Chapter 19 #2
Buck surged forward a second later, smashing the guy’s head into the wall again, before getting behind him, forearm cinched under his chin, the other across the back of his neck. He squeezed, arching backward to get more torque, blood dripping down the side of his face.
The merc thrashed, landing a few hits to Buck’s ribs, probably making everything tilt, as Tierney joined in the fight, landing a hard cross to the man’s jaw. He twitched, eyes rolling back, body going slack before Buck released him, let him crumple onto the floor with a firm thud.
Tierney grabbed Buck, helped him regain his balance as he blinked a few times, bracing his weight on the wall. “Jesus, are you okay?”
He checked the guy’s biometric transmitter, kicked him when it pulsed green. “My pride’s hurt more than anything else. I didn’t even see him.”
“It’s pitch black, and knowing Grieves, they’ve been here all week, which means, they’ve got the advantage. Besides, we won.”
“Winning didn’t used to hurt this much.” He stood, still looking as if he was seeing double. “Let’s just hope the next four are a bit easier because, damn… I’m gonna feel that for a week.”
“Four down.”
“And four left.” He rolled his shoulder, swept his gaze the length of her as he zip-tied the guy to the compressor. “You hurt?”
“Compared to you? I’m aces.” She stepped around him. “I’ll take point.”
She headed off, muscles aching, bruises already blossoming beneath her vest. She checked her watch. Wade should have had at least thirty minutes left, but that was before they’d accelerated the timer.
Guilt flooded her system. The kidnapping, the sick adaptations, the hunt. All because of her.
To prove that, in the end, she hadn’t beaten him.
Buck followed behind her, gait a bit off, but he recovered, guarding her six as they followed the long, tiled corridor toward the central packing floor. Something creaked up ahead, a shadow peeling off the wall beside her a moment later.
She spun, Sig zeroed in on the man slipping out of the darkness only to curse. “Seriously, Nick? I could have killed you.”
Nick stopped an arm’s length away. “Pretty sure you wouldn’t since we’re stuck taking these assholes down without killing them.” He nodded. “Dalton passed along the new… development, and Sloane managed to get a message off to Bodie.” He looked over his shoulder at Buck and winced. “Ouch. You okay?”
“Breathing.” Buck frowned. “I thought you two were going for the main junction box.”
Nick thumbed over his shoulder. “Grieves used a sub-panel so it was harder to trace. Sloane’s cracking it now.”
They crossed the room where Sloane had a panel pried off, a spiderweb of wires crisscrossing the opening. She grabbed her tablet, hard-wired it directly to two of the lines.
The screen flickered, then flashed on, the eerie glow lighting up her face.
She tapped in a line of code, muttering under her breath.
“I can’t bypass any of his tech without blowing the entire power grid, and I can’t promise that won’t trigger some kind of failsafe on Wade’s vest. But I can tap into Grieves’ security feed. ”
She keyed in more code, a grainy, green-tinted image of an external loading bay wavered on the screen.
She cycled through several more before stopping on the camera panning the processing floor they’d been heading toward, waiting until it swung back, caught Wade tied to a chair dead center of the room, a large brick of C4 strapped to his chest.
Buck pointed at the bomb. “Can you zoom in on the timer?”
Sloane hit a few more keys, had the lens zero in on the numbers — ten minutes.
Buck cursed under his breath. “Damn. That’s way less than I was anticipating.”
Tierney pointed to the left side. “I don’t see Grieves anywhere on that floor. Can you pan up?”
Sloane angled the camera toward the roof, stopped. Vaughan Grieves stood on a raised platform positioned above the conveyor belts, fifty feet from Wade, hands casually resting in his pockets.
He checked his watch, grinned, then looked directly at the camera. “I assume you’ve patched into my feed by now. Tick, tock, Tierney. Wade doesn’t have much time left. Just be careful out front. There might be a few surprises for you.”
Nick nudged Sloane. “What’s outside that door.”
Sloane scrolled through more footage, pausing on the feed recording the view outside the processing doors. Nothing but black shadows moved in the tiled antechamber, more dark shapes scattered throughout.
Sloane stopped, reversed the camera. “See that groove in the wall leading down that last corridor to where Grieves is? It’s an old fire suppression door.
Now, my guess is, Grieves has his last four guys waiting to ambush us in that room.
If we can get them to focus on me and Nick, incapacitate them with a couple flash bangs, I can close that door behind you and Buck. ”
Tierney shook her head. “We can’t leave you two to deal with four mercenaries alone.”
Nick scoffed. “Please, that’s nothing. Besides, knowing Dalton, he’ll freaking swoop down and steal the thunder as soon as those grenades go off.”
Tierney stared at the image when Sloane switched back to Grieves, focusing on him, noting the arrogant curve of his jaw, the confident way he lifted his head, shoulders pushed back. He already assumed he’d won.
Tierney looked at Buck, saw the steel-cold determination gleaming in his eyes. Either they were getting Wade back, or none of them were walking out of that cannery alive.
She nodded. “Let’s go get Wade, just… nobody die.”