"Something's wrong."
"What do you mean?"
"She has gone to all that effort to capture Mark. So she takes him to base one." I pointed to the first building we'd scouted out in the early hours of the morning. "We check it out, alert them to our presence in the area. So she moves him."
"Sounds about right," said Fergus
"First she removes his watch and mobile, which both contain tracking devices. But she leaves his shoes."
"Reasonable thing to do. Only a truly deranged and obsessive personality would put a tracking device in someone's shoes," Fergus said, grinning.
"Funny," I said. "Having found those two, you don't think it makes sense to look for others? You could buy a number of devices in the high street that would find hidden transmitters with ease. I think it's a bit naive to assume that she hasn't found the tracker in his shoe."
"You're right," said Oliver. "She's a cunning one by all accounts. And she employs men with certain skills which would reasonably include a level of communications expertise. She knows about that tracker."
"She does, doesn't she," agreed Fergus reluctantly. "So where does that leave us?"
"Confused," suggested Hugo glumly.
"Another thing," I added, "why would she take her captive from a well-fortified stone building to a much less secure modern warehouse?"
"Why indeed?" Fergus sighed.
"She wants us to attack there. The tracker split was a feint, a deliberate deception. She's orchestrated a crafty little trap."
"I hate her," said Fergus with disgust in his voice.
"Get in line," said Hugo flatly.
"We still need to get Mark out," said Oliver. "Trap or not. We have to go in."
"I know. But we can plan accordingly now. We should expect an overwhelming force, and we will need to be able to deal with it."
"So more than thirty-five, then?"
"More than thirty-five. Less than six hundred. And we have to assume that many of them will be armed."
"Less than six hundred. Well, that's assuring," muttered Fergus sarcastically.
"I don't know," said Oliver, his eyes glittering. "Sounds like fun."
"Explosives. We need explosives," I told them. "More bang for our buck, so to speak."
"I'm worried about collateral damage," frowned Hugo. "Mark could get hurt."
"Oliver and I will be able to pinpoint his whereabouts, and we'll direct the damage away from him. I'm thinking that we should work in two separate groups. The first will be in the tank, hurling grenades as far away from Mark as possible, and creating a god-awful mess. The other group will be fighting on the ground, and will be responsible for locating Mark and getting him the hell out of there. I suggest Hugo drives the tank, and Fergus can toss grenades and fire shotguns." I saw Fergus frown, and continued, "I know you'd like to be on the ground too, brother, but your hand hasn't grown back quite yet, and Hugo can't drive and throw grenades and shoot at the same time. Oliver and I will work our way to Mark and get him out of there as fast as we can."