Sixteen

 

 

“This is Jeff Gough,” Coleman introduced the guy was standing outside the terminal entrance with a line of cars behind him and whose hand he’d just been shaking. “Get in and we’ll discuss it on the way.”

 

Ren, Cole, Dad, Tom, Gramps and one of Coleman’s men, Cooper, got into the first SUV with us. Not waiting for the others, we pulled away and started the drive in what I assumed was the direction of London.

 

“One of your men, Ray,” Jeff looked quickly over at Coleman and I saw his jaw tense. “You figured it out didn’t ya?” Nodding his head and looking out of the window, Coleman said nothing.

 

“Are you shitting me?” I yelled. “Ray?” I was going to fucking kill him.

 

“Wait, he’s in the car with my wife and daughter,” Ren shouted. “Stop the car!”

 

“No need, mate,” Jeff continued driving, a little smirk appearing on his face. “He won’t be of much use to anyone.”

 

At that moment, Ren’s phone buzzed with a text message. Reading it, he burst out laughing and passed it over to me.

 

My-my: Holy shit, I just got to tase Ray. The dudes passed it to me and said I could do it. Ebru, Mom and Gram wanted a turn too. I think he shit himself.

 

The little smiling devil emoji finished the message. Another one buzzed through as I handed it back to him making him snort again.

 

“Did she have fun?” Jeff asked.

 

“They all did,” he muttered as he replied to the text. “All the women and Tony wanted to have a turn so he got zapped four times.”

 

“Make that seven,” Coleman added as he read his own phone screen. “Seems your grandmother enjoyed it so much the first time, she gave him a second for luck.”

 

A groan from Gramps had us shifting slightly away from him. “I love it when she gets blood thirsty.”

 

It’s a miracle that Jeff didn’t wreck the car as we all stared over at the old guy in disgust.

 

“So,” Cole’s voice broke the silence. “Uh, who exactly are you?”

 

Looking at each other, Jeff and Coleman grinned. “Jeff and I worked together. He was in the SAS and moved onto MI5. He helped us out last time that Sabine was here on her own, and when she was taken, I contacted him. He thinks he has a lead on who has her.”

 

I had a million questions that I wanted to ask, but Cole beat me to it. “You’re James Bond?”

 

“No, fella,” he replied in the broadest London accent I’d heard yet. It was like Jason Statham when he was in the movie Snatch. “He’s a fictional character, I’m the real thing.”

 

“So,” Cole drawled, sounding more confused than ever. “Do you have a license to kill?”

 

Flicking a look in the rearview mirror at him before looking over at Coleman who was shaking his head, Jeff replied, “I don’t need a license, mate!”

 

“That’s the best response I think I’ve ever heard,” Gramps spoke up from the back. “Holy shit, I’d take him if I was into men!”

 

After another silence, during which we kept giving Gramps little looks to gauge if he was having an old person style episode, Cole asked, “So, what you’re saying is that you’re a 006, not a 007?”

 

Sighing, Jeff ignored my brother and finally started to relay the information that I was after to us. Most people would have been screaming and demanding it by now, but I knew that losing my shit wasn’t going to make a difference. Plus, Coleman had proven himself to be a mastermind in the past, so I felt easier knowing that he was in control of the situation.

 

“Right, so, my man says that a rat looking man got a pregnant lady off a plane at Gatwick and headed into the center of London,” he drummed his hands on the wheel before taking the turn off that had London written on it. “He was in a black cab, which we traced. It dropped them off at a hotel not far away from Charing Cross.”

 

I recognized the name of one of the train stations in London. I’d walked past it on my way to meet them at Buckingham Palace the day that Gramps got arrested. “That’s near the Palace isn’t it?” I was replaying what I remembered of the area through my mind, but nothing really stood out apart from Trafalgar Square and the normal tourist sites.

 

“Right,” he nodded as he took the next exit. “He didn’t go into the hotel though. He got in another taxi and went in the direction of the Thames.”

 

“That goes on for miles,” I snapped, panic starting to take over. “How the fuck are we meant to find her?”

 

“Cool it me old China,” Jeff advised, confusing the hell out of all of us.

 

“Your old what?” Cole asked as he glared at the back of Jeff’s head.

 

“Cockney rhyming slang, mate,” Jeff replied as he passed a sign announcing that we were entering London. “Me and the rest of the blokes use it from time to time, you’ll get used to it.”

 

The screen on Cole and Ren’s phones lit up as they searched for Cockney rhyming slang. There were a couple of snorts and ‘what the fuck’s’ whispered as they went through the list.

 

All of the calmness that I’d just been talking about and the peace of mind that Coleman had someone in control of the situation fled; I’d taken as much as I could. During all of this, my wife and my child were missing and being held by some fucking random asshole who was doing God knows what to them.

 

“Are you all fucking insane?” I exploded. “My wife is missing. We don’t know who has her. We don’t know what they’re doing to her. And my child…” I croaked at the end and put my face in my hands.

 

“Ah, ye of little faith,” Jeff drawled from the front. “We’re receiving intelligence all the time, Mr. Townsend. By the time we hit the meeting point, we’ll have the name of the man and we can take it from there.”

 

That wasn’t her location. Then, irrationally it hit me that I didn’t even know if she was still alive. Something inside me knew that someone wouldn’t go to all of this trouble just to kill Sabine, but if it was the person who was targeting my family they’d shown how ruthless they were before.

 

I hadn’t cried in years, but I blinked rapidly as I looked out the window, the scenery blurring as my eyes filled up.

 

“Mate,” Jeff’s commanding voice got my attention and I turned to meet his eyes in the mirror. Tapping the side of his nose before putting his hand back on the wheel, he became the voice of reason through the irrational thoughts. “Coleman’s told me what shit you’ve got happening and this is different. He ain’t gonna take her all this way for nothing,” his pronunciation made the word sound like ‘nuffink’. “We get the location, we make the plan and we retrieve your wife. Bish, bash, bosh!”

 

His confidence was reassuring and fuck I hoped he was right. I couldn’t lose either of them.

 

"Were you in the movie Snatch?” Tom asked, leaning between the front seats.

 

Coleman and Jeff exchanged a look. “Brett’s the one with questionable DNA in the family.”

 

“Right?” Cole agreed. “We always said he was adopted!”

 

“Thank fuck one of them’s normal,” Jeff muttered.

 

“Hey!”

 

There was silence for a few magical seconds, and then Tom leaned forward again, “What about Pirates of the Caribbean? You look like the Captain Jack Sparrow guy.”

 

He said an ‘oops’ when he slammed his foot on the break, shooting Tom forward and off his seat, but I’m pretty certain Jeff did it on purpose. “There’s a fine for not wearing your seatbelts in the U.K.” He pointed out to Tom after it.

 

Sulking, he sat back and clicked his seatbelt in place. The silence went on for a couple of seconds longer this time, and then, there was a click as he leaned back to his original position. “So, which one was it?”

 

“My wife is missing,” I yelled at him. “Sabine, my son, they’re fucking missing, and you want to discuss characters with British accents?”

 

“Amen,” Ren muttered, glaring at Tom.

 

“It’s because he doesn’t have a woman,” Cole added. “He doesn’t know what this feels like.”

 

“Actually, he does,” Gramps divulged in a tone that was pure gossip. “Layla told me he had a big fat old crush on her friend Sonya.”

 

There was silence as we all stared at him. In the passing street and shop lights, we saw his face turn almost crimson. Sitting back and going through all of the things that I couldn’t remember if I’d ever said to Sabine before, but now seemed like the most important things in the world to say to her, I tuned out to the rest of my family.

 

Jeff’s phone ringing broke the silence and a conversation followed where he answered with one words answers, not giving us a clue what he was discussing. He was speaking into a small black earpiece that none of us had noticed until a blue light lit up on it when he answered his phone.

 

“Bond,” Tom mouthed and tipped his head in Jeff’s direction.

 

The conversation had obviously ended when he said to the car, “We’ve got her.”

 

Sitting back, I covered my face trying not to cry like a pussy. “Jesus Christ!”

 

“We’re meeting my guys there and then we’ll sort out what’s what,” he directed at Coleman, but it was Tom and Cole who both answered.

 

“What?” Tom asked.

 

“What what’s what?” Cole sounded equally confused.

 

As we pulled up on the side of the road, Jeff switched the engine off and then turned in his seat to look at both of them. “Never,” he advised firmly, “ever reproduce.”

 

“He already has,” Coleman pointed at Cole whose chest puffed out with pride.

 

“Fuck!” Jeff muttered as he got out of the car and slammed the door hard enough to rock the vehicle.

 

“Get out of the car,” I barely got out through how tightly clenched my jaw was now. “Get out and fucking focus.”

 

I barely restrained the urge to shove them once the door opened, but as I moved across to follow them, Dad and Gramps called my name.

 

“They only did it to make the journey less painful for you,” Gramps informed me. “If you were focused on that, then you were calmer about what we’re about to do.”

 

“Well,” Dad added. “And to piss off the British dude.”

 

“That was fucking hilarious,” Gramps chuckled as I got out. “Did you see his face?”

 

Leaving them behind, I walked up to the group now forming. Coleman and Jeff were organizing Jeff’s team while the rest of us listened and waited for our orders. Maybe one day I’d thank them for it, but frankly today was not that day.

 

Sabine

 

I was furious. Of all of the people to kidnap me, I got this asshole. Just for good measure, I told him what I was thinking in a language that I was sure he’d understand.

 

“T’es rien qu’un petit connard!”

 

“Don’t call me an asshole,” he snapped, taking a step in my direction with his hand up in the air. I didn’t even flinch because he was such a weasel rat bastard that there was no way he’d follow through with it.

 

Watching him and how he was pulling his phone out of his pocket frequently to check it, something occurred to me.

 

“There’s no way that you had the balls to concoct all of this,” I nodded my head at our surroundings as my hands were tied together in my lap.

 

His eyes narrowed as he looked at me. “That’s what you think?”

 

“Non,” I smirked. “It’s what I know. Who are you working with?”

 

Grinding his teeth, he walked over to the window and looked out. We were currently inside an old factory building which was cold and damp. It also looked like this room had been set up recently as the only thing not covered in pigeon shit was the couch that I was currently sitting on. I was grateful for the lack of pigeon crap, but it made me wonder how and why this plan had even been set up.

 

Henry, the man my parents had planned for me to marry, relied on his status and money much like my father did. In fact, the only reason he had as many mistresses as he did was because he had money. Without it, he was just a petit weasel looking man.

 

“They promised me that they would be here with it,” he muttered to himself as he continued to stare out of the window.

 

"Who did, Henry?”

 

He didn’t answer as he started to pace, stopping when he stood in a mound of pigeon excrement. “Putain!” He roared, wiping his foot frantically on the bare wood floor. Jesus, his feet were smaller than mine and I was a size seven.

 

The sound of a car outside got his attention and he forgot the mess on his shoe as he walked quickly over to the door, opening it and staring out into the stairwell. We were on the fourth floor and the sound of footsteps climbing the stairs from the dark hallway was almost ominous.

 

I knew that the Townsends still had the issue with whomever was attacking them, but would they really leave America to come here?

 

Watching the door and swallowing nervously, I almost burst out laughing when the owner of the footsteps walked through it.

 

“Mon dieu,” I chuckled. “I thought for a moment that I actually had something to worry about.”

 

I’ll give them some points, I wasn’t expecting the force behind the slap that hit my cheek and snapped my head to the side.

 

Brett

 

"Right," Jeff rolled out a map for us all to see.

 

“Holy shit,” Ren muttered. “This is like going back in time!”

 

“I haven’t seen a map in years,” Gramps agreed. “Now it’s all maps and hokey pokey navvy’s.”

 

Sighing, I looked back at Jeff. “Well?”

 

Shaking his head and huffing out a frustrated breath, Jeff pointed at an area on it. “The second taxi says he went here. Looking at buildings in the area,” he unrolled an aerial photo of the area, “the best bet is one of these three.” Pointing at three buildings, he explained. “They’re all abandoned factories and this area ain’t exactly one that people go to, unless they’re looking for a trick or Persian rugs.”

 

“Why would they sell Persian rugs in an abandoned area?” Dad asked. I’d been wondering the same thing.

 

“So, the Police don’t bust them,” he replied, sounding like it was a stupid question that Dad had asked.

 

“Is it illegal to sell Persian rugs here?” Tom questioned him next, trying to make sense of exactly what the hell was so bad about them.

 

“Persian rugs,” he looked around all of us at the blank looks on our faces. “You know, drugs?”

 

“Are you sure this one’s not…ya know,” Gramps tapped his head as he questioned Coleman about Jeff’s sanity.

 

“It’s the slang,” Coleman clipped back. He was as through with all of this fuckery as I was.

 

Turning back to Jeff, he nodded with his head and Jeff continued with what he’d been saying previously. “My bets are on this one,” he tapped a building in the photo. They all looked exactly the same to me though. “I’ve got men going to the other ones, but we’ll head here.”

 

I wanted to punch something, it was building up inside me. Just as Cole opened his mouth, no doubt to say something else about fucking James Bond or to ask Jeff more irrelevant questions, my control snapped and my fist flew out.

 

It was pure luck that the punch followed through and didn’t stop after my fist hit Cole’s jaw. Well for me, not for Ren. I’d apologize to him for his black eye later though. How was I to know that he’d lean in to see the map at that moment. If he hadn’t, my fist would have followed through onto nothing.

 

I’ll admit, though, it did make me feel better when both of them went down.

 

Looking over at Jeff and Coleman, I saw the understanding on their faces. Whether it was for the frustration and riot of emotions that were going through me at the moment, or the fact that they also wanted to punch Cole, I didn’t know.

 

Glaring at me, Cole hissed as he walked past me to the car, “I could kill you with my thumb.”