Actually, it’d be best for Evans if Cruz didn’t but he doubted Evans would see it that way.
“You need to let me go. I can contact the people who have your girl. Faster than you can track them down. I can arrange for the trade.” The desperation was growing in Evans’s tone as he started to believe Cruz.
“There’s a lot of men featured in this video. You all decided to bring Atlas here into the interrogation, use him to terrorize your prisoner. None of you thought to check to see if the camera on his harness was still capturing video feed. The camera caught your faces.” Cruz shook his head. “Unfortunate.”
For Calhoun it had been, once he’d found the feed. The entire SEAL team had been in on the interrogation, listened to a man beg for his life and offer something none of them could resist in the moment.
And Calhoun had never made it home to get the video to the right people. It could mean the end of careers for several of them. Some of them deserved it, like this dirt bag. For others, it wasn’t so clear, like Harris. Cruz was beginning to understand how alone Calhoun must’ve felt trying to decide what to do.
In the end, Calhoun had tried to do the right thing and they’d let him die for it.
“Look. We cut a deal, okay? Prisoner wanted the same man dead as we did. It coincided with orders. We did nothing wrong. We just secured a side agreement with the prisoner. It’ll make us all rich in another couple of years. The new company’s going to get started soon. The prisoner we set loose is the leader of his group and he’s giving us exclusive contracts as soon as we’re all out and ready to go private.” Evans lifted his chin. “You’re out now. You ever consider going into the private sector? There’s going to be big money contracts with this outfit. Immediate money to be making.”
And have this snake at his back? Pass. “I’m not thinking too far in the future right now. I’m just interested in a trade and I’m still not convinced you even know where to find my girl.”
“I do!” Evans leaned forward. “We’ve been using some warehouses down on the Philly waterfront as a base of operations. They were only supposed to retrieve the dog but when she got in the car, too, our guys took her along. When the dog got loose, I was sent to clean up the loose end.”
And what would they do with Lyn?
“But you don’t have the dog. I do.” Cruz didn’t dare let his concern for Lyn show on his face.
Evans didn’t seem to notice. “Yeah. But they can’t have gotten all the way to the warehouse yet. I can call them.”
“Or you could give me the number and I can call them.”
Evans scowled. “No fucking way.”
Well, Evans was caught up in the possibilities of a trade but he wasn’t quite out of his mind.
Cruz kept the pressure going. “How many times do I need to explain to you how very expendable you are?”
“Look. You give me the video and whatever the hell it was stored on, then I’ll give you everything you need to know about your girl. Where to find her, who’s there. Everything.” Evans coaxed. “If you give me the video, I can take it back to my bosses and everything will be right again. You can even keep the dog.”
Cruz hadn’t planned to structure another course of action on the fly, but he hadn’t anticipated Evans being stupid enough to think Evans was going to remain valuable to this group either. They’d already been using Evans as their fetch and carry man. Somehow, the man still thought he was going to be in on the full deal whenever it came to fruition. This was an opportunity to make a trade for information that’d be way more accurate than what might come out of coercion.
Time was short. And if Cruz managed things correctly, the video would still end up in the hands of the authorities. If he worked this right, he could get to Lyn, too—hopefully in time. Calhoun would agree Lyn’s life came first.
“Deal. You tell me everything I need to know first, then I’ll give you the video. Start with the exact location of where they took Evelyn Jones and how many men are there.”
Chapter Twenty-Three
Approaching the warehouse in question hadn’t been as much of a challenge as Cruz had initially thought it’d be. Once he’d gotten the location from Evans, it’d been a matter of driving close enough to park his car out of sight and approach on foot.
Pedestrian traffic in the area had been easy to blend into and there were plenty of tiny side streets to duck into as they’d gotten closer. Now, there were just old crates stacked up in a maze between them and the warehouse itself.