Page 21 of Sugar, Sprinkles, and Secrets
“Yeah, I can bring a couple if you want to fly them,” Ace tells him.
“Liam, how about you run one, and then give me one for surveillance so I can run point here from my home base,” I add.
Ace chuckles, what a foreign sound. “I’m not giving you a weapon, Sophia. You’ll shoot my ass.”
“One, rude. Two, don’t make me mad and you won’t have to worry. We all know I’m a great shot. I’m just most useful behind a keyboard, boys.” I smart off but I know I can with these guys. It’s never a threat to them that I’m kickass at my job and can get a little—or a lot—mouthy. I know they respect me as a team member.
I make a mental note to look further into the receptionist at the clinic where Dante had his appointment. We now know Salvatore Serrano put a reward out to staff members at pediatric cardiology clinics that specialize in Tetralogy of Fallot with photos of Cara, Dante, and Mila. The reward made it look like Cara was involved in a custody dispute and took off with the kids in the dead of night. The receptionist that Cara bumped into when leaving Dante’s appointment is going to face mywrath before I serve her with a bow to the authorities. The twenty-five-thousand-dollar transfer into her account earlier this morning isn’t helping her case in my eyes.
One hour and twenty minutes after our phone call, Colt and Ace met up in Memphis and are in one of the trucks my contact left them. They’re parked a quarter mile away from where Dante’s watch is pinging. He hasn’t moved more than a city block in the last three hours, but the dot moves around enough that I think he’s still wearing the watch.
These morons took those innocent babies to some abandoned industrial area, or if it isn’t abandoned, the owners take shit care of their things. Someone is paying the electricity bill though, so I took that as an invitation to hack the power grid for that area so I can knock out their power if necessary. I like to have multiple options prepared, even if I never need to execute them.
“How does it feel to be the backup for once, Liam?” Colt asks.
“Backup? I’m pretty sure I could handle this on my own but thought y’all would want in on the fun,” Liam deadpans.
“Just so long as your drone is charged, sure,” Ace teases.
I huff. “He doubts us, Liam.”
“He’s an idiot, Sophia.” It almost sounds like Liam is smiling—and that’s a rare occurrence with that man.
“He’s still on comms, assholes,” Ace chimes in.
“Aw, you made Ace smile. Good job, y’all,” Colt chimes in and makes me laugh in response.
We get our drones up in the air and I can’t help but clap in excitement. I love knowing the good guys are going to take down some bad guys—and I really love when I get to help.
“Copy that, Ranger Rick.” I smirk at his grumbled response but focus on the task at hand. Because they’re in such an isolated area, I don’t have any local security cameras to hack as additional vantage points, so I need to see as much as I can, without being actually seen. Liam launches his drone and goes wide to take an approach of the building opposite of my current position. I have a live feed from both my drone and Liam’s, as well as a live feed from Ace’s and Colt’s bodycams. My large monitor in my situationroom takes up a third of the wall behind my desk and is currently split into four quadrants for our respective feeds with my facial recognition software running for any face that may appear on screen. Thankfully, these drones were a gift from a friend in one of the federal alphabet agencies and they have tech that even impresses me—which takes a lot these days.
“Alright boys, I’m getting four heat signatures in the northeast corner of the first floor, and judging by the muscle mass, and suspected height of each one, they appear to be four adult male suspects. There’s one lone target outside who looks to be patrolling the southern side of the building. We also have two adorably sized heat signatures coming from the second floor, and judging by the positioning, I’m guessing they are both sleeping.” Please let them be sleeping. Please let them be alright. I shove the trigger away, and double down my focus. “I don’t see any other heat signatures in the surrounding area. You’re good to go on your count, Ace.”
“Heard. We’re approaching the southwest entrance. Sophia, let us know if anything changes on overlook.” Ace’s voice is steady but controlled as he and Colt quickly move toward the building.
Despite their massive size, Colt and Ace move like stealth thieves in the night. Keeping to the shadows, they move into position until Ace lifts his hand, signaling for them to stop less than twenty feet from their first target.
Our intent is to disable and detain, avoiding casualties if possible. I keep a close eye on overwatch, in addition to following the other three feeds. Moments after I hear Colt whisper, “Cover me,” he silently slides behind the goon patrolling the exterior of the building. Colt had him in a chokehold before he even realized he was in trouble. He quietly lowers his unconscious body to the ground. Zip ties and duct tape will keep him quiet and unable to move until the feds pick him up.
“One target secured and detained, preparing to make entry,” Ace updates us, but as soon as he and Colt cross the threshold, movement from my drone’s feed requires a necessary pivot.
“Be advised gentlemen, there’s an SUV approaching from the north at a high rate of speed. And judging by the make and model, I don’t think it’s any of your alphabet friends, Liam.” I have yet to meet a federal employee that drives a G-Wagon.
“Can you see who’s in it?” Liam asks as they pull up to the north side of the building and come to a stop in front of the warehouse.
Ace and Colt are ducked under some shelving units out of sight, waiting for us to get a better picture of what’s going on.
“Negative. There are three figures exiting the vehicle,” I respond as I zoom in as much as I can from my drone without giving away my position. As soon as they step out of the vehicle, I’m off and running with my preferred facial recognition software, which is running beautifully, as it should since I designed the software.
But one of them does not require any software to identify. “Are you fucking kidding me?” Liam whispers.
“I see; hold for confirmation,” I mutter as my fingers fly across my keyboard.
Identity confirmed.
“Who is it?” Ace whispers from inside the building. He doesn’t have a good visual on the individuals on the other side of the building, but it wouldn’t take him long to reach them.
“We have confirmation one of the three individuals walking into the building right now is in fact Salvatore Serrano. The moron not only sent goons after kids … he showed up himself.” He thinks he’s untouchable, and those are my favorite assholes to watch fall.
