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She pulled her weapon as soon as she hit bottom, gingerly opening the door a fraction, watching for any guards, but all was quiet.
She knew from the layout that there was only one exit. A ramp on the north side of the bunker went up to a concealed entrance, camouflaged as rock. There would definitely be a guard at that vulnerable point. They slipped into the hallway, their minute movements echoing down the hollow cavern.
There didn’t need to be much conversation. All of them had memorized the plans. She had gone over them a half-dozen times so she knew what to expect. The lighting in the rough stone-hewn corridor was dim, apparently to help keep the power required low so as not to tax the generator.
Skull moved ahead so Bones could go to work. He sniffed around for a couple of seconds, then they started to move. It was showtime.
* * *
Volk lookedup when the door opened and Rose stumbled through, her captor a tall woman with dark hair, brown eyes, and a compact body. She was holding a gun on Rose. The doctor was just finishing up stitching up his shoulder, but his knee-jerk reaction was to go help her. He struggled against his bonds, which only sent pain radiating through his chest and arm, the knife wound throbbing. He met Rose’s gaze as she rapidly took in the room and her two Shadowguard, naked, bloody, bruised, and restrained. Her lips compressed, her eyes snapping with anger.
“You’re not going to get anything from us,” she said, her body ramrod straight. She glared at the woman with the gun. “You’re wasting your time, Agent Chambers.” She looked at the mercs. “All of you. You’re fools, expendable. Do you think whoever is running this madhouse cares about you?”
Agent? What the hell, Chambers was supposed to be on their side? NSH had a lot to answer for and he could only wish he was free to meet out some of that retribution right now.
“I brought her as you ordered. I killed your people as you ordered. Now give me my family.”
Ah, they had kidnapped the agent’s loved ones. Typical. These guys were the worst criminals on the planet.
“In good time, Nancy. If you’re squeamish, you can wait outside.”
Nancy stiffened, the gun in her hand never wavered. “The time is now. I want my family. I want this thing removed from my arm, and I want safe passage out of here.” Volk recognized desperation and when someone was at the end of their rope. Nancy wasn’t waiting and she wasn’t budging. Her eyes narrowed when the merc didn’t respond. She pulled back the hammer on the Glock. “I said, now!”
The man was immediately aware that he was up against a desperate mother with a gun, never a good combination. Only one of their tormentors was armed, but that was with only a knife. Nancy had the upper hand right now and they knew it.
“They’re going to kill your family regardless of what you do for them. It’s their—”
Knife Wielder backhanded Volk across the face to get him to shut up, but he’d already said plenty. If Nancy was a government agent working with Rose, she already knew their MO. No one walked away from this.
Nancy moved forward, pushing Rose ahead of her. They were only a foot away from the two men. “He’s right. I’ve read the reports. I know what you do to the people you coerce into doing your damn dirty work. I want my husband and my daughter brought to me now or you’re the first one who’s going to die!”
“I don’t think so. We’ll take your gun now.” He held up a mechanism in his hand. It was clearly the detonator to the poison in the vials for the three of them. He smirked.
Suddenly, Rose was free, and she charged the man with the detonator as Nancy put a bullet into Knife Wielder, dead center of the heart. He dropped and the doctor ran for the door.
* * *
A gunshot echoedthrough the stone bunker and soon after, another one, followed by the sound of running feet. Preacher along with Karasu, Kodiak, and Skull, after giving a firm command to Bones, flattened against the wall. But after a few seconds, he could tell the running boots were moving away from them.
“Ice,” Preacher said into his comm. “Gunshots. Not sure what’s happening.”
“Copy. Get to that command center. If they’ve been alerted, we can probably expect reinforcements. They’ll blow the place if they think they’ve been compromised.”
“Copy that.” He moved from the wall and went to Karasu. She had heard everything, and she nodded at him in the dim light of the corridor. He leaned in and planted a hard, quick kiss on her mouth. “Go kick some ass, babe,” he murmured, then he broke off and ran in the direction of the command center.
As he came around a corner, he spotted a guard, but he never stopped moving as he pulled the trigger twice, running past as the guy slumped to the floor. Just a few more steps; he flew toward the door that was the closest to the exit. If reinforcements came, they would be through that door.
He let go of his M4 and the strap caught it as he pulled out the breaching load Boomer had assembled for this purpose. He attached it, stepped back, turned his face away, and blew the locking mechanism. He had his rifle up and was moving through the door in seconds. But as he entered, the bastard inside was ready for him. He grabbed the muzzle of Preacher’s gun and shoved it toward his chest, Preacher pulling off two shots that went into the floor. As the guy rammed him as they went down to the floor.
Preacher went for his sidearm, but the guy was pinning his arms and he couldn’t get the pistol out. When he tried again, the guy hit it and it went spinning across the floor. The guy delivered two hard punches to Preacher’s face as he worked at trying to dislodge the big man, pain exploding more on his cheekbone as the helmet’s overhang protected his eye. He fumbled around, getting ahold of Preacher’s combat knife, then started wildly stabbing. Preacher held up his forearm to protect his neck, the knife slicing a stinging cut.
Using his lower body, he bucked his hips, shoving against the man’s chest, which finally dislodged him. He pushed away and came up into a fighting stance, in too close quarters to use the rifle. Preacher didn’t give him a chance to wield the knife, to breathe as he landed a fast, hard hit to the man’s throat, his temple, then his solar plexus. The guy folded, and with his hands clasped, Preacher delivered a brutal blow to the back of his neck. The guy went down and didn’t move. He wasted no time in pulling up his M4 and putting two into the guy’s head.
“Ice,” he reported. “The command center is secured.”
“Copy. Heads up. There are two helos landing with reinforcements. Hunker down. We’ll engage on ground level, but there could be a breach. Six guards down on top. Boomer and Hazard, get your asses down into that bunker.”
They really must have good intel here. Something worth protecting. Preacher checked his mags and got ready for a serious firefight.
