"Thanks for that," said Fergus sourly. "Let's assume for a moment that the supposition is true. She brought him here, to that base, let's call it base number one, and then she moved him, leaving his watch and his mobile behind so we would assume that he remained there. In the meantime she moved him to base number two."

"Either that or she moved his shoes, which is highly unlikely. It's far more likely that she assumed that we would use the trackers in his mobile and his watch to locate him, and she simply hasn't thought to search the rest of him." Oliver again, apparently enjoying winding Fergus up.

"Indeed. So we can assume, based on our available evidence, that she has laid some sort of trap at base one, and is holding Mark, together with a smaller force, at base two. So our most logical next step would be to attack base two." Fergus stated the obvious in a measured tone, as if he were delivering some sort of didactic lecture.

"I have correlated Mark's current position with this image on Google Maps, and it appears to be some sort of warehouse," he continued. "It's fairly isolated, but has a road that passes within a couple of dozen feet of it, so it's far more accessible than the stone fortress at base one. Plus the building would have been erected in more recent years, and is a lot less likely to be made of stone. So easier to penetrate. All in all, a much better option for us as aggressors."

"We need to check it out," I said, suddenly impatient to get going. I had never been one for discussing options when I could be out there putting words into action. I felt an urgent need to get Mark away from Anne. Right now. I had a feeling that if we didn't get him away soon, something awful was going to happen to him. And now that Rebecca was safe with Marcus in another country, I was able to focus all my energy and inherent rage on one target. It was intensely frustrating to be sitting here, discussing what we already knew when I could be out there, annihilating our enemies and tearing the place down. I could feel Oliver's frustration too, sense his edginess. He wanted to get going as much as I did. But Fergus was a planner, a strategist first and a warrior second. He wanted to have all his ducks in a row before he went into battle, whereas I was much happier improvising along the way. But a small part of me knew how much was at stake here, and how vital it as that we got it right the first time around, so I gritted my teeth, and listened.




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