Page 49 of Harris

The night sky lit up like the Fourth of July. On their monitors, they watched as the building blew up and collapsed in on itself without leaving any substantial damage to its surroundings. No doubt the fire trucks would soon pull up to tackle the blaze.

They’d done it.

“Good work, team,” Brick said. “Let’s go.”

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

Harris

They watched the footage of the fire on the morning news, confirming there were no injuries or extensive damage to other existing buildings, as they’d designed the explosion to be. The damage could be repaired easily. The fire marshal blamed a gas leak for the explosion at the urging of the military powers. Brick had some serious contacts when needed.

As expected, the rats were abandoning a sinking ship, and the MPs were rounding each of them up, thanks to the team’s trackers making the job fairly easy. As for Soloman and his little helper, they hadn’t been targeted yet. The team would be handling that job personally and with great satisfaction.

Spencer, Brick, and Apollo were reviewing the files they could recover from inside the building. Still, Harris was more interested in the papers Woodley found about Robin and a person named Xavier.

“You don’t have a Xavier in your group, do you, Apollo?” Harris asked.

The team gathered around the dining table to review information and prepare for the next step.

“No, never heard of him,” Apollo said. “Why?”

“This was found in the back room of the bar,” Harris said as he lifted the piece of paper. He looked over at Damon before continuing. “It refers to Robin and how a person named Xavier attempted to stop them from torturing him. They drugged the guy to stop him.”

It stated that Robin had refused to cooperate, which was likely why they got rid of him, but it also mentioned that Xavier’spowers attempted to obstruct their questioning of the subject. At one point, it stated that Xavier was heavily sedated to prevent him from interfering. It specified the amount and drug used on him along with frequency for future reference. It appeared that they intended to drug him regularly.

Damon held out his hand, and Harris didn’t hesitate to hand over the information. Without emotion, Damon reviewed it and turned to Apollo. It was plain to see the guy buried his pain deep.

“We need to find this Xavier and free him. He tried to save Robin,” Damon said.

“We’ll try to track him down, my friend, I promise,” Apollo said.

“He might be stashed in a secondary location. We have eyes on Soloman, and if he takes off, we’ll follow him,” Brick said.

“Let’s hope he isn’t already dead as well,” Griffin said from his position beside Darren. The raw pain in his voice was unmistakable; they missed their friend.

Darren sat quietly as he typically did, taking everything in. He had been working hard to control his ability to camouflage himself or, as he liked to call it, go ghost, and could now master his change for up to five minutes at a time.

Harris had the crap scared out of him when he walked into the kitchen, thinking he was alone, only to have Darren appear from part of the wall. Jennifer had run in and yelled, “Found you.” Apparently the two had been playing a modified type of hide-and-seek as she helped him hone his skill.

That incident had him checking every room thoroughly and sometimes asking outright if Darren was in there with him. The dude was cool. He’d never intentionally tricked anyone and always outed himself when someone walked in on him while he was practicing. After a while, having Darren pop up unexpectedly became more common and less terrifying.

Brick’s cell phone rang, and he answered it.

“Got it, thanks. Hendrix reported Soloman is on the move and alone this time. Fletcher, Shaw, Gunner, Harris, and Apollo meet up with Hendrix and look in the house for any reference on this Xavier. Woodley, Griffin, Damon, Stryker, and I will follow Soloman’s tracker and see where he’s headed. Gator, be ready to move if we find ourselves in need of your talents. The rest of you remain here and watch the comms. With luck, we end this today. Darren, do you feel ready for a little action?”

“Hell yes,” Darren said. “I’ve been practicing.”

“Good.”

“On it, boss,” Spencer said while pulling up the tracker on his screen. “I’ll send you the coordinates.”

“Move out.”

***

They arrived at Soloman’s house as the sun was setting, and Hendrix met them a few blocks over. They were going in with the same plan as the last time they were at the house but with slightly different players. No one wanted Damon to have to come back to the place where Robin had been killed and his body found, so he’d been sent with the team to follow Soloman.

When they entered the house, the stench was gone, likely meaning they had removed Robin’s body. They’d still have to check down in the basement to ensure they didn’t miss anything in this second round of searching.

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