“All young girls taken away two days ago,” an old man said in broken English. Tall and skinny, he had a nasty bruise covering half his face. “The guard come and take them. Not tell us where they go.”
“Shit,” Jayson muttered. Dylan was going to be devastated. What the hell were they going to do now?
“You help us?” the old man asked, looking up at Jayson and Layla with hope in his watery eyes.
Jayson looked around at the collection of battered and bruised prisoners. There was no way in hell he and Layla could leave them to escape on their own. Getting them out wasn’t going to be easy, though.
He looked at Layla. “We may be able to get them up the stairs, and if we’re lucky, we’ll get them through the building without being seen, but there’s no way in hell we’re getting them over that wall in the courtyard.”
“Crap, you’re right,” she said. “Wait a minute! That big truck we saw at the loading dock has the keys in it. We can use that.”
Jayson grinned. He’d never figured Layla would be so crazy. He liked it.
“You might want to text the guys and let them know about the change in plans,” he said, then added, “but don’t mention anything about Anya, or Dylan will probably come charging in here to look for her himself.”
Getting all twenty-two of the former prisoners upstairs and to the rear of the building was a job and a half, especially since he and Layla had to practically carry some of them up the stairs. His back didn’t enjoy the workout, that was for sure, but that was the least of his problems. Halfway to the loading dock, Layla’s head snapped up. Handing off the older woman she’d been helping to a younger guy with wild hair, she spun around to face the way they’d come, her eyes locked on something behind him. The man Jayson was assisting must have sensed something was wrong because he nodded and hobbled toward freedom on his own. Jayson turned in time to see two militia soldiers round the corner at the end of the hallway. The men stood frozen for about half a second before going for the rifles slung across their shoulders.
Jayson pulled his P-96 and put two rounds through the center of the first soldier’s chest. He was just about to do the same to the second one when that guy went down thanks to a single round Layla fired.
“Get everyone to the truck!” he shouted at her, not caring about anyone hearing him now. “I’ll give you time, but move fast.”
Layla hesitated for a moment, and he thought for sure she was going to argue, but then she nodded and started herding the freed people down the hallway.
Jayson put his pistol away and pulled the AK-74 off his shoulder. He’d grabbed it praying he wouldn’t need it but was glad as hell now that he had it. He’d barely flipped down the safety lever when three more soldiers came around the corner. They took one look at their friends on the floor, then at him, and immediately dived for cover. Jayson popped a few rounds in their direction anyway, just to keep their heads down. Weapon trained on the now-empty hallway, he backed slowly toward the loading dock, keeping one eye on the progress Layla was making with the captives and the other out for more soldiers coming his way.
He did everything he could to slow down the ones who came running to investigate all the shooting. He hit a couple of them but was damn lucky not to get hit himself. There were too many shooting at him now.
“We’re in!” Layla yelled from behind him. “Let’s go!”
He fired off the rest of the magazine at the remaining soldiers, pitched a hand grenade down the hall, then turned and hauled ass. The grenade slowed the bad guys down a little bit, but the moment the frag stopped falling, they were up and coming at him like a bunch of berserkers.
Jayson reached the big storeroom just inside the loading dock before they did, but they were mere seconds behind him. If he jumped in the truck with that many people on his ass, they’d blaze away at the canvas-sided vehicle like it was a game at the carnival. He and Layla might make it, but anyone in the back of the truck would be as good as dead. He needed to slow them down. Tossing the other grenade at them would do it—at least for a couple seconds—but as he ran through the storage room, he got a better idea.
Skidding to a stop beside a pallet of small arms ammo, he shoved the boxes around until he created a hole in the middle of the stack.
“Let’s go!” Layla called over the racing engine of the big truck.
“Coming, dear!”
Yanking the pin on the grenade, he stuffed it into the hole he’d made, then ran as fast as he could for the door, ignoring the soldiers shooting at him from the hallway, the pain in his back and leg, and the knowledge that he probably only had about four seconds to reach the truck before the whole storage room and loading dock area turned into one big Fourth of July demonstration.
“Go!” he shouted to Layla as he jumped in the front seat.
She took off, working the gears on the truck like a pro. They made it ten feet from the dock before the grenade went off. It was followed by hundreds of smaller pops as the pallet of rifle rounds caught on fire and started to go off like popcorn on crack.
Layla had the big truck doing almost thirty miles an hour by the time she steered it around the northeast corner of the building. Flooring it, she smashed through the heavy gates, then turned east and headed away from the RSA building.
Jayson chuckled, unable to help himself. He’d almost forgotten how much fun shit like this could be.
Layla tossed him her cell phone. “Think you can stop laughing long enough to get Mikhail on the line? See if he knows a place we can ditch the truck and get the prisoners some help.”
Still grinning, Jayson poked the buttons on the phone as Layla drove the big truck through the nearly deserted streets. As he waited for Mikhail to answer, his thoughts turned to Dylan and what the hell he was going to tell him. That put a crimp in his good mood damn fast.
Chapter 9
Dreya downed her second shot of tequila since commandeering a stool in the mostly deserted bar in the heart of Foggy Bottom. She wasn’t surprised it was so empty. It might be a weekend, but it was also after three in the morning. Technically, the place was supposed to be closed, but there were still a few diehard partiers hanging around, and the guy who ran the place—Kincaid—certainly wasn’t going to kick anyone out. Not while he was still making money. At least until the cops showed up and made him.
That was okay with her. She certainly wasn’t going anywhere. Why go home when she knew there was no way in hell she’d be able to sleep? Hell, after what had happened tonight, she might never sleep again.
