“Okay, so this is what we’ve got so far. The shit seems to have started in Georgia, here.” I pointed to the map at the area where the SEALs place was located. Everyone had come back from break ready for action.
“You said you found a tunnel running from the water to his house or vice versa. Now we have to figure out how he gets them to his house from the rest of the country.”
I was feeling ten times lighter after my little break and because of the fact that when we got back to the room Jake had done his thing and uncovered more info for us to work with. If this shit kept up, we could be making a move in the next few hours, tomorrow the latest.
“We’ve identified most of the girls, but sadly, most of them are already missing. I have someone working on some kind of pattern to see how they’re choosing them and when they started.” Jake gave his report of what else he’d done so far.
“There’s no real connection between any of the girls on this list, but I’m thinking there is and we’re just overlooking it somehow, there has to be a connection. I hate to say it, but the fact that two of us in this room, make that three, have been affected by this in some way, might be key.”
That shit had been plaguing me all the way back here. Jessie didn’t know Dana Sue before yesterday, or Lyon’s kid. So how did all three end up in the same book?
“So let’s look at it. Ty how are you and I connected? We ran Ops together in the desert.”
“The problem with that is I didn’t know Victoria-Lyn back then.” Ty pitched in.
“Doesn’t matter, let’s go back. This is the starting point, your new hometown, where your old CO used to live.”
“Do we know when the shit started?” Lyon moved around on his chair and I knew he was getting antsy, can’t say that I blamed him. My woman was across the way and so was Ty’s. His kid, though he’d put eyes on her, wasn’t close enough for him to protect himself. That shit would make anybody nervous.
“According to the old timers a little over a year before we got there. We now know that the CO was onto whatever it was they had going on, so it could’ve been up to six months before that.” Logan rocked back in his chair as I tried to clear my mind. The answer was there but I was just not hitting on it.
I walked over to the board we’d had set up and looked over it all again. There was the name of the town, the CO, Stockton, Dee and Sal, but what was the connection and where the fuck did Colt come in?
“Okay thinking out loud again. Ty, you and I are connected through the Ops we ran together, under your CO, which mostly involved…” I looked at the SEALs in the room.
“Something you wanna tell us?” Everyone got quiet as my blood started a slow boil. So far all they’d told us was that they thought the local barracks was involved somehow but they hadn’t expounded too much on that. Now Lo sat forward in his chair before looking around at all the players.
“All non military personnel have to leave.”
“Fuck that, try me.” Lyon didn’t even break a sweat when he stared down the big tough SEAL; guy has balls. Logan studied him long enough to come up with his decision while Law, Blade and I gave the go ahead for our men to file out.
“Your kid’s involved you get a pass.”
“Uh-huh.” I’d forgotten what a hard ass Lyon tended to be. He nodded to his boy Jared who did not look too pleased as he gathered the rest of their crew and headed out.
Now it was just Law, the SEALs, Blade, Jake, Lyon and I left in the room. “What I’m about to share doesn’t leave this room, your word on that.” Each man nodded his agreement before Lo got to his feet and approached the board.
“We have reason to believe that this man is involved, if not actually running the whole thing.” He added the Desert Fox and I felt another piece of the puzzle slide into place. Still there was something missing.
“Who the fuck is that?” And there you have it. Lyon had no dealings with him, unless he was building bikes for terrorists.
“He’s a very bad man who we hunted for three years and were under the impression until here lately had been annihilated. His name was found in some files in the same raid in which we found the infamous picture book.”
“Now this guy Stockton.” He drew a line from the Fox to Stockton. “Is just a bit player, he works for the Porter family….”
“The fuck did you say?” Lyon was out of his seat moving towards the board as if he’d seen a ghost. “You know them?” Lo watched him out the side of his eye. I would too, that fucker looked like he was about to blow.
“If it’s the same, their son tried to rape my woman before she was my woman years ago. He and his pals actually succeeded in raping her friend who went on to kill herself. Their son got off while the others did time in jail. They never made it out.”
He looked around the room like, ‘make of that what you will soldier boys I don’t give a fuck.’ What he didn’t know is that every man in the room including the law enforcer would do the same as he was implying to protect their own.
“If these fucks are fucking with my kid you’re never gonna have the chance to solve your deal here. They’re fucked.”
“I feel you brother, but that’s not the way to go. We safeguard your family, but we have to find these other girls, and look it, we have another piece of the puzzle.” Lo turned back to the board.
“Okay so with this new information, we know that The Fox is the common denominator. So far he’s gone after all of our women in one-way or another, with the exception of you Lyon, he went after your kid. Maybe as a favor to this family, since you had nothing to do with him personally.”
Yeah, that’s the piece that was missing. “How the fuck did they get into bed with this guy? They’re not in Georgia either…”
“The oldest son was in army intelligence, we only just found that out through a source that we are not at liberty to name.”
After that we tried to piece the shit together with what we had, but it was obvious we were still missing huge chunks of information. For one, how did The Fox know anything about Jessie, unless he was having me followed? And how had he gotten to Dee and Sal?
I understood them doing it for the money, that part was self -explanatory, but who had made the approach, how and when?
Lyon was prowling the room like his namesake and this shit was not gonna end well for anyone if we stood in his way. I’m thinking we need to get to the bottom of this shit and soon before this boy pops his leash. Then nobody would know shit and the rest of those kids would be fucked.
There was a knock on the door and some smooth biker type stood there looking like he owned the place. “I’m looking for Lyon.”
“Travis you made it.” Lyon moved across the room to greet the newcomer before introducing him to everyone except Law who already knew him.
He looked around the room with a smirk on his face that I didn’t understand until I caught his last name. “Fuck! Lyon you play in the big leagues don’t you brother?” Everyone knew Travis’ old man if not personally, then by reputation. The man just might make The Fox look like an innocent.
Jake was eyeing the kid who wasn’t paying anyone any mind. He was there for one reason and one reason only, to share information.
He passed off an envelope to Lyon who snatched it open before scanning the contents and then passing them around.
“He’s here.” I looked up at the Travis guy who was leaning against the wall at ease.
“Yep. But he’s a small fish in a big pond. My dad’s doing some more digging, but since my boy Colt needed this shit yesterday and it involves my Goddaughter I figured I’d bring what I have for now.”
“He’s a small time crook who somehow made it onto one of those military contractor deals a few years back. There’s no record of exactly what he did there, but he came back with new connections and a whole new group of friends.”
The SEALs shared a look and a grin. “Damn son you just answered one of our questions for us. We couldn’t figure out how he went from small time crook to the big leagues. Funny though, we didn’t find any record of him being a contractor and our connects would’ve known that.” Lo didn’t look too pleased about that.
We went back to the board and put all the new pieces together until shit was starting to make sense. At least I had a name and now a face.
I went down the line until we came to Stockton and why he might be hiding out here, which was another piece of the puzzle that was missing. I was still trying to figure out how he came across her and how they made the connection to me.
Jake took over from there since his people had been feeding him intelligence the whole time we were in there.
“Your boy Stockton came home, he was born here. Folks moved up east when he was too young to know. Guess who’s his great uncle? The- Grand-whatever-the-fuck himself.
It looks like they’ve been using this area and some of the surrounding towns as their hunting ground; lots of missing teenage girls in the last few years.
You guys were the exception to the rule it seems like. The other girls in this file and their families have no known association with this Desert guy or the family you mentioned.