fools. Whatever he’d been before, he wasn’t that now, not even close, and this game was played only one way: for keeps. They had Scout, and he’d come to get her back.
The tiny twist of pain in his medulla oblongata curled tighter, squeezed harder, and he closed his eyes.
Yeah, right, focus on the mission—if you can make it through the next couple of breaths. He lowered his chin toward his chest and tried to ease the pain tightening and twisting and exploding in increasingly larger bursts where his spine met his brain. Streaks of light flashed across the darkness behind his eyelids—not a good sign, but not the worst.
Then he got the worst—or damn close to it.
An elevator door opened somewhere off to his right, and he heard the sound of footsteps, of someone entering the garage.
CHAPTER FIVE
Well, hell, Jane thought, coming to a stop and looking around at all the cars parked everywhere. As far as she knew, the elevator from the main entrance only went to one floor, and this wasn’t it. She was supposed to be at the main office, not in the garage, but she was definitely in the garage.
Letting her gaze slide over all the automotive muscle on display, she was impressed as hell, as usual. This was where the big bad boys kept all their biggest baddest toys.
She’d been working at the Toussi Gallery for Superman’s wife for about six years or so, managing it for the last two, but other than her first unexpected visit, she’d only been inside 738 Steele Street a dozen or so times.
The place was very cool, a whole huge floor full of old Chevys, and Dodges, and Fords—oh my—and under any other circumstances, she’d be looking around. But she was here on a mission, and she needed to get up to the office.
Walking over toward a Mustang named Babycakes, she took her phone out of her purse to give Superman another call, let him know she’d ended up in the wrong place, when something caught her eye—movement.
Next to Corinna.
A guy—tall, dark, probably handsome, and probably Christian Hawkins. She started toward him, reaching back in her purse and taking Conroy Farrel’s wallet out, curious as hell to see what Hawkins made of it, especially when he saw the guy’s photo on the Paraguayan driver’s license.
“Do we have Brandt on the phone yet?” Dylan asked, making a point of not pacing.
“No, but I’ve got movement in the northeast quadrant of the seventh floor,” Skeeter said from her console of security camera monitors. “I’m putting it up on your screen.”
Dylan watched the picture appear on his computer and swore under his breath.
“Jane Linden.” Skeeter identified the woman walking toward Babycakes at the same time as he did.
“Hacker!” Dylan called out to the red-haired woman huddled over a computer and a double-shot latte at the far end of the office.
Hawkins was already coming around his desk and heading for the door. “I’ll go get her.”
Cherie Hacker looked up over her computer with the slightly glassy-eyed gaze she got when she was deep in the guts of a program.
“Yes, boss?” she said.
“Did you shut down my elevator?” It was a rhetorical question, and he didn’t wait for an answer. “Get it back up and running—now. Creed, status?” he said, keying his mike.
“I see her, Dylan.” The Jungle Boy’s voice was calm in his ear, smoothly steady. “She’s entering the garage at two o’clock.”
“Do you still have a shot?”
“Affirmative.”
“Superman is coming out to get her. If J.T. moves on her …” He paused, thinking, running through his options at light speed and not coming up with anything he liked, which only left the option he didn’t like.
“Say again, Dylan. I didn’t copy.” He heard Creed in his ear.
Geezus.
“If he moves on her … take him down.”
“Affirmative.”
Hell. He didn’t look over at Skeeter. She knew as well as he did that the risk had to be taken.
“Status all,” Dylan said, speaking to the rest of the team.
“Quinn, second floor clear, coming up to seven in the east stairwell.”
“Travis, third floor clear, coming up to seven in the south stairwell.” The Angel Boy gave his status and location.
“Zach here. I’m still on Wazee, and I think we’ve got company from the Company out here, cruising our neighborhood.”
By “Company,” Zach meant CIA, and that was the last damn thing they needed, but if anybody could have spotted his former employers, it was Zachary Prade.