Thank God. Ryker calls Austin over and pulls the sadistic dart gun from a duffel on the floor. “You’re next, Stars and Bars.”
“I have a name, you know. And you’re not touching me with that thing.”
Standing, Ryker looms over Austin. “You wanna try that again?”
“No.”
“Listen, Pritchard, I’m about two seconds from knocking you on your ass. You expect to go into the field with me, you’re gonna be tracked. Because if you get yourself caught and taken into the bowels of The Crypt, or anywhere else, we have to be able to find you.”
“Just because I’m holed up in this shack with you, McCabe, doesn’t mean you get to—“
Ryker grabs Austin’s arm, spins him around, and shoves him against the wall. Without missing a beat, he tosses the dart gun to Graham, who pulls up my brother’s black t-shirt and injects the chip just above his waist.
“You fucking piece of shit,” Austin growls as Ryker lets him go.
On screen, Wren shakes her head and mutters something that sounds like “Men.”
“Yep. That I am. A fucking piece of shit who can now rescue your ass if you need it. We don’t have to like each other, Pritchard. I know you only let Rip go because Trevor asked you to.”
“What the fuck?” Austin shoves Ryker, but it must be like pushing against a brick wall. “I didn’t let Richards—“
“Ripper.” The word escapes on a hiss, and Austin rolls his eyes.
“Fine. I didn’t letRipperoff the hook because Trevor asked me to. I did it because it was the right thing to do. And as for the rest of you,” he sweeps his hand around the room, encompassing Graham and the comms equipment where Wren and Dax are listening in, “I looked the other way and buried all evidence you were eveninAfghanistan last summer. Not because of Trevor. Because the world needs people like you. Your team can go places I can’t. Do things I can never do and neverwantto do.”
Silence fills the safehouse for a long moment, until Ryker arches a brow and looks over at Graham. “Sounds like the head of JSOC just endorsed Hidden Agenda.”
Austin slams his palm down on the table, and Ryker takes a step towards him, hands clenched into fists at his side. “That isnotwhat I said, McCabe. And if I hear you repeat that to a single fucking soul, the next time you need help you better come asking dressed in a fluffy pink tutu.”
The tension in the room is suffocating, but a second later, Ryker sputters what might be…a laugh? On screen, Wren’s mouth hangs open. Dax shakes his head with a smile tugging at his lips, and Graham looks at Ryker like he’s never heard the man make that particular sound before. Austin’s just as confused until Ryker slaps him on the back hard enough to make my brother stumble. “You know, that just might be worth it. And it’s Ry.”
“What?” As quick on his feet as my brother is, he can’t quite process the sudden shift in Ryker’s mood. Neither can I.
“My name, Stars and Bars. My friends call me Ry.” He pins me with those odd, multi-colored eyes. “That goes for you too, Dani. That one,” he says as he jerks a thumb towards the back door where Ronan’s setting up a perimeter alarm, “is still on probation.”
For the first time since the police took Trevor away, I smile. This whole plan could go sideways in a hurry, and if it does, any one of us could pay the price. But I have family with me. Not just Austin, but everyone in this room and on comms. I haven’t even met half of them, but that doesn’t change how I feel.
I’m not alone.
* * *
It takesWren and Cam a bit to work their magic, and while they do, Ryker sets up a little mini-projector connected to one of the other laptops. “On the left, the streets around The Crypt with traffic cameras marked. On the right, all we’ve been able to gather about the building’s layout. We work in teams tonight. Ronan, you’re with me. Graham, you, Pritchard, and Dani are on point to meet with Leo.”
“Leo?” I ask.
“He’s been in country for almost fifteen years. Can’t beat that kind of knowledge. You’re meeting him at Plaza Bolivar at nineteen hundred.”
I stare at the diagrams of The Crypt. Austin’s hours of phone calls—many of them made while he was on a plane over the Atlantic—yielded transcripts of interviews with two survivors who’d been released from The Crypt after giving Ochoa the information he wanted. They couldn’t remember anything but the bottom floor. The transcripts of their interviews haunt me.
That is where the worst happens. The cells are too small to stand or even sit up. It is cold. All the time. The elevator requires a keycard, and there are cameras every three meters. The guards came often to beat or taunt us.
We were not allowed to sleep, to move, or to speak to one another. I was only released when I gave Presidente Farías the information he desired. I refused as long as I could, but after three weeks, I was dying. I told his men everything and I was moved to the top level. To a cell with a cot and hot meals. I was allowed to sleep. Before he ordered my release, Presidente Farías demanded my family sacrifice their home, all of their possessions, and their livelihoods for me. We had to leave Venezuela and can never return.
“We don’t know Trevor’s down there,” I say as Ryker tells Graham where to park and how to approach the plaza.
Ry pauses mid-sentence, passes Graham off to Wren online from Seattle, and flips off the projector before he motions for me to follow him towards the back door.
Outside, the sun is still shining brightly, and the warm breezes ruffle my hair. “Dani, there’s nowhere else Ochoa would put him.”
