by Ivy Nelson
He didn’t have any Canadian law enforcement friends, or he would be on the phone trying to tap into Canadian resources as well. Right now, he was technically under a gag order though. The president didn’t want to involve Canada unless they had to. Michael didn’t exactly see how it could be helped. This was happening on Canadian soil. He could tip them off himself and risk his badge. He would when he had enough intel to bring them to launch their own rescue operation.
He couldn’t wait until Steve Givens was president. The man in office now was an incompetent asshole. He was only grateful that Sean Atleigh wasn’t running anymore. With his scandals a few months ago, his party hadn’t put forward a strong replacement candidate. It looked like Givens was going to win in a landslide. That gave him an idea.
He pulled out his cell phone. Bradley answered on the first ring.
“Sorry I’m not with you right now, I had to do this event.”
“No. It’s fine. There isn’t much to be done right now anyway.”
“I know. I just feel bad. You were with me every step of the way when Darci was taken.”
It was true. Michael had stayed by Bradley’s side through the entire ordeal. “There may be a way you can help me.”
“I’m all ears man.”
“Has your father started getting daily intelligence briefings?”
“He has. As soon as he clinched the nomination.”
“Is there any way you can bring this situation to his attention? Homeland is yanking my chain and Carrie has a source inside the Oval that says they aren’t planning a rescue mission but a kill mission instead. Rescuing Adara isn’t high on their list of priorities.”
“Shit. Yes. Right away. He’s on stage right now but as soon as he steps off. He’s already marginally aware, but I haven’t had five minutes alone with him since we got here.”
“I appreciate it. Call me when you have an update.”
Michael ended the call and stood to pace again. There really wasn’t much else to do. He grabbed his keys and badge and walked to his SUV.
Forty-five minutes later, he was pacing in Peter’s office. Not much different than being at work. At least there he could talk more openly about everything.
“Michael, honey sit down,” Carrie said from her spot in the corner of the room. She was in research mode again, so the surrounding area was littered with energy drink cans and hard candy wrappers.
He smiled at her. “I can’t. Too much pent-up energy. I hate not being able to just go after her. Damn international laws.”
Carrie chuckled. “Master won’t let that stop him. He’s got a couple of Canadian law enforcement friends he’s talking to on the down-low.”
Michael didn’t doubt it. He didn’t know all of Peter’s secrets or his life story, but he knew the man was one well connected fucker.
Peter stepped back into the room. “Talking about me again?” he asked with a wink at Carrie.
“Just telling Michael how bad ass you are, Sir.” The quirky blond blew her husband a kiss and went back to her computer screen.
“If you have Canadian law enforcement friends, ask them to look for medical professionals that have ties to this terrorist group or who could be susceptible to blackmail. This bone marrow transplant he needs would require a full medical team and a place to conduct the procedure.”
“You’re assuming Adara agreed to help.”
“That or they’re forcing her. They kidnapped her for fuck’s sake.”
“Fair point. I’ll pass it along.”
Michael felt his phone buzz.
“Bradley, any news?”
“I passed everything on to dad. He’s going to look into it and see what he can find out. He has to be careful because so much of the intelligence briefing is classified, but just know he’s in our corner.”
“That’s all I needed to hear buddy. Where’s your wife?”
“Right behind you.”
Michael turned to find Darci standing in the doorway of Peter’s office.
“I’m going to get back to the rally, Michael. Tell my wife I said behave. She knows what I mean.”
Darci grinned. “I heard you, Sir,” she said loud enough for Bradley to hear.
“What are you doing here? I figured you would be on the trail with Bradley,” Michael said as he pocketed his phone.
“Not today. I had a work thing. He called and said you might need a friendly face.”
She opened her arms for a hug. As he wrapped his arms around her, he fought the urge to bury his face in her shoulder and cry. His friend was a source of comfort and for that he was grateful.
“Yes!” Carrie exclaimed from her corner of the room. “I found Ripley.”
“Ripley?” Michael questioned, his brow hiked in confusion. “Who the hell is Ripley and why are we looking for him?”
“I can’t actually tell you that but it’s a good thing. He’s going to get me some information that might help us find Adara. He may or may not owe me a really big favor for keeping him anonymous in something I wrote a few years back.”
Interesting. Michael knew Carrie had a few contacts of her own as an investigative journalist. Must be a pretty good source if he could provide information that would lead them to an international terrorist in another country.
“I know you can’t tell me who he is or anything, but I need to understand how he can help Adara.”
“Just trust her man. You don’t need to know anything other than he’s a good one to have in our corner.” It was Peter who spoke this time.
Michael turned to Darci who shrugged.
“I know as much as you do,” she said.
Michael sighed. Waiting and trusting weren’t his strong suits. He didn’t have much of a choice though. Darci reached for his hand and tugged. “Come on. Let me buy you some coffee and we can talk. There’s a place right around the corner so you can be close if something happens.”
He didn’t want to leave, but it was probably a better idea than hovering over Peter and Carrie as they worked. He followed Darci out of the building and down the street to a small coffee shop. Not much different from the one Adara had been taken from. Maybe this wasn’t a good idea after all. Darci made him go find them a table while she got in line.
In less than five minutes, she was at the table he had picked for them with steaming cups of coffee.
“Talk to me, Michael. You’ve been so quiet.”
“I’m not sure what to say Darci. I’m terrified and I’m angry all at the same time.”
“Those are natural feelings, don’t you think? I’d be pissed if someone took Bradley.”
“That’s the thing, yeah, I’m pissed at the prick who took her, but I’m also pissed at her. She lied to me. Didn’t trust me. She put herself in danger after I explicitly asked her not to. I want to throttle her after we find her. I don’t know how we’re supposed to have a relationship after this though and that terrifies me. I care about her so much.”
Darci reached for his hand and squeezed. “I think all of those feelings are pretty normal, sweetheart. But can I give you some advice?”
He smiled. “Of course.”
“Don’t make any rash decisions right now. Wait until we find her and bring her home safe. The two of you clearly need to talk and work some things out.”
“I want that. I’m just not sure if we can have it. I can’t be with someone who doesn’t trust me. Especially when I’ve never given her a reason not to.”
“Trust doesn’t always work that way, Michael. I think you know that.”
“We’ll see. Right now, I just want to find her. After that? I’m not sure what we’ll have to say to each other.”
Chapter Twenty-Two
Adara lifted her head and looked around. She felt groggy from anesthesia. There were no windows in the room, so she had no way of telling if it was night or day and wasn’t sure how long she had been out. According to the doctor who did the procedure it wasn’t supposed to take more than an hour or two. Af
ter an attempt to raise her head, she decided to close her eyes and rest a bit longer. Michael’s face met her in the darkness, and she did her best to fight back the tears. Without him near, she felt empty.
Regret washed over her for not trusting him enough to listen to him about her brother. He’d told her not to do anything stupid, and that’s exactly what she had done. Now, she had no idea how she was going to get out of here. What on earth was she supposed to do? Agreeing to the medical procedure was more about self-preservation than goodwill. The look in her brother’s eyes when they last spoke told her that he had nothing but contempt for her. He loved his father though, of that she was certain. And his father currently called the shots.
Adara suspected that if anything happened to the aging terrorist, her brother would be the one to take over and he would have no qualms about executing her. In college, Adara had taken a few classes on terrorism, and everything she had learned told her that most terrorists were people who felt like they didn’t have a choice. The exception to that were those in positions of power. Those people tended to be manipulative. Even then, slapping the label of pure evil on them was inaccurate. To an American who had been through nine-eleven, evil is exactly what they would call it. But academia had shown her that there was so much more to it. There was no defending these people. But understanding often led to prevention in Adara’s opinion. There was a lot that average citizens just didn’t understand about the motivation that drove people to terrorism.
The door opened, startling Adara out of her thoughts. Her brother stood in the doorway. He seemed agitated.
“Sister. It is good to see you awake.”
“How is your father?” she managed to croak out.
“He’s your father too,” he said tensely.
She decided not to push the issue and simply nodded.
“I’m here to escort you back to your room so you can be more comfortable.”
As they wound through hallways in the direction of the bedroom, a man stopped them and whispered something in her brother’s ear.
“Damn it. Take her back to her room and lock her in. Make sure it is destroyed and search her things for anything else that may have transmitted something.”
To Adara he said, “You just fucked up, sister.” Fear wound its way through her intestines and threatened to come up in the form of vomit. She had no idea what her brother was talking about.
The stranger gripped her upper arm and took off, not caring that she had to jog to keep up with his long strides. At her bedroom door, the man threw open the door and shoved her inside. When the door was shut behind them, he began tossing things about in the room. Then, he went to the jacket she had been wearing when she arrived and ripped the flag pin off of it.
Bradley had given it to her to wear. Was it some kind of tracking device? The man stomped on it with his boot and snarled at her. “You’re dead,” he said before storming out of the room. Hearing the lock click into place from the outside made her jump. This was bad. Very, very bad. Then again, if her pin had been transmitting some kind of signal, that meant it was likely that people in the states knew where she was. For a moment, she allowed herself to feel hope that Michael or Peter would come to her rescue.
They left her alone for hours. She was grateful for the snacks and water that had been previously left in her room because she was starving. After several failed attempts at a nap, she paced for a little while. Then she curled up in the chair in the room and contemplated her surroundings. There was still no way out. Her only hope was a rescue mission.
The door flew open and two men with guns stormed into the room.
“Get up,” one of them bellowed. Adara did her best not to cower in fear at the sight of their weapons.
When she didn’t move, the second man grabbed her by the arm and pulled her from her chair. They dragged her out of the room and down the hall to another door. Inside, her brother was waiting there with a camera and a chair set up in front of it.
“Sit,” he said tersely. There were no windows, so she wasn’t sure what time of day or night it was, but the room smelled of mildew and stale body odor.
What were they doing in here?
“Your flag pin had a tracking device in it, sister. Did you know about this?”
Adara’s head moved back and forth. “No. I swear I didn’t,” she whispered. “My campaign manager gave me that pin.”
“Likely from your cop boyfriend.” Her brother wrinkled his nose at the mention of Michael.
It hadn’t occurred to her that Michael may have had something to do with the flag pin. Getting mad about it now seemed silly and yet she was angry.
“We’re going to record a message and send it to your friends. We have to make sure they don’t get any cute ideas about trying to rescue you. Then I’m afraid it’s goodbye, dear sister. We have to move, and we just don’t have room for you. My father will mourn your death, but he will understand.”
Her whole body trembled as she realized they intended to kill her. She just prayed they didn’t do it on camera for others to see. Her friends and family didn’t need to see that.
“Let’s get her ready to record.”
The hand landing hard on the side of her face was unexpected. She was able to steel herself and prepare for the second blow.
• • •
Seventy-two hours. That’s how long Adara had been gone and Michael was tired of sitting on the sidelines not doing anything to find her. He was ready to drive across the border and find her himself, but he knew that was likely to be a failure. Without proper intel, he risked getting her killed. Even with sufficient information, there was always the risk of a hostage dying in a rescue operation. He prayed his friends could find what they needed soon. It was difficult to refrain from pestering them every hour. Thankfully, they were pretty good about keeping him in the loop, even if that meant telling him they didn’t have anything new to share.
Darci insisted he stay at her house. But it felt awkward since they were newlyweds and he hated the idea of intruding. Bradley and Darci both insisted it was no intrusion. That didn’t stop him from feeling like it was, so he spent most of his time in his office at the precinct which is where he sat now. On his desk, lay every piece of information they had on the possible private airstrips Adara could have been taken to in Canada. Without any real details on the man who took her, he wasn’t going to find anything though. Her flag pin had been transmitting for a little while but not long enough to pinpoint her exact location. All they had was a rough idea.
His cell phone rang. It was Peter.
“Find anything?” he asked, not bothering with hello.
“Maybe. Carrie used the name her brother gave when Leslie Hanover hired him, and we found a similar name on a flight manifest to Canada on the night he took her. It’s not much but at least we have an idea of where he took her. Her contact also promised a potential location this evening. The information we got from her flag pin helped him narrow down possible places they could be hiding.”
Geeze, how many terrorists were hiding out in Canada?
“That’s better than nothing,” Michael said, blowing out a breath. “Let me know if there’s anything I can do to help. I’m feeling pretty helpless here.”
“I know you are, buddy. Just let us do what we do best. We’ll bring her home.”
Michael ended the call and stood to pace. He had plenty of vacation time. He could still make that trip to Canada. Not that he gave a damn about whether he had vacation time. If there was a chance he could find her, he was going to. He stared at the information scattered over his desk again and prayed Carrie’s source could come through with a location for them.
An hour went by before his phone rang again. It was Bradley.
“I’m sending you a link. You’re going to want to watch this. And try not to freak out.”
That couldn’t be good news. Just then the messenger on his computer dinged, and he clicked the link waiting for him there.
T
he blood drained from his face.
“FUCK. Find her. Damn it. Find her right now.”
Adara sat in a chair in a dingy room. Two men, their faces obscured, stood next to her with large guns. Adara’s voice shook as she spoke. “They know you were tracking me with my flag pin and that you have our location. Please…please don’t try to rescue me or they’ll kill me.” Dark bruises had formed under her eyes and he could tell she was on the verge of tears. “I’m sorry,” she whispered before the screen went black.
“DAMN IT,” Michael yelled again.
“I know. I’m fucking pissed and terrified. Is she right? Do we have her location?” Bradley asked.
“Just a general idea. Carrie’s source is supposedly close to narrowing it down for us. I think he’s deep cover CIA or something because she won’t tell me shit about him.” Michael stood and paced with the phone to his ear.
“There’s a SEAL team ready to go as soon as we have a location,” Bradley said.
“I just hope to God they aren’t too late.” As he said the words, Michael felt as if the walls of his office were going to close in and crush him. He sat at his desk again, attempting to calm himself. It wasn’t working.
“Let’s not think like that man.”
Michael clenched his fist, fighting the urge to punch a hole in the screen where Adara’s face had been. He ended the call and went back to pacing his office.
Forty-five minutes later, Peter called.
“We’ve got her.”
“What? What about the SEAL team?”
“Let’s just say Ripley is better than the SEAL team. But all we did was get Adara. The SEALs are going in for the terrorists next.”
“I don’t understand.”
