Oscar
Present day
Three weeks.
Three weeks since I’d seen the picture of my wife among those of the other missing persons that we’d been secured to find. Three long weeks of no word as to where Ivy or any of the others might be.
The Shadow Force team had initially decided not to involve the families of the victims, at least not until exhausting all options before pulling them in. But we were running out of time and alternatives, and as much as we didn’t want to involve family and friends, it was time we spoke to them.
And that meant reaching out to Ivy’s sister, Cami.
It had been such a long time since I’d seen her. She was eleven when I’d left for the army. It was hard to think of her as an adult, but that was the reality. Ryder’s search had shown that Ivy’s mom, Flora, had passed away five years before. Ivy had returned to Atlanta to raise her sister and had remained there working waitressing jobs to make ends meet while she auditioned for roles. All I could think about was how for two years I’d been living in the same city as the love of my life. So close. Why had I not reached out? I shook away the morbid thoughts. I couldn’t change the past, but I’d be damned if I let these monsters rob me of a possible future with the only woman I’d ever loved.
Ryder had been able to gather from the missing person reports that most of the victims had disappeared after accepting a role in an upcoming series for one of the major streaming platforms. Ivy would have been ecstatic to land a leading role like that and wouldn’t have questioned it. None of them had.
Ryder and I drove out to the suburbs of Atlanta where Ivy and Cami lived in their childhood home. A home Ivy had returned to after I’d left her to enlist in the army. I wasn’t sure I was up for a trip down memory lane, but we’d exhausted all of our other options.
We pulled up to the small three-bedroom cottage where an older model four-door sedan sat in the driveway. I hoped that meant Cami was at home.
I knocked on the door and waited. The curtains next to the window moved before I heard a young woman’s timid voice call out from behind the door.
“Who is it?”
“Cami, it’s, um, Oscar. Oscar Cortada.”
I knew she’d probably remember me. She’d been young but not so young that she shouldn’t have memories of that time. Still, things had a way of blurring together when you were a child. Not to mention, she’d been too young to really understand what had been going on. Thankfully, the lock clicked, and the door opened, revealing a young woman who could easily pass for Ivy when I’d left her eleven years ago.
“Oscar? Is it really you?”
“It is.”
Cami’s eyes filled with tears, and she threw herself into my arms. It wasn’t at all the reception I’d expected, and it definitely wasn’t the one I deserved. Still, I held her in my arms as my only lifeline to Ivy.
“I’m scared, Oscar.”
I pulled away and brushed Cami’s hair away from her face. “Let’s go inside, and you can tell me all about it.”
Cami looked around me to where Ryder was standing. “Who is that?”
“He’s a co-worker, and he’s a friend. Ryder Blake, this is Cami Bell.”
Ryder stepped forward and held out his hand, donning his dashing smile. “Nice to meet you, Cami.”
She shook it and stepped back to let us in.
The small house hadn’t changed a bit since I’d left, except for the pictures on the walls. Cami at all ages in school, pictures of Ivy during some of her most famous shoots—pictures I had in a photo album back at HQ. Pictures of the two girls and their mother, Flora. Cancer had taken her quickly, within just a couple of weeks from her diagnosis. I hated that I hadn’t known—hadn’t been here to help, to comfort either of them. To mourn the woman who’d been so good to me, a surrogate mother of sorts when Ivy and I had dated. And I hadn’t even known that she’d died.
Cami walked quickly to the couch and sat down, wringing her hands in her lap.
“Why are you here, Oscar?”
“I work for a security firm. You filed a missing person’s report on Ivy a few weeks ago?”
“Yes. She went away for a film shoot, but she never called to check in. That isn’t like her. She’d never get too busy to check in with me.”
“I agree. I’m worried, too. That’s why we’re here.”
Cami’s face twisted in confusion.
“I don’t understand. Do you work for the police? They said they had nothing to go on and that they’d do the best they could, but I got the feeling that wasn’t much.”
“No, I don’t work for the police. It’s a long story, but just rest assured we’re going to do everything in our power to find her. Can you walk me through what happened?”
Cami told us about the man who’d approached Ivy at the restaurant where she worked and had offered her an audition. She explained how excited Ivy had been to get the call that she’d earned the role and how she’d have to live on the film set for the upcoming weeks. It all sounded so plausible.
“Do you have an address where she was going?”
She nodded and stood, taking out a notepad from the side-table drawer. “I went there after a few days when I hadn’t heard from her. I was so angry. I planned to give her a piece of my mind, but it’s just an empty lot. There’s nothing there.”
I gave the address to Ryder, who popped open his computer and typed it in. I waited a few seconds and he gave me a curt nod. So it was true. A phony address.
“Anything else you can remember? Names? Dates? Anything?”
“The guy’s name was something Spanish. Like Hastas or something like that. No, Casas. That was it, like the house.”
“Good. That could be helpful.” A lead was a lead no matter how small. Chances were that wasn’t his real name, but it might help us find the guy who took her.
“Can I get her phone number from you?”
We had one on file, but I wanted to make sure it was the right information.
Cami rattled off the number, and Ryder punched it into his phone.
“Straight to voicemail. I’m going to try and triangulate where her last GPS location was found. If we can get that, we might be able to narrow down where they took her.”
“You can do that?” Cami looked at Ryder with wide eyes, clearly impressed with his abilities.
He winked. “Sure can.” Her face turned red, and I shook my head. Leave it to Ryder to charm the pants off my little sister-in-law.
Ryder worked on his computer, and I turned my attention back to Cami.
“I can’t believe how grown-up you are.”
She rolled her eyes. “It’s been eleven years. That tends to happen.”
“I’m sorry I never came back. I just didn’t think—”
Cami reached out and squeezed my hand. “She never forgot about you. I think she always held out hope that you’d come back for her.”
It was what I’d planned once I knew what I was going to do with the rest of my life, but hearing Cami’s words gave me hope that maybe if I found Ivy, we could have a brand-new start.
“I had planned to. When I had something to offer her. I was going to find her in Hollywood. I didn’t know she’d moved back. And I just heard about Flora. I’m so sorry, Cami.”
Her eyes filled with emotion, and she held on to my hand. “Life has been hard, and yet, there’s so much to love about it. Ivy and I are so close. Closer than most sisters, I think. I’m grateful for that, even though we’ve endured so much loss.”
Ivy and Cami’s dad had passed away when Ivy was eight, and Cami had barely been one. Cami had no memories of him, and Ivy’s were sparse. It had just been the three of them for most of their lives, and losing their mother had to have been a punch to the gut.
“You’re wise beyond your years.” I stood, done with the jog down memory lane for now. It was all too painful. Before I could make any of it right, I had to find Ivy.
“I’ll keep you posted. Until then, if you hear anything from her—here’s my card—call me. Okay?”
Cami nodded and threw her arms around me again, hugging me with utter abandon. I held her close, breathing in the feel of the young woman who’d once been like a little sister to me. “I missed you.” Her voice broke as she said the words, and my eyes swam with tears.
“Me too, Cami bear. Me too.” She lifted her chin, smiling at the endearment I’d used on her so many years ago.
“You are the only one to ever call me that.” She pulled away, wiping her eyes and stepping away.
Ryder waited by the door and shook her hand when she reached him. “Nice to meet you, Cami.”
She blushed and nodded. “You too.”
As we left the house, I murmured under my breath, “You’re a married man.”
Ryder laughed and slapped me across the back. “I know. Jolie wouldn’t care, though. It put Cami at ease, which was the point.”
And it was a good point. He was right; she had been at ease with his gentle flirting. No ulterior motives to be found.
I ran over all that Cami had told us in my mind as we drove back to Shadow Force headquarters. When we reached the gym, we found Levi, Cade, and Cruz waiting on us in the conference room.
“Fill us in.” Levi sat at the head of the table with Cade to his right.
I started with how they’d lured Ivy in just as they had all the others. “It looks like they gave Ivy the wrong address. Cami said they sent a driver to pick her up, so she didn’t drive to the empty parking lot herself. It was only after Ivy hadn’t checked in that Cami drove to see her. Her phone goes to voicemail, and Ryder’s trying to see if he can intercept the coordinates of where she last had her phone powered on.”
“I’ve got it.” Ryder grinned over his laptop, still typing furiously.
“So, where is she?” Cade asked the question before I could, which was good since I was on edge already. The words probably wouldn’t have come out quite so calmly.
“I’m pulling up the satellite images now.” He clicked a few more buttons and then connected to the screen behind Levi.
The satellite images showed an L-shaped building on the outskirts of downtown. The neighborhood was old and run-down, and it was clearly chosen for its obscurity. No one would question what was going on, because there was no one around.
“Any ideas what’s there?”
“Well, if our intel is correct, they’re running experiments on these people. So, I’d say we’re looking at a makeshift medical facility. Look here.”
Ryder pointed to a truck in the satellite image and zoomed in. “This is a medical supply company truck.”
I looked to Levi for confirmation. He nodded. “Someone is delivering medical supplies.”
“Precisely. So, what’s the plan?” Ryder asked as he clicked off the images and got back to work doing whatever it was that he did on his computer all day and night.
“Let’s do some recon. See if we can find out who’s coming and going. Get close enough to view all entry and exit points. And possibly any guards who might be nearby.”
We spent the rest of the day going over possible strategies for getting multiple victims out of the building unharmed. Running through ideas of how to enter. By the looks of the building, there would be two entries into each section with one entry point at the middle, the front door. Going in that way meant we had to secure the first room before having to either split into two groups or clear one side of the building while securing the entrance to the other.
We discussed blowing a hole in the wall, giving us the element of surprise, but we had no way of knowing what would be on the other side. I would have given anything at that moment for blueprints of the building, since going in through the front door created the most risk for the team. But in the end, there was no better way.
When you threw in the unknowns of how many hostages we were dealing with, as well as what condition they’d be in when we arrived, the whole situation had cluster written all over it.
We left that afternoon for recon, watching through infrared cameras to determine where the hostages might be held. During the daytime, there had been much hustle and bustle in each building, but once night fell, it appeared that the building to the right was where the hostages were kept.
Four points of entry were determined as we watched, one at the end of each building, a large bay area that housed a garage-style door on the side of the left building, and the front door. We’d secure the outside doors to keep people from escaping, and go in through the front door. Once inside, we could secure the entrances to the left building from the inside, leaving Cade to stand guard while we infiltrated the right building. Using flash grenades, we’d hopefully catch them off guard and get to the hostages in time to get them out.
After clearing the right building and securing the hostages, we’d move to the other side. It wasn’t ideal. Unfortunately, we had no way of knowing what condition the victims would be in. No idea if they were mobile. No idea if they were sick or injured.
We took turns through the night and over the next day, watching the guards change shifts. From what we could determine, some of the medical staff as well as half the guards left after dinner. It appeared that we’d be looking at about six guards inside as well as four posted outside. There was no way to ascertain how many medical staff would be present unless we watched for several more days, but time was running out. As it was, in the short time we’d been observing, five body bags had been removed from the building.
I just prayed Ivy wasn’t in any of them.
Cade relieved me and Cruz late that afternoon in order that we could rest for an hour before we put our plans into action. It would be a long night, and we would be going into a situation where the unknowns were massive. It wasn’t ideal, but it was the best we could do.
Los Caballeros del Camino, The Knights of the Way, were involved in this some way. We weren’t sure how, but we knew from Ryder and Jolie’s op several weeks ago that they were thick as thieves with the Russian Mafia. Fortunately, we’d cut the head off of that ugly snake, but we had no idea how far their influence went. Was there still collaboration going on? Or was it only the Cabs we were dealing with at this point?
Not only did we have hostages to rescue; we needed them alive to figure out what they were planning. At one point, the thought was the Cabs were drug runners smuggling large quantities of drugs and guns into the country. But those had been shipped out to Russia as soon as they’d arrived, and so far, there had been no further chatter about any large shipments coming into the United States.
Human experimentation was a scary thing to consider. The reasons behind it were the stuff nightmares were made of. Better not to borrow trouble until we knew more, but I’d not slept soundly since finding those women in Florida a few weeks back.
It was true, I liked to make things go boom! Explosive strips weren’t exactly my favorite, much too easy to use, but I’d take it. Any day I got to blow things up was a good day. I secured our gear and made my way to the van.
Levi stood at the driver side, looking like a badass G.I. Joe. Cruz sat in the passenger seat, while Ryder, Jolie, and Lydia sat in the back. Lydia had insisted on coming along in case Ivy needed immediate medical attention. We had no desire to send them to a local hospital, since we wouldn’t be able to keep them safe. Instead, Lydia had cleared her medical clinic and outfitted it with any equipment we might need to help them. Her father, Dr. Esteban Ayala, had also arrived from Miami to help figure out what exactly we were dealing with.
Jolie tagged along simply because she hated to be out of the action. Now that she was a trained operative and had played a significant role in bringing down the Russian Mafia, we were always grateful to have her aboard.
Piper had called in a favor to her foster father, William Fuller. He was with the FBI and had located three ambulances to transport the hostages. We’d set up a staging area just down the road so we could transport the victims to receive medical care. It was good to know people; that was for sure.
“Ready?” He clapped me on the back. They all knew I had so much more to lose on this op than they did. The only woman I’d ever loved was in that building, and I would get her out that evening or die trying.
“Absolutely. Let’s go get my wife.”