Chapter 3 - The Federal Agent
The diner felt suddenly devoid of oxygen.
I stared at the federal badge pinned to Daniel’s jacket, my mind refusing to accept the words he had just spoken.
My son, the boy I had taught to ride a bicycle, was a criminal mastermind working with an international syndicate.
Daniel opened the manila envelope and spread glossy surveillance photographs across the sticky table.
The pictures showed Michael meeting with dangerous, armed men in underground parking garages.
There were documents proving Michael had intentionally bankrupted his own tech company to launder money for Cassandra’s employers.
Daniel explained that the wedding was nothing more than a legal transaction to merge their fraudulent assets.
He told me that Ellen’s ancestral home sat on top of a highly lucrative, newly discovered lithium deposit.
Michael needed the deed to that land to pay off a massive debt he owed to the syndicate bosses.
Because Ellen had refused to sign the deed over, she had become a lethal liability to their operation.
I asked Daniel where they were holding my wife.
Daniel pulled up a satellite map on his tablet, pointing to a secluded warehouse district near the docks.
He said federal agents had tracked a suspicious convoy leaving my neighborhood shortly after I received the threatening call.
I stood up from the booth, ready to march down to the docks and tear the warehouse apart with my bare hands.
Daniel grabbed my arm, forcing me to sit back down.
He warned me that the warehouse was heavily guarded by mercenaries who would shoot me on sight.
He said the FBI needed forty-eight hours to secure a federal warrant for a full tactical raid.
I slammed my fist on the table, shattering a coffee mug.
I told Daniel that my wife did not have forty-eight hours, especially with a syndicate that murdered people for land.
Daniel sighed, rubbing his temples, and admitted that waiting was a terrible strategy.
He proposed an unofficial, highly illegal extraction mission just between the two of us.
He had acquired blueprints of the warehouse and knew of a blind spot in their security cameras.
We spent the next hour memorizing the layout and loading our weapons in the trunk of his unmarked car.
I had never fired a gun in my life, but the thought of Ellen tied to a chair made my hands perfectly steady.
We drove to the docks under the cover of heavy rain and impenetrable darkness.
We parked two blocks away and moved silently through the wet alleys, avoiding the sweeping spotlights of the guard towers.
Daniel used a laser cutter to slice through the heavy padlock on a rusted service door.
We slipped inside the massive warehouse, stepping over shipping crates and breathing in the smell of damp concrete.
Through the shadows, I saw a brightly lit glass office elevated above the warehouse floor.
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Inside the office, Ellen was tied securely to a metal chair, looking pale and terrified.
Michael was standing in front of her, holding a suppressed pistol directly against her temple.
