Brie shook her head. She knew whatever they were trying to pressure Ryker into was horrendous and Ryker would break the law he’d spent his life upholding. Besides, she’d witnessed them kill one man, and probably another. Tears dripped off the bridge of her nose. Those men had wanted to use her to make Ryker break the law. He’d face an impossible decision. She closed her eyes and shook her head again. He wouldn’t—no, couldn’t—give in to criminals.
“Yes, that is exactly what I thought, too.” He stood and put his hands on his hips. “Sometimes people lose touch of the ideal of a business for profit versus a lifestyle. ‘Absolute power corrupts absolutely.’ I believe that is the saying used by many. It is true. Unfortunately for you, they forgot that the business can sustain loss and still be profitable.”
He turned to walk away, and Brie screamed behind the gag, begging him to let her go. He stopped and stood there, facing the door for a moment. “They declared war when they tried to kill your police captain. Now… well, the business will suffer from their delusions of grandeur. I need a few hours to arrange things, then I’ll be back for you. Hopefully, during my absence, Peña doesn’t die and Rubio doesn’t kill you.”
Ryker leaned back and looked down the table at his team. In anticipation of the warrants coming through, Deputy Commissioner Duckworth had formed an interdepartmental strike force led by Ryker’s JDET team. There were three buildings they’d descend upon simultaneously. Right now, only his sergeant, lieutenant, and Tiernan Conner, the captain in charge of the SWAT teams they'd use, were present. The Deputy Commissioner was to his right.
“Do you have everything you need?” Deputy Commissioner Duckworth picked up the stack of paperwork she’d been working through.
“Yes ma’am, I believe we do.” He glanced at Tiernan. “You good?”
“We are,” Tiernan nodded. “As soon as we get these blueprints uploaded to the computer systems, my men and I will develop a plan of attack. We’ll be ready.”
“I’ll brief Commissioner King. I believe someone in this room is still on medical leave.” She turned her dark brown eyes on him and pegged him with a stare.
“I am. I promise I won’t lift anything bigger than my cell phone.”
Fuck. Speaking of cell phones, he hadn’t called Brie. From the moment he’d placed the first call until this moment, he’d focused on nothing but the case. He glanced at the clock. Damn, it was almost eleven. He’d call her when the meeting broke up. She’d probably still be working at the restaurant, especially after a week away.
“See that you don’t. I won’t keep you away from this, but you are in the command vehicle. I find out you violate that order and I’ll bust your ass to beat cop and put you in the Desert. Copy?” Deputy Commissioner Duckworth was a ball buster and a damn good cop.
He tried not to smile, but he’d started his career in the Desert as a beat cop. Going back there wouldn’t be a hardship, although at almost forty-seven, working patrol again would be a grind. “Yes ma’am. I copy.”
She nodded and glanced at the rest of the men in the room. “Gentlemen, get your people organized. You’ve got seven hours until we pop those doors and hopefully take down Peña and Rubio once and for all.”
He waited until she left and asked for the blueprints. Once they had them unrolled and weighted down with coffee cups and soda cans so they wouldn’t curl in on themselves he spoke to his team leads. “Three locations at one time. It’s not the biggest sweep we’ve ever done, but the locations bridge a wide area. Team commanders will have comms on a common frequency so the command vehicle can keep you apprised. That’s you, you, and you––” he pointed at Tiernan, Brody, and Terrence, “and I want Patel, Driggers, and Montoya in the command vehicle. Those three have the most experience with command and control in these types of scenarios.”
“You got it.” Brody scribbled a note to himself.
Ryker stared at the maps. “According to Sarah, Peña and Rubio go nowhere without each other.” She’d given them three locations where they would be hiding. “According to her, Location One is where they’ve drywalled bales of money in the walls. Terrence, I want you there. Seizures of assets of this magnitude will require us to be anal with the paperwork and chain of custody. Make sure you take Mozinga, Turner, and Hayes. They can set up a count station while you and the rest of the team close all avenues of ingress or egress. Document everything with video. Once SWAT has cleared the building and you take control, nobody, and I mean nobody, goes in without my express authorization. The money haul will bring the entire alphabet soup to the table, but they don’t get to look for serial numbers until we have all the evidence cataloged.”
“We’ll be thorough.” Terrence tapped the blueprints. “I’ll pull tripods and cameras from the equipment room and we’ll float the video to the cloud and maintain a digital file.”
“Excellent. Brody, I want you on Location Number Three. According to Mouse, that’s where Peña’s death squads crash. We want to surprise them.” He glanced up at Tiernan. “I need massive confusion inside that house. I don’t want any casualties on either side. If we can flip even one of those fuckers, we’ll have closure on a litany of cases.”
Tiernan nodded. “We’ve got spotlights, speakers, flashbangs, and speed on our side. My guys will wear ear and eye protection, and we’ve practiced with these weapons of mass confusion. They are the best bet to get in and take charge of a volatile situation like this.”
“Good.” Ryker leveled his stare on his sergeant. “You let SWAT clear the house, then separate, process, and transport those men here. If we have too many for our holding cells, I want one of ours wherever we put these guys on ice. I don’t want them talking to anyone but us or their lawyers. Copy?”
Brody nodded. “We’ll have a patrol sit on them if they need ambulance transport to a hospital.”
“Good call. We have the Deputy Commissioner’s permission to use precinct-specific assets if needed. I’ll make sure the command vehicle officers have that information. Call it in if needed and we’ll get dispatch to send in what backup you need.” Ryker turned to Tiernan. “Location Two is where we believe Peña and Rubio are going to be. The warehouse had seven points of egress. My people can secure the outside until your people clear the building. According to Mouse, they converted the upper level into a living area. Downstairs is where they keep the drugs. Get this, the drugs are in semi-trailers. They back in, unhook the drug trailer, hook up to an empty, and head back to fill up again.”
“Fucking industrious of them, isn’t it?” Tiernan snipped. “I’ll call in another team. The square footage of this building requires it. If your people can cover the exits, we’ll sweep through the bottom as soundlessly as we can and work our way up. The structure prevents a rooftop down approach, and unlike the guys on television, we’re not going to rappel from the roof into a hostile environment. I kinda like my guys, plan on keeping them alive.”
“Not getting dead is our goal every day.” He sent a sweeping look at the three men with him. “Peña and Rubio are rattlesnakes, but they like the comfort and the sense of invincibility their money buys. We are striking a major blow in the morning. Let’s get our shit together and get ready.”
Brody handed him the blueprints. “SWAT has their copies, these are your copies for the command truck.”
“Thank you. What team is Amber on?”
“She’s with Rayburn and Watson on team one.”
Brody walked with him toward his office. “I can’t believe they’ve put money into the walls of the houses and drywalled over them. What if it fucking burns down? Idiots.”
Ryker chuckled and nodded toward his office. “I’m sure it sounded like a good idea at the time. Get your shit together, you don’t need to babysit me.”
“Now, Cap, would I do that?” Brody laughed when Ryker flipped him off as he retrieved his cell phone from his pocket. “Now that I’m living with your sister, yeah, you would.”
Brody shrugged and raised a hand as he
went to Theron’s office, no doubt to split up the thirty officers assigned to JDET.
Ryker opened his phone, scrolled to Brie’s number, and called. It rang through to voicemail. He glanced at the clock. Unusual. He dropped the blueprints onto his desk and sat down, taking his arm from the sling. He pushed her number again, and the phone went to voicemail again. A tremble of unease rolled across him.
The phone rang and he jumped to answer it, but the call wasn’t from Brianna, it was from her brother, Brock.
He slid his thumb across the face and barked, “What happened?”
“Is Brie with you?”
“No. I’m at work. Where are you?”
“Horizon. We have a double homicide and a pool of blood we can’t identify. Brie’s purse was on the ground by the back door, mixed with what we determined was a broken bottle of sauce. We've looked everywhere, but we can’t find her phone.”
“Did anyone see what happened?”
“The chef is pulling the tapes from the new camera system. He said Brie left about seven-thirty. Hang on, he’s got it up.”
“Fuck, I’m on my way.” He darted from his office and headed to the pegboard that held the vehicles assigned to the precinct.
“Ryker, have you tried to call her?”
He closed his eyes for a second. “It went to voicemail. Twice.”
“Okay, I’m putting you on mute while I watch the video, standby.”
Brock went silent as Brody and Terrence jogged toward him. “What’s up?” Brody asked as they approached.
He held the phone away from his face as he filled in Brody. “Double homicide outside of Horizon. Brie’s missing.”
“Missing? Fuck, I’ll drive.” Brody fished his keys from his pocket.
“Terrence, call the Deputy Commissioner and let her know what is happening. Pull in Thompson and Dodson, bring them up to speed just in case we don’t get back in time.” He headed to the door with Brody in tow as he shouted his commands.
“How long has she been missing?” Brody asked.
“Hold on,” he answered as they got into Brody’s truck. “Come on, Brock, tell me what’s on that video.”
“We have it. The clip is grainy, and it’s dark. It looks like she may have injured one of the men that trapped her. We have Subject One on tape shooting Subject Two and then running into the darkness in the direction we found the other body, Subject Three. Something happened and Brie got loose. The shooter, Subject One, tackled her. Her head bounced hard on the asphalt. He drove up in a late model blue SUV with chrome bumpers. No plate. He threw her in the back and loaded the man she evidently injured and escaped from, Subject Four, into the front. By the amount of blood where he fell, she had to have shot him or maybe stabbed him, trying to get away. I know she has a concealed carry permit. Was she packing heat? Did something happen?”
“She had her tire slashed a while back. That’s why she had the video camera installed.” Brody hit the lights and siren and took the corner out of the parking lot on two wheels. Ryker grabbed the ‘Oh, shit’ bar with his good arm and pinned his phone to his ear with his weak arm. “Can you get an ID on the video?”
“We’ve already sent it to tech, but the original is still on her computer. If this is related to the attack on you, my bet is you can ID the guys.” Brock sighed. “I’ve seen some half-faced surveillance photos of Rubio and Peña. These guys could be them. Same size, but I don’t know.”
“Fuck. All right. Have you called your father?”
“No. I haven’t. I don’t want to make that call.” Brock’s voice shook. “They are letting me stay, but for obvious reasons, it isn’t my case. Get here before they pull me away. I’ll call Dad.” Brock ended the call.
“What did he say?” Brody swerved around one of the few vehicles on the road that didn’t bother to get the hell out of his way.
Ryker explained what Brock had relayed. “She’s not dead.” Brody spoke the words, probably to reassure himself.
Ryker nodded in agreement and ground his teeth together. If she’d killed one of those bastards, the other would make her pay, and from the horror stories that Mouse had told him, he prayed for that bastard to live.
They slid to a stop at the entrance to the alleyway and both of them sprinted under the yellow crime scene tape. Brody flashed his badge, stopping the uniforms on the perimeter from giving chase. They followed the cleared area to the back door of the restaurant.
Ryker tried to breathe on the way to Brie’s office. It wasn't working. An iron fist squeezed his chest with relentless pressure. Brock stood beside another detective. “Play it again.” Ryker tried again to control his breathing as he focused on the screen.
“Motherfucker. That’s Peña,” Brody said, his chest heaving just like Ryker’s.
Ryker pointed to the second man who moved forward.
“Yes, that's Peña. This man is Rubio. I don’t have a clue who the blond man is.” The video showed Rubio put a bullet in the man’s brain. “Was.”
Ryker watched as Rubio bolted down the alley and Brie struggled with Peña. There was no way to tell what happened, but Peña went down and Brie flew toward the back door of the restaurant. That’s when Rubio tackled her. Both he and Brody winced at the violent way her head hit the pavement. Fuck.
“Dad’s on his way,” Brock said as the video stopped.
Ryker’s phone vibrated, and he glanced down at it. An unknown number. “Unknown number. Keep quiet.” Everyone in the room stopped and waited.
He swiped the face. “Captain Ryker Terrell.”
“She is alive.”
“Who is this and how can I know for sure you’re not lying?” People were scrambling quietly to put a trace on his telephone number.
The cool, cultured voice with only the slightest trace of an accent said, “I am a businessman who has a vested interest in your woman staying alive.”
“Businessman. You mean competitor.” Ryker glanced at Brody who gave him a hand signal telling him they’d started a trace on his number.
“I wasn’t until tonight.”
“Ah, then someone who is rising from among the ranks.”
“Someone that knows business doesn’t benefit from a war with the police department.”
“You think if you give her back unharmed that I won’t pursue you?”
There was a laugh at the other end of the line. “I would be deeply disappointed if you did not chase. That is the game, after all. Now, I must go liberate your woman. Be at the Pier Point dock in forty-five minutes. Come alone or she dies. I don’t want a war, Captain, but I will fight one if need be.”
Ryker swore when he realized the man had disconnected. It hadn’t been long enough for a trace, had it?
Brody listened on his phone and closed his eyes. He shook his head as he disconnected the call.
“Damn it.”
“You can’t go.” The detective that Brock was standing by spoke for the first time since they’d entered the office.
“The hell I can’t.” Ryker pushed his way from the office.
The cop grabbed his good arm. “He’ll kill both of you.”
“He may.” Ryker jerked his arm from the man’s grasp. “Brody, Brock, with me.”
“You can’t go. This is my investigation.” The man damn near screamed the command.
Ryker spun on the man and let the rage he felt loose. “No! The double homicide outside was your investigation. It is tied to a JDET case. You have zero authority over a damn thing involving it, so stand the fuck down before I put you on your ass!”
“Captain Terrell!”
He spun at his name, barely controlling the rage seething through him. Commissioner King strode through the front of the restaurant. “Brody, Brock, you and the Captain meet me in the front.”
“But–” Ryker motioned to his phone.
“I know you’re not questioning my order, are you, Captain?”
“No, sir.” He fumed and marched to the front of the restaurant. He c
ould hear Chauncey talking, but he didn’t give a fuck. He was going in after Brie and nothing was going to stop him. He flung the door open and stopped dead. Two SWAT vehicles were idling on the curb. Colonel Hodgkins, the man in charge of the Special Weapons and Tactics branch of HCPD, motioned to the command vehicle. “We need to know what you have.”
He glanced at Brody and then Brock. They all turned when Brie's father slammed the front door of the restaurant open. “We’re wasting time.” He marched past them. “What do you have?”
Ryker followed him. “Rubio took her. We believe she critically injured Peña because of the blood evidence left. But… I received a call about five minutes ago.” He relayed the conversation word for word.
Chauncey smoothed his mustache. “Walt, we need that area covered. Soundlessly. If that bastard sees anything, he’ll kill my girl. Ryker, you aren’t going in light. We need body armor and I want him wired, and he needs to hear us without this fucker seeing an earpiece. Can you provide that?”
“We can. I’ll have it brought to the rally point.”
“No. No rally point. If this guy is really from Peña’s crew, he’ll have eyes on the street. We need to slip in.” Ryker stopped the conversation. “We know Peña’s crew. They are going to follow the money. Sure, there will be a few faithful to Rubio and Peña, but that’s his problem if he’s going to force a coup.”
“Will he be able to organize so quickly?” the Colonel asked.
“He’ll have a backbone in place. He’d be a fool to take on those two without some support.”
“Then we move in silently. Let the men take their personal vehicles to darkened parking areas close enough to get us there and set up. We need to move now.” The Colonel looked at Chauncey. He glanced at Ryker. “Will it work?”
“Our best shot is me going in alone. If you’re not allowing that, then yes, silent from numerous points, and not one team moving from a single point would cause less suspicion.”
Ryker (Hope City Book 5) Page 16
