Total pages in book: 71
Estimated words: 68369 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 342(@200wpm)___ 273(@250wpm)___ 228(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 68369 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 342(@200wpm)___ 273(@250wpm)___ 228(@300wpm)
Hyatt, Wilde, and Hudson walked off with their equipment after a while, to get closer to the tree line, so I stepped outside the tent and spotted Coach standing by himself with a pensive look on his face.
I needed his thoughts.
“Hey.” I reached him. “What’re you thinkin’?”
“That we won’t find anything,” he said. “You don’t believe we will either.”
I felt my forehead crease, and I widened my arms. “Then what? There’s gotta be something, man. They can’t seriously be this stupid—”
“But they can, Bo,” he replied pointedly. “How many operations like this have we busted over the years? How many dumbfuck foot soldiers go runnin’ to the boss when they can’t handle the heat?”
I groaned and scrubbed my hands over my face.
“My bet?” he went on. “The driver panicked when Watts and I threw ourselves in the van. He didn’t know what to do, so he drove straight to the person who gives him orders. I’m not sayin’ it’s smart. But that’s what I believe.”
I let my hands fall again, and I heaved a breath. “In that case, we still have a problem,” I said tiredly. “Presuming they haven’t already escaped via tunnels, they’re waiting with…fuck, I don’t know, some black-market RPGs to take down the first and second line of defense. I don’t see any other way they can protect themselves.”
“I don’t either. I think you’re dead-on. It’s gonna be a shitshow.”
A bloody one.
And I couldn’t do it. I wasn’t turning anyone into cannon fodder.
“We need a new strategy,” I said.
Back to the drawing board.
Once the tent was occupied by Hyatt and his laptops, Coach and I remained outside to discuss our options. Waiting them out seemed like the safest option, but it meant we could be stuck here for days. Then again, our only other option was to come in heavy and blow up the entrance, which… We didn’t fucking know. If half the bunker collapsed, this would turn into a search-and-not-rescue mission real quick, and we’d have no idea if any innocents were killed in the process.
I took a breath and—hold up. I glanced around us. “How come it smells like coffee here?”
I could kill for a strong cup right now.
A certain recruit emerged from the other side of the tent with two mugs and a quick smile. “I figured you needed it. It’s not very hot—I used the heaters from the MREs.”
As we’d all done so many times in the past.
“All the fuckin’ brownie points,” Coach muttered and accepted his mug.
“Yeah—thanks, pup. Just what I needed.” I took a swig of the lukewarm coffee, and it was a hard swallow. Bitter as fuck, strong as hell, downright nasty, and fucking perfect.
What it lacked in flavor, it made up for with an extra boost of caffeine.
Leighton nodded once, then walked away again.
I couldn’t wait till all this was over. My body screamed to be wrapped around his for another long night of peaceful sleep.
The fucking helped too. I wasn’t one to throw out superlatives or exaggerate a bunch, but goddamn. Easily the best sex I’d ever had.
“Guys? We have something,” I heard Hyatt say.
Coach and I exchanged a look before we stalked into the tent, and Hyatt stepped away from one of the two laptops and pointed at the screen. This was live footage, grainy but still good.
“That doesn’t look like…”
“It’s not a mine,” Hyatt confirmed. “It’s a vent.”
Holy shit.
I stepped closer and eyed the screen. What in the fuckin’… It was in the grass. Well, it was installed into a block of concrete, but it was in the grass. Hyatt brought the drone closer, and I inspected the domed cover atop the vent. To keep water out? But it couldn’t be enough. Even if it prevented rain from falling straight down, the slightest flooding would send water gushing in. They’d obviously prioritized keeping the vent hidden in the grass over ensuring no moisture got in.
“How big is that?” Coach asked. “Twelve, thirteen inches?”
Hyatt hummed. “Maybe more like ten.”
“What the fuck are youse talking about in hea’?” Crew poked his head in. “That sounds painful.”
Coach pointed. “Get the fuck out.”
My mouth twitched, and I refocused on the screen. “What can we expect here? A filter of some sort?”
“And a protective cover, like a net or whatever,” Hyatt said. “Either way, they’re easily removed. We should be able to get a camera down there. Just to get a look at the layout in that back room.”
More than that…
Coach and I glanced at each other, and I was positive we were thinking the same thing.
Stun grenades and riot control agents—we could smoke ’em out.
This was the break we needed.
At almost three in the fucking morning, we were finally ready to get this over with. Our perimeter watch unit was exhausted, I was exhausted, everyone was exhausted. But hopped up on shitty coffee and the need to get out of here. And, frankly, excitement. At least from me. Hyatt had come through. We had a live feed capturing some activity down in the bunker. Just like the blueprints had shown, it was one room after another, and the vent was in the far back. Wide doorways, open all the way through. Three men had been captured on film, closer toward the entrance. Just quick flashes of them walking by.