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I grinned at him as I leaned against the door. “Oh, I don't need an invitation to the table. I already have a man inside.”
Just as his brows furrowed in confusion, I shot him with the tranq gun. He'd been so excited about barring me from entry, he'd missed it when I had palmed my weapon. To be sure he stayed down, I fired three into him, one into his thigh to ensure fast absorption, two more into his chest.
That dumbfounded, confused look on his face remained as he lurched toward me, but he slumped, nonetheless.
I let him fall, letting his face hit the marble. Whoops. I grabbed his shoulders and dragged him across the hall to the other door as I spoke into my mic. “We have a go for number ten on our most-wanted list. Michael Garrett. I saw him through the door. Let me know what Nissa is picking up.”
I dragged Resnick into the nearest room, which was back down the hall and to the left, and unceremoniously dropped him back on the floor, using the zip ties I had in my pocket to tie him to a massive conference table. Suddenly, something skipped up my spine. A warning, a feeling. I couldn't pinpoint it, but I had the heebie-jeebies and I couldn't shake it.
Saff, it seemed, had the same instinct. "Rook, what do you see?"
I ran to the window. "I see three guards on the balconies, none in the hall we came down. And obviously the five rotating ones we saw downstairs at all the exits. We may have a tricky egress."
Gabe's voice was firm. "Don't worry about the exit. A-team, get to Igno right now. We have confirmation that Igno is in the room with primary and secondary."
My gut twisted. Fucking hell. She was in the room with that psychopath.
I eased out of the conference room, careful not to make a sound, and found Saff running up the stairs. As we ran down the hall, she leaned down to her garter and pulled out a weapon. I reached into my tux and pulled out mine. Then she gave me a nod. "You got this."
I grinned at her. "I was trained by the best, so of course I do."
She headed left to go around to the room from the balcony side. I headed right and prayed to fucking God Nissa knew what to do next. She had her orders from Interpol. Stay low, record only. I prayed to God she listened to them because the room she was in was about to become a hot zone.
A server room was near where the meeting was taking place, and my job was to pull all visual data from their system and access any data we couldn't get from the outside. These men weren’t meeting in a public place, but people said all kinds of things when they thought they were alone. There were security cameras everywhere, and some details would be picked up.
I waited for all agents to call in their positions before taking a deep breath. This was almost over. In moments, I would have her safe. I had already set the algorithm on the cameras to loop, and Kaya had it under control from the van.
But still, I eased into the server room that I knew would give me security feed access. Morgan Bedford was very particular about his privacy and security. This party had a lot of high rollers, which he used as a reason for all the cameras.
What I needed was access to everyone’s movements. On a lower monitor I got my wish and hit paydirt. “Upstairs, toward the back balcony at the back of the house. All agents, southwest corner. I repeat, southwest corner. We've got three guards coming up the stairs, one on the back stairs, two up the center stairs. Saff, stay in the shadows. One is heading toward you on the balcony."
Gabe's voice was clear. "Roger. Saint and Legend, outside. Heir, King, and Rook approach. I will handle clearing the egress."
We all had our assignments, and I eased out from the room, noticing King coming up the stairs as well. He wasn't even looking at me. His eyes were on the guard as he feigned drunkenness. He deliberately stumbled into the guard at the top of the stairs clutching onto him like a long-lost lover. From where I stood, I called out. "Oi, do you two need some privacy?”
With the guard momentarily distracted, King hit him with the Taser. We had military grade units that had been fashioned for close combat fights. The guard never had a chance, and he slumped into King's arms.
The problem was that the second guard who had been heading for the balcony saw his partner go down and came back out toward King. Lock was still supporting the weight of the other guy, so I had no choice but to take out my tranq gun and shoot him, the silencer barely making a sound.
I ran to deal with the second body and dragged him to the same room I’d dropped Resnick in. King's eyes went wide, and I turned, almost too late. But Lock had me. He aimed his Taser just over my shoulder and fired. All I heard was a slump several feet behind me.
When I chanced a look, I found the third guard on the ground. “Cheers, mate.”
He gave me a nod. After we dealt with all three of them, King went to join Saff and I booked it down the hall toward Nissa and Montgomery.
And then we all heard Gabe's exit strategy. The rocking boom of the explosions. King and I stared at each other. It was unlike Gabe to be so conspicuous. We'd always been trained to make our exits quiet. After all, no one wanted a public firefight, so why the hell had he opted for explosions?
Another boom exploded across the courtyard, and suddenly, the hallway flooded with people, several of them naked.
King went to join Saff and I went for Nissa. But as it turned out, she was already running toward me, with Montgomery tugging her out of the room.
It was pandemonium. Chaos.
Gabe's voice was terse and clipped as he shouted orders. “All teams move in. Move in. The explosions weren't me. I repeat, explosions were not me. Get Igno and move to the egress point however you can.”
Nissa’s eyes were wide with fear, and that son of a bitch’s hand was on her wrist, pulling her behind him as she tried to fight him. Seeing her distressed was the only thing that managed to get my feet moving. Unfortunately, I started moving in the wrong direction after her instead toward my team. She was already out of the danger zone, and Ingo wasn't chasing her. I should have gone after him.
I heard a gunshot and heat grazed my upper right shoulder. Fuck. Those public firefights were avoidable sometimes, and some motherfucker did not have a muzzle on.
