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"Good to meet you, Mr. Hargrove." The man held out his hand. "I understand you have some information you'd like to share with your government."
Isaac snuck a glance at Marko and Elisa standing by their truck as he shook the other man's hand. Elisa rolled her eyes. Marko just shrugged.
"Yes, your friends Mr. and Mrs. Ryan have been very helpful so far." He glanced over at the crude map of the Crest Society's compound Marko had drawn that was sitting on the still-warm hood of Isaac's truck. "That's the ticket. I'm gonna go have a peek while you chat with your friends, Mr. Hargrove."
Isaac stood there, his brain trying to catch up with whatever the fuck was going on while the man strode over to the truck. He was flanked by two ATF agents in black cargo pants and T-shirts who never gave Isaac a single glance.
Marko and Elisa made their way over to Isaac as the other agents got out of the remaining SUVs. There were fifteen men in total, all of whom passed by Isaac, Marko and Elisa as if they weren't even there. They huddled around the man examining the map lying on Isaac's truck.
"Welcome to bizarro land," Elisa said.
"What's the deal?" he asked, frustration bubbling through the confusion. "We don't have time for games."
"Skippy over there"—Elisa jerked his chin toward the man obviously in charge—"wasn't real excited about taking civilians in with him during the raid. The deal is, we keep our cover and hang back until it's time to go in. The ATF’s focus is on the guns and securing Fane. Ours is on getting Tamara and Essie out. As far as the Feds are concerned, we're three concerned citizens who provided information on the condition of anonymity, then went back to our safe little civilian homes. It's like they won't even be able to see us on the compound."
"Plausible deniability," Marko said.
The whole thing made his head hurt. "Fuck it. I just want to get in and get Tamara and Essie out. Who the Feds have to justify it to isn't a concern of mine."
He turned around and began heading for the ATF agents, but they broke their huddle before he took more than three steps in their direction. All of them marched to the SUVs, again ignoring his, Marko's, and Elisa's existence. All except for the man in charge. He stopped directly in front of Isaac, wearing a bland smile that didn't reach his eyes.
"Thank you again, Mr. Hargrove for sharing this information with us," the man said. "Too bad it's not really of much help."
He handed the map back to Isaac with a curt nod and walked over to his SUV.
What the fuck? How we're they supposed to coordinate? This was bullshit.
Isaac glanced down at the map. There were several new markings on it—Xs, Os and arrows denoting where agents would be and the general plan of attack. The number twenty was written at the top and circled. By the time he looked back up, the agents were all in their SUVs and beginning to pull back out onto the highway.
He shook his head. They must teach an extra-special class at the ATF about how to be a giant pain in the ass.
"We have twenty minutes until they hit," he said, as Marko and Elisa checked out the map. "While most of the compound's force is dealing with the raid, we'll go in here." He tapped a point on the perimeter parallel to the house Marko had been able to identify as Jarrod’s thanks to his earlier tour of the compound. "It's the most logical place to start looking for them."
Marko nodded. "Glad I packed the bolt cutters."
"And here I thought that bag was full of all your favorite shoes," Elisa quipped.
"Let's go," Isaac said. "We've got to be set up and ready to move when the Feds’ first flash grenade goes off."
Once that happened the shit would really hit the fan, and he was going to do whatever it took to make sure Tamara and Essie didn't get hurt in the fallout.
* * *
Tamara
In the two hours since she'd been drugged, the trio of helper-women had supervised her shower, given her a new, simple white dress to wear, fixed her brown hair in an elaborate braid that wound around her head, and pinned a veil to her head.
Tamara took one last look at herself in the full-length mirror, then let the veil fall into place over her face. She might not look like herself, but she finally felt like herself again. The sedative had worn off enough that her vision had cleared and she didn't have to pluck each thought out of a thick fog of confusion. She'd take the wins where she could get them right now. Inhaling a deep breath, she closed her eyes and calmed her nerves. Isaac and the rest of the team would come. She let the breath out, opened her eyes, and turned to the other women in the room.
Essie kneeled in the middle of the trio of girls, Alison, Janice, and Tiffany. They were young, around Essie's age, and had been assigned as her friends/watchers. All three were married, and Tiffany had the full, round belly of late pregnancy. All three had been runaways who'd thought they'd found a home when they'd arrived at the Crest Society compound. By the time they'd figured out what was involved, it was too late. They were trapped.
A knock on the door made all five women in the bedroom jump.
"It's time," the guard said through the door. "I mean it."
The girls had managed to push off the three earlier attempts by the guard to leave.
"Yes, sir," Alison said as she affixed the white lace veil to the headband woven into Essie's hair. "No more delaying. You have to go."
