Chapter 24

Tough love worked. Who’d have thought it?

After Quinn’s beat down of Jesse and the hundred push-ups, the team stopped bickering and treated him with a little more respect, which was a nice reprieve. He’d been so goddamn tired of battling them every step of the way, but now, they were finally acting like the cohesive unit they were supposed to be.

Now, an hour later, they stood around the table, throwing out ideas, trying to plot their next step.

“I don’t think that will do us much good,” Harvard said in response to one of Jesse’s ideas. “We might as well go door to door to Jacinto Rivera’s neighbors and ask if any of them have seen him or Bryson Van Amee.”

“Not in that neighborhood,” Marcus said, and others murmured agreement. “Nobody’s gonna say shit to us.”

“They’re more likely to shoot us,” Ian added. “And what are we doing about that warehouse? I vote we make it go boom before the bad guys move it on us.”

“You always vote to make things go boom,” Jean-Luc said with a friendly elbow nudge in Ian’s side, and Ian didn’t rip his head off for it. “We ain’t gon’ blow it up just because you have an itch you want to scratch. We need a hell of lot more intel before we destroy anything, mon frère.”

“Just saying, it could save us a lot of future trouble,” Ian replied, and, for once, there was no heat behind his words.

Quinn, still in the chair with his feet on the table and a computer on his lap, was feeling rather proud of them all when his phone rang. All eyes turned toward him, and the room went so silent you could hear the proverbial pin drop from a block away. Everyone who would be calling him was present in the room—minus one—and they all knew it.

He slowly lowered his feet to the floor and sat up, checking the phone’s screen. “Restricted.”

“Probably won’t get a trace,” Marcus said.

“I find your lack of faith disturbing,” Harvard said, and Marcus grinned.

“Darth Vader, original Star Wars, released May 25, 1977. You gotta do better than that if you’re going to stump me, H.”

“I’ll get you.” Harvard was also grinning as he shot over to his computer, fingers flying across the keyboard with the grace of a concert pianist. After another handful of rings, he put on a set of headphones and looked up. “You’re good, boss. Answer it.”

Quinn drew a fortifying breath and raised the phone to his ear. “Yeah?”

“Quinn,” Gabe said.

And his composure soared right out the window, leaving him mired in a mix of relief and worry.

“Gabe.” His voice came out rougher than he had intended, as if the relief in hearing his friend’s voice had scraped harshly against his throat. He surged to his feet. “Holy shit! Where are you? What the hell happened? Is Audrey okay? Are you okay?”

“Listen up,” Gabe snapped out in his no-nonsense voice, and Quinn realized he was babbling. He ground his teeth and strived for calm again. He didn’t babble. He was a SEAL. A warrior.

“I’m listening.”

“You need to destroy your phone as soon as we disconnect.”

He squeezed his eyes shut. Yeah, this can’t be good. Gabe would only ask him to destroy the phone if he were afraid someone on that end would try to trace the call back to him. “Aye aye.”

“Then scramble the team and recon this address.” He gave the address in code. Another bad sign, and Quinn committed it tomemory. “Our principle may be inside. I’ll be—” He broke off.

Disturbed by the sudden silence, Quinn said, “Hello?”

Bang!

One gunshot, followed by the soft umph of a body hitting the floor.

Bang!

A second, and Audrey screamed, “Gabe!”

“Hide!” he shouted. “Take cover!”

The call disconnected, and Quinn spun toward Harvard, who removed his headphones and shook his head. The kid looked as ill as Quinn felt.

“Signal was too scrambled, boss. I’m sorry, but it was bouncing me all over the globe, and I couldn’t lock on.”

“Goddammit.” Quinn threw the cell phone as hard as he could, and it crashed against the wall, leaving an indention in the cheap plaster before clattering to the floor in pieces. Then he went so numb he didn’t even feel Jesse’s hands on his shoulders, shoving him into a chair, until the medic knelt in front of him with a penlight.

Gabe was in trouble. And he couldn’t do a damn thing to help.

As soon as the light hit his eyes, he snapped back to himself and pushed Jesse aside. “Get away from me. I’m fine.”

“Uh-huh,” Jesse said, but packed up his bag and stood. “Still haven’t seen those medical records, Quinn.”

Christ, he was sick to death of doctors. And cowboys who wanted to be doctors. “A little busy here, Jesse.”

The address, he thought. He may not be able to help Gabe now, but he could damn well follow orders. He shoved to his feet and rifled through the papers on the table, looking for?—

“What did Gabe say?” someone asked softly behind him. It sounded like Marcus, but he was so focused on finding a street map of Bogotá under all the papers that he didn’t turn to look.

“He gave us orders.” There it was. Finally. He spread the map out and found the correct coordinates at an intersection a mere mile from Bryson Van Amee’s apartment. He tapped the spot with his index finger. “He said Van Amee might be at this location, and we need to check it out.”

“But what about Gabe and Audrey?—”

This time, he did look up to spear Harvard with a hard stare meant to shut him up. The others didn’t need to know the details of what they’d heard over the phone, or he might have a mutiny on his hands, despite the team’s newfound cohesiveness.

“Gabe’s got it handled.” He hoped. “The best thing we can do for him now is follow his orders.”