Page 72 of Savage Obsession

His snort of derision matches my own feelings on the matter.

“I know, I fucking warned her…”

“Not enough, apparently.” He fixes me with a glare. “You need to get a grip on this, Baz. She’s a fucking liability, running around like that.”

“I’ll deal with her, when we get her back.”

“You’d better. I’ve got Janey weeping back on Firebird, convinced I’m about to get myself killed. I don’t like her getting upset like this, not in her condition.”

“I’m sorry, but obviously, I don’t expect you to actually?—”

He slants me a grin. “It’s me they want, not you. You’d do the same for me if it was the other way round.”

“That’s my job, it’s what I’m paid to do.”

“You think I’m letting you have all the fun? And, as you told me not so long ago, family matters. Come inside, it’s time we got this thing sorted.”

Kris has received another text from the kidnappers, giving details of where he’s to meet them at eleven p.m., precisely five hours from now. They want him to turn up at a secluded beach on the north coast, alone and unarmed. There are more pictures of Julia and Lily, still bound. Julia has a black eye, and Lily is sobbing.

“Bastards,” I mutter. “You need to let me get my hands on them. That’s my right. You need to?—”

“First things first. The priority is to locate them. No one gets their hands on anyone until we do that. Henio, are you airborne?”

He addresses the question to the geeky Spanish kid in the far corner of the huge hangar-like space. The lad only appears to be about twelve, but I was reliably informed when I recruited him for this task that he’s nineteen and the best drone pilot on the island. He looks up and nods.

Kris rattles off the location provided for the meet. “Chances are there’ll be some activity there. They’ll want to be prepared. Scan out to sea as well, say five miles. If they’re using a coastal location, they may plan to come and go by boat.”

Henio nods again, his attention never really wavering from the small screen in front of him, his fingers dancing across the control levers.

We need more information. An idea occurs to me. I still have Casey Savage’s number in my phone, so I dial her.

She answers. “You again?”

“I need your help. Are you any good at hacking into phones?”

“Is the Pope a Catholic? What do you need?”

I give her Julia’s mobile number. “She phoned for taxi about two hours ago. I need to know what firm she used.”

To her credit, she doesn’t ask me why. “Give me five minutes.” She hangs up.

I pace the warehouse floor while Kris barks out orders to our men, sending a group led by Aleksy to approach the cove with care and scope out the area on the ground. Another team are to go back to Puerto de la Cruz to shake down a few contacts for any information. Someone must know who is behind this.

I grab my phone when it trills. “Yes? Anything?”

“Taxis Canarios. Biggish company, based in Puerto de la Cruz.”

“I know them. I don’t suppose there’s any way you could hack into their system to find out which driver got the job and where he dropped her?”

“There ahead of you, my friend. It was their car number fifty-seven, driver by the name of Timo Amado. He picked Julia up at the gates to your hacienda and drove her to Puerto de la Cruz. He dropped her close to…” she hesitates as she consults her notes and grapples with the unfamiliar Spanish, “Centro Comercial Martiánez. Apparently, that’s a shopping mall.”

“Makes sense. So, he did actually drop them off in town?”

“Seems like it. And picked them up again two hours later.”

“What? You sure?”

“She booked the return journey direct with the driver.”

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