Chapter 18
Hayes was distantly aware of someone whispering next to him. An aggressive kind of whisper, like a weird kind of low level shouting. The pissed off tone penetrated his grogginess more than the volume did.
“What if it’s just a tiny bit of—” his boyfriend protested. Hayes hadn’t heard enough of the conversation yet to know what was being discussed, but Beckett was clearly agitated.
“No! No! Dev, I don’t need you to—” Beckett sighed and rubbed at his forehead with his forefinger and thumb. “Okay—yes, I’ll be extra, mega, super, duper careful while placing the loads,” he promised dutifully, as if he was talking to his mother.
Hayes cleared his throat, and Beckett startled, a guilty expression crossing his handsome features.
“Yup, thanks Dev, gotta go, buddy—” he said, quickly ending the call, wearing his most sincere “definitely-innocent-nothing-to-see-here” expression.
“What happened to sleep—and time?” Hayes asked, voice rough from sleep, rubbing his eyes. He didn’t have a clear read on the conversation, but he was 98% sure he wouldn’t be going back to sleep.
“So, you remember when I mentioned throwing the tracker I usually keep in my wallet into that really suspicious-looking truck in the parking garage?”
“You mean the tracker that you absolutely, most definitely did not ever tell me about? Sure, what about it?” Hayes replied, having learned to just—roll with the punches where Beckett was concerned. He had to, for the sake of his sanity, if nothing else.
“Well, the truck’s been parked outside of a factory for the last four hours. Figured we could—” he hesitated, bottom lip caught between his teeth as he thought this through.
“Investigate?” Hayes sighed, resigned to how he’d be spending the rest of his night.
“Exactly,” Beckett agreed, snapping his fingers and adding a bonus of finger guns.
Hayes ran his hands over his face, suppressing the spate of disgruntled curses that so desperately wanted to escape. Instead, he refocused on how he’d been awoken in the first place.
“Why’d you call Devon?” he asked curiously.
“He was our demolitions expert. I wanted to know the approximate amount of C-4 that I might need to blow the lock—”
“Blow the lock? C-4? Where in the hell are we going to get C-4 at 3:00 a.m.?” he asked, this crazy-assed plan of Beckett’s shaping up way too fast for him.
“It’s at the bottom of one of my duffel bags. Have a bunch stashed at my parents’ house for emergencies.”
“You have an emergency stash of C-4?” Hayes asked, clearly sleep-deprived since he knew better than to encourage his partner’s behavior when he began sounding unhinged. Well, more unhinged than usual.
Hayes took a deep breath and cracked his neck. He was stiff and uncomfortable, his body protesting as he stretched slowly. Fuck, he was far too young to feel so damned old.
“Just so I’ve got this straight—you want to go break into a high security vehicle in the middle of the night using an old stash of C-4.”
Beckett gave an affirmative nod.
“Alright then,” Hayes said, scooting to the edge of the bed so he could put his feet down. The hardwood floor was glacier cold, and it sent a shiver running through him.
“That’s all?” Beckett asked, clearly confused.
“If I said no, and that you’re insane, would it stop you?” Hayes asked daringly.
Beckett thought about it for a moment.
“It might delay me for a couple of hours,” he replied, looking thoughtful.
Hayes didn’t bother replying and stood up, desperate for some warm clothing.
Before he could get very far, however, a blanket of warmth fell over him as the nutjob he called his boyfriend draped himself over his back.
He leaned his chin down on Hayes’ shoulder and inhaled deeply, as though grounding himself.
“Thank you,” Beckett whispered in his ear. He lingered for a moment, letting their closeness sink in before pressing a kiss to his cheek.
The armored truck was parked outside of a factory, just as Beckett had said.
Except what Hayes had expected to be an abandoned factory certainly was not, and it was fairly busy even in the pre-dawn hours.
Additionally, it had tight security, complete with a high voltage, 10-foot fence surrounding it.
The faded and dented sign hanging on the fence along the road running in front of it advertised “High Quality Doors and Windows.” But, based on the number of shipments that kept coming in and going out of the place, Hayes was positive the factory was a front for something else.
“That’s a lot of traffic,” Beckett remarked as they watched another truck stop at the front gate waiting to be let in. Hayes supposed they could have attempted to sneak in while the gate was open, but they’d most definitely get caught by the security cameras, if not by the guard.
“Why park it there?” Beckett muttered, as he watched another truck go through the open gate and turn right towards a loading dock. The armored truck they were trying to get to was parked off to the left in a shadowy part of the lot.
“It’s secure,” Hayes hazarded a guess.
“A bit too secure,” Beckett muttered disconsolately.
“Did you really think they’d build that kind of truck only to leave it in an open parking lot accessible to everyone?” Hayes asked with a chuckle.
“As a general rule, I do my best not to think,” Beckett replied absentmindedly as he released his seatbelt while staring hard at something in the rear view mirror.
“What are you doing?” Hayes sighed. There was a tension headache steadily building behind his eyes, and he was pretty sure he was looking directly at the source.
“Going in!” Beckett grinned at him and jumped out of the car.
Hayes groaned loudly, but his boyfriend was already too far away to hear him.
They’d parked in a lot several hundred feet away from the factory entrance.
With no floodlights or streetlights illuminating the area, Beckett was virtually invisible as he crept away from their car.
A buzzing in his back pocket had him reaching for his phone and he tapped the accept icon, amused when he saw Hayes’ name on the screen.
Well, it didn’t show his real name, since he changed Hayes’ name in his contact list frequently.
Today it was “Itty-bitty-sissy-snipey” with four heart emojis.
“Hey,” he whispered, as he crossed the dark parking lot. He stopped by one of the tall concrete pillars at the entrance. The old, rusted-out metal rings hammered into the middle of the pillars once held chains to block the entrance.
“I know C.U.N.T.’s might not like to plan ahead, but SEALS are very particular about attaining an objective through precise maneuvers. Mind sharing with the class what foolassery maneuvers you’re about to attempt so I can at least serve as back up?” Hayes’ extreme irritation was obvious.
“I would, but I’m on a bit of a tight schedule.” Beckett kept the phone pressed to his ear as he jumped into the ditch running along the side of the road, using the cover of darkness to his advantage as he worked his way back to the factory parking lot.
“Beckett!” Hayes hissed angrily as Beckett heard the metallic click of a gun barrel snapping into place.
“Oh, goody! You brought her!” Beckett silently congratulated himself on making the correct assumption that Hayes would have brought his favourite—and illegal—sniper rifle along for the ride.
“I can’t just go around killing people to save your ass!” Hayes growled, even as he positioned himself perfectly in order to cover Beckett’s exceptionally fine ass.
Beckett snorted, because well—
“You’re adjusting the sights on the barrel right now, aren’t you?”
Hayes simply grunted in reply.
It was a sure bet that he’d already set up his sniper rifle, most likely on the hood of their rental car and had—just as Beckett had hoped he would—taken position behind it to cover Beckett as he approached the factory parking lot.
“You won’t need to shoot—just keep your eyes peeled for incoming trucks,” Beckett said.
“Just so you’re aware—this industrial complex was built on an old marsh. There are swamps and mud pits still in the area—would be nice if you didn’t sink into one,” Hayes informed him coolly. “But I’m sure you’ve already factored that into your incredibly brilliant plan.”
“All I heard was the part about the incredibly brilliant plan,” he told his partner, like the little shit he was, even as he advanced a bit more cautiously now. Falling into a swamp or mud pit would definitely not be covert.
His partner muttered something that was probably less than complimentary regarding Beckett’s as-yet-undetermined-plan and then cut the call.
Smiling at Hayes’ typical reactions to his shenanigans in the field, he pocketed his phone, instantly missing ready access to Hayes.
They should have worn the comms system they used when guarding Matthew—fuck.
Slowing as he crept closer to the factory entrance, he could see it was designed well. He could not get past security without being spotted. So, that left him with only one way to get in undetected.
Beckett watched as yet another truck appeared and its turn signal blinked brightly in the darkness.
Once the truck had completed the turn onto the entrance road, he readied himself, waiting until it was nearing the main gate before springing to his feet and crouching at the back of it.
He waited, staying low to the ground to avoid the wide-angle lens of the security gate’s camera.
The driver showed his ID, exchanged greetings with the guard, and then drove slowly through the gates.
Beckett stood up and shuffled along behind it, adopting a haggard, downtrodden expression.
The guard’s booth had a set up that resembled the kind used in collecting highway tolls.
The camera next to the gate was angled upwards to capture the faces of the truck drivers, so Beckett was hoping he was too short to get caught on camera.
The guard spotted him immediately.
“Hey! You’re not—”