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Chapter Seven

T hanks to T . Carter and his black-ops connections, the Trident Security teams landed at a covert US - Philippines allied military training base where they wouldn’t have to deal with customs. They also wouldn’t have to answer any questions about why they were there.

The jet taxied into a private hangar where everyone began to disembark.

Waiting for them were four nondescript vans, Chuck Sawyer , Pierce , Red , Carter , and Jordyn .

The latter two were operatives of a clandestine US -government agency, Deimos , and good friends of the original TS Alpha team.

They were also a couple and had been the first two calls Ian had made after contacting his brothers, their teammates, and the pilots.

As per Carter’s and Jordyn’s system, he’d left voicemail messages for each, not knowing if they were together or not.

Thankfully , they’d gotten back to him right away and had been somewhere close enough to get there before everyone else.

There were very few people Ian trusted to keep his family safe, and most of them were now present.

Pierce and Red headed for the jet, pausing to shake hands with Ian , Devon , Nick , and Jake along the way, and joined the rest of the operatives unloading the go-bags, equipment, and weapons.

Reaching the others, Ian approached his father first and pulled him into a hug. “ We’ll get her back, Dad .”

“ I know you will, son.”

Devon embraced the Sawyer patriarch next. “ Hey , Dad . How’re you holding up?”

“ A lot better now that you’re all here.” He glanced sheepishly at the couple standing nearby. “ No offense to Carter , Jordyn , and the other team you sent, of course.”

He squeezed his father’s shoulder. “ I’m sure there’s none taken.”

While Nick and Jake greeted Chuck , Ian turned his attention to the two Deimos spies. “ Thanks for coming. Hope we didn’t interrupt anything important.”

Jordyn smiled and gave him a kiss on the cheek. “ Nothing that can’t wait, so no worries. I’m glad we could help— Marie means a lot to us.”

That was their mom—she meant a lot to many people.

Ian didn’t think she’d ever met someone she didn’t win over almost immediately.

No matter how busy she was, she always gave everyone her utmost attention, making them feel they were the center of her world at that very moment.

She was a great listener, and if anyone was special to her husband or her sons, they were special to her too, even if she’d just met them.

This was not just an assignment to anyone there—it was to rescue a woman they all loved and respected.

Ian shook hands with Carter . “ Got an updated sit-rep for us?”

“ Yup , and you’re not gonna like it. But let’s get out of here first. We’ve got a few rooms at a hotel near the target site. Hopefully , we won’t need them for long.”

Giving Carter a curt nod, Ian fought the urge to tell him to spit out the intel.

But the spy was right—this wasn’t the place for it.

They weren’t on their home turf. The hotel would be more private—and they’d brought signal jammers with them to block any bugs or long-range listening devices.

Being paranoid in their business was a good thing.

“ Let’s finish loading up and get going.

” He’d call Angie on the way to the hotel and let her know they’d arrived safely.

He also wanted to make sure she hadn’t gone into labor and not contacted him on the jet’s phone for fear she’d worry him.

If she was in labor, there wasn’t a damn thing he could do about it from there.

One of the hardest things he ever had to do was push his wife and unborn child to the back of his mind.

Right now though, he had to focus on rescuing his mother, the only other woman who could bring him to his knees.

A half hour later, they were gathered in one of the penthouse suites of the hotel.

The décor was a little over the top, but it didn’t matter.

What did matter was there was plenty of room for them to prepare to go to war.

And it was definitely a war they were heading into—those bastards had his mother, and hell was about to rain down on them.

Gathered in a combined dining/living area, they listened as Carter filled them in on his last conversation with Jones . He pointed to the image on the iPad Jordyn was holding up. “ Crisanto de la Vega —runs the Davao del Norte division of the Barrera cartel.”

There were a few muttered curses around the room.

The Barrera cartel was to the Philippines what the Diaz cartel had been to South America .

The head of that snake, Emmanuel Diaz , had been killed by his second-in-command, Felix Secada , before he, in turn, had been killed by Darius during an undercover op that had gone FUBAR .

Darius had shoved Secada’s nose into his brain while rescuing Princess Tahira who was now his new bride.

Ian was getting really sick of dealing with drug cartels. “ What’s that got to do with our mom?”

Swiping the screen, Jordyn brought up another image—this one was of an Asian man. “ Xiao Zhihao —one of the Barrera’s hitmen. MSS just bumped him up into their Top Ten Most Wanted .” The Ministry of State Security was China’s CIA counterpart.

Can this shit get any worse?

“ Who do they suspect he killed?” Nick asked.

Standing with his arms crossed over his chest, Ian responded before anyone else could, “ Kang Zhi , Chinese ambassador to Bahrain and reputed presidential candidate for the next election.” It was a wild guess, but an educated one.

“ Kang was shot and killed, along with one of his bodyguards, three nights ago. MSS has been holding back a lot of the intel from the press, and they’ve been trying to pass it off as a home invasion gone wrong. ”

Carter nodded. “ You watch way too much CNN and BBC , dude, but you’re right, as usual. During our recon of the compound earlier, Jordy got a glimpse of Xiao , when he arrived at the compound late last night, and recognized him.”

“ We’ve crossed paths before,” the female spy added.

Considering some of her assignments involved assassinations of foreign threats to the United States , it made sense she would recognize a peer, even if the man didn’t have a conscience like she had.

“ I called a contact at MSS , and they confirmed, unofficially of course, that a surveillance camera caught just enough of the assassin’s face to verify it was Xiao . ”

“ Okay , again, what does this have to do with our mom?” Nick interjected.

“ Word is,” Carter explained, “de la Vega has a state-of-the-art surgical suite at the compound.”

Almost everyone in the room made the connection right away after hearing that, but it was Ian who spoke. “ They needed a plastic surgeon to reconstruct Xiao’s face so he’s no longer recognizable.”

“ Yup . Apparently , the doc who’d done the last few surgeries for de la Vega , in exchange for cancelling some of his gambling debts, got a little too greedy and tried to blackmail him and whomever he’d operated on.

The doc’s body was found not too long ago, missing both its hands and head.

” That wasn’t an uncommon form of revenge in this region.

“ From the activity we observed at the compound, my guess is Marie will be doing the surgery sometime this morning.” He slid a piece of paper into the middle of the table.

“ Here’s the layout of the compound. We think this building here is where the surgical suite is located.

Marie and the nurse, Jocelyn , are probably being held in the main house and treated well, although they most likely threatened Jocelyn to ensure Marie would do the procedure. ”

Studying the crudely-sketched map, Ian pushed aside all thoughts of what his mother had to be going through and began doing one of the things he did best. He started formulating a plan of attack with a take-no-prisoners strategy. The clock was ticking.