Forged in Ash (30 page)

“Let’s pack up, and set up,” Mac said. His icy gaze settled on Cosky. “You sit out.”

“Make sure you wake her every half an hour,” Rawls said with a chin jab toward the woman on the bed. “If her pupil is dilated or pinpricked, get her to the ER. You can remove the IV once this bag’s drained.”

Cosky nodded, watching as an arsenal of weapons were checked and rechecked, and then stashed behind belts or waistbands or tucked in boots. Watches were synchronized. Cell phone batteries checked.

Kait’s gaze locked on Rawls’s cell phone, which obviously reminded her of her good buddy, Wolf.

She dug into her purse, her hand emerging with her cell. Cosky pretended he didn’t see her punching buttons, and wondered what Tag thought about her pet
Wolf
.

Rawls—Goddamn him—got entirely too helpful.

“Here, you’ll need it green-lighted to place or receive calls.” Rawls took the phone from Kait, connected it to the scrambler’s port, and hit a couple of buttons. “It will take a few minutes, and then you should be good.”

A few minutes later the door slammed and silence reigned. Cosky scowled, frustration rising like a tidal wave. He should have
been headed out with them, damn it. Would have, if not for his damn knee.

He transferred his glare down to his leg. He’d better get used to babysitting detail, because that’s all he’d be good for if his knee didn’t recover one hundred percent.

His scalp itched like crazy beneath his toupee as Robert aimed the Oldsmobile sedately along the street in front of the development Simcosky and Rawlings lived in. He chanced a quick glance at their condo as he passed, relaxing at the sight of Mackenzie’s and Rawlings’s vehicles. There were several unfamiliar vehicles as well.

Another indication they had Jillian and that the bitch had told them more than he could afford.

By now they had to know Jillian was related to Russ. It was also a good bet that the bitch had described Robert to them and filled them in on his role in that previous debacle.

Luckily none of that mattered, because they were all about to become very dead.

The fatalities would be higher than the six he’d planned on. But that was for the best if Mackenzie was filling the rest of his team in on Jillian’s intel. Everyone in that damn condo needed to be silenced. And this was his best shot of silencing them.

Without a twinge of regret, he picked up the handset to the old-school analog cell phone with its enormous battery packs. The damn think took up half of the passenger seat beside him.

There was one serious disadvantage to the high-tech toys Simcosky and Rawlings were guarding their castle with. They were
all geared toward digital signals, not the old analog one. So if you wanted to—oh, say, arm a bomb from a distance—without their fancy jammers and scramblers and whatnot interfering with the signal, well you just had to step back into the 1970s and go old school. An analog signal from an old-school cell phone, sent to a pager that was powered by tapping into the electrical wiring of the house itself, would do the trick.

Without anyone in the house being the wiser.

Of course, all their high-tech toys had been aimed at jamming unwelcome eyes and ears. They hadn’t been trying to guard against the arming of a bomb. Why would they? Up until, well, now, they hadn’t been threatened with any actual physical harm. The bosses had been targeting them through the legal system and the Naval Special Warfare Office itself.

The bomb beneath the condo had simply been insurance.

If things got out of hand and those bastards poked their noses into sensitive shit, well, instant and utter obliteration was available. But the bomb was meant as a last resort.

The bosses didn’t want additional attention given to their story. And an explosion taking out four decorated Naval Special Warfare officers who just happened to be screaming conspiracy—well that was bound to attract far too much interest and speculation.

So in thirty minutes, when the bomb beneath the condo detonated and incinerated everyone within the house, the bosses were going to be dangerously pissed and armed for retribution themselves. He needed to make sure he aimed that venom in the right direction.

He glanced at the clock embedded in the dashboard of the Oldsmobile. He had fifteen minutes, give or take, to intercept Phillip and put plan B into action. It shouldn’t be that hard to hide the old analog cell phone in Phillip’s car, along with other incriminating items.
His best bet would be to take Phil out and stage the scene. Convince Manheim that Phil had attacked him when Robert had tried to bring him in.

He was working the strategy out in his mind when his cell phone buzzed. He checked the window and found
CALLER UNKNOWN
. Probably one of the crew, since everyone was using prepaid, untraceable cells.

If his luck held, the caller would be Phillip. He’d talk him into meeting him for lunch, and then lure him out to the park on some pretext or another. He’d stash everything in Phil’s car after he’d eliminated him. He felt a twinge of regret, but only a twinge. While Phil was a good guy, there was only room for one when it came to self-preservation.

“Yeah?” he said.

“Detective Pachico?” a gravelly voice asked.

It took a second for the name to kick in, which was the last fucking thing you wanted when you were running an alias. Jesus—he needed to screw his head on straight. This kind of a slip could get a guy dead pretty damn quick.

“Who is this?” he demanded, although he’d finally recognized the gritty baritone. He put the cell on speaker while he scrolled through his phone’s tool kit and started the recorder so he could listen to the conversation later.

“Mackenzie. You said to call if we tracked your girl down.”

Robert’s eyebrows rose. Well this was unexpected, and suspicious as hell. “You found her?”

“Yeah, we’ve got her.”

“And where, exactly, do you have her?” Robert asked, keeping the dryness out of his voice. His eyebrows climbed higher at the address Mackenzie rattled off. The bastard sure as hell wasn’t directing him to the condo.

Pulling over to the side of the road, he punched the address into his GPS system. Mackenzie’s coordinates would take him clear across town, into the industrial corner. Plenty of secluded spots to set a trap in that neck of Coronado.

“Huh,” he injected surprise into his voice. “That’s clear across town from the last sighting.”

“Explains why nobody’s had any luck finding her,” Mackenzie offered blandly.

Oh yeah, the bastard was good. He hadn’t even paused.

Robert scowled, pinching the bridge of his nose as it occurred to him what a colossal monkey wrench this development had thrown in his plans. Mackenzie wouldn’t have called unless they were already in place and waiting to spring the trap. So half his targets were across town. They must have taken one vehicle and left the others. Which explained why he hadn’t seen Winters’s van.

How many men had Mackenzie taken with him? The van fit eight, with the size of those bastards it would be a tight fit, but SEALs were used to more cramped quarters than a minivan.

It was likely they’d leave the women at the condo, along with one, possibly two guard dogs. At least Jillian would be off his back. Still, most of his targets would be left standing, with blood in their eyes and revenge on their minds.

He toyed with the idea of telling Mackenzie he couldn’t get there until later. That might get them back to the condo in his thirty-minute window. But after a moment, he shook his head in disgust; postponing the meet was certain to tip them off, and he sure as hell didn’t need them all abandoning the condo.

What a fucking pity he couldn’t deactivate the bomb.

“Pachico?” Mackenzie demanded.

“I’m en route,” Robert said.

“We’ll be waiting,” Mackenzie said.

Which was probably the only true thing the bastard had said so far.

As soon as Mackenzie hung up, Robert dialed nine-one-one. Okay, so he wouldn’t be eliminating all his targets at once, that didn’t mean he couldn’t pile a heap of shit on the rest of their heads.

“Nine-One-One, what’s your emergency?” a nasal female voice asked.

“Yeah.” Robert coughed and worked a shake into his voice. “I just drove past the old Pontaine Produce plant; you know, where all those druggies hang out? Well, the gate’s down and there’s a bunch of big guys with guns shooting the place up. Thought I should call it in, because, you know, there’s a lot of screaming and everything going on…”

He hung up while the dispatcher was still asking questions, and then just sat there and smiled.

That should keep them busy for a while.

Chapter Fourteen

K
AIT SHOT
C
OSKY
a quick glance as the door slammed behind Commander Mackenzie and the rest of Aiden’s teammates. The silence that fell was thick, tense, and uncomfortable. Of course this was the first time Cosky and she had been alone—aside from the sleeping woman on the couch—since she’d stalked naked across her living room.

“So that’s what it’s like,” Kait said the first thing that came to mind.

“What?”

Cosky turned his head, but his shadowed gaze barely brushed her face before he turned and limped into what had to be the kitchen, judging by the Formica countertops.

“One of your super-secret strategy sessions.” Kait turned in a slow circle, checking out Cosky and Rawls’s living room.

Her gaze lingered on the stark white walls. Not a picture, a clock, or a knickknack in sight. The rest of the room was just as bare. A coffee table, a leather couch, a couple of recliners—both upholstered and leather. A huge television in an entertainment center tucked into the far corner. The shelves in the entertainment center held a collection of electronic boxes. She recognized a Blu-ray DVR system and
a cable box, along with the electronic scrambler Rawls had fiddled with earlier. But that only identified half of the electronic gadgets stashed on those shelves.

So this was Aiden’s new home. Considering he’d still had boxes stacked in the corner of his bedroom at Tag’s place when he’d moved out—four years after moving in—this place would suit him just fine. As long he had a spot for his guns and his clothes, and a place to watch the ball games he’d be happy as a clam.

Her brother sure didn’t have much to show for his healthier than average bank account.

Cosky still hadn’t responded to her comment, but then there wasn’t much to say. She’d thrown it out as an icebreaker, rather than a conversation starter. Not that it had worked in either capacity. She listened to the sound of a fridge opening. After several seconds of rustling, the fridge closed again.

There was a long pause and then Cosky asked, “Do you want a beer?”

Her lips quirked, now that question was what you’d call an afterthought. “Thanks, that sounds good.” Maybe the beer would relax her.

The fridge opened again and closed in short order. She headed over to the couch as his uneven footsteps progressed across the kitchen floor. Jillian was completely out of it, her mouth partially open, barely audible nasal snores mirroring the rise and fall of her chest.

Kait took a seat on the edge of the couch beside her and lifted the ice pack covering Jillian’s eye. She flinched at the swollen, blue flesh that was revealed. Oh God, the injury looked a thousand times worse than it had looked earlier. Her stomach tightened. She shouldn’t have hit her so hard. A little less force would have still given her the opportunity to escape.

“You handled that well,” Cosky’s quiet voice said from across the room.

It took a couple of swallows before Kait trusted her voice to remain steady. “What?”

“Her,” he said simply. “You used your head. You didn’t hesitate. You picked the best weapon you had available.”

There was approval in his voice.

Kait strangled back a laugh. Here Cosky was praising her for the very thing she was kicking herself for.

“Has Rawls checked out her eye? I mean, the eye itself. I didn’t do any damage, did I?”

“He says she’s fine.” There was a shrug in Cosky’s voice. “Or she will be once the swelling goes down.”

His voice was right behind her shoulder, and then the icy chill of cold glass touched her bare arm. She jumped a bit and looked up, watched him twist the cap off and accepted the bottle he passed her.

Another awkward silence fell between them. They filled it by drinking their beers. After a few sips, Kait set her bottle down on the coffee table in front of the couch. Shimmying her body closer to Jillian’s head, she reached out and settled her hands on Jillian’s swollen eye and temple.

“Hell no!” Cosky’s disbelieving voice cracked across the silence.

There was the sharp
click
of glass hitting wood, and hard arms locked around her waist, dragging her up and back.

“Hey!” Indignant, Kait twisted, trying to break his hold.

“You are not doing a healing on her.” His voice was flat, adamant.

“That’s not your call,” she snapped. When his arms didn’t loosen, she tensed. “If you don’t let go of me right now, I’m going to knock your nuts up into your skull.”