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He just hoped to hell they'd get there in time. He pressed his foot down harder on the accelerator, weaving through traffic until the busy city streets dissolved into an industrial stretch along the water, with weathered brick buildings, loading docks and trucks everywhere.
Ten minutes later, he saw the faded sign for Hannah's Fried Chicken. He drove past the shadowy outline of Laurel Park, and then turned down a dead-end street running along the riverbank.
Two buildings stood shoulder to shoulder, with a third set apart and near the water’s edge. Hanging crooked over the gate to the parking lot next to that building was a sign for a medical supply company.
As they turned into the gravel parking lot, Tyler’s eyes locked onto a dark van idling near the back of the property.
The second they jumped out of the car, three guys scrambled out of the van, weapons immediately firing. He and Zane dove behind the engine block for cover as they exchanged gunfire. Metal shrieked and gravel sprayed everywhere.
A second later, Tyler centered his sights and took one of the men down, but the others were laying down full-auto fire with short-barrel rifles. They were heavily outgunned.
Suddenly, tires screeched as two FBI SUVs tore into the lot.
Kara, Alina, and the rest of the team spilled out of the vehicles, laying down heavy suppressive fire. Within seconds, the two gunmen who had refused to surrender were on the ground.
Tyler didn't waste a second. He ran toward the van and pulled the side door wide. It was empty. Rachel wasn't inside. His stomach turned into a hard, cold knot. He backed out, looking toward the medical supply building. That's when he saw the orange flames flickering behind the dirt-caked windows.
"Fire," he yelled, running toward the back door, with Zane on his heels, Kara and Alina following behind. It took them several minutes to gain access to the padlocked building, and every one of those minutes filled him with fear.
One of the techs cut the locks off, and they rushed into a cavernous, smoke-filled staging area. Towering steel storage racks stretched toward the high ceiling, loaded with burning wooden pallets and melting crates of medical supplies. Cardboard boxes of surgical gowns and plastic tubing were engulfed in flames, filling the air with acrid, choking black smoke.
"Rachel!" Tyler roared, his voice raspy as he covered his mouth with his sleeve.
"Check the back!" Zane yelled over the roar of the blaze.
Kara and Alina split off as he and Zane dashed deeper into the maze of burning pallets, shielding their faces from the searing heat.
Past the main storage floor, the layout narrowed into a hallway lined with drywall partitions and heavy office doors.
Suddenly, a deafening boom shook the floor beneath their feet.
A cluster of compressed oxygen tanks in a side storage room surrendered to the heat, rupturing in a violent pressure blast. The shockwave blew out the drywall corridor, sending a rolling fireball down the ceiling and blowing the heavy metal door at the end of the hall right off its hinges.
The door crashed onto the concrete with a deafening metallic clang.
Through the billowing gray smoke and shower of sparks, Tyler saw someone emerging from the room. But it wasn't Rachel. It was another woman.
He grabbed her hand as she coughed and stumbled her way toward him. "Where's Rachel?" he shouted, the fire as loud as it was hot.
"She won't leave him."
"Won't leave who?" he shouted. "Who else is back there?"
"Some veteran. He's unconscious," she said.
He handed Naomi off to Zane and then, with eyes watering and flames searing his skin, he ran into the fire.
"Rachel," he yelled again. There was no answer.
He squeezed through a break in the flames and saw her, soot on her face, hair falling out of its knot, both hands on a gurney as she tried to push an unconscious man through the fire. Her courageous desperation shook him to his core. For one second he couldn't breathe, and it had nothing to do with the smoke.
"Tyler," she cried out when she saw him.
He snapped back to reality. "Go. I'll get him out."
"No. Help me."
With no time to argue, he immediately started clearing the debris, relieved when Zane was suddenly behind him, doing the same. Within minutes, they were pushing the man on the table through the fire break and down the hall.
