Concierge

by Stella Barcelona

  I’ll swing it harder than a baseball bat.

  “What in the hell is taking so long?”

  “Nearest guards are…there now. Yes, ma’am. False alarm. Those French doors are problematic. We’ve worked…”

  As the guard discussed the sensitivity of the system, disappointment felt like a physical blow to her chest. Thinking Gabe was there to rescue her, like a white knight on his horse, lance drawn, was just a case of wishful thinking.

  It's just you, now. Deal with it, Andi.

  As long as the other woman’s back was turned, Andi moved her hands and feet some more to bring back circulation. Mentally she tried to gauge the distance to Sonja. The distance to the door. The distance to the bay window and French doors that were beyond the fireplace. There were other things she could use as a weapon from the bed to the door. Plenty of candlesticks and decorative figures with some weight to them.

  Mentally, Andi rehearsed her moves. Travel the seven or eight feet to the table. Grab the candlestick, then run like hell. If Sonja came at her—and Andi had to assume she would—she’d hit the bitch as hard as she could. Aim for the eyes, Gabe had taught her. Aim to crush. Break her nose. Let momentum take your swing through her face to the back of her head.

  “Goddammit, would you shut up? I’m sick and tired of false alarms,” Sonja snapped. “I’m paying you a goddamn fortune. For the millionth time, the system’s only supposed to be visible to me when there’s something for me to worry about. Do you goddamn understand?”

  “And as I just explained, although I understand your frustration, the system needs to be sensitive, given the size of the property and your…needs. And you’ve insisted on having a personal warning system.”

  “Understood. Figure out a way that false alarms don’t bother me so frequently. Or else you’re fired. Do you comprehend that goddamn instruction?”

  Without waiting for a reply, Sonja flicked the button. Glancing in Andi’s direction, she frowned in annoyance, then resumed her position at the candles. When she was through lighting them, she opened a rectangular silver box. Pulled out a cigarette and lit it. Sitting on the settee, she took a deep drag, as she glanced again at Andi. “It’s like waiting for goddamn water to boil. Wake up, Andi.”

  The red glow of the lit cigarette was a trigger, causing Andi’s heartbeat to falter, and her bravado to start vaporizing. Waves of terror stole her breath as she looked at the glowing tip of the cigarette. Stay still. Still. Be smart. Forcing measured breathing, she relaxed her jaw and unclenched her fingers. Stay in the now.

  She had a plan. Eight feet. Candlestick. Run like hell. Kill the bitch if she comes at you.

  Andi considered talking it out, pretending she was confused about how she’d gotten there. Worth a try, because it would buy time. Maybe she’ll talk. For a while. Because she’s not touching me. Not with her hands. Not with wax. Not with a candle. And absolutely not with a cigarette. Been there. Done that.

  With eyes only open a fraction, Andi focused on the heavy silver candlesticks, mentally hefting each of them. Yes, that one. At least a foot tall. Curved. Ornate, with rounded balls up the column and a square base that provided sharp, lethal corners. She imagined the coldness warming under her hands, imagined the weight of it, imagined the feel of her fingers gripping the sleek cylinder. Visualized the places on Sonja’s head where the heavy candlestick would do the most damage. The temple, certainly. The nose, not lethal, but it would slow her down. A jab in the eye—definitely. She imagined the fight. Imagined the countermoves. Imagined crushing the woman’s skull. Just as she’d do to Victor Morrissey if he dared to return from the dead.

  I will not be a victim. I’ll die first. Better yet, she’ll die first. And I’ll fight anyone else who comes my way. I’m going to get free.

  Or die trying.

  Chapter Forty Seven

  Gabe

  As Gabe’s team moved between trees at the Long’s Northshore estate, Ragno kept them informed of intel as they got it. “Data now suggests as many as thirty victims currently being held on the property. Copy?”

  “Copy,” Ace said.

  Thirty hostages, and please God, Andi as well. Gabe’s resolve hardened. “Copy. Element of surprise while searching and rescuing is of paramount importance. Anyone or any damn thing standing between us and Andi, and the other victims, is subject to instant termination.”

  To that end, the agents who’d accompanied Gabe and Ace in the Chinook were heavily armed and spread from corner to corner over the fifty-acre estate, which did a damn good job of looking like an upper crust horse farm. More resources were on the way. Ace led Beta team—the twenty agents charged with the search of the dozen outbuildings. Gabe led Alpha team—himself and four additional agents who were to take control of the ranch house, the security epicenter they suspected was located there, and—hoping against every ounce of hope he’d ever had in his life—find Andi.

  Ragno, with her team at corporate headquarters in Denver, was overseeing everyone in real time via satellite, while Barrows and his team, through the portal provided by the computers on the third floor of the Saint Charles Avenue mansion, had accessed the cyber-depths of the illicit activities conducted by the Longs. With each keystroke, they were shedding light on a human trafficking organization of the highest, most exclusive magnitude, with a worldwide reach. So far, they’d confirmed the sickest of scenarios that Gabe had theorized since Pic’s disappearance. Juliette and Richie were also providing their own perspectives as Brandon and his team continued their interrogation. As more and more facts of who and what the Longs were selling became apparent, just cause for Gabe, Ace, and their agents to use lethal force reached an all-time high.

  For the security on site, who protected the Longs and their human trafficking enterprise, the future was dire. For them, potentially interfering with victim rescue, was just cause for a bullet through the brain. Until the entire estate was under Black Raven control, each agent assumed the role of judge, jury, and executioner.

  On reaching the tree line, Gabe and his team dropped to their bellies and started crawling. There were a hundred yards through fields of long grass to traverse before reaching the enormous ranch house up ahead. The morning’s clouds were gone and bright, and early afternoon sunlight taunted him as he crawled. A placid pond sparkled on his left, while to the right, the land gently swelled. Terraced steps led to the house from grassy pastures. White fencing corralled gleaming horses. With the house in full view, Gabe paused to assess their next move. Taking out his binoculars, he scanned the building from left to right. The three-story French Country house glinted with gray shingles and stone. It boasted turrets, bay windows, wrap around porches on both levels and a shit ton of security. Two men were stationed at double entry doors, no doubt more in back.

  “Holy crap,” Willis whispered. “These guys have bucks, or what?”

  Leon peered through her binoculars. “I guestimate ‘round twenty mil, and that’s not counting all the livestock.”

  “Livestock here means people, as well as animals,” Gabe reminded them. “Andi.” His body went cold as his heartbeat kicked up several levels.

  “Look at all those horses," Evans whispered in awe. “And the house. Man, that thing must be thirty thousand square feet.”

  “Then we’d better hustle and search smart,” Gabe responded as he readjusted his binoculars to the left of the main house. Barns. Smaller buildings, in the distance. He saw no trace of Ace or the other agents, just Long’s security patrolling the main house.

  Zero minus three hours twenty minutes. Feels like a lifetime since they’d taken her. Luck, you’ve been a bitch today. But please, don’t fail me now.

  He indicated the direction they would take—through the weeds alongside the pond, along a stone retaining wall near the pool, through an overgrown garden. Gabe returned the binocs to his pack. “Entry, East-side French doors by that trestle.”

  “No intel yet on interior of residence,” Ragno said, “proceed with cau
tion.”

  “No shit.”

  “I suspect security is on third floor.”

  “It’s where we’d put it,” Gabe muttered. “Balconies for shooting, if needed. Windows, all points around. Views of entire property if technology fails.”

  “Move out Alpha team. Let’s show these bastards we’re smarter. Better. And they chose the wrong side.”

  Slithering on their bellies, they made it down to the house without being detected. So far, so good. Gabe motioned his team to cross the stone patio. The outdoor living space had enough plants and furniture and assorted décor crap to make for good cover as they did a running crouch to the doors. Blocked by two giant shrubs in decorative pots flanking the doors, Gabe picked the first locks. His team crouched low beside him. If security spotted them now, it would be a different ball game than what they had planned.

  But they’d deal with that. They’d come to play ball. Any way it was thrown at them. And they’d win. Any way. Any how.

  He felt the tension in the second lock give. He opened the door. Interior lights dimmed. A faint doorbell chimed. “We’re a go. Move it.”

  As his team slipped inside, he locked the door behind him, and ran across what looked like a sunroom filled with white wicker furniture and lots of plants. At the side of the interior doorway, he stopped on a dime. He held up his fist to his team as heavy footsteps approached. Low voices.

  Two men.

  His team drew weapons and scurried out of sight of the approaching people.

  As two armed guards entered the room, one said, presumably into a mic, “False alarm. Must’ve been a bird.”

  As they approached the French doors, Gabe took them both out with a pop pop of his silencer. Eyeing their Berettas, their neat black uniforms, their comm systems, and brawn, he gestured for his team to search them. “Keys. Access cards.”

  On open mic, he said, “Don’t underestimate security. Two down, plenty more to go. These people have the bucks and motivation to hire top notch firepower. Evans. Lane. Drag these two out of sight, then start first floor recon, without setting off any alarms until we control the system. I’m headed upstairs. Willis. Leon. You’re with me.”

  Sylvia Leon, a multi-skilled, dark-haired agent who specialized in cyber assistance in field operations, nodded. She stepped through blood and brains to claim anything that looked like keys or keycards from the dead men. People only underestimated Leon once. Her small stature and pretty face hid a well-honed body, nerves of steel, and a razor-sharp mind. Gabe had seen her calmly lift her weapon while typing, take down two men without breathing hard, then continue negotiating her way through a complex security system.

  Gabe, Leon, and Willis lightly ran down the highly polished, dark wood floor of a wide hallway decorated with oil paintings of bucolic country scenes, then, darted up a long, wide flight of carpeted stairs. Steel doors, with a keypad, suggested they’d guessed correctly about the third floor, which momentarily blocked them. Gabe listened as Leon and Ragno strategized how to dupe the system. As they talked, Leon sorted through the keys and cards they’d lifted from the guards. Gabe stared at them. Thinking.

  “Leon,” Gabe said, remembering the dead woman at the Saint Charles Avenue mansion and what was at stake on the farm. Sometimes, giving people a chance to surrender was warranted. But in this case, given the potential fall-out with innocents on the property, immediate lethal force was justified. “Given the strength of the encryption Ragno’s encountered thus far, we’re likely walking into a highly sensitive monitoring system. I don’t want to give whoever is in there a chance to sound the alarm.”

  She nodded. “Understood.”

  Glancing at Gabe, she inserted a card in the lock. He held his breath. Waited. Then heard a reassuring soft click. No bell. No warning. Two men, sitting in a large, dimly lit room as they monitored a bank of screens, weren’t expecting a breach as he and Leon entered, weapons raised before they turned around.

  Gabe took out the guy on the left, firing a round into the center of his forehead. Pop. Leon did the same to the other guy as he rose from his chair, a startled look on his face.

  “Willis. Stand guard.”

  Grabbing the slumped man by the collar, Leon yanked him out of his chair, and dropped him to the floor before sliding into his vacated seat. Willis stood guard at the door, while Evans and Lane—via their mic system—reported two hostiles down in the kitchen.

  The house was at least thirty thousand square feet. A search would take a while, and until they’d gained control of the security system, Evans and Lane were taking care to avoid activities that would set off alarms. Meaning, unless Andi was sitting in a wide-open space, they wouldn’t find her.

  But he had to try.

  Andi, where the hell are you?

  Gabe felt the urgency in every atom of his body as he scanned the live feeds on the two dozen flickering monitors.

  As he watched the changing images on the screens, Leon clicked away on a keyboard. “Ragno. Ace. Four hostiles down,” Gabe reported. “Alpha team in position. Security control room. Live feeds are mostly from the out-buildings. We don’t own the system. Yet.”

  Gabe had gambled that Andi would be in the residence, not one of the outbuildings. She’d be at the ranch house, removed from the main operation. Sonja’s personal plaything. Gabe desperately sorted through the sea of video images, looking for confirmation that his guess was correct.

  There were plenty of images. Buildings. Rooms. Victims.

  No Andi.

  His heart pounded with a loud whump-thump that battered his chest, his brain, his gut.

  Dead? Alive? Hurt? Goddammit. I need to know. Now.

  “Leon. Internal views of the house.”

  “Roger that. System feeds are currently set external. Perimeter. No internal views.”

  “No shit. Tell me something I don’t know.”

  Exhibiting Ragno-esque calm and stoicism, despite the fact that she was sitting in a chair that was flanked by the bodies of two dead men, and had field agents hanging on each of her keystrokes, Leon said, “I’m creating a firewall, so hostiles who have access to this system don’t see what we’re doing. After the firewall is established, I can start manipulating the system and Ragno’s team can immediately step in. Gabe, do not touch that keyboard.”

  He pulled back his hand, his eyes fixed on the monitors. “Ace. Beta team. Warning. I’m seeing multiple scenes of what could be hard core porn movies. It’s what you’re going to walk into and it’s sickening. I’ve got nothing against porn. But these people aren’t all…enjoying it. And some of them are really young. Operations are very active, whatever the hell these operations are.”

  “We’re uncovering more details,” Ragno said. “For context, for all agents—expect anything in the search and rescue. Barrows is now decrypting a digital ledger. We’re analyzing acquisitions. Transactions. Surgeries. Drugs administered. We believe that Gabe just described part of their breeding program. Babies.”

  “Holy shit,” Gabe said, realizing the real purpose of the farm. “They breed and sell babies?”

  “That’s only part of it. Richard’s analyzing the codes in the ledgers and hidden documents we found on the computer at Saint Charles Avenue. The Long’s aren’t just savvy, they’re sick pervs. They’re key players in the black market human organ trade. Zeus has opened the lines of communication with the heads of requisite governmental agencies.”

  Zeus’s specialty—governmental liaison. He’d work out the back-end solution as he spoon-fed details in a manner that ensured that law enforcement didn’t interfere with Black Raven's objective. When Black Raven uncovered high profile criminal activity in the course of their jobs, the company typically tendered information, and credit, to a federal agency with jurisdiction over the matter. Politicians called it positive public relations that provided Black Raven a license to operate as a virtual private army, while the Government claimed credit for criminal takedown. Black Raven called it goodwill capital. Give
n the size and pervasiveness of the illicit sex trafficking enterprise they were now uncovering, the company was going to reap enormous goodwill capital.

  Which means nothing if I don’t find Andi. And Pic. Both of them. Safe. Secure. Home. That’s all that matters.

  Interminable seconds ticked by, erasing years from his life. Should he quit tormenting himself by watching all the live feeds? Just go the hell on a rampage through the house, kicking in doors and shooting anyone who wasn't his Andi? Sounded like a solid plan.

  Over the mic, Gabe heard a soft pop, pop.

  “Two hostiles, dead,” Ace reported. “Thirty feet east of the red barn.”

  “Sir, how are we coming with disabling the alarm systems?” Evans asked.

  “We haven’t. Yet.”

  “It’s slow going, until we do,” Evans said. “Most doors we’re encountering on the first floor are locked.”

  “Understood,” Gabe said. “Do not risk it.”

  They were in a catch-22; until the entire premises were secure, the agents in the house had to avoid setting off alarms. Kicking open a locked door would do just that. Two false alarms—the first caused by Gabe’s entrance into the ranch house—within fifteen minutes would give them away.

  “Firewall’s up,” Leon announced. “All security alerts—disabled. Ragno’s—in.” With each burst of Leon’s keystrokes, the wall of monitors flashed different camera feeds. Split screens of video appeared with schematics. “Gabe. For interior feeds, focus on monitors one, two, three.”

  Gabe started clicking at the keyboard, muttering, “Andi, where are you?” It was a multi-layered system, but it had basic manipulation through placing a cursor over schematics. Each of his clicks picked up a different camera view and different options for zones. “Ragno.”