In Too Deep: A Romantic Suspense Novel

by Landish, Lauren

  "Meditation," Mark said, squeezing me in his arms and kissing my neck. "And one other thing, at least with this idea."

  "What's that?"

  Mark kissed the top of my head, and I could hear him inhale the scent of my hair deeply. "I think of you. The rest is easy."

  * * *

  Sophie

  We got to the warehouse just after six in the morning. While I didn't think I'd be able to eat or drink anything, Mark insisted we have something on hand, so after leaving Mount Zion, we stopped at a convenience store to pick up some easy to digest groceries.

  Mark didn't allow us to get anything with caffeine in it or anything overly greasy or dense. This, of course, eliminated about seventy percent of the store, and another fifteen percent was eliminated because it was cat food, motor oil, playing cards and the like. Still, we were able to find some juices, light fruits and packages of sliced chicken breasts that filled our needs. "I know you're cruising on nerves now," Mark said as we entered the warehouse, "but that's going to fade. You're going to start feeling hungry and thirsty eventually."

  He was right, and by ten, I'd already drank one of the bottles of fruit juice. I kept glancing at the clock on the wall, while Mark made sure our video feed of the outside was clear. He'd installed obscure video cameras around the building to monitor everything. He'd even set up cameras on the inside of the building just in case the Russians tried something unexpected.

  Around noon we were as set up as we could be. "The tough part is going to be if this delivery is legit," Mark said. "I wish I could just say Hey, are you the two Russian hitmen and shoot them, but we're going to need to be sure. It's one thing killing bad men, but it's something else entirely killing an innocent. I've went this long without doing that, and I'm not about to start now. Let's hope they are stupid and show guns outside."

  We went down to the first floor, and I set up the M-14, which was my responsibility. Mark had originally thought to use the rifle himself, but he wanted me as far away as possible. By having me set up in a dim corner of the warehouse under some netting that from the outside looked like a pile of boxes, I could be safe. Or at least, as safe as I could be.

  The beauty of the M-14 lies in its relative heaviness. The thick steel barrel and the wooden stock gave the rifle a lot of stability. Once I set the front part of the stock on the foam block I was using as a rest, it would fire straight and true. Since I only had to shoot less than a hundred feet, worrying about drop or anything like that was moot. Which was good, because while Mark had taught me about it, I was still a novice when it came to stuff like that.

  I just had to aim at the belt line, hope that I could keep my nerve, and let the rifle take care of the rest. I took a quick view through the peep sight towards the cargo door, and nodded. If the delivery came when we asked, the interior of the warehouse would be in mostly darkness while the cargo door would be in relative shade. I wouldn't be blinded by glare.

  "I'm ready," I said, coming out from behind the concealed position. "How're you looking?"

  Mark's role was much simpler, but also much more dangerous. Answering the door, he carried with him a Desert Eagle pistol with Teflon coated armor piercing rounds. If he had to answer the door, he'd have the pistol with him next to his thigh underneath a long jacket. We were hoping, however, that we could use the intercom system attached to the door to bring them in without it.

  "Good to go. When they trigger the intercom on the outside, I can buzz them in. If they're hostile, they'll use that as a chance to burst through the door. If they do, shoot as soon as you can. But stay in your position, the first guy through is probably going to be spraying the room and not really giving a fuck what's around. I'm going to be to the left the door, because it's the last place they see after initial entry. If your shot takes out the first guy, the second one will come through fast, and I'll take care of him. Just keep your fire contained and we'll be fine."

  "Then why did you get something that shoots automatic?"

  Mark took a deep breath and looked me in the eye. "In case I'm hit. You get those two and protect yourself. That's why you also have a backup weapon."

  "Mark, you can't....."

  He cut me off with a shake of his head. "Yes, I can. You know that. I'm good, but I'm not immortal."

  I nodded, feeling tears come to my eyes unbidden. Before they could fall, he lifted my chin with his hand and gave me the same cocky grin he used whenever he was confident. "I'm not saying it's going to happen. In fact, I'm sure it won't today. But it could. If that happens, promise me you take them all out, and get your ass out of town."

  "But what would I do then?"

  Mark pointed upstairs. "You remember my smartbox? Login password is sophie7891, all in lower case. In the documents folder is a read me file, password locked, same password. Inside is instructions on how to access every dollar I have, along with account pass codes. The backup is at Mount Zion in the belfry. Take that and your passport and disappear. The smartbox has all sorts of information in the files that can help you."

  "When did you put this all together?" I asked, my throat burning as I thought of even the possibility of living without Mark in my life.

  "Over the past few nights. Wasn't all that hard, most of it was just collating the information already on there."

  Before he could say anything else I wrapped my arms around him, and we held each other. It was strange, a moment of intimacy while we waited for what we expected to be a deadly fight. After a moment, we let go of each other, and looked around. The area was quiet, and the tension started to creep into the air. "Let's go upstairs and get the food and stuff," Mark said. "We can hang out next to your position and wait."

  Chapter 27

  Mark

  The afternoon dragged on, something that Sophie wasn't accustomed to. I'd grown up in similar situations even before starting this line of work. It reminded me of times as a boy in South Carolina, sitting in a deer stand, waiting for the bucks to come through the woods. You had to remain quiet and ready, ready for the slightest movement. It could be minutes, it could be hours. So waiting for the delivery was actually easy for me, we didn't even have to be quiet.

  The delivery was scheduled to happen between four and six in the afternoon, and we had Sophie's cell phone, along with the tablet, with us. We took turns watching the tablet, checking the security video feeds as the hours wore on. When we weren't watching the tablet, we studied the pictures of the two men that Tabby had provided for us. The image quality wasn't great, and I knew it would come down to waiting for them to pull their weapons. If we could shoot first in that situation, we'd win. If not, we could be in trouble.

  I checked the clock, it was four fifty-seven when the delivery truck started down the street in front of our place. I sat up, jostling Sophie who I had let doze for a few minutes. The adrenalin had temporarily worn off, and her body was feeling the effects of the stress and lack of sleep the night before. "Delivery truck," I said, shaking her gently. "Get ready."

  She blinked once before nodding, stretching her arms over her head and smacking her face. "I'm okay," she said, twisting and cracking her neck. "You okay?"

  "Of course," I replied, picking up the shotgun pistol and holding it in my right hand. "Let's just see if this is who we're waiting for."

  The van looked just like any of the other hundred delivery vans in the city, which I expected. Owen Lynch did own a legitimate delivery company, Capital City Deliveries, that was an affiliate of UPS. I had broken into the offices before on a few assignments, and had seen their files. With over a thousand employees in the region, the network was an efficient distributor of anything Owen Lynch wanted. Also, over ninety-five percent of the workers were innocent men and women whose only bad decision in life was to wear a hideous uniform to work every day.

  The van stopped just past the normal entrance door, in front of the large rollup bay door that dominated the front of the building. It was a smart move, one I would have done. My suspicions were raise
d, although even a normal driver might do the same thing, considering the placement of the doors.

  My mental alarms went off when two men got out of the truck. While Capital City Deliveries would often send two men on their trucks, that was for larger items. The order that Sophie had placed was for three books from Amazon, not something that would require two men. Both of them had packages under their arms, and that's when I knew for sure.

  "You got that buzzer ready?" I asked, rechecking my pistol. My mind whirled, and suddenly a new plan dropped into place as the familiar emotional coldness I'd felt for every single kill shot I'd ever made fell over me. "When they buzz, trigger the intercom, say you're coming, and then three seconds later buzz them in."

  I took off my jacket, leaving on the ballistic vest I was wearing underneath. Walking as quickly and quietly as I could, I made my way over to a pile of boxes and trash that the previous tenants had left behind. I'd discarded the idea of using them at first, the material was nothing more than cheap wood that is often used in wooden box pallets. But, I wanted a good sight line and concealment. The ability to stop bullets would have to take a back seat.

  Sophie watched me move with eagle eyes, then settled behind her rifle. She rechecked her sight picture, and waited for the buzz. We didn't have to wait long. "Yes?" she said, triggering the intercom box.

  "We have delivery, Sophie White?" the voice said in near perfect English, only slightly Russian-accented. I knew the Spetznatz were good, but I didn't think their English was that good. Maybe these two boys were more experienced within the States than I'd thought. "Amazon?"

  "Oh, okay. I'll buzz you in, just a second."

  Sophie settled herself against the rifle, and slid her right hand against the trigger. I took aim with my Desert Eagle, and nodded. Sophie reached over with her left hand and pressed the buzzer, which we could faintly hear.

  I had to give it to the men, they were good. The door flew out and both men came diving through the door, their empty boxes disappearing to reveal bullpup-style carbines. Nasty little things that fired a Russian-made fifty caliber round, one that was designed for subsonic firing. If it hit a soft target, the damage was catastrophic, but Sophie was safe behind her thick wall of steel and cinder blocks. I, on the other hand, was not so fortunate.

  Tracking the two Russians, I fired quickly, the small cannon in my hand booming in the confined space of the warehouse. The sound caught at least one of the men's attention, and he turned towards me in mid-air, squeezing his trigger as he dove and flattened out. I knew the impact of his chest on the concrete would hurt like hell, but it would give him an extra tenth of a second to try and get rounds off in my direction. I immediately flattened and dove myself, hoping that Sophie's shots would ring true.

  With the booms of my Desert Eagle, and the muffled thuds from the Russian's weapons, the sharp crack of Sophie's M-14 stood out. Her shot was perfect, catching the second man, the one not yet firing at me, in his throat, and his lifeless body fell to the ground.

  I felt a searing heat on the outside of my right thigh as I rolled over the concrete floor, and I knew I'd been hit. I just didn't know how bad. The pain washed through me but was clamped down as my mind refused to let it alter my perceptions of the world. I could still see the guy, who was now on his side, rolling and firing at the same time. Damn this guy was good.

  I felt a sharp spray as another round ricocheted off the concrete near my head, and the sting as a fleck of the floor cut my face. I sighted and squeezed the trigger on my weapon, cursing as the Russian operative seemed to move with almost psychic abilities, pausing his roll just long enough that my round bounced off the pavement beside him instead of smashing through his head. He had also rolled out of Sophie's immediate ability to adjust, and I knew she would have to pick up the rifle to re-sight and fire.

  I didn't have that much time, I could see in his eyes as he brought his rifle to bear. In that instant, I was faced with two choices. If I jerked my trigger, I'd die for certain unless I scared him. There was no way I could hit him, and his shot would probably take me in the belly. On the other hand, if I took the fraction of a second to steady my aim, I could take him out, but at the risk of not getting a shot off at all.

  I thought of Sophie.

  The rest was easy.

  My bullet took him high in the forehead, painting a gigantic Rorsarch blot on the wall behind him in red and grayish tones. His rifle dropped to the concrete, going off, and I felt another sharp bite of pain as the round clipped off my right trapezius muscle before flattening against the far wall of the room. It was over.

  The silence was immediate and immense. Sophie came around, her shotgun in her hands to run up to the automatic door, but it closed before she could get there. The whole gunfight had taken less than the five seconds it normally took for the pneumatic hinge on the door to close.

  "Sophie," I whispered, my Desert Eagle falling to the floor. I couldn't feel my right arm any longer, and I knew the hydrostatic shock of even the grazing hit on my right trapezius was disrupting the nerves to that arm. I only hoped that the feeling would return. Sometimes, in wounds like this, it didn't.

  Sophie came over and looked at me, and at the blood already staining my pants and my shoulder. I could only watch in admiration as she quickly assessed my wounds and ran over to her position, where we'd stashed our medical kit. It was a full battle surgeon's kit, along with extra bandages and other things we thought we might need. Lying me on my back, she quickly pulled my armored vest off, and cut away my t-shirt to assess the damage, before repeating the process on my jeans. "Repeat after me," she said as she opened the kit. "Gunshot wound, right shoulder."

  "G... gunshot wound, right shoulder." I knew what she was doing. By having me repeat, she could keep me conscious, and keep herself calm at the same time.

  "Gunshot wound, graze, right outer thigh."

  "Graze, right outer thigh."

  "Stitches needed on shoulder, thigh can be bandaged."

  "Stitches for shoulder, thigh can be bandaged."

  Sophie nodded and pulled out the materials needed. "We don't have any anesthesia, so this is going to hurt," she said, taking out an ampoule of topical antiseptic. Cracking it open, she poured the whole thing on my thigh, sluicing the blood away and lighting up the entire area in fiery pain. I groaned from deep in my chest, which she ignored professionally while she applied a sterile gauze pad and taped it down. "Good, now for the fun part."

  She repeated the process with my shoulder, then took out her suture kit. "You're lucky the wound isn't deeper into the muscle, I never learned how to do intramuscular sutures," she said in an almost conversational tone. I knew it was just detachment from the shock of what had just happened, and I let her continue. "You're going to have quite a nice little scar up there. It'll look like Dracula took a bite out of you."

  I smiled, keeping the expression on my face even as I felt the needle slide into my flesh over and over. It took twenty stitches, forty punctures of my skin. I could feel each and every one, and it felt like forever before the last tug was done and Sophie snipped the thread. "Now lay back, I'll give you a shot of antibiotics," she said, filling a syringe and jabbing me in the uninjured shoulder.

  "Thanks," I rasped, feeling the first tendrils of battle-shock drop over me. I groaned and lay back, letting Sophie elevate my left foot. "You need to get those bodies taken care of."

  "After you're stabilized," she replied matter-of-factly. "You mentioned one time that Owen Lynch likes to send cop patrols as cleanup on hits. Think he'll do it this time?"

  "No," I said, trying to focus. It was hard, like I was swimming in laughing gas or something. "These two were freelancers. He'd do that for his own boys, but not these two. Also, he probably suspected there'd be some sort of setup. If that was the case, he wouldn't want to send more men to their deaths. He's smart that way, knows when to cut his losses."

  Sophie nodded and went over to her little hiding place, retrieving my jacket. She broug
ht it over and covered my body. "Then rest for now. I'll clean up the mess after it gets dark. Now I'm glad we don't have too many neighbors."

  "See, I told you." I grinned and laid my head back, letting my eyes close.

  I heard Sophie get up, and go over to the bodies of the two men. She spoke so softly I could barely make out what she said. "Two."

  "Seventy-seven," I whispered in reply, and let sleep overtake me. My last thought was just how high both counts would get before our war was over. Not a problem for me, but I just hoped that Sophie didn't let it overtake her.

  Chapter 28

  Mark

  "Owen, this is the Snowman," I said over the burner phone Sophie had found in one of the Russians' pockets. "Your little delivery to Sophie White was not quite what I expected, but I must say it was quite a surprising welcome back to town gift. Unfortunately, your delivery men seem to have had problems, and found they needed to leave the country rather suddenly. Now, you don't have to worry about your Capital City Delivery truck, I've had that parked in the parking lot of the University Hospital. Maybe you can get Glen Green to check it out for you. It's been wiped down, by the way.

  "Owen, by doing this, you did a very annoying thing. Now, my current business partners are not the type to engage in petty feuds, so they'll let this one slide. They knew you and I had history before they hired me. But Owen, I'm telling you now. Sophie White, Tabby Williams, and everyone and everything associated with Marcus Smiley are all, as of now, under my protection. Unless you want my employers to take a much more vested interest in this town, I suggest you keep that in mind. Take care Owen."

  I hung up the phone, pulled the battery and crunched the phone under the heel of my left boot. My right leg still hurt too much two days later. I'd been asleep most of the time, waking up just enough to be amazed as Sophie had taken care of almost everything even without me instructing her, disposing of the bodies in the bay. The floors and walls of the building she'd first scrubbed down with bleach and water before digging out the slugs and patching them with cement. Once the workers came in next week and painted, you'd never be able to tell any patches had been applied at all.