Shift Work (Carus #4) (29 page)

Fuck.

I halted.

We hadn’t thought about the grate on this end of things. How the heck would I rip it off? None of my other fera bodies would fit in this duct. Well, my falcon might, but she’d be squashed flat and useless in removing the grate.

My heart picked up speed, pumping cold blood through my quivering body. I continued forward, each pulse of my muscles bringing me closer to the gate of my jail cell. When I finally made it, though, relief washed through me. My heart slowed down, and my muscles relaxed.

I could fit through the gaps in the grate with my snake form. Thank Feradea!

For the first time since I gained Kaa as a fera, I was thankful not to be a huge badass reptile.

With my head close enough to the edge of the grate to see, I surveyed the guard situation below me. Three guards. Less than a meter drop. My landing would be on the fax machine. It would make a sound, so I’d have to act fast. Three guards meant I’d have to go mountain lion and possibly kill some of them. Two, I could handle easily in human form and not have to worry about getting shot.

Did these guys deserve to die? Maybe. Stan would probably say yes, but he thought anyone remotely connected with his wife’s murder deserved painful annihilation.

“I’m going to squeeze the lemon,” one of the guards said. His voice broke the silence in the room and surprised me. My head snapped up and thumped against the grate. My head spun and my vision blurred for a few seconds before clearing up.

Idiot!

Without waiting for a reply, the guard stood up, stretched his lean body, and sauntered out of the room.

“Fucking hate that douche,” the guard on the right muttered after the door swung closed. He pushed away from his seat a bit and folded his tattooed arms across his chest.

“Tell me about it,” the other guard replied with a slight French Canadian accent. He had dark olive skin and thick black hair. His face flushed a little as he spoke. “Fucking gets off on pushing our buttons.”

“Almost as bad as our boss,” Tattoo said.

Frenchie grunted in agreement, and they returned to watching the monitors.

Time to move. This was my chance.

I propelled forward, slithered through the grate, and fell onto the fax machine. My body smacked against the hard plastic. Pain shot through my body.

“What the fuck?” Frenchie spun around.

No time to feel sorry for my bruised and battered body. I reached inside and pulled my human form. Fast and swift, my regular skin wiped out that of the snake as I grew and fleshed out.

Sitting naked on the fax machine, I had time to register Frenchie’s fist before it slammed into my face. My body jerked back, and my head whacked into the hard wall behind me. My vision blurred, and pain radiated through my body like electricity. The drywall cracked from the force of impact. Before he could do more, I kicked out and sent him flying against the computer. I hopped off the machine and dodged Tattoo’s attack. With a flurry of blows, leg kicks, and defensive tactics, I had both the guards pinned and secured with their own handcuffs.

“Fucking hell,” Tattoo grumbled into the smooth flooring.

Frenchie groaned.

“That’s enough from both of you,” I said. Using spare T-shirts I found in the supply room off to the side, I gagged Frenchie quickly before he regained full consciousness.

Tattoo seemed to have a brain and hadn’t attempted to call out. When I moved to gag him, he swiveled his head to look at me. “Marry me?”

I barked out a laugh before stuffing the shirt into his mouth and securing it behind his head.

Almost time for phase two of the attack. First, I had to find and take down the third security guard. With a quick glance at the security screens to make sure the floor was empty, I slipped out of the room and used an operating manual to wedge it open.

My ears pounded as the sound of my breathing and heartbeat filled the silence. The bathroom was three doors down on the left, and I found the third guard pissing in a urinal. After he shook it off, stuffed it back in, and zipped his fly, he glanced up into the mirror. His body stiffened when he registered my reflection and started to turn.

Leaping across the final steps, I hammered him with a Superman punch. His head flexed back and cracked against the mirror. A few shots to the guts and an uppercut left him incapacitated and unconscious on the bathroom floor. I breathed out a long sigh and my shoulders relaxed. After relieving the guard of his sidearm, I snagged his cuffs, hauled him to one of the stalls, and secured him in place next to the toilet. The last piece of the T-shirt gagged him, and I found his spare handcuff key in his back pocket. Typical.

A quick naked jog brought me back to the security room. Tattoo had flipped over to prop his body up against the wall. His dark eyes followed my movement and musky coconut wafted off his skin. Heck, maybe I didn’t need to use force against these guys. Could’ve just let my animal magnetism do the job for me.

“The Douche is handcuffed to a toilet,” I told him. “Don’t expect a rescue.”

His eyes widened at first before he winked back.

I turned away from him and surveyed the security monitors again. Two guards by the loading dock of the warehouse, two more in the main entrance, one floating guard in the warehouse. No guards upstairs on the same floor as the security room. Well, there had been three, but I’d already taken them out.

That was it? The Big Bad Headquarters of King’s Krank and its illegal drug operation was guarded by a grand total of eight guards?

Had the VPD and SRD’s incompetence lulled them into a false sense of security or were they really that dumb?

Well, maybe not that stupid. All the guards in the warehouse below carried Steyr AUGs. Very popular Austrian assault rifles. They weren’t messing around when it came to artillery. I might not know designer labels and brands, but I knew guns. The ones the guards toted would be quite the match for the Heckler & Koch MP5s the VPD used. Hopefully, it wouldn’t come to a shootout.

We had the numbers, but the idea of losing any officers on this mission made my heart sink in my chest. They’d lost enough already.

The screen to the very right snagged my attention. What the fuck? Lab techs walked around in what looked like a lab room. That couldn’t be right. The building plans Tristan provided hadn’t specified any lab, and the website claimed all pharmaceutical production occurred in the States. The label above the security screen, read “Basement.” The floor plans had also left out a secret basement lab. The fourth vent! The one that smelled of sour, burnt plastic. It must lead to the lab.

I watched the screen a little longer. Two more guards and three lab techs in the basement. Hopefully, they wouldn’t hear any of the commotion upstairs. I turned to Tattoo, and his eyes widened. I picked up the Beretta PX4 Storm from the table—one of the guns I’d taken from the guards. No safety. Nice. I racked it and pointed the prohibited gun at Tattoo’s face.

I tapped my nose with a finger from my free hand. “If you lie to me, I’ll splatter your brains on your comrade there. Understand?”

He nodded.

“I count five guards in the warehouse, the three of you upstairs and two more guards in the basement with three techs. Is there more?”

He shook his head.

“Is the basement soundproofed?”

He hesitated before nodding.

I put the gun down and turned back to the monitors. The heat in my blood cooled as my breathing evened out. Even if Tattoo lied and the guards in the basement detected the invasion, they’d be too late to help.

Chapter Thirty-Eight

“Men must brawl to know one another! How better to learn the measure of a man? And what greater gift can a man give another than the thrill, the joy, the glory of battle?”

~Hercules, Marvel Comics

Stan picked up on the first ring. “Yeah?” he hissed.

“I’m in. Three guards subdued,” I said without a greeting. The security office’s phone grew warm in my hand as I relayed the information on the other guards to Stan. He listened intently before he grumbled the information into his radio for the tactical leaders.

“Wait on my signal,” I said. My gaze remained glued to the computer screen to watch the floating guard. The attack would work best if he was close to the others so he could be taken out with them.

When we planned the invasion, we didn’t know what to expect. Surveillance came back with a wide range of numbers for night-time guards and activity, so the most precise estimate we had to work with was ten to twenty guards with zero to fifteen night deliveries, with no apparent pattern.

Not exactly helpful.

Stan hadn’t appreciated my colourful comments and said I’d insulted the team. I brought two dozen donuts from Timmy’s to the next meeting with an apology.

All was forgiven.

I watched the security camera screens intently, specifically the roaming guard in the warehouse. He’d pose the biggest threat. When the roaming guard meandered over to the two men by the loading dock, I spoke into the phone to Stan. “Go now.”

I sent a silent “thank you” to Tristan for the security system briefing he gave me. Nothing was labelled. I might’ve had to play “pick the pretty button” without Tristan’s help and that would’ve cost lives. As I issued the order to Stan, I cut the lights and remotely unlocked the doors to the loading dock and main entrance.

What unfolded next, I watched what I could on the security screen.

One member of each team wrenched the doors to the main entrance and loading dock at the same time. My nerves itched to shift and jump into action. The Tancher guards hollered. Before they could act, another team member threw in flash bangs.

Loved those things.

White light spread across the screen of the security monitors for the factory and main entrance.

When the flash bang went off, my gaze darted to the lab screen. The techs and guards continued to move around as if nothing had happened, completely oblivious to the attack happening above. Tattoo hadn’t lied. The room was soundproofed. Good.

The screens cleared in time for me to watch two officers come through the doors and move between the lead officers standing to the side of each doorway.

The stunned security guards by each entrance were taken down quickly and succinctly, zap-strapped, and flattened on their stomachs. They remained prone in the hog-tied position while the two invasion teams tasered and took down the one remaining guard.

Done like dinner. I switched the lights back on.

That’s it?
For the second time this evening, the simplicity of the invasion and lack of defensive effort sent a wave of nauseating unease up my spine. Sure the basement lab was left, but this screamed “too easy.”

The teams yelled out “clear,” as they moved through the aisles and rooms on the main floor.

“We clear?” Stan’s grizzly voice came through the phone. “What about the basement?”

“Upstairs and main, clear. Basement is soundproofed. They don’t know what happened. Two guards and about three lab technicians.”

“I’ve had more difficulty raiding a grow-op.”

“Yeah, I know the feeling. Hang on.”

The assault teams moved into position to take the basement as Stan barked orders through his radio. My supe hearing picked up his garbled codes through the phone connection. At least he wasn’t barking at me this time.

My wolf would’ve hated that.

A pang struck my heart, and I shook it off. With a deep breath, I picked up the Beretta and pointed it at Tattoo’s face again. His eyes widened. He started shouting mangled nonsense into his gag. With a few steps, I reached him and yanked the balled shirt out of his mouth.

“No point in screaming,” I said. “No one left to save you, and it will just piss me off.”

He swallowed and nodded.

“Start talking.”

“What do you want me to say?” His voice was a deep, sexy baritone, but it had little effect on me. If Tristan was steak, this guy, for all his sexy tattoos, muscles, and good looks, was expired ground beef.

“Where’s the other guards?” I asked. “Why is security so light tonight? This take down was too easy.”

“I don’t know.”

I growled. My eyes tingled as they partially shifted.

Tattoo squirmed. “I honestly don’t know. They’ve been dropping our shifts all week, even laying off staff and approving transfers.”

All truth. This guy couldn’t buy a clue. His spicy scent carried no hint of a lie. All week? We started planning this invasion only a week ago. Coincidence?

Unlikely.

My veins heated, and my vision stained red. I stalked back to the table and picked up the phone. The plastic of the receiver cracked under the pressure of my fingertips. “I think they were tipped off. Take the basement.”

Stan sword. “Affirmative.”

Who the heck tattled on us to the Pharaoh? It could be anyone from the VPD team, or maybe the Pharaoh had discovered the truth by other means.

Stan barked more orders over the radio. The north team reformed their group away from the basement and moved to come upstairs. They cleared the offices one by one. The pilfering side of the operation would soon begin.

The south team got a silent three count. On three, the team opened the door to the basement and flowed down the stairs to take out the lab. The security feed showed the instant they opened the door at the base of the stairs.

The guards spun around to suck in two smoke grenades.

Good thing the smoke didn’t react with KK or its ingredients. I’d made them test it out prior to the raid. No way did I want to get blown up because some unexpected KK was found at the scene.

The south team moved into the room and tasered the guards and technicians before handcuffing them.

Instead of relaxing, my body tensed as if forming one giant knot. In less than thirty minutes, the Tancher Pharmaceuticals Company had been successfully raided and taken over by the VPD task force.

How come this didn’t feel like a win?

Chapter Thirty-Nine

“I’m the best there is at what I do. But what I do best isn’t very nice.”

~Wolverine, Marvel Comics

The raid on Tancher Pharmaceuticals proved less informative than we’d hoped. The hard drives had been wiped and the little information recovered didn’t provide any new insight or information we weren’t already aware of.