“Hey,chica.” One of the guards smiled evilly as he looked down at her. “You know what I got for you?” He grabbed his crotched and lewdly humped his hand, then laughed maniacally. Shana glanced away, the bile rising in her throat.
She clamped down on a surge of fear and tried to shift away from him on the concrete floor. Her eyes widened at the sight of a man behind him in the shadows. He was dressed in camouflage gear, brawny and hard muscled, his face streaked with black paint the color of his hair.
He raised a finger to his lips as he swiftly closed the distance between him and the other man. A hard arm wrapped around the guard’s neck, and though the man struggled and squirmed, his cry for help never escaped and in seconds he lay unconscious on the floor.
Her gaze shot to another man, moving silently toward the second guard, a man she recognized even through the black greasepaint as Jason Maddox. The second guard opened his mouth to shout a warning, but the flash of silver as a knife sliced through his windpipe and silenced his cry for help.
Shana closed her eyes to block the gristly image as Maddox wiped the bloody blade on his camo pants, then used it to cut through the nylon ties on her wrists and legs. He grabbed her arm to help her up from the floor, and she caught a glimpse of the man he had come with, who seemed to have magically appeared behind the guard at the window.
There was a brief struggle before the guard slumped silently onto the floor.
“Can you walk?” Maddox asked.
Shana nodded but when she started forward, her knees buckled. Before she hit the floor, she was hoisted up on Maddox’s powerful shoulder and he was striding across the warehouse toward a narrow back door.
“Three interior guards down,” Maddox said. Shana noticed a device in his ear. “Package secure. Exiting building now.”
As they stepped outside, Shana took a deep breath of the clean, unfettered air. She was safe. But a deep fear surfaced for Harper.
Chase kept his eye on the silver Mercedes idling just outside the gate, ready to make its escape. Montoya’s men slowly approached, eight from the warehouse, two from the loading dock, one standing guard beside the front door. Three men were armed with assault rifles, the rest carried handguns, two with bandoliers of bullets strapped across their chests.
Sixteen men in total. Montoya had sent a virtual army to capture his prey.
But five had already been dealt with. That made the odds, counting Winston’s men, a little more than two to one. With Hawk and Ryker on his side, Chase would take those odds any day of the week.
Crouching out of sight behind the concrete-block wall, he watched Montoya’s men spread out to surround the car as it idled at the gate to the warehouse. It was time for Harper to move, and as more seconds ticked past, tension settled deep inside him.
The men were closing in on the Mercedes when someone shouted a warning.
“¡Es una trampa! ¡Una trampa!It’s a trap!”
“Go, Harper!” Chase’s shouted into Harper’s earbud, but the Mercedes was already reversing, engine racing, Harper looking over her shoulder as she steered the car at breakneck speed.
Gunfire erupted. Winston’s man on each side of the warehouse started firing, a barrage of bullets pounding into the sea of gangbangers. The bangers returned fire, dispersing like a cluster of ants madly running for cover. Chase caught a glimpse of Ryker firing from behind a parked truck, while Maddox protected Shana somewhere out of sight.
Chase fired off a string of bullets, taking out a man at the front of the Mercedes, bullets pinging off the grille, one drilling into the hood, one smashing through the passenger side of the windshield.
“Keep your head down, Harper!” Chase shouted, hoping she could hear him over the roar of gunfire. She ducked but kept her foot on the gas and the car racing backward. She hit the brakes when a black pickup burst out of nowhere and roared up behind the car, blocking her escape.
Chase ran toward the Mercedes as both pickup doors flew open and two men leaped out, one firing an automatic rifle, the other firing a pistol. Chase aimed at the bigger threat, taking out the man with the assault rifle, then swinging the Nighthawk toward the second man, firing a center shot double tap that sent the guy flying backward across the asphalt, clutching the wounds in his chest.
Chase kept running toward the Mercedes, both hands wrapped around the pistol, holding the two men at gunpoint, kicking their pistols out of reach. Neither man moved. Chase’s chest throbbed, but the adrenaline rush dulled the pain.
The gunfire in front of the warehouse grew more and more sporadic, until there was nothing but silence.
Maddox’s voice came over the earbuds. “Situation under control.”
“Copy that,” Chase said.
One of Winston’s men spoke up, and Chase pressed on his earbud to hear him. “One of us is wounded. We’re leaving.”
“Copy,” Chase said. “Thanks for the help.” The deal was Winston’s men would not be involved in any way. They would exit the scene as soon as the mission was complete, leaving Chase, Maddox and Ryker to deal with the police.
Which was just about to happen.Right on time, he thought, hearing sirens screaming toward them in the distance. Red and blue lights flashed as a dozen patrol cars and unmarked vehicles roared up to the warehouse from every direction.
Wishing he had time to speak to Harper, Chase set his pistol on the ground and raised his hands. Harper got out of the Mercedes and lifted her hands into the air. Chase felt a sweep of relief as Special Agent Zach Tanner emerged from one of the unmarked vehicles and strode toward him.
With any luck, aside from a helluva lot of paperwork, the immediate threat was over. Unfortunately, before Harper was truly safe, they still had to find a way to deal with Luis Montoya.
