“You think Aaron did it?” Gabe asked’
“I think that shrew had help,” Alex replied, his tone grim. “But Aaron wasn’t one of the guys who dragged Beau out of Boxster’s Pub.”
“Did you know McPherson’s missing?” Beau asked his boss.
“Don’t worry about Mac. I’ve got people looking into that.”
For the first time in a long time, Beau didn’t argue. If Alex said don’t worry, well, that was good enough.
“Let’s see where her real lair is,” Beau murmured as the sedan continued northward. He checked his mobile app again to be sure it was on target.
Eventually, the sedan stopped at the Slaters Lane intersection to the GW. To the east, Slaters Lane connected with the Mount Vernon Trail along the Potomac River. To the west, it wound through an industrial network of warehouses and shipping businesses. When the sedan turned west, then right at the first corner, the traffic cam lost visual.
“Hold on a sec,” Beau breathed as his fingers darted over the keyboard, skillfully changing the view to the mobile app he’d been following. Instantly, a satellite perspective of the same area showed on all devices. One quick glance at Alex’s squint told Beau his boss was lost again. “This isn’t a live shot,” he explained, “but neither were the others. This satellite view will however, tell us what we need to know about the neighborhood where Montego and Aaron stopped.”
Maverick discarded his tablet. “What is that place?” he asked as he leaned over Beau’s shoulder and stabbed his index finger at the only building on the road, a massive narrow warehouse that ran the length of the entire block.
Beau peered up at the scruffy underside of the chin of the brother he never knew he had until today. “Montego Seafood Storage. Sound familiar?”
Gabe angled around Maverick for a closer view. “No shit?”
“I’ll be damned,” Alex breathed as he joined the men on Beau’s six. “That wasn’t here when Aaron disappeared.”
“It’s here now,” Beau stated bluntly even as he searched the web for stats on that specific building. “Okay, here goes. Used to be owned by a boat storage company that went belly-up one and a half years ago. R. Montego took possession. Catalina’s brother. Want to guess what he used it for?”
Maverick grunted. “Knowing him, human trafficking. That’s got to be where he stored the women and children he abducted before he sneaked them out of the country.”
“It’s been done before,” Gabe said.
“We need to move before she knows we’re onto her,” Beau declared. “It’s early. We could end this today. You guys ready?”
“Damned straight,” Alex replied. “Maverick and Gabe, grab your gear. Beau, you’re with me.”
“Copy that,” Beau answered automatically—just like any other agent.
Chapter Forty-Eight
By the time McKenna and her new girlfriends made it back to the stables, she was a mixed bundle of jumpy nerves and boiling frustration because she couldn’t wait to see her dad. Since Izza Maher had called China to let McKenna know they were now on the premises, and that Sanders was with them, it was all McKenna could do to not kick Star into a gallop. Talk about a walking, talking meltdown waiting to happen.
Finally on her feet back at the barn, China laughed at how McKenna fumbled Star’s halter over his big ears. “Never mind. Go see your dad. I’ll handle this goofball.”
Star nickered as if he knew he’d been swapped for another male, but McKenna only had ears for her dad. He’d better be unharmed, or Montego was going down.
Out the stable door she flew and back toward the house.
“McKenna! Wait for me!” Shelby called out.
But McKenna was through waiting. She made it all the way to the solarium doors when lightning struck. She fell to her knees, dimly aware of the dart in her neck. Beau’s favorite word hissed off her lips like a tire with a flat. “Fuuuuuuuuuck.”
The helicopter ride into Alexandria was filled with too much noise, hastily drawn battle plans, and hurried combat strategy. The men sat facing each other, Maverick and Alex across from Beau and Gabe. With blueprints of the warehouse that Beau had extracted from the city’s tax assessment database in hand, he and his team now studied the internal layout of the structure. All TEAM members had a copy.
There were several exits along both the west and east walls of the two-level building. A single row of windows tucked high under the eaves ran the length of the warehouse on both sides. A sales/receiving office had been carved out of the space near the southwestern corner. According to the blueprints, there was no second level or basement, no maintenance pits or underground storage, just one smooth concrete foundation that led to the loading dock along the western wall. An alley lined with smaller storage sheds, waste receptacles, and parking stalls ran the length of the eastern wall.
The pilot put the chopper down east of the GW in the center of a baseball diamond.
“Wait for us,” Alex ordered the pilot.
Fast-tracking across the busy highway at Slaters Lane intersection, Beau was aware that he and his men probably looked like SWAT on patrol, as geared up as they were beneath their jackets. All wore enough weaponry to frighten the locals, though none of those weapons were exposed and no one carried rifles. Only pistols.
Beau would have preferred going into Montego’s lair alone, setting up a sniper hide, and biding his time until she showed. But there was a different energy to marching with this particular team of ruggedized warriors, one he couldn’t wrap his head around. He only knew he felt proud again.
Originally, he’d joined the Army to protect the powerless people of the world. It mattered to be doing that again. But having been personally sought out for this TEAM, suddenly meant more than Beau expected. Harley could’ve picked on any number of honorably discharged former Rangers. Good men came home every day from the sandbox and other far off reaches of the world. Yet Harley had zeroed down on a guy with multiple murder charges hanging over his head, and hand-selected—me! Out of all those other guys. That odd, one-in-a-million bit of good luck made a guy want to stop and scratch his head, was what it did. Because if there were such a thing as a dream job for Beau, this one was it.
Approaching the warehouse, the four men split into two teams. Maverick and Gabe headed north through the alley, while Beau and Alex rounded the southern end and came to a full stop on the front dock outside the alleged office door. Single entry. Common every day OTC doorknob. Guess Montego didn’t believe in solid security, either.
Beau kept an alert watch on the busy street behind him and the way forward. He and Alex wouldn’t breach Catalina’s lair until Maverick or Gabe reported they were inside and ready.
The plan was simply for each team to ghost diagonally from one end of the warehouse to the opposite, and hopefully end Montego or anyone dumb enough to get in their way in the process. Beau suspected she’d be in the office. At least, he hoped. That was where he meant to go first to end her. Then assist his buddies in tracking down Aaron Pope and any other guys in her employ. That’s the only way he could see this operation going down, him killing Montego. Yeah. It felt right. Good. Doable.
Maverick’s voice came through the earpieces they’d acquired from the chopper pilot. “We’re inside.”
“Ready to rumble,” Gabe seconded.
“Copy that,” Alex breathed as he turned the brass doorknob and entered ground zero.
Beau maintained an observant cover, scanning the street traffic at his rear and along the dock, Alex’s backstop, and everything in between. There’d be no ambush today.
Once inside, he secured the exit door and took a second to acclimate to the dead silence of the place. It had to be soundproofed, it was that still. Which made sense in an eerie, sickening way. A woman known for her depraved cruelty had to keep her victims’ screams to a minimum.
“Something’s not right,” he growled, not that he saw anything out of the ordinary. There wasn’t
much to see other than the vast empty space between where he and Alex stood to Maverick and Gabe at the far southeastern corner. It was more a feeling of cold hard dread in the pit of his gut than a fact, and Beau’s sniper sense was screaming for everyone to ‘STOP!’
Alex froze, his head cocked. “Did you hear that?” he asked out of the corner of his mouth.
“A rustle? Yes,” Beau whispered, his palm stretched forward for Maverick and Gabe to hold their positions. Might’ve been the building creaking or a rodent on its creepy patrol. But it also might’ve been the two-legged kind of rat.
The expansive warehouse that had once held all sizes of watercraft appeared vast, wide, and, shit, empty. The room that passed for an office on the blueprints was an open box of windows that concealed nothing but a cheap metal table, a floor mat, and a single chair. A clock on the wall. Only the concrete floor stretched to where Maverick and Gabe had come to a full stop in the far corner. The floor itself had been poured in ten-by-ten concrete blocks, now covered with a thick layer of dust. Not one footprint anywhere. Something was very off about this picture.
“Where is everyone?” Beau asked his team over their earpieces. Dead silence was not what he’d expected. And what the fuck am I sensing that I can’t see?
“What are we waiting for?” Maverick asked. “An invitation?”
“Thought we heard something,” Alex responded. “Proceed but keep your eyes open. You know the drill. Heads on swivels, guys.”
Gliding toward Maverick and Gabe, he moved smoothly and quickly, his pistol on point as he swept along the wall at his right, while Beau headed left. The feeling in his gut persisted. Someone or something was in this building, though he was damned if he knew where they were as exposed as the place was. There was simply nowhere to hide.
Cautiously, Beau did his job. Scanning the arched ceiling, he took in the long metal rafters that bowed upward, their struts like giant arms holding the roof in place. Every twenty feet or so, a massive industrial array of halogen lights hung by chains attached to a pulley system controlled by a lever on the far east wall. Hung low enough to cast enough light had they been turned on, the metal arrays didn’t sway, and the chains didn’t clank, which meant there was no internal draft at play inside that might have created the noise Beau had heard, damn it. There wasn’t one thing the eye couldn’t see. Yet acid poured into his gut.
Maverick and Gabe had separated the same as Beau and Alex. Maverick took the far north wall, his pistol cupped in both hands, his back stiff as if he too suspected an ambush. Gabe had headed south along the east wall, headed toward Alex. Disgusted that he’d gotten everything wrong, Beau berated himself. This mission was a waste of time and energy. Where the hell was Montego? He damned well wanted to know.
Until Maverick whispered a quiet, “Son-of-a-bitch,” as the floor dropped out from under him.
Gabe bellowed, “No!”
Closer than the others, Beau ran like hell to save his man. Alex and Gabe, too. By the time they got to where Maverick had fallen, they knew they’d been set up. This building was a complex maze of traps, all of them constructed below the surface. They knew because they’d all set off other dust-covered pressure plates as they’d run to Maverick’s rescue.
Maverick was in a damned bad way. He’d fallen to his back onto a bed of metal spikes that looked a helluva lot like the infamous punji sticks used by both Viet Cong and American soldiers during the Vietnam Conflict. One pierced his right shoulder below his collarbone, another the left side of his abdomen, and yet another his lower thigh above his right knee. Each an inch thick, they were a brutal way to die.
“Hang on,” Alex called down to Maverick even as he barked an emergency 9-1-1 call into his cell.
Hang on, nothing. Beau secured his pistol, measured the distance to where his good buddy lay wheezing and bleeding to death, and down he went.
“Son-of-a-bitch!” Alex bellowed just as Beau crouched to his knees when he landed, flat-footed and—thank you, Jesus—not on top of Maverick.
Beau pulled the first-aid kit he always carried in his inside jacket pocket and proceeded to do what Maverick had declared he did best. Save people.
“You sure know how to make an entry,” he kidded as he administered the first hypo of pain relief that wasn’t nearly enough for the massive injuries Maverick had sustained. Still, he needed to believe he’d live, and by hell, Beau meant him to.
“Yeah, well,” hissed out of Maverick’s lips along with a spray of bloody spit. “Wasn’t how I saw this going down.”
“But you’ve been in worse spots, right? Don’t know all the deets, but I know damned well no Marine’s smart enough to stay out of trouble, am I right?” Beau kept talking as his fingers and bandaged hand flew from one massive wound to the next. “Jesus H. Christ, are you trying to hold the Guinness World record for sustaining the most multiple spontaneous hemorrhages?” There were so many, and Beau was worried—until a chain dropped alongside him and Gabe touched down next. Then Alex.
“Maverick,” Gabe cried as he dropped on his knees at his friend’s side. “Shit. I… I… Brother, I...”
While Alex went to work on Maverick’s shoulder, Beau thumped Gabe’s beefy bicep and handed him a tourniquet before he broke down and made everything worse. Yeah, this was a damned tough break, but Maverick needed positive reinforcement, not weeping and gnashing of teeth for things nobody could change. “You take his thigh. Tie it off. Make it tight. Do what you have to. Cowboy can take it, right?”
Another groan answered as, frantically, Gabe scrambled to obey. All men carried blow-out kits and they’d need every last thing in them, but this was bad.
Maverick clutched Beau’s wrist. “Tell China… For me. Tell her…” Only this time there was more blood than saliva in that awful, telling spittle. One of those punji sticks had hit a lung.
“Uh-uh. No way. That’s not the way this works, and you damned well know it,” Beau chided as he applied his entire supply of QuikClot to the bloody hole in Maverick’s side, praying the holes in his back weren’t seeping as badly. “I’m not telling China nothing, so get that stupid idea out of your thick, jarhead skull. You want to tell her you love her, then you’d better decide right here and now you’re gonna live. Don’t pawn important stuff like that off on me. I’d just fuck it up, and you wouldn’t want that, would you?”
“Shit. Hurts... like a... mother... fucker.”
“What’d you say? You’re a motherfucker?” Beau asked, because right then and there, he’d say and do anything to keep this warrior alive and talking. He’d never had a real friend before. Yeah, Pickett had taken him in, but he’d never once been someone Beau could confide in. But Maverick... Jesus, don’t let him die. He’s got a wife and a kid. You want someone, take me. I’ve always been expendable.
By the time the first responders arrived, Maverick’s pulse was weak and thready, and Beau knew chances were damned slim that this man—this brother—would live the day, Goddammit. Yet neither he, Alex, nor Gabe quit working on their brother for one second.
Nor could Beau shut up. “Always wanted a brother. All those days on the run, all those nights in the sewer, always wondered what it’d be like to run with a buddy at my side. Never had one, though. Wasn’t that lucky.”
Beau doffed his jacket because he needed bandages more than he needed his shirt. Tossing his jacket aside, he ripped his shirt off and over his head. Biting the collar, he jerked the material in half with his good hand, while still compressing the wound in Maverick’s gut as much as he could with his other hand, all while working around that damned metal spike. What had looked like galvanized steel from up above was actually pitted, rusted shit up close. Damn Montego to Hell for her cruelty. What if some runaway kid had wandered into this place and triggered her traps? Jesus, what made people so fuckin’ bloodthirsty?
Beau worked fast and efficiently, his wounded hand now pressed firmly over his good, as he struggled to staunch the red stream
oozing from Maverick’s gut.
“I… had…” Maverick breathed. “A… brother… once…”
“Yeah, I remember,” Beau told him, his heart breaking for the brotherly love he’d have given everything to have known—just once—in his life. “Darrell was one lucky SOB.”
Groaning, Maverick closed his eyes and shook his head. “No. Me. I was... lucky... one…” The breath wheezed out of him, and his body went slack.
“Fuck, no!” Karma was such a bitch!
Gabe scrambled alongside, growling as Alex began careful chest compressions. “Not happening buddy,” Gabe told his brother in arms. “I’m not losing one more friend, so—”
Maverick gasped, and—thank you, Jesus!
Beau dashed tears off his cheeks.
So did Gabe as he sputtered, “Oh, damn! That was close.”
“Brothers,” Beau hissed as sweat stung his eyes and ran down his nose. Might’ve been tears. Could’ve been blood for all he cared about himself right then and there. His heart pounded so hard, he didn’t care what he said next. “Breathe, damn you, Maverick. You’re the only brother I’ve got, and I’m not letting you go! So breathe, you asshole!”
There! He’d said it, and he’d meant it! Let the whole fuckin’ world know! Beau Jennings finally had a brother, and he meant to keep him!
“Take it easy,” Alex muttered.
“I am,” Beau shot back at his boss, the very man known for losing his temper in just as colorful, cursing ways. “This is me, taking it easy, Boss.” When I’m really about to lose my fuckin’ cool!
Gabe sat back on his haunches, visibly shaken, his fingertips fluttering on his massive thighs. “Back off, Beau. He’s breathing again. Shit, he’s really breathing.”
“Yeah, well, this isn’t over yet,” Beau ordered as steadily as he could. Gabe wasn’t the only one whose fingers were shaking.
When the call came from above that the first responders had arrived, Alex climbed back up top to assist. It still took too damned long for the fire department to stretch their ladders across the labyrinth of sprung and yet to be sprung traps. After one brave medic finally dropped into the hole and administered a hypo, Maverick finally breathed easier. The medic also initiated an IV drip, taped an oxygen mask to Maverick’s face, then taped the IV bag to his chest in preparation for transport.
Beau (In the Company of Snipers Book 18) Page 33