by J. M. Madden
“Let’s talk about how to approach this. Because we need to decide fast,” Holtman said.
Noah watched the men work, ever aware of how the time was ticking by. Haven had escaped a couple of hours ago now, and he went through another hard grilling as the three men tried to come up with a strategy off the cuff. For the most part, they settled into Green and Rose arguing over points, then Holtman settling the argument. The National Security Agency, the CIA and the Joint Chiefs all working together. Noah would have never believed it if he hadn’t seen it.
Within an hour they had a working plan and Joint Task Force Omega was born. The general said he had a ‘team’ waiting for them on an Air National Guard base north of the city. Once they reached that base they would fly further north to the senator’s compound outside of Albany, then split up.
“I don’t understand all the letters and stuff. What’s going on?” Raine whispered.
Noah snorted, leaning toward her to whisper as well. “Basically, they’ve come to a decision on how to insert a team. I have a feeling it will be an elite Delta team, some of the most amazing soldiers you’d ever want to meet. They’re trained in hostage rescue and direct action. There are a few problems though. Because this group is being thrown together, each team has different capabilities. Rather than try to mesh unknown people with unknown equipment, each group is getting a task. The general’s task force will be inserting, Rose’s Spook crew will be going after Belladonna and the senator, and Green’s intelligence people will be feeding us all info. The problem is, we don’t know what we’re going to meet up there. It could be a private house with a few Secret Service or a personal protection team full of enhanced soldiers. We don’t know if Belladonna has had any interaction with the team on the compound.”
“And what will we three be doing? There’s no way we’re not going to be in on this.”
Noah blinked, looking at the excitement in her eyes. He hadn’t expected her to want to be in on the action, but he should have known better. Raine had surprised him several times recently. “I think you’ll probably go in with the Spooks, and I’m going to fight to go in with Delta. I can almost guarantee there won’t be anyone on the team with my skills.”
Raine frowned, her eyes going dark. “I don’t want you getting hurt, especially if I’m not going to be there.”
“Oh, baby, I’m bulletproof, remember?”
She gave him an odd look and huffed out a sigh. “Well, you’d better be. You haven’t even asked me out on a date yet.”
Noah loved the pointed look she gave him, and he swore that as soon as he got back, he would ask her out. Grinning, he dropped a quick kiss to her lips, wishing they were not in a room full of former and current military.
“Mr. Cross.”
Noah looked up at the sound of his name. The general was looking at him, brows raised. “You’ll be with the insertion group. Mr. Terberger was very clear that you would be an asset.”
“Yes, sir,” Noah said immediately.
“And I’ll go with them as well,” Raine said, turning to look at the group.
Rose scowled. “Ms. Walters, you’ll be safer if you go with us.”
Raine shook her head. “They’ll need medical on scene in case the girl is hurt or one of the men.”
He stared at her hard, and finally nodded. “This time. Talk to Taylor. She’ll get you a vest.”
Raine was grinning until she heard vest. She looked at Noah. “What’s he talking about?”
“A bulletproof vest.”
Her eyes grew big and he could see the awareness sink into her. This was a dangerous mission. She needed to be scared. “It’s a precaution, but we can’t assume that the task force will get everyone on the first sweep. You may encounter bad guys.”
Raine smiled at him. “I have a feeling you’ll get them all.”
Noah appreciated her confidence, but there was always the chance one could slip through.
“I need a gun,” she whispered so that only he could hear. “Will they give me one if I ask?”
Noah blinked at her, a little shocked that she would even be willing to think about carrying one. “I don’t know, Raine,” he started, but she didn’t let him finish.
“If I’m going in on an op like this, I need to have a way to protect myself if I need to.”
He agreed, but would she even be able to handle a gun?
“Have you ever fired a gun before?”
She nodded firmly. “Literally, since I was a child. I helped dress out my first deer when I was about eight.”
Noah blinked, not sure how to feel. Her competence level had just skyrocketed in his eyes. “Seriously?”
She shrugged, giving him a smile. “Not what you expected?”
“I’ve never dressed out a deer,” he admitted. “I was never into hunting.”
“Well, when your family actually depends upon the meat, we didn’t have a choice.”
True. She had said she’d grown up rural, but he hadn’t realized just how rural. “Pistol or rifle?”
Her mouth twisted. “Pistol. If you have a holster I can use as well. I think if there are injured that need treated, trying to stash a long gun will be difficult.”
“Agreed. Let’s see what we can find you.”
An hour later Raine arched her back, trying to get used to the oddly fitting bullet-proof vest. Her boobs felt like they were smushed up under her chin, and she knew it was psychological, but it felt like she couldn’t breathe well. If she got to her feet, she was sure she’d feel better. It was just hard to do at the moment, considering she was strapped into a seat on a huge ass helicopter. Her family would freak if they could see her now!
The plan was, they would be landing at an airfield within just a few minutes. Manchester House sat on approximately fifty acres, a huge piece of land for this close to the state capital. There was a fence encircling the property and they were picking up at least a dozen heat signatures on the ground. The sun had gone down and they would be going in at night.
The general, a very nice man as far as she could tell, would stay on the aircraft with the other bigwigs and Poole and coordinate the op. There were a couple of other techs as well, rattling on the keyboards in the makeshift command center at the front of the helicopter.
Raine glanced across the way. Noah had told her that Delta Force was supposed to be this super-secret, barely acknowledged group that worked for any government agency that needed them, and they didn’t have to abide by local laws. They had the flexibility to deal with extremely sensitive situations. That General Holtman had been able to call them to his side within hours of creating Team Omega was extremely impressive. The Delta Force, eight men, all looked to be badass m-effers, dressed all in black with magazine loaded flak-jackets. Noah fit right in with them. “That looks natural on you,” she said, knowing that he would hear her even over the sound of the double rotors overhead. His bright teeth flashed in his dark face and she thought he winked at her. His ear buds were in his ears but knowing him, he would take them out when they inserted. Even though it would hurt him, he would do it to keep the team safe.
Rose, decked out all in black like the Delta Team, would lead his own team of spooks in to serve the search warrant, if or when it was granted. A series of very exact puzzle pieces needed to fall into place perfectly for this to work. They needed to find the girl on Hall’s property, they needed to get the warrant, then serve the warrant, in a very short space of time.
Haven had been assigned his own four-man Delta team. They were staking out the senator’s New York penthouse. They were in a vehicle, so if Haven felt Belladonna leave, or anyone else left, they could choose to follow. Ideally, they wanted to get Belladonna out of the penthouse, but they would probably have to take her out when the warrant was served. Haven was not the same man he was two days ago. His eyes had glittered with excitement when he’d received his orders. The general, who had a thirty-year career behind him, though Haven could handle being Rose’s backup, so wh
o was she to argue? Before he left, she’d given him a hug. “Be safe, darn it. I didn’t chase you all the way to New York to lose you again.”
Haven had returned the hug. “I know, Nurse Raine.”
The helicopter hit a rough patch and she clutched at the nylon straps holding her to the seat. It was so surreal. Three days ago, she had been happy, doing her normal nursing job. Wait. She shook her head. That was wrong. Her life hadn’t been normal since she’d taken this job almost eight months ago. She could never have dreamed that she would one day be on a helicopter flying to try to rescue a kidnapped teenager. Noah had done it just a few months ago, with Blake, but that was different. Noah was a former Marine, a guy who waded into danger when needed and rescued those that couldn’t rescue themselves. She was just a backwoods hillbilly who’s fallen into a job caring for extraordinary people.
Anyway, it didn’t matter what she was. If there was the slightest chance that they could take the senator down, they needed to do it. All of the men in the Elton Building, one way or another, whether they had seen him before or not, all owed their pain and suffering to Senator Cameron Hall. For that fact alone if she had the chance, she would punch him herself.
Raine found herself wondering about the girl, Lillian. Hopefully, she thought she was just staying there at the Manchester House while her mother did a job or something. It would be terrible if she understood the real reason.
The whine of the motors changed and the machine started to do a controlled drop. Raine’s tummy turned over and she took several deep breaths, not used to the strange movement. She looked across at Noah and forced a smile when she realized he was watching her. “I’m okay,” she said quietly.
He made a motion to his eyes.
“I’m watching you,” she told him, and he grinned, then gave her this cocky nod. Raine giggled, forced to admit that even with all that junk on he was one of the sexiest men she’d ever seen. She couldn’t wait to kiss him again. The confidence in him as he went active was very sexy.
“I want to kiss you again,” she said softly, knowing that he alone would hear her.
Giving her a nod, he mouthed a single word. Soon.
Yes, definitely soon.
Noah merged into the Delta Team like he’d always been there. Now that he knew Raine would be safely plastered to Taylor’s side in one of the vans that would come in later, he could concentrate on the business of rescuing a kid. Within twenty minutes of landing they were tromping through the woods around the estate, night vision goggles lighting the terrain around them. Poole was on their coms and backup was a mere whisper away.
His ear buds were around his neck, replaced in one ear by the coms unit. The eight- man team behind and around him, led by Master Sergeant Clark, moved silently. It was a well-oiled machine and he could tell they’d worked together a long time. Two of the men toward the back had been bitching about him dragging them down and having to babysit the ‘devil dog’, a slang term he’d heard for Marines many times. Turning his head directly and looking at the men he’d keyed his mic. “You won’t have to babysit the devil dog. He’ll take care of himself just fine.”
There was twenty-five feet of space and the percussive noise of the double rotor machine just above and around them. Theoretically there was no way he should have been able to hear the two men talking, but he had. It had been a good time to show them what he was capable of. Once they’d offloaded, the two men had given him nods, acknowledging that they’d fucked up. Noah let it go.
Now, as he raised his fist and went down to a knee, he heard the rest of them do it as well almost in synchrony. Clark stopped right beside him, his gear tight and noiseless. “Three men,” Noah whispered, “seventy-five yards ahead at the front entrance. Two more to the north a hundred yards. Two directly west, one taking a leak near the tool shed to the north, and three more talking near the pool house. They all have some kind of armor on, and all are carrying AK47s it sounds like, with the odd shotgun thrown in. There’s a spotter and a sniper on the roof, though the spotter sounds like he’s dozed off.”
Noah turned his head, feeling like he’d missed one somewhere. Thirteen was an odd number for a team. He strained, sorting through all of the extraneous sounds. Birds faded away, the hum of the heat pumps kicked off, and he reached… he felt the blood drip from his nose but he brushed to away. Then he felt them. “There are three more inside the garage. They just came out of the house.”
Clark made several hand motions, sending the men in opposite directions. The odds were not in their favor and if any of the men were enhanced, it would make it that much harder. It would have been easier if they had waited until later in the night, but they didn’t think they had that much time. Once Haven was reported missing it was a pretty fair bet that they would batten things down, rerunning surveillance footage to see how he’d escaped. As phenomenal as Belladonna seemed to be, he doubted she could erase all evidence.
He glanced at Clark. The older man was surveying him thoughtfully. “Wish I’d had you on a couple of my ops, kid. You probably would have saved lives.”
Noah didn’t take offense to the "kid". He tipped his head. “Yes, sir.”
Noah moved forward in a running crouch, trying to use cover when he could. The closer to the house, though, the wider open the lawn became. They were going to be sitting ducks. Sinking down behind a bush, he keyed the tiny mic. “The guy taking a leak is joining the pool group. If you give me just a minute, I’m going to try something. It might give us an advantage.”
“Hold,” Clark murmured into his coms unit.
Noah took his microphone off, focusing on the men he could hear nearby. Then he began to push out power to the mercenaries in front of him. He’d never tried to do it this far away and he seriously doubted he could reach the ones on the other side of the house, but he would try. When he’d practiced with Wulfe it had been on a much smaller scale and they’d decided that it was almost a subsonic sound, like the rumble that scientists had learned elephants use to communicate. Inaudible to regular hearing but could be felt in the chest and head. Wulfe had said it made him nauseated and that if he didn’t have the ability himself to block energy like that it would probably put him on his knees.
Noah hoped that’s what would happen now. Moving toward the expansive garage, he focused his energy on those three. Once he took them down his focus wouldn’t be as spread out.
Clark was right behind him as he ran in a crouch to the wall of the garage. Weapon up, he very carefully peered inside, still pushing out the focused stream of power. All three men were holding their heads and on the ground. Fuck…it had worked.
Clark moved forward to zip cuff and gag the men, unarming them. They had been given full authority to take the men out, but it seemed wrong to shoot them on the ground. If they fought then it would be a go, but Noah had crippled them for the moment.
He left the garage, curling around the house, projecting the subsonic sound. It was difficult to exclude the Delta guys, and he thought a couple of times they might have felt the brush of what he was doing. His nose pretty much flowed with blood but he couldn’t do anything about it right that moment. He rounded the corner of the house in time to see three of the squad overwhelm the group that had been near the pool house. Good! They were picking them off quickly.
Noah continued around the massive house, focusing his attack on the mercenaries as the Delta team overwhelmed them. And though they took care of the ones outside he had a feeling there was a large contingent inside as well.
Once they’d cleared the exterior grounds, they inserted through the garage door into the house. There was a cook in the kitchen they bound and gagged and put into the pantry so that she wouldn’t cause an alarm. There were too many walls for Noah to use his power but he could stop and listen as the Delta team gathered behind him.
“One man in an office that direction,” he pointed. “Two females in a bedroom upstairs and to the west. Two males walking the upper floor hallways. Four more in a
room below us. Sounds like they’re… target shooting. Is there an indoor range here?”
There was chatter over the line as Clark checked in with the coms center. “Affirm. Indoor shooting range, bowling alley, movie theater downstairs.”
He knew this place was like, thirty rooms, but he hadn’t realized there was a range. It was somewhat muffled, like the room was soundproofed. One the one hand he supposed it was a good distraction and he hoped they stayed practicing for a while. On the other hand, if they were alerted to an attack they would have guns in hand. “There’s no one in what’s supposed to be the security room, if I’m reading it right.”
Could they have possibly lucked out that much? No one watching the security feeds.
“I’ve got the security feed on a loop,” Poole said.
They started moving through the house, taking down guards as they came across them. They swarmed into the office with the single male on a laptop, obviously some kind of office employee. They bound him and stashed him behind the desk, then moved on. As someone so sensitive to hearing, Noah was amazed at how quietly the entire team moved. Clark had a bit of a wheeze in his chest and O’Malley had a squeak in his boot that just would not stop, but other than that they were deadly silent. On the second floor they were taken by surprise by one of the guards and he fought. Clark body slammed him, hitting the floor pretty hard. And it took two of the squad to subdue him. They dragged the body into one of the empty bedrooms and regrouped.
Noah’s ears strained, but it seemed like the men in the range were still firing. He took off toward the two females he could hear in the bedroom at the end of the hallway. Their breathing was elevated, like they knew something was happening. The door was locked, but with a hard kick Noah flung it open.
And took two bullets center mass.
Chapter 11
Raine wanted to pace, but Greene had given her a dirty look. She also wanted to take off the damn vest but that wasn’t going to happen either. Normally, she was a fairly patient person, but she this was darn near killing her!