Hungry Like the Wolf(97)

Oh please, shoot each other.

Hardy laughed. “Find her and I’ll let you bring her with us to Mexico. You can do anything you want with her until we get there. Then I’ll shoot her and mail the parts back to Dixon in a box.”

Crap.

“Deal,” Patterson said. “But we need to get out of here soon. All that shooting is going to bring the cops out here.”

“Carlos and the others will keep them busy.” Hardy snorted. “What, did you think I was going to bring them down to Mexico with us?”

Patterson blew out a breath. “Damn. You can be a bastard sometimes, you know that?”

“When we find Stone, I’ll show you what kind of bastard I really am.”

Footsteps came into view on the other side of the toolbox Mac was hiding behind. She cringed and quickly looked at the shelves to her right. Could she make it there without being seen?

She was about to risk it when a long, low wolf howl filled the air.

Gage.

“What the hell is that?” Hardy asked.

The howl came again, closer this time. It was followed by another, then another, and another, each from different directions, each bouncing and echoing off the metal buildings until it was impossible to figure out where the eerie sounds were coming from.

“We need to get the hell out of here,” Patterson said. Footsteps headed away from her. “Let’s forget about Stone and get on the plane.”

Mac grinned. That’s right. You’d better run. It wasn’t just Gage out there; it was his whole pack. For the first time since Hardy’s men had grabbed her, she started thinking that maybe this was going to end okay.

“What the hell are you talking about?” Hardy shouted. “It’s just a bunch of coyotes howling at the moon.”

“I don’t think so.” Patterson’s voice was farther away now. “Something attacked us when we grabbed the reporter. It took out Don’s sedan and everyone in it. Then it ripped Jasper right out of the backseat of my car, taking the door with it. I tried to stop it, but it was too fast.”

The howls sounded like they were getting closer. Mac took a quick peek around the side of the toolbox. Patterson was standing all the way out by the big roll-up door at the hangar’s entrance, looking back toward the building she’d escaped from. He shifted from foot to foot, like he was about to take off running at any second.

Hardy laughed. “What, do you think the big, bad boogeyman is out there coming to get us?”

Shouts came from somewhere outside, followed immediately by the sound of gunfire.

“I don’t know,” Patterson murmured. “But I’m not hanging around to find out. Something tells me you’re not making that plane to Mexico.”

Mac held her breath, waiting for Hardy to say something snide in reply, but instead loud gunshots filled the building. She covered her ears with her hands and hunkered down. What the hell was that?

“Come back here, you fucking coward, so I can shoot you like the piece of shit you are!”

Hands still over her ears, she peeked out from behind the toolbox again and saw Hardy standing in the open doorway, a huge automatic pistol in his hand that dwarfed the ones she’d fired at the SWAT compound. She couldn’t believe he’d shot at Patterson. Now she just had to wait for Hardy to leave and she’d be home free.

She knelt down behind the toolbox again, listening for the sounds of Hardy’s retreating footsteps. When she didn’t hear anything, she leaned close to the floor and looked under the rolling toolbox. Hardy was nowhere in sight. She frowned. Why hadn’t she heard him leave?

He was gone. That was all that mattered.

Mac slowly started to get up, only to scream when a hand grabbed her hair from behind and yanked her to her feet.

“Looks like I’ll be making that plane after all,” Hardy whispered in her ear as he shoved that big cannon of a gun to her head.

***

Gage slipped quietly through the narrow alley between the two hangars, soundlessly making his way along the metal wall on one side while Xander and Brooks moved along the other. He inhaled deeply, sifting through the barrage of scents on the night breeze that moved across the airfield. He couldn’t smell Mackenzie yet, but he hadn’t expected to—not this far from where she was being held.

He and his small team would slip quietly around to the airfield side of the hangars, approaching from downwind, while the rest of the Pack headed straight for the front entrance of South Salinas Air and the crowd of armed men they’d seen there. He told Mike and his team to be as loud as possible when they initiated contact to draw Hardy’s men away. Then he and his entry team would slip into the hangar, find Mackenzie, and get her out before anyone even knew they were there.