Page 56 of Renegade (The Santini Assassins #2)

They retreated into the locker rooms to suit up.

Twenty minutes later, everyone stood in the hallway, dressed in SWAT gear, helmets on, goggles up.

In their arms, each cradled their weapon.

While some hid their identity with camouflage paint, others didn’t.

He hadn’t, but all the women, including Caroline, were slathered in face paint.

They inserted their comms.

“Check in,” Greystone said.

One by one, they tested their devices.

“Here are the teams,” Greystone said. “Hawk and Addison, Prescott and Slash, Sin and Dakota, Stryker and Emerson, Cooper and Danielle, Rebel and Jericho, and the trio is Caroline, Tank, and me.” He swept his gaze over the group. “Are we good? ”

They were.

“We have a saying in ALPHA,” Dakota said. “Team?”

“We go in together,” they said in unison. “We come out together.”

“Nice,” Greystone replied. “I got one of my own.” He eyed the group. “Let’s get these fuckers.”

As they walked toward the hangar, Greystone said, “I’ll take one of the vans.”

“Sin and I will take the second,” Dakota added.

“Four to an SUV,” Greystone instructed before they entered the oversized garage.

The caravan headed out, driving as a unit toward the apartment complex in Arlington.

Caroline rode shotgun. Teddy sat in the back of the cargo van.

The vehicle had two rows of seats facing the empty center.

The prisoners would be secured by their handcuffed wrists to a bar over their heads, while their shackled ankles were secured to the floor.

As they approached the apartment complex, they turned off their headlights, drove around back, and parked.

With Greystone taking the lead, they strode in pairs toward the front of the building.

The formidable group would stop anyone in their tracks.

They looked like monsters who haunted people’s dreams.

In silence, they entered the garden apartment building, split off toward their destinations. Up the stairs he charged, Caroline and Teddy close on his heels.

“Together,” he murmured as they stopped outside the fourth-floor apartment.

The teams reported in that they were in position. He tried the door handle. Locked.

“On three,” Greystone said before he counted them down. “One, two three .”

POP!

He shot out the lock, burst inside. Darkness filled the small furnished apartment.

He lowered his goggles. No targets in the living room.

He stormed down the short hallway to a bedroom, entered, and cleared the room in seconds.

The bed had been made, the open drawers empty.

Whoever had been living there had bolted.

Dammit to fucking hell.

“How’d they know?” he murmured.

Teddy raced across the hall, he and Caroline close behind. Seconds later, they’d cleared that bedroom. Only clothing had been left, strewn around the room. They cleared the bathroom. Also empty.

“Update me,” he said.

One by one the teams reported in the same results. The terror cell had fled the building. The trio hurried to the apartment across the low-lit hallway. Greystone tried the lock. The doorknob turned.

“Here we go,” he murmured.

He opened the door, this one creaking on its worn hinges.

The living room was a disaster. Pizza boxes and other empty food containers lay scattered, their stench fouling the air.

Caroline took off toward the first bedroom, stopping outside with her back against the wall. She peeked around the corner.

“He’s packing,” she whispered into the comm.

They entered the room together, their rifles drawn. A man was kneeling on the floor in front of an open suitcase, throwing clothing inside. He startled, then pulled out an air pod from his ear.

“Don’t shoot,” he said.

“Hands up,” Greystone commanded.

The man raised his arms. Greystone recognized him as one of the men in the terror cell.

“Stand up,” Greystone said.

As the man started to rise, he grabbed a gun from the suitcase .

Caroline opened fire.

POP! POP! POP! POP!

The man fell forward onto the clothes.

Teddy snatched the weapon away from him, felt his pulse. “Gone.”

They stared at him for several seconds before the faintest sound caught Greystone’s ear. “Someone’s in the back bedroom,” he whispered.

Caroline ran out. Greystone strode after her as she came to an abrupt halt outside the second bedroom and hugged the wall, her rifle at the ready.

He entered and swept the room.

BANG! BANG! BANG!

Bullets whizzed past him. He spun toward the darkened bathroom and opened fire.

POP! POP! POP! POP! POP! POP!

Caroline unloaded her weapon into the dark room.

POP! POP! POP! POP! POP! POP!

THUD.

A man staggered out, an assault weapon clutched in his bloodied arms, and collapsed onto the bedroom floor. All three aimed their rifles at him.

“Death to Americans,” he wheezed.

As Teddy seized his gun, Greystone ID’d him as the one who’d provided the legit address when applying for a job at JL’s janitorial company.

“Tell us where the bombs are,” Greystone said as the man lay gasping for air.

“Never,” the terrorist bit out. “You will all die. We will never stop until we win. I am a warrior of Haqazzii.” His breathing quieted, then stopped.

Silence.

The BLACK OPS team rushed into the apartment, some of them entering the small bedroom .

Greystone eyed his team. “Living room.”

In the larger room, they reported in. Everyone in the terror cell had bolted, save these two.

“We should have let them leave and followed them,” Greystone bit out, second-guessing himself.

“You did the right thing,” Sin said.

“If you hadn’t fired back, you’d be dead,” Slash said. “It was them or you.”

“We have nothing,” Greystone growled.

“That’s not true,” Caroline said. “We know where they work, so we can ambush them there and bring them to the Black Site.”

“They won’t talk,” Hawk said. “They’ll die before they tell us anything.”

Greystone snapped photos of the dead men before they returned to their vehicles. Seething, he said nothing as he drove back to the Black site.

Once there, they debriefed around the conference room table.

When he finished, Caroline said, “I’m going back to the Bureau, and I’m gonna tear that restroom apart.

If I can’t find the bomb, I’m going to the Justice Department to do the same thing over there.

” She regarded everyone in the room. “They have access to six buildings. Who’s going to the other four? ”

After she got her volunteers, she said, “Partner up and go through the building floor by floor. Look for a bathroom or some other room that’s off limits.

Get into the basement if you can. I’m confident the bombs are being built somewhere in those buildings.

” She flicked her gaze to Greystone. “You’re with me. ”

“When are you doing this?” Jericho asked.

“Now,” she replied. “We’ve run out of time.”

CAROLINE

Caroline was furious. If they didn’t find the bombs in the next few days, the President would launch Plan B. That meant Plan A had failed. That meant they had failed.

Not on my watch.

After confirming she and Grey had their FBI badges, they headed out. In the hangar, she climbed into her SUV. Once he got in beside her, she backed out. While the door was closing, she opened the sunroof, let the early morning air swirl around her.

Before driving away, she clasped his hand.

“We’ve run into multiple roadblocks in all of our cases.

This one is no different. Yes, the pressure is there and time is almost out, and, yes, we feel completely defeated, but we aren’t giving up.

Maybe the terrorists are hoping we will, maybe they think they’re smarter, more cunning, or that their hatred will win. ”

In the dark car, he glanced over. “We’ll find those bombs.”

She drove to DC, made her way over to the Hoover building. After she garage parked nearby, they hurried inside and through security.

The second the elevator doors shut, he hauled her close. “We got this.”

She stared into his eyes, the energy swirling around them. “The terrorists got away, they’re watching us, and there’s a chance we’re going to die, but I refuse to back down. No way in hell are we running scared.”

They came together in a torrent of wild energy, his kiss hijacking her mind.

But their few seconds of bliss ended when the doors slid open on the fifth floor.

They strode down the quiet hallway, stopping in front of the restroom.

As she expected, the door was locked. Grey keyed their way in.

Like their first visit, nothing was disturbed .

She walked into each stall, felt along the tile wall near the floor behind each toilet.

Nothing.

After staring at every inch of wall, she studied the concrete floor. Coming up empty again, she raked her hands through her hair.

“Let’s say this is a red herring, and there’s nothing going on in here,” she said. “Why go to all this trouble to keep employees out? And what are they doing in here? Why lead us to these buildings that turn into a dead end?”

Her questions were met with thundering silence.

Grey’s brows were furrowed, the muscles in his cheeks ticking over and over.

Then, he started pacing in the small space.

She started tracking his every move, hoping it would trigger a thought that could lead them somewhere.

She walked over to the sink, set her hands on the vanity, and stared at herself in the mirror.

Think, Caroline. Why did they close off these rooms? Is the answer in the walls? She stared at the reflection of the ceiling. Up there?

A smudge on the edge of the mirror caught her attention. Then, another on the other side.

Those are thumb prints.

“Whoa,” she blurted as she studied each of the mirrors over the sinks.

She grasped both sides of the mirror. It moved. Excitement pounded through her as she tried pulling it away from the wall. It didn’t budge, so she lifted it, then pulled, and the mirror detached.

Sitting inside the gaping, drilled-out section of wall behind the mirror appeared to be an explosive device that, at first glance, looked like it was a foot high, by a foot wide, by a foot deep.

“Jesus,” he muttered. “You found it. ”

He took the mirror from her, leaned it against the wall.

She breathed deep, releasing some of the stress that had been building over the past two months. “We sure as hell did.”

They removed the other three mirrors and found three identical devices.

“We hit the mother lode.” He lit up the space with his phone’s flashlight. “There’s a timer.”

Her stomach dropped. “No,” she murmured. “Tell me it’s not set.”

He pivoted toward her. The second his gaze met hers, she knew. Those bombs had been set to blow. She needed to know how long they had, but the words got stuck in her throat.