Missing Person: A Riveting Kidnapping Mystery- Book 1

by James Hunt

  The question hung in the air, and before Grant could formulate an answer, Hickem walked up behind the pair of them, slapping Grant on the shoulder as he passed. “Grant, you’re riding with me. Sam, you’ll be in chopper two. Let’s go!”

  He fell into stride behind Hickem. Maybe this was about atonement. Maybe this was Grant’s second chance to get it right, to not let any life fall through the cracks. But then what? What came after that? When did it end for him?

  8

  The headsets muffled the noise of the chopper blades, but the chatter over the radio felt just as loud as the whine of the aircraft’s motors. Grant paid attention to the portions that he needed to hear. Local law enforcement had already been notified and had blocked off the only road that led anywhere near to the location from the kidnapper’s coordinates.

  “Grant,” Hickem said, turning in the front seat of the chopper. “You’ll be part of team one along with Sam and me. The chopper is going to drop us off a few miles from the coordinates to make sure we don’t spook these guys. We’ve already got a SWAT team moving into position, and they have visual confirmation that there is a cabin on site.”

  “How many hostiles?” Grant asked, the radio providing a little feedback as he spoke.

  “Unknown, but there is only one vehicle on property, so unless they flew in, it shouldn’t be more than three or four, five at the max.”

  “Do we at least have confirmation that the house is occupied?”

  “Negative. No visuals reported.”

  Grant exhaled. If they knew one of their guys was captured, the characters in charge were smart enough to know they should move the victims. But if the mercenaries’ employer were also under the impression that their hired guns fought to the death, sure that they would never turn, then they might stay put. Grant was definitely hoping for the latter.

  “Five minutes till the drop site,” the pilot said.

  Grant stared at the back of Hickem’s head, still unsure of his motives. There had been no talk of the mole in his unit that had started all of this, and they had zero ideas of what prompted the FBI agent to turn. “What’s the progress with Agent Kover?”

  “We have him in a holding tank.” Hickem kept his face forward. “Hasn’t said anything, but we can wait him out.”

  “When will we have access?”

  Hickem laughed. “C’mon, Grant. You know how these things work. No department likes to have their dirty laundry flapping in the breeze. It’s being handled internally. And as hard as it might be for you...” He turned around. “You’re just going to have to trust me.”

  Their eyes lingered on one another, both sporting their poker faces. Grant knew whatever truth the FBI did find out in their “internal investigation” would be limited to the public eye.

  The chopper slowed, and the pilot found a level patch in the rolling mountains, and Grant, Hickem, and the other two FBI agents that rode with Grant in the back ducked low on their exit, the blades’ whirling winds helping to push them from the aircraft.

  Grant found a spot beneath the shade of a tree and adjusted the Kevlar strapped to his chest as the second chopper landed, dropping off Sam with another pair of marshals he didn’t recognize. One wore a cowboy hat that he clamped down on the top of his head, his outfit complete with boots and a pair of dark aviator shades.

  The second marshal was bald and wore a pair of glasses that were large and rectangular. His face and midsection sagged with the age and experience of someone nearing retirement.

  Sam retained her icy demeanor toward Grant, refusing to acknowledge his presence. He wasn’t sure if she was upset because he had been right, or she had been wrong. If he had to put money on it, he would say it was a little bit of both.

  As the second chopper took off, blasting everyone with more high-speed winds, the seven-member tactical squad formed a circle, Grant acting as the connecting piece between the two agencies.

  “Local SWAT still in position?” Sam asked.

  Hickem nodded. “They’ve been instructed to hold until we arrive. Still no updates on whether we have any bodies inside.”

  Cowboy Hat spit and placed his hands on his hips. “What kind of setup are we looking at?”

  “Two entrances,” Hickem said. “Front and back, which face north and south. Two windows on the south side, which is the front of the house, one window on the north side. Two windows each on east and west walls. All of them blacked out.”

  “Only one story?” Sam asked.

  “Yup. And there is heavy brush around the property, so we shouldn’t have any problems with keeping our presence a surprise.”

  “Not unless ol’ Rodney here had beans for lunch.” The cowboy accompanied the statement with a nudge to his partner and a hyena-esque laugh.

  “Marshals will take the front door,” Sam said.

  “Like hell you will,” Hickem replied, puffing out his chest. “FBI takes the lead on this one.”

  “Since when?” Sam asked, not backing down.

  “Since you let that family be taken.”

  Sam marched into the circle, getting in Hickem’s face, her nostrils flared as she shoved her finger into Hickem’s Kevlar. “That’s fucking bullshit, and you know it! It was your guy that gave away the Copellas’ position.”

  Sam’s marshals stepped up behind her, and Hickem’s men backed him up.

  “You’ve done nothing but keep us in the dark about whatever the hell kind of operations you’re running in your division, and I trust you about as far as I can throw you.” Sam shoved Hickem hard in the chest, but the big brute barely stepped back.

  Hickem moved his hand so fast and so close to Sam’s face that the pair of marshals behind her placed their hands on their pistols, triggering Hickem’s men to do the same, but he never touched her. “You’re way out of line!”

  “Hey!” Grant said. “Save your bullets for the gang.” He turned to Hickem. “You and I both know this is still Sam’s case, so you can stick it back in your pants before you embarrass yourself.”

  It was quiet for a moment, and then Sam finally nodded. “Marshals will take the back door.”

  “Yeah,” Hickem said, taking a step back. “Sounds good.” He gestured behind him to their path. “We’ve got a bit of a hike.” Without turning back around to either Grant or Sam, he walked off, his agents following.

  Sam fell into line without a word, her two marshals doing the same. Grant hung back for a minute, taking in the blue skies and the mountainous, arid terrain that surrounded them. The wilderness here was different than in Deville. It was isolating, desolate. He hoped that what they found at the cabin was different.

  Conversation was minimal, the only chatter limited to tactical options or updates from the SWAT team, who still didn’t know if anyone was inside.

  Grant fought the urge to try to mend the bridge with Sam. Now wasn’t the time. She needed to stay focused. So did he.

  And so boots crunched gravel, lips puffed labored breaths, birds screeched in the great big sky, and the closer they drew toward the house nestled in the middle of nowhere, the faster every pulse beat. Mouths grew dry, fingers twitched from frayed nerves, and mouths grew silent.

  Hickem held up a fist, and the line of federal agents froze in place. He crouched, then they crouched. They removed their pistols from their holsters and white-knuckled them in nervous hands. Grant felt it. They were close.

  After a few more moments of silence, Hickem stood and motioned everyone forward, and the group gathered in a half circle around him. He tapped his ear. “I’ve got an uplink with the SWAT team. They’re just over this next hill. The house is there, still no movement. This is where we split up.” He looked at Sam. “Take the marshals around the north side, and wait for our signal.”

  “What’s the signal?” Cowboy asked.

  “It’ll be a loud bang,” Hickem answered. “Now, we don’t have a layout of the house, and if a crew is inside, I don’t think they’ll keep the mother alive for very long, so we ne
ed to clear the rooms fast. Watch the corners, and work your way to the front. We’ll meet in the middle. Hopefully still intact.”

  “All right,” Sam said. “I’m on point. Grant, you stay in the back.”

  “No, Grant’s coming with us,” Hickem said.

  Before Grant could protest, Hickem motioned his men forward, but he caught a concerned glance from Sam as they separated.

  The SWAT members were hidden amongst some shrubs thirty yards from the house’s front door. One hundred yards from the house, Hickem’s team threw their bellies to the dirt and crawled toward their positions in slow, methodical motions.

  Covered in dirt and tiny scratches from the prickly shrubs, Grant sidled next to Hickem, who positioned himself alongside one of the SWAT members. Their conversation was in whispers, but Grant was close enough to overhear.

  “Still no movement inside,” the SWAT member replied. “Do we have any additional intel on the situation?”

  “Negative,” Hickem said.

  “Can’t we get a fucking drone out here?”

  “It’s just us, Sergeant.” Hickem scanned to his left and then to his right. “Once the north unit is in position, we make our move.”

  The hot summer sun beat down on their necks, muscles still and worn from the long hike and sudden lack of mobility. With both hands gripped on the pistol, Grant kept checking his watch. And while only seconds passed between his glances, it felt closer to hours.

  “All right,” Hickem said. “North unit is in position. Sergeant, you tell your men to begin your approach. My people will be right behind you on the break-in. We’ll follow your lead.”

  “Copy that.” The sergeant relayed the information over the radio to the rest of his men peppered along the ground outside the house. “We have a green light. I repeat, we have a green light. Be advised of team on north side of the house. They will be covering back exits.”

  Hickem looked at Grant, a smile on his face as the SWAT members emerged from the earth, hunched forward with their assault rifles aimed at the house.

  Autopilot kicked in, and all of those training hours with the department flooded back to Grant.

  In total, there were ten men covering the front of the house, but the rush toward the door provided no more noise than the rustle of wind through the trees, the eerie calm before the horrendous storm that was about to ensue.

  The six-man SWAT team converged at the front door, three on either side, and the lead man with the battering ram to knock the door down. Grant was positioned at the end of the line, his line of sight currently obstructed by a line of Kevlar bodies.

  Grant kept tight against the wooden slats of the house that warmed his hip, but he was careful not to scrape against the sides to give away their position.

  The sergeant held up his hand in preparation for the breach. Bodies tensed as they waited for the hammer to drop, and the next few seconds were the quiet before the storm.

  The battering ram cracked the door, and the officers flooded inside, triggering an eruption of gunfire that plugged the flow of bodies.

  Grant ducked below the front window just before it was blown out by bullets. Bits of glass rained over his head, shoulders, and back, the rush of adrenaline numbing him to the prick of the shards.

  Orders were barked to push forward amidst the deafening whine that accompanied such gunfire, and the plug that had dammed the front door came undone, and Grant stayed close to Hickem’s heels on the way inside.

  The curtains on the windows cast the house into darkness, and Grant’s vision had a hard time adjusting to the sharp contrast from daylight to nothing but black, but the open door cast enough light to help ease the transition.

  The first room was the living room. It was large, housing a sectional couch, a coffee table littered with paper plates and beer bottles, and one motionless body, face down on the hardwood floor.

  Immediately to Grant’s left after entering was a hallway where a pair of SWAT members checked the two rooms that led to the west side of the house. Grant remained at his position in the hall, covering their backs until they returned to the living room, giving the all clear for the rooms.

  “We’ve got shooters in the interior!”

  Everyone converged on the voice, and as Grant followed Hickem and the SWAT team, Sam appeared from the back, leaving behind the pair of marshals. Cowboy had been shot, and the shorter man was helping with the wound.

  “How long till medic arrives?” Sam asked, gun up with her focus on the end of her pistol sights.

  “Chopper is inbound,” Hickem answered. “Three minutes.”

  Another hallway cut away on the left side of the house, tearing through the middle, and forced another bottleneck of bodies.

  “You come in here, and we’ll blow her brains out!”

  Walls muffled the scream, but it didn’t lessen the threat’s reality.

  Grant and Sam were out of range to be of any use for the men at the front, lingering on the edge of the hallway. They exchanged a quick glance, and then over Sam’s shoulder, Grant saw motion through a vent in the ceiling. It was slight, and he would have missed it if it hadn’t been for the red dot from the shooter’s laser.

  “Sam, get down!” Grant pivoted toward the vent, and Sam dropped to her knees, the bullet meant for her landing close to Grant’s foot as he squeezed his trigger.

  In the same instant that Grant fired, there was a commotion at the end of the hall near the door, and he turned, finding the SWAT team gone and the door of the room kicked down.

  Grant kept his pistol aimed at the vent and the cluster of holes his forty-five had put through the wood. It wasn’t until blood dripped from the bullet holes and onto the living room floor that he finally lowered the pistol, taking a knee by Sam’s side. “You all right?”

  Sam nodded but kept her head down, unable to hide the trembling from the adrenaline. She pressed the back of her hand to her mouth, dropped her pistol, and ran outside.

  Hickem’s voice shifted Grant’s attention down the hall, and suddenly he was back on a beach on the coast in the middle of the night. He walked slowly along the side of a large dump truck. The back gate was down. And on the other side was a cluster of dead women. Dead because of him.

  And now, just like before, he found himself waiting to turn that corner, waiting to find out if his actions, actions meant to save a life, had ended in the death of another.

  Hickem stepped out, his stride quick, carrying Mary Copella with the help of one of the SWAT members.

  Grant exhaled, letting Hickem pass with the unconscious woman, her left hand wrapped in bloody gauze.

  “Coming through!” Hickem shouted, forcing the two marshals at the back door to step out of the way. It wasn’t but a few seconds later that the whirl of the choppers sounded outside, and a team of medics tended to the mother and then the marshal.

  With the commotion over, Grant eyed the vent in the ceiling where the sniper had been stationed. He scanned the ceiling, looking for the attic’s entrance, and found it at the front hallway. The stairs collapsed at the pull of the string, and he climbed up.

  He had to hunch forward because of the wooden beams, and he immediately broke into a sweat due to the musty heat. Carefully, he stepped toward the shooter, mindful of the wooden slats above and below.

  The man wore Kevlar, but one of Grant’s bullets had penetrated the gunman’s left cheekbone, the stopping power of the .45-caliber ammunition splattering the shooter’s brains over the wall behind him.

  Grant donned a pair of latex gloves and searched the body and found ammunition, knives, and a burner phone. He flipped it open and searched through the texts, finding one outgoing message.

  Breached.

  The number it was sent to was blocked.

  “Hey! Find anything?” Hickem shouted up through the slits in the air vent.

  “Just guns and bullets. And a dead guy.”

  “Shit,” Hickem said. “All right. We’ll send a body bag up.”


  “Yeah,” Grant answered. “I’ll be down in a minute.” He scrolled through the recent calls list and found one number that was called every hour for the past three days. Check-in calls, no doubt. They might be able to track the number, but it was a long shot.

  Grant pocketed the phone and then descended the steps and walked out the back. Outside, the medical teams were lifting Mary Copella into a chopper, Hickem was on the phone, and Sam was off to the left, hunched over.

  Popping after a raid like this wasn’t anything new, especially with such a close call as Sam’s.

  One second was all that separated you from life or death. And that death could come at any time from a thousand different places. And while you could train yourself to react in a timely manner in those situations, and how to mentally and physically handle the aftereffects, there was no quick fix, no magic wand that made things okay after it was over, even if the mission was a success. No amount of training could ever prepare anyone for a real gunfight, or a real death. It was like trying to explain to a fish how to breathe out of water. And with Charles Copella still missing, Grant was started to feel a little short on breath.

  Links was sitting in his office when the call came through. He had to keep the phone’s speaker away from his ear due to Hickem’s boisterous shouts. The man was proud of his work and eager to impress his boss.

  “Any leads on where the father might be?” Links had his eyes glued to the burner phone in his other hand, the angered flare of his nostrils contradicting the even-keeled tone of his voice.

  “Not yet, but we can see what the mother knows. The fact that we found her stateside suggests the strong possibility that the father is still here too. And I bet he’s nearby. It’ll be tough, though. These guys have been pretty meticulous.”

  “But not meticulous enough.” Links closed his fist around the burner, knowing that the ape on the other end of the line wouldn’t grasp the context of his words. “Keep me posted on any developments.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  Links hung up and tossed his regular phone onto the desk then leaned back in his chair, sinking low into the seat as he tapped his chin with his knuckles. He didn’t like the fact that his plans were being meddled with. He didn’t like the fact that at the start of the day he had three Copellas in his grasp, and now he was down to only one. And he knew that Joza would like it even less.