Facing Fire

by HelenKay Dimon

  Harlan launched into lecture mode. “This is about bringing Ellery home. Nothing else.”

  “Live to fight another day,” Mike said at the same time.

  “Exactly.” This time Harlan pointed at his watch. “Let’s go.”

  Josiah took off without saying a word. The dismissal, intended or not, started an ache deep inside Sutton. This could be it for them, and he walked away.

  Fine, so would she. She got two steps before she felt a hand on her arm. The world spun around her as she turned.

  Before she could talk, his mouth landed on hers. Swept her up in a searing kiss. She held on as sensations battered her and the world flipped right again. When she opened her eyes, Josiah’s face swam in front of her.

  “Do not play the hero.” His voice broke as he said the words.

  She’d never heard a better sound. “You either.”

  Josiah and Mike followed the fence line around the west side of the buildings. Harlan and Sutton lagged behind at a safe distance, then branched off to skim the opposite side of the buildings. They’d see each other from a distance as they passed from building to building, but they’d stay separate. A smart choice but Josiah hated that part of the operation.

  “You okay?” Mike asked.

  “Not really.”

  They continued to walk while scanning the area. The “clear” signal hadn’t come in from Tasha yet. That meant he and Mike had to get close enough to the target building to take a peek inside. Josiah hated the idea since the whole scene smelled of a setup. No way was Benton going to hand over Ellery without a fight.

  It struck Josiah as equally implausible that Benton would let them all walk away today. He had a surprise in store for them and Josiah worried they were walking right into it. No matter what, he wouldn’t let him touch Sutton. That put them at an impasse, and knowing Benton, he’d try to kill his way out of it.

  They passed two sets of buildings before Mike spoke again. “She gets you.”

  Josiah understood the comment. He’d thought the same thing. Sutton didn’t get all clingy and beg him to quit. She accepted the job and the risks. She knew the story of how he landed there and why it mattered. He sensed she respected that. “She sure does.”

  God, a police officer’s daughter. An American. His father would have a heart attack if he knew. Maybe it was a good thing they never spoke to each other.

  They came up on the third building. Josiah spied the problem and held up a fist to stop their progress. The cut fence. He glanced up at the top of the fence posts. The video cameras didn’t move. To test them he picked up a small rock and tossed it. Nothing happened and that was not a good sign.

  “Coincidence?” Josiah wanted to think so, but didn’t.

  “No such thing.”

  “Glasses.” He held a hand out to Mike, who handed over the binoculars.

  It didn’t take much adjusting for Josiah to close in on the building’s door. He spied the new locks and the security panel. A chain lay on the ground, probably cut, which suggested someone tampered with the system.

  The place might look beat-up and run-down, and the break-in could be unrelated, but Josiah doubted it. This would be the perfect distance for Benton’s men to set up for an ambush. Hide here and wait. Which meant if Josiah and Mike could wipe them out now they’d increase Harlan’s chance of success.

  That thought sent his mind zipping back to Sutton. Josiah forced the memory of her face from his head. She needed him to succeed and he would.

  “I guess we’re heading in,” Mike said as he took a turn looking through the glasses.

  “You know this is going to turn into a fucked-up mess, fight?” Josiah was pretty sure that was going to happen any second now.

  “Our specialty.” Mike continued to cover the area. “I hate going in dark.”

  “Benton could pick up our transmissions. No talk on the comm means no chance of being overheard.” But they would be able to hear the click Tasha sent over the line if she picked up heat signatures in the target building, hopefully one of those belonging to Ellery.

  Until then, they were on their own without cover. And with nothing from Tasha yet, they had to check this out first.

  Without saying a word, they slipped through the open fence. The warning gunfire Josiah expected never came. That kept them moving, low and fast. He wanted to pick a different door, one not obviously used. Anyone could be on the other side of this one.

  “This feels wrong.” That felt like the understatement of the decade but Josiah whispered it anyway.

  Mike nodded as he dropped to one knee on the side of the door closest to the opening and the lock. Slipping a thin wire out of his pocket, he attached the tiny, almost invisible camera to the end. The equipment qualified as state of the art but that wouldn’t help them if someone opened fire. Josiah kept watch just in case.

  Adrenaline whipped through him as Mike put the camera away and motioned for them to slip inside. Keeping their steps quiet and movements to a minimum, they filed in. Darkness greeted them. Josiah took a minute to adjust. He could make out a small room with a wall of windows. It looked like an office space that opened to a larger warehouse but the treated glass blurred everything beyond.

  The bigger issue was the lack of anything. The place looked empty. Not so much as a stick of furniture or a piece of paper. Josiah couldn’t think of a good reason for someone to pay top dollar for security to guard this place . . . or why anyone had broken in unless it related to Benton.

  He signaled for Mike to move. They approached the door to whatever came after. The small, barely audible click behind them had them both spinning around. Josiah’s finger touched the trigger as an open hand appeared in the open doorway. Then Harlan’s face.

  Mike held up his hands as if to ask what the hell was going on.

  That’s what Josiah wanted to know. He mouthed Sutton’s name and Harlan stepped inside with her at his side.

  Talk about a plan gone wrong. This was exactly what wasn’t supposed to happen. All four of them pinned down in a building about which they didn’t have any intel. Just thinking it through made the nerve at the back of Josiah’s neck pinch. His gut told him to usher Sutton out, but now that they were in there anyone could be outside waiting. Even now they could be surrounded or sitting on a bomb or any number of terrible scenarios.

  Time for Plan B . . . or D, or whatever the hell kept them all alive.

  Josiah lowered his gun and glared at Harlan. “Why?”

  “There’s movement at the next building. We circled back and saw the fence.” Harlan’s voice barely registered above the sound of the wind blowing against the side of the warehouse.

  “We’ve been funneled in here for a reason.” An effective strategy. Josiah had used it more than once himself. He didn’t like being on this side of the plan.

  Sutton’s eyes grew even bigger. “Then we should leave.”

  Harlan shook his head. “The idea might be to pick us off as we go back out.”

  “We go through.” The only option. Benton wanted to play this game, so they’d play. The one upside was being able to watch Sutton firsthand. Josiah pointed at her. “Stick close.”

  He went first. No way was he sacrificing anyone else on the team. If anyone fired, he’d handle it. He touched the knob, and the door opened under his hand. He listened for any sound and heard a thumping, like something hard hitting against concrete. A little wider and he saw it. Saw her. Ellery tied to a chair in the middle of the room. She shifted and with each move lifted the legs and smacked them against the floor.

  Spreading out, they moved along the long empty room, heading for her. Her head popped up and she froze. She strained against the tape covering her mouth and shook her head. Her gaze darted behind them as she tried to warn them off.

  Fuck that. They were grabbing her no matter what.

  Harlan slid along the far right side and turned around, aiming his gun behind them. Josiah used the cover to run to Ellery. He had the tape off
as Mike and Sutton worked at cutting the wires around Ellery’s legs.

  She gasped as her frantic gaze traveled over each one of them. “It’s a trap.”

  “No shit.” Mike released one leg then the other.

  “There’s a bomb and a gunman.”

  Ellery barely got the words out before the shooting started. The bangs echoed off the scaling walls as Josiah tried to get a handle on the shooter’s location. Shots pinged and kicked up divots in the wall. The guy had to be missing on purpose because with nothing to hide behind, they were open targets on the floor.

  Josiah slid in front of Sutton and pushed her down behind him. Mike stood in front of Ellery as Harlan came up the side firing.

  They had to spread out and move. “Mike, take Sutton.”

  She yelled something and reached for his hand, but Josiah pushed her in Mike’s direction. That left Ellery. Harlan exchanged gunfire, shooting in rapid succession as Josiah slid to the floor and tore at the wire binding Ellery’s hands to free her. She moved and tried to spin around, which only cut the wire deeper into her wrists.

  One bang and Harlan spun to the side. He swore as his shooting hand dropped.

  Josiah recognized the signs and his gut clenched. “You hit?”

  “Get her out of here,” Harlan yelled back as a dark stain spread on his shoulder and he switched hands. He fired from the left. He could do it but wouldn’t be as accurate.

  Josiah refused to leave anyone behind. “Let’s move.”

  With Mike providing covering fire from his position at the far end of the room by the office, they took off and headed for him. First handle the inside, then they’d take on whoever loomed outside.

  A few steps and Harlan stumbled. Josiah hustled Ellery forward, then pushed her ahead. When he turned back to grab Harlan a good ten feet separated them. Josiah had no idea how that happened. He took one step and got sucked out of the room. A wall of air smacked him in the face just as Harlan staggered to his feet. A loud boom sounded. The floor bounced and Harlan went down.

  The roof exploded. Wood and chunks of cement fell, blocking Josiah’s path to Harlan. Glass shattered around them in a deafening crash. Tiny shards rained down. Josiah put an arm over his head as he struggled to see through the smoke and falling debris.

  It all happened in slow motion yet so fast. He blinked as he tried to get his mind to catch up. He could make out a lump on the ground and a figure in the distance. He looked around for Mike and the women. They came running toward him.

  The second boom rang out. The force of the pressure knocked him down. His head bounced against the floor and a shower of what felt like small boulders pummeled him. He heard his name and thought Sutton might have screamed.

  The pain in his head blinded him as he wrestled with the weight on top of him. The edges of his vision blinked out. He had to get up and tried to move. He got as far as his elbow before strong hands linked around his chest. Smoke swallowed up the light and sirens wailed in the distance as someone dragged him.

  Then he breathed in the cool night air. He opened his eyes and Sutton hovered over him, concern evident in her eyes. He closed his eyes as he tried to remember what happened and what else he needed to do.

  It hit him . . . “Harlan.” He said it soft at first with a scratchy voice, then louder as he looked around for Mike.

  Tires screeched and a black van pulled up. Not the one they came in. The other vehicle. The one Tasha had hidden just in case. Josiah looked from her in the driver seat to the building caving in behind him.

  Jesus, Harlan was in there.

  “We can’t—” His protests cut off when Mike slipped an arm around his chest and lifted him off the ground.

  Josiah saw Sutton and Ellery. Relief filled him that they were safe but reality chased the confidence away. They had one missing. “We have to go back in. We don’t leave people behind.”

  A mix of stark pain and anger raced across Mike’s face. “He’s gone.”

  Josiah refused to believe that. He repeated the denial in his head but couldn’t get the words out. Before his brain could kick back into gear, he was in the backseat of the van with his head on Sutton’s lap. He had no idea how he got there but he had to sit up.

  He shifted and pain screamed through his head. Bile raced up his throat and he choked it back. When the van smashed through the locked gate to the complex it lurched and they were thrown around inside. One more bounce and the darkness claimed him.

  20

  BENTON WALKED in a circle around the spot where Frederick knelt in the middle of the garage floor. He held his gun in his hand and debated shooting Frederick in the head. The price for failure should be death. Unless Frederick started begging for an alternate solution, it would be. But he didn’t say anything. Benton saw no trace of fear, and that pissed him off.

  He stopped right behind Frederick and leaned in close to his ear. “Explain.”

  Frederick kept his eyes forward. Didn’t so much as flinch at having a word yelled in his ear. “Josiah grabbed the woman.”

  “Sutton.” The one Benton wanted because it was time. Her life expectancy had expired. He’d allowed her to live far longer than he ever should have.

  Killing Olivia Dahl years ago had been easy. Death by ambush. Benton had liked the sound of that and it fit in with her job. Just as he enjoyed watching the news a year later and seeing the FBI agent assigned to his brother’s case killed along with his family in a home invasion. And that car accident that wiped out the other agent’s family? Pure brilliance.

  Benton was especially proud of how he wiped them all out without suspicion ever mounting. Nothing traced back to him. No one saw the three deaths as connected. But he knew. He’d gotten the vengeance for his brother. He’d ignored Sutton back then because she was a stupid kid and not on his radar. The newspapers showed her grief stricken and ruining her life had been enough. Then, not now.

  Benton moved around to stand in front of his supposed assistant. The man whose training could not be argued. “You had the element of surprise on your side.”

  “They changed course and then the explosion happened too early.”

  Benton tightened his hand until the scars pulled and his arm ached. “It happened on schedule.”

  He knew because he timed it all perfectly. Lure Mike and Josiah in and let the fire consume them. Take Sutton and Harlan and make them watch before taking them out. By the end of the night Tasha should have been in a ball in a corner somewhere, wallowing in grief over her massive failure and the loss of her team. Then Benton would go after the rest of them.

  Simple and expedient. He’d planned it out for maximum impact. Destroy his enemies, the only people who had ever found him, then get back to work. His customers kept grumbling and they needed a show of strength. A reminder that he, not they, was in charge. But Frederick’s failure delayed all that.

  “You don’t—”

  “Your instructions were clear.” Benton talked right over the man who silently begged for a bullet in his brain without even knowing it. “Bring me Sutton and hold on to Ellery. But do I have either? No.”

  “I didn’t expect Harlan to walk into the building. They should have remained separated. It’s standard protocol in these situations.”

  “Should have.” The computer clicked to life as an emergency call came in. Frederick glanced at it, then at him. In a night of failures and disappointments, Benton did not need another distraction. “Ignore it.”

  “Some of our clients are—”

  Benton put the end of the gun against Frederick’s temple. “Our?”

  “The whispers are growing louder.”

  With his size advantage and his skills, Frederick could have overtaken the threat but he didn’t. He knelt and took every last humiliation. Maybe there was an ounce of worthwhile loyalty in Frederick yet.

  More importantly, maybe there was a way to salvage this. Regain the upper hand on his revenge and over his clients. Benton lifted the gun. “Then we’ll appea
se them.”

  “Sir?” Frederick moved more than his eyes for the first time since being ordered to kneel. He turned his head and followed Benton as he backed up.

  Benton had been thinking about a possible solution for days. He needed to rebuild the toxin program, as promised. His clients had waited long enough. He stared at the computer and thought about how much his clients were willing to pay for their toys. They seemed to have a never-ending supply of cash and a willingness to do harm. His favorite combination.

  Sometimes they wanted information. Sometimes they needed information. Either way, for the right prize the cost would skyrocket. So, why not take advantage of that and let other interested parties help him with his pest problem.

  He turned back to Frederick and gestured for him to stand up. “Make sure Harlan lives.”

  Frederick’s eyes narrowed. “Why?”

  “So I can kill him.” The more Benton turned the solution over in his mind, the more he liked it.

  “Sir?”

  Frederick lacked vision. Benton saw that now. “If my clients want proof of my superiority, a spectacle of sorts, I’ll give it to them.”

  Sutton watched Mike finish wrapping the bandages on Ellery’s wrists. She thought of him as this big, tough guy and here he was playing nurse. Of course, the gun strapped to his side reminded her of his role as bodyguard.

  Weeks ago she would have been twitchy being around someone so clearly comfortable killing when she worked so hard to uncover the evidence to resolve cases. Maybe not in one person’s favor, but to end them. Josiah could be even colder. Mike liked to joke. Sometimes she’d stare at Josiah and he seemed so lost in his head. He didn’t talk about guilt but it wrapped around him and he dragged it with him.

  She tried to soothe and comfort, used her body and words, but in the quiet she could hear the wheels turning in his mind. Of course, she’d take that over his current questionable state. She was pretty convinced he had a concussion he refused to recognize. No stubbornness issue there.

  The door banged open as Josiah and Tasha walked into the farmhouse kitchen from their secret meeting in the barn. Sutton hated to ask what came next. She’d spent the early days with the team locked in a room not knowing. Now they spoke in front of her as they joked about twisting the need-to-know requirements until they broke.