SEAL’s Command by Makenna Jameison
Chapter 19
Ashleigh whimpered as she heard voices yelling. She blinked, her eyes adjusting to the darkness. The last thing she remembered was a white van screeching to a halt in the parking lot as she loaded bags into her trunk and then a sickening smell as a rag was held over her mouth by a masked man.
How long ago had that been? Minutes? Hours? And where was she?
The voices in the distance seemed to be getting louder. Were they in another room? The hallway? She seemed to be stuck in a closet of sorts. A small storage room. Dusty boxes were stacked off to the side, and there was an old, dirty sweatshirt tossed atop them. She couldn’t see much from the thin crack of light coming in from under the door, but she looked around more.
Her hands felt the area around her. The floor was stone, and she cringed as she felt something fuzzy, yanking her hand away. Hopefully it was a dust bunny and not anything worse.
Was her kidnapper the same man or men who’d tracked Slate up to the cabin? Why hadn’t they just shot her when they had the chance?
Her mouth was dry, her throat parched from whatever chemicals they’d knocked her out with. She still felt slightly woozy, and Ashleigh had no idea how long she’d been under. The light coming from under the door made her think it was still daytime, but what day? And who was to say it wasn’t a light from the hall or something? It could be the middle of the night for all that she knew.
“Send him my demands!” a deep voice yelled. “We will avenge the death of Abdul Sayed. I trained with him as a teenager you know. All those family trips we took, my parents never knew what I was doing. We would spend weeks at a time in the Middle East. My mother was so happy to see her relatives and old friends that she didn’t even notice I’d be gone for hours every day learning about the filthy American infidels. They took one of our great leaders, and now we will cripple them.”
“You must be patient,” another voice argued. “Our entire operation was blown by the FBI. Think of how many Americans could’ve been killed in those explosions. Now you rush to pick off their leaders? It would be smarter to plan a new attack.”
“I’m not rushing,” the deep voice hissed. “I rushed up there weeks ago, tracking that Navy officer. He commands the SEAL teams. They ran their mouths talking to the police officers. The FBI agent is being watched by us too you know. He thinks he’s so smart. We have been following him and will pick off their leadership as well.”
“This is bullshit,” the second voice sneered. “We should’ve just hidden near the gates of the naval base one day and taken out men at random. Or waited by the FBI field office. Think of the numbers we could’ve killed. In the name of Allah, we could have avenged our fallen brothers!”
The man with the deep voice grew muffled as they argued further, and Ashleigh couldn’t tell if they were walking away or if they’d entered another room. Her skin prickled as fear washed over her. Whether they were planning a large-scale attack or simply to pick off military and government personnel were equally disturbing. And how did she fit into this? Was it because of Slate? She knew he had an important job being a commander for multiple SEAL teams, but it’s not like he was the president or something. Why go through all the trouble of stalking him and kidnapping her?
Angry footsteps came storming down the hall, and she shrieked as the door to the storage room was suddenly pulled open. “Don’t hurt me!” she said as she held her hands up, instantly feeling silly. They’d freaking kidnapped her. Of course they had no qualms about hurting her.
A man with bleached blond hair looked down at her in disgust, and she could see the dark stubble on his jaw. Instantly, recognition washed over her. She’d seen this man in the drugstore. Had he been following her? Was this the same man who’d tracked Slate to Washington and shot his neighbor on their San Diego street?
He smirked as she trembled in fear, but even more frightening was the spark of lust in his beady dark eyes. He might be repulsed by Americans, but she was a woman. “Where is your Navy commander now?” he sneered. “I saw you two fucking up at that cabin.”
Ashleigh blanched and forced herself to swallow, trying to remain calm even as her heart beat frantically in her chest. This asshole was bullshitting her. He couldn’t have seen her having sex with Slate at the cabin since they hadn’t. She’d barely met Slate at that point. And if this guy was prowling around outside in the middle of the night, he couldn’t have seen inside the cabin anyway.
“Let me call him,” she found herself saying.
The man laughed, but then a spark of interest crossed his face. “I was about to say no, but yes, that might be good. Tell him how scared you are. You can tell him how I fucked what was his, you dirty American whore.”
“No!” she yelled as he reached down and grabbed her wrist. “Let me call him first.”
He yanked her to her feet, and Ashleigh immediately began to fight his grip. He subdued her quickly, easily, wrapping a strong arm around her throat. She choked as he tightened his grip, realizing this crazy man could kill her right here. She clawed at his forearm, trying to pull it from around her neck as her air was cut off.
Just as she grew frantic that she was about to pass out, he loosened his grip, leaving her gasping and barely able to stand. One powerful arm wrapped around her chest, his hand groping her breast as he pushed her down the hallway. “Maybe he can listen as I take you. He’ll hear your screams as I rape you right on my bed. Maybe I’ll keep you instead of killing you afterward,” he said, gripping her more tightly as she started to cry. “You can carry my child and be one of my wives. You’ll serve me and the other men here.”
He pushed her through the doorway and threw Ashleigh toward his bed. She staggered, regaining her footing and then trying to run around him, and he slapped her across the face. The shock of it had her gasping, raising her hand to her cheek, and then another man appeared in the doorway, yelling in another language. His voice sounded different from the second voice earlier, and she wondered how many men were here.
Her gaze darted around the room as tears spilled down her cheeks. She couldn’t fight all of them, but maybe she could hurt one. Her assailant moved toward the doorway, yelling at the other man, and she spotted a pair of scissors on the desk near the window. Hastily, she rushed over, picking them up. The minute she was alone with her attacker, she was going to fight him. There was no way she was letting him hurt her without putting up a hell of a fight.
The sheer curtains didn’t prevent her from seeing outside, and she frowned as she looked at the nearby street. The older cars and rundown neighborhood didn’t look like anywhere in San Diego. Had they taken her south to Tijuana?
She jumped in fright as the bedroom door slammed shut, and then her kidnapper was stalking toward her, yelling about the scissors in her hand. She let out a bloodcurdling scream, not caring who heard her, as the man charged.
***
Slate muttered under his breath as the computer continued scanning the license plates from the traffic cams. He knew Ace was working as quickly as he could, and they were somewhat limited by the speed at which the computer could process the information. After just getting off the phone with the FBI though, Slate still didn’t have any new leads and was feeling frustrated as hell.
Ashleigh was out there somewhere. Hurt. Helpless. He refused to believe that she’d been killed. The alternative to finding her alive was simply unfathomable.
“Got it!” Ace suddenly called out, pausing the program and pointing at the screen. All eyes swung to the white utility van cruising under an overpass.
“That’s it,” Jackson said, clenching his fist.
“They were headed to Mexico,” Slate said, his pulse quickening. “Get the border agents back on the phone. I don’t know what’s taking them so damn long to confirm the van crossed into Mexico when we suspected that possibility all along. I want an answer.”
“On it,” Logan said, rushing across the room to the secure line.
Slate’s mind raced. “Run a search of Amir Mohammad and Tijuana. Maybe he has property down there. Maybe they got a hotel. Find his credit card information. His contacts. If we know they took Ashleigh out of the country, there’s no point in wasting time searching here in San Diego. Run the names of the other wanted criminals in his terror cell as well.”
The men grabbed their laptops and began rapidly typing multiple searches, trying to pull any information they could glean.
“What was his alias? Jacob Glasgow?” Troy asked.
“Affirmative. Run that one, too.”
Ace’s fingers began flying over the keyboard again. “I’m going to hack into his bank accounts. The FBI froze them, but I want to see if he attempted to use a credit card anywhere. They’d need it for a hotel.”
“Unless they paid in cash,” Raptor said.
“If they were smart, they probably kept a stash of bills in case their accounts were frozen,” Ethan said.
Jackson was frowning as he sat with Troy. “How the hell do you know how to do all that?” he asked. A string of social media accounts had popped up on the screen as Troy ran a few different searches.
Troy clenched his jaw. “My sisters are always on social media. It sounds nuts, but people post all kinds of crazy shit that they shouldn’t—photographs of their homes, favorite restaurants, sporting events, all that. You can find out a hell of a lot about a person you don’t even know. Amir Mohammad had this one set up in his own name. He used an alias for the plane ticket, but hell. He’s got a profile page and everything. That photo matches the one on the FBI’s wanted list.”
“I’m not getting any pings on his credit card,” Ace muttered. “He must’ve known they were all frozen. I was hoping maybe he tried to use one somewhere.”
“Do we have his cell phone records?” Ethan asked. “Maybe we can trace him that way.”
“I found several photographs searching through his online photos—a house, a neighborhood street, and a cantina,” Troy said. “That doesn’t look like San Diego. Ace, can you see if the location settings are turned on? It’s not tagged on social media, but if you download the photo, maybe you can grab it?”
“That would almost be too damn easy,” Jackson said. “What kind of jackass posts photos of their hideout for the entire world to see?”
“A dumb one,” Slate muttered. “But thank fuck for that. This is potentially our first solid lead. Imagine going through all the trouble to hide your whereabouts from the FBI but then posting other parts of your life online.”
“If the photographs don’t have location coordinates embedded in them, maybe we can pinpoint the neighborhood through sat imagery if he’s definitely in Tijuana,” Jackson said. “If the photos are recent, there’s a good chance he’d go there again.”
“I haven’t come up with any property records of his,” Ace said. “Not under the names Jacob Glasgow or Amir Mohammad. Send me the link to his social media profile. I’ll see what I can get from the photographs.”
Slate frowned as he looked over Troy and Jackson’s shoulders onto the laptop screen. The small home appeared to be in a rundown neighborhood. Had they taken Ashleigh there? What the hell were they doing to her?
His stomach roiled. “When were these photos taken?”
“Just a few weeks ago. It’s possible he was using a home down there and went back. Or it could be nothing,” Troy said. “The warehouse they were operating out of was right here in San Diego.”
“Got it,” Ace said, glancing up at Slate. “The GPS coordinates are for a house in Tijuana. The photo of the restaurant is also down there. It sounds like he spends time in the area. Need us to go check it out?”
“See if you can pull up sat imagery first. I wonder if this van has been at the house before.”
Nodding, Ace began searching through some other systems. Slate held his breath. He wanted to rush down there and get Ashleigh, but some random photos on social media didn’t prove that’s where they’d taken her. It was a start, but he wanted more intel before moving in. Every minute counted, and he didn’t want to rush to the house if Ashleigh was being held somewhere else.
“The last satellite images of the area are from four hours ago. But looking back over the past few days, a white van was definitely there. Look at that van parked in the driveway,” Ace said, pointing at the zoomed-in picture.
“That’s them,” Slate said. Although they couldn’t see the plates from the satellite image, he could see a dent in the back corner of the white van. The same dent had been on the image Ace grabbed from the freeway traffic cams. “That’s the same goddamn van. We need to get there ASAP.”
“Are we coordinating with the Mexicans on this?” Raptor asked, raising his eyebrows.
“No. None of you are going. I am.”
“The hell we’re not, sir. They kidnapped your woman. We’re not letting you go into a foreign country alone to retrieve her. You need backup as much as anyone else. We have a better chance of getting Ashleigh out safely with more men.”
“You’ll be risking your careers,” Slate said. “I can’t allow that to happen. I’m nearing retirement. This isn’t authorized by the U.S. Navy. The FBI is supposed to be investigating the kidnapping.”
“And they haven’t told us a hell of a lot,” Raptor countered. “While they’re going through red tape, we can be on our way to get her.”
“We’re going, sir,” Jackson said firmly.
Ace looked up at them. “I can come or stay here monitoring things.”
Slate’s gaze swept the room, his jaw ticking. “Raptor, Jackson, Ethan, and Logan are with me. Ace, you and Troy stay here. I need to call Commander Williams.”
Raptor looked around at the men. “Let’s gear up and roll out.”