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Travis stood tucked against the wall just outside the double doors of Halstead’s office. The man had slammed them so hard they’d refused to stay shut, swinging back open enough to allow a glimpse of the room’s interior. Halstead paced back and forth behind the desk, swearing with every step. He stopped long enough to pick up a framed picture and slam it down. Glass shattered, and Halstead roared as he swept it from the desktop.
A train whistle interrupted his tirade. “What?” he growled into the phone. A long pause followed while Halstead listened. “That worthless son of a bitch. I should never have trusted a senator’s son ... maybe we can salvage something yet. No, don’t come here. I’ll meet you in Lone Pine ... I don’t know how long it’ll be. Just wait for me and stay out of sight.” Halstead ended the call, whipped around, and threw his phone against the wall.
Travis grinned. Halstead was not a happy man. Visibly agitated, he continued to pace behind his large oak desk. Choosing a moment when the furious man halted, facing the door, Travis stepped into the room.
Halstead’s gaze traveled from the gun leveled at him to Travis’s face. A flicker of surprise gave way to anger, and then he smirked. Superiority oozed from every pore as his gaze roamed the length of Travis.
“Keep your hands on the desk where I can see them.” Travis had seen the same reaction on the faces of racist pricks around the globe. He was used to it, but it still pissed him off.
Halstead sneered. “I spend thousands of dollars hiring men and arming them, and you steal my property, destroy my house, and break in unchallenged. Unbelievable!”
“You just can’t get good help these days.” Travis walked the room's perimeter, closed the drapes, then positioned himself to see both the man and the door.
“Why aren’t you working for me?” Halstead spun the high-backed office chair around and sat down.
“No future for a man like me.”
Halstead laughed and nodded in apparent agreement. “What do you want?”
“As I said, I want the woman. I’ll return your precious merchandise in exchange and leave you alone.”
“And if I don’t like that deal?”
“Then I don’t need you anymore, and the world would be better off without you.”
Their gazes met while Halstead undoubtedly weighed whether Travis had the guts to pull the trigger. Travis already knew the older man wouldn’t hesitate. He’d operated above the law for too long to have any reservations about blowing Travis away. Halstead, however, couldn’t know how many terrorists Travis had brought down or how far he was willing to go to get Jordan back alive. The man was as good as dead if he didn’t take the deal. Halstead just didn’t know it yet.
Travis aimed his weapon between Halstead’s eyes. “You’ve got about five seconds to decide.”
The man’s gaze wavered, and sweat broke out on his forehead. He raised his hands, palms out, in apparent surrender. “The woman has been nothing but trouble anyway.”
Travis motioned toward the door. “Take me to her.”
“I would if she were here.”
“Where is she?”
Halstead’s eyebrows raised. “How do I know you’ll keep your end of the bargain? You obviously didn’t bring any trading stock with you.”
“You’ll have to trust me, I guess.” Travis held up his free hand, two fingers extended. “Scout’s honor, I’ll draw you a map.”
“I should have known you were a fucking Boy Scout.”
Travis waved the gun’s barrel toward the door. “Let’s go.” He followed close behind Halstead as they approached the ruins of the ranch house’s front door. No armed men patrolled nearby, but Travis could see movement near the barns and other outbuildings, so the search was still on. He walked past the mangled truck unhindered.
“Let’s take the Jag.” Travis probably shouldn’t yank Halstead’s chain, but oh well. “Too bad it’s all banged up.”
Halstead glared, but Travis grinned and pushed him toward the car. He turned the man to face the hood on the passenger side and pulled a zip tie from his coat pocket. After binding his hostage’s hands securely behind his back, he opened the door, shoved him inside, then jogged to the driver’s side and climbed behind the wheel. The keys dangled from the ignition, and the engine purred to life on the first try. Nice! And if Halstead’s men discovered the car missing along with their boss, there’d be no vehicles left on the ranch that could catch the Jag. Still, Travis drove down the driveway slowly and didn’t flip on the lights until they were almost to the county road. Then he turned to Halstead. “Okay, where to?”
*****
WHEN ROBERTS JOINED him in the parking lot, he had news. Coop listened as the FBI agent relayed the two-hours-old message from Luke and MacGyver. They’d heard from Travis as Coop had when he’d finally checked his messages. As he’d surmised, his friend was on a mission to save Jordan. After he freed her, he intended to regroup at one of the safe houses they’d arranged for this job northwest of Prineville. His partners were en route to evacuate them by helicopter.
Roberts also let slip that he had eyes and ears on the caravan of Jeeps and trucks hauling weapons out of the mountains. He planned to bust the whole group at the ranch, but not until he was sure Brody and the last vehicles had arrived.
“You son of a bitch. Travis handed you your case against Halstead, Brody, and William Mann, and you left him twisting in the wind, so you didn’t have to do any of the work.” Coop started for his truck. “Do whatever the hell you think you need to do. I’m going after Travis.” He should have listened to Jordan and left a long time ago.
“Wait a minute. Brody and the others will scatter if they see you there. The message was at least two hours old. Either Travis made it out of there, or he didn’t. We can’t help him either way, but this could be our last, best chance to destroy the entire cell and save innocent lives. That’s what Travis would want. He would have asked if he’d wanted help to storm Halstead’s fortress, but that’s not his style. You know that.”
Coop’s hands fisted, and he had to tamp down his instant reflex to deck the guy. Despite the fact Roberts was probably right, his cold, off-handed manner of dismissing Travis’s life didn’t sit well with Coop. “Maybe he would have asked if he’d been able to contact me. I’m not just giving up on him.” The FBI agent was an asshole, but Coop couldn’t afford to burn those bridges—not if PTS Security ever wanted to work with the agency again. Coop couldn’t care less, but that was a decision all of the partners needed to make.
He took another step toward his vehicle, preparing to heft his pack into the bed, but stopped when Roberts laid a hand on his arm. Coop bristled and met Roberts’s gaze until the agent removed his hand. “I’ve wasted enough time, so stay out of my way.” It was a simple statement of fact with no room for argument.
Roberts started to speak, but Coop turned away and strode toward the pickup he and Jordan had stolen. He didn’t want an altercation with their boss, but he wouldn’t back down either.
The agent sighed. “Someone might recognize Alex Halstead’s truck before you get close enough. I’ll get you an unmarked car, and it will have a sat phone, so keep in touch.” His voice was gruff, but he’d apparently concluded it would do no good to try changing Coop’s mind.
A few minutes later, Coop left town alone. He could move quieter and quicker on his own anyway. Hopefully, he hadn’t waited too long. If that were the case, he’d be having a follow-up conversation with Roberts.
At least Jordan was out of this and on her way someplace safe. Guilt nudged him hard, remembering her betrayed expression when she’d left with Carmen. Now he understood how she’d felt, wanting to help Travis. He’d acted like a prick, thinking he and Roberts knew what was best for her. She had to try to warn him—her words—strong words for no longer than she’d known Travis. What was going on between her and his best friend? Had Travis finally met his match? When hell freezes over.
Travis didn’t easily trust women, with good reason. Coop would never forget the bitterness in Travis’s eyes when he’d shared how his fiancée had betrayed him. His family owned one of the biggest shipping companies in California, and Travis had been groomed to take over when his father retired. After college, Travis decided he wanted to be a SEAL and joined the Navy. He’d convinced his father that his younger brother was more suited to the business world and capable of doing the job.
His fiancée had needed time to wrap her head around being a military wife, so they postponed the wedding until after basic training to see if Travis was accepted into the SEAL training program. Two months later, he received the ring back along with an invitation to her wedding. She was marrying his brother.
Coop had never known him to keep company with a woman like Jordan. Instead, he’d stayed far away from sweet, vulnerable young ladies who, sooner or later, would want a commitment. Travis wasn’t a commitment kind of guy, and he never allowed women inside his head, much less his heart. Hopefully, Jordan would make it through this with hers intact.
Coop followed Highway 126 east, meeting a few log trucks. Everyone else was no doubt home in bed at this hour. He could use some sleep himself. At milepost 43, he turned north. He met one other car headed toward town, and then the road spread empty and dark before him.
A few hundred feet farther, headlights suddenly flashed on in the oncoming lane where nothing had been a heartbeat ago. They must have been driving in the dark on purpose, as though hiding from someone, and flipped on their lights so Coop would stop hugging the centerline. Or maybe tailing someone—perhaps the other car he’d just passed?
A silent warning nagged at the edges of his consciousness. On impulse, he swerved into the other lane, slammed on the brakes, and slid sideways as the other vehicle, a Jeep, spun out on the shoulder of the road to miss him. As they both stopped, Coop’s lights shone in the side window of the oncoming vehicle and lit up the face of the other driver. Brody.
The man in charge of Halstead’s bomb-making militia mouthed obscenities as he ground the Jeep’s gears, doing little more than spinning through the loose gravel. Coop shifted into reverse, backed up, and pulled into his lane. Brody gained enough traction to slip through the opening.
What the hell? If Brody was tailing someone, Coop wanted to know who was in the other car. The only way to find out was to follow Brody. He pulled to the side of the road, cut his headlights, and maneuvered a tight U-turn. There were three vehicles on the otherwise deserted highway. And we’re all going to the same place. This will be interesting.
*****
JORDAN HADN’T ASKED where they were going. It didn’t seem important. She only regretted that every mile Carmen drove took her farther away from Travis...if he was alive. She was still a prisoner, and the only thing that had changed was the nature of her captors. The good guys had her now, and they controlled her every move as surely as the criminals had. She pressed her hand to her temple to hold back the ache pounding in her head.
Carmen blathered a running commentary on the town, the people, and the weather. Jordan couldn’t keep up and didn’t even try to appear interested. Her monosyllabic answers didn’t faze the enthusiastic woman chattering beside her.
Jake rested on the blanket spread for him on the back seat. Jordan could feel the dog’s eyes on the back of her head, and occasionally a barely audible whine reached her ears.
They turned west, off the highway, and right again a few minutes later, just outside the city limits, passing a few farms. The houses were all dark, the people within no doubt asleep. Finally, Carmen turned onto a well-maintained gravel road and followed its winding path for about a mile before parking in front of an immaculately landscaped, two-story, colonial-style house. It seemed out of place so far from town and its nearest neighbor at least a mile away.
Jordan looked at Carmen. “Is this yours?” How did an FBI agent afford something like this?
“No.” Carmen laughed. “But it might be someday. It belongs to my fiancé.”
Jordan glanced automatically at her bare ring finger. How is it a man who owned real estate like this couldn’t put a diamond on his fiancée’s hand? “How nice,” she said to the obviously delighted woman.
Jordan wanted Jake to stay outside, but the normally well-mannered dog refused to leave her side. “I’m so sorry. I could tie him out if I had a rope.” She had to make sure he stayed around so she could get him back to where they’d found him. Surely, someone must be looking for him.
Carmen hesitated but then shrugged and smiled. “I think it will be all right. Anyway, it looks like we might get some rain.”
Jordan followed her into the house with Jake practically plastered to her leg. It was equally beautiful on the inside, with expensive furnishings throughout, but dark paneling, heavy drapes, and dead animal heads on the walls made it almost oppressive. It was a man’s house, but maybe his soon-to-be wife could make it a home.
When Carmen showed her the master bath with its luxurious sunken tub and pointed out a closet in the adjoining room that contained clean clothes she thought might fit, Jordan forgot everything else.
“There are fresh towels in the bath. Take as long as you’d like. I’ll start breakfast, and after you’ve eaten, you can get some sleep.”
A few minutes later, as she sank beneath the steaming, aromatic bath water, Jordan would have pledged allegiance to Carmen and her mysterious fiancé without question. She scrubbed away a layer of grime and filth, then ran fresh water and washed again. Three shampoos and rinses finally revealed the silken texture of her hair, which squeaked between her fingers. When the water began to cool, she reluctantly stepped out and toweled dry.
As Carmen had suggested, Jordan found everything she needed in the other room, right down to clean underwear and socks. Curious, but maybe the fiancé has sisters of various sizes who visit frequently and leave things in the closet. A gift horse being a rarity, she wouldn’t complain. Jordan chose black leggings and an oversized cream-colored sweater with a cowl neck. Not finding shoes without heels, she wiped down her hiking boots and laced them back on her feet. Then, with Jake close beside her, she went downstairs to find Carmen, her stomach growling in anticipation of the promised food.