Isaac sprinted forward. He was closer than the rest.
The driver wasn’t nearly as quick. He landed with a heavy thud and went to a knee, wobbling a little. Isaac tackled the guy, using his greater bulk and the advantage of speed to drive the guy to the concrete.
“Got him,” Isaac called out.
The others reacted as one. Shane leapt into the driver’s seat while Adam and Luke closed in on the back. The van burst open and the rest of their team suited up in the biohazard suits raced in.
“Get off me,” the man yelled.
Isaac drove his elbow into the back of the guy’s head. Stunned, he didn’t protest Isaac wrapping his wrists in a zip tie.
This was too easy.
Tanya planted her foot on Felix’s knee and stepped into the back of the van. She could barely think through the pounding of blood in her skull. The surge of adrenaline did her no favors.
She stared at the black case taking up the bulk of the floor space in the delivery truck.
Why were there barrels? What purpose did they serve?
Tubing hung from the ceiling, well out of the way.
Abigail climbed onto the edge next to her.
“Ready?” Tanya asked.
“No, but that doesn’t matter.” Abigail edged into the truck.
To get the lid of the case off they would need a person at each corner of it.
Tanya and Abigail slithered between the case and the side of the van. They released the catches as they went. Whoever closed the cases last hadn’t been all that thorough. Only half of them were done.
“The case is cracked over here,” Tanya called out over her shoulder.
Shit. That was not good. The gas was highly unstable, which was why Orlando had a facility built just to temporarily store it in. If it’d been jostled and perhaps damaged in transport... She didn’t want to think about that.
“I’ve got them all on this side,” Abigail said.
“Here, too.”
“There’s cords coming out of the case and going to these barrels.” Abigail slid her hands along what looked like a water hose.
“One thing at a time,” Tanya said.
“You guys ready to get this lid off?” Felix called out
“I think so.” Tanya knelt and felt for the edge with her fingers. “Everyone ready?”
“Ready,” they called out in unison.
“On three.” She swallowed. “One, two, three.”
They lifted, not all the way but enough to slide the top back and get a glimpse inside.
“Oh—shit.” Tanya straightened and took a step back.
“What? What is it?” Isaac joined the others at the back of the truck.
“It’s not the gas, it’s a bomb.” Tanya followed the lines and cords with her eyes. That was just what she could see.
“The gas can’t be in the part back there?” Abigail asked.
“No. Get the lid off. Now.” Tanya’s instinct was to run as far from this as possible.
The guys hoisted the lid off the case, dragging it back. Bits of the hard shell broke off as the cracked part gave way.
“Fuck...” Abigail lifted her hand and dropped it.
“This will bring the whole building down,” Tanya said.
“Where’s the gas?” Abigail asked.
“Not here. Look—the timer’s already activated. They weren’t going to gas the place, they were going to set off a bomb.” Tanya followed the lines to the detonator out to the rest of the bomb.
“I can disarm it,” Isaac called out.
“No.” Tanya threw up her hand. “It’s too tightly packed. Just get everyone out of here. Alert who you can.”
“Is there another detonator? What are we looking at?” Abigail asked.
“I only see one, but that doesn’t mean anything. There’s only three minutes on this thing, so there isn’t time to second guess what we’re doing.”
“Agreed. Your arms are longer. You’re going to have to do this. Can you?”
“In theory, yeah.”
“Baron taught you. You can do this, I’m right here with you.”
“You should get out.” Tanya glanced at the other woman. “Just in case.”
“We’re doing this together. Give me your gloves, you’ll need your hands.”
Tanya stripped off her gloves and tossed them to Abigail.
Getting to the detonator was an act of contortion. Tanya had one foot on the floor of the truck with her toes under a wooden bumper rail. Her other foot was on the edge of the container, and she leaned over the device.
For its size, it appeared relatively simple. As though it’d been thrown together with whatever was around.
“There’s like, six wires coming out of the detonator.” Tanya frowned. If she were making a device this big, there would be dozens.
Could it really be this simple?
She’d have to cut the right line, but with only six options, two of which were highly unlikely choices, that left her with a twenty-five percent chance of getting it right.
“Two and a half minutes,” Abigail said.
Tanya pulled the multi-tool from her belt and flipped the screwdriver open. She grasped the display portion of the detonator and tugged. There was enough give to the wires she was able to get it free. With a little space she unscrewed the back of the detonator to get a closer look at the ignition mechanism.
“Not to hurry you guys up, but the cops know there’s a bomb threat,” Isaac yelled at them.
“I got it. I got it.” Tanya swallowed and turned the tool around.
One snip. That was it.
She slid the tool between the cords.
Tanya exhaled and squeezed the handle, snipping the exposed copper wire.
The clock face stopped at one twenty-two.
“Done. Go!” Tanya jammed the multi tool into the delicate inner workings of the ignition device, ensuring that it wouldn’t be able to spark remotely.
Abigail stepped up onto the case, treating it like a balance beam, and leapt out.
“Watch out!” someone yelled.
The truck lurched sideways.
The case slid, trapping Tanya’s leg.
Her knee wrenched sideways, and a couple hundred pounds of force pinned her leg between the bomb and the side of the truck.
“Out of the car! I said out!”
“Tanya?”
“Get out of here. Go!” She wasn’t getting free, but the others had to. The gas was out there somewhere, and she wouldn’t put it past Orlando to have something else planned.
“Like hell we’re leaving you. I need some help over here!”
Isaac climbed back into the van, followed by two more guys. Tanya’s vision blurred. Her toes were working, but the pressure on her leg could be holding broken bits together for all she knew.
“Push.” Isaac groaned the word.
The case budged. Not much, but enough.
“Give me a hand.” He held out her arms.
Isaac wedged himself between the case and the wall, his arms outstretched.
“I’ve got you.” He wrapped his hands around her wrists. “On three, I slide you to me, okay? There’s more of a gap over here. One, two, three.”
She rocked toward him and he pulled.
Her ankle twisted at an impossible angle, but he slid her at least a foot farther.
Sirens echoed off the concrete.
“You have to go, Isaac.” Tanya tried to wrench her hands out of his grasp.
“No one gets left behind. One, two, three.” He threw his weight back and she slid almost into his lap.
Tanya twisted her lower body, rolling from one side to the other and dropped her feet off the tailgate. Isaac vaulted off, slung her over his shoulder and sprinted into the open doors of the van.
“We’re in. Go!” Isaac went to his knees and pulled her into his lap.
The van accelerated and they slid across the metal floor before someone grabbed them.
The back
doors of the van slammed shut as Adam took a hard turn.
“The bomb? Did you get it disarmed?” Kyle asked, his tone frantic.
“Yeah. Yes.” Tanya dropped her head against Isaac’s shoulder, the hood on her suit crumpling.
“Where are we going?” Adam called out.
“The warehouse,” Abigail answered. “We need to know what went wrong.”
Light shone through the windshield.
They were about to make a break for it.
The van slowed.
“Why are we stopping?” Tanya jerked her head up.
Luke slid into the passenger seat.
“Go,” he snapped.
“Let’s get this off you.” Isaac helped her remove the hood and mask of her suit.
The cool air against her skin helped, but the throbbing in her leg was a greater concern.
“What happened?” Kyle asked.
“The gas wasn’t in the case.” Tanya pushed up, out of Isaac’s lap and sat on the bench.
“But, I thought you had a tracker on it.”
“No, I was only able to put the tracker on the case. Either they will use the gas another way or Orlando tricked them.”
“We have no idea where the weapon is?” Abigail asked.
“No.”
“Maybe the team knows something? They could have a lead for us,” Abigail said.
Tanya nodded.
She hadn’t considered that the gas would be separated from the case. The case had weathered its theft and time in Orlando’s care, up to now. It was built with the gas in mind. Without that, the gas would be more volatile. She didn’t understand its makeup, but she’d heard enough emphasis on keeping it contained, away from oxygen, that the idea of it out in the open made her considerably worried.
What if the gas had never left Europe?
What if it was half a world away?
Orlando could have divided the gas up into lots and sold it piecemeal instead of all together.
She’d let herself be blind to any option, except the one that made sense to her, based on what she’d heard. Her assumption that Orlando’s sole focus was revenge could be wrong.
It stood to reason that the moment Orlando knew about her and Quade he could have changed his goal. Revenge could have taken a back seat.
19.
Sunday. Remote CIA Offices in Washington, D.C.
Orlando had played them all like a symphony conductor.
Robert sat back in the chair, watching the security footage from the building next door. He’d stolen the key card and snuck into the building with the intent to hack the hacker providing Orlando’s hit team coverage. There’d been no cover-up, no attempt to alter the stolen credentials. The moment someone swiped them, all the alarms would sound and it was game over.
This was a distraction, and they’d fallen for it. All of them.
The gas wasn’t in the back of that van. It wasn’t anywhere.
So where was it?
The crackling radio calling all agents to pursuit kicked Robert out of his reverie.
Their hand wasn’t fully played. Orlando could still be stopped.
Tanya was in the field, active and equipped.
Robert’s best bet for stopping Orlando and getting his wife back relied completely on a woman he’d never met. She’d been trained by the best. He had to believe she was up to the job, but not if she got caught.
Lord, forgive me.
Robert’s fingers flew on the keys.
He figured he had about ten minutes before someone realized the facility was breeched and hacked from the inside. Ten minutes was a lot of time for someone with resources and training to get away.
Robert picked up the radio and pressed the button.
“This is dispatch, suspects have been sighted in a new vehicle.” He read off the license for a SUV at random.
Ten minutes.
That was all the time he needed to give Tanya.
The doors to the suite banged open.
He kept talking, tying up the line. The more he could confuse the officers, the more chance Tanya’s team could get away.
“Put your hands up!”
“On the floor!”
“Which is it? Hands up, or down on the floor? I’d prefer to not be shot, gentleman.” Robert held his hands up and turned to face the two security guards.
Looks like he wasn’t getting ten minutes after all.
Sunday. Washington, D.C.
“What the hell?” Luke’s voice drew Tanya’s attention forward.
The doors to the warehouse stood open. Adam rolled the van into the building.
The trailers were gone.
The grill might not have even been there.
The whole Mossad command center was erased.
“Did we just get played?” Isaac asked.
“I want to say no, but I can’t be sure,” Abigail said. “We should get out. Check around to make sure they’re really gone.”
“Do we have a first aid kit?” Isaac asked.
“Should be something under the bench seat,” Abigail said.
“You guys search the building and I’ll take care of Tanya.” Isaac crouched between the benches.
“I’m fine,” Tanya said.
“Then why are you crying?” Isaac asked softly.
She swiped at her cheeks.
They were damp.
“I’ll be fine,” she said.
“Maybe, but I’m going to take a look at your leg anyway. Can you get out of the suit on your own, or should I help you?”
“I can do it.”
The others spread out, leaving Tanya and Isaac alone. He lifted the seat and pulled out a red and white medical kit. She unfastened and unzipped the suit, sliding it down her body.
“The suit is ripped.” He rustled the material over her leg.
“What else would Orlando have done with the gas?” she asked.
“You tell me. Lift up. I’ll pull the suit down.”
She planted her hands on the seat and levered her hips off the bench.
“His focus was revenge. That’s what the gas was all about. He wanted to use it against his allies. Maybe he changed his mind? Maybe that target was wrong all along?”
“How’s this feel?” Isaac pressed on her shin.
Pain shot up and down her leg. She hissed and jerked, but Isaac held on too tight.
“Good. Nothing broken. How about here?” He pressed on her ankle.
“Ow!”
“Sprain. Maybe some torn tissue, but no broken bones. I’m going to wrap you up for now.”
“How is that important?” She thumped her head against the side of the van. “I should have turned myself in. This whole circus of trying to get a contact, establishing me through proper channels, it was a mistake.”
“Don’t count us out yet.”
“Isaac, what else can we do? Our whole advantage was the tracker.”
“Orlando wouldn’t have thrown any effort into stopping us if he didn’t have a plan we could fuck up. Am I right? He might not have sent people after us, but he did his best to make us a target. We must be headed in the right direction, we just missed the mark.”
“Guys? Tanya?” Kyle’s voice echoed off the brick and concrete.
Isaac slid out the back, holding the van doors open for her to swing her legs out.
“What’s wrong?” She stared at the hard lines of Kyle’s face before she caught sight of the phone in his hand. “Who is it?”
The rest of the team returned, their expressions equally as grim.
“It’s Orlando.” Kyle held his phone up. “He’ll only speak to you.”
Tanya stared at the phone. No part of her wanted to speak with Orlando. But what if Isaac was right? What if they were close? What then?
“Put it on speaker,” she said.
Kyle handed the phone to Isaac. He jabbed at the screen and held it for her.
“H-hello?” She hated the way her voice broke. She gripped the side
of the bench to keep her hands from trembling.
“Tanya, my sweet. It’s good to hear your voice again.”
She swallowed and bit her tongue.
Kyle opened his mouth.
Tanya held up her hand and shook her head. The Tanya Orlando knew barely spoke, even when directly addressed. There was no question, no reason to respond. This was still her part to play.
“You know, I must congratulate you. It isn’t every day that someone close to me manages a betrayal of this size. Quade, I never truly trusted. In the end he didn’t surprise me, but you? Oh, Tanya, my sweet. I almost want to come get you and keep you.”
Kyle gestured at the phone, brows lifted.
Tanya jerked her head. There was a way to deal with Orlando.
“When did you plant the tracking device?” Orlando asked.
“At the auction. You were preoccupied with buyers and it was my only opportunity to get close to the case.” She managed to keep her tone even, calm.
“I see. You could have betrayed me at any time. Why wait?”
“That wasn’t my call to make.”
“Hm, it’s beginning to make sense. I had my thumb on Robert by that point. He wouldn’t have dared passed the word along. Too worried about the fate of his Donna. We men are slaves to the loves of our lives.”
Tanya bit her lip. There was no question, no invitation to speak. She had to treat Orlando like she’d treated her father, catering to his wishes, working him in the right direction.
“You know you fucked up all my plans?” Orlando sighed.
“You didn’t really think that stealing those credentials and sneaking into the security summit would work, did you?”
“Who says that was my plan?”
“It was a little obvious. Not your usual style, but your clients aren’t always as...creative. I’m almost sorry.” The bitter chuckle she couldn’t keep in rippled out of her.
“My new plan is better, so I should really thank you. How many of those suits do you have? Enough for your whole team? I’d hope so. Keep them close, Tanya, my sweet. I’ll find you when this is over.”
Her stomach dropped. If Orlando ever captured her, she would likely wish to be dead.
The call ended.
Do we have enough suits for the whole team?
His words sent her mind whirling, pieces clicking into place.
“Suits—we all have suits?” She glanced around at the others.
Dangerous in Action (Aegis Group Alpha Team, #2) Page 23
