Cruz stood with his back to the wall in the room they used for on-site veterinary needs, Atlas sitting at his side. The old dog was seeing the inside of this room more often than most of their canines did. All things considered, though, Atlas was in good shape and practically trembling to go into action.
So was Cruz, but they needed to know where they were going and what they were getting into first.
“How do you want to handle this?” Forte leaned against the examination table, currently not in use. Might be before all this was over but thankfully, it wasn’t yet. If that ex-SEAL had stopped to take a steadier shot, Atlas might’ve been hit.
Heat coursed through Cruz’s veins, pushing at his already frayed control. Thinking on the possibilities didn’t help his temper. Wherever Lyn was, she probably wasn’t out of reach yet but every minute could be taking her farther away.
“We can’t take much time before we really do notify the local authorities.” Rojas threw in his two cents from his seat on the one stool in the room. “We need to stay clean from a lawful point of view if we want to look at this guy through bars and us on the right side of ’em.”
“We need to know where Lyn is, what kind of head count we’re dealing with at the location, anything useful for safe extraction, and anything additional the shithead knows about Calhoun.” Cruz paused. “In that order. Lyn takes priority.”
They all nodded in agreement.
“Every minute counts for Lyn.” Cruz wasn’t just pointing out the obvious in a kidnapping situation. Every second ticking by wound him up tighter and tighter with the need to go out and do something to help her, to get her back. Atlas was no different, taking in all the actions around him, watching with an air of impatience. Cruz got the impression the big dog was evaluating how every action was taken. Right now, they were moving too slowly.
But they needed to approach with a strategy in mind; otherwise they could do more harm than good to Lyn and to themselves and the people who’d miss them. Like Boom and Sophie.
“Question goes back to you.” Forte faced Cruz.
Cruz thought hard. Lyn was his and Forte would take his lead on this. What he was about to do was for Lyn and she wouldn’t thank him, or forgive him, for becoming a monster to save her from monsters. If he could find a better way, one that would leave their consciences clean—or at least not scar them any more than they already were—it’d be best to try.
“We mess with his head first.” Cruz put some force behind his words, as if sounding confident about it would make it the right choice. Sometimes it did. “He’s not the brightest light bulb out there for sure. Say the right thing and he’ll sing.”
“You sure?” Forte’s gaze had gone cold, flat. “Mind games are the way you want to go?”
Uglier, more direct options hung in the air between them.
“We’ll get the most accurate information out of him this way, not just what he thinks we want to hear.” Truth. Plus there was the question of Cruz’s temper. This course of action gave Cruz the best control over the situation. “We try to soften him up any and I might be tempted to go too far.”
His anger simmered right now, coiled and waiting, familiar. The stranger he’d locked away within himself had been coming closer to the surface of his mind through this whole ordeal. Compartmentalization bullshit. The driving need to go find Lyn was all that saved the man they had in custody from being beaten to within an inch of his life, or worse. Cruz had done it before and even if he already hated himself for it back then, he would do it now if it weren’t for Lyn. Everything he was doing and how he was going to do it was because he had her in his life now.
Because without her, there wasn’t a good enough reason to keep trying to be someone other than the stranger he used to be.
“Beckhorn found the man’s service record and sent it over.” Cruz owed Beckhorn big for the favor, too. It’d be worth it. “There’s a few things in there to leverage.”
“That was fast. Beckhorn hasn’t lost his touch.” Rojas snagged the printout off the examination folder. His eyebrows raised after only a few seconds of skimming. “Yeah, this asshole is easy.”
“This isn’t just about Lyn.” Forte crossed his arms. “The shithead tailed Sophie, too. And we have Boom to worry about. Whatever we do to get the info we need, this guy goes away where he can’t hurt any of them anymore. That means we call the police. We can’t delay any longer without opening ourselves up to scrutiny and giving this guy loopholes when he has his day in court. If you think you can do this, do it now while I put in the call. We’ll be on a countdown.”
Last time they’d had to call in the police, it’d taken half an hour or so to respond. Not a lot of time.