Ripple Effect Read online

  The girl turned to the camera. The hidden side of her face now revealed a large bruise.

  “Daddy,” she said. “Daddy, please.”

  “Say it,” her captor shouted, and this time the girl did flinch.

  “Daddy, they say you have to leave the senator alone. They say if you don’t—” she hiccuped here and fresh tears started down her face “—then they’ll deliver me to you in pieces.” Her voice wobbled along with her chin, but she bit her lip and looked directly into the camera. “If you leave him alone, they’ll give you an address in three days.”

  The camera tilted to the side and the screen went black. When I looked up at Javier, his jaw was clenched so tightly I thought his teeth would crack.

  Jack leaned forward and with a soft voice, asked, “What’s her name?”

  Javier took three deep breaths in through his nose to control his voice before speaking. “Camila.”

  “Did they send anything else?” I asked.

  Javier shook his head.

  “They’re in a warehouse of some sort,” Jack said. “Something about it, looked dank, wet. Maybe by the sea. I could be way off on that.”

  “I’ve got my men combing through every pixel.” He looked up at me. “They’ll find something.”

  He sounded as though he was trying to convince himself more than us.

  “And when they do,” I said, “we’ll track her down and take out every single one of those bastards.”

  Javier nodded and was silent for a moment. His gaze drifted down to the table.

  Jack and I exchanged a look. I made to stand up. “We’ve got a couple channels I can reach out to. They’ll start doing some groundwork. Maybe turn something up we can use.”

  Javier stood up as well. The look on his face said there was something else left unsaid.

  I eyed him warily. I trusted Javier, probably more than I should considering how long we’d known the guy. But he was in a desperate situation now. If the kidnappers demanded Jack’s head or mine, I had no doubt Javier would serve them up on a silver platter to get his daughter back. And I couldn’t even hold that against him.

  Before the man could say anything else, the door burst open and a woman stepped through. Jack and I whipped our heads around. Javier stood staring straight ahead as if he knew this inevitability had only been seconds away from becoming reality.

  Standing there in the room with us, seething, was none other than the woman from the beach. Michelle. She looked different outside of her slinky dresses and curled hair, but there was no doubt as to who it was. Her tactical boots, dark cargo pants, tight shirt, and a light jacket made her look as different as possible from the seductress she had been before.

  The scowl on her face, which was aimed directly at Jack, did wonders to make it look like she could take out all three of us without breaking a sweat.

  “Gentleman, this is Sadie.” Javier finally turned toward the new addition to the room, but he didn’t quite meet her eyes. “She’s CIA.”

  Chapter Nine

  Jack’s chair screeched on the floor as he lurched up. “What the hell are you doing here?”

  “I could ask you the same thing.” Michelle—Sadie—stared as though she were trying to set him on fire. “Someone better have some goddamn answers for me.”

  I noticed her accent was gone, her voice a little huskier. She wasn’t trying to put on a front now. This was pure, unfiltered Sadie. I learned a long time ago to never underestimate any woman, and Sadie seemed about as formidable as they came. It was apparent that Jack wasn’t concerned about staying in her good graces, however.

  He walked around me and squared off with the woman he had been cozying up to only hours earlier. “We don’t owe you shit.”

  Sadie turned her back on Jack. The dismissal ate at him. “I was told you had been informed of my presence.”

  Javier pinched the bridge of his nose. “It seems I did not receive all the relevant information. Your handler purposefully misdirected me.”

  “We’re the CIA,” Sadie said. “You should know better than to expect straight answers from us. You knew what you needed to know.”

  “Obviously not,” Javier said. I was struck by the calm in his voice. It felt more dangerous than if he had been yelling as loudly as the woman. “We were never informed of your relationship with Goddard.”

  Sadie opened her mouth to retort, but I stepped forward and attempted to intervene. “Can we start at the beginning? As interesting as it is to watch you two trade verbal blows, it’s not helping anyone.”

  Javier took a deep breath and sat back down, crossing one leg over the other and feigning as much relaxation as he could. I followed suit, and after a moment Sadie joined us at the table. I eyed Jack, waiting for him to give in, but he leaned up against the wall with his arms crossed, never taking his gaze off her. She ignored him.

  I turned to Sadie and as flatly as I could, asked, “What business do you have with Goddard?”

  She scoffed. “You can’t expect me to give two strangers that kind of information.”

  “But we’re not strangers, are we?” I leaned forward across the table, careful to keep my voice neutral. “You already know who we are.”

  Sadie paused for a moment, glancing between me and Jack. “Jack Noble and Riley Logan. You two don’t exactly keep a low profile.”

  I chuckled, but Jack didn’t seem as amused. I stifled my laughter and turned to Javier. “Did you inform her?”

  “He didn’t need to. The moment I spotted him,” she pointed at Jack without ever taking her eyes off me, “I knew who he was. We’ve met before, Jack. Briefly. I wasn’t surprised you didn’t recognize me. You were pretty wasted.”

  I jumped in before Jack could respond. “So you knew why we were in town?”

  “No.” She shifted in her seat, stretching her arms out in front of her. “I figured it was for something clandestine, but I didn’t think it had anything to do with my op.”

  “And what is your op exactly?” Jack asked.

  Sadie raised an eyebrow, but said nothing.

  “Tell them,” Javier said. His voice was still quiet, low.

  “I don’t owe them an explanation—”

  Javier finally erupted. “But someone owes me one!” He turned to her and leaned forward. It was the first time Sadie had shown any shock or discomfort. “They have my daughter, and so help me God, if you do not unfuck this situation, I will find a way to make sure you are held responsible.”

  “I-I didn’t know.” Sadie looked at me, and I nodded. Her face softened. “I’m sorry, Javier. I didn’t know.”

  “All of this could have been avoided if everyone had just been straight with me to begin with.” He took a deep breath and leaned back in his chair again, his eyes closed and his lips pursed. “Tell us what you know so I can find my daughter. She’s only ten for God’s sake. She knows nothing about my life. She does not deserve that kind of burden.”

  “I have to check in with my handler.” Sadie shifted uncomfortably. “I can’t just—”

  “You can and you will.” Jack’s voice matched Javier’s now. He didn’t say it with an explicit amount of authority, but the warning was there. “Show her the video.”

  Javier blew out a breath and pushed his phone in front of her. He stood up as soon as she pushed play and walked across the room, as if trying to get as far away from his problem as possible. But Camila’s cries bounced around the room as if the walls amplified them. I could practically hear Javier grinding his teeth.

  Sadie pushed the phone away from her and inhaled sharply. There were no tears in her eyes, but it was obvious the video had affected her. She bobbed her head up and down a few times before she looked up at each one of us in turn, her eyes finally settling on Javier, who had returned to stand in the middle of the room.

  “You weren’t purposefully misinformed, Javier. At least not at first.”

  “Excuses won’t get you anywhere,” Jack said.

  Sadie pierce
d him with a look. “Neither will interruptions. Look, I get you like us about as much as we like you, but we’re on the same side here. We never intended for anyone to get hurt, let alone a ten-year-old girl. We had to play our cards close to the chest. This turned into something much bigger than we initially thought it would.”

  “Explain.” Javier looked like a man near the end of his rope.

  Sadie took a deep breath. “We initially had our sight set on Mateo Martinez, the leader of a drug cartel. He’s smart. He’s been at this for a while. He knows how to stay off the radar. We were never too concerned with him because there was always someone bigger to go after. But he’s been subtly expanding for years and out of nowhere he’s behind as many legitimate operations as he is illegal ones.”

  “Harder to take down a guy if he’s got that many legal fronts keeping his business afloat,” I said.

  “Exactly.” Sadie drummed her fingers against the desk for a moment before she continued. “They set me up inside one of Martinez’s legitimate businesses. I posed as an accountant. Played my hand right so I could show him how useful I could be to the other side of his empire.”

  “How long did that take?”

  “Three years. Couple close calls. But once I was in, I had all access. Saved the bastards a lot of money, allowed a lot of people to get hurt in the process.”

  “That’s the game,” Jack said. He sounded calmer, but his voice was still apathetic. “I bet you helped more people than you hurt.”

  Sadie shook her head. “Game’s not over yet. The day we were planning to take the compound, someone unexpected walked through the door.”

  “Goddard,” I said.

  She nodded. “Recognized him instantly. We thought he had been tricked at first. Thought he was in danger and that we’d have to save his sorry ass.”

  “Surprise.”

  Sadie laughed, but there was no humor behind it. “He walked around like he owned the place, and that’s when we realized he did. Martinez doesn’t take orders from anyone, but Goddard put him in his place pretty damn quickly.”

  “Does the senator have something on him?”

  “I think it’s just a good business deal. Goddard is good for business, and Martinez is always looking to expand. Ever since Goddard came on board, Martinez’s profits have tripled.”

  “And now you want to nail Goddard and hope you can take Martinez down at the same time,” Jack said.

  “We’re days away from busting him and then you idiots walk through the door.”

  “Technically, Jack walked through the door.” I smiled. “I was on the roof.”

  “And you almost screwed up the whole thing.”

  “You’re not the only one trying to do your job,” Jack said. “Don’t come at us like we’re doing something wrong here.”

  Sadie swiveled around to face him. “Goddard should go to jail, not get a bullet in the head.”

  “Says who?” Jack shook his head. “Imagine the scandal back home when everything comes out about him.”

  “And an assassinated senator is less messy than a corrupt one?” she said.

  “Sometimes, yeah.” Jack was getting visibly agitated again. “You have to think about the long con.”

  Sadie laughed. “Only criminals think about the long con.”

  I silenced Jack with a look and turned to Javier. “This is about more than just Goddard now. We’ll help you get your daughter back.”

  Javier nodded gravely.

  “Of course.” Sadie laid a hand on his shoulder. “We’ll do whatever it takes to get her back.”

  I saw Sadie’s eyes shift. “But?”

  She removed her hand from Javier’s arm. “But once we get her back, nothing changes. The op is mine. I’ve spent too many years setting this up just to watch someone else take it from me.”

  “And what the hell are we supposed to do about our op?”

  “Not my problem.”

  I heard Jack’s phone buzzing, and as he picked it up, a grin spread across his face. “It’s about to become your problem. Hey, Frank.”

  The smile immediately vanished from his face. He went to say something else, but Frank must’ve cut him off. Jack snapped his mouth shut, and after another minute, he pocketed his phone without saying anything more.

  “He calling us off?” I didn’t like the idea of giving up an op we’d already spent time on, but my mind kept going back to that little girl. If we got her out of there in one piece, my conscience would be clear.

  “Even better.” Jack’s gaze slid over to Sadie. “He wants us to work with the CIA.”

  “Over my dead body.” She pulled out her phone. “I’m calling my handler right now.”

  Before Sadie could push a single button, her phone lit up. I didn’t catch the number on the screen before she held it to her ear. The conversation played out almost the same as the one between Jack and Frank.

  When Sadie threw her phone down on the table and didn’t say anymore, we all knew what it meant.

  “Now that the pissing match is over,” Javier said, a new determination on his face, “we can get started on bringing home my Camila.”

  Chapter Ten

  The four of us gathered in a different room closer to Javier’s office. It felt less like an interrogation room and more like it was meant as headquarters ahead of a mission. And that’s exactly what we were treating it as—regardless of if we agreed over whether it was a good idea.

  I sat down in the chair closest to the vent. A stream of cold air that smelled like stale chips hit me in the face. It had been a long day, and I was comfortable, so I ignored the odor. “We got a plan?”

  Sadie had been quiet since her phone call. “Our first priority is Camila. Once we get her, we move in to take down Goddard.”

  I felt as though I was walking across a frozen lake that was cracking underneath me with every passing second. “And how are we going to handle that?”

  Sadie worked her jaw before speaking between clenched teeth. “It seems as though your boss won the argument on that one. The plan is elimination.”

  Jack had the wherewithal not to look too cocky. He just nodded his head and let his gaze meet mine for a fraction of a second.

  Sadie continued. “And with that, we’ll lose God knows how much intelligence.”

  “We still don’t know who has my Camila.” Javier spread a map out in front of them. His voice was steady, but the look in his eye said he was barely holding back the hopelessness. “The video indicates she’s being kept in a warehouse. I’ve circled the known locations of Martinez’s buildings, all of which store either weapons or drugs.”

  Jack leaned on the table and scanned the map. “There has to be a couple dozen here.”

  Javier nodded. “We must narrow it down. If we start looking for her in every building, someone will catch on.”

  “Reach out to your contacts,” Sadie said. “Do you know her last known location? Where do you live? Is it somewhere that CCTV is prominent? Surely you know people with access to the local network. If we can find out who took her, it’ll help us pinpoint her location. Then it’s just a matter of finding the safest way to retrieve her.”

  Javier nodded, stood, then left the room. An uncomfortable silence took his place.

  Sadie turned back to the maps. She worked her right thumb and middle finger on her temples. “I have a meeting with Goddard tomorrow. You two can sit tight until I get the lay of the land.”

  Jack moved into her field of view and crossed his arms. “Who said you’re calling the shots?”

  “I did.”

  “Your boss seems to be answering to someone else.”

  Sadie rolled her shoulders. I could feel her anger clawing to get out, but she pushed it back with several deep breaths. “Look, I know we got off on the wrong foot, but we’re both here for the same reason. Can’t we work together?”

  “You don’t want us to work together,” he said. “You want us sitting on the sidelines. We’re not those guys
. We get more done when we’re on the field.”

  “He’s got a point,” I said. “We can help you.”

  She lowered her head. “You’re a liability.”

  Jack sat down, diffusing some of the tension in the room. “We’re trained. Bear’s a good shot and I’m relentless. Goddard likes me. You saw that yourself. We can use that to our advantage.”

  “He doesn’t take to people easily. What you saw earlier isn’t him. He was relaxed because he wanted to be. That, and he had plenty of security there. Next time he sees you, you’ll be tested.”

  “It won’t be anything I haven’t been through before.”

  Sadie laughed. “You don’t know him.”

  “And you don’t know me.” Jack held up his hands before she could snap out a retort. “All I’m saying is give me a chance.”

  “Giving you a chance could cause this whole thing to blow up in our faces.”

  Jack leaned forward. “Not giving me a chance could do worse.”

  She sighed. “Fine. But I’ve got to call the shots on this one.”

  I stepped in to mediate. “That’s fine. We work on this together, but we defer to you. You’ve been in there longer. We’re not here to blow your cover. We just want to get the job done.”

  Jack paused a moment before nodding. It wasn’t easy to give up control on our op, but the game had changed. It wasn’t our asses on the line anymore. We had to play this the right way.

  “Deal.” Sadie sunk into her chair, let out an exhausted sigh.

  I gave her a moment before I spoke again. “Tell us about this meeting tomorrow.”

  “Right.” She sat up again, forcing energy back into her body. “There seems to be an issue with Martinez. I’m not sure what’s going on yet, but Goddard is looking to have him audited, so to speak. He wants me to check out the books.”

  “Is this an unusual request from him?”

  She nodded. “He’s usually pretty hands off. Goddard is a good businessman, but he’s a big picture kind of guy. He has other people worry about the day-to-day issues. If he’s stepping in himself to check on Martinez, there must be something larger at work.”