“Otto seems to be pacing back and forth, but when I overlay his location with Google Images, it looks like he’s outside the warehouse,” Ben said.
“He’s been separated from Chef Marin,” Officer Stevens explained. “He’s been trained to stay close just in case he can find a way to get back to her.”
Griffin forced himself to take a deep breath. The fact that Salenko had somehow isolated Otto from Marin was not a good sign. They needed to get there quickly.
“The FBI has arrived,” Adam said alluding to the sirens behind them. A second Secret Service vehicle filled with members of Adam’s Counter Assault Team was also following them.
It took them only nine minutes to make it to their destination. They’d killed the sirens several miles back so as not to tip Salenko off.
“We’ll walk in the last half mile,” Adam relayed to Leslie and her team in the FBI vehicle.
Quietly, they climbed out of the Humvee. The pungent smell from the water treatment plant immediately assaulted Griffin’s nose. The drizzle had stopped, leaving behind a residue of moisture that made everything around him shine in the darkness. They’d need to be careful not to give themselves away with anything shiny on their person.
Griffin checked the weapons strapped to his body. Leslie was by his side instantly. She gave his arm a gentle squeeze.
“We’ll find her,” she whispered.
Office Stevens pulled a dog whistle out of his pocket and blew into it; its silent call only registering with a canine’s ears. A long moment later, Otto limped out of the woods behind the warehouse. Blood streamed from the dog’s hind leg, but he obediently sat beside his handler.
“Good boy,” Officer Stevens patted the dog.
He crouched down to examine Otto’s injury. “It looks like a puncture wound from a knife.” The officer’s voice broke slightly. “He’s lost a lot of blood. I need to get him treated before he goes into shock.”
Adam nodded and indicated that one of the FBI vehicles should take the K-9 officer and Otto back. When Officer Stevens bent to lift him into the Humvee, the dog whimpered in protest at being forced to leave. Griffin rubbed a hand over the dog’s ears.
“We’ll bring her back to you,” he whispered. He left the words ‘I promise’ unspoken. The promise he’d already made to Arabelle still haunted him.
The group fanned out as Adam gestured for half the team to circle around the warehouse from one side while he, Griffin, Leslie, and the others surrounded the building from the opposite end. They crouched in the damp gravel five yards from the entrance. The president’s decoy vehicle sat in the parking lot in front of the warehouse along with several white vans apparently used by the pool company. A Ford Expedition was parked there, too. The tire tracks on the wet pavement indicated it had only recently arrived.
Leslie took her cell phone out of her vest and pulled up a blank screen. Eric crept to the side of the warehouse and carefully pressed his handheld radar to the wall. The image from the radar gun was immediately displayed on Leslie’s phone. Adam glanced over Leslie’s shoulder.
“Shit,” Adam whispered. “And here I thought our odds were going to be twelve to one.”
“By my count, there are eight people inside.” She looked up at Griffin. “All of them breathing.”
Her words didn’t go very far to soothe Griffin. He was operating under the theory that Salenko had kidnapped Marin because she’d seen him exiting the White House. If that were the case, why hadn’t he killed her like the others? While he was relieved that Marin was still breathing, something felt off. It was a feeling Griffin hated.
* * *
“Who are these women, Yerik?” the big guy who appeared to be the leader asked. “You were told to bring me your White House spy.”
Marin pretended to study the exchange between her captor, Yerik, and the other man. Her eyes darted from one occupant of the wide room to another while her fingers felt around on the floor beside her, scavenging for any type of weapon she could use to defend herself. Her palms burned and blood from her lip dribbled down her chin, but Marin refused to wait around and see what these men had in store for her. Slowly, she inched back toward the large drums of pool cleaner lining the back wall.
Bita stormed up to the bulky man, her cashmere wrap billowing behind her. Like the man in the suit, she was overdressed for this party.
“Do you not think a woman capable of being a spy?” she asked.
The men accompanying him drew their assault rifles when Bita got close. Marin stilled, holding her breath. But, try as she might, she couldn’t rip her eyes away from what was surely to be Bita’s death. To her surprise, the big man laughed.
“Agapi mu,” he said. “You are quite a handful, yes?”
Bita’s face blanched. “Greek?” she shrieked. “They’re Greek!” She turned to Yerik and began speaking frantically in Farsi again.
Marin took advantage of all the screaming to scoot further back into the shadows. She’d made it six or seven inches when her hand came in contact with something smooth—something smooth that kicked her in the hip. She looked over at the boot attached to the leg of one of the men holding an assault rifle. When her eyes glanced up, the man sneered at her before kicking her again. Marin added another bruise to her abused body as she slid back to the place where Yerik had dumped her.
“Enough!” the Greek man shouted. “What is the meaning of this, Yerik? And who is this shrew?”
Bita bristled at the Greek man’s choice of words. She turned from Yerik abruptly and stalked back over to her tormentor. “I am no shrew! I am Persian royalty. Niece of the late Shah of Iran.”