Damien Freihof was going down today. He would never hurt anyone else again; these agents were going to make sure of it.
Ren just prayed it was in time to save Natalie. That she—who had suffered the most at Freihof’s hands already—would not be his last victim.
Before they could home in on an exact location, the tracker began moving again. A few minutes later it stopped again. And stayed stopped this time. When Ren realized where it was he cursed out loud.
“What?” Ashton said.
“They’re at city hall.”
“Why would he go there?”
Ren grimaced. “That’s where he and Natalie got married nearly ten years ago.” He called Steve and put it on speakerphone.
“The tracker stopped at city hall. I think Freihof is trying to make some sort of sick romantic gesture, marry Natalie again.”
Over Ren’s dead body.
“How far out are you?” Steve asked.
“Maybe six minutes,” Ashton responded, never letting up on the speed.
“Okay, we’re right behind you. Everybody get your comm units on, channel one.”
“Steve.” Ren couldn’t hide the desperation in his voice. “He’s not going to let her go willingly. If we go barreling in there, we might get Freihof, but we’ll lose Natalie.”
“That’s not going to happen. Neither the barreling nor the losing Natalie. Ashton, city hall probably isn’t going to have a lot of windows, but see if you can find a vantage point on a neighboring roof once we know what room they’re in, in case it comes down to a long-distance shot.”
“Roger that, boss.”
“We’ll get Lillian up in an air duct,” Steve continued. “Nobody ever expects the ass-kicking midget dropping out of the ceiling.”
In the background, Ren could hear Lillian’s choice words at that description.
“We’ve got Roman and Derek coming with heavier firearms and expertise on explosives. And even Joe Matarazzo, just in case negotiations will help.”
In other words, the entire Omega team.
A few minutes later, they were pulling up in front of city hall. Steve was still giving out orders as to who would handle what, since a priority would be clearing the building as much as possible before anything went down.
This was Steve’s team. Ren may have been the one who originally created Omega Sector, but Steve had turned the Critical Response Division into a well-oiled machine.
“She’s in an office in the southwest corner of the building,” Ren said, reading the information from the tracker into the comm unit.
“According to building plans,” Derek spoke from the helicopter, “that’s the wedding licensing section.”
Ashton grabbed his sharpshooter rifle and sprinted toward the roof of the building next door.
Ren waited for the rest to arrive, ushering civilians out and away from the outside of the building. It went against his every instinct not to burst in on his own. But Steve was right; if there was anything that Freihof had taught Omega Sector in his attacks over the past few months it was that their greatest strengths were in how they worked together.
Within a few minutes the rest of the team was there, moving into position with a silent nod at Ren. Immediately, they began to get as many people out of the building as possible. Local police were showing up to help, setting up barricades. Seeing the team, how capable and functional they all were, Ren had his first sense of true hope.
Until Ashton spoke into the comm unit from his spot on the roof.
“Uh, guys, I’ve got eyes on Freihof and we’ve got some bad news. He has a pressure switch in his hand. If I take a shot, whatever he’s rigged to explode is going with him. And given that he has multiple canisters of that biological contaminant, I’m going to assume that’s what he has planned to go.”
Ren cursed under his breath. “Is Natalie okay?”
“Natalie’s not with him at all.”
