Tamed by Love (Agent Lovers Series Book 2) (17 page)

“Wait. Nothing except wait,” Jennifer said with eyes blazing. “We’re here, Liz! And they’re below.” She pointed to the long, dark-gray main building.

A few years ago, cement was still produced there. After the plant stopped being profitable, the kilns, silos and mills were abandoned. About ten miles east, a new, modern plant was erected.

“Not even a quarter mile away, my parents are sitting in some dark basement. I don’t want to imagine what they’ve done to them.”

“We don’t have any choice, Jenny.” Liz wasn’t happy that they had to idly wait for reinforcements, but they didn’t have any other options. Without reinforcements, Liz wouldn’t be able to keep the promise she had made to herself. Jennifer could be wounded and she wasn’t going to allow that. Liz realized it had been a mistake to try to free the hostages alone. Jennifer wasn’t herself, was confused and wasn’t able to keep a cool head. And that was dangerous. “We really don’t have any choice,” Liz repeated and looked at Jennifer. Understanding and something else smoldered in Jennifer’s eyes. She nodded and looked through her binoculars again.

***

“Something’s not right with Jennifer.” Gray pulled up an image of Jennifer’s face on his monitor. Her eyes were wide and her face scared—not the look of a hardened agent.

“Of course something’s not right with her!” Chris flew into a rage, coming to his wife’s defense. Quickly he got himself under control. “Her parents are being held hostage. That would do in anyone.” He saw for himself what was wrong, how his wife couldn’t concentrate and Liz let reason prevail. The team roles seemed to be reversed. Chris ran a hand across his forehead, perplexed and worried. What was wrong with Jennifer?

“She’s falling to pieces,” said Townsend. “She’s done.” Then he pointed to Liz, who was anxiously scrutinizing her friend. Once again. “And your wife’s aware of that, Blackwood. Probably the reason she backed down so suddenly and said they’d wait for reinforcements.”

“We have to leave right away,” Jeff said. The situation had intensified. “The remaining TDAs are all here. We can’t wait any longer for the SEAL team.”

“Your gear’s ready in the hangar.” Gray looked from Jeff to his other colleagues, stood up and went to the map table. “The SEALs will join you there.” He pointed to a clear spot about five miles away from the old cement works. “The hilly terrain and dense forest will provide you with the necessary cover.”

Jeff and Joey nodded and left the monitoring room, and Gray contacted Liz and Jennifer. “Reinforcements are on the way.”

“Understood. Starting exploration.”

“Be careful.”

“Caution is my middle name,” said Liz with a spark of her well-known humor.

“It is not, Liz, it’s Odette.”

“I’m not exactly proud of my real middle name.” Liz picked herself up off the ground and got out her GPS. “You check the terrain on the west side, Jenny. I’ll take the east side. Message your status every ten minutes.”

After Jennifer’s nod, the two women ran in opposite directions. Nightfall descended while Liz negotiated the plant to the east, searching the surroundings for motion sensors, traps and possible loopholes. She looked at her GPS and detected Jennifer about a half mile away. “How’s it look to you, Jenny?”

“Still nothing. No motion sensors or cameras. Only the approach is monitored by camera. The terrain from the west is inaccessible. Thick grove to the side of a hill. And that goes straight down.” Jennifer was silent for a second, thinking. “On the roof of the neighboring building there are only two guards. And that building is right at the foot of the slope.”

“No.”

“It’s dark enough,” Jennifer said, as if she hadn’t heard Liz’s objection. “There’s a gap here that goes all the way to the bottom and is wide enough to rappel down undetected.”

“No, Jenny! Do you hear me? Stay where you are! I’ll be right there.” Liz began to run.

“Stay where you are!” Chris chimed into the conversation. “Reinforcements are already on the way. They’ll be with you in less than two hours.”

“Every second counts, Chris. I can’t wait any longer.”

Mesmerized Gray and Chris watched the monitor. Jennifer lay on the ground and targeted one of the guards with her silenced HK MP7. Liz’s expelled “No” sounded at the same moment Jennifer fired the first shot. One of the guards fell onto the roof. Before the second guard could sound the alarm, Jennifer fatally wounded him and he slumped down.

Without hesitating, Jennifer jumped up again, looped a rope around a tree trunk, hooked a karabiner to her combination harness and began to rappel down the aforementioned gap.

Quickly Liz jumped over a fallen tree trunk and beat her way through the tenacious undergrowth but still couldn’t make it in time to catch Jennifer. She looked just as Jennifer disappeared into the abyss a few yards away. Liz skidded to a halt. “Why couldn’t you wait, dammit?” With flying fingers, Liz quickly hooked her karabiner onto the rope, checked her combination harness for firm seating, looked around and followed Jennifer down.

“They’re going in,” Gray informed Jeff in a strained voice.

“What? We’ll be there in ninety minutes. Call them back!”

“No chance. But hurry! We can only hope everything’s going smoothly for Liz and Jennifer.”

“Understood.”

A SEAL caught up with Jeff and looked him over with a scornful glance. “It’s none of my business, Blackwood, but which of you came up with the absurd idea to give your agents female aliases?” Within the various elite units of the military, the rumor circulated that there were additional special units who had the top security clearance. And until now he had shrugged off this rumor as a myth. But when he met Blackwood and his people, he knew immediately the men had to belong to such a unit.

“That’s right, Banks! It’s none of your business.” Jeff wasn’t interested in small talk. They had to move on and hurry. He just hoped they wouldn’t get there too late.

***

Liz released the rope from the karabiner, reached for her HK MP7 and crouched down and ran across the roof to the adjacent wall of the main building which rose several yards. When she finally reached Jennifer, Liz pushed her deeper into the darkness, forcing her back against the wall. “What the hell was the point of that?” Liz hissed.

“I’m sorry.”

When Liz saw that Jennifer looked like she would burst into tears at any minute, she took a step back. Accusations wouldn’t help. “We can’t go back,” Liz said and sighed. “So we have to make the best of this.”

“Thanks.”

“I’m eager to see if you’ll also thank me when I tear your head off. Because that’s exactly what I’m going to do when this is over. You didn’t stick to our deal.”

“I know.”

“Will you stick to it from now on?” asked Liz as she looked into her partner’s darkly painted face. Jennifer nodded, and a mischievous grin came over Liz’s face. There she was again, the Liz who had a joke for everyone. “Well then, here we go.”

They looked for an alternate entry to the main building and found a hatch on the roof of the small adjoining building. The hatch allowed them access to the rooms below. Liz raised the hatch carefully and peeked inside. She couldn’t see any guards. Before she disappeared through the hatch, she scanned the outer terrain. An old truck was next to the building. A couple of barrels were stacked behind it. But she couldn’t detect any guards immediately in sight.

Liz dropped down between some workbenches and looked at the dusty drills and rusty tools as she waited for Jennifer to come down. Liz kept an eye on the closed doors. While she waited, she put on her night vision goggles. Only then did she gingerly open the connecting door to the main building and caught a glimpse of a spacious hangar. Old pipes with holes in them that had been used years ago to carry the raw powder for the cement, snaked past her to a cold kiln. In one corner there was a silo which ran fifty feet up to the ceiling. There weren’t any signs of guards, but nevertheless, she couldn’t shake the feeling they weren’t alone.

Carefully Liz moved through the hangar with Jennifer following close behind, constantly looking around, the HK MP7 at the ready and pressed tightly against her shoulder. Her goal was another connecting door. The former lounge, bathrooms and offices had to be there—and maybe the hostages they were looking for.

“This is too easy.” Gray’s voice sounded tense.

“That was my thought too,” said Liz as she looked around. Nothing. Not a single body within the unlit hangar. No motion sensors. Only the machinery and obsolete equipment.

They passed through the next connecting door without any problem and entered an unlit hallway which reeked of urine. There were doors on both sides, all of which were closed. A trap?

Liz and Jennifer examined it room by room until they found the right one. Huddled tightly together, the seven hostages sat on the ground, hogtied. Jennifer hurried up to her parents and fell to her knees. “Mom, Dad, are you okay?”

“What are you doing here, child?” Robert said to his daughter. “What’s going on?”

“I’ll tell you later, Dad. Okay?” Jennifer set her submachine gun down beside her and pulled her knife from its sheath. Quickly she cut the cords that tied her mother’s hands and legs. Then she freed her dad and the remaining hostages.

“We have to go. No idea how much time we have until one of them looks in on the hostages,” said Liz, guarding the door. She acknowledged Jennifer’s mother’s confused glance.

“Liz? What…?”

“Not now, Mrs. Langner! Later.” Liz turned to Jennifer and indicated the hangar door. “All of you stay at a safe distance on the wall until you get my okay. Understood?”

They all nodded.

Liz took the lead of the small group. Ten feet away she motioned to Jennifer to take her place and turned toward the hangar door. Carefully she opened the heavy door and peeked inside. At first glance, she couldn’t see anything, but again she had the uneasy feeling of being watched. There had to be someone in the hangar, somewhere. She inspected every corner through the night vision goggles, the HK MP7 at the ready.

“I never would have thought you’d really be so stupid as to show up here without reinforcements,” came a voice in the darkness.

Liz turned and looked in the direction of the voice. A man darted out from behind a railing fifteen feet up behind one of the silos. Of course, the silos! There was probably an entire mob of guys hunkered inside. No wonder she hadn’t been able to see anyone earlier.

“Throw down your weapons and surrender!”

“Not a chance.”

“Then you’ll die! We have enough hostages to lure others. We’ll get the information we want from them.”

“If I were you, I wouldn’t be so sure of that,” said Liz as she moved away from the closed hangar door.

***

Liz’s conversation with the leader confirmed Gray’s thought that neither of their wives would come out of this alive if they fought back. They had fallen into an elaborate trap. Even though apparently only one man spoke and no others could be seen, he knew there were others in the hangar. They had to be in the silos because no other men had been detected outside.

Liz and Jennifer were far, far outnumbered. He looked at Chris. They didn’t have any other choice.

“Liz! Even though I don’t take any stock in it, I would like you to proceed to
Plan S.
We’ll get you all out. But give yourselves up now, otherwise you won’t survive,” he said with a strained voice.

“That’s not an option.” There was deep regret in Liz’s voice. She closed her eyes for a minute. “That really isn’t an option.”

“Liz! You don’t have a chance. Give up! You survived something like this before and you will again,” he said desperately.

“I won’t let anything happen to Jenny.”

“You’re both tough. And we’ll be there faster than you think. Reinforcements are barely an hour away.”

“You don’t seriously think I can keep the boys talking for that long, do you?” she said softly. “Maybe I could persuade them to have a cup of coffee.”

“This isn’t a joke, Liz. You have to give up. You don’t have any other choice.”

“You don’t understand, Gray! I
can’t
allow something to happen to Jennifer. I would never forgive myself.”

“Why not?”

It wasn’t Liz, but rather Jennifer who answered him softly. “I’m pregnant.”

Shocked, Gray took a breath and looked at Chris who sank back in his chair and went pale. That was probably the worst possible moment for him to learn of his unborn child. Despair coursed through him. “They should give up,” whispered Chris as he looked at the monitor. “Jeff and the boys aren’t far now.”

“Liz, give up!” Gray tensely repeated. What he wanted to say, too, was clear. Chris was prepared to accept the possibility that Jennifer could lose her child. As long as the remaining TDAs and the SEALS were still in the game, everything could still turn out okay.

“We’ll do nothing of the sort. I swore to myself that nothing would happen to Jennifer and the baby. And under no circumstances am I going to allow her to be taken prisoner.” Then she severed radio contact and opened fire.

Being offensive was their only chance. The majority of their enemies were still in the silos. Liz just had to prevent them from coming out. “Stay in the hall, Jenny! Stick to our deal!” Liz called into her headset to keep Jennifer from coming out.

More and more armed men thronged onto the railing and returned her fire. Liz looked for cover behind one of the machines and thought about the fastest and easiest way to neutralize them. She peeked around the corner toward the silos and couldn’t believe what she saw.

“You are really stupid, guys. Hard to believe,” she mumbled to herself. Calmly Liz reached for one of her grenades, pulled the safety pin and threw it between the barrels lined up under the railing. Gasoline. Even if there wasn’t much left in the barrels, an explosion and small fire would still help her escape with the hostages. With a deafening bang, the grenade exploded and caused an array of further explosions because of the barrels. The shock wave of the explosion reached the railing and shook it. The old, rusted brackets were ripped from the wall and the men plunged with the metal framework to the ground, right into the flames and burning barrels. She could hear the screams of the men who had not gotten out of the silos.