Chapter Twelve
Lucien and Damien met up with Basil and Kane at the dock where they’d just tied up the boat they’d ‘borrowed’ next to the boat Lucien and Damien had been following for hours.
Dropping their bundles, Lucien and Damien shifted.
Lucien surveyed the area while he and Damien dressed.
Kane and Basil were silent for several moments, but the silence reverberated with rage.
“She’s hurt,” Basil said when Lucien had finished dressing.
Lucien whipped a look at him. “How badly?”
Kane shook his head. “Couldn’t tell from the distance, but they’ve been using her as a punching bag,” he ground out. “We got here in time to see them tie up the boat. She didn’t look like she was conscious and, from what the fat guy said, he’d hit her pretty hard. He was just about to hit her again when the older guy pistol whipped him and carried her off over his shoulder.”
Lucien didn’t say anything for several moments. “Well, they were already dead men,” he ground out after a few moments. “Let’s see if we can keep cool heads until we’ve thoroughly reconnoitered the area. You two circle around in that direction. Damien and I will go this way.”
They split again, moving as stealthily as possible given the fact that they didn’t have the cloak of darkness to aid them. Lucien was severely put out that they didn’t. It would have been a hell of an advantage for them since their night vision was superior. It would’ve been like daylight to them but would’ve severely handicapped the other men. But since it wouldn’t be dusk for several hours and he wasn’t in the mood to wait, they had to work with what they had.
By the time they’d worked their way around to the building his nose was telling him held Laurie, they’d spied four lookouts on or near the buildings surrounding the one the kidnappers were using to hold Laurie. Basil reported six on their side when they arrived. It worried Lucien. It seemed more logical that if they had put six on one side they would’ve put six on the other and if he was right there were two that he had no idea of their positions.
It was particularly worrying to him because he didn’t plan on leaving any standing and they might have the chance to run—and get away—since he didn’t know where they were.
“Shit!” he hissed under his breath. “My head count was four. Basil—circle through our side and make another head count. We must have missed a couple. Then meet us back here. I’m going to try to get close enough to see what’s going on so I can figure out the best attack strategy.”
When Basil had left, Lucien surveyed the building, all that he could see of it. There wasn’t a sign of a window in any of the rusting metal sides except high on the walls, much too far up to get a look through any of them. They’d have to be geckos to get to them, he thought in disgust, and there was no sign of a fire escape—or a hole in the wall for all that the place looked like it was about ready to fall-in from rust deterioration. He sent Kane and Damien around one side while he followed the other, checking for a way in and/or a window they could get to to see and hear what was going on. They met up on the other side.
“Anything?” Lucien asked, not very hopeful since he hadn’t found anything.
Damien shook his head in disgust. “They aren’t stupid. Unfortunately. Whoever’s running the show knows what he’s doing.”
“There’s a building back there that’s lower. We might be able to get to the roof of it and jump across,” Kane suggested.
Lucien looked at Damien. He shook his head. “We’d have to shift to beast to make it and even then it would be iffy. It’s a good twenty to thirty feet. Plus the metal. Time we hit it they’d know we were here.”
“A lot of the windows are broken, though,” Kane persisted. “We’d be able to see and hear what was going on without a problem.”
They retreated a short distance to consider the situation. Basil joined them once more, reporting that he’d only seen four men himself.
So they still didn’t know if there were four on one side and six on the other or a dozen shooters scattered around the area. Lucien shook it off and focused on the more important issue of the moment—Laurie.
“I say we blitz the bastards and grab Laurie,” Damien growled.
“Which goes to show you aren’t thinking straight,” Lucien responded tightly. “We don’t know where she is or what the situation is. If there’s anybody close enough to blow her head off they could do it before we could stop it! We have to know her exact position and how close the closest guard is to her before we can even formulate a plan.”
“What about a diversion that would bring them out?” Basil asked.
Lucien considered it but shook his head again. “Same problem. They might decide to get rid of her. They might decide to use her as a shield or a hostage.”
“Well I don’t see how the fuck we’re going to manage that!” Kane said angrily. “We can’t fly!”
Lucien sent him a sharp look. “The angels can,” he said slowly.
“But are any of them close enough to do us any good?”
“We’ll find out,” Lucien responded to Damien’s comment, slipping his radio from his pants pocket and switching it on. “Raphael, come back.”
Static greeted the hail. Lucien waited a few minutes and tried again. “Raphael, come back. This is hell hound one.”
“Dark angel one here, hell hound. What ya need, mon ami?”
“Got a situation. Need eyes in the sky. What’s your twenty?”
“Same as it was last time we talked. Hill country. What’s the location you need surveyed?”
Lucien gave him the specifics. “How long would it take you to make the flight?”
There was silence for a few minutes. “Thirty to forty five. That could work out well on the spotting. It should be dusk by then.”
“Shit!” Basil snarled angrily.
Lucien glared at him.
“I’ll head down anyway, just in case. I might have somebody closer,” Raphael offered. “I could make a call.”
“You do that,” Lucien said, “And thanks. We’re going to see if we can see what we need to see. If we can’t arrange it, we’ll wait on backup.”
It was a hard decision, but then again every decision he’d had to make since Laurie had been taken was a hard one.
“We’re going to fall back and wait,” he finally said decisively.
“And if they kill her while we’re waiting?” Damien demanded angrily.
“I don’t fucking like it any better than you do, little brother,” Lucien growled. “But in case it hasn’t occurred to you, they’ve had plenty time and opportunity to kill her before now. They took her for some reason and that means they want her alive. And that means we have time to make the right decisions! I don’t know about you, but I’m going to have a hard time sleeping if we get her killed because I made the wrong call.”
They retreated to the boat Basil and Kane had ‘borrowed’, untied it, and moved it down river about a half a mile, far enough they thought it wasn’t as likely to be spotted as it had been. Lucien realized it had probably been a mistake to dock beside the kidnappers’ boat to start with, but he didn’t think any of them were really thinking very clearly or that it was the right time to chew Basil and Kane’s asses about it. He was doing his utmost, but unlike most of the situations they found themselves in, he was emotionally involved. They all were and that made it a hell of a lot harder to focus on their training.
He was afraid they were going to make worse mistakes and get Laurie killed if they couldn’t detach themselves enough to use their training.
Raphael arrived before they could totally lose their cool and do anything stupid, landing near the tree at the edge of the industrial park where they’d taken cover.
“Thanks for coming,” Lucien said cordially and proceeded to outline the situation and describe the location of the warehouse where Laurie was being held.
Maurice and Raoul, two other members of the dark angels, Raphael�
��s squad members, arrived while they were discussing the situation. That left them only one shy of two full squads and Lucien was already feeling better about their odds of getting Laurie back safely.
At Raphael’s suggestion, his men decided to fly reconnaissance of the area while he focused on trying to gather Intel on the target building. As soon as the light had dimmed enough they were reasonably confident they wouldn’t be spotted, the angels took flight.
Lucien and his men began making their way back to the target on foot so they could get into position to move fast once they knew exactly where Laurie was.
* * * *
Laurie didn’t know what made her look up. She hadn’t heard anything. At least she wasn’t aware of having heard anything. Maybe it was simply her sixth sense that set off alarms that she was being watched?
She didn’t know what she’d expected, but spotting an angel perched on the ledge of the ventilation window wasn’t it! Her heart threatened to leap out of her chest.
He met her gaze and lifted a finger to his lips in a silencing motion. Then his lips moved. Get ready. Help coming.
Laurie looked away as quickly as she could tear her gaze from him, fearful that she might have attracted attention to him. The man who’d carried her into the building, she saw, was heading back toward where he’d strapped her to a chair.
“You’re going to have to make a video message for daddy,” he said irritably. “They’re demanding proof of life.”
Laurie blinked at him. “What should I say?” she asked shakily.
“Tell him you’re ok but you won’t be if he doesn’t deliver the plans.”
“What plans?” Laurie asked blankly.
“Just say it.”
Taken aback by his vehemence, Laurie nodded jerkily.
Setting the phone camera down, he tied a scarf over the lower part of his face and walked toward her. Placing the barrel of his pistol against her skull, he prodded her.
Cold terror trickled down Laurie’s spine when she felt the hard, cold barrel against her head. “I’m fine, daddy. I’m not hurt. They want the plans, though. Please give them the plans!”
“Or I’ll blow her head off,” the man beside her growled.
Thankfully, he moved away after only a moment. Setting the gun down on the table where he’d set the phone before, he picked up the phone, attached the video he’d just shot to a message, and sent it.
Laurie had been wracking her brain to figure out what was going on since she’d overheard the conversation between him and someone else on the phone. Unfortunately, she didn’t know much about her father. He’d basically abandoned them after the divorce from her mother. She didn’t recall seeing him but once afterward. Of course, she’d been so small when they divorced she didn’t remember that at all, but she thought she must have been around six the last time she’d seen him.
She knew he was a scientist and he worked for the government. She’d never figured out what he did for the government and she was pretty sure she’d never heard her mother say anything that even hinted at what he did.
Maybe her mother hadn’t known?
Or maybe she did and that was why she’d never talked about it?
Truthfully, she’d never given that particular aspect any thought at all. She certainly hadn’t figured he did anything important enough to get her kidnapped!
And how the hell had they tracked her down anyway? She’d changed her name to her mother’s maiden name when her mother had died. It had been an act of defiance, an attempt to get back at him.
Pretty stupid and juvenile actually since she hadn’t seen or heard from him in years! She doubted he knew she’d changed her name to spite him.
But she’d wanted to divorce him, too, especially when he hadn’t shown up to comfort her mother toward the end. It would have cost him so little! And she knew her mother had never stopped loving him. She hadn’t turned to another man. She’d barely even dated in all the years since.
Unfortunately, she’d been so angry when her older brother and sister had supported him she hadn’t been in touch with them in years either. So, even if they knew, she’d missed the chance to find out what they knew.
That thought made her go cold all over. Her sister hadn’t changed her name. Even after she married, she’d kept her father’s name, merely joining it to her husband’s with a hyphen. And her brother, naturally enough, carried their father’s name. Worse, he was a junior so he had exactly the same name!
She tried not to think why they would have kidnapped her and not them, because she didn’t believe they would’ve needed to go to all the effort of tracking her down if her brother and sister and their children were available as pawns.
It made her feel like bursting into tears. She thought for several moments she was going to. She tamped it with an effort, reminding herself that she’d seen an angel and he’d promised deliverance.
* * * *
Raphael was still puzzling over what he’d overheard when he reached Lucien and his men again. “Who the hell is her father?” he asked as soon as he’d settled.
Lucien blinked at him. “Laurie’s?”
“Yeah, Laurie’s,” Raphael said dryly. “Unless they have two women they’re holding?”
Lucien looked at the others blankly. “Her father’s dead,” he responded finally. “According to her file, anyway.”
“Apparently not, mon ami! I had to wait to catch her attention. They’ve tied her to a chair that’s right in the middle of the damned floor and they have three guns on her from three different areas of the warehouse—besides the man that looks like he’s in charge. I’m guessing these men are good enough shots to take her out if anybody tries anything.
“It gets worse—the fourth man, the one in charge, is closer and also armed. Don’t act like somebody used to carrying a gun, though.”
“Fuck!” Lucien snarled instead of pointing out to his pack that he’d been right to hold off when they’d been trying to urge him to go. That wasn’t his style anyway and he was more worried about the situation than whether or not he’d been right. “We’re going to have trouble managing that. There’s only two doors in and out. No windows we can reach fast without giving ourselves away before we get there.” He paused, thinking. “What’s this about her old man?”
Raphael shook his head. “Damned if I know—but he must be pretty damned important. They’re holding her for some kind of plans—not money.”
Lucien blinked at him. “The plans must be worth a lot of fucking money if they’re willing to kidnap a woman being held in protective custody to bait the trap.”
Raphael’s dark brows rose almost to his widow’s peak. “How did they manage that, mon ami?”
Lucien glanced at the others, feeling his face heat.
“Never mind,” Raphael responded dryly. “I got a good look at her. I think I’ve got the picture.”
“Well you don’t fucking got it!” Kane growled. “If you’re thinking what I think you’re thinking! We checked that place from one end to the other—scoured it and every piece of anything we brought in looking for tracking devices. I still ain’t figured out how they managed to get close enough to grab her!”
Raphael looked at Lucien questioningly. “That’s the truth. They must have something we haven’t seen yet ….” He broke off, his eyes widening as the comment triggered another thought. “Holy hell! Why didn’t I think of that before?”
“What?” Damien demanded blankly.
“Connections, gods damn it! That’s one thing we’ve noticed since we’ve been here, right? This is a parallel universe. Everything is different but the people. Laurie’s alter ego was connected to us on the other side. We thought Laurie must be, too, but we hadn’t figured out how if that was the case.”
“Well, I still don’t see that we have!” Basil snapped.
“Something different?” Lucien said pointedly. “It would have to be some kind of surveillance we aren’t familiar with and who would develop something l
ike that?”
Kane frowned. “Her father?” he guessed.
Lucien gave him a sour look. “A company with a military contract. And a company with a military contract would be damned interested in the plans for a weapon that might create a vortex through time and space.”
They were all silent for a time, considering the implications of Lucien’s theory. “Well, it really sucks if you’re right,” Raphael said finally. “Because there’s no way we’re going to get Laurie out of there and still get this to go down where everybody’s happy. They haven’t bothered covering their faces and that tells me Laurie isn’t walking out of their alive whether they get the plans or not. Besides, I don’t think they’re communicating directly.
“It’s way too easy to track a cell phone down to its location and these guys look like professionals. They wouldn’t do anything that stupid. They’re sending it to somebody else who could be passing it from two or three different locations.
“And that’s assuming they have some clue of how to contact Laurie’s father. I’m not sure they do. In fact I’m almost positive the military has him hidden somewhere and they damned well wouldn’t be allowing him to receive private messages.
“So it wouldn’t do us no good even if we could track these guys back to whoever hired them. It’s Laurie’s father we need to track down.”
“Where did you get that Intel?” Damien demanded.
“The day we arrived. Amy told us about the guy that had developed the weapon. Well, the main brains behind it, but he disappeared before we could get hold of him.”
“When the hell did you plan on letting everybody else know?” Lucien growled.
Raphael glared at him. “I thought we were all chasing down potential leads and meant to share the info at the rally,” he growled. “I’m telling you what I’ve got at the moment—and that’s a lot of ifs and maybes.”
Lucien sucked in a calming breath and let it out slowly. “We’ll have to discuss this more thoroughly at a better time. Right now we need to get Laurie out of there.”
Mark of the Wolf; Hell's Breed Page 12
