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Trace joined the conversation. “I think we have a secret weapon on the inside.”
Her pulse kicked hard. Another element that could be good or bad. “Moe?”
Cal confirmed it. “That’s our best guess.”
She didn’t need to guess. Sheknew. “Why and how? He was supposed to stay covert, not let them know we were onto their location.”
“As a distraction?” Trace offered.
“Or, if he needed to escape. Collapsing the exit may have been to stop the Ringers from following him,” Cal said. “We simply don’t have enough intel to know at this point.”
“He doesn’t know the CIA told us to back off. He’s attempting to rescue both women.” While her brain told her he was capable of doing it, her heart wasn’t on board with the risk involved.
And if hehadrescued Parker and/or Lydia, the CIA would have already alerted her.
Or would they?
Cal added his insight. “If he discovered Parker is a hostage, he wouldn’t leave without her. He’ll put her well-being over that of the mission.”
In the field, the mission always came first. Cal was correct, though—Moe would redefine it to save her, no matter what. “Possibly, but knowing him, he’ll attempt to save both women and single-handedly take RING down. Let’s hope he doesn’t get them all killed.”
Emit murmured in the background, and then Cal cleared his throat again.
“What is it?” she demanded.
“Emit received a proof of life video of Charmaine a few minutes ago.”
RING had surprised her once more. Across the aisle, Rory glanced in her direction, his expression resembling a child caught with their hand in the cookie jar. He was in on her conversation with the others, and apparently the video as well.
“And?” She pinned him with a quizzical glare as she spoke to Cal. “Did RING ask for a ransom?”
“See for yourself,” Cal said.
Rory handed her his laptop as he sank into the seat next to hers. Connor came to peer over her shoulder and they watched Lydia on screen. Beatrice capped her emotions and logged all the details she could as the woman spoke—the date on the newspaper, the background, the way Lydia was restrained, the tremble in her voice.
Lydia stared directly at the camera, her attention never wavering to her captors or anything else in the vicinity. Distraught and sporting a fresh bruise, her plea hit Beatrice square in the gut.If I didn’t know she was undercover, I’d never guessshe’s playing them.
Lydia pleaded for Emit to come to a trailer at the abandoned site, in effect, giving up her exact location.
“The thing is,” Emit said, once the recording finished, “while she appears under duress and instructs me to do what RING wants, it doesn’t track. Why would they give up their location but booby trap the single access road leading into it?”
“Because they plan to grab you on that road,” she said, her brain working double-time. “It’s a chokepoint. You should’ve stayed at the ranch.” It pained her to say it, but she couldn’t let anyone get their hands on him. While the time stamp on the recording showed it was prior to the time they believed Parker had been abducted, she couldn’t be sure Lydia knew about that. If Parker’s life was on the line, would Lydia put her operation ahead of it? “Turn around now and get out of there.”
Trace once more spoke up. “They’d need to have twice the manpower to pull off another abduction. From what we’ve uncovered, there are only five players. Even if they left one man with Lydia and sent the rest as a tactical team to snatch Emit, they can’t believe they’ll be successful.”
“They didn’t even demand that I come alone,” Emit added.
“Because they don’t know about SFI and your teams.” Beatrice rubbed her chest where a sharp ache had set up. “We’ve had it all wrong. We assumed they knew everything about you, but maybe they don’t. They believe you’re a genius but not when it comes to taking measures to protect yourself.”
“It’s been nearly impossible to keep SFI a secret from international terrorist rings,” Cal argued. “You don’t send paramilitary teams around the world to rescue people and shut down these types of groups without word getting out.”
“But they haven’t traced SFI to Emit,” she insisted.
“They know,” Trace interrupted, agreeing with Cal. “Whoever hired them knows. There’s a reason they didn’t insist Emit come alone.”
Her stomach cramped to match her chest. The ice in her veins was back. “It’s a trap. There’s no other explanation. This whole thing is a trap to lure you all in.”
Trace thought as strategically as she did. “That’s what I initially thought, but there is literally no one else in the area, B. Even if they hired another team to ambush us, I can’t find them. Not a single sign.”
