CHAPTER THIRTY

Shea woke up sputtering to a blinding spotlight and cold water pouring over her face, shivering uncontrollably in this new version of Hell. Her lungs locked down in panic. Her nostrils closed reflexively to keep from drowning. Icy chills skated over her drenched jeans and shirt. A fan on the floor blew cold air up her legs and over her body.

“Stop! Stop!” she sputtered, not able to catch a breath. Thrashing against the wooden chair that held her, she shook her head to see through the water to the asshole drowning her. “Stop it. I… I… can’t… breathe!”

But the water kept coming.

A whimper lifted out of her. Here she would die. Held captive and tortured until she gave up whatever Morell and his friend wanted. But they had yet to make a sound and they hadn’t asked a single question!

“What… Wh-what do you… want?” She kicked at the floor, frustrated and helpless. Shadows loomed in close, and still the freezing water poured.

Suddenly, Cheyenne’s bright giggle filled the room with a pure bright light, and Shea knew she was seconds from drowning. There was no way to win this battle.

I’m coming, baby, she told her brightest angel. Mama’s… coming…

Murphy latched onto Eric’s forearm before the truck rolled to a stop. “We play this smart and we do it right,” he cautioned. “Jordan, hand me that case behind your seat.”

Dragging a black weapons case up off the floor, Jordan unlatched the snaps and flipped the lid open. “You’re shittin’ me. NVGs? Sweet.” He handed two upfront, but Eric set his aside. Night vision goggles were cumbersome. They limited a guy’s peripheral, and something as small as the flare of a match or a handheld flashlight could blind a guy at the worst possible time.

Jordan and Elsa both donned a pair. Murphy didn’t.

“Okay then,” he said. “Elsa and Jordan will go in ahead. Once they give us the all clear, Eric, you and Jordan will go in hot. Shoot whatever moves unless it’s running away. As soon as you’ve got Shea out of there, meet us back here at the truck and we’ll retreat to my place. Elsa and I will cover you. Understood?”

Why did Eric have the feeling these instructions were intended for him more than the others? “Copy that,” he acknowledged as he strapped on for war. Over the shoulder holsters pocketed his SIG Sauer nine millimeters, keeping them close and accessible. Another holstered SIG tucked snug inside his jeans at the small of his back. Extra mags went into his pockets. A seven-inch blade hid in his right boot sheath. The AR he kept close to his chest, the extra mag for that dangling on a clip off his belt.

The rest of his team were likewise prepared by the time he’d finished.

“One last thing,” Murphy offered before they set out. “You kids be safe out there. Come home like you’re supposed to.”

“That goes for you too, Uncle,” Elsa said, her chin up.

Enough. While Jordan and Elsa headed out through the trees, Eric and Murphy trailed them by a few yards, providing cover. Using the NVGs, Jordan and Elsa could detect body heat signatures outside the grounds and around the mansion directly ahead. The trees were thick, but the four of them moved like trained shadows through the woods, never breaking formation.

Jordan’s fist came up at a right angle. Hold. Danger. He dropped to one knee, while Elsa moved forward, her weapon pointed ahead. Two fingers to her eyes, she signaled at the house, and Eric wished to hell Murphy’d had Bluetooth earpieces in all that doomsday-prepper stuff in his bunker. It’d be nice to know what was going on.

Elsa disappeared into the shadows while the rest of them held position. In minutes, she returned and gave them the thumbs up signal. The danger, whatever is was, had been secured or disabled.

Eric and Murphy advanced to where their buddies had halted. What do you know? A silvery thin wire shimmered at waist level, something Eric wouldn’t have spotted. How anyone saw it was the question of the night. No doubt it was part of Grover’s security system. Impressive. Good catch, Miss Finnegan.

A dog growled from somewhere nearby, and damn it. Eric didn’t want to, but the second he saw those two sleek Dobies charging, their noses skimming close to ground level, he dropped to one knee and fired off two rounds. It hurt to have to kill any animal, but Jordan and Elsa were his first priority. As it was, they never saw the animals tumble snouts-down into the dirt.

Round one. First contact had been made. Murphy clapped Eric’s back with a single atta-boy, and they kept going.

A ten-foot high wrought iron fence surrounded the estate grounds. Straight up nasty, the fence boasted intermittent spikes topside. Its rolling gate had been left open. That alone made Eric uneasy, but he blew it off.

When a mercury vapor light switched on over the center double doors, everyone froze. Jordan hissed as he doffed his NVGs. Elsa’s pair already dangled at her hip.

A man whistled at the door, probably looking for his two besties, now sleeping beyond the fence. “Brutus. Max,” he called out.

Eric didn’t want to end him, too, but if Dog-guy came looking for the Dobies, he would.

Grumbling, the man stepped onto the porch. “Brutus! Max! Damn it, where are you?” He stood with his hands on his hips a moment longer, then stepped back inside and closed the door. The light went out. First encounters with the two-legged enemy signaled round two had begun.

The rest of the infiltration went like clockwork. Jordan and Elsa took the right of the home, Eric and Murphy went left. They rejoined in the backyard.

“The immediate yard is clear,” Jordan whispered. “There’s a root cellar on the east side of the garage. It’s empty, but check this out.” He handed Eric a pair of Flexi-cuffs, the plastic smeared with what could’ve been blood.

Eric held the cuff to his nose, wishing he had half the olfactory senses that Alex Stewart’s ex-EOD dogs had. It’d be good to know if these cuffs had been used on Shea.

A light flashed on at the rear of the house, providing a clear view inside while making anyone standing in the dark outside all but invisible. Dog-guy again. He stood a good six-feet tall. Maybe two hundred pounds give or take. Gray sweatpants. Gray T-shirt. He’d opened a door in the hallway, and stood there looking in, talking to someone unseen. The door opened outward to his right, shielding most of him from Eric’s view.

“You guys see another light on in this place?” Eric asked quietly. Because I sure don’t.

His team members fanned out and returned quickly with three negatives.

“Then who’s he talking to?”

“You want me to kick up a diversion?” Elsa asked.

“Not yet.” Eric pulled up his binocs out of his pack, needing one hundred percent intel before he entered ground zero. Dog-guy had hold of a metal door, if those heavy-duty hinges meant anything, and metal doors meant security.

“Floor plan,” Jordan muttered, jerking something up out of his pocket. “We need the blueprints to this place, and I’ve got an app for that.”

Unbelievable. “You do?” Murphy asked.

“Sure. You’re not the only boy scout in town.” Angling his body, Jordan shielded his cellphone as he worked the screen. “Give me a sec.”

Eric held position, already planning how to breach the rear entry. Which hall to take first. Which level. The mansion was a massive building. There had to be at least twenty rooms inside. This had to be done right.

While Jordan worked, Dog-guy scratched his head, then entered the room and eased the door shut behind him. Eric watched for it, held his breath and hoped for it. At last. The door settled, still a crack open. By now, Murphy peered over Jordan’s shoulder, his face backlit by the screen. “I’ll be damned.”

Jordan’s head popped up. “That metal door leads to a basement room with no concrete walls and no windows.”

“A safe room,” Elsa hissed.

“It might not be breachable,” Murphy worried.

“Then we need to move fast.” Eric nodded at Jordan. “You ready?”

“To the end,” Jordan replied, pocketing his phone while his rifle shifted back into position.

Without waiting, Eric advanced on the single-windowed rear door, watchful of trip wires and security beams. Nothing seemed out of the ordinary. If any alarm system had been activated, it was silent—or lying dead beyond the front lawn. Time would tell. Eric just didn’t plan on being inside this place that long.

Carefully testing the exterior doorknob, he found it unlocked, so he entered first. Jordan followed on his six, both with compact rifles snug to their chests. Close combat could be tricky. Once inside, Eric shouldered his rifle and pulled both pistols front and center. Jordan followed suit.

The place was quiet. There wasn’t time to do a room-by-room, and Eric didn’t intend to. Trusting his gut, he tested the handle to what he now knew was a basement level safe room. Built to withstand fire or armed assault, most were constructed of concrete, reinforced steel beams, and sufficient staples to survive weeks of confinement, if necessary. The ones Alex Stewart built into all of his safe homes included state-of-the-art surveillance equipment, and damned tight locks that could withstand a blowtorch. They were the definition of unbreachable.

The key to getting Shea back—if she was in that basement room—would be to move fast. Fortunately, Dog-guy didn’t seem to be trained in black ops. He hadn’t shut, nor locked the door behind him.

Peering down into a narrow wooden staircase, Eric reported back to Jordan with two fingers, one for the visual of Dog-guy standing at the bottom of the stairs, facing right, the other for the unseen man or men he was talking with. While Jordan kept watch at the basement door, Eric lowered one boot to the first step, his senses flared forward.

Apparently bored, Dog-guy complained, “Can’t even get a decent signal this far from town. How ‘bout you? Got any bars?” He latched onto the overhead doorjamb at the bottom of the stair as indiscernible muttering answered him.

Eric cocked his head and took another step. Listening. Waiting.

“Yeah, well he should.” Dog-guy muttered. “A satellite dish out here would make a helluva difference in this crap hole. I ain’t Einstein. What’s he expect me to do, read something outta his fancy library? Shit. I hate reading. It’s a waste of time.” His shirt rode up to expose a tattooed lower back and a sloppy gut. “How long’s she been out this time?”

She? Eric took three steps toward Dog-guy that time.

“You ain’t got nothing outta her yet?” Pause. “You’re kidding. You still ain’t asked the bitch where the shit is? Damn. How long are you gonna wash her down ‘fore you get to business?” He shifted his feet. “Still coaching, huh? That crap ever work?”

Eric gritted his teeth, fighting for the restraint to not blow Dog-guy to hell and storm this safe room. Coaching, my ass! Standard CIA lingo for interrogation, it amounted to water-boarding a suspect before asking questions. Sometimes for days. By the time coaching was complete, the suspect—guilty or not—was ready to crawl out of their skin to answer anything and everything their coach asked. If they’d survived the lesson.

Shea! They were water-boarding Shea for god’s sake!

“Eric,” Jordan whispered, halting his progress with a firm hand on his arm. “Elsa’s at the back door signaling us. Come on, man. Pull back. Something’s up.”

Like hell. Dog-guy had a double-tap coming and Eric meant to deliver.

“Don’t do it,” Jordan hissed, but Eric had no room in his heart, not even for his buddy. Not now, bro. I’m not that guy anymore. He jerked his arm free of Jordan’s grip and planned to murder an unarmed piece of shit.

Dog-guy kept shooting his mouth off. “When’s the professor gonna get back? Do you know?”

Whoever chatted with Dog-guy needed to speak up, but at least Eric now knew Grover wasn’t onsite.

“We’ve got plenty of time then. You want a Guinness? A Heineken? Professor’s got both on tap.” A pause. “’Kay. I’ll be back, but I want to see some action when I do. Shit. Strip her naked if you have to. Let’s have some fun before she comes to. I’m past due.”

Eric’s thin hold on composure evaporated. He took another step down that dark basement stairway to—

Jordan jerked him backward by his collar, a ballsy thing to do in the middle of a showdown. Eric found his back to the wall on ground level again, beside the still open security door with his buddy’s fist in his shirt. Nose to nose, Jordan growled, “Stand down, Sergeant. I swear to God, we’re not leaving Shea. We’re just making sure we do this right.”

Eric blasted him with a blistering, “Fuck off!” The image of Shea struggling while some ass straddled and water-boarded her triggered his deepest rage. God, she’d be scared to death—or close to death. Jordan needed to get the hell out of his way. Now!

Instead, he jerked Eric around the corner just seconds before Dog-guy cleared the doorway, cracking his knuckles and oblivious to the fact that he had company inside the house.

Jordan hovered like a righteous fullback in the middle of Eric’s emotion driven quarterbacking, his fist under Eric’s chin. “Trust me. We go in smart,” he said quietly, his eyes ablaze. “I know this bullshit’s killing you, Eric, but if you off this meat sack too soon, we might not be able to get Shea out of there alive. You feel me?”

Eric blinked, not understanding one word that had just come out of his buddy’s mouth. His eyes were on Dog-guy. The dumb ass wasn’t following any covert rules Eric knew. He’d hiked the front of his T-shirt up and slapped his hairy belly like bongos, rapping in time to some piece of crap lyrics about doing a bitch, do her ‘til she screams, ba dunk, ba dunk, bad-da-da-da.

Jordan’s observation should’ve meant more to Eric, but all he wanted to do was rip this motherfucker’s heart out and make him eat it. He would’ve if Jordan hadn’t still been strong-arming him, holding him to the shadows.

At last, Dog-guy strolled past the corridor where they were standing. Down the hall he went like a teenager whose parents were out of town for the weekend. Either these guys were over-the-top-confident that they thought they were untouchable, or they were complacent as hell.

Eric’s gaze dropped to that bulging ex-Army Ranger’s arm muscling him in place. He’d never noticed how strong Jordan was before. Or how right. They still didn’t know how many were down in that basement safe room with Shea. To go in guns blazing could get her killed. Eric had to get his head back in the game. Swallowing hard, he calmed enough to be civil to the one man in as much danger as he was.

“What then?” he ground out, forcing slow, even breaths.

“Now I go see what’s up with Murphy and Elsa. You good?”

Hell no, I’m not good. “Make it quick,” Eric said, his gaze on the light down the hall. The second Jordan stepped away, he lifted his SIG back to the direction Dog-guy had gone. Come to me, you bastard. You’ll never touch that gut of yours again. Or my wife.

But Eric was smart enough that he held position until Jordan returned with news that, “Alex is on the ground.”

Like that meant shit. “So? Is he here? Is he close enough to get here in time?”

“No, but Elsa also has two more guys in her sights outside, and Murphy’s sure there’s more. He wants us to pull back before we ruin our one shot at saving Shea.” Jordan sucked in a deep breath. “But it’s your call, brother. You stay, I stay.”

That word. Brother. Eric knew Jordan would lay down his life for him or Shea tonight, but Murphy should’ve known better than to ask. Pulling back wasn’t an option. “I won’t leave her.”

Jordan nodded once. “Knew you’d say that. Let’s do this thing.”