SEAL My Home: Bad Boys of SEAL Team 3, Book 2 (SEAL Brotherhood Series 9) (16 page)

One of the detectives was outside on his cell phone already. “Copy and paste that message, son. Don’t forward it, just copy and paste it. Don’t want to alter the original. Send the copy here,” the other detective demanded, giving him his card.

Rory did so.

“You aren’t to leave the area or remove this computer except to show it to your superiors, understood?”

“What do I do with the message?”

“Leave it alone for now. Don’t forward it or alter it in any way. Don’t, for God’s sake, erase it!”

After they left, Kyle checked the front window to make sure they were gone. “Come on, Rory, we gotta get this to Collins, and I need to get your Dad’s phone number to Coop’s friend in Washington.”

“He’s not my dad, Kyle.”

“Whatever,” Kyle rolled his eyes.

Coop had done some special training at Quantico and had friends they’d used before when they were searching for Armando’s captors. The man was expert on getting specific locations from cell signals.

“Let’s hope Coop’s guy isn’t transferred out,” Kyle said as he helped Rory into his Hummer. “Hey, good job on losing the walker. You’ll be walking on your own any day now.”

Rory shrugged. “I can do it now, but just shouldn’t. The cane helps. Hopefully not for long.”

They rode over to the base in silence. Collins had agreed to meet them there.

“I’m guessing Corrigan had everything known to man on his phone, since he could certainly afford it. But let’s hope he didn’t get his signal blocked.”

“I’m thinking, for security, he wouldn’t.”

“You think they’d have kept him here, in the U.S?”

“No way to know. I think it would be easier to get his money out of the country than get
him
. Then, once they have his money, not sure they’ll need him. Just the facts of life, Rory.”

Rory was already thinking along those lines. “We gotta find that location.”

They showed their military I.D.s at the gate.

The dingy green-grey bunker that housed their Senior Chief’s office was always cold. Kyle had to slow down to allow Rory to catch up, hobbling with his cane. Collins stood when they arrived, closing the door behind them. He examined Rory’s legs.

“Geez, son, I expected you in a body cast from the description of your injuries.”

“No, sir. Just put the walker away yesterday. I’ll probably be using this for a while. But in a few weeks, months at the longest, I’ll be good as new.” Rory hoped his upbeat report would find weight with the Navy. He was waiting for word they might roll him out of the SEALs, and that was the last thing he wanted.

“Been on the phone since I talked to you, and we’re definitely not letting that computer out of our hands, Rory. Office of Special Naval Intelligence is sending someone over to take a look at it as we speak.”

“Good.”

“Can I see the thing?” Collins asked.

They lay the laptop in front of him, opening to Rory’s Gmail account. He scrolled down, noticed an email from the FBI requesting an interview in L.A. and a contact person there. He clicked on the link coming from Robert Corrigan’s computer, and they all watched as the photograph of the bound man populated slowly. Rory made the picture go wide, taking up the entire screen.

In the lower left, was a stack of cardboard boxes held together with a wide plastic industrial zip tie. On the top of the boxes was printed a partial logo in yellow and blue colors, along with some Arabic characters to the side, mostly cut off from view.

“There. Someone’s got to recognize that,” Rory said. “Looks like some kind of shipping facility?” Rory asked.

On the zip tie, someone had written letters in a black felt tip marker, but it was difficult to make out which letters. They appeared to be someone’s initials.

Lieutenant Commander Ian Forsythe of the Office of Naval Intelligence appeared in the doorway. Before the trio could stand and deliver a salute, he mumbled quickly. “At ease, gentlemen.”

“Ian, this is LPO Kyle Lansdowne and his SO Rory Kennedy.”

Forsythe’s handshake was firm and efficient. “So, what’ve we got?”

“This man is Raymond Corrigan, a civilian, sir,” Collins began. “Rory was just telling me they met in the hospital in Big Bear and then again in Los Angeles.”

“Corrigan seems to think he’s my dad, sir. Quite by accident we were assigned to the same room. Sir, he’s missing. I got this email with his picture this morning. The Los Angeles police have seen it, but other than you, no one else has. I’ve been asked to stay with this computer 24/7. And to be available for an FBI interview.”

“They’ve taken him to get to you? Doesn’t make sense,” Forsythe said.

“The guy is a billionaire. He lives in New York, and the detectives say no one there has heard from him in several days. I don’t think I’m the target. He is.”

Kyle interrupted, “We weren’t told this, but we think there’ve been some large withdrawals from his account, sir.”

“Collins, can you print out a copy of this for me?”

“I’ll do you one better, I’ll save it to a memory stick.”

“Okay, I’m going to add my name to the list of people you’ll have to contact if they send any more messages.” He handed both Kyle and Rory a card. “We’ve already got a task force assembled based on the credible threat notice we received from Washington, and I’m waiting for a call back from them now. In the meantime, you go nowhere, understood? Definitely not New York, I don’t care what they show you or tell you. Understand?”

“Yessir.”

Forsyth’s phone went off and as he walked to the hallway, he shouted back, “And stay the hell off your Facebook page.” He turned the corner and walked away from their ears.

“Tell me you got rid of your Facebook page,” Collins shouted.

“Long time ago. Right before we left the last time. No worries there.”

Kyle slapped him on the back. “Nice work.”

When Forsythe came
back in, he held his hand out. “I’ve just been informed we take custody of the computer.”

Rory swore and stood up carefully.

Collins minimized the screen, folded the top on itself, and handed it to Forsythe. “Sorry, son.” He was looking right at Rory.

“What if they demand to hear back from me? Or what if Corrigan tries to send me a message?”

“We’ll be monitoring this 24/7.”

“What if they want something else? How will I know?” Rory was feeling control slipping through his fingers.

“If he were one of ours, no question, we’d have lots of things we could do, in cooperation with the locals. But the one thing that cannot happen is they get their hands on this computer.”

He walked over to Rory and placed his hand on Rory’s shoulder, holding the laptop like a library book at his side. “I’m charged with the health and safety of all the Naval personnel all over the world, including their families. But if I let this computer out of this office, I’m putting every single one of them at risk, aren’t I?”

He was right, but it sucked.

Collins made copies of the L.A. Police detectives’ information for everyone. Forsyth’s parting shot was, “Keep that cell phone charged and stay put. Let us do our job, like you do yours.”

He left.

“Fuck,” Rory swore. “I don’t think that’s a good idea at all.”

“Rory, he’s got your number too. More than likely he’d call you,” Collins added. “You can check the internet from another computer.”

“You get notifications on your cell, right?”

“No, I don’t. You asked us not to.”

Kyle grinned and turned to Collins. “I can’t believe it. Someone who actually does what I tell them to do. Awesome.”

Rory wasn’t feeling as upbeat.

“Look, I’ll keep you guys in the loop as much as I can. This is important to all of us, and it looks like it’s way bigger than any of us, so let’s stay in touch and keep our fingers crossed.” Collins gave a sympathetic tap on Rory’s shoulders. “Son, they can do amazing things now. If he’s still in the U.S., I give it a good chance we’ll get him back.”

Kyle and Rory left together. Rory knew the same thing was on Kyle’s mind. If this was a targeted hostage situation, their entire community was at risk.

They were going to have to tell the other Team Guys and their families.

Rory didn’t like it one bit there were so many moving parts and jurisdictional territories between the FBI, LAPD, NYPD, Office of Naval Intelligence and the SOC community.

“I sure hate this alphabet soup we got here, Kyle. Sounds like a cluster fuck to me. Only difference is, it’s here in the U.S. where our families live, where innocents are.”

“Roger that, Rory. But doesn’t it remind you of some place?”

It did. It reminded him of Afghanistan.

‡

M
oustafa checked the
envelope of cash the young blond man gave him. It was larger than his weekly sum. He hadn’t seen this messenger before, and the man was definitely not a Muslim nor of Middle Eastern descent.

“Who are you?” he asked, distrustful of the nervous man in tweed slacks, a yellow V-necked sweater over a white shirt with the sleeves rolled up. He looked like he could have been a young attorney in Boston or some Ivy League college. Not that he knew anyone like that.

“Just a guy delivering an envelope.” The man didn’t make eye contact. His hands fidgeted with his keys and some coins in his pocket, annoying Moustafa.

“Stop that stupid noise,” Moustafa demanded, and spat. The man jerked, shooting him a worried look as if he expected to be hit. His hands came out of his pockets, but he kept rubbing his fingers together.

“Instructions?” Moustafa asked.

The man shrugged. “I—I—I just was told to find you here and deliver this envelope. I don’t know about anything else.”

The look he gave Moustafa was pitiful. His handler had something on him. The man’s car was parked in the next block, and there were two other young men in the seats, waiting. One of them was taking pictures of their meeting.

“What are the pictures for?” he asked as he pointed to the man’s car.

“Wha?” The American whipped around and squinted, tilting his head. “I didn’t know they were—”

“Shut up. Tell him I need to talk in person. I have a new development.”

“Okay. Look. I don’t know if I’ll be seeing him again. I’m just doing this one errand and then—” he turned to look at the occupants in his car. One of them had taken the spot behind the wheel and that distracted him. He groaned. Moustafa knew how it felt. The handler was good at giving out orders and letting everyone around him dangle, like a puppet master.

“Trust me, you’ll see him again. Until then, I doubt you’ll be able to think about anything else. And you’ll see him in your dreams, too.”

He made a dismissive wave of his hand. At first, the man didn’t understand.

“Go. Go report you did your job. God is good.”

“I hope so,” the man said with a bit of a smirk. He turned away and Moustafa identified him as certainly gay from the way he walked.

“Infidels!” he muttered under his breath.

Derek nearly shit
in his pants as they drove up to the terminal building. He didn’t put it together until they were already inside the locked gate. He hadn’t been blindfolded and put in the trunk like he was when they drove him out. He’d heard the planes overhead though. He’d been hearing the planes from inside the locked animal cage he’d been kept in for the last three days. He felt as nervous and trapped as the exotic big cat that must have occupied the cage before him, even though he’d been fed and allowed to shower and shave, under guard. He could hear Corrigan’s muffled voice and what he thought sounded like beatings in a room nearby.

They’d stripped him of his cell, his beeper, and computer. They’d added them to all of Corrigan’s stuff, covering an old metal desktop, spread out like ammunition for a weapon of some kind. Idle electronic pieces that were of no use to them now.

One little thing perhaps they didn’t know. Corrigan had installed a tracking device in his phone, in his computer and in the sole of his shoes. The shoes had been removed, but hopefully the devices would still work. Derek didn’t know who had access to those devices, and if Tariq was involved in procuring them, then they were all destroyed by now.

They’d threatened to kill Corrigan if Derek didn’t cooperate. He believed them when they said both of them would be released after Derek delivered the cash to the young Middle Eastern man in the coffee shop.

But any sense of reassurance he’d had evaporated today, since they’d allowed him to see the gate, the hangar with the Saudi Air logo, a palm tree and the crescent sun with the blue background. The guard at the gate spoke in Arabic to the two men in the front, barely looking at him, as if his life were inconsequential. They were pointing to the odometer and other parts of the little Passat he’d loved. This was
his
car. They were fawning over it like a loose woman.
His
car. The car
he
was being held captive in. The one they weren’t letting
him
drive.

And as he turned around and watched the gate lock behind him, hearing the loud ka-thunk of the metal, that’s when it hit him. He’d not be leaving this compound. At least, not alive.