Intercepted Risk

by Sidney Bristol

  “Fuck. Fuck!”

  Kelsey groaned, allowing herself to feel lost and frustrated and scared all at once.

  Logan would come through this, and he’d drag the team with him. She believed in him. For now, she’d take this time as a gift and work through her real feelings. It was obvious to her that Logan’s emotions ran deep. He probably knew exactly how to describe them, too. Whereas everything felt big and scary and overwhelming to her.

  He deserved a better explanation,, and she’d take today to work through it. Maybe cash in on the availability of a counselor and video chat. Inwardly she recoiled at the idea of talking about feelings, but how else was she supposed to figure this out?

  Besides, she highly doubted there’d be much for her to do overseeing security. This was where they were holding Obran, Felecia’s mother and the hacker Valentino’s brother, among others not related to this case. It was bound to be one of the most secure places she’d ever step foot in.

  This was her role. She shouldn’t complain.

  Kelsey threw her things back into her bag. She was glad she’d tossed nice jeans and a sweater into her bag for the day. Her form-fitting Kevlar vest was easily disguised under the comfy knit. Unlike most days, she went ahead and clipped her FBI badge to her pocket and tugged her hem down to cover it.

  That done, she glanced around the room, searching for any reason to stay. But there wasn’t one.

  She blew out a breath and double checked her holster was securely on her hip before leaving the bedroom and joining the others in the living room.

  “Felecia, an escort should be here soon to take you to where Diha and Cat have set up,” Logan was saying to the others.

  They were already assembled without Kelsey, going over their orders for the afternoon raid?

  Logan had left his hair down. It brushed his shoulders and one piece was stuck to his chin. He still wore the same hoodie from earlier, but he’d donned jeans instead. She wanted to hug him, tell him to be safe, but that wasn’t her place. Not now.

  He turned his head and met her gaze.

  All the air left her lungs. She could have fallen into the deep pools of his eyes if it were physically possible.

  “Kelsey. I understand your ride is waiting for you.” His words were perfectly normal, and yet she felt the distance yawning between them. As if he hadn’t been inside of her less than twelve hours ago.

  “Yeah. Yeah, I’m heading out now.” She smiled at the others. “Take care out there.”

  She turned toward the front door and bit her lip.

  Why did it feel like this was the real parting moment? The moment where she really walked out on Logan?

  “Kel?” he called out.

  “Hm?” She couldn’t risk turning around, so she glanced over her shoulder.

  “Stay safe. Watch Zora’s back,” he said.

  She waved back at him. “Will do.”

  Kelsey swallowed her feelings down and headed out of the door. She was simply following orders, and yet it felt like all of this was the product of her own decisions. It was wrong, but she didn’t know if she could make it right. Not now, or later.

  22.

  Tuesday. Everest Security Offices. Washington, DC.

  Logan was off-balance. His team was there, minus Kelsey. Technically nothing was missing. And yet, without her there it felt as though a piece of him were gone.

  He wasn’t done with her or whatever had made her panic, but he also recognized that now was not the time. He hated not having her there, but at least she was safe for now. He didn’t have to worry about her getting into a knife fight or taking a bullet for someone. Still, he missed her cocky arrogance and how she softened it with smiles and quick with.

  She hadn’t been gone more than a few hours.

  Shit.

  Logan briefly closed his eyes. He had to get his head in the game.

  “TL?” Tucker called out.

  It was time.

  Logan swallowed and adjusted the strap on the helmet he wore. That done, he turned and joined his team plus the lead officer executing the warrant.

  “Any movement?” Logan asked.

  “No,” Evan responded. He’d been working with the team surveilling the place. Aegis Group teams were structured, so that everyone had a specialty. Surveillance was Evan’s. “No one has gone in or left in the last hour.”

  “Do we know yet how many are inside?” Logan directed that question to the officer in charge.

  “Heat signals aren’t clear. They’ve got some radiant barrier on the place that’s making it hard to get good readings. Best guess? A dozen or so in the front area. Beyond that is a guessing game.”

  Logan nodded. “Right, let’s go in prepared for a fight. I want my people behind the entry team like we talked about.”

  The officer nodded. “You got it.”

  “Alright, let’s load up.” Logan gestured at the SUV the officers had provided them.

  Tucker climbed behind the wheel and Logan got in the front seat. It had been a while since they’d done something like this. Lately they’d been so focused on covert work he’d hardly worn anything more than a Kevlar vest and his firearm. Today the gear practically weighed him down.

  He’d have to start encouraging the guys to do workouts in gear to keep them ready.

  “Is it just me, or does it feel like we’re missing someone?” Harper asked from the back of the SUV.

  “Hm?” Jamie twisted around to look at Harper.

  Logan kept looking out the front window. He knew what Harper was doing.

  “Kelsey,” Harper said. “Kelsey’s not here.”

  “Oh, yeah.” Jamie nodded. “It is odd her not being here. She should be honorary Troy Team.”

  “Right? Hey, TL?” Harper called out.

  “What?” Logan was already dreading the next words out of Harper’s mouth.

  “What do you think? Can we make Kelsey honorary Troy Team?”

  “Knock yourselves out.”

  What Logan wanted was far more permanent. Wasn’t it yesterday he’d fantasized about leading the team with her?

  The radio attached to his vest chirped. “All vehicles, prepare to move out.”

  Logan shifted the rifle across his lap. They weren’t going in with handguns today. “Be ready, boys.”

  “Go on my mark,” the voice in the radio said.

  The vehicles around them rumbled. There were easily a dozen federal vehicles with more waiting in the wings to deal with injured and processing those arrested, not to mention evidence vans. It was a big move that had been organized swiftly. That credit went to Zora.

  Now it was up to them to carry it out.

  The lead vehicle accelerated and Tucker stayed close on their bumper.

  Chances were the people at Everest Security wouldn’t put up a fight at all. He didn’t think it likely that there would be a single shot fired today. But that was if they were dealing with typical people. The reality was that they didn’t know everything about the people operating Everest Security. Logan already had low expectations considering they’d green-lit arson and breaking into people’s homes.

  The lead vehicle pulled into the narrow parking lot in front of the converted warehouse. Tucker was quick to whip their SUV to the side, helping to create a half circle barrier should they need to take cover.

  It was time.

  “Go,” Logan barked.

  His team spilled out of the SUV. They were barely a second behind the entry team spilling out of the lead vehicle.

  One man carried a shield to the door. With quick, practiced actions, an officer reached around the shield and opened the front door to Everest Security.

  Logan jogged ahead of the others, putting himself at the head of his team.

  The first room was an industrial show space featuring pictures, exposed brick and stained concrete. Beyond that, glass walled offices held shocked employees staring at the officers with wide eyes.

  These were not the people Logan cared
about.

  “This way.”

  Logan whipped his head around at the voice of the lead officer. He was heading down a hall with other agents following. Logan waved to his men and stuck close to that group advancing through the building.

  The offices of Everest Security were neat and modern. The ladies at their desks all looked wide-eyed and bewildered while a few of the men hanging back had hard expressions on their faces.

  None of them fought back. Logan was glad of that.

  A door with a keypad barred their way. Logan glimpsed the lead officer swipe a badge. The beep was loud enough to be heard over the general noise.

  The door was flung open, and the officers advanced into the belly of the building quickly, guns up. Logan saw no reason not to. As he neared the door, two gunshots echoed through the building, reverberating off all the metal, brick and concrete.

  Logan reacted on instinct, going to a knee next to the door. He saw the others move to either side or flatten themselves to the walls. Satisfied his people were safe, Logan aimed his rifle through the doorway, but didn’t touch the trigger.

  “Get down. Federal law enforcement,” someone shouted.

  Logan aimed at the man he believed and squeezed off those shots.

  The target immediately lifted his hands.

  “Move,” Logan barked.

  He sensed more than saw the guys at his back step forward with him. They entered what appeared to be a training area. There were easily two to three dozen men loitering around in various states of dress. Some were at gun cleaning stations, still others stood on exercise mats. This was where they were training, or waiting for orders.

  Why so many? What were they doing here?

  Another concern was if Everest security recognized Logan and the others. Would they shoot to complete the orders they hadn’t been able to last night?

  “Logan,” the lead officer barked out.

  He glanced at the man’s stony face.

  “They said their client is still here.”

  At that moment Logan’s blood went cold then hot.

  Their client?

  As in the person who’d hired them to kill Kelsey and Logan’s team?

  That client?

  Not Skilton. It didn’t make sense that the man in charge would be here himself, but maybe a proxy. Someone with the power to make decisions and act in his stead.

  It was a leap closer to their target.

  Logan’s body went ice cold and his vision narrowed. He strode in the wake of the officers hustling forward, all the while feeling as if there was a very real target on his back.

  Maybe it was that uneasy feeling, but Logan caught sight of movement through a dark window on the other side of the exercise and training space. His stomach tightened, and he just knew—that wasn’t good.

  “Watch—”

  He never got the second word out.

  The window shattered from a hail of gunfire.

  Logan dove toward the wall. His foot slipped, and he went down hard, rolling.

  “I got you,” Tucker yelled.

  Hands grabbed the shoulder straps of Logan’s vest. Tucker and Evan dragged Logan to the wall adjacent the door.

  “Thanks,” he got out.

  He made the mistake of glancing across the room.

  The gunman hadn’t been aiming at them, or even the cops.

  The cluster of men who’d been on the exercise mat lay dead or dying.

  The cops had taken cover behind overturned tables.

  More Everest Security employees moved around the outer perimeter of the room.

  Logan heard a sound he knew all too well. The click-chunk sound of a new magazine being loaded.

  “We’ve got to stop him. Now,” Logan snarled.

  He got to his feet and keeping low crossed to another security door barring entry to the rear of the building.

  They had no keycard.

  The best and most direct way in was through that window.

  Logan reached for his belt. His hand closed around the flash grenade hanging there. He yanked it free, took a deep breath and pulled the pin.

  Every moment he was in the field was another dance with death. He was never guaranteed to come home.

  This was a risk he took not just for himself, but for those now fighting for their lives.

  He took three steps away from the wall.

  The shooter swung toward him, but Logan was faster. He hurled the grenade at the man then dropped to the ground.

  A moment later the resulting bang echoed through the space.

  Logan and his team were moving, using the smoke from the grenade as cover. He vaulted through what had once been a one-way window into a spacious office.

  The shooter was nowhere in sight, but his shell casings littered the floor.

  “Move,” Logan shouted.

  Tucker and Jamie were already at his side.

  Logan pushed forward, edging through the doorway.

  A flash of movement at the end of the hall caught his eye.

  Instead of following, he turned, peering the other direction.

  A man knelt in the hall with a gun.

  Logan dropped to a knee as a piece of the wall was blown away. Logan fired as the gunman lunged out of sight.

  “Tucker, Jamie—that way.” Logan gestured opposite of the direction the shooter had gone.

  Evan and Harper stuck to Logan’s heels as he got up and moved to follow the shooter, while the other two broke off.

  Logan’s group moved slower, pausing to check the two offices along the way as they followed the U-shaped hall.

  Ahead of them, he could hear feet on concrete and yelling.

  Where were the cops?

  Logan rounded the corner. The short hall let out into a sort of lounge-meeting space. The evidence of people was everywhere. Cups and snacks left mid-consumption. The TV on. A phone hanging off the wall.

  Tucker and Jamie came into view at the other end of the room.

  “They’re getting away,” Logan said.

  He strode forward.

  “TL, look out!” Tucker shouted.

  Too late, Logan saw the beeping red numbers on the only other door.

  Three...

  Shit.

  Two...

  He dove through the nearest door, far too close to the bomb.

  One...

  The blast knocked him to the ground. He scrambled forward, to the metal framed desk, taking cover under the sturdy piece of furniture. He covered his head as debris fell all around him. He heard the others through the earpieces, but couldn’t make out their voices. Not over the ringing in his ears.

  They’d gotten away.

  He knew that without asking.

  Skilton’s people had narrowly escaped, all because they hadn’t been prepared.

  He felt more than heard something hit the desk over his head.

  Logan crawled out the other side of the desk and stared at the brick wall that had fallen in, trapping him in a four by six space between the desk and the other wall. Gray sunlight streamed in through the now broken ceiling, falling across a folder that had been knocked to the ground. And there, looking up at him, was his own face. Along with that of Zora, Kelsey, Tucker, and everyone else on the team.

  TUESDAY. UNKNOWN.

  Skilton’s vision hazed red.

  He was working with incompetent idiots. All of them.

  Despite his vast network, he’d only received a ten minute warning before the cops arrived. Ten minutes was too little time to do much of anything. He’d stood up and left without saying a word. He hadn’t even grabbed the hard-copy files he’d printed out.

  This wasn’t the job he’d come to America prepared for.

  Nadine and her blasted Task Force. They were a plague, spreading everywhere.

  Skilton had come for the express purpose of making an example out of John Dixon. So far the only person becoming an example was Skilton himself.

  This would not do.

  He h
ad to get ahold of this situation. All of it.

  Skilton pulled out his phone.

  Earlier, he’d sent an encoded message to Dixon directly. Skilton hoped that by offering an end to all of this, he could lure Dixon into the open. The man liked to pretend he was in control, but the truth was Dixon needed to be managed. With Robert Brown dead now, Dixon would be a nervous wreck.

  Skilton pulled his phone out as the driver sped through DC, winding his way around. For now, they had no destination, only staying mobile. Eventually one of his people would land upon a lead. It was a matter of time.

  He clicked into the email folder containing his correspondence with Dixon.

  There was a new message.

  The hook had been set.

  Now all Skilton needed to do was reel him in...

  TUESDAY. NSA BLACK Site.

  Kelsey was going to go out of her ever loving mind. If Zora didn’t do something about the neurotic senator, Kelsey wasn’t sure if she could keep herself from stabbing him through the eye.

  She braced her hands on the vanity in the women’s bathroom and inhaled until her lungs felt as though they might burst.

  Yes, Dixon was high maintenance. She did not envy Robert’s job of keeping the man in line.

  A pang of sadness shot through her.

  Robert was dead and Dixon still didn’t know that. She wasn’t convinced that Dixon would care, save for how losing an employee would impact Dixon himself. Hell, he was already trying to treat Kelsey like his secretary and she’d told him upon her arrival that she quit working for him the moment someone fired a gun.

  Dixon was still acting like she hadn’t told him that. She’d made it her goal to avoid the man all afternoon.

  What was Logan doing? How was the raid going? What had they learned?

  Zora had left shortly after Kelsey’s arrival. She didn’t feel comfortable reaching out to Logan right now for an update. Felecia would probably know, but Kelsey wasn’t sure she wanted to call her friends either. She’d start talking and then everyone would know what she’d done and how pathetic she was.

  She was in a funk. A funk of her own making.

  “Ug, this sucks,” she muttered and washed her hands.

  That done, she exited the bathroom.