“Sometimes it’s just not worth the effort,” he said.
“Meaning?”
“Meaning, sometimes it’s wired and cross-wired, and they don’t have time to figure it out. It doesn’t matter how much skill you have if it’s just too big of a job to manage in too short of an amount of time.”
“So then what?” she asked. She hopped to her feet and paced. “He shouldn’t even be over here in the first place.”
“Nope, and you can bet an awful lot of us are out there, keeping an eye on what’s going on, looking for whoever’s behind this.”
“Well, that would be nice,” she said, “but, if the kidnapper’s been smart enough to keep her six months without the father having a chance to get her, it won’t be that simple.”
“They likely moved her around,” he said.
“That’s still no excuse,” she snapped.
“No, it might not have been,” he said, with a laugh, “but that’s often how it is.”
“Still ugly,” she said.
“No argument there,” he said. “So what’s the decision on coffee?”
“Coffee would be good,” she said, with a sigh, as she settled down to wait.
“We’ll have to go out one of the doors,” Shane said.
“Then we’re all dead,” Aleah said.
He looked at her, shook his head, and walked to the door he had been examining. He checked out the big loading doors and the side doors. He figured the bay doors would be the easiest because they were huge. And any charges would likely have been run down along the ground. Of course, he’d seen them at the bottom of the bay doors, which should be better than wiring at the top of the bay doors, but he couldn’t tell where any of the triggers were and just how badly this would blow.
He really liked the idea of blowing up this building though. He knew that it wasn’t fair to the two guards inside, but, hell, they’d held a woman captive for all this time anyway. As it was, it would give Shane and Diesel a little bit of time to get her safely away. He looked at Diesel, smiled, and said, “You thinking what I’m thinking?”
“Probably not,” Diesel said easily, “but I’m up for it anyway.” Just then they heard … “Shit! I think the alarm’s gone off.” And, sure enough, an alarm sounded through the building.
“We’ve got to go,” Shane said. He looked down at the wires, shook his head, and said, “Aleah, I want you to head to the far corner. I’m setting the counterblast here along the doors,” he said. “So, once the first blast goes, the entire building’ll go. We’ll have like three minutes to get out of here.”
“Great,” she said. “Are you sure there’s no other option?”
“Not in the time frame we’ve got,” he said, “unless you want to get locked up again.”
“No, this is the farthest I’ve ever gotten,” she said, “so I trust you. You’ve made it here.”
“And I’m making it out of here too, with you and Diesel,” he said. He quickly pulled the C-4 from his bag and set up the backfuse. As soon as it blew, he was already well out of range. He had deliberately chosen the wall that supported the garage door instead of the doors themselves. The corner of the wall blew, and he immediately saw the other charges, racing to light and explode. But Diesel was already there, urging Aleah forward.
Kicking out the remaining rocks, Shane got them both outside, and then the gunfire started. He took one in the bulletproof vest, and a second one slammed into the wall beside him. He then heard the charges going off inside the building. Aleah was behind him, tucked behind the stairs, even as the bullets flew, but they came from a single shooter. With Diesel racing off to the side, and Shane taking cover, they were in a showdown.
“What will you do now?” the gunman yelled. “I don’t know who the hell you are,” he said, “but you entered a game where you didn’t belong.”
Shane stayed quiet, as he studied the scenario. Diesel came up behind somebody else off to the side, just loading up a weapon, and took him out. Good, Shane thought to himself. One down. Diesel moved quickly around to the back of the shooter, and Shane called out to the gunman. “Show yourself. Surely you’re not so weak and pathetic you just kidnap women and keep them hidden away like that,” he said.
“You don’t know anything about it,” the guy said in a bored voice.
“Nope, and I don’t really care to either,” he said. And he stood up.
Immediately the guy raised his hand. “I want her over here.”
“Yep, that makes sense to me,” he said. He reached down and held out a hand. She looked at him and shook her head. He nodded. “Trust me,” he whispered, then held her slightly behind him, as he twisted around to help her up. Bent over as he was, he fired one shot in the shooter’s leg. The guy swore and dropped to his knees. Diesel was immediately on him, holding a gun to his head.
At that, Shane pulled Aleah to her feet and said, “Come on. Let’s go see if this is the one we’re looking for.”
She hobbled with him closer to the gunman. She shook her head. “This is his assistant. He’s not the one we need.”
“Fine,” he said, “but we’ll take this one anyway.” Just then the blast behind them in the building rippled out into the night. Shane was flung down. The gunman rolled to shoot Diesel, who popped him.
Two down. At that, Shane was immediately back on his feet. He looked to see Aleah on her knees, holding her belly. He bent down, scooped her up into his arms and ran.
“I think the baby’s coming,” she said.
“Well, you better tell Baby to hold up a bit,” he said, “because that would be really shitty timing.”
“I don’t think babies care,” she said and moaned.
Diesel was ahead of them, heading for the vehicle. It had been prearranged, but that didn’t mean it was still lined up. As soon as Shane saw Diesel get into it and drive toward him, Shane swore and said, “Thank God for that.” Shane scooted inside the back seat, gently setting Aleah down, staying with her.
Diesel looked up in the rearview mirror and asked, “Hospital?”
He shook his head. “No, that’ll just get more people killed. Head to the docks.”
“And what about Shelly?”
“I’ll send her a message.” He quickly texted her. We’re out. We have the woman. She’s heavily pregnant. Heading to Dock 41 to load up. Stay safe.
She wrote back immediately. I don’t know about the stay safe part, but I have to tell you. Things just changed.
Chapter 9
Shelly stared at the MI6 agent, now holding a gun on her. “What did I do to you?”
He shrugged. “You’re just in the wrong place at the wrong time.”
“You know what? I’m getting really damn tired of people telling me that,” she cried out. “You said that, when the bombs went off, you would know what had happened. So tell me. What has happened?”
“It means he failed,” he said. “And that means I need to take you as a hostage.”