Special Forces 01 (30 page)

She didn’t give him any chance to waffle or duck back into hiding. Anne just appropriated his hand and towed him outside, like a derelict shuttle. As soon as the pool was in sight, Rys was hit with a flash of inspiration — water would distort or obscure sight, correct?

He pulled free of Anne’s hand and jumped into the water, shivering as cool water enveloped his skin. He surfaced, slicking water and hair back from his forehead with a casual motion, as he looked around for the kids. Ashley was already in the water, her hands fastened firmly around a purple floaty. Dylan threw himself off the edge, near the shallow end of the pool. As Rys watched, he tucked his knees tightly to his chest, creating a respectable splash as he hit the water.

The kid made a tantalizing and irresistible target. Rys felt a wicked impulse overcome him and he kicked off, in full stealth mode, completely submerging under the water. Time to play! He kept his left eye closed to protect it from the chlorine, his right eye opened, tracking Dylan.

There he was, dead ahead. Rys couldn’t laugh manically under water, but he grinned in jubilant anticipation. With powerful even kicks, he closed in behind the boy. As soon as he was within range, he grabbed both ankles and yanked.

Dylan flailed in surprise as he went under, and spluttered indignantly as his head broke the surface again. “Rys!” he wailed in protest. “That wasn’t fair!”

Rys just laughed, already planning his next target. “Want to help me ambush Ashley?’’

His injured expression evaporated instantly. “Yeah!”

Interesting, so it’s only unfair if it happens to you?
Ah, the uncomplicated logic of children. They both ducked under the surface of the water and swam silently toward their unsuspecting prey.

She must have either sensed the danger, or seen them coming. Whichever it was, she was swimming hard for the pool’s edge when they caught up with her. Rys had to kick off from the bottom in order to get enough momentum to grab her around the waist, before she could slip out of their trap.

Ashley squealed, a sound escaping her lungs that was an odd mixture of outrage and agitated glee. Her grip on the deck tile wasn’t firm enough to save her, and she fell backwards with Rys into the water, producing an impressive splash.

Dylan immediately jumped in and started tickling his sister’s sides.

“Boys, it’s not fair to gang up two against one!” Anne called from the sidelines.

“Whatcha gonna do about it?” Dylan challenged with a naive cocky smirk.

Rys knew better than to challenge Anne. This was not a woman that was even aware that backing down was an option in the play book. He wasn’t in the least surprised when she dove in next to them, taking Dylan out like a passing torpedo as she went by at flank speed. Ashley seemed to think he would be sufficiently distracted by Dylan’s untimely departure, and made her bid for freedom. Rys took great delight in securing his prisoner, and picked up on the tickling Dylan had started. She shrieked and wriggled frantically, soon becoming breathless.

“That looks like fun,” a smooth tenor noted, voicing his approval. Rys looked up to find Gremlin watching them with amusement. “Who declared war on whom, what are the stakes, and whose side am I on?”

“It’s pretty much a free for all,” Rys confided.

“Gremlin, help me!” Ashley pleaded. “I can’t get loose!”

Gremlin shook his head in mock-sympathy. “Sorry, Ashley, but I never could spar with the Captain and survive. Besides, I’m not dressed appropriately for the pool,” noting Rys’s up-dated swimming apparel. “But I can offer you a reprieve in the form of a distraction; I need to talk to him for a few minutes.”

Rys knew that look. He was in trouble, bad trouble.
Nuts! Who told them about last night?
It could be any number of people; this information was probably public domain by now. Knowing that his fate was sealed, he reluctantly relinquished the hold on his victim, and climbed out of the pool.

Gremlin inclined his head toward the patio chairs, a safe distance away, ensuring they would have the necessary privacy for what he had in mind. Feet leaden with reluctance, Rys trailed after him. Gremlin waited until they were both seated, spearing his Captain with a look that could freeze metal at the molecular level. “Why didn’t you call us?”

Rys groaned, rubbing his temples with his fingertips, knowing a headache was a foregone conclusion. “As I pointed out to Anne last night, no one would have been able to get there fast enough to make a bit of difference.”

Gremlin’s eyes narrowed thoughtfully. “Knowing Anne…she’s already thoroughly raked you over the coals for this, hasn’t she?”

“That would be a charitable description. The woman could make Sergeant Barrett scream for mercy!” Rys acknowledged with a wince, remembering the verbal beating he had endured.

“I knew I liked her for a reason. And I hope you now understand just how much value your life has to us?” Gremlin was giving him a pointed stare.

Rys’s eyes gravitated to the beautiful woman in the pool, her blonde hair swirling around her in the water like some fanciful dance partner. With the sunlight playing over her like that, she looked more like a mythical creature in a childhood fable, too ethereal to ever be touched by mere mortal hands. “I know it now,” he whispered. When he finally tore his eyes away from her and looked back at his Lieutenant, he was surprised to find him smiling. “What?”

“She’s definitely better for you than that shrink,” Gremlin noted, his face practically caving in from his expansive grin. “You will listen to anyone, out of politeness if nothing else, but for some reason when Anne says it, it actually penetrates your thick skull. You put more stock in her opinion than anyone else I can think of.”

Rys opened his mouth to automatically protest this…and froze when he realized he couldn’t. “Huh.”

“Yeah, like I thought.” Shaking his head in amusement, Gremlin stood, stretching his arms over his head. “Well, I have an instructional dance formation to attend. I want to be sure I uphold the honor of the 01 at this soiree. You better go rescue Dylan — I think the poor kid has been outmaneuvered.”

Chapter Fifteen

Rys sat on the top of the building with the rest of his team and looked out at their target. Rennick Distributing Ltd. didn’t look like a Novan analyst drop. In fact, on the surface, it didn’t look like anything more than the average distributing center. The building stood three stories tall, with a basement, back delivery dock and employee entrance. The front of the building had an executive entrance with a card lock. With Rys’s optical eye, he could zoom in and see that there were security cameras on every corner of the building that were aimed at the parking lot. Whoever set up the system knew what they were doing—all angles were covered.

In the dying light of sunset, Rys saw two security guards, one on either side of the building doing a patrol. Other than that, there was no real activity in the area. Even the construction site next door sat silent and still. Considering they were surrounded on all sides by office buildings and warehouses, this lack of civilian traffic didn’t come as a surprise.

He turned slightly to catch Gremlin’s eye. “Talk to me, Gremlin. What’s the inside security of that building like?”

“Most of their systems are hardwired instead of wireless,” Gremlin responded with a sour look on his face. “I hate hardwired systems —”

“Because they’re impossible to remotely hack, I know,” Rys completed with forced patience. He’d heard the rant before. Many, many times before. “So you’ll have to get inside before you really know what’s happening. That part I got. What do you know from the intel you
have
been able to hack?”

“They’re taking their front as a legitimate business very seriously.” Gremlin called up a mental file and shot it Rys’s direction. Not waiting for it to be read, he continued, “As you can see, it has a full board of shareholders. Everyone’s legitimate, as far as I can tell from a quick search. The building has what every other distribution company would have—a complement of five guards, security cameras covering the inside and the front lobby, and a basic fire alarm security.”

Rys’s mind froze in the middle of adding up all of these facts. He could feel his plans for doing only an initial recon tonight start to crumble. “That’s it?”

“That’s it,” Gremlin confirmed with an unconcerned shrug. “I’d lay odds that the office that actually has the intel we’re looking for has some pretty impressive safeguards on it, but the building itself is going to be a cakewalk to get into.”

From Rys’s left side, Snails leaned in slightly for a closer look at his captain’s face. “Sir…I know that look. You’re thinking about going in tonight, aren’t you?”

Rys shot him a quick, slightly mischievous smile. “I think we can do it.”

“Sir!” Erksome protested. “We’re in civvies!”

“Which is part of the reason why this can work,” Rys assured him, still eyeing the area in front of him with a speculative gleam.

“I don’t have any equipment on me!” Gremlin supported, eyes growing wide with growing unease.

“You’ve got your ‘pad, don’t you?” Rys pointed at the slim personal computer in Gremlin’s hands. “I’ve seen you hack into battleships with that thing. It should be enough to hack the system inside.”

No doubt hoping to derail his captain before he became fixated on the idea, Gremlin pointed a stern finger toward the building. “And how do you propose to get around the cameras and guards? We’re not supposed to be seen doing anything, remember?”

Rys pointed to the construction site nearby. “That.”

All three men turned to eye the tall crane standing nearby with new consideration.

Seeing them re-consider the idea, Rys outlined the plan in calm tones. “We go in and grab some hard hats. Turn on all of the equipment and start moving things randomly around like we actually belong there, and no one’s going to question us. Not at this time of night, when everyone else has gone home. Gremlin, you climb onto that huge hook on the crane and we’ll slowly swing it over the top of the roof. I don’t see any cameras covering the top, so you’ve got a clean entrance into the building.”

Erksome nodded slowly, eyes narrowed as he studied the area. “That’s really plausible.”

“Can I play with the crane?” Snails asked hopefully.

Abandoned by his teammates, Gremlin gave them a squinty glare of rebuke before protesting, “I’m not armed!”

“Improvise,” Rys ordered casually. “Alright, let’s move.”

Gremlin abandoned all attempt at protest and went for puppy eyes next. “Sir…”

“You’ll be fine,” Rys assured him with an amused twist to his mouth. “We’ll be nearby if you need backup. Don’t forget, we need intel as fast as we can get it. I’d rather not prep and wait another night. Who knows when a window of opportunity like this would open up again?”

All out of ways to protest, Gremlin just nodded his head in resignation.

They obediently trooped down the exterior stairs after Rys and went across the silent street to the construction site nearby. The place had a great deal of heavy equipment and piles of raw materials stacked at intervals. They could easily waste a great deal of time moving lumber and bricks around without looking suspicious.

A small, portable office near the front gate had all of the hard hats hanging on pegs. Rys snagged one for everyone and passed them out. Then, with a certain amount of glee, he waved everyone back out and to their machine of choice. For himself, he chose something that he’d operated before, a forklift. Erksome went straight for the bulldozer with suspicious chuckles escaping from his mouth.

Shoulders a little slumped, Gremlin followed Snails for the very tall, five-story crane.

Rys opened a mental comm link and ordered,
Gremlin, I want visual while you’re in there. Rig your cell’s camera to piggyback on the comm link.

“Yes, sir. I think I can put it in my front shirt pocket and it will ride alright.”

Sounds fine. Do that.

It took a few minutes, but Gremlin found a way to turn on his phone’s camera and connect it so that Rys could see what was happening around his lieutenant. He must have ripped a hole in his shirt pocket to make it work, though.

The crane started up with a dull rumble. Rys moved very slowly with the forklift, as most of his attention was on the view he could see through the cell. The sight of open air spinning back and forth as Gremlin rose up felt very disorienting for Rys. He hoped that most of that uneasy feeling could be contributed to the fact that he knew he had both feet on the ground, but the double visual threw his body into vertigo.

Gremlin didn’t comment on his makeshift ride as the crane lifted him into the air and slowly moved over the top of the neighboring building. Erksome didn’t even slow it down as Gremlin hopped off the hook and landed in a crouch. Even from here, Rys could hear the impact as he hit the building’s roof.

Okay, Gremlin?

“Just fine, sir. There’s a door for the roof access and…no lock.”

Rys didn’t respond as he followed his lieutenant’s progress through the door and down the flight of metal stairs to the third story. From what he could see—the building had only emergency lights on and the camera couldn’t penetrate the deepest shadows—the office had no distinguishing feature about it. Just plain walls, office doors with cubicles at even intervals, and generic art hanging on the walls.

Gremlin didn’t head immediately for the stairs or the elevator leading down to the main floors, as Rys expected him to do. Instead, he headed for the supply closet to his immediate right. As everything else seemed to in this building, it had no lock on it, and Gremlin easily stepped inside the narrow space.

This particular supply closet didn’t hold just cleaning supplies but office supplies as well, which included everything from pens to packing supplies. Rys, never being able to fully predict what Gremlin would do next, tried not to comment as his man rifled through the supplies and started to put a makeshift kit together. Still, the things that Gremlin chose to pick up were so unusual that he couldn’t help but start asking questions.
Gremlin, what are you doing with bubble wrap?