“I think that’s a solid plan,” Noah agreed.
Micah knew what this could potentially mean. He rubbed a hand down over his mouth.
“You’d think they’d avoid daylight and wait until dark to unload.” Wild squinted at the images.
“No, look.” Noah walked over and pointed. “Satellite shows them backing ass-end up to this warehouse. They wouldn’t need to wait until dark, nobody can see what they’re loading or unloading. They could unload trafficking victims twenty four hours a day and nobody would ever know.”
“We’ll go in just before dawn,” Roscoe ordered.
“That’s twelve hours away.” The paper crinkled in his grip.
“I say nine,” Roscoe replied. “We’ll need a few hours to gather other agencies, get in position, and then hit the warehouse just before first light.” Roscoe glanced at his watch. “It’s six o’clock. Let’s get out of here by three a.m. Get some sleep if you can.”
“I’ll make sure the buggy’s ready.” Reggie said.
Nine hours… Nine long hours…Micah looked down blindly and stood. “I’ll do a weapons check.” Dropping the bank account papers on the table, he headed toward the door.
“I have a better idea,” Noah said.
Micah turned back and froze.
Noah looked searchingly at him.
His heart stuttered and he squeezed his hands into fists.
“I agree,” Seth said, and Micah stared at his friend, his eyes burning. “I think it’s time you trusted them enough to tell them what’s going on,” Seth finished quietly, not helping him at all. The rest of the team looked at Seth, but the man said nothing.
“You know?” Noah’s mouth dropped open.
“It wasn’t my story to tell,” Seth said quietly, and after a brief moment, Noah nodded.
The room grew eerily silent, all eyes turned toward him. He darted a desperate look at Alex, hoping to break through the man’s coolness.
Alex closed his eyes for one brief moment, sat the coffee cup down, and came forward.
Micah’s gaze clung to the man’s large and confident form, wishing for half his confidence right then.
“You don’t need to do it now.” The man’s words were a low murmur when the he grew close.
Alex seemed to know just what to say to give him the courage to speak. “No, it’s time,” he whispered, holding the man’s gunmetal gray eyes. Alex gently took his arm and Micah followed the man back to the large table. He gripped the back of one chair and slowly lowered to sit. Chairs scraped against the floor as the rest of the team moved around and took seats across from him. To his right, several chairs over, Alex took a seat at the end of the table, keeping distance between them. Micah looked down at his hands before glancing up at the concerned faces of the people who sat across from him.
“Please,” Allison urged quietly. “We care about you.”
He glanced up at the ceiling and locked his hands at his nape. Drawing in a deep breath, he let it out and dropped his arms. Rubbing his fingertips along one eyebrow, he spoke in a low voice. Once he started, the words spilled out.
“I need to start back at the beginning,” he said quietly. “My mother abandoned my brother and me when Caleb was three and I was sixteen. Our dad wasn’t in the picture. I never knew who he was.” His mother had been a crystal meth addict with a long string of boyfriends Micah had had to protect his baby brother from. He left that part unsaid.
“Where’d you go?” Noah frowned.
“My aunt and uncle took us in. When I turned twenty, I went into the military. I went back when I was discharged and stayed for a year. I left again after I joined Phoenix, but I made it a point to go back for the holidays.”
“What happened?” Allison asked.
“They just have a lot of kids to deal with. I have a lot of cousins. And as sweet as he looks, my brother can be difficult, opinionated, and headstrong. About two years ago, I got a call from my aunt and uncle. Caleb had run away five times and they were done. They were threatening to kick him out.” The silence grew and he looked around the room.
“I flew out and got him. I knew it was a lot to take on,” he admitted. “But I’m making a pretty good living working for Phoenix. I brought him home.” He darted a quick look at Alex, but the man’s face was slightly turned away.
“I never even knew you had a brother,” Wild said softly, drawing his attention. Lines creased the tracker’s forehead.
“I didn’t know you use to have one either, Wild,” he said back.
Wild stared at him and gave a slow nod.
Micah looked around at the team. “Seriously, how many of us keep secrets from the others?”
“He’s right,” Roscoe said slowly. “We’ve all had our secrets.”
“It didn’t start out that way. I planned on bringing Caleb around,” he promised them.
“So the year you were gone, you were with Caleb?” Allison asked, her voice a whisper.
“Yes.” He threw Alex another quick glance. This time, he found the man with his arms folded against his chest, legs outstretched, studying his boots. “There was an adjustment period. Caleb had just turned seventeen. It’s a tough age.”
“Yes it is,” Storm drawled, and Micah was reminded that Roscoe, Storm, and Wild were raising a sixteen year old boy.
“Yeah,” he nodded. “Caleb is a handful. He was adjusting to a new school, a new house, trying to get acclimated to a new area. It took a while, but over time, he grew more settled.” He’d noticed a big positive change in his little brother’s behavior a few months before he was about to turn eighteen.
He cleared his throat and the room grew strangely quiet. “I was set to come back to work, but then…Caleb was taken.” He looked blindly down at his hands. A few people gasped.
“Taken?” Noah asked.
“Yes, abducted off the street.”
Allison held a hand over her mouth and looked at him with wide, sorrow-filled eyes. The rest of the team was looking at him with sympathetic gazes, a few understanding, most of them shocked.
“Fuckin’ Christ.” Storm pulled a hand over his mustache and down his beard.
Seth broke the silence. “Tell them what happened after Caleb was taken,” his best friend said.
He nodded and recited the chain of events. “In August of last year, a month before his eighteenth birthday, Caleb was snatched off the street. Several eye witnesses said there were five, possibly six, men.”
The room was so quiet, he could hear his own pulse beating. “I came into Phoenix headquarters a few weeks later when there were no leads and the trail went cold.” He looked down at his hands, and then took a deep breath because even Seth didn’t know the next part.
“Then, Vladimir put the word out in February that he had a message for Giovanni Rossi. One of our contacts called because they were concerned.” He paused, struggling.
“What was the message?” Wild leaned forward.
“Vladimir had Caleb and wanted to do a trade. Caleb for Rossi.”
“The hell?” Seth said.
“Fuck that!” Noah snapped. “No way in hell is he getting his hands on my father.”
“Damn right, he’s not,” Alex finally spoke, bringing his head around, but the man was gazing toward the door.
Micah turned in his seat and the rest of the room did as well to find Rossi standing in the doorway, leaning a shoulder against the door jamb.
Micah went on doggedly trying to get it all out. “When I found out about Oregon, I headed there and saw Vladimir with Caleb escaping on an ATV. Of course, you all know he got away. I haven’t been able to find Vladimir since.”
“So, since August of last year, you’ve been hunting for your brother?” Wild’s kind gaze met his.
“Yes,” he said softly.
“And you didn’t think we should know?” Allison asked.
He ran a hand through his hair, and then brushed it back over one shoulder.
“I asked Lash not to tel
l you that Vladimir had taken Caleb,” Rossi cut in quietly. Micah shifted in his chair to face his boss. “So blame me. Keeping quiet about Caleb and Vladimir’s desire to trade the boy was my decision.” Rossi looked around the room.
“Well, that’s fucking cold,” Storm growled.
“Easy,” Roscoe warned. Storm traded a look with his lover.
“It wasn’t meant to be cold.” Rossi sighed tiredly. The room grew quiet as all eyes focused on the man. “While I was negotiating with Vladimir, I wanted the unit focused on the task of taking down the Lakhonin empire. I’d hoped in doing so, we’d recover Caleb in the process.”
“And I agreed,” he said after the chief finished. “Not only would the whole unit have been driven to find Caleb, but you would have also been dealing with the added stress of having Rossi even thinking of an exchange.”
“Wait…” Frost frowned. “Negotiate? You’re negotiating?”
“I am,” Rossi nodded.
“So…what did Vladimir say when you said you weren’t going to trade yourself for Caleb?” Seth asked.
“I didn’t tell him no. I told him I’d trade either Yakov or Gustov for Caleb.”
There was a low murmur around the room.
“Vladimir responded and said he’d take Gustov. I responded and said send me the details,” Rossi finished.
“And what did he say?” Wild’s mouth gaped.
“He never responded again.”
“When was his last message?” This time Frost spoke.
“Right before the Oregon raid in February.”
“That’s five months ago,” Noah said slowly.
“So…maybe he lost Caleb,” Wild said.
“Or Caleb is dead,” Allison whispered.
“Yes, he could be.” Micah’s head snapped around. “But I’m not going to stop looking until I know for sure,” he growled.
“We aren’t either,” Storm rumbled.
“Is that why you went to Russia?” Reggie asked.
Micah nodded. “Yes. I thought that the silence meant that Vladimir had left the States.”
A long silence filled the room.
“I hope that at least gives you some answers as to the secrecy. As soon as the negotiation and exchange details were set, I planned on having a meeting.” Rossi said. “But as of yet, there’s been nothing but silence from the man.”
The room grew painfully quiet as everyone mulled over and digested the information. Micah could see that some didn’t agree with Rossi’s decision to keep quiet, but there was nothing to do but forge on.
Roscoe broke into the thick, sudden silence. “Where was Caleb snatched from?”
“Walking home from school,” Micah murmured.
“That’s fucked up,” Rush muttered.
He nodded and toyed with his phone on the table and pushed it over to Wild, who sat across from him. Wild glanced down at the phone and then lifted it. “Is this Caleb?”
Micah nodded, and after a moment, Wild passed the phone to Storm. Once everyone got a look at his brother, the phone was passed to Alex. The man looked at it and then stood and brought the phone to place on the table in front of him. Micah glanced down and flipped the phone face down, tucked his hands into his pockets, and stretched out his legs beneath the table.
Alex’s warm hand clasped his shoulder and his breath came out with a stuttering whoosh. The man didn’t go back to the end of the table, but instead, sat in the chair directly beside him.
“Okay, let’s gather the facts. You said that Vladimir had Caleb at the Oregon compound,” Allison said.
“Yes, he had my brother in that helicopter when he left.”
“That’s why that motherfucker gave that two fingered salute!” Wild’s mouth gaped at the realization. The team knew about the moment, it was in the debriefing details after the raid on Oregon. Micah didn’t respond, and by the looks on the faces in the room, he didn’t need to.
“The construction workers arrested at Roscoe’s house said that Vladimir did not have a hostage with him in California,” Alex said after a long moment.
“Let’s think about that. Vladimir had Caleb in Oregon but didn’t have him in California. Plus, Vladimir hasn’t responded to Rossi with the details for an exchange.” Roscoe grabbed a marker and approached the white board. “That could mean three things. One, Vladimir killed Caleb, two, stashed Caleb, or three, lost Caleb.”
Roscoe wrote three titles, killed, stashed, and lost on the board.
“I don’t believe he killed the boy,” Rossi said into the silence. “He wants to exchange Caleb for his grandfather, he’d keep Caleb alive for that.”
“Caleb could have been sold,” Wild offered.
Roscoe wrote sold beneath the stashed title on the board.
“They could have stuck him in a brothel. Sure, it’s risky because of his looks, but not impossible with the amount of trafficking going on. Human trafficking is a one hundred and fifty billion dollar industry,” Frost said, emphasizing the word billion.
Roscoe wrote brothel on the board beneath the word sold. A low murmur of conversation filled the room.
Micah shoved back his chair and all conversation stopped. “If Vladimir stashed Caleb, he might have stashed him with a private party,” he insisted even though he didn’t know. He shuddered to think of Caleb in a brothel. Nobody at the table disagreed with him, but he saw more than a few sad faces.
“To do the exchange, Vladimir would need Caleb in a place he could later collect him from without a problem,” Frost said with a slow nod.
Roscoe wrote both private party and easy access under the stash title and added private party under the sold section.
“Caleb wasn’t taken for human trafficking purposes. He was taken to get to Rossi,” Micah reiterated, holding Rossi’s worried gaze.
“Then I very much doubt Vladimir sold him at all,” Roscoe pointed out.
Micah sucked in a quick breath, his heart pounding. “You think he stashed him somewhere, don’t you.”
“Either that or lost him,” Roscoe said.
The silence in the room was deafening.
Alex
“Mom?” he called out and shut and locked the door before heading down the short hallway that led to the living room and kitchen.
“In here, Mijo,” his mother called back.
He found her folding towels in the small laundry area and stood in the doorway.
She glanced anxiously behind him and he shook his head with regret.
A sheen of tears settled in her eyes, but she smiled bravely and folded the last towel before placing the stack into his arms.
“Here, put these away for me.”
He placed the towels away in the hall closet and then turned toward her. Maria Hendrix didn’t look anything like her sixty five years of age. Rather, the tiny Hispanic woman could have easily passed for years younger. Pulling her into his arms, he held her tight for a long moment.
“How are you?” He pushed her to arms-length and studied her face.
“I’m fine.” She smiled sadly and patted his cheek. “How are you holding up?”
He held her gaze for a moment and then looked away. “You like the new paint job they did in the guest bathroom?”
He spun and peeked inside, looking at the egg shell white paint.
“Yes, I love it. They were here almost all day,” she replied softly and allowed him to dodge her question.
“It’s nice though, yeah?” He backed away from the spacious room. She’d loved the house the moment he’d presented it to her. He’d decided to replace some things despite her protests when paint needed to be redone and her furniture was starting to wear.
“My baby spends too much money on me.”
“You’re worth it, Mom. I want you to have nice things.”
“I just want to be near you boys.”
“I know, but this is our deal. You took care of me when I was growing up. Now, I get to take care of you.”
She patted his
cheek and moved past him into the kitchen.
“I know, Mijo, but you need to remember to take care of yourself too.” It was an old argument, one they’d had many times before. His need to take care of her stemmed from when he was a child. At ten years old, he’d caught her crying and he had no idea of how to fix it. He only knew that their world was forever altered by the men standing on the doorstep with news that the big-hearted German American father he adored was missing in action.
“It’s really important that I take care of you,” he murmured again.
“I know, Alex.” She smiled, moving closer. “You always needed to take care of everyone even when you were a little boy.”
A bar separated the den from the kitchen and he took a seat on one of the short, brown stools.
“I see the couch was delivered,” he said, changing the subject.
“I told you the old one was just fine,” she scolded him.
“It was broken down.”
“It was fine.” She eyed him.
“Besides, I needed a new one for my back.” He drew an exaggerated hand to his back.
“If you’d just sleep in the spare room when you’re here, you’d save your back!” she scolded.
He grimaced, too many memories lay in that spare room. Leaning over the counter, he quickly snatched one of the fresh baked cookies and just barely avoided a smack to the hand.
“Save your appetite for dinner!”
“I’ll eat,” he spoke around the cookie.
“Enchilada casserole.”
“My favorite.” He rubbed his belly.
She laughed, it was a tinkling sound he hadn’t heard in a while, and it drew a smile to his lips.
“Will you be staying tonight?”
“I can’t, Mom. I have business tonight.”
She nodded and dished up a heaping portion of casserole with a dollop of sour cream on top, just the way he liked it.
It was going to be a long night waiting for the raid on Hunter’s Point. Hopefully, they’d get a lead on Vladimir Lakhonin or Boris Petrov. Or Mez. That guy concerned him the most. Mez was what people in the business called an eliminator, a cold blooded killer, and Alex seriously doubted Vladimir even realized who the fuck he was dealing with by hiring the guy. It wouldn’t matter, though, if Mez got in his way. Alex would destroy him.
Destruction (Out for Justice Book 4) Page 4
