The Law of Motion (Law Series) (44 page)

"Shoot to maim, shoot to kill, but leave Thompson, Windsor, Powell and Nowak alive," Hunter ordered. "And watch that machine gun."

"Jackson, get in that barn loft. We need you on high," my dad ordered.

"We'll get you in that barn, and then I'm getting to Alyssa," I told the group around me, before pointing to Jackson. "You can cover us, once you're up top."

He nodded, pulling out his handgun.

Shots rang out from the guard gate area, yells and cries hit the night, but we were pretty fucking clear to sneak into the barn. I gestured for Jackson and Dario to take the far door, so that Macon, Ross, and I could take the closest end.

"Lock and load," I snapped, and we all engaged our rifles.

I was pressed into the barn's back wall and peeked around the side to make sure we were still in the clear. We weren't, but with two quick shots, I led us through the barn doors.

I plastered myself just inside the doors, giving a sweeping glance around the barn for movement, but there was none. "J, you're clear."

"Holy shit," Macon breathed as he studied something in one of the stalls. "Do not fire near here!" he snapped, spinning to look at me. "There's enough TNT here to blow this rooftop off! And it's rigged."

"Shit," Ross hissed at the sight of boxes and boxes of dynamite stacked alongside a strange contraption, with what looked to be a timer. Several chains and padlocks holding it all together.

We all turned when shots rang closer to us on the other side of the barn wall. "Can you dismantle it?" I asked Macon, gesturing for Jackson to get into position. He darted up the closest ladder of the hayloft.

"Yeah, it looks simple enough..." he answered distractedly as he walked around it. “But I need to get to the wires, gotta get these chains off, these locks are the problem.”

“That’s a job for me.” Doc declared in the radio, gunshots in the background.

Hunter chimed in behind her, “I got your six.”

“Tawny…” I groaned; because she was supposed to be on a safer side of the farm.

She didn’t respond, and I wasn’t sure if it was the commotion or the fact that she was set on coming over that kept her from doing so. She was at the barn door in a matter of seconds, blood on her hands from tending to whatever was wrong with Spike.

“Oh shit.” She muttered pulling out her tools and kneeling in front of the bomb without a hint of hesitation.

Ross stepped in, “Honey I don’t think you should be dismantling—”

She was interrupted because Doc pulled her side arm in a rush, aiming it on the other side of Ross. A guy was coming through the other entrance, and before we could turn to address it Doc had put three bullets in his chest and was putting her gun away. “I’m
not
dismantling; I’m taking off the chains so that Macon can get to it.” She corrected getting back to work. “It should only take a few minutes. I could really use you on my six if you’re up for it.”

Ross nodded at her. “Macon, cover the other door—I got this one.”

Watching Doc work over that bomb and taking out a guy without a second of hesitation made me wonder why I even doubted her. "Ross, you stay with them," I commanded. "Jackson, tell me when you're ready. Dario, you're with me."

"Shit!" Cameron hissed. "Adrian...that leaves  no camera on you, man!"

"Tough shit. It's the way that it has to be. I can't have that shit going off until I get to Alyssa," I growled, running to the barn doors that Jackson had entered in. "You're just sad you can’t see my pretty face," I teased him, grinning at his snort.

"You're ugly, dude. I still don't know what Alyssa sees in you," he snapped back with a laugh.

"Now, half of that...I can agree with you," I grunted, slamming my back against the barn door with Dario by my side. "I don't know what she sees in me, either."

Dario chuckled, checking our path to the bomb shelter. I could hear everything that was being communicated throughout the grounds, but I had to filter through it to catch the progress of individuals. My dad almost had his team on the front steps and back porch of the house. Victor had successfully removed every guard from the front gates and was taking his team—minus Spike— down to help Hunter with the living quarters. At a direct angle from the bomb shelter was the machine gun, and two men were manning it.

"J, that fifty cal!" I snapped, just as shots chewed up everything on the front porch. They were aiming for my dad.

"On it, bro," he said calmly. How he never panicked was beyond me, but he was fucking good at his job, with a steady hand and the eye of a damn eagle.

The gun swung around, chasing the footsteps of Victor and Phil, only to swing toward me and Dario. We dove to the ground, just behind a haystack, but the gunfire stopped just as quickly as it started.

"Done, Adrian. That nest is empty," Jackson stated, "but we've got issues on the top floor of that house and coming in from the woods."

"Stay on it, J," I ordered. "Cover us. We're going down into that bunker." Dario and I bolted across the small distance between the haystack and the side wall of the shelter. I could hear the loading of a gun and a man's voice.

             
I dropped to the ground, crawling to the edge to peer down the stairs. Standing in front of what looked like an iron bar gate was a young man practically shaking with fear. Fuck, he couldn't have been any older than nineteen. From what I could see, he was the only one down there.

Using silent signals, I told Dario there was one man, one gate, one automatic weapon, but Dario decided to fuck with the kid.

"You're outnumbered, pal," he sang so that it echoed down the stairs. "Come out, and we won't hurt you."

Ten rapid shots zinged past my head, and I rolled my eyes up at Dario, who was grinning. "Maybe he'll run out of ammo."

“You can’t kill me, or I’ll kill the lady.” He threatened, his voice shaking.

"Oh now," I cautioned, shaking my head. "If you go and do that, I'll make sure you're sitting at Satan's dinner table in less than thirty seconds."

"Baby if you can hear me, stay low. Get under something if you can," I commanded, reaching into my bag for a little extra help.

“She isn’t even here, go away.” The boy yelled up the stairs finally scared.

"Son, we're giving you one last chance," Dario warned, eying my hand as I got ready.

"I'm not your son! My dad was an ass!" he countered, and I rolled my eyes.

"I suppose that's something for your therapist, but right now ," Dario chuckled, shaking his head, "you're shit out of luck, buddy."

I turned the disk over in my hand. It was a simple, but fantastic weapon. A little bigger than a half dollar, it was a small flash bomb. It had a delayed trigger, and only enough oomph to catch a person off guard. It could burn someone, but mainly, it just blinded a person temporarily. After a thirty minute tutorial with the boys before we all left I was a fucking expert on how to use them, Tink was a genius.

I pressed my thumb down on the button, engaging it. I rolled it down , hearing the plink, plunk, plink down each step.

"Baby, brace yourself, we’re coming down!" I yelled, pulling Dario back.

“I was just kidding I don’t—”

A bright flash and a loud set of pops burst out of the opening, and Dario and I launched ourselves down the stairs, aiming for the sounds of the moaning kid.

"Baby, you okay?" I called, making sure that Dario had the kid under control. I could see that Dario and I were thinking along the same lines, that the kid was just misguided and fucking scared. With quick, nimble fingers, Dario had zip tied the boy's hands and feet, sitting him down on the lowest step.

No response.

I reached into my bag and pulled out a glow stick, cracking it into dull green life. The shelter was pitch fucking black, and I needed to see Alyssa. I tossed it into the cage next to me and saw absolutely nothing.

“Where in the hell is she?” I demanded looking around the place.

Dario gave the kid a grim look, reporting into his ear, “She isn’t in the bomb shelter,” before looking at the kid. “You better start talking, kid.”

The room wasn’t that fucking big, but I looked in every single corner of that place anyway. The radio rattled off with voices. “What do you mean she isn’t there?

“Tink check the chips!”

“On it, on it, on it.”

“How can she not be there?”

“I mean she isn’t fucking
here
!” I snapped. “Search the grounds.” There was no way she got off this fucking mountain without us seeing. I stalked over to the dazed boy, snatching him up on his feet. “You said she wasn’t down here. Where the fuck his she?” He was still dazed from looking at the flash, but he answered me after a few firm palms across the side of his face. “Wher
e
i
s
she?”

“I don’t know!” The kid cried. “Terry, Myles, and some big guy dragged her outta’ here over an hour ago after kicking her ass for trying to escape.”

I looked at Dario, “What big guy? You didn’t get his name?”

“Do I know your name?” The kid asked sarcastically with watery eyes. “He probably took her to the main house.”

“Dad, what’s the status on the house?” I requested impatiently, because I was this close to losing it.

My dad’s voice muffled through my ear. “We’ve taken the house son.”

“The guy we have says that’s where they took her. Tear that mother fucker apart.”

“We’re on it, if she’s in here, we’ll find her, son.” My dad smoothed as best he could.

Ned or Harr
y
I wasn’t sure whic
h
called for my dad in the background, “Liam, you might wanna get down here!”

I could hear the shots becoming less frequent upstairs, so I knew we were slowly but surely taking this place over. “Talk to me.”

“Son… get to the main house. We found her.” His voice was dismal and rough. Lacking the relief that would come with him finding a safe Alyssa.

I dropped the kid back on the floor, sprinting back up the metal staircase with Dario on my heels, “We’re on our way Pops.”

When I woke up, I wasn’t in my stupid little cell anymore. My head was pounding; it was dark, damp, and there was a very familiar smell of musk that only came with being in a basement.

I was also stuck in one position, a very familiar position that caused my mind to instantly panic.

I was secured to a wooden table, flat on my stomach. My arms were hugging it, restrained at the wrists underneath. My head was strapped on the wooden surface unable to face anywhere but left; my feet secured at the ankles to the table as well.

“No,
no, Noo
!” I shrieked struggling to free myself. “Someone,
please
.” I called, jerking in vain because there was no give on the strapping and my body hurt to even try.

“So
now
she want’s to learn her place.” A deep sinister voice joked.

A light flicked on, stinging my eyes shut. When they adjusted they darted quickly around my line of sight trying to take in as much as they could. I was definitely in a basement, or an unfinished cellar of some kind and judging the spacing I was in the center of the room.

This guy was about as much a novice at hostages as he was with hand-to-hand. He knew what the hell he was doing strapping me this way. If I had known he was old school military I would have crawled my happy ass back into my cage and sat there until reinforcements came because the ‘Table of Toil” technique was one that I didn’t want to relive.

The table was wide enough that my arms barely touched at the wrists, pretty much stretching my arm span to the max.  My head being forced in one direction allowed me to only be shown what the person wanted me to see. I was completely vulnerable in this position. Whatever the abductor wanted to do, you couldn’t fight it, hell you couldn’t even afford to react to it, because the more you trashed the more you hurt yourself.

That was the point of this table, to go against your human instincts to struggle, and to hurt yourself. Our government stopped using this technique for interrogation decades before I was even born, labeling it as ‘inhumane’. The combination of physical and mental torture was enough to make even the strongest of soldiers lose it. I had been introduced to ‘Table of Toil’ technique before, and even though I knew the best way to save myself was to stay perfectly still, I was playing into the table trap perfectly.

“Please, let me out of this!” I begged as I tried to pull my arms closer to give my shoulders some relief winching at the strain it was putting on my wrist. “I’ll go back to the cage, ok? I’ll sit there until it’s time to exchange the money. Just
get me out of here!
”

He chuckled from behind me and my neck strained, as I tried to turn and see where the voice was coming from.

“Now, now Alyssa, that wouldn’t be fun now would it?” He mused walking around the table to let me look at him. His nose was still swollen and red, a bruise on the side of his jaw, his eyes still cold and his smirk still evil, but that wasn’t what bothered. The stomach clench came from the eight inch hunting knife glimmering in his hand.