Los Angeles
Late afternoon
Mia received an urgent call from Dan telling her that Mark Halloran had hit on something important in tracking the notorious and illusive crime boss, Mateo De La Cruz. Dan asked her to join the team on encrypted video conferencing from Faith’s laptop. Five minutes after Faith came to Mia’s hotel room, they had Mark and Mike D’Antoni communicating via computer.
“Thanks to Andy, we’ve triangulated a GPS signal for a phone that could be someone trusted in el jefe’s inner circle,” Mark said. “I’m almost at the location.”
Mia heard the sound of his vehicle in the background and the exhilaration of the chase in his voice.
Like the equipment that police cruisers used, every Phoenix operative had a laptop or a tablet loaded with vital software used for missions. Andy Moreil saw to it that the Phoenix Agency had state-of-the-art GPS tracking and cell tower triangulation software that Mia had seen in operation. Active blips on the screen would show their targets as well as each team member’s location in real time.
“Dan already has eyes on the subject. He’s tailing him in his vehicle now. I’ll join him to tag team our surveillance,” Mark said. “If we need back up, Mike, can you call in markers on short notice?”
“Consider it done. If it involves putting De La Cruz behind bars or in the ground, I won’t have a shortage of takers.”
“We need you in the air,” Mark said to D’Antoni. “Take Mia and Faith. We could use their mojo.”
“Roger that. I’ll have our backup meet me at the helo, locked and loaded.” When Mike glanced at Mia and Faith, he added, “We need you in mission gear. We have no idea what we’ll encounter once we’re airborne.”
Mia had learned to carry what the team called a ‘go bag’ of gear and have it ready at all times. With Mike D’Antoni flying the agency helicopter, it would give them an edge to mobilize fast. Mia only hoped these men were with Mateo, heading to wherever they were holding Valentine—and that he was still alive.
Before she left to change clothes and grab her gear, Mia asked D’Antoni for a special request.
“I’ll need a map of the search area. Don’t ask me how I know this, but if Mateo and his cartel are heading to Valentine, I think I can narrow down where he is.”
“Hot damn. You got it.”
“That’s my girl.” Faith grinned.
Mia had never been in a helicopter before. She hoped she wouldn’t lose her breakfast.
***
San Gabriel Mountains
Outside Altadena, California
Valentine heard the sound of boots in the distance. Chained to stone, he writhed in the dark to pull his manacled wrists free, but he had nowhere to go. He searched the darkness for flickers of light. None came. As the noise grew louder, he realized the men must have night vision gear to see in the tunnels.
A faint glow of NVG reflected off wet stone—the first light he had seen in days. The eerie green lurched through the caverns, rising and falling and flickering like an otherworldly fire. As the men drew nearer, Valentine raised a hand to shield his sensitive eyes.
Without a word, the men surrounded him. As one of them unlocked his shackles from the wall, Brax glanced down to the edge of the precipice where they’d chained him. If he had fallen over the cliff, he didn’t know if he would’ve had the strength to pull his body up from the deep chasm.
Hands pulled him to his feet and yanked him down a narrow stone path. He shoved at the men who had him in chains, but that only earned him a rifle butt to the ribs. Valentine doubled over in pain, but the men didn’t stop. When he stumbled and fell, a man kicked him in the stomach until he couldn’t breathe.
“You wanted to see Mateo?” The man stood over him with the sound of amusement in his voice. “Now you get your last wish. Get up, cabrón.”
Valentine clambered to his feet and staggered through the shadows, pulled by his raw and bloody wrists. When the dense shadows had edges of light and the stifling stale air smelled fresher, he knew they were taking him outside. He fought to regain his strength after days of confinement in a dank mineshaft, without food or fresh water.
These men were taking him to Mateo, the bastard who had ordered Raine killed and destroyed many lives. Valentine didn’t care what they did to him. He knew he would die in the San Gabriel Mountains—but before he took his last breath, he would take Mateo De La Cruz with him.
Revenge gave him a new will to fight back as he neared the entrance to the tunnel.
Valentine’s eyes watered as the men dragged him from the dark into the stark daylight. He squinted to block the late afternoon sun. More men surrounded him at the threshold to the tunnel, looking like blurry and ominous shadows.
Before his eyes adjusted, they had their hands on him. He writhed against their show of force as they wrapped a coil around his chest and thrust a metal cable through his manacles to secure his shackled wrists.
Mateo had taken the coward’s way out. He wouldn’t face him. His men would see to his advantage. Valentine tugged at his restraints, more from anger than any belief he could free his hands.
Like a deadly game of tug-of-war, Mateo’s men separated into two lines and hoisted him off the ground, using the leverage of the massive trees outside the deserted gold mine to lift his weight. When they had him off the ground and powerless, they attached bindings to his ankles, but before they spread his legs, someone came forward.
One man with black coals for eyes stepped toward him with a machete. The blade’s razor edge glinted in the sunset.
“Do not move, señor. No man wants to see his manhood mutilated before he dies.”
The man sliced off every stitch of his clothes and took pleasure in his humiliation as they hoisted him off the ground with his legs stretched apart. The coils constricting his chest were ready to be hooked to a car battery. Mateo would take his time torturing him.
The rabble on the ground tied off the cable and stared up at him as they passed a liquor bottle, waiting for their boss. They would drink to make his torture tolerable and to forget the gruesome way they would dispose of his body. The cartel had a reputation of extreme brutality.
Despite his obsession with Mateo, Valentine clenched his jaw as he memorized the face of the man who had cut off his clothes and taken the only thing he valued in this world.
The waste of skin had taken his wedding ring.