12
“Morrissey! Holy fuck, what’s happening?”
Thunder’s voice reached Joe through his earpiece, but he ignored the question as he stared after the van, unable to believe someone had snatched Finn away right in front of his eyes. It was impossible that anyone could have gotten the drop on him, and yet it had happened. All Joe could think about was getting Finn back.
“Pixel! Call 911 and report that Brian Finnegan has been kidnapped. We need an APB put out on a black van, Maryland plates M as in Mike 302443. Call Herc. Tell him four guys snatched Finn from the summit. We need a quick response team on the double. Everyone else, inside the conference center. Tailor, you get with campus security for any of their internal camera recordings. Thunder, Dead-eye, Joker—we scour every inch of this fucking place to see what we can find to help us figure out who took Finn.”
“On it,” Pixel acknowledged at once.
“Shouldn’t we give chase?” Thunder asked, breathing hard into his mike as he was obviously running flat out.
Joe was already heading back toward the rear of the conference center, and he could hear sirens approaching. He flipped the safety on his gun as he neared the door, not wanting to shoot any campus police who came through. He was as icily calm and yet more furious than he could ever remember being. That was good—he had to keep it together to find Finn.
“By the time we got to our cars, they’d be long gone. Better to let the cops chase and Herc to get a specialist on it,” he replied. “In the meantime, I want the evidence before it’s picked up by the campus cops. They can’t handle this, and the Raleigh police will have to call in the FBI. By the time they figure out jurisdiction, Finn could be dead. We’re not going to let that happen.”
“Hell, no, we aren’t.” Drew’s voice was a low, angry growl.
Joe opened the rear door again, and he saw campus police approaching. “Dead-eye, get here on the double. You and Joker both. I’m going to be stuck talking to the police, and I need you to lock this area down. Finn may have tried to leave us a clue, and if so, we need to find it.”
Within five minutes the entire Hercules team was there, except for Pixel, who was monitoring the feeds in the van. Joe had enough time to brief them on what he saw and set them to looking for evidence before he had to give a statement to the police. The conference organizers also wanted a report, but by the time the cops cut Joe loose, Herc had arrived. He shooed Joe toward his team before taking over the political duties, much to Joe’s relief.
Joe hurried over to Thunder, Dead-eye, and Joker, who were standing around something on the ground, not letting the cops at it yet. Joe was glad—screw jurisdiction. This mission was aboutFinn, and as far as he was concerned, Hercules Security had jurisdiction. “What have you got?”
“A note,” Drew said, his expression troubled as he looked at Joe. “It’s written in Urdu.”
Joe felt all the blood leaving his face. Urdu was the official language of Pakistan, and he was far too familiar with certain very bad elements who were based in that country. He crouched down, pulling a pen out of his pocket so that he could lift the folded portion of the note.
We know you killed our friends, the note read.Now you will pay.
“No.” Joe stood up, balling his hands into fists so tight that the pen he was holding shattered. “I know who did this. They were coming for me.” The ice in the pit of his stomach churned, threatening to make him throw up, but he clamped his jaw down on it. Now was not the time for panic. Not if he was going to save Finn.
“What does this have to do with you?” Tyson asked, appearing puzzled. “Are you sure this isn’t a diversion? Do we need to clear the convention center?”
“It’s the mission I was on in Pakistan. We were going after another part of that human trafficking ring Pixel found a few years ago. The damned cockroaches just kept coming back, and we thought if we could kill the leader, we could kill it once and for all.” Joe shook his head. “I guess we didn’t do as good a job as we thought, and somehow they must have found out who I work for. And they fucking took Finn!”
“Fuck.” Drew raked his fingers through his short hair and grimaced. “If this is revenge, then the clock is ticking. No way Finn is getting out of this alive unless we find him.”
“Don’t you think I know that?” Joe turned on Drew, scowling. “I’m going after them. I won’t let them kill Finn, especially since it’s me they want.”
“I’m going with you,” Drew said in a tone that brooked no argument. “You’ll need backup, and I know the language.”
The last thing Joe wanted was this interloper tagging along when he had a job to do. “I don’t want you. I want D-Day. He’s better at this shit than anyone else.”
“Unfortunately, Daryl is in French Guiana with Emerson.” Herc’s voice came from behind them, and Joe turned to see his boss approaching. “Joe, you do need backup.”
“I’ll go,” Jason spoke up. “I went up against these guys before, remember?”
There was a squawk of protest from Pixel, but before he could speak, Herc shook his head. “I need you here to help Pixel. You’ve gotten almost as good at the electronics end as Pita, and unfortunately Pita is tied up at the moment. I can’t spring him for at least two days. Joker is right—he speaks the language, and he’s had more recent combat experience than anyone else. This is definitely a combat situation, so it’s the two of you. Dead-eye, you’re going to be auxiliary; we may need a sniper, so I want to hold you out of the thick of things. I have Pixel running Finn’s GPS tags now, so I want you two ready to go. Am I clear?”
“Clear, Herc,” Joe said, taking a deep breath. He didn’t want to work with Drew—he didn’ttrustDrew to have his back if things fell into the crapper. At the end of the day, though, Joe also knew he couldn’t go into this without the resources of Hercules Security, so he had to play by Herc’s rules. For now.
“Clear, sir,” Drew said, appearing grimly satisfied.
Joe put on his best poker face; he couldn’t let Drew see how pissed off he was. Finn came first, and finding him was all that mattered. “I want one of the executive protection SUVs, full auto weapons, and every kind of nonlethal load we have available. If we have to frag a whole location, I want to make sure we don’t get Finn by accident. I’d just as soon tranq these assholes and kill them later rather than risk anything happening to Finn.”
“You can have anything you need,” Herc replied.
“Pixel, do you have a fix on Finn’s GPS yet?” Joe asked. He turned and started walking toward the front of the building, not caring if Drew came along. He was going to head after Finn, and damn anyone who got in his way, and that included Drew Martin.
