Savage Recruit (Ryan Savage Thriller Series Book 8), стр. 44
“There’s worse?”
“This man is a killer. The second part would be to have her killed if the initiating user wanted to exercise that right. Spam found a username this man was operating under and images he had posted of the expired victims.”
“So Spam just solved a cold case?”
“Two of them.”
I sighed into the phone. “Where is Zoe right now?”
“We’re staying at Roscoe’s until you get Kathleen back. Ryan, this has got to be related to Kathleen. Don’t you think?”
“I absolutely do.” The pieces fit. “Kathleen’s abductor wants something from her. What, I don’t know. But he’s clearly using Zoe as leverage.”
Charlotte’s next words sent a chill down the back of my neck. “Ryan, if someone is willing to send a man like that after Zoe, what would they be willing to do to Kathleen?” I didn’t reply.
“You’ll find her. I know you will.”
“I need to call Brad. You two stay safe, and hug Zoe for me.”
“I will. I love you.”
Hearing Charlotte's voice in the middle of all this chaos made me want to be home all the more. “I love you too.”
After we hung up, I shot off a quick reply to Roscoe and Zoe and then called Brad. When he didn’t answer, I left him a message.
Boomer pulled up in the Hummer fifteen minutes later. He rolled down the window and shook his head. “What in the hell happened? One minute you’re getting us some grub and the next you’re off on a field trip?”
I got in, and he started down the road, blending with the flow of traffic. “How long to get back to the warehouse?”
“If I go the speed limit, then maybe thirty.”
“Good. Go the speed limit. We’ve got a lot to talk about.”
Kathleen didn’t allow herself to cry for long. Two minutes—that was all. Just long enough to release some of the internal pressure and to process the weight of what she was being asked to do. She hated to cry. Emotions were useful to a point, but when decisions before you were black or white, tears only served to turn them gray.
All said, she found herself in a retelling of Sophie’s Choice. Whichever decision she made, she would be staring betrayal in the face. It went against everything that made her who she was.
Now, the man who called himself John was standing before her again. He was staring down at her, his arms crossed, waiting.
“Kathleen. I need an answer.”
Images of Zoe and Simon flashed through her mind. She bit down hard on her bottom lip. She closed her eyes and shook her head as she spoke. “Austria,” she blurted. “He’s in Austria.”
Chapter Twenty-One
The Delta team gave me a standing ovation when I walked through the door—whoops and a couple of catcalls. I happily gave them the finger, and we all gathered near Granger's workstation.
“We thought you flew the coop,” Chachi said. “That, or you just got tired of hanging with Boomer.”
“What happened?” Teacup asked. “You’re late for dinner.”
“I’ll update you all in a second,” Boomer told them. He turned to me. “Have you eaten?”
“Not a thing. The dudes who grabbed me ate the gyros.”
“Then you’re in luck. Follow me.”
He led me across the floor to the table at the common area. What looked like a burrito was wrapped in foil sitting on a paper plate. “Teapot finally got bored just sitting around and tired of hearing me gripe about the gyro I never got, so he went out and got the makings for them. Even bought a fryer.”
“No kidding.”
“That one is yours. It’s not warm anymore, but damn if Teacup didn’t miss his calling.” He turned and started away. “I need to brief the team on Bahar and Zoe.”
Boomer was right. Teapot had missed his calling. His fried gyro was everything I guessed one should be. The lamb was tender, and the flaky wrap nearly melted in my mouth. As I finished my last bite, Brad called back and gave me his version of what happened with Zoe. Spam, he said, was working overtime trying to find any digital bread crumbs in the correspondence between the guy who took the pictures and whoever had sent him the job. I texted Granger’s and Bahar’s email addresses to Spam and asked him to send them everything he had. Three sets of eyes are better than one, and if Granger, Bahar, and Spam were all looking at the same data, it bettered the odds that one of them might be able to trace it back to its source. After sending the text to Spam, I called Bahar and explained what I had learned after I left his place and asked him to be on the lookout for the email.
Now, hours later, Granger was still at his station, working to find anything actionable that could lead us to the people who kidnapped Kathleen. The problem, I was told, was that the data links were nearly untraceable, the information having originated from a series of encrypted servers and a data flow on the blockchain.
As the hours ticked by, the atmosphere in the old warehouse grew more serious. All joking fell to the wayside, and no one could sleep. Something was in the air—something we couldn’t explain. With the added news of Zoe and the man who had been sent to get pictures of her, possibly even to kill her, we all sensed that if we didn't find Kathleen soon, it would be too late.
From our end, Granger stayed at it, no one speaking to him while he tried everything he knew to do. I paced the floor, texted with Charlotte, and once again found myself feeling helpless.
Finally, well after midnight, Granger’s phone rang. It was Bahar. As they spoke, the team slowly wandered over, all of us wanting to shake the feeling that, at least for now, we were just dead weight.
“Bahar,” Granger finally said, “I’m going to put you