Page 68 of Operation Heartbeat

The man’s words tumbled out in a rush. “When I took off my jacket, my housekeeper took it away. She goes through my pockets at the end of the day.”

“What did the housekeeper find?” Con leveled a look at Mason and muted the phone for a brief moment to say to his teammate, “Look into the housekeeper.”

Mason gave a short nod in response.

Deniz continued, “A note. Somebody must have slipped it into my pocket during the concert.”

“What does the note say?”

“I have a new task. It tells me to prepare for a shipment. It must arrive at the destination by a particular date and is time-sensitive.”

“Take a picture of the note. I’m sending you a secure link to upload it to.”

“I will do that.” Deniz was silent for a bit as he did what Con asked.

After the photo came through, Con skimmed it. Sophie was right that he always had trouble reading as a kid, and reading still wasn’t his favorite. But he had no trouble whatsoever seeing that the clock was ticking.

“I don’t want to ship more bad things.” Deniz’s voice broke. “I only want my wife back.”

Con detected the pain in Deniz’s tone. He considered himself to be a hard man—one of the hardest. But his heart gave a pang at the sound of the man’s suffering.

That didn’t mean he couldn’t be lying. He’d have his guys look into it.

“We’ll get her back for you. Give me ten minutes. I’ll call you back. Keep your phone close.”

“I will.”

As soon as he ended the call, he addressed his team. “All right, listen up. The shipping agent received this note.” He held out his phone to Henner. He took it from Con and with a few swipes of a fingertip, had the photo on the screen of the computer tablet.

Henner held it up for all to see.

“Mason, get on this. See what you can find out, and if what Deniz says is true.”

“Got it, boss.”

“While Mason works on that, we’re going to create a plan of attack in the event that Denizistelling the truth.”

Denver shook his head, brushing away crumbs left by the sandwich he’d gulped down. “We don’t have much time if we’re going to make this happen on their terms.”

The people pulling Deniz’s strings had ordered the agent to meet them at the dock before dawn. If he did as they asked, they would tell him where his wife was being held.

They all knew what would happen if he didn’t show.

Con issued a breath that felt too hot in his tight chest. “I don’t believe for a minute that they’ll make good on the bargain. We aren’t going to give them a chance to get away. Two teams.” He stabbed a finger toward Henner, indicating he was responsible for splitting them up into teams balanced by their strengths.

Mason’s voice broke in. “It’s all true. Our contact at the CIA confirmed that they know about the wife being held.”

Con gave a hard nod. “That decides it. Team One intercepts the shipment at the dock. The minute we get the intel about the wife’s whereabouts, Team Two goes after her.”

Everyone nodded that they understood.

“We have two hours till sunup. Gear up.”

At that moment, the patter of quick footsteps moving their direction brought Con’s head up. Sophie came skidding around the corner, her face glowing with the excitement he’d seen several times when she figured out a puzzle.

“Ryan! I mean Con.” She shot a look at the guys. “I found something!”

“Ry-annn,” Henner cooed under his breath. The guy sitting beside him laughed.

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