Geek Squad 02 - Operation Foxtrot

by Stormy Glenn

“Well.” Ian chuckled. “I guess we’re going hunting.”

  Worked for me.

  I waited while the others shifted into their ocelot form and then padded over to the open window. I was glad I had forgotten to close it after I came inside before. It made it a lot easier to get back out.

  My sense of déjà vu was growing stronger as I climbed out onto the metal fire escape. Once again, I went up instead of going down. I wanted to get a good look at the street below before we went down. I didn’t know if anyone was watching my building or not, but that’s what I’d do.

  Once I reached the roof, I raced over to the front edge. I waited for Ian to join me then hopped up on the brick railing. “I want to make sure no one is watching the building before we head out.”

  “Good idea,” Ian said as he jumped up on the edging and started walking in the other direction.

  I headed in the other direction. It took just a few minutes for us to cover every side of the older apartment building. By the time we got back to the front of the building, the others were waiting on us.

  “I didn’t see anything that concerns me,” I told Ian, “and that kind of concerns me.”

  “Right?” Ian asked. “If Cavetti is as crazy as you said he was, he’d be an idiot to not have someone watching the building for you.”

  “Unless he got what he was really after when he took Cooper,” Ewan pointed out.

  I wanted to slug him.

  “So, how do we find this Cavetti?”

  I had no idea. I didn’t…I did. I knew where the moron lived. I’d been to a party at his house, one arranged by my agent.

  “I know where he lives,” I explained when everyone stared at me. “I suggest some of us go and stake the place out. Ian and I can go to my agent’s office. He has to know something about this guy.”

  “Where’s your agent?” Ian asked.

  “Most likely at home.” It was nearing the early hours of the morning. Max would be home sleeping off whatever party he had attended earlier in the evening.

  “Okay,” Ewan said. “Kaito and I are going to head over to Cavetti’s house. You two track down your agent.”

  “What about me?” Danny asked. “Where am I going?”

  “I want you to go back to the apartment and use that computer of yours to find anything you can on Cavetti.”

  I wasn’t surprised at the relief that flooded Danny’s face. He might be a fierce ocelot shifter, but the man didn’t have an aggressive bone in his body.

  I gave Ewan the address to Cavetti’s place and then took off with Ian. With darkness still holding on, it was easy to traverse the backstreets and alleyways. There were a few times when we had to stop and hide in the shadows or behind stuff.

  I held my breath every time.

  When Max’s apartment building finally came into view, I still felt the need to hold my breath. I lived in an older brick building, one with character, fading brick, and a metal fire escape. Max lived in a concrete and glass monstrosity. There was no fire escape.

  I had no idea how we were going to get inside.

  “Now what?” Ian asked.

  I stared at the tall building for a few moments before an idea came to me. “We need to shift.”

  “Why?” Ian asked as he followed me to a dark doorway.

  “The doorman knows me. I think we can get in if we’re in human form.”

  “Sounds like a plan.”

  I checked up and down the street before shifting. Getting caught by animal control was not on my top list of things to do today. Once Ian shifted, I plastered a smile on my face and started down the street toward Max’s apartment building.

  Just as we reached the edge of the building, the doorman pulled the door open and Max stepped out with Leonard Lake.

  Freaking peachy.

  I grabbed Ian’s arm, ready to pull him back into the shadows, when Max turned and looked right at me. Surprised showed briefly on his face before he schooled his features.

  “Andrew.”

  “Max,” I replied.

  “What are you doing here?” Max asked as he walked toward me, smoothing the tie down on his navy-blue Armani suit.

  I pulled Ian forward. “My cousin was in town. I wanted to show him around. I was hoping you might have some tickets to a basketball game at Madison Square Garden.”

  “I do, yes.” Max’s eyes flickered to Ian. “I thought your cousin was…bigger.”

  I chuckled nervously. “Technically, Ian isn’t my cousin, but since he’s with Hank, that kind of makes him my cousin.”

  That sounded plausible.

  Right?

  “It’s a little early to be coming by for tickets.”

  “Oh, I was just going to leave a message at the front desk.”

  Max frowned, his brow furrowing. “Why not call me?”

  “Lost my phone.” I glanced past Max to where Leonard stood, his eyes pinned on me. “Why is he here?”

  “Oh, just some business stuff,” Max replied. “Nothing for you to worry about.”

  I worried.

  “I won’t accept any party invites or photo shoots that Mr. Lake has to do with. I want nothing to do with the man.”

  He was creepy as hell.

  “Oh.” Max glanced behind him. “My understanding was that you and Mr. Lake were involved in a…relationship.”

  “Hell, no!”

  Not for all the catnip in the world.

  “No?” Max asked as he turned back to me.

  “No,” I said vehemently.

  “I see.”

  “What does that mean?” I narrowed my eyes. “What’s going on, Max?”

  “Mr. Lake explained to me about your close association. Based on what he said, I canceled all of your shoots with Paolo.”

  “You did what?” I shouted.

  “He said you didn’t want to be a model anymore, that you were going to travel the world with him.”

  “And you believed him?” I was incensed. “Why in the hell didn’t you talk to me about this before you did anything?”

  That would have made sense.

  “Look,” Max said in a quiet voice. “Lake is worth a lot of money. You could—”

  “I could what?” I snapped. “Bend over and be his butt boy because he tosses a little cash your way? You’re supposed to work for me, not him. And you’re supposed to be an agent, not a pimp.”

  “Andrew—”

  “Stop trying to peddle my ass because it’s not going to work.”

  I couldn’t believe Max was trying to convince me to go out with Lake. I wanted to smack the man and then demand my money back. He got twenty-five percent of whatever I made. He wasn’t supposed to try and get more by selling me to the highest bidder.

  “You’re fired, Max.”

  “What?” the man shouted. “You can’t fire me.”

  “I just did, and my cousin is a witness. And you’d better have all my accounts ready because I’ll be hiring a forensic accountant to go over the books to make sure you haven’t been trying to peddle my ass to anyone else.”

  It was interesting to see Max’s face turn red.

  It also told me that this wasn’t the first time someone had paid for my company. It kind of made me wonder just who it was.

  I was pretty sure Cavetti was involved.

  “You better hope you’re not involved in this shit with Cavetti, because he’s going down. If you had anything to do with any of this, you’re going down with him.”

  “Way to let the cat out of the bag, Andy,” Ian whispered for my ears only.

  I didn’t care. My agent, the man who I depended on to get my modeling gigs and keep me out of trouble, was selling me to the highest bidder.

  I wanted to strangle him.

  When Leonard started walking toward us, I pointed my finger at him. “You stay away from me. Come near me again and I’ll file a harassment suit against you.”

  I spun on my heel and stormed away, uncaring if Ian caught up with me or not.
<
br />   He did.

  He caught up and started walking back down the sidewalk beside me. “So, where to now?”

  Crap.

  As soon as we turned the corner and got halfway down the block, I stopped and bent over, resting my hands on my knees. I drew in several deep breaths as I tried to calm myself. It wasn’t easy. I was pissed beyond words at the moment.

  I yelped when Ian shoved me up against the side of the building. “What are you—”

  “I think they are looking for us.”

  It wasn’t until Ian said something that I realized a limousine was slowly moving down the street. I glanced around until I spotted a large Dumpster next to one of the buildings. I pointed.

  “There.”

  We both ran toward the Dumpster. As soon as we reached it, we squatted down on the far side. After giving a quick glance around to make sure no one was watching us, I shifted and climbed under the metal container. Ian joined me a moment later.

  We both crouched and scooted forward, watching as the limo drove down the street toward us, then passed us and moved farther on down the block.

  “That asshole,” I whispered silently to Ian. I had clearly seen Max and Leonard through the open window. “I’m going to fry his ass.”

  “Do you think this has anything to do with the disappearance of those soldiers?”

  I glanced at Ian in shock. I had never considered that. “Some sort of slavery ring?”

  If an ocelot could have shrugged, Ian would have pulled it off.

  “I’m not connecting the dots here, Ian. Connect them for me please.”

  “I’m still working on it.”

  Well, poop.

  “It just seems odd to me that Cooper is investigating the disappearance of some soldiers that attended a party hosted by Cavetti, and your agent has been accepting money from Cavetti and that other guy to arrange for you to attend said parties. Makes me wonder who else they’ve set up.”

  That actually made a lot of sense.

  It was also scary as hell.

  “If Max is working with Cavetti and Lake, then this mess is a lot bigger than we originally thought.”

  “It also means we need to find Cooper ASAP.”

  I couldn’t agree more.

  Chapter Nine

  I stared out the window of the hotel room we were hiding out in, my mind reeling with every little thought bombarding me. So much had happened, and so quickly. For one, we’d had to move to this hotel room. There was too much chance Cavetti, Max, or Leonard would come back to my apartment looking for me.

  For two, finding Cooper was turning out to be harder than I thought it would be. It was as if the man had simply slipped off the face of the earth. There was no sign of him. There was also no sign of Max, Leonard, or Cavetti.

  That last one got me. How did a mobster boss disappear? Didn’t he need to be around to oversee all of his illegal operations? What would his no-neck goons do without him?

  What would his no-neck goons do without him?

  “Danny,” I called out as I jumped up from the chair I had been lounging in and joined him at the desk where he was working on his laptop. It didn’t take much. The hotel room just wasn’t that big. “In all that computer searching you did, what exactly did you find on Cavetti?”

  “Uh…” Danny blinked up at me. “A lot. Were you looking for something specific?

  “If Cavetti is missing, who is looking after the shop for him?”

  “Oh.” Danny turned and tapped away at his keyboard. A moment later, a picture of a man in a fancy-looking suit and short dark hair came on the screen. “This is Carlos Mankato. He’s Cavetti’s number two man. When Cavetti isn’t around, Mankato runs the show.”

  “And where is he currently?”

  Danny tapped away again. A map of the city came up with a blinking blue dot over one section down by the waterfront. “He’s at a warehouse down by the docks. It belongs to a shell corporation, but I tracked it back to Cavetti. There seems to be a lot of activity around there, too. Trucks coming and going all hours of the day and night.”

  “I’ll bet that’s where they’re keeping Cooper.”

  Danny lifted an eyebrow as he glanced up at me. “Why?”

  “Because if that is the base of Cavetti’s operations, that’s where I’d keep him.”

  That’s what the bad guys did in the movies anyway.

  “We don’t know if that’s Cavetti’s base, though,” Danny insisted.

  “No, we don’t, but if it’s as busy as you say it is, it only makes sense that it would be.” I pointed at the screen. “We need to get into that warehouse.”

  I could feel it in my bones.

  “Ian,” I called out as I turned to look for the man. He walked out of one of the two bedrooms in the hotel suite, a cell phone pressed to his ear. “Is that Hank?”

  Ian nodded.

  “Tell him we might have found Cooper.”

  Ian’s eyebrows lifted.

  I pointed to the screen. “There’s been no sign of Cavetti anywhere, but there’s a lot of activity going on at his warehouse on the dock. It’s where his second in command is. I think it might be where they are holding Cooper.”

  Ian nodded and then relayed that information to Hank. After a moment, he pressed the phone to his chest. “Hank says to wait. Him and the others in his unit are on their way.”

  “No.” It was as simple as that. I wasn’t waiting. I couldn’t wait. “Give him the address and tell him he can catch up. We’re going in as soon as it’s dark.”

  Ian frowned, but put the phone back to his ear and started talking to Hank again. I watched for a moment before returning my attention to Danny’s computer. “Can you get me a close-up picture of this building? I need to see where we can go in.”

  “I can do better than that,” Danny said as he started tapping away again. “I can get you a blueprint of the place.”

  Perfect.

  I waited while Danny did whatever it was he did, amazed at how quickly the man brought information up. I was good, but I wasn’t that good. The laptop practically sang for Danny. It was amazing to watch. I wanted to sit down with the man when this was all over and pick his brain.

  “Okay,” Ian said as he walked over. “Hank and the others will meet us at the warehouse. He does ask, if at all possible, that we don’t start anything until they get there.”

  “I make no promises.”

  Ian chuckled. “Yeah, he kind of figured you’d say that. He just wants us to be careful.”

  That was the general idea.

  “I don’t plan on running in there with no plan in place, Ian. I might not be military, but even I know that’s a stupid idea.”

  I wasn’t a complete dummy.

  Really.

  “Hank says they’re two hours out.”

  I glanced at the clock on the wall. It was nearing six o’clock at night. We’d been holed up in the hotel room for a while now. “They should get there just about the time we do. Why don’t we go in and scout the place and then meet up with them somewhere close?”

  Ian’s eyebrows lifted again. “You’d be willing to do that?”

  My eye roll was rather dramatic, but Ian got the picture. He chuckled. “Okay, okay, so you don’t have a death wish.”

  “No, but I can’t just sit here on my ass doing nothing.”

  Even if it was a spectacular ass.

  Besides, my ocelot was about to go out of his mind. It was all I could do to hold on to him and keep from shifting. I had to do something before he broke free.

  “So, let’s see what we’re working with,” I said as I turned back to Danny’s computer.

  There had to be something here that would give us an edge. An hour later as I stared at the massive warehouse building, I wished I had taken just a little more time to study the blueprints. Every doorway we had scanned out as possible entryways was manned by armed guards.

  And then there were the armed guards who patrolled the grounds.


  And the armed guards in boats in the water.

  And armed guards at the entrance to the docks.

  Just about every inch of the place was being patrolled by armed guards.

  It was ridiculous.

  Overkill.

  We needed a freaking tank.

  “Maybe we should wait for Hank and the others,” Ian suggested.

  “We should,” I agreed. “And you can if you want, but I’m going in.”

  I enjoyed Ian’s eye roll.

  I climbed out of the car we were sitting in and made my way to the edge of one of the buildings surrounding the warehouse. I shifted and crouched down in the shadows, waiting for my opportunity.

  By the time it came, the others had shifted and joined me, all except Danny. I glanced around when I couldn’t see him. “Where’s Danny?”

  “He’s waiting in the car for Hank and the others.” Ian tapped the side of his head. “He’ll let us know when they get here.”

  That was actually a really good idea. Danny wasn’t one for danger or violence, and I was pretty sure some was headed our way. Having a lookout wasn’t a bad idea either.

  “Okay, I’m just waiting for that guard to move on before going in.”

  Ian nodded as he moved up to stand next to me, watching through the metal mesh fence. Once the patrols had moved on, I scooted under the edge of the wire fence and then hurried over to hide behind a stack of wooden pallets. I kept a lookout as the others did the same.

  After everyone had joined me, I moved out, staying as close to the side of the building as possible. Every time I saw a guard, I stopped walking and crouched down, hopefully behind something, but not always.

  Fear rode me hard, but so did determination. I knew Cooper was here somewhere. I could feel it in my gut. I just had to find him.

  I had hoped I could pick up his scent if I got close enough, but all I smelled was fish and rot. You’d think, being a feline shifter and all, I’d like the smell of fish.

  I didn’t.

  It was actually rather disgusting.

  Maybe my cat only liked the canned stuff.

  Stupid cat.

  Getting to the warehouse building was surprisingly harder than sneaking into it. Someone had left a second-floor window open near a stack of crates. Most likely, they assumed no one would be able to climb the haphazard stack of wooden boxes. They obviously weren’t planning on a ragtag group of ocelots shifters trying to break into the place.