Chapter 20

 

It was late in the evening by the time the helicopter had flown the entire search party back to the resort—empty-handed. Each of the teams went their separate ways, to clean up before meeting in the ballroom, to refuel and debrief. Ryan was well aware of the sombre yet determined mood of his team, and he wasn’t looking forward to adding to their problems with his latest humiliation.

“Aren’t you eating?” Elle said as she smacked a palm to his forehead. “Are you ill? I don’t feel a fever.”

Ryan brushed her hand away. “Not hungry.”

Her jaw fell and she gaped at him. “When are you ever not hungry? You’re always eating. Always.” Her eyes narrowed. “What have you done?”

There was no point in denying it. “You’ll find out same time as everyone else.”

“Oh, Ryan,” Elle said.

She patted his shoulder before pulling her seat closer to him at their makeshift meeting table. He knew, even as she tucked into her meal, that she was planning on jumping to his defence—no matter how dumb his screw-up had been. That knowledge made his stomach clench even tighter. He had good friends. A good team at his back. And he’d screwed it up. Again.

Slowly, one by one, the seats around the table filled. Each member of the team stopped at the warm buffet set up in the corner and came to the table ready to eat. Every single one of them frowned in Ryan’s direction, clearly perplexed by the empty spot in front of him.

“Okay,” Lake said as he sat at the head of the table. “Dimitri, Harvard, tell everybody what you found.”

Dimitri reached into his pocket and pulled out a torn piece of material which he lobbed onto the table. “We found that in a small clearing, stuck in the knot of a liana. The knot was tied tight around it. It looked like someone had used an old sheet to rig up a hammock.”

“It could have been anyone, at any time,” Megan said.

Dimitri shook his head. “We scoured the area. Two sets of footprints. One set made by men’s dress shoes, and nobody wears dress shoes into the jungle. The other set were sneakers, but the person wearing them was at least half the weight of the dress shoe wearer. The prints from the sneakers were uneven, as though they didn’t quite fit the person wearing them.”

“Also,” Harvard said as he pushed his plate away and clasped his hands on the table in front of him, “the tracks were fresh. Not long after we found them, the rain started and they were wiped out. It was definitely Belinda and Beast. They made camp there for the night but were long gone by the time we found it.”

“We do know which direction they were heading,” Dimitri said with a grimace. “It’s just like Ryan said—they’re heading straight for the mining operation.”

Elle stilled with her fork halfway to her mouth. “Oh, that isn’t good. I was going to show you this after we debriefed, but I think you should see it now.” She opened the laptop that was sitting on the table beside her and tapped the keyboard, and an image appeared on the conference wall. “Those are the latest satellite images. There’s been a lot of activity at the mining site. It looks like they’re amassing people.”

Lake ran a hand down his face—the first sign of agitation Ryan had ever seen the man make. “Rodrigo, what’s your take on this?”

De la Cruz studied the images on the wall. “Helluva coincidence?” He looked back at the team. “I would say the cartel either know Beast and Belinda are heading straight for them, or they’re gathering a hunting party.”

Lake turned to Dimitri. “You only found two sets of prints at the camp, right?”

Dimitri nodded. “Yeah, but that doesn’t mean the cartel didn’t stumble on more evidence Beast and Belinda left behind somewhere else.”

“I don’t get it,” Megan said. “Why chase their escapees? Why not cut their losses and get out of there?”

Violet answered, “Reputation. It’s a powerful thing. The Martinez gang are building theirs, and they can’t let anyone think they’re weak. Losing their kidnap victims would undermine their reputation. They need to get Belinda and Beast back, and they need to make an example of them.”

Megan’s eyes went wide, and she turned to her husband. “That doesn’t sound good. It means Beast and Belinda are going to suffer, right?”

“No, it doesn’t.” Dimitri didn’t sound in the least doubtful. “Because we’ll find them first.”

“You are totally getting lucky after this meeting,” Megan said with a beaming smile.

There were groans around the table. Dimitri only had to breathe to get lucky—this announcement was nothing new.

The doors to the ballroom slammed open and Belinda’s parents rushed in, followed by Lake’s wife Kirsty. The former lingerie model signalled frantically that she’d tried to stop them. Lake gave her one of his rare smiles before turning to the Hollywood power couple.

“Mr and Mrs Collins, how can I help you?”

“You can help us by stepping aside and bringing in the Peruvian police.” Belinda’s father’s face was ruddy and his fists were clenched. “We need the authorities. We need the people who know what they’re doing. The Peruvian police, the FBI. We need to contact the US and UK embassies.” He took a step towards Lake, having to angle his head to look up at the ex-SAS specialist. “You’ve had long enough. This isn’t working. We need the full weight of our governments behind this. We need the experts on the ground.” He looked around at all of them, clearly furious and desperate, a disturbing combination that made everyone squirm in their seats. “This isn’t a game. It isn’t like the other jobs you do. This is serious. This is my daughter.” His voice broke and his weeping wife rushed to put her arms around him.

Kirsty looked like she was going to start crying right along with Libby Collins, and she inched to Lake’s side, looking for comfort. He stroked his hand down her back and gave her a look that held a wealth of private communication. Ryan’s chest clenched as he watched them, and his thoughts went to Esperanza. As soon as they did, he felt sick all over again.

“Mr Collins, Mrs Collins,” Lake said with compassion, “we’re the people governments call in to deal with situations like this.”

“You can’t be the only people in the world who know what to do when someone’s kidnapped,” Stephen Collins barked. “I will not let my daughter’s life rest in the hands of a company who is more concerned about its reputation than about getting the job done. This is about you thinking you’re the best. You wanting to prove you’re the best. I won’t play those games. I want my daughter back. I don’t care who’s best to achieve that. I want everyone who’s available here to help. And I want it now. Do you hear me? No more messing around. None.”

Lake opened his mouth to answer, but Rachel put a hand on his arm and stepped in front of him, facing the Collinses.

“You know who I am. We’ve known each other for years,” she said in that cool, clipped voice of hers.

“Yes. Tell me why I should trust a businesswoman and ‘trust fund baby’ with my daughter’s rescue?” The words were vicious, but Rachel didn’t even flinch.

She folded her arms over her suit jacket. “You shouldn’t. You shouldn’t even trust me to know who the best people are to rescue Belinda. I’m biased. I own a quarter of this company and I am not a security expert.”

“Exactly!” Stephen Collins looked a little confused that she agreed with him.

“You do believe I’d tell you the truth, though, do we agree on that?” Rachel said.

He nodded slowly, as though he suspected she was leading him into a trap—proving that he did indeed know Rachel.

“Wonderful.” Rachel nodded. “Then listen carefully, because I’m going to give you the brutal truth. I’ve been working as the team’s liaison with local law enforcement, and you absolutely cannot trust them. We captured two of the kidnappers when we raided their camp yesterday. The local chief of police insisted on taking them into custody and taking over the rescue—before we could interrogate the men. Since then, there has been no information obtained from those men. In fact, by the time the men arrived at the police station, their lawyers were already waiting for them.” She took a step towards them. “Think about that for a second. The criminals didn’t have time to call their representation. Which raises the question—who did? Not only that, but who knew which lawyers to call? Because these weren’t any old lawyers, appointed by the court or picked out of the yellow pages—these were the lawyers kept on retainer by the Martinez cartel.”

The blood drained from Stephen’s face.

“On top of that, while Benson Security were out today scouring the jungle for Belinda and Beast, I sat in the local police chief’s office and listened to him explain why the official rescue would take another couple of days to organise.”

Noah and Callum moved a couple of chairs behind Belinda’s parents who sat down, shaking as they did so.

“It’s up to you how you go forward with Belinda’s rescue,” Rachel said. “You should know that Beast, as silly as his name is, is one of ours, and we will still search for him and bring him home, regardless of what you choose to do about Belinda’s rescue. We will do this even though the police have told us not to, and we won’t stop until we have the result we want. Now, what do you want to do?”

“I’m in love,” Harvard muttered, drawing Ryan’s attention. The American was looking at Rachel as though she was the second coming.

“Dude, you need help,” Ryan whispered to him. “I’m sure we can get you some medication that will sort you right out.”

Elle elbowed Ryan in the side as Harvard ignored him and continued to drool over Rachel.

“What about calling our embassies?” Stephen’s bluster had gone, and he simply looked devastated. “Surely we should do that much, at least.”

“If we call the embassies,” Rachel said, “this will turn into a diplomatic nightmare. The British, American, and Peruvian governments will waste time trying to figure out how to work together. Time that we can’t afford to waste.”

The couple looked at each other, their eyes red. “Okay,” Stephen said. “We do it your way.”

“Sir.” Dimitri stood and walked over to the couple. “I know what you’re going through.” He held up a hand when Stephen started to protest. “My sister was kidnapped and held for a year. I quit the Army to find her, and exhausted all of my resources doing it. When I crossed paths with Lake and his team, they should have sent me packing, but instead they offered to help.” He folded his arms tight, and Megan stepped up behind him. She wrapped her arms around his waist and laid her forehead between his shoulder blades. Dimitri cleared his throat. “A few weeks later, we found her. We brought her home and now she’s building a new life. If it wasn’t for this team, she would have been lost to me forever.” He looked around. “In this room, you have an Army ranger, a marine, two SAS specialists, a decorated army soldier, a CIA operative, police officers from two countries, one of the best computer hackers in the world, an expert on the Peruvian jungle and the cartels, and whatever the hell Rachel is.”

Rachel arched an eyebrow. “You’d better hope you never find out, Dimitri.”

Dimitri flashed her a smile before turning back to Belinda’s parents. “Do you really think the local police would be better equipped to bring Belinda home?”

Stephen looked older by the minute. “What do you need us to do?”

“I need you to do the hardest job of all,” Lake said. “I need you to wait.”

Stephen nodded, wrapped an arm tightly around his wife and stood, pulling her up with him. “We’ll be in our room.”

Everyone silently watched as they left the ballroom.

“I hate seeing them like that,” Elle said.

“The best thing we can do for them is our job,” Lake said. “And do it well.”

Ryan took a deep breath. “On that note, I need to tell you that I’ve screwed up.”

All eyes swung to him.

“Explain,” Lake said. He was back to being the predator everyone in the room knew him to be.

There was no hiding the mess Ryan had made. All he could do now was lay it all out for them and take the consequences. “The night Belinda and Beast were taken, I spent the evening in my room with one of the waitresses. I left her there when we went to search the rainforest. While I was gone, she cleaned me out. Took everything in my safe, including my backup weapon and passport.”

Callum exploded. “Weren’t you listening when I gave you the talk on the importance of never thinking with your dick?”

There was nothing Ryan could say to that, so he stayed silent.

“There’s more,” Rachel said. “Isn’t there, Ryan? I think it’s best if we hear it all.”

Like he was planning to keep anything back. He wasn’t that dumb. At least, he’d thought he wasn’t. This situation might be the one that proved him wrong. “I asked around. No one knew who I was talking about. She wasn’t hotel staff.”

The air in the room became thick.

“You telling me someone got past our security?” Callum’s face had gone heart-attack red, which wasn’t a good sign.

“Yeah,” Ryan said. “She waitressed all night. Collected tips, too. Chatted with the other staff. They all thought she was one of them, but management has no record of her.” He ran a hand over his hair. “I think she was here to earn money. I don’t think she was targeting us, or working for the Martinez cartel, but I can’t know for sure. When I went over what was missing from my room, along with Dimitri, he noticed she took the sort of things someone would want if they were on the run. She left a note.” He dug into his jeans pocket and tossed the note onto the table in front of Callum, who swiped it up. “She said she didn’t have any choice but to rob me and that she would pay me back.”

Callum glared at him. “We don’t have time to deal with how much you’ve screwed up here, son. That will come when we get back to London. It’s time you stopped thinking about your stomach and your dick and grew the hell up. You’ve risked your team and this whole operation. This affects your future with the company. You have to know that.”

Ryan hung his head for a second before looking Callum in the eye. His boss wasn’t telling him anything he didn’t already know.

“Elle,” Callum said, “you know what to do.”

Elle nodded as she flashed Ryan a sympathetic smile. “I’ll dig up everything I can on her. The hotel must have security footage with her in it. I’ll get our facial-recognition software working on her. I doubt we’ll find anything, but I can tap into local law enforcement to see if her details bring anything up on their databases.”

“Don’t get caught,” Lake said.

“I never get caught,” Elle said with an offended sniff.

Lake nodded. “In the meantime, if Dimitri is right and Belinda and Beast are heading straight for the gathering force at the gold mine, then we’ll need to head them off before they walk into an ambush.”

“Which means back into the jungle at the crack of dawn,” Megan said.

Lake smiled at her. “Rodrigo, Callum, and I will go over the map together and formulate a plan. We meet here at oh five hundred. Get some sleep.”

He turned from the team to talk to Callum, and Ryan’s shoulders slumped.

“It’s going to be okay,” Elle said as she squeezed his hand.

“Sure it is,” Ryan said. “Let me know if you find anything on Esperanza.” Then he turned and walked away, making sure he didn’t catch anyone’s eye as he did it.