Total pages in book: 83
Estimated words: 82187 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 411(@200wpm)___ 329(@250wpm)___ 274(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 82187 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 411(@200wpm)___ 329(@250wpm)___ 274(@300wpm)
Law was far less reassured than he’d been a few minutes ago.
Vasquez drained his mug, then checked his watch. “I better go assemble some backup. You guys watch yourselves out there tonight.”
Law stood numbly beside Wes. He wanted to say something positive, but all words failed him as he thought of being tortured and his body disposed of like week-old garbage.
One of God’s admin assistants poked his head in the door. “I’ve been looking all over for you two. Syn said get your asses downstairs, now.”
Law was quiet as they made the trek through the bullpen. The moment they stepped into the task force’s office, the room was bustling with activity and God barking orders as the team began to file out through the back doors.
Wesley (Wes) Drake
Wes’s heart thundered against his ribs as he crouched near the darkened entrance at the rear of the five-story apartment complex.
A humid mist saturated the air, sticky on his skin under the heavy tactical gear.
Law was close beside him, one trembling hand on his shoulder, the other gripping a modified smoke release pistol. His breathing was short and regulated but unmistakably nervous.
Wes flexed his gloved fingers around the gel cartridge and applied it to the door’s rusted lock, then nodded once to the enforcers.
The compound hissed, ate through the mechanism in seconds, and the lock fell away with a whisper.
It was far stealthier than a SWAT battering ram.
“Nice,” Ruxs breathed.
After a couple of seconds, Free cut all electricity and the entire block went dark—it’d appear as a power outage instead of a raid. No reason to cause alarm.
Wes tapped the side of his shades, activating the night vision lenses—Free’s patented technology—that glowed a vibrant green. A map of the complex was now projected a few inches below his line of sight.
“Stealth mode activated.” Free’s voice was smooth and clear over the comms. “Law, Wes, your heartbeats are off the charts. Calm down and breathe easy for me, okay? We’ve rehearsed this frontward and backward. Steele and Tech will be less than three feet from you at all times.”
Green eased the door open, and Ruxs followed in close behind him.
He and Law were crouched, moving in the swift pattern they’d rehearsed for weeks.
They swept silently through the first floor, the enforcers swinging their weapons side to side, across, and over each other in perfect sync as they cleared the apartments on each floor.
Most were empty, some had old furniture indicating a person or family had once lived there but had chosen to leave a landlord who ran a meth empire out of the upper units.
The team slowly ascended the back stairwell that reeked of mildew and acetone, a pairing that made Wes want to gag.
They exited on the fourth floor, finding rooms stuffed with storage crates, each marked with vague labels in other languages and warning signs.
Ruxs and Green started snapping images of crate contents, chemical drums, and vacuum-sealed bags.
Steele knocked on Tech’s helmet before Wes was tapped twice on his shoulder, cueing him to continue forward.
“Four minutes, twenty seconds, let’s pick up the pace,” Free said.
It appeared three of the apartments had been converted into one large room that was filled with desks, outdated computers, and still-humming laptops with USB drives plugged into the hubs.
“Pull all of them, but don’t power up the system,” Free instructed. “Tech, extract the information, then put ’em back.”
“Ten-four.” Tech began yanking out the discs, Steele never far from his side as he watched every angle of the room.
Just as Tech downloaded the last drive, they heard movement in the hallway.
Syn nodded at Law to do something, but he was already unclipping a device from his vest.
He lobbed it into the room across the hall, an instant burst of smoke erupting, curling dark and thick like ink in water, drowning the tight corridor in a disorienting fog.
Whoever had been charging forward stopped, their shouts breaking into ragged coughs and hacking.
Men were stumbling blind, the hall flooded with confusion as the voices morphed from yelling orders to desperate gasps for air.
“Got approaching vehicles in the front of and back. Bogies on the second landing and ascending fast.”
Before Free could finish, gunfire erupted like strings of Red Devil firecrackers tossed into a furnace.
The thin walls trembled with the impact of bullets tearing through the plaster, forcing them to dive for cover.
The noise was deafening, the air scorching.
“Stay down!” Steele hollered, bearing down on Wes’s back, protecting him with his own body.
Tech skidded across the floor, flipped a table in front of Law, and took aim over the top, firing his weapon of nonlethal rounds with fast, measured burst that struck men with bone-breaking force.
“We’re compromised,” Syn said loud into the coms. “Alpha team, prepare to breach on my mark.”
Fuck, fuck, fuck.
God, Day, Hart, and his SWAT officers were the Alpha team.