I Am Missing Read online

  I Am Missing

  Gemini Series, Book 3

  By

  Ty Patterson

  I Am Missing is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, places, events, and incidents are either the products of the author’s imagination or used in a fictitious manner. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or actual events is purely coincidental. All rights reserved. This book or any portion thereof may not be reproduced, or used in any manner whatsoever without the express written permission of the publisher except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.

  Copyright © 2017 by Ty Patterson

  All rights reserved

  Published by Three Aces Publishing

  Visit the author site: http://www.typatterson.com

  License notes:

  This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each person you share it with. If you’re reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for you only, then please return it and purchase your own copy. If the author gave you an advance reader or a beta reader copy, please do not share it with any other person. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.

  Publisher’s Note:

  The publisher and author do not have any control over and do not assume any responsibility for author or third-party websites or their content.

  No part of this book may be reproduced, scanned, or distributed in any printed or electronic form without express written permission from the publisher. The scanning, uploading, and distribution of this book via the Internet or any other means without permission of the publisher is illegal and punishable by law. Please do not participate in or encourage piracy of copyrighted materials in violation of the author’s rights. Purchase only authorized editions.

  Original Cover Design: Nathan Wampler

  Digital Formatting: Tugboat Design

  Table of Contents

  Books by Ty Patterson

  Acknowledgments

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Chapter 28

  Chapter 29

  Chapter 30

  Chapter 31

  Chapter 32

  Chapter 33

  Chapter 34

  Chapter 35

  Chapter 36

  Chapter 37

  Chapter 38

  Bonus Chapter from RUN!

  Author’s Message

  About the Author

  Books by Ty Patterson

  Warriors Series Shorts

  This is a series of novellas that link to the Warriors Series thrillers

  Zulu Hour, Warriors Series Shorts, Book 1 (set before The Warrior)

  The Watcher, Warriors Series Shorts, Book 2 (set between The Warrior and The Warrior Code)

  The Shadow, Warriors Series Shorts, Book 3 (set before The Warrior)

  The Man From Congo, Warriors Series Shorts, Book 4

  Warriors Series Shorts, Boxset I, Books 1-4

  The Texan, Warriors Series Shorts, Book 5

  The Heavies, Warriors Series Shorts, Book 6

  The Cab Driver, Warriors Series Shorts, Book 7

  Gemini Series

  Dividing Zero, Gemini Series, Book 1

  Defending Cain, Gemini Series, Book 2

  I Am Missing, Gemini Series, Book 3

  Warriors Series

  The Warrior, Warriors series, Book 1

  The Reluctant Warrior, Warriors series, Book 2

  The Warrior Code, Warriors series, Book 3

  The Warrior’s Debt, Warriors series, Book 4

  Flay, Warriors series, Book 5

  Behind You, Warriors series, Book 6

  Hunting You, Warriors series, Book 7

  Zero, Warriors series, Book 8

  Death Club, Warriors series, Book 9

  Trigger Break, Warriors series, Book 10

  Scorched Earth, Warriors series, Book 11

  RUN!, Warriors series, Book 12

  Warriors series Boxset, Books 1-4

  Warriors series Boxset II, Books 5-8

  Warriors series Boxset III, Books 1-8

  Sign up to Ty Patterson’s mailing list, and get The Warrior, #1 in the USA Today Bestselling Warriors Series, free. Be the first to know about new releases and deals.

  Check out Ty on Amazon, on iTunes, on Kobo and on Barnes and Noble.

  Acknowledgments

  No book is a single person’s product. I am privileged that I Am Missing has benefited from the input of several great people.

  Sylvia Foster, Cary Lory Becker, Charlie Carrick, Pat Ellis, Dori Barrett, Simon Alphonso, Dave Davis, V. Elizabeth Perry, Ann Finn, Pete Bennett, Eric Blackburn, Margaret Harvey, David Hay, Jim Lambert, Terry Pellman, Jimmy Smith, Theresa, and Mark Campbell, who are my beta readers and who helped shape my book, my launch team for supporting me, Eliza Dee and Dawn Nassise for their editing, and Donna Rich for her proofreading.

  Dedications

  To Michelle Rose Dunn, Debbie Bruns Gallant, and Cheri Gerhardt, for supporting me.

  To all the men and women in uniform who make it possible for us to enjoy our freedom.

  Truth will ultimately prevail where there is pains to bring it to light.

  —George Washington

  Chapter 1

  As days went, there was nothing special about this particular one.

  Beth and Meghan Petersen were at their screens in their Columbus Avenue office, working on the logistics of a mission.

  There wasn’t anything burning, missionwise.

  Zeb Carter, the lead agent of the clandestine outfit they worked for, was on a solo mission in the Middle East.

  Broker, the intel guy in the unit, was on vacation with his girlfriend, Sarah Burke, who was high up in the FBI. Bear and Chloe, two of the operatives, were away too.

  On one couch, a tall black man was sprawled out. He was large, and when he stood, he invariably dwarfed all those present. Bwana was six feet four, muscled, and yet moved like a cat.

  On another couch, a blond-haired man slept. He was movie-star handsome and made a show of being a gift to womankind.

  His friends knew Roger, the blond Texan, was all show. He had a girlfriend who he was deeply committed to.

  The eight of them worked for the Agency. Just that, no other name.

  It was a unique small-footprint outfit that dealt with terrorists, international criminal gangs, and threats to national security.

  It was headed by a female director, Clare, no last name. She was based out of D.C. and reported to only one person. The president.

  Of course, the Agency didn’t advertise itself. It didn’t exist, not on paper or in any other record.

  All of them worked for a security consulting firm that advised corporations on people and perimeter protection.

  The firm was a front. They had real clients and genuinely advised them, but it still was a façade.

  For such a small unit, they were very well resourced. That was courtesy of generous rewards from grateful Midd
le Eastern royalty they had helped.

  Like that building on Columbus Avenue. They owned it outright.

  Then there was that Gulfstream. They owned that one too.

  Werner, a highly sophisticated artificial intelligence program, they owned outright. The software resided in a supercomputer in their office and was the envy of the NSA and a few other intelligence agencies. They used the name Werner loosely, to refer either to the program or to the machine.

  They possessed a fleet of vehicles—SUVs, armored, equipped with run-flats and stealth paint, more gadgets and tech in them than the Batmobile had.

  The twins were the only ones who didn’t have an Army background. Zeb, Bwana, Roger, and Bear were former Special Forces operatives.

  Broker was an ex-Ranger, a higher life form, he declared. Chloe had been with the Eighty-Second Airborne.

  Zeb was an odd one. He rarely smiled and hardly spoke. He was single, didn’t date, and had no interest in romantic entanglements.

  Despite his peculiarities, there was something about him. He was the reason the Agency worked. He was their leader, but he didn’t do all that command stuff.

  He was a friend, first and foremost, and that just suited the rest of them.

  The day dragged on as some days did.

  Beth yawned and glanced at her watch.

  ‘Mark’s coming?’ her sister asked. They weren’t just sisters, they were twins, Meghan the elder one.

  Brown-haired, green-eyed, vivacious, sassy, beautiful—a newspaper had once devoted a page length of adjectives to describe them. This was after a mission had made them into celebrities.

  ‘Yeah, what about you? You still dating that Wall Street guy?’

  ‘Nah.’ Meghan stretched. ‘I’m out of the dating scene.’

  Mark was Beth’s significant other. A cop in the NYPD. The two were close, very close. Everyone approved.

  Beth rose to make them coffee when the phone rang.

  She quirked an eyebrow as she listened silently.

  ‘Send them up,’ she replied and hung up.

  ‘Who was it?’

  ‘You’ll see.’

  Four men entered their office through the elevator.

  In the front were two large men, as large as Bwana, but these two had none of his grace.

  They had muscles, but developed in gyms and aided by the generous use of steroids.

  They had short dark hair and wore well-cut suits, bulges under their jackets.

  Behind them were two men, one wearing a pin-striped suit, carrying a briefcase, while the other was more casually dressed.

  He was blond, tieless, blue jacket over white shirt, blue jeans, and brown shoes.

  ‘Beth and Meghan Petersen?’ Pinstripe halted and looked in their direction.

  ‘That’s us,’ Meghan answered and gestured at a few seats.

  The heavies, for that was who they were, stood silently as Pinstripe and Blue Jacket seated themselves.

  ‘I’m Ken Farrell,’ Pinstripe introduced himself. ‘And this is—’

  ‘We know who he is,’ Meghan said drily.

  Cole Patten, Blue Jacket, was a billionaire. He was in his late thirties and had inherited a steel empire when he was young, very young.

  He had built on his inheritance and multiplied it several times. He was frequently in the news, and not always for the right reasons.

  There were frequent rumors that his business dealings were shady and that he had links to criminal gangs.

  He dated Hollywood actresses and models, and his social life was avidly covered by the gossip magazines.

  Farrell looked around him before settling his eyes on the twins. ‘I expected a bigger office. More people.’

  Neither of the sisters responded. They knew each other well and often could read one another’s mind.

  Farrell cleared his throat in the silence and smiled a warm smile. One that said, I am your best friend. The sisters immediately distrusted him.

  ‘We want to hire you.’

  ‘And you are?’ Beth asked him bluntly.

  ‘I’m sorry, I should have explained. I’m Cole’s lawyer.’

  ‘We are not for hire, Mr. Farrell,’ she cut him off. Mark would arrive soon. Beth wanted the visitors out as quickly as possible.

  ‘Why don’t you hear us out, ma’am?’

  ‘Sorry, not interested. I let you in just to see what a billionaire looked like and who he moved around with. A lawyer and two heavies. We’ve seen our fill. Besides, there’s all those rumors about the legality of Patten’s businesses. Not to our liking. There’s the elevator. Thank you.’

  Farrell made to speak but kept quiet when Patten laid a hand on his shoulder.

  ‘I came to you because I have a particular problem.’ His voice was pleasant, his eyes warm. ‘One that I think you can help with, given that you are twins.’

  ‘What’s that?’

  ‘I am missing. I want you to find me.’

  Chapter 2

  ‘You’re missing?’ Beth twirled a pencil in her fingers, her face giving nothing away.

  Ken Farrell nodded. ‘It’s like this—’

  ‘Not you,’ she cut him off. ‘Let him explain.’

  Farrell’s expression didn’t change. Either he was a highly experienced lawyer, or he had a thick skin.

  Both. A billionaire doesn’t hire cheapos.

  ‘What do you know of me?’ Cole Patten gave them a searching look.

  ‘Assume we know nothing.’

  The steel magnate nodded and began.

  Cole and Josh, twins, had been born to Rachel and Billy Patten, thirty-eight years back, in Chisholm, Minnesota.

  Their father was a Vietnam vet, and on his return from the war, he had bought an iron ore mine near their hometown.

  Rachel’s family owned a chain of motels and hotels in the state. They’d loaned Billy Patten the seed money, five million, to buy the failing mine. Funds that he had repaid several times over.

  Billy Patten was smart, hardworking, and a charmer. He cajoled and coaxed, threatened and negotiated, and turned the mine around. Once it was profitable, he bought another. And then another. By the time the brothers were seven years old, he had grown the steel business into a large empire.

  ‘It was then that he took us to Vietnam,’ Cole Patten reminisced.

  Beth remembered some of the headlines but kept quiet, letting their visitor tell his story.

  ‘We were young. Seven. All we knew was that our dad was a hero. He never spoke of the war. Mom? She died when we were two. Don’t remember much of her. Dad brought us up by himself. He had some help from Mom’s sister, Ginny Davis, but not much. Mom’s side of the family wasn’t that close.’

  ‘What happened in Vietnam?’ Meghan reminded him.

  ‘Vietnam? The war defined Dad. It shaped him. It gave him the drive. He would say if it hadn’t been for the war, he wouldn’t have been a businessman. He took both of us to Ho Chi Minh City. And from there, to Cu Chi.’

  Cu Chi. Beth exchanged a glance with her sister. The place was synonymous with underground tunnels that the Viet Cong had built. It was in those dark, deep passages that they had waged a savage war against the American, Australian, and New Zealand forces.

  ‘Your father was a Tunnel Rat?’

  ‘Yes. He wanted us to see that country. Show where he had been. He took us to one of the tunnels. You might have read of this…’ He trailed off.

  Beth made a carry on gesture with her hand and Patten nodded.

  ‘He took us to one of the restricted areas. The tunnel was weak in that area. Walls were crumbling. It collapsed on us. I fainted. Next thing I remember, I was in the hospital, and Dad and Josh were dead.’

  Bwana shifted on his couch but didn’t speak. No one uttered a word until Patten resumed.

  ‘Farrell’s law firm was representing us. Has been the family and business law firm for years. They made all the arrangements. I returned. Inherited the steel business. There was a hotel chain too. Tha
t would have gone to Josh.’

  ‘I don’t recall a hotel business being mentioned’—Beth narrowed her eyes—‘whenever your name comes up.’

  Patten smiled. ‘That’s because it’s still in a trust. I have nothing to do with it. I run the Chisholm Corporation, which is in steel. It, too, was in a trust until I turned eighteen.’

  ‘You took it public a while back. Expanded. Bought mines and operations across the world. Chisholm is what, the second- or third-largest steel business in the world?’

  ‘It’s in the top five,’ Patten replied self-deprecatingly.

  ‘You’re a billionaire.’ Beth ticked off on her fingers. ‘You’re single. You own one of the largest businesses in the world. You’re well-protected.’ She nodded at the goons standing silently. ‘And you seem to have good advice.’ Her lips curled in the lawyer’s direction.

  ‘What’s gone wrong in your heaven?’

  ‘A year back, a Russian business reached out to us and made an offer for the business. I refused. Selling wasn’t in our plans, and the price was low.’

  ‘So?’

  ‘So, this year, a few months back, they launched a hostile takeover. They’ve started buying stock. Not just that, they’ve started playing dirty.’

  ‘How?’

  ‘Billy Patten’s will was specific,’ Farrell stepped in, his voice dry and precise. ‘In the event of his death, Cole was to inherit the steel business, while the hotel chain would go to Josh.

  ‘But Josh is dead,’ Beth exclaimed, ‘What has happened to the hotels business?’

  ‘It is managed by the trust.’

  Farrell waited for a moment and when there were no further questions, resumed.

  ‘The Russian firm is claiming that Cole Patten isn’t who he is. They say Cole died in Vietnam. The man in front of you is Josh Patten, according to them.’