Pay

POV: Adrian

Being ready for anything, I had a go bag already packed in the hall closet. I threw on a t-shirt, socks, and shoes before hitting up my tac closet. I wasn’t sure what I was going up against, so I need to be prepared for anything.

Walking into the living room…

“Hendrix…”, he was already getting himself ready.

“On it, boss. The message hit my screen as you got it.”, he grabbed his mobile surveillance bag before hitting the tac closet.

We put our lightweight vests on, grabbed our badges, some knives, and holstered three handguns with extra ammo.

“Sweatpants boss?”, Hendrix joked about my attire.

“Bet they are more comfortable than those ripstop pants you have on.”, I chuckled.

“Hey, ladies love a man in uniform.”, he laughed as he attached his leg holster.

“And ladies get on their knees for men in grey sweatpants. Seems like a win win to me.”, we both laughed as we suited up for the recovery mission.

Not sure how long we would be gone, but the plan was to get in and out unnoticed. I wanted to know where Cooper had been, never did I imagine it was right under my nose. Hannah hadn’t gotten anywhere with Valerie Ritter, but in one day Leah was able to get a front row seat.

Connecting the dots in my head, something still didn’t add up. Cooper was the head of a 50-year-old criminal organization. Practically untouchable, yet Monica and Valerie were able to get close to him.

Monica attacked him, but Valerie who had a kid with some old pervert decided to save him. And I was under the impression that Cooper didn’t know the owner of Prurience. He had been trying to take over that resort for years, but yet he was shacking up with the guy’s woman.

I had known for weeks that somehow it was all connected, but it still shocked me to uncover more information. The intelligence in the folder still hadn’t hit me yet, but I wanted a face-to-face explanation for that.

We were out the door in less than 20 minutes and Hendrix had already secured us air travel to Colorado. That man had a lot of connections, and I appreciated his swiftness with the case. Flying on a private jet would cut our travel time and delays down by hours.

Pulling up to a private jet, it didn’t look like much. I could tell that it had been worn down and heavily used. It was sure to be an under the radar aircraft with no one paying mind to it.

My jaw hit the floor when I stepped inside. One entire side was outfitted with 5 built-in workstations with a mounted harness chair. Each equipped with two monitors, keyboard, joystick, headphones with microphone, and phone to monitor different situations.

The first two stations monitored communications, the middle station gathered electronic data, and the last two stations split processing and analysis of the combined data. It was a beautiful setup in the most nonchalant of jets. This aircraft was small but packed a mighty punch.

On the other side of the jet were three rows of double seats fitted with a 5-point harness. The back of the jet housed a bathroom and parachute storage area. This little and mighty plane came to do business.

I decided to buckle into the communication workstations to start gathering intel from Leah’s phone. Hendrix strapped into a seat in front of the middle station, with the intentions to get us exact coordinates of Leah’s location. It didn’t take long for us to take off on the 3-hour flight.

“Boss, Leah is on the move.”, Hendrix spoke into his headset.

“Roger. I will have a car waiting at the strip.”, I replied.

She wasn’t using her phone and past communications didn’t pull any helpful information.

Moving down the row to the last station, I wanted to try and pull information on Monica. Hendrix tracked her movements after the meeting and she ended up back in the city, but she wasn’t staying at the hotel. Public records showed she had paid cash for a little house on the outskirts of town.

Imagery from this morning showed that the house appeared to be empty but overhead thermal imagery let us know there was a small room under the house and there were 4 heat signatures. It was either a safehouse or the home where a hostage was being held.

I decided to send Martin there to stake it out while we were gone. Wanting to return the young maid to her family was a positive outcome from this intel. Monica left a sloppy paper trail, once we uncovered she was using another identity.

“Hey boss, I got some bad news.”, Hendrix’s voice cut in fuzzy.

“Shit. Hit me with it.”, I braced myself.

“Someone piggy backed into the backdoor of my coding.”, he told me.

“Fuck! Do you know who it is and what they want?”, this could ruin everything.

“I’ve never heard of him before, but he’s good. He’s accessing Leah’s location.”, someone was after her again.

“Let’s tap into her phone’s camera and microphone.”, we had the option but never had to go that far before.

“Roger.”, he played the audio through the headset.

The sound of a running car, cars passing at high speeds, and some yelling. We couldn’t make out what was said, but we got a recording to run in an audio program to cut the background noise. It didn’t sound like a pleasant conversation and then we heard two pops.

That was one noise I didn’t need a program for. Two shots from a .357 magnum, no recoil sound only proved it. It was my gun of choice because it never jammed, definitely a pro.

“Fuck! Let’s see if we can’t get a location and eyes in the sky.”, I ordered.

“Boss, the city house is missing 3 heat signatures. It looks like one body is strapped to a chair.”, he had been multitasking.

“Alright, I will send Martin in. Get me a status on Leah!”, barking orders.

I pulled out my phone to message Martin. “Breech and Clear.”.

“Roger.”, was all he replied.

Martin was tactful and without any unexpected guests he would have that house cleared in less than five minutes. It was a small one bed, one bath house with a hidden room under the floor. The neighborhood was run down, and no one would blink at the sound of a gunshot.

Arriving in Colorado, we didn’t waste time deplaning and heading for the car. It was the standard undercover Bureau blacked out SUV with regular plates. I opted out of a government plate because I didn’t want it to be ran back to the Bureau.

At least this plate was registered to a John Doe in the current state to avoid suspicion. The only people would be alerted that this was a government transport are cops if they trace my plates. To the average eye, it was just another law-abiding Coloradan.

Keys were left in the ignition and the taskforce here equipped it with all the gear we would need to take down a small army. All I had to do was wave around the word Daybreak and all units were ready to jump in my direction to assist. This organization was a worldwide problem and caught the attention of every taskforce.

Usually Hendrix takes the wheel, but I needed him on the computer tracking us down a location on Leah. I needed to have him do what he was best at and that was finding information. It didn’t take him long because he was already tapped into her phone.

The only problem was that someone was a few steps ahead of us and had gotten to her before we could. Her last known location was only 15 miles from the airstrip and that meant we could get there in less than 10 minutes. Speed limits didn’t apply to me, and I wouldn’t stop until I got to her.

GPS coordinates took us to a bridge and we noticed a running car on the other side of the highway. Using the grassy median, I spun around and pulled up behind a red sports car. It was running and both of the doors were open.

It appeared as if the car had been left, there was no sound or movement other than the passing cars. Surprised that no one had stopped to see what was going on. Hendrix stayed in the car to give backup to Martin, checking CCTV to ensure he wasn’t run up on.

I got out and walked up to the driver side with my weapon drawn. Clearing the car, I noticed that the car was empty and both cell phones were still in the center console. Poking through the contents of the car didn’t reveal any evidence that something had gone sideways.

Knowing that I heard two shots, I decided to walk the perimeter and that’s when I saw him. Cameron was laying in the grass about 10 feet from the car, but I had to continue securing the scene. I slowly walked over to him and placed two fingers on his carotid.

Hearing rustling in the grass, I raised my weapon and pointed it at the area. It was Hendrix walking up to us.

“Secured the flank boss.”, he said.

I pulled out my phone and dialed 911.

“Hello this is agent Beneventi. I need a bus on I70 East bound, past mile marker 310 under the bridge.”, then I hung up.

“Pulse?”, Hendrix asked.

“Faint.”, I replied

We couldn’t stay behind because Leah was missing. I went back to the car and grabbed any evidence that she was with him and then closed the passenger door of the car. To the medics it needed to seem like an accident in order to keep Leah out of the report.

Whoever took my girl was going to *PAY*.

-To be continued-