“I was wondering about that. Think he ran into trouble?”
He hoped not, but it was possible. Hell, likely. Gabe, the single-minded, meticulous guy Quinn knew and loved like family, wouldn’t skip a check-in unless he was unable to make the call.
The door opened and every eye in the room turned toward it in expectation. Jesse and Marcus stopped short.
“What?” Marcus said.
Shit, Quinn thought. “Did you two find anything?”
Jesse nodded. “No sign of Van Amee, but we took a gander inside one of the warehouses on our list. Just happened the lock on the side door was busted.” He grinned at Marcus.
“Imagine our luck,” Marcus added with an expression of complete innocence as he drew a lock pick kit from his coat pocket and set it on a side table.
“Damn near pissed ourselves when we stumbled into a bomb-making factory,” Jesse said. “C4, semtex, all the good stuff, and this…” He reached into the side pocket of his medical kit and brought out a bag filled with a yellow crystalline substance that he held out to Ian. “Found it stored in these bags like this. Figured you’d know what it is.”
“Explosive D,” Ian said, taking the bag. “Also known as ammonium picrate. Very stable. Used in armor-piercing shells.”
“Well, shit,” Marcus said. “They had enough of that stuff to blow a hole in an armored car.”
“And then some,” Jesse agreed. “Looks like they’re gearing up for a war.”
Probably are, Quinn thought and rubbed a hand over his chin, hearing the rasp of a two-day beard against his palm. Fuck, he didn’t want to deal with this. He wanted to take orders, not issue them.
Where was Gabe?
He snagged his cell phone from his pocket and dialed Gabe’s number as he spoke: “We have to take that warehouse out of commission. Ian?”
“Oh yeah,” Ian said, showing the first hint of emotion besides the hostility on a constant low burn beneath his skin—excitement. The EOD expert needed a major attitude adjustment, but that was a problem for Gabe, as commanding officer, to handle. Quinn was just another of the rank-and-file, which was how he liked it. He had enough to shoulder without adding the weight of command.
“What will you need?” he asked Ian, listening as Gabe’s phone rang and rang and rang and—voicemail. He hung up on the automated voice telling him to leave a message.
“A backpack, pliers, a good length of fuse.” Ian paused, considering. “If we can’t find safety fuse, I could rig it up with visco, but it’s not my first choice. Visco will be easier to find, but it burns with an external flame and can ignite any chemicals in the immediate area, which could cause problems in the warehouse. And someone needs to watch my back so I don’t have to worry about the baddies putting a bullet in my brain while handling the explosives.”
“I’ll go,” Harvard volunteered and stood. “I need to get away from the computer before my eyes cross.”
Quinn considered him—Jesus, did the guy ever see the sun? But he was in good shape, if a little on the wiry side of fit, built like a runner. He had so much potential, like a tadpole just before BUD/S training. Too bad they hadn’t had the time to tap into it before this op.
“No, we need you here, working on intelligence gathering.” He ignored Harvard’s deflated expression and considered his options. Since Harvard had to stay and work the radios and computers, Marcus had no military training, and Jean-Luc’s was rusty, that left Jesse and him for trained operatives.
He turned to Jesse. “What do you think?”
“I agree we need to get rid of that warehouse, but we don’t have enough men,” Jesse said. “Up to you, though.”
Perfect. So it was a judgment call, all on his shoulders. Quinn kept hoping his phone would ring, Gabe calling him back, so that he could pass the ball to him and let him make these decisions.
“All right. Ian, how long will the warehouse job take?”
Ian lifted a shoulder. “Half hour to an hour tops.”
One hour to cripple the baddies’ operation. Christ, he couldn’t turn that kind of opportunity down. Maybe they could even use the explosion as a distraction, giving them the extra time they would need to search the EPC’s other hangouts.
“Jesse, you’ll go with Ian to the warehouse,” Quinn decided. “But before you blow it from the map, make damn sure Van Amee isn’t being held inside somewhere. I want as few casualties as possible.”
He studied his remaining team. Three men. Dammit, he needed another, and wished Gabe hadn’t talked him out of inviting the sniper, Seth Harlan, to join the team.