“Two hours?” Bones’ voice rose an octave. “Why the hell are we just finding out about this now?”
“This isn’t your first rodeo, so you should know the answer to that,” Rafe reminded the other man. “First, we exhaust all capabilities to make contact, then we verify with every source we can that there is, in fact, a hostage situation. Once we have a location, we can start planning.”
“This is different, Boss.” Bones shook his head. “Falcon’s one of us.”
“I’m aware.” The back of Rafe’s teeth ground together. “I’m also aware of the fact that just because Falcon’s watch and phone are pinging from one location, that doesn’t necessarily mean he’s there, too. You know how this works, Bones. The minute we start assuming things, shit goes sideways.”
Rafe may be former British Intelligence, but he wasn’t a heartless bastard. During his twenty years as MI6, he’d lost more friends and co-workers to the job than he cared to remember. Those ghosts still kept him up at night, so the last thing he wanted was to lose a member of Tac-Ops, too.
It wasbecauseFalcon was one of them that they had to do things the right way…in the right order.
“You try calling his brother?” Digger—A.K.A. Slade Garrison—chimed in. “Last time I talked to Falcon, he said he was taking a trip with Colt.”
As usual, the former SEAL’s dark gray eyes held little emotion. The man held things close to the vest and could compartmentalize like a motherfucker.
One of the many reasons Rafe had chosen him to lead Tac-Ops One.
“I spoke with Falcon’s brother less than an hour ago,” Rafe answered Digger’s question. “The cruise ship they were on docked at Amber Cove early this morning, and Falcon left shortly after to go on a pre-paid excursion.”
“What kind of excursion?”
“All-day river hike and dune buggy ride through the province’s countryside.”
“Why didn’t Falcon’s brother go, too? Doesn’t make sense that our boy would go on something like that alone.”
Something Rafe had wondered, too, when he’d first heard the news that one of his men was missing.
“According to Coulter Morgan, he’d come down with a bad case of sea sickness the night before. He opted to stay aboard the cruise ship to rest while Falcon and a woman named Avery Webb went on the river and dune buggy trip together.”
“Avery Webb?” Bones looked to the others and then back to him for the answer. “Who the hell is Avery Webb?”
“A woman Falcon and his brother met on the ship the first day. From what Coulter shared, the three of them hit it off from the start, but the Webb woman and Falcon had become quite…close.
Normally, this is where Bones or one of the others would make some crude, smart ass comment about their teammate and the woman. But no one, not even Bones, was in a joking mood.
“Falcon hooks up with some strange woman and now he’s missing?” Digger’s expression was unreadable. “Do we think she’s involved?”
With their line of work, enemies looking for revenge was always a possibility. But in this particular instance, Rafe didn’t believe that was the case.
“Shadow ran a preliminary background on Miss Webb.” He went on with what he knew. “She’s a financial and accounting software designer who also happens to live here, in Charlotte. From what Shadow told me, the Webb woman is clean. As in squeaky. She’s single, lives alone, is successful at what she does… And there’s not so much as a parking ticket on her record.”
“What else do we know?” Bones sounded anxious. Unlike Digger, the man’s brown eyes gave away damn near every emotion he felt the second he felt it.
And right now, he was itching to get the hell out of here and go after their man.
“I was already putting together a plan to locate and extract when Shadow phoned me again,” Rafe answered the other man. “Forty minutes after she got Falcon’s alert, authorities within the San Francisco area were made aware of a ransom demand made by unknown individuals to one of the cruise passenger’s sisters.”
“Ah, shit.” Bones fell back into his chair. “Let me guess. They were on the same excursion as Falcon.”
Rafe’s nod was his answer. “The hostage takers demanded one million dollars be transferred to an offshore account in the Cayman’s. They left account numbers with instructions not to involve the authorities, but the sister was so distraught, she called nine-one-one as soon as the HTs ended the call.”
“Wait,” Bones spoke up again. “So, it’s not just Falcon and another passenger who’s missing, but theentireexcursion group?”
“Plus, their two guides. That’s correct.”
There were several low curses.
“When I spoke to Falcon’s brother, he told me he’d received a ransom demand, as well. Shadow confirmed the same type of call was made to a family member of each of the other missing passengers. Each time the caller demanded a million-dollar transfer.”