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Jed was right on his heels as they moved through the island with precision, looking through the jungle, checking trees, bushes or anyplace Elena could be held. When they broke through the clearing and saw the other house, Jed looked at Grange.
The front door was partially open.
“Supply house,” Grange said. “And Pete always keeps it locked.”
Jed lifted his weapon as they pushed the door open. It was cold in there.
The main room was clear, so they went in through the next room, a hallway leading to other doors. They checked each door, which was locked. Jed kicked them in one by one.
When they got to the one with the cell, he turned to Grange.
“I never saw this room. Only the main supply room. Pete told me the others were electrical.”
Grange walked in, picked up the blanket, saw the simple cot, and then the clothes.
“Carla. Sonofabitch, he’s had Carla all this time.” Grange picked up the cot and threw it across the room. “Fuck, all this time and I never knew.”
“Why?” Jed asked.
“I was supposed to relieve him that day in Beirut so he could pick up Dina. I was delayed, didn’t get off in time. If I’d relieved him, he would have picked her up and she wouldn’t have been at the embassy when it was bombed.”
He lifted sorrow-filled eyes to Jed. “I had such guilt over that, but Pete said he never blamed me, that there was nothing I could have done differently, that it wasn’t my fault. He had lost his wife and he was consoling me. Turns out all this time he’d been waiting for this moment to get his revenge.”
“Why wait until now?”
Grange shook his head. “I don’t know. Maybe he was hoping I’d get married, then he’d take my wife away like his was taken away. Only I didn’t. I had a career, never got around to finding a wife. So maybe he got tired of waiting and he figured he’d take the two most important people in my life—my sister and my niece.”
“Jesus, Grange, he’s one disturbed bastard.”
“There’s not even a window in here. And it’s fucking cold. How could he do this to her? Who knows how long she’s been in this room? I’ll kill him for making her suffer like that.”
Grange started forward, but Jed stopped him. “General, I know you’re in charge of this mission, but you’re not thinking with your head right now. Frankly I don’t give a shit what you do to this guy when you find him, but if you go out there without putting a plan together, you might lose them both. And I don’t intend to lose Elena.”
Grange stopped, sucked in a breath and nodded. “You’re right. We need a plan.”
“The first thing we have to do is figure out where he took them.”
“Helicopter. They need a flight plan, and radar may have picked them up. We’ll hit that first.”
They ran back to the house and Grange made some calls. They pulled up area flight radar while Grange got them connected.
“Helicopter took off south. He’s headed out of the country. I’ve got our pilot firing us up and ready to track him, plus military jets on the way to intercept if he’s still in flight.”
They packed up duffels of firepower and were on the helo in fifteen minutes, in touch with the military trying to track where Pete’s helicopter had gone.
“We’re in luck. He’s still in the U.S. Small island off the coast of the Florida Keys,” Grange said. “We’re going in hot and heavy. Not sure if he’s there alone or he has help. He’s amassed a lot of money doing mercenary work over the years. He’s made some friends in low places, too. This might get ugly.”
Jed was heavily armed and just pissed off enough to put a bullet through Pete’s head the minute he saw him, and ask questions later. “Understood.”
“I wish we had time to bring a bigger team in. I’ve called in a few favors, so we’ll get some backup, but I don’t know when that’ll be. There’s no police jurisdiction where we’re going, so right now it’s just you and me.”
“I’m ready for whatever he’s got, General.”
He hoped Pete was unprepared for the hurt Jed was going to rain down on him. Because Pete had his woman and his woman’s mother, and that meant he was going down.
* * *
Elena hoped that not only Pete burned in hell, but also the pilot who’d helped Pete drag her and her mother out of that refrigerated room and onto the helicopter. She hoped he was paid really well, though she doubted the money would do him any good when he rotted away in some prison somewhere.
