Chapter Three
After their morning run, Liam and Hound went out to his house to look over the surveillance from Ben’s house. They hadn’t alerted him yet that there had been a car parked in front of it for several hours then left. The car had heavily tinted windows making it impossible to see through. Hound had tracked the license plate to a rental company, but the name it was underwas a dummy name. Liam had no doubt it was Alejandro or his goons, but they didn’t have proof. Hound had tapped into traffic cams around the LA area and found a man that looked like Alejandro, but they couldn’t get a facial recognition match.
“Dammit,” Liam cursed and paced Hound’s office space in his basement. Hound had wall to wall computer screens surveying all over California, but they couldn’tget one clean picture of the man they thought was Alejandro. No one had ever seen him face to face, so they were going off pictures from surveillance in the past. Hound had hoped there would be a picture of him on the flash drive Midas had brought back from Alejandro’s base but there was so much data still to go through. “We need to call Ben and tell him to bring Hannah back. She is the onlyone who can ID this son of a bitch.” Liam ran his hand through his hair he felt for the hundredth time in the past hour. He didn’t like knowing his enemy was close but didn’t know where. It was unnerving.
“Calm down, Sunshine,” Hound told him without looking up from his computer screen. That was Hound for you. Always calm under pressure. Liam usually was too but when it came to Cora’s safety,not so much. “The interrogation is tomorrow. The ex-commander will give us the intel that we need, and your worrying will be for nothing.”
Liam glared at the back of Hound’s head. The man couldn’t see the gesture, but it made him feel better. He hated this waiting game. Unfortunately, intel was what they needed now not muscle. And their ex-commander was the one who had it. He couldn’t send Coraaway because one he knew she wouldn’t go, and two, he didn’t know what he was sending her away from. There had only been one car watching the house, but since he couldn’t see inside the house he didn’t know which house.
“Ah ha,” Hound cried out starting Liam.
“Did you find something?” Liam raced back over to Hound’s side and looked at the computer screen though he didn’t know at what.
“Finally, got a match. There is a lot of activity down at the LA docks. This picture here,” Hound said pulling up a smaller screen and enlarging it. “This man here seems to be making friends with some not so great people. I’m willing to bet it’s Alejandro with someone shaking hands. I’m going to send this off to Blade and see if he can ID any of these people.
Liam didn’t know how much he trustedthis Blade character. They claimed they were FBI, but anyone could make shit up anymore and post it on the internet. But whoever this Blade person was they hadn’t let him and his team down yet. “It doesn’t look like good news either way. Alejandro is involved in drugs, weapons, and women. Being on the coast now puts him at an advantage. Let’s take this to the new commander and see if we can goafter him?” Their prior mission had been to stop Alejandro’s business. This would just be the second phase of the same mission.
~
“Absolutely not,” their new Commander, Lieutenant Colonel Jones, snapped at them. Their new commander was in his late forties, and his black hair was peppered with gray at the temples.
“Sir,” Liam started to say but was silenced by the commander standing upbehind his desk and staring him down.
“Your previous mission was to gather intel and rescue hostages. We now have the intel that will aid in our shutting him down for good. There will be no revenge mission and turn our home soil into a battlefield. I’ll pass along your new information. It’s out of our jurisdiction now.”
What?
What did jurisdiction have to do with anything? The man was onlya few hours away. He could get the team together to easily eliminate the threat once and for all.
“Sir, this isn’t about revenge. It’s about completing the mission.”
“It’s not, and there is nothing you can say that would convince me otherwise. Your previous commander set your team up and aided in the almost second kidnapping of Hannah O’Connell. How could this be anything but revenge? I cannotallow it. If a strike team is needed, and I’m not saying they are, I’ll call another team that isn’t as invested in it.” Liam couldn’t believe what he was hearing. Their new commander was willing to give their mission away to someone else? He always completed his missions. This one wouldn’t be any different. Alejandro would be shut down for good. With setting up a new base of operation he hadcontrol to the East and West. Mexico wasn’t far away so now he could make deals to the South. No, Alejandro had to be shut down. And if his commander wasn’t going to help them then they would do it themselves. It wasn’t like they didn’t have their own resources.
“Have I made myself clear, Sunshine?” Their commander glared at him from across the desk. Liam locked eyes with him. A silent battleof wiles between them. He could be court-martialed for what he was doing. Insubordination. He was only a Staff Sergeant compared to a Lieutenant Colonel. Midas should be the one speaking for the team. Not only was he the highest ranking but he was their leader. He should be the one talking to their commander, but while he was away with Hannah in Portland being reunited with her family, Liam wasin charge. He had worked with Midas long enough to know he would support whatever decisions he made.
“Crystal, Sir.”
“Then dismissed.” The commander said with a wave of his hand and went back to his paperwork on his desk. Liam saluted their commander and about-faced and walked out. A plan was already forming in his mind. They already knew where Alejandro was. They just had to get in andget out before anyone noticed they were there.
Back at Hound’s house the rest of the team was waiting for him. “How did it go?” Hound asked, but by his stoic tone, he already knew the answer.
“How do you think?” Liam asked instead.
A rare smile started to crack on Hound’s face. “That good?”
Liam threw himself into a computer chair and swiveled to face him. “It was a decisive no.”
“Commander’s aren’t exactly known for being kind and generous.”
“He said that it is a revenge mission and if someone is going to go after him then it will be a different team.”
“Like hell they are,” Tiny barked from across the room. Tiny, was their youngest, and contrary to his name the tallest team member. He rivaled Hound in height, over six and a half feet tall but the bastard could fitinto the tiniest of spaces. Liam would never have believed it given the man’s size but Liam had witnessed it more than once, Tiny crawled into a hole that would cause a toddler to be claustrophobic.
Tiny had been leaning against the wall casually when Liam had first walked in, and now the giant was pacing. No one wanted a pissed off giant stomping around the basement with thousands of dollars’worth of equipment surrounding them. A bull in a China shop came to mind.
Liam stood up and blocked Tiny from pacing further. “Relax, Tiny. It’s not going to happen.”
“It’s not?” Tiny looked skeptical. Liam didn’t blame him. When your commander said jump, you didn’t ask how high; you just did it. So, for the commander to tell them to stand down and Liam was telling them otherwise was unusual.
