Catalyst (Dogs of War Book 4)

by J. M. Madden

  The Delta Force, including Noah, had taken off about thirty minutes ago. They’d said a few things over the communication link, but they needed to be as quiet as possible. She could easily imagine a Nosy Nancy down the street thinking she heard fireworks or something and calling the local cops. There were so many alphabet soup government agencies here that she had a hard time keeping track. Adding the local cops to the mix would be chaos.

  They were in a van, waiting outside the front gates of the estate. When they got the all clear from Sgt. Clark, they would swarm the gate and force their way in before anyone could notify the senator.

  That was also one of the lynchpins of this entire fiasco. They wanted to sweep in, get the girl and sweep out with no one being the wiser, then let Rose, Haven and his team go in for Belladonna. Just from listening to tidbits of conversation she didn’t think anyone believed the op would go off without a hitch.

  Knowing Noah, he would take the lead to try to protect the team. Hopefully, though, his ears would come in handy.

  For something to do she began checking her medical kit. Again.

  It was another ten minutes before the radio sent up a chatter. She heard Clark yell, ‘man down, man down’, then several different men yelling. It was crazy. She strained to hear Noah’s voice, but she didn’t.

  She glanced at her watch, noting the time. Twenty twenty. Just after eight o’clock in the evening. Green’s face was blank, like he wasn’t feeling anything. Maybe the Delta team was expendable to him. The NSA was notoriously a data collection bunch. They’d brought a few of Rose’s CIA agents with them, and they would be the physical force if they needed it to get inside the compound.

  Watching Green’s face, she tried to tell if he was hearing anything more from his earpiece. She’d thought that the group was hearing everything but maybe that was incorrect.

  When his eyes flicked her way, she thought that was the case. “What? Is Noah okay?”

  “He’s down,” Green admitted, making her heart sink, “but he appears to be fine. He took two bullets to the chest and abdomen but they hit his vest.”

  ThankGodHallelujah.

  There was chatter on the radio again, but she distinctly heard, “we have the target”.

  Green nodded at one of his underlings, and the man put a phone to his ear. “It’s a go.”

  Haven reversed the path Belladonna had given him mere hours before. The first hurdle was the guard on the penthouse exterior door, on the backside of the apartment. For big buildings like these there was always a freight and service elevator. There was no hiding that they were coming up in the elevator, so Rose had procured a 4-wheel dolly with crates of something. Even if they weren’t on some kind of delivery list, the guard would probably want to make sure with the chef or housekeeper.

  There were six spooks in this group and four Delta Force, who would take the lead in getting them through the door. Rose’s team had four Deltas and eight spooks at the front of the penthouse ready to serve the warrant. As soon as they’d gotten word that the girl had been found on the senator’s estate Rose had called the judge they had on standby. The front team was going to do a standard knock and announce, meaning they were going to wait for someone to open the door, then they were entering one way or another. The warrant gave them that power. Haven’s heartbeat sped as they waited for notice on the coms that Team Two was in. Marks and Valasquez pushed the dolly out into the back hallway and toward the door. Using his ability, Haven tried to make the elevator appear empty.

  “I don’t have any deliveries on my sheet,” he heard the door guard say. “What company are you from?”

  “Herreford’s Seafood. Looks like someone is having a party,” Marks laughed. “There’s enough salmon and caviar in here to feed an army.”

  “Hm. Give me a minute. Let me call.”

  There was a scuffle, and a crunch, like the boxes had just been broken. Haven listened as men fought in the hallway for what seemed like a very long time. There were two Deltas. It should have been quick and easy. They fought for a solid minute before Haven heard what sounded like a bag of potatoes hitting the floor.

  “Team Two, we’re in,” Marks panted. “Bogie was juiced.”

  Haven released the manifestation and stepped off the elevator. The back door guard had been very competently gutted, but the back door, which opened with a key pad code they hadn’t had, was open. Marks and Valasquez both looked like they’d gone two rounds with Evander Holyfield. The group hurried through the door, leaving the bloody mess behind. There was no sense in trying to hide the body now.

  Marks grabbed his arm as he passed. “That guy was juiced, right? Is that why it took us so long to take him down?”

  Haven nodded. “More than likely. You’re lucky you were able to take him down.”

  Marks shook his helmeted head. “If Val and I hadn’t fought dirty we’d still be going. Are they all that strong?”

  Haven shrugged. “Some end up with a physical enhancement, others mental.”

  Marks still looked disconcerted, and Haven could understand why. Delta Force Operatives were supposed to be the best in the world and it had taken two of them to take one guy down.

  As quietly as possible, they crept through the back hallway. Marks took point in front of him, weapon out, though they were relying on Haven’s information.

  We’re coming, Donna.

  Noah knew as soon as the gun went off that he was in trouble. For some reason he hadn’t expected a weapon, and that was his potentially fatal miscalculation. If Raine could surprise him the way she had, he should have expected another woman to be able to fire a gun. Negligence on his part. He went down hard, plowing through several of the Delta Force behind him.

  The feeling of the percussive blast hitting his chest was hauntingly familiar to him, and he had a moment of regret. He’d told Raine he was bulletproof and now she was going to see that he had been wrong. Damn it. He didn’t want her having to see whatever he was going to look like.

  For a long moment he couldn’t move or breathe or hear. His ears were screaming with pain, and they took most of his concentration. When he blinked open his eyes, he found one of the grunts that had called him devil dog leaning over top of him. His mouth was moving behind the mic arm of the helmet, but Noah could not hear anything. He lifted his head and looked down himself, preparing for blood. The only blood he saw was what he’d lost when he’d been broadcasting his power, making his nose bleed down his front. The guy leaning over him pointed out two places on the chest plates where the bullets had struck. He would be bruised tomorrow, maybe. Doubtful, actually. The force had been enough to knock him off his feet, but not enough to keep him down. It must have been a smaller caliber weapon, like a 9 mil.

  The guy offered him a hand up and he took it, listing to the side a little. His ears were fucked and his head was swimming. They weren’t just ringing, they were screaming with pain. He felt wetness and realized they were bleeding as well. Fuck, that wasn’t good. He blinked, forcing his attention to the scene in front of him.

  There was a woman who appeared to be in her thirties sitting on the bed, hands bound behind her back. She had blonde hair mussed around her head, and there was a shiner developing over one of her blue eyes. This was the senator’s cheating wife, Victoria. Noah was amazed to see her alive. She had tried to steal one of the vials of drug from her own husband. Since no one had seen her he’d assumed she’d been quietly taken care of.

  She was screaming mad. Her mouth was moving a mile a minute, but he couldn’t hear anything over the screaming echo of the blast. He’d been too close to the gun, probably less than three feet. She’d been coming toward the door when he’d kicked it open. Blinking the pain away, he looked across the room. There was a young girl looking terrified out of her mind. That had to be Lilly. Good. At least one thing had gone right.

  Clark stopped in front of him, mouth moving. Noah shook his head, motioning to his ears. The vertigo surged. “I can’t hear anything.” />
  He had to have ruptured his eardrums. Clark gave him a thumbs ups and motioned for him to stay at the back as they escorted the women into the hallway. Noah knew he was a partial liability at that point, so he shuffled into the middle rear, ready to support either direction. It was a struggle putting one foot in front of the other, flat and steady. His balance suffered from his ears being knocked out and he wondered if his hearing would come back. Noah had been in firefights before, but he’d never lost his hearing this way. Some loud sharp noises had caused pain and ringing. The only difference this time was that he’d been so close to the blast. Even when he went to the range he made sure to double up on his noise cancelling equipment, with silicone plugs in his canals and headphones over the ears.

  Men shifted in front of him suddenly and weapons fired. One of the team grabbed the girl and spun into a room with her. Noah looked for cover but they were in a fairly exposed area. Clark was firing his weapon down the hall, all thoughts of stealth going through the window. They should have known that the two gunshots would have resounded through the mansion. Noah got jerked into a room and went down on one knee before recovering and surging to his feet, weapon up, aimed at the door.

  It was so incredible because there was a lot going on, but he couldn’t distinguish anything from the whistling in his ears. They backed into the room looking for more cover, but it was a damn bedroom. Hiding behind a mattress wasn’t going to do a lot of good. One of the team moved to the window, then shook his head. Noah thought he saw him say bars on the windows. They were cornered.

  Raine’s heart was going to pound out of her chest, and she hadn’t even done anything yet. After she’d heard the man down call, she’d waited to hear Noah’s voice, but she hadn’t. And she hadn’t heard identification of the one that had been shot. The Delta Force had a medic with them, she thought.

  Green nodded his head and the sprinter van took off. Raine held onto the little jump seat beneath her butt and tried to stay out of the way of the CIA people across from her. They were ready to storm the gates if they needed to, decked out on almost as much military gear as the Delta Force had been. The van lurched to a stop a few seconds later and the spooks jumped out of the back, lunging toward the gate. The guards there were surprised but they immediately began to fight back. Bullets whined through the air and she heard the van get struck several times. Curling over she hugged her knees as she went to the floor, trying to be the smallest target she could be.

  Eventually the gunfire stopped and she lifted her head. The window that had been behind her back had shattered, showering glass over top of her. Moving very carefully, she stood up, shaking glass off her head and out of her braid. Then she peered through the shattered window.

  There were spooks injured on the ground, as well as the front gate guards. It looked like the CIA team had prevailed, though. Grabbing her pack, she lurched out of the van to see who needed help.

  There were mostly flesh wounds, although one man had a bullet through the thigh that would require immediate surgery. It had struck his thigh bone, sending bone chunks through the soft tissue. “This man needs a hospital,” she told Green. He was loaded onto the van as she moved to check the others. The gate guards were all dead, with bullets through their heads. She looked at Green, a chill rolling over her. He shrugged at her look and gave her a small smile.

  “Don’t have to worry about them now.”

  They loaded back up into the vans and raced down the driveway to the house.

  Raine wanted to run inside the mansion and look for Noah, but she knew she needed to wait. If someone was hurt, they would get her there as soon as possible. So, she held her seat, praying as most of the people in the vans disembarked. There was more gunfire inside the house and she gritted her teeth, wanting to be there yet not. She counted rounds as she waited. Twenty-five, fifty, seventy… she lost track.

  The CIA team had moved through the front door, stepping over those already disabled. She watched through one of the windows as the team moved in and eventually escorted the ones they’d been fighting out, wrists bound. One of the CIA agents ran to the van and opened the door for her.

  “Come this way.”

  Raine scrambled out of the van and followed the woman at a jog, skirting people, her backpack thumping against her back. The woman led her inside the main entrance of the mansion and then inside an ornate office. There were two men laying on the expensive looking oriental rug, neither of which was Noah. Both men had been shot, and neither was wearing body armor. She went to the obvious chest wound first, the blood flowing heavy and thick. She knew within just a moment that there was no saving this man. Even if an operating room was right next door, it wouldn’t matter. He appeared to have been shot through the heart. Even as she tried to run his vitals, he passed away.

  Biting her lip, she turned to the other man. This one she could save, even though he had two wounds, one on the upper thigh and the other through the opposite shoulder. Nothing vital was hit, so she bandaged him up and prepared him for transport. Her eyes scanned her surroundings constantly, looking for Noah. Then she saw him, coming down the stairs as she left the office. Something was wrong.

  She met him at the base of the stairs as he listed to the side. Grabbing him she tried to guide him to a chair, but he seemed to be pulling against her. “Noah, you need to sit down so I can check you out,” she hissed.

  “I don’t think he can hear you,” a man said, jerking a chair toward them. Raine recognized him as one of the men from the Delta Force. “He took two bullets to the chest close range, and I think it fucked up his ears.”

  They got him seated and Raine knelt down in front of him, looking up into his dazed eyes. He blinked at her and gave her a weak smile. “I think my ears are fucked,” he told her, voice a little loud.

  Reaching forward, she unfastened the helmet and drew it from his head carefully. Blood ran from both ears and her heart sank. He’d had no hearing protection in because he’d wanted to be able to help the team. Shifting to each side of his head she called his name, but there was no response. She dug in her bag for her otoscope and turned on the light, fearing what she was about to see. Yeah, it was a bloody mess in there. The right ear might have looked just a hair better, but both membranes appeared to have been ruptured.

  Her throat grew tight at the possible repercussions, but she dragged in a breath and fought off the tears. He did not need that right now. She shifted in front of him again.

  “What do you hear?” She asked, enunciating very carefully.

  “Ringing, like I’m standing underneath an iron bell. Very loud.”

  The pain was there in his face and it was breaking her heart. “Okay, I’m going to give you a shot for the pain.”

  Noah shook his head, then gripped the arms of the chair he was sitting in, face going tight. His eyes began to dart around. “I’m going to be sick,” he warned, lurching to his feet.

  Raine stood up under his armpit, shouldering him toward a door a few feet away. They stumbled into the bathroom and he retched into the toilet. Raine closed the door behind them to give him privacy and snatched a hand towel from the ring. She ran the water until it got hot and wet the towel, then moved to kneel down beside him.

  Noah dropped the lid on the bowl and reached out to flush, then he sank back against the opposite wall. That was when she saw the bullet holes in his vest. It almost made her want to throw up herself. If he hadn’t been wearing that he would be in a much worse position.

  When she lifted her eyes to his, he was watching her. “I’m okay, baby.”

  Those raspy words did make her tear up and she reached out to cup his face. Though he was in a huge amount of pain he was trying to reassure her. Shaking her head, she looked down at his chest. “Bulletproof,” she mouthed, and he grinned, winking at her with one leonine eye.

  Raine could see the pain in his face, though. His normally rich dark skin seemed... pale, almost. There was a pallor that spoke more to her of the pain he had to
be in. And his eyes seemed a little glassy. She had a feeling that if she took the vest off he would be seriously bruised there, as well. Using the cloth, she wiped his face and tried to clean the exterior of his ears. They were still bleeding, though. She readied a shot of morphine. It would ease the pain but nothing could be done about his blown eardrums or his equilibrium. At least not until he’d seen Elizabeth or a specialist.

  “Ready to go,” she asked him, nodding toward the door.

  Noah used the toilet to push to his feet, but Raine stayed close. Opening the door, he paused for a second before he left the bathroom, turning toward the front door. Raine was right behind him until she saw a flash of movement out of the corner of her eye.

  That was when she was grabbed and yanked off her feet.

  Chapter 12

  Haven remembered seeing this part of the apartment, but they needed to know that Team One had gotten in the front door before they moved deeper in. They didn’t need anything to bungle this. It was going to be harder than hell getting the senator in front of a court anyway. Rose had been told that they needed to get into the apartment, confront the senator and strip him of every piece of jewelry before he had a chance to do anything. If that collar around Belladonna’s neck was filled with some kind of medicine to take her down, it needed to be off. Period.

  “Team Two is in.”

  Haven heard movement at the front of the apartment and a few raised voices, but it was not distinct enough to hear the words. They needed to get in there and locate the targets.

  “Team One is in.”

  Haven couldn’t believe how much had changed over the past few hours. He hadn’t been this clear-headed for at least two years. Belladonna had changed something in his brain and it was like a door had been opened, letting in the sunlight and air.