Page 105 of Shielding Instinct

There was a smack. “Are you telling me you don’t know where the girl is?”

“Ow shit, don’t do that.” House guy was rubbing his arm. “I don’t know where the girl is.”

The car guy ran to the house.

Hawkeye leaned to her ear and whispered, “Do you know who the Prokhorovs are?”

“Yes,” Petra said. “They’re not my monkeys and certainly not my circus.”

He caught her eye. “It’s Rowan’s circus, though?”

Petra shook her head. “I can’t speak to that.”

“Got it. And you saw something that tied this family to the Prokhorovs and sent up a bat signal?” Hawkeye asked.

“I did no such thing. This is all very much different than what I had imagined.” She held up a hand to signal that she was listening. It was harder to hear with the men inside, butthe parabolic ear—that Hawkeye carried on searches to help him locate people who were calling out—was, in fact, very helpful.

“Where’s the girl? Where’s the girl?”

They heard fist to flesh and Jenny crying out.

“She’s a child. I have no idea. Children get things in their minds.”

The next bit was garbled. The men talked over each other, sometimes screaming at the parents, sometimes hissing softly. “We’re so deep into the trees that a child has no chance of finding her way out. If you helped her to escape, you only sent her to a painful death from dehydration, hunger, and animals. If you think it’s a good idea to try to get another child out, they’ll die just as badly.”

Then the car guy was yelling at the dad about finding a wifi signal at dark. They would be transferring his Bitcoin monies to the men’s Bitcoin wallets.

“But how will my family live? That’s all we have.” Herb sobbed.

“Yes, well, at least you will live, right?” the car guy said. “Then we’ll take the boat and get you to Panama. Your mule will take you to Columbia from there.”

“With no money, we won’t survive. Leave a little in pity for the children.” Jenny was begging.

Hawkeye signaled to Cooper to keep quiet, and the three backed deeper into the foliage.

“What’s the play Petra?”

“We use the sat phone to call Rowan and dump this onto his plate.”

It was a quick relay of information and GPS pins, then the three—Petra, Hawkeye, and Cooper—were right back in their spot, watching and listening, waiting for the FBI team to show up.

It felt like a very long time.

The house was eerily quiet. Nothing was coming over the parabolic ear.

In the last of the daylight, the kidnappers were back by their vehicle.

“Stop it and listen. When you take guy to a Wi-Fi signal and get the money, take the gun.” From her angle, Petra couldn’t see who was speaking to whom.

“Man, if I end up shooting him, it’s murder. Right now, I’m doing some Robin Hood shit, stealing from a robber baron to feed the poor—me.”

“Shoot him in the leg.”

“You think I’m a good enough shot to shoot a running person in the leg? Dude, I’ve never shot a gun before.”

“Then let him run. We have his wife and kids. We tell the Prokhorovs that the guy ran off with the girl. We’re supposed to transport them, not jail them. Yeah, I know we’ve got them tied up, but you know what I’m saying.”

Cooper signaled, and moments later, Rowan came squat-walking through the foliage.

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