X-Ops Exposed

by Paige Tyler

  The doorknob jiggled. Muttering a curse, she hefted another case of paper to the top shelf, then scrambled up after it. The boxes of paper made the unit top-heavy as hell, and it wobbled wildly under her weight.

  Just stay together long enough to let me reach the window.

  It would be just her luck to have the shelf collapse. Hardy wouldn’t have to kill her. She’d break her neck all on her own.

  The door shuddered as someone big slammed against it, but her wedges held. She quickly finished stacking the two cases of paper, then climbed on top of them. The shelf swayed dangerously, but she kept herself balanced in the center of her makeshift ladder and kept going.

  “I don’t know what you think you’re gaining by this, Ms. Stone,” Hardy shouted over the whir of a nearby jet engine. “I was only going to shoot you in the head, but if you make me work for it, I’m going to make it so much more painful for you.”

  Not exactly a great motivational speaker, was he? Unless he was trying to get her to hurry even more.

  Mac grabbed the windowsill as a gunshot rang out. The bullet went clean through the door and smacked into the wall near the shelf she was standing on. If she wasn’t so focused on keeping herself from tumbling off her precarious perch, she would have screamed for sure.

  She grabbed the handle and levered it upward, then pushed open the window. It only tilted out about a foot, but that was more than she needed. She yanked herself up to the window frame and shimmied through the narrow gap as more bullets tore through the door. If Gage and the Pack were anywhere nearby, they had to have heard the gunshots, right?

  Mac didn’t exactly climb through the window as much as she fell through it. She tried to hold on to the edge of the frame so she could hang down then drop to the ground, but she ended up tumbling out the window in a nearly horizontal position. The asphalt came up to smack her faster than she expected, and for a moment, everything sparked, then went dark as pain engulfed the entire right side of her body.

  But the sound of shooting coupled with Hardy’s furious shouts jarred her out of the blackness. She winced and crawled to her feet. Crap, it felt like she’d broken everything important in her body.

  “Get outside and find that bitch!” Hardy ordered.

  Damn it. They were already in the room. It wouldn’t take them long to figure out where she went.

  In the darkness, Mac looked from the open runways and planes on her right to the long continuous row of hangars on her left. She’d never make it very far if she tried to run in a straight line across the open airfield. Hardy’s men would see her and shoot her down before she went a hundred feet. So she turned left and stumbled along the hangars as fast as her beat-up body would allow. She needed to find someplace to hide until Gage and his pack could find her.

  Hurry up, Gage. If you were planning to make a dramatic entrance, please do it now.

  * * *

  “South Salinas Air,” Becker called out from the backseat of Xander’s SUV. “North Twenty-Fourth Avenue.”

  “Are you sure?” Gage had to fight to keep from snarling as he glanced over his shoulder. Finding Hardy’s hangar had turned out to be harder than the IT guru had thought.

  They were all parked on the side of the expressway waiting on Becker to give them a location. For about the thousandth time, Gage questioned the intelligence of putting all his eggs in one basket and bringing the whole team out here based on a muffled conversation a beaten man had heard while locked in a trunk. He glanced at his watch again and this time, he didn’t even try to hold in the growl that escaped his lips. It was after midnight already. Hardy’s men had taken Mackenzie over an hour ago. This was taking too damn long.

  “I’m sure,” Becker said. “I gave up trying to find a connection between Hardy and one of the general aviation operations out here. Instead, I tapped into the security feed for the cameras that surround the airport. I found the car that brought Mac here and followed it camera to camera until it stopped at a small charter service called South Salinas.”

  Gage wanted to believe Becker, but this was Mackenzie’s life here. “How do you know it’s the car she was in?”

  Becker spun his laptop around so Gage could see it. “Not many dark sedans driving around at this time of night with the rear passenger-side door ripped off.”

  Gage grabbed the radio and thumbed the button. “Northeast quadrant of the airport,” he ordered. “East Sixteenth to North Twenty-Fourth. Stop three blocks short and follow the plan.”

  Xander floored it and shot onto the expressway, heading to the general aviation side of Dallas/Fort Worth.

  Gage glanced at his watch again, then looked down at the map of the airport spread out on his lap. He locked on to the spot where the hangar for South Salinas Air was located. He’d been staring at the map so long over the past hour that he’d practically memorized it. He wished he knew exactly where in that building Mackenzie was being held.

  It didn’t matter. He’d be able to pinpoint her location the second he got within a couple hundred feet of her; then he’d get Mackenzie back. Assuming she was still alive, a part of his mind whispered darkly.

  He swore, refusing to even consider the possibility.

  “We’ll find her in time,” Xander said quietly as he took the off-ramp that led onto airport property.

  Gage didn’t say anything.

  “Mac’s smart. And she’s spunky as hell.” Xander shook his head. “I tried to scare her the other night when she came to the compound to see you, but she didn’t back down. My eyes were yellow, my claws were out, and I showed her my fangs. Even growled. But she didn’t flinch.”

  Gage smiled. That sounded like Mackenzie. If anyone could keep herself alive in a situation like this, it would be her.

  He forced himself not to look at his watch again. They’d be outside the hangar in minutes; then it would be up to him and his pack to get Mackenzie out safely. That was what they did for a living—they got hostages out alive.

  And that was what they were going to do. They were going to get Mackenzie out alive, and if Hardy or his men had harmed a single hair on her head, Gage was going to shred the fucking lot of them.

  * * *

  Mac half walked, half ran for as long as she could, praying the whole time she’d find someone willing to help her. But all the open hangars she passed were dark and empty. Her knee and ankle throbbed so badly she thought she was going to drop to the ground at any moment. Not that she could keep running out in the open like this for much longer. One of Hardy’s men was bound to see her sooner or later. Time to stop trying to find help and fall back on her original plan—hiding.

  She staggered past the next three empty hangars before settling on a big aluminum building filled with half a dozen small planes, rolling toolboxes, and wall lockers. There had to be a place to hide in here.

  Mac hobbled as far back in the hangar as she could, then slumped to the floor behind a big toolbox. Just bending her knee that much made her want to yelp in pain, but she bit her lip and tried to make herself as small as possible.

  She wasn’t a moment too soon. Within twenty seconds of slipping to the floor, she heard footsteps thudding against the pavement. Keep going. Please don’t look in here.

  She’d been beyond lucky so far, but this time, her prayers weren’t answered. She didn’t know how many people were out there, but they’d stopped in front of the hangar she was in.

  “I’ve got this one. Check the next,” Patterson shouted. “She couldn’t have gotten very far.”

  Mac tried to crawl underneath the toolbox, but the space wasn’t big enough. Damn it. If Patterson walked around behind this line of toolboxes, he was going to see her, even in the darkened interior.

  She looked around for another hiding place, but as badly as her leg hurt, she wasn’t sure how well she’d be able to get to it even if she found one.

  �
��If she gets away, I’m going to kill you in her place, you know that, right?”

  The sound of Hardy’s voice made her jump. Hardy and Patterson were both searching the hangar. Her luck was getting worse by the second.

  She heard a clicking sound that she recognized from her shooting lessons with Gage. One of the men had thumbed the hammer back on a pistol.

  “Unless I shoot you first,” Patterson answered his boss.

  Oh please, shoot each other.

  Hardy laughed. “Find her and I’ll let you bring her with us to Mexico. You can do anything you want with her until we get there. Then I’ll shoot her and mail the parts back to Dixon in a box.”

  Crap.

  “Deal,” Patterson said. “But we need to get out of here soon. All that shooting is going to bring the cops out here.”

  “Carlos and the others will keep them busy.” Hardy snorted. “What, did you think I was going to bring them down to Mexico with us?”

  Patterson blew out a breath. “Damn. You can be a bastard sometimes, you know that?”

  “When we find Stone, I’ll show you what kind of bastard I really am.”

  Footsteps came into view on the other side of the toolbox Mac was hiding behind. She cringed and quickly looked at the shelves to her right. Could she make it there without being seen?

  She was about to risk it when a long, low wolf howl filled the air.

  Gage.

  “What the hell is that?” Hardy asked.

  The howl came again, closer this time. It was followed by another, then another, and another, each from different directions, each bouncing and echoing off the metal buildings until it was impossible to figure out where the eerie sounds were coming from.

  “We need to get the hell out of here,” Patterson said. Footsteps headed away from her. “Let’s forget about Stone and get on the plane.”

  Mac grinned. That’s right. You’d better run. It wasn’t just Gage out there; it was his whole pack. For the first time since Hardy’s men had grabbed her, she started thinking that maybe this was going to end okay.

  “What the hell are you talking about?” Hardy shouted. “It’s just a bunch of coyotes howling at the moon.”

  “I don’t think so.” Patterson’s voice was farther away now. “Something attacked us when we grabbed the reporter. It took out Don’s sedan and everyone in it. Then it ripped Jasper right out of the backseat of my car, taking the door with it. I tried to stop it, but it was too fast.”

  The howls sounded like they were getting closer. Mac took a quick peek around the side of the toolbox. Patterson was standing all the way out by the big roll-up door at the hangar’s entrance, looking back toward the building she’d escaped from. He shifted from foot to foot, like he was about to take off running at any second.

  Hardy laughed. “What, do you think the big, bad boogeyman is out there coming to get us?”

  Shouts came from somewhere outside, followed immediately by the sound of gunfire.

  “I don’t know,” Patterson murmured. “But I’m not hanging around to find out. Something tells me you’re not making that plane to Mexico.”

  Mac held her breath, waiting for Hardy to say something snide in reply, but instead loud gunshots filled the building. She covered her ears with her hands and hunkered down. What the hell was that?

  “Come back here, you fucking coward, so I can shoot you like the piece of shit you are!”

  Hands still over her ears, she peeked out from behind the toolbox again and saw Hardy standing in the open doorway, a huge automatic pistol in his hand that dwarfed the ones she’d fired at the SWAT compound. She couldn’t believe he’d shot at Patterson. Now she just had to wait for Hardy to leave and she’d be home free.

  She knelt down behind the toolbox again, listening for the sounds of Hardy’s retreating footsteps. When she didn’t hear anything, she leaned close to the floor and looked under the rolling toolbox. Hardy was nowhere in sight. She frowned. Why hadn’t she heard him leave?

  He was gone. That was all that mattered.

  Mac slowly started to get up, only to scream when a hand grabbed her hair from behind and yanked her to her feet.

  “Looks like I’ll be making that plane after all,” Hardy whispered in her ear as he shoved that big cannon of a gun to her head.

  * * *

  Gage slipped quietly through the narrow alley between the two hangars, soundlessly making his way along the metal wall on one side while Xander and Brooks moved along the other. He inhaled deeply, sifting through the barrage of scents on the night breeze that moved across the airfield. He couldn’t smell Mackenzie yet, but he hadn’t expected to—not this far from where she was being held.

  He and his small team would slip quietly around to the airfield side of the hangars, approaching from downwind, while the rest of the Pack headed straight for the front entrance of South Salinas Air and the crowd of armed men they’d seen there. He told Mike and his team to be as loud as possible when they initiated contact to draw Hardy’s men away. Then he and his entry team would slip into the hangar, find Mackenzie, and get her out before anyone even knew they were there.

  This would have been a pretty simple hostage rescue op if it wasn’t for one factor—a lot of the hangars in this part of the airfield were constructed of lightweight metal. Without knowing exactly where Mackenzie—or any other innocent bystanders—were, there was no way his team could risk firing their weapons in the direction of the hangar. The bullets were likely to go straight through every wall in the place and keep on going.

  Mike and his team were going to have to deal with Hardy’s men without weapons. Well, without traditional weapons anyway. For the first time ever, Gage had given his pack the freedom to fight the way they preferred.

  “Claws, fangs, or muscles. I don’t care how you do it,” he’d said. “Those men took Mackenzie. By the time we’re done, I want them to be sorry they were ever born.”

  Gage only prayed the pure and simple shock value of a pack of werewolves hitting them would be the kind of distraction he needed.

  When they reached the airfield side of the hangars a few buildings down from South Salinas, Gage tapped his radio mic three times in rapid succession—the go signal.

  Immediately, a long, drawn-out howl shattered the normal background noises of the airfield. Moments later, another howl sounded a little farther away, and then another one closer. At the same time, Gage knew Mike would be killing all power to the hangar, throwing everything in the area into total darkness.

  “I think that should do the job of attracting some attention,” Xander whispered.

  A few seconds later, Gage heard gunfire coming from the front of the South Salinas hangar, followed closely by shouts as Mike’s team hit the men there.

  “Yup, that’s a distraction all right,” Brooks agreed.

  Gage started toward the hangar when the sounds of running footsteps caught his attention. Shit, Hardy must have had some of his men stationed along this side of the hangar, too.

  Time for Plan B.

  He pointed at Xander and Brooks, then in the direction of the footsteps. He pointed at himself and motioned he’d continue on to the hangar.

  Xander frowned, clearly less than thrilled with the idea of Gage going in alone, but his squad leader didn’t argue. The goal here was to get Mackenzie out, and Gage wouldn’t be able to do that with bad guys chasing him from behind.

  Gage hesitated for half a second as Xander and Brooks stepped out from behind the concealment of the little alley they were in and streaked toward the approaching men. Their attack was so sudden and vicious that Hardy’s men barely had time to raise their weapons and fire.

  Gage didn’t wait to see more. Turning, he sprinted toward the target, hoping the noise on this side of the hangar didn’t ruin their plan.

  The savage growls behind him told him Xa
nder had shifted at least partially—human vocal cords couldn’t make those sounds. He had no doubt that at some point Brooks would be dropping his tactical gear and shifting to his full wolf form. While several of the team’s members could handle a full wolf shift—Xander, Cooper, Brady, Remy, and Carter included—Brooks was the only one besides Gage who could handle anything close to an instantaneous transformation. Gage imagined when that happened, the shouts were going to get a lot louder. He needed to get to Mackenzie out before that.

  Gage was nearing the big open doors of the South Salinas hangar and the private jet running its engines when an unexpectedly powerful scent hit him, forcing him to slow. It was Mackenzie’s. But the scent wasn’t coming from inside the hangar. It was coming from outside. And it was close.

  Then he saw Mackenzie step out from an entry alcove twenty feet away. Gage almost dropped to his knees in relief. She’d gotten away and was already safe. That was when he realized she wasn’t alone. Hardy was right behind her, holding that big Desert Eagle of his to her head.

  “You and your cop friends are going to let me get on my plane and fly out of here,” Hardy ordered from where he hid behind Mackenzie. “If you don’t, I’ll shoot your girlfriend right in front of you.”

  * * *

  Mac tried to run to Gage, but Hardy tightened his hold in her hair, yanking her back. She stifled a scream and attempted to twist in his grip, but it was useless. He literally had her by the scruff.

  She tensed, ready to jab her elbow back and smash the jerk in the face, but immediately went still as Hardy pressed his pistol harder against her temple.

  “Drop it, Dixon, or I’ll shoot her right now.” Hardy pulled her backward so that most of his body was hidden by the edge of the door. “I swear I’ll put a bullet right through her head.”

  It took everything in Mac not to give in to the overwhelming urge to struggle against Hardy. Now wasn’t the time to do anything stupid. Gage was here and obviously had a plan on how to deal with the situation. This was what he did for a living. She just had to be ready to react once she figured out what his plan was.