“Well, I am a computer geek . . . but I’d also like to be part of the final phase of the operation. I’ve had field experience.”
“I don’t have fucking time for this!” Carson snapped. “Fine—we’re all in on the final phase. Happy? Now I want those goddamn blueprints! We’ve got five hours to finish this mission. We need eyes and ears in the warehouse so we can hook Greene and fucking nail Balakirev. No one leaves this building. No one takes a piss without my permission. I want Balakirev by nightfall or all your asses are on the line.”
Kendra was careful not to smile, but she felt triumphant. She’d won.
She couldn’t have been more wrong.
2
At somewhere north of 2.6 million residents, Brooklyn was the most densely populated borough in New York City. Even so, there were isolated pockets within the big, bustling city that made it feel eerily deserted. The warehouse in which Balakirev had made his base and that Sir Jeremy owned was in one of those pockets, too far from prime waterfront real estate to entice developers to tidy up the area and create upscale condos and lofts, cute little boutiques, and quaint restaurants.
Here, it was still gray and grimy. Beneath the swath of overcast sky, bunker-like structures and Quonsets lined the dingy streets. A scattering of semitrucks were parked next to warehouse loading docks, but it was Sunday, so the normally frenetic hustle was reduced to those tired souls anxious to clock out and get home to maybe crack open a beer and veg out in front of whatever game was playing on television. Thanks to Team One, the perimeter around the target was clear.
Kendra surveyed the scene from inside the Batmobile—the military van with souped-up technology that only the U.S. government could afford. Less than a mile away from where they sat, Kendra imagined the city pulsing with life, vibrant and wonderfully chaotic: people strolling, chatting, having a late afternoon coffee or early dinner at the small restaurants that dotted the streets.
Being normal.
Just for a second, wistfulness welled up inside Kendra. It shook her. Or more aptly, the wanting of it shook her. Normal was something she’d never had, never been. Didn’t know how to be. And because she didn’t know how to be normal, she chose to be good—very, very good.
“Nervous?”
She glanced up at Sheppard, who was squished next to her. He looked different, tricked out as they all were in a black military flak jacket, helmet, and tactical gloves, and carrying the standard-issue SIG Sauer. Prior to that moment, the deadliest object she’d ever seen in Sheppard’s right hand was a computer mouse. Though after eight months of working side-by-side with him, watching as he hunted in cyberspace, Kendra knew that Sheppard with a computer mouse in his hand could be pretty damn deadly.
She smiled slightly. “No. You?”
“Shit, yeah. I haven’t been out in the field in six years.”
“Why’d you come then?”
He grinned, blue eyes twinkling. “Maybe I wanted to see you in action. See what everyone’s talking about.”
It’s a joke. She knew that. Yet her stomach clenched.
“Just keep your ass out of my way, Sheppard,” smirked Allan O’Brien, the youngest man on the task force. He gave Kendra a wink. “I don’t want some newbie screwing this up. Balakirev’s mine.”
“Your fat ass, he is,” Terry Landon shot back. “I’m team leader. Twenty that I’ll be the first to put a bullet in him?”
Sheppard grimaced and shook his head. “You guys are such assholes, betting on a man’s life.”
“He’s not a man—he’s a fucking terrorist,” Bill Noone growled.
“Make that a fifty and you’re on,” grinned O’Brien.
“Just remember, we want Greene alive,” Kendra reminded them.
“Thompson wants him alive,” O’Brien smirked.
“Fuck Thompson,” Noone said, and several of the men snickered. “This isn’t a CIA operation.”
“Fifty that I’ll be the first to put nonlethal bullets into both bastards,” Landon revised.
“Make that fifty and a date with Kendra.” Noone shot her a lopsided, lascivious grin. It didn’t matter that he was, at forty-nine, old enough to be her father, and married, to boot.
She shot him a cool look. “Funny. I don’t remember putting myself on the auction block, Noone.”
“Ah, come on, sweetheart. Everybody needs an incentive.”
Deliberately, Kendra lifted the hand that held the SIG Sauer, weighed it with silky ease. “Just how much incentive do you need?”
Noone laughed, throwing up his hands. “My mama told me never to argue with a woman packing a pistol—or a fucking machine gun.”
“Wise woman.”
“You realize when this op goes down, we’re done,” Sheppard said suddenly, looking around the circle of faces. “The task force will be disbanded.”
“No more fucking takeout on Saturday night,” O’Brien said. “No offense—but the only mug I’m gonna miss seeing is Kendra’s.”