Seized (Hostage Rescue Team Series, #7) (2 page)

But she wouldn’t touch him again now, not when she was feeling so raw.

“Okay,” she relented, but looked away again, avoiding his gaze. She didn’t know what to think, except that he’d clearly taken advantage of her feelings for him. Those old, well-developed protective instincts sprang to life inside her.

Pretend you don’t care. Don’t let him see he got to you.

She’d learned an important lesson today, one she wouldn’t forget. And it was past time she got over him anyway.

She turned on her heel and responded with a muttered, “One quick cup of coffee.”

––––––––

S
eattle, ten weeks later

His damn shoulder was killing him and they hadn’t even begun the hard part of the op yet.

At the south entrance of the building, Special Agent Sawyer Vance pushed the pain from his mind and stood on the mobile ramp behind his teammate, Adam Blackwell, as they approached the doorway. The warehouse was dark inside and appeared deserted, with just enough ambient light in there for them to see clearly through their NVGs once they entered.

But it wasn’t deserted.

Four of the FBI’s most wanted were inside, all of them radical Islamist terrorists plotting to launch a huge attack on U.S. soil within the next few days. And there were female civilians mixed in with them. Because the bastards thought that would protect them from attack.

They thought wrong.

Sawyer kept his gaze locked on the door while Blackwell planted the explosive charge, then turned his head toward the far end of the building. Tuck, their team leader, placed another charge on the north door. Through various means they’d been studying and watching the building since early last night. Now that the main players were here, all that critical preparation was about to pay off.

The seconds crawled past as they waited. He was already sweating lightly in his utilities. It was surprisingly hot and muggy for Seattle in early September. A bead of sweat rolled down his face but he didn’t move, staying locked in position. He and the rest of the boys were ready to rock.

But Tuck didn’t give the signal. Sawyer wasn’t sure what he was waiting for but didn’t question his team leader. He stood still behind Blackwell, waiting for the order to execute, and for a moment he let his mind drift to thoughts of Carmela.

He missed her like hell, felt like he was living with a hole inside him since he’d ruined their relationship with that kiss. As much as he’d been dying to kiss her and holding back his true feelings for her, he couldn’t say that one moment of bliss had been worth it. Not when the consequence was losing her. He had to fix it somehow.

“On my count,” Tuck murmured into the team’s comms, his Alabama drawl making his voice sound even calmer. “Three. Two. One.
Execute
.”

Tuck and Blackwell simultaneously blew the charges on both doors. Sawyer swung past his teammate to deliver a punishing blow to the ruined door with the breaching tool.

The tendons in his shoulder screamed in protest with the motion and impact but he ignored it. One more ram and the steel reinforced door flew inward, clearing the way for the assaulters.

Blackwell led the way, Sawyer directly behind him and then Evers, M4s to their shoulders. At the north end of the building, their four remaining teammates stormed the front of the warehouse.

Blackwell and Tuck started yelling as they breached the building. “FBI, everybody down!”

Female screams pierced the air, mixed with male shouts as everyone in the building scrambled. Seconds later, gunfire erupted from the north. Sawyer saw two armed men jump out at the end of a row of pallets. He and Blackwell both fired two shots at the same time, taking them down in a matter of seconds.

In his peripheral he caught movement to his left. He spun to meet the threat but Evers had already taken the shot, dropping the guy.

Out of sight in the distance, more rounds fired. Sawyer kept his eyes on the remaining tangos’ hands as they headed for the back of the building, watching for weapons. Evers took point while Blackwell covered their six.

They turned past a stack of pallets and a woman stood there, frozen, her eyes wide above the veil that covered the rest of her face.

“Hands up
now
!” He wasn’t fucking around. A terrorist was a terrorist, no matter what gender they were.

Slowly, the woman raised her hands, revealing something clutched tightly in one fist.

He recognized it instantly and his heart seemed to stop in mid-beat.
Shit
. “Grenade!”

Blackwell stopped short and turned back to him while Evers scanned behind them for more threats. The woman didn’t move. She seemed frozen, unsure what to do, only her eyes visible above the veil.

Sawyer made a split second decision and dove at her.

He tackled her to the concrete floor, grabbed her hand in a punishing grip and wrenched the grenade free. The pin was still in it, thank God. He handed it up to Blackwell, who stood behind him, his weapon aimed dead center at the woman’s chest.

She didn’t struggle, didn’t make a sound as Sawyer checked her for more weapons then flipped her onto her belly and secured her hands behind her back. For good measure he bound her ankles as well. She wasn’t going anywhere.

“All clear here,” he said into his comm to update the others. “Two tangos down, another secured.”

Blackwell nodded once and continued past him, scanning the interior of the warehouse as he followed their other teammates.

“North side secure,” Tuck murmured from somewhere up front. “Heading into the rear room now.”

“We copy,” Sawyer answered, climbing to his feet. “Moving in behind you now.”

Fifteen yards ahead of him, Bauer stood guard at the entrance to the back room. Even with the limited light provided by the NVGs it was impossible to mistake him. The former SEAL was the biggest guy on the team, bigger even than Sawyer. His huge shoulders filled the opening as he stood there keeping an extra eye on the rear of the warehouse.

A sudden, short burst of rounds came from the back room. Sawyer rushed forward as Bauer swung around and stormed into the room.

“Three tangos down, back room secure,” Ethan Cruz, Sawyer’s best friend, announced a moment later.

Sawyer relaxed and stayed near the doorway, stopping outside the door. Tuck appeared a minute later, his weapon lowered across his chest. “All clear. Spread out and sweep for weapons,” he said to the team.

The seven of them fanned out and began a thorough search for weapons and booby traps. They found a decent-size cache of rifles in a lock box back in the rear room where someone had hidden it, but it would take a long while to check the stacks of pallets and containers crammed into the building. So far, though, no sign of the chemical weapons they’d been warned might be on the premises.

Which should have made him breathe easier.

But it didn’t, not with the massive threat still looming over the West Coast.

It was only a few days until the anniversary of 9/11, and a recent massive uptick in chatter warned of an unknown terror organization planning to attack the West Coast. No one knew where or what the target was, what sort of attack it might be or even how many attacks were planned, but the thinking was something big. Chemical, maybe even nuclear, either in LA, San Fran or possibly Seattle.

That’s why they were here, hunting suspects in an effort to thwart a major terrorist attack on U.S. soil before it happened.

“Got a positive ID for three of them,” Tuck said into his radio, talking to some of the AICs outside. Then he got on comms again. “All right, let’s get this place secured and bring the forensics teams in here.” He strode for the north door with a male prisoner in tow, hands bound behind him and a hood over his head.

Within minutes they had the building secured and all the tangos—dead and alive— handed over to another team of waiting FBI agents. Four dead and three captured, including the female Sawyer had apprehended. Portable fingerprint scanners confirmed that three of the men were on the Most Wanted list, all linked to the guy they were after—a Saudi national named Aziz.

A successful op all around, even if they hadn’t yet found the chemical or nuclear weapons purported to be out there.

The team gathered at a building close to Boeing Field, where the company had given them permission to practice on an old 747 while they were in town. They’d been rehearsing a takedown on the aircraft when the intel had come in about the terrorists operating out of the warehouse.

Ethan appeared near the back of the group and Sawyer saw the mark on the left shoulder strap of his Kevlar vest where a round had either hit or ricocheted off him. “What happened to you?” he asked his buddy.

Ethan threw him a dark look as he removed his helmet. “Pretty self-explanatory, doncha think?”

The others smirked and Schroder, the team’s medical expert, slapped him on the back. “It’s all good, man. Even if it had gone through you’d be okay. Pretty close to the glenohumeral joint though. Would have messed up your career big time.”

Ethan turned a quelling glare on Schroder.

Unfazed, the former PJ grinned and slapped him again. “Since Cruzie got himself shot, he buys the first round.” The others all cheered. Ethan grumbled under his breath at them, but Sawyer could tell he didn’t mind the teasing because of the half smirk on his lips.

They headed inside for debriefing with various officials and their commander, DeLuca. Over an hour later they piled into the two waiting Bureau-issued SUVs and headed back to the hotel where they were staying. Normally when training or conducting exercises with another unit they’d stay on a military base, which here meant Joint Base Lewis-McChord. But this time they’d been given the upgrade of a cushy hotel, two guys per room. As usual, Sawyer was rooming with Ethan.

In the back of the SUV while Bauer drove and Evers rode shotgun, Ethan grinned as he read whatever message he’d found on his phone.

“What?” Sawyer asked.

He started typing a response, that grin still quirking his lips. “Soli’s here.”

Ethan’s fiancée. “Here, as in, Seattle?”

Ethan nodded. “Wanted to surprise me and I told her a few days ago we’d likely have the night off.”

Lucky they’d just taken down a nest of tangos, then, and actually did have the night off. Unless something else came up. “You still coming out for dinner with us?”

“Yeah, I’m gonna text her the address once we get there and she’ll meet us.”

Looked like Sawyer was going to have a room to himself tonight. “Cool.”

“Yeah.” His smile was full of anticipation and Sawyer was glad for him. Marisol had given up her job with the U.S. Attorney’s Office in Miami and moved in with Ethan just three days before the team had left for Seattle. But with this threat hanging over them, if Marisol had been Sawyer’s fiancée, he’d have put her on a plane back to the East Coast that night. Better safe than sorry.

Up in the hotel room Sawyer stripped off his sweaty clothes and stepped under the cool spray of the shower, groaning in relief. It had been a long week and his right shoulder was bugging the hell out of him again from an old rotator cuff injury he’d sustained back in his SF days. He was only thirty-two but most days his body felt much older. Right now his shoulder felt like it was eighty.

It wasn’t the worst kind of flare-up this time, thank God, otherwise he’d barely be able to move his arm at all. But if it got to the point that he couldn’t perform as well as the others, he’d have to tell DeLuca, who would rightly pull him. He’d already been sidelined a year ago from a busted ankle and had no desire to be benched from the team again. So having the night off to chill and unwind with the guys was a blessing in itself.

He popped a couple anti-inflammatories before joining the others, then they drove to a place near the water. A two-story brick building near Safeco Field that had once been an old warehouse and now was one of the most popular places in the city to grab dinner and a beer or two. Music from the live blues band filtered out into the street as they approached the entrance.

At a table near the back where they all had clear sightlines of the place and easy access to the nearby exit—something they all did automatically—they settled in and ordered their food. The waitress brought out plate after plate of burgers, wings, beers and wood-fire oven pizzas. After he ate, Sawyer accepted a game of pool against Blackwell while Evers came over to watch and the others continued eating.

He’d just racked up the balls and taken his first shot when the front door opened and Marisol walked in looking like a little ray of sunshine in a bright yellow sundress. Ethan launched off his chair and rushed for her, the humungous smile on his face making Sawyer grin as well even as a strange pang twinged in his chest.

Something close to envy, but more like loneliness as he took in the happy reunion.

He watched his buddy pick Marisol up in a bear hug and twirl her around, both of them laughing, before he set her down and kissed her right in the middle of the restaurant. Over at the table some of the guys began whistling and shouting at them to get a room.

Marisol pulled away, blushing, and gave them a wave with a shy smile. Sawyer lifted a hand to wave back, set his pool cue down with the intent to go over and hug her, and stopped when his gaze slid to someone else slipping in the front door. A tingle of awareness started at the back of his neck and worked up to his scalp.

The woman emerged from the shadows into the dim lighting inside the pub and every muscle in Sawyer’s body tightened as shock tore through him.

Ethan’s sister.

The one woman who threatened his control, the woman he’d been trying like hell to forget about these past few months, was standing less than sixty feet away from him. While his brain processed that impossible fact, he raked his gaze over her like a starved man, taking in every detail. And he couldn’t look away.

Luscious. That was the only word that could come close to describing Carmela Cruz. Her height was the only average thing about her, because everything else drew his attention like steel shavings to a magnet.