CHAPTER NINETEEN
THE DRIVE UP to San Francisco was horrible. Holden’s friends had worked it so she and Holden were both sitting together in the last row of the big van, with an empty row between them and everyone else. Maybe they thought they were giving the two of them privacy to talk, but it hadn’t worked out that way. Instead, she and Holden stared out each of their respective side windows and ignored each other for the whole fifteen-hour drive to San Francisco. In fact, Holden hadn’t spoken a word to anyone since she’d sneaked him out the back way of the San Diego field office.
Dalton was driving while Noah rode shotgun. Wes and Kyla were in the bench seat right behind them. Kyla had been glued to her laptop the entire time, keeping an eye on the Dark Web auction as well as the various law enforcement dispatch systems, making sure no one stumbled on their location.
The only people not with them were Kimber and Sam. Since Kendall knew the FBI would be looking for her and Holden, she’d given Kimber and Sam the keys to her car and told them to drive to Mexico. With Kimber’s blond hair and Sam’s muscular build, they’d look enough like her and Holden on any traffic cams. It might buy them a couple extra days.
Or get Kimber and Sam sent to prison.
Kendall didn’t even want to think about that.
Their little group probably could have made it to San Fran in ten hours if they’d taken the interstate, but that would make it easier for the FBI to spot them, so she told Dalton to stick to secondary roads. It had made for a long trip, especially with the cold shoulder Holden was giving her. At least he’d changed into the clothes she’d brought him.
Kendall glanced at him out of the corner of her eye, trying to look at him without him knowing. She needn’t have bothered. It was like he didn’t even know she existed. Then again, he didn’t seem to be aware of anyone else, either. After getting in the van, he’d given Dalton an address outside Napa Valley and hadn’t said a word since. He’d simply stared into space, looking a million miles away.
Kendall told him why she’d come back for him, had even said she loved him. And Holden hadn’t responded. She hated to admit it, but that hurt. She understood why Holden didn’t love her or even trust her, and she knew the only reason he’d agreed to come with her was because his friends were involved in this crazy scheme, but knowing all that did nothing to ease the ache in her chest, or the tears threatening to run down her cheeks.
“We just pulled off Silverado Trail,” Dalton announced from behind the wheel.
“In half a mile, you’ll see a sign on the right for Soda Canyon Road,” Holden said, still looking out the side window. “Take the turn, then follow it until I tell you to stop. There’ll be a narrow ravine we can park the van in. We’ll walk from there.”
“Walk where?” Dalton demanded, a little of the frustration that everyone seemed to be feeling starting to show. “You going to let us in on what the plan is? Or where the hell we’re going?”
Holden turned his attention away from whatever was so interesting outside the window. “About a mile past the ravine we’ll cross over a fence line into McKinney’s vineyard. McKinney runs the majority of his criminal operation out of there. That’s where the Key will be.”
“You honestly think McKinney would risk having something as incriminating as that on his personal property?” Kendall asked.
Holden was silent for so long she didn’t think he’d answer her question, but then he finally snorted. “McKinney isn’t exactly paranoid, but he got to where he is in the world by trusting no one. He’d never keep anything as valuable as the Key anywhere else.”
“Assuming you’re right, do you know where he’d hide it?” Noah asked over his shoulder.
“There’s an entire suite of storage vaults under the garage,” Holden said. “It’s where McKinney keeps his most valuable possessions and only a few of his most trusted people have access to it or even know it’s there. He may be running the auction out of the main house, but he’ll keep the Key in one of those vaults until the buyer transfers the money to his account.”
Kyla looked up from her laptop to glance at him. “That’s going to be sooner rather than later. The auction is winding down. The bidding is up to almost two hundred million and there are only two serious players involved.”
“Crap,” Kendall muttered. “We need to hurry.” Her heart beat faster. If they didn’t get the Key back, breaking Holden out would have been for nothing. “We have no idea how long McKinney will hold onto the Key after the bidding closes, but I wouldn’t be surprised if the buyer has someone ready to pick it up the moment the deal is done.”
Everyone murmured their agreement. Well, everyone except for Holden. He went back to looking out the window as if he couldn’t care less.
A few minutes later, Dalton pulled the van into the ravine and moved forward until the vehicle was hidden in scraggly brush. The moment they were out of the van, Holden called out instructions.
“With the auction going on, McKinney will have guards set around the perimeter of the vineyard. Once we slip past them, Wes will head down to the vaults below the garage with me. Dalton and Noah, you maintain security topside.”
Kendall opened her mouth to ask Holden where he needed her, but he turned his attention to Kyla.
“Think you can hack into the security system?” he asked. “There’ll be a few layers of passwords and encryption on the signals, but if you can get in, we’ll have a visual on nearly everything that’s happening on the property.”
Kyla nodded, giving him a confident smile. “Get me close enough to pick up a wi-fi signal on my laptop and I’ll get us in. If we’re lucky, I might be able to stay outside that defensive perimeter thing you mentioned.”
That seemed to satisfy Holden. He turned to head toward the vineyard and almost walked right over the top of Kendall. He stopped and gave her a cold look that twisted her stomach into even more knots than it was already in.
“Where do you want me?” she asked softly, only realizing after the words had left her mouth that her question could lead to an answer she really didn’t want to hear.
Holden gazed at her for a moment longer, then jerked his chin in Kyla’s direction. “Stay here and cover Kyla. Don’t come anywhere near the main house or the garage, no matter what you see or hear.”
And just like that Holden turned away and headed up the ravine, catching the short automatic rifle Wes tossed casually in his direction before disappearing into the darkness. Holy crud, they’d brought automatic weapons. This was really happening.
Kyla gave her a small smile. “If it helps, I put twenty dollars into the betting pool saying you and Holden were going to work this out and get back together.”
Kendall snorted. “If you put your money on us getting back together, what did everyone else go with?”
“Noah and Wes put their money on you and Holden getting into a big argument and you smacking him. Dalton bet this whole thing is going to blow up in our faces and we’ll all end up in prison.”
Kendall sighed as she pulled her FBI issued Glock out and checked to make sure it was loaded. She had to admit, if she was putting her money in, she’d bet on that last outcome, too.
* * * * *
“Are you being an asshole on purpose or does it just come naturally now?” Wes whispered as they cautiously moved down the dark stairwell beneath McKinney’s garage.
Holden whipped his head around to scowl at his friend. At least, he’d thought Wes was his friend. But hearing his Teammate say something like that had him wondering.
“What the hell does that mean?” he demanded softly.
This wasn’t the time or place to have this conversation, but they were going to have it anyway. They probably should, he guessed, since the drive up from San Diego had been friggin’ awful. Like getting a root canal through your ass. Kendall had ignored him the whole time, no doubt calling herself every kind of stupid for breaking him out of FBI lock-up. Then there was that crap she’d said about loving him. She had to be regretting that, too. It was obviously a lie. FBI agents didn’t fall in love with the criminals who were on the way to jail.
“You know exactly what it means,” Wes murmured, checking around each corner as they descended the stone steps. “Kendall risked her life and her freedom to get you out of that field office, and you’ve been a complete douche-canoe ever since.”
Over the radio in Holden’s ear, Kyla and Dalton called out updates over the radio. The auction was wrapping up and McKinney’s security personnel were getting restless. Maybe they thought the losers were going to make trouble. Fortunately, Kendall and Kyla were outside the security perimeter and not in any danger.
Holden would have punched his friend for calling him a douche-canoe if it wasn’t for the simple fact that Wes was probably right. Holden had sulked like a damn five-year-old the whole drive up. But in his defense, he had a damn good reason. “Wes, she lied to me.”
His friend snorted. “Oh, boo-fucking-hoo. So, she never told you she was a Fed. Get over it. You told lies, too. Like the part about not mentioning you’d stolen a piece of national security technology.”
Holden cursed under his breath. “That’s completely different. And besides, I’m not mad about that part. Okay…yeah…maybe I’m a little mad about that part. But mostly, I’m pissed she played me. The whole time we were together, she made me think it was real. She made me believe I’d finally met the woman I could spend the rest of my life with. Shit, Wes. I think I was falling in love with her.”
“Maybe you should cut the woman a break,” Wes pointed out as they reached the lowest level and moved along the long central corridor off the stairwell. “Just because you two kept secrets from each other doesn’t mean everything that happened between you was a lie.”
“Yeah, it was,” Holden said softly. “All of it.”
Over the radio, Kyla warned them that a group of people were moving from the main house to the garage. “They might be coming to collect up the Key. Get the thing and get out of there.”
Holden picked up his pace and moved ahead of his friend, heading for the end of the corridor. The place looked exactly the same as it had when he’d seen it all those years ago. Dimly lit and wreathed in shadows, little alcoves and smaller passageways branched off to the left and right of the main hallway. Hopefully, that meant everything else was still the same. Like where McKinney preferred to stash his most prized possessions—in the last vault along the passage on the right. If they were lucky, the combination would still be the same. The one on the door upstairs had been.
McKinney was a creature of habit and didn’t like changing things.
“I was there when Kendall admitted she fell in love with you while she was undercover,” Wes said. “I don’t know her as well as you do, but I got to tell you, she seemed pretty damn sincere to me. She stood in front of us and poured her heart out. She was the one who came up with this crazy scheme to break you out of FBI custody and get the Key back so she could use it to bargain for your freedom. None of that sounds like a lie to me. It sounds like a woman who’s seriously in love with a man she doesn’t want to see in a prison cell.”
Holden didn’t know what to say to that so he didn’t say anything.
Stopping in front of a vault door that would have made a bank proud, he punched in the combination that had to be at least a decade old. He said a silent prayer of thanks when the bolts retracted and the heavy door swung open, revealing a room full of individual wall safes and a heavy table in the center of the room with a black case sitting in the middle of it.
The same case he and Wes had stolen a few weeks back.
He walked in and opened the case to reveal a decidedly boring smaller black box with a few LED lights on it and some USB connectors.
Holden reached for it when he heard the unmistakable sound of automatic gunfire from upstairs. Cursing, he grabbed the Key and shoved it in his pocket, then headed for the door of the vault.
“I’m not sure what happened, but I think you must have tripped some kind of alarm,” Kyla said urgently, her voice hard to hear over the rattle of gunfire. “There are armed men running toward the garage. I don’t think Dalton and Noah are going to be able to stop them. Kendall is coming to help.”
Up until then, Holden hadn’t been too worried. He and his Teammates had gotten themselves out of every possible kind of situation, including ones where they’d been overwhelmingly outnumbered. But the part about Kendall coming to help changed everything.
“Don’t let her come down here, Kyla!” he shouted into his mic as he ran after Wes toward the main corridor. “Keep her there with you!”
“I can’t,” Kyla said. “She’s already on the way.”
Holden cursed as he and Wes raced down the passageway, his mind spinning at a thousand miles an hour. What the hell did Kendall think she could do in this situation. She was a Fed, not a soldier. There was no way she could fight her way through the battlefield on the grounds above them and get down here to help.
She’d end up getting herself killed.
He was so wrapped up in those thoughts he didn’t even realize people were down there in the vaults with them until he stepped out into the main corridor and almost got annihilated in a hail of gunfire coming his way. Holden launched himself across the corridor into one of the alcoves while Wes pulled back into the passageway they’d just come from.
Holden dropped to one knee and poked his head around the wall only to quickly pull back as the area where he’d been exploded in fragments. He shoved his carbine out and popped off a few rounds. That earned him a hundred rounds of assault rifle ammo slamming into the wall and floor. He caught Wes’s eye to see his Teammate looking back at him with the same expression. They were trapped. And screwed.
Then as fast as it started, the gunfire ceased, leaving his ears ringing as the people at the far end of the hall paused to reload. He was about to poke his head out again to see if he could catch one of the shooters unaware when he heard a familiar chuckle.
“When the alarm went off, something told me it was you, Holden, even as I tried to convince myself you’d never be stupid enough to come here,” McKinney said. “You had to know I’d never let you walk out of here with that. It’s worth too much. Now, why don’t we stop playing games? Toss it out and we can handle this like family.”
Holden’s first instinct was to do exactly like McKinney asked, toss the tech toy into the center of the hallway, then put a full magazine of rounds through the damn thing. It would be petty and spiteful, but it’d feel good. He decided against it, though. The Key was the only thing that might keep him out of prison.
He peeked around the edge of the wall to see McKinney and at least half a dozen of his men tucked into alcoves and hallways all the way down to the entrance of the stairwell he and Wes had come down earlier. He swung his gaze back to McKinney when he recognized one of the men with his old boss. It was the guy from the drive-by shooting who’d almost killed Kendall. The fact that the man worked for McKinney wasn’t exactly a shock, but it still pissed him off.
“Family?” Holden snorted. “Maybe you should have thought about that before you manipulated me into stealing this thing for you. I mean, if you actually considered me family, you should have mentioned I’d stolen something that would get me executed for treason if they caught me. Seriously, not even a heads-up? That’s cold as hell.”
McKinney laughed. “It’s not cold. It’s pragmatism. The Holden Lockwood I knew never would have gotten caught. Becoming a SEAL made you careless.”
“Maybe,” Holden agreed. “Or maybe you planned on me getting caught all along, figuring I’d take the fall without ever giving you up.”
When McKinney didn’t answer, Holden knew he’d hit that one out of the park.
“It doesn’t really matter now, does it?” McKinney’s voice was harsh. “I know you’re stalling, hoping those men you have upstairs can help, but the truth is, there’s no way you’re walking out of here alive unless you give me that little black box.”
Footsteps echoed in the hallway, and Holden leaned out far enough to see several of McKinney’s men creeping down the corridor. Shit. The man he used to think of as more of a father than his real dad had just been distracting him so his goons could get in a better position to take him and Wes out. He and Wes were SEALs, but they were heavily outnumbered and trapped with their backs to a wall.
“Dalton. Noah,” he said softly into his radio mic. “If you two were waiting until the last second to make a dramatic appearance, now would be a good time.”
There was a burst of weapons fire over the radio as someone upstairs keyed their mic to respond. “Sorry, buddy!” Noah shouted. “We’re a bit busy up here. You’re on your own for a while. Good luck and all that shit.”
Holden cursed just as another voice came over the radio.
“I’m on the way,” Kendall said. “Hold out another minute and I’ll be there to help.”
“Don’t you dare fucking come down here, Kendall!” Holden shouted into his mic even as McKinney’s men started shooting, filling the corridor with a cacophony of ear-splitting noise and peppering the corners he and Wes were hiding behind with debris. “I’m telling you. Don’t do it!”
Wes leaned out and started shooting back. Holden moved to do the same.
But before he could pull the trigger, he caught sight of the door at the end of the corridor opening. His heart constricted in his chest as Kendall stepped out into the open, holding nothing more than a small frame Glock pistol.
The damn woman ignored his violently shaking head as she crept down the hallway toward the men intent on killing him and Wes. She lifted the Glock, taking aim at the nearest man. Holden wanted to shout at her to stop, to tell her she was being suicidal. She’d get the first shot off without anyone noticing her, maybe even the second. But then they’d turn around to cut her down without a second thought.
The moment she fired, a handful of McKinney’s goons spun, realizing there was a threat at their back.
“Cover me, Wes!” Holden shouted.
Stepping out from the alcove, he lifted his M4 to his shoulder and popped off slow, methodical shots one after the other. His actions were as a suicidal as Kendall’s. Stepping into the open with so many weapons pointing his way was insane. But he knew she and Wes would keep McKinney and his men from being able to focus on him until he was able to get close enough to finish this.
Aiming proved damn near impossible as his entire world seemed to narrow down to the vision of Kendall walking toward him, shooting her small 9mm at the men to trying to kill him. Holden kept moving, engaging the men daring to point their weapons toward the woman he loved. He didn’t care if he survived, as long as she made it out alive.
McKinney’s eyes widened as his men started to fall around him. He pulled back into an alcove, gaze swinging back and forth between Holden and the Kendall. He must have known he didn’t have time to shoot at both, and being the bastard he was, he aimed his weapon at Kendall.
Holden didn’t hesitate. He simply pointed the barrel of his weapon and pulled the trigger. McKinney, a man he’d loved like a father, got shoved back against the wall as three red spots appeared in the center of his chest.
The few remaining bad guys were easy to take out and the moment the shooting stopped, Holden strode over to Kendall, the terror he felt replaced by white hot anger.
“That was the dumbest, most insane thing anyone has ever done!” he shouted, breathing so hard his chest hurt. “You could have gotten yourself killed. Damn you, I told you not to come down here!”
Kendall didn’t say a word. Instead, she closed the distance between them at a run and threw herself into his arms. He dropped his M4, letting it dangle by the straps, and caught her. The kiss they shared was so intense, it almost made him dizzy, but he didn’t care. He kissed her back like his life depended on it.
“Shitty time for that,” Wes said as he ran past them. “Dalton and Noah need help, so knock it off and let’s go.”
Holden cursed silently and pulled away.
“Stay down here where it’s safe,” he ordered Kendall as he reloaded his carbine.
Kendall didn’t say a word as she bent over and picked up the Belgium-made automatic rifle McKinney had been holding, then dug through his pockets until she came up with a spare magazine. Not looking at Holden, she turned and headed for the stairs.
Holden cursed again, this time out loud, but had no choice except to go after her as she ran up the stairs. He tried to keep her from doing anything reckless once they got outside, but she took far too many risks as far as he was concerned.
The fighting ended within minutes. Mostly because the people who’d been there for the auction jumped in their fancy cars and high-tailed it out of there. Holden and the others let them go. They’d gotten what they came for.
When it was clear there were no more bad guys to deal with, Kendall finally let him pull the automatic weapon out of her hand. He tossed it on the ground and pulled her into his arms, hugging her fiercely. “Don’t you ever do anything that crazy again.”
“Don’t ever steal another piece of NSA tech and I won’t have to,” she whispered.
He snorted. “What do we do now?”
“We get on the phone to the San Diego field office and try to make everything better,” she murmured, kissing him. “If that doesn’t work, we go to Mexico.”
Holden saw about a million holes in the simplistic plan, but didn’t point them out. “Works for me.”