Page 26 of Hurt

There was a long sigh. “Jamie, I’m right beside you.”

He didn’t look over at his partner. “Come in, O-Face. Can’t read you on the coms. Over.”

A balled-up piece of paper hit him squarely in the head. “There are no coms because I am literally sitting three feet from you, idiot,” Owen griped. “And how many times have I told you not to call me that?”

Jamie grinned, his perfect teeth flashing bright in the darkened room. “You know my terms.” He placed his hands on the back of a chair Owen was using as a desk and leaned forward lecherously. “I’ll stop calling you that when you show me your real O face.”

Without looking up from his computer, Owen kicked the chair out from Jamie, sending him sprawling to the floor.

“Drone is picking up eight heat signatures across the street. Three outside and the rest on the third floor,” Owen said as he pulled up a thermal screen.

Jamie picked himself up off the floor and looked over Owen's shoulder at the screen. “What are they doing?”

“Looks like they’re all clustered around a TV.” The IT tech pointed at a central object that was giving off less heat than the bodies circling it. “I can switch to night vision and give you a better visual.”

“Nah,” Jamie said as he studied the configuration. “What about our sentries? Where are they?”

Owen brought up a second screen. It showed two men standing guard at the large front doors and one behind on the loading dock. “Looks pretty weak.”

“Show me night vision of the sentries.”

Owen tapped a few keys, and the laptop switched from thermals to the black and green of night vision. The fog was a little thicker than before, and it was difficult to make out specifics.

“Looks like the guards have rifles of some sort,” Owen pointed out.

“SKS rifles. Semi-Automatic carbine powered, good for four hundred meters. Standard sight.”

Owen stared at him. “How could you possibly see that from here?”

Jamie scoffed. “Do you really expect a mother not to know her children?” He reached for the keys and toggled the screen back to a wide overview of the building.

“Why wouldn’t you be the father…?”

Jamie ignored him. “What does this factory manufacture again?”

The Weavers had done business with these exporters for years. Generally, they had been reliable and able to get anything the Weavers needed across borders. It had been a symbiotic relationship, right until the group got greedy. They decided they could skim off the top, and the Weavers wouldn’t notice.

They noticed.

Owen had been tapping into their accounts for the last few weeks. Thanks to the modernization of accounts and banking, it was easy to track finances. They had all the proof they needed. Wallace would mourn their relationship, but there was no room for error when it came to working with the Weavers. The group had stepped out of line, and Jamie was going to send a message as to what it meant to betray the Weavers.

“Plastic molds. Generally, for silicone.”

“Think they have good insurance?”

“Jamie, you cannot blow up the building,” Owen said miserably. He took the computer from him and tapped a few more keys.

“Take out the sentries and barricade the loading dock. I’ll be able to tell you if any of them are making a run for the front.”

Jamie stepped back and knelt down to unzip his duffle. He pulled out a .454 Casull with a homemade attached silencer. He slipped it into his shoulder holster. It was followed up by a smaller .38 snub nose special. He caressed the barrel and tucked it into his ankle holster. The weight was familiar, and he pulled his starched pant leg down over it.

Over his back, he slung a sawed-off shotgun. Highly illegal and completely customized to Jamie’s specific needs, it was his favorite close combat weapon. The barrel had been cut down to twelve inches. It shortened its range and power, but it was easier to conceal and move with in smaller spaces.

Totally worth the five years in a federal penitentiary if he was caught with it.

Sliding on a pair of gloves, he looked back at his partner. “You know what to do if I don’t come back?”

Owen nodded grimly. “Delete your internet browser history and burn the fanfictions you wrote.”