part0118

Stevens grumbled in his sleep. It was too early to head out. They would spend an hour waiting for approval from the brass and merely play with their thumbs while they could have been sleeping. He wouldn’t sit around and wait for them, damn it. They would have to wait for him.

He snapped awake and bounded to his feet from the seat that he'd chosen. He wasn't sure how long it had been but there was a faint light through the dirty windows of the warehouse, and that was enough to tell him he had been out for a while.

Too long. If there was one way to know he was getting old it was when he told himself he would close his eyes for a few minutes, only to wake up a few hours later. That was a typical old-guy thing—the kind he'd told himself would never happen when he got old, and yet there he was. An old fart who was doing all those annoying old fart things.

What was he doing next? Oh, right.

"Jackson?" Stevens said and shook his head to clear the remains of fog. "Sorry, didn't... What's up? Why did you wake me?"

"Chaos came through," his second in command said and sounded like he resented having to say that. "We have a location on our burglar and, as it turns out, he's still traveling with the girl we saw in the footage."

"Huh." He grunted. "You'd think he would have turned her over to his handlers already. We are working under the assumption that he broke in there to get her out, but things could have gone badly and forced him to go to ground for the night?"

"That seems to be what he's done," Jackson said. "Chaos tracked them to a motel outside Portland, which they haven't moved from for the past few hours. It looks like they have a room and are laying low."

"Smart. It's what I would have done," he said. "Thankfully, it's also precisely what we're waiting for. Do we have any idea where they might be headed afterward?"

"I’ve had no luck in identifying our burglar," Chaos said and looked rather exhausted himself. He had worked all night, but he wouldn’t be part of the actual operation. His part of the job was done for the moment. None of them were really sad about that. Despite Stevens' words, the kid was the best available on such short notice, but he was exceptionally difficult to work with.

"No worries, I didn't think his name would be easy to find," Stevens said. "When you're as good in the business as he appears to be, and when you have support like that on your side, the chances are you will be as hard to find as your average ghost."

"Yeah, well, as nice as that is, I do have a couple of leads," the hacker said. "I've looked into that weapon he used, especially when talking to the cops who were shot by it, and I was able to connect the use of a weapon like that to a few isolated incidents around the country."

His boss narrowed his eyes. "Around the country?"

"Yep. When I overheard Jackson talking about how the weapon was custom and probably not even on the market yet, I wondered if I would be able to pin it down as being used anywhere else, and sure enough... I have them around Vegas, DC, Philly, and in a half-dozen other locations. They are all isolated incidents where a professional was cited as entering and leaving quickly. Here's the interesting part, though. In every single one of those instances—even those with eyewitnesses involved—there was no available footage of the man himself."

"How did something like this pass under the radar?" Jackson asked. "You'd think a guy walking around the country killing people with a space-age weapon would raise a few eyebrows."

"The thing is, many of the cops involved in the cases seemed to think there were gang elements involved," Chaos explained. "Gang violence was cited in an unbelievably high percentage of the cases. I guess the cops involved either didn't want to get in deeper with a guy like our man—which, let's be honest, is a perfectly valid approach—or they were merely lazy. It’s also a valid approach if you're prone to being lazy."

"Sure," Stevens said. He didn’t really agree with either point, but there was no time to debate that right now. "Do we have a plan of attack in place?"

"There isn’t really much to plan, to be honest," Jackson said. "It's a motel. We have six people."

"Not me," the hacker said quickly. "My job's done and I'm heading home."

"I know. There are six of us," his boss said and shook his head impatiently. "Your money is already in your bank account and we will let you know if we want to work with you again. Although I think we can all agree that it'll be over long distance."

"Please, God, I hope so," Chaos said. "Later, breeders, and you all have a very happy new year or whatever."

He moved out of the warehouse and the group studied him for a few moments in something close to disbelief.

"Is he drunk?" Stevens asked finally.

"Nope. His pupils were dilated," Jackson muttered. "My bet would be on Xanax or some other kind of anxiety medication. For a guy who doesn't interact with people much and deliberately makes that an intentional part of his life, he would need to almost overdose on the stuff in order to not have a panic attack around us. Which explains why he was such an asshole."

"I’m reasonably sure he was an asshole already, but the drugs simply brought it out with a little more intensity," Jesse grumbled. "Anyway, will we take some dude out in a motel?"

"That's right," their leader said. "We'll teach this guy a lesson while hopefully not wake the dirty bastards who are too cheap to find a real hotel to have their affairs in. We're in quick and quiet. The guy will be the more dangerous of the two but thankfully, we are under no orders to take him alive. That does not extend to the woman he has with him. If she dies, we don't get paid, got it?"

The crew understood the stakes. They were there to watch each other's backs like they were all still in the military, but they were there to get paid too. While the consequences for failing a mission like this in the armed forces was maybe a suspension and time away from the field to clean the barracks for a few months, failure now would be the lack of money. Worse, though, would be the infamy of failing the mission that would keep them off the lists of potential employers for years to come.

They absolutely would not fuck this up.

"Let's load up and get the fuck out there," Stevens said, and the whole crew stepped into the van they'd collected for the occasion. It was a rental and had been rented under the name of a shell corporation in case they needed distance from what was about to happen.

He doubted that they would have any problems, though. They would attack the man while he was in his safe place, and while he was unlikely to go down without a fight, he would focus on defending the girl and therefore would be easier to eliminate.

To capture the girl alive without her screaming up a fuss would be a little more complicated, but as long as they kept her under control, they would be able to dose her with chloroform. It would knock her out and not only make it easier to get her out of there, but it would end any screams she might make fairly quickly.

Stevens couldn't help but feel a twinge of anticipation, however, as they began the drive toward the motel. It hadn't been easy by any means, but he still couldn't help the feeling that things were about to become considerably more challenging.

After what had been a long night filled with all kinds of mission-related stress, Savage had looked forward to getting at least four or five hours of solid sleep. The reality, however, didn’t meet the expectation. While he had fallen asleep quicker than he thought was possible on a foreign bed, it was a light sleep and not overly restful.

Every little sound Jenna made kept him hovering between deep sleep and dozing and as annoying as it was, she seemed to sleep soundly and he didn't want to disturb her.

She was most likely used to being on her own. Any sound he made would probably disturb her or even make it difficult for her to sleep at all.

He grimaced in the darkness at the odd thought that plagued his brain while the night dragged on.

A few hours in, he finally accepted the realization that he would not get a good night's sleep. All he could do was try to get as much rest as was possible, after which he could maybe snatch a nap on the plane Anja had told him Monroe would have ready for them.

The thought sustained him through the long dark hours.

It was all he could do not to bound from his bed when he heard a van pull up outside. He wasn’t sure why it had alarmed him so much, but something that had him almost fully awake a few seconds after the loud diesel engine cut off.

His instinct told him something was wrong. He turned to look at Jenna, surprised that she was awake as well. Maybe she’d had the same difficulties as he had with sleeping.

No. There was something else in her eyes—fear and terror. She didn't look like she had been kept up all night and hated him for it in the way the sleep-deprived tended to.

Something was wrong, and she obviously hoped that he knew it too.

She could see how alert he was already, and he could tell that his instincts had been right to bring him awake.

"They have guns," she whispered under her breath.

Maybe twenty-four hours earlier, he would have had a hard time believing her. It was complete and utter insanity to even think she could hear weapons from out in the parking lot, right?

Normally, the answer would be a resounding affirmative, but they had already established that she could hear what was said in an earpiece buried in his ear. Anja had confirmed it too, which negated the difficulty he had to accept it based on his own logic.

He had no problems believing that she knew exactly what was happening outside. A van had pulled up in the early hours of the morning before the sun had even peeked over the horizon, although faint light filtered through the thin curtains closed over the motel's windows.

Savage moved out of his bed as quietly as he could, his weapon already in his hand. Jenna seemed surprised to see him already in action, armed, and ready for a fight. He assumed that she hadn't seen someone act on any of her warnings before or maybe she realized that the most terrifying times of the night before had returned with the morning.

With quiet, cautious movements, he eased toward the room’s door. A small peephole enabled him to see if anyone was on the other side but for the moment, it appeared that the door was not yet covered.

That would definitely change if the two fugitives decided to make their way out of the room. Anja had said someone had intercepted the recording from the patrol car's camera, which meant they probably had his face and Jenna's too, depending on the quality of the image. There was no way they would be able to sneak out of the motel.

Not out of the front, anyway, but there had to be some other way to exit the room. Places like these needed to have a fire escape, right?

He flicked the safety off his weapon as the back door of the only van in the motel's parking lot opened. A couple of men spilled out and they immediately moved toward the front desk.

"Are they here for us?" Jenna whispered, already up from the bed. She pushed her blonde hair down over her shoulders as if to straighten it.

"I’m not sure," he replied, his voice low as well. "But my money's on yes."

The two men looked like pros. Boots weren't that uncommon considering the time of year, but the ones they wore weren’t exactly the kind that would protect one from falls on patches of ice. They were undoubtedly those used in combat that allowed for quick movement as well as hard kicks should they be needed.

Not only that, he would put his money on them having steel tips too for added effect.

With that said, he didn't really plan to get into a fist-fight with them. There were more waiting in the van, of course, and from Jenna's warning, he could expect them to be armed to the teeth as well.

Savage wouldn’t take any chances, not with her on the line. He doubted that the men were there to kill her, but things tended to quickly get out of hand when bullets were exchanged.

No, he wouldn’t risk it.

The two men reached the front desk. His gaze followed their movements through a crack in the blinds and he watched while they stopped in front of the bulletproof glass and appeared to have a pleasant conversation with the man on the other side.

There would be a policy of sorts to prohibit talking about the guests in the motel since the people who frequented it tended to like their privacy, but the two men appeared rather insistent. The transaction ended when they slid a couple of bills through the partition and the clerk pointed them toward the room he surveilled them from.

"Shit," he muttered as the two men began to approach and gestured for their team in the van to join them. The door opened again, and the group spilled out. Two more of them headed toward the motel room, while the others remained with the van as backup should they be needed.

"Get into the bathroom," Savage told her sharply. He’d seen enough and decided they wouldn’t wait in the bedroom for the goons to attack. He would prefer to engage them away from where Jenna was and hopefully, keep her away from the fighting altogether.

She followed his instruction without protest and ducked hastily into the bathroom, where he looked around and identified their exit. Rooms like these were required by law to have a secondary exit in case the primary one was blocked by a fire, which meant the front door wasn’t their only way out.

He pulled the window open and she didn’t need any further encouragement from him before she scrambled over the sill.

It took only a moment to lock the bathroom door behind him before he attempted to escape through the window. While it was the right size for his companion, it was a little small for him. He needed desperation to surge power into his arms to squeeze through when he heard the front door kicked open.