Page 34 of Hunted in the Silence

“I know you have.” He believed it without question, because he’d dealt with people who thought they knew something, but when push came to shove, they always failed. Brynn wasn’t the same. She could handle high-pressure situations because she’d been in possibly the highest-pressure kind he could imagine and she was still standing. He’d known that about her by the end of the first stakeout. “I’m not second-guessing your capability. I’m managing my own.”

She looked at him for a moment with the quiet attention that always saw more than he intended to show.

“Okay,” she said simply.

They drank their coffee. The street was fully awake around them now, the industrial sector busy, nobody paying attention to two people standing on a corner in the cold morning.

“Dax Mercer is coming in at noon,” Cole said. “I want you there.”

There was a slight shift in Brynn’s expression, like he’d surprised her. “Dax Mercer from BPD?”

“You know him?”

“I know of him. Former military, bomb specialist background, worked the Wheeler case with Quinn Barrett.” She paused on the name for a fraction of a second. “He’s good.”

“He’s very good. And his background is especially useful for what we’re planning. The Harlan building’s rear access and the question of how to handle the padlock quietly enough that we don’t alert whoever’s inside before the front and side teams are in position.” Cole finished his coffee. “That’s his kind of problem.”

“Quiet breach of a padlocked exterior door,” Brynn mused. “Yes. That’s exactly his kind of problem.” She looked down the street toward the Harlan building, now two blocks behind them and invisible from here. “He’ll have a few solutions before you finish explaining it.”

***

Dax Mercer arrived at the field office at eleven fifty-eight, two minutes early. He was exactly what his file suggested and then a little more—the kind of physical presence that registered immediately, over six feet, broad through the shoulders, with a stillness about him that came from military training that had never entirely left. Dark eyes, a scar along his jaw that had faded to silver, and the easy, unhurried manner of someone who’d been in enough genuinely dangerous situations that a meeting in a converted savings and loan barely registered on the scale.

He shook Cole’s hand and looked at Olivia and said, “Delgado. Good to finally put a face to the name. Carson’s told me about you.”

“Hopefully not too much,” Olivia said with a faint smile.

“Enough to know you’re the one actually running this operation.”

Olivia’s expression didn’t change but something in it was satisfied. Cole let it pass.

Dax shook Brynn’s hand last and held it an extra beat, and the directness of it told Cole he knew who she was and what she did and was not going to pretend otherwise. “Brynn Holt. Carson talks about the work you do at the center like it’s something the whole department depends on, which I think means it actually is.”

“Carson is generous,” Brynn said, her cheeks dusting pink.

“Carson is accurate,” Dax said simply. “There’s a difference.” He released her hand and turned to the board, and the pleasantries were over, because that was also the kind of man he was.

Cole walked him through the full scope of their planning. Dax listened without interrupting, his eyes moving between the board and the map and the surveillance photographs spread on the desk. He asked a couple of questions during the briefing, cutting to gaps Cole had already identified as the weak points in the plan.

“The rear padlock,” Cole said. “That’s the first problem. The entry team on the front and side can’t move until the rear is secured, but securing the rear means someone in position there before the approach and they need to cut the lock without—”

“Without the sound carrying inside,” Dax agreed, his mouth set in a grim line. He was looking at the photograph of the rear access. “What’s the lock type?”

Cole slid the clearest photograph toward him. Dax looked at it for a few seconds.

“Heavy-duty shrouded shackle. Commercial grade.” He tapped the photograph. “Standard bolt cutters make noise, you’re right. But there’s a hydraulic cutter that’ll go through that shackle in under two seconds with almost no sound if you brace it right.” He straightened. “I have one in my equipment kit. I’ll handle the rear personally.”

“You’re not on the entry team,” Cole said.

“No. But I can be in position at the rear before your front and side teams move, cut the lock, and signal clear. Then I’m out of the way and you run your operation.” Dax looked at him directly. “The hydraulic cutter is the right tool and I’m the right person to use it. That’s the only reason I’m saying it.”

Cole looked at Olivia. Olivia looked at her screen and said, “He’s not wrong.”

“Right,” Cole said, then looked back at the board and released a breath. “You’re on the rear.”

Dax nodded once and looked back at the board. “Walk me through the internal layout of the building. What do we know?”

“Less than I’d like,” Cole admitted. “Finn’s surveillance gives us the exterior, but we have nothing confirmed on the interior layout.”