Remembrance burned a hole in her gut. Straightening, she forced the reel into the deepest crevasse of her mind. If she didn’t pull it together, she’d die a victim of Devereaux Kendrick, as much as her parents had. He would win. And that she would never allow.
A scarce second after the door swooshed open again, a black duffel bag skidded across the table and stopped at her clenched fists. Ryan bumped his fist to her shoulder—their code for “Be strong.” “Filler’ up.”
Half a minute behind him, teams filtered into the armory. The room livened. Lockers, slung wide, clanged like cymbals. Velcro shrieked as bulletproof vests were donned in an attempt to barricade life inside the wearer’s chest. Bullshit banter, a coping mechanism for some, peppered the air.
Sloan unzipped the bag and the cool comfort of battle prep and procedure doused her nerves in ever-welcome ice. The rattling deep inside froze. The memories resettled under layers of permafrost, the safest place for them. With no thought, only highly trained muscle memory, she prepared for the battle ahead.
In the bag she carefully situated a pair of MP5 submachine guns, two M4 assault rifles, copious amounts of ammunition, a handful of stun grenades and small radius explosives. In the field it was always better to over prepare. She never again wanted to be stuck behind a couch, with bullets ripping holes in the upholstery beside her head, and think, Gee, sure wish I’d packed that extra round.
Dan, the foot tapper, laid his duffel out on the table next to her. When she glanced up, he flashed yellow smoker’s teeth from behind a swart complexion. His head bobbed to a silent beat, making his dingy black hair flutter. With wide eyes, he said, “Twenty years or somethin’ like that the CIA’s been tryin’ to nail this Devereaux guy. This is our chance. We take out his son, we get him.”
“Capture. Not kill,” Sloan said, emphasizing each word. “If he’s dead, he can’t talk.”
“Right,” he said, bobbing all the while. “It’s just, that’s a long time to be after somebody.”
She accepted the bag’s impressive weight and walked away. The ADHD nightmare had no concept of a long time. Ryan had already changed. Decked from neck to toe in black tactical gear, his towhead shined like a beacon. At her locker, one down from his, Sloan laid the bag down, plucked her discarded clothing from the floor, and thrust it inside the metal box.
“Thanks.” Her word hardly carried in the bustling room.
“Ah, you’re good,” he said. Hiking a thumb, he added, “Better than twitchy over there.”
“Not saying much.”
His large fingers wrapped around her wrist. When he moved closer a shadow cast over her. The hustle behind was blocked from the gesture. Sloan’s gaze locked with Ryan’s and his face tightened, a line creasing his brow. “It’s saying a lot. Not many know about your past, but I do.”
Yep, he knew most of it. She’d spared him, and maybe herself, the truly gruesome details. He knew a lot about her childhood. This being the Base Branch, a few higher-ups knew, but Ryan was the only one she’d ever told. And she’d told him more than was known at the higher levels, which was why she knew what was coming.
His grip tightened.
Sloan schooled her face and regulated her breathing.
“Slo,” he said, which was what he called her on the rare occasion he meant business. “Baine Kendrick?”
Though she’d expected it and heard it only minutes ago in the briefing, the name cut like a knife. Instead of doubling over in pain like her body pleaded, she jutted out her chin and quirked an eyebrow in question.
Ryan’s blue eyes searched her face. “He’s Devereaux’s son. He’s the assassin. Our target. He’s also your friend. Can you complete this mission? Can you capture him? Can you kill him, if it comes to that?”
Sloan rotated her wrist and gripped Ryan’s thick forearm. “Was. Was a friend. And to the rest of it…yes.”
5
Sloan followed Ryan’s double-timing boots down the abandoned building’s stairwell. Three more flights to ground level. Her heart steamed like a locomotive, chugging inside her chest. They’d run nearly a marathon’s worth of stairs and corridors in the last five hours. The only thing they were running now was out of time. Ryan battered the door with one shoulder and they left the neglected structure for a blacktopped alley.
They both squinted at the blinding sunlight. Damn. Sloan had watched the shadows grow through the early morning hours. The sun pitched long tar pits across their paths, but as the sun rose the dark spots shrank with each cleared building. Now, only a sliver of shade remained.
Sweat dripped from Ryan’s chin, landing with a splat against the jet-black cotton tee that peeked out between the V of his loaded tactical vest. If his shirt was anything like Sloan’s, it could be rung into a puddle. Droplets tickled as they snaked down between her breasts. Dewy perspiration matted the hair pulled into a low pony-tail at the base of her neck.
Ryan pulled the map from the cargo pocket of his fatigues and Sloan checked the time.
Into his comm, Ryan said, “Alpha team, reporting A7 clear.”
“Oh nine thirty five with three left to search. We’re not going to make it.“ The irritation of knowing they were nearly out of time slipped down the length of Sloan's spine, cooling her like a dip in an ice bath.
Her partner’s jaw clenched. “Mother—”
Before he could finish the expletive, Sloan fist-bumped his deltoid and took off toward the next building. He followed suit, big boots thunking along.
“We’ve been looking from highest probability down, based on clinical numbers.” Sloan stopped behind a service road dumpster. When Ryan did the same, she pointed to the three remaining structures. “What do you see?”
“More damned piles of brick.”
“Noble,” she warned.
“I know. I know,” he said, as he raked a hand through his wet hair. A spray of sweat fanned the air. “It’s all air and opportunity for this fuck to take the shot.” He expanded his chest in a deep breath and let it out in a rush. “There are people coming and going at all three buildings. The first two, A8 and 9 on our grid, are twins. Same height and width. Window sizes are comparable in all three. Twins are the same height as the last building, A10.”
Sloan saw it an instant before Ryan breathed, “Domed roofs. The twins are domed.”
They took off together in a dead sprint. Ever the good boy, Ryan radioed, “Alpha team, requesting permission to break protocol. A8 and A9 are twin buildings measuring taller than A10, but have domed roofs. A10 has higher elevation making it the most likely shot origin of the three remaining.”
Tucker’s voice answered, “Are you two in agreement?”
When they rounded the corner and saw that the tree in front of the building had been recently cut for the construction of street lights and a bus stop, they both barked, “Yes, sir!”
“Permission granted. Proceed with caution.”
Ryan replied, “Yes, sir.”
They stuck close to the brick, trying to stay out of sight. Neither wanted the type of greeting forewarning brought. They kept the MP5‘s slung across their chest tucked under their wall-side arms and their badges dangling in plain view, to keep pedestrians from panicking. Maybe, because it was D.C. and it was only the two of them, they’d only garnered mild curiosity all morning. And even that had been from small, wide-eyed children.
No sooner had the thoughts run through her mind, than an old lady, complete with leashed grey poodle and poodle-poofed hair, shrieked as they entered the lobby of A10. She scooped the dog into her arms. Her floral print muumuu billowed around stark white calves and knee-highs crinkling at her ankles. Four other people in the lobby stilled, as though suddenly rooted in place. A mother clutched her young son to her chest, shielding him with a half turned back. Two large black men in business suits surveyed them, expressions wary.
Sure, the women’s reactions were understandable given the way she and Ryan looked, bodies armored and armed for battle. The men’s wa
ry expressions would have been justifiable, if it were not for two things that calmed Sloan’s strumming heart instantly.
One, this was a low rent building in a high rent district. The men wore designer shoes worth more than she made in two weeks, and she didn’t make chump change. Two, Sloan knew how to read expressions. In her line of work expressions told more than words ever did. Translating them correctly often meant the difference between success and failure. Life or death. Their wariness didn’t contain an ounce of fear, as it rightly should, given their situation.
The dog barked, and the men flinched, ever so lightly moving meaty hands toward guns concealed beneath pricey suits. Now that she looked, the impression of their machine guns was clear.
Ryan spoke, “Everybody, stay…”
He paused as Sloan flung thin blades through the air. They flashed in the fluorescent light then stabbed into the mens’ bellies. Before the first dropped to the linoleum tile, Sloan closed the gap, pistol drawn. She relieved them of several weapons and their communication devices. Since neither would likely die from the wounds, she restrained the moaning man with zip ties.
After removing the women and child, Ryan restrained the unconscious one. When it was done, he spoke into his coms. “Confirming A10 as the location of shot origin. Just took out two of Kendrick's hostiles in the lobby. Requesting back up.”
Tucker replied, “Affirmative, Alpha Team. Were shots fired?”
“Negative.”
“Proceed. Dispatching all teams to your location. If possible, report as you advance.”
“Affirmative, sir.”
Sloan broke in. “Sir,” Ryan’s gaze shot to hers in question, but she continued, “requesting permission to split and search.”
Ryan growled, “No.”
She shook her head and whispered, “No time.”
The commander replied, “Affirmative.”
The golden boy cursed. She ignored him, turning her vicious expression on the man at her feet. “Where is he?”
The man whimpered and tried to hide his face in the floor. Sloan wrapped her slender fingers around the cool metal handle protruding from his gut. He jerked back against the wall. “No. Please.” His Xhosa accent rounded the words. He looked to Ryan, eyes pleading. “No.”
She pulled the knife from his flesh, and stifled his scream with her hand. The blade showed crimson in front of his sweat-slicked face. She held it there, letting him study it for a moment, his eyes as big as matching moons. “Where is he?”
Expelling a ragged breath, he said, “Roof.”
Sloan pulled the knife from the other man’s belly, wiped them both on her pants, and put them back in the sheaths as she moved toward the corridor. She handed Ryan one of the still-quiet coms she’d taken off the men and lightly punched his shoulder.
“You too,” he said, before turning and heading up the east stairwell.
She sprinted up the west.
A few flights up, she spoke into the coms. “At least we know he’s not on the roof.”
“Yeah,” Ryan said. “So where the hell is he?”
“Twelve or eleven. He needs the elevation to make the shot.”
He used his authoritative voice, deep and oh-so-manly. “I’ve got twelve. You take eleven. Affirmative?”
“Negative. Whoever gets there first takes the top floor.”
Ryan clipped out an agreement. Certainly, like her, he’d already ramped up his effort to reach twelve first. Neither wanted eleven, when it was possible, but highly unlikely, the shot would be taken from the lower level. It would make a tricky shot, near impossible, except for those highly-trained few who graduated from the likes of SOTIC. Could Baine be that good?
Much remained a mystery about the man being groomed to take over a war profiteer's army. On the surface, he appeared to be an average guy. A lawyer with dual citizenship and a healthy bank account living in London and the States equal parts of the year. Nice, but nothing too catching to a layman’s eye. But put on diving gear and plunge below the surface with a Base Branch expert and his records fuzzed around the teenage years and all but disappeared after the death of his mother. Untraceable travel. Little movement of personal funds. No love life to gossip about.
His cover was good and many layers deep. So deep, even The Base’s analysts hadn’t whittled it into a discernible creature.
Sloan had an advantage though. She knew Baine. Not what had become of him, but she knew the core of his being. She’d thought she’d known him enough to bet her life on the fact that he’d never become the soulless mirror of his father. As it turned out, she’d been wrong. So very wrong. Strategic bombings, assassinations, and choking other weapon runner’s supply routes had been attributed to his hand. Those Sloan couldn’t get worked up over. Bad guy deaths didn’t count in her book. But killing peaceable leaders to maintain regional unrest and bump demand, she couldn’t abide. This wasn’t his first presidential assassination. There’d been rumor of two others. He’d even headed a town raid—something she could never forgive.
Fate was an evil witch, turning her soul’s savior into her target and sole link to destroying Devereaux Kendrick. She’d laugh at the irony, if she had time. Instead, she thought about the traits of the boy she’d known so long ago. Three words sprang to mind. Remarkable. Determined. Unpredictable. Those words slowed her jogging knees enough that when Ryan whispered over the coms, “At eleven now. I’m taking twelve,” a thrill quieted all the ramblings in her brain.
“I’m on eleven. Moving in,” she answered, knowing Baine was somewhere beyond the heavy white door with the crackled black numbers one-one.
Ryan answered, “On twelve. Moving in.”
Her hand gripped the cool hard handle and the enemy’s channel crackled to life. In a strained whisper, Sloan barked, “Hold.”
“Holding.”
A crinkle in the static ushered a deep baritone, “Check.”
The element of surprise took a swan dive off the roof and landed with a splat on the sidewalk outside. Damn. She’d hoped the enemy line would stay quiet. Then she’d hoped the voice would give something away. A nest position would be nice. Not that lucky. Ever. Without knowing the correct response code, answering was as good as picking up the radio and saying, “Hold still. I’m about to look up your skirt.”
Her partner knew it too. He spoke into her ear. “Radio silent. Move.”
“Affirmative.” Sloan moved silently through the doorway. MP5 in hand, she took in the vacant hallway through its crosshairs. The fluorescent lighting above and rows of apartment doors nearly flush with the corridor’s walls made her an easy target. So, she moved quickly, looking for signs of the man and, as he had an entourage, the men she hunted. Her ears pricked to every noise. Some she dismissed. Kids playing. A couple screwing. The pre-game show blaring. Silence behind a door two-thirds of the way down screamed for her attention like a naked ninety-year-old running to catch the Metrorail.
So much could be found in the silence.
She visually inspected the door. Nothing stood out. No marks for forced entry. No blood from an unfortunate tenant who happened to have the best view. And by her judgment, this apartment provided the easiest shot. The quiet was absolute. The dishwasher didn’t hum, nor did any other appliance. With a mental fist to her shoulder and a settling breath, Sloan eased a steady hand to the knob. The door moved ever so slightly.
The thing wasn’t latched. Having already tipped her hand for anyone watching, she flung it wide and inched back to the cover of the wall. One. Two. When the sounds of cocking weapons and firing bullets didn’t fill the air, surprise pinched her brow. Three. She darted into the room ready to crouch behind the nearest piece of furniture, but the empty room made it both unnecessary and impossible. One cloth covered-table sat at the center. To the left an open closet door revealed the fall line of a homeless person. Nada. To the right a partitioned wall and scrunched curtain displayed a meager bathroom and shower that hid no goons. Two well-worn pans hung from silv
er hooks above an old stove that jetted out from the wall.
Warning tingled down her spine. Still, everything remained fixed as she cleared the room a second time. She eyed the apartment’s door curiously. No one stormed through it. Then her gaze swung to the table. Its polished wooden legs peeked out from under a canvas painting cloth. Stepping toward it, Sloan gripped the edge and pulled. A suppressor and hand-painted forest-camo barrel of a sniper rifle peeked from beneath the fabric. Quickly she moved toward the window. A groove had been cut around the frame. Paint chips lay scattered on the floor and sill. Through the glass in the great distance a large white structure stood out from the green park grass.
The stage.
A glance at her watch revealed the time. Zero nine fifty five. She swallowed back the nerves that threatened bile into her throat. “Where are you?” Her words were no more than breath between parted lips. Sloan walked the few steps back to the table, yanked the sheet from it, and the gun stared back at her. As she moved to the shooter’s spot, Sloan ran a hand down the scope. Bending at her middle, the podium came into sharp focus, as did the sweat-sprinkled head of Yannick Bakou. In the same instant the air in the room shifted.
Sloan whirled in time to see a wide chest barreling toward her. Her submachine gun came up an instant too late to be of use. She’d been hit by a truck once before, but its blow had been more glancing than this. Air fled her lungs as her core bore the brunt of this attack. Her bones went from solid to rubber. Her head snapped forward on impact and then cracked back onto the floor. Carpet be damned. Whatever was underneath was hard as rock.
Enemy Mine (The Base Branch Series Book 1) Page 3
