A Billionaire's Redemption - By Cindy Dees Page 0,91
He guided the vehicle onto the dirt track and stopped it.
“What are you doing?” Gabe demanded.
“We’re going into a hostage situation. We can’t just barge in there, guns blazing, without knowing what we’re up against. Not if we want Miss Merris to come out of this alive.”
McGrath hopped out and went around to the tailgate, and Gabe did the same. The guard rummaged in a black nylon bag and passed him a pair of field binoculars. “Can you handle a gun?”
“Hell, yes,” Gabe replied.
McGrath passed him a large-gauge shotgun and a box of shells, which he took grimly. He stuffed his pockets with shells and climbed back into the SUV. They continued slowly, with him gazing ahead through the binoculars.
“Anything?” the guard asked.
“Trail of dust. They’ve passed this way recently.”
“What’s up ahead?”
Gabe thought back urgently to his years working as an oil geologist for Merris Oil. It had been over a decade since he’d been out here. “Vacarro Four and Five wells. Then an airstrip. Then the road veers south and into some hillier country. Wells Two, Three and Eight are on this track out that way.”
“Any buildings out here?”
“There are trailers by each of the operating wells.” He hadn’t been surprised to see Vacarro One shut down behind them. The oil below it was gone. There’d been no trailer parked beside the second well, either, which meant it was probably capped off for good, too.
“Any buildings at the airfield?” McGrath asked.
“Not the last time I was out here. But that was ten years ago or more.”
“We’ll drive by it if we stay on this road, right?”
“Correct.”
They proceeded in grim silence, the guard navigating the rough track and him watching ahead for any sign of movement. A cluster of low bumps ahead marred the horizon. “Buildings,” he muttered. “Merris must have built some hangars out here.”
“Why would he do that?” McGrath queried. “It’s not like anyone’s going to permanently store an airplane out here. And if the weather’s going to get bad, wouldn’t a pilot just fly the plane out ahead of it?”
“You’d think. I have no idea why Merris built hangars out here.”
“Describe the buildings to me,” McGrath ordered.
“Metal and steel construction. New-looking. Big. Maybe a hundred feet wide. Longer than that. They might be for storing drilling equipment, but no operator in their right mind lets drilling rigs sit around rusting. You lease them out and keep them making you money.” He frowned as something else strange came into focus. “There are cameras mounted on the corners of the buildings. High up.”
“Security cameras?”
“Exactly.”
McGrath stopped the SUV in a hollow, the airfield and its odd buildings temporarily out of sight. He tried his phone and cursed when he failed to get coverage. “More of my guys will be here shortly. I was hoping to update them, but that’ll have to wait until they get here. You and I don’t have enough fire power to clear such large spaces ourselves, anyway.”
“So you expect us to just sit here and wait?” Gabe demanded incredulously.
“Yup.”
“But what if Willa’s inside one of those right now, being tortured...or worse?”
“I know you’re worried, but I can’t recommend charging in there. The object is to get her out alive.”
Gabe’s gut screamed at him to take action now. “How long until your men get here?”
“Fifteen, maybe twenty minutes.”
No way could he wait that long. “I’m going in,” he announced. “You can come with me or wait. Whatever you like.”
“You could get her killed!”
“My gut’s telling me she’ll die if I don’t go in. And I got to where I am today by listening to my gut. It’s never steered me wrong before.”
“Are you willing to bet Willa Merris’s life on it?”
He looked at the guard for several long seconds, considering. “Yeah. I am.”
McGrath sighed. “All right. I guess we’re going in. A few ground rules, then...”
He listened carefully as the guard set up a few simple rules for which direction Gabe would and wouldn’t shoot his shotgun, established several hand signals and told Gabe in no uncertain terms to stay behind him and out of the line of fire.
They scrambled through the thick clumps of side-oats and bluestem grass, batting away the swarms of tiny black flies that rose up around them. As they drew close to the airfield, they crouched low and proceeded more slowly. Impatience gnawed at him until he thought he was going to leap up and make a run for the first building.
McGrath circled wide to the left of the first building and