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“Wildcat’s been shot, and it’s critical,” Shane said. “He’s got a punctured lung. Carrie is Angelo’s insider, and she’s taking Rachel to Angelo as we speak. Get in touch with Merlin and Dixon and make sure they don’t lose sight of Angelo. He’ll want to finish things tonight and clean up any loose ends.” Shane heard the sirens in the distance and noticed Jones was struggling to stay conscious. “Call me back at this number with a rendezvous point.”
Shane hung up the phone and felt the pulse at Wildcat’s neck. His heart was working overtime, pumping blood faster and faster even as his pulse grew weaker. Wildcat’s eyes were dilated, and Shane thought he was probably going into shock.
“Hold on, Wildcat, you’re not a quitter. I thought bullets couldn’t touch you.”
The ghost of a smile played around his friend’s mouth. The sirens drew closer. “Get out of here,” Jones said weakly. Blood tinged his lips as he talked and Shane fought to keep down the surge of panic.
“I’m not leaving you,” Shane said. “We all leave together. That’s the rule.”
“I’m your commanding officer,” Jones said, coughing. “Get out of here so you can save her. They’ll be here soon to take care of me, but they’ll arrest you if you stay. There’s nothing more you can do. I’ve been closer to death than this before. I’ll be okay.”
Shane clenched his hands into fists and wished for something to punch, something hard that would hurt and take some of the pain he was feeling away. It went against every amount of training he’d ever had to leave Wildcat wounded and possibly dying in the rain.
“That’s an order, Marine,” Wildcat said with a last burst of strength.
Shane got up from the ground and pivoted sharply on the ball of his foot. His ears were buzzing and tears stung his eyes. He got into the SUV and pulled out of the parking lot, never looking back.
* * *
Shane drove around the outskirts of Chicago for no more than half an hour before the cell phone jingled in his pocket and Jax told him the rendezvous point was the same place they’d picked up Mr. Norman. Merlin and Dixon were waiting with information, so he turned the SUV south. Shane wasn’t looking forward to going back to the neighborhood, but they didn’t have a lot of options since it was best if none of them were seen involving themselves in FBI business, especially since Wildcat was no longer in the picture. Shane wasn’t sure what his buddies had been up to the last couple of years, but if they’d all turned civilian like he had then they were putting themselves in a lot of risk.
Shane didn’t bother with the driveway once he found his way back to the dilapidated row house. He pulled the SUV across the lawn and parked right in front of the door. A Hummer and a pickup truck were already occupying space in the driveway, and he hoped one of the vehicles would still be intact when they were ready to leave.
The front door of the house opened before he was out of the truck, and Jax stood in the doorway. No words were spoken as Shane made his way into the house. Lives were at stake and there was no time for the celebration they’d normally share at getting to work together on a job once again.
Everyone was gathered in the kitchen area, if it could even be called that, and they were already dressed for the party in black fatigues. Dixon’s tall, lanky body sat erect in a straight-backed chair and he worked a toothpick nervously back and forth between his teeth. His dark blond hair was combed back from his face and tortoiseshell glasses covered his somber gray eyes. A thin black laptop sat open on the table in front of him.
Merlin sat in the chair opposite Dixon with a roll of what looked like blueprints in his hands. He was Dixon’s complete antithesis—dark skinned and stocky in build, skimming just under six feet, and his black hair was unruly and rumpled like he’d just gotten out of bed. A thin scar slashed just above his right eyebrow, giving him a dangerous look that he more than deserved.
Cutter stood with his back to the wall and his arms crossed over his chest. He was almost as broad across the shoulders as Wildcat, but he didn’t have the height. His hair was the color of burnished mahogany and he’d grown a short beard since the last time Shane had seen him. His coloring betrayed his Irish roots, and direct green eyes took in everything at once.
Jax stood at his back while Shane took the last available chair. Jax was the cleanup guy—the man you wanted at your back if you wanted to come out alive. He’d gotten the scar that ran from the top of his ear to the base of his cheek—ruining the pretty-boy persona he’d lived with his entire life—by watching their backs in a night raid in Iraq. They would all be dead if Jax hadn’t made the sacrifice.
“Were you able to pinpoint a location for where Angelo has Rachel hidden?” Shane asked.
Merlin unrolled the blueprints onto the table. “Angelo and several of his men left his house just minutes after Jax called us and told us what had happened. They took two separate cars from the Valentine estate down Michigan Avenue to a high-rise office building that is currently under construction. Our boy Dixon did a little digging and found that the building is owned by VCorp, which is one of the companies Valentine owns to make things seem more legitimate when it comes to tax time.”
“Did you see Rachel in the building?” Shane asked.
“Negative,” Merlin said. “There are more than twenty floors in the building. We can only assume that’s where he’s keeping her as he’s got men posted at all the exits, and he didn’t look like he was in any hurry to leave the building.”
Shane looked at the blueprints and wondered how they were ever going to find her before it was too late. It was worse than searching for a needle in a haystack. “Are any of the floors occupied?” he asked. “And can we get a visual inside from anywhere in the area?” Shane directed the question at Dixon since he was the one who could use his computer skills to break into any database in the world. The talent had come in handy more than once, and Shane was counting on it to help them this time.
Dixon’s slow southern drawl often misled people about his intelligence, which according to Dixon, always gave him the upper hand. “Well, tax records show that several businesses occupy the spaces between floors twelve and eighteen.” Dixon opened his computer and hit a few buttons so a screen of names and numbers showed up. “But a closer look at these companies show they don’t really exist at all. I hacked into a few of the past surveillance tapes and there’s never anyone shown going in or out of the building. It’s just a dummy operation as far as I can see.”
He hit another series of commands and the blueprints came up on screen. “I’ve blacked out the floors where the offices are located. My gut says he wouldn’t use those to hold anyone hostage. It would be inconvenient if the IRS showed up on his doorstep and wanted to take a look around.”
Shane could read between the lines. What Dixon really meant was that Angelo wouldn’t want to take the chance of dirtying the furnished areas with anything like blood. Shane put the thought out of his mind that even as he was sitting here trying to find a way to save Rachel, she could already be past the point of saving.
“Floors one through twelve are in the skeleton phase of renovations,” Dixon continued. “But I’d bet my money that he’s got her stashed either on nineteen or twenty. Renovations are a little further along on the upper floors. From what I can tell he’s turning them into apartments of sorts.”
“Can we get access?” Shane asked.
“Well, that’s going to be a little trickier seeing as how there’s just the five of us against at least twelve men that we saw guarding the building. Maybe more. The Hancock Hotel is directly across the street from the building, and it should give you a good view of those top two floors from the roof level. You can set up over there and the rest of us will go in on foot and take out as many as we can to give you plenty of time and the best shot possible.”
Shane broke out in a cold sweat at the thought of what he was going to have to do. Hadn’t he been in almost the exact same situation two years ago? And failed miserably? Now the woman he loved, because there was no doubt what he felt for Rachel, was putting all her trust and her life in his hands. God, he hoped the saying was wrong about history repeating itself.
“Are you okay, Ace?” Cutter asked.
