Targeted

Chapter 11

PHOTINT: photographic intelligence, usually involving high-altitude reconnaissance using satellites. Also called IMINT.

Hannah could hear the distant sound of male voices and another, more insistent tapping sound much closer. She kept her eyes shut. She was afraid of what she might see when she opened them. Visions of wrestling with a man, then being knocked out with some sort of drug tickled her memory. It wasn’t a dream, that much she was sure of.

“Are you awake?” a soft female voice asked.

Hannah cracked open her eyes at the question. A pretty blond woman wearing jeans and a plain black T-shirt sat huddled against a wall. Her knees were pulled up to her chest, and her arms were wrapped around them. The blonde looked as though she was barely out of college. Glancing around, Hannah realized they were in a matchbox-sized concrete room with one bed and one toilet. And she was stretched out on the uncomfortable mattress.

Pushing up, she tried to ignore the pain splintering through her skull. “Where are we?” Her voice was raspy and unused, making her wonder how long she’d been unconscious.

The blonde shrugged, but the action was a little jerky. “I don’t know. Cuba maybe. They just brought me here a couple days ago and one of the guards told me we’re moving again very soon. He said I’d be seeing my family, so I think we’re going to Miami.”

“Moving? They? What’s going on?” Hannah gingerly touched the back of her head. A small bump had formed on the bottom side of her skull. She moved her jaw back and forth, not surprised her face was sore.

“The men holding us work for Miguel Vargas. He was here earlier, but you were still unconscious.”

“Who’s Miguel Vargas?”

The girl frowned at her. “He runs one of the biggest South American drug cartels. You don’t know who he is?”

“Oh . . . maybe.” She couldn’t remember if Sophie had said anything about that on the phone. Her head was still fuzzy. Stretching out her arms in front of her, she looked at herself, then down at her clothes. Dirt stained her white T-shirt and jeans, but she didn’t think she’d been hurt anywhere else.

“What’s your name?” the girl asked.

She stopped her assessment. “Hannah. What’s yours?”

“I’m Holly. Do you know why you’re here?” Her voice slightly trembled.

Hannah shook her head. “Not really. The last thing I remember, my best friend called and told me to pack a bag and hide somewhere for a few days. She said someone was after her and . . .” She trailed off as she realized that anyone could be listening to them. The more she came awake, the worse off she knew she was. This was a bad situation. The other girl had said they might be in Cuba? Holy hell. Bad, bad, bad.

“Who’s your friend?” Holly asked before Hannah could speak.

She contemplated not answering for a second, but this girl was a captive too. And even if she was faking it for some reason, Hannah had no reason to lie. “Her name is Sophie.”

Holly’s forehead crinkled. “Sophie . . . Sophie Moreno?”

Hannah couldn’t hide her surprise. “Yeah, you know her?”

“She works for my dad. I’ve known her for years. How is she involved in this?”

Hannah shrugged. “I don’t even know what ‘this’ is. Why is some drug lord holding you hostage?”

“It has something to do with my dad’s company. I tried to ask one of his men once, but—”

The sound of heated male voices drifted through the steel door of their room. “Who is that?” Hannah whispered.

There was a spark of fear in Holly’s eyes as she held a finger to her mouth. “Shh. Roll over and close your eyes. I’ll tell them you’re still sleeping.”

Without pause, Hannah did as she asked. She tried to keep her breathing normal when she heard the door creak open. A man said something in Spanish, but she couldn’t understand him. Holly answered, and then another man spoke, but his voice was much softer. Nicer. They continued talking. Hannah could pick out some words, but bonita was the only one she understood.

There was some shuffling around behind her. Hannah prepared to be shaken awake—or worse—but nothing happened. The door shut and after a few minutes Holly spoke.

“You can turn over now,” she whispered.

She cringed as the mattress creaked. “What happened?”

Holly held out a handful of celebrity Spanish magazines and a faded paperback. “They wanted to know if you’d woken up and they left these.”

“Have they . . . hurt you?” Hannah hoped the girl understood what she meant.

For a moment, her blue eyes darkened, but she shook her head. “No, thankfully. One of the men tried to rape me when I was first taken, but the guy who brought these in stopped him.” She held up the magazines.

“Have you tried to escape?”

The other girl shook her head and wrapped her arms around herself again. “No way. They all have guns and I don’t even know what country we’re in now. Before they brought me here, they actually let me out of my room a few times, but I was in the middle of the rain forest. I wouldn’t have known where to run anyway. Everyone around here is really scary.” Her voice cracked on the last word.

“You said you think we’re in Cuba?” Hannah stood on shaky legs and stretched her arms above her head. Her body was sore, but at least she could move.

“Yeah. I heard one of the guards talking.”

Hannah had started to ask another question when the door flew open. A man with a scar down the left side of his face looked back and forth between them. He nodded once at her, then said something she didn’t understand.

“He wants you to go with him. He said they have questions for you.” Holly’s voice shook as she translated, and a fresh wave of terror swept over Hannah.

Just because these men hadn’t harmed Holly didn’t mean they wouldn’t hurt Hannah.

• • •

His heart pounded wildly in his chest as his fingers flew across the keyboard, entering commands at record speed. Hurry, hurry, he ordered himself, even as he tried to will his heart rate to calm down.

But that was impossible. Nothing could soothe his frayed nerves at this point. He’d hacked in through a back door he’d left during a mission that had ended over a month ago. Luckily no one had discovered it. Of course, he’d hidden it extremely well. And it couldn’t be traced back to him. Unfortunately if anyone found him in this control room, he’d be in a shitload of trouble. Which would mean questions and detainment and inevitably his arrest if they dug deep enough. And they would.

A dark part of him loved the thrill of going behind everyone’s back at work. They would call him a traitor once his sins were discovered—as he knew they eventually would be, but after he’d left the country—but he didn’t care. He was smarter than all of them. At first he’d started selling secrets to pay off gambling debts. There had just been so many and he’d been out of control. So he’d had to find a way to pay them or be killed. The answer was simple. He had access to information people would pay good money for. And why shouldn’t he cash in?

After he’d paid off his debts, he hadn’t stopped. The money, the rush, it was too good. Too intense. He was so addicted to the thrill of making more money. Six figures a year wasn’t enough. Some days he wondered if anything would ever be enough. He simply couldn’t stop now anyway—even if he’d wanted to. He was in far too deep with very dangerous people. Miguel Vargas would never let him walk away until he was done with this job. But then he was out. Of course he didn’t plan to stop working. He had a valuable set of skills, namely hacking, and he planned to use them any way he could.

As the screen he’d been waiting for popped up, an alert dinged that he’d found something. Before leaving work last night, he’d entered Sophie Moreno’s picture into his secret program. The NSA hijacked CCTVs all over the country for their own use, so he’d simply piggybacked onto one of their programs and put in his own parameters.

And now it looked as if he might have gotten what he needed. A few clicks later and his breath caught in his throat. A CCTV from a gas station less than an hour from Miami had captured her face clear as day. Thankfully the system was wireless and had an online backup, which was easy enough for him to hack in to. It was set on a forty-eight-hour loop, though, but it looked as if she’d just left. Holy shit, he could locate her if he got lucky. He forwarded through the video until he spotted her getting into a car.

From the angle he couldn’t see the license plate, so he pulled up a map of the direct area and found a bank a block down. After hacking in to their system, he smiled to himself as the car she was in drove by less than a minute after she’d left the gas station. He couldn’t see in the vehicle because the windows were tinted, but he got a clear shot of the license plate from one of the three cameras.

Now that he had what he needed, he quickly shut the program down. All he had to do was enter the license plate number into another database. And this one, he could track from his cell phone. Once he got a hit, it would alert him immediately. Then he could bring something directly to Vargas. Something that would get the man off his back.

It wasn’t as if he gave a shit what happened to the Moreno woman, and Vargas was just going to kill her anyway. No torture would be involved. Just a quick, clean kill.

• • •

Jack glanced in the rearview mirror and frowned when the white SUV he’d first noticed about ten blocks earlier switched lanes after he did.

Again.

He and Sophie had made it to Miami without any trouble, but he was edgy and ready to ditch this car. They’d had it too long, which increased their odds of being tracked down. And Sophie’s friend Hannah still hadn’t left a message. Sophie had asked about it a few times and he hated that his answer was always no. The worry and fear on her face tore him up inside. But he shelved those feelings as he smoothly switched lanes. They were leaving the business district and about to enter a sketchy part of town.

The SUV had stayed almost exactly two car lengths back. It kept its distance but didn’t stray too far. The driving seemed precise and somewhat trained. Could be nothing. Or it could be a tail.

He was about to find out.

As they neared the upcoming intersection, the light turned yellow, so he gunned it. Normally on an op—and especially since he had Sophie with him—he tried not to break simple traffic laws and draw any unnecessary attention to himself. But he wasn’t going to drive around in circles trying to figure out if they were being followed.

Either the SUV would follow and give the occupants away, or Jack was just being paranoid. As he tore through the intersection, the car directly behind him slowed and stopped at the light. But the SUV honked, swerved, and plowed through the line of cars. He cursed under his breath.

Sophie glanced over her shoulder and sucked in a breath. “We’re being followed.”

“Yep. We’re going to have to ditch this car and run on foot. We’ll be fine,” he said to reassure her even though she seemed calm.

“Okay.” She picked up her wallet from the center console and tucked it into the back pocket of her stolen jeans. “Should I have a gun or something?”

He didn’t like the thought of her actually needing one, but he still had an extra weapon. And if something happened to him, she needed to be able to protect herself. “Once we’re out of the car I’ll give you one. And if something happens to me, call Wesley. His number is the only one programmed into the burner phones.” Jack wasn’t supposed to call him, but if he went down, Sophie had to have someone to turn to and there was no way the local cops could do shit to protect her. Not without knowing all the facts.

Taking a hard right turn, he swerved around the car in front of them, cutting the person off. A loud horn blasted.

“What if we don’t lose whoever that is?” Sophie asked quietly.

“We will.” He’d taken enough defensive driving courses over the last decade to be secure in his abilities, but the fact was that this was Miami, his original home. He knew the layout better than anywhere else in the world. He might not lose their tail permanently, but he could ditch it long enough to head out on foot with Sophie.

The farther they drove into the heart of Miami, he made a decision. “You’re familiar with Bayside Marketplace?”

“Of course.” The tension humming through Sophie was almost visible as she remained turned around, watching their pursuer.

They weren’t outwardly attacking, but it was the middle of the day and getting into a gun battle on a crowded Miami street was just plain stupid. Whoever was after them would want to get them alone. Which was why Jack planned to make sure that didn’t happen. “I don’t know for sure who these guys are, but I’m guessing they don’t know this city like we do.” Unless Vargas had hired locals, but that was something Jack would have to deal with if the man had.

He took another sharp turn, tearing through a yellow light. His adrenaline pumped at rapid speeds, but he kept a controlled grip on the wheel. “I’m going to park right on Port Boulevard. We’re going to ditch the car in the middle of traffic, then make a run for it. You on board?”

She nodded, her expression tense.

“You’re sure?”

She rolled her eyes. “Yes. Would you rather I question your decisions while someone is chasing us? You’re the pro here and I don’t want to get killed. So yes, I’m sure I’d rather disappear into a crowd than keep driving around in circles.”

He bit back a smile at that spark of attitude. She’d been worried all morning about her friend, and he couldn’t blame her. But she was still keeping it together. She’d been like that when they were younger too, always compartmentalizing things. Most foster kids who survived the shitty system were like that.

The faster he wove in and out of traffic, the faster the SUV kept pace. And the driver was getting more dangerous. Jack cringed as he glanced in the rearview mirror and saw a homeless man pushing a shopping cart jump back onto the sidewalk to avoid getting hit by the SUV.

“We’re almost there.” Jack knew she’d be aware of that, but the countdown was on. In less than thirty seconds, they’d be exposing themselves for precious seconds before they disappeared into the crowd. And that was if they could.

As he pulled on to Port Boulevard, his heart rate increased with each second that passed. Swerving to the left around a motorcycle, he jerked the car back into the right lane and sped up. The brake lights in the car in front of him lit up, so Jack pressed down on theirs. Sophie yelped as the vehicle shuddered to a stop. One hand was wrapped around the handle as she unsnapped her seat belt with the other.

He grabbed his backpack as she opened her door and slung it on. Risking a glance behind them, he saw the SUV was about three car lengths behind them. Not far enough away.

The front door and passenger door opened, so there were at least two people. The sight sent a burst of adrenaline raging through him.

“Come on!” He rounded the car, grabbed her hand, and started running.

She wasn’t tall, but she was in incredible shape and kept pace as they darted down the west side of the shops. His final destination was the parking garage on the east side of the marketplace, but he couldn’t run straight there. First, they had to lose these guys.

Shops flew past them in a blur as they sidestepped people. A cigar specialty store, Gap, Bath & Body Works, a couture shop for women.

A man holding a falafel and a foam cup stepped back from a food kiosk, oblivious of Jack and Sophie barreling through the crowd. Sophie dropped Jack’s hand and dodged to the right, avoiding him, but Jack couldn’t miss him without slamming into two teenagers.

Scorching coffee sloshed on his shirt as he collided with the Hispanic man. “What the fuck!” the guy shouted as he sprawled on his ass.

“Sorry.” Jack jumped over the fallen man and risked another glance behind him. The crowd of people wasn’t as thick as it would be on a weekend, and he spotted a man with dark hair wearing sunglasses moving forward at a steady clip.

The guy wasn’t running, but his movements were fast and measured as he scanned the area. There were a hell of a lot of places to hide, including the yachts and other boats dotting the bay to their left, but Jack wanted out of this vicinity in the next five minutes. The longer they stuck around, the bigger chance he had of getting caught on a CCTV. And if there was a traitor working for the NSA who was tracking him, pinning his location would be too easy. Grabbing Sophie’s hand, he ducked behind the food kiosk as they moved out of the line of sight of the man following them.

“Where are we headed?” she asked as they passed a café, their walk fast, but not sprinting.

They needed to blend in, and running at this point would draw too much attention. They were just lucky their tail hadn’t seen Jack slam into that man. He ignored her question as he scanned the various kiosks until he saw what he wanted. “Give me one sec.”

Glancing behind them, he slapped a fifty down on the kiosk and grabbed two cheap hats and two pairs of aviator-style sunglasses. Touristy crap, but it would have to do. “Will that cover this?”

The woman with pink and purple extensions nodded. “Yeah, but I need to get your change.”

“Keep it.”

He handed the hat with the sparkly pink flamingo to Sophie. “Tuck your hair into it.”

Not much as far as disguises went, but the bill from the baseball cap would cover half her features, which would help in avoiding cameras. Which was only part of their problem.

“How many men did you see?” she asked as she scooped her long hair up and shoved it under the cap.

“There are at least two, but I only saw one behind us. He hasn’t spotted us yet. The other or others could be anywhere.” He slid his own cap on and took her hand in his again. He didn’t need to, but he liked holding on to her for reasons he didn’t want to admit. As they strode past a kids’ shoe store, a loud boom echoed through the air. Then another.

One. Two. Three shots fired.

Jack turned in the direction of the shots, but couldn’t see the shooter through the mass of people, who were all frozen.

For a single moment, everything around them quieted. Then another shot rent the air. People screamed and scattered in every direction. Next to him Sophie crouched against the glass window of the store, as if the act could make her smaller.

“There are kids in the shoe store.”

“There are kids everywhere.” He knew what she meant, though. She didn’t want to inadvertently lead the shooter to a bunch of children.

Jack kept scanning, then narrowed his gaze on the same man with the sunglasses he’d seen earlier as he stepped out from behind a kiosk. He had a pistol in his hand, raised above his head as he looked around. At least he’d fired into the air.

Hating the situation and the crowd, Jack raised his weapon. He would only get one shot at this.

The man saw him too late. As he drew his weapon down, Jack fired once. It hit the stranger right between the eyes. The impact from the bullet slammed the guy back a foot, but Jack turned before he’d hit the ground.

One shot, one kill. Best way to deal with a problem like this.

Thanks to the sunglasses, Jack couldn’t see Sophie’s eyes. If she was disgusted, he didn’t want to know.

Following a cluster of screaming women and children, they turned right at the end of the west side shops. “We’ve got to make it to the parking garage. We can steal another car.”

“Sounds good to me,” she panted as they started running again.

They raced parallel to the brick wall until they reached the east side of the shops. Peering around the corner, he saw more people running in all directions, most of them screaming.

He’d never understand that reaction. Screaming did nothing but complicate any situation. And it made you a bigger target. Stupid.

But it also made it easier for him to pick out who didn’t belong. One man was crouched low, with one hand balanced on the side of a hot dog stand and the other holding a gun at his side. He had dark hair, sunglasses, and he was turned in profile to Jack.

Unfortunately his position was also right on their path to the parking garage and there was no other way to get there. Jack hated opening fire in a crowded place, but there was no time to second-guess himself. Not when he needed to get Sophie to safety.

“We’re going to head east.” He motioned, pointing toward the garage. “I’m going to run in a straight path and you are going to stay directly behind me. Do you understand? Right behind me.”

“Got it.”

He nodded, glad she was so calm. Lifting his pant leg, he grabbed his backup weapon and handed it to her. “If I’m hit, keep running. Do not fucking stop for me. You make it to the garage. I don’t care if you have to carjack someone, get to safety and call Wesley. Understand?”

“I’m not leaving you behind.”

He blinked in surprise. Unwilling to argue, he peered around the corner again. The guy was still there and the majority of the crowd was gone. They were losing any cover they might have. There was no time to argue. “Stay close,” he ordered as they stepped out from their hiding place.

They’d made it ten paces when the man spotted them. He started to push up from his crouch, raising his gun as he moved, but Jack had the element of surprise. Still moving, he fired twice. Once in the head, once in the chest for good measure.

Sophie gasped next to him, but it was the only sound she made. Seconds later, they rushed through a side door to the first floor of the parking garage. Screeching tires peeled through the air as people tried to escape. In the chaos it was a hell of a lot easier to steal a car. After only a minute of searching, he found an older-model truck. It didn’t have tinted windows, but it would do and it was easy to hot-wire.

It took another whole minute to get the hell out of the garage. And he lost a decade of his life worrying about getting Sophie out of harm’s way. They exited onto Biscayne, and only then did he allow a small sliver of relief to slide through him. He turned left and headed toward Third Street, then took a sharp right.

“Next time I give you an order, you do it.” He hadn’t meant the words to come out so harsh, but his heart was racing and his palms were sweaty. If he’d been hit and Sophie had actually stuck around—the thought terrified him. He was so used to being in control, and so far she’d been fairly cooperative. He knew it was because she didn’t have any other options, but he’d expected total compliance.

“Fuck that,” she snapped, the outburst taking him by surprise. “I’m not a soldier and you’re sure as hell not my boss. If I agree, hell yeah, I’ll follow orders, unless your order is stupid. And telling me to actually leave you behind is stupid.”

An unexpected laugh escaped. The timing was inappropriate and he shocked himself, but hearing her curse and yell at him after what had just happened soothed a dark part of him.

“Is that funny to you?”

“No. Damn, Soph. That temper of yours . . .” He trailed off when she stilled.

It was subtle, but her hand tightened on the weapon resting in her lap and he was pretty sure she stopped breathing for a moment.

“What?”

“Nothing. What do we do now?” Her voice wavered slightly, but he pushed past it. Hell, he couldn’t blame her after everything that had just happened.

“Find a safe house and hole up until you have to meet Ronald tonight.” And get the hell out of this area.

Sirens blared in the distance and Jack knew that soon the local cops would be swarming the place and probably putting up roadblocks. They needed to be long gone by the time that happened.