“Nothin’ to be sorry about,” he said in an equally quiet voice. Sound carried, even buffered by trees, and they had no clue whether those bastards had ears out here.
“I’m holding everyone up.”
Even as thin and shaky as her voice was, he could clearly hear the self-reproach in her tone.
He gave her a quick, one-armed hug. It was true, she was holding everyone back. But then, nobody had expected anything less.
“Nobody expects you to turn into Rambo, darlin’. You’re doin’ fine.”
A soft snort came from behind them. Mac undoubtedly, since he was bringing up the rear. Zane’s and Cosky’s crisp, fluorescent-green figures were waiting ahead, about midmeadow.
“Let’s head up,” Rawls said, giving a final one-armed hug before letting her go and grabbing his rifle, which was hanging—safety engaged—from his shoulder.
Thank Christ he didn’t have to worry about Pachico getting all frisky on him. According to Wolf and his Arapaho elders, Pachico had passed—or been shoved—over to the other side. Since his trollish hitchhiker hadn’t put in an appearance since the binding ceremony, he was inclined to believe them. But to err on the side of caution, the hiixoyooniiheiht still burned lightly against his chest. From the volume of leather cords circling the Shadow Mountain warriors’ necks as they’d climbed on board the chopper, he wasn’t the only one siding with caution.
Faith kept up with him easily as they crossed the meadow, and with each step, he could feel her nerves settle.
“What are these called again?” Faith whispered, briefly touching the goggles covering most of her face.
“Night vision devices,” Rawls whispered back.
“Why is everything such a sharp shade of green?” she asked, curiosity rather than nerves in her voice.
A fist suddenly slammed into his shoulder from behind, shoving him forward a step. Mac, giving him the one-second warning to shut the fuck up.
Rawls half turned to glare at his commander. If the bastard hit Faith, there’d be more than one fist flying.
“Never mind, I’ll google it,” Faith said. She turned slightly to frown behind her. “No need to get physical, Commander Mackenzie. A verbal warning would have sufficed.”
Rawls fought a grin at the censure in her voice. She was certainly getting her nerve back fast.
The trip to the target took less time than he’d expected, and well before he was ready for it, they joined Zane and Cosky and the bulk of Wolf’s team at the edge of the forest.
The building jutting into the night sky before them was three stories, square, with a flat roof. Cameras ringed the roofline, and the glowing, barred windows were few and far between. An acre of lawn surrounded the place. To their right, a rutted dirt road emerged from the forest and dead-ended to the right of the building in a large square of gravel and dead grass. He counted eight cars parked there. Which could indicate anywhere from eight to thirty Tangos inside waiting for them—depending on number of employees per vehicle.
Zane leaned in so close his mouth was next to Rawls’s ear.
“They scrambled the cameras. And Wolf sent his scouts out.” The words were so low they’d be nonexistent a foot away.
Rawls glanced at Wolf. They were right on schedule. The Shadow Mountain strategy had called for scrambling cameras and cell phones prior to scouting for secondary entrances. Once the entrances were secure, they’d bring in the second bird, which carried team two.
A minute passed, then two . . . five . . .
Wolf’s men stirred uneasily and then everyone froze, faces tense, heads slightly cocked as though they were listening to something.
Seconds later, a short, vicious-sounding foreign word broke from Wolf—an Arapaho swear word. Rawls had no doubt. The word was repeated by several of Wolf’s normally taciturn men. Something had sure shoved a poker up their new allies’ asses.
Wolf wheeled on Jude and a spat of urgent Arapaho words crackled between them. Pivoting, Wolf closed on Mac. “Team two’s down.”
Rawls winced. Christ, of all the bad luck. The bird must have been way behind them. If it had gone down in the vicinity, they would have heard the impact and been able to backtrack to offer support.
Mac swore, sympathy in his eyes. “Casualties?”
“We’re assessing,” Wolf said, his voice grimmer than Rawls had ever heard it.
Zane and Cosky glanced at each other, and Rawls knew exactly what they were thinking.
How had they known the chopper had gone down? Nothing had come over the comm.
Although Mac didn’t react or question Wolf—it was hardly the time for demands and questions—Rawls knew he was silently asking the same questions.
Hell, maybe the Shadow Mountain team monitored two channels.
“For this operation to continue, your team will need to step up,” Wolf said, back to wearing his flat, expressionless mask.
Mac nodded, the gesture both an agreement and an acceptance. “What do you need from us?”
Their original instructions via Shadow Mountain Command had been to remain with Faith. Protect her. They’d been assigned guard duty, not a breachers’ position. While the order had sat fine with Rawls—he had no intention of abandoning Faith—it had rankled something fierce with Mac. As experienced operators with hundreds of successful missions beneath their boots, he’d felt command should have made better use of their talents.
Wolf glanced at Rawls. “You remain with Dr. Ansell.” His gaze shifted, landing on Mac’s face. “You, Cosky, and Zane take the ground. My team will take the roof. Give us time to scale the wall.” Without another word, Wolf turned and launched himself forward in a crouching run.
Simultaneously his teammates erupted from the tree line, joining him, and together they swarmed the left side of the building. Through his NVDs, Rawls watched a large luminous green bag disgorge a pneumatic grappling gun. The hook went flying, the attached rope unraveling behind it. As soon as the hook caught and secured the line, Wolf’s first man started climbing.
The double breach was under way. Wolf’s team would access the roof and insert from above. Mac, Zane, and Cosky would breach the building from below. The Tangos inside would be cut off and pinched between the two flanks of attack.
While the insertion hadn’t gone quite as planned, and Wolf’s team would be clearly visible to anyone who bothered to look out one of the left windows, so far nobody inside seemed aware of, or at least reactive to, the imminent attack. Still, the alert should have been given as soon as Wolf’s team took out the cameras and the inside monitors went dark.
Which meant any second now things could go to hell in a hand basket because operations never went so smoothly. At least not for long. Some overlooked or unknown detail always stepped in to fuck things up.
“Let’s go,” Mac whispered, lifting himself into a half crouch. With Cosky three feet to his left and Zane three feet to his right, he advanced on the house in a truncated run.
About halfway across the yard, with the grass spongy beneath his boots, it occurred to him that Zane hadn’t had time to do his prebattle ritual of touching everyone in the hopes of psychically pinpointing possible threats. Since the ritual was fucking eerie as hell, and didn’t always yield the intended results, he refused to consider the omission as bad luck. They’d survived plenty of insertions blind to what their futures held.
Seconds later their target’s front entrance loomed large. From the number of vehicles parked to his right, the place was obviously inhabited. The sudden dearth of cameras should have tipped the Tangos off to the fact that something was wrong. But the place stood silent and still, its barred windows illuminated and shedding bright light into the darkness beyond them.
The lack of a sentry and absence of defensive positioning rang warning bells. Someone should have noticed them by now.
This whole damn setup smelled foul.
Mac took the right-hand position beside the front entrance, while Zane took the left. Cosky waited center
stage to breach the door. Mac held up five fingers. Cosky nodded, tried the door handle, which was locked, and on the five-second mark drove his boot into the door just below the knob. The jamb held. The fact that it held indicated some degree of home security, but Mac’s internal alarm system continued ringing.
With a muffled grunt, Cosky abandoned brute force in favor of weapons. Lifting his semiautomatic rifle, he riddled the left side of the doorframe next to the handle and locking mechanism with bullets. Wood splinters peppered the air.
If the bastards inside hadn’t realized they had company before, they sure as hell knew now. By the time Cosky stopped his assault on the doorframe, the wood strip stood fragmented and warped. Two floors above them, gunfire hammered the night. Wolf and his crew had inserted.
Cosky’s second try with his boot laid the door wide open. Already firing in case a welcoming committee was positioned on the other side, Cosky eased forward. Mac fell in behind him and Zane brought up the rear. The hall was empty, narrow, and straight, with four doors on the left and two on the right. Cosky and Zane slipped into the first room, a cramped office with a desk and file cabinets, while Mac stood vigil in the hall.
Within seconds, Zane called “clear.” They repeated the process and cleared the first floor offices and conference rooms, while periodic bursts of gunfire stippled the floors above.
The shooting indicated Wolf’s team had engaged the Tangos, but the absence of the motherfucking mercenaries on the ground level was a pressurized itch down the back of his neck.
Why the fuck would the whole lot of them camp out above?
Cosky and Zane joined him in the hall, and in unison they moved toward the stairwell at the back.
“Ground level is secure,” Mac said quietly into his mic as they closed on the door to the stairs. “We’re moving up.”
A burst of weapon fire came through the mic and then Wolf’s quiet acknowledgment echoed in his ears.
Mac slid into position beside the door leading to the stairs, while Cosky crouched to the side, next to Mac’s knees, offering as small a target as possible. Mac eased open the door enough for Cosky to scope the space with his rifle.
“We have a dead body,” Cosky said quietly.
Zane, who’d positioned himself across from Mac, reached for the door handle and pulled the door wide open. Cosky shot up the stairs, clearing the splayed, bloody body with a quick leap. Zane swung into the staircase behind him.
After a quick glance around the corner and up the next flight of stairs, Cosky pulled back and settled his shoulder against the wall. “Clear ahead.”
From his position at the bottom of the stairs, Mac nodded toward the corpse. “One of the scientists?”
It was a good bet. The body was wearing a white lab coat. As he waited for Zane to identify the body—they’d been shown photographs of Dr. Ansell’s kidnapped team—Mac swept the hall behind them. Rawls would have taken out anyone trying to access the building behind them, but it never paid to rely completely on someone else.
“Dr. Benton,” Zane said. “He’s been dead awhile. The blood’s almost dry.”
“Son of a bitch,” Mac said grimly, sourness rolling in his gut.
There went the rescue mission. If Benton had been killed, the likelihood that the rest of his team had suffered the same fate was exceptionally high.
“Shouldn’t we move up?” Faith whispered. “I need to be closer to the prototype to interface with the generator’s static field.”
“Soon,” Rawls whispered back. “Mac will radio when the buildin’ is secure.”
“But I’m of no help way back here if they run into problems.” Faith’s voice rose slightly.
Rawls’s hand tightened on her arm, holding her back in case she got the insane idea to rush in on her own. Hell, they didn’t even know if the machine was operational, or if it was, whether anyone had turned it on. It could damn well be that there was absolutely no need for her to get anywhere near the damn building.
“We wait until Mac gives the okay,” Rawls said, his voice flat, unbending.
The strategy they’d collectively come up with during the last meeting had given Faith the best protection possible, but it depended on the rest of his team guarding her, and Faith only accessing the building after the premises had been locked down. But his teammates were currently one hundred yards away and otherwise engaged. No way in hell was he letting her near that damn building until he was certain it was safe.
The soft crack of a branch snapping sounded behind him. Instinctively he shoved Faith down and pivoted, crouching in front of her. The muffled report of a suppressed semiautomatic pistol echoed through the trees, and chunks from the tree trunk behind them rained down on his head.
As he raised his rifle and sighted on the crisp, green, glowing body partially obscured by the luminous shrubbery, he shielded Faith as best he could.
“We’ve got a Tango wedged in the stairway between levels two and three. Copy?”
Wolf’s grim voice filled Mac’s headset.
Translation: the motherfucker was playing peek-a-boo with a semiautomatic, and Big Bad Wolf’s team couldn’t line up a clear shot.
“Copy,” Mac said, reading Wolf’s request loud and clear.
The motherfucker shooting at them would find it much more difficult to fend off two approaching flanks.
“Zane, stick around down here. Watch our six.” He motioned Cosky forward. “Let’s head up.”
They climbed the stairs cautiously. Christ only knew how many other motherfuckers there were entrenched in this place. Rather than continuing up to the third floor and engaging the Tango immediately, they exited at the second floor for a quick sweep.
The bastard in the stairwell wasn’t going anywhere. Cosky, who was stationed at the entrance, would ensure that. And if for some ungodly reason his lieutenant missed—fuck, Zane would take care of him when he reached the bottom of the stairs.
But if there were more motherfuckers hiding on the second floor—hell, missing them could prove disastrous for everyone. As it turned out, the second level—more offices, from the looks of the dented, steel furniture—was clear.
Where the hell is everyone?
He rejoined Cosky at the door to the stairway. Sporadic gunfire filtered out through the heavy, fortified door.
“Remember, we need the bastard alive,” he mouthed the words since their best tactic was stealth and silence.
Cosky nodded and gently eased the door open. Mac scoped the stairs going up. No sign of the Tango, but from the sound of that AK-47, he was right around the bend.
They needed a distraction.
“Cover,” he said softly into his headset, grunting in satisfaction as a steady barrage of gunfire pounded the stairwell.
Cosky pushed the door open wide, and Mac silently shot up the immediate flight of stairs. He paused at the landing, with his back against the wall, and chanced a quick peek around the corner.
Wolf’s distraction was working well. The Tango’s back was pressed against the wall, at an angle to Mac. He was facing the stairs going up, concentrating on the men above, totally oblivious to the men below.
Normally he’d go for a kill shot. But damn it, they needed the fucker alive. Mac had a whole slew of questions for the bastard.
The Tango was right-handed according to the way he was holding his gun, so Mac targeted the bastard’s shoulder. Best to disable him first, then worry about the interrogation.
His finger steady on the trigger, he squeezed off a shot. The target spun toward him and Mac dropped his rifle barrel, nailing the asshole’s hand.
The bastard’s gun hit the stair.
Satisfaction swelled, but it was short-lived. As the gun clattered down the stairs, the trigger engaged and the falling gun sprayed the stairwell with bullets. One moment the target was standing. The next he hit the ground with half his face and head missing.
Mac’s mouth dropped open in pure disgust.
Son of a fucking bitch.
>
There went his informant.
“Stairway’s clear,” he said into his mouthpiece.
“Copy,” Wolf responded immediately.
Heading up the stairs, Mac stepped over the dead Tango and joined Wolf on the third-level landing.
“Sitrep?” Mac asked, staring at the carnage spread before him. Well, he’d found everyone.
“They cleaned house. We’ve identified all but Benton,” Wolf said, his voice grim.
“He’s on the stairs below,” Mac said slowly, still staring at the massacre before him.
Wolf’s grunt acknowledged the information. He didn’t ask if the scientist was alive. “We need Dr. Ansell.”
Mac pushed his way farther into the room. Christ, blood and bodies were everywhere. Some bodies in lab coats. Some in jeans and T-shirts. Some slumped in chairs, some strewn on the floor, and others collapsed over counters scattered with computers and machinery. He counted twenty bodies on this floor alone.
True, the plan had called for Rawls’s gal pal to enter the building once the premises were secure. But that had been back when her new energy prototype had been a threat. Judging by the bloodbath before him, he’d say that possibility was no longer an issue.
Hell, the woman didn’t need to see the butchery up here. Half these bodies had been her friends.
He turned back to Wolf. “You lose any men?” Wolf shook his head, and Mac exhaled in relief. At least this damn operation hadn’t cost them anyone. “Any chance you grabbed one of the bastards responsible for this?”
Another shake of Wolf’s head.
Fuck.
Scowling, Mac scanned the carnage again. “So why call for Dr. Ansell?”
“The heebii3soo was dismantling the lab. We need to know whether Dr. Benton’s prototype is here.”
Mac studied the tangle of equipment spread across desks and counters. Yeah, the answer to that question was imperative. It was essential to find out whether Benton and his team had produced a second Thrive generator. If they had, it might still be in the lab. Unless the asshole they’d caught cleaning the place out had already sent the prototype up the ladder to his employers.
Forged in Smoke (A Red-Hot SEALs Novel Book 3) Page 31