Page 108 of Under Cover
“Any, uh, ideas on that matter, Chief?” Crosby prodded.
“Wait a sec,” Harding ordered, but not to Crosby. “We need to see if it’s clear outside.”
Crosby did his job, both peering at the night-vision screen and through his scope. Since Denison and Davies had needed to come in from the parking lot there’d been some losses of warehouse workers and henchman that way, but Crosby was pretty sure they’d had a chance to get license plates before shit had gone down. In the emerging gray of predawn, the river entrance looked clear—not a boat to be seen—and from Crosby’s vantage point, anyway, all their bad guys were either cuffed and restrained or, well, dead.
Except…. “Shit!” he snapped, making sure he was talking to everybody. “Beauchamp! The fuck did she go?”
The entire team almost burst the comms with the exclamation of “Motherfucker!” until Denison said, “I bugged her vehicle. She’s not going far.”
“Fair,” Crosby muttered, mad that she’d managed to slip away. “Harding and Blodgett exiting with packages in tow. Someone give them backup.”
Garcia returned to his corner with his back to the office wall, and Swan disappeared, only the muzzle of his pistol visible against the warehouse opening as he aimed toward the stairs in case someone came in like Harding had, through the roof.
The upstairs door opened and Harding appeared, a barely conscious—and very bloody—Gideon Chadwick hanging on his shoulder. Blodgett was behind him with Joey Carlyle.
Crosby let out a breath and some tension from his shoulders before saying, “Chief?”
“Tag the DEA and FBI,” Harding said into comms. “And get us a fucking bus. They need treatment.”
Through Harding’s comms he heard Chadwick, sounding weak but furious. “I need a fuckinggun.Why don’tIget to kill somebody?”
“You got caught,” Harding retorted. “Play stupid games, win stupid prizes. Now move.”
Through Harman’s comms, Carlyle gave a raspy chortle. “He toldyou,Gid—Isaidstay in the fuckin’ car!”
“And let you get all the flowers in the hospital? Not on your life.”
“Jesus,” Denison said clearly. “Harding, shut them up before we gag them and dunk them in the river.”
Harding’s disgusted and pained answer made them all a little more indulgent of their banter. “Looks and smells like that already happened after they were beaten, Tal. They’re wet and freezing.”
“Wewere,” Chadwick said loopily, “but then whatever they shot us up with warmed us right up.”
Harman’s grunt of absolute fury rumbled in everybody’s ear. “Screw Chadwick—why didn’tIget to fire a single shot? Goddammit!”
“Yeah, Harm, everyone’s getting hurt to piss you off,” Harding told him. From Crosby’s vantage point, he could see Harding and Blodgett hauling Chadwick and Carlyle down the final flight of stairs, and he glanced at his tablet, seeing confirmation of his emergency call for federal officers on-site immediately.
“Chief, ETA five minutes on those reinforcements you requested.”
“Awesome,” Harding murmured, setting an exhausted Chadwick down on the foot of the stairs. Blodgett set Carlyle next to him, and they both huddled together, Chadwick’s arm around Carlyle’s shoulders, under emergency foil blankets. “What’s our ETA on the buses?”
“Two minutes,” Crosby murmured. “You want I should stay in place until they’re cleared?”
“Roger that, Overwatch,” Harding replied. Then, loud enough to carry to the team in the warehouse. “Can somebodypleaseget their hands on Marcy fucking Beauchamp?”
“Pearson and I will,” Swan volunteered, and Gail nodded fiercely, grumbling something sotto voce about slippery bitches.
The emerging light helped Crosby track them as they ran toward the parking lot, taking directions from Denison for where the state-issue vehicle had been. In the meantime, Crosby entered the plates into the database for the tracking information, but Gail’s disgusted, “Don’t get too comfy, guys, she’s still here,” made that unnecessary.
Crosby took a moment to study the map of the compound, trying to figure out where she would be—
And was distracted by the clank of someone on the ladder.
He knew the location of every member of his team, and none of them were back there.
“Don’t panic, guys,” he said, carefully disassembling his gun and tucking every piece but the firing pin into the case. “She’s coming up the ladder behind me.”
He heard another rattle, this one higher than the last, and continued with every piece, making sure the ammo was tucked in his pockets and the gun was clean and ready to reassemble. Then he threw the night-vision camera and the tablet into the padded interior, knowing it would be safe for what came next. Quickly, he scrambled to his feet, his body stiff from the long time on the hard surface, and did a few stretches before double-checking the locks on the case and pitching it off the roof. He didn’t watch its arc against the pink sky or wait for it to hit—the gun case was stainless steel, practically indestructible, and the gun was a danger to nobody as long as he had the firing pin on his person. The record of their night, of what they’d done and why—as long as two quickly fired-off requests for warrants sent off to judges Harding had specified in his contacts had been signed—were all safe in the tablet, and it was time for Crosby to deal with his own op.
