Taken (23 page)

I would hunt, too.

43.

Joe Pike

He was parked on the sand a mile north of Coachella, watching distant headlights slide along an invisible freeway across an invisible horizon when Megan Orlato woke. Took a second for her head to clear, then she felt the tape and binds, and stiffened as if she were being electrocuted. She fought and twisted against the binds and tried to scream through the tape. Her eyes were crazy-wide with fear, and should have been. Fear was right and proper. Fear was correct.

Megan Orlato was laid across the back seat. Her wrists, arms, ankles, and knees were secured with plasticuffs. Duct tape sealed her mouth. Pike was behind the wheel, turned to see her, his right arm hooked around the headrest, calm and relaxed. They were alone. Nothing moved except for the distant headlights.

Pike tried to recall how long since he last slept, but couldn’t. Didn’t matter. You sacrificed what needed to be sacrificed.

Pike stared at her until she quieted. He watched her watch him, and listened to her breathe. Her breathing was loud and ragged, but finally slowed.

“Your name is Maysan al-Diri. You are Ghazi al-Diri’s sister. You and Dennis Orlato supply drop houses to your brother.”

He moved for the first time to lift the yellow file box he took from her office.

“The houses where people were tortured and murdered are your listings. Properties for sale or rent, with out-of-state owners.”

He leaned across the seat, and gently peeled off the tape.

She shouted for help, screamed and shrieked, and thrashed again. He simply watched until she was winded. Then she finally spoke.

“I was in the kitchen—”

“Now you’re not.”

She was stirring honey into hot tea. She had not heard him enter. Did not hear him approach. She never knew he compressed her carotid artery, cut off the oxygen to her brain, and put her to sleep. She had not seen him until this moment when she opened her eyes, there in the moonlit desert.

“Dennis is dead. I shot him here.”

Pike touched the center of his right eyebrow.

“Ruiz and Washington are dead. Pinetta and Khalil Haddad are with the police.”

She was breathing hard again.

“Who are you?”

“Where is Ghazi?”

She breathed harder, so Pike touched the files.

“Twenty-two have out-of-state owners, so Ghazi will be at one of them. The time you save me is worth your life.”

She didn’t respond.

“If not, I’ll leave you with Dennis. Ghazi is mine either way.”

“Why do you want my brother?”

“He has my friend.”

“Will you kill him?”

“If I have to, yes. And you. Where is he?”

She wet her lips, a secret gesture in the back seat shadows, betrayed by a glint of blue light on her tongue.

“The date farm. A commercial listing.”

“Where?”

She told him. It wasn’t far.

“Don’t lie. If you’re lying, you won’t get a second chance.”

“I’m not lying. He wanted a bigger place. I had the farm.”

He followed her directions back to Coachella, then south and east into the desert again, well outside the city. The date farm was laid out in a perfect rectangle between paved streets, fifteen hundred feet on the long sides, seven hundred fifty on the width, split down the center by a road of crushed gravel, and crowded with rows of trees. The trees were dead and had long ago dropped their fronds. They reminded Pike of Marines frozen in permanent ranks. A large painted sign stood at the entrance: FOR SALE—READY FOR DEVELOPMENT—DESERT GOLD REALTY. He saw the outline of a building set well back on the gravel road, but nothing more. He saw no lights.

“He’s here now?”

“I guess. I don’t know. He asked for a bigger place, and this is what I had. I don’t help him move.”

Pike studied the building, and realized he was seeing two buildings. He wondered if Elvis Cole was inside one of them, and if Cole was still alive.

“How many buildings?”

“The property is twenty-eight acres, with five buildings, metal-and-wood construction covering fourteen thousand square feet of usable floor space. You have three septic tanks, and it’s fully plumbed with county water.”

Pike looked at her.

“I don’t want to buy it.”

“It was a farm. The buildings were used for processing and packaging dates. Two of the buildings were used for maintenance and equipment storage. One of the buildings has offices and a commissary for the staff.”

“How many ways in?”

“Just the main entrance here. There was a gate on the west side, but the owners put in more trees.”

Pike wondered at the size of the place. The three other addresses had all been small, single-family homes.

“Why bigger?”

“He thought Dennis and the others had been arrested. He wanted to get his crews out of the places Dennis and the others knew about.”

“How many crews?”

“Three, I think. He was using three houses.”

“Everyone came here?”

“This is the only new property I gave him.”

Pike found a spot to park on an unpaved road north of the farm, put fresh tape over Megan Orlato’s mouth, and slipped between the trees. The five buildings were grouped together in the center of the orchard almost five hundred feet from the street. Three were on the east side of the drive, and faced the two on the west. Glints of light showed from the east buildings, but not the west. Pike moved to the lights. He searched for sentries as he approached, but found none.

Pike studied the fronts of the buildings for several minutes, noting the doors and windows, then crept along the rear. Snoring and the occasional low voice came from the first building. A man spoke too loudly in the middle building, and two other men laughed. When Pike reached the end of the south building, he found several pickup trucks outfitted for off-road use parked outside a long sliding door, along with a large box truck. Pike wondered if this was the truck Sanchez used on the night Krista Morales was taken. Pike decided the prisoners were in the north building, the guards were housed in the center building, and the south building was being used as a garage. The garage was likely the only way in or out of the buildings.

Pike stood between the trucks and looked down the length of the gravel drive to the entrance. It was almost two football fields away. Only way in, only way out. Two football fields was a long way.

Pike worked his way back to the Rover, checked that Megan Orlato was secure, and considered his options. He could not see the building through the trees, but he knew where it was and stared at that place in the moonlit shadows. Three crews meant about eighteen armed men and an unknown but large number of innocents. The doors and windows would be reinforced. Pike would have to enter through the garage, fight his way through guard country to the last building, locate Cole and the kids, then fight through the guards a second time on the way out. He wondered again if Elvis Cole was inside.

He said, “I’m coming.”

The odds didn’t scare him, but better odds meant a better chance at success, and Pike believed he had a way to improve the odds. He glanced at Megan Orlato, then phoned to see if Jon Stone was still in jail.

44.

Jon Stone

Jon Stone walked out of the Riverside County Sheriff’s Station beneath an overhead full moon at the beginning of its lazy slide to the west. Everything in Jon’s possession at the time of his arrest had been returned with the exception of Khalil Haddad, who would remain a guest of the United States government. No loss.

Jon was miffed when Nancie Stendahl stomped out of the room because the folks in D.C. cut him free. At least the two young deps who processed him out had the good grace to be impressed he got to keep the M4. They asked if he was a spy.

Jon burst out laughing. Spy. Jesus.

Nancie Stendahl said, “You always laugh at yourself?”

“If you heard the crap in my head, you’d laugh, too.”

Stendahl was leaning against Pike’s Jeep, which had been released along with everything else. The parking lot was near empty, though he saw the big white ATF van on the far side.

Stone was pleased to see her. He sympathized with her personal involvement, and respected the all-in effort she was making to find her kid. Jon was big on all-in effort. He hoped she wouldn’t ruin the moment by lecturing him about the rule of law. If she started with that crap, he was going to recite Dostoyevsky’s
Crime and Punishment
in the original Russian to freak her out.

She didn’t. She looked beat to hell, strained, and frayed at the edges. He wanted to buy her a cup of coffee, but he had things to do.

“Do you know where my boy is?”

“Nope. Know who has him, though. So does Haddad.”

She perked up.

“Who?”

“Dude named Ghazi al-Diri. Haddad’s boss. You have a pad, something to write with?”

He stowed the M4 in the back seat while she searched herself for paper, and put his pistols, ammo, GPS, and phones on the driver’s seat. When he turned back, she was poised with a pen and a napkin. He rattled off a longitude and latitude, then checked her napkin to make sure she had it right.

“These coordinates bring you to a body dump. You’ll find eleven or twelve people wrapped in plastic. Haddad probably murdered half of them. You’ll find two stiffs who aren’t in plastic. They murdered the rest.”

“Who killed the stiffs?”

Jon ignored her question.

“Don’t be misled by Haddad’s agreeable manner. These are evil fucking people. You wanna walk while we talk? I want to look over this Jeep.”

“Why are you telling me this?”

“You want to shut these guys down at the border. The more Haddad gives you on the Syrian, the more intelligence you’ll have on how the cartels do their thing. Good intel is everything. I know that firsthand.”

Stone gave the Jeep a quick walk-around with Stendahl for company. It had picked up a few dings. Pike wouldn’t be happy.

“Ghazi al-Diri is the Syrian?”

“The Mexicans call him the Syrian. For all I know, he’s from Bakersfield. You know what a
bajadore
is?”

She shook her head.

“He works the border, stealing whatever the cartels send up. Mostly, that’s people trying to sneak in without documents.”

“On the U.S. side?”

“Most of these guys work south, but a few are beginning to work north. It’s easier to dodge the police up here than the cartels down there.”

“Does he live here? Have family?”

“Maybe Haddad can tell you.”

Stone checked the time. He wanted to call Pike.

“Good luck, Stendahl. I gotta go.”

“Ghazi al-Diri has Elvis Cole. He has my nephew. We both want someone he has, so we should work together on this.”

“Uh-uh. Won’t happen your way.”

“Jack is the closest thing I have to a child. He is my only living blood relative. You expect me to kick back, hoping someone else finds him?”

“Work your case. You might find him before us.”

She put herself directly in front of him, and jabbed Stone in the chest.

“He’s my blood. I promised my sister I’d find him. I swore at her grave I’d keep him safe.”

“You’re a sworn officer. It won’t happen your way.”

“Help me find him, goddamnit.”

She jabbed him harder, and Stone stepped away.

“Listen—”

Stone looked at the silver-blue moon, then shook his head.

“When we find these people, if Cole’s dead, they aren’t walking out. There will be no court of law. No judge and jury. You’re an Assistant Deputy Director of the ATF. This will not go down in any way you can live with.”

“You don’t have to do it like that.”

Stone checked his watch.
Tempus fugit
.

“Gotta go. Wherever Jack is, you want him somewhere else. I have to go.”

She looked like she was going to say something more, and she did, but only the one thing.

“Good luck.”

Jon watched her cross the lot to a midsize sedan, then climbed into the Jeep and started the engine. He booted the sat phone and GPS. It took a moment for the phone to load and lock on a good satellite, but a light flashed green, and Jon was in business.

A message instantly loaded.

Jon hit the playback, and heard Pike’s voice.

“Call.”

Pike answered on the first ring, and Jon reported his status.

“I’m clear. You good?”

“I have Ghazi al-Diri’s sister.”

Stone laughed. He laughed so hard his eyes burned. Pike was a riot. Absolutely the best.

“I love it. That is so
perfect
, bro. What are you thinking, a head-up trade, the sister for Cole?”

“No trade. We offer a trade, we’ll put al-Diri’s focus on Cole, and he’ll be harder to reach.”

“Does she know where they are?”

“A date farm outside Coachella. I’m looking at it.”

Pike described the farm and the intel he learned from the sister. Al-Diri had pulled three crews and three groups of
pollos
to a date farm when he learned Haddad and the two turds Stone and Pike dropped in the desert were missing. The farm amounted to a fortress crowded with the Syrian’s soldiers.

“Is Elvis there?”

“Won’t know until we get inside.”

Stone considered the farm as Pike had described it. Delta was all about hostage rescue and snatching bad guys. Jon knew this stuff inside out.

“Fifteen to eighteen gunned-up guards jammed up with a hundred fifty–plus friendlies is asking for collateral damage. It also ups our time on target.”

Time on target meant the time it would take to locate Cole and the kids once they entered the buildings, and get themselves out. The longer the time on target, the greater the risk. If you hung around long enough, you became part of the scenery.

Pike said, “How would you play it, no trade for Cole?”

“Trade for someone else. We have the sister, we use her. Give her to Sang Ki Park.”

“When?”

“Now. Drive the play. Push it so fast this prick doesn’t have time to think.”

“I’m listening.”

Jon Stone wheeled away, loving his plan so much he grinned from ear to ear. He was the best shit-hot troop at this stuff to ever grace the earth; none finer, none more deadly,
ever
! A man among men.

Nancie Stendahl

Stendahl sat in her rental until Jon Stone drove away, then walked briskly to the SRT van. She entered a world of muted red light through the rear door, and made her way past hanging gear to the electronics bay.

Mo Heedles said, “Hey, boss. Good work. We’re looking good.”

Mo was a large woman with short red hair, who hunched over a laptop computer. The computer was wired to the van’s onboard cell booster to ensure a strong signal.

Stendahl stood behind her to see the laptop’s screen, and watched a flashing black dot move away from the Sheriff’s Station on a street map.

“What’s our range on this?”

“Infinite? We bounce off cell towers. We can follow your boy no matter where he goes.”

Nancie Stendahl took out her cell, and phoned Tony Nakamura in Washington. Late there, but he was used to it.

“Tone, Nancie. I need two SRT teams and a helicopter staged by oh-seven-hundred tomorrow. Anywhere in the Palm Springs–Coachella area.”

“Got it.”

“I’ll advise when and where as I know.”

“Rog.”

Nancie put away her phone and watched the black dot. She didn’t care where it was going; only that she was present when it arrived.