Hidden Trump (Bite Back 2) (46 page)

Bian began to relax slightly as I gathered everyone and went through the plan for the first time.

Tullah listened in, but there was no way I was letting her come in with us. Even if we’d had spare weapons, she hadn’t been trained in their use. She was pretty mean with her hands and feet; no daughter of Liu would be anything less, but that wouldn’t help in a firefight.

As I wound down, Bian laughed softly. “And I thought you were only slightly crazy, Round-eye.”

“I’m not the one running around with an oversize kitchen knife, Pussycat,” I replied, and listened to the chuckles. Good. I didn’t doubt the team was aware how dangerous it was, but they had to believe they could do it, to give us any chance. They had to be in good spirits.

For a unit, we were a contrast.

The Fang team had come in their black combat uniforms and Kevlar vests. But in addition, their helmets had SWAT team infrared goggles on them, and there were matching lights on their P90s. They had enough ammunition for about fifteen minutes, if they were careful. If we took longer, or they weren’t careful, we were finished anyway.

Bian had none of that. She wore her close-fitting trousers and a high-necked jacket, also black. The material was silky, completely matte, and as the light began to fade her face and hands seemed to float in an inky emptiness. She carried a backpack in the same material. Her sole weapon was her katana. More suited for my role, she explained when I asked, without really explaining anything.

David and Pia were in black combats with P90s, they had Kevlar vests too, but they had no helmets, none of the Fang team’s swagger and not much ammunition. I had specific tasks for them, and hopefully they wouldn’t need to use the guns much.

Time. Praying Alex would get back soon, I started the plan. I sent a text to Jen’s phone, saying I would tell Hoben where Altau was and asking him where I needed to show up.

He called back, hoarse, mocking.

“Get out to Cherry Creek Reservoir and call again,” he said.

That was on the opposite side of Denver.

“Cherry Creek?”

“You got a problem with that?”

“No.”

He ended the call.

They were all looking at me.

“We’ve got the wrong place,” Pia said, dropping her head into her hands.

“No.” Their heads came back up and tracked me. I had doubts, but I couldn’t let them show. “No, this is where Jen is. Cherry Creek is where they want me. Different things. Nothing’s changed.”

I called Alex’s house and asked one of the Were to drive my cell out to near Cherry Creek. I lost the ability to connect to calls, but it was going to be over before he got there. All I wanted was Hoben to be tracking the cell and seeing me do what he asked.

I went through the plan again, checking that everyone knew what was required.

Alex came back with one of his Mack trucks. All $150,000 of it.

I cringed, but there was no going back now.

As if I needed a distraction, I saw Alex’s startled look when he saw Bian, and the almost guilty way he glanced at me. Crap, they
did
have a history. Something I would have to deal with later.

More problems; Alex told me he was coming in.

“Felix gave you a direct order, not to get involved.”

“Doesn’t work like that for me.” He ducked his head. “I’ll explain to Felix when we’re done. You’re wasting time. I need to know what to do.”

I went through it the final time. Adding Alex in made good sense, and I could keep him with David and Pia in Group 2. Relatively safe. Or as safe as he could get in a building that would be humming with bullets.

“To recap,” I ended up, “the good news is they’re running this as a military-style operation, but badly. They’ve split up the troops in the factory on the right from the assault weapons in the warehouse in the middle and from the hostage in the left-hand office building.” My heart skipped a beat over the word hostage. “The security guards are armed with light weapons, but they’re not patrolling. There’s one guard on the gate and others in the warehouse or factory.”

We were standing in the back of the truck. Rain drummed on the metal around us. It was getting heavier.

“The tasks I’ve allocated are designed to exploit their mistakes and achieve the objectives despite the fact they outnumber us.” I tried to catch people’s eye like Top used to and
make
them believe. “Accomplish your tasks and the mission will succeed.” I paused. “Any questions?”

There was a general shaking of heads. Given their inexperience, I had taken them through it enough times that I was sure they knew what had to be done, even if they were concerned at the priorities allocated to them. I couldn’t help that. I was the one with training for this type of job, which meant my primary goal landed on my shoulders. I wouldn’t have had it any other way. Once this was rolling, I wouldn’t have time to be afraid for myself, let alone Jen. My instincts were honed with ten years of training and I had to trust them.

Tullah looked distant, but resigned. I’d given her the role of waiting outside and relaying progress to Skylur. That would be important if things went wrong, but I hadn’t added that.

Pia concerned me. I stopped in front of her and she flinched.

“Being Athanate doesn’t mean I’m not afraid,” she whispered, looking down and fiddling with her P90.

I lifted her face gently until she was looking at me. “Being scared doesn’t mean you’re not brave. You’ll do fine.”

She took a deep breath and nodded.

I stepped back. “In the rigging, please.”

As I had specified, Alex’s truck had webbing, like the netting on a climbing wall, fastened down the middle. Everyone except Paul wriggled their arms in and got ready to brace. Instant crash protection. Paul just sat on the back, ready for his first task.

I pulled on my old army harness, checked that all my weapons were secure. I had the MP5 strapped to my right thigh. On the left thigh was my Tactical Assault Weapon, the brutal cannon we called the BFG in Ops 4-10.

I couldn’t believe the harness had come with Top’s parting gift of weapons, but there it was. It still had the Mike 6 designation inked on a strap.

I climbed into the driver’s seat and drove down the road towards the gatehouse. The mission was green to go. It was too close to the deadline, but it hadn’t been possible to get everything organized quicker.

Something felt unfinished, unready.

My hand strayed over my harness straps. Old familiar catches and Velcro, all fastened. And a little pocket, right there. My fingers slipped inside. My tin of camo paint was still there.

Something I’d kept chained woke in me, wanting to howl. I stabbed fingers into the tin and smeared savage lines across my face. This wasn’t to hide. War paint. Let them see me coming. Let them know death’s eyes were looking for them.

I was ready now.

It had gotten darker and the rain didn’t help, but it was still light enough as I turned in for the guard to recognize Alex’s truck livery. He came out of the gatehouse, but the gate stayed down. That was fine; all I wanted was for him to be away from any alarm buttons. He was probably swearing, once at the mix-up that sent a delivery too late to be accepted, and twice that he had to get out into the rain to send me back. He raised his arm for me to stop.

Paul had jumped off as we turned.

I kept the pedal down.

The guard’s eyes went wide with panic and he stumbled back towards the gatehouse, then he jerked and fell as I swept past him. Paul had seen to it that he wouldn’t be getting up.

The truck brushed aside the plastic gate and I lined up with the warehouse’s delivery doors. The huge steel rollers were down. Normally, they’d roll them open for a delivery. I didn’t think we’d get them to do that tonight, so I used the alternative, Amber Farrell, way of opening them.

The truck slammed into them, ripping the light steel panels like ribbons while I floored the brake and kept the rig straight. There were a couple of guards sitting smoking in the main delivery area. That was unlucky for them. Guards, chairs and tables disappeared under the truck’s huge grill front.

I deliberately hadn’t had the truck flat out, but the brakes still weren’t good enough to stop all that momentum. I leaped from the cab and the truck smashed straight into a couple of large box vans, folding them like paper.

I rolled and came up with the HK machine gun. This wasn’t my task, but I sent a couple of short bursts into a small group of bewildered Matlal troops standing by racks of guns. That caught their attention just long enough for Group 2 to untangle from the webbing and take over their task.

I left them, sprinting up the open-frame, zigzag staircase for the top floor.

At the first turn, I could see the half-dozen Matlal troops in the warehouse were down.

At the second turn, Pia had the first of Alex’s industrial packing foam dispensers vomiting its contents over the racked guns. It would get down the barrels and into the trigger mechanisms. No one was going to use them in a hurry. That was her task well on the way to completion and David and Alex were on the stairs behind me. Bian and Group 1 had disappeared towards the factory where the bulk of Matlal’s men were. That was their task. Mine was ahead.

The left-hand office was connected to the warehouse by a walkway on the top floor, the third floor. If they were alerted, that’s where they would be watching or that’s where they would come through. Although we had been quick enough to prevent any alarms being pressed yet, they had to have heard the sound of the truck breaking into the warehouse and the shots afterwards. If they ran along the passageway, they would have David and Alex shooting at them from cover. I needed to get ahead of all that, so I got out onto the roof and ran quietly along the top of the walkway and from there onto the top of the office building.

Spurred on by adrenaline and elethesine, I hit my zone. My actions became quicker and more accurate. I secured a rappel line on the roof and passed it though my brake links, estimating the length I needed, and locked the brakes.

Up here, I could hear nothing more from the warehouse. With luck, the people inside the office below me would be looking to the walkway to see what all the noise had been about. I had seconds before someone thought about Jen or realized that they were under attack.

I retrieved the BFG from the holster down my thigh harness and set the choke for wide dispersal. I pulled the pin of a stun grenade, counted two seconds and jumped off the side of the building, legs splayed wide. The rope jerked taut and I swung towards a window. Just before my boots hit the lower sill, I fired the BFG, angling it upwards.

Shatterproof glass is strong, but the BFG was designed to take out stuff like this. The expanding mass of metal particles exploded through the glass, carrying it in a ball of flame and noise right across the ceiling of the room. Behind the expanding cloud of debris was the stun grenade. It went off as I kicked the remaining glass out of the way.

I had counted down. I was expecting the noise and had my eyes screwed shut against the light at the moment it exploded, and it was still a shock. The people in the room didn’t have the warning or the training and as I vaulted in, those on their feet were stumbling around, confused, blind and deaf. Most were dazed, sitting or lying on the floor.

I had the stubby HK MP5 machine gun out as well now. I sprayed bullets at the ones who seemed closest to recovery. I wanted to kill every last one of them, but I didn’t have time. I’d have to deal with them on the way back.

The important thing for me was that Jen wasn’t in this room. I shot those directly in my way as I ran for the doors leading to the next office.

I launched myself at the door and it burst open. I saw armed men and I rolled to one side as I brought the MP5 to bear. We all fired. After the stun grenade, it all sounded like popguns, but the bullets did what they always did. I felt a smack of one hitting my shoulder at an angle and twisting me around, but the vest took the worst of it. I’d pay for it later. The man who fired it at me paid for it now.

There had been three of them clustered around a door. All dead now. I took that as the most likely place for Jen and kicked at the lock with all my weight behind it. It was a standard office door and it splintered.

Jen was in the room, lying on the floor, naked and handcuffed. There was a man near her, struggling to get his clothes back on. He died, more cleanly than he deserved, three shots: in his groin, in his gut and through his brain.

I knelt down beside her in despair and knew I was too late.

She was covered in blood, and they had ripped her beautiful face, slashing her cheeks. I put the guns down and felt for her pulse. My hand was trembling and my vision seemed to lock down, but I felt the faintest answering pressure against my fingers.

Her eyelids moved and my heart stuttered as she became aware of me. I got out the bolt cutters that Alex had brought me from my backpack. They sheared through the handcuffs. I gently lifted her head up.

“Oh, Jen, I’m sorry.”

There was nothing outside of our bubble. Her broken lips stretched in a ghost of a smile and she whispered something.

The round caught me in my back, just over my heart.

Chapter 47

The vest held the bullet, but passed on all the force of it. I fell over Jen, rolled to get away from her, struggling to clear my head and regain my breath. It felt as if I’d been hit with a sledgehammer. My left arm wasn’t working. The whole shoulder was in agony. And my guns were lying on the floor on the other side of Jen.

Hoben stood in the ruined doorway, covering me with his pistol. He must have been in the walkway when I’d come through. A couple of his men stood behind him, firing rifles back at the walkway.

“You!” Hoben shouted, as he recognized me. “Shit, I win the bet. Matlal said you’d show up at Cherry Creek.”

He walked in. “Makes no difference. He’s got enough people for two traps. They’ll wrap up whoever you’ve got here in two minutes. Then we can get to know you, while we wait for Matlal.”