Chapter Eleven
Well, shit. Josh didn’t know how he was going to shift with his mate in the room. Was now the time to tell her? He had to do something. His guys should be shifted, out the window, and hiding in the night, waiting for his signal. He scanned the camera angles to see where the four guards outside currently were.
He almost laughed. All four were toward the front, watching Frank’s ex-girlfriend do her thing. He was surprised at how undisciplined the men were. But the men inside were the same, having everyday conversations over pizza and beer. Something wasn’t right. But he’d worry about that later after the hostages and his men’s mates were free.
Josh turned to his mate. “Stay here for now. I’ll take care of the guards outside. Then I’ll come back and we’ll figure out where to go from there.”
“You’re going to take on four men armed with ASh guns?” She stood with her fists on her hips. “Are you high? All there is to hide behind are shrubs and some trees that edge the park. And you don’t even have a gun.”
Candy whipped around in the small room and edged her way to a corner locker. With keys from her pocket, she opened a metal cabinet door to reveal an arsenal of weapons. Enough to stage a small army if need be. His mouth fell open. They were beautiful.
She saw his expression and smiled. “Beauts, aren’t they? Never had the opportunity to break them out. What do you need? Let’s get the party started.”
His mouth snapped shut. It was really going to freak her out when he told her he didn’t need anything. On the video monitors, the guards were moving around. The show out front must’ve finished. Shit. “Hold that thought. I’ll be right back. Don’t come outside.” He slipped out the heavy metal exit door into the cool air.
Leaning against the door so his little mate wouldn’t be able to open it, he immediately began stripping and let out a little whistle to his men letting them know the time was close. Calling his wolf forward, he went to all fours then slinked into the trees and bushes separating the National Intelligence Building from the green area behind it.
The four guards had retaken their original positions at the corners of the building. Josh had to time everything correctly for a surprise attack. Sliding with stealth in the darkness, he smelled for his three men. They were spaced around the building, hiding behind the bushes.
Bryon hunched in his wolf form, waiting behind the shrubbery at the back of the building. Of the current shifters in ALFA, Bryon was easiest to spot at night. His multibrown coat was best for desert camouflage. He looked more like a domestic dog than any of the others. Damn monster domestic dog.
Josh whimpered and that told Bryon what the plan was. The agent continued the whimper and crawled through the shrubs, sticking his head and paw out the other side, lying on his stomach. Once he got the attention of the guard, Bryon played the injured puppy, drawing the guy toward them. When the man knelt and reached out to pet Bryon, his wolf sprang forward and snapped his jaws around the human’s neck, then dragged him to the rear of the shrubbery.
It had been a long time since Josh and his men had been able to work as a team. Most assignments required only one, sometimes two, of his men. With them all together, they were unstoppable. Adrenaline pumped through his veins, giving his wolf more strength and his human more clarity of mind for quicker strategizing. They were a force to be reckoned with.
Next was the other man at the back. He’d been on the side of the building when Bryon lured the first one into the bushes. This second guy didn’t even know his comrade was missing. But it didn’t take long for him to notice once he came around the corner.
Bryon shifted into human form then started groaning as if badly hurt. Josh hid in the shadows of the shrubs several feet from Bryon and the dead enemy body. When the guard whispered, Bryon answered in Russian, drawing the guard to them quickly. Bryon scurried to the shadows, out of the immediate sight of the man coming through the bushes to find his deceased buddy.
When the Russian guard knelt to feel for a pulse, Josh sprang forward and took him down in similar fashion. Two down, two to go.
Candy stared at the exterior camera monitors and sat speechless. When Tumbel ran out, she tried to go after the idiot, but he must’ve held the door closed so she couldn’t open it. Fine with her. If the stupid man wanted to commit suicide, so be it. Her emotions went all over the place and her mind argued with her about letting him die. He was cute and she was growing attached to his company, but she wasn’t in love with him.
He was the first man who hadn’t tried to talk down to her. And he had been professional even when she’d been a total bitch to him. Something she was now trying to rectify, even though it was damn hard. But she still didn’t want to see him dead. She’d never know what more time with him would be like. Ugh. She had to stop getting emotional with him. Tumbel wasn’t her boyfriend. Maybe working on serious lust issues . . .
Then one of the guards in the rear of the building moved toward the bushes. She figured Josh had to be hiding there, but she couldn’t imagine what the agent could do. When he fired his weapon, that would draw attention from the others, making it one against three. He couldn’t be that dumb, could he?
She watched as the guard squatted, then a scuffle that she couldn’t really see, and he suddenly slid through the foliage and disappeared from camera view. Not a single shot fired. She jumped to her feet. Wouldn’t she have heard the gunshot outside, considering they weren’t that far from her position? He must’ve had a silencer.
On a monitor below the exterior views, something was happening at the front of the lobby and on the sidewalk just outside the door. Front monitors showed the man with the news truck had the TV camera set up on a tripod and a bright light shined on the news reporter as she talked into a microphone. Fuck! Dubois had told her not to go live. Were they?
She snatched up the TV remote and switched on the twenty-four-inch box to the station matching the call letters on the van outside. Some kind of cop show was playing. One with police or firemen depicting the “real” lives of those who put their lives in danger for others. Except for some of the hot men, she had no interest in seeing Hollywood’s version of what she did for a living.
At least the camera crew hadn’t gone live. Candy glanced at the front monitor angle. The woman outside was handing off the microphone to one of the captors inside the building. The short one, Yulian, stood behind the NIA director still tied to a chair blocking the door from any frontal attack. Guess the Russian was too chickenshit to stand in the clear. Not that anyone was set up to take him down yet. It had been less than an hour since this had all started.
Candy reached out to turn up the volume of the lobby mics, but her eye caught the image in an exterior view of something she was completely at a loss for how to handle. Where the fuck had the panther come from?