Chapter 36 Kyle
KYLE
Six minutes after running from the building, I spotted Bella on the trail. As she barreled toward me, I saw a folded piece of paper stuck under her collar.
“A note!” I yelled. “She has a note.”
The rest of the team went quiet and waited for more information.
Bella screeched to a halt in front of me, her back end wagging wildly. “Good girl!” I told her. “Good, good girl!”
She leapt and yelped with delight. It took a few seconds to calm her enough to follow the sit command so I could detach the note. I unfolded it to see Cami’s handwriting. She’d been shaking when she’d written it. Scared. My anger and fear spiked. I forced myself to remain calm for her sake.
There were a series of words and letters. It made no sense. I took Deep breaths. Forced myself to be calm. Focused.
I read it out loud, deciphering it. “SR here. That’s no surprise. Explosive. Hostage. That explains the woman we saw. G D D C. I don’t know.”
Lang’s chopper engine hummed in the distance, drawing closer. I petted Bella’s back, then held her collar. “Easy, girl. It’s going to get noisy.”
Still staring at the note, I repeated the letters. “G D D C. Initials! Gina, Darla, Doc, Cami. The four of them are in the building.”
Lang stopped several feet away from us. Bella and I ran over to him.
He held onto her while I unstrapped a helmet and bullet-proof vest from the bike and put them on, matching him.
The gear was for protection in case Riker was stationed on the roof or aiming out a window, taking pot shots.
Everything else we would need to breach the building and take him down would be in the HEAT van that would meet us at the scene.
I picked up Bella and held her to my chest with one arm, shielding her, while grabbing onto Lang’s shoulder with the other.
Lang proceeded more slowly than he’d arrived, but it was still precarious as hell and I barely stayed on the bike a few times when we hit serious bumps.
Bella squirmed, but she didn’t try to jump.
When we arrived at the edge of the woods, Lang parked the bike and we snuck around the perimeter. No sign of Riker yet, but we didn’t want him to announce himself with gunfire.
The black HEAT van rolled into the parking lot as we reached the tree cover near the front of the building.
We made a run for it, happily not dodging bullets along the way.
The van’s back doors swung open on our approach.
I loaded in Bella first, and Wheeler snapped a leash on her and tied it to the leg of the mobile command center computer desk.
Lang and I climbed in behind her, and took the holsters and weapons Hayes handed us and strapped them to our bodies.
Kat, Pasco, and Bond were also in the van, and they slid into the back with us while we prepped.
Pasco, who hadn’t taken his eyes or hands off his laptop, now set it on the desk and continued working.
X was still at HQ, which was protocol. In the grand scheme of things, she was too important to risk on any one operation.
Within seconds, Pasco announced, “We’re close enough to the building. I’m re-engaging the security system. I’ll have to go camera by camera.”
Large monitors mounted to the van walls jumped to life. Room by room, the interior of the clinic appeared.
“Receptionist and hostage accounted for,” Lang said. “They’re sitting in the lobby. They appear to be zip-tied.”
“I’ve opened the cipher lock on the front door,” Pasco said, “but there’s also a deadbolt.” He pointed to a spot on the screen. “You can see it’s engaged.”
“We can breach it, no problem,” Wheeler said.
“Too noisy,” Lang and I said at the same time.
“The back door is unlocked,” Pasco said. “I can’t visually confirm whether there’s a barrier.”
“We’ll try going in that way,” Lang said. “Breaking down a door will be our last resort. Now we need to figure out where—"
“There they are, Cami and Gina.” I pointed to the feed that had just popped up. They were in the OR, dressed for surgery. I sucked in my breath. “Riker’s with them. He has a handgun. Impossible to identify the make.”
“Can you make a positive ID on the women?” X asked. “Their faces are obscured.”
“I’d know Cami anywhere.” I didn’t care to elaborate. “And the height and stance of the other woman indicates it’s Gina.”
“The dog on the table is the one Riker ran with Saturday night,” Wheeler said. “At least we know he’s still alive.”
“Let’s keep everyone alive,” Kat said. “We need to assume that handgun is loaded, deadly, and capable of rapid fire. Hang back until Hayes or Wheeler have a clean—What’s that shadow in the hallway?” She leaned closer to the screen, then groaned.
“Doctor Kramer,” I said. “He must have been in his office. Why the hell didn’t he stay there?”
“Rogers and I will extract him while tactical get sights on Riker,” Lang said.
“I don’t like it, but I don’t see a choice.” Kat nodded. “That’s an affirmative, Lang. Pasco, do we have full visuals yet?”
“There’s one more camera in the hallway. There it is. We have all the visuals we’re going to get.” Pasco handed Lang a tablet, which displayed the same feeds on a much smaller display. Lang tucked it under his vest.
Kat gave the command. “Tactical and logistics, it’s go-time.”
One by one, the four of us jumped out of the van. With cameras on Riker and no concern about taking fire, we raced through the parking lot to the back of the building at a flat-out run. At the door, we lined up with Hayes, then Wheeler, in the lead.
Hayes tested the doorknob. “No deadbolt,” he said. He twisted it farther.
“Stop,” Kat said. “Doctor Kramer has reached the OR. Damn it. Riker has him.”
“The number of hostages won’t matter if tactical gets off a clean shot,” I said.
We all nodded, Kat verbally confirmed, and we stepped into the building. We switched to hand-signal communication. Lang pulled out the tablet, and Wheeler and Hayes glanced at it. Then Hayes crept farther down the hall, and he and Wheeler took positions on either side of the partially open OR door.
Shooting through the glass window of the door was too dangerous because the deflection could send the bullet—or in this case, the tranq dart—into the wrong person.
Our projectile of choice meant an innocent bystander wouldn’t be killed by our shots, but the wrong hit would tip off Riker, who in turn could open fire.
Hayes and Wheeler would have to sight him, get a feel for where to aim as they entered the room, then throw open the door and take him down.
It was the best option in a worst-case situation. And I fucking hated it.