Targeted (Hostage Rescue Team Series Book 2) (24 page)

Tuck stayed at the base of the ladder with the EMP device clutched tight in his right hand, mentally rehearsing his movements. By the time they’d actually made a hole in the floor, Spivey would likely either be right on top of him with that explosives vest, or he’d blow the perimeter windows and doors.

There was nothing he could do about the second, so his only shot was to prevent the vest from going off. Assuming Spivey didn’t hear them coming and blow the explosives wired to the doors and windows, the moment Tuck’s head and shoulders cleared the hole he’d have to locate Spivey, aim at the trigger in his hand and fire the EMP device to render the vest useless.

And then hope to hell the thing worked so he could take the fucker down without dying in the process.

It weighed heavy on him that Celida was up there, watching and waiting. She’d be worried, and he didn’t want to think about what would happen if he didn’t make it. All he knew was, if he made it through this one, he wasn’t going to hold anything back from her anymore. He couldn’t. She was too important to him.

And he loved her. The first chance he got, he was saying everything he needed to say, get her to promise she was in this for the long haul along with him.

Shut the hell up and focus. You’ve done undercover snatch-and-grab ops on warlords in broad daylight in freaking Somalia, for God’s sake. You’re going to make it.

A few minutes later, DeLuca’s voice came through Tuck’s earpiece, tense and grim. “How long?”

“Another six or seven minutes to cut through the roof. Why, what’s happening?”

“Spivey just fired another two shots. Still no visual or any other info.”

Another hostage dead. Tuck’s jaw flexed. “Understood. Will update you once we’ve cut through this steel.” Then he’d have more of an idea what they were dealing with in terms of their entry possibilities.

Evers kept making steady progress with the torch and finally moved onto the last, short side of the rectangular cut. When he finished the last few inches, he handed down the torch and pulled off his goggles, wiping his sleeve over his sweaty face to mop up the moisture. Cruz climbed down with the torch and tanks, the ladder creaking and bowing with his every step.

Evers pressed his gloved palm to the cut panel and pushed to test it, then added his other hand, his face tightening from the strain on his muscles. “It’s giving a bit,” he said in a quiet voice that barely carried to the base of the ladder. “Bauer, gimme a hand.”

Tuck steadied the ladder while Bauer climbed up, lending his considerable size and muscle to the effort. A shrill groan sliced through the tunnel as the metal began to give way. Both men froze, everyone waiting to see if Spivey had heard anything and was going to act. Tense seconds ticked past, all eyes pinned to the rectangular panel.

When nothing happened, they resumed pushing on the trapdoor. Evers’s and Bauer’s faces were slick with sweat, their teeth bared as they used their combined strength to muscle the steel slab upward. Finally the last part of the cut seam gave way with a creak and a loud pop.

Evers groaned as he slid the piece of steel aside, on top of the tunnel roof, and Bauer shined his Maglite on the exposed area above it. An old wooden door with an iron ring handle was revealed in the beam of light, about three feet above the hole cut into the tunnel roof.

“Off duty bank employee we interviewed said this leads directly into the manager’s office,” Tuck said to the others, keeping his voice down just in case. “If we’re lucky, there shouldn’t be anything but a thin slab of marble covering this on the other side. Pass up the boltcutters.” Schroder brought them over. Tuck held them up for Evers while Bauer climbed down, still directing the intense beam of light at the trap door.

Evers made short work of the old padlock holding the iron ring handle in place. He pulled it free and handed it down, gave an experimental push against the wooden surface. “It’s giving,” he confirmed. “Shouldn’t take much for you to pop it free now.”

“Sounds good,” Tuck answered. “Come back down.”

He waited until Evers had left the ladder before putting his right boot on the bottom rung and looking back at the others. He didn’t need to remind any of them what the contingency plans were, or that Bauer would take command if something happened to him.

“Ready?” When they all confirmed in the affirmative he began his ascent while Evers held the ladder and Bauer kept the light steady on the door. The soles of his boots clanged softly against the aluminum rungs with each step.

When he was partway up, Cruz took up position at the bottom of the ladder, waiting to follow Tuck as the second man in line, weapon at the ready. Tuck slipped the EMP into a pocket on the front of his webbing and positioned his body weight on the ladder so he’d be able to use his hands without fear of falling.

“On three,” he whispered, knowing they’d all hear him via their earpieces. Heightened by years of operational and combat experience, his situational awareness was honed to a razor’s edge. Every sense was intensified as he stood ready to lead his men. He had one shot at this. It was going to be enough.

Bauer shut off his flashlight, plunging them into total darkness.

Tuck pulled down the NVGs on his helmet mount and switched them on. They wouldn’t help him here in the pitch blackness but even a tiny amount of ambient light inside the bank would allow them to see everything clearly, lit up in a field of neon green.

He placed both hands against the wooden surface of the door, braced his feet wider apart to give him a solid footing on the ladder. “One.” He added some pressure with his arms, relieved when the door moved a tiny bit. Fucker was solid though, and heavy.

Silence greeted him, his teammates’ gazes riveted to what he was doing.

“Two.” The muscles in his arms and shoulders pulled taut as he put his body weight into it. The door gave a little more.

Nobody moved, the energy in the tunnel suddenly intensifying in anticipation of the assault.

Go time
. “Three.”

Calling on all the power he could muster, he used his legs to help give him the leverage he needed and heaved with all his might. The wood and marble slab lifted a quarter inch, revealing a sliver of faint light from above. His arms shook from the strain. Gritting his teeth, Tuck shoved the door upward farther, uncaring of the noise it would make when it fell over because it couldn’t be helped—he needed both hands free as quickly as possible.

The trap door hit the marble with a deep thud that shook the floor.

Tuck’s eyes darted around the space as they quickly adjusted to the dimness, every sense on alert. The room was empty. He grabbed the EMP from his vest, placed his left hand on the floor and shoved up, scrambling through the hole onto one knee. As he did he snatched his sidearm with his left hand, was bringing it up into position when he caught a flash of movement in the doorway ahead of him.

Time went slo-mo as it always did on an op. His gaze zeroed in on the darkened threshold, locked there.

Disable the vest. Take Spivey down without lethal force.

Everything happened within the space of a few heartbeats.

He raised the EMP device, his entire body tensing as Spivey appeared, wearing NVGs, and came to an abrupt halt between the jambs. The man’s attention zeroed in on Tuck, the beginnings of a feral smile spreading across his face as his left hand began to move upward.

Tuck recognized the dead man’s switch. He aimed the EMP device and pulled the trigger, holding it down a mere instant before Spivey released his thumb from the switch.

Nothing happened. Which meant the device had worked.

Tuck barely had time for that to register, for relief to crash through him and to see the look of absolute shock on Spivey’s face before the man raised his Glock.

Tuck fired twice and automatically ducked down slightly to take himself out of the line of fire just as a round whizzed by, right where his head had been less than a second ago. His own bullets hit home, burying themselves in Spivey’s right shoulder.

The man bellowed in pain and surprise and stumbled back, out of view. A second later his running footsteps echoed in the silence. Tuck cursed and set a hand on the floor to push his body up and give chase. He gained his footing, heard Cruz coming up the ladder behind him, and raced for the open doorway. As he reached the threshold something heavy thudded shut in the next room. The vault?

An ominous foreboding slammed into his brain.

Spivey was out of range.
He’s going to detonate the bombs
.

Fuck.

He whirled back toward the trap door. “Get down, everybody down!” he yelled to his team.

He dove for the opening, his chest and belly hitting the floor. He managed to swing around, shove both feet back through the open trap door so he could go backward down the ladder. Someone—probably Cruz—grabbed his legs and yanked hard, trying to get him back into the relative safety of the tunnel. His lower body slid down, then his torso.

The moment his right boot touched the top rung of the ladder, the room exploded.

A wave of searing heat and pressure hit him, knocking him backward into the air. Blackness engulfed him as the world came crashing down around him.

At a roped-off area of the interior perimeter closest to the bank, Celida walked up to Travers, who was speaking to DeLuca and one other man. The newcomer was dressed in tactical gear, an HRT patch on his shoulder.

Travers saw her, lifted an eyebrow and took a step toward her. She didn’t recognize the HRT member, but based on his presence here and that he was consulting with DeLuca, she guessed he must be the backup assault team’s leader.

She turned her gaze on Travers. “Gunderson talked to Spivey’s former Denver PD CO. She’s on the phone with his former platoon leader, a master sergeant he was really close with but Spivey still won’t answer any of the landlines inside.”

The master sergeant was their last shot in terms of finding someone to help talk Spivey down, and maybe their best one at this point. They’d served two tours together in Afghanistan, saved each other’s lives over there. Apparently he was one of the only people Spivey had spoken to regularly via phone and e-mail since getting out of the Army.

Right up until a week ago, two days before the bombings had started. The sergeant was shocked by what Spivey had done and wanted to talk to him, plead with him to give himself up. Unfortunately it didn’t seem like he was going to get that chance.

Travers sighed and shook his head. “He’s too unstable to listen right now. Using a bullhorn is useless at this stage and I don’t want anyone breaching this perimeter anyway, it’s too dangerous.”

Celida slanted a look at DeLuca, whose gaze was focused on the bank as he listened to something else the other man was saying, hands on his hips, posture tense. Were Tuck and the others in position for the assault right now? She looked back at Travers. She had security clearance but protocol dictated that in this case only the director, DeLuca and his crew, and possibly Travers would know when the assault would happen.

It was killing her not to know the details, but he couldn’t divulge them to her even if he’d wanted to, for security reasons. The fewer people who knew when the breach would happen, the safer it was for the team.

Travers’s eyes softened with understanding. “Won’t be long now.”

Her pulse sped up and she nodded before he turned back to join DeLuca and the other team leader. On her way back to the command trailer, Celida’s phone rang in her hand. When she saw Zoe’s number for a second she thought about ignoring it again as she had her friend’s previous two calls, then changed her mind and picked up. This lull in the op was driving her crazy, there was piss-all she could do at the moment, and a few second-long convo with Zoe would help calm her nerves.

“Hey.” She walked a short distance away from the men and stopped, watching the bank. Tuck and the others could make the assault from the ground or they might try a roof entry. Both were extremely dangerous given Spivey’s expertise. A helo op was out because the noise of the rotors would give Spivey too much notice of the assault. Her stomach knotted.

“Hi. I’m watching the news about the bank and knew you’d be on scene. Are you okay?”

“I’m fine, Zo.” Just stressed and worried as hell.

“What about Tuck and Bauer, are they okay?”

Celida sighed. “As far as I know.”

“Okay, I know you can’t share details with me. I just…I wanted to call and check on you, and to apologize for setting you up like that last night.”

“Don’t worry about it.”

“So we’re still good?”

“We’re still good.” It was impossible to stay mad at Zoe and to be honest Celida was grateful for the shove Zoe had given her and Tuck last night. Without that, the ensuing confrontation would never have happened and she wouldn’t have shared what was the single most important night of her life with him.

“Glad to hear it. If you see my cousin, tell him I said to be careful. I figured I’d go visit with his dad for a while. If he’s having a good day and he’s seen the news coverage, he’ll know what’s going on and he’ll worry.”

“That’s good of you, Zo, thanks.” She blew out a breath, still watching the bank. The tension was freaking killing her and as much as she’d love to spill it all to Zoe, she couldn’t. And she wouldn’t want to burden her friend with all this shit anyhow, because there was nothing Zoe could do to help the situation. “I gotta go, hon. Don’t know when I’ll be home, so remember that
mi casa es su casa
, right?”

“I’m not at your place, I’m still at Tuck’s.”

Celida felt her face go blank with surprise. She’d stayed the night with Bauer?

Pushing that thought away, she responded. “Okay, I’ll call you back when I can, but it’ll probably be—”

An explosion thundered through the air. The blast wave ripped outward, making the ground roll beneath her feet. Celida gasped, her gaze flying to the bank as she automatically crouched. A plume of smoke rose into the clear, blue air.