Colt sighed. “Except, now, she also has the physical skills—not just the brains. You should have seen her. Standing here, barely conscious, yet, looking as if she’d take us all on. Pulled out a couple of stitches in the process.”
Six grimaced. “How’d the big guy take that?”
“I don’t think I want to repeat what Ice said he’d do to us if we allowed her to pull out any more. For a guy whose nickname is Ice, he sure does get fired up over his patients.”
Cannon nodded. “But, seeing as he’s saved all of us at least once, he’s allowed. You guys have any luck tracking where she’d been stashed?”
Six grunted. “Let’s just say her injuries made it pretty damn easy. Even if we hadn’t had Blade along, the trail was disturbingly clear.”
A loud ringing sounded in Colt’s ears as he stared at Six. “Her blood.”
That’s all he could get out and not shout. Race out the door and hunt the bastards down—intel be damned. He’d once cherished every inch of her body, ran his hands along all that smooth, soft skin. Sure, he might never do that, again, but knowing some fuckhead had damaged her—made her bleed…
Cannon’s hand, again. Stronger than before as it gripped his shoulder. “Stand down, buddy. Now isn’t the time. Let’s just listen to what the team found.”
He nodded, knowing anything he said would come out wrong. Colored by the traitorous feelings whirling inside him. He knew all about strategy. Tactics. And he knew charging in without a plan when lives were on the line was bad enough. A necessity, at times. When they weren’t, it was foolish. The kind of stupidity that got good men killed.
But, damn… His freaking head—the one he’d told himself was thoroughly grounded—didn’t seem to care. Filled his mind with all the ways he could even the score a bit. Leave the same damn marks on their bodies. Which was insane. She’d left him. Made it clear he hadn’t meant as much to her as she did to him. He shouldn’t feel this edgy.
No doubt about it. Love was a bitch.
Six waited, watching him as if he could follow Colt’s internal conversation. And maybe the guy could. Knew everything Colt was thinking the moment it popped into his head.
Thankfully, Six shifted his focus to Cannon. “The trail wove its way through a bunch of alleys, where we found these.” He reached into his pocket. Removed a set of keys. “They were beside a bloody handprint. Ellis must have dropped them when her strength started to give out. I’m thinking she grabbed them during her escape. From there, we continued over to Ninety-Nine, then across the water at Eleventh Avenue. There were cameras covering the bridge. Probably how they knew which way she’d initially headed. Took some time to get the pattern down—avoid getting caught on film. I doubt she had the luxury to do that. When we finally tracked down the correct warehouse, it was deserted.”
Cannon frowned. “Deserted? That was pretty damn quick, even for trained dickbags. Unless…”
Six nodded. “Yeah. They’d left a few…surprises behind. Guess they didn’t plan on us having a guy like Rigs, along. Or Blade.”
The dog yipped, tongue lolling out as he leaned against Rigs’ legs. It was easy to see how devoted the canine was to the man. Though, from where Colt was sitting, it was mutual.
Rigs reached down—gave the brute an affectionate scratch behind his ears. “Blade had a damn field day in there. Should be safe enough, now. But, Christ… If some poor soul had set off even one of those bombs, the chain reaction would have leveled half the damn pier. Whoever’s behind this doesn’t seem to care about collateral damage. Though, they’d done a really good job of rigging it to look like a gas main explosion.”
Cannon tapped a finger against his chin. “So, we’re dealing with pros. Men who have a variety of talents in their ranks. Torture. Explosives. Surveillance. Sounds too organized to bea small-time grievance. Which means Ellis stumbled upon something big enough to put her on a very powerful shit list.”
“Would appear so. And you should know. They used C4.”
Cannon muttered under his breath. “You think these guys are former-military?”
“Could be someone else who bought it on the black market. Or stole it. But my gut’s telling me they’re freaking CIA bastards from their Special Operations Group. Though, I’m not sure why they’d be after one of their own.” Rigs looked over at Colt. “Weareassuming she’s CIA, right?”
At Colt’s sigh, Rigs shoved his hands in his pocket, glancing back at Cannon. “Anyway, we also need to be prepared for the fallout when that warehousedoesn’texplode. They’ll know they were made, and my money’s on them heading back here, first. I have no idea what kind of traffic that place gets, but I wouldn’t plan on more than a few days. Maybe a week.”
“Agreed. Which means we should increase our vigilance, especially when we don’t know who or what we’re dealing with. Though, this is starting to paint a very ugly picture.” Cannon nodded at Rigs. “I’ll leave you to arrange any…security measures you think we might need. Just…keep them non-lethal, Rigs. At least, for now.”
“Buzzkill. I’m going to ask Addison do some digging. See if she can quietly uncover who owns or rents out that warehouse. The ones surrounding it. I’ll also see if she can get her hands on any CCTV footage from the traffic cams. Not sure it’ll be all that helpful, but it can’t hurt.” Rigs held up his hand. “I know. We need to keep this as far away from Ellis’ name as possible. I’m sure Addy can figure something out. Use her position on the bomb squad to run a few checks through the computer.”
“I still can’t believe you talked her into that. Not that I’m complaining. Having all you guys sign up—I’m a damn lucky SOB.” He cocked his head to one side. “Has Addison figured outyour enthusiasm for her new position was just a ploy so you could oversee some of her training? Do some private consulting in order to keep an eye on her? Tag along on some of her calls?”
Rigs grinned. “Do I look like the kind of guy who’d do that?”
“Not at all.” Cannon stood. “I’ll go into the Marshal’s office with Jericho in the morning. See if we can discreetly enquire about Ellis’ whereabouts for the past few years. Between us, we have a few sources that could keep any digging under wraps for a bit. If she’s CIA, there should be a record of it somewhere. Might take a while to get the information, though. And I have a bad feeling time isn’t on our side. I also called Bishop. Asked if he could spare on of his teammates to give us some additional backup. The way this is heading…we might need the extra muscle.”
Colt nodded. “Who’s he sending?”
“Bastard said he could be here in three days. Guess he’s taking it personally. Ellis moved around quite a bit. Gathered intel for a number of different units. Bishop’s Green Beret team was one of them during some joint ventures. He’s a bit…upset someone tried to kill her. He also said he might bring a friend along. We’ll find out once he arrives.”
“Good. We need answers, and channeling some anger might be just the ticket necessary to get them.”
