Page 63 of Avenging Jessie
The door began to rise—just enough for them to slip under—when the afternoon quiet shattered.
“Contact, south bay!” The shout echoed across the yard, followed by the whipcrack of automatic fire. Bullets punched sparks from the bay door inches from Spence’s head.
Jessie shoved him inside. “We’re burned!”
The klaxon wailed to life, a gut-punching blast that rolled through the warehouse like an air raid. Red strobes began to pulse along the walls, bathing everything in a hellish glow.
Inside, the space yawned wide—rows of steel shelving stacked high with crates, the tang of machine oil and ozone in the air. Overhead, catwalks spiderwebbed across the expanse, and far at the opposite end, a glass-walled room glowed faint blue. The control hub.
Two guards barreled out from behind a forklift, rifles up. Spence fired first, the suppressed shots coughing in the cavernous space.
One went down. Jessie was already moving on the other, kicking the rifle away before he could bring it to bear.
“Go!” she barked, hauling Spence forward.
He sprinted for the cover of the nearest crate stack. Boots thundered above on the catwalks, shadows crisscrossing in the strobe light. The sound of more incoming fire rattled the metal walls.
They moved like they’d trained for this—because they had. In the early days of the swans, they’d gone through mock scenario after mock scenario before they ever went into the field as a team.
Jessie swept left, taking the aisle along the forklift line, while Spence advanced up the right, using the crate stacks as cover. Gunfire ricocheted off steel and concrete, sparking like welding torches in the strobe light.
Above, boots pounded the catwalk. Muzzle flashes strobed in return, raining rounds that chewed splinters from the crate corners. Spence ducked, heart hammering in rhythm with the klaxon, and sent two clean shots upward. One guard dropped screaming, his rifle clattering against the rail before disappearing into the shadows below.
They closed in on the hub. Fifty meters. Forty. Jessie caught his eye, signaling with two fingers—two hostiles ahead. He nodded, pivoting around a crate corner just as she flanked the other side.
A double-tap from him. A brutal elbow strike from her. Both targets were down.
They pushed forward, their boots hitting the polished concrete in quick, efficient strides—until the overhead PA crackled.
“Well,” a voice drawled, rich with mockery and familiarity. “If it isn’t the prodigal daughter and her plus-one.”
Spence froze. He knew that voice.
Brewer.
“You’ve got good timing,” the man continued, his voice echoing through the warehouse. “I was wondering how long it would take you to find my little toy chest.”
Jessie shot Spence a look—half fury, half warning—and motioned toward the hub. But Spence couldn’t stop the ice creeping into his veins. Brewer washere.
All the better to catch you, motherfucker.
The glass-walled room seemed to pulse brighter, like a beacon daring them to try. Between them and that door lay two more rows of crates—and God knew how many men waiting in ambush.
“Keep moving,” Jessie muttered, reloading on the run. “I’ve got you covered. We’re finishing this.”
Spence swallowed his rising anger, shoved it down into something sharp and focused, and pushed on.
The glow of the control room was just ahead. A cube of frosted glass was elevated on a steel mezzanine, cables snaking from its base like roots feeding the entire facility.
Spence’s pulse kicked into a higher gear. Almost there. He kept Jessie on his six as they cleared another row of crates, his pride over her not reacting to Brewer’s comment about her being the prodigal daughter teasing at the back of his mind.
Then a slow, deliberate clap echoed off the corrugated walls.
Brewer stepped from the shadow between two forklift bays, flanked by two armed men. He wore that smug half-smile that made Spence’s teeth ache to knock it off.
“Well,” he said, “you two have been busy little bees.” His gaze flicked to the control room above them. “Looking for this?”
Spence’s grip on the rifle tightened. “We’re taking them back.”
