I waited until Vinnie disappeared into the darkness before restarting my trek toward the warehouse. Once I reached the building where Patty and his guys were waiting, I ordered Clarke to find someplace high to nest with his sniper rifle. I needed him to be my eyes and ears.
The plan was simple. Sneak into the warehouse, take out anyone we saw, and rescue Cynthia. Unfortunately, plans were just that, plans. They were ideas of what should be done, not necessarily what would be done, especially when we were walking into a place without knowing pretty much everything.
I tapped my earpiece. “Lyn?”
“Copy, Commander.”
“Has there been any movement?”
“No, not since the van arrived at the warehouse.”
“We’re getting ready to breach,” I told him. “Alert me if anything changes.”
I couldn’t help the feeling that something was off about all of this. Yes, Cynthia being the kidnap victim was all sorts of wrong, but something else was nagging at me, and I couldn’t figure out what it was.
Maybe it was the lack of time we’d had to plan this raid that was worrying me. It had been mere hours instead of days. Granted, I had full faith in my men to do their jobs, but there was usually a little more planning involved than we’d had.
“Comm check.” One by one, my men checked in with me, letting me know that they could all hear me loud and clear. “Sam, locate Cynthia and remove her from the premises as quickly as you can. We’ll handle the rest.”
“Copy that, Commander,” Sam replied.
“Clarke, are you in position?”
“Yep. I can see the van and two men playing on their cell phones. Another one is smoking a cigarette as he paces by the side of the van.”
“Any movement inside the van?”
“No,” Clarke replied, “and the van is all closed up. The windows aren’t even down.”
That could be a good thing or a bad thing.
“Once we breach, take out the guy with the cigarette.”
“Copy that, Commander.”
“We go in thirty seconds.” I glanced at my watch. “Mark.”
I glanced up after hearing the echoing replied from my team. We’d been together a long time, and we trained hard. Still, it was gratifying knowing they would follow my commands as soon as they were spoken.
“Burke, you’re with me,” I stated. “The rest of you fan out.”
I glanced at my watch again. As soon as the second hand reached the end of the thirty seconds, I said, “Go!” and moved out.
I quickly crossed the open paved ground to the side of the warehouse. The cold metal of the building felt cold against my back as I flattened myself against it. I waited until Burke was right next to me before making my way to the door. It was a simple blue-colored steel door with no window.
I reached out and tried the door handle. I grew a little concerned when it turned with no problem. This late at night, with a kidnap victim being held inside, you’d think they’d lock the damn door. Either these were the stupidest kidnappers in the world or this was a trap.
Maybe both.
I cracked the door open just a little and then gestured to Burke. The man squatted down and then pulled out a small optical camera on a lead. He carefully inserted it through the crack I’d made. We both glanced at the screen where the video feed of the inside of the building was being played. There wasn’t much to see from this vantage point, but the good news was that there was no one standing by the door.
Burke retracted the camera and put it away, and then both of us drew our guns. I pulled the door open just far enough for me and Burke to slip through and then stepped inside of the building. I immediately moved to the side so that Burke could join me.
There wasn’t a lot of light, but that actually worked in our favor. I was able to move about a quarter of the way across the warehouse before I had to stop and hide behind a steel pillar. The white van was sitting smack-dab in the center of the building. The three men that Lyn had seen were now standing at the side of the van discussing something too low for me to hear.
I gestured to Burke, who was standing behind another steel pillar, and then tapped my earpiece three times. My men were trained well enough to know what I wanted. I glanced down at my watch. The moment thirty seconds had gone by again, I zipped around the pillar and started for the three men.
“Police!” I shouted loudly. “Lay your weapons down and get on your knees. Lock your fingers behind your head.”
