Chapter 68: Captured
Chuck was still talking when he climbed into the surveillance van — something about the trajectory of a third-floor balcony drop, the proper landing technique, the way his feet had connected with the pavement. He had the slightly manic energy of someone running on adrenaline who hadn't yet noticed that the room had gone quiet.
Simon let him finish one sentence before interrupting.
"Casey and Sarah weren't there when I got to the rear exit," he said. "They weren't on comms either. I think they've been taken."
Chuck stopped mid-word.
Before he could respond, the earpiece filled with a voice that was calm the way a blade was calm — smooth, composed, specifically designed to cut.
"Hello, Carmichael." Sasha. "I do hope you enjoyed your evening. Your friends are with me now. If you'd like them returned in functional condition, you'll bring the chip to 6th and Alameda tomorrow night at ten. Come alone."
The line went dead.
The van was very quiet.
"What do we do?" Chuck said. He was looking at Simon with the particular expression of someone who had run out of their own ideas and was hoping someone else had kept theirs.
"We get them back," Simon said, navigating through the late-night traffic with the same unhurried focus he brought to everything behind a wheel.
"How? When? I mean — do we have a plan? Tell me there's a plan."
"There will be a plan," Simon said. "By morning. Right now I'm taking you home, and you're going to sleep, and we're going to approach this with clear heads instead of exhausted ones."
Chuck exhaled. "Okay. Okay, yeah."
From the back seat, Montgomery spoke for the first time since the operation went sideways. "You're planning to go after them."
"Yes," Simon said.
"Then you're planning to add two more bodies to whatever she already has." Montgomery's voice was flat, not unkind. "I watched you both tonight. You're capable, Chuck. More than I expected. But Sasha doesn't get caught twice. She anticipated this. Everything that happened at that hotel was managed."
"So we do nothing?" Chuck said. "That's your advice?"
"My advice is to understand what you're walking into before you walk into it." Montgomery paused. "But if you're asking whether I think you can succeed — I think it depends entirely on whether you're willing to accept that this will cost something."
The van reached Chuck's block and Simon eased it to the curb.
"Go sleep," Simon said. "I'll call you in the morning."
Chuck got out slowly, looking back at the van before he closed the door, like a man leaving a room he wasn't sure he'd be able to return to.
Simon waited until he was inside.
"Montgomery," he said.
"I know," Montgomery said. "I heard myself."
"The man you used to be. He would have known what to do."
"The man I used to be made choices that cost people he cared about," Montgomery said quietly. "I stopped being him for reasons that seemed sufficient at the time."
Simon didn't push it. He understood the arithmetic of that kind of decision — the math people did when the price of being capable was something they'd already paid once and couldn't afford to pay again.
He unlocked the surveillance van's rear doors. "Get some rest. If you're in tomorrow, I'll call you."
Montgomery looked at him for a moment. Then got out without another word.
Simon watched him go, then drove the van to a parking structure two blocks from his building, switched to the Mustang, and went home.
Upstairs, he sat at his desk.
He thought about what he had available and what the morning needed to look like. Sarah and Casey were professionals who could manage a captivity situation better than most. Sasha wanted the chip, which meant they were alive and would stay alive until the exchange. That bought time.
What the rescue required was firepower beyond the tranq pistols Casey had issued, and possibly something more decisive than small arms for the location itself.
He picked up a phone from his desk — not his regular phone, not the agency phone. The one that had come with the number Doc had given him.
It rang twice.
"Sorry to call this late," Simon said.
"It's fine," Doc said. "What do you need?"
"I need access to weapons and some explosive material. Controlled, specific. Not wholesale destruction — precision tools."
A pause on Doc's end — not hesitation, just the beat of a man organizing information. "I know someone. Hold on."
A minute later, Simon's phone received a number.
He also had a second question.
"Doc. Your network in Los Angeles — does any of it still function?"
"Enough," Doc said. "Depending on what you need."
"I need to recruit people," Simon said. "Capable, discreet, not the kind who'll create problems. Not criminals — or at least not the irredeemable variety."
"I can compile a list," Doc said. "I can't guarantee they'll say yes. People who are good at what they do are usually careful about who they work for."
"That's enough," Simon said. "A list is a starting point."
"A week," Doc said. "You'll have it."
"Appreciated. And Doc — the standing offer. If you need something and you can't reach me through normal channels, you have the private number."
"I know," Doc said. "Stay out of trouble."
Simon ended the call and dialed the number Doc had sent.
The line picked up on the second ring. Cautious. Alert.
"Who is this?"
"Doc sent me," Simon said. "I need some equipment. Weapons and controlled demolition material."
Silence. Then: "You know Doc personally?"
"Yes. The number came directly from him."
Another pause, shorter. A decision being made. "Bring cash. Come to the warehouse at the end of Third Street — west end, past the chain-link. One person."
"On my way," Simon said.
He opened the storage closet and pulled out a backpack, counted out two hundred and twenty thousand in banded bills, zipped it shut.
He thought about taking the Mustang, then reconsidered. Too recognizable, too easy to track later if the meeting went sideways. He drove to a long-term parking structure two miles away, located a mid-size SUV that hadn't moved in at least a week based on the dust on the hood, and had it running in under ninety seconds.
He drove the borrowed vehicle to the address.
The street was quiet at this hour — not empty, but moving at the specific reduced rhythm of late-night industry. Simon could feel the observation before he could identify its source. Three positions, he estimated: one elevated on the fire escape to his left, one ground-level near a dumpster forty feet ahead, one he couldn't place yet but whose presence he felt in the way experienced people learned to feel things they couldn't yet see.
He didn't change his pace or his expression.
He knocked on the warehouse's rolling door.
A long pause. Then footsteps from inside — multiple people, not trying particularly hard to be quiet, which told him something about how they ran their security. Confidence rather than concealment.
The rolling door went up.
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