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CHAPTER THIRTY-SIX

“T hey’ll find it!” Callan was pacing. Furious. Horrified. “They’ll find it, and when they do, they’ll kill her and Peri both.”

Grant said nothing.

On the phone, Michael said, “Think it through, man.”

Think.

Exactly what Alyssa had said to him. Your daughter needs you to think.

And now she did too.

He paused his circuit across the makeshift command center.

Gavin loved his daughter, even if he was terrible at showing it.

Callan had learned in the last few minutes how much Grant and Michael loved their cousin. That Alyssa had helped Michael more than once. That her work had saved lives.

She’d located the little curly-haired Levi when he was kidnapped.

She’d aided Michael in escaping from Iraq with Leila and Jasmine, who’d eventually married into the Wright family.

Even Gavin seemed surprised by that information.

These men loved Alyssa, and they didn’t feel that for Peri, but she was a child.

It went against everything inside him, but he needed to trust these people to help him find and save Peri and Alyssa.

“She saved my life more than once.” Michael’s voice on the phone was strangely gentle. “I promise you, we will do everything in our power to protect her.”

Protect her. Right. They’d practically sent her to Ghazi, who could kill her.

But Callan thought it through.

Ghazi needed her alive.

And he wasn’t going to kill Peri, his only leverage to get Alyssa to do his bidding.

So…

“What’s the plan?” He directed the words at the phone.

He’d been shocked when he’d learned what these two brothers had cooked up. Without telling him, or her father.

Gavin had been apoplectic. For a few moments there, right after they’d confirmed that Alyssa had really and truly left, Callan had worried her father might have a heart attack. As if they had time for that.

Now, Gavin looked about like Callan figured he’d looked a few minutes before. White as the frosting on the anniversary cake.

“I gave her a decoy tracker,” Grant said.

“Explain.”

“One of those cheap tags you can get at the drugstore, the kind you stick on your car keys or your dog’s collar.”

“He’ll find it.”

“Thus, the term decoy. ” Michael’s words were heavy with sarcasm.

If he were here in person, Callan would punch him in the face.

Grant had barely looked up from his phone during the conversation. “She stopped. Both signals are still strong.”

Hands clenched so tightly that they ached, Callan crossed to look over the guy’s shoulder.

Grant tapped his screen, which showed a blinking orange dot on some skinny road a few miles away. “That’s one.” He switched to another app. This one showed a steady blue dot in roughly the same spot. “That’s the other.”

“Ghazi could find them both.” Gavin was looking over Grant’s other shoulder.

The soldier was tolerating them in silence, though Callan figured it was taking effort.

“We can’t just sit here,” Gavin said. “We need to go.”

For the first time, Callan agreed with the old spy.

It was all he could do not to steal a car and go on his own. Trusting these guys—and flimsy technology—to save Peri and Alyssa…

It was killing him.

He wanted to go after them on his own. It might even work.

But it might not. It could just as easily destroy everything.

He needed to work as a team with these men he barely knew. He needed to relinquish control.

He opened his hands, stretched them out. Letting it go.

Whatever it takes to save them, Lord. I’ll do whatever You ask.

“You three can sit here and stare at that stupid phone screen all you want,” Gavin said. “I’m going.”

Callan gripped his arm, tight. He knew exactly how Alyssa’s father felt. But Michael and Grant had done something ingenious. “They’re a step ahead of us,” Callan said. “We need to be smart about this. We need to work together.”

Grant shot Callan a look over his shoulder, clearly surprised.

Callan was a little surprised himself.

If Alyssa had told him what her cousins had planned, he might’ve eschewed their help. He might’ve let his pride and his own desperate need to stay in control get in the way.

But his pride was gone.

His need to stay in control? MIA.

Callan didn’t care how Alyssa and Peri were rescued. He didn’t care that Alyssa’s cousins had thought of something that had never occurred to him.

Not because it wasn’t an option, but because he’d believed, foolishly, that he had it all under control.

Stupid, stupid pride.

“We’re going to work together, Gavin,” Callan said, “to bring both our daughters home.”

“She’s good,” Grant said.

Callan looked at the orange dot moving on the phone screen.

The blue one stayed in place.

“They found the decoy.” Grant sounded triumphant as he focused on the phone. “Good job, bro. They think they’re in the clear.” He looked up at Callan, and smiled.

“We’ve got them.” For the first time since this whole thing started, Callan—thanks to these Wright brothers—was a step ahead.