Page 19 of Protective Assignment (Warrior Peak Sanctuary #1)

As the truck pulled to a stop outside the warehouse, Cade opened the door and jumped out. The adrenaline was pumping and it had taken all the restraint he had not to leap out of this truck half a mile down the road and sprint the rest of the way there.

It was a cold day, clear and bright, and Lawson stepped out of the doorway to the warehouse and waved them over. An FBI agent stood next to him. Cade recognized the regulation haircut and the windbreaker those types always wore.

“Hey,” Cade greeted Lawson, as he joined them. “What’s happened? What did we miss?”

“They’re long gone now.” Lawson sighed. “But they did some real damage to this place. And the owner? He was unlucky enough to be here when they arrived, and they beat the hell out of him. Put him in the hospital. He’s recovering now, but his jaw’s wired shut, so there’s not much he can tell us.”

“And they think it was the Shepards?”

“They know it was,” he replied, shaking his head as Xavier caught up with them. “There were reports from people who saw them passing through a small town not far from here. But law enforcement couldn’t intercept them in time to stop this.”

“And they raided this place for supplies?” Xavier asked.

Lawson shot him a look, then turned his attention back to Cade, addressing him and not Xavier.

“Looks like it,” he said. “Best we can do now is take a look around the place and get an idea of what they took. This place is usually a storage facility for survivalist supplies—canned food, stuff like that—but they have a decent amount of weaponry too, most of it smaller handguns and a variety of ammunitions. If they’ve taken off with a lot of that, they could be planning an attack somewhere. ”

“We’ll take a look,” Xavier volunteered.

Lawson didn’t even look at him before he headed over to the truck to fill the other guys in on what had been happening.

“What is going on between the two of you?” Cade asked, as Xavier watched Lawson walk away.

Xavier shook his head. “You don’t want to know,” he replied. “It won’t get in the way of what we’re here to do. Come on, let’s see what we’ve got.”

Cade raised his eyebrows, but knew better than to push for more information, especially in the middle of a mission. They had a job to do here, and what mattered was getting it done, not figuring out whatever drama was going down between them.

They headed into the warehouse, and Cade grabbed an inventory paper from where it had been dropped next to the front door. He scanned the space—it was all in disarray, and it looked as though they had taken almost everything they could get their hands on.

“Do you think they were looking for something specific?” Cade asked Xavier as they started to make their way in and out of the rows of tall shelving that had been knocked over to figure out what had gone missing.

“I honestly don’t know,” Xavier replied. “I’m still trying to figure out what they’re doing this far north.”

“Oh, yeah?”

“Yeah, I’ve been doing some research into them since Willis said that the Shepards might become our problem soon,” he explained. “And they’ve never really come this far out of their territory before. I can’t figure out what it’s about, but there has to be a reason.”

“You don’t think they’re just trying to expand their territory?” Cade asked.

He shook his head. “The movements they’ve been making, it’s more than that,” he replied.

“There’s something he’s looking for out here.

I’m not sure what it is. Hell, I’m not sure if he even knows what it is, but there’s a reason behind it, I’m sure of it.

They might be crazy, but they don’t do things for no reason. ”

“He?” Cade locked on that one word. “You talking about the guy who runs the Shepards of Rebellion?”

“Ryker,” Xavier stated. “That’s his name. There’s not a whole lot out there about him, but what I do know is that he’s some seriously bad news.”

“In what way?” Cade inquired. The more he knew about this guy, the better. If there was one thing he had learned during his time in the Special Forces, it was to learn as much about your enemy as you could.

“The way he treats his followers,” he replied.

“There aren’t many who have managed to get away, but those who have all say the same thing.

That he uses them like possessions. He doesn’t let anyone else get close to them, totally cuts them off from their friends and family.

Shuts off their connections to the outside world so they don’t have anything other than him.

It’s crazy. He really is running a cult out there. ”

Cade nodded as he thought about what Xavier had said.

He’d known men like that before. Men who treated everyone else like they were owed something.

They were some of the most dangerous out there, some of the most ruthless.

Whatever this Ryker guy was looking for out here, he wasn’t going to stop until he got his hands on it, or until someone got in his way and couldn’t be pushed around like everyone else.

“You think the Feds will get him?” Cade asked as they started to take the inventory.

Xavier shrugged. “I don’t think they’re confident about it, and I can’t say I blame them.

He’s been running this gang for years now, and nobody has managed to get close enough to bring them down.

But leaving his territory like this, he might open himself up to the possibility of being caught.

He’s not going to be as strong out of his usual hunting ground in Florida. ”

“Right,” Cade muttered. There was something about even hearing of this Ryker guy that made the hair on the back of his neck stand on end.

He was obviously really bad news. And even though Cade was used to handling trouble during his time in the military, he didn’t like not knowing what they were dealing with when it came to this guy and the gang he ran.

“Let’s start at the back and work our way forward,” he suggested to Xavier.

Lawson still hadn’t come in to join them.

There was clearly something serious going on between the two men, but it was the last thing on Cade’s mind right now.

They had intel to gather, and the more they could find out, the easier it was going to be to track this Riker guy down and stop his gang before they moved any farther across the country.

Cade handed Xavier the inventory sheet and headed to the back of the warehouse, where some of the shelving was still upright.

“Okay, so bottom shelf is…” he began, but before he could get any further, a man sprang out from behind the shelves.

“What the hell?” Xavier exclaimed.

Cade managed to step to the side before the man could make contact with him.

The man, who appeared to be in his midforties, looked panicked as he followed Cade’s movement.

Cade saw his chest rising and falling and his eyes darting around as he tried to find a way out.

The man took a swing at him, but Cade dodged it easily.

His hand flew into the metal shelf behind Cade instead.

The clanging noise filled the warehouse, and the man let out a cry of pain, drawing his hand back in shock.

Cade moved toward him to try and capture him, but the man surprised him, slamming his forehead into Cade’s jaw and sending him reeling back.

Cade clutched at his face, the pain not registering yet as he tried to figure out how best to handle this.

“Xavier, cut him off,” Cade called to his friend, gesturing to the other end of the row before the man could turn that direction to run. Cade might not have known exactly what this man was doing here, but he was sure they could get something useful out of him.

The man tried to beat Xavier to the other side, but Xavier managed to catch him before he could get away. He almost squirmed loose of Xavier’s grip, but Cade grabbed him before he could continue his escape, and pinned him to the ground with his hands behind his back.

“Xavier, get the others so we can make sure there’s no one else hiding in this place,” Cade said, still holding the man to the ground.

His arm twinged with pain, but he hardly felt it.

He hadn’t expected an attack here, but his instincts had kicked in without a second thought. It felt good to be back in action.

Moments later, the warehouse filled with noise as the rest of the guys came flooding in. The man had given up trying to escape from Cade’s grip, as though he knew there was no chance for him now.

Who was he? Had the Shepards left behind one of their own, or was this someone else entirely? He didn’t have a clue.

But they had someone here, at least. Someone they could use to shake out a little more information about this gang.

And that was more than they’d had before.