Chapter 26
Reese directed yet another grunt to their CO. She didn’t understand were the breakdown in communication was. Her message that Rycker had pushed out to everyone after breakfast had been clear. Report your issues to your commanding officer, and they would report to her. She didn’t have time to listen to everyone’s petty bullshit and opinions. Hell, it wasn’t even a new idea. It was how Ozzy had always run things. She scooped up an armload of files and took the private elevator down to see if Ry could give her a hand with scanning them in, because typing it all in was getting on her nerves.
She stepped out of the elevator and let her eyes scan over the information scribbled on the top file in her father’s handwriting. She didn’t look up or slow when she neared Ry’s door, nor was she surprised when it opened on its own. Arching a brow at a not exactly nice note about something she’d done, she looked up and nodded when Ryker turned his chair toward her. “I need your help with something, or if you’re busy, I need to borrow some equipment.” Her eyes traveled to the wall of monitors and her brow furrowed. “What’s this?”
Rycker rocked in the office chair, his finger steepled together and tapping against his bottom lip. “I was just going to call you about it. What’s that?”
“Ozzy’s files, I need to scan them into the database. You’re turn. What’s the yellow spot?” She saw the different colored lines that seemed to be moving over the map in a time-lapse pattern. She didn’t need to know what each signified, to know it was important if Ry was tracking it.
“That’s the land you bought last year.” Rycker watched her, smiling as he saw her piecing shit together without him having to explain. Reese was sharp and didn’t waste time on unnecessary bullshit. It was one of the things he liked about her.
Her brow arched as she turned her eyes to him, a smile playing at the corners of her mouth. “I smell a mission coming on.”
Rycker couldn’t help but chuckle when the old spark lit her eyes. It had been gone for too long. “Tell me what you know about it, Boss Lady, and I’ll have the intel ready for the others when you say the word go.”
Reese dropped the files on a table and slid her ass onto a naked corner of his desk and told him about running into an invisible barrier, breaking through that and finding the barbed wire, and the army of jackals protecting the interior. “That’s about it.”
His fingers flew over the keyboard, and schematics began to appear, built on her descriptions. It wasn’t ideal, but they weren’t going in completely blind either. They’d gone into places with less. “Who are you sending?”
“Me.” She smiled.
His fingers froze, and his cool blue eyes rolled up to meet hers. “You sure that’s the best course of action?”
Reese nodded. “I know more about the layout than anyone else and I’ve broken through their defenses before. Like it or not, I’m the best shot we’ve got.”
Rycker wanted to argue that point, but she was right. “What if it goes bad?”
“Blade is next in line, after him, you’re my go-to. Sorry, Ry.” She laughed at the look of disgust on his face.
“When do you want to go?” Rycker shook his head, because him being added to that list was straight up bull shit.
“We go in twenty.” She got up and looked at her phone when it beeped. “I’ve offered our cooperation to the Mangus Prowl concerning Morgan’s recovery. Help if you can, but remember, Damion has no authority here.” She smiled tightly when he nodded.
“You’re not waiting for Blade and Mac to get back?”
“How many missions have I lead with neither of them?” Reese crossed her arms over her chest and leveled Rycker with an annoyed glare.
“Thousands,” he admitted grudgingly. “But with all due respect, Boss, you weren’t the Grand Puba then, were you?”
She arched a brow, “And if I die, someone else will take over. No one is irreplaceable, Ry. Not me. Not anyone. Circle of life and all that shit.” Shooting him a look that said more than she had, she stalked away, getting to the door and pushing it open before the snow leopard had a chance to pull his computer Jedi tricks with it.
Growling when she was back in the hall and pulling open the door to the armory, she pressed the mic on her earpiece. Syn, Caleb, Balden and Koen. Suit up and meet me in the firing range in ten.” She eyed the mesh doors that secured in the weapons and supplies, deciding what she’d need. Reese placed her palm over the sensor, waited for the lock to disengage and then pulled it open, to begin strapping on weapons and body armor before flashing to the range to wait.
Caleb was already waiting when she arrived and Syn appeared seconds later.
“What we got?” Balden asked coming in through the door in the back with Koen behind him.
Reese grinned at how natural all of this felt and how bad she’d missed it. “Recon. Ry found us a target. It may be nothing, or it may be ground zero for what’s going on around here.”
Koen rubbed his hands together and smirked. “Back in the saddle again. It feels good.”
“You’re an idiot,” Syn snorted and rolled his eyes.
“But I smell good, just saying,” Koen tossed back with a grin as he double checked his supply of clips and grenades in his pockets.
“I already miss Jacob,” Caleb sighed.
“You have issues, man. Serious couch time would do you good.” Balden smirked.
Reese shook her head at them and pressed the mic button. “Hit us with it Ry,” she said and waited until their phones beeped and the schematic of the grounds as they knew them loaded. “If there’s anything there, they’ll be guarding it, probably in the center or if these bastards hold true to form, underground. We go in, find what we need and get out. Clear?”
“Roger that,” Syn led the grumbles of agreement. “And if we meet hostiles?”
Reese slapped a clip into the butt of her Glock. “Kill them all. SOP. Be careful. They like the booby traps and landmines. Caleb, you steer us clear and I’ll knock down their camo. Balden and Koen take the flanks and Syn cover our asses. Questions?” She looked at each, to be sure they were all on the same page as they shook their heads and double checked their weapons. “The we’re going dark. Mind link only.” She nodded and ghosted to the location.
They appeared in a dense clump of trees and watched what appeared to be an empty field, but Reese knew better. She looked over her shoulder at Caleb who closed his eyes as he scanned the ground for explosives. Her brow arched when his deeply tanned skin turned a little pale. She narrowed her eyes and locked them with his when they finally opened.
Koen’s snort, pulled her attention away from the demon and she followed his brown eyed to what he was staring at. Dozens of landmines began pushing through the beaten down earth and yellowing grass to reflect weakly in the dim light. She looked up at the sky when a raindrop hit her face and rolled down her cheek.
Syn, turned his back to hers, lifted his weapon and scanned the trees around them for movement. It was creepy as fuck. Nothing moved or made a sound other than the rain falling harder on the leaves above them. Reese held up her hands and pushed the power her father had given her toward the space she knew the stone wall was hidden. Moving her lips silently she repeated the chant that she’d used last time and knew it was working when she heard Bladen’s chuckle as he pealed of his black calfskin gloved and tucked them into one of the many pockets that lined the legs of his camo fatigues.
Reese held up her hand and gave the signal to move out before ghosting to the shadows near the base of the twelve-foot wall. Turning to see Bladen and Koen take their positions at the far corners where the wall turned to box in whatever was inside, she nodded and ghosted inside to find more mines rising to the sit on the ground like a twisted Easter egg hunt. Nothing moved. Not even the air and it make the hair on the back of her neck raise. ‘Clear,’ she mindlinked her crew, and eyed the giant hatch cover that sat at the center and ducked behind one of the many piled crates that littered the open space.
She groaned silently. Reese didn’t like it. Why was it always underground for fuck sake? Only one way in was a fool’s bet and it left Syn exposed. That wasn’t acceptable. She double checked the camera strapped to her chest that fed everything she saw to Rycker was operational and bent her elbows holing her gun tucked close to her face as she edged around the crate, keeping her back flush against it and peered around the edge of the woof to survey the scene.
Bladen and Koen appeared at her side behind similar stacks of sun-bleached wooden crates on either side of her. Nodding, she shook the pack from her shoulder knelt to drop it on the ground beside her feet. Pulling the zipper and flinching at the sound, she unpacked her recon kit. Pinching one of the pencil eraser sized cameras between her fingers she pealed a dot of Dane’s special putty from the sheet, kneaded it between her fingers and inserted the camera’s hair thin wire into it.
Glancing up, to be sure the coast was clear, she flicked the switch to arm and activate the feed before carefully reaching around the front of the crates to secure the IED. She could do this in her sleep and the double blip in her earpiece told her that Rycker had it online. Lifting her arm, she held up her index finger and moved it in a circle, signaling that one was in place and the others should begin placing theirs.
She looked over her shoulder at the wall, seeing the dark mist drift along the top. She never got used to seeing Caleb do that, but it came in handy at times like this. When they had eyes on the hatch from every possible direction, Reese shouldered her pack and couched as she ran for the massive metal bomb shelter lid. Reaching for it, she spun when something grabbed her wrist, shoving her Glock into Caleb’s face.
Smirking, he shook his head and made a fist with his hand, opening his fingers and mouthing the word, Boom.
She nodded and backed away, even though she was cursing a steady stream inside her head. If there was no way in it was time to go. Reese signaled and returned to the cover of the trees. Syn turned, training his rifle on them and arched a questioning brow.
Reese shook her head no.
‘Sewer pipe on the north wall?” Syn linked them and grinned.
He made a face, but nodded. The faces around her told her that no one was happy with their point of entry. Sticking with the cover of the trees until they reached the foul stench of untreated waste, they moved slowly. Caleb scanned the opening and nodded that it was clear. As a unit they ghosted to the opening. Caleb misted inside and within seconds the heavy grate that covered the cement pipe tipped toward them. Balden and Koen caught it, and rolled it to the side as Syn covered their six and Reese ducked inside, wincing at the sound of her boots echoing down the pipe. When Koen and Balden joined her, the moved forward in the pitch black, only the Djinn needing to dawn his night vision goggles.
Reese stopped when the tunnel ended and branched left and right. She nodded to Koen and Balden toward the left as she began down the one on the right with Caleb behind her. Syn stayed at the split to cover their backs. She sneered as a rat the size of a chihuahua stopped to sniff her boot and pushed it away gently arching a brow at light spilling through the ceiling in the distance. She picked up the pace to a jog until they reached the pool of light Tilting her head back, she signaled for Caleb to mist through.
The square grate was pulled away and replaced with his tattooed arm reaching down to give her a hand up. Gripping his forearm, Reese let him pull her through and crouched beside him on tiled floor in a huge cavernous room. Dropping her bag again, she readied more mini GoPros and pressed them into cracks in the basalt walls as the moved deeper inside the fortress.
She arched a questioning brow when Caleb stopped and stared at the wall, only understanding why when he touched it and the rock rippled. ‘Can you go through?’ she linked him.
Caleb nodded, not liking this development at all. He knew where this went and there was nothing good about it.
‘Can I?’ Reese reached for it to have her wrist grabbed again. She fucking hated when he did that, it was the equivalent of having her hand slapped.
‘You might not be able to come back,’ he linked her.
Well, fuck, she thought to herself and stuck another camera to the wall and pointing it at the portal. ‘Will these work, there?’ She held up another one as she scanned the darkness for movement. She could have sworn that she heard something.
He shrugged and took it from her, reaching through and sticking it to the wall inside. He gasped when he felt Jared’s presence. ‘Morgan is in there,’ he linked her, pulling his arm back through the freezing cold barrier. His head dropped, and he sighed when he felt a silent alarm pulse past him. ‘And they know we’re here.’
‘Pull out, now!’ she yelled to the team over mind link and turned to jog back toward the hole, growling when something snagged her ankle and yanked her off her feet. Reese stared at the tentacle and ground her teeth against the sharp hooks that sliced through the leather of her boot and into her skin. Pulling a knife from the sheath strapped to her thigh, she sliced it off and rolled to fall through the missing grate and back into the sewer tunnel.
Reese landed on her hip and before the pain could register, Caleb as pulling her up and pushing her forward as he ducked another long slimy arm reached for them. Their boots pounded the cement as they raced toward the exit. Syn slapped her on the back when she passed him and then turned to follow her, running backwards.
The light of outside was binding after being in the tunnel for so long. Blinking, she saw Balden leaning over Koen, sprawled on the ground, writhing and covered in blood. Her head spun back when the sound too many pairs of boots for them to handle filled the tunnel. Reese pulled a grenade from her pocket, pulled the pin with her teeth and threw it inside. “Down!” She growled, throwing herself over the wounded Hyena.
The explosion was deafening and Reese grunted when something hit her body armor hard enough to shatter the ceramic plate inside. “Pull back to the compound, she ordered pushing herself up to see that everyone was still breathing and following them once they did as they were told.
She pressed the mic button on the headset as soon as her feet hit friendly territory. “Ry, let Ana and Asher know they have incoming. Koen is down.” She stopped beside the Djinn still leaned over his friend. “Clinic. Now. Report when he’s stable.” She slapped the Djinn on the shoulder and headed for Ry and the bridge, to see if they had any intel they could use.