It wasn’t far from the truth. Cora was a far cry from a delicate flower. She refused help even when she needed it and snapped at anyone who tried to help her. “You expect me to just wait?” He didn’t like that plan at all.
“I do. As of right now, we don’t know what our enemy is doing. The less contact you have with Cora right now, the better. If they are watching Ben’s house and see her with you, it puts her in danger. If they see her check on the house, they may think that she is doing just that and not connected to us. I have surveillance on the house and the block, if they make a move on her, I’ll know.” It didn’t appease him, but Liam knew there wasn’t much he could do right now.
“So now we just sit and wait.” He hated waiting. He was a man of action.
“For now. Ex-commander Brady is being interrogated day after tomorrow. Maybe he can shed some light on things. Just give Cora the space she wants.” Liam knew there was nothing else for him to do. He couldn’t go back to Cora without getting kicked out. And if Ben’s house was being watched he would put Cora at risk.
“Thanks, Hound.”
“Anytime.”
Chapter Three
After their morning run, Liam and Hound went out to his house to look over the surveillance from Ben’s house. They hadn’t alerted him yet that there had been a car parked in front of it for several hours then left. The car had heavily tinted windows making it impossible to see through. Hound had tracked the license plate to a rental company, but the name it was under was a dummy name. Liam had no doubt it was Alejandro or his goons, but they didn’t have proof. Hound had tapped into traffic cams around the LA area and found a man that looked like Alejandro, but they couldn’t get a facial recognition match.
“Dammit,” Liam cursed and paced Hound’s office space in his basement. Hound had wall to wall computer screens surveying all over California, but they couldn’t get one clean picture of the man they thought was Alejandro. No one had ever seen him face to face, so they were going off pictures from surveillance in the past. Hound had hoped there would be a picture of him on the flash drive Midas had brought back from Alejandro’s base but there was so much data still to go through. “We need to call Ben and tell him to bring Hannah back. She is the only one who can ID this son of a bitch.” Liam ran his hand through his hair he felt for the hundredth time in the past hour. He didn’t like knowing his enemy was close but didn’t know where. It was unnerving.
“Calm down, Sunshine,” Hound told him without looking up from his computer screen. That was Hound for you. Always calm under pressure. Liam usually was too but when it came to Cora’s safety, not so much. “The interrogation is tomorrow. The ex-commander will give us the intel that we need, and your worrying will be for nothing.”
Liam glared at the back of Hound’s head. The man couldn’t see the gesture, but it made him feel better. He hated this waiting game. Unfortunately, intel was what they needed now not muscle. And their ex-commander was the one who had it. He couldn’t send Cora away because one he knew she wouldn’t go, and two, he didn’t know what he was sending her away from. There had only been one car watching the house, but since he couldn’t see inside the house he didn’t know which house.
“Ah ha,” Hound cried out starting Liam.
“Did you find something?” Liam raced back over to Hound’s side and looked at the computer screen though he didn’t know at what.
“Finally, got a match. There is a lot of activity down at the LA docks. This picture here,” Hound said pulling up a smaller screen and enlarging it. “This man here seems to be making friends with some not so great people. I’m willing to bet it’s Alejandro with someone shaking hands. I’m going to send this off to Blade and see if he can ID any of these people.
Liam didn’t know how much he trusted this Blade character. They claimed they were FBI, but anyone could make shit up anymore and post it on the internet. But whoever this Blade person was they hadn’t let him and his team down yet. “It doesn’t look like good news either way. Alejandro is involved in drugs, weapons, and women. Being on the coast now puts him at an advantage. Let’s take this to the new commander and see if we can go after him?” Their prior mission had been to stop Alejandro’s business. This would just be the second phase of the same mission.
~
“Absolutely not,” their new Commander, Lieutenant Colonel Jones, snapped at them. Their new commander was in his late forties, and his black hair was peppered with gray at the temples.
“Sir,” Liam started to say but was silenced by the commander standing up behind his desk and staring him down.
“Your previous mission was to gather intel and rescue hostages. We now have the intel that will aid in our shutting him down for good. There will be no revenge mission and turn our home soil into a battlefield. I’ll pass along your new information. It’s out of our jurisdiction now.”
What?
What did jurisdiction have to do with anything? The man was only a few hours away. He could get the team together to easily eliminate the threat once and for all.
“Sir, this isn’t
