Page 12 of In The Trenches (Owens Protective Services)

“He was just here this morning,” Eli reminded me.

“And I called him back in. Has anyone spoken to him since?”

Everyone shook their heads. Fuck, I could not lose a guy like this.

“Boss,” Rae, my tech guru, said as she rushed into the room. She ran over to the clear screen on the wall and started tapping on it, bringing up camera footage. We all stood around her, watching as she brought up what appeared to be Sinner walking toward the office.

“When was this?”

“About thirty minutes ago.”

We watched as Sinner walked toward the office, talking on the phone. Three men came up from behind, hitting him over the head and dragging his limp body over to a van.

“Why am I just finding out now?” I barked. This was a fucking disaster. We had sensors set up to detect threats outside the building.

“Because he never actually made it close enough to the door. I’ve found another camera angle from the street, and pulled up the license plate. I’m running it through the other city cameras now to track their movements.”

I spun around, facing Eli’s team, which already looked like they were gearing up to move out. “Get everyone in here that’s not scheduled for a job. I want everyone working this. Get the SUVs ready and get on the phone with local PD. Make sure they know we have a hostage situation and we’re going in.”

Eli nodded and practically ran out of the room, followed by the rest of his team. Rae worked through the footage, pulling up what the computer was already running in the background.

“It looks like they’re heading out of town toward these abandoned buildings,” she said, zooming in on an isolated location on the map. “But I can’t be sure they didn’t switch vehicles. There’s a lapse of about three minutes, where they should be further along on the cameras, according to my software.”

“Can you tell where the lapse occurred?”

“I’m working on tracking that now.”

“What about the plates? Do you know who owns the vehicle?”

“Stolen vehicle. We’re not getting anything from that,” she answered succinctly.

“Fuck!” I shouted, slamming my fist into the wall. I took a deep breath as I thought through every move I needed to make to get my guy back. If they captured him outside our building, then the game was up. They knew he was connected to us, which was why we weren’t getting anywhere with Adams.

“Do you have a location on Adams?”

“He’s still in New York.”

“What about his movements? Calls he’s made?”

“I’ll work on getting that information, but it’s going to take a while.”

“Get on it,” I said urgently. “I need to know any contacts he has out here. Then we can start tracking down locations. And let me know if you find out if they switched vehicles.”

I stormed out of the conference room and down to my office. I had to make a very uncomfortable call, but it was necessary to save lives.

5

RED

I ranalong the edge of the building, stopping outside the window to peek inside. The thick dirt coating the window made it nearly impossible to see anything, and I hoped that worked in my favor as well, keeping everyone inside from seeing me.

“I can’t see a fucking thing. Anyone else got eyes?”

“Negative,” Eli said over comms. “I’m moving southwest.”

“Copy that,” I answered. “I’m shifting southeast.”

With one final look inside, I took my chances that no one could see me and moved on. As I hugged the side of the building, I peered around the corner, watching for any guards. There was one man walking around the corner, and as soon as he disappeared, I hauled ass along the building until I came to a ramp leading down to a single garage door. I jumped down and ducked, waiting for a moment, listening for any sound. When I heard nothing, I peeked in the window of the garage door. Squinting, I could see something inside.

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