Page 17 of Jacqueline's Quest

She let out a breath. “I get it. I go with brute force and not mission finesse. It’s something even my commanding officers had an issue with.”

“You don’t say?” he teased.

“Tonto,” she laughed. “I also realize Christian has been separated from me for three years and Hannah hasn’t been with you in ten years, but they’re so close. Not doingsomethingis driving me insane.”

“We are though,” Murray said. “We’re going to bring them home, if, and this is a big if, we follow the game plan.”

“I know.”

“Do you?” He pulled along the curb of the building diagonal to the club. “I can’t do this with you if we’re not on the same page.”

She stared at him and the fire he’d seen blazing to life in them earlier returned, washing out the desperation. “I’m with you.”

"Good. Let's go. We can get a good view of the building from the roof." He pointed up toward the top of the structure they'd parked in front of.

Since it was still early in the day, there wasn’t much traffic, which wouldn’t help them, but it also wouldn’t hinder them. They pushed into the shop and went straight for the staircase. Since he’d arrived in Mexico, he realized most of the time, the general public turned a blind eye to anything out of the normal, a conditioned reaction caused by what, he’d assume, was the cartel and their threats and killings. It played to their advantage as they climbed up the seven floors until they reached the rooftop.

Murray pushed through first. The west wall of the building was the perfect place to look inside the Emporium. He didn’t think they could spend too much time there, maybe thirty or forty minutes at most before someone saw them. However, it would be long enough to get some great shots, which would also come in handy recreating the building layout in the 3-D map. He motioned for Jaqueline to follow as he pulled the sniper scope Noah gave him from his pack.

“We’ll set up over there. We have less than an hour. Whatever photos we get, will have to do until we breach the building.”

Jaqueline inclined her chin. “I spent thirty minutes up here as well. Only I was two buildings down with one of my better telephoto lenses.”

Murray knelt and began examining the building with the scope. The reason he carried it was simple, it could pick up heat signatures. The little gift from Noah had come in handy on many missions with his team. He wasn't known as the best shot or the most athletic, but he could lead. He did it well too. The scope, when he spotted with Noah, helped them with some of the most intricate kills they had to make.

He switched the scope on and squinted through the hole. Three heat signatures came into view. "There." He pointed. "What do you see?"

Jaqueline pulled her camera out of her pack then focused it on the club. “People. Looks like one of the guards and two of the subs.” She took a few shots then lowered the camera. “Where now?”

Murray peered through the lens. There were some on the floor below where he’d spotted the three people. “Can you get a shot of the floor below?”

“I can,” she said. “How about you call them out and I’ll get the pictures.”

“Perfect.” Each time he named a location, she took photos. There’d not been another sighting of the wheelchair she’d been so convinced was Hannah’s and he was okay with it. He didn’t need the distraction.

“Murray, are you seeing this?” Jaqueline’s question drew his attention.

“What?” He looked in the scope and frowned. The three SUV’s they’d seen in the pictures from the pictures taken earlier in the morning pulled up to the curb closest to the building. “Shit.”

The click of the shutter on Jaqueline’s camera worked double time as she took more shots. He watched as people exited the vehicles and rushed into the building. Between the traffic on the road, pedestrians filling the sidewalks, and the giant black blankets covering those going in, he couldn’t get a good look at the people. He only hoped when they downloaded the images from Jaqueline’s camera, they’d get something good.

“We should go,” Murray said. “We don’t want to wear out our welcome.”

“I agree,” she said as they put their things away then headed back down to the street. “I’m not sure we got anything good.”

“We’ll know soon enough,” Murray replied. “Let’s go.”

When they returned to the ranch, Jaqueline grabbed her laptop and got to work. While she was doing that, he downloaded the next batch of images from the satellite. Until they were ready to breach the building, they would receive a cache of pictures every four to six hours a day. Murray placed his laptop on the counter while he made a fresh pot of coffee, which would eventually tear his stomach up. He had a bad habit of sticking to the caffeine ride while he worked a mission and, days later, he paid for it. Every time it happened, he swore he’d never do it again, and every time he needed it, he’d fall right back into old habits.

“Murray?” Jaqueline called out. “You’re going to want to see this.”

After turning on the maker and grabbing his laptop, he went straight into the security room. Jaqueline sat hunched over her computer staring at something. He wrapped his arm around her and hit a few keys on her laptop, sending the photo to the large screen above them. “What am I looking at?”

“The person has red hair.” She pointed to the face of a person being helped into the club. “I know you’re going to say I am imagining it, but doesn’t he look like Scotty?”

Murray narrowed his eyes.Holy shit. It does.“Do you have any more pictures of him?”

“Give me a second.” She scrolled through the images on her laptop then cursed in Spanish under her breath. “It is Scotty. Look.” She sent the picture to the screen.

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