Page 86 of Grayson’s Challenge

Grayson looked over his shoulder into the monitor. The screen was split into several windows. The three video feeds were labeled with the names of the three Stealth Guardians.

“You know what to do,” Grayson said to them. “Get in, show us the position of the hostiles and the hostages, and get out as quickly as you can.”

Hamish nodded, as did his two colleagues. “Got it. Wes, you’ve got the spray so they can’t smell us coming?”

Wes pulled a spray bottle from his bag. “Let’s do this outside.”

“Thanks for doing this, guys,” Grayson said.

“Of course,” Hamish answered and left the van.

The others followed him, while Thomas watched the monitor.

“You worried?” Thomas asked.

“I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t,” Grayson admitted. A few days ago, he would have never admitted that. His father’s kidnapping had made him grow up in a hurry. He understood so much now about leadership, about strength, and about responsibility. This mission was his responsibility, and if anything went wrong, it was on him. The buck stopped with him. “Any number of things can go wrong.”

“We’re all worried,” Thomas said. “But everybody is giving it a hundred-and-ten percent. And with the Stealth Guardians scoping the place out, we have the advantage.”

Charles slapped his hand on Grayson’s shoulder. “And don’t forget the witches. We have an ace or two up our sleeves.”

Despite the stress he felt, Grayson smirked. “Yeah, like blowing up labs?”

“Not my fault. That was Wesley’s screw-up.” He shrugged. “At least now we know how to blow doors off their hinges when we don’t have explosives on hand.”

Thomas rolled his eyes, and continued watching the screen, when the cameras started to move.

Wesley entered the van. “Okay, they just made themselves invisible and are off.”

Grayson turned so he could see the monitor better. The Stealth Guardians were moving at a fast clip. A few seconds later, they were already on the same block as the postal facility. They walked half a block farther then turned to walk straight toward the exterior wall of the building. The white of the wall came closer and was suddenly filling all three feeds. In a second they would be inside and giving the Scanguards team valuable intel.

“Fuck!”

Several more curses came over the earpiece, all coming from the Stealth Guardians, and their feeds shook. The video still showed the white color of the exterior walls, rather than the interior.

“What’s going on?” Grayson asked over the microphone, while he exchanged a concerned look with Thomas and the witches.

“We can’t get in,” Zoltan reported.

“What the—”

Hamish interrupted Grayson. “There’s something in the walls. We can’t get through it. My guess is lead.”

“Fuck!” Grayson cursed.

“Yeah, probably lead paint,” Enya added. “It’s an old building.”

Grayson ran a hand through his hair. What now? It was up to him to make a decision about how to proceed. “How about the doors?” He turned to Thomas. “Blueprints?”

Thomas instantly switched the window and pulled up the building’s blueprint.

Grayson quickly looked at it. “There are only two accessible doors. Doors are probably made of steel, which means there shouldn’t be any issue with getting through them. The closest ones are on the East side of the building and on the street side.”

“Let’s try them,” Zoltan agreed. “Hamish, take the door on the East side; Enya and I will try the one on this block.”

Anxious, Grayson watched as the camera feeds showed the Stealth Guardians move in different directions. He hadn’t expected the building to have lead paint, a material they couldn’t penetrate. He’d seen the lead cells that the Stealth Guardians used when they had to incarcerate one of their own. A normal cell couldn’t contain a Stealth Guardian prisoner, because he could simply walk through the walls.

Knowing that the postal facility was condemned because of asbestos, he knew he should have assumed that it also had lead paint on the walls. It was a failure of leadership, and normally he would beat himself up about it and wallow in his mistakes, but he couldn’t afford those kinds of thoughts. He had to roll with the punches and improvise.