“Got something, boss.” My phone chirped twice and before it went to third, I had it up by my ear.
“Go,” I said to Tony. I glanced at the small digital clock with its dim backlight. 1:22 AM.
I forced myself to sleep. I knew I had to have the energy to keep going. I’d need everything my body could give me and more. Physically, mentally, emotionally.
As soon as Liam hit the small bed beside mine, he was snoring. Last time I checked the clock it was 10:15 PM. I could manage on two hours of sleep with no problems. Gotta thank the Navy for that.
“I was checking the highway cameras and the live feeds from interstate highway patrol cam’s and I think I’m on to something.” Tony didn’t sound tired. It must be those high-energy drinks. He probably hadn’t gone to sleep. I’d double his salary if we found Athena, but I’m keeping that to myself for now.
Rubbing my eyes with the back of my left hand, I muttered, “Alright…”
“Not many cars would be driving the I-10 at odd hours of the night, right? I mean, sure, there could be hundreds. Truckers, buses, mini Coopers. I should get myself a Mini,” Tony sounded off, he could talk for hours.
“Tony,” I said, trying to bring his focus back. “Where are they?”
“I think I got this right, boss. I mean, I hope I’m right because if not, jaayzus. I don’t want to be fired from my first legal job you know. Plus, you cover health insurance and even threw in dental. Where would I get that in the real world?” He droned on and there were times when control was an afterthought.
“Tony, where the fuck are they?” My voice got louder which made Liam jump out of his bed and yell, “Where the fuck is the fire?”
I shooed him and said to the phone, “How far are they?”
“If I’m right, boss. I’m saying 71.5 percent right. Ten percent can be deducted for poor camera lighting on the roads. Five percent could be –“
I stood up, grabbed the shirt hanging on the chair and said, “Where. Is. Athena?”
The seriousness in my tone had Liam turning on the lamp by his side.
“They’re about a hundred and twenty miles away, boss.” His voice held hope. And damn if that didn’t re-energize me.
“Are they stopped or moving?” The hundred twenty miles could become two hundred in the blink of an eye if they were still on the go.
Tony paused and then, “Hold on, boss. Gimme a few.”
I took my wallet from the table and tucked it inside my pants, grabbed my car keys and by the time we were out the door, Liam had even managed to brush his teeth. The advantage of working with trained soldiers.
The motel was already paid for so there was no need to visit the front desk.
I handed the keys to Liam when we neared my car.
Tony started talking as we pulled out of the motel. “They’re driving a grey Dodge Journey. From what I can see on the highway cams, there are two men, a driver and a passenger. I don’t see Athena though.”
“She’s in the trunk,” I said, no matter how hard I tried to clear my emotions, all I could see was Athena tied and drugged in the back of the car. “They have to hide her or she’ll raise suspicion if she was in the back seat all drugged out. Especially if they’d gone through toll roads.”
Liam spoke, “So are they parked? Or still moving?”
Tony answered, “They’re parked by a Holiday Inn Express. I’m sending you the address right now.”
I eyed the odometer, 78 mph. Liam was driving as fast as he could without being flagged by a highway patrol officer. Anything above that would trigger radar guns and we couldn’t afford to be stopped right now. Especially not since we have an advantage.
I patched the address that Tony sent on my phone to my car’s GPS.
“How long have they been there?” Liam voiced out, like me, he was trying to determine what the assholes had been up to.
“From the time they got on the 10, they’ve stopped twice. Once at Indio Boulevard and Jefferson and then a gas station near the Sacaton rest area. The men are both wearing caps so it’s hard to see their faces in the video feeds. I was able to zoom in on what’s inside the SUV though. It looked like they had McDonald’s and Burger King takeout,” Tony supplied the information. He was really good. There was no way we could glean on this intel without a guy like him. In the warzone, you’re confined to a concentrated area. You know what lines to cross and boundaries to avoid. Out here in the civilian world, everywhere was a mine of information. It was great, but it could also be a hindrance. The men who had Athena got the advantage because like us, they had the technology and the cameras to track everything that she was doing. There wasn’t really a space safe from technology anymore.
“Did they check into the hotel?” I asked, because maybe Athena wasn’t in the car anymore. Maybe she was inside a hotel room.
“One man did. But the other man stayed behind,” Tony responded.
Liam said, “The driver’s resting up for the next 2000 miles.”
Exactly.
“Hey boss, I gotta go drain the dragon and is it cool if I catch up on a snooze for a few hours?” Tony’s query made Liam snort loudly.
I said, with a laugh, “Yeah, go ahead, Tony. We’ll call you if we need anything else.”
“Okay boss.” He agreed, and said, “Goodnight and good morning.”
“Thanks for doing a great job, Tony.” My praise wasn’t empty. It was filled with respect for the man who spent almost twenty hours looking for leads. Tony was an integral asset to my team. “We couldn’t do this without you.”
Liam countered, “We could…but it would take five times longer.”
“Aight, no problem, big guys. Holler at me if you need me. I’ll leave my phone at its loudest vibrating volume so I’ll wake up ASAP,” Tony replied before letting out a big yawn.
“Bye,” I said and watched the well-lit roads that we were traversing. With our current speed, we’d reach Athena in under an hour and thirty minutes.
Ninety minutes Athena. Wait for me, lovely. I’m coming to get you.
“What the fuck is a loud vibrating volume?” Liam uttered.
“What?” I turned my head to the left, wondering what Liam was talking about.
“Tony. He said his phone is set to a loud vibrating volume.” Bewilderment was present in his voice.
“I dunno.” I shrugged, “It probably exists. Only Tony can make his phone vibrate loudly.”
Liam laughed, “Yeah yeah. He could.”
“He’s a good kid,” I said, stretching my legs in the space in front of me. I heard my knee pop into place. Sometimes I forgot the injuries I’d sustained. Then there were times like these – times when I was stuck in a car for a long time or if I didn’t move a particular way, my body reminded me of how messed up it was.
Liam agreed, “He’s done a lot in such a short time. He’s gotten us this far. Don’t let him go, bro.”
“Yeah, hopefully he’ll stay on with me. He might leave if a bigger fish asks him though,” I said, knowing fully well that without Tony, I’d be grasping at weak links right now. I knew all the ins and outs of security and protection, but I didn’t know computer codes and tech security like Tony did.
“He won’t leave you.” Liam shook his head. “He thinks you’re the younger version of Jethro Gibbs and he’s the real live version of Dinozzo. Just on those grounds, he won’t look for another boss.”
I chuckled because as outrageous as it sounded, Liam was right. Tony often mentioned that he liked working for me because it made him feel special, that we had chemistry that those characters in NCIS had. While I didn’t believe it one bit, if it was the reason that Tony stayed with my budding company, then so be it. I paid him good, but there wasn’t a lick of doubt that he could get three times the amount I’m paying him at a private tech firm. But then again, no one would hire him on the spot because of his previous red marks against the law. His hacking skills were legendary. And as revered as he was in the hacking world, it was also what made him blacklisted in the eyes of employers. No one wanted a rogue hacker on their payroll. It would create a huge liability for the company.
“I’m just glad he’s on our side,” I admitted, as Liam turned the flashers on a slow-moving car. The car moved to the right to let us pass and even at night, I saw the huge sign that signaled that we were entering New Mexico territory.
“Yeah,” Liam said, maneuvering the car to the left as we passed a big rig. The roads never slept. At this hour of the night, you’d think that there would be less people driving. But there were still lots of cars on the road keeping us company.
“It’s good to have you here,” I said, while I pressed the button to lower the passenger window.
“Aww bud. You need a man hug or something?” Liam’s chuckles snapped me out of the sudden appearance of my appreciative mood.
I stretched my left arm and smacked him on his head. “No. I’m just saying –“
“Can I get fries with that too?” Liam asked.
“The fuck?” I shook my head. Unbelievable. Here I was, trying to give him some positive feedback.
“If you’re handing out some sugar, I’d want it with fries. Throw in some ketchup and ranch dressing as a bonus.” Now he was laying it on thick.
I tsked and said, “Absorb this one-time praise ‘cause it ain’t happening again.”
“Oh, ain’t it?” Liam teased, he was a jackass but he was a true brother. “Well, I better up my game then so I can get more of this lovey-dovey shit from you.”
“You’re messed up.” I laughed. Liam was Liam. We could be stuck in the lonely hot-as-fuck Afghan deserts or cold-as-shit Siberia, and he’d still try to find the humor in our situation. He hadn’t said anything remotely close to funny since Athena had been kidnapped. But now that we got a decent lead, he was starting to show his funny side again. It was how I knew that he truly cared for her.
“What do you wanna do to them?” His serious voice appeared when he brought them up. Them being the men who had Athena.
“Nothing short of what they deserve.” My reply was brusque but held candor. “I want to make them suffer.”
“I know how much you want to hurt them since they took her from you. But brother, justice isn’t for you to serve,” Liam warned, his right hand steady on the wheel as he overtook a FedEx freight truck which was getting out of its own lane.
He was acknowledging that they deserved the pain I wanted to rein on them, but he was wrong.
“They fucked with her, justice was long gone with they touched her. She had nothing to do with this. Nothing,” I said, not withholding the pain and anger that I felt. They could have sent another email, another threat to Joseph, but no, they went ahead and messed with Athena.
Justice would be served when their faces met my fists.
Liam nodded his head, “I understand. Trust me, I do. I just don’t want to see you behind bars for something stupid.”
Stupid?
Stupid was what those men did to Athena. They couldn’t get it through their thick skulls that when they messed with her, they were signing their own death warrants.
Out of respect for the man who had put his own life on the line for mine, I queried, “What would you do? If it was your woman that they hurt? That they drugged. That they took. What would be the first thing that you’d do when you finally got your hands on them?”
He didn’t answer for a few beats, the silence in the car hung thick in the air.
I’d thought about it. Rationalized it in my head when I couldn’t sleep a few hours ago. I’d brainstormed it many times, the pros and the cons.
In all the years I fought as a SEAL, I’d taken responsibility for my actions and the actions of my teammates. I’d served with honor on and off the battlefield. These codes were engrained in me, as a warrior, as a leader, and as a teammate.
But no matter what angle I looked at it from – there was no way that I would leave those men functioning or even breathing after they took Athena. The image of her being drugged and dragged to the van by Sven and his associate, the thought of her feeling helpless and scared, and just the absence of her laughter and touch made me that much more determined to not follow the rules.
I’d been indoctrinated to obey my superiors and lead by examples in all situations.
But there was one factor that was missing in all my SEAL missions– emotions.
I didn’t love the people I swore to protect.
I did it for my country and the safety of the greater good.
But right now, I’m doing it for me.
For the woman I swore to keep safe.
The woman who taught me how to love once again even when I thought it wasn’t in the cards for me anymore.
Liam mumbled, took a deep breath, and spoke, “I would do the same thing that you would do.”
Out there in the field, we trained for war and we fought to win. We upheld our mission to preserve the security of our country.
Out here in the real world, not everything was black and white. Sometimes you had to cross the line to ensure that your loved ones would never feel unsafe again.
I’d made peace with it.
Athena would never be unsafe again.
I’d fought battles that weren’t my own. I had bled for the sovereignty of our flag.
This time, I was fighting my own battle.
For the woman I loved, I would bleed until the last breath left my lungs.
For her, I’d give my life so she could have the life she deserved.
“There’s no going back for me, Liam. Athena’s it for me. If you don’t want to be a part of this, I understand. I won’t hold a grudge. But the minute I have my hands on them, I’m not going to be an honorable man,” I said, my resolve complete.
Liam flexed his neck and said, “All in bro.”
All in.
Honor was in my blood, but my love for her diluted it.
She trumped everything else in my world.
I could live without honor.
But I couldn’t live…
Without her.