Armed And Dangerous (The McKinnon Legends - The McKinnon American Men Book 2) (2 page)

“Um huh,” she nodded her head. She was not going to disappoint her daddy. She was a McKinnon, and McKinnons were made of strong stuff.

“In two days, put your hat in the window of the room you are currently held.” He knew she never went anywhere without her ball cap. He was banking on this trip not being any different.

She quickly unpacked her Texas Rangers baseball cap and vowed to keep it with her all the times as she tucked the bill into the back pocket of her jeans. She would be ready.

Josh’s stomach was churning. His child was in grave danger, and he understood going in with guns blazing would only get her killed. He hated it, but this was going to take time, and it would take some strategic planning. Translation: it would be several days before he could go in and bring her home. Jesse understood.

Damn his ex-wife! Josh could kill her himself for what she had done to their child if she were not already dead.

And damn himself for not smelling a rat when she came to get Jesse in a hired car.

“Just don’t panic, Jess. I’ll rally the troops. I will be there as soon as I can, promise.”

“Daddy, please bring Cousin Mason. He is just crazy enough to get me out of here and keep us all alive.”

Josh raised an eyebrow, surprised at her request, but could not have agreed more. Mason was a daredevil of biblical magnitude. However, he was smart, cunning, and experienced, and if Jesse trusted Mason to help him get her out, then so would he.

“You understand it will take us a couple of days to plan and get there?”

“Uh huh.”

“Save your battery. I want you to check your phone every afternoon at four o'clock your time. I will send you a text with the numbers 2233 when we are close. If someone happens to see it, tell them it is our text code for ‘everything's good.’ Do you understand?”

“Yes, Sir.” She nodded bravely.

“I love you, Jesse, more than life itself. I’ll get you out, I swear. You believe me?” Josh wanted her to feel positive and reassured that she would come out of this alive. She would never be the same, but she was going to live and he would deal with the emotional fallout later.

“Yes, with all my heart.” And Jesse did believe. This family took care of their own laying down life and limb for each other. They always had and always would.

“Ok, I want you to delete all your messages and phone logs now. I don’t want him realizing you have contacted me.”

“Ok, Daddy. I will do that as soon as we hang up. Just hurry as fast as you can.”

“I will get you out, Jesse, if it is the last thing I do.”

“Don’t make me an orphan in the process, ok? I love Aunt Shelly, but she makes me wear a dress to church.”

Josh smiled in spite of it all and prayed her wearing a dress was her only inconvenience after this event.

Jesse did as she was told and deleted all sent and received messages and calls. She sat back for the long wait and only then did she cry.

Jesse thought about how she had come to this.

She knew her mother was having an affair with Del Torres. She had seen them together regardless of the fact her mother was married to another man just as wicked if not worse.

Beautiful and sophisticated, Jacqueline Bassett-Vozarosa thought to play the ends against the middle between two drug kingpins. Secretly, her mother had loved the danger and drama brought into her life being sandwiched in between two powerful men. She was married to Julio Cesar Vozarosa, a Columbian ‘businessman’ worth millions due entirely to cocaine and illegal weapons. Even as young as she was, Jesse understood who her stepfather was and why her daddy had custody of her. Until she called her father, he had no idea her mother had taken her out of the country for a long Labor Day weekend.

Fortunately, her mother had just given her cell phone back the night before. She had taken it to keep her from calling her dad before they left the United States. Her mother did not know her father had added the international calling to their cell plan for emergencies such as these.

Del Torres had been her mother’s latest affair, one in a long list of many. Jesse knew her mother was insecure and hid those insecurities behind a mask of expensive clothing, makeup, and jewelry. She had never been without a man in her life and as far as Jesse could tell, her father was the only one her mother had ever married who was worth anything.

Her mom had divorced her father for the money Vozarosa could give her, and she had become a very rich woman in the process. In Jacqueline’s mind, money equated to security, and Jacqueline was a very insecure woman. This was something Jesse could not understand. She could comprehend that she was in deep trouble, and if her father did not send help soon, she could be joining her mother for eternity.

By kidnapping Jesse, Del Torres thought to use her as leverage against his enemy Julio Vozarosa. He had grossly miscalculated by thinking Vozarosa would be forced to give up territory in northern Columbia in exchange for the life of his stepdaughter. She was, after all, the only one who witnessed Vozarosa killing Jacquline.

He quickly discovered Vozarosa could not have cared less about the girl. Jacqueline discovered that same fact about herself just a little too late. In spite of the fact she was beautiful, she was quite expendable.

Emilio really did love Jacqueline. His love for her managed to get her killed too. He figured it was Vozarosa who put a bullet between her eyes for her infidelity and in no small probability feared she had shared secrets of Vozarosa's operation with the enemy as pillow talk. It also sent a strong message.

Expecting a meeting with Vozarosa to discuss a possible cartel and alliance, Emilio instead found Jacqueline, dumped on the sands near his private villa. Vozarosa’s message was clear: He and his whore could go straight to hell.

Diego had returned from disposing Jacqueline’s body and asked the question that Del Torres had been pondering inwardly.

“What do we do now? Vozarosa obviously doesn’t care about the girl.” Diego got straight to the point.

Emilio had to try, he supposed. He shrugged mentally.

“Jesse is not due back to her father for another six days so that buys us time. I have long suspected there is a mole in my operation. I will use the kid to flush him out. The McKinnon family is closely aligned with the DEA and other American federal agencies. If the mole is here, he will make every effort to secure the girl’s safety.”

“And if there is a mole and he doesn’t make that attempt. What then?”

Diego was not comfortable with them having taken the girl in the first place. His vote was for putting her onto the first flight out. With their connections in the National Police, they could get her out and keep the questions to a minimum and prevent fingers from pointing back to them. The longer they kept her, the more likely there would be hell to pay.

Emilio lit up a fine Cuban cigar, inhaled deeply, and slowly blew the smoke out in a leisurely breath before answering. “I have no intention of harming the girl. She is just an innocent child. However, no one has to know it is not my plan to kill her.”

Diego breathed a full sigh of relief. Keeping her was asking for enough trouble. Killing her was nothing short of suicide. He was fully aware of the havoc the McKinnon family could and would wreak should this little girl be harmed. She was going to be messed up since she saw her mother shot and killed in front of her.

However, Del Torres needed reinforcements to hedge his bets against the federals and the McKinnon family. His brother was just the help he needed. Just a couple of small problems separated the two brothers -- a holding cell and several National Police who were not currently on his payroll. Both he could rectify.

His older brother, Carlos, got sloppy on his last operation, using an unseasoned team to execute their plan. That sloppiness, coupled with the information the mole undoubtedly supplied to the authorities, had landed Carlos in custody. And that was not all the issues he had. Emilio did not wish to dwell on the millions of dollars in lost product. It set him back months in his operations in Texas and the American Southwest. Carlos was now in jail awaiting extradition to the United States for federal charges of gun running and murder. Emilio needed to break him out and soon.

He was not called
The King
for nothing.

He called in a few favors, uttered a few threats, and passed out a small fortune.

Less than six hours later Carlos, also know as
The Carver
, was knocking at his door.

Mason McKinnon reached for the polished brass knob of the sleek, mahogany suite door.

McKinnon-Bride Personal Security Services
was clearly engraved in bold blocked letters on the brass plate just to the right-hand side of the door. It unmistakably notified visitors of the intention of their appointment.

McKinnon-Bride owned this building along with several others in downtown Dallas and surrounding cities. The elegant suite that his brother, Robert, had recently renovated was positioned on the top floor. In Mason’s opinion, psychologically speaking, it was a brilliant move, giving weight to any potential client’s purpose for being here. The wealthy celebrity types and political figures paid handsomely for the services offered by McKinnon-Bride, thus sending their stock skyrocketing and enhancing their reputation. They took the job seriously and as a result they were at the top of the game.

It showed, Mason conceded.

McKinnon-Bride Personal Security was doing very well, and he was reaping the benefits from several directions. Having sold his portion of the agency several years back to a silent partner, he now worked only on a contract basis simply because he was bored, not because he needed the money.

After leaving Marine Force Recon, his time had been spent working the most challenging cases that came their direction. It kept him active physically and kept him from getting into trouble on several fronts from the boredom that inactivity inevitably brings to a man such as himself. Becoming comfortable financially in the process from this operation was just a very pleasant byproduct. He worked when he wanted and played when he didn’t, which was often. For the most part, it was a good life in his estimation.

Mason had been in Las Vegas the last three days attending a high-stakes charity poker game when Robert called earlier that morning stating there was an emergency and they needed to meet. He gave up his seat and forfeited his buy-in, a cool quarter-million. He reasoned he would not miss the money, and he was not really interested in participating in the first place. He tossed his name into the ring only as a favor to a Marine Corp buddy whose wife was the charity event coordinator. That being the case, Mason had no heartburn at walking away and flying back to Dallas. He stopped at his apartment just long enough to change and stall for a little time. He just hoped it was late enough in the day for Barbara, Robert’s office assistant, to already be gone for the afternoon.

It had been over six months since he had seen her and if he saw her today it would still be too soon. She was one of the few women in this world he truly felt was unapproachable, unreadable, and not worth the effort after five years of half-heartedly trying to figure her out.

As he turned the knob, he admitted inwardly she rubbed him the wrong way with just a single look of those bug eyes of hers. It was an opinion he had never vocalized for the sole reason Robert and the others would unman him for it. He never really understood how she had garnered such devotion from all the other operatives.

Just on the other side of that same door Barbara was thinking how she was going to be late for her appointment. It had taken calling in several favors and the promise of a hefty tip to get into see Samuel Lexington on such short notice.

Lexington was supposed to be a miracle worker and worth every penny for his work. However, she knew she had to secure the files. Leaving sensitive documents out was a rookie mistake, one she was not about to make it. Security was their business, and confidentiality was a huge part of that business.

The door opened and she felt the old familiar feelings as she recognized who had just waltzed through the door.

“Oh, it’s you,” she sighed dryly. “My day just got brighter,” Barbara said while filing away the last of the morning paperwork. She pushed her glasses back up to the top of the bridge of her nose as Mason walked into the office. “Robert is not here, and you do not have a meeting with him today. So, you need to go crawl back into whatever dark and dank hole you came from and call to make an appointment like everyone else manages to do.”

She had not seen or heard from Mason in over six months, and out of the blue, here he was waltzing in like he had just stepped in from lunch. He always seemed to catch her off guard. He was like an intermittent dream or nightmare depending on which way she chose to look at it.

“I don’t need an appointment to see my brother, Barbara. I’m special,” he purred, grinned, and winked.

He was special. Barbara's instincts were usually right, and buried somewhere deep was a very special man. There was more to him than most would ever see. She was not so sure that was not completely by design to keep his inner-self hidden from all who might accidentally see.

“Just because you are Robert’s brother does not make you anything special.” She thought perhaps that was not quite the truth, but he was already conceited enough, and she was not about to add to that huge head of his which would barely fit through the door as it was.

Placing his jet black motorcycle helmet on the corner of her desk, he took off his sunglasses. Slipping them on top of his head, he made himself comfortable in the waiting area. Flopping down in the soft leather chair facing her desk, he laced his fingers across his stomach and then propped his booted feet up on the expensive coffee table just to annoy her.

“Oh, but even if I don’t need an appointment, I do have one, my ugly duckling. Be my guest. Feel free to go check his schedule,” he purred.