Cold Spite (Cold Justice: Most Wanted #5)

Chapter 60

CHAPTER SIXTY

D elilah was on the highway when a large black truck drew level beside her. It was too dark to make out the face of the driver. Her heart hammered with apprehension. She had her Glock in her lap and braced herself between the wheel and the back of the seat, in case they tried to ram her off the road.

The back window slowly rolled down.

Cas.

She blew out a huge sigh of relief and let go of the tension that gripped her.

Thank God.

He put his finger to his lips to indicate she not say anything and jerked his finger toward the next exit. She nodded and put on her blinker, pulling up to the gas station to fill up because who knew how far she needed to drive tonight. Cas’s truck rolled up on the opposite side of the pump and another truck blocked her in from the rear.

She slipped her Glock into her holster, popped the cover to the gas tank and got out. She prepaid using the credit card Killion had given her and stuck the nozzle into the tank to fill it up.

Cas kept his distance, gassing up the other vehicles, but two other men began surreptitiously and systematically searching her vehicle, presumably for the tracker. Cas jerked his head to show that she follow a dark-haired woman wearing a red, white and blue Nationals cap into the shop.

Delilah did as he indicated.

The woman held the restroom door for her into the single toilet.

“Hi, I’m Meghan Donnelly.” She smiled and swept her over with a glance. “I need your shirt.”

“Pardon?”

The other woman stripped off her black T-shirt and offered it to her.

“Because I’m going to be driving your vehicle from now on, and we want the kidnapper to believe you are still behind the wheel.”

Delilah backed up a step. “If I don’t do as he says, he’s going to kill my parents.”

The woman eyed her with sympathy. “You know how these things work, Agent Quinn. He’s manipulating you so you can’t think straight. Making you jump through hoops. Exhausting you.”

Delilah shook her head. “It’s working. I can’t think straight.”

Dark eyes much like her own latched on to her. “He doesn’t want your parents, Delilah. He wants you. You know this. We’re going to make sure he doesn’t get you and we will do our utmost to get your parents home safe too. The entire FBI is about to be unleashed on these guys. They can’t abduct a former Assistant Director without getting their asses kicked.”

Delilah crossed her arms over her chest. “Dad has dementia. He’d hate that he couldn’t protect my mother or himself.”

“I’m sorry. I really am.” Meghan Donnelly looked down for a second. “I recently lost my own father so I truly understand, but it doesn’t change the plan.”

Delilah reluctantly unbuttoned and shrugged out of the navy shirt she wore and pulled on Meghan’s T-shirt. They both wore jeans and black boots, so the top half was good enough.

“The guys are doing a quick sweep of your vehicle to make sure the bad guys can’t hear whatever is being said inside the cab with their tracking device. One of my HRT colleagues will slip into the backseat to provide me with backup. We can manipulate the bad guys’ beacon if we want to, so they won’t know exactly where we are, but we’ll be close. Hopefully, we’ll see someone following us. In the meantime, you’re going to put on my ball cap and climb into the back of the vehicle parked behind you.”

“But you don’t actually look like me…” Delilah pointed out. The woman was taller and broader across the shoulders, so her shirt was a bit snug. Her face was more girl next door, with freckles, her nose sharper than Delilah’s own blunt one.

“Anyone who gets close enough to figure that out is going to be on my radar. These aren’t high tech villains despite the tracker. They can’t hack traffic cameras or security networks.” She used two fingers to point to her eyes. “They lock onto me, I’ll lock onto them.” Her smile was cruel. “And we’ll deal with them. We have signal blockers available, so if we spot them, they can’t call anyone.”

“How are you?—”

Meghan put the cap on Delilah’s head. “Yael will explain it all in the truck. I need to pee and get on the road.”

Delilah found herself pushed out the door. She rolled her shoulders. She was an FBI agent, and she believed in this organization but, apparently, they didn’t believe in her—otherwise why send this agent to replace her? But the Bureau had obviously pulled out all the stops because her father was a former Assistant Director and they took a poor view to anyone going rogue. She was already on thin ice in that department.

And while her job was not worth her parents’ lives, she knew that the FBI had way more resources than she had on her own. She had to believe her parents were still alive and that they would get them home safe.

She headed straight to the truck and climbed into the backseat surprised to see Cas in the driver’s seat and Yael in the passenger side with her laptop on her lap .

“Are you okay?” he asked gruffly.

She slipped her arm over the neck rest, pressed her hand to his heart, and squeezed as hard as she could. “I am now.”

He picked up her hand and then kissed it.

“We’ll get them back.”

“Where was the tracker located?”

“In the rear passenger wheel well proving this isn’t the work of some criminal genius. We should be able to talk to Cowboy and Donnelly without alerting the bad guys.”

“How’d he find me? How’d he even know I was alive?”

They all pulled onto the highway, but the other two vehicles went west while they headed east along Highway 3. Delilah looked over her shoulder as the others drove away.

“Until we found the locator on the truck I wondered if he’d just decided to interrogate your parents on the off chance,” Cas said. “Or maybe the kid recognized you from the airport and saw you on TV and mentioned it.”

“Or he staked out the FBI National Lab, but considering security around the Marine Base that’s high risk,” Delilah suggested.

“What about this morning at HQ? See anyone watching you when you arrived?” asked Yael who had her head bowed over her industrial-looking laptop.

Delilah shook her head. “I wasn’t paying attention. I was concentrating on what Trainer was going to say.”

Yael and Cas exchanged a look.

“I’m going to ask to access footage and have you review it,” Yael said.

Delilah nodded, although she wondered if they were just trying to keep her occupied, a little kid with coloring crayons.

“What happens next?” Anxiety for her parents gnawed along her nerves.

“Alex is looking for any cars near your parents’ house that might have been used in the abduction.”

“Ask him to crosscheck with any spotted near FBI HQ or in Quantico,” Cas suggested .

“Good idea.” Yael nodded and typed furiously. Less than thirty seconds passed before she sat up in excitement. “Hey, bingo. Alex got a hit on a vehicle…white Honda. Rental out of Ronald Reagan by one Richard Alonso.”

“What the…?” Cas stared at the other woman.

“You have got to be kidding me,” Delilah added.

Ricky Alonso. Cas’s undercover name.

“Wait, wait. Alex patched me in. I have a driver’s license photo ID.” Yael swung her screen around. “Recognize him?”

Delilah felt dizzy as the blood drained from her head.

Cas’s complexion turned ashen.

Yael pulled up another image this one from outside FBI HQ timestamped 8:45 a.m. that morning. “And look who was outside FBI HQ this morning around the time you arrived.”

Pedro Alvarez walked along the street like he didn’t have a care in the world. She hadn’t even noticed him. She felt sick.

“Sonofabitch.” Cas swore. “He’s supposed to be dead.”

Delilah’s phone rang, and they all froze.

Yael held up her hand and set up something on her laptop, presumably a trace. Then she nodded to give the go-ahead.

Delilah answered. “Where are they?”

“Keep following orders like a good little girl, and you might find out.”

Every word was being recorded, and the sonofabitch was going down—Delilah would make sure of it—but there was no guarantee as to her parents’ welfare.

“Okay, Joseph, let’s cut the bullshit. We both know that what you really want is me, so why don’t you let them go, and we can meet somewhere and duke this out. Just the two of us. One on one.”

“Who’s this Joseph guy? You seem obsessed.”

She rolled her eyes at his lame attempt to conceal his identity.

“You and me. That’s what you want. It’s what you always wanted.”

“Don’t flatter yourself, bitch. ”

“Aw, my heart is all aflutter at your sweet-talking ways. Reminds me, how’s that kid of yours, now you murdered her mama?”

She could feel his rage pouring along the airwaves.

“If you want to see your parents again you shut your damn mouth. Why’d you stop a little while ago?”

The abrupt change of subject made her stumble for a moment. “Gas. Coffee. And a woman needs to pee regularly, but maybe it’s been a while since you had to deal with anyone with two X chromosomes.”

“Don’t stop again until you need gas—which is about 500 miles in one of those rigs.”

“I’ll fall asleep at the wheel.” She let her outrage shine through.

“Doesn’t matter to me.”

“Where am I going, or shall I set the GPS for your hometown?”

“You don’t know where my hometown is, remember, sweetheart? And if you tell the cops about any of this, mom and pop won’t be very happy.”

“You want that photograph now because I’ve got one with my middle finger ready for you.”

“I’ll tell you what to do, when.”

“Are you jerking off on this power trip? I guess you must be an expert at that by now.”

“How long do you think your parents can survive in the trunk of a car without water?”

Her mouth went bone dry. “Don’t hurt them. Please don’t hurt them.”

He hung up.

Delilah put her head between her knees. “Did you get a trace?” she mumbled.

“No,” Yael said quickly. “He has some sort of VPN that I will break, but I need more time on the line with him. Alex pinged that rental car transponder though and it came up as being close to a private airfield.” Yael looked up and pointed at a sign. “One we are about to pass. ”

Cas indicated to pull off the highway. They were headed to a small regional airport.

Her pulse raced. Delilah checked her weapon, glad she’d put a spare magazine in her back pocket.

“Dig around in the equipment bags. There should be ballistic vests and a couple of MP5s back there.”

Delilah found the ballistics gear first and passed it forward.

She handed Yael one. “Don’t want you getting shot again.”

Cas pulled the vest on while he was driving. “You two stay in the SUV and lock the door. It’s bulletproof.”

Yael was visibly shaking.

“I’m not staying in the car. I’m not a civilian.” Delilah dug into the back and found two MP5/10A3s. She made sure they were both locked and loaded.

Approaching the airfield, Cas cut his headlights. There were two large hangars, and the lights were all ablaze, but she didn’t see a soul around.

“Think they’re here?”

“Let’s hope so.”

Cas pulled up behind a hangar, and she passed him one of the HKs.

“If you’re with me, you take orders from me because this is what I train for every day, understood?”

His tone was sharp with worry. She understood that better than most.

“Yes, sir.” She wanted her parents safe, and these assholes contained.

“Keep behind me. Lock the doors and don’t leave the vehicle for anything except us. Understood?” Cas addressed Yael with the same firmness. “Anything happens to you I’ll never forgive myself, not to mention Shane would kill me.”

“We could wait for backup,” Yael suggested.

“And in the time it takes for them to arrive, they could be gone. Let’s go, Agent Quinn.”

They got out of the SUV, and Delilah slipped the strap over her shoulder and held the weapon, barrel down, pointed at the ground. They ran around from the back of the hangar and down the middle of the two main structures.

At the other end, Cas crouched and poked his head out to look left and right. “You stay here while I check this hangar.” He pointed to his right. “Keep your eyes on that hangar door in case any bad guys come out in the meantime. Hold fire unless they aim a gun at you. Understood?”

She nodded and watched him melt into the shadows. She wished they’d thought to grab comms before they’d left the SUV.

She couldn’t see anyone in the control tower, although the lights were on. She thought she could hear the sound of a plane overhead, but they were in a busy enough area that it could be going to one of several different airfields.

Maybe they were in the wrong place? Perhaps the kidnappers had dumped the rental and swapped it for another one that was right now waiting for her somewhere along the highway heading southwest, planning to pounce as soon as they thought she was tired or isolated enough.

Cas arrived soundlessly back at her side.

“Empty.”

A shout cut through the night air, but she couldn’t make out the words.

“Let’s go.”

Delilah had done many raids in her years with the FBI, but she’d never been this scared before. Everyone she loved was in jeopardy. She forced herself to push the emotion from her mind. To fall back on her training and follow Cas’s lead. They’d always worked well as a team.

They arrived at the door, and he peeked inside. Drew back. “I see Pedro holding a weapon on a guy I don’t recognize while he checks his plane. A white Honda is parked to one side.”

Hope bloomed, and she shoved it aside.

“When he’s not looking, I’m going to peel around this door and make my way to the far-right corner where there’s cover. You’re going to wait ten seconds before checking to see if he is looking, and then do the same.”

“Okay.” She nodded, using her professionalism like a shield to prove she could do this even though her insides were jelly. Then he kissed her.

“I love you, Agent Quinn.”

She could barely speak. “I love you too, Operator Demarco.”

He pressed his lips together as if wrestling with himself. Nodded. Then he eased forward and peered inside.

And then he was gone, and she was huddled outside the hangar door clutching a sub-machine gun praying her parents were still alive. She double checked that the weapon was ready to fire and then took a quick glance inside the brightly lit hangar.

Cursed.

Pedro Alvarez was looking right at her.