by C. J. Miller
The men were demanding to know who was hiding. Hyde moved away from the mess and circled to get closer to Finn.
The chaos she’d created presented an opportunity for Finn to move to a defensible position. Hyde slipped around the piles of crates and saw Barnett’s associate in a standoff with the intruders. Finn was gone.
“Hey you.” Finn’s voice behind her. She hadn’t heard his approach. She whirled and grabbed his arms, looking him over and needing reassurance he wasn’t hurt. No obvious signs of bleeding.
He took her face in his hands. “It’s okay. I’m okay.”
Relief rushed over her. “We need to go.”
“Bail on Barnett’s guy?” Finn asked. “Shouldn’t we get him out?”
Barnett would question the sequence of events. Would he blame them if his men were harmed?
“Where are the others?” Hyde asked.
“Dead,” Finn said.
Killing another person wouldn’t faze the eight intruders. “How can we help him?”
“Not sure yet,” Finn said. “Who are those men?”
“No intel. I sent pictures to the West Company. They’ll look into it.”
The sound of gunfire split the air. Hyde was afraid to look. When she did, her eyes landed on Barnett’s associate on the ground. The invaders gathered together.
“Find them. Kill them!” The intruders fanned out to search the warehouse.
“They know someone else is here with you,” Hyde said. If they hadn’t seen her car parked outside, they had heard her distraction.
“Come on,” Finn said and gestured for her to follow him. He approached the man he’d met at the shipyard. Kneeling next to the body, Finn checked the pulse at his neck and on his wrist. “He’s dead.”
They heard voices and pounding footsteps and ran to hide. The crates provided a protection and a maze through the warehouse.
“What’s in these crates?” Hyde asked.
“I don’t know. From what Jeff told me, this warehouse was a print factory and a front for a smuggling operation. The crates could be legitimate product or they could be smuggled goods.”
“The chemical smell,” Hyde said.
“Ink? Glue? No idea.”
Hyde suspected it was something more devious, but they didn’t have time to investigate. Eight armed men wanted them dead.
They reached the door where Hyde had entered the warehouse. She looked through the door window to the lot surrounding the warehouse. Three men in dark clothing encircled her car, but even at this distance, Hyde didn’t recognize them. Feds? More of Barnett’s associates? She hadn’t gotten a good look at the men who’d arrived in the SUV and hadn’t checked their car to see if others had waited in the vehicles.
Exiting through this door wasn’t an option.
“Plan B,” Hyde said. She hadn’t thought of one, but she wouldn’t stand around and wait to be discovered.
“Another exit?”
“Even if we have to blast our way out,” Hyde said. She and Finn were wearing bulletproof vests, but they didn’t have helmets.
She hadn’t investigated the full layout of the warehouse but by keeping to the perimeter, they would eventually find another door or window.
Frustrated voices grew closer. Hyde didn’t like the odds of trying to shoot their way out of the situation. She drew her gun, enjoying the heaviness in her hand. Being armed increased the chances of survival.
Finn tapped her shoulder and pointed behind them. Along the wall was a stack of cartons that formed an alcove. If they moved into the alcove and watched each other’s back, they could better protect themselves.
They hurried into the small space and stood back to back. In the shadows of the crates, they blended. Perhaps they wouldn’t need to go on the offensive.
Hyde leaned on Finn to feel his strength. His gun in one hand, he reached to her hip with the other. Slipping her hand into his, she squeezed it.
A shower of sparks lit between them. Their connection went beyond their physical attraction into deeper territory. Finn understood her and seemed to anticipate her needs and desires. Hyde trusted Finn. She had from the first time they had met, when he saved her life.
Voices rushed by and Hyde held her breath, trying not to make a sound.
Questions fogged her brain, but she would work it out with Finn. Whatever happened in this warehouse, they would explain to Barnett. They’d consider carefully what to tell him about the situation and the intruders. She’d been in circumstances before that went off the skids and she had made it through.
The slamming of a door echoed through the air and then quiet. Absolute stillness. Several long moments passed and then Finn stepped out from the alcove. Hyde followed him, walking back to back, covering the spaces around them and checking around corners. The intruders had entered the warehouse with a purpose and they had seemed organized and armed. If they wanted the people inside dead, leaving Finn was sloppy work.
It was silent. Uneasiness passed through her. The intruders could be waiting to ambush them as they fled the warehouse.
Finn was a good shot and a strong and capable operative. However, they were outgunned and outnumbered.
Ahead, a frosted window built only five feet from the ground. As they drew closer, Hyde saw it was nailed shut. So much for adherence to OSHA laws.
“I don’t like our odds,” Hyde said.
Finn was typing into his phone. “I’m letting the West Company know we might need help.”
“Like a medevac?” Hyde asked.
He swore under his breath. “No signal. We must be in a Faraday cage. Message won’t go out.”
“Think positive. The authorities will show up in time to arrest whoever these men are,” Hyde said.
Hyde ripped a board off a nearby crate, earning herself a hand full of splinters. She would deal with them later. She wedged the wood into the window, trying to lift the nails and pry it up.
“Let’s push together. We can pop it open,” Hyde said.
They pulled on the wood. The wood fractured and broke. The window remained stubbornly nailed and rusted shut.
Finn glanced at his gun. “We could shoot it out.”
“Might bring the men hunting us running.”
“Let’s take our chances.” Finn shot the window several times. He lifted one of the cartons and heaved it at the window, knocking out the glass. Hyde removed her blouse, leaving her in a tank top, and wrapped it around her hand, bashing out the rest of the glass. The splinters burned and she ignored it.
She and Finn climbed onto the window ledge and dropped to the ground.
They weren’t home free. Their ride was unavailable and they needed to get off the premises without anyone seeing them, a difficult task with little to hide behind. They stayed close to the building.
They waited and Hyde took a minute to look at her palm.
“Hyde, what happened?” Finn asked, taking her hand and examining it.
“One of the crates. It will be fine,” she said.
Car engines rumbled. Hyde and Finn rushed to the gate around the warehouse. It was a ten-foot-tall chain-linked metal fence, with looped barbed wire at the top.
“We’ll need to climb it,” Finn said, looking up and grimacing at the sight of spiky wire.
They could wrap the barbed wire in his shirt and hope it protected them.
The sonic boom of an explosion detonated behind them. The shock wave threw them into the gate. The metal wire pressed into her back. Her eyes felt gritty. Her hands burned and the heat was intense.
Hyde stood, her back aching as another explosion sounded. Turning to the warehouse, Hyde’s breath caught in her throat. The warehouse was on fire. If they hadn’t escaped when they did, they could have been trapped inside. What about the chemi
cals? If they were poisonous, they would leach into the surrounding area.
Sirens sounded over the ringing in her ears. She shook Finn, who was lying on the ground next to her. “Get up! We have to go!” Hyde dictated a message into her phone. “Chemical explosion at a warehouse at my GPS location. Send HAZMAT. Ambulances. Unknown chemicals. Proceed with caution.” Though she didn’t have a signal, while she was on the move, her phone would attempt to find one and deliver the message to the West Company.
Hyde’s working theory was that the men in the SUVs were destroying the warehouse in an attempt to murder Finn and possibly hide the bodies of the people they’d killed. Hyde had been right to take them seriously. Destroying the warehouse would bring Barnett’s anger and interest from the authorities. No criminal wanted that. Something huge must have been at stake to risk this level of destruction.
Finn’s head moved lifelessly back and forth.
“Finn!” Hyde shouted. The fire was loud and Hyde felt dizzy. Sweat rolled down her back. She couldn’t carry him easily and she wouldn’t leave him. She slapped his cheeks. What she wouldn’t do for her field kit now! Her smelling salts could help. She had nothing except her phone, and aid may not arrive in time.
She lifted Finn to a sitting position and looked him over for injuries. Though he was likely bruised, she didn’t see bleeding or obvious head injuries. Hyde dug deep for strength. If she had to, she’d drag him with her. She hadn’t before left an operative in the field and she wouldn’t start now, especially not when it was Finn’s life on the line.
He had selected her for this mission because he knew she’d have his back, unyieldingly and incessantly.
“Finn, you need to open your eyes and we need to run.”
The sound of car engines terrified her. The men in the SUVs hadn’t given up their search.
Hyde looped Finn’s arm over her shoulder. She started dragging him. The police sirens were getting closer. If they were arrested, Barnett may cut ties, although after this disaster, that was already a risk.
Hyde spotted another, more imminent danger. The intruders were driving toward the gate. It swung open and five cars were barreling toward it. They had likely heard the approach of sirens and wanted off the premises before the police and fire departments arrived.
She and Finn were out in the open. Someone would spot them! They had no cover.
Finn mumbled under his breath. Some of the weight lessened and Finn stood.
“Run!” she shouted to Finn. They couldn’t make it to the open gate without being seen by the men in the black SUVs. They could make it to a small, rundown shed fifty feet away. She and Finn hobbled to it and tried to open the door. It was locked.
The SUVs exited through the open gate and then it slid shut. Tires squealing, the vehicles turned down the road toward them.
Finn ripped the padlock from the door, tearing the metal from the wood, and they slipped inside. Hyde prayed they weren’t seen.
“What should we do?” Hyde asked.
“We need evidence about who set off the explosion for Barnett. We can’t let the police see us,” Finn said. “We’re supposed to be criminals.”
They looked around the small shed. Little to nothing to work with. An empty gas can, a broom, a roll of trash bags, a bucket and a broken bicycle with the wheels torn off. “The bicycle.”
“We can’t ride that to safety,” she said. The impact from the explosion had jarred his brain.
Finn knelt on the ground next to the bicycle. He ripped off the metal chain and a flat plastic cover from the side. “I’ll use this and the trash bags to wrap around the barbed wire. My shirt will help, but it’s too thin to protect us.”
Carrying their supplies to the fence, Finn climbed like a monkey, tossing the chain to pin down the wire and laying his shirt and the trash bags over it. He had created a bridge, a safe method for their escape. He leaped over and onto the other side.
Hyde followed the path he set and then dropped to the ground next to him. “Your arm!” The center of the white bandage over his gunshot wound was bright red. “You’re bleeding.”
Finn glanced at it. “I think I tore something climbing. It will be fine.”
Hyde wouldn’t argue. They had no time. Instead, they ran.
Chapter 10
Police and firefighters swarmed the area around the warehouse. The fire was roaring out of control. A HAZMAT team had been called and no one was entering the building. They likely had the same questions Hyde had about what exactly was in the warehouse. It was a miracle she and Finn had escaped when they did.
The authorities wouldn’t yet know the source of the explosions and would proceed with caution.
“We need to lay low,” Finn said. “Touch base with HQ.”
In every direction were onlookers. Were any of them with the intruders? Would they be watching for survivors of the explosion?
Finn was staggering as he walked.
“Are you okay? Do you need to go to the hospital?”
Finn’s injury struck her hard and she felt unusually emotional about it.
“I need to sit for a few minutes. My vision is blurry.”
Hyde tightened her grip on him.
After crossing two streets, they entered the backyards of a residential community. One of the houses had a children’s playhouse large enough for them to fit inside. It fit the criteria.
She pointed to it. “A little farther and we’ll take a break.”
They climbed inside the small yellow wooden house and closed the plywood door. The floor was cheap vinyl tile and the walls were painted white. It was hot in the small space. But it was an unexpected place to hide. Her preference would have been for some cold water and a medical exam, but those would have to wait.
Finn sat with his knees bent and his elbows resting on them. He closed his eyes. Sweat was running down his face and he was too pale.
“I’ll call the West Company and get some intel.” And some medical aid. His phone had been broken, but hers was working and she again had a wireless signal.
Their contact, Abby, answered.
“I need a car. Finn was hurt in the explosion. I need water and medical attention.”
Finn set his hand over her arm. “I’m okay.”
“I also need to know who the police are looking for in connection with the fire in the warehouse and I need to know who the men were who set the explosion,” Hyde said. After providing as many details as they could to Abby, they heard frantic typing, followed by a cool, professional response.
“We’re looking into the pictures Hyde sent over. The police have no information regarding the source of the fire. They received eleven 911 calls reporting an explosion. They’re looking for information about the owners of the warehouse to see if the warehouse was perhaps improperly storing combustible materials. The warehouse is owned by a company called Swift Speed, which looks to be a shell corporation. We’re trying to connect it to Barnett.” Abby continued typing. “I have your GPS location. I don’t see any police activity near you heading west. I have a car coming to pick you up. Red sports utility vehicle.”
“Thanks, Abby,” Hyde said.
“I’m pulling security camera feeds from the area to look for details about the intruders. Your description fits with a group of drug runners in the area that go by the name the Shadow Crew.”
Hyde had heard of them. She didn’t like that the operation now involved two drug rings. The more people involved, the harder it was to control the mission.
Hyde disconnected. She pulled a few splinters from her hand and felt immediate relief.
Hyde shifted to move. Being in this small playhouse was a good cover, but she wanted to be somewhere safer. If the police tried to track them with dogs, they’d be discovered and cornered.
Finn grabb
ed her arm and electricity shot from where his hand met her bare skin. “Hyde, wait. Thank you for saving me back there. I could have been killed.”
She didn’t like to fixate on that. “Not you. You’re invincible.”
Finn touched her cheek. The small window of the playhouse let in only enough light for her to see the profile of his features. “I’m not, Hyde. No one is. You saved me.”
He kissed her lightly. The kiss communicated so much more than he could have said with words. His appreciation, his admiration and his affection for her.
She broke the kiss. “You saved my life once. Now we’re even.”
“I was thinking back there, in the warehouse, about you,” Finn said. He sounded groggy.
“Stay awake, Finn,” Hyde said.
“I am awake. For the first time I feel like I know what’s going on. What’s important. I want to do this for Simon and then I want to do something for us.”
Hyde held her breath. He could be talking about their future, making an actual life with her, or his head injury could be causing him to ramble. “What do you want to do for us?”
Her phone buzzed with a message from Abby. The red SUV was circling the block, looking for them. “Our car is waiting.”
Finn pushed open the plywood door and they exited the small space. Hyde wasn’t finished with the conversation they’d been having. “What about us? What’s next for us?” She put her arm around his waist to support and guide him.
Finn slung his arm across her shoulder. “Something more than this. Just something more than this.”
* * *
Simon had crossed Finn’s mind while he had been inside the warehouse. Simon had been killed in one of Barnett’s drug manufacturing facilities, and Finn wouldn’t become another of Barnett’s victims. Now Finn was struggling to keep his temper while he listened to Barnett rant, as if he was the only victim of the accident today.
“I want names! I want the person or people responsible dead!” Reed Barnett was screaming into the video chat.