Sanders’s eyes narrowed, and Pagano thought better of the comment.
“Sorry, man. I know you dug that bird.” He saw his friend’s reaction to his use of past tense and quickly said, “She’s probably fine. Culder couldn’t have brought someone else in to do the deed that fast.”
Sanders felt like shit. “What if she’s not? I’ll have a hard time explaining that I had nothing to do with it, based on the circumstances.” He shook his head. “What the fuck do we do now?”
“We do what we’re paid to do,” Pagano said. “We won’t let Culder know Hood called us, and we’ll sort that shit out tomorrow.” He looked down at the picture of Trent Turner on the seat between them. “That fucker took out family,” he reminded him. “That’s what matters right now.”
“Yeah, I guess you’re right. He deserves a little payback, and so do the assholes he works for, that’s for damn sure.”
They had checked their gear and were headed toward the compound when gunfire erupted.
Chapter 130
A loud groan signaled the air leaving his lungs. The blow was as devastating as it was unexpected. Victoria Eden had put Pavel Kozlov in an unfamiliar situation — a situation where he wasn’t in control. She had delivered a direct hit to the Russian’s solar plexus from her seated position and followed it up with an elbow to the temple as he doubled over in pain. Kozlov was unconscious by the time his head smacked the ground. He lay motionless on the concrete floor. The surreal moment of silence and indecision was broken by the cracking sounds of gunfire. It was distant, but the soundtrack heightened her adrenaline rush.
Eden ran to the door and latched the deadbolt. She stepped to the side, her palms and back to the cold cinder-block wall, and tried to think. The only person who could possibly help her was restrained on the other side of the glass. She took inventory of the room, her eyes darting between the motionless Kozlov, a metal chair, and the one-way mirror. Victoria picked the chair up and threw it against the glass. It bounced back and made a loud clatter as it slid across the concrete floor.
Frustrated, she picked it up again. When her eye caught the industrial metal table it was positioned in front of, she decided to change her strategy. The table was extremely heavy, but determination gave her the strength to lift it. The clothes slid off its surface to the floor as she backed herself up to the wall, her bare feet unsure under the unevenly distributed weight.
Using the wall to leverage the weight, she bent her legs so the table could rest on the top of her thighs. She nervously looked down at Kozlov as her limbs began to shake from the strain. She took in a deep breath, focused on the mirror, and ran the table toward the glass like a linebacker with a quarterback in her sights. The glass shattered into a crystalline shower that exploded into the other room.
Their eyes locked. Trent Turner smiled, obviously impressed with her effort.
“What the hell are you doing here?” she asked.
“Getting you out of here,” he said. “Amongst other things.”
Trent Turner was hopelessly shackled to the wall in his boxers.
“And how’s that going for you?” she asked, using her sense of humor to cope with the fear.
The smile still hadn’t left his face. “I’m working on it,” he said. His confidence was off-putting.
“You’re just too much, Tony, aren’t you?” Eden shook her head. “I guess it’s nice to know chivalry isn’t dead after all.” She gave him an appraising look, and all she could do was laugh. “Not bad,” she said with a playful smile. “This could have been fun if we didn’t have so much company.”
Turner returned her laugh and said, “A rain check, perhaps?”
She carefully headed back into the viewing room to check on Kozlov. She had been lucky that they hadn’t selected the glass separating the rooms with security in mind, and that most of the debris had landed in the other room. The Russian was still unconscious, so she began to pull off his shoes.
Eden was both startled and confused by Turner’s sudden presence.
“Weren’t you just locked up in there?”
“Yeah, well, they don’t make restraints like they used to,” Turner joked. “What happened to him?”
Eden smiled, more with her eyes than lips.
He picked his clothes up off the floor and began to get dressed. “The name’s Trent, by the way,” he said.
“Trent?” She pursed her lips. “I liked Tony better.”
He laughed. “Then call me Tony.” His tone turned serious as the sound of automatic weapons spat out in the background. “Listen, Victoria, I’m sorry to have gotten you involved in this mess. Believe me, that wasn’t my intention. Now I need you to listen to what I say. No questions.”
The fun-loving banter was over. She was scared, and the situation gave her plenty of reason to listen.
“I mean it,” Turner said, his eyes willing her to comply. “I’ll get you out of here, but you need to do exactly what I tell you.” He motioned to the unconscious Russian. “These people play for keeps.”
She gave him a consenting nod as he picked the glass out of his bloody feet and slipped on his boots. She noticed that Turner hadn’t so much as flinched from the pain, which was strangely reassuring. He motioned for her to stand against the concrete wall, and then he dragged Kozlov over to the door.
A flurry of gunfire erupted out in the hallway as Turner searched the Bratva leader for a weapon. He was unarmed. Turner slowly worked his way to the small window in the door so he could survey the hallway before deciding on their next move. He whisked his head away from the window and appeared completely stunned by what he’d seen. Eden moved carefully, so she could see outside. The penetrating eyes that stared back at her through the window were the eyes of a killer.
Chapter 131
The enemy of your enemy is your friend. It wasn’t the same as having reinforcements, but Jake Sanders and Rudy Pagano were masters of improvisation. They had been working together for so long they knew what the other man was thinking. The operation had evolved into hunting down an operative they knew as Trent, and his hacker accomplice Francis Millar, who was directly involved in the death of Senator Soller’s son. The senator was a man their boss wanted to keep happy. The FBI director had specified that the hacker should be taken alive, and that was the extent of the detail they had. On a personal level, they both wanted to exact revenge for the deaths of their HVT squad members. Revenge was the single motivation for staying the course considering the circumstances.
Following the incident at the theater, they knew the Russian crime family was involved. There were a lot of loose ends, and some things didn’t add up, and while that had been commonplace for the men of the HVT squad over the past decade, the message from FBI Assistant Director Ivor Hood had brought with it questions and given them cause for concern.
“What do you think?” Pagano asked Sanders as the two huddled behind overgrown bushes.
“Looks like the action’s moved inside. Let’s find a way in and check it out.”
Pagano nodded, and they carefully worked their way toward the building. The New Yorker examined the first door they came to and decided it was safe to open. He signaled to Sanders as he counted down to action. He threw open the door, and his heart rate spiked when he saw the armed soldier standing guard inside.
The sentry’s back was turned to them, so Sanders quickly moved in to snap his neck before helping him fall quietly to the ground. This clearly wasn’t his first time around the block.
“One down,” he whispered to Pagano.
The pair headed inside and quietly descended a flight of stairs that led toward the commotion. The stairwell spilled out into the middle of a long, dimly lit hallway. More shots rang out as they continued moving toward the chaos, with Sanders in the lead.