Dray said tersely, “Three vehicles? That means we’re looking at a dozen or more tangoes.”
“Sounds about right,” Spencer replied.
“Then where are they?” Gunner demanded.
“I know where they’re not,” Drago replied. “And that’s here. This place is as quiet as a tomb. We’ve got no action at all on our property.”
Gunner didn’t get it. Spencer was absolutely right—the hostiles should be out for blood. If nothing else, they would need to show the big bosses they were being effective, at least in part, after having lost custody of Poppy in the first place. Why hadn’t Chas or the three of them been attacked?
Had something spooked them? Had they changed plans? What the hell were he, Spencer, and Drago missing?
He wouldn’t normally be alarmed that things weren’t going to plan. That was pretty much ops normal for a SEAL mission. But Chas was involved in this one. He didn’t like using Chas as bait if they had no idea what the tangoes were doing. They needed more warm bodies, more resources out here if they were going to press ahead with tonight’s confrontation.
“We should call in the FBI,” he murmured. “Get a tactical team out here to scour the area. Their cars are here… the tangoes have to be close.”
“We don’t have any idea how many guys there are or who they are, at this point. They’re not acting at all like the bulldogs who followed you and Chas. Those guys tracked and attacked you relentlessly. We can’t afford to call in a tip to the FBI and have it be wrong. If it is, the next time we call, the FBI will ignore us.”
This was why Spencer had been the team leader. He consistently made the right call, even if it was the hard call. Gunner sighed and moved closer to the road. He muttered, “I’m half tempted to grab the car guard and demand to know where his guys are.”
“Last resort maneuver,” Spencer replied. He sounded tense. He obviously didn’t like the fact that the bad guys had disappeared either.
Drago murmured, “I’m heading for the road.”
Gunner’s gut twisted. This was a clusterfuck… he felt it in his bones. Every operator’s instinct he had was shouting at him. Something bad was about to go down, and they weren’t where they needed to be. And Chas was a sitting duck in that big house all alone—
Tat-tat. Tat-tat-tat.
“Gunfire,” Gunner bit out, running toward the sound. “Direction of the road. My tango just jumped into vehicle number three.”
Spencer’s voice came over his earpiece, breathing hard. Dude must be in a full sprint toward him. “Those shots are coming from the Brentwoods’ place.”
Full-blown, holy-shit panic exploded in Gunner’s gut. The bad guys had figured out where Poppy was? How in the hell—?
He cut off the thought. Didn’t matter right now.
“I’m right behind you,” Drago grunted, also obviously running full-out.
“Don’t cross the road, Gun,” Spencer bit out. “Wait for us.”
More gunfire exploded. A lot of it. Gunner guesstimated that at least a dozen weapons were involved in an exchange of fire. Crap, crap, crap.
Reluctantly, Gunner screeched to a halt just inside the tree line about fifty feet behind the last vehicle. Spencer knew him too well—the guy knew he would charge in headfirst if Poppy was in danger. C’mon, Spencer. Get here already.
“Hurry,” Gunner ground out over his microphone.
It was probably no more than sixty seconds until Spencer tapped his shoulder twice, indicating he should hold his position. Dammit. Drago arrived in perhaps sixty more seconds, but it was the longest two minutes of Gunner’s life.
Spencer took point, leading them away from the vehicles around a bend in the road. Frustratingly, it was also farther away from the Brentwood property. Gunner schooled himself to patience as sporadic weapons fire continued.
Spencer indicated with hand signals that they would cross the road in stealth mode, one at a time. Gunner felt ready to explode with impatience. His urge to barge in, guns blazing, was almost uncontrollable. Were it not for Spencer and Drago grimly flanking him, he’d have done just that.
In the farthest recesses of his mind where he was still vaguely rational, he was thankful for their steadying presence. They moved into the woods on the far side of the road and quickly encountered the tall iron fence that surrounded the Brentwood estate.
Spencer reached out with one knuckle to touch the fence, and no spark jumped. Dammit. This fence was supposed to be electrified!
It made their ingress easier, though. The three of them scaled the fence quickly, pulled themselves up to the top, and rolled over the spiked tips of the fence using their bullet-resistant vests to cushion the points.
Gunner dropped to his feet and took off after Spencer, who was already running away from him. It was gratifying to finally move fast like this, and the sprint burned off some of the excess adrenaline that had been clouding his brain function.
He’d never been on this property, but fortunately Spencer and Drago had been running exercises on it for months while they trained the Brentwoods’ security staff. Spencer angled off to the left as the trees thinned and a massive mansion came into view. It was a brick-and-stone castle that looked as if it had been lifted straight off some grand British estate.
Muzzle flashes came from several of the downstairs windows. Which meant the hostiles hadn’t made it into the house. That was good. Bad news: there were multiple tangoes shooting back at the house from the edge of the lawn.
“That place got a panic room?” Gunner bit out.
“Oh, yeah. I’m sure the Brentwoods and Poppy are all locked up bank-vault style.”
Drago growled, “They had better be locked up or heads are gonna roll on the security team we trained.”
“So we’re hunting?” Gunner asked.
Spencer’s wolflike smile was all the answer he needed. Excellent. These fuckers were trying to hurt his baby girl. He had no compunction about killing every last one of them.
The three of them fanned out, moving more slowly now. They eased through the trees, steering clear of the rolling expanse of manicured lawn. Drago muttered that they’d taught the security team not to bother trying to shoot at anyone beyond the grass.
That made sense to Gunner. The security staff’s odds of hitting targets in the woods would be too low without sniper training and weapons, and the goal was to keep intruders out of the house, which meant said intruders would have to cross the lawn to get to the main structure.
It didn’t take them long to see muzzle flashes ahead of them. Four of the Oshiro gang members were lying at the west edge of the lawn behind a low brick wall. Unless they were sitting there shooting at the house for the hell of it, Gunner figured they were supposed to give someone cover as that someone tried to reach the house. Which meant the incursion would probably come from the north or south, at right angles to these yahoos.
He and Spencer and Drago had discussed their rules of engagement at the kitchen table yesterday, and they’d agreed that if the Oshiro boys were using lethal force, they would match it. Which meant the men in front of them were dead and just didn’t know it yet.
Spencer indicated that he would take the shooter on the far end, Drago would take the nearest guy, and Gunner should take the two in the middle. They crouched no more than twenty feet behind the targets, weapons at the ready. After a few quick clicks on their primary radio frequency to verify they were ready to roll, Spencer gave the go signal.