Page 18 of Catch Me If You Can (The Mancini Way)

“The hold is clear Jace am I clear to go?”

“Pick up is in place it’s a go; the team has neutralized the others, they’re on their way to you now.”

That was easy but then again that’s the way it usually is when you have a very well coordinated team of dedicated people working together.

I eased the trapdoor up and made my way down.

“I come in peace.” I said the words in their native tongue so they wont be afraid; it had only been a few weeks since their ordeals begun but already I could see the wear and tear on their young faces. Fear of the unknown would do that to anyone and in a child it was magnified.

I pulled out the official looking badge that I had hidden beneath my shirt; it’s really just a seal with the organization’s crest but to the naked eye it appears official. Their sighs of relief and exclamations proved positive that it worked. I didn’t even bother shushing their excitement as I’d been assured that their captors had been dealt with effectively. Starting with the littlest one I led them up the ladder and passed them off to Natasha, another one of my team who spoke mandarin. I’d sent in a few females on this run for obvious reasons, it hadn’t been too hard to convince my hirers that with female presence the Op would go smoother and since I’m always given leave to form my own team when working for someone and this is something that’s known in the dark world I play in, they didn’t question me too closely.

“Jace we’re headed topside any movement?” There was a pause before he answered giving the all clear.

“You’re clear bro fifteen minutes to spare.”

“We’re moving.”

The girls will be moved to a secure location where they will be checked over by a physician, fed and spoiled a little before we reached out to their families but first they needed to be debriefed to gain any and all pertinent information they may have about their abductions. If all was clear and their families hadn’t played a part in their disappearances then we’d make provisions to return them. We’d then start the process of investigating their respective families just because someone got on the television and cried over the disappearance of their child or loved one didn’t necessarily mean that they were innocent of any wrongdoing in said disappearance. We took that shit seriously as none of us especially myself wanted to be responsible for returning a child to dangerous or deplorable conditions.

Yet another team member was tasked with captaining the now unmanned vessel to a before decided upon location where the bodies will be dropped off. The vessel itself will be stripped and renamed for its next voyage as it had been on all the others it had made in the past. I hopped into the back of the van with Tasha and the girls while Drake drove; I wasn’t surprised to find them laughing at some little tidbit Tasha had shared with them. I kept my silence as I sat and watched reading their body language looking for any signs of distress. I made it a point that my job didn’t just end with the rescue I kept up with my victims and they all had ways of keeping in touch with me. Funnily enough they all chose to, these girls would be no different.

The other team I had in play to end things on this Op should be making contact by the time we reached the safe house. I wanted to make sure the girls were completely safe before we did anything else. There’s no doubt that if these men lived they will do anything to keep their part in this crime secret which included murder; it was also a known fact within the organization that most of them had ties to if not in fact were members of organized crime. These factions are some of the most vicious in the world and would not think twice about snuffing out the lives of young innocents, they’re the reason men like me exists, we’re the complete opposite of them and their destructive forces in the world.

It was hours before we got the girls settled; I was pissed all over again to find that the youngest was barely ten fucking years old I mean what the fuck?

Team B had called in two hours ago with the news that the town car carrying the three delegates had met an unfortunate hiccup; the shit was already all over the news media. If all had gone as planned there will be no backdraft, it would appear as a freak accident started from a faulty engine. The fact that all three men were together shouldn’t raise too many eyebrows as they were from the same nation but even if it did there was nothing leading back to the organization. The final roundup will include the buyers who were expecting delivery of their merchandise within the next few days. The eight men and two women who were willing to shell out millions for the acquisition of human flesh were about to have their lives very disrupted. Where crimes not associated with the girls did not exist air- tight ones had been fabricated; they were all sown up nice and tight for a nice long stretch behind bars. That’s if the justice system did its job.

I fell into bed feeling relieved; another job well done I’d already spoken to Wilson who as the sitting director of the Guardians like to be kept abreast of all recue missions. As head of the organization his job is to see to any loose ends, make the necessary contacts with the families and keep the government agencies in the dark. A tall order all around but he’s been doing it for longer than I’ve been alive and he excels at it.

It wasn’t long before she was once again plaguing me, now with the filth of the day behind me I could turn to more pleasant things. I replayed everything from the moment I first saw her standing in my place trying so hard but yet looking so out of place. I caught myself smiling there in the dark as I remembered her face when I’d shocked her with my boldness and the way she’d barely restrained herself from throwing her wine in my face. I didn’t question it when I found myself jumping out of bed and getting dressed once more; I was about to do something I’ve never done before in my life but I believe strongly in going with my gut and that’s what I’m doing now. Let’s hope the agent doesn’t pump my ass full of lead for my efforts.

Chapter 12

Mancini

She was staying in a townhouse in the heart of the city as part of her cover, which was as an up-and-coming socialite. Her background check looked pretty good: a young woman of means from a high-powered family. Of course it’s one of those obscure families that no one ever heard of who just happens to be loaded. She’s an alum of Vassar, at least that much is true, guess they had to keep some things as close to the truth as possible. But as for the pseudo family, that was all fabrication. The ride downtown in my Ascari on the deserted streets took less than twenty minutes. I parked a few blocks away and took the back street sticking to the shadows. I had no problem leaving my million and a half dollar car on the streets of lower Manhattan because the shit was secured tighter than Fort Knox. Her place was on the end with a balcony and a privacy fence, which made gaining entrance easy for someone with my particular skills. I left my shoes on the balcony as I picked the lock that led into the living area, my nifty little device made easy work of her alarm system and I was in being as careful as possible as I made my way through her temporary residence making sure to stick to the shadows once more. I scanned for any hidden cameras or other detectors with this nifty little gadget Jace had built that was perfect for not only detecting but jamming those things as well. I didn’t know if her people had her under surveillance or not but I wasn’t taking any chances. It was one thing for me to accept that she was fast becoming my weakness and quite another for others to know.

I couldn’t forget after all that I was dealing with a trained federal agent here. One other thing I hadn’t taken into account was whether or not she would be alone, that thought brought me up short for a second. Nothing that I had uncovered hinted at a love interest but that didn’t mean it wasn’t a possibility. I folded my fists at the surge of emotion that overcame me at the thought I’ll have to deal with that later. Right now I have to see her, be sure she was here alone, what the fuck I planned to do if she wasn’t I had no idea I just knew I would punish her in some way if that’s what I found. Fucked up I know but there you have it, I never claimed to be the most rational motherfucker out there.

The moonlight coming in through the bedroom window cast a shadowy glow over her perfect skin, her face serene in slumber looked even younger; my fingers itched to touch, to stroke her hair where it laid spread out over her pillow. Thank heavens she didn’t sleep in the nude or else my control might’ve failed me; it was a trial as it was keeping my distance as her chest rose and fell with her easy breathing the T-shirt she wore to sleep in stretched taut across her breasts. I don’t know how long I stood there but I felt the tension of the last few hours just drift away as if by magic, something that it usually took days of hard training to do. She slept like the dead, that’s one of the things I noticed in my midnight vigil that and the fact that she made the sexiest fucking noises in her sleep. I didn’t look too closely at the sense of peace I felt standing there looking down at her. By the time I crept from her place in the wee hours of the morning after making some changes to her place I was hard as a rock and suddenly full of energy.

Cierra

I could smell Hank when I woke up in the morning, stupidly I felt around in my bed expecting to find him there until I came fully awake. “Shit now he’s following me into my dreams.”

I still had the weirdest sense that he’d been here which was a bit unnerving because there’s no way that he could’ve been without me knowing. I found myself checking the house looking for any sign of an intrusion and finding none, yet still I couldn’t shake the feeling of his presence. I shrugged it off and tried to throw myself into the rest of my day, tonight was my big date with the man himself there wasn’t much for me to do in the way of preparation since I’d already studied him inside and out. I refuse to cart myself off to a spa to get all glamorized for him no matter how much my girlish heart wanted to so I spent my morning and afternoon working on my own little secret investigation.

The question of the murderer’s true intent had been raised time and again back then because nothing had been taken from the house that night we hadn’t had much to begin with. The original investigators had found it hard to believe that he had just simply chosen a house at random and just gone in and slaughtered the occupants. They’d always suspected that there was something else involved, both my parents’ backgrounds had been dug into excessively and even my little brother’s but nothing had sent up a red flag. There were no business deals gone wrong, my parents didn’t do dugs and had no known affiliation with anything to do with the criminal element or anything else that would bring something like that to their door and so the case had gone cold. Over the years others had taken a stab at it but always they’d run into that brick wall. When I was old enough to ask questions and be shown what they had so far I’d combed the files repeatedly looking for clues but with no results either.

In the past few years I’d taken to looking for like crimes in the area with no luck, it’s as if someone really had just randomly chosen my family but something inside of me wouldn’t let me accept that. I went over once again what the investigators had found that night. The way he’d gained entrance, who he’d killed first, the way he’d killed them. All three had had their throats cut, clean cuts by a steady hand apparently. I still had my dad’s old hard drive, every once in a while I’d gone through it looking for clues but there was nothing there but work related stuff from his job as a computer technician. He’d been one of those people who went around to businesses fixing their systems, at the time he’d been killed I remember him saying that we were finally going to be able to move out of the shitty neighborhood we lived in, things were just looking up. That more than anything stayed with me always, that hope he’d had as he’d swung me around spinning dreams of ponies and dollhouses.

I put it away after hours of collecting notes for my already overflowing pile collected from years of doing this, the case might be catching dust on a shelf in a police evidence room in Baltimore but for me it was always in the forefront of my mind and always will be until I could put it to rest.

A call came in hours before our meet and two of the men on him dropped in on me, apparently there were quite a few unaccounted for hours in Mr. Mancini’s night. The Intel was sketchy at best but it was considered of great interest when such a thing occurred because it was usually followed by the disappearance of someone. Where and how the bureau had first came up with this analogy was anyone’s guess but like I said before someone high up has a hard on for this guy. Yet with all the speculation and suspicion surrounding him we were sorely lacking in any concrete evidence to substantiate these claims. Now I’m being told to try to find out where and what he’d been up to for those missing hours. I’m beginning to think that my colleagues really have no idea who they were dealing with, the fact that they’re asking me to do these things shows that they didn’t understand how he operated at all. My one night with him had further opened my eyes to what we were dealing with; Hank Mancini was not a man to be easily led, he wasn’t going to be swayed by my beauty and charm and though I got the feeling that he was definitely interested I didn’t think for a minute that it would change that fact, that just made my job that much more difficult. The guy was going to be a hard nut to crack.

Durant called ten minutes before I was headed out the door.

“Stone you ready for tonight?”

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