by Fiona Quinn
Thorn grinned broadly. “One thing we do have, though, is a set of Mercedes GLC SUV keys that the guy kept in his wall safe.” He fished them out of his pocket. “That should take care of the alarm system and shifting it into neutral.”
“Careful, these guys are big into booby traps. It’s all fun and games until someone loses an eye,” Nutsbe said.
“Thanks, Mom.” Thorn slapped him on the shoulder and reached for a banana from the buffet filled with food.
The men were wolfing down burgers and power shakes, making sure they had the fuel for whatever lay ahead. Margot had taken Zoe down to the cafeteria. They were going to go back to Margot’s apartment in the women’s dorm and hang out there until the team got back. That was as far as their planning had gone. If nothing else, at least he knew Zoe’d be safe here on the Iniquus campus.
Prescott moved into the room. “Well, the guy’s a brick wall. His SERE training—survival, evasion, resistance, escape—was in full swing. I got his alias repeated back at me about a hundred times. We talked about how he could resist his little heart out, but he was heading down the CIA hole and the only chance for better treatment was timely information.”
“And?” Titus asked.
“I learned he can spit like a camel.”
“Nice. Anything else?”
“We had him hooked up to a polygraph. I concluded that he hasn’t handed over the envelope. We played twenty questions for a while.” Prescott grabbed a burger from the platter and took a bite. “I think the smell of steak on the grill and fresh baked bread you had wafting in was a nice touch. Made me hungry as a horse, and the sound of the guy’s stomach gurgling was echoing off the walls.” Prescott moved to the map. “I’m guessing from the polygraph that we’re facing seven members of his unit.” He stopped and took another bite of his burger. Speaking between chews, he said, “They’re all housed in the same place. Arms? They’re loaded. They’ve got flashbang, grenades, MP5s, AKs, side arms, and dogs.”
The men threw their hands in the air.
Brainiack gave voice to men’s thoughts. “Shit, man, are you kidding me? I hate when they have dogs.”
“Steaks and tranqs,” Nutsbe said.
“And time. All that takes time,” Thorn added.
Gage was focused on Prescott. “Did you ask about booby traps?”
“That one, I couldn’t tell. Either they had them, and he wanted to hide it bad; or they didn’t have them, and he wanted me to think they did. That’s a crap shoot. I’d assume we’ll be tiptoeing through a minefield, ladies.”
***
The tow truck was already in place around the bend. Honey got the short straw and was twiddling his thumbs behind the wheel. The rest of the team lay on their bellies in the brittle weeds. The December cold seeped through their battle gear and into their bones. They did a comms check. Gage’s transmitter wrapped around his throat, his receiver was dropped into his ear canal. He was hands free as he whispered, “Gage, check.”
Thorn was apparently the team’s dog whisperer. He had laid piles of steak, carefully seasoned with a sedative that would kick in after twenty minutes, and a powder that would disarm their sense of smell immediately and make them dizzy as hell in the process. Now Thorn was off in the trees. The wind carried the slight tinny note of a dog whistle along with the smell of raw beef toward the house.
As a beautiful German shepherd pushed his way past the man holding the door, Gage was glad that their treats were in no way lethal. It would simply buy the team some time and ensure safety for the dogs as well as for the men.
Through the binoculars on his night vision apparatus, Gage watched the man dressed in jeans and a sweatshirt cast his gaze over the field. The guy’s arm hugged tightly to his chest in a sling, and Gage could see the corner of a large dressing sticking out of his shirt’s neck hole. Gage guessed that this was the man he’d shot earlier. Gage hoped the guy was loopy on pain meds and had lost his observation skills and some of the sixth sense that warriors developed over time in hostile surroundings. Would the guy go in and announce their presence, or were they still under the radar? Thorn was smart to put the meat on the other side of the rise where the man couldn’t follow the line of sight.
A second dog pushed past the man, a third, and a fourth. Then he shut the door. Gage watched to see if there was any change to the farmhouse. Lights that suddenly snapped on or off. Movement at the curtains. He thought they’d probably gotten away with the ruse, the guy didn’t attempt to call the dogs in. The evening was still, but for the last of the brown leaves rustling in the wind.
Thorn, from his location, reported over the comms. “Beta One. The dogs are all high as loons. I put on the harnesses and have them chained in the woods. Even if things take longer than expected, the most they can do is raise hell with their barking. But most likely, they’ll just sleep it off.”
“Base. Panther Force, be aware cloud cover’s giving us satellite problems. I’m getting intermittent visual. I’ve got your locations from your tracking units on screen. Everyone is in position.”
“Panther actual. Copy,” Titus whispered over the comms. “Alpha team, go.”
Gage was Alpha One and Brainiack was Alpha Two. They had drawn the long straws and got to go after the car. The others were at vantage points with their eyes on the windows and doors. Nutsbe was back in the war room with his bird’s eye view up on the screen.
Gage had a Glock in his side holster and another at his ankle. If things got bad, they could and would defend themselves. But Titus and Prescott wanted anyone who got in their way captured, not killed. To that end, he’d been handed a stun rifle. He’d never seen, let alone used one before. He knew that the Marines had asked for the development of this weapon for room-clearing operations, and to be able to take potential threats into custody using non-lethal means. Gage would have liked to have used it at least once on a firing range before trying it in the field. The shell for the twelve-gauge shotgun had a range of only a hundred feet. That was damned close if he was going up against an MP5.
“Alpha team, move.”
“Alpha One, moving,” Gage whispered back as he belly crawled toward the side of the barn. Brainiack repeated the answer, and they both squirmed from their observation points toward the Mercedes.
Brainiack had the fob and would push and steer from the front as Gage shoved from the rear. The Mercedes was parked at the top of a gravel-lined drive, and while the decline made pushing easier, the gravel was a definite deficit. There was no way to move the car silently. The trees lining the drive meant there was no space to maneuver the car onto dirt or grass. “Come on, wind. This would be a good time to pick up the noise level,” Gage muttered under his breath.
Brainiack hit the key fob, somehow timing it with a flash of lightning, hiding the chirrup behind a boom of thunder. Brainiack quickly popped open the driver’s side door and slammed the light switch to off.
The farmhouse door banged open. Gage threw himself flat, squirming under the edge of the fender where the dim house light created a shadow. From his position, he could see the same man who had let the dogs out before. His good hand wrapped around the collar of a massive Rottweiler. The dog was barking and lunging, his fangs gnashing at the air. The man whistled. Waited. Whistled again. Then he let the dog go, and he banged the door shut. They were made.
“Go. Go. Go,” he whisper-yelled to Brainiack. Brainiack had one hand on the door frame and the other on the steering wheel. Gage came up into a lunge, pushing with all his weight into the back of the car to get it rolling down the hill, falling forward as he did. Through his night vision goggles, Gage saw the dog at the corner of the barn, staring at him. The Rottweiler’s massive muscles vibrated. His mouth frothed with saliva. Gage could feel the growls in his bones as they rumbled through the air, low and threatening. Gage knew he had one shot at not getting mauled. With a twist of his torso, he grabbed for the rifle, pulled it to his shoulder and fired off an electrical shell as the dog leapt toward his thr
oat. The device hit the dog’s thigh and was quickly shaken off. The Rottweiler took off in the opposite direction, whimpering his surprise and pain. Gage was relieved that he didn’t have to use a bullet to save himself.
The slow crunch of gravel in the distance told Gage that Brainiack was making good progress.
“Beta one. I’ve got the dog,” Thorn’s voice came over his comms. “I’m chaining him up with his buddies. He’s going to get a steak and sleeping pill reward for coming right over to me when I called.”
Relief was short-lived.
Flashbang exploded where the Mercedes had once been. Gage had been scanning the area with his night vision goggles when his optic nerves exploded into an inferno. All he could hear was the squeal of his ears ringing. A thick blanket of smoke choked him. Blindly he rolled toward the barn, hoping for something sturdy at his back while his system fought the overwhelming stimulus.
He was on his knees, gagging up the toxic sludge that he had breathed in, when the sound of firepower seeped through the cacophony. The terse communications of his teammates resonated in his ear, but he couldn’t make out the words. He staggered up to crouching position then snaked his way along the length of the old barn. Gage put the stun rifle to his shoulder before rounding the corner, thinking what a piece of shit this damned thing was with its hundred-foot range, when that strafe of bullets being laid down was coming from a submachine gun. Gage yanked the rifle strap so the weapon swung to his back. He pulled his Glock from his side holster.
Gage’s aim was the tree line and some concealment while he got himself back to operational. He blew the stress from his lungs, and with his Glock squeezed between his palms, his finger ready to pull the trigger, he rounded the corner to find himself nose to nose with a figure. Gage’s momentum was already swinging right, so he extended and continued the gesture, bringing the butt of his Glock into someone’s temple. The guy toppled into the barn wall and used it for leverage to spring back at Gage, knocking the gun from his hand.
The night was pitch black and his eyes were still burning. Gage couldn’t get a visual of who was on top of him. What weapons were on hand, what was nearby. Someone slammed their fist into his cheek bone. He rolled and could feel the second punch hit the ground where his head had just been. From the feel of the man’s clothing, Gage knew he wasn’t going hand to hand with a friendly. This person wasn’t wearing the Iniquus uniform. Gage locked his legs around the guy and flipped him over, crawled up his body until he was sitting on the tango’s chest. Gage pinned the man’s shoulders under his knees. With the advantage of space and height, Gage pummeled the guy until his target stopped writhing beneath him. He rolled the unconscious man onto his stomach and pulled out a pair of flexi-cuffs.
Flexi-cuffs, Gage reasoned, would do little against a seasoned special ops guy. He’d just jump up and run to the nearest sharp object. Gage grabbed the man by the collar and dragged him into the woods. Gage stretched the man’s arms over his head with a sizable tree between them and locked him in place lying on his back. Gage scrambled down and did the same with the man’s legs. This combatant was trussed and ready for Prescott to pick him up.
“Alpha team, sitrep.” Gage heard Titus’s voice in his ear, still garbled but at least understandable.
“Alpha One. I’ve taken custody of one tango. Over.”
“Alpha Two. The car is loaded on the flatbed, moving. Over.”
“Beta team, sitrep,” Titus called.
Prescott answered first. “Beta Two. I have custody of one male with an earlier bullet wound. He’s sustained another. Medic required. Over.”
“Beta One,” Thorn said. “Dogs secured and sleeping. I have a bead on a guy who’s sneaking around the right side of the house.”
“Nutsbe. Beta Two, be advised that has him rounding on you.”
The angry sound of electrical sparks filled the air, along with the garbled screams of a man.
“Beta Two. Taking the guy into custody now. I’m liking these stun rifles,” Prescott said.
“Panther actual.” Titus came over the comms. “I’m moving toward you to take hold of your captures. Since you have the badge, Prescott, I’m going to let you take lead on the house search. Now that we’ve been fired upon, I’d say we have probable cause for securing the place. I’ll lock the prisoners down, then we’ll stack up and finish this mission.”
Chapter
Thirty-Five
GAGE
Gage stood in the infirmary while the medic gave him the required onceover. He had a pretty good bruise on his cheekbone, but the tango he’d wrestled had lost four teeth. Gage would take that for an outcome most days of the week. The good news was that they had all three tangos alive and kicking their shackles, each in their own interrogation rooms. Turned out the guy who took his second bullet in less than twenty-four hours was just grazed. The medics stitched him up, gave him some antibiotics, and called it a day. His wound from the exfil house looked like homegrown surgery. If he hadn’t chosen to go to the hospital for that, no reason why they should force the guy to go now.
Thorn had crated the dogs, and had them transported to the Iniquus kennels for a vet check and housing. Prescott was elsewhere, applying his interrogation magic. His FBI team was fine-tooth combing the farmhouse. Brainiack and Honey were doing the same with the Mercedes in the Iniquus garage. Hopefully, the teams would have news soon. Solid information about what was going on, and where the five other soldiers from the unit were located now.
Gage and Titus left together and walked to the women’s barracks where Zoe was waiting for them. The women’s dorm was designed to look like a McMansion on the Potomac River. They took the front steps two at a time and knocked on the door. Margot opened it and without a word turned to get Zoe. The men weren’t allowed in. Women only. Gage could see Margot shaking Zoe awake where she was curled under a throw blanket at the end of the sofa.
“Gage and Titus came to get you,” Margot said softly.
A few moments later, Zoe was at the door. Her eyes widened at the sight of the bruise and scratches on his face. When she locked her eyes on his, she seemed to find the answers to her unspoken questions. She nodded and accepted his wounds. There was none of the hysteria he’d experienced with past women in his life. No babying and sympathy. And Gage appreciated being treated like a man instead of a boy who needed mothering.
Titus left the porch as Zoe and Gage thanked Margot, then they moved as a unit to Titus’s Hummer, heading to the new safe house.
“No food at the house, so we need to run by the grocery store to get something for tonight and breakfast in the morning. We can fill the fridge tomorrow. Zoe, this might end up being your home for a while.”
“Thank you,” Zoe said, still looking out the side window.
“Did you have dinner? Are you hungry?” Titus asked. “It’s late, but I’m sure I can find some fast food if you can’t wait for Gage and me to cook.”
“I’m not hungry, but thank you.” Her voice was too soft.
Gage remembered her trembling under the metallic rescue blanket. He didn’t want them to be making another emergency run to the hospital. It was too hard to secure her there.
“When we get to the store, I’ll just run in real quick, is that okay, Titus?”
“You can do the shopping.” He pulled into an all-night grocery store. “We all need to get out here, though. We’re changing cars. We’ll go in this door.” He pointed to the far door near where they had parked in the shadows. “And out the pharmacy door on the other side of the building. I’ll escort Zoe. Gage, when you come out, you’ll see a blue Oldsmobile, lots of rust, looks like a piece of shit, but that’s just its cover. It’s a good machine.”
As they walked through the automatic doors, Gage turned to Zoe and asked, “What do you want to eat?”
“Anything is fine.” Zoe’s eyes were scanning the walls.
Gage wanted a straight answer. He was too damned tired to be playing games. “Zoe, I don’t want to go
get eggs and bacon and bring it back and have you pout because you didn’t want eggs and bacon. Just answer me.”
The look she sent him showed confusion. “Who are you talking to right now?”
“You!” His voice boomed louder than he’d expected.
“No, you’re not. I’ve never pouted over food you’ve brought me. This isn’t some kind of test. I’m not playing games. If you brought me a jar of pickles, I’d eat them. I. Don’t. Care.”
That was Zoe, clearly and rationally pointing out the facts. Of course she was right, she didn’t set traps for him to fall into.
“I’m going to the ladies’ room.” She pointed to their left and walked away.
“Gage, you’ve found yourself one hell of a woman,” Titus said as he and Gage followed her. “She doesn’t say much, but what she says is what she means. Who wouldn’t love that?”
Some Neanderthal instinct roused in Gage the need to stake his claim. This was his woman. Ha. Zoe was her own woman. He was along for the ride. Gage worked to squash the feelings, knowing that he’d been on his own adrenaline rollercoaster with no sleep, and it was affecting him like it would anyone else on the team. This was not the time to tick off his new boss.
“But take my advice,” Titus was saying. “Get her something other than a jar of pickles.”
Gage loped off.
“Oh, and pick up some beer,” Titus called after him.
***
