Page 78 of Lethal Torture

Then, from the containers off to our right where the NCA team are concealed, there comes an audible thud. One of Niamh’s team has clearly slipped up.

The guard who kicked the container looks around warily, then goes very still, gesturing to the others for silence. He picks up his radio and murmurs something into it, then starts edging toward the hidden NCA agents.

Fuck.

“What do you want us to do?” Sally mouths in my ear.

“Nothing, yet.” I don’t want to show our hand unless we have to.

Ana touches my foot. Sally and I both look over our shoulders.

There are half a dozen men approaching from the rear, all strapped to the eyeballs.

The traffickers were expecting company.

The NCA are surrounded.

We’re all surrounded.

It looks like it’s going to be a fight, whether I want it or not. I close my eyes briefly.

Fuck it all to hell.

This is bad. Really fucking bad.

“Wait,” I mouth, and Sally nods grimly.

But the word is no sooner out of my mouth than the men who emptied the container start shooting. And once they do, the entire yard turns to chaos.

I spot Niamh, shooting from the shadows beside a container, another man beside her. She’s drawing most of the fire. Other members of her team, hidden in and among the stacked containers, start taking shots at the men by the vans.

None of them seem to realize there is a force approaching from the rear.

“Go,” I whisper to Sally, “and tell the others to back up the NCA.” She gives a low-voiced instruction into her earpiece, then she and Ana are gone in seconds, scaling down to the ground and melting into the lines between containers, heading aroundto come in behind the newcomers. I see the shapes of the other women moving into place behind Niamh, covering her and picking off the men in front of them.

But the men just keep coming.

Jesus, did they bring a fucking army with them?

Then I realize the men coming to join the traffickers aren’t part of their force.

They’re wearing Port Authority uniforms.

What the hell?

This just went from bad to fucking disastrous.

Bullets are flying everywhere, including from my own Glock. I hit the leg of one of the men approaching Niamh, and the shoulder of another. Then sparks fly up as return fire comes uncomfortably close to hitting me, striking sparks off the shipping container I’m lying on. The man who fired them shouts to the other men, pointing to where I am.

Get out of here, Zin.

I shimmy down the side and drop to the ground, then run at a half crouch, trying to stay in the shadows.

I know I’m out of my depth.

Wielding a whip on a hotel bed is one thing.

Open combat is quite another.