Page 77 of Lion’s Den

“Yes, sir. I’ve got it.”

“You better, because if you don’t, you’ll end up on a slab in the morgue. Without you, your lady will make decisions with her heart instead of common sense, and she’ll join you in the morgue within forty-eight hours, tops. Do you want that to happen?”

“No, sir,” Cam snapped. “No way, sir.”

“Good. Then you better keep your mind in the game. If you don’t, I’ll be burying a good deputy.”

“Copy that, sir. Rhys, can you make the plates on any of the three SUVs?”

“They don’t have one.” A pause, then, “They’re splitting. Three directions.”

“Hold steady. Don’t commit to a chase.”

“Which one has the kid?” Isaac asked.

“We can’t guess. We have to get it right.”

Cam forced himself to take a breath, then another, and another. He hated with a white-hot passion what he was about to say. However, chasing the wrong one could doom Julio. A bright, sweet, innocent boy could be gone forever, and that possibility gutted him.

He swallowed against the lump in his throat. “Rhys, push the drone higher. I want a direction of travel on all three vehicles. Zane, do you have a satellite in position?”

“For one more minute,” Zane said. “We’re right at the edge of the pass window.”

“Watch them as long as you can. David?”

“Right here.”

“Let’s see how accurate the leak was. As soon as Rhys confirms the direction, I’ll pass it along to you. Hopefully, the men assisting your brothers aren’t responsible for the leak. We need a break. I want at least one roadblock to capture an SUV. If we’re lucky, that one has the child.”

“Copy that. Roadblocks are ready.”

Rhys’ voice came through, tight and focused. “Drone altitude increasing. Stand by. Okay, I’ve got all three. Eastbound, northbound, and westbound.”

Zane broke in. “Tracking. Okay, I’ve got them. Eastbound SUV holding forty miles an hour. Northbound accelerating. Westbound holding fifty miles an hour.”

“Keep eyes on all three,” Cam said.

“Trying,” Rhys said. “But they’re maneuvering like they know we’re overhead.” A beat, then, “Westbound SUV just went dark. Looks like it slid under a bridge. I’ve lost the radar return.”

“Mark last known,” Cam said.

“Done. Eastbound SUV entering a tunnel now. Hold. Lost track. Northbound SUV just slid under a bridge. All three are dark. Drone can’t see them. Structures are blocking everything.”

Zane’s voice sharpened. “They’re no longer visible to the satellite, and the satellite is out of range in ten seconds.” He counted down. “Out of position now. No movement from any of the SUVs. No thermal signatures before the vehicles hid from the satellite.”

“So we don’t know which vehicle Julio was in?”

“Nope. Sorry, man. Satellite’s out of position now. I’ll try to pull another one, but I can already tell you the nearest bird is fifteen minutes away. They timed this. They knew exactly when to disappear.”

“Cam, we have a location on those SUVs,” Isaac said. “We pick one and chase it down. If we’re lucky, Julio is inside. If he’s not, we still have the team inside the vehicle. You give me those men, and I guarantee they’ll talk, sir. I’ll make them tell us where the boy is.”

“I didn’t hear you say that.”

“Which one do we take?” Dario asked.

Silence filled the SUV one beat, then two. Man, he didn’t want to think it much less say it. But what choice did he have? He knew the truth. It was time to own it. “We don’t have a target.”

“Sir,” Dario said. “We take one each. That’s decent odds, two out of three. One of us might get lucky.”