Though he’d thought he had made the right choice by not having sex with her on the plane, now he wasn’t so sure. She had taken it as a rejection, just as he had feared she would. There was no going back for another chance—especially sitting in the middle of the church. It had felt taboo even taking her hand in the sacred place.
He took one more look at her hand as he tapped on his phone, trying to find the location of the weapon the woman with Chad had been carrying.
He had been stupid for saying anything to Zoey about her idea. She was frazzled. He’d seen the desperation in her eyes the moment he opened the door between their rooms this morning and when they had found the finger... Well, that had definitely pushed her over the edge.
In all likelihood, and as much as he didn’t want to admit it to Zoey, the finger belonged to Chad. Why else would anyone leave such a macabre threat for them to find?
The only time he’d ever seen anything like that, aside from mob movies, was when a member of his team had found a bloody foot stuffed in their duffel bag. Two weeks later the guy had been killed in action by a stray bullet. Everyone on his assigned team had their suspicions about why the bullet had found him, specifically that someone within their crew had a bone to pick. But he had always doubted the likelihood of something like that happening. His teams were always the best of the best—friendly fire wasn’t in their vocabulary.
He moved to the tenth serial number on his list of guns. Tapping the number into the search, a green dot appeared on his map. There, in the center of Sitges, just blocks from where they sat, he had found a possible location. “Holy—” He stopped before the rest of the words fell from his mouth and landed like a thud in the center of the pew.
“Huh?” she asked, looking up from her screen.
“You were right,” he whispered, glancing around and ensuring that they were still alone.
He could have sworn a light shone down as he said those words to the woman sitting next to him.
“Um, what? Do you want to repeat that?” she said, raising one eyebrow. “Did you just say I was right?”
“Live it up,” he said, teasing back. “Look.” He lifted his phone for her to see the little green speck on his screen.
She jumped to her feet. “I knew it!” A smile spread across her face and finally some of the darkness faded from her features. “He’s here. I knew he was here.”
Just because they were close to that dot didn’t mean they were any closer to reaching finding Chad or finding him alive.
But Eli had already been wrong once. Hopefully he would be wrong again.
She took his phone out of his hand and, without missing a beat, flew through the doors of the church and out onto the street in the direction of the dot.
He followed along, watching her hair glistening in the morning sun. The new color was beautiful on her and, as she moved, the sunlight picked up bits of burgundy like her hair was imbued with rubies.
She was nearly running as she made her way around a corner and toward the apartment building in the distance where the dot was centered. The building had clean, clear lines and was painted a vibrant yellow with black art deco accents. At each arched window sat wrought-iron balconies. It was a place where only the well-heeled could afford to reside—a far cry from the derelict back alley room where he would have expected Chad to have been held hostage.
He touched Zoey’s arm, stopping her midstride. “Wait.”
“What? He’s waiting,” she said, nudging her chin in the direction of the building just half a block down the avenue.
“We can’t just run in there half-cocked. Who knows what, or who, will be in there.”
Her face fell. “Do you think we should call Trevor and Jarrod, let them know what we’ve found? See if they want to fly over?”
He shrugged. More wasn’t necessarily better in this situation. “Let’s just keep an eye on this place, see who’s coming and going. I would hate it if we walked into a trap.”
She chewed on her lip and nodded. Taking one last look at the building, she walked down an alley to their right, and out of view of whoever could have been inside the building in question.
“Lucky for us, I have friends in the NSA who understand our need to glean information from their drones on occasion... Without asking permission... Or actually telling them...” She tapped on the screen, pulling up what he was absolutely certain were illegal images from her near and dear “friends” within USCYBERCOM.
He chuckled. That was the Zoey he knew, doing anything she needed to do to take care of business. The Watch Dogs had an IT crew, a faceless man he had never met, and their intel collection was good, but it was nothing like Zoey on a mission.
Once again, he found himself missing his old role as Zoey’s attaché.
For a moment, he considered what it would be like if they could go back in time and revisit the mistakes of his past. If they hadn’t risked their friendship by moving things to the next level, they would probably still have been working in the same group, united against one enemy. She would know, without a doubt, that he was someone she could turn to and trust. Instead he’d let his body take the lead, and it had led them straight into disaster.
“Getting anything?” he asked.
Looking at her screen, he could just make out the area where they stood from the eye in the sky, he could see her new brown locks and what he feared was a possible future bald spot on the crown of his head. He was surprised everything was so immediate, so real-time. Out of curiosity, he raised his hand and instantly he watched himself doing it on her phone. If they had had this tech five years ago—heck, even two years ago—many of their failed missions surely would’ve turned out differently.
“Damn, I had no idea our government had come this far.” He gave a little whistle.
She looked up from the screen and nodded. “Doesn’t your new team have access to any kind of technology, Jiminy Cricket?”
She said new team like it was the name of his new girlfriend.
“Why, Ms. Zoey Martin, are you jealous?” he asked with a smirk.
“Why would I be jealous of some two-bit operation that can’t even hack their way into the most basic of the government’s databases?”
If she thought that the NSA’s drone encryption keys were basic, he couldn’t help but wonder what the more complicated ones were hiding.
He resisted the urge to ask if she could rewind it, fearing that he would sound like he was a thousand years old and from a different planet.
“Here we go,” she said, moving closer to him so they could watch the screen side by side. “This was from early this morning.”
She clicked Play. There was the normal movement of people up and down the street in front of the apartment building where the GPS device was located—nothing stood out. She skipped ahead two minutes. A woman wearing a light gray peacoat stepped out of the front doors of the building. The woman was alone. Even though she was wearing large welding mask–sized sunglasses, it was easy to recognize her as the woman from the bank’s video.
The woman stopped and reached for something in her tiny purse and then started walking toward where he and Zoey now stood. He looked up from the phone, half expecting the woman in the coat to be standing directly in front of him. Instead, there was the buzz of car horns in the distance and the shuffle of feet on the cobblestone as people walked past.
The woman pranced like a well-trained and expensive dog.
“Do you see the handbag she’s carrying?” Zoey asked, zooming in on the brown bag. It had a silver chain as the strap and it looked strange on the tiny briefcase-looking purse.
“What about it? I mean, besides being stupid-looking.” He never understood what women saw in purses. As far as he was concerned, a purse was a purse was a purse. It was just a place to put their crap until they needed their crap. Really, a paper sack would do in a pinch.
“First, it isn’t stupid-looking.” She gave him a quick look up and down. “You are hardly one to judge, Mr. Cargo Shorts and a button-up.”
“It’s practical,” he argued, but was stopped by the wave of her hand.
“More importantly,” she continued, “the bag she is carrying is Jean Vitton. It’s this year’s Petite Malle mini bag.”
“That doesn’t change the fact that it looks like something from the bargain bin at the dollar store.”
She huffed, clearly annoyed with his commentary on fashion. “Regardless of what you feel about this purse, it’s amazing.”
He cocked his head and gave her a disapproving look. “Really? You like the purse? It looks like a dude’s shrunken briefcase. And I know for a fact that you are more comfortable carrying around a rucksack than you are an expensive purse.”
“A rucksack is practical,” she said, smirking as she threw his words back at him. “That being said, I am still a woman. While this one may not exactly be my style it doesn’t change the fact that it is Vitton’s most expensive purse this season and it isn’t even available in stores yet.”
“Oh, fancy.”
“Actually, yeah, it is.” She smiled like she knew something he didn’t. “With a bag like that, we can probably figure out who she is. They only give those bags out to the rich and famous.”
“Sounds like you just want to make a stop at Jean Vitton.”
“So what if I do? But I think I can get what we need without going there.” She pulled up a new window on her phone and set to work, starting at the Jean Vitton website. From there, she broke into their mainframe, hacking her way straight into the sales records.
It wasn’t the first time she’d terrified him. With a tiny bit of information this woman could do almost anything—and put nearly any federal agent to shame. If anything, she’d gotten even better at her job since the last time he’d seen her. It had to be so hard doing what she did, constantly being on the forefront of technology, a world that changed nearly every second. He would happily remain a point man for as long as he still had a job.
“So according to their sales records, they’ve only sold five of these purses so far. They’ve given three away. And there is a wait list.” She looked up. “I bet if I put my address in here, they would send us one for free.” Her fingers trembled over the screen like she was seriously contemplating using her skill set to rig the system for herself. “The first person on the wait list is Gigi Hadid. Think about it, I can have the same purse as Gigi.”
“I have no idea who that even is.” He reached over and took the phone from her. “I still don’t get it. I mean, how much is this purse worth anyways?”
“Twenty Gs.” There was a breathless air to her words.
He handed the phone back to her like by simply touching the phone he was implicating himself in the theft of something so expensive. Now he really didn’t get it. “You do know, for that kind of money you could get yourself a hell of a tactical setup.”
She laughed. “I am more than a little aware of that.” She gave him a look like he was the dumbest man on the planet.
“Oh, yeah. I bet you can get your tac gear on the cheap. But still, I would much rather have good gear than some stupid purse.”
“Call it a stupid purse again and I am going to do the active-round testing of my next tactical line on you.” There was fire in her eyes, but he knew she was teasing.
“Okay, so there’s some things I don’t understand. I’m sure I’ll never get it.” He put his hands up in surrender. “As for this fine specimen of fashion that is this purse, who are the five lucky souls chosen to possess such magnificence?”
She couldn’t keep a straight face, no matter how badly she wanted to continue chastising him for his bad taste. “There are several socialites, one Hollywood star and one that interests me,” she said.
“And that is?”
“According to this, there was one that was sold to a foreign buyer. Looks like it was picked up in Dubai.”
“What was the name of the foreign buyer?” he asked.
“It was bought by a woman named Shaye Griest.”
That name meant nothing to him. “Okay?” he said.
“You ever heard of Kristen Griest or Shaye Haver?”
He shook his head.
“Kristin and Shaye were the only women ever to graduate from the army ranger school. These are two badass women.”
“I don’t understand what two rangers have to do with one purse.” He racked his brain in trying to put it together.
“When I was poking around about the Algerian prime minister and his family, I found that his oldest daughter used to be active on social media. She tweeted about Kristin and Shaye and what it means to her that these two women were able to develop their skills in such a prestigious and competitive location.”
He still didn’t get it, and apparently the look on his face must’ve said as much.
“That’s the pseudonym for the prime minister’s daughter, dude.” She shook her head in exasperation.
“Oh,” he grumbled, trying to cover his embarrassment. Hopefully she’d never realized how much better a catch she was than him. If she did, he would never have a chance in getting her back.
“Do you think that Chad is shacking up with the Algerian prime minister’s daughter?” Eli asked.
“Or she kidnapped him.” Zoey shrugged.
“Something about all of this isn’t making sense. Why would the Algerian government put a hit out on Chad if he was with the Algerian prime minister’s daughter? Wouldn’t it put her in danger?”
Zoey nodded. “I know. I was thinking the same thing.”
“Are you sure the woman carrying the bag is the PM’s daughter?”
“So far, in every video I’ve seen of her, this girl has been very careful to cover her face—it’s like she knows people will be using facial recognition to look for her,” Zoey said. She started pulling up videos and images of the woman on her phone.
The woman had long dark, almost black hair in the most recent official government photos posted by the Algerians. However, the woman standing outside the building with the big sunglasses was unquestionably blonde. As he stared at the images in front of him, he could make out the same subtle curves of her jaw. And her nose was blunt and slightly upturned like a short ski jump. He couldn’t say with one hundred percent certainty that the woman from the drone’s image and the Algerian prime minister’s daughter were the same woman, but he couldn’t deny it, either. It was certainly within the realm of possibility.
“Did you see anything on the video about Chad?” he asked.
She gave a resigned sigh. “Not yet, but that doesn’t mean he’s not holed up in there.”
There was the clatter of the metal gate being pushed up as the bistro behind them opened up for lunch. The woman who must’ve worked there gave them a smile and said something in Spanish to which Zoey replied.
They needed to get out of there, before they were tracked down again. Zoey turned off her phone and stashed it in her pocket.
They couldn’t go back to their hotel and they couldn’t keep running. He wasn’t sure what they should do next, but inaction was almost more dangerous than moving on their target. “Can you do facial recognition on the video from the drone for Chad?”
“Already done. Nothing came up, but he could have gone in the building during the night or when the drone wasn’t posted at this location.” There was a desperation to her voice.
Her unchecked emotions made Eli that much more on edge. It wasn’t like Zoey to just say what she was feeling or even not bother to disguise it... She was hurting, which made pain rise within him. In a way, the situation reminded him of the last time they’d been together with their baby.
If he failed her, if Chad was hurt or killed, he would feel just as guilty as he had that day. Though he was certain he was doing the right thing, he hadn’t taken all of the consequences into consideration. Here he was thinking about coming back to work with the Martins, but he was far more likely to find himself back on Zoey’s persona non grata list than back in her life.
Maybe he would’ve been better off getting her flowers instead of chasing her halfway across the state in order to catch a glimpse of her. As he chuckled at the thought, he knew he was lying to himself. He would give up his last breath for her. No matter how this went down, there was no way he could stop loving her.
“What’s the prime minister’s daughter’s real name?” he asked.
“Nihad Almaz,” she said without a pause. “She is one of three daughters and a son. The son is involved with the Algerian military, and there is talk that he will one day run the country in his father’s footsteps.”
“Is there any talk about how his daughters feel about that?” Eli took her hand and they started slowly walking around the city, keeping the apartment building in view.
“They haven’t said anything publicly about the situation, but it looks as though they are going to act as ambassadors for the country until the time of their marriages.”
“None of them are married?” Eli thought of Chad.
What if this wasn’t a kidnapping, but rather an elopement? Though Zoey seemed to be convinced that this wasn’t a romance. But if it was, it would explain why the prime minister would put out large sums of money for Chad’s head.
But that didn’t explain the severed finger that had been served to them this morning beside their toast and eggs. Or why the PM would put his own flesh and blood in the line of fire. That was, unless the man didn’t care about his daughter’s welfare. It wasn’t unheard of for a father to disown a daughter, or son who moved against the family.
Chad had to know they were looking for him, and he wouldn’t just run off with a woman and not give his family a heads-up. There were so many things that just weren’t making sense.
Zoey gave him a look like she was trying to figure out what he was thinking, but he wasn’t sure he wanted to give his theory any more air than necessary.
The last thing he wanted to do was give Zoey false hope when it came to finding her brother alive—especially given the fact they hadn’t found any trace of him in the last forty-eight hours.
Eli nodded. Yes, there was no way his stupid theory was right. And besides, Chad was far from being the romantic in the family. This wasn’t a case of love making life go off the rails. Instead, the faceless enemy that was gnawing at their heels had to be something different, something not quite as dangerous as love but likely far more lethal.