I laid back down on the hard, wood floor and found my focal point on the wall across the room. I tried to tune out the yelling by focusing on the one blemish on the otherwise perfect black and white damask wallpaper. Most days it worked, I could find my center and meditate, other days I focused on that one spot and plotted how I was going to kill my captors.
I knew that was never going to happen and I was going to die in this room. I had made peace with it. I felt sorry for my mom; she would miss me and blame herself for my wild ways. But the truth was, she was a great mom even if she didn’t have a lot of time for me. I always knew she loved me. My best friend, Erin, hell she was my only real friend, she would miss me, too. She tried to tell me I had been drinking too much, and she was worried about me. So, what did I do? I shoved her out of my life. Not because she was wrong, but because she was right. I wasn’t ready to face what my life had become. What a disappointment I had turned out to be. The last conversation I had with her I told her to mind her own fucking business and lose my number.
Now I was locked in this revolting room, my death was certain, and I regretted every nasty word I ever spoke to her. Yet, she would never know. I would die in this room alone. Either the men who took me would kill me or the worsening infection on my wrist would. I begged the assholes to switch the metal cuffs to my other hand to give my shoulder a break and let the sores heal, but they refused.
My special spot on the wall was not helping, and no matter how hard I tried, I couldn’t quiet my thoughts. I couldn’t make the yelling go away. I squinted my eyes and strained to concentrate on the red mark across the room. The harder I tried to focus, the more my head hurt. All the years of yoga classes and meditation techniques I had learned were not helping. Instead, my mind was wandering, I couldn’t stop thinking about the spot on the wall. It had become an obsession of mine. I had nothing to do in this place but think.
In all my pondering, I had gathered that this room was freshly wallpapered. I knew it was. The first day I was brought here I could smell the glue. Why in the hell would someone wallpaper a room to keep a hostage in? I was beginning to think they chose this ugly pattern to drive me crazy. It made me dizzy just looking at it. Now there was a red spot across the room. Either I had officially lost my mind, or it was getting bigger every time I looked at it.
Gunshots pulled me from thoughts of wallpaper and spots. I crawled to the wall as quickly as I could and balled myself up as small as possible. I prayed to God that the assholes who took me were out there killing each other. I strained to hear what was being said. I spoke very little Spanish and could only pick up on certain words. I knew the asshole who took me could speak English. He spoke it fluently the night I met him in the bar. We spoke for a long while, his English was perfect. Now, however, the bastard wouldn’t speak a word of it to me. He only spoke in Spanish like the rest of them.
I was going to die locked in this room.
Chapter Three
Leo
When we touched down, Z received a message from Tex with coordinates to a place he called the Diner. When we arrived at the nondescript location in the middle of nowhere, it was indeed an abandoned restaurant.
“Sir, I have to advise against this. The location has not been vetted or cleared,” Gerald said, clearly vexed by the whole trip.
“Nonsense. I’m fine,” Tom dismissed.
“Sir.”
“I said I was fine Gerald. End of,” Tom asserted.
With that, we all exited the SUV that was helpfully left for us at the airstrip. “Mr. President, if you wouldn’t mind standing back with Gerald while I clear the building,” Z proposed even though Tom had just given Gerald a hard time about not entering.
This was not our first rodeo with the President. I actually felt bad for Gerald and Aaron; it had to be difficult guarding the POTUS when he made a habit of going off the reservation.
“Jesus, how many times do I have to remind you all – Tom, just Tom. There is no press corps here, no White House staff. We are gathered here as friends,” the President corrected. “And are you all forgetting that I was a UDT, doing the business in dungarees before the word SEAL was even thought up? Fuckin’ SEAL pups.”
It was hard to contain my laughter at Tom’s outburst reminding us all that he was an original Frogman. The Underwater Demolition Team, or UDTs, pioneered Naval Special Warfare. It is because of them that NSW is what it is today. They were badass motherfuckers with green faces wreaking havoc in Vietnam, and any Special Operator current or former knows to respect a UDT’s place in SEAL history. Tom was the only person that could get away with calling Z a SEAL pup. It was downright hilarious. I was definitely saving that shit for later use. Though there was no doubt it would earn me an ass chewing, it would be well worth it.
Tom pulled a Sig Sauer P226 from his concealed holster under his suit jacket and leveled it at the door. “Now if you boys are done yapping your gums about my safety, let’s get this show on the road.”
“Hooyah,” Z barked out a laugh.
Gerald and Aaron took point, breaching the front door first, followed by Garrett and the Attorney General. Tom was close behind them, his sidearm still at the ready. Zane had his six, his own firearm drawn. I pulled up the back.
“Come on back,” a voice called out in a thick southern accent from behind the old school swinging diner doors that led to the kitchen.
A man I assumed was Tex stood from a makeshift workstation when we entered, five guns pointing in his direction. “Still an over-cautious SOB, I see.”
“Trust but verify, old friend. Are we secure?” Z asked.
I scanned the room and noted the large topographical map on the stainless-steel chef’s station, and three of the five monitors had intel reports and maps on their screens. The other two were surveillance footage of both the outside of the diner and the airstrip where we landed.
“We are,” Tex answered. “Thanks for making the trip down here. Sorry for the trouble, but there are some things I will not discuss even over the most secure line.” Tex stood up a little straighter and squared his shoulders, blatantly noticing the President was in the room. “Mr. President.”
“John Keegan. It is a pleasure to finally meet you, I have heard a lot about you. And, it’s Tom, please.”
“Yeah, I don’t think that is going to happen, sir,” Tex chuckled.
“I really wish all of you would learn to call me Tom when we’re in private.” The President sighed. I couldn’t help but crack a smile. I could still remember the first time the President scolded me and demanded I call him Tom, instead of Mr. President. I thought it was a joke. No one in their right mind would call the POTUS by his first name. But sure as shit, that’s what Tom wanted to be called.
“Tex, this is Panther.” Z pointed to me and continued with the introductions. “Gerald and Aaron, Tom’s detail. Garrett, my in-house intel specialist, and the AG, Peter Newton.”
Tex gave a chin lift in response. He glanced around the room, his eyes taking each of us in. No doubt sizing us up. Once a SEAL always a SEAL. Just because a man leaves the teams doesn’t mean his training goes away. We all may be on the same side, but a man can never be too careful.
“Now that introductions have been made, whatcha got for us?” Z asked.
Unfortunately, Garrett’s in-flight search came up with nothing. We were all interested in what Tex had found.
I studied the map on the table and noted the Potomac River was to the West, the Chesapeake Bay to the East, and sandwiched between the two bodies of water was Scotland, Maryland, approximately eighty miles south of Annapolis. However, nothing on the map indicated an exact location.
“I actually stumbled on something by accident. I was in a chat room looking into an information broker when there was chatter about Pamela Cox and her daughter Olivia. After Zane put out on the wire that Olivia was missing, I’ve been keeping an eye out.”
“When was this?” I asked.
“A few hours ago,” Tex answere
d. “I would normally call it in and continue to track, but there was also chatter about the First Lady.”
“What about my Rissa?” Tom growled.
“Private emails between her and Pamela Cox were hacked,” Tex explained.
“The fuck you say?” Z exploded. “Garrett find the hole.”
“I already did. It was an inside job. It came from an analyst at the CIA, Timothy Clark,” Tex continued.
“Did he leave a footprint?” Garrett asked.
“Langley,” Tex answered.
Garrett was feverishly pounding on his now open laptop, his brows pulled together in concentration. He had been looking for Timothy Clark since our last op, but he was in the wind.
“Clark is no longer with the CIA; he is rogue. We eliminated his brother,” Z informed Tex.
“I heard about that. Nightstalker has quite the reputation; her work is exceptional. You’ve trained her well. It’s a shame that Deepweb336 couldn’t be converted.” Tex was referring to our last mission. Jasmin Parker, the only woman on our team, had assassinated a hacker that went by the handle Deepweb336. “He was a hell of a hacker. The CIA could’ve used his skills. Too bad he was a piece of shit and sold out his country. His brother is almost as good as him. But he’s sloppy. He left breadcrumbs. And one more thing – he was on a CIA network when he hacked the emails. If you’re telling me Clark no longer works there, you have another mole.”
“I want him found, Zane! And the emails?” Tom asked.
“They were personal in nature, sir.”
“How personal?”
“Personal on Pamela’s end. She was asking the First Lady for advice,” Tex answered.
Tom’s body stiffened, and suddenly the room went electric. The President looked like he was going to stroke out. I glanced at Z, and he had caught the look as well.
“Mr. Newton, you called my office this evening and said it was urgent you meet with the team.” Zane shifted gears.
“Yes. I was told that if I were to ever have a problem I was to call you,” Peter said. He was facing Zane, his eyes were pleading, and he was fiddling with the hem of his untucked shirt, obviously very uncomfortable.
“Let me help you out, Peter, is there a body? And if so, who is she, where did you leave her, and for the love of Christ tell me you used a burner phone when you ordered her,” Zane asked.
Peter’s eyes widened in shock. “No! No, body. No prostitute,” Peter spit out as if the mere word disgusted him. “As I told Garrett, I received an email at eleven this evening. At first, I thought it was a joke, but then the sender made reference to a name that had been redacted out of all SITREPs and briefings I’ve given to the Department of Justice. Me, I personally wrote the report and blacked out the name. The only copy of that report without the name redacted was hand delivered by me to the President, and the digital copy is in my personal safe.” Peter stopped and glanced at the President.
Tom shot a look at Z. With a nod of understanding, Zane looked at Tex for a moment and studied him. Happy with whatever he saw, he turned back to Tom and nodded again.
“You may speak freely in this room; we are a hundred percent secure in here. Zane and his team are trusted, and if Zane extends that to Tex, I do, too,” the President said.
That was huge. Zane didn’t trust anyone outside of the people he employed.
“What did you find, Garrett?” Zane asked.
“The location the email was sent from,” Garrett offered, pointing at the map on the screen. “Scotland, Maryland. Does that location mean anything to you? Whoever sent the email is not high-tech. There was no rerouting, nothing sending me on a hunt around the globe tracking down IPs and proxies. He is either a high school kid, or it is a trap. No one makes a ransom demand and gives you their location.”
“Is that what this is? A ransom demand? What did they take?” Zane asked.
I am sure Zane had already mentally gone through Peter Newton’s bio, too. He was a widower, no children, parents deceased.
“The email says they have my daughter,” Peter announced. “But I don’t have children. Whoever sent this email sent it to the wrong person. But, the fact remains, someone knows a high-value target’s name, and they know I have him in custody. Not to mention someone’s daughter might’ve been taken.”
Something wasn’t adding up. There was not a chance in hell someone would try and extort money or information from the Attorney General of the United States without first knowing what they took did indeed belong to him.
“Motherfucker! We need to break for about thirty minutes. Zane, I need you out front.” Tom made his way to the swinging door and shook his head at his security detail. “I need privacy.”
“What do you know, Tom?” Peter demanded.
Tom stopped and looked at Peter. “You have a daughter. Olivia Cox is yours.”
“Pamela lied to me?” Peter whispered. “I asked her when she came home from Europe with a baby. I asked if she was mine. She said that she had met someone in Paris.”
“I’m sorry, Peter. She lied, Olivia is yours,” Tom said.
“What did the email say?” Peter asked Tex.
“Sir?” Tex looked at Tom. Tom nodded and looked down at his feet. If I had to bet, Tom already knew what was in those emails. “Pamela is ill. She and the First Lady were discussing Pamela’s will and trust. She was also asking the First Lady her opinion on how to introduce Olivia to you. She wanted to make things right before she got any worse. I have to say, I agree with Garrett on this one. It was too easy to trace the hack. Something isn’t adding up. The hack came from Langley, but all the chatter came from Scotland, Maryland.”
Goddamn. This just kept getting more and more complicated. Peter stood silently, his stare devoid of any emotion. He looked like a man that had just had his world torn apart. I felt bad for the man, finding out that the woman he loved lied to him and kept his child from him had to be devastating.
“We’ll get her back, Peter,” Tom said. “Tex, thank you for all your help. Gerald will give you my personal line. If you ever need anything in the future, you call me direct. I owe you a marker for this.”
Zane followed the President out of the room and gestured for me to follow them. I heard Garrett utter a string of curse words. I would bet my ass he was trying to dig up whatever information he could. Garrett was an information junkie and world-class hacker. Leaving him and Tex alone in a room together might be dangerous. There was no doubt the two of them could take the U.S. to DEFCON one in two point five seconds.
“Do I need to call in the rest of the team now?” Zane asked when he stopped in front of Tom.
“Yes. I need them five minutes ago.” The President lowered his voice. “I need a marker on this. Completely off the books. If any of this gets out, it will be a political disaster. Whoever has Olivia has the name of a man that the United States has denied any knowledge of. I personally denied any knowledge of his capture or detainment.”
“Anything you need,” Zane answered without hesitation.
Chapter Four
Olivia
“Clear.” I heard yelled outside of my door.
A few seconds later, I heard more shots ring out. I strained and listened to see if I could hear more English.
“All clear, Viper,” the voice said.
The door was slowly opening, and my heart was jumping out of my chest. I held my breath and readied myself for a fight. Unless one of them shot me from across the room, I was going to claw his eyes out and rip his balls clean from his body. If I was going to die anyway, I might as well inflict maximum pain in the process.
In stepped the largest figure I had ever seen. He was completely dressed in black, face covered with a black mask, black military looking rifle pointed in my direction. I was frozen stiff. I didn’t know what to do, what to say. I thought about playing dead, maybe he would just close the door and leave me there.
It had to have been only seconds, but it felt like an eternity as he slowly stalked acro
ss the room toward me. He had lowered his rifle, but I noticed his finger was still on the trigger. I would only have seconds to make my move before he pointed his gun at me again.
He knelt down next to me and gently brushed my crusty hair off my face.
“Sweet mother of God. Fucking animals,” he muttered.
My eyes shot open and staring at me was the most piercing set of green eyes I had ever seen. He looked like a panther, all in black with green cat eyes.
“Olivia?” he asked.
Well, I didn’t really know if it was a question or a statement, but I answered. “Yes.”
“We’re gonna get you out of here. I just need you to wait a moment for me to get this cuff off you,” the man said.
“Where-where are you taking me now?” I asked.
This was not going as planned. I was supposed to be ripping his balls off. Kicking and screaming, and clawing my way to safety. Instead, I was hypnotized by his eyes, they were kind and gentle, and oddly I felt safe for the first time in forever.
“Panther, we are three minutes to out,” a man said from the doorway, “Holy mother fuck! It smells like rotting bodies in here.”
“Damn, Blue, you’re always bitching about some kind of smell,” a third voice called out.
Maybe I should’ve been scared, maybe I should’ve been fighting, but the gloved hand on my bare arm kept me calm. He was gently rubbing his thumb back and forth on the inside of my bicep.
“Would you two idiots shut the hell up,” the man touching me said. “We’re gonna take you home, Olivia. Your ma is real worried about you.”
“My ma?” I asked. “How? Who are you?”
“Don’t worry about the how, tesorino. You’ll be home in no time. I’m Panther, that’s Blue, and that’s Breeze.” The two men across the room nodded their heads in turn.
“Panther? It fits,” I whispered, embarrassed by my lack of filter.
Protecting Olivia Page 2
