Bane: Elite Operatives (Bad Boys of X-Ops Book 4) (14 page)

Enemy Territory

IT WASN’T THE DEAD of night when we turned up in the hub of DC, outside the tinted glass doors that led into the nondescript facility housing Operation T-Zone. No. It was midmorning. A sea of pedestrians hustled on the sidewalk, armed with their phones glued to their ears.

The five of us were armed, too—Walker, Storm, Justice, Blaize, and I—with nothing so innocuous as cell phones.

“What’s the latest chatter, Justice?” Blaize asked as we huddled outside the entrance.

Justice listened intently to the earpiece hidden from sight. “We may have company once we get upstairs. The bad kind.” But the grin he gave made it seem like the good kind.

Jus had somehow hooked into the upper level, interior offices at T-Z. He’d been monitoring the asshats who’d 1. Put our lives at risk, and 2. Potentially tried to have us all killed. Turning the tables on them, he’d followed every conversation, and the intel he’d gathered proved the uppity-up fucks were scrambling to cover their tracks after we’d blown shit up with their illegal contacts in Mexico City.

Of course, given we’d completed our assigned mission—including, for me, the death of one Kiki Damage—our bosses had no choice but to outwardly laud a job well done once we’d debriefed.

Inwardly?

They were shitting bricks in their pants.

I didn’t understand half of what pretty boy did in his real job with our team—he was always
patching through
and
drilling down
and
initiating hack protocols
. I did know he was also damn good at patching up people. If it hadn’t been for his fast thinking in Sana’a, Yemen, his Tilly would’ve ended up dead of septic shock.

Into computers and pharmacology. Weird fucking combination. He’d tried to explain the similarities once, but his geek-tech-nerd jargon only made my head hurt.

What could I say?

I was a simple man. Give me a wound to stitch up, a target to shoot, a woman to love, and a life I could be proud of, and that was about all I needed.

“Where’s Katherine?” Blaize asked me before we headed inside the lair of traitors.

“Kiki’s on standby.” I held the door open, everyone strolling inside.

We emptied our holsters and our knife sheathes at the security station. With a scowl on my face, I added my brass knuckles to the growing stockpile.

Thumb scans complete, we made it through the outer defenses and started winding our way to the heart of the building—an area most of us had never explored before. Us lowly schmucks had always been relegated several layers underground.

Fucking power-hungry dickholes.

Storm, Justice, Walker, and I might not have had access to the upper floors, but
Miss Carmichael
sure as hell
did.

While she led the way, Justice did some fancy techy footwork,
patching
through
the security cameras and setting them on a loop to mask our infiltration into the first floor hallway then to the bank of elevators.

“Is it usually this quiet?” I asked, when nothing but empty corridor greeted us wherever we went.

Blaize stepped into an elevator liked she owned the place. “Yes. Floors one to five are vacant, for show only. The top floor is self-sufficient—per security measures no one leaves until it’s time to clock-out.”

“A lot of fucks gonna clock out today.” Walker’s long black braid hung down his back, and he winked with a wide grin. “Finally, some goddamn
justice
for what they did to me and Jade.”

“Justice.
Har har
.” Storm chuckled, in an equally high mood.

I couldn’t say I was displeased with this op either. The cunts deserved nothing less than total death. The list of their wrongdoings was a mile long, but I’d have been content to kill them for putting the murder-order on Kiki alone.

True to Blaize’s word, we encountered no resistance on the way up. No electrics cut. No elevator shut down. No troopers busting through the building to find us.

Goddamn Muzak filtered through the speakers in the elevator car.

Justice pistol-pointed his index finger at the speaker with a quiet, “
Bang.
”

Not a single one of us broke out in a cold sweat, fidgeted with our hands, or showed any other outward sign of nervousness.

This mission had been almost twelve months in the making. The bastards we were gunning for had been pure poison for at least that long.

Possibly longer.

The elevator opened on sixth floor. Outside, in the hallway, the difference was immediately noticeable. The air hummed as if the very walls were alive. Voices vibrated from the enclosed offices stretching along the corridor.

A receptionist stood from behind a tall desk as we approached—five figures dressed all in black.

“Miss Carmichael? I should alert—” the gray-haired woman looked frantically down the hallway.

“I suggest you take your bag, get on that elevator, and pretend you never knew about T-Z, Meredith.” Cool as the wintry air outside, Blaize gave the hushed order.

Without stopping to see if the woman took her advice, Blaize urged us forward.

We quickly and quietly emptied rooms of all the noncomplicit
office
workers. Unlike the assholes who issued our danger pay, we weren’t in the habit of taking out innocent civvies.

“We’re clear.” Blaize sounded off as the last elevator dinged.

Finally only one other office stood between us and the three men who’d tried—and failed—to make our lives a living hell.

The T-Zone executives.

Busting through the doors, we came to an immediate halt. Four men—definitely not business-suited execs—stood posed in attack stance with guns pointed at our heads.

“And here’s the extra company I was talking about,” Justice mumbled.

Luckily Mr. Mission Impossible AKA Storm had fixed us up but good after Justice had disabled the ultra high-security scanners downstairs. He’d somehow cloaked the extra set of weapons concealed on our bodies. No idea how he managed it. I didn’t ask questions. It’d only taken the twenty-second elevator ride up to load our ammo and prepare for possible tangos.

Drawing as one, we advanced on the other T-Zone team protecting the corrupt leaders of our organization.

Shots ricocheted through the air immediately from both sides—no last-minute warnings given. We’d all had the same elite training. We all knew how to dodge, fight, aim. But four against five meant we had the upper hand. We also had good on our side, and I was sick and fucking tired of having bullets plugged into me.

I knocked the sidearm from the man blocking my way. He dug in, heaving his shoulder against my midsection. I bullied forward, plowing him onto the hard surface of a desk. Drawers skipped out, banging onto the floor. A laptop crashed against the wall. My elbow smashed into his windpipe, and I slammed the back of his head against the angled corner of the desk until a skull-crushing crunch echoed in a ghastly sound. He flopped for one spasming instant before all life force left him.

Leaping down, I swung around, my Sig Sauer raised.

Walker had taken out his KA-BAR, bludgeoning it through another man’s chest. One thrust and he was done. The bastard KO’d.

Storm broke the arm of an operative who’d taken hold of Blaize’s hair by the roots. She spun free, a growl low in her throat. She yanked the man from Storm’s hold and thrust him against the wall. One second she was in front of him. The next she drew up beside him, her weapon at his temple.

“Goodbye,” she uttered, pulling the trigger.

He slumped like a body sack on the floor.

Justice stepped up from the bulky form of a beaten man, blowing across his bruised knuckles.

Less than two minutes. Complete bloody mayhem. Barely a scratch on our bodies. There was a reason we were the alpha team and Blaize was the alpha bitch. Not that I’d ever say that to her face.

We crouched near the last set of doors.

Blaize nodded. “In three, two—”

We kicked open the doors and strode inside.

The carnage outside was immediately apparent to the three middle-aged, upper-management dickwads inside.

“Three little rats all in a hole.” With some serious hate on his side, Walker gave an eerie smile.

Bulletproof Heroes

“BLAIZE.” RAT NUMBER ONE held his hands out, palms up. “We just follow orders.”

“Bullshit.” She sneered. “You follow
no rules
, you make your own plays. And you can call me Miss Carmichael just like my team does, Z.”

“Z? As in X, Y, Z?” I cased the place in quick movements, making sure there were no hidden weapons.

Storm searched their bodies, patting them down. “Pathetic fucks.”

“Totally unimaginative.” Justice looked at the opened laptops, playing a silent game of
Eenie, Meanie, Miney . . . mine down for intel.

“What I wanna know is which one of you cunts is Mr. X.” Walker pushed a bald-headed man back into a chair with the sole of his boot. “The fuckwad who used to give me orders over the secure phone line. My former team leader.” He got menacingly close to the man’s lean, wolfish face. “That you?”

“Xavier, yes.” Although the other two looked shaken, this one held his gaze steady on Walker’s nearly black one.

Walker pulled his KA-BAR out, and swiped it up and down his pants like he was sharpening the blade. “Well, Xavier,
you better start praying to your savior.
”

“I think we need more information before you start killing, Walker,” Blaize dryly said.

“Always gotta spoil my fun.” He peeled himself back, all of half an inch.

Inserting a flash drive into the laptop he’d chosen, Justice said, “Starting the download now. I need five minutes.”

As usual I had no idea what Jus was up to, but I imagined it had to do with erasing the digital trail between T-Zone and us, as well as hunting and gathering—computer-style—for any extra info he could siphon.

Mr. Y—I had to assume since the old fart with the trembling bottom lip hadn’t been tagged yet—spoke up, “You were all supposed to be killed.”

“Some fucking front man you are.” Walker turned his wrath on the lily-livered twat.

“X gave the order!”

“Nice. Just what I like to see in my bosses. An every man for himself mentality,” I bit out.

“Shut the fuck up, Yves.” X commanded his colleague.

“Yves? You French or something?” Storm looked down at the little man.

“Or something,” he mumbled, glaring with hate-filled eyes at X.

“Killed? In Mexico City?” Blaize questioned the threesome.

“
You
were supposed to be dead in New Orleans, you and Storm both.” X had no problem sharing.

Not so much with the caring, though.

Taking two steps forward, Blaize pistol-whipped the dirty fuck across the face.

“Three minutes until download complete,” Justice reported in an undertone.

X wiped his bloody mouth and spat out a red stain onto the carpet.

He scowled. “Who do you think ordered the raid on your outpost in Mexico City?”

Storm stalked forward and punched the bald cunt with his shovel-sized fist. “You FUCK.”

Y and Z looked ready to piss their prissy pants.

I had no sympathy.

“Why did you fund the terrorists?” Blaize struck X again, on the opposite cheek, taking up where Storm had left off.

X reeled for a moment before stamping to his feet. “Who do you think pays your checks,
Miss Carmichael
? You protected little bitch, I should—”

He didn’t get another word out because Storm grabbed him around the neck, silencing his voice box and pretty much shutting off every breath he tried to wheeze into his lungs.

“
If
I let you go, you answer the lady’s question. Understood?”

I held a gun on Y, Walker likewise on Z.

Storm released his grip. “Answer
Mizz Cahmichael
. Or I blow your brains out.”

“War makes the world go around. The US government always finds a way, and we do our job. It’s not personal. It’s economics.”

Like capitalism made it all okay. I was reminded of Nasim’s words.

Another dead douchebag I wasn’t sorry to see go.

“That’s it? The sum total of your reasoning? And we got too close to the truth. So you were supporting Qasim Hassan, the Hezbollah? What about the Blood Legion MC?” Blaize paced in front of X.

He crossed his arms over his chest. “They were fodder for the greater good. That detail was supposed to be your death warrant, Blaize. You were a troublemaker from day one, insisting on being in on the ground floor. The way you claimed rape during your SOF training—”

Storm’s snarl was an unholy sound. He popped his gun up, and nothing but deep deadly intent poured from his strained stance. “Now you’re dead meat, you absolute
fuck
.”

Blaize pushed between the two men. “I won’t let you goad me, Xavier. Not now. Not ever.” Her voice lowered. “But you will die. And it might even be today.”

“Those dead bags of skin outside in the other office, were they in on it?” I asked, my voice a rasp from my chest.

“
They
followed orders at least.”

“Orders? I’ll give you goddamn orders, you shitless wonder.” I’d sent out the signal several minutes ago, and I propped the door open now.

Kiki strutted inside, absolutely fine and fighting fit, pulling her second Lazarus move since I’d
offed her
.

And what a great fucking feeling it was to watch complete disbelief slacken the faces of Y, Z, and especially Xavier.

“Howdy, boys.”

Raising a shaking finger, his eyes popped wide, X’s voice came out as a husk of sound. “You’re dead.”

Kiki looked down at herself with a smirk hiding the fact she was ripshit-pissed. “I make a pretty damn good ghost then,
huh
?”

Justice snickered.

I wanted to say
atta girl
, but I held my tongue.

This might be the most important mission of our lives, and it wasn’t over yet.

“Blaize. What’s the meaning of this? You reported Damage EKIA.”

“Bane told me he killed her.” Her pretty blue eyes like hard nuggets of steel, she snarled, “My bad.”

“You used me to cover up your plot against Majedah Chehab.” Banging forward on her badass boots, Kiki pushed her face right up against X’s.

“You were too brash to ever fit in.” He had the nerve to reach out and flick the wild hair I loved. “Look at you. You’re not an asset to this organization. You’re a liability.”

Kiki’s hand whipped out, and she gripped his wrist. With a quick move, she cranked his arm high behind his back until the shoulder joint almost popped out. Her other hand lifted to his neck.

With her lips close to his ear, her fingers squeezing his airway into an ever tightening funnel through which air whistled, she murmured, “
You’re
the liability. And I think it’s time to even the score.”

Atta girl.

X didn’t make a sound—couldn’t—but Y or Z sure as hell started whimpering. The two men were interchangeable so I couldn’t tell which one was blubbing while the other candy ass started bargaining.

“Download complete.” Justice removed his flash drive from the laptop. “Files wiped.”

Storm grinned in his particularly evil way. “And now you go to your graves.”

“X. Y. Z. PDQ.” Walker cocked his pistol.

“RIP.” I aimed at Y’s head.

Without the peace part.

“Think we should go for their
t zones
?” Storm asked.

The blabbering escalated.

Y and Z were felled in an instant—it wasn’t overkill, but several bullets from more than one sidearm flattened each man.

X saw it all, Kiki slowly choking the life out of him. He fought against her hold with his one free hand, but her strength outmatched his, and her fury was a cold controlled entity.

She never relented, adding more and more pressure at both points on his body until his shoulder dislocated to the final agonizing tight wheeze of oxygen from his throat.

“Fuck you too.” Kiki released the seditious bastard to crumple in a dead bundle on the floor, dispassionately flexing her fingers.

“Time to exfiltrate.” Blaize’s soft command shook us all from a sort of stunned inertia.

The end of an era.

The end of our jobs.

No more Operation T-Zone, shady as they’d become.

We started exiting the office. Seven dead, all told. Hardly a single mark on any of us.

Just to make extra special sure our footprints—digital or otherwise—could never be placed at the scene of this crime, Walker’d brought along his buddies: C and 4.

We hit the sidewalk seconds before we exploded the place.

Correction. I guessed that was all Walker’s doing, with the press of a button. The controlled bombs destroyed the computer network and all the corpses, leaving no trail connecting
us
to
them
. And technically we didn’t exist anyway.

I held Kiki’s hand as only a puff of smoke escaped one of the windows on the sixth floor.

Then the alarms sounded off.

“Our vehicles were relocated while we were inside.” Blaize slowly saluted the building we’d never return to.

“So how do we get out of here now?” I asked, shading my eyes against the bright wintry sun.

“Here’s our ride.” Blaize slipped a pair of sunglasses onto her face.

Turning toward the street, I watched a big black Hummer limo barge through the traffic on the busy DC street.

“Hustle, people,” Blaize held the door open as soon as the elongated SUV stopped outside HQ.

I hopped inside after Kiki. Walker and Justice hurried to the other door and Storm boosted Blaize in and followed after her.

As soon as we were all seated, the driver sped off, and only then did I notice the man sitting opposite us.

Tall, even when folded onto the seat, with a sterling gray military-style buzzcut and rugged features . . . I started shaking my head.

“Ambassador Lawless?” This day just got stranger and stranger.

The older man sent all six of us a slowly widening smile.

Justice’s eyes nearly flipped out of his head. “James?”

He cleared his throat, leaning forward to put a hand on Jus’s shoulder. “Hello, son.”

Jesus Christ.

Ambassador Lawless. The man we’d saved from certain death during the embassy siege in Sana’a, Yemen. Justice’s father-in-law. And, from what I’d heard, much much more than Blaize Carmichael’s mentor when she was part of Delta Force—but not in
that
way.

He shook each of our hands, even recognized Kiki from Justice’s and Tilly’s Georgia beach wedding. He was clearly enjoying our total confusion while Blaize smiled in that kitten with the cream way.

“Who are you really?” Walker point-blank asked.

“The former US ambassador to Yemen.”

“And?” Justice clearly didn’t even have a clue who his father-in-law really was.

And he’d probably
drilled down
on him, too—after he’d popped the question to Tilly née Lawless.

“A little more than that.” He folded his hands in his lap, barely paying attention when a SWAT van, three fire trucks, a whole convoy of police cars, and a fleet of ambulances raced in the direction of the building we’d just vacated AKA destroyed.

Blaize took point. “I looped James in. He’s been in touch with several key power players—
for the good
—on Capitol Hill.”

I swiped a hand over my face.

Kiki practically vibrated with energy beside me.

Walker looked interested.

And Justice and Storm were definitely taking the bait.

“I propose we relocate—”

“Obvi.” Walker snorted.

“
But
we stay together.” Blaize continued. “Doing similar work. I’ll receive the intel. We’ll disseminate it together and decide as a team whether it’s actionable.”

I stared at her, my mouth possibly unhinged.

Everyone else was quiet.

Storm looked at her with stars in his eyes like her precise words were insta-foreplay.

“What?” A small smile curled Blaize’s lips. “You didn’t think I’d leave you hanging in the wind, did you? I put way too much time and effort into making you fit for duty, people. Are you in or out?”

Lawless watched Blaize’s quick turnabout with an appreciative grin.

“Fuck yeah,
cher
.” Storm whooped and grabbed her into his massive arms.

“Only if I can still call everyone else Kemosabe and maybe talk Jade into joining the crew.” Predictable, that was Walker.