Midnight Fever (Men of Midnight #5)(75)

"Three," SWAT lieutenant Rand Wilson said, and tipped his ruggedized tablet toward Nick.

Nick could see the heat signatures of three men. He nodded gratefully, glad that Wilson was happy sharing intel. He knew that Wilson had been given explicit instructions to cooperate with him, but he didn't get any sense that Wilson resented that. Cooperation was fully and freely given.

The eternal brotherhood of soldiers. Wilson had been a Ranger and two guys in his team were former SEALs. One was a former FBI special agent.

Nick fit right in. But he'd have been there even if they were one-eyed green-haired mutants who hated humans, because no way was he not going to be there at the takedown. Whoever was in the warehouse, behind those metal walls, had tried to kill Kay. He wasn't going to miss anything.

Bud Morrison was at TOC, the Temporary Operational Command, another warehouse farther down the street. Command and control, everyone bunched around computers hooked to their comms units. They were all connected via an internal comms system ASI had perfected. Or rather, Felicity had perfected, with the help of some mysterious guys in Asia with sky-high IQs and minimal social skills.

ASI had tried to recruit them, but they preferred to stay in their hobbit burrows in Singapore and Taiwan. All Nick really understood was that soon there would be a blackout inside the target building and that, inside the building, cell phone coverage and their connection to their overhead drone was already gone.



       
         
       
        

On the tablet, they could see the drone overhead, uselessly beaming down intel the fuckheads inside the warehouse couldn't see. In the meantime, the PDP's own drone was circling. Its FLIR showed the SWAT team with reduced profile, since they were crouching, the three upright figures inside the building, and cold emptiness all around.

The guys inside were deaf and dumb and soon would be blind.

Wilson and his guys were crouching outside, ready to infiltrate. Each had IR tape on their helmets so they wouldn't shoot each other. The tape would easily show up in their night vision/IR goggles.

God bless technology. Though of course the principle hadn't changed since the dawn of time. The man with the biggest club won. Now it was a battle over who had the fanciest toys.

It was also true that the most determined won, and Nick was determined. He respected Wilson and his boss, Morrison. This was their job and they did it well, with bravery and training.

But they didn't have Nick's motivation. The men inside that warehouse had come after Kay, the love of his life and his future. He would never let on to the SWAT team leader or to Morrison, but he was determined that none of the men come out alive from the warehouse.

Whoever their leader was, he was smart and resourceful. The kind who even from prison could enact revenge. Nick was not going to live checking his six constantly to make sure bad guys weren't behind them, ready to kill or kidnap Kay.

Not going to happen. Not in this lifetime or any other.

Once they breached, Nick was going to have to tap dance fast to ensure that there were three kills and three dead bodies were ferried out, and those dead bodies wouldn't be the guys on the SWAT team.

He had various ideas how that could happen but it all depended on the flow of combat. So he was going to have to stay sharp and use every single opportunity to engineer the deaths of the three guys inside without having to go to prison for the rest of his life.

Not easy. But then nothing in his career had been easy. And he'd never had so much at stake before.

"Three." Wilson began the countdown. On three, the lights would cut out and they'd breach the door, wearing night-vision goggles, and mop up.

Nick was supposed to stay outside until the mopping up had finished, but he intended to wait until the SWAT team made it inside, then would follow on their heels in case they needed help.

They probably wouldn't. Nick had observed the behavior of every team member, and he approved. They all had the smooth, easy grace of athletes at the top of their game and they communicated without words, good signs. Their moves were smooth, not jerky. No panic in these men, no confusion. They knew exactly what to do.

Nick could visualize in his head the moves. The sudden darkness as the lights cut out, the cops bursting in screaming, "Police! Down on your knees!" They'd have HK G36s at the shoulder, Beretta 92s in quick-draw thigh holsters for close work. 

"Two," Wilson said.

They'd burst through the door in a controlled way guaranteed to cover the entire area. High, low, left, right, as choreographed as the dancing in Swan Lake, only prettier as far as Nick was concerned. Anything planned to put down bad guys was as pretty as could be.