Chapter Twenty
Annabelle left Quinn and Echo and headed for the arena to meet Gabe. She spied him pacing back and forth on the sidelines as Riley and Morgana ran drills with Charlie and Delta. He looked up and spotted her, his body slumping with relief.
“Annabelle.” He gripped her shoulders and pulled her tight against his body. “Thank you for coming.”
When the hug morphed from comforting to uncomfortable, she stepped back. “Are you okay?”
He blew out a breath. “I’ve been better. I wanted to show you this new trick I taught Echo. I knew you’d enjoy it. But the phone call has me rattled. My dad’s getting up there and we have a long history of heart disease in my family. Both his father and grandfather died of heart attacks.”
“I understand—”
Beeeeep. Beeeeep.
A shrill alarm blared through the building and red lights attached to what looked like fire alarms flashed.
Lockdown, lockdown. Initiate defense strategy. Incoming tangos. This is not a drill. Repeat, this is not a drill.
Annabelle glanced around in confusion. “What’s happening?”
Gabe looked just as bewildered. “I have no idea.”
Quinn sprinted into the arena with Echo on his heels. “Gabe, Riley, get the dogs from the kennels and meet at my office. Morgana, harness Charlie and follow me.” He grabbed Annabelle’s hand and hustled her down the corridor.
She had to run to keep up. “What’s happening, Quinn? What are tangos, besides a vibrant and playful Latin American dance?”
Her attempt at a joke fell flat. “Military speak for enemy. I don’t know what’s up, but I need to get you safe.”
He stopped in front of a panel and punched numbers on a keypad. The wall slid aside to reveal a hidden opening. “This will take you to an underground bunker. I’m sending Gabe, Riley and the dogs with you. Once the doors open, follow the hallway. It’ll lead to the main chamber. Wait there with the others until you get the all clear.”
Annabelle’s head spun, figuratively and then literally as a blast shook the building and she fell to her knees. Quinn urged her to the ground and covered her with his body. Echo dropped beside her protectively. When the rattling stopped, Quinn asked, “Are you okay?”
“I think so.”
He jumped up and helped her to her feet. She wanted to hug Echo to thank him, but he was in full warrior mode and she knew not to distract him. Gabe and Riley appeared with the other dogs.
“What is this?” Gabe asked, indicating the elevator.
“Get inside, both of you,” Quinn urged, ignoring the question. “Tell them what I told you, Annabelle.” The door slid shut and the elevator descended.
“What the hell? Open up.” Gabe slammed a hand against the steel door. “Where are we going?”
“Calm down,” Riley snapped. “You’re upsetting the dogs.”
He turned to her with a feral scowl and bared his teeth. “You calm down. I don’t like enclosed spaces,” he enunciated. “And we could be descending into the bowels of hell for all I know.”
“It leads to an underground bunker,” Annabelle jumped in, hoping to ease the tension between the two, currently squaring off like pugilists before a title fight. “We’re supposed to wait down here until we get the all clear.”
Gabe’s chest rose and fell rapidly and a line of sweat broke out along his forehead. He really didn’t like tight spaces, Annabelle thought. Then he forked a hand through his hair. “Something’s happening. We should be up there.”
“We’re not agents yet,” Riley reminded him.
“Close enough,” he groused. “I did my stint in the military so I’m pretty damn sure I can handle whatever’s going on.”
“I did, too,” Riley reminded him.
Thankfully the door opened, and they stepped into a well-lit hallway, the walls painted a crisp, bright white. The floor was carpeted in durable rubber tiles. Her cell buzzed and she stopped to check the screen. Kellan. Her shoulders slumped in relief. He was okay. He wanted to know if she’d made it to the bunker. She texted back that she had and told him to be careful. What she really wanted was to have him here with her. The underground lair might be secure, but inside his arms was her safe place.
Gabe and Riley had continued walking, so she jogged to catch up. The hallway opened to a huge open space where people were already gathering from other corridors funneling into the room. Amelia entered from one direction and BeBe wheeled in from another.
She beelined for BeBe. “What’s happening?” she asked the office manager, who looked as worried as Annabelle felt.
“I’m not sure, but I think we’re under attack.”
Breath lodged in her throat. Under attack? “Why aren’t Kellan and the others down here yet?” She knew her voice was frantic, but she couldn’t help it. That blast that knocked her to her knees had to have been a bomb and it had been close.
Amelia squeezed her arm. “Hon, they don’t back down from a fight. They run to it.”
#
Logan Bradley glanced at the other men gathered around the boat-shaped conference table constructed of cherry wood. His younger brother Dan sat to his right, while his partner Luke Colton and Luke’s brother Grant were on the opposite side. Resting on the table between them was a phone that looked straight out of the Starship Enterprise. They were wrapping up a teleconference negotiating the largest contract in the history of their business. If all went as planned—and it was pretty much a done deal—they’d need to add more agents to the staff to handle the increased workload.
“Gentlemen, I believe we have an agreement,” Ross Asher announced. “My lawyers will overnight the paperwork to you. I look forward to doing business with you.”
They exchanged pleasantries with Asher and his team and then Luke pushed a button to end the call. Silence reigned for a solid ten seconds while they all processed what had transpired. Then all at once, they let out a collective whoop, complete with high-fives and back-slaps all around. They’d been working on the contract for months. All the hard work and long nights just paid off, big time.
“This calls for a celebration.” Dan reached under the table and produced bottles of Dom Perignon in each hand. “What do you say to some bubbly, my brothers?”
“I say, I’ll get the glasses.” Grant pushed back his chair and stood, but before he could take a step, simultaneous alarms beeped on their watches to coincide with ones ringing through the building.
Lockdown, lockdown. Initiate defense strategy. Incoming tangos. This is not a drill. Repeat, this is not a drill.
The earlier euphoria was instantly forgotten. Logan slapped a button to activate the intercom. “Tucker? What the hell’s going on?”
“We’re under attack! An SUV’s breached the perimeter. Three men got out with RPG’s—” His words were cut off by a loud boom that shook the building. “Oh hell, the airport hangar’s been bombed.”
“War room, now.” The others dashed to their offices for their weapons and comm devices. Logan whipped open a drawer to grab his Sig Sauer and inserted his comm in his ear. Snatching his bulletproof vest off a hook, he slid it on as he rushed outside. His secretary Karen stood pensively beside her desk. He instructed her to make sure the support staff descended to the underground bunker as soon as possible, her included. She nodded and picked up her phone to issue the orders.
“Where’s Grant?” Logan asked when they met at the stairs, bypassing the elevators.
“He and Sawyer are heading to the airport to check it out,” Luke told him as they sprinted down the steps.
They’d run through worst-case drills in case something like this happened, so everyone was familiar with the protocol. Any agent in the building should be on their way to the war room. The others were to check in with the comms and await instructions.
Logan was terrified for Jade, Isabella, Christopher and Isabella’s poodle Fiji. The alert system was set up to ring to the houses, so they should be on their way to the safe room. All the homes had them built into the plans. Still, he’d fired off a text asking Jade to contact him. His heart wouldn’t start beating again until he knew his family was secure. When his phone beeped a text from his wife letting him know they were okay, he was able to breathe again.
Several agents were already gathered in the room when they arrived. Peter Dennis rushed inside and aimed a remote at the largest screen. A picture of the lake outside appeared. “Two people in scuba gear are climbing out of the water now.”
Dan dove for the chair in front of a control panel, his hand hovering over a switch awaiting instructions.
“Section fourteen,” Peter told him.
Dan keyed in the number and flipped the lever. As soon as the intruders tried to breach that section of the fence, ten thousand volts would shock their system and stop their hearts.
“Land, air and sea,” Luke noted.
“Damn,” Logan muttered. “This is a sophisticated, coordinated attack.”
#
Dante Costa was spotting Dorian Demarchis at the bench press when an alarm sounded and a red light flashed throughout the training facility. Then an announcement stated that this was not a drill.
He dashed for the intercom as Dorian sprang to his feet. Noah and Ethan Addison were right behind him, as were Kellan, Kayla, Hillary and Alex Mylonas.
“All agents gather up front. Grab comms and a vest,” he announced through the facility. Comm devices were located on charging stations around the gym and the supply room near the entry held an array of Kevlar and weapons. “The rest of you, proceed to the bunker immediately.”
“I’ll make sure everyone gets down there,” Amelia offered. “Be careful.”
He fit his comm in his ear and checked in. “What’s happening?”
“We’re under attack,” Logan told him. “Three men are unaccounted for in the woods by the front gate, heavily armed with RPG’s. Gear up. I need you to take the lead to neutralize them. Use the tranquilizer darts if possible so we can find out who sent them, but you have the authorization to use any means necessary to stop them. Quinn has two of the dogs ready to hunt.”
“Roger that.”
#
Wyatt came around to discover his ears ringing and every muscle in his body aching. He was disoriented, trying to recall what he’d been doing before he was tossed at least thirty feet through the air like a boomerang to land in a heap on the unforgiving blacktop. He was lucky he hadn’t split open his skull. He couldn’t tell if any bones were broken, but it felt like his skin had been peeled off by a cheese slicer. It all came rushing back to him when the acrid scent of smoke burned his nose. The rogue helicopter. It’d bombed the hangar. An overwhelming sense of grief washed over him. The entire maintenance crew had been inside at his request: Manny, Laurie, Beau, Carrie and Jamal, not to mention Chet Rudd. It’d been their day off, but he’d called them in and now they were dead. Not just dead—incinerated.
Movement out of the corner of his eye had him blinking to focus. The chopper was circling back. Horror struck when his blurry gaze landed on the tank holding hundreds of gallons of jet fuel. If they bombed it, it’d wipe half the city off the map.
His whole body throbbed, but he ignored the pain and scrabbled the last few feet to his SUV. Thankfully, he’d landed close to the vehicle when he’d catapulted through the air. He ripped open the door and withdrew his sniper rifle. Falling to his stomach, he braced his arms against the ground and sighted the pilot. He had a slight case of double-vision, but he’d faced worse. Taking a deep breath to calm his heartbeat, he squeezed the trigger, nailing the pilot between his goggle-covered eyes. The man’s head whipped back with the impact and then he slumped over the controls. The passenger shook him, frantically trying to dislodge him as the chopper wobbled out of control. Then the copilot jerked his wide-eyed gaze to where Wyatt was waiting calmly to end his life. “Rot in hell, you son of a bitch.” Applying pressure to the trigger, he put a slug through the man’s frontal lobe. The chopper lurched and sputtered, going in a hard circle before plunging nose-first to the ground in a giant fireball. Wyatt rolled to his back, placed the rifle across his chest, closed his eyes and his last thought before he gave into the darkness was, what if they’d bombed the gas tank first?
#
Tucker followed the progression of the trespassing SUV after it unloaded the three men with rocket launchers. His timing needed to be precise and he was pleased to note that his hand wasn’t even shaking—that is, until a loud boom sounded and the ground rattled, sending him tumbling to the ground. Gripping the counter, he pulled himself upright and focused on the monitor. He finished briefing his bosses and then tuned out the chatter. When an alert flashed on his computer, he hit a button. One minute the SUV was speeding along the road, the next it was gone from the screen, having dropped a jarring ten feet into a giant hole. The steel panels in the road slid shut, trapping the SUV. The two tangos were well and truly entombed inside an impenetrable box, unable to open their doors or use their cell phones. The only light would be illuminating a sign on the wall in front of them that said: You picked the wrong people to mess with, assholes.
Once the bosses were ready to question them, the chamber would fill with knockout gas, strong enough to penetrate closed windows. Cameras allowed them to observe the occupants, making sure they were unconscious. Then the floor would ascend via a hydraulic lift to bring the vehicle to the surface where the perps would be cuffed, questioned and turned over to the authorities. Eventually.
The hole-in-the-road trick was a Tyler brainchild. Once they were safe from this current threat, he’d need to work on coming up with other clandestine forms of security. There were three men on the loose with enough ammo to blow the compound apart.
“Two tangos in the SUV neutralized,” he said into the comm.
“Good work, Tucker,” Logan praised.
He didn’t have time to bask in the compliment. His eyes snapped to a monitor showing one of the men rushing towards him before stopping and placing the rocket launcher on his shoulder. Tucker grabbed his rifle as a bright light flashed. He barely managed to dive out the door before the rocket impacted the booth, igniting it into a gigantic ball of fire.
#
Quinn raced out the door with Echo, Morgana and Charlie on his heels. He was down two agents with Justin and Sabrina making a trip to Boston to deliver Bravo to his new handlers. It was always tough to see a dog leave once they were trained, but that was nature of the business.
There’d already been one explosion, but that had been at a distance. The hangar, he learned through the comms. Another detonation hit much closer and he whipped his head to see Tucker Nash’s booth splinter apart. Damn, he hoped Tucker was okay. Luke was calling for Tucker to check in, but so far, radio silence. He indicated for Morgana to head that direction. Then the high-pitched wheeze of a launched missile whizzed by, blowing up a structure across the compound. Quinn’s heart skipped a beat to realize it was the building that housed the daycare center and the computer lab. The children studied there after school. Parents of several agents took turns watching the kids. He prayed everyone inside had made it to the bunker.
Unclipping Echo from his leash, he gave the command to hunt and the dog shot off like a fired bullet in the direction from where the latest rocket had been launched. The dogs weren’t fully trained yet, but he was confident they’d get the job done. He glanced over just as Morgana unclipped Charlie and the dog mirrored Echo, racing for the other bomber.
Echo let out two sharp barks, indicating he’d located his target. Quinn raced after him and heard a man’s harsh curse just before a single gunshot sounded.
#
With Sawyer riding shotgun, Grant sped along the road leading to the airstrip. They’d listened through the comms as two more explosions rocked the compound. As they neared the hangar, the heavy scent of smoke filled the air and colored the sky black.
“Dammit, Wyatt isn’t picking up.” Sawyer slammed his fist against the dash. They knew Wyatt had concerns about the jet and had called in the maintenance crew to check it out. Sawyer had been trying to reach their coworker since the bombing to no avail.
Grant skidded to stop where two fires burned hot. One was confined to a small area and judging from the blackened skeleton, had once been a helicopter. The other was much larger, where the hangar used to stand. Two more blackened hulls were visible, one that used to be the Gulfstream, the other the company helicopter.
“Over there.”
Grant followed Sawyer’s command to see Wyatt Hollister’s SUV parked dangerously close to the flames. He headed in that direction and parked several feet away.
“Where the hell is the fire department?” Sawyer muttered.
Grant knew they were on the way, but it was too late to save the building—or anyone who’d been inside. He swallowed hard. He’d lost teammates in battle, including three close friends from his last assignment. But this wasn’t war.
The heat from the fire crashed into him when he opened the door and tiny bits of ash rained down. With the roar of the flames and the utter destruction, it felt very much like the apocalypse. As his gaze took in the devastation, he spotted a foot…thankfully still attached to a body. “Sawyer, over here!” Grant raced forward and dropped to his knees beside an unconscious Wyatt, a rifle slung across his chest. Grant pressed two fingers to his carotid artery to check for a pulse, letting out a sigh of relief at the slow but steady beat. He nodded at Sawyer, who emitted his own relieved exhale.
Sawyer eased the gun from Wyatt’s hands as Grant performed a quick body check for broken bones, finding none that were obvious. “Hey, Holly, can you hear me?”
His question was met with a low moan.
“Come-on, big guy, quit laying down on the job.” No response to Sawyer’s quip.
This close to the fire, the heat was intense. Wyatt needed medical attention, but they couldn’t return to the compound until they’d been given the all-clear. He let the bosses know Wyatt was alive but injured, the status of Chet Rudd and the maintenance crew unknown at this time, though they all knew.
“We need to move him away from the heat,” Grant said. The fire was growing so hot it hurt to breathe. “Let’s load him in the back of my SUV. You can drive his back.”
He lowered the middle seat to give them enough room to haul in Wyatt’s large frame, then he slid his hands under his shoulders while Sawyer grabbed his feet. Wyatt groaned again when they lifted him but didn’t wake up as they carefully slid him inside.
“He took out the chopper,” Sawyer surmised as he closed the hatch.
Grant turned to judge the distance from the huge metal container to where the small fire still burned hot. Dangerously close. He nodded slowly “They were probably coming back for the fuel tank.”
Sawyer swallowed hard. “Damn.”
#
Standing under the spray of the shower, Kellan rolled his neck on his shoulders, letting the hot water pound his sore muscles. His workout had been particularly grueling today, ending with a race to the top of the climbing wall against Alex Mylonas. It’d been a photo finish, with both men declaring themselves the winner.
Turning off the taps, he reached for a towel to dry off and then dressed. Dante scheduled war games for all available agents later today. The games would be a test Riley and Gabe needed to pass in order to be one step closer to becoming an agent. A glance at his watch told him he had enough time before they started to get some practice in at the firing range.
He tossed his used towels in the bin and stepped out of the locker room when an alarm sounded. For a second, he thought it was something Dante added to the games, but the message announced it wasn’t a drill. His blood turned to ice. His first thought was Annabelle. He wanted to race to her office, but there were plenty of people who’d make sure she got to the underground bunker. Still, he fired off a quick text to check on her. Her response was instantaneous, and he was relieved to know she was safe. He’d be able to concentrate on taking down the people who’d infiltrated the compound.
He sprinted to the supply room to gear up and followed Dante outside. It looked like a battle zone with the guard booth in flames and another building across the way burning as well. Dante sent Dorian, Hillary and Alex in one direction, Noah, Kayla and Ethan in the other and the two of them stealthily made their way towards the offices. They were almost to the building when Dante turned, yelled, “Get down,” and tackled him. They hit the ground and covered their heads as a rocket whizzed by and slammed into the building. Out of the corner of his eye, he spotted the flash from where the shooter took aim.
“I’ve got him.” Scrambling to his feet, he rushed for the attacker with Dante on his heels. A dog barked sharply and then someone emitted a high-pitched scream. Quinn’s dogs were on the job. The man he was tracking was reloading a missile when his head jerked up at their approach. He dropped the launcher and reached for a gun but both he and Dante were quicker. His fast-acting dart nailed the man in the thigh, Dante’s was a much harder neck-shot. The man dropped like a felled tree.
“Status update,” Luke ordered through the comm. “Any injuries?”
“One RPG tango down,” Dante informed the others.
“Make that two,” Noah said. “Echo nailed his prey, but he was shot in the process. We need to get him to a vet, ASAP.”
“Three,” Alex added. “Charlie got his, too. He’s secured. We’re headed to the day-care center.”
“We’re right behind you,” Noah said. “Morgana’s with Tucker. He’s shaken but unhurt.”
“We’ve got a downed chopper and an out of control fire at the hangar,” Grant said. “Wyatt’s alive but injured. Status of the rest of the maintenance crew unknown at this time.”
“The two approaching from the water are DOA,” Luke informed them. “The monitors show that we’re clear for now. Ben’s on the way to gather the tangos and bring them in for questioning.”
“Talia and Hunter are on their way to take Echo to the vet. Keep your comms on and stay vigilant,” Logan instructed.
Kellan zip-tied the man’s hands behind his back and then secured his feet. Dante ripped off the black balaclava covering half his face. “Look familiar?”
“No.”
Ben Colton rolled to a stop beside them in a Gator. They lifted the man and dumped him in the back before he motored off to gather the other captives. Dante and Kellan raced for the offices where the missile tore a gaping hole in the side of the building. The sprinklers had activated to help with the flames. Kellan stepped over a flood of water and cursed. The missile had taken out BeBe’s aquarium.
“Some of the fish are still alive,” Dante said. “Grab something we can put them in.”
Fighting through the smoke, they found several buckets in a supply closet to gather water and scoop the fish inside. Ethan appeared and helped them save as many as possible and carry them outside.
Sirens sounded and soon emergency personnel converged on the compound.
“Fire department is on site,” Logan announced. “Active threat has been neutralized, repeat, active threat has been neutralized.”