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  After a prayer over his fallen friend, he drives back to the airport, where he and Carl drink coffee and wait, hoping like hell for another chance to go after the Director.

  The rest of us make it back to Rodney’s place in Bakersfield at three thirty a.m.; we’ve treated Kareem’s shoulder, and he’s doing okay but bitching constantly about letting the mastermind of the entire Consortium get away.

  It’s annoying, but I get it. I am bitching just as much as he is, and I didn’t even get shot.

  The hostages are racked out on the floor all over the place. Most are still in a state of shock, but every one of them seems happy to be free from captivity, which is a relief, because I thought it possible, even after all the horrors these girls have undoubtedly suffered, that a few of them, at least, would side with their captors.

  Some demand to speak to their embassy, but most understand that they are in the middle of a very fluid, if very low-rent, operation, and they calm the most anxious down. They all promise to sit tight, and we promise them we will help them get where they need to go soon.

  Me and the boys grab more ammo and smoke grenades from Rodney’s garage, and we’re in the process of cleaning our weapons when Talyssa calls me from down in LA. I step into the backyard for some privacy, thinking she’s going to light into me about failing again to rescue her sister, probably because it’s all I’m thinking about right now, myself.

  But instead she says, “Gentry, the Director will wonder how we found out about the ranch. He’ll be worried, at least for a few days, that we can trace the property directly to him somehow.”

  I hope she’s right about this. “Suits me if he’s running scared.”

  “Men like this,” she says. “Wealthy, powerful men. They have a lot of places they can flee to in times of danger.”

  “Sure.” I’ve known a few powerful assholes myself, and she’s correct about their modus operandi when dealing with trouble.

  She says, “If I knew about other properties he owned, we might have something to go on, but Rancho Esmerelda was so well insulated in its corporate ownership that I can’t tie any person to it.”

  I know all this already. “What’s your point?”

  “My point is, he is going to leave the area. Soon. If he hasn’t already.”

  “Yeah, of course. Dr. Riesling, as well. But what can we do about it? There are a lot of airports here, we can’t just go—”

  “Where do you think the Director lives?”

  This question surprises me. “I have no idea.”

  “You know it’s within driving distance to the ranch, because he brought my sister all the way here from Romania for himself.”

  “Right, but ten million people live within two hours of that location.”

  “The Director doesn’t live like ten million people.”

  This is true. “But still, lots of enclaves for the wealthy around here. Not just in LA, but in towns up the coast, as well.”

  Talyssa says, “He’s a businessman. A financier. He won’t be in some beach town hours away from Los Angeles. He’s got to be in the city. He meets clients for lunch, he needs the convenience of LA.”

  I don’t have a clue where she’s going with this. “Okay. He’s in LA, some ritzy part of it. What? Do we go door to door and knock?”

  “Of course not. But you and your team shouldn’t sit up there in a house in Bakersfield, either. Come down here. If my sister is able to alert me some way, if she is even still alive and still with the Director, then you will be much closer when it happens.”

  It’s a lot of “ifs,” but Talyssa is right. LA is the most high-probability location for the Director, and if we head down in that direction now, we will be able to act faster if, by some miracle, Roxana is able to get a message out.

  Twenty minutes later, Kareem, Rodney, A.J., and I have left the kidnapping victims alone at Rodney’s place, and we drive in A.J.’s truck to the south.

  Carl is still at the airport with his helicopter, but when we tell him what we’re doing he decides to fly it to Van Nuys Airport in the San Fernando Valley. That will put him just minutes’ flying time from anywhere in LA and it also gives the rest of us a place to position ourselves.

  This may not be much, but it feels like forward momentum to me, if only incremental forward momentum.

  But one thing feels certain. I got us to Venice, and Talyssa got us to Rancho Esmerelda. But if we’re going to find our way to the top of this evil organization in the next twelve hours, it’s up to Roxana.

  * * *

  • • •

  Roxana Vaduva drank the tepid vodka straight out of the little bottle while the men around her discussed whether to kill her.

  Three men held her fate in their hands, and all three of them were aware of who she was and what she had done. They knew she’d been sent by her sister to meet the Director, and then, once she’d been taken, she’d communicated with her sister’s colleague on the yacht, no doubt giving him the information that led him to Italy.

  So now she sat quietly, took a last gulp to finish the bottle, and awaited their decision.

  The man she knew as the Director stormed around the massive penthouse hotel suite, hands on his hips, a bathrobe covering his small frame. The tall, bald-headed man named Jaco sat on a sofa in the opposite corner, making phone call after phone call. And Sean, the Director’s bodyguard, sat quietly on the kitchen counter, just feet from Roxana.

  She’d seen him sneak an airplane vodka bottle out of the minibar for himself.

  He was clearly scared. He wasn’t as scared as Roxana—no, she didn’t think anyone on Earth was as scared as she was right now—but she could tell he wanted nothing more to do with this entire affair, and the one shot of vodka she’d seen him down so far would help him no more than the one she just drank would aid in getting her out of this mess.

  Dr. Claudia was also in the penthouse now. The older American woman’s normally calm exterior had given way to an intense look of concern, nail biting, and chain smoking.

  Whoever it was who had shown up at the ranch in a helicopter, they had certainly rattled the top of the Consortium.

  It had to have been the assassin from the yacht, although he certainly must have brought more forces along with him.

  She hoped like hell her sister had been nowhere near all that fighting. She assumed Talyssa was still in Europe, directing the actions of the American killer from there.

  Roxana looked at Jaco now, and he at her. His eyes frightened her, and she turned away, wondering if he might just draw the gun out from under his jacket and shoot her in the head.

  That was, ultimately, the Director’s call, she was certain, and this terrified her more. If she was the most afraid in the room, the small bald-headed man was the angriest. His pacing, his yelling at his subordinates, his taking of pills, and his occasional bouts of brooding silence had made the last few hours a terrifying roller-coaster ride for the young Romanian.

  The Director stormed around now, and she focused on him. She thought, at first, that he looked like Napoleon at Waterloo, but after watching him for a while, she found him to be less like the embattled general and more like a spoiled kid, furious things weren’t going his way.

  She tried to put the terror out of her mind and think of the positives. It had been a horrific night, but there was something positive in all this.

  She knew exactly where she was. Los Angeles. On the drive in she’d seen the interstate signs giving directions to Hollywood, and then, after they got off the interstate, the street signs told her she was in Beverly Hills.

  When they’d pulled up to this building she saw one last sign before she’d been whisked inside.

  The Four Seasons Hotel.

  If she could just find access to a phone or get online somehow, she could contact her sister and tell her the Director was right here with her.


  It was too late to save her, Roxana was certain. They would kill her soon enough, no matter what she did. But if she could only get the information out before she was murdered, she might be able to help all the other women held in bondage by this horrible organization.

  The Director stopped pacing and looked out the window a moment, then his plaintive voice kicked up again at something Jaco said that Roxana could not hear.

  The American said, “I’m not leaving the U.S.! Why the hell should I? The government is watching out for me here, and I don’t have a single personal tie to what happened at Rancho Esmerelda.”

  Jaco replied in a strikingly calmer manner. “A week, Ken. Two, maybe. We go down to Antigua, or to Costa Rica, work from your property there, make sure that everything here is cleaned up and this fookin’ Gentry bloke is dealt with.”

  Sean started to second Jaco’s proposal, but Cage shouted over him.

  “How’s that going to happen? You’ve lost all your men but two, and you haven’t put a scratch on him as near as I can tell. There were thirty cartel soldiers on that property. Thirty! And still we hear that the men who attacked escaped in their helicopter. Along with the merchandise, I might add. Expensive fucking merchandise, each one of whom has seen very important faces around here. Do you have any idea what this will do to every man who’s gone to Esmerelda? They’re all gonna come at me now! Studio heads, financiers, high-profile lawyers. I don’t have to remind you the power of our clientele, do I?”

  “All the more reason for you to get out of the country while we get to work cleaning this up! Look, the American government is actively trying to kill the Gray Man. He’s in the U.S., they know it, and now they will know what area he’s in. That aspect of this problem will clean itself up in short order. Either he runs away, or they get him. You just have to be clear of the area until one of those two things happens.”

  The Director sat down now, the first time Roxana had seen him do so since his arrival here at the Four Seasons.

  He closed his eyes and rubbed them with his hands, his elbows on his knees, the cuffs of his blue bathrobe drooping, exposing his hairy forearms. “I’ve got so much shit at the house that I can’t leave without. Bearer bonds, hard drives. Physical stuff.”

  “I’ll send Sean and his men to get it all.”

  Sean began to protest this; Roxana knew he’d refuse to leave his boss’s side, but Cage said, “If I’m leaving the country, then I’m going by the house first. Sean’s not getting in my safe; only I go in my safe.”

  Jaco stood now, looked out over the balcony at the morning. “How much time will you need?”

  This time Sean did break into the conversation. “Wait. You aren’t suggesting he actually go to his residence. We don’t know if Gentry and his people know his address, his name. Shit, I’m not sending him into—”

  Jaco pointed at the American bodyguard. “You’ll do your job!” He turned to Ken now. “How much time, boss?”

  “I need two hours, and I need Sean’s men to help me load up cars. If I tell my wife we’re leaving the country and she can’t go home first, she’s going to do more damage to me than Court Gentry.” He leaned back on the sofa. “Shit! Heads are going to roll when this is over, I swear to you both!”

  Jaco spoke to Sean. “Two hours? The seven of you can watch him. Me, Loots, and Duiker, too. That’s ten armed men there. Claudia can help, as well.”

  Sean looked defeated to Roxana, but he didn’t give in completely. “One hour. We go in hard and fast, all of us, together, and my men are on watch while me and the four of you help the boss get what he needs.”

  Claudia had not said a single word, but now she spoke up. “I can pack Heather’s clothes, get the kids’ stuff, while you are dealing with potential evidence.”

  Ken just nodded and rubbed his eyes some more, then took his hands away and again looked right at Roxana. “What about her?”

  Jaco didn’t hesitate. “She comes with us. If Gentry and his mates arrive, I’ll have a knife at her neck to slow them while you get away. If he makes contact with us, we’ll use her to bargain, or as bait.”

  Roxana’s teeth chattered, but through the fear she recognized that she was about to go to the home of the Director. Ground zero of the Consortium.

  She didn’t see this as yet a new danger.

  No, this was her chance, her last chance, and she knew it.

  FIFTY-TWO

  Sixteen-year-old Charlotte Cage stepped out of the kitchen door of her girlfriend’s house in Bel Air, then walked down the driveway as the gate opened automatically in front of her, thumbing open her phone’s screen along the way. With a couple of clicks she ordered an Uber Lux to take her to her home in the Hollywood Hills, fifteen minutes away in morning traffic.

  She wasn’t supposed to be here. Her mom routinely disallowed her daughter from overnighting with her eighteen-year-old friend, thinking Clara to be a bad influence, so Charlotte had quit asking permission. Instead she told her mom she was spending a couple of days at Lake Arrowhead with a friend her own age whom her mom trusted. This wasn’t the first time this summer she’d pulled this off, and she hoped it wouldn’t be the last.

  As Charlotte stood there waiting for her ride, she noticed she’d missed a text message and a phone call. The text was from her mom, and it was demonstrative and unusual, but not particularly worrisome.

  Call me as soon as you get this. Do not, under any circumstances, go to the house.

  She didn’t bother listening to the voice mail.

  As she climbed into the back of the BMW 5 Series that arrived to pick her up, Charlotte considered calling to see what was going on, but she decided against it. She also decided against complying with her mother’s wishes. She was only leaving the house so early this morning because she was meeting Sean for a surfing lesson. Sean didn’t work Wednesday mornings, and they’d made plans the week before.

  She hadn’t said anything to him about Arrowhead, knowing all the time she’d be in town and excited to go surfing.

  Charlotte told herself she’d wait to reach out to her mom till she and Sean got to Santa Monica with their surfboards, and she’d tell her she’d caught a ride from Arrowhead early this morning.

  As the Uber drove through the narrow, winding streets in the Hollywood Hills, she told the driver to drop her off at the house next door to hers, not wanting her mom or dad to see her. From there she walked to a locked gate in the fence around her two-acre property, punched in the code, and let herself in. Closing it behind her, she headed down the steeply graded drive, then turned and moved across the sloping landscaped yard on the offhand chance her mom was standing at the living room window that overlooked the driveway.

  She made her way around to the back of the property right at seven a.m., hoping no one in the house could see her as she rapped on the door to the pool house, but when Sean didn’t answer immediately, she began to worry that her mom could be standing in the kitchen dining area that overlooked the back patio. She tapped the code to the pool house into the keypad alongside the door, then stepped in when it unlocked.

  “Sean?” she called out through the den and then again up the stairs. It was weird he wasn’t up, but she knew her dad gave him Wednesdays and Sundays off; it was Wednesday, so she figured he was just sleeping in.

  Charlotte didn’t go upstairs to where Sean slept; that would be weird, she decided, so she texted him that she was here, then headed through the pool house to the storage room in the back. There she quietly dressed in her wetsuit, picked out a surfboard for today’s excursion, and began collecting other odds and ends she’d need for a morning at the beach.

  * * *

  • • •

  Three Mercedes-Benz G550 SUVs rolled down the driveway in front of Kenneth Cage’s Hollywood Hills mansion, then parked in a line in front of the house. A pair of Sean Hall’s men climbed out of the firs
t vehicle, unlocked the door, and, while keeping their hands over the pistols secreted under their polo shirts and light sport coats, they scanned the area.

  Seconds later one of them called into his radio, and all the doors to all the SUVs opened as one. Eight other men and two women, Roxana Vaduva and Dr. Claudia Riesling, climbed out and headed inside.

  Everyone in the entourage had a mission this morning, and Jaco had tasked one of Hall’s men, much to Hall’s disapproval, to be in charge of Maja. He took her by the arm into the large kitchen at the rear of the house and sat her down at a table in front of the sliding glass door overlooking the pool and rear gardens, while he went looking for some cordage to tie her with.

  He bound her tightly with an electrical extension cord but didn’t bother securing her to the chair because he didn’t want to deal with untying her from an object if they had to make haste to the SUVs.

  Still, the girl he only knew as Maja was utterly compliant, so he wasn’t worried about her running off.

  Sean Hall’s six security men took up positions around the home, their eyes cast out on the sharp hills and massive homes all around. Hall started to run over to his pool house for a change of clothes; he was still wearing an undershirt and jeans, but he’d only made it into the kitchen before Cage yelled from the living room, demanding that Hall, Verdoorn, and Loots follow him into his office to begin removing incriminating files and computer drives.

  Sean turned to comply with his boss’s wishes, but on his way out of the kitchen he called across the room to his subordinate. “Don’t just sit there, Scott. Make us a pot of coffee.”

  Claudia headed to the kids’ rooms after Cage directed her to a stack of suitcases in a hall closet.

  Within five minutes of arrival, the Director and his people were all over the house, hurrying through their assignments, while a few miles away the pilots of the Gulfstream waited at LAX after filing a flight plan for San Jose, Costa Rica.