But something in the privacy hedge catches the light. I frown at the reflection, which disappears as soon as I shift my weight to the other foot.
I shift back again.
It’s still there.
Keeping it in my sight, I walk forward until I’m standing just beneath the tree.
It’s a camera. Pointed directly at my front door.
SETH
The office building in Penster has no visible security to speak of. On either side of the property are empty lots, with buildings recently torn down and the foundations left to rot. A couple of flickering street lights stand sentry at either side of a deserted parking area. I make note of the abandoned guard station at the entrance.
Is Pointer that confident we won’t find the place? Possibly. He’s always been an egotistical, arrogant asshole.
Still, our men are careful. We brought four SUVs. Two park at the back of the building. Damiano’s and mine goes to the front. The fourth will circle slowly, our men and women at the ready.
I insist on going in with our first team, and I suit up accordingly. I won’t be at the front, because I’m not an idiot—I haven’t trained like they’ve trained. They’re the experts. Retired military, special operations. Running these missions and saving people is what they do best. I can fight when I need to. I fight pretty well, but I don’t fight like them, so I won’t put myself at the front.
Damiano comes in with me at the rear. My heart pounds, and my fists are tight. I make the conscious effort to relax my stance. We can do this. Stay alert, stay vigilant, stay ready. Before we even get through the door, the two soldiers in the lead have incapacitated two Point Ops guards on the first floor.
“I’ll wait here.” Damiano nods at the unconscious guards, already bending to tie their wrists. This is part of our plan. He’ll call the police as soon as we find my parents.
Our people spread out over the first floor, which turns out to be otherwise empty, before moving as a unit to the second. Sounds of a scuffle reach my ears, and I come up on two more Point Ops guards, already bound and tied.
“In here, sir,” Kristoff calls, waving to me from an open door.
I hurry into the room. Someone flicks on the lights, destroying our night vision. “Sorry,” Kristoff mutters, “but we need better visuals on their restraints.”
One of our female soldiers, Laura Magalhes, is sporting a bruise on her jaw, no doubt from an altercation with the Point Ops guards. She squats down next to my parents and takes a knife from her pocket to cut the heavy rope binding their wrists.
I join her and slowly lift the black bag covering my mother’s face.
She blinks in the bright light, tears filling her brown eyes. Her mouth is covered in tape. I start working at the corner of it, unable to meet her gaze. She’s aged a lot since I last saw her. I’m sure her pale skin and fatigue comes from her captivity, but beyond that, it strikes me that my parents are getting older. I stare at the roots of her hair. She dyes it brown, but quite a bit of gray is showing.
“I’m sorry about all this.” I ease the tape from her skin.
Her eyes tear up and she makes an involuntary sound of pain, but otherwise doesn’t complain.
Fuck Erich Pointer for putting my parents through this torment.
Laura frees my father from his black bag, and the tape on his mouth.
“Damiano,” I say, knowing he’ll hear me through his earpiece. “Go ahead and make the call.”
“I am on it.”
“Seth, what is the meaning of this?” my father demands as soon as his mouth is uncovered. His lips, and the skin around them, is as red and raw as my mother’s.
I shake my head. “A business rival is behind it. We’re calling the authorities right now.”
I expect him to shoot back with a bunch of vitriol and promises to press charges on the business rival, but instead, his shoulders sag. All the fight has been taken out of him.
Other than the swollen red skin from the tape around their mouths, and the abrasions on their wrists from the rough rope, my parents seem to be in decent condition. They were given bathroom breaks, it seems. And based on the fast-food wrappers and bottles of water left on a table nearby, they were also given food and drink.
When we help them stand, they seem very stiff, like they’ve been left here for hours. This was cruel, and it achieved nothing for Pointer. He had to know we would never dissolve Nove, and that we would never stop searching for my parents.
Laura guides my mother forward, and my father leans against my shoulder. Nobody says a word as we walk out of the building and into a parking lot lit by the flashing lights of emergency vehicles.
