This time, there was enough concentrated adrenaline pushing through my system to send my foot through on the first kick, wood splinters and sawdust sprawling across the floor.
Chapter Eighty-Seven
Charles Vance could almost feel the latitude he’d been granted from Director Joon shrinking by the moment. With each passing second that brought no word from Tate, the tension in the air seemed to grow noticeably.
Standing at the head of the conference table, he paced back and forth, aware of both the director behind him and the assorted stares of those before him.
In the last hour, it felt like the temperature inside the room had risen by more than ten degrees. Every drop of coffee seemed to be rushing back to the surface, doing little more than making his nerves jump at the slightest twitch of stimulation.
One thing at a time he pushed through his mind, analyzing and discarded them as fast as they’d arrived.
The plan with the agents had been ugly. They’d known it when they’d thrown things together, intent on heading off Edgar Belmonte’s campaign before it really gained steam and they needed to fear a new wave of terrorists flooding into the country.
Trying to employ the military would have been a disaster in the international arena. Ditto for using a drone of any sort.
In retrospect, Vance couldn’t help but wonder how much alerting President Miguel Salazar had contributed to the situation they were now in. Never had they told him what was planned, but they could have put him on alert enough to keep an ear out for anything unusual.
Like a plane requesting an emergency landing.
How or why Salazar might have acted, Vance hadn’t yet worked through, putting it on his mental to-do list for once the operation at hand was over.
An operation that was far, far messier than even the attempt by the agents had been.
It wasn’t that Vance had a problem with the man running point. While not an agency employee, the file on Tate showed he was about as trusted an ally as could be asked for.
All things considered, they were quite fortunate he had even been on that plane.
It was more for the twisted jumble of moving parts that comprised it. Cumulatively, they had forced Vance to call in several favors and issue a couple of markers, all without the slightest assurance of success.
A situation the agency generally made a point of staying far away from.
Swirling the various thoughts and ideas through his mind, Vance was positioned just behind the high-backed leather chair at the head of the table when the intercom system in the center of it erupted. With the volume turned up extra loud so as to not be missed, the shrill chirping echoed through the room.
And likely down the hall outside as well.
Every head snapped toward it as Vance stepped forward, squeezing the back of the chair in both hands.
A few feet away, Hannah Rowe reached forward, accepting the call.
“Charles Vance.”
There was nothing more added. No use of a code term. Certainly no mention of where they were or who he worked for.
“Ela Ramirez.”
Recognizing the voice instantly, Vance felt his lungs draw tight. This was either good news or extremely bad news.
No middle ground whatsoever.
“Go ahead, Agent.”
The line crackled slightly, the connection over a sat phone on a stretch of beach a few miles outside Caracas.
“Just received word from Hawk,” Ramirez said. “Two groups of hostages have been cleared and are headed this way. Some minor injuries, fifty-three people in total.”
Vance felt his body sag slightly. Fifty-three was a long way from the full manifest, but it was a hell of a start.
And a solid sign that the plan thus far was successful.
“And the others?” he asked.
“He’s working on it.”
Shifting his gaze over to Rowe, Vance narrowed his eyes slightly. “Meaning?”
“I don’t know,” Ramirez said. “My guess is they were separated at some point, but he didn’t say as much.”
The backs of Vance’s fingernails flashed white as he squeezed the chairback tight. “What did he say exactly?”
“Just that the first half of the rooms had been cleared and were on their way. In total, a dozen enemy casualties, though he suspected more on the premises.”
Rotating at the waist, Vance looked back to Joon. The director met his gaze, the two men locked in the stance for an instant before Joon nodded slightly.
Original estimates had been that the opposition had a limited number of men at their disposal. A dozen gone had to mean there were extremely few remaining.
“Excellent work, Agent,” Vance said.
Ignoring the compliment, Ramirez added, “And he also told me to get my ass into the woods and help get them out. I’m on my way now, will report back once they’re on the boat.”
Chapter Eighty-Eight
I waited until the last of the hostages were out of the first two rooms before going any further. Not wanting one of them to be caught in inadvertent gunfire, I stood impatiently in the hallway. One by one I willed them forward, even employing some of the younger and more able to help pull others through the narrow openings at the bottom.
As every last person was extracted and moved off to the stairwell, I could feel the clock in my head continuing to push forward.
There were still over fifty people unaccounted for. Not to mention at least a few guards hidden with them.
I had made a dent in their total numbers, that much was certain. If these guys had had a full slate of men at their disposal, there’s no way they would have ever let me get within a mile of the place.
The woods would have been littered with roaming patrols. The roof would have been covered. The main floor of the warehouse and the hallway I was standing in would have both been lined.
That still didn’t mean that there weren’t more available. Certainly not that I could just go busting through the last doors with guns blazing, hoping for the best.
Little by little, I let what I knew about the situation percolate in my mind, watching the people slither out from the holding rooms. On their faces was every possible emotion, many whispering silent thanks to me, others already giving in and letting tears stream down their cheeks.
Some of the men looked like they were ready for a fight, suddenly swollen with toughness and anger.
Saying as little as possible, I waited until just a handful remained before stopping a middle-aged woman with graying hair as she slid through on her back. Helping her to her feet, I asked, “How many left inside?”
Matching my whisper, she replied, “Three.”
“Men?”
“Two of them,” she replied.
Nodding, I stepped aside as she straightened her clothes and set off. Behind her, a young girl in her late teens or early twenties went through, making the move look effortless.
Behind her was a man with a ring of white hair around his head, all-too-happy to accept a hand as he made his way through. Once he was just past the threshold, I dropped to my knees, blocking the exit, and peered through.
On the opposite side was a man just a bit older than me. Like an athlete gone to seed, he had thick arms and chest, with the stomach to match.
“Give me a hand for a second?”
His brow came together slightly as he stared at me. His lips parted, about to lob some objection, before he flicked a hand back, waving me in.
First through the hole went the drawstring bag. Still carrying a few items, it would soon be vital to my plan.
Next went my feet. Dropping to my butt, I kept a Glock in either hand, one ready to fire on both sides, before inching the rest of my body through.
The interior of the room looked exactly as ours had earlier in the day. The sole difference was the enormous stench in the air, a product of body odor and the assorted urine and fecal droppings of so many people all piled in the corner.
Mixed togethe
r in a gelatinous sludge, small rivulets of liquid extended outward like rays from a drawing of the sun, the smooth tile allowing it to flow unimpeded.
A foul sight to behold, it was still better than the alternative, the floor clear of any of Vance’s agents.
Maybe some had survived after all.
The man on the other side was a couple of inches shorter than me and maybe twenty pounds heavier. Extending a hand down my way, he tugged me to my feet with a strength I hadn’t quite expected.
He would work perfectly.
“Thanks,” I said. Retrieving the bag, I cinched it into place before stowing the Glocks. “Hawk Tate.”
“Eric Kolb,” the man replied. “FBI?”
Feeling one nostril rise in a snort, I bit back the reaction.
Just because other agencies didn’t think too highly of the more famous division didn’t mean it wasn’t a natural assumption by the common civilian.
“Fellow passenger,” I said.
“No shit?”
“No shit,” I replied. Making sure my gear was all exactly where I wanted it, I added, “But for the time being, working with the help of the CIA.”
“No shit?” he repeated, this time a bit of disbelief clear in his tone.
“Crazy, huh?”
Kolb’s eyebrows rose slightly. “This whole damn thing has been crazy.”
To that, I couldn’t argue. I had been through some of the worst shit the world had to offer, and I even I was a little taken aback by the events of the last day.
I couldn’t imagine what these people must be thinking.
“Can you give me a lift up into the rafters?” I asked, flicking my gaze to the ceiling, for the first time noticing twin trails of bullet holes through the thin material.
Following my glance, Kolb said, “That was you, huh?”
“That was me.”
“I’ll be damned. And you’re going back for a repeat performance?”
In no way would I term what was about to happen as a repeat performance, though I didn’t see how I had a choice. Not with so many passengers still left.
Not with armed guards still about.
“Something like that.”
My tone was such that I hoped it was clear that I needed to be moving on. I appreciated his aid, but there would be a long plane ride back to the States soon enough for us to discuss things.
Assuming I wasn’t completely passed out or worse.
Right now, I needed to get the rest of these people out.
“You ready?” I asked.
Chapter Eighty-Nine
In the guard’s haste to make sure the rafters were clear following my escape, they had made a mistake. Strafing the ceiling with bullets might have been an easy way to make sure nobody was up there, but it had come with one enormous unintended consequence.
It had left me with plenty of holes providing both light and a visual into the world below.
Compared to my first trip into the rafters, this one was far easier. The temperature in the space had dropped quite a bit. Without the sun beating down from outside, most of the heat had leveled off, leaving me bathed in sweat as opposed to fearing sudden dehydration.
More important were the stray shafts of light extended up through the ceiling tiles. Thin arrows of illumination, they provided immeasurable aid as I inched my way forward, hands and knees wedged into the metal tracts of the rafters.
Moving along just a few inches at a time, I waited long enough to ensure Kolb was gone before heading past the wall of the second room and into the space above the third.
The bullets that went up through the ceiling were probably standard Kalashnikov rounds, meaning the holes they left behind were roughly the diameter of a centimeter.
Peering through them, I had a very narrow view, seeing nothing as I moved past the wall and made my way forward. White tile was all that appeared beneath the first three holes, a smear of blood visible beneath the fourth.
An untold number of times throughout the day, my pulse had surged, my adrenaline seeping in.
Fearing what an empty floor could signify, even more what blood spatter would represent, I kept pushing on. As I did, I felt my acrimony grow higher.
For the situation, for the people in it, for everything about it.
Tasting bitterness on my tongue, the thought spurred me on, moving a little quicker.
Not until the tenth hole did I see something positive, a pair of outstretched legs becoming visible.
The eleventh revealed something even better, the top half of the man coming into view, his eyes open, head moving slightly from side to side.
A jolt of electricity went through me as I forced myself to remain calm. To move slow. To not do anything hasty.
One stride at a time I worked my way onward, the next hole revealing more people. The one after that, more still.
Clustered into a circle, every person seemed to be sitting on the floor. In the center of them stood two guards, both facing the door. The all-too-familiar Kalashnikovs were held in the crook of their elbows, the barrels pointed toward the ceiling, ready to be pointed and fired in just seconds.
Halfway across the space, I stopped. There was no need to go further. I had seen what I needed to.
Pressing my palms hard into the rafters, I reversed course, moving back slowly in the opposite direction. Extending my strides just slightly, I kept a watch through the holes beneath me, careful to make sure none of the sweat dripping from my body made it through one of the openings.
Not until the last of the people had disappeared from view, nothing beneath me but clear white tile, did I stop. Pinning my knees to either side, I slid the bag from my back, squeezing it tight to keep the contents inside from making a sound.
In total, the sack weighed maybe three pounds. A fair number of the bullets I had started with were gone, as were the bolt cutters.
In their stead was two spare magazines, the night vision goggles, and the sat phone. None were items I was especially keen on potentially losing, but I didn’t have much in the way of a contingency plan.
The configuration of the hostages was smart. The guards had known there was only one entry into the room, meaning they had effectively built a human wall to insulate themselves.
They couldn’t let the people stand because that would inhibit firing. Instead, they had ordered people to the ground, allowing them to rise and lower as needed.
Then, all they had needed to do was wait out whoever was coming, having the patience to remain motionless through everything they had heard going on outside in the preceding minutes.
If I wasn’t so full of loathing for everything they stood for, I might have been impressed.
The only flaw in their plan was the one I was now looking to expose.
Holding the drawstring bag in my hands, I hefted its weight twice. Praying it had enough density to do as I needed, I shifted it into my left hand.
With my right, I drew out a Glock.
Taking a deep breath, I sat suspended above the room.
Exhaling, I pushed the bag out as far ahead of me as I could, stray bits of light shining up through the ceiling catching the dark material as it passed by. For what felt an eternity, it hung in the air, the items inside rattling loudly, before crashing down onto the Styrofoam panel beneath it.
Given the number of bullet holes already striping it, the thin material was no match for it, the bag dropping straight down through.
Barely a second later came the sound of automatic fire, the guards jumping at my bait. The instant the bark of their weapons was heard, I jerked both knees inward, my own weight falling straight through the panel beneath me.
A plume of dust particles exploded around me as I fell downward, more than ten feet in total before my boots slammed into the floor.
With their backs to me, firing up into the ceiling, the guards barely even registered my arrival.
The first didn’t even get his head turned as I put three rounds into him, his weapon fa
lling silent as he pitched forward.
The second one did only nominally better as I finished him with a single shot, a round placed just above his ear that sent bone and brain matter skittering out across the far end of the circle he was standing in.
Chapter Ninety
The feeling of shock lasted almost a full minute. In the wake of my sudden arrival and dispatch of the guards, nobody said a word. Every person in the room just sat and stared my way, unsure how to react.
Many recoiled away from me. Others pulled back away from the bodies of the guards and the blood steadily spreading wide away from them.
Others simply looked like they may cry, sensory overload from the last eight hours finally setting in.
Taking advantage of their position on the floor, I did a quick scan of the place. Just like in the previous room, there was an impromptu lavatory in the corner.
Unlike the other, the bodily waste was held in check by the bodies of two men. Dressed in jeans and polos, they were near copies of the man that had given me the phone number earlier in the day.
If the CIA had been trying to be inconspicuous, they had done a terrible job of it.
Shifting my gaze away from them, I swept over the crowd. Best guess, there were more than fifty people all staring back at me, meaning they had combined the last two rooms together.
And that everyone was accounted for.
Seated along the far edge was Rembert, a healthy stripe of blood spatter covering the front of his shirt. The bottom half of his jaw looked swollen and misshapen, especially pronounced beneath his gaze boring back at me.
“You good?” I asked.
Raising a finger, he pointed to his jaw before nodding.
Reciprocating the gesture, I knew instantly what he was trying to tell me. The bone was broken. There would be no further banter coming from him anytime soon.
Damnation.
“We need to go,” I said. Raising my voice and my gaze, I looked over the crowd. Very few people were as yet moving, seemingly uncertain.
Circling around wide behind them, I retrieved my sack from the ground, tossing it over one shoulder. I didn’t bother looking inside as I did so, the equipment having done its job one final time.
Hellfire: A Suspense Thriller (A Hawk Tate Novel Book 4) Page 26
