Give Me War - Kate McCarthy Page 0,37
shirt with my left hand and slam my fist in his face. Again and again. Travis grabs me, dragging me off him. “No!” I elbow my brother in the gut and his hold loosens. I take advantage, leaping back on Rider and grabbing him by the shoulders, shaking him hard. “Where’s my wife?”
But he doesn’t answer. His body is limp. He’s unconscious.
I rise to my feet, staggering. Travis grips my shoulder, steadying me. “Mitch has something.”
“What?”
My eldest brother is jogging towards me. He gives me his phone. There’s a message lit up on the screen from Unknown Sender.
You’ll find her here.
It’s followed by a bunch of numbers.
My brows snap together and my eyes lift to Mitch. “What the hell are these?”
“I think they’re co-ordinates.”
“Unknown sender,” I mutter. “How do we trust it?”
Mitch shakes his head. “What other choice do we have?”
“Does the AFP have anyone else on the inside besides Rossi?”
“I can put a call in, see what I can find out, but that kind of information takes time.”
“Which we don’t have.” I swipe a hand over my face, allowing my mind to race for a few short precious seconds. My brother is right. What other choice do we have? “Forward the message to Seth,” I tell him, referring to our manager back at the office. He’s already tapping buttons when I turn to Travis, adding, “Get Mac, wherever the hell she is, and meet us at my car. Let’s go.”
“They can’t be far,” Mitch says, handing me my gun as we jog from the house.
I tuck it away, muttering a thanks before asking him about Rossi.
“Kelly’s with him. We called an ambulance.”
My vintage Porsche is blocked in by bikes. We climb in regardless and I turn the engine. She roars to life and I drive up over the front yard, tearing across lawn after front lawn as we fly down the street. We pass by all the Harley’s littering the road and surge over the gutter, hitting bitumen with a squeal. Checking my rear-view mirror, I see Travis and Mac running for his car. They slide in, my brother already driving before Mac gets the passenger door shut. He roars up behind me, keeping tight on my tail as Mitch barks directions, using the map on his phone. “Where the hell are we going?”
“Seth says the co-ordinates show an image of what looks like a dried-up riverbed in the middle of nowhere.” He flips the map to satellite and I glance across, seeing nothing but bushland.
A sick feeling knots my stomach. That doesn’t look good. It looks like a place someone would go to dump a body. “Have you tried replying to the message?”
“Yes. It’s not delivering.”
“I don’t like this.”
“Me either,” Mitch mutters.
I plant my foot down, the car fishtailing as we turn a corner. “Tell Seth to call up the council plans for the area.”
He goes to make the call when the phone rings in his hand. My eyes dart to the screen. It’s Mac. Mitch answers, putting the device on speaker. “Yeah?”
“I sent the co-ordinates to Echo!” she yells into the phone as if we’re on Mars and not just a car-length in front. Travis is keeping a hot pace behind us in his Subaru.
“I didn’t give you the co-ordinates.”
“We got them from Seth!” she yells again.
“Jesus Christ,” Mitch mutters.
“What?”
“Nothing, just … get to the point.”
“Well, she called up the council plans for the area.”
Mitch and I share a glance, seeming to share the same unspoken sentiment. Echo is smart. Deadly smart. We need her on the payroll. “And?”
“It pinpoints to the entrance of a large underground concrete storm drain.” She sounds smug when she answers. I know there’s panic underneath it all, but my little sister is an iceberg during a crisis. “The storm drain leads into the old Channing River that dried out over a decade ago.” The pieces of the puzzle start falling into place, and suddenly the trust I was putting into those co-ordinates gains strength.
“Let me guess. That underground storm drain runs right alongside the Vipers safe house.”
“Bingo,” she replies.
My hands white-knuckle the steering wheel. That bastard is underground, escaping with my wife like a rat.
“Tell Echo thanks,” I call out.
“Already did.”
Mitch hangs up.
“So Grudge has dug himself a little underground tunnel leading from the house to the drain. I didn’t see it when I searched the house, but I wasn’t looking for some kind of escape hatch,” I admit, feeling stupid. “I didn’t think the Vipers were that smart.”
“We’re smarter,” my