by Jordan Dane
“Look, I don’t know what to believe, except that I want all this to go away. All I know is that if he’s dead, I need proof. That’s all I’m sayin’. Guess I don’t trust that wannabe, Cross. Garrett Wheeler he ain’t, honey.”
Tanya’s Southern drawl always intensified whenever her attitude flared.
“Yeah, guess I’m not willing to give up hope either. Thanks for the pep talk.”
“Anytime, sugar. Now what have you been up to? Talk to me.”
Alexa tossed her empty Starbucks cup into a trash bin on the street, happy to get back to business.
“I’ve covered all my contacts, locals and otherwise. I’ve come up dry so far. If anyone knows anything, they’re not talking. Something’s up. I can feel it.” As the traffic light changed ahead, she found a quieter spot away from the crowd. “How about you? You got anything?”
“Yeah, maybe. I’ve got a lead, but you’re not gonna like it.”
“Why?” Her voice edged with worry. “What did you find out?”
“A guy in Logistics told me Garrett had taken a small team on a mission, but he can’t find any record of it. Whatever he had seen is gone now. And there’s no trace of the cover-up either. He’s working from memory.”
“And how good is that? Can we trust this guy?”
“I trust him, but I’m also looking for confirmation. Give me a little time. If there’s something out there, I’ll find it,” Tanya said. “My contact thinks Garrett was working off book, something I haven’t seen him do before. And according to my guy, no one knows anything about it, not even those who should. It’s really strange, Alexa. It’s like he’s dropped off the planet, and no one is talking.”
“So did your contact have the names, the guys he took on his team?”
“Not yet, but he’s working up a list of operatives who are AWOL without a specific assignment. A process of elimination. He’ll call me later with that intel. It’s the best we can do without more to go on. What are you thinking?”
“Garrett is too cagey to leave a trail, but maybe someone on his team wasn’t so careful.” Before Tanya could respond, Alexa heaved a sigh. “The thing is, why would he do anything without you knowing about it, Tanya? What could be so damned important to break protocol?”
“Good question, honey. I wish I knew.” Tanya commiserated with her in silence before she said, “There’s something else I have to tell you. I got a call five minutes ago. And you’re not gonna like this either.”
Tanya had mastered the art of the understatement. If she was concerned, that meant things were usually far worse.
“What’s up, Tanya? Spill it.”
Alexa shut her eyes, feeling a headache coming on. Her brownstone apartment was a few blocks away. She’d be home soon and could use the second wind that a long hot shower could deliver.
“Donovan Cross is looking for you. He wouldn’t tell me what it was about, but I don’t like it.”
“Why didn’t he call my cell?”
“He strikes me as someone who’d rather come at you sideways rather than head-on, like one of those sidewinder snakes.” Tanya was spot-on with her analogy. “What do you want me to tell him?”
“If I was a suspicious person, I’d say he’s working you to get to me. I don’t trust him.”
“You got that right. As far as I’m concerned, the jury is still out on Cross. I don’t trust him either,” Tanya said. “So what do you want me to do?”
“Stall him for now. Tell him you can’t reach me. That’ll give me time to get really lost, but I’ll need you to be my eyes and ears. And when you find a lead on Garrett’s last-known location, I’ll need a way to get there. I’ll call you when it’s safe.”
“You got it.”
When Tanya ended the call, Alexa made up her mind to avoid her apartment and rely on her instincts to work off the grid. No one could know what she was doing. No one, not even Tanya. She didn’t make such a decision lightly. There was risk in what she planned to do, but she’d already set up for such a contingency. Most covert operatives had a similar backup plan, out of necessity.
Heading west, she walked across the street, tossed her cell into a trash bin, and took the first step to sever ties to her life. An operative always had a fallback plan if all hell broke loose. Cash was stashed away with prepaid cell phones, fake IDs, and passports stowed in safe-deposit boxes. It was time to utilize what she’d set up long ago.
And it was time to find out what had happened to Garrett, even if the news wasn’t what she wanted to hear.
Outside Guadalajara, Mexico
Estella crept down the murky corridor but ducked behind a stone wall when she noticed the guard outside one of the jail cells. If she got caught, Guerrero would punish her, whipping her for disobeying his order to stay in her room. She had no doubt that she wouldn’t have been alone for long. Guerrero’s men would finally come for what their boss might have promised, and Estella would rather die than sit and wait for that to happen.
But why she had come to find the American, she had no idea. The man had one foot in the grave. He wasn’t strong enough to help her escape her fate, yet she followed her instincts to find him. She’d come to see where they had him. And even from where she stood, cowering in the shadows, she heard what they were doing to him. And it made her sick.
One voice stood out from the rest. And the sound of his cruelty raised the hair on her neck.
“Do it. Now!”
With the help of another man, Ramon Guerrero followed orders and grabbed the head of the naked prisoner. He shoved the man’s face into a tub of filthy water. With his hands in shackles, Garrett Wheeler bucked to break free, sloshing water to the stone floor. When he stopped struggling, and the last bubbles erupted to break the surface of the water, Guerrero looked over his shoulder at the man who had given the order.
Miguel Rosas, number two man to the head of the Pérez cartel, had a reputation for brutality, with the body count to prove it. The Pérez cartel was a splinter group making a name and expanding its reach. And Rosas had played a big part in the Pérez family’s growing reign of terror in the country. Guerrero had no appreciation for the politics within the organization. He was only a soldier within its ranks, only wanting to carve out his piece of the pie. A manageable piece.
Guerrero had transported the drugged American to a heavily guarded villa outside Guadalajara, Mexico. Being allowed to remain with Wheeler had been a good sign that powerful men had taken notice and trusted him to get the job done. Participating in the interrogation was another good sign. He didn’t care if Wheeler died, but it made no sense to kill him before they got him to talk.
Finally, Rosas nodded, and the prisoner was yanked from the water. A loud, guttural gasp reverberated off the walls, but when Wheeler said nothing, his reprieve was short-lived.
“Again,” Rosas demanded.
“No,” the bound man gagged as his head was shoved back under the murky water. This time, when he was brought up, Rosas stepped closer and looked down at the gasping man.
“You make this harder than it needs to be. Who have you come to kill? And why are you here, in my country?” When Rosas spoke, his voice echoed. “Tell us what we need to know, and your misery will be over. Are you not hungry? Would it not feel good to sleep?”
Wheeler had not been allowed to rest after the drug had worn off. He’d been forced to stand naked in his cell and had been drenched with water every time he could no longer open his eyes. And he’d not been given food or drink. A local doctor had been on call to keep the American alive as the torture escalated.
And still, Wheeler had not told them anything.
Guerrero grabbed the American’s hair and yanked his head back. The man’s jaw fell slack as he panted for air, his chest heaving.
Mustering his contempt, he glared at Rosas. “Go to . . . hell.”
“Very well. You leave me no choice.”
In Spanish, Rosas gave an order, and the American was hung by his arms, suspend
ed in chains from a massive wooden beam, and his body was doused with water. When an electrical generator was powered up, Guerrero knew what would come next.
Garrett Wheeler would be taken to the edge of death by electrocution. The American flinched when he saw one of Rosas’s men touch two metal paddles together. A loud pop erupted, and a spark of electricity cast an eerie light into the murky cell.
The American narrowed his eyes and glared at his tormentor, Rosas. When Wheeler tensed his jaw, he didn’t say a word, mustering what little defiance he had left. All that changed after the order was given. When the paddles sparked, volts of electricity shot through the American’s body, making him jerk like a macabre puppet. Smoke drifted in the stale air, and the smell of burning skin and hair hit Guerrero’s nostrils.
With a dismissive wave of his hand, Rosas eventually ordered his men to stop. Wheeler’s body collapsed, still rippling with spasms. After he grunted in pain and fell unconscious, Rosas walked toward Guerrero and stood at his shoulder, speaking in a low voice.
“You do not approve of my methods. I can see it in your eyes.”
Guerrero kept his dislike for Rosas in check. Looking into the man’s eyes reminded him of the time he had confronted a rabid dog, an animal he would never turn his back on. With a man like Rosas, he had to tread carefully. One wrong word could ruin everything he had hoped to gain, or worse, put him in the crosshairs of a man he would rather not cross paths with again.
“It is not my place to approve or disapprove.” Guerrero avoided looking at the man standing next to him.
“It is good that you know your place,” Rosas said.
If the man had not looked so smug, Guerrero might have kept his mouth shut. But when Rosas ordered one of his men to awaken the American with a bucketful of water, Guerrero said what was on his mind. He could not help himself.
“It’s just that this American, Garrett Wheeler, has many secrets worthy of your efforts. My sources tell me he is the leader of a very influential U.S. agency sent to spy on us. And who knows what someone would pay for a man like this.”
“Yes, I know what you reported, but Pérez believes this American might be a diversion for a bigger assault on the cartels. The United States would do anything to stop the violence in our country.”
“What are you saying?”
“What if the CIA or this agency Wheeler works for is planning to assassinate the leaders of the cartels, pick them off one by one, making it look like a drug war? Pérez doesn’t care about what happens to the other cartels, but having advance information is very important.”
“And I suppose if the competition is eliminated, that would not be a bad thing.”
“Yes, of course.” Rosas smiled. “So as you can see, our job here is very important.”
Before Guerrero replied, the man looked over his shoulder at the waking prisoner hanging in chains. He ordered his men to hit him with the paddles again. Wheeler’s body jerked with another jolt of electricity. He cried out, unable to hold back.
In reflex, Guerrero grimaced and noticed that Miguel Rosas was watching him. With the American dangling and jerking like a caught fish, Rosas only smiled at Guerrero, displaying a strange cruelty that caused the hair on the back of Guerrero’s neck to stand.
At that moment, he knew that Miguel Rosas was a man who truly enjoyed his work.
Outside Guadalajara, Mexico
“We lost his signal, sir,” his man reported as he knelt by him in the dark.
Following a burst transmitter signal, Hank Lewis and his team had crossed the border into Mexico and were positioned on a nearby ridge overlooking a large hacienda near Guadalajara. The estate was located on the northern shore of Laguna de Chapala, where his team was conducting a covert surveillance operation for the Sentinels, tracking an operative under deep cover who was being held prisoner inside.
As to who their operative was—or the purpose of their mission—Hank had no clue.
His team had been monitoring thermal imagery, tracking the movements of the men inside the compound, when he got the bad news about the transmitter. The device sent a burst of data at regular intervals via satellite, transmitting coordinates for his team to follow once an hour, but it also served a secondary purpose. It recorded the operative’s vitals to make sure the unlucky bastard was still alive. From what Hank had been told, the transmitter had been implanted under the skin of their target.
The tracking device was damned small, an upgraded, high-tech version of the ones used to track the migratory patterns of wildlife. And unless someone knew what to look for, the transmission frequency was very hard to trace since it wasn’t a constant signal. This version passed a bug sweep without a problem for the same reason. It only powered up once an hour, long enough to gather vitals, compress the data, and transmit it. That also meant the battery power would be minimal, which translated into a tracking device that could be injected under the skin with a hypodermic needle. A perfect piece of technology for this mission, until it failed.
“What do you think happened?” he asked his man.
“Don’t know, sir. I’m trying to figure that out. Got cut off midtransmission.”
“Keep trying, son.”
“Yes, sir.”
Hank didn’t like being in the dark on a sensitive mission like this one. His team was on the front line of the op. If they couldn’t find out what had happened, the mission could be scrapped. And Hank didn’t want that to happen on his watch.
“What about our target’s vitals, Doc?” Hank directed his question to the medic on his team. “Did we get a reading before we lost the signal?”
“I saw enough to know the target is an extremely agitated state. His breathing is irregular, and his heart rate is erratic. Up one minute and down the next. From my experience, the lower heart rate comes when the body is fighting off torture. It’s a natural instinct.”
“Is he in danger from a medical standpoint?” Hank asked. “Do we need to pull the plug?”
“I can’t tell you. I didn’t get enough of a data feed to form an opinion other than his body is under a great deal of stress, and one other thing.” The medic fixed his gaze on Hank. “If we had to attempt a rescue, we’d probably have to carry him out.”
Hank narrowed his eyes, considering what the man had told him.
“Thanks, Doc.” And to his communications man, Hank said, “Let me know if Guerrero leaves the compound. We’re still tracking his cell-phone GPS, right?”
“Yes, sir. If he moves, I’ll know it.”
Ramon Guerrero was their backup plan. Intel tracked a cell-phone signal from the moment the target had been taken hostage. One of the gang members had initiated a call to report what had happened. And Hank’s team was already set to take advantage of that mistake. His team monitored any cell-phone signal detected in the general vicinity. Once they eliminated any legitimate cell-phone user through a background check, they narrowed their search to phones that could not be linked to a name. It was a surveillance tactic that had paid off in the fight against al-Qaeda.
Coupled with ground surveillance of the abduction, they eventually tracked the signal into Mexico, near Juárez, the stronghold of Ramon Guerrero, a known drug-cartel leader. After another sweep of cell-phone usage inside the compound, they used the process of elimination to isolate Guerrero’s cell phone and had followed him and his men to Guadalajara, to the estate of another drug kingpin in the organization. Odds were that if the target was still alive, Guerrero would be close by. It was the best they could do without knowing more.
Hank’s team had been fed coordinates through a handler, a man who monitored the transmission via satellite. Until now, they had stuck close to the target, moving as ordered. But with the target being in danger, and the burst transmitter potentially compromised, Hank knew the handler would have to kick the problem to the next level, the decision maker who was running the op.
Hank reached for the encrypted phone he’d use to communicate with his handler, a mid
dleman in the operation. Although Hank was in command of the ground team, he didn’t know who they were tracking inside the drug cartel or why the mission had required the secrecy. That bit of intel was on a need-to-know basis. Only one man knew all the details and would make the final call on every aspect of the mission. Communicating through the handler, he would direct Hank’s team to carry out his orders.
But if the burst transmitter’s signal was gone, they were flying blind. And the poor bastard on the inside would be on his own.
“Damn it,” Hank cursed.
Chapter 4
New York City
Evening
Instinct had Alexa fixing her eyes on the reflection in a store window as she walked down Broadway. Display lights and neon signs cast enough light for her to see something she didn’t like. She’d stopped suddenly, pretending to have an interest in a pair of Jimmy Choo stilettos.
That was when she caught the exchange.
A man had stopped short and looked across the street. Two men were following her, one in a dark business suit and the other in jeans, a Yankees ball cap, and a white T-shirt with a logo across his chest, too small for her to read. Their reaction had been subtle, but it was enough to trigger her survival instincts. From experience and training, she knew to trust her gut and take action. Indecision was not an option. And in the field, to hesitate might get her killed.
Without turning around, Alexa assessed her situation. If the men were connected to a surveillance team, they’d have a backup plan if she hailed a cab. And they could track the cab through the taxi company. Without thinking, she quickly ducked into the store and made her way to the back. When she saw a salesclerk heading for her, she smiled and waved her off.
“You got a way out back? I’m trying to avoid an old boyfriend. You know how it goes.”
“Sure do, honey.” The sharply dressed saleswoman pointed toward the dressing rooms. “We got a loading dock through those doors, and good luck ditching the jerk.”
Within a minute, Alexa was on foot down an alley. She cut through another store and changed course again until she had lost the two men tailing her, but that didn’t mean she was in the clear.
