Rocco filled the water and feed buckets and set them in the wagon to take down to Kitano. Worried about exposing Mandy to any threats lurking on the property, he’d refused to let her out of the house to tend to the horse. He didn’t know how long he’d be able to keep her inside and safe-hopefully long enough for the team to capture Amir.
When he got halfway to Kitano’s corral, a white delivery van pulled up the driveway and parked in front of the house. There was a sign on the side of the van with the local pharmacy’s name. He watched as a man wearing a white lab coat got out of the van. Seeing him, the man lifted a hand with a white bag. Rocco waved back and continued to Kitano’s corral. He knew what was in that bag-the antibiotics and pain meds. He’d take the antibiotics, but wouldn’t touch the Vicodin. He’d worked too hard to get his head clear to mess with that stuff.
When he returned the wagon to the toolshed after feeding Kitano, the van was gone. He walked up to the house. The dogs were outside. He looked at the porch to see if Mandy was standing in the doorway. The door was open, but no one stood there. A frisson zipped along his spine, spurring him forward. Just inside the door, Max lay on the ground, his Sig still in his hand.
Rocco felt for a pulse even as he looked around the room. Max was alive. He didn’t see any injury. Had he been tranq’d like Blade? What the hell had happened? No furniture was disturbed. He called for Mandy, but got no answer. He ran down the hall to her room-it was empty. He checked her bathroom. Empty. He dialed her cell, then heard it ring in the kitchen.
He cursed and looked around the room, trying to determine what might have happened. He saw the white pharmacy bag on the floor, along with the money he’d given Mandy to pay for it. She wouldn’t have just dropped everything and left with the delivery guy.
She’d been taken.
Max sat up and shook his head. Awake again, his mind cleared in a flash. He roared and leapt to his feet, ready for intruders. The man moved with the fluid grace of a martial arts master.
“What the hell happened to you?” Rocco asked.
“Chloroform. Where’s Mandy?”
Rocco cursed. That’s why it didn’t look like there’d been a struggle-there hadn’t been. “Gone. They took her,” he told Max. “I’m going after her. They can’t be more than a few minutes ahead of me. I’ll radio Kit on my way. Call Sheriff Tate and tell him the delivery guy took Mandy. Get him to put an APB out on the van. Then look around and see if there’s anything missing, any surprises left for us. You should sweep for bugs, too.”
Max grabbed his arm, stopping him. “Don’t go alone. Let me call one of the others back.”
“I’m not waiting for a ride-along.”
Rocco fired up his truck and started down the long drive, which passed between two steep hills before it met the road. He exited slowly-it was hard to see what might be waiting ahead. He didn’t expect to see the delivery van parked off to the right.
He parked, then walked around the van. He looked in the front windows. It appeared empty, but a divider wall kept him from seeing into the back. When he opened the rear doors, he found a man lying inside, out cold. No sign of Mandy.
He radioed Max. “Found the delivery van parked on the road in front of the drive. He switched cars. No idea what we’re looking for now. Get the paramedics up here. There’s a guy in the van, breathing but unconscious.”
On the opposite side of the driveway, there were fresh car tracks. Looked as if someone had taken off in a hurry. Rocco circled the area, trying to see if they made a u-turn and headed back toward the town. As far as he could tell, they hadn’t.
He got in his truck and started down the road, heading away from town, then radioed Kit. “The pharmacy delivery van was hijacked. They took Mandy and switched vehicles. Don’t know what they might be driving, but they appear to be headed west. Can’t be more than a couple minutes ahead of me. They have to be taking her to the compound. Where else would they go with her?”
Kit hissed a curse. “No idea. I expect I’ll be hearing from Amir shortly-he never lets any good deed go unnoticed. Will let you know if I find out more.” There was a pause ripe with unspoken words. “Rocco, you okay?”
“No. I’m fucking pissed.”
“We’ll find her. Owen and I are starting back now. We’ll meet-up midway. You got to keep it together, bro.”
“I will, at least until I can start pounding faces.” He signed off and hit the accelerator. The highway headed northwest, deep into the Medicine Bow Mountains. He took the sharp turns as fast as he dared, frustrated that the steep, twisty route kept him from seeing very far down the road. A half hour later, he’d seen no cars driving in either direction, none of the dirt roads that led off the highway onto private property were dusty or looked recently disturbed.
Up ahead was a rustic rest area with a car parked in the lot. He wouldn’t have thought to stop except the car was backed into its parking space, and the man behind the wheel dipped lower in his seat as he spotted Rocco’s truck approach.
Rocco pulled in and stopped his truck right in front of the car. A short, slim man with dark coloring got out and started running. Rocco couldn’t tell if he was Middle Eastern or of some other ethnicity, but it didn’t matter. He ran like a guilty man. Rocco chased him past the facilities and up a steep path that led into the woods. Warning signals were firing in his head. He was either getting Rocco to waste precious time or running him headlong into a trap. He tackled the man before the path took them out of sight of the parking lot.
“Where is she?” Rocco asked. The man beneath him shook his head. Rocco pounded his face into the hard dirt. “Where is Mandy Fielding?” Again no answer.
Rocco wrapped an arm about the man’s throat and pulled tight. “I’m asking one more time, you son of a bitch.” He jerked his hold tighter.
“I don’t know!” the man rasped, his words carried the heavy accent of a native Pashto speaker.
“Then you will die.” Rocco tightened his grip. The man began gasping out a question in Pashto. Rocco eased his hold slightly.
“Are you the Gray Ghost? Are you the one?”
“I am,” Rocco answered in the same language. “You cannot escape me. In this life or the next, I will follow you and get my answer. Where is the woman?”
“I don’t know. I was only supposed to get her to this place. They came and took her.”
“Who?” Rocco asked. “Where did they take her? What are they driving?”
“A green van. They are driving a green van. It is all that I know. I swear!”
Rocco tightened his hold until the man passed out, then he carried him back down to the car. A black SUV pulled into the lot, stopping behind Rocco’s truck. He waited behind the decoy’s car, cautious about the new arrival until Angel jumped out of the passenger seat.
Rocco holstered his Beretta and started for his truck. “Get his ID and the car’s registration,” Rocco ordered Angel. “Call it in to Max. He said they took Mandy in a green van. Get that info to the cops and to Kit. I’m going after the van.”
“And I’m going with you,” Val said. “Toss your keys to Angel and get in. Val had it in gear even before Rocco had shut the door. They drove another few miles down the road, looking off to each side, trying to find a spot where a car might have driven off the road. A car drove by, heading in the opposite direction, a woman at the wheel. A truck passed. It was as if nothing unusual had transpired here at all. No one knew that the woman Rocco loved had been kidnapped, disappearing like smoke in the wind.
He radioed Max in the control room at Mandy’s house. “Give me some good news.”
“The State Police have several road blocks set up between Centennial and Ryan Park. They’re looking for a green van or any vehicle that looks suspicious.”
“If they’ve got the road covered, get me info on any properties that might be abandoned up here. Properties that are far enough off road as to have some privacy. Anything that sold recently and could accommodate several fighters. Something. Anything. I don’t think they are still on the road.”
“On it.”
Max radioed back a few minutes later. “There’s a property on your left less than two miles from your current 20. It was a cabin rental site that has been without an owner for the last three years. I’m sending the map to your phone.”
“Thanks. Get someone to pick up Angel. He’s holding a package for us at a rest stop. Be sure to check out that car before moving it. And keep looking for other sites in case this one doesn’t pan out.”
“Roger that. Kelan is already en route. Keep us posted.”
Rocco’s phone pinged when the message came through. He studied the map a moment, then pointed to an upcoming drive. “There’s another private drive a little farther down the road. Turn there.”
Val pulled off the road. Rocco handed him the map he had open on his phone. “Looks like the cabins are about a mile up the road,” Rocco said. “Let’s go see what we’re dealing with.” They put their phones on vibrate, then jogged as far up the drive as they could go. They moved silently into the woods, creeping up a small rise that overlooked the lodges.
Parked in front of one of the cabins, among several other cars, was a green van. They eased into position. Val settled on his stomach and arranged his rifle. Rocco snapped a picture on his cell phone and sent it to Kit. The vehicles definitely looked parked, not abandoned. As he watched, a man stepped out of one of the cabins, slung an AK-47 over his shoulder, then lit a cigarette. When he walked around the other side of the cabin, Rocco radioed Kit.
“Found the green van. Got a nest of camel spiders up here armed with AKs. Permission to use lethal force.”
“Negative. We’re not giving those bastards any virgins today. We need to question them-there’s a bigger op at play than this one. Any sign of Mandy yet?”
“Negative.”
“The FBI’s coming up from Denver. Got a bomb unit from Carson in the air. Owen and I are on our way. Hold your position until we’re in place.”
“What’s your ETA?”
“Ten minutes.”
“Roger that.” Rocco nodded to Val. They watched the site a few minutes, waiting to catch the rhythm the guard used in his patrol.
“Looks like there’s only the one guard. He makes a simple loop,” Val commented.
“I’m going in closer,” Rocco said. “I want to see where Mandy is.”
He held his position until the patrol strolled by. There were eight cabins in an L-shaped formation. All had a front and back window and door. It was hard to tell from the way the vehicles were parked which cabins might be occupied. Looking in the rear window of the first cabin, Rocco could see the space was configured in an open floor plan. The front door stood open, but no one was inside. He motioned to Val that it was empty.
He walked casually across the alley between it and the next cabin. Looking in the window, he could see the space was empty. The third cabin held five men sitting on the floor. No Mandy. He signaled the count to Val, then moved on to the fourth. The window was broken in the back. It was empty. He kept on until he moved to the next to last cabin around the bend. Three men were inside, but no Mandy.
Where the hell was she? Had the green van not been the one that had taken her? Could she still be in the van? Had they stashed her somewhere?
Rocco checked the last cabin, which was empty. He stepped back into the woods, keeping absolutely still while the guard walked between his position and the cabins. When he’d circled around in front again, Rocco went up the hill and crossed to Val.
“Any sign of her?” Val asked.
“No. I didn’t check the van, though. Maybe there were two vans. Maybe the bastard lied. They could be holding her in one of the bathrooms. The third cabin has five guys. The next to the last in that row has three. The others are all empty. I’m going to wait for Kit near the SUV.”
“When you come back, bring my bag. I’ve got plenty of zip ties in there.”
Rocco waited in the cover of a scrub pine. He wanted to rage, to storm the cabins, to kill the bastards working on al Jahni’s terror campaign. Instead, his training and his years of covert ops work kicked in like a core instinct, keeping him calm and focused.
At last, a black Expedition pulled into the drive and parked in front of Val’s SUV. Kit and Owen got out.
“What’s the situation?” Kit asked.
“A quarter of a mile up the road is a ridge that overlooks the campground and cabins.” Rocco knelt down and took up a stick to draw the layout they were working with. “Val’s there. A hundred and fifty meters below him is a line of eight cabins. This one has five tangos, that one has three. One guard patrols the circumference. The green van is here,” he marked an “x” in front of one of the cabins. “Three other vehicles are here, here, and here. No sign of Mandy, so go carefully.”
“Right. Kit will take the patrol,” Owen directed. “Then he and I will take the cabin with the three men in it. You and Val take this one. Let’s go.” They caught up to where Val was lying in wait.
“Any change?” Kit asked.
“Negative,” Val answered without looking away from his scope.
“When the guard is down, radio us,” Owen told Kit. They waited for the patrol to move around the corner before getting into position, four men moving silently as shadows down the steep slope of the ridge. The trees around them were mostly lodge pole pines, with a few aspen mixed in. Soft pine needles covered the ground, damp from the recent snowmelt. If the enemy looked at the right time, they might catch their movement, but they couldn’t be heard.
Rocco’s heart was pounding. With the man he’d caught earlier and the nine here, they’d take ten terrorists out of circulation today. One of them had to know where Mandy was.
As soon as Kit radioed he’d handled the patrol, Rocco and Val stormed their appointed cabin, Rocco coming in from the front, Val from the back. They filled the room with noise and shouts, throwing it into chaos.
“On the floor! On the floor! On the floor! Hands on your head!” Val shouted. Rocco repeated the order in Pashto and then Arabic. Two men complied, crashing to the floor with their hands over their heads. One tried to run past Val, and two turned on Rocco. Rocco slammed the butt of his rifle into the shoulder of one of the men who lunged at him, then jammed his elbow into the other man’s jaw.
“Give me a reason. One goddamned reason,” Rocco shouted at both of them. They didn’t try for him again. “Get down on the floor, hands on your heads.” In short order, they had all five men subdued. Once Val had secured them with zip ties, Rocco collected their weapons.
“Where is the woman, Mandy Fielding?” Rocco asked, watching their expressions. He switched to Pashto, then Arabic, repeating the question, all to blank, impassive faces.
“Was she your woman?” one of the captives asked, his expression smug.
“She is my woman.”
“Perhaps, but not for long. Allah’s will is just. She will pay the price for whoring herself to an infidel.”
“What do you know of her? Where is she?”
“Beyond your reach, I would expect.”
The room fell quiet under that open threat until the metallic sound of Rocco unsheathing his knife broke the silence.
“What are you doing?” Val asked Rocco.
“I’m going to get him to tell me what he knows about Mandy. If he won’t talk to me, I’ll cut out his tongue so that he can’t talk to anyone ever again.” He looked at the row of men sitting against the wall. “And if he loses his tongue, I will start on the next, and the next. One of them knows something.”
“Huh.” Val walked to door and looked out toward the cottage where Kit and Owen were. “Better be quick about it. I doubt Kit would approve.”
Rocco pulled the man away from the line of the others. He forced him to the floor, pinning him with a hand on his throat. “Where is the woman?” The other four captives watched with pale faces and wide eyes.
“Go to hell,” the man spat.
“You first.” Rocco put a knee on the man’s abdomen and gripped his jaw in his left hand. The man clamped his teeth shut and struggled against Rocco’s attempts to get his mouth open.
“Come hold him,” he ordered Val.
Val shouldered his rifle and knelt down, pinning the man’s head between his knees. “Go for it. Just don’t cut me.”
“Stop!” one of the other men shouted. “She is not here. They took her up the hill to another building.”
Rocco sent Val a quick look. “Go,” Val told him. “I got this.”
As he reached the door, a man he’d not seen before stepped inside. He took one look at Rocco and Val, then glanced around the room. Seeing what was happening, he took off. Rocco ran after him. He got almost to the foot of the hill where a drive led up and out of sight before Rocco tackled him. He was shouting a warning-to whom, Rocco had no idea. A quick right hook silenced him.
Rocco heard someone running fast behind him. Kit was closing in on him. He left Kit to deal with the terrorist and continued up the hill, scoping out the area, watching for threats. Straight ahead was another building. An old sign hanging askew over the front door read, “Office & Mercantile.”
Rocco ran up to the entrance, then flanked the front door, straining to hear any sound inside. All was silent. He cleared the main room, then each of the smaller rooms. The building was empty of humans. Its sole occupant was a chair set in the middle of the room. Freshly severed ropes lay discarded on the floor.
Rocco kicked the chair across the room as he bellowed a curse. He took another turn through the building, trying to see if there was a basement, a closet, another space where they might have stashed Mandy, another clue as to what they might have done with her, all to no avail. The place was clean.
When he came back into the main room, Kit was finishing a call. His face was pale, his eyes bleak as he met Rocco’s gaze.