Chapter 7

RPOV

I didn't like the confines of an airplane when I came back from a mission; even if it was the private one that Rangeman used. This mission had felt wrong from the start and even if the powers to be thought it was successful, I didn't. I had a nasty feeling in my gut that somewhere along the line we'd regret how things had turned out. I knew Bobby was here for me, he knew the strain I'd been under and he'd agreed to try to moderate my temper during my debriefing.

The powers to be had argued that my reasoning and objectivity were impaired due to the stress I'd been under on the job. PTSD seemed to be their answer for my behavior, which was why Bobby had been there with me. I suppose he'd done a reasonable job but the only thing that would truly calm me would be watching Steph sleep. I didn't know why but for some reason she calmed me when nothing else would. I think Bobby suspected that, but he never said anything to me or anyone else, maybe he understood the need that I had for her, because I sure didn't.

"Ranger, what are your plans when we get back?"

I just looked over at him, I wasn't about to tell him, and he knew it. I always had a car waiting at the airport and I would make sure the car was offline and then go find my sanctuary, I just prayed that she would be there. I knew a lot could have happened while I was away, she may have moved in with Morelli and agreed to marry him and what would I do then? I had no idea, and I didn't want to think of that possibility. Maybe, in the end, I would have to break all ties and move to another office, find some solace through my work and renew my contract to take on longer missions.

As the plane touched down, I could hear Bobby's phone start to ping with incoming messages, I didn't have that problem, well not until I switched it on once in my apartment.

"Santos is here to meet us"

I know I was scowling at Bobby as he said that, why the hell would Santos be here when all I needed was a car of my own.

"Why would he do that, I need a car for a few hours then I'll talk to him"

As we came down the steps from the plane I glanced over to where the cars would normally be parked and realized that wasn't going to happen. Not unless I left Santos and Bobby at the airport, because there was only the one car waiting for us. As we approached the car Santos was stood by the driver's door and he opened the rear door, expecting me to ride in the back.

"Santos you better have a dam good reason for this"

"Get in the car Ranger"

I noticed that Tank was already sat in the back and for some reason, I felt a sense of dread coming through me, this kind of reception party could only mean they had bad news and I didn't think I could cope with that just now. Bobby got in the front with Santos driving so I waited quietly for one of them to talk. It seemed that Tank was going to be their spokesperson, so I turned to him as he began. I knew I wasn't going to like what he had to say but it didn't tamp down my temper with this reception.

"Ranger we had to meet you"

"What's happened that could be so bad?"

"It's bad, really bad. Little Girl, Stephanie, she's gone"

"Gone where?"

I was finding it difficult to compute what Tank was saying. Had she run away or decided to move? But why the hell would she do that?

"We don't know. I've got every man looking for her, but we've found nothing"

That's when I realized that she was missing because someone had taken her. What the hell had she got involved with for that to happen to her and if she'd been in danger why hadn't Tank ensured her safety?

"How long as she been missing?"

"Four days"

I knew that Steph could be annoying at times, avoiding my men or even removing her trackers so that we wouldn't know where she was, but that was usually when she was annoyed at how restrictive they could be.

"Did she have a stalker or any threats?"

"No. Nothing. I spoke with Connie and she said that Steph had phoned in to say she wouldn't be in because she was feeling ill"

"Trackers?"

"Her car's parked up and the other trackers are in her apartment"

"Has she just gone away for a few days?"

Thinking that maybe she'd decided to get away for a few days at the beach.

"No. Her apartment's been ransacked as though someone was looking for something"

"FTAs?"

"Only one outstanding and we can't find him either"

"Morelli?"

I had to ask even if in my heart I didn't want to know what was going on there.

"He doesn't know where she is. I spoke to Frank Plum and he told me that she gave Morelli the boot, permanently"

Had my Babe not been missing I might have almost smiled at that but at the moment I needed to focus on finding her. Coming in cold four days later wasn't going to make it easy. I was going through anything that might help in this search, though I knew that Tank would have covered most things.

"When did you speak to her last?"

"I, err, haven't seen her for a few weeks"

I caught Santos looking back at us through the rearview mirror and felt sure from his expression that there was more to Tank's story than he was letting on.

"When was the last time any of the men spoke to her?"

I wasn't surprised when it was Santos that answered, which only made my anger at Tank ramp up.

"Hector was keeping an eye on her trackers and I think he was with her when she took her last skip in"

Hector, why was he keeping an eye on Steph's trackers, wasn't that something that was done anyway? I knew that Hector liked Steph, he may not say much, and he certainly didn't go out of his way to be friendly with any of the men, but Steph, it seemed he had a soft spot for her.

"Where is he now?"

"No fucking idea. He took off this morning without saying a word and no one has heard from him since"

I might be worried about that with any man other than Hector, but I knew he was thorough, and he could be like a ghost when he needed information. My thinking was that Hector would be looking for Steph and with some of the access he managed to get into surveillance cameras then he'd probably be the best person to be able to get anything useful.

As we raced through the streets my mind went to Steph. How the hell she managed to get herself into the situations that she did was almost mind boggling. To be fair it wasn't always her fault, it was as though the bad guys took extra notice of her even if she wasn't being too curious. If she had her teeth into an investigation then it was almost as though they saw her as a major threat, and maybe she was, because she could certainly put the clues together to solve a problem.

"Have you looked at a record of where she'd been?"

"Yes, for the week before she went missing"

"Go back further"

Because I was sure that Steph had maybe stumbled onto something that she probably hadn't a clue about. I watched as Tank sent a message, so hopefully that would be waiting for us when we reached Rangeman. I breathed a sigh of relief as we entered through the gates of Rangeman and pulled to a stop inside the garage. I noticed that half of the spaces were empty and hoped those not on duty were out looking for Steph.

Once on the fifth floor I dropped the bag I had with me in my office and went in search of where Tank had set up a sit room. I found the room by following the noise of men talking. Walking up to the board I started to read through the reports that had already been produced and any leads that had already been followed up on.

Santos was stood next to me, I'm sure ready to answer any questions or act on any orders I might have.

"Cal is reviewing any skips that Steph has taken in, checking their status. Hell Ranger, she's brought a lot in over the years"

"What about distractions, the skips she helped us with?"

"Ram is on that, especially as they tend to be more violent"

"Skips since I've been gone?"

"Not many, I've been looking at those"

"Current?"

"Only one and as Tank mentioned we can't find him"

"Sir, those tracker reports for the previous week"

I turned to Binkie as he handed me the paper and then went to the report that I had already been looking at. Looking at it carefully I noticed that the last day reported on was where all the trackers were at Steph's building. I walked over to Santos who was sat looking through papers and sat down next to him.

"Do we know exactly when Steph went missing?"

I know my voice was low, but I was starting to feel that I was missing something important here.

"No. She called Connie on the Wednesday, and her car left the building but then returned, so I think it was assumed that she went missing on the Thursday"

"Assumed, no one knows for sure?"

"Look Ranger, things got a bit tense around here after you left"

"And?"

"Oh no. That detail you need to get from Tank"

I stormed out of the room slamming the door shut behind me and walked straight into Tank's office. I was surprised to find him sat on the couch, papers in his hand as he held his head.

"Thought you'd be here sooner"

"What happened with Steph, Tank?"

I know I was annoyed and that I had raised my voice, but why was it such hard work for Santos to talk to me. What the hell had happened between Tank and Steph? I sat down in the chair opposite Tank and waited. He obviously knew that I was annoyed that something like this had happened and judging from the fact that he wouldn't look at me I knew that there was definitely more to what was going on.

"Things were pretty quiet, and Steph seemed to be okay. I wasn't aware that Vinnie's been reducing the low bonds that he's taking"

"So Steph was struggling to make ends meet?"

"I suppose. Anyway, she talked Connie into giving her one of ours. High bond but none violent. Steph did good finding him but when she approached him, he grabbed her and threw her in a concealed cellar. It was Santos that eventually noticed where her car was and that it hadn't moved. Santos went to investigate and eventually found her along with the bodies of three other women. She was fine, dehydrated so Bobby kept her here. I, err, had a go at her. I didn't shout but I let her know that I wasn't impressed"

"Tank what exactly did you say to her?"

"That she went in with no planning, no backup, no training and irresponsible along with a few what ifs"

I closed my eyes to contain the anger that was building up inside me. I knew that maybe Tank was right but with the skips she normally brought in all the planning in the world couldn't take account of what could happen. Hell, even I'd been caught out by some of her skips and I'm damn sure that Tank had a bruise on his chest from a bullet when Steph nearly got blown up, and let's not forget a broken leg.

I raised an eyebrow at Tank and judging from the way he avoided looking at me I was pretty sure he knew what I was thinking of. Even with backup things could go wrong and how was she supposed to work with a partner? Okay, I could concede that she definitely needed some training, but would that have helped her in that situation?

"How is she supposed to have backup when Vinnie won't provide a partner for her? You think Lula fits the role?"

"Hell no. She's a fucking liability. Look I took another look at the file. It lacked detail and the police were sloppy. On paper Gatling looked like someone who was stealing bank cards"

"No history of violence?"

"None that came to light until we found Steph"

"Did you talk to her afterwards?"

"No. She started to avoid me, well any of the men really"

Now I was definitely annoyed with Tank. Steph would have felt embarrassed and her self-confidence was probably on the floor. Of course she would avoid having to talk to Tank or seeing any of the men.

"I'm sorry Ranger, I screwed up"

I stood up and left the room feeling extremely stressed out. The one thing that I asked of Tank was to make sure that she was safe and okay. If she wasn't getting the work, I knew she would work here, but only if I worded it carefully. She would see it as pity money and no way would she actually ask for work and especially not from Tank after he spoke to her like that.

I left Tank and headed for the apartment, I needed to change into my Rangeman uniform and pick up my watch, phone and keys. Once there I headed for the bathroom and was splashing cold water on my face in an attempt to control my temper. How the fuck could Tank have screwed up so badly? My fist hit the mirror where my reflection was as the temper rolled through me.

I'd let her down because I wasn't here to look out for her. I knew there was no point in letting my temper control me, what I needed to do now was to get my head in gear and work at finding Steph. The fact that she had been gone for a few days didn't bode well. In the past by now we'd have actually found her or she would have managed to escape.

I changed into my Rangeman uniform, thankful that I hadn't cut my hand on the mirror and then used the stairs to return back downstairs to five. Coming down the stairs gave me the time to pull myself together.

Once back in control and opening the door to the floor I was intending to return to the conference room when all of a sudden, men were racing out of it. Santos was at the front and shouted at me as he passed.

"Garage, suit up. Hector thinks he may have found her"

I grabbed the bag from my office knowing anything I would need was in it and then was following Santos down to the garage. I let Santos drive the SUV seeing as he had more information than me but was keen to know what Hector had told him.

"Santos"

"He's following a van, here connect my phone will you"

I used the phone to connect to the SUVs blue tooth and watched as a map appeared on the screen. I assumed that the moving blue dot was Hector and watched trying to work out where he was going.

"Do we have contact with Hector?"

"Yeah, we're using the comms systems"

I turned on the comm system and started to talk, hoping that Hector was listening. As I did that, I opened my bag that was at my feet and pulled out a vest and two guns.

"Hector"

"Jeffe, you're back"

"This morning. What are you following?"

"White van, similar model to an EMT vehicle. Your ETA?"

I stopped and looked at the map again working out the best route to either catch up or intercept.

"30"

Silence emanated through the car as I continued to look at the map, trying to work out where the hell the van might be going. It might not be enough to just catch up with the van, we'd need to get it to stop and at the same time ensure Stephs safety.

"Hector do you know if Steph is inside the van?"

"No. But same van that took her"

I think my heart fell as he said that, because all we could hope for was that whoever was driving the van knew where Steph was. I was back to looking at the map, working out different scenarios for where the van might be going and how I could ensure that a team had visual on it.

"Team 2"

"Sir"

"Take route 1 and get ahead of him. Keep an eye on Hector and then cut across to come back in the opposite direction"

"Roger"

"Team 3"

"Sir"

"Route 206, same instructions"

"Roger"

Okay we were on the 583, maybe 15 minutes behind Hector and the way Santos was driving it wouldn't be long before we caught him up. I was surprised how busy the road was and was inwardly cursing every time we came up behind a slow moving car. It gave me the opportunity, though, to put on my vest and check the ammunition in the guns.

"I can overtake him and then slow down and between us and Hector box him in"

"Go for it"

It was a tense few minutes before we caught up and overtook Hector with the van now ahead of us. As we overtook the van at speed, I should have known that something else would happen and sure enough the damn van turned off the road behind us. I didn't think that they knew they were being followed, us overtaking them should have negated that thought.

"Do a fucking U turn"

"Still behind him Jeffe. He's heading across to the 206"

I grabbed hold of the handle above my head as Santos did a U turn, the fact that we avoided hitting any cars coming the other way was down to his good driving skills.

"Team 3, watch for a white van entering from 206"

"Team 2, head across to join Team 3"

We eventually came to the turning where the van had turned off and were soon catching up with Hector again. As I watched the screen, I saw Hector go across the junction for the 206, staying on the current road. As we passed the junction it seemed that van was already changing to another road.

"He's turning Jeffe"

We were now behind Hector as he made the turn and could see the van up ahead. It was as Hector had described, a white van, that could well have been used for medical purposes. The road, well track really, was taking us further into a wooded area. That the van was travelling far too fast for the road made me believe that the driver had probably made out that he had a tail. There was no way to overtake it on this track, but I noticed that Hector had speeded up and was now closer behind it.

I swore as the back wheels of the van skidded around a corner, kicking up dirt and dust in its wake.

"He's gonna come off the road"

I agreed with Santos even though I didn't want that to happen. All I could think about now that we had we had that van in sight was that maybe Steph was inside and that she was okay. If not, then we definitely needed the driver to be caught and preferably alive.

"Shit, it's going, he's going to flip it"

We both watched as the van took a corner far too fast, the wheels bouncing over the holes in the road and the driver losing control. It was as though time slowed down as the van rolled over onto its side and slid for several feet before coming to a stop. At least it hadn't rolled any further.

As our car slowed down, I was opening the door, my guns in each hand, ready to jump out. There was no movement as we approached, Santos was stood next to me, but Hector had disappeared into the woods. I motioned to Santos to move toward the driver's door while I covered the back doors. What happened next had me holding my breath. I squatted down as the back door swung open, causing me to raise my gun and aim in that direction but then I saw Steph literally fall from the back of the van.

I relaxed slightly and started to move toward her when suddenly a man crawled out from behind her and grabbed her by her arm.

Looking at Steph I could see that she was badly hurt. Her face was covered in bruises and her expression showed that she was struggling with the pain. The man immediately saw that we were surrounding him and roughly pulled Steph onto her feet. As I looked more closely at her, as she was being held in front of the man, there was something not quite right. I could see the bruises and dried blood on her face more clearly now knowing that she'd gone through hell with this man. Gone was my control now, that man wouldn't survive after she was free.

It was as though she was trying to listen for something, her head to one side and not once did she look up and see me. I knew my Babe. She would look ahead, look at ways to escape, did that mean that she was more injured than she seemed to be. That's when my heart flipped, when the man hiding behind Steph began to talk. It wasn't what he was saying, well not to start with, it was the language he was using, a dialect of Persian that I was all too familiar with.

"Allah is with me not you the heathens. He gave me this woman to do his work. I will finish the work that he has asked of me"

A cold fear went through me as I heard his words. I didn't have a clean shot of the man and wasn't sure if Santos had either. As the man stopped talking, he was raising his gun to her head. I watched a change in the expression on Steph's face. Her head was lowered and then suddenly she snapped it back, effectively knocking the gun to the side and into the man's face. Not expecting that move from her the man faltered and his grip on her arm must have slackened. As soon as his hold released Steph, she stumbled forward and there was a volley of bullets hitting that man. I made sure I aimed for his head, twice and saw blood from the front of his shirt. He was dead before he hit the ground and I was at Steph before that happened.

As my arms went around her, I was stunned with her reaction. She was screaming and kicking so violently that I had to wrap her in my arms and contain her as we lay on the dirty road. Even me calling out to her, saying her name didn't have any effect and as her face turned to me, I was shocked that her blue eyes weren't there to see me. Instead I was looking into totally black eyes.