuss, so Jenn pushed the stroller back and forth. “So, he gets away with it?”
“That’s up to her. I just checked and all three of the guy’s books are down. From what Kristen told me earlier, he’ll probably get his entire account shut down too. My guess is he saw some scam post or something about how to publish books without writing them and make a lot of money. I found a bunch of them while I was researching the guy. There’s a scam for everything nowadays.”
“Seems to be.” Jenn scrambled to think of something else to say, something that would keep Doug there, talking to her. This was the first real conversation they’d had since the kiss they’d shared, and she didn’t want it to end. God, she was a hopeless romantic whose object of her affection wanted to be nothing more than friends at the very most, and acquaintances that barely said hello to each other, at the very least.
In the uncomfortable silence that ensued, Doug glanced down at the stroller, then lowered his voice. “He’s asleep.”
Leaning forward, Jenn peered under the shade canopy. Sure enough, JD was out like a light, and that gave her an idea. “Great. I’ll walk back to the studio with you. It’s cooler in there for him.” Anything to spend a few more minutes with the man who owned her heart—too bad he didn’t want it.
7
Thanks to T. Carter and his black-ops connections, the Trident Security teams landed at a covert US-Philippines allied military training base where they wouldn’t have to deal with customs. They also wouldn’t have to answer any questions about why they were there.
The jet taxied into a private hangar where everyone began to disembark. Waiting for them were four nondescript vans, Chuck Sawyer, Pierce, Red, Carter, and Jordyn. The latter two were operatives of a clandestine US-government agency, Deimos, and good friends of the original TS Alpha team. They were also a couple and had been the first two calls Ian had made after contacting his brothers, their teammates, and the pilots. As per Carter’s and Jordyn’s system, he’d left voicemail messages for each, not knowing if they were together or not. Thankfully, they’d gotten back to him right away and had been somewhere close enough to get there before everyone else. There were very few people Ian trusted to keep his family safe, and most of them were now present.
Pierce and Red headed for the jet, pausing to shake hands with Ian, Devon, Nick, and Jake along the way, and joined the rest of the operatives unloading the go-bags, equipment, and weapons. Reaching the others, Ian approached his father first and pulled him into a hug. “We’ll get her back, Dad.”
“I know you will, son.”
Devon embraced the Sawyer patriarch next. “Hey, Dad. How’re you holding up?”
“A lot better now that you’re all here.” He glanced sheepishly at the couple standing nearby. “No offense to Carter, Jordyn, and the other team you sent, of course.”
He squeezed his father’s shoulder. “I’m sure there’s none taken.”
While Nick and Jake greeted Chuck, Ian turned his attention to the two Deimos spies. “Thanks for coming. Hope we didn’t interrupt anything important.”
Jordyn smiled and gave him a kiss on the cheek. “Nothing that can’t wait, so no worries. I’m glad we could help; Marie means a lot to us.”
That was their mom—she meant a lot to many people. Ian didn’t think she’d ever met someone she didn’t win over almost immediately. No matter how busy she was, she always gave everyone her utmost attention, making them feel they were the center of her world at that very moment. She was a great listener and if anyone was special to her husband or her sons, they were special to her too, even if she’d just met them. This was not just an assignment to anyone there—it was to rescue a woman they all loved and respected.
Ian shook hands with Carter. “Got an updated sit-rep for us?”
“Yup, and you’re not gonna like it. But let’s get out of here first. We’ve got a few rooms at a hotel near the target site. Hopefully, we won’t need them for long.”
Giving Carter a curt nod, Ian fought the urge to tell him to spit out the intel. But the spy was right—this wasn’t the place for it. They weren’t on their home turf. The hotel would be more private—and they’d brought signal jammers with them to block any bugs or long-range listening devices. Being paranoid in their business was a good thing.
“Let’s finish loading up and get going.” He’d call Angie on the way to the hotel and let her know they’d arrived safely. He also wanted to make sure she hadn’t gone into labor and not contacted him on the jet’s phone for fear she’d worry him. If she was in labor, there wasn’t a damn thing he could do about it from there. One of the hardest things he ever had to do was push his wife and unborn child to the back of his mind. Right now, though, he had to focus on rescuing his mother, the only other woman who could
bring him to his knees.
A half hour later, they were gathered in one of the penthouse suites of the hotel. The décor was a little over the top, but it didn’t matter. What did matter was there was plenty of room for them to prepare to go to war. And it was definitely a war they were heading into—those bastards had his mother, and hell was about to rain down on them.
Gathered in a combined dining/living area, they listened as Carter filled them in on his last conversation with Jones. He pointed to the image on the iPad Jordyn was holding up. “Crisanto de la Vega—runs the Davao del Norte division of the Barrera cartel.”
There were a few muttered curses around the room. The Barrera cartel was to the Philippines what the Diaz cartel had been to South America. The head of that snake, Emmanuel Diaz, had been killed by his second-in-command, Felix Secada, before he, in turn, had been killed by Darius during an undercover op that had gone FUBAR. Darius had shoved Secada’s nose into his brain while rescuing Princess Tahira of Timasur, who was now his new bride.
Ian was getting really sick of dealing with drug cartels. “What’s that got to do with our mom?”
Swiping the screen, Jordyn brought up another image—this one was of an Asian man. “Xiao Zhihao—one of the Barrera’s hitmen. MSS just bumped him up into their Top Ten Most Wanted.” The Ministry of State Security was China’s CIA counterpart. Can this shit get any worse?
“Who do they suspect he killed?” Nick asked.
Standing with his arms crossed over his chest, Ian responded before anyone else could, “Kang Zhi, Chinese ambassador to Bahrain and reputed presidential candidate for the next election.” It was a wild guess, but an educated one. “Kang was shot and killed, along with one of his bodyguards, three nights ago. MSS has been holding back a lot of the intel from the press, and they’ve been trying to pass it off as a home invasion gone wrong.”
Carter nodded. “You watch way too much CNN and BBC, dude, but you’re right, as usual. During our recon of the compound earlier, Jordy got a glimpse of Xiao, when he arrived at the compound late last night, and recognized him.”
“We’ve crossed paths before,” the female spy added. Considering some of her assignments involved assassinations of foreign threats to the United States, it made sense she would recognize a peer, even if the man didn’t have a conscience like she had. “I called a contact at MSS, and they confirmed, unofficially of course, that a surveillance camera caught just enough of the assassin’s face to verify it was Xiao.”
“Okay, again, what does this have to do with our mom?” Nick interjected.
“Word is,” Carter explained, “de la Vega has a state-of-the-art surgical suite at the compound.”
Almost everyone in the room made the connection right away after hearing that, but it was Ian who spoke. “They needed a plastic surgeon to reconstruct Xiao’s face so he’s no longer recognizable.”
“Yup. Apparently, the doc who’d done the last few surgeries for de la Vega, in exchange for cancelling some of his gambling debts, got a little too greedy and tried to blackmail him and whomever he’d operated on. The doc’s body was found not too long ago, missing both its hands and head.” That wasn’t an uncommon form of revenge in this region. “From the activity we observed at the compound, my guess is Marie will be doing the surgery sometime this morning.” He slid a piece of paper into the middle of the table. “Here’s the layout of the compound. We think this building here is where the surgical suite is located. Marie and the nurse, Jocelyn, are probably being held in the main house and treated well, although they most likely threatened Jocelyn to ensure Marie would do the procedure.”
Studying the crudely-sketched map, Ian pushed aside all thoughts of what his mother had to be going through and began doing one of the things he did best. He started formulating a plan of attack with a take-no-prisoners strategy. The clock was ticking.
8
Chuck sat on one of the living room chairs, then popped right back up again. He was slowly going crazy. His sons and their friends and teammates had left an hour ago in broad daylight, although they would’ve preferred it had been under the cloak of darkness. Their plan was to infiltrate the compound where Marie and Jocelyn were being held any minute now. Devon had explained to him that the best time to attack the enemy was in the wee hours of the morning. If they weren’t already asleep, their guards would be down—boredom and exhaustion made a person’s reaction time much slower. Unfortunately, they didn’t think Marie and Jocelyn had until the morning to be rescued. There was a strong possibility the two women would be killed after the surgery, since they could identify both Xiao and de la Vega.
“The waiting is almost as bad as the worry, isn’t it?” CC Chapman asked as he exited one of the penthouse’s bedrooms and stretched. The aviator had taken the opportunity to take a shower after spending over eighteen hours in the jet’s cockpit. His co-pilot had stayed with the aircraft in the private hangar to make certain it was properly refueled and nobody messed with it.
“Pretty much. I just made a new pot of coffee—help yourself.”
“Thanks.”
As the retired Air Force pilot shuffled into the kitchen, Chuck sat down again and turned on the volume of the muted television. He had no idea what the CNN newscaster was reporting, nor did he care—it just gave the room some white noise to distract him from his worst thoughts.
Even without their specialized training, Chuck knew his sons would do everything possible to rescue their mother. While he’d wanted to be there when Marie was brought safely from the compound, he understood he would’ve just been in the way. To kill some time, he’d called the main offices of Operation Smile and given them an update. When he’d spoken to them yesterday, after talking to Ian, he’d asked directors to keep the news of the missing women quiet for now. At first, they’d objected, but once he’d explained who his sons were and what they were going to do, they’d relented and agreed it was in the women’s best interest for the rescue to be done under the radar.
Chuck couldn’t imagine life without his beloved wife. They’d seemed like a mismatched couple when they’d first met. With only an associate degree in business administration, Chuck had followed his mother’s footsteps into real estate. When he’d been younger, and money had been tight at times, she’d taken him on many of her appointments, showing prospective buyers the local listings. Somewhere along the line, Chuck had become a bit of a salesman in his own right during those times. He’d tell young parents or newlyweds about how the backyard of a certain house was a great place for kids, or other things like that.
The night he’d met the woman who would become his wife, Marie O’Toole had been out with friends, enjoying a brief period of downtime in between her four years of medical school and starting her residency. He’d been out celebrating closing on the most recent property he’d sold as a real estate agent—it’d been his first seven-figure sale, which had netted him a hefty commission. Chuck had seen the lovely doctor across the bar room and had fallen in love. By the end of the night, he’d convinced her to have coffee with him the next day. That’d been the start of their budding romance, which was still going strong to this very day.
While they’d had their ups and downs, like every couple did, their marriage had thrived as she’d become one of the top plastic surgeons in North Carolina and he’d invested well in real estate and had created a billion-dollar empire. It had all started with a foreclosed apartment building he’d bought, two years before their first son had been born. Sawyer-O’Toole was now one of the biggest corporate, commercial, and residential real estate firms on the east coast. But Chuck and Marie had never taken their wealth for granted and refused to let their sons do that either.
After welcoming, Ian, their firstborn, into the family, Devon and then John had followed. Nick, the youngest, had been a pleasant surprise for the couple, after several years of thinking they wouldn’t have any more children. Nick had been six years old when Ian had left to join the Navy after his high-school grad
uation. Despite having trust funds set up for his boys, Chuck had insisted each one get either a four-year college degree or spend that time in a branch of the military. While they’d gotten a small stipend from their trusts, between their teens and twenties, they didn’t get to manage their own accounts until they’d reached thirty. Well, that had been true for Ian and Devon. When twenty-seven-year-old Nick had gotten married to Jake a few months ago, Chuck had gifted his youngest son full control of his trust.
As for John, Chuck’s heart still squeezed when he thought of his third oldest son. Somehow, as close as their family had been and still were, they’d all missed the signs that the senior in high school had developed a severe drinking problem. Others might ask, “How could you not know what was going on under your own roof?” But, like most alcoholics, John had become adept at hiding his addiction. By the time his parents had found out about it, it’d been too late.
Chuck would never forget that fateful day. Marie had been at her private practice; Ian had been on the other side of the world; Devon had been away at college; and little Nick had been in elementary school. It’d happened only a few days after the Christmas/New Year’s break. John was supposed to have been in class too, but, for whatever reason, he’d returned home after everyone else had left for the day. He’d gotten drunk, vomited, and then aspirated, dying two full hours before Chuck had swung by the house to get some papers he’d forgotten. He’d found his son unresponsive on the kitchen floor, and despite his efforts to revive him, when the paramedics responded, they’d gently told a devastated Chuck there wasn’t anything they could do to save his boy. Rigor mortis had already begun to set in. One and a half empty bottles of vodka had been found, and when the coroner’s report came back, it’d stated John’s alcohol level had been four times the legal limit. Over the next few days, while waiting for Ian to fly back to the States for the funeral, Dev had learned from John’s friends the extent of his alcoholism.
Torn in Half: A Trident Security Novella: Book 8.5 Page 5
