Master No

by Lexi Blake

  Hutch clicked a button and the screen became four blocks of security feed. The entrances to the main house and several of the outlying buildings showed up on screen. Hutch pointed to the right uppermost block. There were five armed security guards.

  “They’re waiting on something. I don’t like it. Call Theo back.” Erin’s mouth formed a flat line as she stared at the screen.

  Hutch touched another button. “Boss, your girl here thinks this is some kind of a setup and wants your ass back here. There are three extra guards on the front gate. Apparently that means something to Erin.”

  Erin grabbed the extra headset with a growl. “Theo, they’re looking for someone. Something’s going down.” There was a pause before Erin shot back. “Instinct, little boy. I’ve done this more than you. Yes, you’re my superior on this mission, but I’ve logged more time in the field than you and Case combined. Something’s wrong. Turn around now.”

  Hutch winced in a way that let Faith know Theo hadn’t agreed with Erin.

  “You’re going to get everyone killed.” Erin took off the headset and looked to Hutch. “I’m calling Tag. Get me a line out.”

  Hutch put up his hands. “Erin, I know you have many ways to disembowel a man, but in this one case, I’m more afraid of Theo than I am of you. This was Ten’s operation and Theo’s my teammate. He’s in charge so I’m not going to pull that line for you. Relax. They’re professionals.”

  Erin sat back, her eyes staring straight ahead at the screen as Theo and the group made their way toward the outermost building.

  “That building is supposed to be for the gardening equipment and all the stuff the maintenance team uses,” Faith said, her voice dull.

  “It’s got some serious security measures on it for a storage shed. Someone really doesn’t want the riding mowers stolen.” Hutch reached for a bag of chocolate covered peanuts. “Want some? They’re protein.”

  “No, thanks.” She’d forced down a protein bar for dinner. It had been a little surprising that it hadn’t come back up. She’d spent hours pouring over the evidence against her father. Much more time than she’d spent on Ten’s records. If the McKay-Taggart team was lying, they were far more comprehensive than her father. She’d spent another hour comparing the evidence.

  They could both be right. She believed some of the things about Tennessee Smith. The ruthlessness was true. No doubt about that. She could believe that he’d sent men out into dangerous situations, even out to die. But why would Jesse Murdoch vouch for the man? According to her father’s report, Ten had sold Murdoch out along with James Grant. Yet Murdoch and his wife—who had also been James’s wife—stood beside Ten.

  The money trail told the tale in the end. Who had profited? Her father. Her sister.

  When she looked deep into her soul and asked herself if she believed her father was capable of murder, she had to answer yes.

  So she was here, ready to betray her family completely, and then she would be alone.

  “How are they going to get into the building?” She hadn’t sat in on the mission briefing. She’d been putting together a field kit and preparing, though they’d told her they planned to get in and out as quietly as possible.

  If they couldn’t get to Ten easily, they were supposed to regroup and wait for a better time.

  That’s what Theo had said. She wasn’t sure she believed him. Theo seemed determined to prove himself in the field. If they were still friends, she’d talk to Erin about it. She’d sit beside her and lend Erin her strength.

  Not that she had any.

  “Theo’s got a program on his tablet I set up to run through a list of possible combinations. He’s going to hook it up, give it two cycles, and then we’ll call it. I’ll have more data even if it doesn’t work. It might take two or three tries, but we’ll get in there.”

  “He’s got C-4,” Erin said flatly.

  Hutch’s eyes widened and he was playing with his headset again. “Boss, you’re coming up on the building. You’ve got one guard to your right. I’ve been watching him, and if you give him two minutes, he takes a smoke break. I’ve watched him for a couple of nights. Once he steps out, you’ll have about five minutes when that door is unguarded. I’ll handle the cameras.”

  Faith watched as Theo moved in behind the guard and silently took him out.

  “Shit,” Hutch swore. “Don’t do this, Taggart. Follow the plan.”

  “This is his plan,” Erin said with a shake of her head. “It was always his plan. He was never going to leave Ten inside that building. Living or dead, he won’t leave Ten behind.”

  Faith’s heart sped up. “Are you sure Ten is even in there?”

  Hutch’s hands were fists. “His tracking device leads us there, but it hasn’t moved since the night he was taken. He could be a corpse or they could have found the device and cut it out of him. There’s zero guarantee Theo’s going to find Ten. There’s a one hundred percent shot that he’s going to tip off your father and his guards that we’re here if he blows the damn door.”

  “He doesn’t care. He thinks he’s smarter and faster than everyone, and I pray to god he’s right,” Erin said. “Because those guards at the gate are waiting for something and it’s not a pizza delivery.”

  Faith watched the screen. The small group moved in now that the guard had been taken care of.

  “Naturally I get a call I can’t refuse now,” Hutch said under his breath. “It’s coming in off the sat line so it’s going to come over the speakers.” He went silent as he fiddled with the computer.

  “Is he really going to blow the door?” Faith asked Erin as Hutch tried to answer the call.

  Erin sat forward, the screen casting ghostly shadows over her face. “He’s going to do anything he can to get Ten out of there. He can’t leave his boss. He knows what’s happening in there. Theo won’t leave Ten to be tortured and killed if he thinks for a second that he can get him out, but he’s not being careful.”

  Torture. She didn’t want to think about it. It seemed like forever since Ten had walked out of her room and into her father’s care. What had happened to him in that time?

  “Chelsea? Are you there?” Hutch hit a couple of keys. “Damn storm is moving faster than we thought it would.”

  Faith had seen men who had been tortured. She’d treated the wounds to their bodies, but the ones to the soul never went away. “Theo cares about Tennessee.”

  “Theo wants to be the hero. He wants to be his big brother, but what he doesn’t understand is that his brother wouldn’t be this reckless. Not with a team on the line. He’s trying to be Big Tag, but Ian has so much more experience than he does.” Erin stopped and brushed her hand across her face. “He’s going to get someone killed. And even if he doesn’t, Ten is likely going to murder him for pulling this shit.”

  “He’s saving Ten.” Faith couldn’t see how that would be a bad thing.

  “Ten would never do this at the expense of his team,” Erin explained. “Ten is a big boy. He knows the rules of the game. He knew going into this mission that he might not come out of it.”

  Her skin chilled. “Ten didn’t fight my father when he came for him. He didn’t fight or try to run away.”

  Erin turned serious eyes Faith’s way. “He knew you could get hurt. He weighed the likelihood of getting away versus you being harmed and chose the path he was okay with. Theo’s being too optimistic.”

  On the screen she saw Theo at the door to the building. He had something in his hands and he was placing it on the door.

  “You there, Hutch?” A feminine voice came over the line. This wasn’t the private line. This call came straight out of the computer’s speakers. “Stop it, baby. You can’t eat that. What’s up with putting everything in your mouth?”

  “What?” Hutch asked. It seemed he’d finally found a good line.

  “Sorry, it’s Satan’s night out and Si and I got left with the demonlings. Did you know they don’t sleep? I thought babies slept a lot. Also, th
ey really like to hit keys on the computer. No, Kala. Auntie Chelsea needs that computer.”

  “Chelsea, this is really not a good time,” Hutch said.

  “No,” Chelsea replied. “It is not. I wouldn’t call this a good time at all. This one is a total poop machine, but apparently Si wants a couple of tiny humans, so I’m supposed to keep the demonlings alive and happy. Luckily they are really cute. Don’t. Why do you want to eat that pen? Go back to eating your own foot.”

  Erin leaned in. “Chelsea, we’re in the middle of an op. Could you can the baby talk?”

  A long sigh came over the line. “Fine. Everyone’s cranky. All right. I’ll get to the good stuff. So I was showing Kala here around the Dark Web because what else am I going to do with a baby this late at night. That’s when I found the auction. The closed auction. When were you guys going to mention that someone nabbed Ten? Because the Chinese paid thirty million for him, and according to the chatter baby girl and I found, the pickup is tonight.”

  The upper right-hand box caught Faith’s eye. There was a light streaming up from the road, a car approaching the front gate.

  “Shit and shit and fucking shit.” Hutch closed his eyes and got back on his headset. “Theo, I need you to get back to the vehicles right fucking now. MSS is on the way and they will not be alone.”

  It was a little like watching a horror film. It was right there on the screen and there was nothing she could do about it. She could shout at the screen, but it wouldn’t fix the problem.

  A large SUV was waved through the gates followed by a second SUV.

  “I’m not kidding, Theo. There are potentially ten to fifteen MSS agents on their way to you and they will be backed up by McDonald’s guards. Get your ass out of there now.”

  Erin shook her head. “He’ll just move faster. He won’t stop.” She opened the door to the van and hopped out. “I’m going to back them up.”

  Faith watched as her father stepped out to greet the newcomers. He had a phalanx of heavily armed guards and her sister at his side. The guards had traded their elegant handguns for assault rifles.

  Something serious was going down.

  Her father had sold a CIA operative to the Chinese?

  Tennessee Smith was alive, but her father wasn’t planning on that lasting forever. He was going to sell Ten into torture and death at the hands of his enemies, and Faith couldn’t allow that to happen. She followed Erin out of the van.

  A loud blast shook the air around them.

  “Damn it,” Erin cursed. “Stubborn man.”

  She took off running and Faith followed, praying they would get there in time.

  * * * *

  The sound of the world exploding barely brought Ten out of his stupor.

  How long had it been? Days? It felt like days. A lot of days. Maybe even weeks. He’d been tied up in this position for what felt like forever. No food. No water. At some point they’d cut the clothes off him so they could torture every inch of his body.

  He was nothing more than an animal now, and not one looking to survive. He had one mission. Keep his mouth shut. Don’t give away secrets. The Agency might have given up on him, but that didn’t mean he could betray his country, his friends.

  So long. Did his friends even remember him now?

  “What the hell?”

  He heard the guard. There were two of them. It seemed like more, but now that he forced his eyes to open, he could plainly see only two men were in the room.

  And he wasn’t naked anymore. He was dressed in some sort of scrubs. When had that happened?

  “Shit. Is he coming out of it? Doc said the drugs wouldn’t wear off until the Chinese had him.”

  The words started to penetrate. Also, gunfire. Yeah, that was in play, too. There was the rapid blast of a gun firing through the building.

  Drugs. He’d been given drugs. Something psychotropic.

  His hands were bound in front of him, locked in a set of cuffs. He wasn’t where he thought he was. In the building, yes. He recognized the walls around him, but he wasn’t hanging off that hook.

  How much time had passed? His senses deceived him. It had been the drugs.

  “Come on, asshole. You’ve got a plane to catch. Bill, let’s take him out the back. I don’t know what’s going on, but I don’t like it. I’m not going out into the courtyard as long as there’s gunfire going on.” The second guard hauled Ten up.

  He swayed on his feet. Someone had blown the main door. There was only one party who would blow that door.

  Focus. Use the tools he had. That was what he had to do. He would concentrate on the pain later, but for now he pushed it aside. There was no ache in his shoulders, no burning along every inch of his skin. There was no weakness in his muscles from what felt like days of electrical torture.

  Now there was only adrenaline coursing through his system, and he meant to ride that wave.

  Hands. They were in front of him. Idiots.

  “Let’s go,” the guard said as that gunfire got closer.

  Ten brought his hands up, catching the fucker in the chin and sending him back on his ass. Ten propelled up from where he sat and found the world spinning. It made him nauseous, but he forced himself to move. He needed to find the keys, needed to get out and figure out where his team was, and he suddenly found himself in the middle of a war zone.

  His vision was out of whack. He got clear sight of concrete and industrial walls before it went fuzzy again.

  “Hey,” a deep voice growled and there was a volley of cursing. “I’m going to need backup here. All hell’s broken loose and our prize isn’t as sleepy as promised. Get the doc down here now.”

  The doc. Not his sweet doc. Not Faith. The other one. The evil one. He hated that woman. She was the one with the drugs. The pain he could handle. That feeling of endlessness was another thing altogether.

  He had to make his legs work. The muscle in his right thigh seized and he hit the concrete with a thud.

  A hand found the back of his neck and started hauling him up. There was nothing he could do. His leg was twitching uncontrollably. His spine started to bow.

  A loud crack sounded through the room and he fell back to the floor.

  “I got you,” a familiar voice said. “Can you stand?”

  For a second he thought Big Tag was here. Saving him again. It took a moment to realize the man hauling his ass up this time wasn’t quite as big as Ian, though he was proving just as stubborn.

  “Theo, what are you doing here?”

  “Saving you, boss. Des, clear a path for me. Tell Nick and Brody we’re going to have to carry Ten out of here. I don’t think his legs are working right now. Also, tell them we have incoming. We should expect to have to fight our way out.”

  Ten caught sight of the lovely Brit. She was wearing all black and looking perfectly competent as she raised her SIG Sauer and started moving back through the complex toward the stairs and the door that would lead them outside.

  “Let’s go. We’ve got a small army of MSS agents on the way in. Apparently they love you in Beijing.” Theo wrapped Ten’s arm around his broad shoulders. “Can you manage this?”

  He could shuffle along now that the spasm had subsided. It would be back. “Leave me. Get the fuck out of here, Taggart. We don’t have enough men and not a single one of you is wearing body armor.”

  They hadn’t brought any along. It was supposed to be a quick get in, get out operation.

  Theo gave him a reckless smile. “Body armor’s for wimps. I’ve got two cars waiting. We’ll make it.”

  God, he wished his head would stop spinning. He needed to think. He needed to know the odds. MSS was here to pick him up. They wouldn’t have sent a single man or even two or three. They would send a contingent, and they wouldn’t want to let him go without a fight. McDonald had a small army of guards here himself.

  If they could have done it quietly, it could have been done. If they had more men, it could have been done.

  �
�Theo, get your people out of here this instant.” The words felt dumb on his tongue. He was sending away his only way out, but he couldn’t live with the consequences. He wasn’t about to trade his life for any of theirs. “That’s an order.”

  Theo moved forward, dragging him along. “I can’t obey that order, sir. You’re incapacitated and incapable of making proper decisions. You can fire me later, but I’m saving you tonight.”

  A little flare of panic seemed to wake his system up. His legs started moving, stumbling along at a brisker pace. “No. This is going to go south and it’s going to go quickly. Dump me. Let MSS take me. Big Tag can find me later. Get our people off this island. Goddamn it, Theo, get Faith out of here.”

  Where was she? Was she inside the big house? Did she have any idea what was going on? He had to pray that McDonald cared enough about his daughter to keep her out of whatever the hell he was doing. Making deals with China’s spy organization could be a double-edged sword. Unfortunately, Ten was fairly certain he would be gutted with that sword one way or another. He had to make sure no one else got hurt.

  He tried to stop Theo’s progress as they headed for the door, but he was weak again, his muscles drained. Useless. He was fucking useless.

  “Stop this right now, Taggart,” he said, using his best boss voice. “I order you to stand down and retreat.”

  “I am retreating.” Theo kept right on moving into the hallway and began hauling him up the stairs.

  “You coming?” A voice with a thick Australian accent called down. Brody was here. He would get to die with the rest of them.

  Or maybe he was better trained than Theo. Perhaps Damon had done a better job with his men. “Brody, you’re now second in command. Get your men out of here. Leave right this fucking second or I will make sure you never work another day in your life again. Am I understood?”

  “Can’t hear much. I think that C-4 blast might have done something to my ears, boss,” the Aussie cracked. “We should move. I can see headlights coming. Maybe a minute and a half out. Des and Nick are in a holding pattern. They’ll make sure the exit is clear.”