Savage Reload (Team Savage Book 2)

by Michael Todd

  The elevator doors opened a few minutes later to reveal the men who protected whoever was in there and who had been relieved by the newcomers to head back to their homes. Hopefully, the whoever was Banks.

  The five men who stood guard outside waved the group goodbye and watched as the SUVs left the area at a slow, steady speed.

  “Are you good to go, Savage?” Anderson asked, momentarily forgetting that he couldn’t actually say anything without giving his position away. “Oh…right. Ready to go, Terry?”

  “Call them,” Terry said in the soft voice snipers used when they were in their quiet, dark place. It wasn’t the same kind of dark place Savage went to—or, at least, he didn’t think so—but it was similar enough that he could understand it. You needed somewhere like that when you knew you were about to kill people.

  “Five targets,” the former colonel said. “About seven hundred yards out. Fire when ready.”

  An almost frozen silence hung over the area a few seconds before it was shattered by a distinct crack. By the time the operative heard it, the man closest to him was already dead, his brains splattered across the gravel around him. A headshot from seven hundred yards out was an excellent shot. A second crack followed and another body thudded to the ground. Savage withdrew a pair of bolt cutters from his pocket and went to work on the fence to create an opening large enough to allow him in.

  Two more cracks preceded loud footsteps that alerted him as he stepped through the hole he’d made. He immediately drew his Glock and held it at the ready. The man who had been on the other side of the elevator tried to circle while he called for backup. There was no answer on his comm device—at least that Savage could hear—but it was still best to not permit him to enlist further help on the surface. He raised his weapon and squeezed the trigger a couple of times. Both shots struck their target, but the man appeared to be wearing some kind of body armor. He grunted in pain and stumbled out of the limited cover provided by the entrance to the bunker. There would be no prizes for guessing what would come next.

  Another sharp report followed a dull thump as the bullet pounded through the man’s skull. The operative had already moved on toward the elevator.

  “Do I have any company coming up?” he asked while he made a hasty assessment of the area.

  “There’s no sign of any movement on the elevators,” Anja replied. “Wouldn’t they want to confront you up here to ensure as much distance as possible between any attackers and the person they’re protecting?”

  “I doubt it,” he responded caustically and peered more closely at the elevator doors. “If the communication reached the people down there they know someone will eliminate them from long range. They’ll probably stay down there and try to bring in reinforcements to deal with the sniper. It’s the standard protocol for anything like that. Although in the field, they would simply call in a mortar strike on the general location and hope to flush him out that way.”

  “I don’t think that’ll work in the middle of New York fucking City,” the hacker replied. Terry would no doubt be relieved to hear that. “But either way, I’ve blocked comms in and out of the place. It won’t matter if they have a landline, but either way, I think I bought you five minutes. Do you feel like using it?”

  Savage positioned a device that had taken most of the day to acquire but which was fairly important to the success of the operation. The doors were supposed to be magnetically sealed in case of an attack, but they functioned on electromagnets. He had listened as closely as he could when she explained it to him, but all he really understood was that it was some kind of focused EMP that worked to disengage doors exactly like these. It locked magnetically to the elevator door, and he pressed a button on the center of the disk and took a step back.

  A soft snap and crack indicated success and the device fell with a dull thunk. He narrowed his eyes.

  “Is that it?” he asked and retrieved a small, compact crowbar from his pack.

  “What did you expect?” she asked, but he was already focused on the next step. Sure enough, the doors pulled apart easily and the magnets kept them disengaged. The shaft opened and he pulled climbing gear from his pack. He leaned inside to find the steel wires and attached the rope grabs to them, clipped them to the harness he put on over his suit, and dragged the ski-mask down over his face. Cameras on the outside would have already identified him as the invader. There was no need to keep them in the loop any longer.

  “Good luck, Savage,” Anja said as he began his descent of the shaft. The grabbers worked automatically and lowered him faster than he was comfortable with, but when he turned his flashlight on, he realized it was actually a fairly decent speed. In less than a minute, he reached where the elevator had stopped.

  He’d examined the plans over and over again and now confidently applied the bolt cutters to the lock that kept the hatch at the top of the elevator closed.

  His heart hammered loudly in his chest as he retrieved a flashbang from his pack and cradled it in his palm for a moment. He kept both weapons within easy reach as he pulled the hatch open briefly to confirm that the elevator’s door was open. After a long, deep breath and a slow exhale, he primed the flashbang, pulled the pin, and opened the flap to lob it through and toward the open door. Quickly, he shut the hatch again.

  A loud bang shuddered through the sturdy insulation of the elevator as Savage yanked the hatch open one last time and pushed through. He landed on his feet, dropped smoothly into a roll that carried him clear of the box, and found his feet, his shotgun in hand.

  “I’m in, Savage,” Anja said softly, but his focus was elsewhere, and he didn’t respond. The roll had felt smooth, but it still shocked his whole body into a sluggish response he had to work through in these critical moments. He swung the shotgun barrel toward two guards who stood nearby and stared at the doors. Fortunately, the flashbang appeared to have incapacitated them somewhat, which bought him precious seconds. The weapon kicked back into his hands and buckshot powered through the body parts that weren’t protected by armor. The first man fell with most of his throat missing.

  The operative pivoted in place and identified a second target before he jerked the pump action in the weapon and squeezed the trigger again. This man was close enough that he was able to aim all the pellets toward his mostly exposed head, which rapidly became a smoking red mess.

  The effects of the flashbang wouldn’t last much longer, he reminded himself and darted behind what looked like a refrigerator when a concerted volley drove him into cover. The slugs battered his temporary shield, but it seemed to hold up. There should be about eight of them now, plus Banks if he was there.

  “Savage, get out of there now,” the hacker shouted into his comms, but he couldn’t comply. Well, he could have, but almost any movement would bring him under fire from the eight defenders who positioned themselves for maximum engagement.

  One of the men circled and tried to get a shot in but Savage fired his shotgun at him. It wasn’t a clean hit, but he pumped the action quickly and fired again. A third shot shredded the tables nearby and the man finally fell. Blood seeped onto the floor beneath him. The operative let the weapon fall and drew his Glock clear of its holster to open fire as the remaining guards launched into a concentrated attack.

  A defender collapsed when a bullet hammered into his body armor and Savage fell back with a curse. A round had winged him in the arm but the wound, thankfully, wasn’t serious although it left him disoriented.

  Now out of his cover, he tried to find something to stabilize his balance, but one of the men barreled forward and tackled him before he could initiate a defense.

  Why did they not shoot to kill?

  He landed hard and the breath expelled painfully from his lungs. His adversary pushed to his feet and seemed to forget for a moment that he still had a gun in his hands. He pointed it vaguely in the man’s direction and pulled the trigger—once, twice, and three times until his target sagged over him and a red splash erupted out the
back of his head.

  Before he had managed to shove his victim off him completely, a hard kick to his wrist careened the weapon out of his hands.

  “Savage!” Anja yelled, but when he tried to answer, another boot pounded into his gut and he curled into a fetal position.

  Ah, that was why they didn’t try to kill him. They wanted to beat the shit out of him first. The thought provided little comfort as punches and kicks battered him relentlessly from all sides. He tried to fight back and managed a couple of blows of his own, but they made little impact. All he really could do was smile as he watched the elevator doors close as if of their own accord.

  Chapter Twenty-Five

  The phone rang insistently.

  Banks scowled at it and tried to think of a good excuse to avoid answering it. This hadn’t been his best day. Most of it was spent staring at that same damn phone while he waited for the client to call. First prize would be to tell him his papers were ready and it was time to head to the nearest airport with first class tickets and a plane that would take him anywhere that wasn’t fucking New York.

  Well, not literally anywhere. Somewhere with no extradition treaty, as well as most of the best comforts that modern society could buy. Switzerland was apparently very pleasant in this season. Their ski resorts would be open although it was still early in the year and wouldn’t be as packed as they would become during the winter months. The client would be able to put him up somewhere comfortable and allow him to continue his work for her and for the firm from afar.

  But he’d waited all day and the phone hadn’t rung. Not once. He ran out of gin and started on the bourbon, and still, the stupid device remained obdurately silent. The guard changed two and even three times without the communication he hoped for. He was stuck underground with a strong likelihood that someone would try to kill him, and all he was expected to do was wait. By now, though, he was halfway sure the guards assigned to protect him would forcibly keep him a prisoner or shoot him in the back if he tried to escape, which meant he was not going anywhere. He wasn’t a naturally courageous individual.

  That was when it had all started. He was into his third rum and coke of the evening, about five minutes after the guard shift changed again, and the newcomers listened to the comms in their ears. Something had gone desperately wrong up top, and they tried to identify the details. They had hustled him quickly to the securest room in the bunker—which resembled a safe with an oxygen pump to draw air in from the top.

  Thankfully, a fully stocked bar—as ridiculous as the idea was—mitigated any other discomfort. They sealed him inside and told him they would alert him when it was safe to come out again. All his questions had been rebuffed with repetitions of their previous statement and he had been shoved into the damn room like unwanted merchandise.

  And now, finally, the phone rang. They would either tell him it was safe to come out of hiding, or it was Savage to assure him he would find a way into the safe too and he should simply wait for his inevitable arrival. The lawyer wasn’t sure which was the more likely of the two scenarios, although he did know which he preferred.

  He sighed as the phone continued its incessant demand. It had become annoying, and because not knowing was worse than anything else, he leaned over in his seat and snatched the receiver up from the cradle.

  “Yeah?” he said, a slight slur in his voice.

  “We caught him, sir.” The voice he already recognized as belonging to one of the men who had pushed him into the safe room sounded smug.

  Banks needed a second to process that. “What do you mean, you caught him?”

  “We have him here, disarmed and secured,” the man said and sounded like he almost didn’t believe it himself. “The area is clear if you would like to come and see him for yourself.”

  There were no camera feeds to confirm that what he heard was the truth. For all he knew, it was an elaborate trap to entice him out of the safe room, but at this point, he didn’t really care. It was probably the alcohol in him, but he wanted this whole ordeal to be done and finished with, one way or another. Anything was better than simply sitting around and stewing in his own fear for hours.

  “Fine,” he said and shook his head in a futile attempt to clear the fuzziness. “I’ll come out.”

  He punched in the code that would unlock the door and pushed it open, not sure what he would find waiting for him.

  Somehow, it looked exactly how he imagined it would. The safe room had been soundproofed to keep the occupants completely isolated so he hadn’t heard the battle that had caused the very obvious damage. Bullet pockmarks marred the walls and pieces of furniture were wrecked beyond repair. A handful of bodies still seeped red. He grimaced instinctively at the gory scene, one all too clearly visible as most of the lights in the ceiling were still intact.

  And there he was—the cause of the fears that had hounded Banks all week. Savage looked like he’d had the almost literal shit beaten out of him. His face was bruised, swollen, and bloodied and his right eye all but completely closed by ugly, purple swelling. Blood trickled from his lips, which were split in several places. He was secured on his knees, held up by a pair of burly bodyguards who watched him closely to make sure he didn’t try anything.

  He studied the prisoner for a moment, a little nonplussed, and reminded himself that this man had disabled four trained guards on his own. His record was impressive, but the man himself didn’t align with the larger than life persona he had created in his wild imaginings. He’d expected something like a force of nature or straight out of a Schwarzenegger or Stallone flick. This man, with his brown hair and average height and nondescript build and was even a little disappointing.

  His file contained innumerable details that defined him as a lethal and efficient killer, but for some reason, the lawyer had expected something…more.

  Banks sighed and accepted the weapon that was placed in his hands almost without question. It was a Glock, and it had been fitted with a silencer—no, suppressor was the right word for it. His time as a criminal defense attorney had taught him that much. It was a little too big for his hand, but in a pinch, it would do fine.

  “You should know something, Savage,” Banks said and didn’t care that his voice still slurred from the sheer amount of alcohol he’d imbibed over the past few days. “I hope you know that it wasn’t anything personal against you. Your family wasn’t ever in any real danger. It was all to remove you from the equation so we could eliminate Monroe and Anderson, you pain in the ass.”

  Savage looked at him, and despite the pain it had to cause him, he smirked and took a moment to spit blood onto the floor before he spoke.

  “Somehow, none of what you said makes me feel any better about this.” He chuckled, which triggered a hint of annoyance to creep in beneath the lawyer’s smugness. The man who had turned his whole world upside down was on the wrong end of a gun and unbelievably, didn’t seem to give a shit.

  Give a shit, damn it!

  Suddenly, he simply felt very, very tired. He didn’t want to have to care about any of this. He wanted to go back to work and continue with his life.

  “You know,” he said and inspected the weapon in his hand, “my client wants me to make an example of you and to record it, too, and capture you suffering all kinds of unimaginable shit. Waterboarding, acid, electricity, the works. She wants it to be distributed far and wide to drive the point home that she’s the one everyone has to fear, not you.”

  Savage’s eyes narrowed, but Banks ignored him. He raised the weapon and pressed the elongated barrel to his bruised and battered forehead.

  “But I don’t think that’ll happen,” he said. He tilted his head to study his captive and enjoyed the feeling of power that holding a gun to someone else’s head filled him with. “I think I’ll say you resisted and I had to shoot you a couple of dozen times to make sure that you were annihilated, once and for all.”

  “I can respect that,” the operative said easily and actually leaned into the
barrel of the gun.

  “Don’t think I don’t want to, though,” the lawyer continued with a smile. “I’d like nothing more than to fill you in on the kind of hell I’ve been put through over the past week or so, but I don’t want to give you the opportunity to find a way to escape. That would be too—”

  He lost his train of thought when the elevator doors dinged behind him to signal that someone was coming down. It was safe to assume it was a team sent by the client when she found out that Savage had raided the bunker himself. They were here to ensure the job was done. He could appreciate that and wasn’t at all sure he wanted to go against the woman’s wishes. If these men wanted to take the man away and deal with him themselves, there wasn’t much he could do. All he knew was that if it were up to him, he wanted to Savage dead and be done with it.

  Banks blinked when the door opened to reveal only two people in the elevator, a man and a woman. The man was on his one knee and looked down a scope attached to what appeared to be a very powerful rifle aimed directly at him.

  “Shit!” he yelled before he could control himself and turned instinctively to face the elevator. He swung the gun away from Savage in the precise moment that the hand holding the weapon exploded in a spray of blood.

  Chapter Twenty-Six

  People had constantly told him this whole plan was suicidal from the beginning. While aspects of it remained the same as when he’d snuck into Carlson’s base on a previous occasion, the target was much smaller and far better defended this time. Anja had said that the bunker had a similar wireless connection as the other facility and that it would require her to have a transmitter in range of the connection to allow her into the system. Since the plans indicated that most of the security system was automated, she would be able to work her way through it and take control. All it took was for them to have someone inside.