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That suited Jack fine.
“Enough conversation,” he said, gesturing to his uncle. “Like I said, now that I’m here, let’s get this show on the road. I can’t wait to get my hands on these two.” He shot Claire a lascivious look. “Especially you, Ms. Psychic. You’re gonna be worth waiting for.”
Chapter Thirty-Six
The Forensic Instincts van pulled up on South 1st Street, behind the building where Casey and Claire were being held.
Everyone but Patrick hooked their gear bags over their shoulders and got out of the car. Patrick drove away, making two successive right turns until he could pull over and park diagonally across the street from the warehouse’s front door.
He punched in Ryan’s cell number. “Ready,” he told his teammate.
“Then so are we.” Ryan disconnected the call. “Patrick’s in place,” he informed Hutch and Marc. “Marc, lead the way.”
Marc had already kicked into navy SEAL mode. He moved forward and scaled the barbed-wire fence, dropping down on the other side. Squatting low, he ran up to the building, glancing inside each of the windows and peering through the crack between the shade and the frame to assess the lay of the land.
After a thorough inspection, he waved to Hutch and Ryan to follow. They quickly scaled the fence and joined him.
“We’re at an entrance that’s next to a bathroom,” Marc said. “The entrance and the bathroom are deserted. Then there’s a short hallway, also deserted, with a bigger room at the other end. Fisher and his nephew are in that bigger room. One of them is sitting down. The other is crouched over Casey.” A pause. “Shit. He’s got a knife at her throat.”
“Where’s Claire?” Ryan demanded. “Can you see her?”
“Yeah. She’s not far away from Casey. She’s still in the same position she was in the text photo.”
“Still tied up?”
Marc nodded.
“Shit.”
“No time for freaking out,” Hutch told him. “We’ve got a job to do.”
“I’ll pick the door lock,” Marc said. “We’ll stay low and ease past the bathroom, then press ourselves flat against the interior wall and move partway down the hall. From there, I’ll recon the big room and figure out the best assault vectors.” Marc glanced at Hutch. “We’d better be prepared to storm the place if the door is alarmed.”
“Understood,” Hutch said. He knew that Fisher holding a knife at Casey’s throat created exigent circumstances. Fortunately, that meant the FBI’s deadly force policy and his heart were aligned. But the truth was that, with Casey?
??s life on the line, it wouldn’t have mattered.
“If all else fails, I have a backup plan.” Ryan patted his gear bag.
Marc’s lips twitched. “Of course you do.”
Moving forward, Marc picked the lock and slowly opened the back door.
Silence. No alarm. Crisis one averted.
Relieved, the three men inched into the dark, narrow hallway. Flattening themselves against the wall, they edged along, trying to find a clear line of sight into the bigger room.
They found one a quarter of the way down. But what they saw stopped them from acting.
Jack had dragged Claire over until she was perpendicular to Casey. He clearly wanted her close by to witness Casey being violated. He was kneeling beside her, holding a knife at her throat and watching as Glen leaned over Casey.
“Dammit,” Marc growled. He’d already reached for his holster. Now his hand paused on the handle of his pistol. “The four of them are too close together. We can’t risk hitting one of the women.”
Hutch agreed. These had to be kill shots. Marc could definitely make one. Hutch was a “probably.” And probably wasn’t good enough.
“They won’t kill them until they’ve raped and tortured them,” he said. “Which is about to happen. We’ve got to act now.”
“It’s time for my idea,” Ryan said. “I can split them up. Fast. Trust me.”
